Frances Peard (continued 5)

She stopped and sighed expressively. Wareham felt a grip of fear.

“I have known men pull through far worse illnesses,” he said doggedly.

“Oh, of course! So have I.”

“But you think in this case—” The words seemed forced from him against his will.

“Oh, I don’t forecast. I have no reason for my opinion beyond what all know, but I hear the doctors daily report, and it—well, no one can call it encouraging. Oh, most sad! Extremely sad! The only son, I think?” Satisfied on this point, she went on—“Now that you are come, I have been telling my husband that as we can leave him in good hands we must see about getting home. Of course, on no account would I have gone when there was no one here to take charge, but poor Tom is hard to hold, Mr Wareham, now that we are in the middle of August.”

He implied understanding, and asked whether they thought of leaving by the Saturday steamer.

“Not a berth to be had. No, Lord Milborough is most kind. He will engage some woman here as a sort of stewardess, and will take us all. I do think it a delightful arrangement, and so would you if you had seen the yacht.”

Wareham thought his approval so unnecessary that he remained silent, and let her talk on, while he, half unconsciously, watched Lord Milborough and Anne. The doctor’s description rose in his mind, but of indifference none was apparent with Anne near. She had gone to the other end of the room, and sunk into a chair, Lord Milborough and young Sir Walter attaching themselves conversationally to it. Colonel Martyn and Mr Burnby, who was older than the other men, discussed salmon-fishing at the table. Wareham caught words which implied that Anne was being reproached with having left them.

“Why on earth you should stop in this awfully stuffy hole at all, I can’t for the life of me conceive!” urged the owner of the Camilla. “You might as well come and live on board at once, and if you’re anxious, I’ll keep a service of messengers running between the inn and the harbour. Come, consent!”

Anne shook her head, smiling.

“I’ve a weakness for feeling the ground firm under my feet.”

Lord Milborough flung an inimical glance at Wareham.

“You needn’t be tied, now that fellow’s come.”

“That fellow! You deserve to be gibbeted by him for the mockery of generations! Show a little respect, please, for wits, even if you don’t appreciate them.”

Sir Walter came to his friend’s rescue with a request to know what Wareham had written, and one or two names having been quoted under Anne’s breath, acknowledged that he had seen them lying on his club table.

“Fame indeed!” cried Anne, with mock enthusiasm. “Mr Wareham will be cheered.” In spite of her adoption of his cause, she made no movement when Wareham rose and left the room. He ran up the stairs, telling himself that he was glad to get out of her presence, and opened the door of the sick-room softly. The door was out of sight of the bed, and the nurse made him a hasty sign to remain unseen. After standing for some time, he sat down, burying his face in the cup of his hands. Hugh was talking rapidly and incoherently, every now and then Anne’s name broke out with a sort of cry; then his voice sank again into the same quick senseless murmur. Pity swelled within his friend; he reflected harshly on Anne, lightly laughing down-stairs, while here a young heart was beating out its life, with thoughts of her uppermost. That she could leave him in this state, he told himself, was inconceivable.

When he came out, an hour later, he retracted, for Anne met him on the first landing.

“I thought you were never coming,” she exclaimed impatiently; “how is he?”

“You are on his lips,” said Wareham.

“He does not know what he says?”

“No. The fever runs high.”

“Oh, poor fellow, poor fellow!” she murmured, a line of pain cutting her forehead. “If he really wants me, remember your promise.”

He could not refrain from saying—

“Mrs Martyn gave me to understand that you were leaving at once!”

Anne flashed round upon him.

“Mrs Martyn talks, but you might know better! Pray how are we going?”

“In Lord Milborough’s yacht, she said.”

“Thank you.” Her tone was contemptuous. “Wait till we are gone!”

His heart grew soft once more under renewed faith in her.

“I hardly thought you would desert him,” he said, in a low voice. “Mrs Martyn, however, spoke as if all were settled.”

“If she goes, I stay,” was Anne’s answer, and he could have wished for nothing more resolute. It was the last word he got, for she vanished.

Before her, he believed in her implicitly; once out of sight, doubted. He was ready to admit that she would go unwillingly, but with pressure put upon her by all the others, it seemed to him that she would scarcely hold out. The following morning, however, when he went down to breakfast, he found Mrs Martyn engaged in cracking an egg. She presented him with a few perfunctory questions as to Hugh’s welfare, only to turn eagerly to her own grievances.

“I must say that this suspense is intolerable, for Anne has got it into her head that we ought not to leave until we know one way or the other, and I really can’t see why. If one could do the smallest good to the poor fellow, it would be quite a different matter. I would sacrifice anything, anything! But you are here, and he has everything that can be thought of, and, of course, his coming out was really a most wilful act on his part. Anne should never have allowed him to join us. I foresaw nothing but difficulty. And I must say it is a little hard on poor Tom, who has his moor waiting, and is naturally longing to get there. For myself, of course I should not care, but I think of him, and am seriously annoyed. Besides—the yacht! Such an opportunity!”

Wareham did not feel himself called upon to answer. It appeared that she only required a listener, until she turned to him and said—

“Pray assist me.”

Upon that he inquired how he was to do so?

“Persuade Anne. When I talk to her, all that I extract is that I can go, and that she will remain behind. Of course, that is not to be thought of.”

“Hardly.”

“No, but she is capable of carrying it out. And it really is absurd! After throwing him over as she did, she cannot pretend to have very strong feelings.”

He perceived that Mrs Martyn was seriously annoyed, thus to give rein to her speech. It drew him the closer to Anne.

“If Miss Dalrymple is resolved, she has probably thought the matter out thoroughly,” he replied, ignoring Mrs Martyn’s last remarks. “And nothing that I could say, even were I disposed to say it, would influence her.”

“What good can we do! I suppose Anne does not propose to nurse him?” she said sharply.

“I imagine not.”

She stood up.

“I might have known there was no use in asking you. Take care, Mr Wareham. Anne is inscrutable.” This was a parting shot as she whisked out of the room.

Whether inscrutable or not, he cared not a rap, for the caution set his blood tingling until he forced himself to turn aside from weighing it. Up-stairs he was not wanted; he sat in solitude for some time, and the young Norwegian doctor was his first visitor. He brought information of a consultation later in the day, said he thought Hugh was holding his own, and spoke hopefully; there was a telegram to be sent, a letter to be written, then a visit to the sick-room, where Hugh knew him, and smiled satisfaction.

That day and the next passed without his having a word with Anne. Once or twice he fell in with Colonel Martyn, who gained in his regard, and whatever his feelings might have been as to the waiting moor, kept them heroically out of sight. Wareham perceived that it would have gone against his instincts to have left Bergen, while poor Hugh’s fate was in the balance; further than this, that he took pains to find advantages in Norway, where before he had only grumbled. Of Lord Milborough he spoke with respect, as the owner of first-rate shootings and one of the best yachts afloat. And more he did not touch upon.

Chapter Twenty.

Not for Two Months.

Beyond the hotel the street is intersected by a wide space, at once a convenience and a provision against the fiery power which threatens Norse towns. The houses are irregular, an atmosphere of shipping hangs about, vessels are moored alongside the pier, seafaring men stroll. When Wareham wanted a breath of fresh air, he went there.

Monday was an anxious day; the fever showed no signs of abatement, and Wareham would not leave the house until late. It had rained all the previous night, pools lay in the broken ground, overhead white shreds of clouds sailed gaily across sweet depths of blue. All was ruffled movement in the harbour, dance of water against the bigger vessels, and a toss from right to left of the smaller boats. Splashes of scarlet, of emerald green, struck out boldly against the black sheds which rose sharp from the waters edge. Red-roofed houses curved round the wood of masts, and the dominating mountain rose in a grand sweep behind.

Here Wareham carried his unquiet spirit. He feared for Hugh, he hated himself for the penetrating dreams of Anne which haunted him. Honestly, he had tried to avoid her, had chosen Dr Scott for his companion, and declined invitations to the yacht, of which Colonel Martyn was the bearer, with scant civility. But she was in the air. He heard the rustle of her dress on the stairs, Hugh babbled her name, he was in the house with her, and the effort to shut her out of his thoughts made him the more conscious of her influence, and kept her always before him.

He strolled along a short pier, where a steamer was unloading, sat down on a coil of rope, and faced the water. Only a few minutes had passed before he caught the sound of voices, and a group bore down upon him, Mrs Martyn and Sir Walter in front, Anne and Lord Milborough behind.

“You have gained a nickname. We call you the Invisible,” Mrs Martyn began, and rained reproach upon him for his love of solitude.

He made no effort to excuse himself.

“Will you come with us now? We are only to be out two or three hours, and I assure you, Anne keeps Lord Milborough to time.”

Anne spoke gravely.

“Why tease Mr Wareham? I admire him for his friendship. If I were allowed to be of use, I should leave you all to amuse yourselves by yourselves, but my offers are invariably rejected.”

“I’ll fall ill at once, Miss Dalrymple, if only you’ll nurse me,” said Sir Walter. He had a small languid face, and an unwholesome skin. Wareham wondered how Anne could tolerate his company and smile upon him as she did.

“Don’t flatter yourself you’d be permitted the choice. Now-a-days a sick man lives under an iron despotism. It is not what he likes, but what he is allowed.”

“Luckily for us,” Lord Milborough remarked, in a low voice.

“I detest those nurses,” broke in Mrs Martyn. “One must submit to them, and all that. Still, I shall always believe that they delight in exaggeration. I’m sure one hears enough of such an illness as Mr Forbes’, and of course it must run its course. But I do not see why one should be alarmed as to the result.”

Wareham looked without answering. Anne shot him a glance which meant, “Do not mind her.” She chattered on—

“And you won’t be tempted? It really is a pity. Well, come in to-night and hear our adventures.”

Anne lingered a moment behind the others. “Let me hear from yourself. Such garbled reports reach me! I am so sorry for him!”

“He shall be told that.”

“And for you. But that I dare say you don’t believe.”

He was too ready. She sighed.

“All this going about does not look like it, but what can I do? We live in a world in which poor women can’t speak or act without remark fluttering about them like harpies. If one could only be oneself!”

With that she was gone. Wareham paced up and down his stones. What did it all suggest? If her words were for Hugh, vanity was scarcely answerable for the conviction that something was meant for him. He hastily pushed away the thought, which at such a time seemed brutal, and looked round him in search of assistance for casting off meditation. The energy of movement presented itself invitingly; he saw a boat near, and signing to its owner, rowed for half-an-hour with purposeless vigour about the harbour, coming in stiff, but braced. As he reached the hotel, Dr Scott met him, and answered his unspoken question. “Very ill.”

“Worse?”

“With the fever so high he must be worse. It saps the life of a man. Poor fellow! I suppose no one can come?”

“No one. I gather you have little hope?” Silence answered the question. All the hours seemed to have been leading up to this moment, yet Wareham was unprepared for its shock. He turned white. Dr Scott went on to soften his unpronounced doom.

“I may be mistaken. One is never absolutely without hope in these cases, where youth is on our side, and I think Sivertsen is more sanguine than I am.”

Wareham went slowly up the stairs, heaviness in his heart. The turmoil about Anne which had filled his mind was suddenly swept into nothingness. Until this moment, it appeared to him he had never realised what hung over them, and all tender recollection of past years surged up like an overwhelming wave. Opening the door, he heard the babble of words rushing incessantly, not loud, but unintermitting. Hugh had grown so accustomed to his presence, that there was no longer a dread of added excitement, and he was admitted at all hours. Sometimes he sat by his bedside, openly in view; sometimes, when the fever ran high, placed himself behind the bed, an unseen watcher. He dropped there now, on a sign from the nurse.

Eyeing the floor, remembrances flitted across it. Hugh the school-boy, as he first recollected him, a fair curly-headed young giant, blue-eyed and open-faced, fighting an older and bigger fellow with indomitable pluck, and at another time taking a punishment which should not have been his. Once on the track, a dozen such memories of acts which had first drawn the two together, upstarted. Times down at Sir Michael’s, where Wareham, a lonely boy, was always welcome. Older life, when Wareham’s intellect had taken him to the front, and Hugh’s idleness hobbled him. Then the days he did not care to think about even now rose up; no words could have made them clearer; he recollected his misery and the young man’s patience, and the recollection thrilled him, striking, as it did, across the mutter of delirium. In natural sequence followed Hugh’s own trouble, which Wareham looked at now through cloudy remorse, impatient with himself that at first sight of the syren he did not fly, that he had been so dull in reading signs, that he had not waited, repressing the hateful letter. Imagination conjured up reproof in Hugh’s hollow eyes; at times, when he caught them fastened on his face, mute reproach, a hundred times more pathetic than words. His ear was constantly on the alert to catch something bearing on it in delirious sentences, he had an insane notion that then he might have quieted him with assurances. Every now and then something struck on his heart with a sound like a knell.

He spent the greater part of the night in the sick-room. Anne’s request that he would himself bring her news of the patient, he ignored. The morning showed a change, but one enemy retired only to make room for another, for which indeed it had been working, and doctors and nurses gathered all their resources to meet deadly weakness. That morning came a request for which Wareham was prepared. Could he see Anne? The doctor had to decide, and gave unwilling permission, fencing it about with limitations of time. In answer to Wareham’s questioning eyes, he said—

“We have not the right to refuse.”

What passed, his friend never learned. He absented himself, and took care not to go up till all fear of meeting with Anne was over. He knew only that the interview had not lasted more than a few minutes, and that the nurse was cross, admitting no right to human nature in a patient. Love, of all disturbing forces, should be shut out of a sick-room. Not venturing to snub the doctor, she snubbed Wareham, while nursing her charge devotedly. But in the course of the day, Hugh looked at him and said “To-morrow,” and he understood that something was to be said to himself. It relieved him, for he had the longing of a woman for a word out of the silence of darkness which he foresaw.

“He wants to speak to you alone,” Dr Scott said the next morning. “The interview won’t be so disturbing, I imagine, as that of yesterday?”

Wareham had to intimate that it was not unlikely it would.

“Bad,” said the other. “However, as I said, I couldn’t consent to prevent a man from saying what he wished at this stage of his illness. You must do your best to keep him quiet.”

“And when?”

“In ten minutes.”

Ten minutes passed, and Wareham was at Hugh’s side. His heart sank at the alteration, and his voice, when he tried to speak cheerily, had a false ring which he fancied audible to all. Hugh looked at the nurse, who retired reluctantly, showing Wareham as she went out that a restorative was on the table.

“I waited,” said Hugh.

Wareham forced his face into a smile.

“Wait longer, old fellow, if you’re not up to talk. I’m here, night and day.”

“I know. You’ve been awfully good.”

His friend did not answer, except by laying his hand on an arm which shocked him by its thinness, and for a little while there was silence which Wareham did not dare to break. What lay beyond it? Hugh’s next words touched the sore.

“The letter.”

The answer was in a shaken voice.

“I would give my right hand never to have written it!”

Fun once more gleamed in Hugh’s eyes.

“Poor old Dick! Odd, wasn’t it? I couldn’t help laughing to find you’d been so bowled over!”

His voice was little more than a slow whisper, broken by pauses, sometimes sinking so low as to be almost inaudible. Wareham felt that the time had come for him to speak.

“Don’t try to say anything, but just listen. On my honour, the thing was on me before I knew where I was, and, while I flattered myself—like a fool—that I detested her for the way she treated you, I never thought that all the time she was slipping into my very heart. At last, one day, I saw myself and her. Hugh, that very day I wrote that letter. And, look here—though I said just now that I would have given my right hand not to have written it, I don’t know how I could be facing you now if I hadn’t.” He reined himself back into slow speech. “I never spoke a word to her. The secret rests between you and me. She hasn’t an idea. Get well, Hugh, and God knows whether I will not stand aside and be thankful that you have her!”

Silence, and the ticking of the clock. The nurse looked in at the door, but retreated at a sign from Wareham. Hugh said at last—

“I urged you to stay.”

“And now you know why I refused?”

“Yes. Poor Dick!”

His look made the question superfluous, yet Wareham said—

“There never will be bad blood between us?”

Hugh’s hand sought his in pledge.

“Never. I want to make it all right.”

“Wait for that, Hugh.”

“For what? For my ghost?” He breathed the words. “When you saw me that morning—what a sell!”

“Nothing had been said,” repeated Wareham doggedly.

“I know. I couldn’t have been so straight—with Anne before me. But you can’t laugh now at my madness.”

“Not I.”

Silence again, and another spoonful at his dry lips. He whispered. “I’m glad I came.”

His friend had no words for this.

“Yes—glad. I know her better.” His voice gained strength, and his eyes turned again to Wareham. “I could have made her love me.”

“I have seen all along that you were the only man she liked,” the other said, with confidence.

“I don’t know.” His feeble hands beat up and down, as if he were indicating balance. “She’s not easy. If I’d lived, I couldn’t have given her up. Now,”—a sign stopped Wareham’s protest. “Yes, but I’m dog in the manger still.”

Wareham felt a cold clutch at his heart for which he loathed himself.

“Be what you like, Hugh,” he said quickly. “No one has so much right to speak as you,” and whatever his heart might say, his will would have bound itself irrevocably to his friend’s bidding.

“I want—you to have her,” Hugh sighed, turning away his face.

Once more the nurse looked in at the door, signifying disapproval. Wareham hastily nodded, and she withdrew her head. He had to put down his ear to catch Hugh’s next words—

“Don’t let us pretend—I’m dying—win her, Dick.”

It was impossible for Wareham to speak. He pressed Hugh’s hand, and he was thinking more of Hugh than Anne.

“Only—”

A pause.

“I told you I was a dog in the manger.”

“Tell me what you wish, old fellow.”

“I want to be remembered—just for a little. I don’t want you to speak just yet.”

“I couldn’t.”

The dull eyes brightened.

“You promise?”

“Sacredly. And, Hugh, I’ve no right to think she ever will consent.”

“Ask her in—” He paused. “Is two months too long? Remember, I held her mine once. I can’t set that on one side. You promise? Not a word till two months have passed?”

“You have my promise,” said Wareham quickly, the more quickly for shame at the murmurings of a greedy heart.

“When you’ve got her—you won’t mind having waited. I’ve said my say, Dick. Yesterday—”

“Yes?”

“I asked her to kiss me, and—she did.” His voice grew stronger, and he smiled feebly. “That other lean-souled woman wanted to come, but I wouldn’t have her.”

“Mrs Martyn?”

“Yes. She’s curious. Say nothing to her, Dick.”

“Nothing. Old boy, you’ve talked enough.”

“Well—” Hugh acknowledged.

A silent pressure, and Wareham went. He wanted to be by himself, and though there were only half-a-dozen people he knew in Bergen, the place seemed full of them; there was not a corner round which they might not appear. He might have walked off out of the town, and been safe, but he would not leave the house for more than half-an-hour. For that time the museum struck him as a safe refuge, and he made for it.

Turning up a broad street to his right, a sailor crossed the road and touched his hat.

“Beg pardon, sir, but ain’t you Mr Wareham?”

He signified his right to the name.

“I’ve a message for you, sir, from the young lady on board the yacht. I was to say as we ain’t going out of harbour to-day, sir, and that if she was wanted, you’d only got to send a boat for her.”

He was told to carry back the answer that Mr Wareham would take care to act upon her wishes.

“You’ve a fine yacht out there,” he added, in order to gratify the man.

“If you saw her sail, sir, you’d say so. But she hasn’t done nothing here, and it seems as if we were going to be too late for the regattas. Never knew that happen afore.”

He departed, and Wareham walked on quickly to the museum, ran up the broad staircase, and wandered into a world of arctic creatures, where he was secure from interruption.

For the last three or four days his hopes of Hugh’s recovery had been low, now some conviction told him it was all but hopeless. “Hugh, old Hugh!” he kept repeating to himself, as the past years of their friendship trooped up again. Always he had been, in thought as well as fact, the elder, the supporter; now in the shadowy twilight of the Great Unseen, Hugh had passed to strange heights of experience; the careless words he used to rattle off, dropped now, changed, as coming from one whose feet were near the eternal shore.

The special thing which Hugh had to say had scarcely presented itself since. It seemed a matter of no moment; something perhaps to be considered in the far future, but not yet. Dying, Anne belonged to Hugh; Wareham’s only dread was lest she should disappoint him, a vague uneasiness about Lord Milborough was in his mind, and he did not think Hugh had any consciousness of this new disturbing element. He asked few questions about her, and it was impossible to say what had passed between them in their last interview, except that he had appeared satisfied. But Anne herself? She had refused to leave the place, had, but half-an-hour ago, sent a message that she was at hand, yet Wareham had his doubts. Did she feel? Did she care? Her own words came back, when she had called herself heartless, and under the intoxication of her presence he had indignantly refuted the accusation. Admitting it even, how was he to blame her? since a vessel can pour out no more than is in it. But with those eyes! Was it possible that no heart reigned behind them? If it were so, Wareham, suddenly stern judge, acknowledged that it was well Hugh should go while yet he loved her, and clung to the dream that she might yet love him.

Chapter Twenty One.

Farewell.

There was no shutting out from Hugh’s room after that day. A silent figure stood at the door, waiting, its very shadow mighty enough to sweep away bolts and bars. Whoever Hugh cared to see, came—except his sister. He asked often for his sister, but Wareham knew that there must have been difficulty in finding her, more difficulty in her reaching them. Besides, Sir Michael’s health was very precarious, and a telegram had mentioned increased illness. Hugh listened, and apparently understood, but weakness prevented his brain from grasping it except for a few minutes. When he wandered now, it was feebly.

Spite of persuasions, Anne went no more on the yacht. More than once Wareham found her on the landing; outside Hugh’s room, her face drawn, her eyes red-lidded; she flung him imploring glances, yet he fancied that when a call drew her inside, she went reluctantly, and came out quickly.

Once she cried to Wareham—

“This is dreadful!”

“As gentle as it can be,” he answered.

“Don’t talk of gentleness—it is horrible, inexorable! To see him lying there, a grey shadow, when he used to be so splendidly living! It was that magnificent vitality of his which gave him his power. When he liked he could dominate. I am pagan, pagan, if you will. Death the friend? Not it. Death is the enemy, the hateful enemy, and we all tremble before him, like cowards!”

She flung back her head, and her red eyes looked defiantly at Wareham. He said—

“I am not a priest.”

“No, but you are a man. Say what you feel.”

“Enemy, then, yes. Conqueror, no.”

“Oh!” She flung out her hands impatiently.

“You are like the rest. What do you know?”

“You tell me that is the end.” He pointed to the door. “I see in it a beginning. ‘The power of an endless life.’ If hope were a phantom, it would fade before the face of death. Instead, it strengthens.”

A great yearning looked at him from her soul through her sad eyes. He had never before seen such a look. She turned away.

As she went down the stairs she said, hurriedly—

“Call me if I am wanted.” Then she came back a step or two. “Not unless I am wanted, mind.”

He took this as a further hint that she dreaded these visits to the sick-room, and would avoid them when possible. As it fell out, she never went again. Hugh drifted into a semi-conscious state, the presence of Wareham appearing to give him a certain satisfaction, but no desire strong enough to require expression. Doctors, nurses, chaplain, friends, watched. Wareham wrote to his father—

“He does not suffer. I do not think he wishes for anything. If I mention your name to him he smiles, but makes no attempt to speak more than an occasional disjointed word. The people here would do anything for us; his illness has confirmed my idea that the Norwegians are among the kindest people in the world, and the least mercenary. Comfort yourself with the thought that he could not have been better cared for even in his own home than here with strangers—but I know what you are feeling, ‘If only I could have seen him!’ More than once he has asked for his sister; he accepts, however, all that we tell him of the difficulties of getting here. Indeed, nothing appears to disturb him. There is an English yacht in the harbour, belonging to Lord Milborough, and he is as ready as others to be of use.

“You will want a word as to Miss Dalrymple, for whom, I know, you have no kindly feeling. You would retract if you saw her now. I am sure she suffers. Whether she ever really loved Hugh, I cannot tell. Had she—but it is impossible to theorise. I am also sure that she liked him, and he is happy in the conviction that he would have won her. This parting is quite without the bitterness of the first. She is at hand to see him if he desires it, and this, though the friend she is with is urgent to return to England.

“I am writing my letter in Hugh’s room, where there is something already of extraordinary peace. If the border-land of death were always so restful, it seems to me that half our dread would vanish.

“An hour later. I have wondered more than once whether he realised his own position, or whether weakness permitted no consciousness beyond the consciousness of the moment, but he has just asked that he might be taken home. I told him there would never have been any question of this, and it seemed to satisfy him. My letter cannot go before to-morrow, and by that time I may have more to add.”

What he added was written the next day in his own room.

“He passed away at nine this morning. The peace of which I wrote to you has not been broken, and dying seemed as natural and simple an act as living. I feel that you will long to be told about the hours before, yet there is nothing for words. It was like a hand slackening its hold in quiet sleep, and no more.

“I was with him throughout the night, and, of course, always one of the nurses; but I do not think he recognised either of us for many hours before his death. The doctors say that unconsciousness usually comes on at an earlier stage. Neither of us knew the exact moment at last; once or twice before we had thought him gone, and afterwards fancied that he breathed.

“Now you will want to know what arrangements can be made, and I must tell you hastily, lest I lose the mail. To-day is Saturday. I am ignorant as to whether there are stringent rules as to the time of burial in Norway, but I do not doubt to arrange somehow, for no steamer leaves before Tuesday, when one goes to Newcastle. I do not telegraph to you until Monday. I should not do it then, were it not for the fear that Ella might be meaning to leave Hull on Tuesday, for, unless absolutely necessary, it always appears to me cruelty to inflict that length of waiting which lies between a foreign telegram and the details of a letter.

“I wish you could see him.”

Wareham spent a good deal of the day with Dr Sivertsen, going through necessary formalities and making the necessary arrangements. He was not sorry to accept the young man’s invitation to his house for supper. They talked of Hugh. Dr Sivertsen spoke of his frank simplicity.

“Something in him,” he said, “resembled the best type among us Norwegians.”

“That is for you to say, not me,” Wareham answered. “If we have learnt nothing else from your late revelations of yourselves, we have been, at least, taught not to classify so glibly as has been our custom.”

“We have thought more than we have written,” mused Sivertsen, puffing at his cigar. “And when I was in England, some years ago, it appeared to me that English conception of the northern character was principally based upon the tales of Frederika Bremer and the stories of Hans Andersen. There they saw one side, and of the moral character, I allow, the best. But they can hardly be said to draw a complete picture. Moreover, you are a writing nation; perhaps are not without danger of writing yourselves out?”

“Perhaps,” sighed Wareham wearily.

“We have the charm you thirst for—novelty. Novelty stands with you for originality, especially when united to daring.”

“Which you have never lacked.”

“In action. Of old our habit was to send the deed before the word. We are changing. I do not say it is for the better; but I dare say we offer greater interest to the world. Your young English lady is of quite another type from Mr Forbes.”

“Miss Dalrymple?” asked Wareham, with curiosity. “I hardly knew you had seen her.”

“Yes. I was interested, understanding from Dr Scott that she was to marry him. Was that so?”

“Hardly. It might have been so in time.”

“It surprised me. She is much more modern, much more subtile. Is she greatly grieved?”

“I cannot tell you. Probably I shall know to-night.”

He rose. The young doctor walked with him as far as the head of the harbour. Lights twinkled here and there, people strolled about, and Wareham was perforce reminded of that evening in Stavanger, of Millie’s pleasure, of what now seemed like the beginning of all things; for what is the day when a man first sees the woman he loves, but, to him, the day of creation?

He walked slowly. No need to hurry back. No one was waiting, no night-watch lay before him. Dr Scott had hurriedly packed, and got off by the Hull steamer, taking the English nurse with him. Wareham felt that he must see the others, and hear from them their plans; Colonel Martyn was the only one he had spoken with, and he had said they would at any rate make no movement that day. As Wareham came near the inn, a party of gentlemen turned out and came towards them, and an instinct of avoidance thrust him into the door of a shop. There he waited until they had passed; what gratitude it was necessary to express, he had a preference for enclosing in a letter. Laughter broke out as they came near. Sir Walter spoke in a drawl—

“Clear deck for Mil at last. Worth waiting for, eh, Burnby?”

“You’re an unfeeling dog,” muttered Lord Milborough.

Wareham, within, saw that he alone was not smiling.

“Wants condolences—” was all that reached Wareham’s ears, with a retreating laugh. He felt angry that even so much had been forced upon him. There was nothing astonishing in the words. Reason might have told him that the Camilla would not have furled her white wings in Bergen harbour unless some pretty strong attraction had influenced her owner. And further, that it was unconscionable to expect regret for Hugh from men to whom he was only a stranger and a rival. But many people, perhaps unconsciously, embody abstract qualities when they present them to their mind, and Wareham, the most reasonable of men, turned reason into an old woman with a shrewish face and an uplifted finger. There were times when he hated her.

He looked into the salon at once, and would have escaped when he beheld only Mrs Martyn, but that young lady had her eye on the door.

“Ah, Mr Wareham, we were expecting you,” she cried, in an injured voice. “Tom has been to look for you more than once, for really, with so many dreadful things happening, and so much to be thought of, I am most anxious to get home.”

Wareham refused to accept the responsibility of their stay. He merely asked—

“When do you start?”

“I hope you will induce Anne to leave at once. She is quite unnerved, unstrung—I do think she might show a little more consideration. But really, this has been the most unfortunate tour I ever made! Poor Mr Forbes ought never to have come out, ill as he must have been from the first. And, of course, Anne behaved very badly to him. I don’t wish for a moment to defend her, only it seems a little hard that Tom and I should be made to suffer for it, doesn’t it? Now the only thing for us to do is to go home as quickly as possible.”

He expressed a hope that her wish would be carried out.

“If Anne is sensible—”

His heart went out to Anne. No, she was not heartless.

“But, as I said, pray tell her that you quite agree with us. I must say I think her wishing to stay here is not, not quite—well, of course, it was all broken off, and it will so attract attention again, just when it was to be hoped it was dying away. I am sure I don’t know how I shall face Lady Dalrymple, she will be so extremely annoyed!”

It appeared to him unnecessary to offer either argument or consolation, and the only remark available was—“You go in the yacht?”

She looked shrewdly at him, and withdrew her plaints.

“How else? Besides, Lord Milborough is very pressing. But as we can’t expect the poor man to stay here day after day, Tom is anxious we should be off to-morrow. They have all just been here. Didn’t you meet them?”

“They passed me in the street.”

“I forgot. Of course you have been too much occupied to see anything of them. Besides, men rarely like each other. Don’t go. Anne will be here in a moment. The comfort that it will be to get back to properly-proportioned evenings and late dinners! You really wish to go? Then I will fetch Anne.” Remembrance of Hugh made it easy for him to beg her not to do this with an earnestness which perplexed her, but she was keen to carry her point.

“You can’t refuse to see a lady, I suppose?” she said, jumping up. “I want you to tell her that she can do you no good by staying.”

“Me!”

“And herself harm. But that—”

She rustled out of the room, with an air of filling space, which belonged to her. Vexed at this special interview, Wareham walked restlessly about the room, turning over fragmentary literature. Two Germans came in, stared at him, went out again. Then, to his relief, appeared Colonel Martyn. His sympathy was unaffected, and Wareham had never liked him so well; but at this moment his merit was the merit of being a third person.

“I went to look for you a couple of hours ago,” he told Wareham, “thinking I might be of some little use, but you weren’t to be found. Sad time this, for you.”

“Thank you. It is. But Sivertsen has been most useful, and in this country the officials don’t go out of their way to be overbearing, as I have found them in Germany. I believe that everything’s arranged. Mrs Martyn talks of your leaving to-morrow?”

A gleam of unmistakable relief irradiated Colonel Martyn’s face. He hesitated over his “yes,” however, and added—

“Unless you want any one?”

Wareham hastened to repudiate such a need, looked at his watch, and yawned.

“Turn in,” Colonel Martyn suggested benevolently, and spoke of the wakeful nights the other had spent.

“Mrs Martyn asked me to wait for her.” He avoided Anne’s name.

“I’ll go and hurry her up.”

In spite of this fresh propelling force, long minutes passed before Mrs Martyn rustled back alone, but in high spirits.

“I am really so sorry, Mr Wareham! Anne is such a strange girl, one never knows how to take her, and she says she can see no one more. But, after all, she has come to her senses about leaving, and agrees to go to-morrow. Congratulate me.”

“I am only sorry my name should have been intruded on Miss Dalrymple,” said Wareham gravely. “She understood, I hope, that you imagined she had something to say to me?”

“I dare say. It really does not matter,” Mrs Martyn returned airily, and he began to discern where the intention had lain. It annoyed him both then and when he afterwards thought of it.

In the room of death, his last look at Hugh’s boyish quiet face made his promise take the form of a most willing offer. Nothing more remained that he could do to please him. Friendship and sympathy were closed for ever here. Only this was left, and it had already become sacred. The look in Hugh’s eyes, the touch of his hand, rose up before him—witnesses.

He was determined to avoid so much as a word with Anne the next day, and as it fell out, had no difficulty in keeping his resolution. The start was made early, and Colonel Martyn, his face verging on cheerfulness, ran up to wish Wareham good-bye. The word said, he asked whether he would not come down to see the others, but men were waiting, and Wareham’s excuse natural. They had quitted the house some fifteen minutes, when he followed, telling himself that to see Anne leave the shores, himself unseen, would do no one harm. For three days past the weather had been heavy, and the coast colourless; now the sun shone out, a roughish wind was blowing, the water danced and sparkled, and the yacht looked like some beautiful creature straining to be free. The launch was on its way. Wareham’s eyes held it as it slipped over the bright waves, until he lost it round the vessel. Presently, almost imperceptibly, masts, lines, sails, began to move with the moving clouds, and—a white cloud herself—the Camilla glided swiftly out towards the open, carrying Anne.

He and Hugh were left.

Chapter Twenty Two.

A Name in the Air.

A fortnight later, Lady Fanny, having meanwhile paid a rapid visit to an uncle’s house, was again at Mrs Ravenhill’s. She had flung over her engagements in Scotland, remarking, and with reason, that until she could get hold of Milborough, and have things started on their proper lines, she would rather not encounter the rush of autumn country-house gaieties. She professed herself to be occupied in the study of economy, as although her fortune would be large, she declared that it would be all given away except a fragmentary residue.

“I mean to shock him by my trousseau, though,” she announced one morning when she sat on the carpet in Millie’s bedroom. “I shall show him just a few of the bills, and see his face!”

Justice to Mr Elliot obliged Millie to remark that she believed he would like Fanny to have the very best, but she was scouted.

“The best, yes, but if you knew his ideas of what the best costs! Now, Millie, I’ll be quite fair, I’ll say nothing, and the next time you see him, get out of him what he supposes would be the expense of a wedding-dress. If his imagination conjures up a sum beyond five or six pounds, I’ll give you a silver frame for his photograph. There, is that comfortable?” She patted Millie’s ankle.

“I’m sure it’s too tight. I couldn’t walk.”

Lady Fanny consulted a small book on her lap, and began mournfully to unfasten a roller bandage.

“I suppose it is too tight, but I really don’t see why you should expect to walk about when you’re done up in strips. And that was my best figure of eight. However, of course if you insist upon such trifles—oh, what is it, Millie? You shouldn’t shriek!”

“Not with a pin running straight in? Oh!”

Lady Fanny began, with shaking fingers, to search for the offending instrument. Found, it was discovered to have punctured a hole from which a small drop of blood was oozing. The girls looked at each other. Fanny got up and walked to the window. From that refuge she remarked—“You’d better bathe it.”

“Aren’t you coming to assist?”

“You can manage that by yourself.”

Millie laughed.

“You won’t do for the hospitals yet, Fanny! There! A bit of sticking-plaster is on, and I am quite tidy. Suppose we give up the bandaging, and try something else?”

Lady Fanny came eagerly back.

“Yes, something else. Will you have a broken collar-bone, or shall I take your temperature? Only—” with a sigh.

“What?”

“The thermometers do break so easily! This is my third. Please be careful.”

Millie promised. The thermometer was inserted under Millie’s arm.

“Now we can talk,” Lady Fanny remarked with satisfaction, stretching herself in a basket-chair. “Oh dear, oh dear, don’t you think it a little hard that I can’t get proper attention from Milborough? This waiting is horrid.”

“Oh, horrid!” Millie agreed. “But you must hear soon. I suppose the fact is that he has been so busy since he came back, that he has not had the time to go into it.”

“Busy! Milborough busy! Little you know him. Too idle to read his letters is more likely. But I do think he might take the trouble to open mine.”

“I wonder whether he met the Martyns?” Millie said reflectively.

“If he has, and if I know Milborough, he has fallen in love with Miss Dalrymple.” Fanny was too much concerned with meditation on her own affairs to notice that Millie made a quick movement before she said—

“You forget—poor Mr Forbes! I do think it is so terribly sad!”

“Ah, but I did not say that Miss Dalrymple had fallen in love. No, no, I think better of her. Even if she had not—but she must have cared! She would never have let him join them after all that had happened, unless she had intended to marry him. Her face is not like one of those horrid girls who lead men on just to throw them over. No, Millie. If you and Mr Wareham thought that of her, you were both shamefully unjust.”

“He did not think so.” She spoke with difficulty. “Fanny, I don’t think you understand. He would never blame Miss Dalrymple.”

A string of undecided questions ran through Lady Fanny’s mind, quick as lightning. “Shall I? Shan’t I?” She gave way, and inquired carelessly—

“Do you mean to tell me, seriously, that Mr Wareham was smitten?”

“Yes. The more I look back the more I think so.”

Millie spoke in a low voice. Her friend jumped up and kissed her.

“Goose!” A cry followed. “Good gracious! Millie! The thermometer!”

“Safe, safe, where you put it.”

“Oh, you’re a dear. You’re made to be experimented upon. Now let us see.”

With heads close together, hair mingling, and the thermometer on a table before them as if it were something which would go off if meddled with, it was studied. First Millie said she could see nothing. Turned delicately, a thread-like line revealed itself.

“Normal is 98 degrees—about.”

“This looks like degrees!”

“Then you must be very ill.”

Lady Fanny turned a tragic face upon her friend, and Millie shuddered with a feeling of preliminary collapse. The practical instincts of her mother, however, came to her rescue.

“What was it when you began?”

“That!” Fanny pointed mournfully.

“It hasn’t moved?”

“It never does!”

Suspicion began to twinkle in Millie’s eyes.

“Which end do you put in?”

Fanny pointed again, this time with dawning hesitation.

“And the other is the bulb! Oh-h-h!” They fell upon each other, as young creatures do, with bubbling laughter. Fanny screwed up her thermometer vindictively, and tossed it into a basket; then, to get out of the reach of Millie’s mockery, skilfully turned the conversation to the point from which it had broken away. She produced Lord Milborough’s letter, and, for the twentieth time, took opinion upon its meaning—“Dear Fan—Don’t be a baby. I’ll write by and by,”—on her dignity as to the baby, and perplexed by being, as it were, set on the shelf, at a moment which for a woman is the one moment to which all time has been leading up.

“It is so strange, so strange!” she repeated. “A whole week ago!”

Millie, turned to sympathy at once by the droop of the mobile mouth, uttered her consolations.

“Dear, you couldn’t expect him to like it very much, and perhaps it is better he should not write at once. Now he will have time to think it over, and be sensible.”

“John has had no answer either, for I told him to telegraph.” She released herself from Millie, and sat up, fun sparkling in her eyes. “Though I knew that was asking too much. If I’d been an old woman to be got into a hospital now! But just for ourselves—oh, the extravagance of it!—he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t! So perhaps Milborough’s had the decency to write to him.”

“And, anyway, you’ll be your own mistress in a year.”

“Yes.” She made a face. “A whole year! Besides, I want Milborough to be nice. And here he leaves me, not even telling me when he is to be at Thorpe again, or whether I’m to ask any one, or—I tell you what, Millie, perhaps we can see something in the World. I’ll run down-stairs and get it.”

The World gave the required information. Lord Milborough’s name figured in a list of visitors at a big Yorkshire country-house. There, it also appeared, were to be found Lady and Miss Dalrymple; and after the girls’ surmises, the names had a certain significance.

“He has actually left the yacht! There is something, I am certain there is something! At another time I should write and ask him,” cried Lady Fanny. “Now, where is Mr Wareham?”

His movements were not recorded.

“Not there, at any rate. Millie, I told you you were a goose. But I have no patience with Miss Dalrymple! That poor man just dead, and here she is, amusing herself. Oh, yes, that explains! I know Milborough. But how can she turn from one to the other? Tell me quickly, Millie, is she the girl to marry him just for the position? Because—a marriage without love—I never before knew how horrible it must be! And poor Milborough, he isn’t very good, I know, but I do hope he will never have that fate.” Millie felt faithless to her friend—cruel—for the glad throb in her heart, and the instantaneous wish to extol Miss Dalrymple. She briskly argued that with the choice which lay before her, there was not the temptation to snatch at this world’s prizes which might beset an older or less beautiful woman. Besides—she smoothed over the fact of their being in the same house as possibly a mere coincidence. Fanny listened, shrewd enough to see something of the forces which pulled her friend’s reasons, and set the active puppets dancing, yet with her imagination captivated, as it had been all along, by dreams of Anne Dalrymple.

Elsewhere the notice in the World was remarked and commented upon. Wareham was still at Firleigh, with old Sir Michael. There he had taken Hugh, and there the young heir was laid by the side of old forefathers, youth stepping in to sleep between them as quietly as they. For centuries Forbes’ had lived and died there; they lay, cross-legged and mailed, in niches; knelt stiffly on brasses, with children in graduated rows behind; their names stared down from marble tablets, vaults held them closely; a few, Hugh’s young mother one, had prayed to be laid under the daisied grass of the churchyard, where the larks sang, and showers and sunshine fell. Wareham often thought of it as the most peaceful place he knew.

The Hall itself had suffered many transformations. It stood, as always, in a cup of land, sheltered by ground and trees, but the demon of damp had only been exorcised by late generations at the cost of architectural beauty, and instead of the fine old red stone house, up rose a solid, substantial square. On one side a terrace flanked it, while the garden was out of sight of the windows, lying behind, and a little higher than the house. Through it the family passed to church, always on foot, for weddings and funerals alike; through it, with the summer flowers massed in gorgeous colour all round, Hugh was carried, three white wreaths lying on his breast, and Sir Michael watching from a bedroom window.

The old man was very ill, so ill that they all knew there would be a second, what—from the ancient custom—the people round Firleigh called “carrying,” before long. But his spirit was still masterful, and his fingers clasped the reins he could not use. He was keen that Wareham should stay.

“When you’re gone, I shall think of twenty questions I had to ask,” he said. “There’s no one but you, Dick, to answer them. Your room’s always kept for you. What d’ye want? Paper, ink, books? Miles will order down anything. And you’ll never need to come again. Stop two or three weeks, till—till it doesn’t all seem so raw.”

Of course Wareham stopped.

A sister of Sir Michael’s was there, a kindly woman, but a little precise, and Ella, Hugh’s only sister, a girl who required to be well-known before you could even in thought extract her from a crowd of other girls. Anything distinctive she appeared to shun. Hugh she adored, and Wareham admired the self-command which crushed back outward manifestations of grief, but it made conversation difficult, since one subject was uppermost in their hearts, and that Ella shrank from, as from a touch on a wound. Sir Michael tolerated no other. Wareham sat for hours in the window, the old man in a great chair by the fire, for fire was necessary for his chilled blood; long silences between them, then perhaps a dozen questions strung on end, each harping on the same note. Miss Dalrymple’s name was like a match to powder.

“She’s the cause,” Sir Michael would violently burst out. “Without that woman, Hugh would have been living still. She should be branded as a jilt. Mark you, Dick, so sure as there’s a God above, it’ll come home to her one of these days. I shan’t forget my poor boy when he came down to tell his old dad that he’d got her to say she’d marry him. I heard him on the stairs. Up he came, three at a time, and into my room with a whoop.” He rambled away into details, where failing memory lost itself as bewilderingly as a traveller in a wood. But he never let go his clutch upon Anne’s sin. Wareham, whose heart smarted to hear her blamed, tried in vain to soften judgment.

“Remember, sir, that if she had made a mistake, she went the best way to mend it.”

“Mistake? What mistake?”

“That of supposing she loved Hugh well enough to marry him.”

Sir Michael smote his thigh weakly.

“She would have, if she’d had a heart as big as a pea. Do you tell me he wasn’t the boy to make a girl love him? Why, there wasn’t man, woman, or child could stand out against Hugh when he set himself to win them. A heartless jade, Dick, a heartless jade!”

Wareham eyed the carpet with a frown. Sir Michael’s anger was unreasonable, because based on imperfect knowledge, and its daily repetition irritated him. One argument, and one only, sometimes availed to check it.

“He loved her to the last, sir. It would have cut him to the quick to think you hadn’t forgiven her.”

The old man covered his face with his hand.

“That was the boy all over. He had his mother’s kindly nature, sweet as sunshine. Never bore a grudge. If he and his cousin fell out and fought, Hugh would lend him his pony an hour afterwards, without a backward thought at his bruises. However badly she’d treated him, he’d have smoothed it over to you. Would she have married him?”

“He thought so.”

“Ay, ay, he would make the best of it. But what did you think, Dick?”

The question he had never yet been able to answer. He muttered something to the effect that principals knew best in such a matter. It seemed to him likely.

“Wrong, sir, wrong. Hugh has told me one thing, and you another, and my own sense, if it isn’t what it was, may be trusted for the rest. She’s one of those creatures that like to keep men dangling round them. Tell you what, Dick. When you write a book about them, call it The World’s Curse.”

When Wareham read the notice in the World, he tried to persuade himself that it was with an indifferently critical eye. If Anne could turn so swiftly from one to the other—let her! He even smiled over it, acknowledging the aptness of the possible marriage. If love were out of the question, as well one man or the other, the betterness consisted in the income, and he mentally took off his hat, and stepped aside. His persuasions, however, were open for his heart to argue with. Lord Milborough might love, but women such as Anne do not invariably carry out what the worlds judgment insists must be their action; the Anne he believed himself to have discovered was too complex to be counted upon. His heart wandered in meadows where hope sprang and budded, for if she held a thought of him, she would not be unfaithful to it, and in a few weeks’ time his lips would be unsealed. Free to love her—free to woo. Wareham’s blood leapt at the thought! Hitherto he had never seen her except in bonds, in fetters; a passion of wild words flew to his lips at the bare dream of permitted speech. Once he caught himself muttering, “I love you, I love you!” when Sir Michael was uttering his usual tirade against her, and something hasty which he uttered in defence gave the old man a suspicion. He thundered out—

“You’re not playing the fool too, Dick?” Wareham pulled himself together.

“I hope not, but if you saw her, you’d understand her charm.”

“Saw her? Don’t let her come here. I couldn’t trust myself. D’ye hear?”

There was difficulty in soothing him, and his suspicion died in the greater disturbance.

Two or three large estates covered the neighbourhood, so that of actual neighbours Firleigh had not many. The houses had shooting-parties filling them, with whom the Forbes’ in their trouble had, of course, nothing to do; the ladies of the houses drove over to see Ella, who escaped from them as much as she could, clinging to solitude.

Wareham used to take a gun and a dog and go across the fields, more by way of pleasing his host, who believed that here was enjoyment, than because he cared about it himself. He was not in the mood for sport; what, however, he did like was the rich ripeness of the time, the filmy cobwebs glittering on the grass, the pale yellow of the reaped corn-fields against the earth-brown. To sit on a log, and let fancy weave other cobwebs, blue and white smiling down upon him from above, had its pleasantness, and, what was more, its peace. Report of the birds he brought back did not satisfy Sir Michael, who was always wanting to bribe him into staying by the best inducements he could offer.

“We must get Dick a day with Ormsleigh,” he said to his daughter, one day. “Pottering about here is miserable work for a young man. He’ll be off before we can look round.”

“Catherine will be here to-day. I’ll tell her what you wish, father.”

“Ay, do. Catherine, now,” he muttered. “There would have been a girl!”

Ella vanished.

The invitation came. Wareham would have refused, but that he saw old Sir Michael had set his heart upon the matter, for Lord Ormsleigh’s shooting was the best in the county.

“I’ll go,” he said to Ella, “since your father won’t believe that I like sport better as an excuse than a pursuit.”

“Dear old dad! His imagination is not strong enough to conceive that any one can find enjoyment except in the ways he liked himself.”

She had overtaken him as he was strolling home across the park. Ella had been to the village, and had just turned in from the road, which at this point sank into a cutting, so as to be out of view of the house. They walked slowly, now and then standing still to look at an opening between the trees, revealing blue depths. For a woman, Ella was tall, and carried herself uprightly. Looking at her, you gathered an impression of force in reserve. To the outer world she was cold. Wareham knew her better, a medium intellect, but a strong true heart. He saw now that she had something to say, and waited. She said it as they stood still.

“Dick,”—she turned and faced him, breathing hard—“let me hear about Miss Dalrymple.”

“I expected you to ask.”

“And I couldn’t before. I’ve been afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That I might not be able to go in and out to father without distressing him. I’ve been keeping everything back, pressing it down with a leaden weight. There, that will do. Don’t let us talk about myself, but—tell me—how was it between them? Would she have married him?”

He had to fall back again on the same answer.

“He thought so.”

“And you thought not? I see it in your face.”

“Then my face lies, for I cannot tell. Remember, I did not even see them together. A woman might have got to the bottom of it all, but I felt myself hopelessly floundering on the surface. He was content, isn’t that enough for you to remember?”

Her eyes met his gravely.

“Don’t think that I am like father in blaming her,” she said. “I believe I understand. And I am glad that Hugh was spared suffering, for he loved her with all his heart, and she would not have married him.”

Wareham looked at her in surprise. Just then they heard steps and men’s voices coming along the hidden road: here and there a detached word or two reached their ears. Was it a trick of fancy which made two of these words sound like “Miss Dalrymple”? As the tramp died away, he looked at Ella, and lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

“Lord Ormsleigh’s party going home from shooting,” she said. “They sometimes cut across by the road when they have been at Langham.”

“Did you hear a name?”

“No.”

“I could have sworn that one of them spoke of Miss Dalrymple.”

“That is very unlikely. More probably she was in your thoughts just then.”

He felt guiltily conscious that she was seldom long out of them. But whether his companion had heard or missed it, the more he thought about it the more positive he felt that those were no phantom words which had crossed his hearing. What should have brought her name into the men’s mouths? Common-sense, which sometimes becomes a very imp of mockery, burst out laughing in his face. Why not, as well as any other name? In these days, beauties unseen and untalked about hardly count as such, fierce lights beat everywhere, tongues discuss familiarly, a serenade is not the gentle tribute of one lover for one ear, but a whole band, drums, trumpets, waking the silence, banging, flaring, calling all men to listen. He had to own this, for he had often moralised upon it. But to feel and to moralise are different conditions, and he resented that careless twitter of Anne’s name in the road.

Chapter Twenty Three.

A Walk.

The next day Wareham spent his afternoon by walking into the small country town where was the nearest railway station. Something which Sir Michael wanted gave him the excuse without which a solitary walk becomes a burden in spite of conscientious evokings of the joys of solitude. And he undertook the further office of calling at post-office and station for letters and newspapers, to the disgust of the groom, who had his own Saturday afternoon diversions in view, and felt himself defrauded. In happy ignorance of his displeasure, Wareham whistled to Venom, Hugh’s fox-terrier, and started.

The day was dark and still, life dragging heavily, as it does in September days, yet not without a sombre beauty. Masses of firs here and there relieved the monotony of foliage, and the gorse spread a burnish of gold on broken ground. In the road it was duller. Mud prevailed, and withering grasses coarsely fringed the mud, while autumn had not yet flaunted its yellows and reds to hide decay. Wareham, generally quick to notice nature, walked on unheeding.

Reaching the town at last, it struck him as usual, as an ugly expression of man, varying between squalor and dull respectability, bare brick and slate in rows. The station was uglier, but more attractive in spite of blackness, something of magic still lingering about the sharp bright lines, the rushing monsters that whizz along them, the flaming eyes that glow in the night. Wareham turned towards it.

He was too early. The London express was not due for ten minutes, and he went off to execute Sir Michael’s errand, promising to return later. It had been market morning, and farmers and farmers’ wives yet lingered in the streets, enjoying weekly greetings. One or two carriages drove about, and Wareham noticed the Ormsleigh brougham at the door of a shop. He went to the post-office, and stayed to send off a couple of telegrams in answer to the letters he found there. Then he walked round by the church, for the pleasure of looking at the noble lines of its tower, and, having by this time completely exhausted Venom’s patience, betook himself again to the station.

Newspaper in pocket, he started for home. As dusk approached, the day cleared, and, facing the west as he walked, he noticed signs of preparation in the heavens, as if a pageant might presently disclose itself. The road was inextricably connected with thoughts of Hugh: as boys they had often ridden home under the oaks, and the absence of change in immaterial things is no less oppressive than its presence in material. Hugh’s vitality was so amazing that it was next to impossible to think of his life having gone out from among them.

He was still a little distance from Firleigh when, with a curve of road beyond him, sounds reached his ears, remote, yet carrying something in them which hurried him forward. Venom in front was plainly puzzled; he had halted, and was considering matters with cocked ears and head on one side. A few moments brought Wareham within sight and quickened his steps to a run, for evidently there had been an accident.

The brougham, which he had recognised as belonging to Lord Ormsleigh, was reclining angularly against the hedge, the horses were disengaged and held by a hatless groom, while a couple of other men, one of them the coachman, had apparently just succeeded in extricating two figures from imprisonment in the overturned carriage. It caused Wareham not the smallest astonishment to recognise in one of them Anne Dalrymple. He was by her side the next moment.

“Tell me that you are not hurt!”

Anne, who was very pale, showed more amazement.

“Mr Wareham! Have you sprung out of the earth?”

“Good fortune brought me here. My question first, please.”

“I haven’t a finger-ache, but I am frightened to death, and poor Watkins is worse. Watkins, open your eyes, the danger is over, and the coachman is dying to get to the horses.”

But Watkins insisted upon uttering short cries of terror, and requiring man’s support. Meanwhile Wareham questioned the coachman.

“A broken pole? How’s that?”

“I don’t know, sir. I could have sworn it was sound, but the off-horse gave a bit of a shy, and it snapped like a twig. Never saw such a thing.”

Further explanation put the credit of seizing the horses’ heads upon a young farmer who was passing, and showed all the necessary presence of mind. Anne’s exhortations at last induced Watkins to struggle to the bank, where she shut her eyes tightly to avoid seeing the horses.

“Now, what’s to be done?” said Anne. “We were on our way to Oakwood.”

“And you are two miles from the house.”

“No more? We will walk.”

“Would it not be better to send on the groom with the horses, and let a carriage come back for you?”

“Thank you. No more carriages to-day. I had a momentary expectation of being kicked into splinters with the brougham. Come, Watkins, you are not really hurt, and I am sure you would rather walk. Think of the tea that waits for you.”

But Watkins’ protestations became piteous. She described herself as all of a tremble, and as unable to stir. Anne tried arguments to no purpose until her patience failed.

“If you like it best then,” she said, “you must stay here until we can send for you, for I am going to walk, and the coachman thinks they can get the carriage home by leading the horses.”

“What, stay here by myself, ma’am, in this dismal road!” cried Watkins, roused to protest.

“If you can’t walk. Unless you prefer to get into the brougham.”

This she declared to be out of the question, and was melting into tears, when the young farmer, moved to compassion, stepped forward with a suggestion. A little way from the road, it appeared, there was a house. If the young lady felt herself able to walk so far, he would be happy to show her the way, and she could stop there until they sent a trap from Oakwood. Watkins, taking a good look at him, and recognising a preserver in a very personable young man, closed her eyes again, sighed, and consented.

“The young lady being provided for, now for the young woman,” said Anne, turning with a smile to Wareham. “I am not so helpless as Watkins, but to walk in the rear of this melancholy procession is not particularly inviting. Is there no shorter way across the fields?”

He glanced at her from head to foot.

“You don’t look fit for walking,” he said, “except in the park.”

“I don’t dress for the lanes,” she answered coolly.

“And your shoes are absurdly thin.”

“When you have finished your criticisms, perhaps you will answer my question. One no more expects criticism from a novel-writer than pepper from an oyster.”

“Thank you. I accept the simile.”

“One good turn deserves another, so will you tell me whether you are going to show me a pleasanter way than the road in company with a broken-down brougham? Or shall I ask the coachman?”

“Certainly not,” said Wareham hastily. Anne’s question was by no means such a simple matter as she imagined. The shortest way to Oakwood took them, beyond a doubt, exactly in front of the house at Firleigh; it would, indeed, be necessary to pass directly before the window. And he dared not cause Sir Michael such a shock. Firleigh lay in the region where little events are chronicled. The appearance of Mr Wareham and a strange young lady, beautiful and beautifully dressed, would reach Sir Michael with the rapidity of an electric shock, and, require explanations. This, at any rate, must be avoided. He must take her into the grounds, but a circuit through a wood would have to be made. He explained that they need not follow the road for more than a quarter of a mile.

“Come, then,” said Anne, “let us get over the quarter of a mile.”

She was in high spirits, disposed to laughter as he had never before seen her, rippling with fun over Watkins, her preliminary look at the young farmer, and evident appreciation of his civility.

“I shall hear so much about him to-night that I hope he may drive all that she felt and did in the carriage out of her head.”

“You were not frightened yourself?”

“Oh yes, as much as I had time to be. But as to nerves, Watkins usurped the display. The bump against the bank reassured me at once.”

“I bless the farmer.”

“Yes. Without him,”—Anne turned paler, she was perhaps more shaken than she knew.

“I suppose that you?”

“I,” said Wareham, deliberately uttering the last thing that he desired to say, “I was, as usual—too late.”

She looked at him inquiringly; their eyes met, naturally she expected more. His mouth grew rigid, under a sudden impression of his own weakness, when he had thought himself absolutely safe, and he added hurriedly—

“Do you see that gate? There we turn off.” Anne’s voice was a little colder than it had been.

“I have not apologised. I may be taking you out of your way. Are you staying in the neighbourhood?”

“At Firleigh.”

There was a momentary pause before she asked—

“And are we near Firleigh?”

“We are going to cut across part of it now.” He opened the gate as he spoke, and she walked by his side for some minutes in silence. Then she said—

“It is curious that we should have met. Of course, I knew that Oakwood and Firleigh were near each other, but—it seemed unlikely that you should be here. Poor Hugh!”

“He would like to know he was remembered.”

“He asked me to think of him sometimes. If that were all—it would be easier to satisfy the dead than the living, for who can help remembering?”

“Not I,” said Wareham, with a sigh.

“His grave?”

“You must see it.”

“And his father—?”

“Sir Michael is too ill to receive visitors.” Wareham spoke hastily.

“Ah, poor old man! But I must drive over and see his sister.” A touch of hesitation reaching her, she said sharply, “No?”

“Remember that they were irritated, rather, I should say, Sir Michael was irritated, by your dismissal of Hugh. Something of displeasure you must expect.”

They faced the west and a fir wood as they walked. Grey clouds covered and contracted the sky, but at the horizon lifted sufficiently to show a fiercely burning line of red, cut by the stems of the fir-trees. Anne stared before her, with her head thrown back. Wareham let his fancy skip to possible futures when they two should walk together, side by side, with no shadows between them. But he would keep faith with Hugh, control voice and look.

“They are unjust,” slowly said Anne, at last, and he started, brought back from rapturous dreams.

“He is an old man, very feeble, and had but one son,” he pleaded. “Ella, I am sure, judges more fairly.”

“Unlike a woman, then. If that is their feeling, I wish I had not come here. I assure you, though you may not believe it, that there was some—sentiment in my visit. I believed I should be welcomed. I should be, if they understood. That was the one time in my life in which I acted unselfishly. And if I had been left alone—if you, for instance, had not taken upon yourself to set poor Hugh upon my track—it would all have died gently away. Friends meddling. When has it not brought mischief!” Anger suited her, and the darkening of her eyes. Wareham felt no uneasiness from her wrath, so lost was he in admiration. “And for a man to meddle! As if his fingers were delicate enough for the task of dealing with our vanity!” She laughed shortly, disdainfully. Suddenly she flashed out—“What did he tell you?”

“He?”

“He. Hugh.” As he hesitated, she added impatiently—“He must have spoken of me?”

“He told me”—Wareham spoke measuredly—“that he believed he should have won you.”

Her face softened, she turned dewy eyes towards him.

“I am glad, I am glad. He deserved to be happy. It is so dreadful to die, and, poor fellow, I have thought since that I might have given him more comfort. Dear Hugh!”

“You loved him!” Wareham exclaimed involuntarily.

Anne flung him another glance.

“Almost,” she said.

“If he could only hear you!”

“Ah,” she said, with a movement of her head, “almost would not have satisfied him or—” She paused.

“Or?”

“Or me.”

There was another silence, silence more significant than speech. When Wareham spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“You have given up, then, that fiction that you are heartless?”

“I do not know,” said Anne quietly. “Was it not you that tried to argue me out of it?”

“You must learn it by something different from argument,” he replied slowly.

She made no answer. In one hand he carried a newspaper, unconscious that he held it in a grasp like that of a vice. They reached the wood at this moment, and stepped under the firs. Anne asked whether they could see the house.

“By coming a little to the right. It lies in a hollow.”

She stood still and looked.

“And I am not permitted to go there?”

“Illness excuses everything. I assure you Sir Michael’s condition is such that we don’t know what a day may bring. That has kept me here.”

“One hears of nothing but death,” said Anne restlessly. “I do not like the house. I cannot fancy Hugh in it. It is gloomy.”

“You see it on a dark day, and saddened. It may be fancy, but I always think that old family places share the feelings of their owners.”

“Then Oakwood should be cheerful?”

“It is.”

“You come there sometimes?” Anne asked. She had turned her back sharply upon Firleigh, and was walking on.

“Sometimes. I shoot with Lord Oakleigh on Monday.”

“That will not be of much use to us women.”

“But I shall venture to call, and inquire for—”

“For Watkins,” Anne broke in with a laugh. “Hers will be the sufferings. We mistresses are made of sterner stuff. Well, we all have what we ask for, and depend upon it, Watkins will get her sympathy.”

He inquired whether her stay would be long. She smiled at the idea.

“You know what these autumn campaigns are like. A flying two or three days, then, bag and baggage, away to the next station. A ‘prest’ day no longer exists. You would discomfit your host and hostess very much by staying.”

“Where has the change come from?”

“From superhuman efforts to exorcise the fiend—dullness. He is the only evil power which the century has not whitewashed, and he takes advantage of his position to keep us all in thraldom. The very flutter of his shadow is enough.”

She lapsed into silence. The wood by this time lay behind them, and before, a rich country of broad outlines. The sky had lost its fire, heavy clouds menaced, once or twice Wareham thought he felt a drop of rain. Saying this to Anne, she turned her face upward. “Have we much further to go?”

“A quarter of a mile to the lodge, half to the house. You can just see the red chimneys.”

“By walking fast, I dare say we shall escape it.” She did not, however, increase her pace. Her next remark was to suggest that he should turn back. “Aren’t you afraid that Sir Michael may hear that you have been walking with me? And through part of his own land!”

“It is very probable that he will hear of it,” said Wareham quietly.

“And you will be in disgrace!” She aimed at light ridicule, but there was a touch of sharpness in her tone, which told him that the old man’s ill opinion had stung her. The next moment she owned it. “If only I could see him! He must have got a distorted notion into his mind. Perhaps you share it still?” Gladly would he have accepted these invitations to the personal. All he dared say was that it was not unnatural that Hugh’s father should have brooded over his son’s disappointment.

“And his death has fixed it indelibly in his mind.”

Anne moved a little faster.

“Perhaps he lays that also to my charge?”

“He could not be so unjust.”

Suddenly she stood still and faced him, soft entreaty in her eyes.

“Mr Wareham, are you my friend?”

Was it the pallor of the gathering clouds which whitened his face? He stammered—

“That—” “And more,” was on his lips, when he succeeded in turning it into, “That I think you know.”

“The only one, then, that I have here. Try to make them feel more forgivingly. Once, I know, you felt as they do; now, if my heart is to be trusted, you are kinder. After—what has past, it hurts to be so harshly judged. Please be on my side.”

Pride, worldliness had all vanished. She spoke like a child, and looked at him beseechingly—so beseechingly that his heart rose in a wild clamour of desire to take her into his arms. The force with which he had to hold back this desire left him staring stupidly, only able to stammer out—

“You need not ask me!”

Perhaps Anne read the turmoil in his face, for her eyes smiled at him, but the next moment she turned away, and walked on silently. When she spoke it was to say—

“Here is the lodge, and your labour ended.”

“I can’t leave you till we reach the house.”

“Oh, very well.” Her tone was indifferent, but presently she put an unexpected question—“You remember Lord Milborough?”

“Certainly,” said Wareham, wondering what he was to hear.

“He hopes you will come to Thorpe next month, when he has some big shoots.”

“Big shoots are not at all in my way.”

“So I supposed. Still, as Lady Dalrymple and I and many other delightful people will be there, your highness may perhaps condescend to find attraction, if not in pheasants?”

Her tone was bantering, but did he dream when he read in it a touch of pressure? Prudence shook a warning finger, Love laughed.

“It is very good of you to suggest it,” said Wareham, “but I really think you must be mistaken, for Lord Milborough and I only exchanged a few words, and—”

“He is even less in your way than big shoots, you would like to say,” broke in Anne, with a laugh. “Well, I own one may have too much of his society.”

“Then why go there?” asked Wareham bluntly.

“Can one choose just what one likes? When I can, I do.” She quickened her pace. “Here is the rain at last.”

“And in three minutes the house.”

The door was open, lights streamed out; evidently another arrival had just taken place, and there was some amazement on the face of the servants at seeing Miss Dalrymple appear in the dusk, escorted by Mr Wareham.

“You will come in?” she said.

“Thank you, no. Sir Michael will be expecting me. I hope you won’t be the worse for your misadventure.”

From the hall she waved her hand without answering. Wareham turned away.

His walk back was mechanical, and he was scarcely conscious of the rain. It was as if Hugh was by his side, asking if his promise had been kept, demanding an inquiry into words and looks. If thoughts had been in the compact, miserable failure would have been the verdict; as it was, Wareham did not believe that he had betrayed himself. But was ever man so hampered! From first to last since he had known Anne, Love and Honour had struggled; there never had been a moment in which he felt himself free to say, “Dear, I love you!” and yet all the bonds were unseen, some might even say, fantastical. And now, at last, when Death had stepped in between the combatants, even Death could not avail. What must Anne think, if Anne thought at all about the matter? He counted the days. A month had passed.

Nearing the house, he resolved that Sir Michael should hear from him who it was to whom the accident had happened, for chance mention of her name, which might very well occur, would give him a distrust of Wareham. But he found that there had been an increase of illness which made all speech impossible, and Ella was so much occupied with her father that he did not see her until late, when she came in to the drawing-room to find him sitting there with Mrs Newbold. The rain had increased to a wild storm, and a log fire was burning. Ella slipped into a three-cornered chair, close by the hearth.

“Better,” she said, in answer to her aunt’s inquiry, “and asking for you.”

Mrs Newbold bustled off. Wareham said something about the storm.

“And you were caught in it?”

“That was no hardship. I simply walked home and changed, and it did not come on till late.”

“But tell me about the accident.”

“Ah, you’ve heard of it?”

“We hear everything,” and she laughed. “If you would like to know how, in this particular case, understand that the stable-boy’s father lives at a house where the lady’s-maid was taken to rest, and she related that her mistress was walking to Oakwood with a gentleman, whose description Jem recognised as yours. He brought home the lady’s name, and my maid conveyed it to me.”

“It is all true,” Wareham said gravely, “and I should have taken Miss Dalrymple by the short cut in front of the house, but that I was afraid of annoying Sir Michael. We went round by the wood instead.”

“And she was not hurt?” asked the girl, spreading out her hands to the blaze. “I should like to see her—to talk to her.”

“That is what she wishes very much. What do you think? Can she come?”

Ella shook her head. It was impossible.

“Perhaps,” she said, “she may be at church to-morrow, and if father is well enough I shall go. Did she speak of—Hugh?”

“And of Hugh’s family. Evidently when she came here she meant to have seen you all. But—as you say—it’s impossible.”

Wareham had also thought about the coming day, its delights and its dangers. Dear delight to look at her, danger lest he should fail in his promise. But here, he told himself, that could not happen; here, where Hugh’s face met him everywhere, here, where Hugh himself lay at rest, neither friend nor love could forget him. When the day arrived it was blustering and wet: Ella and he walked to church under drenched trees, and she wondered whether Miss Dalrymple would be there. Wareham could not doubt it. Nature would draw her to look at a grave. He felt it. He had a curious desire, too, for her to see the lines of old Forbes’ linking past centuries to present, from whom Hugh drew his brave blood. The Oakwood estates doubled, trebled the Firleigh ones, but Oakwood was a mushroom compared to Firleigh, and Lord Oakleigh’s a new title, while the other belonged to the soil.

Anne, however, was not there. He was disappointed, but excuses tripped promptly up. No other ladies came from the house, and to have seen Hugh’s grave in company with her jovial host would have been like sitting with a jester to view a tragedy. He was sure that Anne had done well to avoid it. Could he have taken her there! And a whisper suggested that Anne could generally arrange what she liked. He flung it from him. Here, after all that had passed, she must have walked warily, or have attracted curious eyes. Ella, too, Ella would have been jealous if Hugh had not his due. And the due meant much.

What Ella thought she did not say. The girl had a curiously reserved nature; it seemed so impossible for her to express her feelings, that she was not credited with many. Their walk back was silent; wind-driven rain beat in their faces, and splashed heavily from the trees, sodden flowers lay prostrate in the garden, an old grey dial turned its weatherbeaten face vainly upwards. Wareham tried to shake off the gloom.

“You don’t mind rain, Ella,” he said. “Come for a stretch this afternoon.”

“Perhaps, if father keeps better. But he may want me to sit with him.”

“You don’t get air enough.”

“I find one can live very well without it.”

“Live, but not thrive. We’ll take the dogs, and get to the top of Slopton ridge.” The next moment she stopped, all the colour out of her face.

“Dick—look!” she cried with anguish.

For all the blinds were down, and one more Forbes had joined his forefathers.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Doubt and Pride—Which Wins?

For a week Wareham stayed on at Firleigh, walked with another funeral through the garden and along the church path, and laid old Sir Michael down by the side of his young son and younger wife—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. There was much to arrange, much that a friend—a man—could do to spare poor women. Death, like life, has its routine, which must be gone through, though tears proclaim it heartless; and when the head of a family steps down from his place, another waits to climb into it, all of which needs moving out of the way for some, advancing for others, and filling of vacant space.

Here the heir was a nephew, a young lad of fourteen, hastily sent for from Eton, and present at the funeral with his mother. The boy was a fine fellow, but the mother had that capacity for irritation which is by no means the exclusive property of the ill-tempered. Words, kindnesses even, grated. If it is ourselves that reveal others to us, Wareham found himself reflecting that she presented the world with a likeness of herself, painted blackly, when least she intended it, for she seldom spoke of any one without a depreciatory remark. He resented, too, the airs of ownership she had already assumed, and her benign patronage of Ella. Talking to Mrs Newbold, he let fly his dislike.

“The woman fingers everything as if she were appraising it,” he said. “Her hand crooks involuntarily.”

“I wish poor Ella could have her last days in peace,” sighed Mrs Newbold.

“Do you mean that she intends to stay?” Mrs Newbold nodded emphatically, and sighed again.

“Ella said something, and Amelia jumped at it. She said it would be as well to look round her. Said this to Ella, and not a thank you with it!”

“If I can prophesy at all, this will quicken your own movements. What do you think of doing?”

“Ella will come to me in Monmouthshire for the present. That will give her time to look round, instead of deciding hurriedly.” When things had so far advanced, Wareham felt that he might leave. It annoyed him to see Mrs Forbes already in possession, and hinting at this or that change.

“Ella is young, very young,” she remarked to him one day. “She does her best, but I should never allow the coachman to order what he chose,” and the “I” was imperial. The day before he left, Ella came to Wareham in the library, Venom at her heels.

“You really must go to-morrow, Dick?”

“I must—to avoid war. I can’t be decently civil to your aunt for twenty-four hours longer. You can. That’s the wonder.”

“Worries have shrunk into pin-pricks, I think,” she said simply. “But I am sorry for the servants, who will all leave the place, and who have been here, some of them, as long as I have. Their hope is to return to me some time, but when the dragging up is going on, one feels as though one could never take root again. However, I didn’t come to say all this. I came to thank you, and I can’t.”

“I should be ashamed of you if you could. Look here, Ella, I suppose this plan of yours about going with Mrs Newbold is the best just at present?”

“Don’t you think so?”

“Hum,” said Wareham ruefully. “She’s a kind old soul, but body and mind made up of cotton wool. The finest quality of cotton wool, that I allow, still—”

Ella smiled.

“There’s a time when cotton wool is just what one wants.”

“I’ve never met with it, then.”

She did not go on to tell him that he might. What she said was spoken with hesitation.

“Dick, I’ve been thinking about Miss Dalrymple.”

“Yes?” He drew his breath.

“Shall you see her again?”

He was conscious of the weakness of his answer.

“Perhaps. I hardly know. She spoke of our meeting at Thorpe—Lord Milborough’s—next month. I may or mayn’t be there.” She took no notice of these carefully expressed doubts.

“Please tell her that I should have liked to have seen her. She mustn’t think that I reproach her—I know it made Hugh happy at the last.”

“Yes,” cried Wareham eagerly. “Thank you, Ella. You can be generous.”

“If he had lived, perhaps I shouldn’t have been,” she said quietly. “But he loved her dearly. I believe it would hurt him if we bore a grudge. You don’t, do you?”

He said “No” with fervour, thinking that our own pre-occupations serve as a thick bandage for the eyes, for once or twice he had suspected Ella of reading his secret. It appeared, however, that she was absolutely unsuspecting. She talked on for some time, and he saw that hers was a strong soul, facing the inevitable undauntedly, and without murmurs, strong enough not to refuse tears, but to control them. He said to her once—“You have learned to live,” to which she answered that one hasn’t got to learn that lesson by oneself. It seemed that she feared for the people in the village, who might lose Firleigh advantages, but she meant to talk to Catherine Oakleigh about them.