Front matter (continued 2)

"Thank you, thank you," said the Rector, as he shut the door. "I hope we shall see you again soon."

Armand de la Roche-Guyon bowed, and, stepping back into the circle of flickering light thrown downwards by the cressets at the foot of the steps, became for the second time that evening a disturbing picture.

CHAPTER VII

(1)

"And so, my dear friends," said the Rector, "terrible as is the idea of the punishment reserved for the ungodly...."

"Poor Papa!" thought Horatia, looking up out of the high Rectory pew at his handsome, kindly face, now clouded with the delivery of the sermon that cost him so much ingenuity.

But she was not listening very attentively. Her gaze wandered on and up to the huge Royal arms that rested on the beam over the chancel arch, over the "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness." What stories she had told herself about the unicorn once!

Beyond the top of the great three-decker pulpit there was not indeed much that she could see, except the little square carpeted room without a roof in which she sat, for since she had put away childish things she no longer stood upon the seat which ran round three of its four sides. But she knew exactly how the knees of the young men stuck through the railings of the gallery at the end of the church, how red and shiny were their faces, how plastered their Sunday hair. Moreover, she was sure that in the space behind them, occupied by the singers and players, William Bates was fidgetting with his flute, unscrewing it and putting it together again, and the bassoonist was going to sleep. "I can't 'elp it, your Reverence, I really can't; seems as if there was something in this 'ere instrument," he was wont to plead. Horatia wondered whether he would awake before the end of the discourse.

And then, almost without knowing it, she found herself speculating upon what Tristram and his guest were doing. She had hoped (she put it to herself as "thought") that Tristram might have brought the latter over here. But, of course, the Comte de la Roche-Guyon was a Roman Catholic.

Her mind went back to last night. What an extraordinary knack he had of appearing in a different light every time she met him—he seemed to be almost a different person. She counted up the times.... It puzzled her, but she was by now beginning to realise that it interested her too. And what would he be like when he came to say good-bye? The week for which she had understood him to be staying would be up next Wednesday, and Tristram would be sure to bring him over before that.

She wondered if he would ever come to England again....

The Rector was beginning to descend from his eminence, the clerk below was clearing his throat before giving out "Thy dreadful anger, Lord, restrain, and spare a wretch forlorn"—the metrical version of the sixth Psalm—and of the end of the sermon Horatia had not heard a word.

(2)

In the course of a week it had become abundantly clear to Tristram Hungerford that the Comte de la Roche-Guyon, young as he was, had made a close study of the fair sex, if, indeed, he did not consider himself an authority upon it. It was therefore without surprise, if without appreciation, that Tristram listened perforce, this Wednesday morning, to a dissertation on the subject. The two were on their way to Compton Rectory; their horses had dropped to a walk, and under the bright, windy September sky the young Frenchman imparted to his host the fruit of ripe reflection on the dames of Britain.

"Every time that I am in England," he said, gesticulating with his riding-whip, "I am struck afresh with the curious—how do you call it—limitations of the English ladies. They have so much in their favour, and yet—pardon me that I say it—if you desire the fresh toilette, the graceful walk and gesture, ease in conversation, knowledge of coquetry, you must seek for them in France, for a real Englishwoman knows nothing of them."

"But I thought that our English ladies were supposed to model themselves nowadays on those of the Continent," objected Tristram, keeping the ball rolling out of politeness.

Armand de la Roche-Guyon nearly dropped his reins. "Mais, mon Dieu, that makes it worse!" he exclaimed. "In a party of English ladies you can indeed observe that each has taken a hint from the Continent for her dress or her manner, and the result, ma foi, is often to make die of laughter. I have seen ... but that would not interest you ... Tenez, the way an Englishwoman sits down upon a chair, have you ever thought to remark that? It is as if chance alone had caused her to fall there! She sits down without paying the least attention to her dress. But the care with which a Frenchwoman places herself in an armchair, taking hold of her robe on either side, raising her arms gently as a bird spreads its wings! Even if she should be exhausted by laughing or half-fainting from emotion, still her dress will remain untumbled. It is worth remarking, I assure you!"

Certainly these observations would never have occurred to Mr. Hungerford, and to judge by his expression, he had small wish even to make them vicariously. His companion was instantly aware of this.

"Forgive me, mon ami! I see that you think it is not convenable that I should thus criticise your fair compatriots, whom, du reste, I admire from the bottom of my heart. And let me assure you that I have no criticisms for Miss Grenville; she is perfection itself."

"You are very good," replied Tristram, without trying to suppress the irony of his tone.

The corners of the Comte's mouth twitched, and to Tristram's relief he touched up his horse for a sign that the subject was done with. As their hoofs rang sharply on the road the Englishman glanced once or twice at the clear profile beside him, stamped so visibly with the mark of race—and with what else? That was the question. Armand seemed to him such a boy—but not an English boy. Well, he was very attractive, but——

As they were fastening up their horses outside the Rectory, the subject of these speculations suddenly said, with an air of great earnestness, "Mon ami, I wish you would explain to me one trait in the English character which I have never been able to understand. An Englishman is so haughty, he has such high notions of what befits a gentleman, and yet he will receive money from the man who has seduced his wife. If I had run away with the wife of an Englishman, I should expect to give him the chance of putting a bullet into me, but he would expect me to pay him in bank notes the value of the lady—how one estimates that I know not. Can you solve me this problem of the English character?"

Though the Rectory drawing-room was empty, Tristram did not attempt to elucidate this point, and his questioner, whose query was probably only rhetorical, sat and gazed with deep and silent attention at a picture of Daniel in the lions' den, worked in silks, which hung over the sofa. Then the door opened, and admitted the Rector, looking rather worried.

"Ah, M. de la Roche-Guyon, I am very glad to see you! Tristram, this Otmoor business is disgraceful! I hear there was a riot in Oxford on Monday night, and that the mob succeeded in releasing the prisoners."

"It is true," returned Tristram. "We were in Oxford on Monday evening, La Roche-Guyon and I, and saw it——"

"Saw it! Well, was it as bad as I have heard?"

"There was rather a scrimmage," admitted the young man. "The soldiers had no chance against the mob. St. Giles's Fair was on, of course, and it was in St. Giles that they rescued the Otmoor prisoners—about sixty of them—from the waggons."

"And what were the escort about, pray?" demanded Mr. Grenville indignantly. "What were they, by the way?"

"Oxfordshire Yeomanry. They held their own as well as they could, and had rather the advantage, as far as we could see, till they turned down Beaumont Street. Then the crowd got the better of them."

The Rector shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot conceive what you must think of us, M. le Comte," he said, turning to the Frenchman. "You will imagine that the reign of law and order is coming to an end in England."

"As in France," finished Armand good-humouredly. "Ma foi, M. le Recteur, it has reminded me a little of the Days of July; I own that I have not expected to see street fighting in England, and in a city so calm, so academic as Oxford! But one never knows. There was one soldier—a sergeant I think—who ceased not to fight till he was disabled. The populace were fierce against him ... It is strange, how John Bull loves not the military. I have remarked it before. (These observations are harmless, mon ami, is it not?) John Bull thinks much more of the taxes which he pays to keep up the army than he does of military glory. That he calls stuff. Is not that so?"

"What you say is profoundly true," answered Mr. Grenville, impressed; but at that moment the door opened and Horatia came in.

An "Oh!" of surprise escaped her, for she imagined the young Frenchman to have gone, and without taking leave.

"You are a ghost!" she said to him, recovering herself. "I thought you were leaving us to-day."

Tristram broke in. "I have persuaded M. de la Roche-Guyon to stay till the beginning of next week, because I had the idea that he might care to go to the Charity Ball which Lady Carte is getting up on Monday, and also I thought of arranging my little dinner-party for this Saturday, if the date suits you and the Rector? I know that it is all right for Dormer."

Miss Grenville looked at her father. "That will be charming. It will do excellently for us. May we ask if there is to be anyone else besides Mr. Dormer?"

"Yes, I am going on now to ask the Edward Puseys; they are still at Pusey with Lady Lucy, I believe."

"I think they must be," corroborated Horatia, "for I met him driving his wife over to call on the Mainwarings two or three days ago. He did not look much as if he were thinking of what he was doing."

"I am glad that you are going to ask them, Tristram," commented the Rector, who had known the Pusey brothers since they were boys. "That young man's learning is stupendous. Too much was made, in my opinion, of his supposed sympathy with the new German theology, and I am glad that he did get the Chair of Hebrew."

"And I am glad too," added his daughter, "because they have such comfortable lodgings at Christ Church. I hope I shall stay there again some day. I like Mrs. Pusey, and it is so romantic to think that they waited ten years for each other, but I am rather frightened of him."

"Permit me to say that I don't believe you are really frightened of anybody in the world," observed Tristram smiling.

"Tristram, how can you say so! I am dust and ashes before Papa when he is really cross—and terrified of you, when you are in your conscience mood.—Is there anyone else?"

"We are short of ladies, and I thought it would interest M. de la Roche-Guyon to meet the Trenchards, who are staying just now with their aunt, so I shall ask her to come and bring them."

"Very nice," murmured the Rector. "Beautiful girls, if they are like their elder sisters—though, of course, none of them could ever compare with their step-sister, the French one."

Horatia turned to Armand, who had been sitting unusually silent. "Doesn't it flatter you, Monsieur, that Papa's ideal woman should be French?"

"Mademoiselle," returned the Comte instantly, with an inclination, "our ideal women are always of another nationality than our own!"

Tristram got up. "Well, we must be getting on, if that is settled, and you can both come on Saturday." M. de la Roche-Guyon also rose, very slowly.

"No, Tristram," interjected the Rector, laying hold of his arm, "you positively must stay ten minutes, because I've had this letter from Liverpool about James Stack and his wife emigrating to Canada. I had thought I should be able to get them off almost at once, but the shipping company say—there, you'd better see it." He fumbled in his pockets. "Horatia, suppose you take M. de la Roche-Guyon into the garden for five minutes."

Horatia was preceding the guest down the path when he said softly behind her: "There are advantages, after all, in Canada's having passed into English hands. As a Frenchman, I never expected to admit them."

"Why, what"—began Miss Grenville, stopping, and then suddenly finding his meaning quite clear. She coloured, was angry with herself, and tried to retrieve her slip by saying, "Papa has helped two or three of the parish to emigrate out there."

Armand was now walking beside her, along the line of flowers where autumn had begun to lay a hand in the week that had passed since he had sat there. But he showed no disposition to follow up his sally. On the contrary he looked rather moody, almost cross. It was a new phase. And after a moment or two he said, kicking a stone along the path:

"I am not looking forward to this dinner-party, Mademoiselle. Mr. Hungerford is too kind. What have you and I to do with these grave persons? I don't know Hebrew!"

It was new to Horatia to be classed among the more frivolous portion of an assembly, and classed there by, and in conjunction with, a young man. "Ah, but you forget the Trenchard girls," she said lightly. "They do not know Hebrew either, and they are very pretty. Their mother is French; have you not heard about them?"

"Mr. Hungerford told me something, but I am afraid I did not listen; I was not interested."

"But you ought to be interested. It is rather romantic. Their mother, when she was quite young, was a lady-in-waiting to Madame Elisabeth. She fled to England, and her lover—who was a Frenchman, of course—fought through the Vendean war and came to England and married her. But next year he went back with the expedition to Quiberon, and was killed there. I can't remember his name. Then she married Mr. Trenchard, a Suffolk squire, and had several children, I think about eight—anyhow Trenchards have been staying here with Mrs. Willoughby, who is Mr. Trenchard's sister, ever since I can remember. And once I saw Mrs. Trenchard herself; somehow she did not look as if she had been through all those things as a girl."

Her hearer lent her sufficient interest, at any rate he was looking at her, a tiny frown between his dark eyebrows. "But you spoke of another daughter?"

"The child of the Vendean—born after his death, I believe. I never saw her. But Papa remembers her; more beautiful and gracious than one can possibly imagine, he says. She went into a convent in Rome."

M. de la Roche-Guyon said nothing, and having come to the end of the path Horatia stooped to a late rose in the border. She was finding his evident ill-humour oddly disturbing.

"Let us speak of the ball on Monday—my last day," he said watching her. "How many dances will you vouchsafe me—in the cause of charity?"

And Miss Grenville, plucking the wet rose, found herself replying, to her no small amazement:

"That depends on Mr. Hungerford."

"Comment!" exclaimed the young Frenchman, stepping backwards. "Mais, juste ciel, il n'est pas votre fiancé!" His eyes blazed at her, and he had quite perceptibly paled; it was obvious that he was unaware of his lapse into his own tongue.

"Certainly not," replied Horatia with dignity. (She had been right about his eyes; they could look fury.) "But he is a very old friend and kinsman, and we always arrange to dance so many together."

Armand de la Roche-Guyon made a gesture, and smiled, quite sweetly. "I understand—mais parfaitement! Comme vous êtes femme ... adorablement femme!" He touched her hand a second, and Tristram and the Rector came down the path.

CHAPTER VIII

(1)

Mr. Hungerford's little dinner-party had gone the way of all dinner-parties. The Rector had pronounced it, from his point of view, a decided success. "A most enjoyable evening, my dear," he said to Horatia, as they were driving home. "Whatever else that man Dormer of Oriel is or is not, he is a brilliant talker when he pleases. And I had a good talk with Edward Pusey afterwards in the drawing-room. The Arabic catalogue at the Bodleian is a colossal piece of work, but from what he told me I think his plans are too ambitious—not beyond his scholarship, mark you, but beyond his physical strength. He confessed to me that he sometimes almost envied the bricklayers whom he saw at work in the streets, the drudgery was so great."

"But Mr. Pusey is a young man, and he needn't make Arabic catalogues unless he wants to," Horatia had responded rather unsympathetically. For she had not found the party so delightful. She had been taken in by Mr. Pusey, and though Armand de la Roche-Guyon sat on her other hand, his partner, Miss Arabella Trenchard, had talked to him a great deal, and he had seemed to like it. It was quite natural, of course; he probably liked everybody, and Miss Trenchard was very pretty, much prettier than she herself; so that it was no wonder if M. de la Roche-Guyon had been by no means as bored as he had predicted. But, at all events, he had found his way straight to her in the drawing-room afterwards, and chatted to her ... till Mr. Dormer, showing a most unusual taste for her society, had come and made a third ... and, to be quite just, had talked so delightfully that she almost forgave him the intrusion, at the time. Afterwards, it rankled increasingly.

But now it was Monday morning, the morning of the dance, and Horatia, in the drawing-room putting some asters into a bowl, was aware of being in a state of causeless and febrile excitement. She could not but ask herself what there was in a dance so to excite her; she was not a young girl any more; she had been to many such. Yet she was conscious that this ball was clothed in her imagination with the glamour of an untasted pleasure, and that the thought of it was like some splendid palace built on the edge of a precipice, beyond which there was nothing.

She had just carried the bowl to the mantel-shelf when, without warning, M. de la Roche-Guyon was announced to her. Horatia was startled, almost discomposed, and the vessel, which was "Wheatsheaf" Bow, narrowly escaped destruction.

"Mr. Hungerford sent me with a note," said the young Frenchman apologetically. "That is my excuse for deranging you so early, Mademoiselle; you must forgive me. It is about to-night."

She took the letter and read:

"My dear Horatia,—

"I am obliged to go into Oxford this evening to meet Mr. Rose, a man from Cambridge, at Dormer's rooms, and cannot possibly return in time for the Charity Ball; in fact I shall have to spend the night in Oxford. Would you and the Rector be so kind as to consider M. de la Roche-Guyon as of your party? There is of course no need for him actually to accompany you. It is most unfortunate that this summons should have come just now, and that I must reluctantly forgo an evening to which I had looked forward with so much pleasure. I shall come to dinner, if I may, when I am at liberty, and make my apologies to you in person.—T.H."

Miss Grenville, on reading these lines, stamped her foot.

"How tiresome, O how tiresome! Why could not Tristram have gone to Oxford any other night!"

"You are sorry that Mr. Hungerford cannot come to the dance?" inquired the Comte, who seemed already acquainted with the purport of the note.

"Why, of course!" flashed Horatia, out of her burst of indignation. "Are you, then, glad of it, Monsieur?"

"In one sense, yes," replied M. de la Roche-Guyon coolly. "Because now I can ask for the dances of your kinsman as well as for my own."

Miss Grenville saw fit to take no notice of this sentiment, continuing along her own line of thought.

"How like Mr. Dormer! Everything must give way to what Mr. Dormer arranges and wishes. I have no patience with it—I am sure you do not like him either!"

"Mon Dieu, I should think I did not," replied the young man warmly, "considering that he spoilt my evening on Saturday! He might have left us that quarter of an hour in the drawing-room. I could almost believe that he did it on purpose.... No, Mr. Dormer does not amuse me."

"You have seen a good deal of him," said Horatia, restored to good humour, for she discerned a common feeling.

Armand made something of a grimace. "Mr. Hungerford has been kind enough to take me to see him twice. I do not like priests. They know too much."

"But Mr. Dormer is not a priest," returned Horatia, half amused.

"Well, perhaps not, mais il en a l'air, and he needs only the ... what is it, la soutane?—the cassock, yes, and the sash that the delusion should be complete. Besides, he has the book."

"What book?" asked Horatia, mystified.

"The priest's book, the breviary. It was lying open on his table when we went in to see him at the college of Oriel. Almost I fancied myself chez Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon, my cousin."

"Oh, I understand!" said Horatia. "He is translating some of the hymns from the Paris Breviary—why, I don't know. I think I remember Tristram telling me about it in the spring. Mr. Dormer and several of the other Fellows at Oriel are what is known as High Church, and they are always doing queer things."

"High Church?" queried the young Frenchman, "what is that? And what queer things is it that they do?"

"Oh, it's so boring," said Miss Grenville wearily. "They think the Church of England is in danger; I don't know why, for it has gone on comfortably enough all these years without them. So they meet and talk a great deal about it—in fact, that is no doubt why Tristram has so tiresomely to go into Oxford this evening—fresh alarums and excursions, I expect... Papa was very much shocked when he heard Mr. Froude say that the Reformation was a mistake, but when I told him afterwards that I thought they had better all turn Papists, and have done with it, he didn't like that either ... O forgive me! What have I said!" The colour rushed over her face. "I had forgotten for the moment; of course you are a Catholic yourself."

"But I had rather that you forgot it," exclaimed the young Frenchman, with an expressive gesture. "I am a Catholic, it is true, because—well, because one has to be. Royalism and the Church stand together; but I am not devout—pray do not think so!"

Horatia hastened to assure him that she had never suspected him of this, and they both laughed.

When he had gone she went upstairs and looked at the gown that she was to wear that night to dance in the palace which would crumble to ruins at daybreak.

(2)

The aching elbows of the fiddlers had several times been eased by surreptitious potations; the candles were beginning to gutter, chaperons' heads to nod sleepily. A light dust hung in the air from the action of so many pairs of twinkling feet upon the beeswax, and the Hon. and Rev. Stephen Grenville was distinctly conscious of a desire for his bed. Nor did the converse in which he was entangled with an elderly entomologist staying in the neighbourhood really reconcile him to sitting through so many quadrilles and country dances—to hearing selections from La Gazza Ladra give place to Basque Roads, Der Freischütz to Drops of Brandy. The Rector had no enthusiasm for lepidoptera, and he could by no means get the collector of beetles to listen to his own views on monoliths. Not inappropriately did the entomologist discourse of the butterflies of Berkshire, its obscurer moths, in this big room cleared for the Charity Ball and full of a throng as bright and moving, but the scientific mind does not unbend to these analogies, and it might have been conjectured that he did not even see the fair guests had he not, during a waltz, suddenly inquired:

"Who is that extremely attractive young lady dancing with the French count—there, in yellow—a prodigious fine dancer?"

Probably one of the Trenchard girls, thought the Rector, and looked. But no! He pursed his lips. "That is my daughter," quoth he.

"Dear, dear," observed the entomologist, human after all, and he put on his glasses the better to observe the phenomenon. "My dear Mr. Grenville, I congratulate you, I do indeed. A most charming girl."

Flushed and smiling, Horatia whirled slowly past. No need to ask if she found her partner congenial. The Rector's eyes followed the couple, and it began to dawn upon him that he had been thus following them, unconsciously, a good many times that evening. Was this really so? Even as the question occurred to him, the Squire, beaming in his blue, gilt-buttoned evening coat, appeared on his other side.

"Hallo, Rector," he said cheerfully. "Going well, ain't it? That young French spark seems to be enjoying himself. They make a fine couple, eh?"

"Who do?" asked Mr. Grenville rather unwisely, as the golden dress came past again.

"Why, your girl and he, of course," said the Squire, with all the effect of a wink. "There they go. How would you like her as Madame de—what's the fellow's name?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Mainwaring," said the Rector rather tartly. "We have had to be civil to the young man because he is Hungerford's friend, and no doubt he finds my girl, who speaks French well, is easy to get on with——"

"Yes, especially as his own English is so bad," retorted the Squire grinning. "Well, well, we're only young once. I remember when I first met my wife.... You're not thinking of going before it's over, Rector?"

Mr. Grenville put back his watch. "It is a good deal later than I thought. I told Dawes to be here at twelve o'clock."

No consciousness of eyes paternal, entomological or matronly was on Horatia during that last intoxicating waltz. She loved dancing, and she had danced a good deal, but never with a partner like this.

The music stopped (a little out of tune).

"Are you giddy?" asked Armand tenderly.

"A little," said Horatia, with truth. "It is so hot..."

He drew her hand a little further through his arm. "Here is a doorway. Where does it lead to? Voyons ... ah, the library, and empty. Quelle chance! On est bien ici, n'est-ce pas? See, here is a chair; give me your fan."

But she would not sit down.

"I must go back to Papa."

"Not yet. He will have you all the days, and I have only these so few moments more of you."

"You are really leaving to-morrow?" asked Horatia in a conventional tone.

"Si fait. I return to Lulworth, and thence to Paris. And you will never think of me again."

Horatia did not answer this time, for she found she could not.

Armand stopped fanning. "I shall have only this to remember you by, for I mean to keep it," he said, looking down at the painted ivory in his hand. "Mais il suffira. Yes, I hear them, the violins; il faut s'en aller: il faut se dire adieu.... Nous ne danserons plus ensemble ... Adieu, adieu, toute belle, adieu pour jamais!"

He crushed her hands fiercely to his lips. Her head whirled a second; then she tore them away.

"Please go ... ask Papa to come and fetch me here ... I will not go back into the room...."

He looked at her strangely, almost wildly, but she would not meet his eyes. "Please go," she reiterated faintly, and Armand, suddenly dropping on one knee, put his lips to the hem of her dress—and was gone.

And loud through the strains of The New-Rigged Ship, now pouring under the archway, she heard the heartless marching beat of Joli Tambour.

"Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,

Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,

Et ran, tan, plan!"

Mr. Grenville hurried in almost immediately, his daughter's cloak on his arm. Horatia was lying back in a big leather chair. She looked curiously white, but roused at once.

"Is that my cloak? Thank you, Papa, very much. It is time to go, is it not, though it is not quite over."

"That is what I was thinking, my dear," said the Rector, putting the swansdown over her. "I believe we have been keeping Dawes waiting. Have you got everything—your gloves, your fan?"

"Everything I want, thank you, Papa."

The old fat horses and the careful Dawes did not devour the five miles that lay between them and home. After a few desultory remarks, both father and daughter relapsed into silence, each in a corner of the barouche. But Horatia had drawn off her gloves, and in the darkness was pulling and twisting them into a rope, endeavouring to keep down the sobs which rose chokingly in her throat. Had anything in the world ever hurt like this? All the while the horses' hoofs beat out the refrain, relentless, and so horribly gay. "Et ran, tan, plan. Et ran, tan, plan!" With all her desperate fight for composure she only succeeded in keeping back the main violence of the storm; the smaller rain-clouds broke despite herself, and, quietly as she wept, the Rector was aware of it.

"My darling, what is it?" he said, putting out a hand to her.

"Nothing," replied Horatia, swallowing the tears. "I am tired ... and stupid ... I danced too much..."

("Dans mon pays y'en a de plus jolies,

Dans mon pays y'en a de plus jolies!")

"I thought you looked tired, my love," replied Mr. Grenville, exceedingly alarmed but (he hoped) tactful. "I heard one or two people saying that the floor was not good. Come, child, put your head here; perhaps you will be more comfortable; and we shall soon be home."

Whether or no he knew why she wept, Horatia could not resist the kind voice, and all the rest of the way her elaborately dressed head lay against her father's shoulder.

She kissed him silently when they got in. No, she did not want her maid. Again she repeated that she was only tired; she would be all right in the morning, and so went to her room.

Fool, fool, that he had been! But what had happened? At any rate they had not come to an understanding; that was obvious. And, thank God, the young man was going away to-morrow. But he could not bear to see her suffer. Twice he went and listened shame-facedly at her door; she was sobbing, sobbing as if her heart would break—she who never cried! At dawn, when the birds were twittering, he went again; she was quiet. He prayed God she slept. It was more than he could do.

CHAPTER IX

(1)

The Rector breakfasted alone next morning. Miss Horatia was very tired; she might not be down till the afternoon; she would sleep if she could. Recognising this as an indication that she did not wish for a visit from him, Mr. Grenville with a heavy heart tried, in succession, to tackle his next Sunday's sermon, to furbish up an old one, to read the violent article on Clerical Farmers in the last number of the Gentleman's Magazine, to compose an answer to it, and to rearrange some of his coins. In the afternoon he had to attend a meeting of magistrates at a distance. He wondered if he should see Horatia before he started. Never before had a dance kept her in bed next morning.

Just as the gig came round for him she appeared, wearing a hat and carrying a basket. All traces of last night's emotion had vanished.

"Good morning, or rather, good afternoon, dear Papa," she said very cheerfully, kissing him. "Am I not late? But I was so tired last night. Where are you going to? Oh, I had forgotten. I am going to old Mrs. Dawes; and if there are any blackberries ripe I shall take her some. She says they are good for the rheumatics. I don't believe her. Good-bye, darling...."

The wheels of the gig grated on the drive, and Mr. Grenville turned round to wave a farewell, but without his usual smile. He looked worried, poor dear. How could she best efface the memory of last night's self-betrayal from his mind? Obviously best by a cheerful, a very cheerful demeanour, such as she had already attempted. She had forgotten in truth that her father was going to this meeting; there was then no need for her to leave the house this afternoon—her motive in so doing being to gain a little respite before he should question her, as he very well might. But since she had told him that she was going, go she would. As well begin the usual life at once. Mrs. Dawes would detail her symptoms at length, and that would serve as a temporary distraction.

This indeed the old dame did with much thoroughness and repetition, after which she seemed disposed for general conversation.

"That there French count, Miss; a likely young gentleman, I hears; he be gone from these parts now, bain't he?"

"I believe so," said Horatia. "But you were telling me about your grandson?"

"John, he seed him riding droo the village on Mr. 'Ungerford's 'orse," pursued Mrs. Dawes, not to be turned aside. "He ride proper, John says; and he wur surprised fit to bust hisself, John wur."

"Why?"

"The Count being a foreigner, Miss, and a Papist. I don't hold with no foreigners; a bloody-minded set, I calls 'em. Look at that Bonyparty as cut off the 'eads of the King and Queen of France. I mind how the year that you was born, Miss 'Oratia..."

It was nearly six o'clock when Horatia emerged from Mrs. Dawes' cottage. She was surprised to find the invasion of twilight already begun, and an enormous yellow moon looking at her through the tree-trunks. Yet she was in no haste to return home, but loitered along the road, picking a few blackberries as she went. One or two villagers passed her, and their evening salutations rang heartily on the still air. "Rector, he'll be having a rare treat to-morrow," was the comment of one, but Horatia overheard Whitehead, the smith, a melancholy personage, who passed at the same time, opine that, "them berries was mortal bad for the innards, and did get in atween a man's teeth like so much grit."

After him there was silence; only a few far-away sounds from the village reached her. The grass at the edge of the road was already damp. It was time to return.

In the Rectory the lamps would be lighted; her father would be back, and he, who always heard her step, would come out of his study and say, "Well, my dear, and how is Mrs. Dawes?" It would be chilly enough to have a fire after supper, and she would sit with him, and talk to him; or, if he had not finished his letters, she would go on with the last series of The Tales of a Grandfather. And Dash, on the hearthrug, would whimper in his sleep because he had dreams of rabbits which he never caught....

And it would be the same to-morrow, and the next day. Once she had loved it—that other Horatia only a few days dead, who seemed so strange to her now, had chosen it. Now ... how should she bear it! how should she bear it!

She moved on very slowly. Strange, dim scents came out of the hedgerows; a bird fluttered in an elder-bush. How early the moon was rising! The sky just overhead seemed still the sky of day. It was pain, this peace and beauty ... and it was not peace. The quiet country lane, the pure, still sky, were all athrill with expectation.

Or was it she herself? But what had she to expect? Nothing—nothing again, for ever.

... So they had noticed how well he rode—foolish, oddly comforting reflection. She thought how he had passed her on Tristram's horse that afternoon—only a fortnight ago—how he had ridden into her life, and out of it again. That was a romantic phrase and delightful to read in a book, but in real life it had no glamour; the fact enshrined in it was too bitingly real. Unwanted, unsummoned, there came into her head—

"It was a' for our rightfu' King

We left fair Scotland's strand;

It was a' for our rightfu' King

We e'er saw Irish land,

My dear—

We e'er saw Irish land.

"He turn'd him right and round about

Upon the Irish shore;

And gae his bridle-reins a shake,

With, Adieu for evermore,

My dear—

With, Adieu for evermore!"

And on the heels of the lines, a mocking commentary, came floating Sir Walter's version—

"A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,

A feather of the blue,

A doublet of the Lincoln green—

No more of me ye knew,

My Love!

No more of me ye knew!"

Yes, that was all she had known ... O, how foolish, foolish she was—a silly sentimental girl of the kind that she most despised! Yet, if only she had never seen him!

And at that moment Armand de la Roche-Guyon came round the corner of the road.

Horatia stood still, petrified. It was as if her thoughts had taken body, for he was gone—how could he be here ... walking rapidly towards her like this, bareheaded—flesh and blood. Before her heart had recovered its broken pulsations he was up to her.

"What, are you not gone?" she faltered.

"They told me you had walked this way," he said rapidly in his own tongue. "I have been to the Rectory; you were not there. I could not go—mon Dieu, I could not go.... Give me your basket; let us go back by the field path; it is close here."

She gave him the basket without a word, suffocated by the tumult in her heart, and dominated by the change in him, by the ardour and purpose which radiated from him, making him seem taller and even more desirable. He had the air of a young conqueror; but he was unsmiling, which was rare. Now she knew what the night had been trying to tell her....

They came in a moment to the gap in the hedge, by the oak-tree, an unauthorised way of attaining the field-path. It seemed right that he should know of it, though little less than a miracle. He held aside the twigs and brambles so that she could pass. And when she had stepped through everything was clear to her, and she knew that in entering the shorn September field, lit with its low yellow moon, she had come into another country, dazzlingly strange, but her inheritance, her home. She half turned, and was caught in Armand's arms, her lips to his; and thus, beneath a tree, in the gloaming, like any village girl, did Horatia Grenville, who cared not for love, give and receive her first kiss.

Behind her, for a wonder and a benediction, hung the great luminous shield of the harvest moon, and the scattered blackberries lay among the leaves and stubble, like a sacrifice to joys unfathomed.

CHAPTER X

(1)

The parting guest, unless he be a dear friend, is generally a persona grata to his host. Tristram Hungerford was rather ashamed of the sensation of relief with which he had faced his visitor at the breakfast table this morning, for the Comte de la Roche-Guyon had proved himself throughout his stay uniformly agreeable, lively, and anxious to please. But the elder man was only too conscious of their slender basis of common interests, and, though himself anything but taciturn, he was, like most people who live alone, physically incapable of talking all day without pause, and found the society of those persons so gifted (among whom Armand de la Roche-Guyon appeared to be numbered) rather fatiguing.

Moreover, he had not expected to find himself facing him at all this morning across the coffee-cups. When he had returned from Oxford yesterday morning, the morning after the dance, expecting to speed his guest on his way, he had been met by the young man's apologetic request to be allowed to stay another night if convenient to his host. He had heard from his father and there were reasons ... Tristram made the only answer open to him, premising however that, thinking he should be alone that night, he had unfortunately engaged himself to dine at Faringdon, and would not be home till late. Armand would consequently, he feared, have a solitary dinner unless indeed he were to go over to Compton Rectory. The Comte replied that he might conceivably walk over in the afternoon to pay his respects, but that he did not expect to be asked to dinner. And indeed he had set off in that direction a little before Tristram started for Faringdon.

But when Tristram returned from his dinner party, rather late in the evening, he found that the Frenchman had already gone to bed, and being himself tired, did not altogether regret this. And this morning, whether from a sleepless night, or any other cause, Armand was much less talkative than usual; he looked thoughtful and rather pale, and now, when the after-breakfast ease of two males devoid of the cares of housekeeping was about to descend upon them, he seemed unusually preoccupied.

"I am afraid, La Roche-Guyon, that you had a bad night," said Tristram, as he rose from the table. "It was remiss of me not to have asked you earlier. You were not indisposed yesterday evening, I trust?"

"On the contrary," replied his guest somewhat cryptically. A gleam passed over his face, but Tristram, who was hunting on the mantelpiece for the key of the clock, did not see it. "I had the best night of my life."

"I am glad to hear it," replied his host. "But I am extremely sorry that I cannot drive or send you into Oxford to catch the coach. I pretty well knocked up both my horses yesterday."

"Pray not to think of it," said Armand politely. "I have made arrangements to post from the Fox. Already you have been too kind in taking me so many times to Oxford.... And now I have to beg of you another kindness."

"I am at your service," said Tristram, finding and inserting the key.

"Vous êtes bien bon," said the Comte, his English suddenly deserting him. "C'est que——" He broke off, walked over to the window, and there, taking hold of the tassel of the curtain-cord, said, with more composure:

"The fact is, that Miss Grenville has promised to marry me. And as M. le Recteur, when I saw him yesterday evening, did not appear very much to like the idea, I was obliged to refer him to you. I told him that you could speak for me if you would—that you knew my family, and that I am not a—what do you call it—impostor, as he seemed to think.... It was that which I said to him."

He ceased, and in Tristram's head the ticks of the half-resuscitated clock rang like gongs.

"I do not wonder that you are surprised," went on Armand, in his pleasant voice, and in more and more shaky English. "But I am mad with love of her since the day we meet—tiens, I have thought sometimes that you remarked it—and she ... well, she has consented to be my wife. You may guess if I think myself to be the most fortunate man on earth..." He said more; Tristram did not hear it. But he at last forced himself to turn round, and saw the speaker standing there against the window.

"When did this happen?" he asked—or someone asked.

"Yesterday evening. It was why I stayed—I must avow it to you, my friend. First I go to the Rectory—no one is there; they tell me Miss Grenville visits a cottage. I too go to the cottage, and meet her in the lane——."

"What do you want me to do?"

Armand made a gesture. "To use your good offices for me with M. le Recteur. He was not very polite. He thinks that I am not sufficient of a parti. Mais, figurez-vous bien that on the contrary I shall have work enough to persuade my father to a foreign marriage, even with so divine a creature, and as well-born——"

Tristram was never to know whether he would have succeeded in keeping indefinitely his self-command, for at that moment his housekeeper fortunately entered to tell them that the Fox had just sent to say that they had no post-horses this morning, there having been some mistake about the order yesterday.

Out of the maze of shock and anguish one thing was plain to Tristram, that to have Armand's presence further inflicted upon him was intolerable. "After all, my horses——" he began, but the Frenchman cut him short.

"No, not for worlds! I will go round to the Fox at once myself. In these cases of 'no post-horses' it is always only a question of money. More than ever must I now go quickly to Lulworth—to get my father's consent," he added in French for the sole benefit of his host, and vanished.

So this was Horatia's choice! Tristram stumbled to a chair and covered his face. Coffee-pot and empty cups witnessed the wreck of hopes that might well have had a more tragic setting.

(2)

The door opening noisily brought Tristram almost immediately after to his feet. The intruder was the Hon. and Rev. Stephen Grenville, unannounced, short of breath, and angry as Tristram had never seen him.

He shut the door and looked round with positive ferocity.

"Is that young scamp here?"

Tristram regarded him dizzily. "No ... I don't think so," he answered, as if he were not quite sure.

"Do you know what has happened?" demanded Mr. Grenville. "Yes, I can see that you do! That foreigner of yours had the impudence to walk into my study last night and ask for my consent to his marriage with Horatia—Horatia!" The Rector became momentarily speechless. "This young adventurer, who has been here a fortnight, has the audacity to say he is going to marry my daughter!" He flung himself down in a chair.

"It was only last night, then, as he says?"

"Yes, it happened last night, but it goes further back than that. My eyes were opened after the dance the night before last, when she gave him I don't know how many dances, and they disappeared together at the end. Why on earth did you choose that evening to go to Oxford? I took her home, and then in the carriage she began to cry—said she was tired. I didn't sleep a wink that night, but I congratulated myself that the spark was off yesterday. Imagine my surprise when they walked in together yesterday evening, and he tells me as cool as you please that it is natural I should be surprised, but that you would vouch for him!—Why can't you say something, man?"

"What does Horatia say?" asked Tristram, very white.

"Don't speak to me about Horatia!" cried the irate parent. "I ought to have shut her up with bread and water. I have spoilt her, and this is the outcome of it. And as for you—I can't think why you ever brought a Frenchman about the place!"

Before Tristram could reply to this thrust the Frenchman in question came hastily in, equipped, as was evident, for an immediate start, a cloak over his arm, his hat in his hand.

"I regret that I have to go at once—but at once!" he said to Tristram. "Ah! pardon, M. le Recteur, I did not observe you"—though the bound with which Mr. Grenville had quitted his chair must have rendered him hard to overlook.—"Excuse me that I take leave of my kind host. It seems," he went on, turning to that individual, "that the horses I have procured are old and slow, and that to catch the coach from Oxford I must start immediately. So, with a thousand apologies——"

"Understand, Sir," interrupted the Rector in high wrath, "that I will not entertain your proposal for an instant, and that I forbid you to come near my house!"

The Comte de la Roche-Guyon transferred his attention to the angry cleric. "Mais parfaitement, Monsieur," he responded with a bland little bow. "I should not dream of entering your house again until I have the consent of my father to the alliance. I go at once to Lulworth in the hope of obtaining that consent. It was not, indeed, what I should have wished, to speak to your daughter before approaching you, but, as I had the honour of telling you last night, Monsieur, I did seek to ask your permission first, but you were out, and time was short. Enfin, when I come again I trust it will be more en règle. Meanwhile, I am your humble servant." He made the Rector another, more formal, valedictory bow, and advanced upon Tristram.

"I know that I leave my cause in good hands," he said gracefully. "Cher ami, for that, as for your hospitality, I shall be your debtor for life. But you English do not like speeches, I know, and time presses..."

As much to prevent a second ebullition of Mr. Grenville's wrath as because time pressed the cher ami hastened with his guest from the room. A few last directions from himself, a smile or two from Armand, a shake of the hand, and the man who had so lightly taken his happiness from him was gone, confident, easy, and attractive to the last.

When Tristram came back into the dining-room the Rector was still standing thunderstruck on the hearth-rug.

"Well!" he ejaculated pregnantly, "for sheer impudence commend me to one of that nation!"

Tristram sat wearily down without replying to this cry of the heart, and there was silence, broken only by a sort of soliloquy on the Rector's part, on the blindness which had been his—and Tristram's.

"Couldn't you see it coming, Tristram?" he repeated. "Although I was such a fool, couldn't you see it. But there, they say Love is blind. It must be, or you would never have ... have..."

"Have thrown them together," finished Tristram bitterly. "Is there any need to tell you that in my wildest moments I could never have conceived of such a thing? I saw that he admired her and paid her compliments, as he might any—perhaps every—woman, but to me he was ... just negligible. He was welcome to pay court to her, if she liked it, because ... because I could not dream that she..."

"There's nothing in that!" said the Rector briefly. "With women you never can tell. But, of course, it is impossible that it should be allowed to go on. You must come back with me, Tristram. You at least have influence with her. I have never yet forbidden her anything—it has never been my way—and I would rather she came to it of herself."

Colour shot into the younger man's face. "I would do anything to help you, Sir, and much more to help Horatia; but I can't do that—not yet."

Mr. Grenville looked away from him. "God bless my soul, what a selfish brute I am ... But come now, my dear boy, once he's gone it will be all right. Horatia will settle down. It's only a passing fancy; of that I feel certain. I have never known her other than sensible. She will see that it's out of the question.—You don't agree with me, eh?"

"From what I know of Horatia, I am afraid that I don't."

"But you are going to propose to her yourself!" said the Rector in accents of amazement, slewing round in his chair.

Out of his pain Tristram showed his own surprise. "No, not now; it's impossible."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Mr. Grenville with great directness. "Then I shall tell her myself."

"Mr. Grenville, I beg of you, I implore you not to do such a thing!" exclaimed the young man in agitation. "It is useless; worse than useless. It would only grieve her kind heart. How little chance could I have ever had! She has—she must have given her love with both hands; I do not think so meanly of her as to imagine that she could ever transfer it ... a gift so priceless," he added to himself.

The Rector pressed his lips together and rose. "Well, I can't understand the present generation. If I had been in your shoes I should have been married to her any time these five years. These reticences and delicacies are beyond me. If a man wants a girl, let him ask for her!"

Tristram smiled a rather dreary smile, thinking that even the successful suitor was not finding this course altogether satisfactory.

"You know I never held your views on persistent courtship, Sir. It would have been better for me, perhaps, if I had ... But this I will do, for Horatia's own sake: I will come over directly I can, and I will try my best to show her that there are ... difficulties ... to take into consideration. But I warn you that if I think it is for her happiness I shall oppose you, Mr. Grenville. I would get her the moon if she wanted it!"

And the sudden passion of this last utterance left Horatia's father dumb.

CHAPTER XI

(1)

Not only the slumber proper to the Long Vacation, but the particular drowsy calm of the afternoon hung that day in sunlight over Oriel. In his lodge at the gate the porter dozed peaceably over Jackson's Oxford Journal; and, owing to this charmed sleep, a stray black spaniel, of an architectural turn of mind, who had now for half an hour or so been exploring both quadrangles, was at this moment seated quietly in the outer, in front of that porch which distinguishes Oriel from all other colleges, appearing to meditate, in the intervals of scratching himself, on the characteristics of Oxford Gothic, or to admire the few plants in pots, relics of the summer term, ranked down the steps against the wall. Across this porch the September sun cut diagonally, so that half the statue of the Virgin above it was in shade, and one of the two Kings beneath her, and the shadow of the gables from the gateway front lay in sloping battlements on the gravel. Merton tower, looking down over the long roof with its air of being part of the same building, was still in full sunlight, like the Provost's lodgings on the north side of the quadrangle, but, save the slowly creeping shadows, the spaniel was the only living thing visible in the sleepy peace which no undergraduate clamour had disturbed for three months past. Such Fellows as were in residence were out walking or riding—all but two. The porter, if roused, could have told an inquirer—as he was shortly to tell Tristram—that Mr. Dormer was in his rooms; that he was working very hard, he believed, and had not been out of college, let alone on a horse, for three days. Up the staircase on the right—not that he gave this unnecessary indication to Mr. Hungerford.

But at the present moment, though Tristram's friend was sitting at his manuscript-strewn writing-table, he was not working; he was leaning back in his tall chair, seeming not a little exhausted. Those who looked at Charles Dormer's face only once were apt, on that first impression, to think it refined to the point of femininity. But they never said so a second time. Somewhat unnaturally thin for a young man of thirty, it spoke of an early-learnt self-control, of ardour in leash and a very sensitive endurance, the whole touched with a kind of angelic severity and force. The eyes were kinder than the mouth, and if the expression suggested possibilities of relentlessness, it indicated still more clearly against whom that relentlessness would chiefly be directed—probably for some years had already been directed—Charles Dormer. But since to these less popular attributes the young Fellow joined a general physical exterior of unusual distinction, he did not meet with any marked success in his constant endeavour to make himself out quite an ordinary person. People were only too ready to see in him the ancestor who fell for the King at Newbury, and Tristram, when he wished genuinely to annoy him, had merely to repeat the effusive remarks on his appearance which he had the fortune to overhear from some fair lips one Commemoration. Mr. Dormer of Oriel had no use for the externals of romance.

(2)

Axe, going leisurely through her pastures to the sea, had known continually, as the old century died and the new was born, the laughter and noise of a tribe of beautiful and healthy children, who raced in her meadows, fished in her waters, and dwelt upon the banks of her daughter Coly. All the Axe valley, indeed, knew Mr. Dormer of Colyton, and his handsome sons. His beautiful and delicate wife they knew less. Mr. Dormer, genial hard-riding gentleman that he was, came of Non-juring stock, long since conformed to the Establishment; his wife, of like origin, had all the piety and devotion proper to a spiritual descendant of Andrewes and Ken, coupled with a strong tendency to mysticism.

Mary Dormer, indeed, might in any other country or age have been a nun. As it was, she had borne five children to the husband who reverenced her as a saint, and only one quarter understood her. But as at last her extreme and increasing delicacy shut her off from the more ordinary family cares, she was able to lead in her seclusion a life not unlike the cloistered. All her sons resembled their father in temperament and shared his interests—all but one. Nature had bestowed on Mary Dormer's youngest child a measure of her delicacy but even more of her spirit. So when Henry, who intended to be a great soldier, like him of Blenheim and Malplaquet, who had spent his boyhood here at Ashe House, when Christopher, who would be a sailor, if he did not meanwhile drown himself either in Axe or on Seaton shore, when Robert, the most turbulent of all, who was destined for the Bar—when all these elder brothers, brimming with spirits, set forth on some neck-breaking expedition, little Charles was left contentedly with his mother. Mr. Dormer would sometimes grumblingly predict that his youngest boy would grow up a milksop, the others occasionally tease him for a mother's darling, but since the child, when he was big enough, could sit a horse rather better, if anything, than his elders, and was extraordinarily lucky with a fishing-rod, his brothers were forced to render him the tribute of a slightly grudging admiration for a prowess that cost him so little pains.

Yet, to the mind of the child who did these things with such ease and gaiety, the world he knew was little different from the Garden of Eden, or from that celestial city of which the particulars were familiar to him from the old hymn, in the faded seventeenth century writing, which his mother read to him till he knew it by heart. But there were disparities. "Quite through the streets, with silver sound," said the hymn with precision, yet the Coly put a circling arm around, not through his home. Other resemblances were more exact, their own garden, for instance, where grew, indubitably, the pleasantest flowers that could be seen, and where at least the long straight path between the laurels—"the gallant walk" as he called it,—was, as in Paradise, always green. Still it was pleasant to think that in the heavenly city no "dampish mists" would come up from the sea to prevent his going out whenever he had a mind to, and that David, standing harp in hand as master of the choir, would probably sing more sweetly than his present prototype in Colyton Church. On the other hand it was plain that since "no spider's web, no dirt, no dust, no filth may there be seen," the garden tool-shed and similar attractive places could have no counterpart above.

Accompanied as the child was by his simple and joyous thoughts, it would never have surprised him had he seen the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, or met an angel as he himself ran singing through the grass and flowers on Coly's banks. Perhaps he did. And he supposed that everybody else had the same expectations, but that Christopher and Robert, for instance, did not speak of them because he himself never spoke of them, save to his mother. Nor was he remarkable for obedience. All his after-life he was to struggle with his own masterful will. He fell into the stream by the weir, where he had been straitly charged not to go, and was with difficulty rescued by a brother; he would ride prohibited horses, consort occasionally with forbidden companions; he was at once dreamy and wilful, sweet-tempered and naughty. With all this he seemed to her who knew him best—and who was to him, it must be confessed, more like an elder sister and companion than a mother—such a child as Adam and Eve might have had before the Fall, and it was almost with awe that, as he grew older, she set about teaching him what she knew of Church doctrine, and in particular that belief in the Real Presence which had been miraculously preserved by the few in a materialistic age. Pathetically certain that one day the Church would unearth her neglected treasure, she gave him the Prayer-Book in which that treasure was enshrined, saying so solemnly, "Never let anyone take that away from you, Charles," that for years the boy kept it wrapped up in a silk handkerchief, and lived in expectation of having to do battle for its retention.

Mrs. Dormer died just when Charles was ready to go to school, and at eleven, motherless, he was plunged into the rough and tumble of Eton life. The Garden of Eden was gone for ever, and there was scarcely a sign-post on the way to the Heavenly City. But the child of Mary Dormer had his own pillar of fire to lead him through the wilderness.... Towards the end of his schooldays he met his life-long friend, and together, in 1818, they went up to Oriel.

Though at Eton Dormer was considered odd and dreamy, it was known that he possessed powers above the average, and great things were prophesied of his University career. A great thing indeed awaited him at Oxford—the influence of John Keble. If Oriel had a distinguished reputation its most brilliant member had a more distinguished. Winner of a Double First and of two University prizes, already for seven years Fellow of a college that worshipped intellectual attainments, Keble was himself the herald of reaction from the Noetic philosophy to the older school of authority and tradition. Humility and otherworldliness had little in common with "march of mind," nor a quiet confidence in the Divine Commission of the Church with a speculation that was eventually to issue in free thought. All Charles Dormer's longing for "the severe sweetness of the life divine," all his ardent conviction that better things were to come, seemed to find their vindication in the faith and in the practice of this young man, not ten years older than himself, and there soon sprang up between the two an appreciation as lasting as that which a few years later was to unite John Keble and Richard Hurrell Froude. Eton prognostications were nevertheless fulfilled when, in 1822, the same year as Newman, Dormer, having already taken a Double First, won the coveted prize of an Oriel Fellowship.

The new Fellow, now reading for Orders, was made welcome enough in Common Room, but after Keble's departure from Oxford in the following year he was rather lonely. He did not find real companionship among the elder Fellows in residence, Hawkins, Tyler, or Dornford; with the younger he often walked or rode, but Newman was an Evangelical, and of the two whom he had known at Eton, Pusey was silent and depressed, Jelf of too practical a temperament. Keble alone shared his ideals, for though his own affection was given steadfastly to Tristram Hungerford, the grief at Tristram's development which had haunted him through the three years of their joint college life was sharpened rather than assuaged when their time together was over, and Hungerford definitely enlisted in the Latitudinarian or (in the phraseology of the day) the Liberal camp. He had fought for his friend and lost.

But the consequences of that defeat were far-reaching. Because of his sympathy for Tristram and for others like him, who were honest in their difficulties, Dormer tried, for the first time, to find the intellectual reason for his own clear faith. First-class man and Fellow of Oriel as he was, he could not. He had at last boldly to admit that his certainty was not gained by reason, though it was reasonable, and that the most his unaided intellect could do was to give him high probability. If faith was then ultimately a gift, to be won by surrender to a Divine Person, how great was the need of a Society in living communion with that Person, a Society strong alike in learning and in spirituality! And what of that Church of which he was a member? Was it because she fell so far short of what she might be that the time seemed to be coming when she would be swept away by the tide of unbelief which, since the days of the French Revolution, had devastated the Continent? Indeed, unless she made haste to seek out the credentials of her Divine commission and to reforge the links which bound her to the Church of the first ages, would she even be worth saving from that flood?

And then the day came when Charles Dormer found that he was not alone in these conclusions, for the same premisses were bringing together, in his own college, a number of persons whose loyalty to the Church led them to think not merely of defence but of reform. Dormer's rooms became henceforward the scene of many a fervid discussion, many a stimulating argument. In the end, even as Hurrell Froude, the youngest and most ardent fighter of them all, had drawn in his Evangelical and Whatelyan friend, so did Dormer insensibly win over the man for whom his affection had first set him on this track. And to Charles Dormer, not unnaturally, the adhesion of John Henry Newman was of vastly less importance than that of Tristram Hungerford.

(3)

Dormer's pen was still between his fingers. He roused himself, turned once more to the table, added a final sentence to the last sheet, and laid down the pen; then he leant back again with a long sigh. He was tired, for he had been finishing his book at high pressure; but he was more tired than he ought to have been, and he knew it. He supposed that he would pay for the strain by a bout of the disabling headaches, whose increasing frequency, during the last six months, had begun to make him uneasy.

And at this moment, just as Tristram in his need was riding towards him up St. Aldate's, he put his head back against his chair and began to think of him with peculiar affection. For fourteen years the bonds of their friendship had only drawn the closer. Tristram at last had the same cause at heart, and was about to take Orders. There was only one thing which separated them. He himself would never marry, but Tristram certainly would, and Dormer continually reproached himself with the quite human regret which this reflection sometimes roused in him. With his profound belief in the Providence of God, he felt that Tristram had always been destined for home life, and that he belonged, or would belong to the class of clergy who, in England at all events, seem able to serve their people best by being one with them in actual experience of the common life. For though Dormer would have wished that class to be numerically the smaller, the idea of an enforced celibacy was abhorrent to him.

And hitherto he had encouraged Tristram to hope that the time might yet come when Horatia would listen to him. But the results of his observations at Tristram's dinner-party last week had been most disturbing. Was it possible that this young Frenchman was carrying off Miss Grenville's heart—he did not say her hand—under Tristram's very eyes? This seemed scarcely credible, yet he had of set purpose interrupted their conversation that evening, and had felt uneasy ever since, for a reason that he could scarcely define. But perhaps he had been mistaken; at any rate, he hoped so...

He was at this point when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," he said, opening his eyes to see the subject of his meditations before him. He sprang up. "My dear fellow! I am delighted to see you. Forgive this litter."

"I hardly expected to find you in college at this hour," remarked Tristram, glancing at the table. "I suppose this is the reason for it."

Dormer nodded, and began gathering the sheets together. "The Non-jurors must be got out of the way as soon as possible, now that I have promised to undertake this work on the Councils for Rose. I've just been writing to Keble about his proposals, for, adequately carried out, they might provide almost a lifework for the person who undertook them."

"But you have promised definitely to undertake them."

"Yes, I've accepted," said Dormer sitting down again with something like a sigh. "It's rather a daunting prospect, you know, Tristram, and yet it may be the work for which one has been waiting. I am so glad that you managed to see Rose the other evening; I wanted you particularly to meet him. He is the coming man."

"Oh, is he?" replied Tristram not very enthusiastically. "Well, yes, I was glad to meet him. He showed his sense in asking you to do this, anyhow. But what about those headaches?"

"Suppose you leave my headaches alone," retorted Dormer smiling. "You look rather fagged yourself. Will you have some tea, or would you rather have a glass of ale after your ride?—I seem to have been talking a great deal about myself."

If he had, the circumstance was so unusual—save perhaps in his present company—as scarcely to call for apology.

"Neither, thanks," answered Tristram, who was wandering restlessly round the room, which he knew as well as his own. "I am not tired that I know of... I like that drawing of Cologne Cathedral. Who gave it you—Froude?"

"No," said Dormer, watching him suddenly rather intently. "It was Robert Wilberforce."

Tristram strayed to a bookcase. "Hallo," he remarked, "here are these Non-juring books of yours which I am always meaning to have a look at. What is this—'Devotions for the Canonical Hours, to be used in the houses of the clergy and by all religious societies where there is a priest.' Surely that is strange!"

"It always sounds to me like an eighteenth century Little Gidding," answered his friend. "That copy belonged to Cartwright, the Shrewsbury apothecary, and the last Non-juring Bishop. I had an older book, called 'A Companion for the Penitent, and for Persons troubled in mind,' but I gave it to Keble."

"I expect he was pleased with it," commented his visitor. He put back the book and came and threw himself down in a chair. "Doesn't it seem strange to have finished, after all this time?"

"Yes," said Dormer, looking at his papers, "and I believe I am almost sorry. But it would have been a pity to spend longer over the Non-jurors, for I expect very few people will so much as glance at the book."

"When I was talking to Froude the other day he seemed to hold a different opinion," said Tristram.

"Ah, yes, but then you see he is almost as keen about the Non-jurors as I am myself. I have heard him say that he was beginning to think that they were the last of English divines, and that those since were twaddlers."

"Froude is almost too bold. He doesn't seem to care what he says."

"But," continued Dormer, leaning back in his chair, "although I know, of course, that it will be read by a few, what I mean is that it will appeal chiefly to those already interested. And if this remark applies to a modern book, how much more will it apply to what I am afraid will be a rather dull work on the first centuries.—You know, Tristram, what we want alongside of this sort of thing is some more arresting kind of writing, some series of short essays in a popular form that could be circulated among the country clergy—essays to prove the continuity of the Church for instance. In this book I've been trying to show the direct connection between Non-jurors, the Caroline divines, the ancient Church of England, and the primitive Church. For the next five years or so I shall be trying to point out, by means of the history of the principal Councils, that the doctrine of the Church of England is that of an undivided Christendom. I don't say my volumes won't be read, but I do say that the same thing put in a cheaper and shorter form would be more read."

"Why shouldn't it be done, then?"

"Well, it's an idea," admitted Dormer. "It is the country clergy that we need to get hold of, for after all they are the people who really count. I must talk to Newman about it. I fancy it might appeal to him."

"What might appeal to Newman?" asked a voice. The door was open, and in the aperture stood a young man of twenty-seven or so, tall, thin to the point of emaciation, with very bright eyes and an air of being intensely alive. "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for bursting in upon you; but the only thing that appeals to Newman just now is his mother's furniture at Rose Hill—at least I hope it is appealing to him, for he has gone to Iffley with Wilberforce to inspect it."

"Oh, come in, Froude," said Dormer. "If you had been eavesdropping a moment or two earlier you would have heard Hungerford's opinion of you."

Hurrell Froude smiled, and, shutting the door, half leant, half sat on Dormer's writing-table. "I don't care in the least what Hungerford thinks of me. I have just had a shock. Did you know that the first Latitudinarians were Tories? I did not. It looks as if Whiggery has by degrees taken up all the filth that has been secreted by human thought—Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, Popery, infidelity, they have it all!"

Tristram laughed. "Is that the result of your studies at Dartington last month, Froude? I thought you were working at the English Reformers."

"So I was," replied the intruder, "but their civilities to the smug fellows on the Continent, added to the fact that the weather was rather hot, stuck in my gizzard. Their odious Protestantism——"

"Ah!" interrupted Dormer like lightning. "It was too hot for work at Dartington, was it? We've got that admission at last! Have I not always maintained that there was no air so far up the Dart? Now at Colyton there is always the valley breeze either up or down the Axe."

"Horrible!" ejaculated Froude, running his long thin hand through his hair with a gesture of repulsion. "Like living in a perpetual draught! Now at Dartington——"

"O, for Heaven's sake!" cried Tristram. The interminable feud between the two Devonians on the merits of their respective birthplaces and rivers was one of the standing jokes of the Common Room, and Dormer had just scored one by Froude's careless admission.

Froude got off the table. "Out of regard for you, my dear Hungerford, we will cease. I really came in to ask Dormer if he would ride with me one afternoon this week. I have found a delightful little thirteenth century church in Buckinghamshire with piscina, sedilia and all complete, and I want him to see it."

"I'll come with pleasure. But that reminds me," said Dormer, rummaging in a drawer and getting out a little water-colour sketch of a church tower. "What do you think of that?"

The visitor took it and looked at it attentively for a moment. "Charming," he pronounced. "Where is it? I sometimes think I like a square tower better than a spire, especially when it has an elegant lantern like this. It is nowhere near here, I am sure. Is——" He broke off suspiciously, for Dormer was standing looking at him with a mischievous smile.

"That is Colyton church tower which you are pleased to admire," said he.

Hurrell Froude flung down the sketch. "Villain!" he exclaimed, and broke into a fit of coughing. "That was a traitor's trick," he said, as soon as he could get breath. "I don't admire it at all, and I'm off. You will end as a Whig, or something worse, if that is possible!"

"Well, I must be getting back also," said Tristram, as the door closed. "How did Froude get that cough, I wonder? I only came in to see how you were."

"Your guest has gone, I suppose?"

"Went this morning," responded his friend, briefly.

"Oh, I thought he was to leave yesterday."

"He stayed another night. Good-bye; I must go."

"Wait a moment," urged Dormer. "I want you to read that." And he tossed a letter across the table.

"From Habington," remarked Tristram, taking it up. "What has he got to say?"

"You read it and see," persisted Dormer. "I wish someone would tell me what to say. I haven't the knack of writing to people in his interesting situation."

Tristram read the letter as desired, Dormer studying him the while. Something had happened!

"Habington engaged to be married!" exclaimed Tristram. "Well, I must say I am surprised. I thought he was a convert to your celibate views."

"I thought so once too, but, apart from Froude, and perhaps Newman, I intend to believe in no man's constancy in future."

"You're very fierce, Charles!"

"Well, I am disappointed. Habington was doing good work here in Oxford; now he must give up his Fellowship at Trinity and be a family man in a country parsonage. He will do good and be an example whereever he is, but he cannot be what he might have been."

"Then," said Tristram slowly, "if I marry after I take Orders I shall not be what I might have been?"

A look that few people ever saw came into Charles Dormer's eyes. He leant forward on the table, his elbows on his scattered manuscripts. "Tristram," he said earnestly, "you know that you have always had my good wishes, and you have them still. You are so obviously cut out for the charities and the humanities...." He stopped and looked down at his papers. "I don't think I am being a sawney about you, even when I want you to be happy."

Tristram was at the door, his hand on the handle. His voice came jerkily. "I am afraid your good wishes are of no use to me now ... Yes, I wanted you to know, but I can't tell you, after all ... I only hope I shall do what is right."

He was gone, and Dormer, half-risen from his chair, was left staring at the closed door.

But as Tristram rode over Folly Bridge, where the river ran yellow in the sunset, he knew that his course lay plain before him.

Half way up the long hill he checked his horse, and from sheer habit turned in the saddle. There stood the towers, orderly and lovely, in the faint mist of the autumn day's ending. He almost fancied that he could hear the bells of Magdalen. Many and many a time, riding into Oxford on summer afternoons, on winter mornings, had he pretended to himself that he was seeing the city for the first time, that its streets were strange to him, its pinnacles a new delight. Now, without any effort of the imagination, it seemed to him both that everything he had ever loved lay below him, cruel and valedictory, never to greet him again, and that it was a place in essence still unentered, an alien city. So, by the mind's alchemy, were the town he had loved and the woman he had lost made one, for a second, in his spirit.

But his course was plain. He rode on up the hill.

CHAPTER XII

(1)

Tristram's plain course was to lead him, and he knew it, into the waste places of the spirit. In such a desert he wrestled, two days later, with a radiant Horatia, himself miserably conscious both of the interpretation that the world would put upon his action, and of the futility of his effort, and stabbed to the heart by her transfigured personality, to him the surest evidence of what had happened.

Yet she was the same Horatia, as kind, as generous as ever. She listened very patiently to his exposition of the difficulties attendant on a marriage with a man of a different race, of a different creed; she seemed even to do homage to the motive which had prompted him to speech. A lesser woman, so much in love as she, would, he thought, have sent him about his business.

She smiled at him divinely when he had finished.

"Dear, dear Tristram," she said, and she put her hand on his. "You are indeed, as you have always been, the best of friends. Everything you say is true, and I know you have not liked to say it. But you see that it is no good, and so I want you to be on my side in the fight I am afraid that I am going to have with dearest Papa. Will you?"

"I have already told him," said Tristram, "that if I thought the match was for your happiness, I should uphold it."

"My happiness! You cannot doubt that, can you, Tristram?"

He did not answer.

"Papa is in his study," she suggested. "Suppose you were to go now and see what you can do with him?"

"I will try," he answered.

She came after him to the door, thanking him. He could not have borne much more.

(2)

The Rector was sitting at his study table. "Well," he said, as the envoy entered. "What does she say? You have been my last hope of persuading her to see things sensibly."

Tristram crossed the room, and did not immediately answer. He had already professed himself convinced of Horatia's determination, but hope will lurk in such odd corners of the heart, that not till this moment did he know how the frail thing had really ceased to flutter in him.

"I am afraid," he said at last, "that I have been worse than useless, for I have promised to try to persuade you."

The Rector veered round in his chair to face him. "You, you, Tristram, support her! Then the world has gone crazy!" He took off his glasses and for a full half-minute gazed at the figure standing rather rigidly before him. "You really mean to tell me that, knowing Horatia as you do, you think I ought to take seriously this passing fancy?"

"I'm afraid I do, Sir," said Tristram steadily; "but, then, I cannot think it a passing fancy now that I have seen her and talked to her. Horatia does not have whims. If she changes, she changes whole-heartedly, and I confess I have never seen anyone so altered." His voice wavered for a moment. "She has put her whole happiness in Armand de la Roche-Guyon, and if you thwart her, you will be taking a very heavy responsibility."

"All the same," said the Rector stubbornly, "I shall take it. As you probably know, under French law my consent is a very important matter, and I shall certainly not give it. Allow my daughter to marry a foreigner, and a Papist—a Papist, Tristram, do you realise that?"

Tristram gave a little sigh. "I do, indeed, only too well. That is what clinched the matter for me. I mean I thought, of course, that it would be a serious obstacle to Horatia's mind, yet when I suggested it as a difficulty, she only said, 'But I love him, what else matters?' For Horatia, with her upbringing and her views that means a great deal. I confess I hardly understand it."

"Nor I," returned Mr. Grenville. "She has said the same to me, and even when I told her that her children would have to be brought up as Roman Catholics, she said that she did not like the idea, but she supposed that people always had to pay for happiness. He has bewitched her! But I shall save her from herself, Tristram. To throw herself away on the first wandering foreigner!"

"His father is a peer of France," said Tristram very quietly, "and Horatia will be a great lady. She is not throwing herself away in that sense."

The Rector gave an impatient exclamation, and brought his hands down violently on his knees. "To hear you talk, Tristram, anyone might suppose that you had something to gain from her marriage! 'Pon my soul, the young men of the present day are beyond me! A fortnight ago, in this very room, you were telling me about your own feelings for Horatia, and now here you are, as calm and cool as any lawyer, trying to argue me into letting her marry this organ-grinder! Really I find it hard to remember that not long ago you were a boy yourself, and a boy, too, whom I had hoped to call my son!"

It was the final turn of the screw. Tristram left him and went over to the window.

"I can't speak of that side of it," he said brokenly. "I have loved her distractedly ... I still love her ... but there is her happiness to think of, and if she ... if the Comte de la Roche-Guyon..." He could get no further, but laid his head against the cold glass.

"My dear boy, forgive me," exclaimed Mr. Grenville remorsefully. "I am so upset I don't know what I am saying. I'm a selfish old man, and you put me to shame ... you put me to shame...."

Sighing heavily, he turned round his chair to the table. He felt himself suddenly what he had often mendaciously declared himself to be, an old man. Perhaps it was wrong to struggle against the young—to play Providence overmuch. Yet this was Horatia's whole life at stake. Still, the man who stood silent there at the window, in what bitter pain he could guess, was able to see her go. He put out his hand, and took up the brass of Allectus, lying neglected among a disarray of papers, and, in the silence studied the galley on the reverse. At last he said miserably:

"What do you know about this young man?"

Tristram told him about the family, while the Rector turned the coin over and over.

"Yes, that's all right, I suppose, but what about the young man himself?"

"Frankly, I don't know any more than you do."

"But you have your suspicions, eh? Young Frenchmen don't bear a very good character, and you know that."

"Nor do all young Englishmen."

Mr. Grenville refused to be drawn off. "When you were in Paris, or wherever it was, Tristram, staying with his family, surely you must have heard something about him."

"No, not a rumour of the kind you mean."

"And yet," said the Rector, "you share my feelings about him. I know you do!"

"We have not either of us any right to have 'feelings' about him," retorted Tristram from the window. "We merely do not know. I would tell you if there had been anything. He may be a blackguard or he may be a hero. We don't know."

"Very well, then," said the Rector judicially, laying down the coin with precision. "I'll put it in another way. Do you consider him a fit husband for Horatia?"

Tristram started forward. "Mr. Grenville, don't drive me mad! You are putting me in a horrible position. Armand confides his interests to my hands; the first thing I do is to try to persuade Horatia not to marry him. Now you want to make me blacken his character ... I beg your pardon, Sir!"

The Rector was on his feet. "It is for me to beg yours. My dear, dear boy, do forgive me! I am behaving abominably; I am not only selfish but mean—but if I do seem to have been trying to get you to say things against a rival (as I suppose I have), remember I am also trying to save Horatia from this ... this calamitous marriage, and you from your own fantastic principles. It is all such a confusion, but I am really trying for your own happiness as well as hers ... You know, Tristram, I'm sure you could still have her if you tried, when she has forgotten him.... But do say that you forgive me!"

The young man took his outstretched hand. "As if I had anything to forgive, Sir!" Then he went back with him to the table and sat down beside him, and once again reiterated his conviction that Horatia would not forget her lover, that he himself had no chance now, probably never had, so that the case must be considered on its own merits, and that perhaps, after all, the two were made for each other—though here, indeed, the conviction sounded less sincere.

"Well," said the Rector, looking at him with affection as he finished, "however this turns out I am not likely to forget how you have behaved! And perhaps (but don't say so to Horatia) I may have to think about the possibility some day—but not yet ... no, not yet!"

CHAPTER XIII

(1)

The ostler of the Red Lion at Compton Regis and one of the stablemen, who happened at the time to be conversing outside that hostelry, were the only persons in the village privileged to behold a certain blue and yellow postchaise draw up in front of the inn at dusk on an evening in October. Scenting a guest of importance, and preparing to summon the landlord, the ostler was, however, stayed by a curt inquiry from the postilion—

"Be this the way to Little Compton?"

"Straight on, first road to the left," responded the ostler, advancing into one of the paths of radiance cut by the lamps in the damp autumn air. "You're no Oxford man or you'd not ask."

"Well, why should I be an Oxford man?" retorted the postilion. "I'm from Salisbury, if you want to know, and damme, if that ain't as good as Oxford——"

But here a head was thrust out of the far window of the chaise, and a voice with a trace of foreign accent—the voice of a young man—demanded what the devil they had stopped for, and, grumbling, the postilion shouted to the steaming horses. As the chaise rolled off the ostler caught sight of a much older face, lit by the travelling lamp within the carriage. He stared after the receding vehicle.

"'Ere, Bill," he called, "I've seen a Dook. Strike me, but it's 'im wot's going to stay with Mr. 'Ungerford down to Little Compton. 'Ear the posty say 'e come from Salisbury? That the Dook, sure enough, the old party. T'other'll be his son, the young spark wot was 'ere before."

"Dook! Wot's a furrin Dook?" queried the exclusive Bill, and spat on the ground.

(2)

These worthies were quite right in their surmises, and Mr. Hungerford down to Little Compton was at that moment awaiting, with what equanimity he might, the visit of his all but successful rival and of his father, to whom he had been forced to offer a hospitality which would probably ensure that rival's complete triumph. Nor was Tristram unaware of the ironical humour of the situation.

A week had scarcely passed since Armand's departure for Dorset—a week in which the transfigured Horatia had seemed to tread on air—when there came to her a letter from her lover saying that his father absolutely refused his consent to the match. Tristram did not like to think of the days that had followed, when Horatia went about the house dimmed and red-eyed—though she was generally invisible when he was at the Rectory—and when the Rector (so curiously are human beings compounded) raged alternately against Armand for his audacity and against the Duc de la Roche-Guyon for his prohibition. Nothing in fact could have done so much to forward the match, in so far as the Rector was concerned, as this obstacle: and at last, late one evening, Mr. Grenville came over to see Tristram quite broken, reiterating pitifully, "I am being driven to it. I can't have the child going into a decline," and ending up: "As for this Duke, it's preposterous! Who is he, I should like to know, to behave as if my Horatia were not good enough for his younger son? As you know, Tristram, I detest boasting of my connections, but if it comes to that——"

And since Mr. Grenville could indeed claim cousinship of varying degrees with the Most Noble Richard Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of Buckingham, and his brother Lord Nugent, with the Marquis of Chandos, and little Earl Temple, and old Lord Grenville, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, it was hardly surprising that he was annoyed.

Tristram could only suggest that the Duc might come round. "It seems so strange," complained Mr. Grenville, "that he should be so opposed to his son's wishes, when his son is not a minor—how old is he?—twenty-five or twenty-six, I suppose.... You don't think," he said suddenly, "that it's just a ruse on the young man's part to get out of marrying her—that he is repenting of it—that it was only a passing fancy on his part? For if that should be so, Tristram, if he is capable of anything so vile, it will kill my girl." His voice shook with agitation. Gone for ever were the days when he would have hoped that such was the suitor's intention.