Frances Peard (continued 3)

Chapter Twelve.

Helen Arbuthnot was used to come and go as she liked at Thornbury, but it was not very often that she returned within a week of taking leave. She had done so now, making some slight excuse, which for hospitable Mrs Hilton was unnecessary. The talk often fell upon Fenwick’s accident, and she knew that Harry had been to Huntingdon. Ruth Baynes described how an accident, not certainly identical, but still an accident, once befell her eldest nephew. Helen listened in silence until she had Harry alone.

“There’s no actual danger, is there?” she asked indifferently.

“Sir Peter said there was. At least the doctors were at fault.”

She had followed him into the gun-room, where he was rubbing the stock of a gun.

“Then I suppose you’ll be going over again?”

“Not again. Somebody will write.”

She tapped the wooden arms of her chair impatiently.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re the most lukewarm of lovers! I’ve no patience with you!”

“Can’t be helped,” he exclaimed, polishing laboriously.

“It can. Don’t you see that it’s nothing short of unfeeling to show no anxiety when—when your Claudia has nearly brought herself and her career to an end?”

“She’s all right. Besides, my Claudia, as you call her, isn’t mine at all, and doesn’t mean to have anything to do with me.”

“Only because you’re so wrong-headed. Didn’t I advise you to keep quiet?”

“Yes.”

“And now I advise you to move. And you do just the contrary.”

He had his back turned to her.

“Didn’t it really ever strike you,” he said, “that Fenwick cared?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she answered with a change of manner and a laugh—

“Oh, how like a man! When he takes a fancy he thinks every one else must be possessed with it too!”

She ceased, however, to urge him, for good-tempered as he was, he could stick to his point, and she saw that he was resolved not to go again to Huntingdon. He had made this determination partly because he could not see Claudia without disturbance, and his healthy nature objected to the stirring up of emotions which could lead to nothing; and partly because in spite of Miss Arbuthnot’s taunt he was persuaded that Fenwick liked Claudia, and a love of fair play inclined him to keep out of the way at a moment when his rival might be supposed to be at a disadvantage. It would not have changed his conduct had he known the truth, that, in his disabled condition, Fenwick, passive, was making such way as he might never have done had he been about as usual.

Only Miss Arbuthnot’s pertinacity had led to the conversation. She did not renew it, and he was not the man to care to talk of his own feelings. At the end of a few days better news arrived from Huntingdon, and Helen departed as suddenly as she had come. Then it was that Harry became more restless. Thornbury had too many bitter-sweet recollections, Huntingdon was too easily within reach, at Elmslie he might hear something of Claudia, and at Elmslie he would meet with Anne Cartwright’s tender sympathy, never wanting in tact. At Elmslie, accordingly, he presented himself one day, unannounced, but certain of welcome.

It was Philippa’s shrewdness which first discovered that the times were out of joint.

“Something has happened,” she said to Anne, “and whatever it may be, take my word that Claudia is at the bottom of it.”

“Why?” said Anne, startled. “He hasn’t talked of her at all.”

“And that’s why,” retorted Philippa. “When he left he was on the way to talk a great deal.”

“Then do you suppose?”

“Yes, I suppose she has refused him, and that you will soon hear more about it. He is much too good for her, but I imagine you can’t tell him so?”

“Now you are unfair.”

Philippa laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and went off, rattling her keys. Anne, after a momentary hesitation, left the house, and strolled down to the river, where she found Harry smoking, with Vic stretched by his side. Looking at him with keener attention, she saw something in his eyes which told her that her quicker sister’s surmise, at least as to his unhappiness, was right. He jumped up, and she put her hand on his arm.

“I’m too old for damp grass, but here’s the bench which Claudia hated.” She added, very kindly, “What is it, Harry?”

He laughed queerly.

“Nothing out of the common. I’ve had a spill, and the world is going round a bit—that’s all. It’ll steady itself by-and-by, no doubt. You can’t do anything, Anne, and I’m sure I don’t know why I tell you.”

“Is it Claudia?” asked Anne unheeding.

He nodded.

“And?” She paused.

“She didn’t give me any hope, and I can’t persuade myself that I’ve the ghost of a chance. Still—I suppose I should feel worse if there wasn’t one.” He broke off and laughed again.

“She is very young. Oh, I shouldn’t despair yet,” urged Anne, born consoler.

“Don’t you think you’ve been hasty?”

He pulled Vic’s soft ears.

“Perhaps. I couldn’t wait.”

“Well, as I say, I wouldn’t despair. Give her time.”

“She hasn’t said anything herself?” He was thirsting for a word.

“No. Indeed, Philippa and I have been puzzled that we have heard nothing from Claudia since she first went to the Wilmots’. We don’t want her to feel bound to write, but generally she does. I suppose this explains it.”

“You know about the accident?”

“Accident? No,” said Anne, with alarm. “Oh, she’s all right. But Fenwick, who was with her, got let in rather badly.” And he gave her a brief account of the disaster.

“Oh, poor child!” cried Anne. “How terrible for her! That explains, of course, particularly,”—she smiled—“because she knows we are old-fashioned enough to be a little shy of bicycles. Come, Harry, it seems to me that you have despaired too soon. Try again, later. Her head is filled with other ideas now, but give her time and she will come round.”

Irony is apt to follow on the heels of good advice.

“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “I haven’t quite told you all.”

She waited.

“This other man, who got the chance—”

“Captain Fenwick?”

“She thinks me a stay-at-home duffer, as I am; while he—he’s a clever chap, and has been about, and can talk of the things she fancies, and—well, it can’t be helped! Look here, Anne, Philippa must really speak to Smith about that hay.”

If it had been a relief to him to say so much, he was evidently indisposed to say more, and, Anne not being one to force confidences, they talked of indifferent matters, went to see the rick, strolled round the kitchen garden, ate apricots, and were turning towards the house when a maid came out, bringing a letter.

“Oddly enough, this is from Claudia,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.

The next moment, as she glanced through it, she repented having spoken.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Harry, watching her face. As she hesitated, he added quietly, “You had better tell me.”

“It is from Claudia.”

“So you said. Well?”

There was a new peremptoriness in his tone which she recognised.

“She writes about what we talked of,” she said, with difficulty, and keeping her eyes fixed on the letter. “She—she is engaged to this Captain Fenwick. You may read the letter, if you like,” she added more quickly, holding it out to him. He did not take it, and there was a moment’s silence.

“Thank you,” he said, and no more. His voice was hoarse, and she longed to comfort him, not knowing how, and casting about for words.

“This accident—”

He interrupted her.

“It’s over and done with—we won’t talk about it. Can I do anything for you in the town?”

Anne felt with a pang that it was not as in his old boyish troubles, and that the best she could do was to stand aside, and take no notice. She went off with her letter to Philippa, who was not very sympathetic.

“I’m not sorry. Harry will meet with somebody else, somebody, I do hope, without a career. Of course he feels it at first, but he’ll get over it, oh yes, Anne, I’m hardened enough to think so. Give me the letter. What does she say?—um—um—um—‘saved my life at the risk of his own’—that’s strong—‘dreadfully hurt—getting better’—I don’t see what else she could do—‘stay on here for another week or two before going back to Elmslie.’ One thing is certain, Anne, we needn’t have had that new carpet for the bedroom.”

“She doesn’t say much,” commented Anne.

“No, not much. I wonder—”

Chapter Thirteen.

If the wonder Philippa expressed related to Claudia’s own feelings, she need have had no misgivings. In spite of hesitation, reluctance, beforehand, in spite of the coldness which stiffened her on the first day that she saw Fenwick in Lady Wilmot’s den, she was becoming, daily, shyly, yet radiantly happy. Fenwick’s treatment of her was subtly admirable. Her reserves, her pride, raised all his masterful instincts, and perhaps the sudden check to his active physical life inclined him the more to concentrate his energies upon conquering her love. It gave these energies a field. More than once she would have revolted from the touch of the new emotion; quivering and startled, she was inclined to fly, and it needed just the treatment he knew how to apply, to soothe her. The first sight of him, stretched helpless, had struck at her heart. The readiness with which he tossed aside her stammering words of regret made a direct appeal to her own generosity, and day by day the bond tightened. He knew—none better—how to play upon her ambitions and interests, talked as if they would continue, planned what further opportunities might be hers, let her suppose that here was perfect, satisfying sympathy, until it seemed to her that a delightful confidence had sprung up between them, such a confidence as even the college had never afforded. He waited for this, waited until, after some tentative advance and shrinking, it stood strong, and the rest was curiously easy. A few sentences instinct, as he knew how to make them, with all that was both tender and dominant, finished his work; Claudia was his almost before she realised that she had yielded, before Lady Wilmot, who was flitting in and out, could frame a tidy excuse for leaving the two alone. And it was extremely simple. Fenwick looked into her eyes, and thought them charming; she, trying to meet his with her usual frank directness, faltered, and could not face them. Then he whispered three words, and she made a mute sign, eloquent in its vagueness. No collapse could have been more complete, nothing could have been more unlike the manner in which she resolved to go through such a scene when, like other girls, she had rehearsed its possibilities. Claudia had always supposed that she should marry, and, when the moment came, intended to speak decidedly, very decidedly, to her lover, and let him make his choice; either take her with the understanding that she would stick to her profession, and accept whatever ties it imposed, or not take her at all. It is true that she almost invariably pictured him as yielding, but she meant to be dignified and quite firm; reflecting with contempt that the old ways of love-making were altogether unsuitable to the new girl, who was made of different stuff.

And this was the result!

Nothing, as she had to own, could have been less impressive than the figure she had cut; nothing more commonplace than the words spoken, except that she had a saving conviction that no one had ever spoken them with Fenwick’s strength, and this made a difference. Indeed, although she was obliged to own that she had failed, the fact did not seem to trouble her. She looked in the glass, and smiled at her own dimpling face, remembering what he had said; and recollecting further that she had heard him remark that he liked a particular shade of yellow, sat down and wrote to London for an evening frock of that colour.

As for the obnoxious pocket-book, it remained where it had been laid the day before.

When she was alone, or with Fenwick, Claudia’s happiness was like herself, eager and brilliant, for all happiness takes its colouring from the person it touches. With others she was not altogether at her ease, having an unacknowledged suspicion that Lady Wilmot was smiling in her sleeve, as indeed she was, and broadly.

“Because it is so amusingly unexpected,” she informed her husband. “No two persons could be more unsuited to each other.”

Sir Peter twinkled.

“Is that recommendation likely to last?”

“She was so very indifferent, so very much swallowed up by her own ideas,” pursued his wife, unheeding; “and Arthur has a way of expecting women to flutter round him, and be flattered when he speaks. Oh, he’s a very good fellow, but that’s his little weakness, and that’s what makes me laugh. But I’m really extremely glad. It’s much better for him than marrying a woman like—well, for instance, like Helen Arbuthnot, all bitter herbs.”

Sir Peter, who was well aware that his wife was not without her jealousies, let this statement pass uncontradicted, but spoke a word or two as to Claudia.

“I suppose she knows her own mind? She hasn’t been talked into it?”

“Talked! When she was as easy to get at as a prickly pear. What a dear old donkey you are, Peter! I would have given her all sorts of good advice, and told her a hundred and fifty useful things, but I never had the chance. No. It’s very odd, but I can tell exactly what brought it about, and it’s only another instance of Arthur’s extraordinary luck. You know that day we went to Barton Towers?”

“Well?”

“Well, he said something which startled her, and, to stop it, away she dashed down the hill, and then came the smash up.”

“You call that luck, do you?”

“Certainly,” said his wife, with dignity. “What’s a broken leg or two?”

“No one would mind it, of course.”

“It will mend up all right, and it made Claudia listen to him. I should hope you would not have objected to breaking both legs on the day you proposed to me.”

He flicked the ash off his cigar.

“Nothing of the sort was necessary,” he remarked. “You were too happy.”

Lady Wilmot sighed.

“How little you know! I’ve never liked to tell you, but—you’re sure you won’t mind?”

“Go on.”

“As it happened, I tossed up.”

“Tossed up?”

“You see, there was nothing else to do. I couldn’t make up my mind between you and Lord Baliol, so I thought of this plan, and you happened to be heads. I shall tell Marjory about it when she grows up. It’s so simple!”

“I dare say. And suppose the wrong man comes up?”

“Oh, then she needn’t pay,” explained Lady Wilmot, escaping with a laugh. “A woman has always that in reserve.”

It seemed, indeed, as if Fenwick’s recovery became extraordinarily, almost suspiciously, rapid. After two or three days’ rain the sun shone bravely again, and he was carried out on the lawn. He chose to have Claudia at command, and as she was scrupulously conscientious in wishing to finish her work, she used to be out at the earliest hour possible, planning and arranging, and leaving directions for the woodmen to carry out. Fenwick, on discovering this, declared she looked fagged.

“I won’t have you do it.”

“But,” she protested, half laughing, half vexed, “it has to be done.”

“Not it! I’ll talk to Peter. I’m your first consideration.”

And she yielded. Indeed by a sort of rebound from what Lady Wilmot had called prickliness, she was now extraordinarily yielding, finding it delightful to give up her will to his. Lady Wilmot, who had expected amusement from the situation and was disappointed, shook her head, and even went so far as to warn the girl that there was not a man in the world who could bear spoiling. Claudia was indignant. Fenwick drove her in a low pony carriage for the first time that afternoon, and as they went along the lanes she told him.

“Don’t let Flo lecture you,” he said quickly. “I won’t have her interfering.”

This fell in with her own desires and she agreed happily. She drew a long breath of content as she spoke. All at that moment seemed perfect, and, looking back, she wondered at nothing so much as her own hesitation. The day was bright and touched with keen exhilaration, the road, cut through deep hedges, ran, richly shadowed, up and down hill, and a fresh wind drove the clouds overhead. They passed the blacksmith’s forge, and a dog flew barking after them, then they went up, up, up, past white cottages, each standing in its garden, and Fenwick let the reins lie loosely on the pony’s back. When they reached the top they stopped. Behind, and on one side, the woods of Huntingdon, gaining dignity by distance, swept down the valley, while in front spread a fair broken view of pasture land running into blue upland, and darkened here and there by veiling cloud. It was Claudia’s moment of absolute content, and Fenwick broke it.

“I spoke to Spooner to-day about getting away.”

“What did he say?”

“He thinks it’s all right, and that I can go soon.”

“But—” She hesitated shyly. Fenwick bent forward and untwisted a rein without looking at her. “Doesn’t he think you ought to keep quiet a little longer?”

“I dare say. But one can’t stick in one place for ever.” Then, as if he realised that the words might convey a pang, he added quickly, “Of course it’s delightful, only I must get back to the camp, where another fellow is howling at having to do my work.”

“I see,” said Claudia, in a low voice. The pang had just touched her, but she would not acknowledge it. “And I have been here an unconscionable time. I shall go to Elmslie, and if the Wilmots want me again about anything, I can run down later on.”

“Oh, they won’t want you,” said Fenwick, dryly. “Well, go to Elmslie for a week or two if you think you must, and then come to Aldershot, and stay with Gertrude.”

“Will she have me?”

He smiled at her.

“Won’t she? I believe you’ll enjoy the life there immensely.”

She was quite happy and gay again.

“And by that time your leg will be well, and we shall be able to go all over the country on our bicycles.”

“I think not,” he returned rather grimly. “I don’t care to see a woman at that work near the camp.”

“Oh,” she cried impetuously, “I thought you were quite above that sort of thing!”

“Did you? I’m not, then.”

His tone was the same, and she hesitated. Then she said more slowly—

“You’re not afraid for me, are you? Of course, when I was so stupid the other day, it was only because—because—”

“I’m not afraid,” he said, touching up the pony. “I think you manage it very fairly well. I don’t care about it for you—that’s all. Except quite in the country.”

Her dismay was so evident that he turned and looked at her.

“My darling, do you really mind very much? For my sake?”

“For your sake?—oh no,” faltered Claudia. “It isn’t the bicycling, but—I—I thought we should have done so much together, and—do you mean that you have always disliked it?”

“I don’t object to it in some places, or when it isn’t carried to extremes. Besides, there are sure to be occasional opportunities.” He had her hand in his, and she could but smile and submit, and resolve that there should be no opposition where he felt so strongly. Perhaps, though he disclaimed it, the accident had left him nervous on her account, and, by-and-by, when he had forgotten, his dislike would subside. But, to her dismay, she found that many things of which he had hitherto spoken lightly, and, as she thought, approvingly, were not at all to his taste under the altered condition of things. She began to be aware that he was binding her round with small restrictions, pushing her into the very groove against which she had revolted, and, worse than all, ridiculing the revolt itself. He no longer restrained his mockery of her enthusiasms, enthusiasms which she had fondly imagined he shared. If she talked politics, Fenwick’s face darkened at the opinions she expressed, and he told her in so many words that he did not wish her to allude to professional duties, or even to think about them any more. It is true that these demands were sweetened by the passionate vibrations of the voice in which he told her that he loved her, and at such moments all sacrifice for love seemed joy; but when she was alone her thoughts were not so restful and satisfied as in the first days. She even began to long for a breathing space at Elmslie, when she would no longer be swept away by his impetuous will, and could, as it were, stand, recover her breath, and face the changed view in which life confronted her.

It came at last. Fenwick intended to have taken her himself to Elmslie, but was summoned to Aldershot a day sooner than he expected. And Claudia, Claudia who despised those girls who could not travel alone, was obliged to put up with the guardianship of Lady Wilmot’s maid, and to go first class, with her beloved bicycle in the luggage-van.

Chapter Fourteen.

Claudia had her breathing space, and at first enjoyed it. Her cousins were kind without being curious; she could say as little or as much as she liked about her engagement, and only Emily, Emily, whose remarks she assured herself she did not mind, so much as hinted at the changed circumstances of her career, for which, as she could not yet forget them herself, she was grateful. Nor, although she heard of Harry Hilton’s visit, and, putting two and two together, realised that it coincided with her letter of announcement, could she accuse him of having said anything to prejudice her in her cousins’ eyes. She would not have been sorry to find fault with him, but she had to own that he had behaved very well, and there was even a moment when the thought flashed upon her that, in his hands, her liberties would not have been so circumscribed as now appeared probable. She drove it indignantly from her. What was Harry by the side of Arthur Fenwick?

On the other hand, Philippa maintained that Claudia was decidedly the better for her engagement. She said to Anne—

“She has gained broader views, and is not nearly so self-absorbed. The man must be a man of sense. She does not force her plans for reforming the world down one’s throat with such vigour; indeed, I am almost inclined to doubt whether she now altogether expects to reform the world. That is, indeed, a discovery!”

Anne, kind Anne, smiled and sighed, with thought of Harry.

“I do hope that she likes him.”

“Could he have worked such a miracle if she did not?”

In Claudia’s mind there was no doubt. Away from Fenwick, his vigorous personality impressed her the more, and she told herself that his love was such a gift as would make a woman gladly give up all that clashed with it. There was something almost pathetic in her anxiety to put away what she had learnt to see that he disliked, and, though her strong young nature would always demand outlet for its energies, she hastily accepted what little was common to other girls and other lives about her. Her beloved pocket-book was laid aside, or only looked at surreptitiously, she wrote to the college, renouncing all wish for engagements; she cut tickets for Emily, took her bicycle into retired roads, never once tried to shock the Dean’s wife, and controlled her very hand-writing. It was natural enough that after the first welcome breathing space such a life of suppression should soon weary her, and that she began to count the days before she might get her invitation to Aldershot.

Once and once only was Harry specially alluded to.

“Mr Hilton has been ill again,” Philippa announced, folding a letter. “Poor Harry!” Claudia imagined a reproach.

“Why should you call him poor Harry?” she said shortly. “I never saw any one quite so much his own master. Nobody at Thornbury thinks of contradicting him.”

“Let Anne enlarge,” said Philippa laughing. “It’s her topic.”

“Life has been for him one long contradiction!” Anne exclaimed, nothing loth. “I dare say he never told you how his whole mind was set upon being a soldier, and how he got into the very regiment he wanted, and then had to leave on account of his father’s illness?”

“No,” returned Claudia, slowly: “he never told me.”

“Then, when Mr Hilton was better, he had a chance of going out to South Africa, and it was the same thing over again, the scheme completely knocked on the head. No one could know Harry, with his love of sport and roughing it, and suppose for a moment that his home life is what he would choose. But, as he never dreams of complaining, his giving up all he cares for is taken as a matter of course.”

Anne spoke with quite unusual vehemence, and Claudia reddened and did not answer. A month ago, she would have made light of such a tale, but love had already taught her something of its divine power of self-sacrifice, and it touched her. At the same time, by one of the contrarieties of a woman’s nature, she felt indignant with Harry because she had been the means of losing him another of life’s blessings. Why had he been so stupid? He had only to hold his tongue for them to have remained excellent friends. Then she fell to wondering whether, if the same accident had threatened her when Harry was by her side, he would have acted as Fenwick had acted, and was the more vexed to have to own that he could have done nothing else. She wanted, it will be seen, to keep all the glory for her special hero, but the mental training she had received, would not allow her to make her mind a present to her emotions.

They left her, however, restless, and she regretfully decided that Elmslie was dull, and looked impatiently for the invitation to Aldershot. It came quite as quickly as was possible, Fenwick took care of that, and then she—she, Claudia!—had to wait for an escort, to Philippa’s private and unbounded amusement; for although Fenwick wished her to have a maid, space was too limited in the hut to receive her, and that concession to helpless young ladyhood, as Claudia scornfully called it, had to be postponed until her return. Finally she went off in the companionship of two of the Dean’s daughters, and Mrs Leslie’s maid was to meet her at the junction where they parted. The bicycle was left behind, and Emily commented—

“How odd! I thought you took it everywhere.”

Claudia was trying to forget this innocent speech as she whirled along in the train by the side of the Dean’s daughters, who, had she but known it, were as much astonished at the reversal of the position as she could be, but it rankled. She had made larger concessions without feeling as sore as she felt through the journey, and was only soothed by the glad sight of Fenwick’s tall figure on the junction platform, in place of the maid she had expected. The next moment she frowned. He was not alone, Mrs Leslie was with him, and she felt oddly shy. She reflected, further, that the Dean’s daughters had done nothing to require so many thanks.

“As if I were a helpless parcel!” she murmured rebelliously.

It was unfortunate, for it revived the spirit of antagonism which had met Mrs Leslie at Huntingdon. There, however, Claudia had seen but little of her, here she was somebody to be taken in hand, advised, checked, arranged for, informed that Arthur did not like this, that, or the other, and treated in fact as a very average young woman of early years, whose inexperience required superior counselling.

“Arthur’s is a curious nature,” said his sister on the morning after Claudia’s arrival. The girl lifted her eyebrows.

“I think I understand him. Few persons do,” pursued Mrs Leslie, reflectively, “and I always felt anxious that his wife should be a person of experience. You will require patience, for one thing, I warn you.”

“Perhaps he will require it, too,” said Claudia, with a short laugh which made Mrs Leslie look at her.

“I hope not,” she said gravely. “I don’t think his stock is large. I advise you to be the one to yield.”

Claudia found this and similar hints maddening, but when she carried her indignation to Fenwick, he was disposed to take his sister’s side.

“She has rather a peremptory manner,” was the utmost he would allow. “It’s only manner. She’s had to pilot old Leslie along, and very well she’s done it.”

“I dare say. But I don’t require piloting,” said Claudia stiffly.

Fenwick smiled, and her colour rose.

“What do you mean?”

“By what?”

“By looking like that.”

He rose and stretched his arms.

“My dear Claudia, you’re in an aggressive humour to-day.”

Her heart smote her. “I believe I was cross,” she said with difficulty. “I thought that she—Gertrude—treated me as if I was a child.”

“Learn philosophy,” he said, with a yawn. “What does it matter?”

It is very well to be told to study philosophy, but there are times when the advice carries insult with it. Claudia jumped up and stood at the window. From thence she shot a glance at him. He was not looking at her, but strolling about the room, taking up a book here and there.

“They’ve made themselves pretty snug here,” he remarked at last. “Gertrude thoroughly understands how to rig up a hut.”

“I like the Marchmonts’ better,” said Claudia coldly.

“Do you? Tastes differ, but it isn’t really so good. Thornton, now, has dropped into comfortable quarters. By the way, somebody said that Miss Arbuthnot was due at the Thorntons’ this week.”

Claudia was cross, and, conscious of it, tried to swallow her displeasure.

“We met her yesterday,” she said, “and—didn’t you hear?—somebody else said that she was going to be married.”

He turned sharply.

“Married? Miss Arbuthnot? Don’t believe it.”

She opened her eyes at his tone.

“Why? Is there anything extraordinary in the fact?”

“Oh no,” he said, recovering himself rather awkwardly from the momentary excitement. “It’s the sort of thing which is always being said of her. She’s food for gossips. And it never comes to anything.”

“It will have to come soon, I suppose,” remarked Claudia, with the scorn of twenty-one for thirty-one.

He took no notice of this, but as Mrs Leslie came into the room, turned sharply upon her.

“Gertrude, what’s this about Helen Arbuthnot?”

“Helen!” reflected Claudia.

“Colonel Tomlinson said she was going to marry Lord Dartmoor’s eldest son.”

“That stick! Rot!”

Mrs Leslie looked at him with warning in her eye.

“Really, Arthur, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be true. She is sure to marry somebody.”

“Somebody, perhaps. It needn’t be a fool.”

He spoke savagely, and Claudia wondered why. His sister made haste to change the subject.

“Remember, Claudia, that there is the polo match this afternoon. We must go.”

The girl flung an imploring glance at Fenwick.

“You?” she said inquiringly.

“I can’t,” he returned. “I’m going to try a little bicycling of the most feeble description to suit a cripple.”

“Oh,” she cried eagerly, “do let me come! The Marchmonts said I could always have one of their bicycles, and it would be delightful. Please, Arthur!”

She went close to him, and he played with the frill of her sleeve.

“Delightful, but not to be done. I hate to see women bicycling about these places.”

“But,” she urged, “you used to go with the Marchmonts. They told me so.”

“He wasn’t engaged to a Marchmont,” said Mrs Leslie, arranging her flowers. “That makes all the difference.”

“Why?” asked Claudia. As no one answered her question she turned again to Fenwick, “Won’t you let me come, this once, this first time? You really may want help.”

“I should say he had better look after himself—this time,” said Mrs Leslie pointedly, and Claudia crimsoned.

“I’m all right,” said Fenwick, stretching himself again. “Look here, Claudia, go to the polo, like a good girl, and—if I can, I’ll drop in there later.”

She said no more, and though she had a sense of defeat, it did not prevent her from becoming absorbingly interested in the rush and energy of the polo match. The day was both bright and showery; every now and then a sudden storm sent the carriages under the trees, then the sun broke out again, and no one was much the worse. As the afternoon wore on, her attention began to flag, for she expected Fenwick. He came late.

“How have you managed?” she asked eagerly.

“Well enough. I didn’t go far.” More hesitatingly he added, “I turned in at the Thorntons’.”

“Then,” remarked his sister, “you heard whether the report about Helen Arbuthnot is true?”

“I heard nothing.”

“I wonder she did not tell you.”

“There was an excellent reason,” he said curtly. “They weren’t at home. What’s Bateman racing for?—oh, a new stick. I say, Lucas got that goal cleverly! I wonder what he’d take for his pony.”

Claudia’s eyes sparkled. “I wish, oh, how I wish women could play polo!”

“Good heavens! I’m thankful they don’t attempt it!”

She turned upon him with a laughing retort, but something in his face checked her. She said the next moment, “There is Miss Arbuthnot.”

Fenwick looked without making a remark, and exerted himself for Claudia’s entertainment. Before long, however, he left her, strolling over to the carriage where Helen sat. She gave him the slightest of greetings, but, undismayed, he folded his arms on the side of the carriage, and talked in a low voice.

“I have been to see you.”

“How judicious of you to choose such an admirably safe hour for visits!”

“Is that all you have to say after what I’ve been going through? Weeks on a sick bed!”

She looked at him between half-shut eyes.

“Haven’t I seen you since? Oh, don’t expect me to pity you. I believe your accident was simply an ingenious plant, to get what you had set your mind upon. By the way, let me offer my congratulations.”

“Thank you. You are very good. Rumour says you will soon be requiring the same.”

“Yes?”

The word was distinctly interrogative. Fenwick found himself pondering what it carried with it. Miss Arbuthnot’s appearance was prosperous, her tone—provokingly indifferent—stung him into retort.

“Does yes signify yes?”

“I have never yet been sure. It so entirely depends on the speaker.”

“Then,” he returned boldly, “in your case I should say it meant the opposite.”

Miss Arbuthnot appeared to consider.

“You were never backward in assertion,” she said. “Tell me, has your Claudia really given up her career and her pocket-book?”

“Do you suppose I should allow my wife to make a fool of herself?”

“Oh, forgive me! I did not know you were married.”

“You know, at any rate, what I mean.”

“Perhaps. By the way, I left your rival on a fair way to recovery.”

“My rival?”

“Your friend, then—Harry Hilton. He is an excellent fellow, and honestly, I think he would have been more suitable to Claudia.”

“Thank you,” said Fenwick grimly. “It seems she did not think so.”

“No. We women are so slow in learning our lessons that we are left with no time in which to use them.”

“You must have learnt yours, then, at an early age.”

The two fencers looked at each other, and she bent her head slightly.

“Yes. I have at least learned to take the goods the gods send.”

“Meaning Mr Pelham, and a future twenty thousand a year?” Fenwick shot out sharply.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Possibly.”

He suddenly drew back, and went to the other side of the carriage. Claudia, in the pony-cart, had lost her interest in the match. She made only monosyllabic replies, but she was listening intently to Mrs Leslie’s remarks, more than one of which related to Miss Arbuthnot. Finally she said—

“I wonder whether the report about her is true? It would be curious if she and Arthur married in the same year.”

“Why curious?”

“Because at one time— Oh, well,” she added with a laugh, “you can cross-question Arthur.”

Claudia made no answer; she seemed to be taken up with a wild gallop of the ponies across the ground.

As they drove home they passed the Thornton carriage, and were stopped by a sign from its mistress.

“Captain Fenwick has gone,” she said, “and has half promised that you will all dine with us after the inspection to-morrow. Will you?”

Mrs Leslie hesitated and accepted. Miss Arbuthnot, who had nodded to Claudia, now leaned forward.

“The Thornbury trees,” she said, “are beginning to recover from the shocks you gave them, but Harry has to go and explain and apologise to them. I know he apologises.”

The girl had not time to answer; the pony did not like stopping, and whisked them away.

“Helen was looking very well,” remarked Mrs Leslie. “What was she saying about the Thornbury trees?”

“I had to cut down a few,”—Claudia hesitated—was it possible she was becoming reluctant to allude to what had been her pride?—“I went down there, you know,”—she lifted her head, and out came the obnoxious word—“professionally.”

“Good gracious, what do you mean?”

“Has Arthur not told you that I was—that I am a landscape gardener?” asked Claudia, with all the dignity she could call to her aid.

Mrs Leslie broke into a peal of laughter.

“My dear child, I beg your pardon, but you are so comic! Arthur’s wife a landscape gardener! How long have you played with this amazing fancy?”

“It has not been play,” said Claudia stiffening. “I went through a regular training, and have had two engagements.” And then she broke off suddenly with a miserable wonder how the engagements, in which she had felt such an honest pride, had come to her. One was through Harry Hilton, and the other through Fenwick. Could it be possible! She murmured the Wilmots’ name, and Mrs Leslie’s next words completed her humiliation.

“Oh, the Wilmots!” she said, still laughing. “Flo will do anything for Arthur.”

“Do you mean—” began the girl hotly.

“Oh, of course they liked having you,”—Mrs Leslie felt that she had gone rather far—“but I tell you honestly that I suspect it was more because you were young and pretty, and perhaps because it amused them to see you taking life so seriously, than on account of your—what am I to call it—profession?”

“Call it what you like,” said Claudia proudly, and staring in front of her. “We are not likely to agree in the view we take of it. I have been brought up to think that idleness is not the desirable element in a woman’s life which you all seem to consider it. As for Arthur, if he is ashamed of it for his wife, he has changed very much since he talked of it a few weeks ago.”

She made her little speech quietly and well, though her voice trembled as she ended, because she could not but feel that he had changed.

“Settle that between you,” said Mrs Leslie, in a light tone. “It doesn’t seem to me at all his line.”

When she could get hold of her brother, she attacked him. “Arthur, why didn’t you give me a hint? What extraordinary craze is this of Claudia’s? Do you know that she calls herself a landscape gardener?” He frowned.

“Has she gone back to that rubbish? I thought it was at an end. Though, mind you, there was something very engaging in the serious view she took of her duties. She hadn’t a thought to fling in another direction.”

“Absurd! And you encouraged it?”

“It was the only way of getting at her. Besides, I knew if once I made her care, I could stop it, and stopped it I have, unless you have rubbed her the wrong way again. How did you come upon it?”

“Helen Arbuthnot alluded to the Thornbury trees. I can’t think why Helen has come here now,” said Mrs Leslie impatiently. “I wish she were married and done with.” Fenwick made no answer. Possibly he had not heard.

Chapter Fifteen.

The march past was one of those brilliant spectacles with which the camp delights its visitors. Royalty was there—indeed, royalties had gathered; the day was perfect, not over-hot, with fleecy clouds flinging soft shadows on the downs. There were the usual manoeuvres on the Foxhills; there was the usual futile thirst for information as to what was going to happen, and the usual ignorance; the usual anxious dread on the part of husbands engaged lest their wives should get in the way, and stop the advance of a regiment; the usual thrills of pointing interest over distant puffs of smoke or gleaming metal; the usual captive balloon, and not quite the usual amount of dust. Claudia, eager and ready, was more like her usual self than she had been since her arrival at Aldershot, keenly interested, and rejoicing quite unduly when she found that Fenwick’s battery was on the conquering side. Then came the stirring march past, artillery waggons lumbering along, cheerful regimental bands, a change, a skirl of pipes, and to the proud defiant tones of “The Campbells are comin’,” the Argyll Highlanders swung by in splendid barbaric dress, like a company of giants. Claudia’s eyes were bright, and she did not so much as hear her companion’s criticisms. Fenwick’s battery passed early, and, leaving it, he came back to where his sister and Claudia stood in the foremost row, for the girl had been far too much carried away to consent to remain in the carriage. He looked approvingly at her sparkling and animated face.

“You should not have been in this place, though,” he said to his sister. “You’d have seen better on the other side of the Duke.”

But Mrs Leslie demurred.

“Colonel Manson advised us to come here, and nothing could have been nicer. There, we should have had horses all round us.”

“Well, they wouldn’t have hurt you. Come along now, and see the end of it.”

“Why should we? Stay here, Claudia. You won’t get such a good view higher up.” The girl thought the same, but went. As soon, however, as Fenwick reached the coveted spot, he began to discover its shortcomings, and to complain of the dust and glare. Claudia laughed.

“Let us go somewhere else,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, all the best is over, and there’s no fun in sticking through it to the end. I want to speak to Lucas over there about his pony.”

“Is that the polo man?”

“Yes.”

“And are you going in for polo?”

“Not unlikely. If I do, I shall do the thing thoroughly, and his is about the only pony I fancy.”

“I shouldn’t think he’d care to part with it.”

“So they say.”

Something in his tone told her that in the difficulty lay the attraction. They walked across the broken ground to the spot where young Lucas stood, and he laughed the suggestion to scorn.

“Sell Tommy!” he said. “My dear fellow, not if I know it!”

“Well, if you should—”

“But I shan’t. I shall have to be stone broke first.”

Fenwick went on unheeding—“Let me have the refusal.”

“Oh, as to that, all right! If worse comes to the worst and I’ve got to run, I’ll leave word that Tommy is yours. Will that suit you?”

“Down to the ground.”

Both men laughed, and as Claudia and Fenwick walked away, she said—

“I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with another pony.”

“Not I!” he returned. “It’s Tommy or none. But I shall get him.”

She glanced curiously at him.

“Do you always get what you want?”

“Pretty generally. When I set my mind upon it.”

“And,” she went on slowly, “do you always care about it when you have got it?” But she did not wait for an answer. “Look,” she said, “all the carriages are on the move, so it must be over. I’m sorry, for it has been delightful.”

For a minute he made no reply. Then he asked suddenly—

“Who’s that man with the Thorntons?”

“Gertrude fancied it was very likely Mr Pelham.”

“What an ass the fellow looks!”

To this she made no answer. Fenwick was silent and abrupt; he took her to Mrs Leslie, and then left her to ride back to Aldershot.

That evening was the Thorntons’ dinner, and Claudia, who plumed herself upon her own powers of independent decision, found herself swept away by Mrs Leslie.

“What are you going to wear?” she asked. “It had better be the green. I’m sure Arthur would prefer the green.”

And green she wore, although she scourged herself with hard words as she dressed.

“It only remains to stick a white camellia in my hair, and go down, blushing and simpering behind ringlets. Whose business is it what I wear? Why do I give way? Why can’t I hold my own? Oh, Claudia, Claudia, is this the end of all your fine theories?” And then the anguish of a question broke from her, a question which she had been prising down, dreading that if once it took form it might be unanswerable—“Does he care? Does he really care? He did, when I did not, and why was he so cruel as to force me into loving him, if he was not certain of himself? If I were only sure of him, should I mind one bit all his sister’s domineering ways? Not I! I could hold my own against her, wear what I liked, say what I liked, do what I liked, in spite of all the ‘in laws’ in the world. But now she has me at a disadvantage, and knows it. He is behind her, and when she says, ‘Arthur prefers this, Arthur chooses that,’ all the resistance goes out of me and leaves me a limp coward. I fancy that she must know best, and that I had better do what she suggests, and I am not myself one bit. I have never been myself since I came here, I am just somebody else, and worse, for I am just the sort of girl I so despised, the very feeble creature I could not have imagined myself sinking into. How we used to laugh at them at the college! How the girls would laugh if they could see me now! And I am afraid I shouldn’t even mind their laughing. I am fallen too low to have any self-respect left, and I know that if I were only sure in my own heart, I should give up all that I cared for—everything—for him, just as he made me tell him I could; if only, only, I were convinced that he felt the same now that he did. And perhaps he does. Perhaps it is only that I don’t quite understand. Perhaps it is all part of my turning into an idiotic girl. Perhaps all men—nice men—are the same. Certainly, I should hate his taking too much notice, being too effusive, too silly! I dare say it is only a foolish fancy of mine. On with your green frock, stupid Claudia, and for pity’s sake look at things healthily, instead of taking to morbid fancies!”

She sighed as she finished, but no self-harangue could have been wiser, and she resolutely set herself to carry it out; bore without flinching Mrs Leslie’s comments upon her dress, and tried to be quite content with the young subaltern who fell to her lot at dinner, while to Fenwick was given Miss Arbuthnot, and Mr Pelham took in Mrs Thornton and sat by the side of Miss Arbuthnot. Claudia even tried to convince herself that the arrangement was one she would have chosen, because she was thus able to look at the others. She was curious to know whether the story of Helen’s engagement was true.

“She does not say much to him,” she reflected, “but—as Arthur said—he does look rather a non-entity. And then she and Arthur have known each other a long time, and he can be so pleasant, and able to talk of things which I dare say that other man knows nothing about. It is odd, though, that when we were at Thornbury it never struck me that they were particularly friends.” She stifled another sigh. “I suppose I was taken up with other things, and didn’t notice. Well, now I mustn’t stare at them so much, however interesting it is. I must talk to this poor boy next me, who is smiling, and quite pleased all about nothing.”

“Your Claudia looks pretty to-night,” Miss Arbuthnot was remarking. She put up her glasses as she spoke.

“My Claudia—as you call her—has a trick of looking pretty.”

“She has, and I never denied it. But she has upset my theories. I thought she would prove herself indifferent to you all for some time to come. Oh, don’t smile! A man may be vain—he can’t help himself, I suppose, but when his vanity peeps out it is insupportable.”

“Have you impressed that upon the individual to your right?”

“Time enough,” said Miss Arbuthnot coolly. “Besides, you are mistaken. He is not vain.”

“Fortunate man to have secured you as his advocate!”

She was silent.

“What other excellent characteristics does he boast?”

“I did not know we were talking of him.”

“Oh, I must talk. I have been thinking of him ever since yesterday.”

“And why yesterday?”

“Because it was then I heard what the world is saying.”

“I should have thought you of all men would have hesitated to believe what the world says.”

“Is it wrong, then?” asked Fenwick eagerly.

She made a movement as of balancing her hands.

“It may or may not be. You will see.”

“You speak as if it were a matter of indifference,” he said so bitterly that she slowly turned her face towards him, and lifted her eyebrows.

“As it must be—to you,” she replied coldly.

“Forgive me—that is impossible,” he said, dropping his voice, and staring before him. The next moment Miss Arbuthnot was addressing a remark to her other neighbour.

Fenwick marched up to Claudia directly the men reached the drawing-room. The Thorntons lived in the permanent barracks, and the regimental band was playing on the drilling ground.

“How are you getting on? Bored?” he inquired.

She might have said no if she had been an older woman. As it was, she replied truthfully that she had been, and allowed her eyes to express the pleasure she felt.

“Every one was out of place at dinner. Mrs Thornton pitchforks people about.” He spoke almost apologetically, and added quickly, “That’s a pretty frock you’ve got on, Claudia.”

“Is it?” She blest it.

“But,” he went on, giving way to some inward irritation, “I agree with you that it’s an awful bore having to come out in this way among a lot of people who can only talk rot. As for that,”—he indicated Pelham with a movement of his head—“I should be surprised to find that he owned a single idea.”

He spoke with unusual bitterness, and the girl looked at him, surprised. Fenwick not infrequently showed temper, but it required more to excite it than an occasional foolish young man, whom it was quite easy to avoid. Evidently, however, he was put out. He found fault with the band, with the airs they played, with the quarters, and, indeed, impartially, with whatever topic presented itself. Claudia, armed with a new forbearance, exerted herself to charm away the mood, and partly succeeded. She was conscious that, as he had implied, she was looking her best, and that when his eye fell upon her, it softened. Yet, by a curious contradiction, she was also conscious, and it gave her such a sick conviction of impotence as she had never before experienced, that he was not always attending to her, and, even worse than this, that she was beating her brains for some subject with which to divert him. She knew but little of those everyday topics to which most of us fly as to blessed houses of refuge. She had really bound herself, as Philippa quickly discovered, in narrowest fetters, flinging a strong personality into one interest, of which being suddenly deprived, she became like a dislodged hermit crab, unable to find another resting-place. But she knew this much, that two persons in full sympathy with each other, would have no need to seek for common subjects of interest. The love which Fenwick’s vanity had set himself to awake, was indeed alive, stirring feelings partly of passionate joy, and partly sharp anguish; but she was also aware of strange forces which seemed to draw her in directions where she would not go, and of vague disturbances for which she could not account.

It was a curious moment now for a swift flash of such discomfort to dart through her, yet here it was, and for just that moment it blinded her to her surroundings. She looked up with a start to find Fenwick on his feet, and Helen Arbuthnot standing before her. Helen was holding out her hand and smiling.

“As you would not come to me, I have come to you,” she said. “So I hear you are no longer a lady of the woods, but have joined the ordinary ways of us mortals.” Claudia coloured. She was taken by surprise, and thought Miss Arbuthnot showed bad taste in harping upon these topics. Displeasure made her answer as she might not otherwise have done—

“I hope to be in woods again one day.”

“Really?”

Somewhat to her surprise, Fenwick came to her assistance.

“As she has nothing of that sort here on which to expend her energies, she is going to take up the moral improvement of the British soldier instead. I hear her asking very searching questions on the subject.”

His tone was light but not sarcastic, and Claudia turned and smiled at him.

“That’s not fair,” she said. “I only asked questions because I know absolutely nothing.”

“I should ask questions too, if the answers weren’t so unsatisfactory,” said Miss Arbuthnot, taking the chair Fenwick had left. “Don’t you find that people always know either too much or too little? But of course at this point it is for Captain Fenwick to answer any questions you may be pleased to put.”

The girl, who was shy of open allusions to her position, was annoyed by Miss Arbuthnot’s manner. At Thornbury she had almost liked her, and to Thornbury she returned, ignoring the last remark.

“Can you tell me anything about Mr Hilton? I hope he is better?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t know why you should hope it. Life can’t give him much pleasure, and he manages to make it a burden for everybody else, especially for Harry.”

“Oh, Harry! Harry’s a lucky beggar,” said Fenwick. He had not sat down, but stood with his hands behind him, holding the back of the chair against which he leaned.

“You say so? That’s what comes of not grumbling. I should like to see you doing Harry’s work for a day. We should all hear of it,” she added sarcastically.

“Oh, praise him as much as you like,”—was there a slight emphasis on the him?—“you are right, he deserves it. Granting a few limitations, Harry Hilton is a first-rate fellow.”

He looked at Miss Arbuthnot smiling, she, too, smiled back. Claudia, on the contrary, frowned slightly, not from displeasure, but from a feeling of being puzzled.

“Now that they are both engaged they seem on better terms than they were before,” she pondered. “I wonder why it should be, I wonder what has brought them together?”

For she knew they had not met. The next moment she heard Miss Arbuthnot being invited to drive on the Artillery coach.

“Thanks, no,” she said indifferently. “I’ve too much on hand just now.”

“To go about with—him, I suppose,” he said sharply. “But you can bring him—if you must.”

“What a real gush of hospitality!” she returned in a mocking tone. “Alas! even if I must, it is doubtful whether he would.”

“Well—ask him.”

“I think not.” She stood up as she spoke, massive and handsome. “I don’t think it would be any use. But I am going back now to talk to him.”

Claudia watched her cross the room, and caught Mr Pelham’s beaming look.

“Oh, it must be true, he looks so happy!” she cried impulsively. “And, Arthur, I think you are hard on him. He has quite a good face.”

She did not catch Fenwick’s muttered ejaculation—“Confound him!”

Chapter Sixteen.

Claudia’s young and vigorous interests were attracted by all that was connected with the camp, too much so, indeed, to please Fenwick. She ran out whenever a regiment passed, or when she heard distant sounds of drill.

“You don’t want to be shown the stables, do you?”

“Oh, I do, particularly.”

He gave way, but with a discontent which took the pleasure out of it. Another time he remarked to his sister—

“Can’t you give Claudia a hint not to be so tremendously excited about the band in church? She talked of it to Dawson till he must suppose she comes from the wilds.”

Something in his tone made Mrs Leslie look at him in dismay.

“Arthur,” she said impressively, “you are not getting tired of her, are you?”

He turned angrily upon her.

“Tired! Rubbish!”

She went on, disregarding.

“It would be simply disgraceful. I should be ashamed to look any one in the face. First Helen Arbuthnot, and then this poor girl.”

“Have you done?” he said savagely. “No. I mean to speak. I must. I have thought at times, I own, that in spite of the break off between you and Helen, you had a sneaking kindness for each other, but now you have both split away in different directions, so that is quite at an end.”

“She’s not married yet, and I don’t believe she can like that idiot,” growled Fenwick.

“Arthur!”

“Well?”

“You’re not—”

He interrupted her.

“What have I said? Nothing about marrying her myself, have I? Take my advice, Gertrude, and don’t meddle. I’ve never stood meddling yet, and I’m not going to now. Mind you, this doesn’t matter to you or to any one else.”

“It does matter,” she persisted. “With the girl in my house, I am certainly responsible.”

“I deny it. If she’s satisfied, what have you to say?”

“Oh,” she said impatiently, “of course she’s satisfied! You know how to talk, and it is easy enough to please a girl of that age.”

“Very well, then. By your own showing, you’ve nothing to say. I’m going to marry her, and that’s the end of it.”

Fenwick was not a pleasant person to have an argument with; almost invariably it brought out in him a certain hard tenacity, which made other men angry. Perhaps Mrs Leslie was less sensitive to it than was the rest of the world, but even she shrank from the shock of clashing wills, which more than once had led to a bitter dispute between brother and sister. The conversation, however, had left her distinctly uncomfortable, and she reflected long whether she should give Claudia a hint. Yet it was difficult to know how much or how little she should say, and it seemed better that if nothing were really amiss, the girl should not have her suspicions raised. Only—for she was really a conscientious woman, and Claudia was a fatherless girl—she resolved that if things became worse, she would take her part determinedly against Arthur or any one else. And this not so much from liking as from an innate feeling for justice.

Unfortunately, her hidden fear did not act very wisely. It made her watchful and almost irritable with Claudia. She could not say in so many words, “Don’t do this, don’t say that, your fate is trembling in the balance,” but she contrived to convey it in her actions, growing so evidently anxious over the most trifling movements or expressions, that the girl, in spite of indignant self-protests, became nervously inflicted by her companion’s distrust, and developed a new self-consciousness. She grew restless too.

“I do wish you would not give yourself so much trouble over my amusement,” she said one day to Mrs Leslie. “For instance, please don’t imagine that it is necessary for me to go to the club-house every afternoon.”

“One must go somewhere,” said her hostess vaguely. She could not explain that she had offered the pony-cart to Fenwick for him to drive Claudia into the country, and he had refused it.

“I don’t see that,” said the girl, with a laugh. She added after a pause, “What I really should like would be to bicycle over some of the country round. But Arthur won’t hear of it.”

“Don’t tease him about it, pray don’t,” said Mrs Leslie, with over—expressed anxiety.

Claudia looked at her.

“Why?” she asked, and such interrogations were becoming more and more difficult to answer. Mrs Leslie was hesitating over it when the young subaltern, Claudia’s neighbour at the Thorntons’ dinner-party, looked in.

“You’ll forgive my coming at this unearthly hour, won’t you?” he said. “Fact is, Major Leslie asked me to tell you that you and Miss Hamilton had better come out. Orders are given that the Scots Greys are not to be allowed to get back to barracks, and he thinks you might like to see the fun. Can you get along by yourselves? I must be off.”

Mrs Leslie jumped up with a sense of relief, but she was an imprudent woman, and her imprudence broke out.

“Why couldn’t Arthur have let us know?” she said in a vexed voice. “There, I have let the children go off, and Frank will be so disappointed!”

“Perhaps Arthur didn’t know himself.”

“He must have found out by this time. However, be quick, Claudia. We can’t wait for the cart; we’ll walk.”

Claudia did what she was often doing at this time, hastily packed misgivings out of sight, and they started. Rain had fallen in the night; great pools of water stood waiting to be sucked up by the yellow soil, and massive banks of clouds moved sullenly to the east. Out from behind them the sun had flashed, and was shining steadily, transforming all he touched, and bringing, as he does in our northern lands, no languor, but an added energy. Now and then a body of troops marched briskly along up the road, passed the cavalry barracks, and turned to their right.

“Where are the Greys, I wonder?” said Mrs Leslie impatiently. “I hate to be left in this way, knowing nothing of what is doing.”

Claudia had no answer ready, and they went on. Presently her companion broke out again—

“I always vow I will not come and see these things from the outside.”

“How can one see them otherwise?” asked Claudia, in good faith.

“Oh, you must know what I mean. I call it outside when you toil along roads as we are toiling, and have no one to tell you where to go.”

“As to that, I suppose they’re all trying to cut off the Greys.”

“Ah, you’re not married,” said Mrs Leslie gloomily. Presently she stopped. “I don’t see the good of going on.”

“Oh yes!”

“Most likely we are all wrong.”

“One can’t tell—nobody here ever knows what’s going to happen next. Suppose we walk across to that clump?”

“Well—” began her companion, turning reluctantly. The next moment she exclaimed, “Here comes the Thorntons’ carriage; we can ask them.”

Instinctively Claudia longed to break away, but, instead of doing so, stood still and tried to look indifferent. Mrs Thornton was driving Miss Arbuthnot, and, before there was time for inquiry, called out—

“You’re going the wrong way. You should make for that mound.” She flourished her whip.

“Who told you so?”

“Captain Fenwick. He looked in to say that would be the best place.”

“Really?”

“So sorry we can’t give you a lift!”

“Oh,” said Mrs Leslie mendaciously, “we prefer walking. So I do,” she added as the carriage rolled away—“so I do, to going with her. She irritates me. She’s always in the right. But I think it was simply abominable of Arthur.”

“What does it matter?” said Claudia, with a fine display of indifference.

“It matters a great deal, because, of course, if I had known it was going to be so far, I should have brought the carriage.”

“Well, don’t let us toil to that mound. Let us go to the place we intended before. It is such a pretty day!”

“I dare say it is, but we didn’t come out to see the country.”

To her surprise, however, by dint of a little more pressure, Claudia carried her point, with the result that they saw nothing. But this she did not seem to mind, for she talked and laughed vigorously, in spite of many “I told you so’s” from Mrs Leslie.

“You are the oddest girl!” exclaimed that lady at last.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t appear to care to stand on your rights. Now, I think that Arthur has behaved shamefully.”

It is certain that she would not have spoken so imprudently if she had conceived it possible that a young girl of Claudia’s inexperience could seriously resent her lover’s conduct; she only considered it desirable to point out to her that she might be too easy with him, and that it would be better for her were she to assert herself. And the girl’s own anxiety to hide her wounds added to Mrs Leslie’s failure to understand her. She showed no disturbance.

“Aren’t you hard on him? He may have been close to their quarters,” she suggested, “and just turned in.”

“I dare say! He would not have found it so convenient if Helen Arbuthnot hadn’t been then.” Mrs Leslie liked to justify her statements.

“No?” said Claudia indifferently. It would have taken a close observer to note a certain slight rigidity in the way she carried her head.

“No. My dear Claudia, it’s all very well to be magnanimous, but if you expect peace in your married life, you had better make up your mind to the fact that Arthur—though a good fellow in the main—is a bit of a flirt.”

Claudia did not turn her head.

“I dare say,” she said coolly, so coolly that Mrs Leslie prepared to strengthen her warning.

“And I advise you to show him you don’t like it—beforehand.”

“Thank you.”

Mrs Leslie could not have quite explained the character of this “thank you,” but she preferred to consider that it breathed gratitude; and the morning having in other ways proved such a dismal failure, accepted this as partial compensation, feeling that now she had done her best to open Claudia’s eyes, and that, whatever happened, she could not be blamed for having uttered no warning.

She had been altogether tired and annoyed by her long vain tramp, and was not in the mood to spare her brother. Claudia, too, had been so provokingly quiescent that it was only to be supposed she did not see, and Arthur’s wife would require to have all her senses about her.

She therefore carried home both a grievance and a sense of fulfilled duty; which, together, make a person pretty nearly intolerable.

But, though Claudia kept her proud silence, and could even say “thank you” to her counsellor, it must not be supposed that she was patient at heart. It was not this or that trifling circumstance; they were not the events of the morning, taken by themselves, which affected her; it was that, gradually, little by little, the conviction forced itself upon her that Fenwick no longer loved her, nay, possibly, that he was loving another woman. Why it should be so, she struggled to fathom, and failed. Why, when both were free, he should have preferred her to Helen Arbuthnot, who could tell? Only that it was so, she could now scarcely doubt. And with a yearning which seized and shook her with the violence of its desire, the motherless girl longed unutterably for some one to whom she could turn, some one who could give her the aid for which she was groping. What ought she to do? How do it? How, given if her love were smitten, maimed, down-trodden, should her womanly pride keep its dignity, and shield her from the pitying scorn with which she knew the world regarded a jilted woman? One day, although it was understood that she did not go out by herself, she slipped away, and, finding a church open, went in, and in its quiet silence, poured forth a torrent of tears and prayers, which brought relief.

Her fears, like much else characteristic of Claudia in those days, were young, crude, and ill-balanced. Later on, she would have known that the world casts a few sentences, a few jibes, and has forgotten, before the sufferer has time to realise that the thing is known. Everything whirls past; we and our petty concerns, whisked to the surface one moment, are swept under the next. But, as with other things, it takes years to teach our inexperience the lesson.

There was another difficulty. Think as she might, plan as she might, Claudia could not see before her the words or the moment she wanted for letting Fenwick know that he was free. There were times when she thought of rushing back to Elmslie, but to do this until the explanation had been made, was, she fancied, impossible. She had come for a three weeks’ stay, and of this only a fortnight—was it credible? only a fortnight!—had passed. Then the college—for a moment she reflected hopefully on the college, and some proffered engagement. But, alas! again. Engagements did not pour in every day, and she flushed furiously as she realised that her own, which she had proudly regarded as an offering on the shrine of emancipated woman, were more probably due only to the efforts of two men who liked her. Humiliating conviction! Besides, at Fenwick’s instigation, she had obediently written a request to the principal to withdraw her name from the lists of those seeking employment.

Look as she would, she could not clearly see the road by which she might escape; yet each day seemed to make her position more unbearable.

And Mrs Leslie, Mrs Leslie added tenfold to her difficulties, and this with the best intentions in the world. Claudia’s wounded love flung itself for support on her woman’s pride; like her race she could endure magnificently, if only she were allowed, unquestioned, to hide the anguish of the wound. But Mrs Leslie saw too much, pointed out what the girl would fain have passed over in silence, grumbled, protested, excused. She was personally affronted with her brother, and used Claudia as a weapon of retaliation. She did not approve of Helen Arbuthnot, she considered that Arthur was behaving scandalously, and she felt a large degree of responsibility for the girl under her care; so that it was constantly—“Well, certainly, Arthur, you have been most attentive to Claudia to-day!” or, “If I were Claudia, I should not thank you much for looking in upon me at the end of the afternoon;” or, “Claudia and I seem left very much to our own devices!” And these reproaches, uttered before Claudia herself, had the effect of paralysing the girl, and of taking from her what seemed her own just cause of complaint.

There were dangerous moments, too, when Fenwick, smitten with remorse or swayed by caprice—who can say?—regained his old ascendancy; when she could almost believe that all was as it had been, moments when he was charming, tender; moments, alas! too fleeting, but sweet enough to make her own with a pang that if only they lasted, she must still be his. For the sake of their delicious glamour, a weaker nature might have readily consented to keep its eyes blinded, and to believe that all would yet be well. But Claudia was not weak. Her training, whatever else it had done or left undone, had exercised her intellect, and given her powers of self-control which came to her rescue now. She saw clearly that when Fenwick was charming, it was because he had made up his mind to charm; that it was not due to spontaneous love, but to intentional love-making, and that such intervals were succeeded by evident indifference.

Chapter Seventeen.

Miss Arbuthnot was everywhere, and Mr Pelham shadowed her. Opinions were freely bandied as to the existence or non-existence of an engagement, the majority inclining to the belief that one existed. Fenwick, on the other hand, was seldom seen near her, Mrs Leslie began to recover her equanimity, and perhaps only Claudia was aware that when he was in the same room with Helen his eyes followed her, or that he was more than usually silent and self-occupied. She was invariably well dressed, in a manner which set off her large figure; people turned to look at her as she passed, and she seemed to fling into insignificance such slim beauties as Claudia. Whether from chance or intention, the two seldom said much to each other, but it happened that one grey afternoon at the club-house, they found themselves near each other watching a game of bicycle polo.

Miss Arbuthnot deliberately walked up to Claudia.

“Detesting games! I am bored to death,” she said, “and so—I imagine—are you. Don’t you think we should suffer less if we escaped beyond the sounds of croquet and lawn-tennis, and everything except the clack of our own voices?”

Claudia hesitated, and Helen added—

“You had better come. I assure you there are times when I can be intelligent, and Captain Fenwick will not be here just yet.”

The girl walked quickly on as if she had been stung.

“What has that to do with it?” she said recklessly.

Miss Arbuthnot was engaged in disentangling a bramble which had caught in her dress. When she looked up she said coolly—

“A good deal to me. You know—or do you not know?—that I have always liked him.”

Amazement struck Claudia almost speechless. She stammered with her sudden rush of anger.

“You tell me—you can tell me—”

“The truth. Isn’t that always desirable? Besides, after all, have I said anything that should affront you? That I liked him. That was my remark.”

There was a pause.

“It implied that he liked you,” said Claudia, more calmly, though still choking.

“Oh, not at all. Does the one thing invariably imply the other?”

It might have been that there was—it seemed so to Claudia—a touch of mockery in the question.

“If not—” she began hastily, and stopped.

“If not, you think I was a fool? Well—perhaps. We were engaged, at any rate.”

“Oh!” cried the girl, stopping short. This was more than she had dreamed of.

“You did not know it? But I imagine you are prepared to hear of such episodes?” Is any woman prepared? Claudia bit her lip to keep back the answer she would have liked to fling at her tormentor, and Miss Arbuthnot went on—

“It did not last very long. To adopt the stock phrase proper to these humiliating occasions, we discovered that we had made a mistake. Probably you wonder why I am going back to that not-too-agreeable time. I will tell you—”

“Don’t!” cried Claudia, quite suddenly. She hardly knew what she said, conscious only of a sharp thrill of pain, and a sickening dread of worse to come. Miss Arbuthnot glanced quickly at her, and went on as if she had not spoken.

“It is because I am certain you are falling into the same mistake.”

She turned away as she spoke, and stood resting her arms upon a railing. Behind her she heard the girl breathing heavily. Then it seemed as if Claudia made an effort to speak, for her voice was strangely hoarse and low.

“This is unendurable!” she said.

“Oh no,” returned Helen, “not by any means unendurable. The unendurable is when you have made the mistake permanent. If you could bring yourself to admit it to me—and you might, since I have gone through the same humiliation myself—you would own that you are uneasy, shaken, unhappy. I don’t know what plan you adopt with him, perhaps you reproach him—I found it irresistible—perhaps you take refuge in silence. Take my word for it, there is no remedy in either. Love has flown, and you will never whistle him back. Be thankful he did not stay longer. Hug the wound, if you will, but go.”

Perhaps, in the sick bewilderment of the moment, the sensation uppermost in Claudia’s mind was vexation at the manner in which Miss Arbuthnot reviewed the position. She spoke with a cool confidence always impressive, and she seemed to be able to express herself dispassionately, as if she were no more than a critic, looking on from the outside. It was true that she had taken extreme care to place herself on the same level with Claudia, but the girl was too angry and excited to accept this fellowship. It was, indeed, made impossible to her by the unacknowledged conviction that the dominion Miss Arbuthnot once possessed, she had, in some inexplicable manner, regained. She stood pale, furious, yet trying hard to prevent excitement from showing itself in voice or manner.

“Why do you say this to me?”

“Ah, why?” returned the other, lapsing into her usual careless tone. “To tell you the truth, you have me there. I did not intend to speak. I thought you might find out for yourself, but—who can account for impulses? Perhaps I imagined it might shorten the business. I see that so far I have failed, and you are only angry.”

“Angry!” Claudia flung back her head impetuously. “That isn’t the word.”

“Well, I won’t use a stronger,” said Miss Arbuthnot, with an amused smile. “I dare say I should have felt the same myself. Yet, look at the matter philosophically. You only hate me for speaking, because your heart tells you I am right.”

“Oh, for more than that!” broke in the girl wildly.

“For more than that?” The older woman turned and glanced curiously at her. She went on slowly. “You think, perhaps, then, that I am the cause of your unhappiness?”

“Yes, I do. I think that you are treacherous, treacherous!” cried Claudia, stung beyond control. “You failed to keep his love yourself, yet could not endure to see it given to me. You set yourself to take it again—”

Her voice failed—choked. It was Miss Arbuthnot’s turn to grow a little pale, and she stood for a moment staring out at a bit of near common, across which soldiers were marching, light now and then flashing on their accoutrements.

“But—if I have proved to you that it is worthless?” she said slowly at last.

“Ah!” exclaimed Claudia scornfully, “do you think it worthless?”

Then Helen Arbuthnot did a strange thing. She turned and looked into Claudia’s eyes, her own unflinching, and she spoke as people speak in a great crisis of their life.

“Before Heaven, I do,” she said, “and that although I once cared for it more than for anything else in the world. Now have I set myself low enough?”

Something in her words, but more in the manner of their utterance, had indeed shaken and curiously affected Claudia. They might have been spoken by one who cared enough for her to venture much on her behalf. And yet they came from the lips of Miss Arbuthnot, the woman whom she had just accused of acting towards her in the most heartless manner in which woman can act towards woman, and who at this moment, she believed, was holding her love up to scorn. For a moment she was shaken, but she recovered herself.

“You own you want it yourself!” she cried relentlessly.

The other still gazed at her for a moment, and then her mood changed. The fire died out of her eyes, her look relaxed; she laughed, though not mirthfully.

“Ah, well,” she said, “I have already made you a present of the situation, so far as I am concerned. Doesn’t that mollify you?”

“So far as you are concerned!” Claudia repeated with scorn. “Oh, you are very much concerned! The situation, as far as I can read it, is that you are trying to persuade me to take myself out of the way, in order that you may feel still more perfectly free.”

Miss Arbuthnot looked at her once more.

“Do you not see,” she said slowly and cruelly, “that you are not in the way? It is what he cannot have which has the attraction for Arthur Fenwick.”

Was it so? The girl breathed hard, and put the question a second time.

“Then why do you speak?” She had forgotten Helen’s words.

“Ah, why? That’s what I have asked myself half a dozen times in as many minutes. Answer it as you like. Perhaps I love meddling.”

She turned as she spoke, and began to walk towards the club-house. Claudia, hot, bewildered, angry, marched by her side, unwilling either to go with her or to remain behind. She felt bruised and beaten, yet, after all, the pain came from an unacknowledged source. Were they not her own convictions which had taken shape from the mouth of another?

Before they reached the garden, Fenwick met them. His first glad look, his first glad word, were for Helen.

“At last I have escaped!”

It was little enough, but there are times when a little does as well as a great deal. He recollected himself, it is true, and turned sharply to Claudia, but she could have sworn that the exclamation neither belonged to her, nor was caused by her presence. It was to Helen he had escaped. She tried to speak quietly, though her tongue felt stiffened.

“I see Gertrude on the croquet ground, and she must be wondering what has become of me.”

If she was abrupt, she could not help it, yet, as she went, she was bitterly conscious that a short fortnight ago, Fenwick would have been almost tiresomely scrupulous that she did not cross the ground alone. And still, with her wretchedness, there was something of the joy of restored freedom. The shackles which she had worn gladly when she believed they belonged to excess of love, galled again, as soon as the love was wanting; so that when Mrs Leslie, vexed with her brother, vented her vexation on Claudia by whispering—

“Where is Arthur? My dear Claudia, you really ought not to walk about all over the place by yourself; he will be so annoyed!” the girl’s answer was a repetition of his words. She drew a long breath.

“At last I have escaped!”

Fenwick, meanwhile, was in the midst of an interesting conversation. Both he and Miss Arbuthnot followed Claudia with their eyes. Then Helen turned hers upon him.

“Well?” she said.

He thrust his hands into his pockets.

“She can take care of herself for once. And—I never see you.”

“I should have said we met fairly often.”

“I don’t call it seeing to find you engulfed in a crowd.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Since when have you been so desirous for a conversation à deux?”

Fenwick looked at her hardily. The look did not seem to agree with his words.

“You might have a little pity!”

“I have a great deal. I have just been expressing it to your Claudia.”

He frowned.

“To Claudia? And pity for me?”

“Oh no!” said Miss Arbuthnot in her softest voice. “For her.”

This time there was a short silence. Fenwick walked away a few yards, and came back to where Miss Arbuthnot still stood waiting.

“You are right,” he said in an altered tone; “you are right. From beginning to end it has been a miserable mistake.”

She expressed no surprise, the two appearing to understand each other. She only inquired—

“And what do you intend to do?”

“I must go on with it. We must marry,” he returned moodily.

“Certainly,” said Miss Arbuthnot briskly, “certainly. No other course is open to you.” He looked at her again.

“And yet you haven’t a word of pity to throw!”

“Why should I? You are marrying the girl you chose, a nice girl, too, who had no thought of you until you insisted upon her falling in love. And now that you have got her there, you are discontented. Pity! Yes, I pity her with all my heart!”

He still kept his eyes on her.

“You won’t be any better off yourself,” he said with significance.

She turned and faced him.

“What do you mean?” she asked coldly.

“That fellow—that Pelham—can you tell me honestly that you care for him?”

“You have no possible right to put such a question,” she said haughtily. “Be sure of one thing. I do not marry the man I do not care for. Here we are at the polo again, and here is Mrs Menzies.”

Fenwick had his dismissal, and swung away in a rage, angry with Helen, angry with Claudia, most angry with himself. He rated fate for opening his eyes when it was too late, and allowing him then, and not till then, to find out the insane folly of his conduct in letting slip the one woman for whom he was now certain that he cared. Glancing at the rapidly thinning group of brightly dressed people, he muttered an exclamation as he caught a glimpse of his sister’s figure, and, with the intention of avoiding a meeting, went out of the place, and struck from the Farnborough road, with its oddly isolated groups of firs, across the common.

By this time the sun was low, and, catching the fir stems, turned them to ruddy gold. A few wild clouds, threatening storm, barred the western sky, but the threat was splendid in colour and contrast, and, while bringing out the rich tints of the near common, had the effect of only adding to the serene beauty of the blue distance. Here and there a patch of white tents dotted a slope; smoke curled upwards from the camp fires; and an occasional sharp sound or call struck the silence. Fenwick neither saw nor heard. He walked, staring at the ground, caring nothing where he went, and only bent upon avoiding his kind.

What devil was there in him, he asked himself impatiently, which was for ever dragging him into positions from which, when his eyes were open, he recoiled? In this question which he flung, it is possible that he caught a fleeting glimpse of the inordinate vanity which was the real cause of his disasters, but vanity is too subtle an imp not to have a hundred disguises ready for such a moment. Fenwick freely cursed an impetuous nature, idleness, imprudence, and left the actual mover unscathed and grinning. He had tired of Helen Arbuthnot for the very reason that he was secure of her preference; and when he accepted his dismissal and moved away, it was with the absolute confidence that if ever he liked to step back, he would find her waiting. And now apparently—by her own act, which was quite a different affair from his—she was placing herself beyond his reach; while he, like a raw fool, had bound himself to a girl who had ceased to be attractive from the moment in which he knew he had gained her heart.

He did not put it so crudely, nor had he any thought of drawing back from his engagement. Fenwick was an honourable man, and he fully intended not only to marry Claudia, but to make her happy. As to his power to do this, he was curiously free from misgivings. On his own future life he bestowed a groan, but she loved him, and that would be enough for her. He even went so far as to glance at some of her crude latter-day ideas, and to decide that he would allow her a certain amount of freedom to exercise them; under careful control, of course, and, above all, in ways that should bring no ridicule upon him. Such an outlet for her enthusiasms would occupy and prevent her finding out that—that—well, that he no longer felt for her all that he had imagined. How he had imagined it still puzzled him, for he had no impulse towards solving the enigma in the only way in which it could have been solved—the confession that her cool indifference had piqued him into trying to stir it into warmth. So accustomed was he to flutter the hearts of the women who crossed his path, that to find a country girl treating him with profound carelessness, was not to be endured. It was very natural that Harry Hilton’s clumsy attentions should fail to touch her—he liked her the better for being their object, and for rejecting them—but to be placed in the same category himself was another matter. Then, to win her cost him something. He had to let him-self go. For a time he felt the ardour of chase, the longing to gain; some, at least, of the many sensations which help to make up love; enough, indeed, as he bitterly owned, to deceive himself.

And now, now he had won Claudia, and lost Helen.

He walked far, so that when he turned all the fires of sunset had dulled in the west, and the firs stood black against a saffron sky. The camp was alive and busy, though the more active work of the day was over. Fenwick came back as he went. He told himself bitterly that this was no more than he expected. It was no question of future conduct which he had taken out into the solitudes to solve, but a burden which he was girding himself to bear. He had thought of himself from beginning to end, and of Claudia only as one towards whom he had a duty. For him to fulfil this was enough for her.

But he could not see her that night. When he reached his quarters he sent a note to the hut saying that he was dining at mess, and would not be able to look in. He made another resolution, which appeared to him an admirable example of sacrifice, for there was a party to which Miss Arbuthnot was bidden and not the Leslies: he had intended to find himself there, and now resigned it.

Chapter Eighteen.

The result of Fenwick’s meditation might have been foreseen; he felt himself the injured person, and went resignedly to the hut on the following day, prepared to act with magnanimity. Claudia met him as simply as usual, showing no trace of displeasure. A close observer might, it is true, have noticed that she was both pale and heavy-eyed, but, except under the influence of a dominant personal interest, Fenwick was not a close observer, and he merely registered a mental note that her young beauty was of too variable a nature to be counted upon. His sister, however, quickly became aware that he was himself disturbed, and she took an opportunity of calling Claudia into the next room.

“Something has gone wrong with Arthur, I can see. I know his face so well! Do be careful what you say,” she added anxiously.

“Has anything gone wrong?” asked the girl, with a curious little laugh. “Well, don’t be afraid. Perhaps I can set it right.”

Mrs Leslie shook her head. She had no confidence in Claudia’s powers, and she dreaded beyond words, another eight days’ wonder over her brother’s love affairs. Major Leslie was waiting for her in the garden, and when she went out she was so full of her fears that she confided them, with signs towards the window.

“I am dreadfully afraid there is something in the wind. Arthur looks like a thundercloud.”

“Pleasant for her!” said little Major Leslie, whistling.

“That’s the worst of it. She might manage, but unfortunately she has no tact whatever, and Arthur will require the most delicate handling from his wife. Lawrence, this gardener is absolutely no good.”

“I don’t see anything amiss.”

“Then look at that border.”

The two wrangled, and strolled away together. Claudia, after a momentary hesitation, a momentary locking of her small fingers, went back to the pretty cool room, and sat down on the window-seat. Through the trees came glints of bright colour, as soldiers passed up and down the road, and now and then a cheery note of bugle or pipes rose shrill above other sounds. Fenwick walked restlessly about the room.

“I suppose you’ll be at the polo this afternoon,” he remarked, stopping to straighten a picture, “as you’re so awfully keen on that sort of thing, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am,” she said slowly. “But I am not going to the polo. It was about this afternoon that I wanted to say something.”

“All right. Here I am!” he said, flinging himself into a low chair by her side. But there was something ungracious in the movement, and his face darkened. He thought she intended to reproach him. Claudia spoke again, still slowly, for her voice was not altogether under control, and she dreaded above all things a breakdown.

“I am just sending a telegram to Elmslie—to my cousins—to ask them to expect me to-day.”

“Oh!” said Fenwick, sitting up. “And may I ask what has brought about this sudden change?”

His dry angry voice acted upon Claudia as a spur. Her eyes brightened as she faced him.

“Need you ask?” Then her voice softened again. “Arthur,” she said, “many words are not necessary, are they? It has all been hasty, mistaken, foolish, but it has not lasted very long. Now let us both—forget.”

“Do you mean,” he asked sharply, “that you wish to break off our engagement?”

“Yes,” she answered, groping for words so carefully that she hesitated—“yes, that is what I mean. I did foolishly to agree to it, and that will always be the first thing I shall remember. Why you wished it I don’t know,”—she drew a long breath—“happily it is not yet too late, and it has just got to be as though it had never been.”

“I should still like to know what is my offence. That I left you to go back alone yesterday? I should have supposed that would have pleased you.”