The Venetians | Project Gutenberg (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74385 ***

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

THE VENETIANS.

CHAPTER I.

IN THE CITY BY THE SEA.

Little golden cloudlets, like winged living creatures, were hanginghigh up in the rosy glow above Santa Maria della Salute, and all alongthe Grand Canal the crowded gondolas were floating in a golden haze,and all the westward-facing palace windows flashed and shone with anillumination which the lamps and lanterns that were to be lighted aftersundown could never equal, burnt they never so merrily. It was ShroveTuesday in Venice, Carnival time. The sun had been shining on the cityand on the lagunes all day long. It was one of those Shrove Tuesdayswhich recall the familiar proverb—

But who cares about the chance of cold and gloom six weeks hence whento-day is fair and balmy? A hum of joyous, foolish voices echoed fromthose palace façades, and floated out seaward, and rang along thenarrow Calle, and drifted on the winding water-ways, and resoundedunder the innumerable bridges; for everywhere in the City by the Seamen, women, and children were making merry, and had given themselvesup to a wild and childish rapture of unreasoning mirth, ready toexplode into loud laughter at the sorriest jokes. An old man tappedupon the shoulder by a swinging paper lantern—a boy whose hat hadbeen knocked off—a woman calling to her husband or her lover acrossthe gay flotilla—anything was food for mirth on this holiday evening,while the great gold orb sank in the silvery lagoon, and all the skyyonder towards Chioggia was dyed with the crimson afterglow, and theChioggian fishing-boats were moving westward in all the splendour oftheir painted sails.

At Danieli’s the hall and staircase, reading-room, smoking-room, andsaloons were crowded with people; English and American for the mostpart, but with a sprinkling of French and German. Shrewd[Pg 2] Yankees werebargaining on the sea-washed steps below the hall-door with gondoliersalmost as shrewd. Quanto per la notte—tutte la notte, sul canale?To-night the gondoliers would have it all their own way, for every onewanted a gondola to row up and down the Grand Canal, with gaudy Chineselanterns, and singing men, twanging guitar or tinkling mandolineto that tune which is almost the national melody of Venice fin desiècle—“Funicoli, funicola.”

The dining-rooms at Danieli’s are capacious enough for all ordinaryoccasions, but to-night there was not space for half the number whowanted to dine. The waiters were flying about wildly, trying to appeasethe hungry crowd with promises of tables subito, subito. But travellersin Italy know what subito means in an Italian restaurant, and werenot comforted by these assurances. Amiable Signor Campi moved aboutamong his men, and his very presence gave comfort somehow, and finallyeverybody had food and wine, and a din of jovial voices rose up fromthe table d’hôte to the grand old rooms above, on that upper storywhich is called the noble floor, a place of strange histories, perhaps,in those stern days when these hotels were palaces.

The ubiquitous Signor Campi was near the door when a gondola stopped atthe bottom of the steps, and two ladies came tripping up into the hall,followed by a young man who was evidently English, handsome, tall,broad-shouldered, and clad in a suit of rough grey cloth, whose everyline testified to the excellence of an English tailor.

The ladies were as evidently not English, and they had a Carnival airwhich was totally different from the gaiety of the American youngladies in their neat tailor gowns, or the English ladies in their tabled’hôte silks. One wore ruby plush, with a train which trailed on thewet steps as she came up to the door. The other wore black velvet,with a wide yellow sash loosely knotted round a supple waist. The rubylady was masked, the black velvet lady dangled her lace-fringed maskon the end of a finger, and looked boldly round the crowded hall withher big black eyes—eyes which reflected the lamplight in their goldensplendour.

Signor Campi was at the Englishman’s side before the ladies could passthe threshold.

“You were thinking of dining with those two ladies, sir?” he inquired,in excellent English.

“Certainly. You can give us a private room, if you like.”

“There is not a room in the house unoccupied;” and then, in a lowervoice, Signor Campi murmured, “Quite impossible. Those ladies cannotdine here.”

The Englishman laughed lightly.

“You are not fond of your own countrywomen, it seems, Monsieur[Pg 3] Campi;”and then to the hall-porter, “Keep that gondola, will you?” and then inItalian, to the larger lady in ruby plush, who might have been motheror aunt to the lovely girl in black velvet, “They have no room for usanywhere. We should have to wait ages, ages for our dinner. Shall wetry a restaurant?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the girl eagerly. “Ever so much more fun. Let us goto the Black Hat. No gha megio casa per el disnar.”

“Where is the Black Hat?”

“On the Piazza. We often dine there, la Zia and I. We shan’t want thegondola, it is only five minutes’ walk.”

“Shall I engage him for the evening?”

“No, no. You are going to take us to the opera.”

“As you will.”

He offered the girl his arm, and left la Zia to follow him across thehall to the door opening on to the Quay of the Slaves—that quay whosestones are beaten nowadays chiefly by the footsteps of light-heartedtravellers drunken with the enchantment of Venice. They crossed thebridge, the girl hanging on the young man’s arm, chatting gaily, andholding up her long black skirt with the other hand, revealing glimpsesof feet and ankles which were far from fairy-like, feet that had beenwidened by the flip-flopping shoe which the damsel had worn when shewas a lace-maker on the island of Burano.

If he wanted a good dinner—a real Venetian dinner—nowhere would heget it better than at the sign of the Black Hat, and good wine into thebargain, the girl told her cavalier.

They turned by the Vine Corner, and then threaded their way along thecrowded Piazzetta, whence the sacred pigeons had been banished by thetumult of the throng. They crossed the Piazza in front of St. Mark’sMoorish domes, and entered a low doorway under the colonnade, only afew paces from the Torre del Orologio, with its ultramarine and goldclock and its bronze giants to beat the time. At the end of a long,narrow, stuffy passage, they found themselves in a low-ceiled roomwhere there were numerous small tables, and where the heat from theflare of the gas, and the steam of cooked viands, was too suggestive ofthe torrid zone for comfort.

The waiters were evidently devoted to the dark-eyed Si’ora in black andyellow, for room was speedily found where there was apparently no room.Some diners were hustled away from a snug little table in a corner bya window, where by opening one side of the casem*nt one might get abreath of cool air—flavoured by sewage, but still a boon.

“May I order the dinner?” pleaded the dark eyes, smiling at the youngman in rough grey woollen, while la Zia looked about her, turning herhead to survey the groups of diners at the tables in the rear.

[Pg 4]

The waiter set a huge flask of Chiante on the table unbidden,and stood, napkin in hand, waiting for Fiordelisa’s orders.Fiordelisa—otherwise Lisa—was the name of the dark-eyed damsel, whoto the Englishman’s eye looked as if she had just stepped out of astory in the Decameron.

She ordered the dinner, discussing the menu confidentially with thewaiter; she ordered, and the dishes came, and they all ate, Vansittartbeing too hungry to be daintily curious as to the food set before himafter a long day on the lagoons and an afternoon on the Lido, and allthe fun and riot of the Grand Canal at sunset. He never knew of whathis dinner at the Black Hat was composed, except that he ate someoysters and drank a pint of white wine, and helped to finish a coupleof bottles of champagne—which he ordered in lieu of the big flask ofChiante—that they began with a frittura of minnows, and that the mostsubstantial dish which the brisk waiter brought them was a savoury messof macaroni, with shreds of meat or choppings of liver mixed up in anunctuous gravy. Lisa was in high spirits, and ate ravenously, and dranka good many glasses of the sparkling wine, and told him, half in brokenEnglish and half in her Venetian dialect, of the old days when she hadworked in the lace factory, where her earnings were about seven soldiper diem, and where she lived chiefly on polenta.

This was the sole knowledge Mr. Vansittart had of her history, since hehad only made her acquaintance three or four hours ago at the concerthall on the Lido, where he had offered this young person and her aunta cup of coffee, and whence he had brought them back to Venice in hisgondola. He knew nothing of their histories and characters, cared toknow nothing, had no idea of seeing them ever again after this Carnivalday. He had taken them to his hotel without stopping to consider thewisdom of such a course, thinking to feast them in one of those grandupper rooms overlooking the broad sweep of water between the Quay ofthe Slaves and St. George the Greater, meaning to feast them uponSignor Campi’s best; but Signor Campi had willed otherwise, and herethey were feasting just as merrily upon a savoury mess of macaroni andchopped liver at the sign of the Black Hat.

After the savoury dishes Fiordelisa began upon pastry, with an appetiteas of a giant refreshed. She rested her elbow on the table, and theloose sleeve of her velveteen gown rolled back and showed the roundwhite arm. All the little crinkly curls danced upon her pure whiteforehead and over her dancing eyes as she ate chocolate éclairs andcreamy choux to her heart’s content, while Vansittart thought what apretty creature she was, and what a pity Mr. Burgess or Mr. Logsdailewas not there with palette and brushes, to fix that gay and brilliantimage upon canvas for ever.

[Pg 5]

Vansittart was not in love with this chance acquaintance of an idleafternoon. He was only delighted with her. She amused, she fascinatedhim, just as he was amused and fascinated by this enchanting city ofVenice, which had always the same charm and the same glamour for him,come here at what season he might. She impressed him with a sense ofher beauty, just as one of those wonderful pictures in the VenetianAcademy would have done.

His heart was unmoved by this sensuous, eager, earthly loveliness.Her vulgarity, all her words and gestures essentially of the people,interested him, yet kept him worlds away from her.

He was rich, idle, alone in Venice, and he thought it was his right toamuse himself to the uttermost at this Carnival season. That offer of acup of coffee, arising out of mutual laughter at some absurdities amongthe crowd, had been the beginning of the friendliest relations.

He strolled on the loose, level sands with Lisa and her aunt, thosesands over which Byron used to ride, the poet of whose existence Lisahad never heard, yet who had wasted lightest hours with just suchgirls as Lisa. And then how could he go back to Venice alone in hisgondola and leave this black-eyed girl and her chaperon to struggle forstanding room among the crowd on the twopenny steamer, in their fineclothes and jewels, those jewels in which lower-class Venetians loveto invest their savings? No; it was the most natural thing in life tooffer them seats in his gondola, and then to see the fun of the GrandCanal in their company; and what young man with his note-case plethoricwith limp Italian notes, and a reserve of English bank-notes in aclose-buttoned inside pocket, could refrain from offering dinner, andthen, hearing that Lisa was pining to go to the opera, a box at thatentertainment? No sooner had she expressed her desire, while they wereon the Grand Canal, than he sent off a Venetian guide, whom he knew ofold, to engage a stage box for the evening.

Fiordelisa told him about her life at Burano, while she devoured herpastry, the aunt listening placidly, replete with dinner and wine,caring for nothing except that those old days were a thing of the past,and that neither she nor her handsome niece need toil or starve anymore—not for the present, at any rate; perhaps never. La Zia was nota woman to peer curiously into the future while the present gave her acomfortable lodging and meat and drink.

The girl talked her Venetian, and Vansittart, who had spent most ofhis holidays in Italy, and had a quick ear for dialects, was able tounderstand her. Now and then she spoke English, better than he wouldhave expected from her youthful ignorance.

“How is it that you can talk English, Signorina mia, and how is it thatyou left Burano?” he asked in Italian.

[Pg 6]

“For one and the same reason. A young English gentleman fell in lovewith me, and brought my aunt and me to Venice, and is having meeducated, in order to marry me and take me to England with him.”

Vansittart did not believe in the latter half of the story, but he wastoo polite to express his doubt.

“Oh, you are being educated up to our idea of the British matron,are you, bella mia?” he said, smiling at her, as she wiped her corallips with the coarse serviette, and flung herself back in her chair,satiated with cream and pastry. “And pray in what does the educationconsist?”

“I am learning to play on the mandoline. A little old man with acracked voice comes to our lodgings twice a week to teach me—and wesing duets, ‘La ci darem’ and ‘Sul aria.’”

“The mandoline. Ah, that is your English friend’s notion of education,”said Vansittart, laughing. “Well, I dare say that it is as good asGreek or Latin, or the pure science that gave Giordano Bruno such a badtime in this very city.”

He leant back with his head in an angle of the wall, idle, amused,interested, taking life as it seemed to him life ought to betaken—very lightly.

He had been in Venice only a few days, days of sunshine and saunteringin gondolas to this or the other island, to dream away an idleafternoon. It was his third visit, and he seemed to know every stoneof the city almost as well as Ruskin—every palace front and Saracenicwindow, every mouldering flight of steps, every keystone of everybridge which he passed under almost every day with lazy motion,drifting as the cabbage leaves and egg-shells drifted on the darkgreen water. He never stayed very long anywhere, being free to wanderas he pleased at his present stage of existence, and having a dimforeshadowing of the time when he would not be free, when he would bebound and fettered by domestic ties, and travelling would be altogethera different business from this casual rambling. He pictured himself atthe head of his breakfast table discussing the summer holiday with hiswife, while perhaps his mother-in-law sat by and put various spokesinto the family wheel, opposing every preference of his on principle.

He would have to marry some day, he knew. It was an obligation laidupon him together with the family seat and comfortable income to whichhe had succeeded before his two-and-twentieth birthday. The thingwould have to be done—but he meant to delay the evil hour as long ashe could, and to be monstrously exacting as to the fairy princess forwhose dear sake he should put on those domestic fetters.

He had enjoyed this particular visit to Venice with a keener[Pg 7] relishthan either of his previous visits. Though the year was still young,the weather had been exceptionally lovely. Sun, moon, and stars hadshed all that they have of glory and of glamour over the romantic city,painting the smooth lagoons with a rare splendour of colouring whichchanged city and sea into something supernal, unimaginable, dreamlike.

His windows at Danieli’s looked over an enchanted sea, where the greatmodern Peninsular and Oriental steamer moored between the Riva andSt. George the Greater seemed an anachronism in iron. All else wasfairy-like, historic, mediæval.

The steamer was to sail for Alexandria in the afternoon, they hadtold him, whenever he made any inquiry about her; but the days andafternoons had gone, and she was still lying there, blocking out alittle bit of the opposite island and the famous church.

“And so you sing as well as play, Fiordelisa?” he asked, presently,after a silence in which they all three smoked their cigarettes.

“Sing! I should think she did sing,” answered the aunt. “She warbleslike a nightingale. Signor Zefferino, her master, says she ought tocome out at the opera.”

Vansittart smiled. Idle flattery on the maestro’s part, no doubt;the flattery of the small parasite who knows where the macaroni issavouriest, and where the salad reeks with oil.

And yet, if this girl sang at all, she should sing sweetly. Those dark,sunny eyes of hers gave promise of the artistic temperament. The tonesthat came from that round, full throat, ivory white against the tawdryblack and yellow of her gown, should be rich and ripe.

He asked no questions about her English lover. Had he been everso little in love with her himself he would have been full ofcuriosity—but for this flower of a day, this beautiful stranger, withwhom he ate and drank and made merry to-night, and whom he might neversee again, he had no serious concern. He cared not who were her friendsor followers; whether the life she lived were good or evil. She hada fresh youthfulness, a look of almost childlike innocence, in spiteof her tousled hair and tawdry raiment, and although Signor Campi’skeen eye had condemned her. The aunt, too, fat, common, too fine forrespectability, seemed a harmless old thing. No word of evil had comefrom her lips. She had not the air of laying snares for the stranger’sfeet. She thought of nothing but the enjoyment of the moment.

“Pray, where may your Englishman be to-day?” asked Vansittart, as itflashed upon his idle mind that there might be peril in such a cityas Venice in being seen with another man’s sweetheart. “Why didn’t heescort you to the Lido?”

[Pg 8]

“He went to Monte Carlo a fortnight ago,” she answered. “I am afraid heis a gambler.”

“Is he rich?”

“No, not as you English count riches. He is rich for a Venetian. Hegave la Zia and me our gowns—she chose red, I black—last Christmas.There are few Venetians who would give such handsome presents. He isvery generous.”

“Yes, he is very generous,” echoed the aunt.

“It is time we went to the opera,” cried Fiordelisa. “I want to bethere at the beginning.”

The opera was “Don Giovanni;” the artists were third-rate; but theysang well enough to lull la Zia into a comfortable slumber and to liftLisa to the seventh heaven. She sat with clasped hands, listening in arapture of content. She only unclasped her hands to applaud vehementlywhen the house applauded. The theatre was crowded, the audience werenoisy, but Fiordelisa craned her long neck out of the box to listen,and drank in every note with those quick ears of hers, and was perhapsalmost the only person in the Rossini Theatre that night who listenedintently: but before the second act was over the crowd and the heat hadincreased to such a degree that women were fainting in the boxes, andeven Fiordelisa was resigned to leaving before “Don Giovanni” was halfdone. She wanted to walk in the Piazza before the shops were shut, orthe crowd began to thin, or the bands ceased playing.

There was to be a masked ball at the same theatre on the followingnight.

“Shall I take you to the ball, Lisa?” asked Vansittart, as they cameout of the heat and the glare into the cool softness of a Venetiannight.

“No, I don’t care about dancing. I only care for the opera. The girlsat Burano were mad about dancing, but I liked to hear the organ at HighMass better than all their dances.”

Vansittart thought of bidding his new friends good night at the doorof the theatre. Had Venice not been Venice, and had there been anyvehicles in waiting, he would have put his fair companions into acoach, paid their fare, and bade them good night for ever, withoutso much as inquiring where they lived. But Venice has a romanticunlikeness to every other city. There was no coach. To say good nightand leave them to walk home unescorted was out of the question.

“In which direction is your house, Signora?” he asked the elder lady.

“Oh, we are not going home,” cried Fiordelisa. “We are going to thePiazza. This is the time when there will be most fun. You’ll take us,won’t you?” she asked, slipping her hand through[Pg 9] his arm, and boldlytaking possession of him. “Come, come, aunt, we are going to thePiazza.”

Her feet threaded the narrow ways so swiftly that Vansittart scarcelyknew by which particular windings of the labyrinth they came to theBocca di Piazza, and emerged from the shadow of the pillars upon thebroad open square, all aflame with lamps and lanterns, and one roar ofmultitudinous voices, squeaking punchinellos, barking dogs, blaringtrumpets, tinkling guitars. They pushed their way through the crowd,the two women masked, each hanging on to his arm, and making progressdifficult.

The Piazza was a spectacle to remember, full of life and movement,a military band braying out brazen music, music of Offenbach, loud,martial, insistent, above the multifarious squeakings and shoutings,the laughter and the clamour of the crowd. In the long colonnades thethrong pushed thickly; but Vansittart had been one of the strong menof the ’Varsity, a thrower of hammers, a jumper of long jumps, a manwith a name that was famous at Lillie Bridge as well as at Oxford. Heparted the throng as if it had been water, and would have made his wayquickly to the brightest, largest, and gayest of the caffès, if it hadnot been for Lisa, who hung back to look at the lighted shop windows,windows that she could have seen any night of her life, but which had aparticular attraction at Carnival time.

The touters were touting at the shop doors, with that smilingpersistence which makes the Procuratie Vecchie odious, andrecalls Cranbourne Alley in the dark ages. Lisa made a dead stop beforea shop where gaudy wooden figures of Moorish slaves, garish with crudecolour and much gilding, were grilling in the glare of the gas. It wasa kind of bazaar, half Venetian, half Oriental, and one window was fullof bead necklaces and barbaric jewels. At these Lisa looked with suchchildish longing eyes that Vansittart would have been hard as a stoneif he had not suggested making a selection from that sparkling displayof rainbow glass and enamel.

The spider at the door was entreating the flies to go into his web,a young Venetian with smiling black eyes and a Jewish nose—a linealdescendant of Jessica, perhaps—a very agreeable young spider,entreating the Signora and Signorina to go in and look about them.There would be no necessity for them to buy. “To look costs nothing.”

They all three went in. Fiordelisa fastened upon a tray of jewels,and lost herself in a bewilderment as to which of all those earrings,brooches, and necklaces she most desired. Vansittart was interested inthe Moorish things—the bronze cups, the gold and scarlet slippers, theembroidered curtains, and, most of all, the daggers, of which therewere many curious shapes, in purple-gleaming Damascus steel.

[Pg 10]

While Fiordelisa and her aunt were choosing broochesand necklaces—necklaces which by a double twist becamebracelets—Vansittart was cheapening daggers, and, as a young man ofample means, ended by buying the dearest and perhaps the best, a reallyserviceable knife, in a red velvet sheath.

He paid for as many things as Lisa cared to choose; for a bead necklaceand an enamel brooch; for a square of gold-striped gauze to twist abouther head and shoulders; for a dainty little pair of Moorish shoes whichmight admit Lisa’s toes, but which would certainly leave the major partof her substantial foot out in the cold; for a gilded casket to holdher jewels—for a fan—for a gilt thimble—and for a little set ofAlgerian coffee-cups for her aunt.

All these things were to be sent next morning to the Signora’s lodgingsnear the Ponte di Rialto. Vansittart paid the bill, which disposedof a good many of his limp Italian notes, put his dagger in hisbreast-pocket, and left the shop, cutting short the compliments andthanks of the Venetian youth.

The Caffè Florian—of which tradition tells that it closeth not day ornight, winter or summer—was filled with people and ablaze with light.Lisa pushed her way to a table, making good use of those fine shouldersand elbows of hers, and a little group of men who had finished theircoffee got up and made way for the brilliant black eyes, and the redlips, which the little velvet mask did not hide. Those finely mouldedlips looked all the lovelier for the fringe of lace that shadowed them,and the white teeth flashed as she smiled her thanks.

She talked loud, and laughed gaily while she sipped her chocolate.Vansittart himself was somewhat exhilarated by champagne, music, andtwo or three little glasses of cognac taken between the acts at theRossini Theatre, and he was unashamed of his companion’s laughter andgeneral exuberance, even although she was attracting the attention ofevery one within earshot. Beauty and vivacity are not attributes tomake a man ashamed of his companion, although she may be only a Buranolace-maker disguised in a tawdry velvet gown.

“Show me the dagger you chose after all your bargaining,” she said,leaning over towards him, with her elbows on the table.

He obeyed. She drew the dagger from its sheath and looked at itcritically. The red velvet sheath, embroidered with gold, took herfancy much more than the damascened blade.

“It is too heavy to wear in one’s hair,” she said, throwing down thesheath, and taking up the weapon.

“Take care. The blade is as sharp as a razor. It is not by any means anornament for a lady’s toilette table. I bought it against an excursionto the Zambesi, which I have been thinking about for the last twoyears.”

[Pg 11]

“The Zambesi,” she repeated wonderingly; “is that in Italy?”

“No, Signorina. It is on the Dark Continent.”

She had never heard of the Dark Continent, but she only shrugged hershoulders, incuriously, and leant further across the table to examine ablack pearl pin, shaped something like a death’s head, which Vansittartwore in his tie, and thus brought her smiling lips very near his face.

While she leant thus, with the tip of her finger touching the pearl,and her eyes lifted interrogatively, a heavy hand was laid uponVansittart’s shoulder, and he was half twisted out of his chair—tiltedafter the manner of chairs on which young men sit—by sheer brute forceon the part of the owner of the hand.

“Come out of that!” said a voice that was thickened by drink.

Vansittart was on his feet in an instant, facing a man as tall ashimself, and a good deal more bulky—a son of Anak, sandy-haired,pallid, save for red spots on his cheek-bones, spots that burnt likeflame.

He was scowling savagely, breathless with rage. Lisa had risen asquickly as Vansittart, and Lisa’s aunt had moved towards the new-comerin evident trouble of mind.

“Signor Giovanni,” she faltered, “who would have thought to see you inVenice to-night?”

“Not you, evidently, you wicked old hag—nor you, hussy!” cried theman, furious with jealousy and drink. “I’ve caught you at your games,have I, you good-for-nothing slu*t! You couldn’t stay indoors like adecent woman, but you must needs walk the streets late at night withthis co*ckney cad here.”

“Take care what you say to her—or to me,” said Vansittart, in thatmuffled bass which means a dangerous kind of anger.

He put his arm round Fiordelisa, drawing her towards him as ifshe belonged to him and it were his place to guard her from everyassailant. The crowd made a ring about them, looking on, amused andinterested, with no thought of interference which might spoil sport.The comedy some of them had seen at the Goldoni Theatre that night wasnot half so amusing as this bit out of the comedy of real life—thecosmopolitan comedy of human passion.

“You infernal blackguard!” cried the stranger, trying to tear the girlfrom Vansittart’s protecting clasp; “I’ll teach you to carry on withmy——”

A foul word finished the sentence: a blow from Vansittart, straightin the stranger’s teeth, punctuated it. Then came other foul words,and other blows; and the men were grappling each other like pugilistsfighting for the belt. The unknown was of heavier build, and showedtraces of former training, but Vansittart was in much better condition,and was nearer sobriety, though by[Pg 12] no means sober. He had the bestof it for some minutes, till the other man by sheer brute force flunghim against the table, crashing down among the shattered glasses andcoffee-cups, and dealt him a savage blow below the belt, kicking him ashe struck.

The table reeled over and Vansittart fell. Under his open hand as itstruck the floor he felt, the unsheathed dagger which Fiordelisa hadflung down, in careless indifference, after deciding that it was toobig for an ornament.

Infuriated by that foul blow, maddened by the brutality of the attack,excited to fever heat by the surrounding circ*mstances, even by thevery atmosphere, which reeked with tobacco and brandy, Vansittartsprang to his feet, clutched his foe by the collar, and plunged thedagger into his breast. In the moment of doing it the thing seemednatural, spontaneous, the inevitable outcome of the assault that hadbeen made upon him. In the next moment, as those angry eyes grew dim,and the man fell like a log, Vansittart felt himself a coward and amurderer.

A sudden silence came upon the crowd, tumultuous a moment ago. Asilence fell upon the scene, like a dull, grey veil, gauzy, impalpable,that had dropped from the ceiling.

“Dead,” muttered a voice at Vansittart’s elbow, as the man lay in themidst of them, motionless. “That knife went straight to the heart.”

A shriek rent the air, wild and shrill, and the vibrating glassesechoed it with a banshee scream. Lisa flung herself upon the body,and tried to staunch the bubbling blood with her poor wisp ofa handkerchief. A man pushed his way through the crowd with anauthoritative air—a doctor, doubtless; but before he reached thelittle clear space where the victim lay with Lisa crouching over him,and Lisa’s aunt wringing her hands and appealing to the Madonna and allthe Saints, a rough hand pulled Vansittart’s arm, and a man whisperedin Italian, “Run, run, while you have the chance!”

“Run?” Yes, he was a murderer, and his life belonged to the law, unlesshe used his heels to save his neck. Quick as lightning he took thehint, clove his way through the crowd, and made a dash for the doornearest the Piazzetta. The crowd were busy watching the doctor as heknelt beside that prostrate form—interested, too, in Fiordelisa, withher mask flung off, her loosened hair falling about her ivory neck, herdark eyes streaming, her red lips convulsed and quivering. Vansittartwas at the door, past it, before a man cried—

“Stop him; stop the assassin.”

There was a sudden tumult, and twenty men were giving chase, a packof human bloodhounds, perhaps as much for the sake of[Pg 13] sport as fromactual horror at the deed. They rushed along the Piazzetta, knockingdown more than one astonished lounger on their way. They made for thePillars of St. Mark and St. Theodore—for that spot where of old theRepublic put her felons to death, and where now the gondolas wait insunshine and in starshine for the holiday visitors in the dream-city.

He would make for the water naturally, and jump on board the firstgondola he could find, thought his pursuers; but when they reachedthe quay there was not a gondola to be seen. The gondoliers had allgot their fares to-night, and all the gondolas were on the GrandCanal, with flaunting paper lanterns flying at their beaked prows,and coloured fires burning, and mandolines and guitars tinkling andtwanging, and “Funicoli, funicola,” echoing from boat to boat.

“We shall have him!” cried the foremost of that yelping pack, and evenas he spoke they all heard the sound of a great splash, by the stepsyonder, and knew their quarry had taken to the water.

The Venetians, warm with macaroni and wine, and in no humour for animprovised bath under those starlit ripples, pulled up, and began tochatter; then whistled and shouted for gondolas, hopelessly, as to theempty air; and anon, by common consent, ran to the bridge hard by thefurthermost corner of the Doge’s Palace, and from that vantage pointlooked over the water.

It was covered with holiday craft. Far as the eye could see the gailydecked boats were crossing and recrossing the broad reach between theRiva and the island church, and in the midst of them, like a sea-girtfortress, rose the dark hulk of the P. and O. steamer, her lightsshowing bright and high above those fantastical Chinese lanterns,her boilers throbbing, her cables groaning, all prepared for instantdeparture.

There was a deep-toned blast of the steamer’s whistle, the clamour ofthe donkey engines suddenly ceased, and the beating of the screw lashedup the water: and, lo, all the gondolas were tossed and swung aboutlike a handful of rose-leaves on a running brook.

“She’s off!” cried one of Vansittart’s pursuers, almost forgetting thechase in the pleasures of watching that big ship getting under way.

“Do you think he could have got on board her?” asked another; “he”meaning their quarry.

“Not he, unless he were a better swimmer than ever I knew.”

He was a better swimmer than anybody among that Venetian’sacquaintance—or, at any rate, he was good enough to swim out to theP. and O. steamer and to get himself on board her before the enginesbegan to beat the water with their first deliberate pulsations.[Pg 14] Thelast boat had left the side of the vessel; the sailors were drawing upthe accommodation ladder, as he called to them with a voice of commandwhich they did not question. In three or four minutes he was on deck,and had made his way, dripping as he was, to the captain of the vessel.

He explained himself briefly. He had got into a row—a Carnival froliconly—and wanted to get clear of Venice, and knowing the steamer was tosail for Alexandria that night, had swum out to her at the last moment.He had plenty of money about him, and as for change of clothes, he mustdo the best he could.

“I hope it wasn’t anything very bad,” said the captain doubtfully,looking at this dripping stranger from top to toe.

“Oh no; a man hit me in a caffè just now, and I hit him.”

The steamer was imperceptibly moving seaward at every steady throb ofthose ponderous engines, threading her way along the tortuous channelso slowly and cautiously at first that Vansittart wondered if shewere ever going to get away. Venice the lamplit, the starlit, thebeautiful, glided into the distance, with all her domes and pinnacles,her gondolas and Chinese lanterns, torches and sky-rockets, musicand laughter. Vansittart’s heart ached as he watched the fairy cityfading like a vision of the night. He had loved her so well—spent suchhappy, light, unthinking days upon those waters, in those labyrinthinestreets, laughing and chaffering with the little merchants of theRialto, following Venetian beauty through the mazy ways and overthe innumerable bridges—happy, uncaring. And now he was an escapedmurderer, and would never dare to show his face in Venice again. “GoodGod!” he said to himself, in a stupor of horrified shame, “that I,a gentleman, should have used a knife—like a Colorado miner, or adrunken sweep in Seven Dials!”

CHAPTER II.

AFTER-THOUGHTS.

There was nothing but fair weather for the P. and O. steamerBerenice between Venice and Alexandria—fair weather and a calmsea; and John Vansittart had ample leisure in which to think over whathe had done, and to live again through all the sensations of his lastnight in Venice.

He had to live through it all again, and again, in those long daysat sea, out of sight of land, with nothing between him and his owndark thoughts but that monotony of cloudless sky and rolling waters.What did it matter whether the boat made eighteen or twenty knots anhour, whether progress were fast or slow? Each day meant an eternityof thought to him who sat apart in his canvas chair, staring[Pg 15] blanklyeastward, or brooding with bent head, and melancholy eyes fixed on thedeck, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, irritated and miserable whensome officious fellow-passenger insisted upon plumping down by his sidein another deck chair, and talking to him about the weather, or hisdestination, with futile questionings as to whether this was his firstvoyage to the East, and all the idle inquisitiveness of the travellerwho has nothing to do, and very little to think about.

Captain and steward had been very good to him. The former had asked himno questions after that first inquiry, content to know that he was agentleman, and had a well-filled purse; the latter had put him to bedin the most comfortable of berths, and had given him a hot drink, anddried his clothes ready for the next morning. And in that one suit ofclothes, with changes of linen borrowed from the captain, he made thevoyage to Alexandria in the bright spring weather, under the vivid bluethat canopies the Mediterranean. Perhaps the fact of living in that onesuit of clothes all through those hot days intensified his sense ofbeing a pariah among the other passengers; he who had come among themwith a hand red with murder.

Hour after hour he would sit in his corner of the deck, always the mostsecluded spot he could find, and brood over the thing that he had done.

He had an open book upon his knee for appearance’s sake, and pretendedto be absorbed in it whenever a curious saunterer passed his way. Hesmoked all day long for comfort’s sake, the only comfort possible forhis troubled brain, and all day long he thought of his last evening inVenice and the thing that he had done there.

To think that he, a gentleman by birth and education, should have slaina man in a tavern row; that he, who in his earliest boyhood had beentaught to use his fists, and to defend himself after the manner ofEnglishmen, should have yielded to a tigerish impulse, and stabbed anunarmed foe to the heart! He, the well-bred Englishman, had behaved nobetter than a drunken Lascar.

He scorned—he hated—himself for that blind fury which had made himgrip the weapon that accident had placed in his way.

He was not particularly sorry for the man he had killed; a violent,drunken brute, who for the sake of the rest of humanity was better deadthan alive. A profligate who had betrayed that lovely ignoramus undera promise of marriage, a promise which he had never meant to keep. Hehated himself for the manner of the brute’s death rather than for thedeath itself. If he had killed the man in fair fight he would havefelt no regret at having made an end of him; but to have stabbed anunarmed man! There was the sting, there was the shame of it. All nightlong, between snatches of troubled sleep, he writhed and tossed in hisberth, wishing that he[Pg 16] were dead, wondering whether it were not thebest thing he could do to throw himself overboard before daybreak andso make an end of these impotent regrets, this maddening reiteration ofdetails, this perpetual representation of the hateful scene, for everbeginning and ending and beginning again in his tortured brain.

He would have decided upon suicide, perhaps, not having any strongreligious convictions at this stage of his existence; but his life wasnot his own to fling away, however unpleasant he might have made it forhimself.

He had a mother who adored him, and to whom he, for his part, waswarmly attached. She was a widow, and he was the head of the house,sole master of the estate, and to him she looked for dignity andcomfort. Were he to die the landed property would pass to his uncle, adry old bachelor, and though his mother would still have her income,she would be banished from the house in which her wedded life had beenspent, and she would be the loser in social status. He had an onlysister, too, a fair, frivolous being, of whom, in a lesser degree,he was fond; a sister who had made her appearance in Society at thepre-Lenten Drawing-Room, and had been greatly admired, and who waswarranted to make a good match.

Poor little Maud! What would become of Maud if he were to throwhimself off a P. and O. steamer? Think of the scandal of it. And yet,if he lived, and that brutal business in the Venetian caffè were tobe brought home to him—murder, or manslaughter—it would be evenworse for his sister. Society would look askance at a girl with sucha ruffian for a brother—an Englishman who used the knife against hisfellow-man. Daggers and stilettos might be common wear among Venetians;but the knife was not the less odious in the sight of an Englishmanbecause he happened to be in a city where traditions of treachery andsecret murder were interwoven with all her splendour and her beauty.It would be horrible, humiliating, disgraceful for his people if everthat story came to be known—a choice topic for the daily papers, withjust that spice of romance and adventure which would justify exhaustivetreatment.

Thinking over the question from the Society point of view—and in mostof the great acts of life Society stands with the modern Christianin the place which the religious man gives his Creator—Vansittarttold himself that every effort of his intelligence must be bent upondissociating himself from that tragedy in the Venetian caffè. He hadgot clear of the city by a wonderful bit of luck; for had the steamerstarted five minutes earlier, or a quarter of an hour later, escapethat way would have been impossible.

He had heard the men giving chase on the Piazzetta as he jumped fromthe quay; heard them shouting when he was in the water.[Pg 17] Had thesteamer been stationary those men would have boarded her, and the wholestory would have been known. She had weighed anchor in the nick oftime for him. But what then? A telegram to the police at Brindisi orAlexandria might stop him, as other fugitive felons are caught everymonth in the year—men who get clear off at Liverpool, to be arrestedbefore they step ashore at New York.

He paid his passage on the morning after his flight, and gave hisname as John Smith, of London. The captain scrutinized him rathersuspiciously on hearing that name of Smith; but Vansittart did not looklike a swindler or a blackguard. He was under a cloud, perhaps, thecaptain thought, and Smith was most likely an alias; but anyhow he wasa gentleman, and the captain meant to stand his friend.

“Are you going to stay long in Cairo?” he asked Vansittart, when theywere within sight of Alexandria.

“Not long. Perhaps only till I get my luggage. I shall go up the Nile.”

“You’ll find it rather hot before you’ve been a long way.”

“Oh, I don’t mind heat. I’m not a feverish subject,” said Vansittart,lightly, having no more idea of going up the Nile than of going to themoon.

“You’ll stop at Sheppard’s, of course?”

“Yes, decidedly. I’m told it’s a very good hotel.”

While they were nearing their port he contrived to get a good deal ofinformation about the steamers that touched there. He meant to get offon the first boat that sailed after he landed. All the interval hewanted was the time to buy some ready-made clothes and a valise, sothat he might not appear on board the homeward-bound steamer in themiserable condition in which he had introduced himself to the captainof the P. and O.

He parted with that officer with every expression of friendliness.

“I shan’t forget how good you’ve been to a traveller in distress,” hesaid lightly; “you may not hear of me for a month or two, perhaps. Imay be up the Nile——”

“Take care of the climate,” interjected the captain.

“But as soon as I go back to London I shall write to you. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Smith, and good luck to you for a fine swimmer whereveryou go.”

“Oh, I won a cup or two at Oxford,” answered the other. “We ratherprided ourselves on our swimming in my set.”

He went to a restaurant where he could sit under an awning and read thelatest papers that had found their way to Alexandria. There were plentyof Paris papers—Galignani, Le Figaro, Le[Pg 18] Temps.There was a Turin paper, very stale—and there was a copy of theDaily Telegraph that had been left by some traveller, and whichwas a fortnight old. Nothing to fear there. Vansittart breathed morefreely, and thought of going on to Cairo. But second thoughts warnedhim that Cairo was very English, and that he might meet some one heknew there. Better to stick to his first plan, and go back to Englandby the first steamer that would take him.

He had to think of his possessions at Danieli’s, and whether the thingshe had left there would provide a clue to his identity. He thought not.He had not given his name to the hall porter.

The hotel was crowded, and he had—like a convict—been simply known as“150,” the number of his room.

Clothes, portmanteau, dressing-bag, bore only his initials, J. V. Hehad been travelling in lightest marching order; carrying no books savethose which he picked up on his way, no writing materials, except thecompact little case in his dressing-bag. It was his habit to destroyall letters as soon as he had read them—even his mother’s, after asecond or third reading. His card-case, note-case, and purse were allin his pockets when he made the plunge. No, he had left nothing atDanieli’s; nor had he left Danieli’s deep in debt, for he had paid hisaccount on Tuesday morning, with a half-formed intention of startingfor Verona by the early train on Wednesday. He could resign himself tothe loss of portmanteau and contents, and the plain pigskin bag, whichhad seen good service and had been scraped and battered upon many aplatform.

Reflection told him that he had nothing to fear from the newspapers yetawhile, since no newspaper could have travelled faster than the steamerthat had brought him, while the news of that homicide at Venice washardly important enough to be telegraphed to any Egyptian journal. No,he was safe so far; but he told himself that the best thing he coulddo was to get back to England and the wilderness of London; while theBerenice and her good-natured captain went on to Bombay, where,no doubt, the captain would read of that fatal brawl in the Venetiancaffè, and identify his passenger as the English tourist who hadstabbed another man to death.

Vansittart pulled himself together, counted his money, and rejoiced atfinding that he had enough for his voyage home, and a trifle over forincidental expenses and a small outfit. The greater part of his moneywas in English bank-notes, about which no questions would be asked.

He went to the steamboat office, and found that there was a P. and O.boat leaving that night for London, so he took his passage[Pg 19] on boardher, selected his berth, and then drove off to an outfitter’s to gethis kit, and a new cabin trunk, just big enough to hold his belongings.He bought a few French novels, and those small necessities of lifewithout which the civilized man feels himself a savage.

His ship sailed at midnight. He was on board her early in the evening,pacing the deck in the balmy night, and looking at the lighted town,the massive quays, which testify to English enterprise, the Pharossending out its long lines of bright white light seaward—the giganticbreakwater—all that makes the Egyptian port of to-day in some wiseworthy of the Alexandria of old, when her twin obelisks stood outagainst the sky, and when her name meant all that was grandest in thesplendour of the antique world.

Vansittart looked at the starlit sky and lamplit city with a dullunobservant gaze, while the burden upon his mind deadened his sense ofall things fair and strange, and made him indifferent to scenes whichwould once have aroused his keenest interest. How often he had dreamedhis summer daydream of Egypt, lying on a velvet lawn in Hampshire,with a volume of old Herodotus, or some modern traveller, flung uponthe grass beside him, in the idlesse of a July afternoon! How often hehad promised himself a long winter in that historic land! He had notmuch of the explorer’s ardour in those boyish days, no bent towardsundiscovered watersheds and unpleasant encounters with blackamoors, noambition to be reckoned amongst the mighty marksmen of the world, orto be called the father of lions; though in some vague visions he hadfancied himself wandering in that lone land where the Zambesi leapsheadlong into the fathomless gorge, in blinding whiteness of foam anddeafening thunder of sound, a beauty and a terror to eye and ear. Thethings he most wanted to see were the things that his fellow-men hadmade, the palaces and statues, and fortresses and tombs that meanhistory. He was not a naturalist or a scientific traveller, had no hopeof making the world any richer by his discoveries, or of reading thesmallest paper at the Geographical Society. He wanted to see men andcities, and all splendid memorials of past ages, for his own pleasureand amusem*nt; and Egypt was one of the countries to which he hadlooked for delight, if ever satiety and weariness should overtake himamidst the nearer delights of his beloved Italy.

And, behold, to-day he had walked those Egyptian streets, and let thoseEgyptian faces pass by him, with eyes that saw not, and with a mindthat felt no interest in the things the eyes looked at. The distressin his thoughts, the perpetual labouring of his troubled mind, wouldnot allow of pleasure in anything. That aching agony of remorse hadtaken hold of him, and left room for no other feeling.[Pg 20] To the endof his life all that was picturesque and individual in this Egyptianseaport would be part and parcel of his self-humiliation, associatedfor ever with the thought that he had slain a fellow-creature, undercirc*mstances for which he could find no excuse.

Again and again, as he paced the deck in the starlight, the face of theman he had killed stood out against the deep azure of the sky and sea,as it had looked at him in that awful moment when one last ejacul*tion,“God!” broke from the parted lips, and the man fell as if struck by athunderbolt. There was scarcely any change in his face as he fell—noghastly pallor, no convulsion of the features. As he lay there lookingup at the ceiling, one might hardly have thought him dead. No torrentof blood rushed from those parted lips. The stream ebbed slow and dullfrom the pierced heart. That savage thrust of the dagger had done itswork well. How many daggers and what a gory butchery had been neededto make an end of Cæsar; and behold this man was done for with onemovement of an angry hand. For John Vansittart murder had been madeeasy.

The homeward voyage seemed ever so much longer than the outward, andthe gloom of his mind deepened as the summer days wore out; summer, forit was summer here on the Mediterranean, whatever season it might seemin London, summer at Genoa, summer all along the Riviera, where themimosas flung their fairy gold across the villa gardens, and the lateensails shone dazzling white in the vivid sun, and the berceaus werebeginning to clothe themselves with young vine leaves, unfolding out ofcrumpled woolly greyness into tender, translucent green.

He thought of Fiordelisa, and his thoughts of her were bitterest ofall. He could not doubt that he had robbed her of her protector, theman whose purse provided for the little household of which she andher aunt had talked so gaily. It might be that he had left her tostarve—or worse. Was it likely she would ever go back to Burano, andher lace-work, and her threepence-halfpenny a day, and her slipshodshoes, and her polenta, after having tasted the flesh-pots of Venice,the pallid asparagus and fat cauliflowers from the market in theRialto, the savoury messes at the sign of the Black Hat? Would shego back and be a peasant again, after trapesing the Piazzetta in herflashy black and yellow gown, and sitting in a lantern-lit gondola, andtwanging on her mandoline?

His experience of her sex and degree inclined him to think that shewould not return to the old laborious life, with its hardships andprivations. The first step upon the broad high-road of sin having beentaken, there would be but little scruple about the second; and thosebold, beautiful eyes, that swan throat and graceful form, would belongto somebody else. The easy-going aunt would hardly stand[Pg 21] in the wayof a new settlement, when the last of their poor possessions had beencarried to the Monte di Pietà, and hunger was at hand. Somebody elsewould pay the little old singing-master, and listen admiringly whileLisa sang to the wiry tinkling of her mandoline; and the lanterns wouldswing from the beak of the gondola in the festival evenings, and therockets would shoot up through the purple night in front of Santa Mariadella Salute, and all the palaces on the Grand Canal would shine rosyred, reflecting the Bengal fires, and Lisa would forget her murderedman, while those substantial feet of hers tripped gaily down thebrimstone path.

If that tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man had lived he mighthave kept his promise and married her. Who is to be sure that he wouldnot? There are men in the world who will wed the girl they love, beshe barmaid or ballet-dancer; and that this man was fond of Fiordelisathere could be little doubt. His savage jealousy indicated thepassionate force of the civilized savage’s love.

Alas for Fiordelisa, widowed in the very morning of life! He who hadwrecked her fortune could do nothing to help her. He dared not stretchout his hand towards her. His interest, for the sake of others as wellas for his own sake, lay in severing every link that could connect himwith the catastrophe of that fatal night. No, he could do nothing forFiordelisa. He would not have grudged her the half of his income; andhe dared not send her so much as a ten-pound note! She must sink orswim.

The thought of her peril doubled the sum of his remorse.

He landed at Marseilles, and here, too, it was summer—summer at herbrightest, with azure skies, and a sea deeper, bluer, more darklyglorious than the lapis lazuli in a jewelled châsse. The streets werefull of traffic and abloom with flower-girls, noisily pressing theirbunches of roses and pale Parma violets upon him as he walked up theRue de la Cannebière on his way from the quay to the railway hotel.There had been a time when the sights and sounds of that southern portwere like strong wine, exhilarating, delighting him, when he could nothave too much of the animation and picturesqueness of the place, theCorniche road, the wide-stretching bay with rocks and lighthouses, thesea marks of every kind, and that glittering point where the waterwaysdivide—to the left for Hindostan, China, Japan; to the right for theNew World and the setting sun; two paths upon the trackless blue thatseemed each to lead direct to fairyland.

And behold he had come from the land of glamour and mystery, from thetombs of the Pharaohs, from the ashes of Cleopatra, heart-weary, caringfor nothing.

He went into one of the big caffès on his right hand, seated himself ata table in an obscure corner, and began to examine the papers,[Pg 22] hastilyturning them over one after another, worried by the sticks to whichthey were fastened. Yes, here it was, in the Paris Figaro.

“A fatal brawl occurred last Tuesday night in one of the caffès inthe Piazza at Venice. Two Englishmen fought savagely about a Venetiangirl who had entered the caffè in the company of one of them. Bothmen appeared to have been drinking, and after a desperate encounterwith fists, in the English fashion, the younger and better-looking ofthe two snatched up a dagger and stabbed his antagonist to the heart.Death was almost instantaneous. The murderer managed to get away in theconfusion caused by the unexpected catastrophe, the crowded state ofthe Piazzetta and the Riva favouring his escape. It is supposed that hejumped into the water, and either managed to scramble into a gondolaand get himself conveyed to the railway station or was drowned—thoughthe latter supposition seems unlikely when it is considered that thecanal was crowded with boats. Every effort to discover traces of themissing man has been made by the Venetian police, but as yet withoutsuccess. The name of the murdered man was John Smith. He had been sometime resident in Venice, but did not bear a good character in the city,where he was in debt to several of the smaller tradespeople in theRialto. Very little seems to have been known about his surroundings,even by the elderly woman who kept house for him, or the girl whoseexistence cost him his life.”

John Smith. An assumed name, no doubt; just as false as that name ofSmith which Vansittart had given to the captain and steward of theBerenice.

It did not seem to him, as he re-read this paragraph among the FaitsDivers in the Figaro, that the fatal event had created so muchstir as he had supposed it would create. It seemed to him that he wasgetting off cheaply, and that he might go down to the grave withoutbeing called upon to answer for that deadly stroke. The man’s isolationsaved him. Had his victim been the member of a respectable Englishfamily, had there been father and mother, brothers and sisters tobewail his loss, much more stringent efforts might have been made tofind his murderer. But a reprobate Englishman, a man who had perhapssevered every link that bound him to kindred and country, a scampishindividual, living under an assumed name and unable to pay his way, wasnot the kind of person whose death in a tavern brawl was likely to makea great stir.

Had he disappeared, had there been the attraction of mystery abouthis doom, a riddle to solve, a crime unexplained and seeminglyunexplainable, French and English newspapers might have given columnsor florid writing to the case. But here there was no mystery, no darkenigma of love and murder. In the full glare of the gas, in sightof the crowd, these two men had fought, and one[Pg 23] had proved himselfunworthy of his British birthright by using a dagger against an unarmedantagonist.

Vansittart found the same paragraph repeated in several papers,and amongst his researches, aided by a waiter who brought himthe accumulation of the last ten days, he found an old DailyTelegraph in which his crime formed the basis for a spiritedleader, full of vivacity and local colour, written by a journalist whoevidently knew Venice by heart. In this article the picturesqueness ofthe city, the riot of Carnival time, the historical associations ofDoge and Republic, were more insisted upon than the brutality of thefight, or the unfair use of the dagger.

He felt a little easier in his mind after his examination of thepapers. It seemed to him that by the time he arrived at Charing Crossmost people would have forgotten all about an event which was alreadythree weeks old, and it would hardly occur to any one to connect himwith the fatal brawl in the Piazza di San Marco.

He dined in the crowded, bustling restaurant in the Station Hotel witha little better appetite than he had felt for a long time, and tookhis seat in a corner of a compartment of the Rapide—not affecting thestuffy luxury of the “Sleeping”—for the long night journey to Paris,with a calmer mind than he had known since Shrove Tuesday. He lookedout into the darkness when the train stopped at Avignon, and it waswinter again, the bleak March winter before the Easter Noon; and atLyons the blasts from the two rivers blew colder still, and he feltthat he was near home.

He was in Charles Street by afternoon teatime, sitting in the cosydrawing-room with his mother and sister, being petted and made muchof in a manner calculated to stimulate any young man’s self-love. Hismother adored him, and he had been away from her nearly half a year.His sister was seven years his junior, a pretty, frivolous youngcreature, whose mind rarely dwelt upon any more serious question thanthe fashion of her next ball-dress or how she should wear her hair,or the newest toy on her silver table. Yet she, too, adored JackVansittart in her pretty frivolous way, and had not yet begun to adoreanybody else.

The room was full of flowers and old china, and little tables crowdedwith silver, and enamels, and Dresden boxes, and ivory paper-knives;and there were books in every available corner; an old room withpanelled walls and a low ceiling, in a somewhat shabby old housewhich had belonged to Mrs. Vansittart’s grandfather, an East Indiadirector, in the days when the Pagoda tree was still worth shaking.The furniture was seventy years old, a quaint mixture of old-fashionedEnglish things, before the influence of Sheraton and Chippendale haddied out, and Indian things, really and intensely Indian, bought in theEast, long before Oriental goods[Pg 24] began to be manufactured wholesalefor English buyers. Bombay blackwood, with its clumsy bulkinessenriched by elaborate carving, ivories, screens of black and gold,rainbow-hued embroideries which time had scarcely faded, porcelain jarsand enamelled vases, relieved the stern simplicity of rosewood and palechintz. A few choice water-colours on the walls, and an abundance offlowers harmonized everything, and made Mrs. Vansittart’s drawing-rooma fitting nest for a very elegant woman and her very pretty daughter.

The London house was Mrs. Vansittart’s own property; the house inHampshire belonged to her son, and she spoke of herself and herdaughter laughingly as caretakers.

“When you marry,” said Maud, tossing up her pretty head, with pale goldhair crisped and curled in the prevailing fashion, “mother and I willhave to budge. Whatever slu*t you may choose to fall in love with willbe mistress of Merewood.”

“Why must you needs suppose I may fall in love with a slu*t?”

“Oh, by the doctrine of opposites. You are one of those orderly,superior persons who are foredoomed to admire some wild girl of thewoods, some harum-scarum minx, with fine eyes and half an inch of mudon the edge of her gown.”

“However fine the eyes were, I think the half-inch of mud would be awarning that I could hardly ignore. But I do not claim to be eitherorderly or superior. My father’s Irish blood has infused a spice ofdisorder into my Anglo-Saxon character.”

And now on this bright April afternoon Jack Vansittart was being pettedand fed by these two loving women, who could not do too much to provetheir devotion to him after the long severance. They had only given himtime to wash his hands and brush the Kentish dust and chalk out of hishair and clothes before he sat down between them to a cup of tea. Hehad to assure them that he had lunched heartily at Calais, and wantednothing but tea, or else a substantial meal would have been set out inthe dining-room below.

“And you have come straight through from Marseilles?” said Mrs.Vansittart. “What a terrible journey!”

“Hot and dusty, mother; not very appalling to a traveller. But you aresuch a stay-at-home.”

“To my cost,” pouted Maud. “I haven’t the least idea of what the worldis like. I have to take other people’s word that it is round.”

“We found your telegram from Marseilles at two o’clock this morningwhen we came home from Mrs. Mountain’s dance, and, rejoiced as I was toknow you were coming back to us, I took it for granted you would loiterin Paris for a week,” said Mrs. Vansittart.

“Paris is always delightful,” replied her son; “but I was tired ofwandering, and was honestly homesick. And here I am safe at[Pg 25] home, andever so much better off than poor old Odysseus. By the way, mother,your Italian spaniel did her level best to bite me as I came upstairs,and she and I were once such friends. Dogs have altered since the daysof Argus.”

“How silly of her! but she’ll love you again after a day or two. Andnow tell me, Jack, all you have been doing and seeing since you leftMerewood last October. You are such a bad correspondent that one knowsnothing about your wanderings, and if I were not well broken to yourneglect I should be miserable about you.”

“See how wise my system is,” he said, laughing; “were I a goodcorrespondent an interval of a week without a letter would scare you. Ihave heard of men who write regularly once a week to their people, orwho keep a journal of their travels and send it home every fortnightfor family perusal. But since you and Maud both know that I detestletter-writing, you expect nothing of me, and are never anxious.”

“Indeed you are wrong, Jack,” said his mother, with a sigh. “I have hadmany an anxious hour about you. But I’m not going to be doleful now Ihave you at home again, and for a long time, I hope.”

“Yes, for a long time,” echoed Jack. “I am sick of travelling.”

There was a weariness in his tone that sounded as if he meant what hesaid.

“And now tell me your adventures.”

The word hurt him like the sharp edge of a knife.

“I have had none. No one has adventures nowadays,” he said. “I had afortnight on an American friend’s yacht in the Mediterranean, and wehad some rather dirty weather, but nothing to hurt. That’s my nearestapproach to an adventure. I had a month at Monte Carlo, shot a goodmany pigeons, and missed nearly as many as I shot; played a little,with varying luck, but am not ruined; came off on the whole a winner,though to no substantial amount, perhaps enough to buy a pair ofsolitaires for Maud’s pretty little ears”—pinching the ear that wasnearest him, as the girl sat on a low chair at his side. “No, I havehad no adventures. I have only been in familiar places. Let me see,from where did I write last?”

“From Bologna, ages ago; a shabby little letter,” answered Maud.

“Ah, I spent a few days in Bologna after I left Florence. I am ratherfond of Bologna.”

“And after that? Where did you go after Bologna? It must be nearly twomonths since you were there.”

“Oh, I went to Padua and—and Verona,” he answered carelessly, “andthen back to Genoa, and then I dawdled along the Riviera, stopping anight or two here and there, to Marseilles; and here I am. That is myhistory—and I am ready for another cup of tea.”

[Pg 26]

Maud filled his cup, and offered him dainty biscuits and temptingcakes, and hung about him fondly, touching the thick hair which madesuch a waving line across the broad forehead.

“Why, how tremendously sunburnt you are!” she exclaimed. “You look asif you had just come off a sea voyage.”

“Do I? Well, I have basked in the sun that shines upon theMediterranean; and a March sun on the Riviera is a blazer.”

“And you were at Bologna and Padua, and did not go to your belovedVenice?” said his mother. “I thought you were so fond of Venice?”

“Yes, I delight in the place, but I wanted to go back to the Riviera,where I should be more secure of sunshine and balmy air.”

“And you left Italy without revisiting Venice?” exclaimed Maud, who hadoften listened to his raptures about the City by the Sea.

There was no more to be said. For the first time in his life he haddeliberately lied, and to his mother and sister, of all people—tothose who in all the world most trusted and believed in him. He hatedhimself for what he had done; and yet he meant to maintain thatfalse assertion doggedly. He had not been to Venice. Let no casualacquaintance come forward to allege that he had been seen there. In thevery teeth of assertion he would declare that in this springtime of1886 he had not been in Venice. He rejoiced in the thought that he hadtold his name to no one at Danieli’s, and that he had entered the hotelas a stranger, having stopped at one of the hotels on the Grand Canalon his previous visits. He told himself that no one could convict himof having been in the fatal city last Shrove Tuesday—no one who knewhim as Jack Vansittart.

“And now that you’ve had the history of my travels——”

“A sorry history, forsooth!” cried Maud. “You men have no capacity fordescription. When Lucy Calder came home from her Italian honeymoon shetalked to me for hours about the places and things she had seen there.”

“Pretty prattler! Would you like me to recite a few pages of Murrayor Joanne? All travelling is alike nowadays, Maud, and pleasure andcomfort are only a question of good railway service and well-foundhotels. We have done with romance and adventure. Life is pretty muchthe same all over Europe. And now tell me what you have been doing;there is more interest in a girl’s life in her first season than in allthe cities of Europe.”

“Well, Jack, to begin with, I was presented at the FebruaryDrawing-Room. I went out with mother a goodish bit last November,don’t you know, but I was not actually out. That only began after theDrawing-Room.”

[Pg 27]

“And had you a pretty frock, and did the Royalties look kindly at youwhen you made your curtsy?”

“The Royalties might all have been waxwork, from Her Majesty downwards,for anything I knew to the contrary,” said Maud. “I saw no faces—onlya cloud of feathers, and a splendour of jewels, and velvet, and satin,all vague and troubled, like the figures in a dream—but I got throughthe business somehow, and mother said I made no mistakes.”

“And the frock?”

“Oh, the frock was just as pretty as a frock can be. It was mother’staste. She talked out every detail with Mdlle. Marie. She was notcontent to hear that Lady Lucille Plantagenet had worn this sort ofthing, or Lady Gwendoline Tudor that sort of thing. She insisted onhaving just the frock she thought would suit me, Maud Vansittart.The train and petticoat were white satin—the satin you see in oldpictures, satin in which there are masses of deep, steel-grey shadowand floods of white, silvery light—and then there was a cloud ofaerophane arranged as only Marie can arrange a drapery, and in thecloud there were clusters of lilies of the valley and fluffy ostrichtips. The papers—the lady-papers mostly—went into raptures about myfrock.”

“And did the lady-papers say nothing of the wearer?”

“Oh, some of them were so good as to say I was not quite the mosthideous débutante of the year, and that they liked the way I hadmy hair dressed—and now I find our French hair-dresser has theimpertinence to advertise the style as the Vansittart Coiffure.”

“What a frightful outrage! And having been presented, and being nowactually out, I conclude you have found London a very pleasant place,under mother’s wing?” said Jack.

“Oh, it is all very quiet so far, and will be till after Easter, nodoubt; but we have been to a few friendly dinners and a good manyluncheons, and we have a cloud of invitations and engagements for May,and some of our Hampshire friends are in town, so there is plenty todo.”

“And have you seen anything of your Yorkshire friend, Sir HubertHartley?” asked Jack.

“Yes. Sir Hubert is in town.”

“And did he see you in your débutante’s finery?”

“Yes, mother had a tea-party that afternoon, and there were a good manypeople—and, yes, Sir Hubert dropped in.”

“And didn’t that finish him?”

“Finish him! oh, Jack, what a horrid expression! I don’t understand youin the least!”

“Of course not. Well, I’ll say no more about my old friend Hubert. Ican look him up at the Devonshire to-morrow.”

[Pg 28]

“The Devonshire,” sighed Maud. “How sad to think that he is one of thefew respectable people who can find it in their hearts to be Liberals!”

“Yes, he is on the wrong side, no doubt, but that doesn’t matter tous,” said Jack.

Mrs. Vansittart sighed slightly as she touched her daughter’s fluffyhair, the girl sitting on her low chair between mother and brother.

“My Maud would like her friends to be of the same opinion as herself,”she said, “and she is such an ardent Conservative, and knows so muchabout politics.”

“At least, I know that I am not a Radical, and that I hate whatpeople call Progress,” protested Maud. “Progress means pulling downevery historical house and widening every picturesque street, cuttingrailways through Arcadian valleys, and turning romantic lakes intoreservoirs.”

“And progress sometimes means feeding the hungry, and teaching theignorant,” said her mother, “and building healthy dwellings for peoplewho are herding in poisonous slums. I think we are all agreed as to thenecessity for reform, Maud, whether we are Whigs or Tories.”

“Oh, of course I want people to be taken care of all over the world,”replied Maud, “and I am prouder of our sound, roomy cottages thananything on our estate.”

“Ah, that’s the mother’s work,” said Vansittart. “One can see that awoman’s eye watches over the parish.”

“Sir Hubert tells me they have very good cottages at Hartley,” pursuedMaud, “but I cannot imagine either comfort or picturesqueness withintwenty miles of Sheffield.”

“Yet there are some romantic spots and some fine, bold scenery in thatpart of the world, I believe,” said her brother.

Later in the evening mother and son were alone together in the roomwhich had always been John Vansittart’s sanctum and tabagie, a snuglittle room on the ground floor; and here the conversation was moreserious than it had been at teatime, for wherever Maud was frivolityreigned. She had not yet discovered that life is a troublesomebusiness. For her life meant new frocks and new admirers.

“Dear Jack,” sighed the mother, looking fondly at the young man’ssunburnt face, as he sat silently enjoying his pipe, “I hope now wehave you home again you are going really to settle down.”

“Really to settle down,” he repeated; “that sounds rather alarming.Settle down to what, mother? Not to matrimony, I hope!”

“To that in good time, dear; but at your own good time, not mine. Thatis a crisis I would be the last to hasten—not because[Pg 29] I am afraid ofbeing turned out of the big house at Merewood; this house will be morethan enough for me—but because a hasty union is seldom a happy union.”

“Ah, that’s the old-fashioned way of looking at it. I believe in thelove of a day, the happiness of a lifetime. I believe in electiveaffinities, and upon this teeming earth there is somewhere just the onewoman who could make me happy. Don’t be frightened, mother, the chancesare against my meeting her; but till I do, till my heart goes tick-tackat the sight of her face, at the first sound of her voice, I shall notmarry. I shall not marry because the wisdom of my elders says that itis good for a man to marry. I shall not marry just to place a handsomewoman at the head of my table. I will be content with a round table,where there need be no headship.”

“I was not thinking of marriage, Jack. I only want to see you settledown to the real business of life. I should be sorry to see you alwaysan idler—sauntering through a London season, yachting a little inthe Cowes week, shooting a little in September and October, hunting alittle in November, and running away from the winter to amuse yourselfat Nice or Monte Carlo. Independent as you are, you ought to dosomething better with your talents.”

“My talents are an unknown quantity. I doubt if any one in this world,except my fond mother, gives me credit for being even moderatelyclever.”

“I remember what you were as a boy, Jack, and how well you got on atBalliol.”

“Oh, that was in the atmosphere, I think. I was in love with Greekbecause I worshipped Jowett. That was a boyish dream. All scholarlyambition is a thing of the past. I shall never do anything in thatline.”

“Perhaps not. You have too much energy and activity for a student’slife. I should like to see you a power in the House.”

“Dearest flatterer, you would like to see me Prime Minister. I have nodoubt you think that it simply rests with myself to become First Lordof the Treasury at an earlier age than William Pitt.”

“No, no, Jack, I am not a foolish mother, fondly as I love you. ButI know that you have good gifts, and I want the world to profit bythem. I should like to see you in Parliament. There is so much to bedone by good men in the shaping of our new England—the England ofenlightenment and humanity—and I want to see my son’s hand at theplough.”

“The field to be ploughed is wide and the soil is stubborn; but I don’tknow that my hand would be strong enough to drive a furrow.”

“You could help, Jack; every good man can help.”

[Pg 30]

“Mother, I believe you are at heart a Radical.”

“I don’t think one need be a Radical to wish that the masses werebetter off and more thought of than they are. Some of the best andnoblest things that have been done for the poor have been done byConservatives. No, Jack, it is because I am not a Radical that I wantto see you in Parliament. You are rich, well-born, well-educated. Youcould fill a place that might be filled by some Radical adventurer whowould look to Parliamentary life as a means of pushing his own fortune.”

“If I can find any constituency willing to elect Conservative meinstead of that Radical adventurer—who would in all probability be amuch better speaker than I am, and appeal to a larger electorate—welland good. I have no great aversion to Parliament, but oh, you artfulwoman, I know why you would have me write M.P. after my name. ‘If I canpen him up with the other sheep in the House of Commons he can go nomore a-roving.’ That is what you say to yourself, mother mine.”

“No, no, Jack. I sadly want you at home, but I am not a hypocrite.Most of all I want to see you with higher aims than those of a merepleasure-seeker. I want to be proud of my son.”

She drew her chair nearer his and took his strong, broad hand in bothher own. In her eyes he was all that youth and manhood should be. Shewas proud of him already, though he had done nothing for fame. She wasproud of his height and strength, proud of his good looks, courage,good temper, of all those qualities which go to make an Englishgentleman.

“Proud of me,” he echoed. “Poor mother!” He drew his hand away,remembering that it was stained with the blood of his fellow-man.

CHAPTER III.

“FAIRIES!”

Nearly three years had gone by since that fatal night in Venice. It wasmid-winter, only a few days after Christmas, and Mrs. Vansittart andher son were spending their Christmas holidays within twenty miles ofMerewood.

Maud Vansittart had become Maud Hartley, but before bestowing herselfupon her adoring lover she had insisted that he should buy a placewithin reasonable distance of the house in which she had been born andreared, the home in which she could so vividly recall the image of abeloved father, and where all her happy years of girlhood had beenspent with the mother she fondly loved. Sir Hubert had a fine placein the wild Yorkshire hills, half an hour’s journey from Sheffield,a solid red-brick manor house in the Georgian[Pg 31] style, built by hisgreat-grandfather; but to that house as a home Maud would not consentto go. Her lover being rich enough to buy a second country seat aseasily as some men buy a second horse, there had only remained thetrouble of choosing a home that Maud could approve.

A house was found, neither too old nor too new, upon the side ofBlackdown, in that rich and picturesque country between Petworth andHaslemere—Redwold Towers, a roomy, well-built mansion, with justland enough to satisfy Hubert Hartley’s idea of a home-farm, with outdiverting his capital from that wider domain of Hartley Manor, wherehe had fields and pastures of a hundred acres each, and where he grewprize oxen and cart-horses worth their weight in gold, as it seemed toMaud, when she heard of six or seven hundred pounds being given for oneof these creatures.

Merewood, John Vansittart’s patrimonial estate, was near Liss, inHampshire, a long, low, capacious house, on a ridge of pineclad hill,and fronting a wild valley, which grew very little of a profitablenature for man or beast, but where the perfume of the pine woods andthe gold and purple of gorse and heather were worth all that thefattest soils can produce. Fertile pastures and spacious cornfieldswere not wanting to the estate, but those lay behind the crest of thehill.

Maud had been married nearly two years, and there was a short-coatedbaby in the nursery at Redwold, albeit Sir Hubert would rather the eyesof his firstborn had opened upon the light that shone into the familybed-chamber at Hartley Manor, the patriarchal bed-chamber with itspatriarchal bed, birth chamber and death chamber, room in which thegood old great-grandsire’s eyes had closed peacefully, verily “fallingon sleep,” after a life of ninety years, and after having enriched theworld with many useful inventions, and established a wealthy progeny.Unhappily, Maud hated Hartley Manor House, and only went there for amonth in the shooting season as a concession to the best of husbands.

“Of course, I always meant to marry him,” she told her brother, “andhe is the only man for whom I ever cared a straw; but I wanted to havemy fling in London; and I liked being talked about as the pretty MissVansittart. I was, you know, Jack. You needn’t laugh at me. And I likedmaking other young men miserable, by leading them on a little, meaningnothing all the time.”

“Had you many victims? Were there any suicides?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You know how little young men care nowadays.There were some of them who would have liked to marry me, hadeverything been made easy, settlements, and all that. And,” with suddensolemnity, “I might have had a coronet if I had made the most of mychances.”

[Pg 32]

“A hard-up coronet, do you mean? A coronet that wanted regilding.”

“No, sir. All those go to America. My coronet was well providedfor—but it was not to be,” with a faint sigh. “I could not throwHubert over. He was so ridiculously fond of me.”

“Was? Is, I hope,” said Jack, this retrospective survey of a girl’scareer being made one afternoon in the snowy Christmas week, as Jackand his sister tramped home with the shooters, after a day on the hills.

“Yes, he still adores me, poor fellow, though he has found me out everso long ago.”

“Found you out—how?”

“Oh, he has found that I am frivolous and selfish, and utterlyworthless, from the socialist’s point of view. He has found out thatalthough I am fond of pretty cottages and cottage gardens, I don’t caremuch about the cottagers, and that I never know what to say to them.He has found out that I haven’t the interests of the poor really atheart. In short, he has found that I am a thorough-bred Tory insteadof a hot-headed Radical, as he is. I’m afraid we ought never to havemarried. It is like trying to join fire and water.”

“Oh, but I think you manage to get on capitally together, in spite ofany difference in your political views. Indeed, I did not think youknew much about politics.”

“I don’t. I know hardly anything. I never read the debates, and my mindalways wanders when people are talking politics; but my Conservatismand Hubert’s Radicalism enter into everything—into our way withservants, into our treatment of our friends, into our ideas aboutdress, manners, church. I cannot even shake hands with a cottager as hedoes. I have tried to imitate him, but I can’t achieve that unconsciousair of equality which comes so natural to him. And do what I will Ican’t help feeling ashamed of that great-grandfather of his who beganlife in Sheffield as a poor lad, and who invented something—some quitesmall thing, it seems to me—and so laid the foundations of the Hartleywealth. That is a little bit of family history which I should so likeeverybody to forget, while poor Hubert is quite proud of it. At HartleyManor he loves to show strangers the great-grandfather’s portrait inhis working clothes—just as he looked when he invented the thing,whatever it was.”

“You would not have him ashamed of the founder of his fortune. Ihave heard of a house in which the portrait of the good man who madethe family wealth has a looking-glass in front of it, so that thewill which ordained that that portrait should hang on one particularpanel in the dining-room as long as the family mansion stood may bekept to the letter, while it is broken in the spirit. But this was aparticularly irksome case, for the good man had made his money[Pg 33] outof tallow, and had been painted with a pound of mould candles in eachhand. Think of that, Maud! Fustian and corduroy are paintable enough;but not even Herkomer could make anything out of two bunches of tallowcandles.”

“I wish Hubert would let me hang a fine Venetian glass in front of hisworthy great-grandfather. However, since he himself is a gentleman, Isuppose I ought to be satisfied,” said Maud; “I don’t believe there isa finer gentleman in England than my husband, Radical as he is.”

Vansittart’s sister was perfectly happy in her married life. She had ahusband who petted and indulged her, with inexhaustible good humour,and who thought her the most enchanting of women, with infinitecapacities for soaring to a higher level than she had yet attained. Shehad as much money as ever she cared to spend, and a house in which shewas allowed to do what she liked, so long as she did not trample onthe rights and privileges of the old servants from Hartley Manor, whohad been dominant there since Hubert’s infancy; servants whose proudboast it was to have been associated with every circ*mstance of theirmaster’s life, from the cutting of his first tooth to the bringinghome of his bride. It is strange what Conservative ways these Radicalssometimes have in the bosoms of their families.

Sir Hubert Hartley was not like David, ruddy and fair to see. He was asmall, dark man, who looked as if some of the original Sheffield smoke,the smoke inhaled by the inventor day after day for half a century,had given its hue to his complexion. He was wiry, and well built,active, energetic, a good shot, a good horseman, a lover of fieldsports and wild animals, loving, after the sportsman’s fashion, eventhe creatures he destroyed, curious about their habits, keen in hisadmiration of their strength and beauty. For the rest, he was a man ofwidest beneficence, charitable, hospitable, and he was a man whom thebetter-born Jack Vansittart loved and honoured.

They were about the same age, and had been at Eton and Oxford together,and Jack knew his friend by heart. He could have chosen no betterhusband for his sister; he could have chosen no man he would havepreferred to call his brother-in-law. It seemed to him sometimes thathe could have hardly liked a brother better than he liked HubertHartley.

Vansittart was still a gentleman at leisure. He had coquetted withpolitics, and had allowed himself to be spoken of as a young man whomight prove an acquisition to the Conservative party, but he had notallowed himself to be nominated for any constituency. “The party isstrong enough to get on without me,” he said; “I’ll wait till theGeneral Election, and then I’ll go in for all I know, and try to gainthem a seat from the enemy. I should like to try[Pg 34] my luck in Yorkshire,and win an election against Hubert and all his merry men. I might standfor Burtborough—attack Hartley in his own stronghold.”

Burtborough was the small market town that supplied the necessitiesof Hartley Manor House. The Hartleys had represented Burtborough fortwo generations, but Hubert had withdrawn from the political arena,disgusted at the turn of events, and finding more pleasure in turnipsand prize cattle than in the art of legislation. He had never beenbrilliant either as an orator or debater, and he thought he had donehis duty by country and party when he had secured the election of aconscientious Liberal for Burtborough. Marriage had helped to make himlazy. He loved his home; stable and gardens; farm and woods; his prettywife and cooing baby. His brother-in-law thought him the most enviableamong men.

“He has all the desires of his heart,” thought Vansittart. “He hasnot an unsatisfied ambition. He has a clear conscience, can look hisfellow-men straight in the face and say, ‘I have injured no man:’ as Icannot, God help me: as I never can so long as I live. At every turn ofthe road I expect to meet some one whom I have injured—a mother whomay have loved that man as my mother loves me—a sister whose life hasbeen made desolate by his death, reprobate though he was. No man standsalone in the world. Whoever he may be, when he falls, he will drag downsome one.”

And then he thought of Fiordelisa, with her sunny Italian eyes, andher light-hearted acceptance of such good things as Fate threw in herway—the lodgings on the Rialto, the mandoline lessons, the fine dressand good food. She had taken these things as if they were manna fromheaven; and assuredly no rigid principle, no adherence to her ChurchCatechism, would restrain her from seeking manna from new sources. Whathad she become, he wondered, in the years that had made his crime anold memory? An artist’s model, or something worse? In these days ofphotography that beautiful face of hers would have less value than inthe golden age of Tintoret and Veronese.

He had done his best to forget that scene at Florian’s; but the imageof Fiordelisa returned to his memory very often, harden himself ashe might against the pangs of remorse, and the thought of her alwayssaddened him. He had the same kind of sorrow for having spoilt her lifeas he might have felt had he been cruel to a child. Her ignorance,her friendlessness appealed so strongly to his pity—and even the oldaunt, who so placidly accepted the situation, did not appear to him asodious as a hard-headed Englishwoman would have appeared under the sameconditions.

Nearly three years had passed, and he knew no more about the[Pg 35] man hestabbed than he had known when the dagger dropped from his hand warmwith the stranger’s life-blood. The most watchful attention to thenewspapers had resulted in no further knowledge. There had been anoccasional paragraph about the fatal brawl in Venice. He was thankfulto observe that no one had written of his crime as murder. The factthat the dagger had been bought within an hour of its fatal use—theaccidental nature of the encounter—and the brutality of the unknown’sattack had been discussed at length, and there had been a good deal ofspeculation as to his own character and social status. Had the eventhappened a few years later some keen-witted special correspondentwould doubtless have contrived to interview Fiordelisa; and the girl’sartless prattle and her Venetian environment would have furnishedmaterial for a spirited article.

The interest in the death of a nameless Englishman soon died out,and the newspapers found no more to say about the fatal brawl in thePiazza, and as the years went by Vansittart told himself that this darkchapter in his life was closed for ever, that the mother who loved himwould never know that his conscience was burdened with the death of afellow-creature.

Looking backward he remembered an occasion in his boyhood when asudden impulse of fury had brought disgrace upon him, and had causedhis mother much distress of mind. It was at a time when he was readinghard at home with a private tutor, shortly before he went to Oxford. Agroom had ill-used one of his horses, or Vansittart believed he had,and the young man had attacked and belaboured him severely. The ladhad been able to defend himself, and the two had been fairly matchedas to weight and size, but Vansittart had all the science on his side,and he felt afterwards that he had disgraced himself by the encounter.His mother’s distress grieved him deeply; and he went so far as toapologize to the vanquished hireling, which apology raised him to thepinnacle of honour in the opinion of the stable generally.

“There’s plenty of young masters as would chuck a sovereign to a ladhe’d whacked, but it’s only a thoroughbred one that would say, ‘I begyour pardon, Bates; I ought to have known better,’” said the old familycoachman, who had driven Master Jack to be christened.

The burden upon his conscience was an old burden by this time, and hewas able to carry his load so that no one suspected evil under thatpleasant, open-hearted aspect of a man who fulfilled all the socialduties. He was a good son, a kind and affectionate brother, a generouslandlord and master. As the world saw his life there was no flaw init. He had troops of friends, an honourable status, plenty of money,everything that this world can give of good,[Pg 36] in that moderate measurewhich the poet-philosopher has taught us to esteem as life’s best.

“I suppose the sword is hanging by a hair somewhere, and will drop whenI least expect it,” he said to himself, in the hour of dark memories.

A chance allusion—some loving word of praise from his mother, the turnof a conversation, the plot of a play or a novel—would sometimes stirthe dark waters of memory; but he did his best to forget, since therewas nothing that he could do to atone; and he tried to convince himselfthat it was all the better for humanity at large that there was onereprobate less in the world.

This had been his temper for the last year or so, as memory lostsomething of its vivid colouring; and he had come to take that act ofhis in Venice as part and parcel of his life and character.

He bore himself gaily enough in this Christmas holiday at RedwoldTowers, and Lady Hartley declared that he was the life and soul of herhouse-party.

“You have not such a passion for field-sports as the rest of themen,” she said. “One may hope to be favoured with your society foran occasional hour between breakfast and dinner, while those otherwretches troop off in their horrid thick boots before I come downstairsin the morning, and I hear no more of them till dinner, unless I gowith the luncheon cart.”

“I’m afraid my superiority must be put down to advancing years andgrowing laziness. I never was so good a shot as Hubert, and I havenever been as keen a sportsman.”

“Perhaps that is because you have spent so much of your holiday life onthe Continent. Hubert would be miserable if he were asked to spend awinter out of the British Isles, unless he were pig-sticking in India,or fishing in Canada, or hunting lions in Africa. He cannot get onwithout killing things. You are not like that. You have no thirst forblood.”

“No,” answered Jack, with a laugh; “I am not great at killing things,though I am just English enough to think poorly of the straightest runif it doesn’t end in blood.”

“Oh, of course, I know you can ride, and that you have a proper Englishlove of hunting and shooting, but you don’t give your life up to sportand farming as Hubert does. You have only to look at his boots, andyou can understand his life. Such an array of bluchers, tops, brogues,waterproof fishing boots and dreadful hobnailed, broad-toed things,that look like instruments of torture—as if they had been modelledupon the boot that one reads of under the Plantagenets and Tudors.People talk of writing as an index of character. I would rather see aman’s boots than his penmanship if I wanted to know what kind of man hewas.”

[Pg 37]

“And you put me down as a single-soled, effeminate person?” said Jack;whereat there was a laugh from the house-party, sitting cosily roundthe morning-room fire, with the exception of one industrious matronwho sat by the window, toiling at an early English counterpane whichrequired to be worked upon a frame.

“No, no. I don’t consider you womanish. You would never sink into theuseful family friend, or the tame cat, even if you were to remain abachelor all your life. But your boots are more human than Hubert’s;and you are fond of art, and books, and music, for which I fear hecares very little.”

“He cares for something much better,” said Vansittart. “He cares forhumanity, and is always thinking how he can improve the condition ofthe people who are dependent upon him. His cottages at Hartley aremodels of all that cottages should be, and there is not a good pointabout them that he has not thought out for himself.”

“Yes, he is always his own architect, and he has really some very goodnotions, though he is not as picturesque as I should like him to be inhis ideas. The cottages about here may not be as commodious as ours inYorkshire, but they are ever so much prettier—dear old cottages, morethan half roof, and with the quaintest casem*nts.”

“And very little light or air inside, I dare say; capital cottages forthe landscape, but not so agreeable for the folks inside.”

The party in the morning-room consisted of the three MissChampernownes, daughters of a Cornish baronet, all three handsome,stylish, accomplished, everything in short that Mrs. Vansittart wouldhave approved in a daughter-in-law; Mrs. Baddington, the lady of thecounterpane, who was so completely absorbed in her needlework that shemight as well have stopped at her own fireside; but as her husband,Major Baddington, was a good shot and a pleasant companion, the lady’sinoffensive dulness was tolerated in country houses.

The other ladies present were Mrs. Vansittart and a Miss Green, ayoung lady who gave herself airs on the strength of her people beingthe Greens—the Greens of Peddlington—in whose particular casethe name of Green was supposed to rank with Guelph or Ghibelline. MissGreen was plain, but clever, and was as boastful of her plainness asof her good old name. Her people were rich, and she had inherited anindependent fortune from a bachelor uncle, who had bequeathed hiswealth to her with an embargo against marriage with any man—less thana Peer—who should refuse to assume the name of Green. And even in thecase of her marriage with a Peer, it was ordained that her second sonshould be called Green—by letters patent—and should inherit the Greenwealth, strictly tied up in the case of the heiress.

[Pg 38]

Miss Green was economical to meanness—perhaps with some dim ideaof enriching that hypothetical scion of nobility—and was proud ofher economy. Her chief delight in the metropolis was to go longdistances—generally in an omnibus—in quest of cheapness; and shewas a scourge to all the young matrons of her acquaintance by herkeen interest in their housekeeping, her knowledge of prices, and heroutspoken condemnation of their extravagance. She had one original ideawhich had achieved a kind of distinction for her from the housekeepingpoint of view, and that was her non-belief in the Co-operative Stores.

Such was the feminine portion of the house-party at Redwold Towers,and it was to this party that John Vansittart had succeeded in makinghimself eminently agreeable. He had admired the artistic shading andTudoresque scroll-work of Mrs. Baddington’s counterpane, and hadsurprised that lady by what seemed a profound knowledge of earlyFlorentine needlework. He had tramped Blackdown in the wind and theweather with the Miss Champernownes, turn and turn about, and was nonearer falling in love with any of the three than when he began theserambles; he had discussed the art of dressing well upon fifty poundsa year with Miss Green, and had allowed her to convince him that theGreens of Peddlington were a purer race than the Plantagenets; andto-day he had given himself up to idleness in the gynæceum, otherwisemorning-room, and had offered himself for two round dances apiece tothe four young ladies, at the hunt ball in the little rustic town, towhich they were all going that evening.

“It will be an awful drive,” said Maud Hartley; “think what the hillswill be like in this weather.”

There had been an “old-fashioned Christmas,” and the world outside thewindows was for the most part a white world.

“The horses have been roughed, and your coachman tells me he has nofear of the hills,” said Vansittart. “He is going to take four horses.”

“I’m sure they’ll be wanted, poor things, with that big omnibus and aherd of us to drag up those terrible hills,” said his sister.

“If you have any feeling for the brute creation you can get out andwalk up the hills,” said Jack.

“What, in our satin slippers? How very delightful!”

There was no one heroic enough to propose walking up the hills atten o’clock that evening, when the omnibus from Redwold went bowlingmerrily over the frost-bound roads, uphill and downhill, at a splendideven pace, and with a rhythmical jingle of bars and chains, as thefour upstanding browns laid themselves out for their work, going as ifit was a pleasure to go through the steel-blue night, with the quietfields and pastures stretching round them,[Pg 39] silvery in the moonshine,while in every dip and hollow the oak and chestnut copses lay wrappedin shadow, darkly mysterious.

They skirted Bexley Hill, they passed by sleeping villages andwind-swept commons.

“Are we nearly there?” asked Hilda Champernowne.

“Hardly halfway,” answered Lady Hartley. “I told you it was a longdrive.”

There was a bright lamp inside the omnibus, a lamp which lit up thethree Miss Champernownes in a cloud of gauze and satin, white as thesnow-drifts in the valleys, a lamp which shone on three heads ofglittering gold-brown hair, and three pairs of fine eyes, and threecherry mouths, and three swanlike throats rising out of ostrichplumage. It shone on Maud Hartley’s cloak of scarlet and gold andblue-fox fur, and sparkled on the diamond solitaires in her ears, clearand white as dewdrops on a sunny morning.

They were a very merry party. Major Baddington and Sir Hubert wereoutside, wrapped to the ears in fur coats and caps, and enjoying theirsmoke in the frosty air. Vansittart and two other young men rode insidewith the feminine contingent, who were glad of this leaven of masculinesociety, though they pretended to be in alarm at the crushing of theirdraperies.

“I feel a dark foreboding that all the dancing men will have engagedthemselves for the evening before we arrive,” said Claudia Champernowne.

“Not if they know the Miss Champernownes are going to be there,” saidMr. Tivett, a young man with a small voice and a reputation for all thesocial talents.

“Who cares anything about us?” cried Claudia. “We are strangers in theland.”

“I think that some of the dancing men will wait for my party,” saidMaud. “I am famous for taking pretty girls to our local dances.”

They were steadily ascending the worst hill they had to climb; theomnibus was on an inclined plane, and Hilda Champernowne in her placeat the back of the vehicle looked down upon Jack Vansittart seated in ahollow by the door. They were near the top, when the brake was put onsuddenly, and the horses were pulled up. A ripple of silvery laughterrang out upon the frosty air.

“Fairies!” cried Vansittart.

“Who can it be, and why are we stopping?” asked Miss Champernowne,“when we are so late, too!”

There were voices, two or three feminine voices, all talking at once,and then Hubert was heard answering. Anon more laughter. Sir Hubert anda groom got off the ’bus, and the former came to the door.

[Pg 40]

“Can you make room for three girls?” he asked.

“Not for a mouse,” replied his wife. “We are hideously crushed already.I believe all our gowns are spoilt.”

“Then a little more squeezing won’t hurt,” said Sir Hubert. “Look here,you three men can come outside. It’ll be a tight pack, but we’ll manageit, and the three ladies can have your places. It’s a lovely night.You’re none of you bronchial, I hope.”

“A chronic sufferer, from my cradle,” said Mr. Tivett, in a meek,little voice.

“Oh, Tivett can stay inside. He is the nearest approach I know toEuclid’s definition of a line—length without breadth.”

Jack Vansittart was out by this time, and Reggie Hudson, a soldierlyyoung man, slipped out after him. The women drew themselves togetherdiscontentedly. Each would have had an omnibus to herself if she could.

“I haven’t the faintest idea whom we are making room for,” grumbledMaud.

“I know we shall be dreadfully late,” sighed Claudia.

“I say, you good folks out there, hurry up, please,” cried the gallantTivett. “It’s getting on for eleven, and this isn’t a picnic-party.”

He was talking to the empty air. A ripple of that elfin laughter fromthe top of the hill was all that answered him. Sir Hubert, Vansittart,and Major Baddington were all standing round a most melancholy specimenof the genus fly, the very oldest and mouldiest of one-horse landaus,which had broken down hopelessly on the top of the hill.

“We knew that the springs were weak,” said a silver-clear voice out ofa swansdown hood. “They’ve been getting weaker and weaker ever sincewe’ve had anything to do with the fly; but we had no idea the shaftswere all wrong.”

“The shafts were right enough when we started, miss,” growled a voicethat was half muffled in a red comforter, such a comforter as denotesthe rustic fly-man. “It was your weight coming up the hill as did it.”

“My weight!” cried Swansdownhood, lifting herself up on her springyfeet like a feminine Mercury. “Do I look such a Daniel Lambert?”

Her hood fell off with that arch toss of the head, and looking ather in the vivid moonlight it seemed to Jack Vansittart as if thatjocular exclamation of his had been well founded, and that the womanwho stood before him on the crest of the hill, her beauty and herwhiteness shining out against the steel-blue sky—“like a finer lightin light”—was enchanting enough to have stood for Titania.

[Pg 41]

She was very tall, but so slim and willowy of form that her heightmade her no less sylph-like—a queen of sylphs, perhaps, but assuredlyof that aerial family. She was dazzlingly fair, and her small headwas crowned with a nimbus of pale gold hair, in which there sparkleda galaxy of diamond starlets. Her small nose was tip-tilted, but witha tilt so archly delicate as to be more beautiful than the purestGrecian, or so Vansittart thought, seeing her thus for the first timein the glamour of night and moonshine, and with all the piquancy of theunexpected.

“The horse fell down, and the shafts went crash,” said anotheryoung person, who presented to view only a nose and narrow slip offace between the folds of a red plaid shawl, just such a shawl as awell-to-do farmer’s wife might have worn driving to market. “I thoughtwe should all be killed.”

“And so you would have been, if I hadn’t put the brake on sharp, andgot down and sat on ’is ’ed,” said the fly-man. “That horse didn’tought to have been sent out on such roads as this, and if I’d beenmaster he wouldn’t have been.”

“We won’t trouble you for your opinions, my friend,” said Sir Hubert,throwing a florin lightly into the man’s hand. “You’d better take yourbeast home, and give yourself a hot drink. I’ll take care of MissMarchant and her sisters.”

“Oh, but really,” said Swansdownhood, “it is immensely good ofyou—only they had better send a fly for us after the dance. We can’tencroach upon you for the home journey.”

“Why not? Of course we shall take you home. Come along; I’m afraidyou’re catching cold while we’re talking.”

He marched the three girls—the spokeswoman and tallest all in whitefrom top to toe, the second with a black lace frock showing belowher Stuart shawl, the third muffled in a blue opera cloak and a blueShetland scarf, commonly called a cloud.

“Here are the Miss Marchants, come to claim your hospitality,” said SirHubert to his wife; whereupon Maud replied, graciously—

“Oh, how do you do, you poor things? Pray come in. How cold you mustbe! Did your carriage break down? How dreadful! I’m afraid there’snot much heat left in our foot-warmers, but it is tolerably warm herestill”—the atmosphere inside the ’bus was tropical—“and I hope you’llbe able to make yourselves comfortable.”

“Such a dreadful intrusion!”

“Such a herd of us!”

“How you must all detest us!” cried three fresh young voices all atonce.

The three Champernownes and the Green maintained a stolid silence.Those four pairs of eyes were coldly appraising the intruders—their[Pg 42]faces, their dress, their social status, everything about them.

The fair tall girl in the swansdown hood was very pretty. That factthe most unfriendly observer could not deny. Whether that dazzlingfairness was in some part artificial remained to be proved under amore searching light than the omnibus lamp; but even if that alabastercomplexion were due to blanc de something the girl’s eyes werereal—lovely dancing blue-grey eyes, softened by dark brown lashes.Her nose was the prettiest thing in that unrecognized order of noses;mouth and chin were in perfect harmony; and she looked round at thestrange faces with the sweetest smile, as if she had never sufferedfrom prejudice or undeserved disdain.

The other two girls were of the same type, but not so pretty. The bluegirl was freckled and weather-beaten; the Stuart plaid girl was toopale. Titania had taken the lion’s share of the family beauty.

But their dress—that at least afforded widest scope for the scorner.The swansdown hood was of the year one, or perhaps might have beenfashionable in the historic winter of the Crimean war; the blue cloudand tawdry blue opera cloak suggested all that is commonest in cheapfinery; and what manner of surroundings could a girl have whose peopleallowed her to go to a hunt ball with her head and shoulders skeweredin a tartan shawl with a blanket pin?

“We are taking no chaperon,” said Titania, brightly. “Mrs. Ponto is tochaperon us.”

Mrs. Ponto was the wife of a solicitor at Mandelford, the little townwhere the ball was being given. It was the first hunt ball there hadbeen at Mandelford within the memory of Sussex, and the fact that thisball was taking place at Mandelford was due to the enterprise of alocal cabinet-maker, who had built a public hall or assembly room atthe back of his shop, and had thus provided a place for festivity orculture; music, amateur theatricals, Oxford or Cambridge lectures,conjuring or Christy Minstrels.

After that little apologetic remark about the chaperon, there followeda silence, the Champernownes and Miss Green remaining figures of stone,and Maud Hartley feeling that she had done her duty as hostess. Thecarriage rolled merrily over the frost-bound road, and the hoofs of thefour horses sounded like an advance of cavalry in the winter stillness.Perhaps the silence inside the omnibus would have lasted all the way toMandelford had it not been for little Mr. Tivett, who sat between twoMiss Champernownes, half hidden among billows of snowy gauze, peepingout at the three pretty faces on the other side of the ’bus, withbright, inquisitive eyes, like a squirrel out of his nest.

“I don’t know what I have done to offend you, Lady Hartley,[Pg 43] that youshould not think me worthy to be introduced to these young ladies,”said the good little man at last.

“My dear Mr. Tivett, it was an oversight on my part. I forgot that youand the Miss Marchants had not met before. Of course, you are dyingto know them.—Miss Marchant, allow me to introduce Mr. Tivett, adevoted admirer of your sex—a gentleman who knows more about a lady’sdress, and a lady’s accomplishments and amusem*nts, than one woman in ahundred.”

“My dear Lady Hartley,” remonstrated Tivett, in his piping voice, “MissMarchant will run away with the idea that I am a horrible effeminatelittle person.”

“She will very soon discover that you are the most obliging littleperson, and I dare say she will end by being as fond of you as I am.”

“Dearest Lady Hartley, how delightful of you to say that!” exclaimedMr. Tivett, with a coquettish giggle, darting out his little suèdeglove to give his hostess an affectionate pat on the shoulder; “and nowyou have heard my character, Miss Marchant, please will you give me adance?”

“With pleasure,” replied Eve, wondering whether she would look veryridiculous spinning round a public ball-room with this funny littleman, who was small enough to be almost hidden in the Champernownedraperies; “which shall it be?”

“Oh, the first waltz after our arrival, and I hope your sisters willeach give me one of the extras.”

“I shall be very glad,” said the girl in the tartan shawl. “I don’tsuppose I shall have too many partners.”

Mr. Tivett looked at the three faces critically. The eldest girl wasmuch the prettiest, but there was a family likeness. The faces were allof one type, and they were all pretty. It smote Mr. Tivett’s gentleheart to think these nice girls should be so badly dressed, while theChampernownes, who always snubbed him, and whom he hated, were gloriousin frocks fresh from Bond Street. Lady Hartley had not exaggeratedMr. Tivett’s devotion to the fair sex. He loved the society of youngmatrons and girls in their teens, was never happier than when makinghimself useful to the ladies of the family, and especially rejoicedwhen consulted upon any question of etiquette or costume. He wasreputed to have faultless taste in dress, and an exquisite tact inall social matters; and when two matrons of his acquaintance happenedto quarrel, each was apt to impart the story of her wrongs to Mr.Tivett, whose only difficulty was to be the adviser of both, withoutseeming unfaithful to either. He was not a sportsman, and he pleadeda weak chest as a reason for loving easy-chairs, and cosy corners inboudoirs and morning-rooms, and a seat in a carriage when other menwere walking. His Christian name was Augustus; but he was always knownas Gus, or Gussie.

[Pg 44]

Having been introduced to the eldest sister, Mr. Tivett was on easyterms with the three girls in about five minutes, and for the rest ofthe journey the four were prattling gaily, Lady Hartley chiming in nowand then, just for civility’s sake, while the other women maintainedtheir unfriendly silence.

“I knew we should be late,” Claudia Champernowne exclaimed at last, asthe omnibus drew up at a lighted door, and she saw the long line ofcarriages filling the rustic street from end to end.

Miss Green and the Champernownes marched at once to the cloak-room, anupper room over the shop, whither Lady Hartley followed. The Marchantgirls fell back, and lingered in the vestibule—said vestibule beingneither more nor less than the cabinet-maker’s empty shop, transformedby scarlet and white draperies and evergreens in pots. The Marchantsfelt that Lady Hartley’s hospitality came to an end at the door of theball-room, and that they would do ill to attach themselves to her party.

“I think we had better wait here for our chaperon,” said Eve, as Maudlooked back at her from the stairs. “I’m sure we can never be toograteful to you for bringing us, Lady Hartley.”

“Please don’t speak of such a trifle. I am to take you home, remember.You must look out for us at three o’clock.”

“At three o’clock,” thought Jenny, of the tartan shawl; “that’s as muchas to say, ‘In the mean time we don’t know you.’”

They waited in a little group near the stairs, and saw the threeChampernownes come sweeping down, swanlike, beautiful, “in glossof satin and glimmer of pearls,” and Miss Green in a very severe,tight-fitting yellow silk frock, with a shortish skirt, and round herhomely-complexioned throat a collet necklace of emeralds without flawor feather; and Lady Hartley in a fuss and flutter of palest blue,which seemed just the most telling background for her diamonds. She haddiamonds everywhere, butterflies, stars, true lovers’ knots, hearts,and horseshoes, dotted about bust and shoulders amongst the softfluffiness of azure gauze; diamonds in her hair, in her ears, on herarms. And yet she did not look vulgarly fine. The slender elegance ofher form, the delicate colouring of her face and neck harmonized thejewels.

While the Hartley party were composing themselves for their entranceto the dancing-room, a stout matron in red satin and black lace camesailing in, wrapped to the eyes in a white Shetland shawl, and at oncemade for the Marchants, whom she deliberately kissed, one after theother.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long, dears,” she said, in a fat,good-natured voice. “Ponto had a business appointment at Haslemere, anddidn’t get back to his dinner till nine o’clock.”

Mr. Ponto was grinning in the background, very red and puffy,[Pg 45] asfrom a hurried toilet, and with a scarlet camelia in his button-hole;scarlet out of compliment to the hunt.

“Oh no, we have only just come,” answered Eve, troubled by thesupercilious stare of the youngest Miss Champernowne, who was lookingback from the threshold of the ball-room while the others went in,looking at Mrs. Ponto as at some natural curiosity; and indeed to ayoung lady whose evening frock had been produced new and immaculatefrom a Bond Street carton Mrs. Ponto’s crimson satin, lately “doneup” with Nottingham lace, and obviously “let out” to accommodate Mrs.Ponto’s increasing bulk, was a thing to wonder at.

The three Marchants and their chaperon entered the ball-room in acluster. The Redwold Towers party was absorbed in the brilliant throng,had gone straight into the zenith, where the two local peeresses wereholding a kind of court, a court splendid with family diamonds andhereditary point d’Alençon. Mrs. Ponto made a dash for a cornerof the raised bench that went round the room, and established herselfand her charges in this coign of vantage.

“If we don’t get seats at once we mightn’t have a chance of sittingdown for an hour,” said Mrs. Ponto. “Ain’t the room full? Now, dears, Ishall stay here till some one takes me in to supper, so you can leaveyour fans with me, and feel you’ve got some one to come to between yourdances. I had my cup of tea before I came, so I shan’t trouble aboutthe tea-room. It’s a pretty sight, ain’t it?”

A waltz was just ending. The room was very full, but there was theusual surplus of nice-looking girls sitting down, with the usualsprinkling of men who wouldn’t dance, and who were quite satisfied tostand about and get in the way of the dancers.

The peeresses and their court were on the opposite side of the room, ina central position, which commanded dancers, band, and the festoonedarchway leading to the tea-room. Lady Hartley had seated herselfnext old Lady Mandelford, a dowager with white hair, whose son wasthe well-known Lord Mandelford, a man of prodigious wealth and localimportance, a rustic Royalty.

Eve had shaken out her well-worn white frock. It was made of some softwoollen stuff, which her old servant Nancy had washed, so it had atleast the merit of purity. On that tall and perfectly balanced figurethe cheap, simple gown looked exquisite, and the fair fluffy head,with its glitter of starlets, could not have looked more enchantinghad the starlets been old Brazilian diamonds, like Lady Mandelford’s,instead of cut glass mounted at Birmingham. The younger sisters hadaimed higher than Eve. One in blue, the other in red, strainingafter Parisian fashion, in cheap silk and satin, had only achievedtawdriness. Eve, in her white frock, might challenge criticism.

[Pg 46]

There was some one on the other side of the room who thought herlovely as a dream, the same man whose eyes had gazed on her beauty inthe moonlight an hour ago, and who had told himself that such a facebelonged to fairyland rather than to this dull, everyday earth. Hestood looking at her now, across the dancers and the crowd, as shesat demurely in her corner, her alabaster fairness set off by thescarlet background. He put his arm through Sir Hubert’s. “When you’vedone talking to Miss Champernowne I want you to introduce me to MissMarchant,” he said.

“With all my heart. But there are three Miss Marchants. Which of thethree are you dying to know?”

“The fair girl, in white.”

“Oh, she’s the eldest. They are all fair, but I suppose she’s thefairest. Come along, then. I’m to dance the Lancers, Maud tells me,” headded, lowering his voice, “and with Lady Mandelford. I’m to steer thedowager through that complicated performance.”

Sir Hubert wore the hunt colours, a scarlet coat with black velvetcollar and white satin facings, and he felt that it behoved him to makesome sacrifice in honour of a dance that was called the hunt ball.

“Don’t forget that you have engaged yourself to us, Mr. Vansittart,”said Miss Green, severely. “You are bespoken for eight dances out ofeighteen. Three of the eighteen are gone already. You will have to makethe most of the seven that remain to you after you have done your dutyto us.”

He had forgotten all about those pledges given in the morning-room.Eight dances with young women for whom he cared not a straw, aboutwhom familiarity had bred something not very far from contempt. Eightdances, a veritable bondage; while Eve Marchant was sitting meekly inher corner, partnerless. No, not partnerless; even as he looked littleMr. Tivett marched up to her with an all-conquering air, and led her inamong the dancers, just beginning a waltz.

Vansittart took Miss Green’s programme out of her hand with a desperateair.

“Let’s begin at once—if you are disengaged,” he said.

“That makes one off,” she answered, laughing, as she rose and took hisarm. “How dreadfully sorry for yourself you look!”

“Then my looks belie me. I was never gladder for myself. I see you haveever so many engagements already. Shall I put myself down for numbereighteen?”

“Certainly. You are sure we shall have left before that number arrives.”

They were moving slowly among the dancers by this time, and a minutelater they spun off with a fine rhythmical swing. Miss Green[Pg 47] was whatthe hunting men called a splendid mover. She had taken trouble toexcel in her paces, knowing that her appearance was against ball-roomtriumphs. Men liked to dance with her—for three reasons. She was rich;she waltzed well; and she had a malevolent tongue, which amused herpartners.

It was her delight to criticize her fairer sisters—the flaws intheir beauty; the tricks which helped them to be beautiful; theiraffectations; their vanities; their bad taste.

“Did you ever see three young women ‘fa*gotées’ like those Marchantgirls?” she murmured, in a low, clear voice, which she had cultivatedfor speaking evil of people near at hand. “That blue girl—that redgirl! I don’t know which is worse! The blue frock is an inch and a halfshorter on one side than on the other—an advantage, as it shows offthe blue slipper, which doesn’t match the frock, and the blue stocking,which doesn’t match the slipper. But the red girl! Please notice thelacing of the red bodice. I assure you the girl isn’t humpbacked,though that bodice certainly suggests deformity.”

“How observant you are, Miss Green; and with what a keen eye for theinfinitesimal!”

“I am looking at their chaperon now—the enormous person in dyedcrimson satin. It must have been her wedding-gown ages ago—a sweetsilver-grey. You don’t call that lady infinitesimal, I hope?”

“Physically large, perhaps—but, from your mental standpoint,microscopic. Now, confess, Miss Green, don’t you think these peopleinfinitely insignificant, simply because they happen not to be rich?”

“I think them immensely amusing. One sees such people only at publicballs in the heart of the country. That is why public balls are suchfun. Do look at the glass stars in the tallest Miss Marchant’s hair!Did you ever see anything so absurd?”

“What does it matter whether they are glass or diamonds of the purestwater? All the gems that were ever ground at Amsterdam could not makeher more like a beautiful sylph—Undine—Titania—what you will.”

“Your comparisons are not flattering to the young lady’s intellect.Undine was mindless and soulless; Titania—if Shakespeare knew anythingabout her—was a silly little person who fell desperately in love witha donkey.”

Their waltz was over, but Miss Green wanted tea, or an ice, or a changeof atmosphere—anything which would retain Vansittart in attendanceupon her as long as possible. She kept him sitting by her side whileshe sipped her tea, and ridiculed the people who came in and out ofthe tea-room. She kept him in bondage while[Pg 48] Mr. Tivett conducted EveMarchant to the buffet, and talked and laughed with her gaily as sheate her ice. How prettily she ate that pink ice—with such a gracefulturn of the delicate wrist! Vansittart had leisure to study every lineof head and figure, while Miss Green prattled in his ear. He gave alittle automatic laugh now and then, feeling that the lady meant himto be amused. Miss Marchant was a long time eating her ice, and wasevidently interested in Mr. Tivett’s conversation. Vansittart watchedher dreamily, not more jealous of Tivett than if he had seen her a fewyears earlier, playing with her doll; but just as she had resignedthe empty ice-plate, and was moving towards the door, a man in a huntcoat met and stopped her with a semi-authoritative air that madeVansittart’s blood rush angrily to his brow, almost as if the man hadinsulted him.

“You are saving some dances for me, I hope, Miss Marchant?” said theunknown, with an easy, off-hand manner.

“I don’t know,” faltered Eve. “I mean I think I am engaged for a goodmany waltzes—as many as I shall care to dance.”

“Let me see,” taking her programme out of her hand. “Oh, you fairdeceiver! Why, you might answer about this programme as Olivia didabout her history—‘A blank, my Lord.’ I shall write myself againstnumber seven—the dear old Manola—and eleven—a Waldteufel waltz—and,let me see, shall we say fifteen?”

The man was good-looking, dark-haired and dark-eyed, well set up,showing to advantage in the hunt coat—a man likely to be in request ata dance; yet it was evident that Eve Marchant wanted to avoid him. Shelooked pained and even angry at his persistence.

“My engagements are not upon that card,” she said; “and I am sure youmust have a great many people with whom you ought to dance—sooner thanwith me.”

“That’s my business. I have set my heart upon at least three danceswith you.”

“Then I am sorry to disappoint you; I am engaged for all those numbers.”

“But you are free for others? Tell me which.”

“That is Mr. Sefton, of Chadleigh,” said Miss Green, confidentially.“Rather handsome, ain’t he? But not good form. He is not a favourite inhis own neighbourhood; but he and Miss Marchant are evidently upon veryfriendly terms.”

Eve had left the tea-room with Mr. Tivett, closely followed by Mr.Sefton, and Vansittart sat looking after the three retreating figurestill they were absorbed in the crowd that filled the dancing-room.

“Did you think so?” he said coldly. “It seemed to me that the gentlemanwas not a favourite with the young lady.”

[Pg 49]

“If you had seen them on Christmas Eve on the ice you would have avery different opinion. He was teaching her the outside edge. He wasdevoted, and she seemed delighted. He would be a great catch for her;but I’m afraid he’s too much a man of the world to be trapped by apretty face. He will look higher than Miss Marchant.”

“What and who is he?”

“Oh, he belongs to an old Sussex family, and has a fine place on theother side of Blackdown. I am told he is clever; but he is not nice,somehow. People don’t seem to trust him. And there are ugly storiesabout him, I believe, stories that are not told to ladies, but whichhave made him unpopular in his own neighbourhood, especially amonghis own tenant-farmers and cottagers. There are the Lancers, and I amengaged to a callow youth who came with the Mandelford party.”

She rose hurriedly, relinquishing her teacup, which Vansittart hadbeen wearily waiting for, with an air of having been detained by hisassiduity. The callow youth, looking very fair and pretty in hisbrand-new pink coat, appeared in the doorway.

“Oh, Mith Gween, I have been looking for you evewywha’,” he murmured;and they went off to take their places.

Their vis-à-vis were Mr. Sefton and Miss Marchant.

“So she is dancing with him, after all,” thought Vansittart, curiouslyvexed. “Varium et mutabile semper femina!”

CHAPTER IV.

“THE PRELUDE TO SOME BRIGHTER WORLD.”

While the Lancers were being danced to the good old hilarious tunes,which always give an air of boisterous gaiety to a public ball-room,Vansittart, ignoring all further obligations to his home party, went insearch of little Mr. Tivett, so that by impounding that gentleman heshould make sure of an introduction to Miss Marchant before the nextdance.

He found the agreeable Tivett in an anteroom, an apartment muchaffected by sitters out, and peculiarly congenial to flirtation, wherethe good little man had found agreeable occupation in pinning up thelace flounce of a portly matron in yellow satin, not too portly toindulge in round dances, which imparted an alarmingly purple shade tothe pearly whiteness of her complexion. “Only mother-of-pearl,” as Mr.Tivett said afterwards. “You may be quite happy about your Mechlin,dear lady,” said Tivett, after planting the last pin; “nothing but thestitches gone. No harm done to your lovely lace, I assure you.”

[Pg 50]

“He was a clumsy bear all the same. How sweet of you, dear Mr. Tivett!Ten thousand thanks. And now I’ll run back to my party, or my young manwill be looking for me for the next waltz;” and the lady waddled awaypantingly, to be steered carefully round the room by-and-by, in theprotecting arm of a tall youth, who had an eye to free luncheons anddinners in the best part of Belgravia.

“You lucky little man,” cried Vansittart, when the lady was gone, “infavour with both youth and age. You save Mrs. Fotheringay’s pricelessMechlin, and you secure your first waltz with the belle of the ball.”

Tivett gave a little conscious laugh, and shook his suède glove atVansittart airily.

“Pretty girl, that Miss Marchant, ain’t she?” said he, “and not a bitof nonsense about her; naïveté itself. You should have heard her andthe sisters prattle in the ’bus, while the Champernownes sat lookingthunder.”

“You dog, I believe that bronchitis of yours was all humbug. Come alongwith me, Tivett; I am going to waylay Miss Marchant, and you mustintroduce me to her.”

“She’ll be parading about with that black-muzzled man, most likely. Idon’t like to shoot another fellow’s bird.”

“Nonsense. She doesn’t like the black man. She didn’t want todance with him. I am going to be Ivanhoe and rescue her from thatblack-bearded Templar.”

“I couldn’t quite make her out,” said Tivett. “She seemed not to wantto dance with him, and yet she let him march her off. I fancy there’san understanding between them. No doubt the puss is an arrant flirt,”said Tivett, with his little coquettish shrug, as if he were flirtinghimself.

Miss Marchant and Sefton, the black-bearded, came into the anteroom atthe head of a procession of youths and maidens, and in the confusionmade by so many couples pouring out of the big room into the smallroom, Vansittart contrived to waylay the lady. She dropped Sefton’s armand turned smilingly to Tivett, and in the next moment the introductionwas made, while Sefton was captured by the eldest Miss Champernowne, towhom he was engaged for the next dance.

Miss Marchant’s programme was still a blank, and she allowed Vansittartto write down his name for a couple of waltzes. There was no questionnow of unwritten engagements blocking the way. He gave her his arm, andthey walked slowly to the ball-room, talking those commonplaces withwhich even the most fateful acquaintance must needs begin.

Vansittart talked of the long, cold drive; of the rooms, with their redand white panels, and vizards and other emblems of the chase;[Pg 51] of theheat and the draughts; of the people, the faces, the frocks. Easily asshe had prattled with the lively Tivett, Vansittart found her somewhatreticent, and even shy. But she waltzed delightfully, and he had neverenjoyed a dance better than this dance, in which his arm was round thatslender waist, and that pretty, fair head with its crystal starlets wasalmost level with his own, so tall and straight was she.

The waltz ended, these two dancing till the final chord, he took herfor the conventional scamper through anteroom and tea-room, whichcommunicated with each other by a canvas corridor, delightfully cooland dangerously draughty, and so back to the ball-room, where herestored her to the worthy lady in the red gown, with whom sat theyounger Marchant girls, who were glad to dance one dance out of three;like those hunting men of modest pretensions who were satisfied witha day a week. They were quite aware that although tolerated by thecounty, and invited to garden-parties, they were not in society, andmust not expect that the fine flower of the hunt, greatly in requestamong a majority of the fair sex, would indulge them with more than anoccasional dance. Secure of an after-supper waltz with Eve, Vansittartremembered his home engagements, tore himself away from Miss Marchant,and went across the room to that galaxy of the best people in whichhis sister had her place. The Champernownes were wandering withtheir partners, but Miss Green was sitting by Lady Mandelford, andentertaining that mild old lady with the cheap cynicism which passescurrent for wit.

Vansittart booked himself for his second dance with Miss Green, andthen went to look for the Champernownes. He found Claudia enjoying aconfidential chat with Mr. Sefton in a corner of the anteroom, andavoided them both as if they had been plague-stricken.

He discovered a younger Champernowne in the tea-room, and offeredhimself for those dances so lightly promised in the morning. She hadkept some numbers open for him. He went to the other sister and wrotehis name on her programme for other two waltzes, and this, with hisnumber on Miss Green’s programme, and the two still owing to Claudia,left him a very poor chance of sitting out a dance or two with MissMarchant. He pined for one quiet quarter of an hour of confidentialtalk with her. He wanted to make friends with her; so that she shouldprattle to him as freely as she had prattled to little Tivett.

That golden opportunity did not come till late in the evening. Hisdance with Claudia Champernowne came at just the hour when all the bestpeople were pouring into the supper-room. When their waltz was overhe could not avoid asking her to go in to supper, and she promptlyaccepted.

[Pg 52]

“There will be a crowd,” she said, “but we shall get the first of theoysters, and the scrimmage will be more fun than a half-empty room.”

It was an hour later when he danced his extra with Eve Marchant. Thenext dance was the Caledonians.

“Surely you are not going to dance the Caledonians?” he said. “It is acruelty to keep the floor from all those portly matrons in fine raimentwho are sighing for a square dance.”

“I am happy to say I am not engaged for the Caledonians.”

“Then let us go into that little talking-room. Of course you have beenin to supper?”

Miss Marchant owned blushingly that she had not supped.

“Poor dear Mrs. Ponto had been sitting so long in her corner,” shesaid, “so I asked my last partner to take her in.”

“Poor dear partner, I think. What a sacrifice for him! Why, you must befamishing. And I’m afraid all the oysters must have been eaten by thistime.”

“I can be quite happy without oysters.”

“Can you? The youngest Miss Champernowne was inclined to scold thewaiters because of the poor supply of natives.”

“The Miss Champernownes are used to such luxuries as oysters, and can’tdo without them,” laughed Eve. “My sisters and I have been brought upin a harder manner.”

“Curious, isn’t it, how fashion changes?” said Vansittart, taking herto a little table in the furthest corner of the room—a tiny table thatwould only just accommodate two people. “When Byron was in society itwas considered odious for a young woman to care what she eat, or tohave a healthy appetite. Nowadays, it is rather chic for a girl tobe a gourmet. We have bread-and-butter Misses affecting a fine tastein dry champagne and a passion for quails. And now what can I getyou—mayonnaise lobster, truffled turkey, boar’s head, chicken?”

She decided for chicken, and trifled with a wing while Vansittartsipped a glass of champagne, enchanted to have her all to himself inthis corner, wishing that the Caledonians might last for ever, andinclined to be reckless about his engagement for the waltz that was tofollow.

“You have been dancing every dance, I think,” he said.

“No; not all. I sat in my corner with Mrs. Ponto all through a mostexquisite waltz.”

“Was it possible you had no partner?”

“Mr. Sefton asked me to dance—and I told him I was tired.”

“I have an idea you don’t much like Mr. Sefton?”

“No, he’s not a favourite of mine; but he has always been very kind,and he has given my father some shooting; so I don’t want to be rude tohim.”

[Pg 53]

“Was that why you danced the Lancers with him, after refusing him adance?”

“How did you know I refused him? Ah, I remember, you were sitting inthe tea-room. You must have heard all we said.”

“Every syllable.”

“How flattering to the lady who was talking to you!”

“Dear Miss Green! Oh, she would not mind. She is so pleased with herown conversation that it does not matter whether people listen ornot. She is a lady who shakes hands with herself every morning, andsays, ‘My dear soul, you are really the cleverest, wittiest, brightestcreature I know—not exactly beautiful, but infinitely charming,’ andin that humour she comes smiling down to breakfast, and lets us all seewhat poor creatures she thinks us.”

“I find you can be ill-natured, Mr. Vansittart. You are not like LadyHartley, who has always a kind word to say of every one.”

“That is my sister’s little way. She pays most of her debts with kindwords.”

“Ah, but she has given us more than words. She asks us to herdelightful summer parties, and seems always glad to see us.”

“She is very lucky to have such young ladies at her parties. What woulda garden-party be if there were not faces in the crowd worth followingand asking questions about? But what of Mr. Sefton? I am interested inMr. Sefton.”

“Why?” she asked, with innocent wonder.

“Oh, for various reasons. My father and his father were once friends.And then he is a landowner, a great man in these parts, and one alwayswants to know about such people.”

“Yes, he has a fine estate, and he is said to be rich; but he is notas popular as his father was. I remember old Mr. Sefton, a splendidgentleman. But this Mr. Sefton and my father get on very well together.”

“You say he has been kind. How kind?”

“He asks my father to shooting parties, and he sends us game, andgrapes, and pines. I would rather for my own part that he didn’t, forwe can give him nothing in return. Sophy wanted to work him a pair ofslippers—preposterous—as if he were a curate! My two nursery sistersoffered to make him a set of mats in Russian cross-stitch. Imaginesending Mr. Sefton mats for his toilet table.”

“He scarcely looks the kind of man to appreciate that particular formof attention. Tivett, now, would be delighted with such a gift. Thereis nothing too microscopic or too feminine to interest that dear littleman.”

“He is a dear little man. It is quite delightful to hear him talk aboutLondon people and London parties.”

“Did he set you longing to be in the whirl of a London season?”

[Pg 54]

“I don’t know. It would be very nice, for once in one’s life; but Iam quite happy in our country home, as long as—as,” she faltered alittle, “father is well and contented.”

He felt that in this faltering phrase there was a hint of domesticcares. Hubert Hartley had told him, during a few minutes’ talk on theomnibus, that Colonel Marchant was something of a Bohemian, and adifficult man to get on with.

“I always feel sorry for those five girls of his,” Sir Hubert concluded.

“You are wise in liking your country life,” said Vansittart. “It is thehappier life. All my best days are at Merewood—our place near Liss. Doyou know Liss, by-the-by?”

“No, indeed. I know there is such a place somewhere between here andPortsmouth.”

“You must have passed it, I think. I dare say you sometimes go toSouthsea or to the Isle of Wight for your summer holidays.”

“You dare to say too much,” she answered, with her frank, girlishlaugh. “We never go anywhere for our summer holidays. We live in thesame house all the year round. When a poor man has five daughters hecan’t afford to carry them about to seaside lodgings, which are alwaysdreadfully dear in the season, I am told. I think we ought to go backto the ball-room. I am engaged for the next waltz.”

“And I, to a most exacting partner.”

The waltz was half over when they entered the dancing-room, and HildaChampernowne, who saw them enter side by side, looking very happy, wasevidently offended.

“It is hardly worth while standing up,” she said; “the waltz is justover.”

“I thought it had only just begun.”

“That shows how engrossed you must have been.”

“I was giving a young lady some supper, and a young lady who might havestarved but for me.”

“Impossible! The young lady was Miss Marchant, whom you yourselfpronounced the belle of the ball. Mr. Tivett told me so.”

“In such an assembly as this—where there is some of the best blood inEngland—there are many belles,” said Vansittart. “Will you come for aturn round the rooms, if you won’t dance?”

The lady rose, and took his arm, somewhat mollified, and in thecourse of that turn—which could not, from the limited space, lastvery long—she questioned Vansittart sharply about Miss Marchant.Did he think her good style? Had he found her bright and clever inconversation, or was she very dull?

“The poor things go nowhere, I am told, except to garden-parties, wherethey are lost in a crowd of nobodies. It has been too sad to[Pg 55] see themsitting with that awful woman in the red gown. Why do girls go todances to endure such purgatory? I would as soon sit in the pillory,like Daniel Defoe, as in that corner with the crimson lady.”

“Oh, but they have been dancing a good deal. Theirs is not quite such apiteous case as you make out.”

“Have they really?” asked Miss Champernowne, with a disparaging drawl;“I’m glad some one has taken compassion upon them. They’ve always beensittin’ when I happened to look their way.”

The Champernownes and the Marchants met an hour later in thecloak-room, and this time Lady Hartley formally introduced the MissMarchants to the haughty Devonians, in the hope that this might makethe return journey a little more sociable; a vain hope, for theChampernownes and Miss Green affected to be overcome by sleep as soonas they had settled themselves in the omnibus. So Mr. Tivett and theMarchants had all the talk to themselves, as before, with an occasionalkindly word from the hostess, who was genuinely sleepy, and who dreamtthat she and the Marchant girls were travelling in Italy, and thattheir carriage was stopped by brigands.

The brigand-in-chief was her own groom, who came to open the door, andassist the young ladies to alight at their garden gate. But he was notallowed to do more than hold the door open, for Vansittart was standingon the whitened road ready to hand his partner and her sisters to theground. They alighted as airily as Mercury on the heaven-kissing hill.

“Dear Lady Hartley, we have no words to express our gratitude,” saidSophy, as Maud shook hands with her at parting.

Eve was less demonstrative, but not less grateful, and the youngest ofthe three only murmured something unintelligible from between the foldsof her tartan shawl.

Vansittart opened a low wooden gate. The house stood boldly out againstthe clear moonlit sky; but he had no time to look at it, for he wasabsorbed in guiding Eve Marchant’s footsteps on the slippery gardenpath, while the groom followed in attendance on her sisters. The pathwas smooth as glass, and he almost held her in his arms as they wentslowly up the sharp little hill that led to the rustic porch.

An old woman opened the door, and the three girls were speedilyabsorbed into a dark vestibule, a single candle glimmering in thedistance.

“Are we very late, Nancy?” asked Eve.

“Not later than I thowt you’d be,” answered the woman, with anorth-country accent; and then there was nothing for Vansittart to doexcept to wish the three sisters good night, and go back to[Pg 56] the ’bus,where Sir Hubert was beginning to be uneasy about his horses waiting inthe frosty air.

“Cuts into them like knives,” said Sir Hubert, as his brother-in-lawclambered on to the box. “You might have made shorter work of seeingMiss Marchant to her door.”

“I might have let her fall on that inclined plane,” growled Vansittart.“Capital for tobogganing, but very dangerous for a young lady in satinshoes.”

“Poor girl, I wonder where her next satin shoes will come from,” saidHubert.

“Is the Colonel so very hard up?”

“Very, I should think, since he is always in debt to the littletradespeople about here.”

“And on the strength of that you all talk about those three girls as ifthey were lepers,” retorted Vansittart. “I have no patience with thepettiness of village society.”

CHAPTER V.

TEATIME IN ARCADIA.

It was long since Vansittart had been haunted by the face of a womanas he was haunted by the face of Eve Marchant. He had not come to nineand twenty years of age without one or two grandes passions,which had begun out of a mere fancy, a glance—like one of those oncefashionable toys called Pharaoh’s Serpents—had swollen to colossaldimensions, and had ended, like the serpent, in a puff of smoke. Thistime he wondered at his own feelings when he found himself so deeplyinterested in the girl he always thought of as Titania. He was inclinedto ascribe this sudden interest to the eccentric manner of their firstmeeting, the three pretty faces springing out of a turn in the woodedroad, like sylphs in fairyland, the light, silvery laughter, and thesomething of sadness in the fate of this bright, light-hearted girlwhich appealed to his deeper feelings.

To whatever cause he might ascribe his interest, the fact remained thathe was interested; for he found himself thinking about Eve Marchant agreat deal more than he had ever thought of any one subject, exceptthat one fatal subject of his misadventure at Venice; and he foundhimself very bad company for other people in consequence.

For ten days after the ball at Mandelford he lived in expectation ofseeing Miss Marchant again, somewhere, somehow; and to further thatdesire of his heart he lived in a state of perpetual locomotion; nowdriving one of the Hartley dog-carts to Mandelford or Midhurst,[Pg 57]Fernhurst or Haslemere, as the case might be; and anon patrollingthose towns and villages on foot, in the ardent expectation of meetingColonel Marchant’s daughters upon some shopping or visiting expedition.

Go where he would he drew blank. Could it be that the Colonel was sodeep in debt to the local tradespeople that his daughters dared notshow themselves in those rural streets, where, after all, as the localgentry said condescendingly, one could really get almost everything onewanted?

He walked, he drove, he haunted the great pond in Redwold Park, whichwas thrown open to the public for skating, and where the men andmaidens of the neighbourhood came daily to disport themselves: butvainly did he look for the Marchants.

“I thought the Miss Marchants were skaters,” he said to Miss Green, onthe third morning, as he helped her to put on her Mount Charles skates.

“So they are. They almost lived on this pond before Christmas. Perhapsthey have worn out their boots, and are obliged to stay at home.”

Those ten days of expectancy and disappointment made Jack Vansittartdesperate. It seemed to him ages since the night of the ball. He beganto think he should never see Eve Marchant again, and panic-strickenat this idea, he started after a morning’s pheasant shooting to walkto the Homestead, Fernhurst, to make a formal call upon the sisters.Surely he had the right to call and inquire how they had survivedthe fatigue of the dances, the perils of the cold drive home. He wasquick to make up his mind that he had such a right, and no walk takenfor pleasure or for health had ever been more exhilarating than thattramp from the westward shoulder of Blackdown to the further sideof Fernhurst. The roads were hard and dry, the wind was north-west,and the sun was going down in wintry splendour. It was late in theafternoon to make a ceremonious visit, but there was all the betterhope that he would find Colonel Marchant’s daughters within doors.

The house stood high above the road, on a ridge of meadow-land whichhad been encroached upon for half an acre of garden. It was a long, lowhouse, with steep gable ends, and a high slanting roof, red tiled andlichen grown. Originally only a farm labourer’s cottage, it had beenexpanded and improved by more than one tenant, the last addition beingmade by Colonel Marchant, who at the beginning of his tenancy had builta comfortable covered porch, which served as vestibule, and a largeroom on the ground floor, which had been first known as the nursery,then as the schoolroom, and which was now simply the parlour, orgeneral living-room for the whole family. The resident governess, thatelement of respectability, had shaken[Pg 58] the dust of Colonel Marchant’sBohemian dwelling-place off her feet a year ago, and had vanished intospace, leaving a long arrear of salary behind her.

It was twilight, the grey twilight of a frosty winter day. Vansittartnoted the snowdrops peeping over the box border as he walked up thesteep gravel path that made the only approach to the Marchant dwelling.Carriage approach there was none. The Marchant girls’ cheap satinslippers had to trip along that gravel path, in fine weather or foul,when they went to a party, and the poor little feet inside the slippershad to dance away any feeling of chilly dampness which the soddengravel might occasion.

Vansittart looked about him in the evening grey as he waited for theopening of the door. He had rung a bell that sounded twice too loudfor the size of the house, and had set up much barking of indoor andoutdoor dogs.

There were two long strips of grass sloping down to the holly-hedgethat shut off the road, and a long flower border on either side of thegravel path. This was the garden, so far as ornamental garden went,but beyond the grass strip on one side of the house there were cabbagerows, and the usual features of a vegetable garden. Beyond, right andleft, stretched meadow-land, away to the dark background of copse andhillside.

The house, even after all its improvements, had a humble and homelyaspect; walls roughly plastered, small lattice windows, and that steepslant of the roof, which Vansittart could have touched with his hand.The porch was a square enclosure, with a sloping thatch, and two littlewindows, right and left. An old woman, in a blue stuff gown and whitecap and apron, opened the door, and even as it opened Vansittart heardagain that ripple of silver-clear laughter which he had heard on thehilltop in the snowy night, nearly ten days ago.

Ten days. Only ten! Until ten days ago he had lived in happy ignorancethat there was such a woman as Eve Marchant in the world. It seemed tohim now as strange not to have known of her as it would be not to knowof her namesake—the universal mother.

The same sweet laughter, not loud or boisterous, but soft and clear!Her laugh! He would have known it amidst a chorus of laughing girls.

Miss Marchant was at home, the old woman told him, and thereupon ledhim through a small, dark room—the original cottage parlour—throughanother room, faintly lit by a low fire, into a third and much largerroom, which was bright with fire and lamp light.

Here the whole Marchant family, except the Colonel, were assembled atafternoon tea, which in this establishment had come to be the mostenjoyable meal of the day.

[Pg 59]

Happily Vansittart had lunched lightly in the woods with the shooters,so was hungry enough to find the odour of toasting bread rather acomfortable addition to the atmosphere; or, at any rate, he was ina humour to be pleased with everything, even the sprawling attitudeof a tall overgrown girl in a yellow cotton pinafore, sitting on thehearthrug, and making toast, watched and assisted by a smaller sister.

The three grown-up Miss Marchants sat at the table, two of themwith their elbows on the board, where a large home-made cake—innorth-country phraseology, a plum-loaf—a glass dish of marmalade andanother of jam, and a pile of thick bread and butter, testified to theserious purpose of the meal.

Eve, the tea-maker and mistress of the feast, rose as Mr. Vansittartwas announced, and came forward two or three steps to greet him, halfin firelight, half in lamplight, brilliant and full of colour as anearly Italian picture. Her gown was bright red merino, which set offthe fairness of her complexion, and the pale gold in her brown hair;such a cheap gown, if he had only known, bought at one of the sales forhalf its value, timid beauty being afraid of the strong colour.

The other two girls were in somewhat tawdry attire, skirts of onecolour, bodices of another; but they were fond of colour at theHomestead, and girls with scanty purses cannot bend to the iron rule offashion.

To Vansittart’s admiring eyes, Eve’s red gown was the most exquisiteand artistic of garments. He who was generally so much at his ease inall kinds of company found himself hesitating a little as he said thathe had come to ask them if they had quite recovered from the fatigueof the dance; and, if so, how it was they had not been on the ice inRedwold Park.

“But perhaps you are tired of skating.”

“Tired? Why, we all adore it,” cried Eve. “But we have been dreadfullybusy, making our winter gowns.”

The second week in January seemed to Mr. Vansittart a late date atwhich to set about the making of winter raiment. He did not know thatfor many young women with slender purses the January and July salesare the only periods for the purchase of drapery. Twice a year theMarchant girls treated themselves to third-class tickets from Haslemereto Waterloo, and spent a long day going from shop to shop to secure theutmost value for their poor little stock of cash.

“Yes; it’s really dreadful to lose a week of this delicious hard frost,ain’t it?” exclaimed Sophy, much readier of speech this evening thanher elder sister.

“Run to the kitchen and get me another teapot, Peggy,” whispered[Pg 60] Eve;whereupon the youngest girl started up from the rug and bounded off onher errand.

“Just as we were all improving in our skating,” said Jenny. “We hadconquered the outside edge, and Sophy and I were beginning to grasp theright idea of the Dutch roll, and were even aspiring to the grape vine.”

“And then the hockey,” interjected Sophy; “the hockey was toodelightful.”

Again the fair head bent itself towards the hearthrug. There wasanother whisper, and the elder girl bounced up and ran off.

“She has gone for a cup and saucer, and I am going to give you somefresh tea,” said Eve, smiling at the visitor as he sat in the Colonel’schair, in that corner of the room which bore no traces of girlishlitter. “I hope you don’t mind our waiting upon ourselves. We haveonly our old Yorkshire Nancy, and a little parlour-maid; and as it isthe little maid’s afternoon out, here we are, five intelligent youngpeople, ready to help each other.”

“I cannot conceive a more delightful spectacle. But why make fresh tea,Miss Marchant? I am sure there is some of your last brew which would docapitally for me.”

“If I did not know you are saying that for kindness, I might think youone of those unsympathetic people who don’t care for tea.”

“Do tea and sympathy go together?”

“I think most nice people are tea-drinkers. Indeed, it seems to me thattea is the link that holds society together. Oh, what should we do withour afternoons—however could we go and call upon people—if it werenot for afternoon tea?”

“And I see that afternoon tea, with you young ladies, is a somewhatserious function,” said Vansittart, with a glance across thewell-spread table to the pile of toast which Sophy was buttering.

The younger girls had come back, one with a china teapot, the otherwith a cup and saucer, and Eve was busy with her second brew.

“Please don’t laugh at us. We are a very irregular family in the matterof luncheon, and this is our hungriest meal.”

The youngest girl, who had resumed her seat on the hearthrug, was atthis juncture seized with a giggling fit, which she vainly endeavouredto suppress, and which speedily communicated itself to the youngest butone, also seated on the rug.

“Those children are too absurd,” exclaimed Sophy, after trying to frownthem into propriety. “They are always laughing at nothing.”

“Happy age,” said Vansittart; “the time so soon comes when we can’tlaugh at anything.”

“She said it was our hungriest meal!” gasped Hetty, of the[Pg 61] yellowpinafore, in convulsions of undisguised laughter; “I should ratherthink it was.”

“I suppose these young ladies are not yet promoted to late dinners?”hazarded Vansittart, wondering a little why this question of afternoontea could afford such scope for mirth.

“No, we don’t dine late,” protested Hetty, more and more hilarious.“We don’t, do we, Peggy?”

Peggy, the white-pinafored youngest, was speechless with laughter.

Vansittart began to divine the mystery. In this household of narrowmeans there was no late dinner for the ladies of the family. Therewas doubtless a dinner for the Colonel. Man cannot long support lifewithout the regulation evening meal; but for this household of girlsbread and jam and plum-loaves were an all-sufficient repast. Was lowliving—this diet of innocent bread and butter—one of the causes ofEve’s peerless complexion, he wondered? All the girls were more or lesspretty. It might be that this Arcadian fare had something to do withtheir prettiness.

Never had he enjoyed a meal so much as that afternoon tea in theMarchants’ parlour. As he sat looking at the room in the lamplighthe began to think he had never seen a prettier room for a family tolive in. The fireplace was wide and spacious, an open hearth, with ahigh projecting mantelpiece, and narrow shelves over that, slantingupward to the ceiling, and dotted about with trumpery blue teacups,and yellow and red vases from the Riviera. The Colonel had begun withthe intention of making an ingle nook, but being told, in the rusticbuilder’s phraseology, that an ingle nook would run into money, hehad contented himself with a wide fireplace and a projecting chimney.There was only black and white on the walls, a few etchings, and a goodmany photographs of pictures, against a dark red paper. There was acottage piano in a corner, draped with a Bellagio rug of vivid amber,and there were other Bellagio rugs on the sofa, and on the Colonel’sarmchair. For the rest the furniture was of the shabbiest; clumsysubstantial old chairs and tables that suggested the hindermost densof the second-hand furniture dealer, those yards and back premises inwhich he keeps his least attractive goods. The room was uncarpeted,but crudely coloured Indian rugs of the cheaper kind brightened theoak-stained floor here and there, and gave a suggestion of luxury.The lamp in the middle of the round table was subdued by a largeshade of art muslin, daintily frilled and ribboned, evidently a homeproduction; the German tablecloth was of white and red damask, thecrockery was white, cheap but pretty, and there were a few winterflowers and bright berries in brown glass vases. Altogether thattea-table had a delightful aspect to John Vansittart. The room, thefirelight, the fresh young faces, with that one fairest face shining[Pg 62]like a star among the others, the hoydens upon the hearthrug gigglingat the idea of a dinnerless household, made up a scene of homelyenchantment. Even a white fox-terrier which had begun by snapping athim, and which was now at his knee begging for toast, seemed partand parcel of the pleasant homeliness. It was teatime in a domesticfairyland; a fairyland where people eat slices of buttered plum-loafand hot frizzling toast; a fairyland odorous of strawberry jam; aland where young women put their elbows on the table, and had noneed of a chaperon to keep them in countenance during the visit of ayoung man; in a word, the fairyland of Bohemia. To Vansittart, who inEngland had known only the respectabilities, the everlasting laws andconventionalities of smart people, differing in detail with the fashionof the hour, but fundamentally the same—to Vansittart, the young manof property and position, this glimpse of an unconventional householdwas as novel as it was fascinating. Pretty as Eve Marchant was, hewould not have admired her half so much at a ball in Grosvenor Square.It was the touch of pathos, the touch of comedy in the girl’s historyand surroundings which interested him.

He sat long at the tea-table, and eat more buttered toast than he hadeaten at a sitting since he was an undergraduate. He forgot even toask if Colonel Marchant were at home, and had almost forgotten theexistence of that gentleman when Hetty, the youngest but one, on beingreproved for noisy utterance, replied, “It don’t matter, father can’thear me at the Rag.”

“Colonel Marchant is in town, I conclude,” said Vansittart.

“He went up by the afternoon train,” Eve answered with a stately air.“He is dining with some old chums to-night, and I don’t think he’ll behome before Saturday.”

“I have not been fortunate enough to meet him yet.”

“I’m afraid he’s rather unsociable,” answered Eve, suddenly serious,while over all the young faces there spread a shadow of seriousness.“He lets us accept invitations—and I’m sure people are very kind to goon asking us when we can’t pay them the proper respect of new frocks.”

“What do people care about frocks?” exclaimed Jenny, the thirddaughter, with a Republican air. “If we are asked out it is because weare liked, in spite of our old frocks.”

“Or because people are sorry for us,” said Eve, gravely.

“I don’t think people are ever sorry for youth and beauty,” saidVansittart. “Both are objects of envy rather than of compassion.”

“Oh, I can’t follow you there,” answered Eve; “everybody is young once.Youth is as common as chickweed or groundsel, and it lasts such a shorttime; and if one has to spend that one bright[Pg 63] little bit of life ina state of perpetual hard-uppishness, I am sure one deserves to bepitied.”

She talked of her poverty with an alarming frankness. Most peoplehide their indigence as if it were an ugly sore, or if they speak ofit, speak softly, apologetically, or with an assumed lightness, as iftheir poverty were not really poverty, but only a genteel limitation ofmeans, implying none of the shortcomings of actual want. But this girltalked of her old frock and her father’s poverty, without a blush.

“Father won’t visit anywhere now,” she said. “He can’t forget that heonce lived in a big house, and had a thousand acres of shooting, andbred his own pheasants. He can hardly bring himself to shoot otherpeople’s birds, even when they ask him to their big shoots.”

“Your old home was in the North, I think?” said Vansittart, delightedat being let into the family secrets.

“In Yorkshire—within ten miles of Beverley. Do you know Beverley?”

“Yes; I was there once—a queer sleepy old place, once renowned for itscorruption; now from a political point of view nil. A town witha Bar—a Bar which did something to Charles the First, I believe. DidBeverley shut him out, or did Beverley let him in after Hull had shuthim out? My common or Gardiner history is at fault there.”

“Beverley is a dear old town,” asserted Eve. “I haven’t seen it sinceI was twelve years old, but I can remember the countenance of everyhouse in the market-place, and the colouring of every window in theMinster. Father won a cup at the races when I was eleven, and I took ithome in the carriage with me. I remember having it in my lap, a greatgilt cup. I thought it was gold till my governess told me it was onlysilver-gilt. Heaven knows what became of that cup! Father despisedit. The race was a paltry affair, I believe, and his horse was a poorcreature. He had won ever so many better cups at bigger races; but Ionly remember the cup I carried home, and the broad, bright common,and the blazing July day, and the happy-looking people. It was my lastsummer in Yorkshire, my last summer in the house where I was born.Before the next summer we all came here. Mother, and the governess, andthe rest of us. Peggy was a baby in long clothes, and mother was onlyjust beginning to be seriously ill.”

“And if you could have seen this place when we first came to it youwould have pitied us,” said Sophy. “A parson’s family had been livingin it, an overgrown family like us, but without the faintest idea ofthe beautiful. The parson’s wife kept poultry, and there were horridwired enclosures close to the parlour window, and[Pg 64] there was no porch,and no possibility of saying ‘Not at home’ to callers. There were onlyvegetables in the garden, potatoes and scarlet-runners, where we havemade lawns.”

“She calls those long strips of grass lawns,” interjected Peggy,irreverently disposed towards a dictatorial grown-up sister who was notthe eldest. Against Eve no one rebelled.

“And think how squeezed we all must have been till father built thisroom, and picture to yourself the mess and muddle we had to endure allthe time it was being built. It didn’t matter to him, for he was out ofthe worst of it.”

“He had to take mother to the South that winter,” explained Eve. “Shehad been in weak health for ever so long before we left Yorkshire. Aweakly plant can’t bear being torn up by the roots, can it? I thinkthat change in our fortunes broke her heart—added to—to other things.”

She did not say what the other things were, and he could not ask her;nor would he ask her what had brought about the Colonel’s ruin. Hecould make a shrewd guess upon the latter point. The value of landedproperty had gone down, and the man had kept a racing stud. Betweenthose two facts there was ample room for change of fortune.

“Mother never came back to us,” said Eve, with a gentle sigh. “She islying in the cemetery at Cannes. People have told me about her grave,and that it is in a lovely spot. There is some comfort in being able tothink of that, after all these years.”

“I know that resting-place well,” said Vansittart. “There is nolovelier home for the dead.”

There was a brief silence. Even the children on the hearthrug weredumb, and there was no sound but the contented purring of Hetty’scolossal cat, a brindled grey, with a fluffy white breast, a cat thatwas satiated with the worship of pretty girls, and gave himself as manyairs as if he had been kittened in Egypt, and ranked among gods.

“Dear as Beverley was, I hope you all like your Sussex home,” saidVansittart.

“Sussex is well enough, but when one is used to a big stone house, witha picture-gallery, and one of the finest Jacobean staircases in theEast Riding, it is rather hard to come down to a labourer’s cottagethat has been dodged and expanded into the most inconvenient housein the neighbourhood,” said Sophy, with a grand air, and tilting herretroussé nose a little higher than usual.

Again the girls on the hearthrug burst into inextinguishable laughter.

“What a snob you are, Sophy!” cried the outspoken Hetty. “You say allthat as if you had learnt it by heart; and as for[Pg 65] coming down, youcame down to the labourer’s cottage when you were eleven years old. Youought to be used to it now you are twenty.”

Twenty. Sophy, the second, was twenty—and there was only a yearbetween her and Vansittart’s incomparable she, who had migrated toSussex when she was twelve. One and twenty, in the fair majority of hergirlish charms. He thought it the most delightful period in woman’slife—fair as in her teens, but wiser: mature for love and wisdom.

All earthly blisses must end. The blissfullest five o’clock tea cannotlast for ever; but Vansittart was determined to make this endure aslong as he could. The meal was finished. Even those long, lean hands ofthe youngsters had ceased to be stretched harpy-like towards the tablefor more bread and jam, or another slice of cake, which an elder sisterdispensed with somewhat offensive comments upon the ravenous maw ofyouth.

“Oh, come now,” cried the offended Peggy. “Suppose I do eat a lot; Ihaven’t stopped growing yet. You have, yet I’ve heard you say you couldsit and eat one of Nancy’s plum-loaves all the evening. But that waswhen there was no one here but ourselves.”

Sophy blushed furiously, and Vansittart came laughingly to the rescue.

“I can vouch for the seductiveness of Nancy’s plum-loaf,” he said. “Ithink I must coax her to impart the recipe to my mother’s cook. Is yourNancy a coaxable person?”

“Not very. She adores us, but she is rather gruff and grim to theoutside world. She was in father’s service as kitchen-maid when she wasfourteen, at the time of his marriage, ages before I was born,” saidEve.

Ages. Yet she was the eldest. What did that word ages mean? Threeyears, perhaps, in a young lady’s vocabulary.

“And she followed your fortunes from the old house, and she is asfaithful as Caleb Balderstone, I dare say,” said Vansittart, and feltin the next moment that it was precisely one of those things he hadbetter have left unsaid.

“She is just like Caleb,” replied Eve, frankly accepting thesuggestion, “just as faithful and true. I feel sure that if it weresuddenly put upon us to give a dinner, and there were a saddle ofmutton or a fore-quarter of lamb hanging conveniently before aneighbour’s fire, Nancy would elope with it just as audaciously asCaleb made off with the cooper’s spit—all for the credit of thefamily. She works like a slave for us from morning till night. She isa splendid manager, and she makes tea-cakes as only a Yorkshirewomancan.”

“And in cooking she could give points to many of your professed[Pg 66]cooks,” said Jenny. “Father is a difficult man in the matter of dinner.”

“And dinner is a difficult matter for poor people,” laughed Eve, tothe annoyance of Sophy, who had not yet taken to heart the foolishnessof the ostrich family, and who was always anxious to slur over animpecuniousness which was visible to the naked eye. It was only Eve whohad learnt to grasp the nettle. Perhaps it was her country life, amonggreen fields and blackthorn hedgerows, and chestnut copses, and thebarren heather-clad hills, which had kept her free from the age’s worstfever, the sickly longing for wealth. Had she been reared in Pimlico orBrompton, she too might have been spoilt, her nature warped, her mindtainted with the sordid thirst for gold, the desire for finery and fineliving, the aching envy of rich men’s daughters. The people she knewand mixed with were county people, who wore their old gowns, and livedsimple, old-fashioned lives when they were in the country, and lefttheir modern vices behind them in London ready for use next season.

Vansittart glanced at a cheap little American clock ticking among thecups and vases on the chimney-piece. A quarter past six, and his watchhad told him that it was a quarter before five as he approached theHomestead.

“I don’t know how to apologize for staying so long,” he faltered, as herose from the Colonel’s comfortable chair and extricated his hat fromthe reluctant paws of the grey cat.

“Don’t apologize,” said Jenny, who was the pertest of the sisters;“there is nothing so unflattering to one’s amour propre as a shortvisit. And then there are so many of us. A visitor must stay a longishtime in order to give each of us a civil word.”

Vansittart’s conscience smote him at this remark. He feared that he hadaddressed his conversation exclusively to Eve. He had no consciousnessof having spoken to any one else. For him the room had held only Eve;only that one salient figure. The others were faintly sketched in thebackground. She was the picture.

He got out of the room somehow, after shaking hands all round, andeven in his deep trance of love he was conscious that the two youngesthands were sticky with traces of strawberry jam. There being no oneelse to show him out—for who could disturb Nancy, remote in thekitchen, with futile ringing of a ceremonial bell?—the whole bevy ofsisters accompanied him to the outer door, the youngest carrying atall candle, which threatened to topple over and sprinkle her with ashower of ozokerit. He had time to notice the rooms through which theywent—one shabbily furnished as a dining-room, with an old harpsichordfor sideboard; the other evidently the Colonel’s den for books, boots,and tobacco. He had[Pg 67] time to note the porch or vestibule, where therehung much outer apparel, feminine and masculine, hats, scarves, fishingbasket, sticks of all shapes and thicknesses, mostly from native woodsand hedgerows. He had time to note everything during that lingeringdeparture, protracted by idle talk about the roads and the weather:and yet while his eye took in the shabbiness and smallness of thosetwo rooms, the rustiness of the Colonel’s overcoats, mind and eye bothwere filled with but one image—the figure of a tall, fair girl, whosefluffy head overtopped her sisters, and shone conspicuous among themall (as it would have shone, he thought, amidst a thousand), by itsfresh and innocent beauty.

“And that is the girl I love; and that is the girl I mean to marry,”he said to himself, as he walked briskly along the footpath towardsBlackdown.

After such dawdling in Armida’s parlour he would have to walk hisfastest to be in time to dress for the eight o’clock dinner.

CHAPTER VI.

WHY SHOULD HE REFRAIN?

Why should he not marry Colonel Marchant’s daughter? Vansittart askedhimself, in the quiet of those night watches which are said to bringcounsel.

Why should he not marry Eve Marchant? asked Jack Vansittart ofCounsellor Night. He was lord not only of himself but of a handsomeincome and a desirable estate. He had nobody to please but himself,and—well, yes, he wanted to please his mother, even in a matter soentirely personal as his choice of a wife. She had been so devoted amother, and they had loved each other so dearly! In all his life hehad kept only one secret from her—the secret of that night at Venice.In all his life he had only once told her a lie; when he told her hehad not been in Venice during that last Italian tour. He wanted toplease her, if it were possible, in this most serious question ofhis marriage. He knew that she loved him too unselfishly to be sorrythat he should marry, albeit marriage must in some wise lessen theircompanionship as mother and son. The major half of his existencemust needs belong to the woman he chose for his wife. His mother wasresigned to take her lesser place in his life, she had often told him,provided that the wife were worthy.

“Pure as well as beautiful, sprung from an honourable race, reared by agood mother.”

These were the conditions she had laid upon his choice. What wouldshe think of Colonel Marchant’s daughter, motherless, the child of adisreputable father, a girl reared under every social disadvantage;[Pg 68] agirl who had dragged herself up anyhow, according to village gossips; agirl who had neither accomplishments nor education, and who had shownherself an audacious flirt, said the village—for Eve’s frank freedomof speech and manner was the rustic idea of audacity in flirtation? Totalk easily with a man under forty was to be an outrageous flirt. Therustic idea of a well-conducted young woman was simpering silence.

What would his mother think of such a choice; his mother, who had beenborn and bred in just that stratum of English respectability which isnarrowest in its sociology and strongest in its prejudices; his mother,who belonged to the county families, those deeply rooted children ofthe soil to whom the word trade is an abomination; who think that theChurch and the Army were established for the maintenance of theiryounger sons, who consider they make a concession when they send a sonto the Bar, and who shudder at the notion of a doctor or a solicitorissuing from their superior circles? What would Mrs. Vansittart thinkof an alliance with the daughter of a man whose name was dishonoured,who, albeit he too had been born of that elect race, and wasindisputably “county,” had made himself a pauper and an outcast by hismisconduct, and who had lived for the last nine years in a Bohemian andutterly intolerable manner, spending his time mysteriously in London,letting his daughters run wild, and having to be summoned for his ratesand taxes?

The charges against Colonel Marchant, as Vansittart had heard them,were manifold. He had begun life in a marching regiment, withoutexpectations, had married a lovely girl of low birth, or supposed tobe of low birth, since her pedigree was unknown to Sussex, and herantecedents and uprising had never been explained or expounded to thecurious in the neighbourhood of the Colonel’s present abode. Withintwo years of this marriage he had succeeded, most unexpectedly, by thedeath of a young cousin, to a fine estate in Yorkshire, considerablydipped by previous owners, but still a fine estate, and had immediatelybegun a career of extravagance, horse-racing, betting, and disreputablecompany, which had ultimately forced him to sell mansion and manor,farms and homesteads, that had belonged to his family since theCommonwealth, when the lands of East Grinley were bestowed by Cromwellon one of his finest soldiers, Major Fear-the-Lord Marchant, an officerwho had helped to turn the fortunes of the day at Marston Moor, and whohad been left for dead on the field of Dunbar.

Colonel Marchant had kept race-horses, and in his latter and worstdays—when ruin was close at hand—had been suspected of shady dealingsin the management of his stud, and had been the subject of a JockeyClub inquiry, which, albeit not important enough[Pg 69] to become a causecélèbre, had left the Colonel with a tarnished reputation on theTurf, and the dark suspicion of having made a good deal of money byin and out running. He withdrew from the racing world under a cloud,not quite cleaned out, for the money he had won in the previous autumnserved to buy the cottage near Fernhurst, and to carry his family fromYorkshire to Sussex. Here he began life anew, a ruined man, with fiveyoung daughters and an invalid wife.

Of Colonel Marchant’s existence at the Homestead local society hadvery little to say, except in a general way that he was not “nice.” Heneglected his daughters, he never went to church, and he was alwaysin debt. Maiden ladies and old women of the masculine gender used tospeculate upon how long he would be able to go on before his creditorstook desperate measures. How long would Midhurst and Haslemere bearand forbear with a man who was known to be deep in debt in both towns?All this and much more had John Vansittart heard from various peoplesince the night of the hunt ball, for he had laid himself out withconsiderable artfulness to hear all he could about the Marchant family.In the beginning of things, albeit Eve appeared to him in all theinnocent loveliness of Titania, he had told himself that he could notmarry into such a family. Such an alliance would blight his life. Hewould have those four sisters upon his shoulders. He would be disgracedby a disreputable father-in-law.

And now in the night watches he told himself a very different story.He told himself that he should be a craven and a cur if he allowed EveMarchant to suffer for her father’s sins. What was it to him that theColonel had squandered his money on third-rate racers, and had beensuspected of in and out running on second-rate racecourses? He lovedthe Colonel’s daughter; and as an honest man it was his duty to takeher away from unworthy surroundings. Inclination and honesty pointingthe same way, he was determined to do his duty—yes, even at the riskof disappointing the mother he loved.

So much for the night watches. He saw before him a fierce battlebetween love and prejudice, but he was determined to fight that battle.

The war began while this resolve was yet a new thing.

“So you have been calling at the Homestead, Jack,” said his sister atluncheon next day.

“Who told you that?” he asked curtly, reddening a little.

“One of those little birds of which we have a whole aviary. I droveinto Midhurst this morning to talk to the fishmonger, and met the twoMiss Etheringtons. They saw you going in at Colonel Marchant’s gateyesterday afternoon.”

[Pg 70]

“I wonder they didn’t wait outside to see when I came out again,” saidVansittart.

“I dare say they would have waited if it had been warmer weather. Whatcould have induced you to call upon Colonel Marchant? Colonel, indeed!Colonel of a Yorkshire Volunteer regiment! I don’t believe he was everany higher than ensign in the 107th.”

“Very likely not. But I didn’t call upon the Colonel; I called upon mypartners at the hunt ball.”

“And no doubt they received you with open arms!”

“They received me with true Yorkshire hospitality, and gave me someexcellent tea, to say nothing of buttered plum-loaf.”

“And I dare say they were not in the least embarrassed at doing thehonours to a strange young man, without mother, or aunt, or so much asa governess to keep them in countenance.”

“Why should they require to be kept in countenance? Surely five girlsought to be chaperon enough for each other?”

“They are the most unconventional young women I ever met with,” saidthe eldest Miss Champernowne, who was a good judge of the conventional.

“They are very pretty, poor things,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “It is sadfor them to belong to such a father.”

“You might spare your pity, mother,” exclaimed her son, growingangry. “I don’t know anything about Colonel Marchant; but I haven’tthe slightest doubt that the things that are said about him in thisneighbourhood are the usual exaggerations and distortions of the truth.As for his daughters, I never made the acquaintance of five brighter,healthier, merrier girls. The household is full of interest for me; andI want you to call at the Homestead with me, mother, and see with yourown eyes what manner of girls Eve Marchant and her sisters are.”

“I call upon them, Jack!” exclaimed his mother. “I, who am only avisitor here! What good could that do?”

“Plenty of good, if you like. You don’t live quite at the other end ofEngland. From Haslemere to Liss is not half an hour’s journey; and ifyou happen to like Miss Marchant—as I think you will—you might askher to visit you at Merewood.”

A light dawned upon the hitherto unsuspecting mother, a light which wasfar from welcome. She sat looking at her son dumbly.

“Why not ask the whole five, while you are about it, Mrs. Vansittart?”said Claudia Champernowne, her thin lips contracting a little, as ifshe, too, saw cause for offence in Vansittart’s suggestion.

“My dear Jack, you must know I am the last person in the world toinvite strange young women to my house—young women whose Bohemian wayswould make me miserable,” remonstrated Mrs.[Pg 71] Vansittart, severely. “Ican’t think what can have put such an idea into your head.”

“Christian charity, no doubt,” sneered Claudia.

“Well, after all, these girls are not actually disreputable,” pleadedLady Hartley, who was always good-natured; “one sees them at all theomnium gatherums in the neighbourhood, and they don’t behave worse thanthe general run of girls. If you had asked me to take notice of them,Jack, I could understand you—but to bother mother—mother who livesin another county, and who can’t be supposed to care about taking upstrange girls.”

“So be it, Maud. You shall go with me the next time I call at theHomestead.”

“What, you are actually going to keep up a calling acquaintance withthe Marchant girls? How very eccentric!”

“Yes, I am going to keep up my acquaintance with the Miss Marchants. Iam going to make myself acquainted with their father. I am going to seewith my own eyes whether Lucifer is quite as black as he is painted,”answered Vansittart, doggedly.

“You won’t like the Colonel. I am positive upon that point,” said Maud.“Hubert is an excellent judge of character, and he couldn’t stand theColonel; although he felt sorry for the man and tried to be civil tohim. Colonel Marchant is an impossible person.”

“What has he done that makes him impossible?”

“Oh, I really can’t give you the exact details; but they say all sortsof unpleasant things about him.”

“‘They say.’ We know who ‘they’ are—an unknown quantity, which, wheninquired into, resolves itself into half a dozen old women of bothsexes.”

“Unhappily everybody knows that he is in debt all over theneighbourhood.”

“He must be a remarkable man to have found a neighbourhood so trustful.”

“Oh, I suppose he pays a little on account from time to time, or hewould not be able to go on anyhow; but really, now, Jack, you can’texpect me to be on intimate terms with a household of that kind. I amvery glad to have those poor girls at my garden-parties, for they arepretty and tolerably well-behaved, though their frocks and hats are toodreadful. What did I tell you Lady Corisande Hawberk called those poorgirls when she saw them here last summer, Claudia?”

“Lady Hartley’s burlesque troupe.”

“Yes, that was it—Lady Hartley’s burlesque troupe! They were allthree dressed differently—and so fine—especially the two younger.The eldest is a shade more enlightened. One wore cheap black laceover apricot silk—you are a man, so you don’t[Pg 72] know what cheap blacklace means—and a Gainsborough hat. Another was in peach-colouredcotton—that papery, shiny cotton, which is meant to look like silk,with a straw sailor hat all over nodding peach-coloured poppies—andher parasol!—heavens, her parasol! bright scarlet cotton, and six feethigh! Lady Corisande was immensely amused.”

“Is poverty so good a joke?” asked Vansittart, black as thunder.

“Oh, it wasn’t their poverty one laughed at. It was their childlikeignorance of our world and its ways. If they had all three worn cleanwhite frocks and neat straw hats they would have looked charming. Itwas the effort to be in the height of fashion——”

“With colours and materials three years old,” put in Claudia.

“I tell you it is poverty you laugh at—poverty alone that isridiculous. We have arrived at a state of things in which there isnothing respected or respectable except money. We pretend to honourrank and ancient lineage, but in our secret hearts we set no value oneither unless sustained by wealth.”

“What a tirade!” cried Lady Hartley, “and all because of a littlegood-natured laughter at those girls’ frocks. To think that a prettyface, which you have seen only twice, should exercise such dominionover you!”

The ladies left the dining-room in a cluster to put on their hats fora walk to the ice. Skating was the rage at Redwold Towers, and evenMrs. Vansittart went to look on. She liked to see her son and daughterdisporting themselves, each an adept in the art; and then there was theoff-chance of meeting the German nurse with the year-old baby somewherein the grounds before sunset. The baby had already taken a strong gripupon the grandmother’s heart.

John Vansittart did not go with the skaters, as it had been his wontto go. Nor did he offer to keep his mother company in her afternoonwalk. He was in a sullen and resentful mood, resentful of he knew notwhat; so he started on a solitary ramble in the Redwold copses, wherehe would have only robins and jays and chaffinches, and the infinitevariety of living things whose names he knew not, for his companions.

He was angry with all those talking women, his sister first andforemost; but most of all was he angry with himself.

Yes, it was her beauty that had caught him, that picture of Titaniadelicately fair against the darkly purple night, her pale gold hair,her sapphire eyes shining in the starlight. Yes, his sister’s flippanttongue had hit upon the humiliating truth. It was only because thisgirl appealed to his fancy that he was so eager and so angry, this girlwhom he had seen the other night for the first time, of whose heart,character, antecedents, kindred, he knew absolutely nothing. It wasonly because she was so lovely in his eyes that he[Pg 73] was prepared tochampion her, ready to marry her if she would have him.

“I am a fool,” he told himself, “an arrant fool, a fool so foolish thateven shallow-brained Maud can see my folly. I know nothing of thisgirl, absolutely nothing except that surface frankness which passes forinnocence—and which might be assumed by Becky Sharp herself. Indeed,we are told that it was Becky’s guilelessness which always impressedpeople in her favour. May not this girl, daughter of a shady father,be every bit as clever and far-seeing as Becky Sharp? I dare say sheis laughing at my infatuation already, and wondering how far it willlead me. Sefton, too! Miss Green said there was an understandingbetween them. His manner was certainly a thought too easy. No doubtshe is trying to hook Sefton, a landowner, one of the best matches inthe neighbourhood. And she puts on that stand-offish manner of maliceaforethought, to lead him on by keeping him off. I should be an idiotif I were to commit myself, without knowing a great deal more about theyoung lady. I have been getting absolutely maudlin about the girl. Thisis how half the unhappy marriages are made.”

He stopped in his swinging walk, after tramping along the narrow muddytrack at five miles an hour. The ring of the skates, the shouts of boysplaying hockey, sounded clear upon the frosty air. He was not more thana mile from the pond as the crow flies.

“Sophy said their gowns would be finished this morning,” he mused. “Iwonder whether they will be on the ice this afternoon.”

He tramped the narrow track between the thick growth of oak and fir,emerged from the copse, and struck out a path across some low-lyingpastures to the lake, which lay in the lowest part of Redwold Park,and only five minutes’ walk from one of the lodges, where some of theskaters kept their skates. There were a good many skaters this finebright afternoon—an afternoon in which there was no consciousness ofcold, though the atmosphere was twelve degrees below freezing point,just such a calm, clear atmosphere as Vansittart had often enjoyedin the Upper Engadine. There were a good many people on the ice—thevillagers at one end of the long irregular-shaped piece of water, thegentry at the other—a rustic bridge dividing the classes from themasses. About twenty girls were playing hockey, the three Champernownesconspicuous among the rest by their fine carriage and sober attire.Those girls had certainly mastered the art of dress, Vansittartadmitted to himself. They wore black serge gowns, cut to perfection bya fashionable tailor, black cloth jackets, tight-fitting, severe, withnarrow collar and cuffs of Astrakhan, at a time when Astrakhan was noteverybody’s wear. Their hats were the neatest on the ice—black felthats, with the least touch of scarlet in the loose knot of corded[Pg 74]ribbon which was their only trimming. No wings, claws, or beaks; noanchors, arrows, crescents, or buckles of jet, gilt or steel; noneof those tawdry accessories which sometimes convert a young lady’sheadgear into a museum of curiosities. Long tan gloves, fresh andperfectly fitting, completed the toilet of the three sisters, who hadearly realized the effect that is made in any public assembly by threehandsome girls dressed alike.

Jack Vansittart paced the bank, stopping now and then to watch theskating, but with no inclination to join the revellers. The walk alongthe side of the lake was a pleasant walk, in some parts open to thewater, in other places screened by hazel and alder. Here and there in abend of the lake there was a hillock, on which the skaters sat to takeoff or adjust their skates, and on which the spectators sometimes stoodto watch the sport.

From this point of vantage Vansittart surveyed the scene, and as hedid so became conscious of a man standing on the opposite side of thelake, also surveying the scene. A second glance assured him that theman was Sefton. He had only seen Sefton at the ball, but he could notbe mistaken in that sharp, hooked nose, sallow complexion, and blackbeard. It was Sefton, lightly clad, as if prepared for skating, butholding himself aloof from the throng.

There was a fascination for Vansittart in this solitary spectator,and it was while watching him that he became aware of a new arrival.Sefton, whose hawk-like eyes had been looking up and down the lake,suddenly concentrated his attention on one spot at the end near thelodge, and as suddenly walked off in that direction. Vansittartimitated him on his side of the lake, and was speedily enlightened asto the cause of Sefton’s movements. As he neared the lodge gate he sawthree young women approaching—three young women in blue gowns, widelydifferent in shade.

Now, the Champernownes and his sister—who talked of chiffons for anhour at a stretch—had dinned into his brain the fact that blue wasnot worn that winter. The colour might be a beautiful colour in theabstract, the colour of sky and sea, of sapphires and forget-me-nots,of children’s eyes and running brooks, but it was a colour whichno woman who respected herself would wear. It was “out,” and thatmonosyllable meant that it was anathema maranatha.

And behold here came the three girls in their new winter frocks, ablaze of blue; Sophy splendid in peaco*ck cloth, trimmed with plushthat almost matched; Jenny in uncompromising azure, the blueof Reckitt’s and the British laundress; Eve less startling in a darkOxford cloth, very plainly made, with a little home-made toque of thesame stuff.

The fact was that the fashionable drapers were almost giving[Pg 75] awaytheir blue stuffs that January, and the prudent Marchants had been ableto get the best materials at a third of their value.

“And after all it isn’t the colour, but the style of a gown that makesit fashionable or otherwise,” Sophy had said philosophically, as shepored over a fashion plate, trying to realize a creation which nobodyever saw out of that fashion plate.

The girls seemed quite happy in their blue raiment, or at least thetwo younger girls, who greeted Vansittart with frank cordiality. Evehad a somewhat absent air as she shook hands, he thought, though hersudden blush thrilled him with the fancy that he might not be quiteindifferent to her. He saw her glance away from him while they weretalking, and look right and left, as if expecting to see some one.Could it be Sefton? Mr. Sefton came across the ice while Vansittartwas asking himself that question, shook hands with the three girls,and then walked away with Eve along the path, where the hazels andalders soon hid them from the jealous eyes that followed their steps.“Miss Green was right,” thought Vansittart; “there is an understandingbetween them.”

The two younger girls skipped off to an adjacent bank to put on theirskates, and were soon provided with a pair of youthful admirers, bothclerical, to assist them in the operation. Vansittart stood lookingidly at the hockey-playing for some minutes, quite long enough to allowEve and her companion to get a good way towards the further end of thepond, and then he turned and strolled in the same direction. As hesauntered on, disgusted with life and the world, which seemed just nowmade up of disillusions, he heard slow footsteps approaching him, justwhere the path made a sudden bend, footsteps and voices.

They were coming back, those two. They had not prolonged theirtête-à-tête. The aspect of affairs was not quite so black as ithad seemed ten minutes ago. He did not purposely listen to what theywere saying. The sharp bend of the path, screened at this point by aclump of hazels, divided him from them. Short of calling out to them towarn them of his vicinity he could not have avoided hearing what he didhear: only five short sentences.

“I am very sorry. It was a false scent,” said Mr. Sefton.

“And we are no nearer knowing anything?”

“No nearer. I sincerely regret your disappointment.”

There was a lingering tenderness in his tone that made Vansittart feela touch of the original savage that lives in all of us—a rush ofboiling blood to brain and heart which hints at the hereditary tainttransmitted by bloodthirsty ancestors. A few more steps and he and MissMarchant were face to face, as she and her companion turned the cornerof the hazel clump. She looked at him piteously through a veil of tearsas they passed each other. Sefton had power[Pg 76] to make her cry. Surelythat implied something more than common acquaintance, nay, even morethan friendship. All the tragedy of an unhappy love affair might be inthose tears.

He looked back. She and Sefton had parted company. He was talking tosome men on the bank. She had joined her sisters on the ice, and wasstanding with her skates in her hand, as if debating whether to putthem on or not.

Should he go and entreat to be allowed to kneel at her feet, and do herknightly service by buckling stiff buckles and battling with difficultstraps? No, he would not be such a slave. Let Sefton wait upon her;Sefton, who had all her confidence; Sefton, who could bring tears tothose lovely eyes.

Vansittart rambled off across the frozen pasture, turning his backresolutely upon the noise of many voices, the ringing of many skates.

“It was a false scent.” What could that possibly mean? How in thelanguage of lovers could that phrase come in? A false scent. “I deeplyregret your disappointment.” What disappointment? Why should she bedisappointed, and Sefton regretful? In any love affair between thosetwo there could seem no reason for disappointment. The man was freeto marry whom he pleased. Did he mean honourably by this girl; or washe only fooling her with attentions which were to end in unworthytrifling? Was he taking a base advantage of her dubious position toessay the seducer’s part? From all that he had heard of Sefton’scharacter Vansittart doubted much that he was capable of a generouslove, or that he was the kind of man to marry a girl whose father wasunder a cloud.

And she?—was she weak and foolish, innocently yielding her heart toa man who meant evil? or was she her father’s daughter, a schemer byinstinct and inclination, like Becky Sharp? Vansittart tried to puthimself in Joe Sedley’s place, tried to realize how a man may seehonesty and sweet simplicity where there are only craft and finishedacting. To poor vain Josh Becky had seemed all truth and girlishinnocence. Only one man of all Becky’s admirers had ever thoroughlyunderstood her, and that man was Lord Steyne.

Vansittart walked a long way, engrossed by such speculations asthese—at one time inclined to believe that this girl whom he soardently admired was all that girlhood should be—inclined to trust hereven in the face of all strange seeming, to trust her and to follow herfootsteps with his reverent love, and if he found her responsive tothat love to take her for his wife, in the teeth of all opposition.

“Why should my mother be made unhappy by such a marriage?” he askedhimself. “If I can prove that Eve Marchant is in no wise injured by hersurroundings, what more do we want? What are the surroundings to mymother or to me? Even if I had to pension[Pg 77] the Colonel for the rest ofhis life I should think little of the cost—if it brought me the girl Ilove.”

After all, he told himself time was the only test—time must decideeverything. His duty to himself was to possess his soul with patience,to see as much as he could of the Marchant family without committinghimself to a matrimonial engagement, and without being guilty ofanything that could be deemed flirtation. No, he would trifle withno woman’s feelings; he would not love and ride away. He would put abridle upon his tongue; but he would make it his business to pluck outthe heart of the Marchant mystery. Surely among five girls he couldmanage to be kind and friendly without entangling himself with any oneof the five.

Having made out for himself a line of conduct, he walked back to thelake. The shadows of twilight were creeping over the grass. Therewere very few people on the ice. The Marchants had taken off theirskates, and were saying good-bye to the two curates who had been theirattendant swains.

“We have such an awful way to walk if we go by the high-road, and wemust go that way, for the footpath will be snowed up,” said Sophy. “Itwill be dark long before we are home.”

The curates had, one an evening school, the other a penny reading,coming on at half-past seven, so they were fain to say good-night.Vansittart came up as they parted.

“Let me walk home with you,” he said; “I haven’t had nearly enoughwalking.”

“Then what a tremendous walker you must be!” said Jenny; “I saw youmarching over the grass just now as if you were walking for a wager.”

His attendance was accepted tacitly, and presently he and Eve werewalking side by side, in the rear, while the two younger girlswalked on in front, turning round every now and then to join in theconversation, so that the four made one party.

Eve’s eyes were bright enough now, but she was more silent than she hadbeen at their tea-drinking, and she was evidently out of spirits.

“I’m afraid you didn’t enjoy the skating this afternoon.”

“Not much. The mornings are pleasanter. We came too late.”

“Shall you come to-morrow morning?”

“Yes; I have promised my young sisters to bring them for a longmorning. They won’t let me off.”

“Do they skate?”

“Hetty skates. The little one only slides. She is a most determinedslider.”

“Does Colonel Marchant never come with you?”

“Never. He does not care about walking with girls.”

[Pg 78]

“Perhaps it is presumptuous in a bachelor to speculate on domesticfeelings, but I think if I were a widower with five nice daughters mychief delight would be in going about with them.”

“If you look round among your friends I fancy you will find that kindof father the exception rather than the rule,” Eve answered, with atouch of bitterness.

They walked on in silence for a little while after this, she lookingstraight before her into the cool grey evening, he stealing anoccasional glance at her profile.

How pretty she was! The pearly complexion was so delicate, and yet sofresh and glowing in its youthful health. Hygeia herself might havehad just such a complexion. The features, too, so neatly cut, the noseas clear in its chiselling as if it were pure Grecian, but with justthat little tilt at the tip which gave piquancy to the face. The mouthwas more thoughtful than he cared to see the lips of girlhood, forthose pensive lines suggested domestic anxieties; but when she smiledor laughed the thoughtfulness vanished, lost in a radiant gaiety thatshone like sunlight over all her countenance. He could not doubt thata happy disposition, a power of rising superior to small sordid cares,was a leading characteristic of her nature.

She had natural cheerfulness, the richest dowry a wife can bring tohusband and home. Presently, as he swung his stick against the lighttracery of hawthorn and blackberry, a happy thought occurred to him.His sister had pledged herself to be kind to these motherless girls.Her kindness could not begin too soon.

“You are to bring your sisters to the ice to-morrow morning, MissMarchant,” he said presently. “What do you call morning?”

“I hope we shall be there before eleven. The mornings are so lovely inthis frosty weather.”

“The mornings are delicious. Come as early as you possibly can. Aftertwo hours’ skating you will be tolerably tired, I should think—thoughyou walk with the air of a person who does not know what it is to betired—so you must all come to lunch with my sister.”

“You are very kind,” said Eve, blushing, and suddenly radiant with herhappiest smile, “but we could not think of such a thing.”

“I understand. You would not come at my invitation. You think I have norights in the case. Yet it would be hard if a brother couldn’t ask hisfriends to his sister’s house.”

“Friends, perhaps, yes; but we are mere acquaintance.”

“Please don’t say anything so unkind. I felt that we were friends fromthe first, you and your sisters and I, from the hour we found you onthe top of the hill, when I mistook you for fairies. However, all theexigencies of the situation shall be complied with. My sister shallwrite to you this evening.”

[Pg 79]

“Pray, pray don’t suggest such a thing,” entreated Eve, very much inearnest. “Lady Hartley will think us vulgar, pushing girls.”

“Lady Hartley will think nothing of the kind. She was saying, only afew hours ago, that she would like to see more of you all. You must allcome, remember—all five. The Champernownes leave by an early trainto-morrow morning,” he added cheerfully; “there will be plenty of roomfor you.”

“Are the Miss Champernownes going away?”

“Yes, they go on to a much smarter house, where baccarat is playedof an evening, instead of our modest billiards and whist. Mybrother-in-law is a very sober personage. He is not in the movement. Itis my private opinion that those three handsome young ladies have beenunspeakably bored at Redwold Towers.”

“I am very glad they are going,” answered Eve, frankly. “We don’tknow them, so their going or coming ought not to make any differenceto us. But there is something oppressive about them. They are sohandsome, they dress so well, and they seem so thoroughly pleased withthemselves.”

“Yes, there’s where the offence comes in. Isn’t it odd that fromthe moment a man or woman lets other people see that he or sheis thoroughly delighted with his or her individuality, talents,beauty, or worldly position, everybody else begins to detest thatperson? A Shakespeare or a Scott must go through life with a seemingunconsciousness of his own powers, if he would have his fellow-men lovehim.”

“I think both Shakespeare and Scott contrived to do so, and that isone of the reasons why all the world worships them,” said Eve, andon this slight ground they founded a long conversation upon theirfavourite books and authors. He did not find her “cultured.” Of thelearning which pervades modern drawing-rooms—the learning of theFortnightly, and the Contemporary, the NineteenthCentury and Macmillan—he found her sorely deficient. Shehad read no new books, she knew nothing of recent theories in art,science, or religion. She knew her Shakespeare and Scott, her Dickens,Thackeray, and Bulwer-Lytton, and had read the poets whom everybodyreads. She had never heard of Marlow, and Beaumont and Fletcher were toher only names. She revelled in fiction, the old, familiar fiction ofthe great masters; but history was a blank. She had not read Froude;she had never heard of Green, Gardiner, Freeman, or Maine.

“You will find us woefully ignorant,” she explained, when she hadanswered in the negative about several books, which to him were ofthe best. “We have only had a nursery governess. She was a dear oldthing, but I don’t think you could imagine a more[Pg 80] ignorant person.She came to us when I was six, and she only left us when Peggy wasnine, and she would have stayed on as a kind of Duenna, only she had apoor, old, infirm mother, and she was the only spinster daughter left,and so had to go home and nurse the mother. She was very strong uponthe multiplication table, and she was pretty good at French. She knewLa Grammaire des Grammaires by heart, I believe. But as to historyor literature! Even the little we contrived to pick up for ourselveswas enough to enable us to make fun of her. We used to ask her whyCharles the Second didn’t make Erasmus a bishop, or whether Eleanor ofAquitaine was the daughter or only the niece of Charlemagne. She alwaystumbled into any trap we set for her.”

“A lax idea of chronology, that was all,” said Vansittart.

He walked very nearly to the Homestead, and was dead beat by the timehe got back to Redwold Towers. He had been tramping about ever sinceluncheon. He and Eve Marchant had done a good deal of talking in thatfour-mile walk, but not once had he mentioned Sefton’s name, nor had hemade the faintest attempt to discover the drift of that confidentialconversation of which a few brief sentences had reached his ear. Yetthose sentences haunted his memory, and the thought of them camebetween him and all happier thoughts of Eve Marchant.

His sister was considerably his junior, and he had been accustomed toorder her to do this or that from her babyhood upward, she deemingherself honoured in obeying his caprices. It was a small thing, then,for him to request her to invite Miss Marchant and all her sisters toluncheon next day.

“Do you really mean me to ask all three?” questioned Maud, arching herdelicate eyebrows in mild wonder.

“I mean you to ask all five. The little girls are coming to skateon your pond. Give them a good lunch, Maud. Let there be game andkickshaws, such as girls like—and plenty of puddings.”

“All five! How absurd!”

“You said you would be kind to them.”

“But five! Well, I don’t suppose the number need make any difference.What alarms me is the idea of getting too friendly with them—adropping in to lunch or tea acquaintance, don’t you know. The girls areas good as gold, I have no doubt; but they lead such an impossible lifewith that impossible father—he almost always away, no chaperon, nonice aunts to look after them—only an old Yorkshire servant and a bitof a girl to open the door. It is all too dreadful.”

“From your point of view, no doubt; but lives as dreadful are being ledby a good many families all over England, and out of lives as dreadfulhas come a good deal of the intellectual power of the[Pg 81] country. Come,Maud, don’t prattle, but write your letter—just a friendly littleletter to say that I have told you they are coming to skate, and thatyou must insist upon their stopping to lunch.”

He had found her in her boudoir just before dressing for dinner, andin the very act of sealing the last of a batch of letters. She took upher pen at his bidding, and dashed off an invitation, almost in his ownwords, with a thick stroke of the J pen under “insist.”

“Will that do?” she asked.

“Admirably,” said Vansittart, with his hand on the bell. “All you haveto do is to order a groom to ride to the Homestead with it.”

“Hadn’t I better invite Mr. Sefton to meet them?” inquired Maud, with amalicious little laugh.

“Why?”

“Because he is said to be running after Miss Marchant. I only hopepour le bon motif.”

“However shady a customer Colonel Marchant may be, I shouldn’t thinkany man would dare to approach his daughter with a bad motive,” saidVansittart, sternly.

“The Colonel encourages him, I am told; so I suppose it is all right.”

“You are told,” cried Vansittart, scornfully. “What is this cloud ofunseen witnesses which compasses about village life so that what aman owes, what a man eats, what a man thinks and purposes are commontopics of conversation for people who never enter his house? It ispetty to childishness, all this twaddle about Colonel Marchant and hisdaughters.”

“Jack, Jack!” cried Maud, shaking her head. “I can only say I am sorryfor you. And now run away, for goodness’ sake. We shall both be latefor dinner. I shall only have time to throw on a tea-gown.”

A footman brought Lady Hartley a letter at half-past nine thatevening. Vansittart crossed the drawing-room to hear the result of theinvitation.

[Pg 82]

“She has more discretion than you have, at any rate, Jack,” said Maud,as he read the letter over her shoulder.

“She writes a fine bold hand,” said he, longing to ask for the letter,the first letter of hers that his eyes had looked upon.

“I’m very sorry the five are not coming,” he went on. “Those two poorgirls will have a scurvy luncheon at home, I dare say—dismal martyrsto conventionality. You must ask them another day.”

“We’ll see how to-morrow’s selection behave,” answered Maud, with herlight laugh.

Vansittart was on the pathway by the lake before eleven o’clock, andhe had a bad half-hour of waiting before Eve and her two young sistersappeared at the lodge. He met them near the gates, and they set off forthe ice together.

“I hear you only slide,” he said to the little one, who was red as arose after the long walk through the nipping air. “That won’t do. Youmust turn over a new leaf to-day, and learn to skate. I’m going toteach you.”

“That would be lovely,” answered Peggy; “but I’ve got no skates.”

“Oh, but we must borrow a pair or steal a pair. Skates shall be foundsomehow.”

“Won’t that be jolly?” cried Peggy.

The skates were found at the lodge, where Vansittart coollyappropriated a pair belonging to one of the little girls at thenearest parsonage, and the lesson was given. A lesson was also givento Eve, who skated fairly well, but not so well as Vansittart afterone winter’s experience in Norway and another in Vienna. Seftoncame strolling on to the ice while they were skating, and tried tomonopolize Miss Marchant; but the young lady treated him in ratheran off-hand manner, greatly to Vansittart’s delight. He hung aboutthe lake for some time talking to one or another of his neighbours,most of the young people of the neighbourhood and a good many of themiddle-aged being assembled this fine morning. Towards one o’clock hecame up to Eve, who was playing hockey with a number of girls. “Is theColonel at home?” he asked.

“Yes, father came home last night.”

“Then I’ll walk over and see him. It’s a splendid day for a good longtramp. Let me know when you and your sisters are leaving, that I maywalk with you. That road is uncommonly lonely for girls.”

“You are very kind; but we are never afraid of the road. And to-daywe are not going home for ever so long,” added Eve, joyously. “We aregoing to lunch with Lady Hartley.”

“That alters the case,” said Sefton, prodigiously surprised.[Pg 83] “ThenI’ll look your father up another day, when I can be of some use as anescort. I dare say Mr. Vansittart will see you home.”

“Haven’t I told you that we want no escort?” exclaimed Eve,impatiently. “One would think there were lions between here andFernhurst.”

“There are frozen-out gardeners and such-like, I dare say. Quite as badas lions,” he answered, as he turned on his heel, jealous and angry.

This fellow was evidently pursuing her with some kind of suit,Vansittart thought. Could he mean to marry her? Could any man with anestablished position in the county mean to ally himself with ColonelMarchant?

Vansittart had seen the two talking, but had not been near enoughto hear what they said. He rejoiced at seeing Sefton walk awaydiscomfited. There was anger in the carriage of his head as he turnedaway from her. He had been snubbed evidently. But if she snubbed himto-day, must she not have sometimes encouraged his attentions? He hadall the manner of a man to whom certain rights have been given.

They walked up to the house merrily, over the grey, frosty grass,Hetty and Peggy running on in front and racing and wheeling likefox-terriers, so elated by the day’s delights. Peggy had distinguishedherself on her borrowed skates. Her teacher declared she was a bornskater.

Lady Hartley was sunning herself in the broad portico, waiting toreceive her guests. Miss Green had gone out shooting with Sir Hubertand his party. There were only Mrs. Vansittart, Mrs. Baddington, andMr. Tivett at home.

“Only us two men among all you ladies,” said Tivett, cheerily, as theyassembled before the huge wood fire in the drawing-room.

“Hadn’t you better say us one and a half, Gussie?” asked Mrs.Baddington, laughing. “It seems rather absurd to talk of yourself andMr. Vansittart as if you were of the same weight and substance.”

Mr. Tivett, who was half hidden between Hetty and Peggy, received thisattack with his usual amiability. “Never mind weight and substance,” hesaid; “in moral influence I feel myself a giant.”

“Not without justification,” said Vansittart. “If you were to compareTivett’s reception at a West End tea-party with mine you would see whata poor thing mere brute force is in an intellectual environment.”

“Oh, they like me,” replied Tivett, modestly, “because I can talkchiffons. I can tell them of the newest ladies’ tailor—some littleman who lives in an alley, but has found out the way to cut a habit ora coat, and is going to take the town by storm next season. I can putthem up to the newest shade of bronze or auburn hair—the[Pg 84] Princess’sshade. I can tell them lots of things, and the dear souls know that Iam interested in all that interests them.”

“I never talk to Gussie Tivett without thinking how much nicer awomanly man is than a manly woman,” said Mrs. Baddington, meditatively.

“Ah, that is because the former imitates the superior sex, the latterthe inferior,” answered Lady Hartley.

Eve sat in the snug armchair where Vansittart had placed her, silent,but happy, looking about the room and admiring the wonderful mixtureof old and new things; furniture that was really old, furniture thatcleverly reproduced the antique; trifles and modern inventions ofall kinds which make a rich woman’s drawing-room a wonderland forthe dwellers in shabby houses; the tall standard lamps of copper orbrass or wrought iron, with their fantastical shades; the abundanceof flowers and flowering plants and palms, in a season when for thecommonalty flowers are not; all those things made an atmosphere ofluxury which Colonel Marchant’s daughter needs must feel in sharpestcontrast with her own surroundings.

She admired without a pang of envy. She had taken her surroundings forgranted a long time ago; and so long as her father was able to pacifyhis creditors by occasional payments, and so long as rates and taxesgot themselves settled without desperate measures, Eve Marchant was atpeace with destiny.

While her senses of sight and scent were absorbing the beauty andperfume of the room, Mrs. Vansittart came in from a walk with the nurseand baby, and her son made haste to introduce his sister’s guest.

“Mother, this is Miss Marchant,” he said briefly, and Eve rose blushingto acknowledge the elder woman’s greeting.

He would not commit himself, forsooth. Why, in the look he gave her asshe rose shyly to take his mother’s hand, in the tenderness of his toneas he spoke her name, he was committing himself almost as deeply as ifhe had said outright, “Mother, this is the woman I love, and I want youto love her.”

Mrs. Vansittart, prejudiced by much that she had heard of the Marchanthousehold, could but acknowledge to herself that the Colonel’s eldestdaughter was passing fair, and that this sensitive countenance inwhich the bloom came and went at a breath, had as candid and innocentan outlook as even a mother’s searching eye could desire in thecountenance of her son’s beloved. But then, unhappily, Mrs. Vansittarthad seen enough of the world and its ways to know that appearancesare deceitful, and that many a blushing bride whose drooping head andgentle bashfulness suggested the innocence that might ride on lions andnot be afraid, has afterwards made a shameful figure in the DivorceCourt.

HE WOULD TAKE HIS TIME.

The luncheon at Redwold Towers was a very sociable meal. Lady Hartleywas at all times a gracious hostess, and she was perhaps a little moreattentive to Colonel Marchant’s daughters than she would have been toguests of more assured position.

The meal was abundant, and served with the quiet undemonstrative luxurywhich steals over the senses like the atmosphere of the Lotos Island,with its suggestion of a world in which there is neither labour norcare, no half-empty mustard-pots, or stale bread, or flat beer, orunreplenished pickle-jars.

There was plenty of game, and there were those appetising kickshaws,Russian salads, and such-like, which Vansittart had bargained for,and cold and hot sweets in profusion. Hetty and Peggy eat enormously,urged thereto by Mr. Tivett, who sat between them; but Eve had no moreappetite than might have been expected in a sensitive girl who findsherself suddenly in a new atmosphere—an atmosphere of unspoken love,which wraps her round like a perfume. Vansittart remonstrated with herfor eating so little after a long walk and a morning on the ice; butshe could but see that he eat very little himself, and that all histime and thoughts were given to her.

The cup of coffee after lunch was the most fragrant she had ever tasted.

“If I could only make such coffee as that father wouldn’t grumble as hedoes at his after-dinner cup,” she said.

“The still-room maid always uses freshly roasted coffee,” said LadyHartley. “I believe that is the only secret of success.”

She felt in the next moment how foolish it was to talk of still-roommaids to this girl, whose household consisted of two faithful drudges,and who no doubt had to do a good deal of housework herself.

Miss Marchant had enough savoir faire to depart very soon afterluncheon. She only lingered long enough to look at the flowers whichMrs. Vansittart showed her, during which brief inspection the elderlady spoke to her very kindly.

“You are the head of the family, I am told,” she said. “Isn’t thatrather an onerous position for one so young?”

“I was twenty-one last November, and I begin to feel quite old,”answered Eve; “and then our family is not a difficult one to manage.My sisters are very good, and accommodate themselves to circ*mstances.We live very simply. We have none of those difficulties with servantswhich I hear rich people talk about.”

[Pg 86]

“You and your sisters look wonderfully well and happy,” said Mrs.Vansittart, interested in spite of herself.

“Yes, I think we are as happy as people can be in a world whereeverybody must have a certain amount of trouble,” Eve answered, withthe faintest sigh. “We are very fond of each other, and we have greatfun out of trifles. We contrive to be merry at very little cost. Peggyand Hetty are very amusing. Oh, how they have eaten to-day! It will bea long time before they forget Lady Hartley’s banquet.”

“It does children good to go out now and then. They must come againvery soon. I know my daughter will like to have them; but my son and Iare going home almost immediately.”

“Home.” Eve looked a little crestfallen as she echoed the word. “Youdon’t live very far off, I think, Mrs. Vansittart?”

“No. Only an hour’s journey. We live in a region of pine and heather;and I have a garden and an arboretum, which are my delight. But ourcountry is not any prettier than yours, so I mustn’t boast of it.”

“This is not my country,” said Eve. “I feel like a foreigner here,though we have lived at the Homestead a good many years. Yorkshire ismy country.”

“But surely you must prefer Sussex. Yorkshire is so far away fromeverything.”

The two girls came to Eve and hung about her. They had put on theirgloves and little fur tippets—spoil of rabbit or cat—and were readyfor the start. Mrs. Vansittart noticed their coarse serge frocks, theirhomely woollen stockings and village-made boots. They were tidily clad,and that was all that could be said of them. A village tradesman’schildren would have been smarter; and yet they looked like young ladies.

“These are your two youngest sisters, and you have two older—fivedaughters in all,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “Colonel Marchant ought to bevery proud of such a family. And have you no brothers?”

“None in England,” Eve answered, with a touch of sadness, and thenwithout another moment’s delay she began to make her adieux.

“I am going to see you home, if you will let me,” said Vansittart, inthe hall; “I heard you say that Colonel Marchant is at home, and Ishould like to seize the opportunity of making his acquaintance.”

A faint cloud spread itself over Eve’s happy face, and she was somewhatslow in replying. “I am sure father will be very pleased to see you.”

“And I’m sure you won’t like father when you see him,” cried Peggy, theirrepressible.

“Peggy, how dare you?” exclaimed Eve.

[Pg 87]

“Well, but people don’t like him,” urged the resolute damsel. “He ain’tcivil to people, and then we have to suffer for it; for, of course,people think we’re just as bad. He keeps all his good manners forLondon.”

“Peggy, Peggy!”

“Don’t Peggy me. It’s the truth,” protested this dreadful child; andthen she challenged Vansittart boldly, “You like us, Mr. Vansittart, Iknow you do; but you’ll never be kind to us any more after you’ve seenfather.”

This gush of childish candour was discouraging, and Vansittart’s heartsank as he asked himself what manner of man this might be whom he wasthinking of as a father-in-law. Other people had spoken ill of ColonelMarchant, and he had made light of their disparagement; but thisdenunciation from the lips of the eleven-year-old daughter was far moreserious.

“Perhaps the Colonel and I may get on better than you expect, MadamPeggy,” he said, with a forced laugh; “and allow me at the same time tosuggest that you have forgotten a certain commandment which tells us tohonour our fathers and mothers.”

“Are we to honour any kind of father?” asked Peggy; but Vansittartwas not called upon to answer, for Hetty at that moment descrying asquirrel, both little girls rushed off to watch his ascent of a tallbeech that grew on the grassy waste by which they were walking.

The walk was a long one, but though there was time for Vansittartand Eve to talk about many things, time for the two younger girls toafford many distractions, an undercurrent of thought about the man hewas going to see ran beneath all that light surface talk, and madeVansittart’s spirit heavy.

“You must not think anything of what Peggy says,” Eve apologized,directly after that little outbreak of the youngest born. “Father isirritable sometimes. He can’t endure noise, and Hetty and Peggy aredreadfully noisy. And our house is so small—I mean from his point ofview. And then he snubs them, poor young things, and they think himunkind.”

“It is a way we have when we are young,” answered Vansittart gently,“to take snubs too seriously. If our parents and guardians could onlyput themselves inside those small skins of ours they would know whatpain their preachings and snubbings inflict.”

“Father is much to be pitied,” pursued Eve, in a low voice. “His lifehas been full of disappointments.”

“Ah, that is a saddening experience,” answered Vansittart, tenderlysympathetic.

His heart thrilled at the thought that she was beginning to confide inhim, to treat him as a friend.

[Pg 88]

“His property in Yorkshire was so disappointing. I suppose land hasgone down in value everywhere,” said Eve, rather vaguely; “but infather’s case it was dreadful. He was forced to sell the estate justwhen land in our part of the country was a drug in the market.”

Vansittart had never heard of this cheapness of land in the EastRiding, but he felt that if this account of things were not actualtruth, Eve Marchant fully believed what she was telling him.

“And then his horses, they all turned out so badly.”

“Ungrateful beasts.”

“You can understand that the life we lead at Fernhurst is not a veryhappy life for such a man as my father—a sportsman—a man whose youthwas spent in the best society. It is hard for him to be mewed up with afamily of girls. Everything we say and do must jar upon him.”

“Surely not everything. There must be times in which he can takedelight in your society.”

“Oh, I’m afraid not. There are so many of us; and we seem so shallowand silly to a man of the world.”

“A man of the world. Ah, there’s the difficulty,” said Vansittart,slightly cynical. “That kind of man is apt to be miserable without theworld.”

After this they talked of other things; lightly, joyously; of thecountry through which they were walking; its beasts, and birds, andflowers, and humble cottage folk; of the places he had seen and thebooks she had read, those fictions of the great masters which createa populace and a world for the dwellers in lonely homes, and providecompanions for the livers of solitary lives. They were at no loss forsubjects, though that well-spring of polite conversation, a commoncircle of smart acquaintance, was denied to them. Their talk was asvivacious as if they had had all London society to dissect.

It was teatime again by the time they arrived at the Homestead. Thelamp was lighted in the family parlour; the round table was spread; thekettle was hissing on the hob; Sophy and Jenny were sitting on one sideof the fire; and on the other side, in that armchair which Vansittarthad occupied on a previous occasion, sat a man of about fifty, aman with clear-cut features, silver-grey hair and moustache, and aquerulous expression of countenance.

“What in the name of all that’s reasonable made you stay so late, Eve?”he grumbled, as his daughters entered. “Both those children will belaid up with influenza, I dare say, in consequence of your folly.”

Only at this moment did he observe the masculine figure in the rear. Herose hastily to receive a visitor.

“Mr. Vansittart, father,” explained Eve.

[Pg 89]

The two men shook hands.

“Girls are so foolish,” said the Colonel, by way of apology for hislecture. “It was very kind of you to take care of my daughters on thedark road; but Eve ought not to have stayed so long.”

“We left very soon after luncheon, father; but the days are so short.”

“Not any shorter than they were last week. You have had time tobecome familiar with their shortness, and to make your calculationsaccordingly.”

“I am sure you didn’t want us, father,” said the sturdy Peggy; “so youneedn’t make a fuss.”

Colonel Marchant gave his youngest born a withering scowl, but took nofurther notice of her contumacy.

“Pray sit down, Mr. Vansittart, and take a cup of tea before you tramphome again. You must be a good walker to make so light of that longroad—for I suppose you came by the road.”

“I am country bred, Colonel Marchant, and am pretty well used totramping about, on foot or on horseback.”

“Ah, you live near Liss, Eve told me. Have you good huntingthereabouts?”

Vansittart mentioned three or four packs of hounds accessible from hispart of the country.

“Ah,” sighed the Colonel, “you young men think nothing of prodigiousrides to cover, and long railway journeys. You hunt with the Vine fromBasingstoke—with the Hambledon from Bishop’s Waltham! You are tearingabout the country all November and December, I have no doubt?”

“Indeed, Colonel, I am not so keen a sportsman as you appear to think.A couple of days a week content me, while there are any birds to shootin my covers.”

“Ah, two days’ hunting and four days’ shooting. I understand. That iswhat an Englishman’s life should be, if he lives on his estate. SirHubert tells me you have travelled a good deal?”

“I have wandered about the Continent, on the beaten paths. I cannotcall myself a traveller, in the modern acceptation of the word. Ihave never shot lions in Africa, nor have I ever bivouacked among thehill-tribes in Upper India, nor risked my life, like Burton, in apilgrimage to Mecca.”

“Ah, the men who do that kind of thing are fools,” grumbled theColonel. “Providence is too good to them when they are allowed to comehome with a whole skin. I have no sympathy with any explorer sinceColumbus and Raleigh. After the discovery of America, tobacco, andpotatoes, the rest is leather and prunella.”

“The Australian and Californian gold-fields were surely a good find,”suggested Vansittart.

[Pg 90]

“Has all the gold ever found there made you or me a shilling thericher, Mr. Vansittart? It has reduced the purchasing value of asovereign by more than a third, and for men of fixed incomes all theworld over those gold-fields have been a source of calamity. When I wasa lad, a family man who was hard up could take his wife and childrento France or Belgium, and live comfortably on the income he had beenstarving on in London. Now, life is dear everywhere—even in anout-of-the-way hole like this,” concluded the Colonel, savagely.

Vansittart observed him closely as he talked, and was all the betterable to do so, as the Colonel was not given to looking at the person headdressed. He had a way of looking at the fire or at his boots while hetalked. His enemies called it a hang-dog air.

He had not a pleasant face. It was a face wasted by dissolute habits,a face in which the lines were premature and deep, lines that told ofdiscontent and sullen thought. Vansittart could but agree with HubertHartley’s estimate of Colonel Marchant. He was not a nice man. He wasnot a man to whom open-hearted men could take kindly.

But he was Eve’s father.

Vansittart had been sorry for her yesterday; sorry for her because ofthose narrow means which cut her off from the pleasures and privilegesof youth and beauty. He was sorrier for her to-day, now that he hadseen her father.

He took his tea by the family hearth, which had lost its air ofrollicking happiness and Bohemian liberty. The five girls were allseated primly at the round table, silent for the most part, while theColonel rambled on with his egotistical complaining, in the tones of aman maltreated alike by his Creator and by society.

“Sir Hubert Hartley has a fine place at Redwold,” he said, “and he gotit dog-cheap. He is a very lucky man.”

“He’s an uncommonly good fellow,” said Vansittart, “and he ought to bean acquisition to the neighbourhood.”

“Oh, the neighbours take to him kindly,” retorted the Colonel. “He’srich—gives good dinners and good wine. That is the kind of thingcountry people want. They don’t ask too many questions about a man’spedigree when his cellar and his cook are good.”

“My brother-in-law’s pedigree is not one to be ashamed of, ColonelMarchant.”

“Of course not, my dear fellow. Honest labour, talent, patience,invention, the virtues of which Englishmen are supposed to be proud.But you don’t mean to tell me that the Hartleys date from theHeptarchy, or even came over with the Conqueror. There was a day—whenI was a lad, unless my memory of social matters plays me false—whencounty people clung to the traditions of caste,[Pg 91] and didn’t bow down tothe golden calf quite so readily as they do now.”

Vansittart could but agree with Peggy as to her father’s demerits. Hestole a glance at the child on the opposite side of the table, but shewas too much absorbed in bread and jam to notice her father’s speech,or the impression he was making. Eve had a pained look. He felt verysorry for her as he watched her restless fingers smoothing out thegloves which lay on the table before her, with a movement that told ofirritated nerves.

He finished his cup of tea, and rose to go; yet lingered weakly, intenton resolving certain jealous doubts of his, if it were possible.

“I see you are a stickler for blue blood, Colonel Marchant,” he said.“I conclude that is one of the reasons you like Mr. Sefton, who, as Ihear in the neighbourhood, is by no means a general favourite.”

“Did you ever hear of a man worth anything who was a generalfavourite?” grumbled the Colonel. “Yes, I like Sefton. Sefton isa gentleman to the marrow of his bones—the son and grandson andgreat-grandson of gentlemen. His ancestors were gentlemen before MagnaCharta. If you want to know what good blood is, you have a fine examplein Sefton—a staunch friend, a bitter enemy, stand-offish to strangers,frank and free with the people he likes. He’s the only man in this partof the country that I can get on with; and I am not ashamed to confessmy liking for him.”

Vansittart watched Eve’s face while her father was praising his friend.It was a very grave face, almost to pain; but there was no confusionor embarrassment in countenance or manner. She stood silent, serious,waiting for her father to say his say, and for the guest to leave. Andthen, without a word, she shook hands with Vansittart, who made theround of the sisters before he was solemnly escorted to the porch byColonel Marchant.

He walked home through the fine, clear night, by hedgerows powderedwith snow, through a landscape which was somewhat monotonous in itsblack and white, past woods and hills, above which the frosty starsshone out in almost southern brilliancy.

No, he did not believe that Eve Marchant cared for Wilfred Sefton.There had been no emotional changes from white to red in the fair facehe studied, only a serious and somewhat anxious expression, as if thesubject were painful to her. No, he had no rival to fear in Sefton; andyet—and yet—there was some lurking mysteriousness in their relations,some secret understanding, or why those tears? Why that confidentialconversation, and those stray sentences, which seemed to mean a greatdeal? “I sincerely regret your disappointment.” “It was a false scent.”There must be some meaning deeper than the trivialities of everydaylife in such words as these.

[Pg 92]

He thought, and gloomily, of Colonel Marchant as a possiblefather-in-law. A most unpleasant person to contemplate in thatconnection—a soured, disappointed man, at war with society, and quickto sneer at men whom he disliked only because they were more fortunatethan himself. That he should sneer at Hubert Hartley, a universalfavourite, who from boyhood to manhood had been known to all hisfriends and neighbours as “Bertie,” a familiar style which testifiedto his popularity! Would Bertie take the hounds on an emergency? WouldBertie do this or that for the common weal?—Bertie being always reliedon for liberality and good-fellowship. It was intolerable that thisout-at-elbows Colonel should presume to sneer at Bertie Hartley becausethe wealth which he dispensed so nobly had been earned in trade.

That second visit to the Homestead had a dispiriting effect, and againVansittart told himself that he would take his time; that havingbreathed no word of love in Eve Marchant’s ear, he was free to carryher image away in his heart, and brood over it, and find out in thecourse of much sober meditation whether he really loved her well enoughto sacrifice all worldly advantages, and to disappoint his mother andsister in the great act of marriage, that act upon which hangs thehappiness or misery of all the after life.

A man who has few belongings, and who has been to those belongings asa hero, has need to give some consideration to his people’s prejudicesbefore he lead his bride home to the family hearth, where she is totake her place for ever in the family history, either as an ornament ora blot upon a fair record.

No, he would go no further. He would not be the slave of a foolishpassion for a lovely face. He was free to come to Redwold Towerswhenever he pleased. He might see Eve Marchant as often as he pleasedin the year that was so young. He would take his time.

And if, while he hesitated and meditated, some bolder wooer were toappear and snatch the prize—what then? Well, that was a risk which hemust run; but he told himself that the chances were against any suitorfor the daughter’s hand while the father was to the fore. ColonelMarchant’s children were heavily handicapped in the race of life.

CHAPTER VIII.

A FACE IN THE CROWD.

Vansittart spent five weeks at Merewood, hunting a good deal, diningwith some of his neighbours once a week or so, and occasionallyentertaining them at dinner or luncheon; tiring himself prodigiouslywith long rides to cover, or railway journeys before and[Pg 93] after thechase, and falling asleep of an evening by the drawing-room fire,lulled by the monotonous click of his mother’s knitting needles, or theflutter of the turning leaves as she read.

Those fireside evenings after the chase in January and February weredelightful to Mrs. Vansittart. She rejoiced with an exceeding joy athaving brought her son safe and sound out of the cave of the syren,having no suspicion of those serious thoughts of the syren whichoccupied his mind. There were half a dozen girls in the neighbourhood,two of them heiresses, any one of whom would be welcome to her as adaughter-in-law, for any one of whom she would have resigned her placein that household without a murmur, almost without a regret. But sheshuddered at the idea of a girl brought up in a Bohemian fashion; agirl who had suffered all the disadvantages which poverty carries withit; the skimped education; the vulgarizing influence of petty householdcares; a girl whose father never went to church. Such a girl wouldbe unspeakably distasteful to her. If Eve Marchant were to reign atMerewood, Mrs. Vansittart’s grey hairs must go down in sorrow to thegrave.

She rejoiced in her son’s company, and was even reconciled to theperils of the hunting field, since hunting occupied his days, andprevented his running after Eve Marchant. If he was unusually silentand thoughtful by the fireside, she ascribed silence and thoughtfulnessto physical exhaustion. He was there, safe within her ken; and thatwas enough. She took infinite pains to bring the girls she liked abouther, and in her son’s way, which was not easy, since Vansittart wasfar afield nearly every day. She would invite one of her favourites toa friendly dinner, escorted by a young brother, perhaps—a proceedingwhich bored her son infinitely, since instead of sleeping or broodingby the fire he must needs play billiards with the cub, or put himselfout of the way to amuse the young lady.

He was very fond of music of a broad dramatic style—loved grandopera, from Gluck to Meyerbeer and Verdi; but he had no passion forGrieg or Rubinstein, as expounded, neatly, elegantly, with lady-likeinexpressiveness, by his mother’s protégées; and it seemed to hisignorant ear that all his mother’s protégées played exactly the samepieces in precisely the same manner.

If perchance he spent an afternoon at home, he invariably found one ofthose selected vestals in morning-room or drawing-room when he went tofive o’clock tea, that meal being one which his mother loved to sharewith him, and at which dutiful affection constrained his presencewhenever he was on the premises. All the charm of that unconstrainedhalf-hour of chat between mother and son was scared away by thepresence of a young lady, albeit the most admirable of her sex. Hismother’s favourites were very nice girls,[Pg 94] every one of them, and onlytwo out of the six were painfully religious. He liked them all wellenough, in the beaten way of friendship; but the handsomest and mostattractive of them left him cold as marble. He had gone beyond theseason of easily kindled fires. He had passed the age at which a manfalls in love once in six weeks. His heart was no longer touch-paper.A few months ago he had believed that he would spend his days as abachelor, had calculated the manifold advantages of remaining single,with an estate which for a single man meant wealth, but which for a manwith wife and family would only mean a modest competence.

He grew so weary at last of those social tea-drinkings and thoseeminently domestic evenings, that before the hunting season was overhe suddenly announced his intention of going to London. It was anunderstood thing between his mother and himself that the house inCharles Street was always ready for him. The housekeeper left in chargehad been his nurse, and administered to his comfort with unwearyingdevotion. She was an excellent cook, by force of native talent ratherthan by training and experience, and, with a housemaid under her, keptthe house in exquisite order. These two women, with Vansittart’s valet,an Italian, able to turn his hand to anything, made up an efficientbachelor establishment.

To Charles Street, therefore, Vansittart repaired, in the Lenten monthof March. He had been at some trouble to resist the inclination whichwould have taken him to Redwold Towers, rather than to London. It wouldhave been so easy to offer himself to his sister for a week; and atRedwold it would have been so easy to see Eve Marchant; so difficult,perhaps, to avoid seeing her, since Lady Hartley, who was, above allthings, cordial and impulsive, had told him in one of her letters thatshe had taken a fancy to Miss Marchant, and had invited her and one ofthe sisters to Redwold very often.

“As a wife for you, she is impossible,” wrote Maud Hartley. “Prayremember that, Jack. Mother and I are ambitious about your future. Wewant you to look high, to improve your position from that of a smallcountry gentleman, to make your mark in the world. But, although quiteimpossible as your wife, as a human being Miss Marchant is charming,and I mean to do all I can in a neighbourly way to make thingspleasanter for her. The father is shockingly neglectful, spends thegreater part of his life in London; but that is perhaps an advantagefor his daughters, for when he is at home Eve is a slave to him, has toworry about his dinners, and fetch and carry for him, and try to amusethe unamusable, as Madame de Maintenon said. I gather this not from anymurmurings of Eve’s, but from the young sisters, who are appallinglyoutspoken.”

[Pg 95]

Vansittart had pledged himself to spend the Easter holidays at Redwold;so he resisted the promptings of inclination, and swore to himself thathe would not try to see Eve Marchant before Easter. The interval wouldthen have been long enough to test his feelings, to give him time forthought, before he took any fateful step, and perhaps to throw him inthe way of hearing some more specific account of Colonel Marchant’scharacter and antecedents. There is no place, perhaps, in which itis more difficult to get a faithful description of a man than in thevillage where he lives. There, everything is exaggerated—his income,if he is rich; his debts, if he is poor; his vices, eccentricities, andshortcomings, in any case.

Although it was the Lenten season, and although the churches ofLondon were filled with Lenten worshippers, the town looked brightand animated, and there were plenty of votaries in the temples ofpleasure—theatres, picture galleries, concert halls—and plenty ofsnug little dinner-parties to which a man in Vansittart’s positionwas likely to be bidden. He had a wide circle of acquaintance, andwas popular with men and women, accounted a clubbable man by theformer, and an eligible parti by the latter. Even the women who had nomatrimonial views for daughters, or sisters, or bosom friends, stillaffected Jack Vansittart’s society. He had plenty to say to them, wasalways cheery and cordial, and never seemed to think himself too goodfor the particular circle in which he found himself.

He was dining one evening en petit comité with an old college chumand his young wife; the husband a rising barrister; the wife anaccomplished woman, and a marvellous manager, able to maintain apretty little house in Mayfair on an income which a stupid woman wouldhave found hardly enough for Notting Hill or Putney, and to give anappetizing dinner, daintily served, and unhackneyed as to menu, for thecost of the average housekeeper’s leg of mutton and trimmings.

While the cheery little meal was being discussed, a servant brought ina coroneted envelope for the hostess, which being opened, contained abox for Covent Garden, where there was an early season of Italian Opera.

“For to-night,” said Mrs. Pembroke. And then she read aloud from theletter, “‘I find at the last moment that I can’t use my box. Do go ifyou are free. The opera is Faust, with a new “Margherita.”’That’s rather a pity,” sighed the lady, folding up the letter.

“Why a pity?” asked Vansittart. “Why shouldn’t you go? I dare say yourbox will hold me as well as Tom, so you need have no conscientiousscruples on the ground of inhospitality.”

“Oh, there will be plenty of room. It is Lady Davenant’s box, on thegrand tier. But Tom asked you for a quiet evening, a long[Pg 96] talk andsmoke, and perhaps an adjournment to the Turf for a rubber. I’m afraidyou’ll be dreadfully bored if I take you to the opera instead.”

“Pray don’t think so badly of me. If it were Wagner perhaps I mightbe less sure of myself. There are bits I enjoy in his operas, but Iconfess myself a tyro in that advanced school. Gounod’s Faust Iadore. We shall be in time for the Kermess scene, and the new Gretchen.Pray let us be off.”

A cab was sent for, and the trio packed themselves into it, Mrs.Pembroke sparkling with pleasure. She was passionately fond ofmusic, and she had been looking forward to a solitary evening by thedrawing-room fire, while her husband and his friend sat smoking andprosing together in the barrister’s ground-floor den.

The house was thin, this premature opera season not having beena marked success. Lady Davenant’s box was near the proscenium, aspacious box, which would have accommodated six people as easily asthree. Vansittart sat in the middle, between his host and hostess. TomPembroke, who was no music lover, dozed in the shadow of the curtain,agreeably lulled by melodies which were pleasant from their familiarity.

The cast was not strong, but the Margherita was very young, ratherpretty, and sang well. Vansittart and Mrs. Pembroke were bothinterested.

It was near the close of the Kermess scene that the lady asked hercompanion, “Do you ever look at the chorus? Such poor old things, someof them! I can’t help thinking how weary they must be of singing thesame music season after season, and tramping in and out of the samescenes—banquets where there is nothing to eat, too, and then goinghome to bread and cheese.”

“Yes, it must be a hard life,” assented Vansittart; “all the trouble ofthe show, and none of the glory.”

And then he took a sweeping survey of the gay crowd, peasants,soldiers, citizens, feasting and rejoicing in friendly German fashionunder the open sky. Yes, Mrs. Pembroke was right; most of the choruswere middle-aged, some were elderly—withered old faces, dark skinswhich even bismuth could not transform to fairness. Italian eyes, darkand glowing, shone out of worn faces where all other beauty was lacking.

Suddenly among all those homely countenances he saw a young face, youngand beautiful, a face that flashed upon him first with a rapid thrillof recognition, and then with an aspect that struck into his heart likea dagger, and when that sharp pang was over left a heaviness as of lead.

It was Fiordelisa’s face. He could not be mistaken. Nay, the[Pg 97] fact wasmade certainty as he looked, for he saw that the girl recognized him.She was gazing upward to the spot where he sat; she was talking abouthim to the woman who stood next her, indicating him with too expressivegesticulation.

Was she telling that stolid listener that the man yonder had slain hisfellow-creature in a tavern row; that he was a murderer? She would putit so, no doubt—she whose lover he had killed.

If she were saying this the stolid woman received the statement veryplacidly. She only nodded, and shrugged her shoulders, and then noddedagain, while Fiordelisa talked to her more and more excitedly, withdramatic emphasis. Surely no woman would stand and shrug and nod asthis woman shrugged and nodded, at a tale of murder.

Then Lisa looked up again at him, beaming with smiles, her dark eyessparkling in the gaslight; and then her turn came to swell the chorus;and then the curtain fell, and he saw her no more.

It was as much as he could do to get through the interval before thatcurtain rose again. Tom Pembroke wanted him to go out for a stroll inthe foyer, for a drink of some kind. “I would rather stay with Mrs.Pembroke,” he said, full of wild surmises, prepared for a mysteriousknock at the box door, and the appearance of a policeman from overthe way to take him in custody at Lisa’s instigation; prepared foranything tragic that might happen to him. What might not happen whenthe hot-blooded Southern nature was in question? What bounds wouldthere be for the revengeful passion of such a girl as Fiordelisa, whohad been robbed by his act of her lover and protector, her possiblehusband? She had talked of her Englishman’s promise of marriage with anair of innocent security, the remembrance of which smote him sharply,recalling her light-hearted gaiety at the restaurant and at the opera,her grief as she flung herself upon her lover’s corpse. And he, whohad thought never to see her again, never even to know her fate, foundhimself face to face with her, recognized by her, having to answer toher and to society for the deed which he had done.

With these thoughts in his mind, with his ear strained for the knockingat the door, he had to talk small talk to Mrs. Pembroke, to counterfeitamusem*nt at her criticism of the people in the stalls—the man withtwo strips of hair combed in streaks over a bald head, the woman withcorpulent arms bared to the shoulder, the country cousins. He had tolaugh at her little jokes, and even to attempt one or two smart sayingson his own account.

The knocking came, and he almost started out of his seat.

“It can’t be Tom,” said Mrs. Pembroke. “He never comes back until afterthe curtain is up, and sometimes not till the act is nearly over.”

[Pg 98]

Vansittart opened the box door, and a treble voice questioned, “Ices,sir?”

He made way for the young woman with the tray of ices, and insistedupon Mrs. Pembroke taking one of those parti-coloured slabs whichhave superseded the old-fashioned rose-pink strawberry ice. He satdown again, ashamed of his overstrained nerves, and looked at thegreat curtain, wondering whether in all that wide expanse there wereany gimlet holes through which Fiordelisa’s ardent eyes might bewatching him. The curtain rose, and the act began; but Vansittart hadno longer any ear for the music he loved. His whole attention wasconcentrated upon the chorus singers. He watched and waited for theircoming and going, searched out Lisa’s familiar figure amidst the throngthat watched Valentine’s death-throes and Margherita’s despair. Hesingled her out again and again as the troupe moved about the spaciousstage—now on one side, now on the other, in the foreground or thebackground, according to the exigencies of the scene. He watchedthe stage till the green curtain fell; and then he woke as from adream, and began to wonder what he must do next. Something he must doassuredly, he told himself, as he helped Mrs. Pembroke with her wraps,and heard her chatter about the performance, which she denounced assecond-rate, declaring further that she had been taken in by LadyDavenant’s gift of the box. Something he must do; first to ascertainwhat Fiordelisa’s intentions might be—whether she would denounce himto the police; next to make whatever atonement he could make to herfor the loss of her lover. He was not going to run away this time, ashe had done at Venice. He had been seen and recognized. He would bewatched, no doubt as he left the theatre. This girl would make it herbusiness to find out his name and residence. Even if he wanted to eludeher, the thing would be impossible. He had been sitting there all theevening in a conspicuous box on the grand tier, and he had to get awayfrom a sparsely filled theatre.

Again there was a knock at the box door. It came while he was puttingon his overcoat, and before Mrs. Pembroke had begun to move off.

It was a boxkeeper this time, with a letter.

“For you, sir,” he said, handing it to Vansittart, after looking at thetwo men.

“An unaddressed envelope,” chirruped Mrs. Pembroke; “this savours ofmystery.”

Vansittart put the letter into his pocket without a word. His mostardent desire at that moment was to get rid of the Pembrokes.

“Can I be of any use in fetching a cab?” he said in the hall.

[Pg 99]

“You can stop with my wife while I get one, if you don’t mind,” saidPembroke.

Happily there were plenty of cabs that night, and it was only thecarriage people who had to wait. Mr. Pembroke came back for his wife intwo or three minutes.

“I’ve got a four-wheeler,” he said. “You’ll come home with us for asmoke and a drink, won’t you, Van?”

“Not to-night, thanks; it’s late—and—and—I’ve some letters to write.”

“Good night, then. I’m afraid you’ve been bored.”

“On the contrary. I was never more interested in my life.”

CHAPTER IX.

“THOUGH LOVE, AND LIFE, AND DEATH SHOULD COME AND GO.”

Vansittart tore open the blank envelope under one of the lamps at theback of the vestibule, while the crowd about the doors was graduallymelting away, and the question “Cab or carriage?” was being asked,often with a sad want of discrimination on the part of the questioners.The letter was from Lisa.

It was in English, mixed with little phrases in Italian, badly speltand badly written, but quite plain enough for him to read.

He stood with the letter in his hand, pondering.

Should he do what the letter asked him? Yes, assuredly; although toobey that summons was to place himself unreservedly in Lisa’s power. Hewas in her power already, perhaps. She might have made her arrangementspromptly, so that he should be watched and followed when he left thetheatre, and his name and address discovered.

In any case, whatever risk there might be in going to Fiordelisa’slodging, he did not for a moment hesitate. In his remorseful thoughtsof the man he had killed, the bitterest pang of all had been thethought of Fiordelisa and her shattered life, her dream of happinessdarkened for ever, her prosperity changed to desolation and bitterwant. Again and again he had told himself that the memory of his[Pg 100] sinwould sit more easily upon him could he but secure Lisa’s comfort, dryher tears for the lover who was to have been her husband, shelter herfrom the chances of the downward road which the feet that have onceturned astray are but too ready to tread.

He had found her, which was more than he had hoped, and had found herearning her bread in a legitimate manner, and living with the aunt whowas in some wise a protector, although, remembering that lady’s easymanner of regarding her niece’s former position, there was perhaps notovermuch security in such a duenna.

He walked across Bow Street, and speedily found Stone Court, whichseemed a quiet haven from the roar and roll of carriages in the streetoutside; a highly respectable retreat, consisting for the most partof private houses, one of which—wedged into an obscure corner, wherea narrow alley, like the neck of a bottle, cut through into anotherstreet—proved to be 24B.

La Zia herself opened the door in answer to Vansittart’s knock, andwelcomed him with a cordiality which took his breath away.

“Welcome, Signor. She said you would come, but I was doubtful that youwould trouble about her or me,” she said, in Italian, and then, in verytolerable English: “Do me the favour to walk upstairs; it is ratherhigh—il secondo piano. She knew you again in an instant. She has sucheyes.”

They ascended the narrow staircase, lighted only by the Zia’s candle.The door of the front room on the second floor was open, and Fiordelisastood on the threshold, in the light of a paraffin lamp, dressed in ashabby black gown, and with her splendid hair rolled up on the top ofher head in a roughened mass.

She held out both her hands to Vansittart, and welcomed him as if hehad been her dearest friend. The aunt had fairly astonished him, butthe niece was even more astounding.

“I knew you would come,” she exclaimed. “I knew you would not turn yourback upon the poor girl whose life you made desolate.”

And then she burst into a tempest of sobs. She flung herself on tothe little horsehair sofa, and sobbed as if her heart would break;whereupon la Zia tumbled into an armchair, and sobbed in concert.

What could Vansittart do between two fountains of tears? He could onlypatiently abide till this passionate grief should abate, so that hemight speak with the hope of being heard.

“I am deeply distressed,” he said at last, when these lamentationshad subsided. “I have never ceased to repent the act that bereavedyou—both—of a friend and protector. I dared not go back toVenice—lest—lest the law should weigh heavily upon me. I had no meansof communicating with you. I knew neither your names nor your address,remember. I had no means of helping you. I could do nothing to lightenthe load upon my conscience—nothing. You[Pg 101] must have thought me anarrant coward for running away and leaving you to suffer for my sin?”

“If you had stopped you would have been put in prison—perhaps for everso many years,” said la Zia, with a philosophical air.

Fiordelisa had dried her tears, and was looking at him graciously, withalmost a smile in the soft Italian eyes.

“Your going to prison would not have brought him back to life,” shesaid. “I am glad you got away. Poor fellow! he was so fond of me—andso jealous! Ah, how jealous he was! It was foolish. I had done no harm.A little pleasure at Carnival time, while he was away! What a pity thathe should come back to Venice that night, and find me at the Florianwith you! We ought not to have gone to that caffè. He always wentthere—it was just the likeliest place for him to find us. But then Idid not know he was coming back to Venice so soon.”

The lightness of her tone, thus easily accepting the tragic past,surprised him, so strangely did her speech contrast with her passionatesobs of a few minutes ago. That she should threaten him with novengeance, that she should welcome him as a friend, was stranger still;and he had to remember that this lightness was characteristic of theItalian nature; he had to remember that in Rome a noble lady and herdaughter will go out to dine at a restaurant because it is so dull athome where the husband and father lies dead, or a mother will takeher daughters to the opera to revive their spirits after a brother’suntimely death.

It was a relief to him, naturally, to find a philosophical submissionto Fate where he had expected to find a thirst for his blood, a sternresolve that the law should claim from him the uttermost atonement itcould exact. It was a tremendous relief to find himself sitting betweenaunt and niece—while they eat their frugal supper from a tin box ofmortadello, a bundle of radishes, and a half quartern loaf—listeningto their account of their lives after his victim’s death.

“He was buried next day,” said la Zia; “a very pretty funeral. It wasa lovely day, and the gondola was full of flowers, though flowers aredear in Venice. Lisa and I, and the Padrona from the house where welived, went with him to the cemetery, where it was all so still andhappy-looking in the sunlight. Lisa tried to throw herself into hisgrave, but we would not let her. Poor child, she was so miserable, andwe thought of the day before when we were returning from the Lido inyour gondola——”

“And when the lagoons looked enchanted in the sunset,” said Lisa; “andour dinner at the Cappello Nero, and the champagne, and the pastiti,and the opera afterwards, and the beads you gave me. I have the beadsstill. I wore the blue necklace to-night. Did you notice it?”

[Pg 102]

“Indeed, no, Poverina. I was too full of thoughts of you to notice yournecklace.”

“Ah, you were surprised to see me, weren’t you—after so long? And wasnot I surprised to see you? I was looking at all the faces, the prettydresses, the jewels, like faces in a dream, for they are there everynight, and they never come any nearer, or seem any more real; and thenin an instant, out of the unreality, your face flashed upon me—yourface and the memory of that happy day and evening, that dreadfulmidnight. Are you sorry to see us again?” she asked, naively, inconclusion.

“Sorry, Lisa? no. I am glad, very glad; for now I hope I may be able tomake some atonement to you and your aunt.”

“Atonement! but how? You cannot bring him back to life. While we sithere, he is lying in San Michele, where the gondolas with the blackflags are his only visitors, where nothing but sorrow and death everenters. You cannot bring him back to life.”

“Alas, no, Fiordelisa; but I may do much to make your life easier. Ican make sure that you and your aunt shall know no more poverty anddeprivation.”

“Ah,” sighed la Zia: “we knew both after that good Signor Smitz wascarried to San Michele. He had never been rich, mark you; but while helived there was always enough for the coffee and macaroni, and for astufato on Sundays, and a flask of Chiante that lasted all the week. Wedid not waste his money, and he used to praise his little Lisa as thecleverest manager and best wife a man ever had. And she would have beenhis wife, mark you, had he lived. Oh, he had promised her again andagain, and he meant to keep his word. She would have been an Englishgentleman’s wife—all in good time.”

“All in good time,” echoed Lisa; “and my son would not have beenfatherless.”

“Your son!” exclaimed Vansittart.

“Ah, you do not know,” said la Zia; “her baby was born half a yearafter his father’s death. It was the late autumn when the bambino came.The leaves were all dying off the vines, the strangers were all leavingVenice, the boats were bringing in the winter fuel, and the cold windswere creeping up from the Adriatic and blowing round all the cornersof the Calle. We were very poor. There was a little money in the housewhen he died—and there was more than enough in his purse when he fellto pay for his funeral—but when the last lira was gone there wasnothing but to go back to the lace-making, both of us, and work forthe dish of polenta and the garret that lodged us. We did not want togo back to Burano, to see the old faces and hear the old comrades talkabout us, after we had lived like ladies and worn velvet gowns, so wewent to work at the[Pg 103] factory in Venice, and we lived in one littleroom in the Rialto, right up in the roof of an old, old house, wherewe could see nothing but the sky; and there Lisa’s baby was born, abeautiful boy. Ah, how proud Signor Smitz would have been had he livedto see that lovely infant!”

“Is the boy living?” asked Vansittart, gently.

“Living! Yes, he is in the next room; he is the joy of our lives,”answered the aunt.

Lisa started up from the supper table, with her finger on her lips,and went across the room, beckoning to Vansittart to follow. Sheopened a door, cautiously, noiselessly, and led him into a bedroom,where, by the faint glimmer of a night-light, he saw a boy lying in alittle cot beside the ancient four-post bed, a boy who was the imageof one of Guido’s child-angels—full round cheeks, with a crimson glowupon their olive clearness, lips like Cupid’s bow, long dark lashesfringing blue-veined eyelids, and dark brown hair waving in loose curlsabout the broad forehead. Truly a beautiful boy! Vansittart could notwithhold his praises of that childish sleeper.

“You are very fond of him,” he said gently, as Lisa stooped torearrange the blanket over the child’s round and dimpled arm, pressinga kiss upon the fat little hand before she covered it.

“Oh, I adore him. He is all in the world I have to love, except la Zia.”

“And you have had a hard time of it, through my fault,” saidVansittart, gravely, as they went back to the sitting-room.

It was one o’clock by the little American clock on thechimney-piece—one by the clock of the church in Covent Garden, whichpealed its single stroke with solemn sound as they resumed their seatsby the shabby round table, in the light of the paraffin lamp; but, lateas it was, neither Lisa nor her aunt seemed in any hurry to get rid oftheir visitor, nor did he mean to go until he had made a compact withthem—a compact which should set his mind at rest as to the future.

“How did you come from the lace factory at Venice to the stageof Covent Garden?” he asked. “This is a long way for you to havetravelled, without a friend to help you along.”

“We had a friend,” answered Lisa. “My good old music-master. We lostsight of him when our troubles began; but he met me one day as I wasleaving the factory—it was when my baby was three months old—and hestopped to talk to me. He was shocked to see me so thin and pale, andwhen I told him how poor we were—la Zia and I—he asked me why I didnot turn my voice to account. He always used to praise my voice whenSignor Smitz asked him how I got on with my education. I had a voicethat was worth money, he said. And now in our poverty he was very good[Pg 104]to us. He gave me more lessons, without a sous, to be paid for onlywhen I should be earning plenty of money; and after he had taught mea good many choruses in Verdi’s operas, he gave me a letter to theImpresario at Milan, and he lent us the money for the journey to Milan,and once there all went well with us. I was engaged to sing in thechorus, and I sang there for two seasons, and la Zia and I were ableto live comfortably and to save money, until one day, when the Scalawas closed, an English Impresario came to Milan, to engage singersfor the London season, and I, who had always wanted to go to London,went to him, and asked him to engage me, and it was all settled in afew minutes. We have been a year and a half in England, la Zia and I,sometimes travelling with the opera company, but mostly in London.”

“And you have made wonderful progress in our language, Signora.”

“Don’t call me Signora,” she said softly. “Call me Fiordelisa, as youdid that day at Venice.”

“Tell me how you both like our England.”

The elder woman shrugged her shoulders, elevated her eyebrows, andflung up her hands in boundless admiration.

“Wonderfullissimo!” she exclaimed. “The streets, the long, broadstreets, and splendid, splendid shops; the carriages, the fine-dressedpeople, the smoke, the roar of wheels, the everlasting noise. When Ilook back, and think of Burano, it is like a dream of quiet; a tranquilworld set in the bosom of the waters; a cradle for sleep; life that ishalf slumber. Here every one is awake.”

“But your London is not beautiful,” said Lisa. “This court is not likeVenice. It is liker than your big, noisy streets; but when one looks upthe sky is murky and grey—not like the strip of blue above the Calle.If I could live where I could see water from my window—even your dull,dark river—I should be happier; but to be away from the sound and thesight of waters! That was hard even at Milan, which was still Italy.”

“There are places in London where you might live in sight and sound ofthe river,” said Vansittart. “We cannot offer you anything like yourlagoons; we have no mountains like the Friuli range for our sunsets toglorify; but we have a river by which people can live if they like.”

“Not if they like, but if they are rich enough,” argued Lisa. “Weasked if we could have a lodging near the river; but the people at thetheatre told us such lodgings are dear—they are not for such as us.”

“We will see about that,” said Vansittart; and then he went on moreseriously, “I want to make a compact with you and your aunt. I want tocome to a clear understanding of what we are to be to each other in thefuture. Are we to be friends, Lisa?”

[Pg 105]

“Yes, yes, friends, true friends,” she answered eagerly.

“And you forgive me for—what was done that night?”

“Yes, I forgive you. The fault was not all yours. He insulted you—hestruck you—and you were maddened—and the dagger was there. It was afatality. Let us think of it no more. We cannot bring him back. It isbest to forget.”

“You know, Lisa, that you have it in your power to blight my life—totell the world what I did that night—to give me up to the strong armof the law to answer for the life I destroyed. You could do that if youliked. Do you mean to do it?”

“No,” she said resolutely.

“And you, Signora,” to the aunt, “are you of the same mind as yourniece?”

“In all things. Lisa is much cleverer than her poor old aunt. I do asshe does.”

“But some day, Fiordelisa, you might change your mind,” urgedVansittart. “Women are capricious. You might take it into your head tobetray me—to tell people of that tragedy in Venice, and that I was thechief actor in it.”

“Not for the world would I tell anything that would injure you,” shesaid.

“Do you mean that, Lisa?”

“A thousand times yes.”

“Promise then, thus, with your hand in mine,” taking her hand as hespoke, “promise by the Mother of God and by His Saints that, come whatmay, you will never tell how I stabbed an unarmed man in the CaffèFlorian. Promise that as I am frank and true with you, so you will dealfrankly and fairly by me, and will do no act and will say no word to myinjury.”

“I promise,” she said, “by the Mother of God and by His Saints. Ipromise to be loyal and true to you all the days of my life.”

“And you, Signora?” to the aunt.

“What she promises I promise.”

“Why, then, thank God for the chance that brought us three togetheragain,” said Vansittart, earnestly, “for now I can make my atonementto you both with an easy mind. There is nothing I will not do, Lisa,to prove that my remorse is a reality, and not a pretence. You wouldlike to live by the river, child? Well, it shall be my business to findyou a home from which you shall look upon running water, and hear thesplash of the tide. Your voice is your fortune. Well, it shall be mybusiness to find you a master who can train you for something betterthan singing in a chorus. As you are loyal to me, Lisa, so, by theheaven above us, will I be loyal to you. All that a brother could dofor a sister will I do for you, and deem it nothing more than my dutywhen it is done.”

[Pg 106]

“Ah, what a noble gentleman,” cried la Zia, wiping her tearful eyes,“and how gracious of the blessed Mary to give us so generous a friend!Little did I expect such fortune when I rose from my bed this morning.”

“And now, ladies, I must bid you good night,” said Vansittart. “I hopeto call on you to-morrow afternoon with some news of your future home.You will not mind living two or three miles from your theatre. Thereare trams and omnibuses, and a railway to carry you backwards andforwards,” he added.

“We should not mind even if we had to walk to and fro. We are goodwalkers,” answered Lisa. “We lived a long way from la Scala. Ever sofar off, on the other side of Milan.”

“To-morrow, then. A rivederci.”

Two o’clock struck while he was walking to Charles Street, happierthan he had felt for a long time. It seemed to him that his burden waslightened almost to a feather-weight now that he knew the fate of thesewomen. They were not destitute, as he had often pictured them. They hadsuffered a little poverty, but no more than was the common lot of theclass from which they had sprung. And it was in his power to make amplereparation to them. He would do more for Lisa than that dead man wouldever have done. He would put her in the way of an honourable career.Whatever talents she had should be cultivated at his cost. He wouldnot degrade her by foolish gifts—but he would spend money freely tofurther her interests, and he would keep her feet from straying anyfurther upon that broad road she had entered so recklessly.

He could but wonder at the lightness with which she accepted herlover’s fate, and forewent every idea of retribution. Not so, he toldhimself, would an Englishwoman bow to the stroke of destiny, if herbest-beloved were slain. And then he wondered whether, in all thisworld, near or far, there was any one, besides Fiordelisa, who hadloved John Smith, and who was now mourning for him.

CHAPTER X.

“AS THINGS THAT ARE NOT SHALL THESE THINGS BE.”

Before two o’clock next day Vansittart had been up and down more stairsthan he ever remembered to have mounted and descended in a single day.He had inspected flats in the neighbourhood of the Strand, and flatsat Millbank, and flats at Chelsea; and finally, after much driving toand fro in a hansom, and interviews with several house-agents, he haddiscovered a third floor in a newly erected house near Cheyne Walkwhich seemed to him the ideal home for Fiordelisa and her aunt. Thehouse stood at a corner, and the[Pg 107] windows and balcony of this upperstory commanded a fine view of the river and Battersea Park; whileto the eastward appeared the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, andsouthward rose the Kentish hills and the Crystal Palace. The flatcontained three good rooms, with a tiny kitchen at the back. Thebalcony was architectural, and looked solid and secure. There was afascinating oriel window at the corner of the principal room, whichprojected so as to command the west. Nothing could have been brighteror more airy, and the agent who took Vansittart over the roomsassured him that the house was substantially built, and altogethersatisfactory. No doubt most agents would say as much about most houses,but the appearance of this house, the thickness of the walls, and thesolidity of the woodwork went far to justify the agent’s praises.

The rent was eighty-five pounds a year, all told; and this was a rentwhich came well within the amount that Vansittart was prepared to pay.He was thoroughly in earnest in his desire to be of substantial serviceto Lisa and her aunt. He was not a rich man; but he told himself thathe could spare two hundred a year for the solace of his conscience; andhe was prepared to impoverish himself to that amount for the rest ofhis life. Yes, even in that dim future when he should have sons at theUniversity and daughters to marry, and when hundreds would be of muchmore consequence to him than they were now. Two hundred a year wouldhe forfeit for his sin; and he contemplated the sacrifice with so muchthe more satisfaction because of his cordial liking for the impulsivepeasant girl whose fate had become interwoven with his own.

He found aunt and niece at home, and expectant of his arrival. He hadexchanged his hansom for a brougham from a livery stable, which wouldaccommodate three people.

“I am going to take you to see the home I have chosen for you, Lisa,”he said; “that is to say, if you would rather make your home in Londonthan in Italy.”

“Yes, yes; ever so much rather,” she answered eagerly. “London is agrand city. You live in London, don’t you?”

“Not always. I am seldom here more than a month or two at a time. I amnot a lover of cities.”

She looked disappointed at this reply.

“You will come and see us sometimes, when you are in London?” she asked.

“Certainly. I shall look in upon you now and then to see how you and laZia are getting on in your new surroundings. And now let us go and lookat the apartments I have chosen. Perhaps you will not like my choice.”

La Zia protested that this was out of the question. His choice[Pg 108] mustbe perfection. It was not possible for so noble a gentleman to err intaste or judgment.

Fiordelisa was dressed for going out. She was poorly clad in herwell-worn black gown and a little cheap black net bonnet, with palepink roses in it, but her dress was neater than usual. La Zia had alsodressed herself tidily, and looked more reputable than he would havethought possible, remembering the flaunting ruby plush and coppery goldchain in Venice. The little boy had been committed to the care of thelandlady, who was prodigiously fond of him, Lisa told Vansittart.

The drive by St. James’s Park, Buckingham Palace, and Eton Square wasa delight to the Venetians. They exclaimed at every new feature ofthe way. The houses, the soldiers, the trees, the palace, and eventhe long, solemn, unbeautiful square impressed them. The magnitudeof everything was so astounding after Venice. The wide expanses andseemingly illimitable distances filled them with wonder. They had beensurprised at the extent of Milan; but this London looked as if it couldswallow twenty Milans.

The brougham drove along the King’s Road, turned into Oakley Street,and brought them suddenly face to face with the Thames in one of itspleasantest aspects. The sun was shining on the river, the trees werepurple with swelling leaf-buds, the old houses of Cheyne Walk lookedbright and gay in the sunlight.

“Oh, how pretty!” cried Lisa, and Lisa’s aunt was quite as enthusiastic.

“There is one thing I must ask you,” said Vansittart, “before we cometo business with the house-agent. I don’t know the surname of either ofyou ladies.”

“My name is Vivanti,” said the aunt, “and Lisa’s is the same. She is mybrother’s daughter.”

“Then Lisa shall be Madame Vivanti, and you—shall we say Mademoiselle?”

“As you will. I have never been married. The man I loved and was tohave married was a fisherman, and his boat was wrecked one stormy nightbetween Venice and Chioggia. I never cared for any one else; so I livedwith my brother and his wife, and worked for them and with them. He hasa swarm of children, of whom Lisa is the eldest.”

“Then you have a number of brothers and sisters, Lisa,” saidVansittart. “Can you reconcile your mind to living in England andseeing them no more?”

Lisa shrugged her shoulders.

“There are too many of us,” she said; “each of us felt what it was tobe one mouth too many. The mother died six years ago, worn out likean old shoe that has tramped over the stones through[Pg 109] all weathers.My father would beat us for a word or a look. It was a hard life atBurano. I don’t want to go back there—ever. And your name, Signor; youhave not told us that.”

“My name! Ah, true!”

He hesitated for an instant or so. Could he trust them with theknowledge of his name and surroundings? He thought not. They werewomen, impulsive, uneducated, therefore uninstructed in the higher lawof honour.

“My name is Smith,” he said.

“How strange! The same as his,” exclaimed Lisa.

“It is a common English name.”

The carriage stopped at a street corner, and Vansittart led the wayup the brand-new staircase to the brand-new third story. Lisa and heraunt were in raptures. Everything was so pretty, the paint, the paper,the ceilings, the windows and balconies, the fireplaces, with theirtasteful wooden mantelpieces, and shining flowery tiles, and artisticl*ttle grates, warranted to consume a minimum of coals and give amaximum of heat.

There was a somewhat spacious sitting-room, with five windows,including the oriel in the western corner. Opening out of this weretwo small bedrooms; and on the other side of the landing there was thedoll’s-house kitchen, furnished with many shelves and conveniences forcooking and washing up, a kitchen as ingenious in its arrangements, andalmost as small as the steward’s cabin on a Jersey steamer.

“Now, Madame Vivanti,” said Vansittart, when the inspection had beenmade, addressing Lisa with some ceremony, “if you and your aunt arepleased with these rooms, and if you would like to make your permanenthome in London, turning your musical gifts to as much account as youcan, I shall be happy to furnish them for you, and to pay the rentalways, or at any rate as long as you remain unmarried—and”—in agraver tone, “lead a virtuous and reputable life, making no hastyacquaintances, and keeping yourself to yourself until you know thiscountry well enough to make a wise choice of friends. Would you like meto do this?”

“How can you ask such a question? Ah, you are too good and generous tome. I shall be as happy as a queen—to live in rooms like these, withthat lovely view over the river. It will be like living in a palace.But pray don’t call me Madame Vivanti. I feel as if you were angry withme.”

“Foolish child! you know better than that,” he said, smiling at her. “Iam full of friendliest feelings towards you and your aunt. But I mustnot call you by your Christian name. Men and women do not do that inEngland, unless they are blood relations or affianced lovers. You mustbe Madame Vivanti in future.”

[Pg 110]

Lisa pouted and looked distressed, but said nothing. La Zia expressedher heartfelt gratitude, for her niece chiefly, for herself in a lesserdegree. The kitchen seemed to impress her most of all. There was a hotplate, on which she could cook a risotto or a stufato, or a dish ofmacaroni, and all those messes which are savoury to the Italian palate.

“You will keep house for your niece, and take care of herboy”—Vansittart approached this subject with a certain hesitationtotally unshared by the boy’s mother—“until he is old enough to go toschool. Lisa—Madame Vivanti—will have to work hard at her musicaleducation if she means to rise from the ranks of the chorus. I willlook about for a respectable singing-master, who is not too famous toteach on moderate terms, and I will pay him for a course of lessons—tolast, say, six months. By that time we shall know what Madame’s voiceis made of.”

“Call me Si’ora, if you won’t call me Lisa,” said the young woman,impetuously. “I won’t be called by that formal Frenchified Madame.”

“It shall be Si’ora, then, if that will content you. And now, Si’ora,and la Zia, tell me that you are satisfied with me, and that what I amglad to do for you will be in some sense an atonement for—what I didthat night.”

Lisa burst into a flood of tears.

“You are too generous; you do too much,” she cried. “He would neverhave done so much, not even if he had been rich. He thought anythinggood enough for us—after, after he began to get tired of us. You are ahundred times better than he was——”

“Lisa, Lisa,” remonstrated the elder woman, “that is a hard thing tosay.”

“Oh, I know; I loved him once—passionately, passionately. I prayed theHoly Mother every night and morning to make him keep his word and marryme. He gave me my velvet gown. Yes, I loved him passionately. He gaveme lessons on the mandoline, and promised he would have me trained tobe a lady. Yes, I loved him. I shall never forget the day he first cameinto the factory at Burano, and looked at us all as we sat at our work,and began to talk to me in Italian. There are so few Englishmen who canspeak a single sentence of Italian, and his voice was so soft and kind,and he asked me questions about my work. But afterwards, when we werein Venice, he was not always kind; not as kind or as gentle as you are.”

She cried a little more after these simple utterances; and then shedried her tears, and la Zia comforted her, and they all three wentdownstairs and drove to the house-agent’s office, where Vansittartintroduced Signora Vivanti, of the Royal Italian Opera,[Pg 111] Covent Garden,as a tenant for the third floor of Saltero’s Mansion, he himself, Mr.John Smith, vouching for the respectability of the ladies, and payinga year’s rent in advance with some bank-notes he had ready for thetransaction. This handsome payment, and the fact that the flat wasunfurnished, reconciled the agent to the vagueness of a referee whoonly described himself as John Smith, of London.

This done, and the key of the third-floor flat having been handed overto him by the agent, Vansittart put Lisa and her aunt into the carriageand bade them good-bye.

“You will be driven back to Stone Court,” he said, “in plenty of timefor your work at the theatre. I will see about furnishing the new roomsto-morrow, and everything ought to be ready for you in a week. You hadbetter give your landlady a week’s notice.”

“She will be sorry to part with Paolo,” said la Zia. “She is as fond ofhim as if she were his grandmother.”

“You will come to see us in a week?” said Lisa, earnestly, as he shutthe carriage door.

“In a week your new home will be ready,” he answered; “I will come orwrite. Good-bye.”

He waved his hand to the driver, whom he had instructed to take theladies back to the entrance of Stone Court. The carriage moved off,Lisa looking at him earnestly, with something of a disappointed air, tothe last.

“Poor child! Did she think I was going to give them a dinner at arestaurant, as I did that day in Venice?” he asked himself, as hewalked towards Piccadilly. “What a curious, impulsive, infantine natureit is; made up of laughter and of tears; taking the ghastliest thingslightly, and yet with the capacity for passion and grief. Well, it isa good thing, it is a happy thing for me to be able to mend the brokenlife, and to give happiness where I had brought misery.”

He devoted the best part of the following day to the business offurnishing. It was his first experience in that line since he had takenover his predecessor’s sticks at Balliol, adding such luxuries andartistic embellishments as his youthful fancy prompted. He had beeninterested then with the undergraduate’s pleasure in his emancipationfrom the Etonian’s dependence. He was interested now. He felt as ifhe had been furnishing a doll’s house for the occupation of a talkingdoll, so childishly simple did Lisa’s intellect seem to him. He tooka pleasure in the task, and exercised taste and common sense in everydetail.

The rooms were furnished in less than a week, for the furniture was ofthe simplest, and all ready to his hand at a West End upholsterer’s. Hehad but to make his selection from a variety of[Pg 112] styles, all graceful,artistic, and inexpensive. At the end of the week he sent the liverybrougham to carry aunt and niece and boy to their new home. He sentFiordelisa a little note by the coachman.

“Your house is ready. I shall call at four o’clock to-morrow afternoonto take a cup of tea in your drawing-room, and to hear if you approveof my furnishing.”

He received one of Lisa’s ill-written letters by the next morning’spost:—

“The rooms are lovely; everything is as pretty as a picture or a dream;but why did you not come this afternoon to let us thank you? To-morrowis so far off.”

This little letter induced punctuality. He was at Lisa’s door on thestroke of the hour. The afternoon light was shining in at the southwindows. The sun shone golden over the western river. There weredaffodils in a glass vase on the little white-wood table in the oriel,and the new cups and saucers that he had chosen were set out upon abamboo table with many shelves. Aunt and niece were neatly dressedin their black merino gowns, and the little boy was playing with aset of bricks in a corner of the room, silently happy. Aunt and niecepoured out their gratitude in a gush of Italian and English, curiouslyintermixed. Never was anything so pretty as this house of theirs; neverso noble a benefactor as Vansittart. He could but feel happy in seeingtheir happiness. He had never been so near forgetting that scene ofblood in the Venetian caffè.

He stayed for an hour or so, sipped half a cup of straw-coloured teawhich Lisa fondly believed was made in the English manner, and thendeparted, promising to call again when he had found a singing-master.

“I shall be very particular in my choice, Signora,” he said gaily.“First and foremost, the Maestro must be old and ugly, lest you shouldfall in love with him; next, he must be a genius, for he is to teachyou in a year what most people take three years to learn; and he mustbe a neglected genius, because we want to get him cheap.”

“I wish the good little man who taught me the mandoline were inLondon,” said Lisa.

Vansittart could not echo that wish, since the good little man mustneeds know the story of that midnight in the caffè, and he wanted nosuch Venetian in London.

“We shall find some one better than your professor,” he answered; “andthat reminds me I have never heard you play on your mandoline.”

“Would you like?” asked Lisa, sparkling with almost as happy[Pg 113] a smileas he remembered when she sat at the little table in the crowded BlackHat, before the beginning of trouble.

The mandoline was hanging against the wall, decked with a bunch ofribbons, red, white, and green. She took it down, and seated herself bythe window, in the sunlight, and began to tinkle out “Batti, batti,” inthin, wiry tones, while the boy left his bricks on the floor and cameand stood at her knee, open-mouthed, open-eyed, intently listening.

“Sing, Lisa, sing,” said la Zia.

Lisa laughed, blushed, looked shyly at Vansittart, as if she feared hiscritical powers, and then began that tenderest melody in a fresh youngvoice, whose every note was round and ripe and full of power. Nor wasthe singer lacking in expression; the tender legato passages were givenwith a pleading pathos that touched the listener almost to tears.

“Brava, Signora mia!” he cried, at the end of the song. “Your voice isworlds too good to be drowned in a middle-aged chorus. To my ear yousing ‘Batti, batti,’ as well as the most famous Zerlina I ever heard.Two years hence, or sooner perhaps, we shall have the new Venetianprima donna, Signora Vivanti, taking the town by storm. But we mustmake haste, and find our Maestro, able to coach you in all the greatoperas.”

He had to explain that word coach to Lisa, whose knowledge of Englishhad made rapid progress during her residence in the country, and whohad a quick apprehension of every new word or phrase.

He left her, charmed at the discovery that she could sing so well,and that her future was therefore so full of hope. He was pleasedwith her gentleness, her simplicity, her frank acceptance of hisfriendly services, pleased most of all by the thought that by hisprotection of these two lonely women he was in some measure atoning forhis crime. Yet there were points upon which his conscience remainedunsatisfied—questions that he wanted to ask—and to this end hedropped in upon the little family on the third floor three or fourtimes before the Easter holidays.

He was not long in finding the ideal singing-master. An application toone of the chief music publishers and concert-givers brought him inrelation with a Milanese musician, who played the ’cello at the Apollo,the new opera-house on the Embankment—the very man Vansittart wanted,ugly enough to satisfy the most jealous husband, elderly, but not oldenough to fall asleep in the middle of a lesson; a man of character andtalent, but not one of Fortune’s favourites, and therefore willing togive lessons on moderate terms.

This gentleman’s opinion of Signora Vivanti’s voice was mostencouraging, and his manner of expressing that opinion seemed so modestand conscientious that Vansittart was fain to believe him.

[Pg 114]

“La Signora is absolutely ignorant of music,” said the Professor, “butif she is industrious and persevering she has a fortune in her throat.”

Lisa took very kindly to the Professor, and showed no lack of industry.She was an obedient pupil, and worked very patiently at her piano,which was a much harder ordeal for the untrained fingers than thesolfeggi were for the birdlike voice. All her hours unclaimed by thetheatre were free for study, since la Zia bore the whole burden ofhousehold cares, the marketing and cooking, and the looking after thelittle boy.

One afternoon, shortly before Easter, Vansittart, calling after aweek’s interval, was admitted by Lisa instead of by her aunt, whousually opened the door.

La Zia had gone into London in quest of certain Italian comestibles,only procurable in the foreign settlements of Soho, and Fiordelisa wasalone with her boy. It was an opportunity that Vansittart had beenhoping for, the chance of questioning her about the dead man, whosemanes, though in some wise propitiated as he thought, had a trick ofhaunting him now and again.

“Lisa,” he began gently, forgetting that he had forbidden himself thatfamiliar address, “there is something that I want to talk about—if—ifI were sure it would not grieve you too much. I want you to tellme—more—about the man you loved—the man I killed. I know what sorrowhis death brought upon you; but, tell me, was there no one else togrieve for him? Had he no kindred in England—father, mother, brothers,sisters?”

“I think not,” she answered gravely. “He never spoke of any one inEngland, never at least as if he cared for any one. His mother wasdead. I know as much as that. For the rest, he told me hardly anythingabout himself; except that he had been away from England for a goodmany years, and that he was not fond of England or English people.”

“He was called John Smith. Do you think that was his real name?”

“I don’t know. I never heard of any other.”

“And in all the time you were associated with him did he write noletters to English friends, nor receive letters from England?”

“None that I ever saw.”

“And after his lamentable death were there no inquiries made about him?Did no one come to Venice in search of a missing friend or relative?”

“No one. Except la Zia and me there was no one who cared—no one whowas any the worse for his death. He had only us in all the world, Ithink.”

[Pg 115]

“But when he came first to Burano he came with people—friends—youtold me.”

“He came with a party of Americans who were staying at the Hôtel deRome. They were nothing to him. They had left Venice when he came toBurano the second time.”

“Do you know where he had been living before he came to Venice?”

“Living nowhere—wandering about the earth, he told me, like Satan.That is what he said of himself. He had been in Africa—in America. Hecalled himself a rolling stone. He told me that it was only for my sakehe was content to live six months in the same place.”

“Had he no friends in Venice?”

“None, except the people with whom he used to play cards at the caffèsof an evening. Sometimes he would bring two or three strangers to oursalon, and they would sit playing cards half the night, while la Ziaand I used to fall asleep in a corner, and wake to find the morninglight creeping in through the shutters. Sometimes he won a heap of goldin a single night, and then he was so kind, so kind, and he would giveus presents, la Zia and me, and we had champagne for dinner next day.Sometimes, but not often, he had bad luck for a whole night, and thatused to make him angry.”

“Did he never tell you where he was born and reared, or what kind oflife he led before he took to wandering over the face of the earth?”

“Never. He did not like to talk about England or his early life.”

Never! There was no more to be heard. There was infinite relief toVansittart’s mind in this blank history. The life he had taken wasan isolated life—a bubble on the stream of time, that burst, andvanished. He had broken no mother’s heart; he had desolated no home; hehad made no gap in a family circle. The man had been a worthless nomad;and his death had brought sorrow upon no one but this peasant and herkinswoman.

Their wounds were healed; their lives were made happy; and so there wasan end of his crime and its consequences. Fate had been very good tohim. He walked back to Charles Street with his burden so far lightenedthat he thought he might come eventually to forget that he had evertaken a fellow-creature’s life, that he had ever carried about with himany guilty secret.

Easter was close at hand, and he was to spend Easter at Redwold Towers,within walking distance of Eve Marchant’s cottage. Easter was to decidehis fate, perhaps.

“ONE THREAD IN LIFE WORTH SPINNING.”

Vansittart’s heart was lighter than it had been for a long time, theday he left Charles Street for Waterloo on his way to Haslemere. Helonged to see Eve Marchant, with all a lover’s longing, and he toldhimself that he had tested his own heart severely enough by an absenceof three months, and that he had now only to discover whether thelady’s heart was in any way responsive to his own. He knew now that hislove for Eve Marchant was no passing fancy, no fever of the moment;and he also told himself that if he could be fairly assured of herworthiness to be his wife, he would lose no time in offering himself asher husband. Of her father’s character, whatever it might be, of herpresent surroundings, however sordid and shabby, he would take no heed.He would ask only if she were pure and true and frank and honest enoughfor an honest man’s wife. Convinced on that point, he would ask no more.

An honest man’s wife? Was he an honest man? Was he going to give hertruth in exchange for truth? Was there nothing that he must needs holdback; no secret in his past life that he must keep till his life’s end?Yes, there was one secret. He was not going to tell her of his Venetianadventure. It would grieve her woman’s heart too much to know that theman she loved had to bear the burden of another man’s blood. Nay, more,with a woman’s want of logic she might deem that impulse of a momentmurder, and might refuse to give herself to a man who bore that stainupon his past.

He meant to keep his secret. He could trust Lisa not to betray him.She and her kinswoman had pledged themselves to silence; and over andabove the obligation of that promise he had bound them both to him byhis services, had made their lives in some wise dependent on his ownwelfare. No, he had no fear of treachery from them. Nor had he anyfear of what the chances of time and change might bring upon him fromany other belongings of the dead man—so evidently had his been oneof those isolated existences which drop out of life unlamented andunremembered. He was safe on all sides; and the one lie in his life,the lie which he began when he told his mother that he had not been toVenice, must be maintained steadily, whatever conscience might urgeagainst it.

Easter came late this year, and April, the sunny, the showery, thecapricious, was flinging her restless lights and shadows over themeadows and copses as he drove from the station. He had to passFernhurst on his way to Redwold Towers, and it was yet early[Pg 117] in theafternoon as he drove past the quaint little cottage post-office inthe dip of the hill, the tiny graveyard on the higher ground, thechurch and parsonage. It was early enough for afternoon-tea, and hehad no need to hurry to Redwold. His sister had sent a groom with adog-cart instead of coming to meet him in her capacious landau, a lackof attention for which he was grateful, since it left him his ownmaster. He would have been less than human if he had not stopped at theHomestead, and being in his present frame of mind very human, he pulledup the eager homeward-going horse at the little wooden gate, and flungthe reins to the groom.

“I am going to make a call here; wait five minutes, and if I am not outby that time take the horse to the inn and put him up for an hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

How lightly his feet mounted the steep garden path between the trim boxborders! There were plenty of flowers in the garden now—sweet-smellinghyacinths, vivid scarlet tulips with wide open chalices, half full ofrain; a snowy mesphilus flinging about its frail white blooms in thesoft west wind; a crimson rhododendron making a blaze of colour.

The long, low cottage, with its massive porch, was covered withflowering creepers, yellow jasmine, pale pink japonica, scented whitehoneysuckle. The cottage looked like a bower, and seemed to smile athim as he went up the path. He had a childish fancy that he wouldrather live in that cottage with Eve for his wife than at Merewood,which was one of the prettiest and most convenient houses of moderatesize in all Hampshire. What dwelling could ever be so dear as thisquaint old cottage, bent under the burden of its disproportionatethatch, with lattice windows peeping out at odd levels, and withdormers like gigantic eyes under penthouse lids?

She was at home; everybody was at home, even that undomestic bird, theColonel. They were all at tea in their one spacious parlour—windowsopen, and all the perfume of flowers and growing hedgerows and buddingtrees blowing into the room.

Colonel Marchant welcomed him with marked cordiality. The girls wereevidently pleased at his coming.

“How good of you to call on us on your way from the station!” saidSophy. “Lady Hartley told us you were to be met by the afternoon train.”

Lo, a miracle! The five Miss Marchants were all dressedalike—severely, in darkest blue serge. The red Garibaldis, the yellowand brown stripes, the scarlet, the magenta, the Reckitt’s blue, whichhad made their sitting-room a battle-field of crude colours, had allvanished. In darkest serge, with neat white linen collars,[Pg 118] the MissMarchants stood before him, a family to whose attire the severest tastecould not object.

Eve was the most silent of the sisters, but she had blushed vividly athis advent, and she was blushing still. She blushed at every word headdressed to her, and seemed to find a painful difficulty in handlingthe teapot and cups and saucers when she resumed her post at thetea-tray.

Vansittart asked them for the news of the neighbourhood. How had theymanaged to amuse themselves after the frost, when there was no moreskating?

“We were awfully sorry,” said Sophy, “but the hunting men were awfullyglad.”

“And had you any more balls?”

“No public ball—but there were a good many dances,” with half a sigh.“Lady Hartley gave one just before Lent, the only one to which we wereinvited, and I am happy to say it was out and away the best.”

“Lady Hartley has been more than kind to us,” said Eve, finding speechat last. “She is the most charming woman I ever met. You must be veryproud of such a sister.”

“I am proud to know that you like her,” answered Vansittart, in a lowvoice.

He was sitting at her elbow, helping her by handing the cups andsaucers, and very conscious that her hand trembled when it touched his.

“My daughter is right,” said the Colonel, with a majestic air; “LadyHartley is the one lady in this neighbourhood—the one womanly woman.She saw my girls ignored, and she has made it her business to convinceher neighbours that they are a little too good for such treatment.Other people have been prompt to follow her lead.”

“Oh, but it’s not for that we care. It is Lady Hartley’s friendship wevalue, not her influence on other people,” protested Eve eagerly.

“We are going to Redwold to-morrow afternoon,” said Jenny; “but I don’tsuppose we shall see you, Mr. Vansittart. You will be shooting, orfishing, or something.”

“Shooting there is none, Miss Vansittart. The pheasants are a free andunfettered company in the copses, among the primroses and dog-violets.Man is no longer their enemy. And I never felt the angler’s passionsince I fished for sticklebacks in the shrubbery at home.”

The Colonel chimed in at this point, as if thinking the conversationtoo childish.

He began to discuss the political situation—the chances of a[Pg 119]by-election which was to come on directly after Easter. He expressedhimself with the ferocity of an old-fashioned Tory. He would giveno quarter to the enemy. He had just returned from Paris, he toldVansittart, and had seen what it was to live under a mobocracy.

“They have been obliged to shut up one of their theatres—cut shortthe run of the finest play that has been produced in the last decade,simply because their sans culottes object to any disparagement ofRobespierre. There are a dozen incipient Robespierres in Paris at thisday, I believe, only waiting for opportunity to burst into full bloom.”

He had been to Paris, then, thought Vansittart. He could afford to takehis pleasure in that holiday capital, while his daughters were on shortcommons at Fernhurst.

“Was Paris very full?” asked Vansittart.

“I hardly know. I met a good many people I know. One meets moreEnglishmen than Parisians on the boulevards at this season. Aprilis the Englishman’s month. Your neighbour, Mr. Sefton, was at theContinental—in point of fact, he and I went to Paris together.”

This explained matters to Vansittart. No doubt Sefton paid the billsfor both travellers.

“Mr. Sefton is not a neighbour of mine, but of my sister’s,” he said.“My father and his father were good friends before I was born, but Iknow nothing of this gentleman.”

“A mutual loss,” replied the Colonel. “Sefton is a very fine fellow, asI told you the last time you were here. You can hardly fail to get onwith him when you do make his acquaintance.”

“I saw him at the hunt ball, and I must confess that I was notfavourably impressed by his manner.”

“Sefton’s manner is the worst part of him,” conceded Colonel Marchant.“He has been spoilt by Dame Fortune, and is inclined to be arrogant.An only child, brought up in the expectation of wealth, and taught bya foolish mother to believe that a landed estate and a fine incomeconstitute a kind of royalty. Sefton might easily be a worse fellowthan he is. For my own part, I cannot speak too warmly of him. He hasbeen a capital neighbour, the best neighbour we had, until Lady Hartleywas good enough to take a fancy to my girls.”

“I hope you don’t compare Lady Hartley with Mr. Sefton, father,” criedthe impulsive Hetty. “There is more kindness in a cup of tea from LadyHartley than in all the game, and fruit, and trout, and things withwhich Mr. Sefton loads us.”

“They are enthusiasts, these girls of mine,” said the Colonel, blandly.“Lady Hartley has made them her creatures.”

[Pg 120]

“Her name reminds me that I must be moving on,” said Vansittart. “Ihope you will all forgive this invasion. I was anxious to learn how youall were. It seems a long time since I was in this part of the world.”

“It is a long time,” said Eve, almost involuntarily.

Those few words rejoiced his heart. They sounded like a confessionthat she had missed him and regretted him, since those long friendlywalks and talks in the clear cold January afternoons. He had never inall their conversation spoken to her in the words of a lover, but hehad shown her that he liked her society, and it might be that she hadthought him cold and cowardly when he left her without any token ofwarmer feeling than this casual friendship of the roads, lanes, andfamily tea-table. To go away, and stay away for three months, and makeno sign! A cruel treatment, if, if, in those few familiar hours, he hadtouched her girlish heart by the magnetic power of unspoken love.

He left the Homestead happy in the thought that she was not indifferentto the fact of his existence; that he was something more to her than acasual acquaintance.

He was to see her next day; and it would be his own fault if he didnot see her the day after that; and the next, and the next; until thesolemn question had been asked, and the low-breathed answer had beengiven, and she was his for ever. All was in his own hand now. He hadbut to satisfy himself upon one point—her acquaintance with Sefton,what it meant, and how far it had gone—and then the rest was peace,the perfect peace of happy and confiding love.

He was unfilial enough to be glad that his mother was not at Redwold.There would be no restraining influence, no maternal arm stretched outto pluck him from his fate. He would be free to fulfil his destiny; andwhen the fair young bride was won, it would be easy for her to win herown way into that motherly heart. Mrs. Vansittart was not a woman towithhold her affection from her son’s wife.

Lady Hartley appeared in the portico as the cart drove up to the door.

“What a fright you have given me!” she said. “Did anything happen tothe train?”

“Nothing but what usually happens to trains.”

“But you are an hour late.”

“I called on Colonel Marchant. It never occurred to me that you couldbe uneasy on my account, or I should not have stopped on the way. I amvery sorry, my dear Maud,” he concluded, as he kissed her in the hall.

“You are not cured of your infatuation, Jack.”

[Pg 121]

“Not cured, or likely to be cured, in your way. I have heard nothingbut your praises, Maud. You seem to have been a fairy godmother tothose motherless girls.”

“Have I not? How did you like their appearance? Did you see anyimprovement?”

“A monstrous improvement. They were all neatly dressed, and in onecolour.”

“That was my doing, Jack.”

“Really! But how did you manage it, without wounding their feelings?”

“My tact, Jack, my exquisite tact,” cried Maud, gaily.

They were in her morning-room by this time, and Vansittart sank into alow armchair, prepared to hear all she had to tell. Maud had generallya great deal to say to her brother after an interval of severance.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” she began. “It grieved me to seethose poor girls in their coats of many colours, or rather in theirassemblage of colours among the five sisters, so I felt I must dosomething. I was always looking at them, and thinking how muchbetter I could dress them than they dressed themselves, and quite aseconomically, mark you. So one day I said casually that I thoughtsisters—youthful sisters understood—looked to particular advantagewhen they were all dressed exactly alike, whereupon Eve, who iscandour itself”—Vansittart’s heart thrilled at this praise—“declaredherself entirely of my opinion, but she explained that she and hersisters had very little money to dress upon, and they were all greatbargain-hunters, and could get most wonderful bargains at the greatdrapery sales, if they were not particular in their choice of colours.‘And that is how we always look like a ragged regiment,’ said Eve, ‘butwe certainly get good value for our poor little scraps of money.’”

“A girl who ought to be dressed like a duch*ess,” sighed Vansittart.

“Well, on this I read her one of my lay sermons. I told her that sofar from getting good value for her money, she got very bad value forher money; that she and her sisters, in their thirst for stuff at ashilling a yard, reduced from three and sixpence, made themselves ina manner queens of shreds and patches. She was very ready to admitthe force of my reasoning, poor child. And then she pleaded thather sisters were so young—they had no control over their feelingswhen they found themselves in a great drapery show. It seemed a kindof fairyland, where things were being given away. And then such ascramble, she tells me, women almost fighting with each other foreligible bits of stuff and last season’s finery. I told her that I hadhardly ever seen the inside of a big shop, and that I hated shopping.‘What,’ she cried, ‘you who are rich! I thought you would enjoy itabove all things.’ I told her no; that Lewis and[Pg 122] Allanby sent me oneof their people, and I chose my gown from a pattern-book, and thefitter came and tried it on, and I had no more trouble about it; orthat I went to my dressmaker, and just looked over her newest things ina quiet drawing-room, without any of the distracting bustle of a greatshop.”

“My sweetest Maud, what a dear little snob she must have thought you!”

“I don’t think she did. She seemed pleased to know my ways. And thenI told her that I should like to see her and her sisters all dressedalike, in one of my favourite colours; and then I told her that I knewof a most meritorious family—invented that moment—who were goingto Australia, and whom I wanted to help. ‘In a colony, those brightcolours your sisters wear would be most suitable,’ I said. ‘Will youmake an exchange with me—just in a friendly way—give me as many ofyour bright gowns as you can spare, and I will give you a piece of goodserge and a piece of the very best cloth in exchange?’”

“Did she stand that?” asked Vansittart.

“Not very well. She looked at me for a moment or two, blushedfuriously, and then got up and walked to the window, and stood therewith her back towards me. I knew that she was crying. I went over toher and put my arm round her neck and kissed her as if she had been myfirst cousin. I begged her to forgive me if I had offended. ‘I reallywant to help those poor girls who are going to Melbourne,’ I said; ‘andyour bargains would be just the thing for them. They could get nothinghalf as good for the same money.’ I felt ashamed of myself the nextmoment. I had lied so well that she believed me.”

“Never mind, Maud; the motive was virtuous.”

“‘No, they couldn’t,’ she said; ‘not till next July. The sales areall over.’ And then, after a little more argument, she yielded, andit was agreed that I should drive over to the Homestead next morning,and we would hold a review of the frocks and furbelows, and whateverwas suitable for my Australian emigrants I should take, giving thesisters fair value in exchange. Eve stipulated that it should beonly fair value. Well, the review was capital fun. The girls werecharming—evidently proud of their finery, expatiating upon themiraculous cheapness of this and that, and the genuineness of the salesat the best houses. They had sales on the brain, I think. Of course Ileft them all the gay frocks suitable for home evenings; but I swoopedlike a vulture on their outdoor finery. I had taken a large portmanteauover with me, and we crammed it with frocks and fichus and Zouavejackets for my Australians. I am sorry to say the portmanteau is stillupstairs in the box-room. And now, Jack, you know the history of theserge frocks.”

[Pg 123]

“You are a dear little diplomatist; but I’m afraid you must havemade Miss Marchant suffer a good deal before your transmutation wasaccomplished.”

“My dear Jack, that girl is destined for suffering—of that kind; smallsocial stings, the sense of the contrast between her surroundings andthose of other girls no better born, only better off.”

“She will marry and forget these evil days,” said Vansittart.

“Let us hope so; but let us hope that she will not marry you.”

“Why should you—or any one—hope that?”

“Because it ain’t good enough, Jack; believe me, it ain’t. She is asweet girl—but her father’s character is the opposite of sweet. Huberthas made inquiries, and has been told, by men on whose good faith hecan rely, that the Colonel is a black-leg; that there is hardly anydishonourable act that a man can do, short of felony, which ColonelMarchant has not done. He is well known in London, where he spends thegreater part of his time. He is a hanger-on of rich young men. He showsthem life. He wins their money—and like that other hanger-on, theleech, he drops away from them when he is gorged and they are empty.Can you choose the daughter of such a man for your wife?”

“I can, and do choose her, above all other women; and if she is as pureand true as I believe her to be, I shall ask her to be my wife. Themore disreputable her father, the gladder I shall be to take her awayfrom him——”

“And when her father is your father-in-law how will you deal with him?”

“Leave that problem to me. I am not an idiot, or a youth fresh from theUniversity. I shall know how to meet the difficulty.”

“You will not have that man at Merewood, Jack,” cried Maud, excitedly,“to loaf about my mother’s garden—the garden that is hers now—and toplay cards in my mother’s drawing-room?”

“You are running on very fast, Maud. No; if I marry Eve Marchant beassured I shall not keep open house for her father. He has not been sogood a parent as to make his claim indisputable.”

“Such a marriage will break mother’s heart,” sighed Maud.

“You know better than that, Maud! You know that only a disreputablemarriage would seriously distress my mother, and there can be nothingdisreputable in a marriage with a good and pure-minded girl. I promiseyou that I will not offer myself to Eve Marchant until I feel assuredof her perfect truth. There is only one point upon which I have theshadow of a doubt. It seemed to me, from certain trifling indications,that there had been some kind of flirtation between her and Sefton.”

“I cannot quite make that out, Jack,” answered Maud, thoughtfully.“I have seen them together several times since you left.[Pg 124] There iscertainly something, on his side. He pursues her in a manner—contrivesto place himself near her at every opportunity, and puts on aconfidential air when he talks to her. I have watched them closely inher interest, for I really like her. I don’t think she encourages him.Indeed I believe she detests him; but she is not as stand-offish as shemight be; and I have seen her occasionally talking very confidentiallywith him—as if they had a secret understanding.”

“That’s it,” cried Vansittart, inwardly raging. “There is a secret, andI must be possessed of that secret before I confess my love.”

“And how do you propose to pluck out the heart of the mystery?”

“In the simplest manner—by questioning Eve herself. If she is thewoman I think her she will answer me truthfully. If she is false andshifty—why then—I whistle her down the wind, and you will never hearmore of this fond dream of mine.”

“Well, Jack, you must go your own way. You were always my master, and Ican’t pretend to master you now. You’ll have an opportunity of seeingEve and Mr. Sefton to-morrow. He is coming to my afternoon. I hopeyou’ll be civil to him.”

“As civil as I can. I’ll break no bounds, Maud; but I believe the manto be a scoundrel. If he were pursuing Eve with any good motive hewould have spoken out before now.”

“Precisely my view of the case. It is shameful to compromise her bymotiveless attentions. There goes the gong. I am glad we have had thisquiet talk. You will not act precipitately, will you, Jack?” concludedhis sister, appealingly, as she moved towards the door.

“I will act as I have said, Maud, not otherwise.”

“Well,” with a sigh, “I believe she will come through the ordeal, andthat I am destined to have her for my sister.”

“You have made her love you already. That leaves less work for you inthe future.”

“Poor mother! She will be woefully disappointed.”

“True,” said Vansittart; “but as I couldn’t marry all her protégées,perhaps it is just as well I should marry none of them; and be assuredI should not love Eve Marchant if I didn’t believe that she would be agood and loving daughter to my mother.”

“Every lover believes as much. It is all nonsense,” said Maud, as sheran off to her dressing-room.

Mr. Sefton made an early appearance at Lady Hartley’s afternoon. Hearrived before the Marchants, and when there were only about a dozenpeople in the long drawing-room, and Vansittart guessed by the way heloitered near a window overlooking the drive that he was on the watchfor the sisters.

[Pg 125]

Lady Hartley introduced her brother to Mr. Sefton, with the respectdue to the owner of one of the finest estates in the county, a manof old family and aristocratic connections. Sefton was particularlycordial, and began to make conversation in the most amiable way, a mannot renowned for amiability to his equals. The Miss Marchants wereannounced while he and Vansittart were talking, and Sefton’s attentionbegan to wander immediately, although he continued the discussion ofhopes and fears about that by-election which was disturbing everypolitician’s mind; or which at any rate served as a topic among peoplewho had nothing to say to each other.

Only two out of the three grown-up sisters appeared, Eve and Jenny.The more diplomatic Sophy thought she improved her social status byoccasional absence.

Sefton broke away from the conversation at the first opening, and wentstraight to Eve, who was talking to little Mr. Tivett, arrived thatafternoon, no holidays being complete in a country house without such aman as Tivett, with his little thin voice, good nature, and willing tofetch and carry for the weaker sex.

Vansittart stood aloof for a little while, talking to a comfortablematron, who was evidently attached to the landed interest, as herconversation dwelt upon the weather in its relation to agriculture andthe lambing season. He could see that Eve received Sefton’s advanceswith coldest politeness. On her part there was no touch of the earnestand confidential air which had so distressed him that afternoon by thelake. She talked with Sefton for a few minutes, and then turned away,and walked into the adjoining room, where the wide French window stoodopen to the garden. Vansittart seized his opportunity and followed her.He found her with her sister, looking at a pile of new books on a largetable in a corner, and he speedily persuaded them that the flower-bedsoutside were better worth looking at than magazines and books whichwere no less ephemeral than the tulips and hyacinths.

He walked up and down the terrace with them for nearly half an hour,but never a hint of anything more than lightest society talk gave hein all that time. He had made up his mind to speak only after gravestdeliberation, only in the calmest hour, when they two should be alonetogether under God’s quiet sky; but he so managed matters that Mr.Sefton had no further opportunity of offering his invidious attentionsto Eve Marchant that afternoon. It was Vansittart who found seats forher and her sister in the drawing-room; it was Vansittart who carriedtheir teacups, assisted only by Mr. Tivett, who tripped about withplates of chocolate biscuits, and buttered buns, with such activity asto appear ubiquitous.

The next day was Good Friday, a day of long church services and novisitors. On Saturday Vansittart went to Liss to spend the[Pg 126] day withhis mother, and to make a tour of grounds and home farm, a round ofgrave inspection which the mother and son took together, and duringwhich they talked of many things, but not of Eve Marchant. If Mrs.Vansittart wondered that her son should have chosen to spend the recessat Redwold rather than at Merewood, she was too discreet to expresseither wonder or dissatisfaction. She was going to Charles Streetdirectly after Easter, and Jack was to join her there for the Londonseason; so she had no ground for dolefulness in being deprived of hissociety for just this one week.

She found him looking well, and, to her fancy, happier than he hadlooked for a long time. There was a ring of gaiety in his voice andlaugh which she had missed of late years, and which she heard againto-day. They lunched together, and she drove him to the station in thelate afternoon.

“It delights me to see you looking so well and so happy, Jack,” shesaid, as they walked up and down the platform.

“Does it, mother?” he asked earnestly. “Is my happiness really enoughto gladden you? Are you content that I should be happy in my own way?”

There were some moments of silence, and then she said gravely, “Yes,Jack, I am content, for I cannot believe that your way would be afoolish way. You have seen enough of the world to judge between goldand dross, and you are not the kind of man to plunge wilfully into amorass, led by false lights.”

“No, no, mother, you may be sure of that. My star shall be a truestar—no Jack o’ Lantern.”

The train steamed in opportunely, and cut short the conversation; butenough had been said, Vansittart thought, to break the ice; and itwas evident to him that his mother had an inkling of the course whichevents were taking.

The next day was Easter Sunday, a day when the morning sun is saidto dance upon the waters; a day when the dawn seems more glorious,when the flowers that deck the churches seem fairer than mere earthlyflowers, when the swelling chords of the organ and the voices even ofthe village choir have a sweetness that suggests the heavenly chorus.To John Vansittart, at least, among those who worshipped in the villagechurch that Easter Day, there seemed a gladness in all things—a pureand thrilling gladness as of minds attuned to holiness and ready tobelieve. He had read much of that new and widening school of thoughtwhich is gradually sapping the old foundations and pulling down the oldbulwarks; but there was no remembrance of that modern school in hismind to-day as he stood up in the village church to join in the Easterhymn. His thoughts had resumed the simplicity of early years. He wasable to believe and to pray like a little child.

[Pg 127]

He prayed to be forgiven for that unpremeditated sin of which the worldknew not. He prostrated himself in heart and mind at the feet of theChrist who died for sinners. But he did not go to the Altar. The EasterCommunion was not for him whose hands were stained with blood.

The Marchants were at the morning service, all five of them, fresh andblooming after their long walk, a bunch of English roses, redder orpaler as Nature had painted each. Eve, tallest, fairest, loveliest, wasconspicuous among the sisters.

“By Jove! how handsome that girl is!” whispered little Tivett, as heducked to put away his hat.

He and Vansittart were sitting apart from the rest, the Redwold pewbeing full without them.

“I want to walk home with them after church,” whispered Vansittart,also intent upon the disposal of the Sunday cylinder. “Will you cometoo?”

“With pleasure.”

This was before the service began, before the priest and choir had comeinto the chancel.

The service was brief, a service of jubilant hymns and anthem andshort flowery sermon, flowery as the chancel and altar, and pulpit andfont, in all their glory of arums, azaleas, spireas, and lilies of thevalley. The church clock was striking twelve as the major part of thecongregation poured out. There was a row of carriages in the road, twoof them from Redwold Towers; but Vansittart and Tivett declined theaccommodation of landau or waggonette.

“We are going for a long walk,” said Mr. Tivett. “It’s such a perfectday.”

“But you will lose your lunch, if you go too far.”

“We must risk that, and make amends at afternoon-tea.”

“Tivett,” said Vansittart, when the carriages had driven off, “I amgoing to make a martyr of you. It will be three o’clock at the earliestwhen we get back to Redwold, and I know you enjoy your luncheon. It’sreally too bad.”

“Do you think I regret the sacrifice in the cause of friendship? Therego the Marchant girls, steaming on ahead. We had better overhaul themat once. Don’t mind me, Vansittart. I have been doing gooseberry eversince I wore Eton jackets. Only one word—Is it serious?”

“Very serious—sink or swim—Heaven or Hades.”

“And all in honour?”

“All in honour.”

“Then I am with you to the death. You want a long walk and a long talkwith Miss Marchant; and you want me to take the whole bunch of sistersoff your hands.”

[Pg 128]

“Just so, my best of friends.”

“Consider it done.”

They overtook the young ladies in the dip of the road, where alane branches off to Bexley Hill. Here they stopped to shake handsall round, and to talk of the church, and the weather—quite themost exquisite Easter Sunday that any of them could remember, orcould remember that they remembered, for no doubt memory severelyinterrogated would have recalled Easter Days as fair.

“Mr. Tivett and I are pining for a long walk,” said Vansittart, “so weare going to see you home—if you will let us—or, if you are not tiedfor time, will you join us in a ramble on Bexley Hill? It is just theday for the hill—the views will be splendid—and I know that you youngladies are like Atalanta. Distance cannot tire you!”

“We could hardly help being good walkers,” said Sophy, ratherdiscontentedly. “Walking is our only amusem*nt.”

Hetty and Peggy clapped their hands. “Bexley Hill, Bexley Hill,” theycried; “hands up for Bexley Hill.”

There were no hands lifted, but they all turned into the lane.

“We can go a little way just to look at the view,” assented Eve; andthe younger girls went skipping off in their short petticoats, andthe two elder girls were speedily absorbed in Mr. Tivett’s animatedconversation, and Eve and Vansittart were walking alone.

“A little way.” Who could measure distance or count the minutes in suchan exhilarating atmosphere as breathed around that wooded hillsidein the balmy April morning? Every step seemed to take them into afiner air, and to lift their hearts with an increasing gladness. Allaround them rippled the sea of furze and heather, broken by patchesof woodland, and grassy glades that were like bits stolen out of theNew Forest, and flung down here upon this swelling hillside. Here andthere a squatter’s cottage, with low cob wall and steep tiled roof,stood snug and sheltered in its bit of garden, under the shadow ofa venerable beech or oak—here and there a little knot of childrensprawled and sunned themselves in front of a cottage door. The rest wassilence and solitude, save for the voices of those rare birds whichinhabit forest and common land.

“Gussie,” whispered Vansittart, when they had passed one of thesehumble homesteads, and were ascending the crest of the hill, “do youthink you could contrive to lose yourself—and the girls—for half anhour?”

“Of course I can. You will have to cooey for us when you want to seeour faces again.”

This little conversation occurred in the rear of the five girls, whohad scattered themselves over the hillside, every one believing in herown particular track as the briefest and best ascent.

[Pg 129]

Eve had climbed highest of all the sisters, by a path so narrow, andso hemmed in by bramble and hawthorn, that only one, and that one adexterous climber, could mount at a time.

Vansittart followed her desperately, pushing aside the brambles withhis stick. He was breathless when he reached the top, where she stoodlightly poised, like Mercury. The ascent, since he stopped to speak toTivett, had taken only ten minutes or so, but when he looked round himand downward over the billowy furze and rugged hillside there was notone vestige of Augustus Tivett or the four Miss Marchants in view.

“What can have become of them all?” questioned Eve, gazing wonderinglyaround. “I thought they were only just behind me—I heard them laughinga few minutes ago. Have they sunk into the earth, or are they hidingbehind the bushes?”

“Neither. They are only going round the other side of the hill. Theywill meet us on the top.”

“It’s very silly of them,” said Eve, obviously distressed. “There isalways some folly or mischief when Hetty is one of our party. Peggy isever so much more sensible.”

“Don’t blame poor Hetty till you are assured she is in fault. Ishouldn’t wonder if it were all Tivett’s doing. You must scold goodlittle Tivett. I hope you don’t mind being alone with me for a quarterof an hour. I have been longing for the chance of a little serious talkwith you. Shall we sit down for a few minutes on this fine old beechtrunk? You are out of breath after mounting the hill.”

She was out of breath, but the hill was not the cause. Her colour cameand went, her heart beat furiously. She was speechless with conflictingemotions—fear, joy, wonder, self-abasem*nt.

They were on the ridge of the hill. In front of them, far away towardsthe south stretched the Sussex Downs, purple in the distance, save forone pale shimmering streak of light which meant the sea. Below them laythe Sussex Weald, rippling meadows, and the vivid green of spaciousfields where the young corn showed emerald bright in the sun—poolsand winding streamlets, copses and grey fallows, cottage roofs andvillage spires, a world lovely enough for Satan to use as a lure forthe tempted.

But for Vansittart that world hardly existed. He had eyes, thoughts,comprehension for nothing but this girl who sat mutely at his side, thegraceful throat bending a little, the shy violet eyes looking at theground.

So far there had been no word of love between them, not one word,not one silent indication, such as the tender pressure of hands, oreven the looks that tell love’s story. But love was in the air theybreathed, love held them and bound them each to each, and each knew theother’s secret.

[Pg 130]

“Miss Marchant,” begun Vansittart with ceremonious gravity, “willyou forgive me if I ask you a few questions which may seem somewhatimpertinent on my part?”

This was so different from what her trembling heart had expected thatshe paled as at a sudden danger. He was watching her intently, and wasquick to perceive that pallor.

“I don’t think you would ask me anything really impertinent,” shefaltered.

“Not with an impertinent motive, be assured. Well, I must even riskoffending you. I want you to tell me frankly what you think of Mr.Sefton.”

At this the pale cheeks flushed, and she looked angry.

“I don’t like him, though he is my father’s friend, and though he isalways very kind—obtrusively kind. He has even offered Sophy and mehis horses to ride—to have the exclusive use of two of his best hacks,if father would let us ride them; but of course that was out of thequestion. We could not have accepted such a favour from any one.”

“Not from any one but an affianced lover,” said Vansittart. “Do youknow, Miss Marchant, when I first saw you and Mr. Sefton together atthe ball I thought you must be engaged.”

“How very foolish of you!”

“He had such an air of taking possession of you, as if he had asuperior claim to your attentions.”

“Oh, that is only Mr. Sefton’s masterful way. He cannot forget theextent of his acres or the length of his pedigree.”

“But he seems—always—on such confidential terms with you.”

“I have known him a long time.”

“Yes, but his manner—to a looker-on—implies something more thanfriendship. Oh, Miss Marchant, forgive me if I presume to question you.My motive is no light one. Last January by the lake I saw you and thatman meet, with a look on both sides of a preconcerted meeting. I heard,accidentally, some few words which Mr. Sefton spoke to you, while youwere walking with him by the lake; and those words implied a secretunderstanding between you and him—something of deep interest of whichthe outer world knew nothing. Be frank with me, for pity’s sake. Speakopenly to me to-day, from heart to heart, if you never speak to meagain. Is not there something more between you and Wilfred Sefton thanan everyday friendship?”

“Yes,” she answered, “there is something more. There is a secretunderstanding—not much of a secret, but Mr. Sefton has taken advantageof it to offer me meaningless attentions which I detest, and which, Idare say, ill-natured people may talk about. They[Pg 131] would be sure tothink that Mr. Sefton could have no serious intentions about me, thathe was only carrying on an idle flirtation.”

“And if he were serious—if he asked you to be his wife?”

“To live in that grand house; to rule over all those acres; to have awafer-space on that long pedigree! Could Colonel Marchant’s daughterrefuse such a chance?”

“Would Colonel Marchant’s daughter accept it?”

“Not this daughter,” answered Eve, gaily. “I might hand him on toSophy, perhaps. Poor Sophy hankers after the pomps and vanities of thiswicked world.”

Her gaiety delighted her lover. It told of an unburdened conscience—aheart at peace with itself.

“Tell me what it was you overheard, Mr. Eavesdropper, that afternoon bythe lake?” she asked.

“I heard him say to you, very earnestly, ‘It was a false scent, yousee;’ and then he expressed his sorrow for your disappointment.”

“You have a good memory. I, too, remember those words, ‘It was a falsescent.’ It was. He had need to be sorry for my disappointment, for hehad cheated me with false hopes.”

“About what? About whom?”

“About my brother.”

“Your brother? I did not know you had a brother.”

“We don’t talk about him in a general way. He has been a wanderer overthe earth for many years. He was never with us at Fernhurst. He and myfather had a terrible quarrel before we left Yorkshire—chiefly abouthis college debts, I believe. There seemed to be dreadful difficultiesat Cambridge. My father used all his influence to get poor Haroldout of the country, and succeeded in getting him a berth in the CapeMounted Police. Parting with him perhaps went nearer to break mymother’s heart than our loss of home and fortune.”

“It must have been a hard parting.”

“It was indeed hard. He went away in disgrace. My father would notspeak to him or look at him. He lived at the Vicarage during thoselast weeks before the ship sailed away with him to Africa. The Vicarand his wife were very good to him, but everybody felt that he wasunder a cloud. I fear—I fear that he had done something very wrongat Cambridge—something for which he might have been arrested—for heseemed to be in hiding at the Vicarage. And he left one night, and wasdriven over to Hull, where he went on board a boat bound for Hamburg,and he was to sail from Hamburg for the Cape. My mother and I went tosay good-bye to him that last evening, after dark; the others were tooyoung to be told anything; they hardly remember him. He kissed us, andcried over us, and promised mother that for her sake he[Pg 132] would try todo well—that he would bear the hardest life in order to redeem hischaracter. He promised that he would write to her by every mail. Thedog-cart was at the door while he was saying this. The Vicar came intothe room to hurry him away. I have never seen my brother since thatnight.”

CHAPTER XII.

“ONE BORN TO LOVE YOU, SWEET.”

“And Mr. Sefton,” asked Vansittart, “what has he to do with this?”

“He was with my brother at Cambridge—in the same year, at the samecollege, Trinity. It was not till the year before last that he everspoke to me about Harold, or that I knew they had been friends. But onesummer afternoon when he called and happened to find me in the garden,alone—a thing that seldom happens in our family—he began to talk tome, very kindly, with a great deal of good feeling, about Harold. Hesaid he had been slow to speak about him, as he knew that he must be insome measure under a cloud. And then I told him how unhappy I was aboutmy poor brother; and how it was four or five years since anything hadbeen heard of him directly or indirectly. His last letter had told usthat he was going to join a party of young men who were just settingout upon an exploring tour in the Mashona country. They were willingto take him with them on very easy terms, as he was a fine shot, andstrong and active. He would be little better than a servant in theexpedition, he told me.”

“It was to you he wrote, then?”

“Yes, after my mother’s death, only to me. He never wrote to hisfather. I told Mr. Sefton how unhappy I was about Harold, and myfear—a growing fear—that he must be dead. He argued me out of thisterror, and told me that when a man who was leading a wild life faraway from home once let a long time slip without writing to hisrelations, the probabilities were that he would leave off writingaltogether. His experience had shown him that this was almost acertainty. And then, seeing how distressed I was, he promised thathe would try and find out Harold’s whereabouts. He told me that thenewspaper press and the electric cable had made the world a very smallworld, and that he certainly ought to be able to trace my brother’swanderings, and bring me some information about him.”

“And did he succeed?”

“No; he failed always in getting any certain knowledge of Harold’swanderings, though he did bring me some scraps of information about hisadventures in Mashonaland; but that was all news of past years—everso long ago. He could hear nothing about[Pg 133] Harold in the present—notwithin the last four years—so there was very little comfort in hisdiscoveries. Last November he told me that he had heard of a man at thediamond fields whose description seemed exactly to fit my brother, andhe thought this time he was on the right track. He wrote to an agentat Cape Town, and took every means of putting himself in communicationwith this man—both through the agent and by advertisem*nts in thelocal papers—and the result was disappointment. There was no HaroldMarchant among the diamond-seekers. That was what he had to tell me theafternoon you overheard our conversation. He had received the finalletter which assured him he had been mistaken.”

“And that was all—and verily all?” inquired Vansittart, taking herhand in his.

“That was all, and verily all.”

“And beyond that association, Mr. Sefton is nothing in the world toyou?”

“Nothing in the world.”

“And if there were some one else, quite as willing as Mr. Sefton, tohunt for this wandering brother of yours, some one else who loves youfondly”—his arm was round her now, and he was drawing her towards him,drawing the blushing cheek against his own, drawing the slender form sonear that he could hear the beating of her heart—“some one else wholongs to have you for his wife, would you listen to him, Eve? And ifthat some one else were I, would you say ‘Yes’?”

She turned to answer him, but her lips trembled and were mute. Therewas no need of speech between lovers whose very life breathed love. Hislips met hers, and took his answer there.

“Dearest, dearest, dearest,” he sighed, when that long kiss had sealedthe bond; and then they sat in silence, hand clasped in hand, in theface of the Sussex Weald, and the far-reaching Sussex Downs, and thesilvery shimmer of the distant sea.

Oh, Easter Day of deep content! Would either of these two souls everknow such perfect bliss again—the bliss of loving and being loved,while love was still a new thing?

A shrill long cooey broke the silent spell, and they both started up asif awakened out of deepest slumber.

“They are looking for us,” cried Eve, as she walked swiftly towards theother side of the ridge.

Tivett and the four girls came toiling towards her.

“Mr. Tivett has taken us a most awful round,” cried Hetty. “Hepretended to know the way, and he doesn’t know it one little bit.”

“My dear young lady,” apologized the gentle Tivett, “the truth of thematter is that I trusted to my natural genius for topography, for Ihave never been on Bexley Hill before.”

[Pg 134]

“And you pretended to pilot us, and have only led us astray.”

“Alas! sweet child, the world is full of such pilots.”

“Shall I tell them?” whispered Vansittart, at Eve’s ear.

“If you like. They will make a dreadful fuss. Can you ever put up withso many sisters-in-law?”

“I would put up with them if you had as many sisters as Hypermnestra;”and then, laughing happily, he told these four girls that they weresoon to have a sister less and a brother more.

Hetty and Peggy received the news with whooping and clapping of hands,Sophy and Jenny with polite surprise. Was there ever anything sowonderful? Nothing could have been further from their thoughts. LittleMr. Tivett skipped and frisked like a young lamb in a meadow. Had EveMarchant been his sister he could hardly have shown more delight.

The descent of the hill for Eve and Vansittart was a progress throughpure ether. They knew not that their feet touched the earth. Theywere like the greater gods and goddesses in the Homeric Olympus. Theystarted and they arrived. The labour of common mortals was not for them.

“Do you remember the legend of the blue flower of happiness which growsupon the mountain peak, and is said to fade and wither in the lowerair?” asked Vansittart, close at his fiancée’s ear. “We have found theblue flower on the hilltop, Eve. God grant that for us the heaven-bornblossom will keep its bloom even on the dull level of daily life.”

“Will our life be dull?” she questioned, in her shy sweet voice, as ifshe scarcely dared speak of her love louder than in a whisper. “I don’tthink I can ever find life dull so long as you really care for me.”

“No, Eve, life shall not be dull. It shall be as bright and varied, andas full of change and gladness, as devoted love can make it. Your youthhas not been free from care, dearest; and you have missed many of thepleasures which girls of your age demand as a right. But the arrearsshall be made up. There shall be full measure of gladness in yourmarried life, if I can make you glad. I am not what the modern worldcalls a rich man; but I am very far from poverty. I have enough for allthe real pleasures of life—for travel, and books, and music, and thedrama, and gracious surroundings, and kindly charities. The sting ofnarrow means can never touch my wife.”

“It can be a very sharp sting sometimes,” said Eve; and then, droppingagain into that shy undertone, “But if you were ever so poor, and ifyou were a working man, and we had to live in that cottage under thebeech tree, squatters, with only a key-holding, I think I could beperfectly happy.”

[Pg 135]

“Ah, that is what love always thinks, while the blue flower blooms; butwhen that mystic flower begins to fade there is some virtue in pleasantsurroundings. Years hence, when you begin to be tired of me, and theblue flower takes a greyish shade, why, we can change the scene of ourlives, wander far away, and in a new world I shall seem almost a newlover.”

“Will you ever take me to Italy?” she asked. “Italy has been the dreamof my life, but I never thought it would be realized.”

“Ah, that is just a girl’s fancy, fed by old-fashioned poets—Byron,for instance. The Italy of to-day is very disappointing, and just likeeverywhere else.”

“Oh, Mr. Vansittart!”

“Mr.!” he echoed. “Henceforward I am John, or Jack; very soon, myhusband. Never again Mr., except in your letters to tradespeople oryour orders to servants.”

“Am I really to call you Jack?”

“Really. It is the name by which I best know myself. But if you thinkit is too vulgar——”

“Vulgar; it is a lovely name. Jack! Jack!”

She repeated the monosyllable as if it were a sound of exquisitemusic, a sound on which to dwell lingeringly and lovingly for its verysweetness. To Vansittart also the name was sweet, spoken by those lips.

Colonel Marchant received Mr. Vansittart’s offer for his eldestdaughter politely, but with no excess of cordiality. He had set hishope upon a richer marriage, had encouraged Sefton’s visit to theHomestead, with the idea that he would eventually propose to Eve. Hemight not mean matrimony in the first instance, perhaps, though heobviously admired the young lady, but he would be led on and caughtbefore he was aware. Colonel Marchant had implicit faith in hisdaughter’s power to ward off any evil purpose of her admirer; andalthough he knew Sefton’s character well enough to know that he wouldnot willingly marry a penniless girl, he trusted to the power of Eve’sbeauty and personal charm to bring him to the right frame of mind.

He was too shrewd a campaigner, however, to refuse the humble sparrowin the hand for the goldfinch in the bush. Sefton had been danglingabout the family for nearly two years, and had scrupulously abstainedfrom any serious declaration; and here was a young man of good birthand breeding, with a very fair estate, who between January and Aprilhad made up his mind in the manliest fashion, and was willing to takeEve for his wife without a sixpence, and to settle three hundred a yearupon her for pin-money. Vansittart had offered himself in a frank andbusiness-like manner, had declared[Pg 136] the amount of his income, and hisanxiety to marry as soon as possible.

“We have nothing in this world to wait for,” he said.

“Except a young lady’s caprice,” answered the Colonel. “Eve will be toohappy in the pleasures of courtship to be anxious for the final step.And then there will be her trousseau to prepare. That will take time.”

“My mother can help her in all those details,” said Vansittart,thinking that in all probability his mother would have to pay for aswell as to choose the wedding finery. “We can take all that trouble offyour hands, Colonel Marchant.”

He wrote to his mother on Sunday night, when his sister’s householdand guests were hushed in their first sleep; wrote at fullest length,dwelling fondly upon the graces and perfections of her whom he hadchosen.

“She will love you dearly, if you will let her,” he wrote; “she willbe to you as a second daughter—nearer to you, perhaps, than Maud cannow be; for, if you will have it so, our lives may be spent mostlytogether, in a triple bond of love. I know not what your inclinationmay be, but for my own part I see no reason why we should not live asone household. Merewood is large enough for a much larger family thanours could be for years to come. Eve has been so long motherless thatshe would the more gladly welcome motherly love and solicitude. Thinkof it all, mother, and act in all things as may be most congenial toyourself. I would ask no sacrifices, but I do ask you to love my wife.”

This letter written, he could lay himself down to rest with anunburdened spirit, could fearlessly enter dreamland, knowing that hislove would be with him in the land of shadows.

Strange, cruel irony, that the scene of his dreams should be Venice,where he and Eve were wandering confusedly, now on land, now on sea,greatly troubled by petty disturbances, and continually losing eachother in labyrinthine streets and on slippery sea-washed stairs.Stranger still that Venice should be unlike Venice, and indeed unlikeany place he had ever seen in his life.

The dream was but a natural sequence of Eve’s talk about Italy. Ithad hurt him that one of her first utterances after their betrothalshould express her desire to visit a land whose frontier he would neverwillingly cross again. He had loved Italy with all his heart; but nowthe image of Venice burnt and festered in his mind like a plague-spoton the breast of a man in full health. All except that one accursedmemory was peace.

“THE TIME OF LOVERS IS BRIEF.”

When a man is sole master of his estate and thoroughly independent ofhis kindred, his choice of a wife, if not altogether outrageous andunpardonable, must needs be accepted by his belongings. Vansittart lostnot an hour in telling his sister and her husband that henceforth theymust look upon Eve Marchant as a very close connection.

“We shall be married at midsummer,” he said, “so you may as well beginto think of her as a sister-in-law.”

Sir Hubert, who was the essence of good nature, received theannouncement with unalloyed cordiality.

“She is a bright, frank girl, very pretty, very winning, and veryintelligent,” he said. “I congratulate you, Jack—though naturally onewould have wished——”

“That she were the daughter of a duke, or that she had half a millionof money,” interjected Vansittart. “I understand you. It is a badmatch from a worldly point of view. I, who have between three and fourthousand a year, should have stood out for other three or four thousandwith a wife, and thus solidified my income. I ought at least to havetried America; seen if the heiress market there would have supplied theproper article. Well, you see, Hubert, I am of too impatient a temperfor that kind of thing. I have found the woman I can love with all myheart and mind, and I have lost no time in winning her.”

“You are a paladin, Jack—a troubadour—all that there is of the mostromantic and chivalrous,” laughed Sir Hubert.

“She is a dear, dear girl,” sighed Maud, “and I could hardly befonder of her if she were my sister—but it certainly is the mostdisappointing choice you could have made.”

“Is it? Why, I might have chosen a barmaid.”

“Not you. You are not that kind of man. But except a barmaid—or”—withthe tips of her lips—“a chorus girl, you could scarcely have doneworse than this. Now, don’t rage and fume, Jack. I tell you I thinkthe girl herself adorable—but four sisters and an impossible father!Quelle corvée!”

“It is a corvée that need never trouble you,” cried Vansittart,indignantly.

“You are extremely ungrateful. Haven’t I been forming her for you?”

“She needed no forming. She has never been less than a lady—simple andstraightforward—never affecting to be rich when she was poor—or to besmarter than her surroundings warranted.”

“Yes, yes, she is perfect, that is understood. She is the betrothed[Pg 138] ofyesterday, a stage of being which touches the seraphic. But what willyou do with her father, and what will you do with her sisters?”

“Her sisters are very good girls, and I hope to treat them in a notunbrotherly fashion. As for her father—there, though the obligationis small, I grant the difficulty may be great. However, I shall knowhow to cope with it. No miner ever thought to get gold without someintermixture of quartz. The Colonel shall be to me as the gold-digger’squartz. I shall get rid of him as speedily as I can.”

Through all that Easter week Vansittart lived in the blissful dreamwhich beginneth every man’s betrothal. At such a time as this thedumpiest damsel of the milkmaid type is as fair as she who broughtslaughter and burning upon Troy; but for Vansittart’s abject conditionthere was the excuse of undeniable beauty, and a charm of manner whicheven village gossip had never disputed. The young ladies who condemnedthe Miss Marchants en bloc as “bad style” had been fain to confess thatEve had winning ways, which made one almost forgive her cheap boots andmended gloves.

Vansittart was happy. He had promised to join his mother inCharles Street on the Wednesday after Easter; but he wrote to herapologetically on Tuesday, deferring his arrival till the beginning ofthe following week—and the beginning of a week is a term so lax thatit is sometimes made to mean Wednesday.

He was utterly happy. His mother’s letter received on Tuesday morningwas grave and kindly, and in no way damped his ardour.

“You have been so good a son to me, my dear Jack, that I should be hardand ungrateful if I murmured at your choice, although that choice hasserious drawbacks in surrounding circ*mstances. You are too honest andfrank and true yourself not to be able to distinguish the differencebetween realities and semblances. I do not doubt, therefore, thatyour pretty Eve is all you think her. She certainly is a graceful andgracious creature, with a delicate prettiness of the wild rose type,which I prefer greatly to the azalea or the camellia order of beauty.She cannot fail to love you—nor can she fail to be deeply grateful toyou for having rescued her from shabby surroundings and a neglectfulfather. God grant that this step which you have taken—the most solemnact in a man’s life—may bring you the happiness which the marriage oftrue minds must always bring.”

There was much more, the outpouring of a mother’s love, which ran awaywith the mother’s pen, and covered three sheets of paper; but even thislong letter did not suffice without a postscript.

“P.S.—Miss Marchant spoke to me—incidentally—of a brother, and fromher evident embarrassment I fear that the brother is as undesirable aconnection as the father. It would be well that you[Pg 139] should know allthat is to be known about him before he becomes your brother-in-law; soas to avoid unpleasant surprises in the future.”

Happily the idea of this brother’s existence was already familiar. Intheir first ramble together as engaged lovers Eve had told Vansittarta great deal about her brother. She dwelt with the younger sister’sfond admiration upon his youthful gifts, which seemed to be chiefly ofthe athletic order; his riding, his shooting, his rowing, his running:in all which exercises he appeared to have excelled. At Cambridgehis chief sins, as Eve knew them, had been tandem driving, riding insteeplechases, with frequent absences at Newmarket. Whatever darkersins had distinguished his college career were but dimly suspected byEve.

“My father was very proud of him while he was a boy,” Eve told herlover, “but when he grew up, and began to spend money, they were alwaysquarrelling. Poor mother! It was so sad to see her between them—lovingthem both, and trying to be loyal to both; her poor heart torn asunderin the struggle.”

“And he was fond of you, this brother of yours?” questioned Vansittart,to whom such fondness seemed a redeeming virtue.

“Yes, he was very fond of me; he was always good to me. When there wasunhappiness in the dining-room and drawing-room—when Harold was whatfather called sulky—he used to come to the schoolroom, and sit overthe fire roasting chestnuts all the evening. He would go without hisdinner rather than sit down with father, and would have some supperbrought to the schoolroom at ten o’clock, and my good old governessand I used to share his supper and wait upon him. What merry suppersthey were! I was too thoughtless to consider that his being with usmeant bad blood between him and father, and unhappiness for my poormother. She used to look in at the schoolroom door sometimes, and shakeher head, and call us naughty children; but I know it was a reliefto her to see him eating and drinking and laughing and talking withdear little Mütterchen and me. But I am tiring you with these childishreminiscences.”

“No, love; there is no detail in your past life so trifling that Iwould not care to know it. I want to feel as if I had known you fromyour cradle. We will go to see the old place near Beverley some day, ifyou like, and you shall show me the gardens where you played, the roomsin which you lived. One can always get into another man’s house by alittle management.”

That Easter week was a time of loveliest weather. Even the sun andthe winds were gracious to these happy lovers, and for them Aprilput on the bloom of May. Vansittart spent almost all his days at theHomestead, or rambling with the sisters, Eve and he[Pg 140] walking side byside, engrossed in each other’s company, as if the world held no oneelse—the sisters ahead of them or in the rear, as caprice dictated.

Every lane and thicket and hillside between Fernhurst and Blackdown wasexplored in those happy wanderings; every pathway in Verdley Copse wastrodden by those light footsteps; and Henley Hill and its old Romanvillage grew as familiar to Vansittart as Pall Mall and the clubs. Theyrevelled in the primroses which carpeted all those woodland ways; theyfound the earliest bluebells, and many a hollow whitened with the fairycups of the wood-anemone.

One morning, as they were walking over the soft brown carpet of firneedles and withered oak leaves in Verdley Copse, Vansittart openeda little dark-blue velvet box, and showed Eve a ring—a half-hoop ofsapphires set with brilliants.

“I chose the colour in memory of the blue flower of happiness that youand I found on the hilltop,” he said, as he put the ring on the thirdfinger of his sweetheart’s slender hand. “If ever you are inclined tobe angry with me, or to care for me a little less than you do now,let the memory of the mystical blue flower plead for me, Eve, and thethought of how dearly we loved each other that Easter Sunday years andyears ago.”

She gave a faint, shuddering sigh at the image those words evoked.

“Years and years ago! Will this day when we are young and happy ever beyears and years ago? It seems so strange!”

“Age is strange and death is stranger; but they must come, Eve. All wehave to hope for is that we may go on loving each other to the end.”

After those ramblings in the coppices and over the hill, there wasafternoon tea at the Homestead—a feast for the gods. Colonel Marchant,well content with the progress of affairs, had gone to Brighton forthe volunteer review, and was not expected home again till the endof the week; so the sisters were sovereign rulers of the house, andafternoon tea was the order of the day. It is doubtful whether dinnerhad any part in the scheme of their existence at this time. Theshort-petticoated youngsters generally carried some hunks of currantcake in a basket, and these hunks were occasionally shared with theelder sisters, and even with Vansittart, who went without his luncheonday after day, scarcely knowing that he had missed a meal. Then theyall tramped home in their muddy boots—for however blue the sky andhowever dry the roads there was always plenty of mud in the copses—andthen they all sat round the big loo table to what Hetty called a stodgytea. Stodgy being interpreted meant a meal of cake and toast, and eggs,and bread and jam, and a succession of teapots. Vansittart[Pg 141] only leftthe Homestead in time to hurry back to Redwold and dress for dinner.

On the Thursday evening the Miss Marchants who were “out” were allbidden to dinner at Redwold, and were to be driven thither by thatvery fly which had broken down on the crest of the snowy hill. It wasa grand occasion, for an invitation to dinner rarely found its wayto the Homestead. Cards for garden-parties were the highest form ofcourtesy to which the Miss Marchants had hitherto been accustomed.And this dinner was to be a solemn affair, for Eve was to appear atit in all the importance of her position as Vansittart’s future wife.Mrs. Vansittart was coming from London for a night or two in order tobe present at the festivity, which would be in a manner Eve’s formalacceptance as a member of the family.

It was only on Thursday morning that Vansittart discovered with somevexation that Sefton had been asked to this family dinner. Sir Huberthad met him, and had invited him in a casual way, having not thefaintest idea that his society would be displeasing either to Eve orher lover. The first person Eve’s eyes lighted on when she and hersisters entered the drawing-room was Mr. Sefton. He was standing nearthe door, and she had to pass him on her way to her hostess. He stoodwaiting until Lady Hartley turned to greet the younger sisters, andthen at once took possession of Eve.

“As an old friend I venture to congratulate you most warmly,” hesaid, holding her hand, after the inevitable shake-hands of oldacquaintances. “You have done wonderfully well for yourself. It isreally a brilliant match.”

“For me, you mean,” she said, looking at him with an angry light in hereyes. “Why don’t you finish your sentence, Mr. Sefton, and say, ‘foryou, Miss Marchant, with your disadvantages’?”

“I am sorry I have offended you.”

“I don’t like to be told I have done well for myself. God has given methe love of a good man. If he were not Mr. Vansittart, but Mr. Smithwith only a hundred a year, I should be just as happy.”

Vansittart, that moment approaching, overheard the familiar Britishpatronymic. “What are you saying about Mr. Smith?” he said, rememberinghow two men, one the slain and the other the slayer, had hidden theiridentity under that name.

“I was only talking of an imaginary Smith,” she answered, her facelighting up as she turned to her lover. “There is no such person.”

“Come and look at the azaleas,” said Vansittart; “they are worth avisit;” and so, after the lover’s fashion, he who had only parted fromher at six o’clock took her away to the conservatory at the other endof the room, and absorbed her into a solitude of azaleas and orangetrees.

Mr. Sefton in the mean while was talking to Mrs. Vansittart, and[Pg 142] nothaving done over well with his congratulation of the future bride, nowoccupied himself in congratulating the elder lady upon the advantage ofhaving secured so charming a daughter-in-law.

“I quite agree with you,” replied Mrs. Vansittart. “She is very pretty,and altogether charming. The match is not of my making, but I ampleased to see my son happy, and pleased to welcome so fair a daughter.You talk as if you were an old friend of the family. Have you knownColonel Marchant long?”

“Ever since he came to this neighbourhood, nine years ago. He has beengood enough to accept any little shooting I have had to offer—and heand I have seen a good deal of each other. I knew his son before I knewhim. Harold Marchant and I were at Trinity together.”

“Harold Marchant is dead, I conclude?”

“That is more than I or any of his friends can tell you. He is oneof that numerous family—the lost tribe of society—the men who havedropped through.”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

“My dear Mrs. Vansittart, the less said about Harold Marchantthe better. If he is dead the good old saying comes in—demortuis. If he is alive I think the less you, or your son, or yourdaughter-in-law have to do with him the happier it will be for you.”

“Mr. Sefton, it is not fair to talk to me in this way. I am personallyinterested in Eve’s brother. What do you mean?”

“Only what I might mean about a good many young men who have livedwithin the walls that sheltered Bacon and Newton, Whewell and Macaulay.Harold Marchant’s career at Cambridge was a foolish career. Insteadof devoting himself to the higher mathematics he gave himself up tohunting, horse-racing, and other amusem*nt of a more dangerous order.He had to leave the University hurriedly—he had to leave the countrystill more hastily. He has never within my knowledge come back toEngland. Eve is, or was, passionately attached to him, and to gratifyher I have taken a good deal of trouble in trying to find out hispresent whereabouts and mode of life; but without avail. It is nearlyten years since he left this country. He was then two and twenty yearsof age. He was last heard of more than five years ago with an exploringparty in Mashonaland. He is exactly the kind of young man one wouldlike to hear of in Central Africa, and intending to stay there!”

“Poor Eve; how sad for her!”

“But that is all over now. She has a new love, and will soon forget herbrother.”

“I do not think she is so shallow as that.”

“Not shallow, but intense.”

[Pg 143]

Dinner was announced at this moment, and Sir Hubert came to offer Mrs.Vansittart his arm. He was to have his mother-in-law on his righthand and Eve on his left, and Mr. Sefton was to sit by his hostess onthe other side of the table. This ended the conversation about HaroldMarchant, and it was not renewed after dinner.

CHAPTER XIV.

AS A SPIRIT FROM DREAM TO DREAM.

Lady Hartley, once being reconciled to the inevitable, was full ofkindness for her brother’s future wife. Eve had seen nothing of Londonand its gaieties, and as the Hartleys had taken a house in BrutonStreet for the season, it seemed only a natural thing to take her up totown with them, and initiate her into some of the pleasures to whichher future position would entitle her.

“And when you are married I can present you,” she told Eve. “It isn’tworth while going through that ordeal till next year. You will haveplenty to do between now and midsummer in getting your trousseau ready.”

Eve blushed, and was silent for a few minutes, and then, as she wasalone with Lady Hartley in the morning-room at Redwold, she tookcourage, and said—

“I’m afraid my trousseau will be a very small one. I asked my fatherlast night what he could do for me, and he said fifty pounds would bethe utmost he could give me. It wouldn’t be overmuch if I were going tomarry a curate, would it?”

“My dearest Eve, fifty pounds will go a long way, as I shall managethings. Remember I am going to be your sister, a real sister, not asham one, and while we are buying the trousseau your purse and mineshall be one.”

“Oh, I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t let myself sponge upon you. Iwould rather be married in white alpaca.”

“My child, you shall not be married in alpaca. And as for spongingupon me, well, if you are so mightily proud you can pay me back everyshilling I spend for you, a year or so hence, out of your pin-money.”

“My pin-money,” repeated Eve. “Father told me how generously Mr.Vansittart had offered to settle an income upon me—upon me who bringhim nothing, not even a respectable trousseau.”

“Now, Eve, I won’t hear a word more about the trousseau, until we aregoing about shopping together.”

“You are too kind, yet I can’t help feeling it hard to begin by taxingyour generosity. Isn’t it the custom for the bride to bring the houselinen in her trousseau?”

[Pg 144]

“Oh, in bourgeois families no doubt, and with young people just settingup in the world; but Merewood is provided with linen. You can’t supposemother and Jack have lived there without tablecloths or dusters.There is nothing for you to think about, Eve, but your own frocks,and we will think about them together. I adore shopping, and all thefrivolities of life.”

Ten days later Eve was in London, a petted guest in one of theprettiest houses in Bruton Street. Lady Hartley had the knack ofbeautifying any house she lived in, even a furnished house, a tent thatwas to be shifted at the end of the season. Huge boxes of flowers weresent up from Redwold every other day to decorate those London rooms,and not content with this floral decoration, Maud Hartley was alwaysbuying things—china, lamps, baskets, elegant frivolities of all kinds,to make the hired house homelike.

She would apologize to her husband in an airy way for each freshextravagance. “That pretty china plaque caught my eye at Howell andJames’s while Eve and I were looking at their silks,” she would say.

Sir Hubert complained laughingly that if the Kohinoor were for sale ata London jeweller’s it would inevitably catch Maud’s eye.

“And her eye once caught she is hypnotized,” said Sir Hubert. “She mustbuy.”

Charles Street and Bruton Street are very near. Vansittart could runover, as his sister called it, at any and every hour of the day; andthe result of this vicinity was that he lived more in his sister’shouse than in his mother’s. But Mrs. Vansittart was kind, and seemedreally pleased with her future daughter-in-law; so when Jack was notin Bruton Street Eve was in Charles Street, at luncheon sometimes,but oftener at afternoon tea, and at cosy little dinners, in thearrangement of which Mrs. Vansittart excelled. She knew a great manypeople in London, military, clerical, legal, literary, and artistic,and she knew how to blend her society and bring people together whor*ally liked to meet each other.

This world of London in the season was a new world to Eve Marchant;these homes in which the pinch of poverty, the burden of debt, hadnever been felt, had a new atmosphere. Her spirits, gay even in themidst of household care, rose in these happier circles, and she charmedall who met her by her spontaneous graces of mind and manner, herquickness to perceive, her ready appreciation of wit and sense inothers.

For Vansittart that month of May in the great city was a period ofconsummate happiness. The freshness of Eve’s feelings gave a newflavour to the commonest things. Parks and gardens, picture-galleries,concerts and theatres, were all new to her. Only on the[Pg 145] rarestoccasions had she been gratified by an evening in London and the sightof a famous actor. Her father had always excused himself from takinghis daughters to any public amusem*nts on the plea of poverty.

All the Marchant girls had known of London began and ended in thedrapers’ shops and the after-season sales. To travel to town by anearly train, third class, to tramp about all day in mud or dust,as the case might be, snatching a skimped luncheon at some homelypastry-cook’s, was the utmost they had known of metropolitan pleasures;and even days so unluxurious had been holidays for them. To see theshop windows, to have the spending of a little money, ever so little,meant happiness. It was only when they had emptied their purses thatthe shadow of care descended upon them, and they began to doubt whetherthey had invested their pittance wisely.

Now Eve moved about like a queen, among people who never had tothink of money. She was taken to see everything that was worthseeing; to hear everything that was worth hearing. She saw all thepicture-galleries, and learnt to discriminate between all the schoolsof modern art. She heard Sarasate, and Hollmann, and Menter, and allthe great instrumentalists of her epoch. She never heard of cabs oromnibuses, or fares, or money given for tickets. She was carried hitherand thither in a luxurious barouche or a snug brougham, and her placeat concert and play was always ready for her—one of the best places inthe hall or the theatre. The dressmakers, and bootmakers, and millinersto whom Lady Hartley took her never talked of money; indeed they seemedalmost to shudder at any allusion to that vulgar drudge ’twixt man andman. The people at the tailor’s were as interested in the gowns andcoats they were to make for her as if they had been works of art forwhich fame would be the sole recompense. The Frenchwoman who was tomake her wedding-gown poohpoohed the question of cost. Expensive, thisfrisé velvet for the train—yes, that might be, but she would rathermake Mademoiselle a present of the fabric than that, with her tall andgraceful figure, she should wear anything commonplace or insignificant.Art for art’s sake was ostensibly the motto for all Bond Street.

And Eve had so much to think of that she could not think very seriouslyabout her trousseau. She let Lady Hartley order what she pleased. She,Eve, had her lover to think about; and that was an absorbing theme. Sheknew his footstep on the pavement below the open window; she knew thesound of the bell when he rang it. If the weather were wet, and he camefrom Charles Street in a hansom, she knew his way of throwing back thecab doors before the wheels stopped. When he was absent, all her lifewas made up of thinking about him and listening for his coming. In thatmorning[Pg 146] hour in the drawing-room before he arrived she might have satto Sir Frederick Leighton for “Waiting” or “Expectancy.”

It was scarcely strange that while John Vansittart was so absorbed inthe new delight of his life, John Smith was just a little neglectful ofhis protégées in Saltero’s Mansion, Chelsea. John Smith had, indeed,no consciousness of being neglectful. If the image of Lisa flashedacross his mind in any moment of his full and happy day, it came andwent together with the comfortable thought that he had done his dutyto that young woman. She had her aunt, her bright and pretty home,her singing-master, and all the delightful hopes and ambitions of anartist who has discovered that she has fortune within her reach. Hadhe thought of Lisa all day long, he could never have pictured herotherwise than happy and contented.

He was at Covent Garden one evening with his sister and his betrothed,and he saw the Venetian amidst her troops of companions. The opera wasWilliam Tell, and Lisa was in short petticoats and Swiss bodice,with gold chains about her neck and arms, and gold daggers in herhair. She looked very pretty, amidst that heterogeneous crew of young,middle-aged, and elderly. He was in the stalls, and at a considerabledistance from the stage, and those dark eyes did not find him out andfasten upon him as they had done that other night when he was in LadyDavenant’s box. The sight of her reminded him that it was nearly amonth since he had called upon the aunt and niece, and that she oughtto have made some progress with her musical training in the interval,progress enough, at any rate, to make the childish creature anxious toreport herself to him.

Eve was to be engaged at her dressmaker’s on the following afternoon,in a solemn ordeal described as “trying on;” and Vansittart had beenwarned by his sister that he must not expect to be favoured with hersociety until the evening, when they were all to dine in CharlesStreet. It seemed to him that he could hardly employ this afternoonbetter than in visiting Fiordelisa and her aunt, whose warm southernhearts would be wounded perhaps if he should seem to have lost allinterest in their welfare.

The day was delightful—one of those brilliant afternoons in May whichgive to West End London the air of an earthly paradise; a paradiseof smart shops and smart people, thorough-bred horses and newlybuilt carriages, liveries spick and span from the tailor’s; flowerseverywhere—in the carriages, in the shops, on the kerbstone—flowersand fine clothes and spring sunshine. Vansittart walked to Chelsea,glad of an excuse for a walk after the habitual carriage or hansom.He had promised to look at some pictures in Tite Street upon thisvery afternoon—pictures of that advanced Belgian school whose workhe would scarcely care to show to Miss Marchant without[Pg 147] a previousinspection—so he availed himself of the opportunity, and called at thepainter’s house on his way to Saltero’s Mansion.

He found a room full of people, looking at pictures set round oneasels draped with terra-cotta silk, criticizing freely and talkingprodigiously. He found himself in the midst of an artistic tea-party.There was a copper kettle singing over a spirit-lamp on a table crowdedwith Spanish irises, and there was the painter’s young English wife, inan orange-coloured Liberty gown, pouring out tea, and smiling at thepraises of her husband.

The painter was no phlegmatic Fleming, but a fiery son of FrenchFlanders. He came from the red country between Namur and Liege, and hadbeen reared and educated in the latter city.

He was standing by the largest of his pictures—a scene from “ManonLescaut”—and listening to the criticisms of a little knot of people,all ecstatic, and among these élite of the art-loving world Vansittartwas surprised to see Mr. Sefton.

Sefton turned at the sound of Vansittart’s voice. They had met a goodmany times since Easter, and in a good many houses, for it was oneof Sefton’s attributes to be seen everywhere; but Vansittart had notexpected to find him at a comparatively unknown painter’s tea-party.

“Delightful picture, ain’t it?” he asked carelessly. “Full of truth andfeeling. How is Miss Marchant to-day? I thought she looked a littlepale and fa*gged at Lady Heavyside’s last night, as if her first seasonwere taking it out of her.”

“I don’t think my sister would let her do too much.” They had driftedtowards the tea-table, and the crowd had stranded them in a corner,where they could talk at their ease. “I did not know you were by way ofbeing an art critic.”

“I am by way of being everything. I give myself up to sport—bodyand bones—all the winter. I let my poor little intellect hibernatefrom the first of September till I have been at the killing of a Mayfox; and then I turn my back upon rusticity, put on my frock-coat andcylinder hat, and see as much as I can of the world of art and letters.To that end I have chosen this street for my summer habitation.”

“You live here—in Tite Street?”

“Is that so surprising? Tite Street is not a despicable locality. Weconsider ourselves rather smart.”

“I should have looked for you nearer the clubs.”

“I am by no means devoted to the clubs. I like my own nest and my ownnewspapers. Is not this charming?”

He turned to admire a cabinet picture on a draped easel—“Esmeralda andthe Captain of the Guard;” one of those pictures which Vansittart wouldhave preferred Eve Marchant not to see,[Pg 148] but over which æsthetic maidsand matrons were expatiating rapturously.

Vansittart did not stop to take tea, meaning to gratify Lisa byallowing her to entertain him with the mild infusion she called by thatname. He spoke to the two or three people he knew, praised the picturesin very good French to the artist, who knew no English, and slipped outof the sultry room, redolent of violets and tea-cake, into the freshair blowing up the river from the woods and pastures of Bucks and Berks.

He had not walked above half a dozen yards upon the Embankment when heheard the sound of hurrying footsteps behind him, and an ungloved handwas thrust through his arm, and a joyous voice exclaimed breathlessly,“At last! You were going to see me? I thought you had forgotten usaltogether.”

“That was very wrong of you, Signora,” he answered, gently disengaginghimself from the olive-complexioned hand, plump and tapering, albeitsomewhat broad—such a hand as Titian painted by the score, perhaps,before he began to paint Cardinal Princes and great ladies.

He did not want to walk along the Chelsea Embankment, in the broadglare of day, with the Venetian hanging affectionately upon him. Thatkind of thing might pass on the Lido, or in the Royal Garden by thecanal, but here the local colour was wanting.

“It is ages since you have been near us,” protested Fiordelisa,poutingly. “I am sure you must have forgotten us.”

“Not I, Signora. Englishmen don’t forget their friends so easily. Ihave been in the country till—till quite lately. And you—tell me howyou have been getting on with your singing-master.”

“He shall tell you,” cried Fiordelisa, flashing one of her brightestlooks upon him. “He pretends to be monstrously pleased with me. Hedeclares that in a few months, perhaps even sooner, he will get me anengagement at one of the small theatres, to sing in a comic opera.They will give me ever so much more money than I am earning at CovenyGardeny.”

The Venetian often put a superfluous vowel at the end of a word, notyet having mastered our severe terminal consonants. “The maestro is tohave some of the money for his trouble, but that is fair, is it not?”

“Fair that he should take a small percentage, perhaps, but not more.”

“A percentage? What is that?”

Vansittart explained.

“But to sing in your English comic opera I must speak English ever somuch better than I do now,” pursued Lisa, “and for that I am working,oh, so hard. I learn grammar. I read story-books;[Pg 149] ‘Bootle’s Baby;’ the‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ Oh, how I have laughed and cried over that Vicarand his troubles—and Olivia—Olivia who was so deceived—and so happyat last.”

“Happy, with a scoundrel,” exclaimed Vansittart.

“Ah, but she loved him. One does not mind how much scoundrel if oneloves a man.”

“A bad principle, Signorina. It is better to love a good man ever solittle than a scoundrel ever so much.”

“No, no, no. It is the loving much that means happiness,” arguedLisa, and then she expatiated upon her English studies. “La Zia andI go to the theatre when there is no performance at Coveny Gardeny.We sit in the pit, where the people are kind, and make room for usbecause we are foreigners. Signor Zinco says there is no better way oflearning English than in listening to the actors in good plays. Oh,how I listen! In three months from this day people will take me for anEnglishwoman,” she said finally.

“Never, Lisa, never,” he said, laughingly contemplative of thesparkling olive face, the great dark eyes with golden lights in them,the careless arrangement of the coarse black hair, the supple figurein its plain black gown, and the essentially foreign air which yearsof residence in England would hardly obliterate. “Never, Si’ora! Yourevery glance is eloquent of Venice and her sister isles. It seemsalmost a crime to keep you captive in this sunless city of ours.”

“Oh, but I adore London,” she exclaimed, “and your London is notsunless. See how the sun is shining on the river this afternoon; not asit shines on the lagunes in May, I grant you, but it is a very prettypiccolo sole.”

“And la Zia,” asked Vansittart; “she is well, I hope?”

“She is more than well. She is getting fat. Oh, so fat. She is as happyas the day is long. She loves your London, the King’s Road most of all.At night there are barrows, fish, vegetables, everything. She can doher marketing by lamplight, and the streets are almost as full and asgay as the Merceria. La Zia was never so happy in all her life as sheis in London. She never had so much to eat.”

They were near Saltero’s Mansion by this time.

“You will come in and let me make you some tea, won’t you?” pleadedLisa.

“Not this afternoon, Si’ora. I wanted to see you, to know that all wasgoing well with you. Having done that, I must go back to the West Endto—to keep an appointment.”

He was thinking that possibly Eve’s “trying on” would be finished intime for him to snatch half an hour’s tête-à-tête in one of the BrutonStreet drawing-rooms, before she dressed for dinner. There[Pg 150] were threedrawing-rooms, in a diminishing perspective, dwindling almost to apoint, the third and inner room too small to serve any purpose butflirtation, and here the lovers could usually find seclusion.

Lisa pouted and looked unhappy.

“You might stay and take tea with me,” she said; “la Zia will be homesoon.”

“La Zia is out, then?”

“Yes; she has taken Paolo to Battersea Park for the afternoon. Therehearsal for the new opera keeps me all day long, and la Zia takes theboy for his daily walk; but it is past five, and they will be home assoon as I am, I dare say.”

“I will come this way again in a week or so, Si’ora.”

“You are very unkind,” protested Lisa, in her impulsive way; and then,with one of those sudden changes which so well became her childishbeauty, she exclaimed, “No, no; forgive me; you are always kind—kind,kindest of men. Promise you will come again soon.”

“I promise,” he said, stopping short and offering his hand.

“Then I’ll walk back just a little piece of way with you—only as faras the big house with the swans.”

Lisa’s company on Cheyne Walk was an honour which Vansittart wouldhave gladly escaped. She was too pretty and too peculiar-looking notto attract notice; and there was the tea-party in Tite Street, withits little crowd of worldlings, any of whom would be curious as to hiscompanion, should he by chance be seen in this society. He did not wantto be rude, for the lace-girl from Burano was a creature of strongfeelings, and was easily wounded.

“I am in a desperate hurry, Si’ora.”

“You were not in a hurry when I overtook you just now. You were walkingslowly. You cannot walk faster than I. At Burano I never used to walk.I always ran.”

“Poverina! How quickly you must have used up your island.”

“Yes; it was like a prison. I used to watch the painted sails ofthe fishing-boats, and long for them to carry me away to any placedifferent from that island, where I knew every face and everypaving-stone. That is why I love your London, in spite of fogs and greyskies. It is so big, so big.”

She stopped, with clasped hands and flashing eyes. A street boy wheeledround to look at her, and gave a low whistle of admiring surprise; andat the same instant Sefton turned a street corner, came across theroad, and passed close to Vansittart and his companion.

Of all men living, this man was the last whom Vansittart would havecared to meet under such conditions.

“LOVE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTE LOVE.”

Sefton lifted his hat and passed quickly. Vansittart stood mutelywatching his retreating figure, till it was lost among other figuresmoving to and fro along the Embankment. An empty hansom came creepingby the curb while he stood watching.

“Here is a cab which will just do for me, Signorina,” he said.“Good-bye. I’ll see you on one of your maestro’s days, so that I mayhear his opinion of your chances.”

“He comes on Tuesdays and Saturdays, from three to four. Who is thatgentleman who bowed to you? A friend?”

“No; only an acquaintance. Good-bye.”

“How vexed you look! Are you ashamed of being seen with me?”

“No, child, no; only that man happens to be one of my particularaversions. A rivederci. Stay! I will take you to your door. The cab canfollow.”

It had occurred to him in a moment that Sefton was capable of turningand pursuing Lisa if he left her unprotected. He was just the kindof man, Vansittart thought, who, out of sheer devilry, would try todiscover the name and antecedents of this lovely stranger. He had adeep-rooted distrust of Wilfred Sefton, which led him to anticipateevil.

He walked with Lisa to Saltero’s Mansion, and saw her vanish under thelofty Queen Anne portico, and then he turned and walked slowly back asfar as Tite Street, with the cab following him. So far there was nosign of Sefton, who might, therefore, be supposed to have continued hisway Londonwards; but the rencontre had been a shock to Vansittart’snerves, and had set him thinking seriously upon the danger of hisrelations with Fiordelisa and her aunt, and more especially of theperil which must always attach to the use of an alias.

Was it well, or wise, or safe that he, Eve Marchant’s promised husband,should be the guardian angel of this wild, impulsive peasant girl—aguardian angel under the borrowed name of Smith, liable at any hourto be confronted with people who knew his real name and surroundings?He considered his position very seriously during the drive to BrutonStreet, and he resolved to do all in his power to narrow his relationswith the Venetians, while fulfilling every promise and every obligationto the uttermost.

Colonel Marchant was at the family dinner in Charles Street.[Pg 152] It hadbeen agreed between Mrs. Vansittart and her son that he should beinvited to this one gathering, so that he should not have any groundfor considering himself left out in the cold, albeit his futureson-in-law’s intention was to hold as little communion with him aspossible. Eve’s neglected girlhood had not fostered filial affection.The parental name had been a name of fear in the Marchant household,and the sisters had been happiest when their father was amusing himselfin London, careless of whether the angry baker had stopped the dailysupply, or the long-suffering butcher had refused to deliver anotherjoint. Such a man had but little claim upon a daughter’s love, and Evehad confessed to Vansittart that her father was not beloved by hischildren, and that it would not grieve her if in her future life sheand that father met but rarely.

“You are going to be so generous to me,” she said, “that I shall beable to help my sisters—in ever so many ways—with their clothes, andwith their housekeeping; for I can never spend a third part of theincome you are settling upon me.”

“My frugal Eve! Why, there are women with half your charms who wouldnot be able to dress themselves upon such a pittance.”

“I have no patience with such women. They should be condemned to threegowns a year of their own making, as my sisters and I have been eversince we were old enough to handle needles and scissors. I am horrifiedat the extravagance I have seen at the dressmaker’s—the reckless waysome of your sister’s friends spend money.”

“And my sister herself, no doubt. She has a rich husband, and I daresay is one of the worst offenders in this line?”

“Not she! Lady Hartley dresses exquisitely, but she is not extravagantlike the others. She is too generous to other people to be lavish uponherself. She is always thinking of doing a kindness to somebody.”

“Poor little Maud! I remember when she was in the schoolroom all herpocket-money used to be spent upon dolls for the hospital children. Sheused to come and beg of me when she was insolvent.”

Vansittart met Wilfred Sefton at an evening party within a few daysof that rencontre at Chelsea; and at the same party Vansittart wasdisturbed by seeing Sefton and his mother in close confabulation in oneof those remote and luxurious corners where people are not obliged tolisten to the music that is being performed in the principal room.

He questioned his mother about Sefton at breakfast next morning. “Youand he seemed uncommonly thick,” he said. “What were you talkingabout?”

[Pg 153]

“About you, and your approaching marriage.”

“I am sure you said nothing that was not kind, but I wish to Heaven youwould not discuss my affairs with a stranger,” said Vansittart, withsome warmth.

“Mr. Sefton is not a stranger. Your father and his father were verygood friends. He is your sister’s most influential neighbour, and theyare on the friendliest terms. Why should you call him a stranger?”

“Because I don’t like him, mother; and because I wish never to feelmyself on any other footing with him.”

“And yet he likes you.”

“Does he? I am a very bad judge of humanity if my dislike of Sefton isnot heartily reciprocated by Sefton’s dislike of me. And no doubt themore he dislikes me the more he will assure other people—my kindredespecially—that he likes me. You are too straight yourself, mother,in every thought and purpose, to understand the Seftonian mind. It isthe kind of intellect which always works crookedly. He admired EveMarchant, allowed his admiration to be patent to everybody, and yet wasnot man enough to try to win her for his wife.”

“He had not your courage, Jack, in facing unpleasant surroundings anddisagreeable antecedents.”

“He had not manhood enough to marry for love. That is what you mean,mother. He was quite willing to compromise an innocent and pure-mindedgirl, by attentions which he would not have dared to offer to a girlwith a watchful father or mother.”

“My dear Jack, you exaggerate Mr. Sefton’s attentions. He assured methat his chief interest in Eve arose from his old companionship withher brother, with whom he was on very intimate terms until the unhappyyoung man turned out an irretrievable scamp.”

Vansittart winced at the phrase. It is not an agreeable thing for a manto be told that his future brother-in-law, the brother whom his futurewife adores, is irretrievable.

“Mr. Sefton has taken a great deal of trouble to trace HaroldMarchant’s career since he was last heard of,” continued Mrs.Vansittart, “and would hold out a friendly hand to him if there wereanything to be done.”

“He has no need to hold out a friendly hand. If there is anything to bedone for my brother-in-law I can do it.”

“How ready you are to take new burdens!”

“I think nothing a burden which comes to me with the woman I love.”

Mrs. Vansittart sighed, and was silent. The idea of these disreputableconnections which her son was to take to himself[Pg 154] in marrying Evewas full of pain for the well-born matron, whose people on everyside were of unblemished respectability. Never had there been anydoubtful characters in her father’s family, or among that branch of theVansittarts to which her husband belonged. She had been born in justthat upper middle class which feels disgrace most keenly. There is nosection of society so self-conscious as your county gentry, so fixedin the idea that the eyes of Europe are upon them. The duke or themillionaire can live down anything—sons convicted of felony, daughtersdivorced—but the country gentleman who has lived all his life in oneplace, and knows every face within a radius of twenty miles from thefamily seat, to him, or still more to his wife or widow, the slightestsmirch upon a relative’s character means agony.

Mrs. Vansittart liked and admired Eve Marchant; but she did not lether heart go out to her as it ought to have gone to the girl who wasso soon to be to her as a daughter. Colonel Marchant’s existence was arock of offence which even maternal love could not surmount. She hadtalked to her family lawyer, an old and trusted ally, and from himshe had heard all that was to be said for and against Eve’s father.He was not quite so black, perhaps, as his neighbours in the countryhad painted him; but his career had been altogether disreputable,and his present associations were among the most disreputable men,calling themselves gentlemen, about town. He was a familiar figure inthe card-room at clubs where play was high, and was looked upon withunmitigated terror by the parents and guardians of young men of fortuneor expectations. A youth who affected Colonel Marchant’s society wasknown to be in a bad way.

And now the question was not only of Colonel Marchant, but of his son,who was even a darker character than the father, and whose darknessmight at any time overshadow his sister’s name. It was easy enoughto say that the sister was blameless, that it was no fault of hersthat her father was a Bohemian, and her brother a swindler and aforger. Society does not easily forgive sisters or daughters for suchrelationships, and now that the pseudo-scientific craze of heredityhas taken hold of the English mind, society is less inclined even thanof yore to ignore the black sheep in the fold. Every one who heard ofEve Marchant’s antecedents would anticipate evil for her husband. Thebad strain would show itself somehow before long. The duskiness in theparental wool would crop up in the fleece of the lamb.

It was hard for the mother who doated on her only son to feel ashamedof his wife’s relations and up-bringing; and Mrs. Vansittart fearedthat to the end of her life she must needs feel this shame.[Pg 155] Alreadyher neighbours at Merewood had tortured her by their keen interestin her son’s betrothed, their eagerness to know every detail,their searching questions about her people, all veiled under thataffectionate friendliness which excuses the most tormenting curiosity.

Mrs. Vansittart was a good woman and a devoted mother, but she had thetemperament which easily yields to worrying ideas, to apprehensionsof potential evils, and her love of her son had just that alloy ofjealousy which is apt to cause trouble. While Vansittart was goingabout with his betrothed from one scene of amusem*nt to another,utterly happy in her company, enchanted to show her places and peoplewhich were as new to her as if they had been in fairyland, hismother was brooding over her fears and fostering her forebodings,and affording Wilfred Sefton every opportunity of improving hisacquaintance with her. It was a shock to Vansittart to find that Seftonhad established himself on the most familiar footing in Charles Street,a privileged dropper-in, who might call six days out of the seven if hechose, since Mrs. Vansittart had no allotted day for receiving, but wasalways at home to her friends between four and five during the summerseason, when the pleasantest hour for driving was after five.

Sefton was clever, lived entirely in society and for society, duringthe brief London season, frequented the studios of artists and thetea-parties of litterateurs, knew, or pretended to know, everythingthat was going to happen in the world of art and letters, and wouldhave been welcome on his own merits in the circles of the frivolous.He contrived to amuse Mrs. Vansittart, and to impress her with anexaggerated idea of his talent and versatility.

“He can talk well upon every subject,” she told her son.

“My dear mother, you mean that he is an adept in the season’s jargon,and can talk of those subjects which came into fashion last month; likethe new cut of our coat collars, and the new colour of our neckties. Aman of that kind always impresses people with his cleverness in May andthe first half of June. Talk with him later, and you’ll find him flat,stale, and unprofitable. By July he will have emptied his bag.”

It was scarcely a surprise to Vansittart, knowing his mother’s likingfor Mr. Sefton, to find that gentleman seated in her drawing-room oneSaturday evening when he returned rather late from a polo match atHurlingham. It was to be Eve’s last Saturday in London. June was athand, and she was to go back to Fernhurst on the first of the month, tospend the small remnant of her single life with her sisters. She was tobe married on St. John’s Day.

They had lingered at the tea-table on the lawn, sighing sentimentallyover the idea that this was positively the last Saturday:[Pg 156] that notagain for nearly a year could they sit together drinking tea out of thehomely little brown teapot, and watching the careless crowd come and goin the sunshine and the summery air.

In Charles Street, the cups and saucers had not been cleared away,although it was past seven. A side window in the front drawing-roomlooked westward, up the old-fashioned street, towards the Park, and thelow sunlight was pouring in through the Madras-muslin curtain, shiningon the jardinière of golden lilies and over the glittering toys on thesilver table.

Vansittart opened the drawing-room door, but changed his mind aboutgoing in when he saw Sefton established on the sofa, half hidden in asea of pillows.

“I’m very late,” he said. “How do you do, Sefton?” with a curt nod.“I’m to dine in Bruton Street, mother. Good night, if I don’t see youagain.”

“Pray come in, Jack. I have something very serious to tell you—orat least Mr. Sefton has. He has been waiting for you ever since fiveo’clock. I wanted him to tell you at once. It is too serious for delay.”

“If I hadn’t left Miss Marchant and my sister five minutes ago I shouldthink, by your solemnity, that one of them had been killed,” exclaimedVansittart, scornfully, crossing the room with leisurely step, andseating himself with his back to the yellow brightness of that westernwindow. “And now, my dear mother, may I inquire the nature of themountain which you and Mr. Sefton have conjured out of some innocentmolehill? Please don’t be very slow and solemn, as I have only half anhour to dress and get to Bruton Street. Boïto’s Mephistopheleswill begin at half-past eight.”

“This is no trivial matter, Jack. Perhaps when you have heard what Mr.Sefton has to tell you may hardly care about the opera—or about seeingMiss Marchant, before you have had time for serious thought.”

“There is nothing that Mr. Sefton—or the four Evangelists—could tellme that would alter my feelings about Miss Marchant by one jot or onetittle,” cried Vansittart, furiously, his angry feeling about this manleaping out of him like a sudden flame.

“Wait,” said the mother, gravely—“wait till you have heard.”

“Begin, Mr. Sefton. My mother’s preamble is eminently calculated togive importance to your communication.”

“I am hardly surprised that you should take the matter somewhatangrily, Vansittart,” said Sefton, in his smooth, persuasive voice. “Idare say I shall appear an officious beast in this business—and, hadit not been for Mrs. Vansittart’s express desire, I should not be hereto tell you the facts which have come to my knowledge[Pg 157] within the lasttwo days. I considered it my duty to tell your mother, because in ourprevious conversations she has been good enough to allude to old tiesof friendship between your father and my father—and this made a claimupon me.”

“Proem the second,” cried Vansittart, impatiently. “When are we comingto facts?”

“The facts are so uncommonly disagreeable that I may be pardoned forapproaching them diffidently. You know, I believe, that Miss Marchanthas a brother——”

“Who disappeared some years ago, and about whose fate you have busiedyourself,” interrupted Vansittart, with ever-growing impatience.

“All my efforts to trace Harold Marchant’s movements after hisdeparture from Mashonaland resulted in failure, until the day beforeyesterday, when one of the two men whom I employed to make inquiriesturned up at my house in Tite Street as suddenly as if he had droppedfrom the moon. This man is a courier and jack-of-all-trades, asclever and handy a dog as ever lived, a man who has travelled in allthe quarters of the globe, a Venetian. When I began the search forMiss Marchant’s brother, I put the business in the first place intothe hands of a highly respectable private detective; but as a secondstring to my bow it occurred to me to send a full statement of thecirc*mstances, and a careful description of the missing man, to my oldacquaintance, Ferrari, the courier, who travelled with my poor fatheron the sea-board of Italy for several months, and who helped to nursehim on his sick-bed.”

Vansittart bridled his tongue, but could not keep himself from drummingwith his fingers on the dainty silver table and setting all the toyharpsichords, and sofas, and bird-cages, and watering-pots, and tinytables rattling.

“I had half forgotten that I had employed this man in Harold Marchant’sbusiness when the fellow turned up in Tite Street, irrepressiblycheerful, with the most unpleasant information.”

“What information? For God’s sake, come to the point!”

“He had traced Marchant’s career—from Mashonaland to the diamondfields, where he picked up a good bit of money; from the diamond fieldsto New York, from New York to Venice. For God’s sake, leave thosebibelots alone,” as the silver toys leapt and rattled on the fragiletable. “Do you think no one has nerves except yourself?”

“Your man traced Marchant to Venice,” said Vansittart, the restlesshand suddenly motionless; “and what of him at Venice?”

“At Venice Marchant lived with a girl whom he had taken out of afactory. Pardon me, Mrs. Vansittart, for repeating these unpleasantfacts—lived, gambled, drank, and enjoyed life after his own[Pg 158]inclination, which always leaned to low company even when he was anundergraduate. From Venice he vanished suddenly, more than three yearsago.”

Vansittart fancied they must needs hear that heavily beating heart ofhis thumping against his ribs. He fancied that, even in that dimlylighted room, they must needs see the ashen hue of his face, the beadsof sweat upon his forehead. All he could do was to hold his tongue, andwait for that which was to come.

“Do you happen to remember a murder, or, I will rather say, ascuffle ending in homicide, which occurred at Venice three years agoin Carnival time—an English tourist stabbed to death by anotherEnglishman, who got away so cleverly that he was never brought to bookfor what he had done? The row was about a woman, and the woman wasHarold Marchant’s mistress. Marchant was jealous of the stranger’sattentions to the lady—he had lived long enough in Italy to havelearnt the use of the knife—and after a free fight of a few moments hestabbed his man to the heart. Ferrari heard the story from a Venetian,who was present in the Caffè Florian when the thing happened.”

“Did the Venetian know Marchant?”

The words came slowly from dry lips, the voice was husky; but neitherMrs. Vansittart nor Mr. Sefton wondered that Eve Marchant’s lovershould be deeply moved.

“I don’t know; but there were people in Venice who knew him, and fromwhom Ferrari heard his mode of life.”

“But you said that Marchant was living under an assumed name.”

“Did I?” asked Sefton, surprised. “I don’t remember saying it, but itis the fact all the same. At Venice Harold Marchant called himselfSmith; and Smith was the name he gave on board the P. and O. steamerwhich took him to Alexandria.”

“Why did he go to Alexandria?”

“Why? To get away from Venice in the quickest and completest mannerhe could. When he saw that the knife had been fatal, he grasped thesituation in an instant, made a dash for the door, ran through thecrowd along the Piazzetta, jumped into the water, and swam to thesteamer, which was getting up steam for departure. No one guessedthat he would make for the steamer. It was a longish swim; and whilehis pursuers were groping about among the gondolas the steamer wasmoving off with Harold on board her. Just like him—always quick atexpedients; ready at every point where his own interests were at stake;tricky, shifty, dishonest to the core; but a devil for pluck, and asstrong as a young lion.”

“I begin to remember the story, now you recall the details,” saidVansittart, who had by this time mastered every sign of agitation,[Pg 159] andwas firm as iron. “But in all that you have said I see nothing to fixHarold Marchant as the homicide. He might as easily have been the manwho was killed.”

“No, no; the man who was killed was a stranger—a Cook’s tourist, anobody, about whose fate there were no inquiries. It was Marchant whowas the Venetian girl’s protector. It was Marchant who was jealous. Thewhole story is in perfect accord with Marchant’s character. I have seenhis temper in a row—seen him when, if he had had a knife handy, byHeaven! he would have used it.”

“But where is the link between Marchant—Marchant at the diamondfields, Marchant at New York—and the man at Venice calling himselfSmith? You don’t even pretend to show me that.”

“Ferrari shall show you that. The story is a long one, but there is nosolution of continuity. Ferrari shall take you over the ground, stepby step, till he brings you from Marchant in Mashonaland to Marchantlanding at Alexandria.”

“And after the landing at Alexandria? What then? The thing happenedmore than three years ago, you say. Did the earth open and swallowHarold Marchant after he landed at Alexandria? Or, if not, what has hebeen doing since? Why has not your Ferrari—this courier-guide who isso clever at tracing people—traced him a little further? Why shouldthe last link of the chain be the landing at Alexandria?”

“Because, as I have been telling you, Harold Marchant is an uncommonlyclever fellow; and having got off with a whole skin—escaping thepenalty of a crime which at the least was manslaughter—he wouldtake very good care to sink his identity ever afterwards, and in allprobability would bid a long farewell to the old world.”

“But your genius—your heaven-born detective—would track him downin the new world. My dear Sefton, the whole story is a farrago ofnonsense; and I wonder that you, as a man of the world, can be taken inby so vulgar a trickster as your incomparable Ferrari.”

“He is not a trickster. I have the strongest reasons, from pastexperience, for believing in his honesty. Will you see him, Vansittart?Will you hear his story, calmly and dispassionately?”

“I will not see him. I will not hear his story. I will see no man whotrumps up a sensational charge against my future wife’s brother. I canquite understand that you believe in this man—that you have broughtthis absurd story to my mother and me in all good faith.”

“Why absurd? You admit that there was such a catastrophe—an Englishtraveller killed by an English resident in a Venetian caffè in Carnivaltime.”

“Yes; but plain fact degenerates into nonsense when your courier triesto fasten the crime upon Eve Marchant’s brother.”

[Pg 160]

“Hear his statement before you pronounce judgment. He had his factsfrom people who knew this young man in New York as Harold Marchant,who met him afterwards in Venice, and visited him at his Venetianlodgings, and played cards with him, when he was calling himselfSmith—respectable American citizens, whose names and addresses are setdown in Ferrari’s note-book. I am not utterly wanting in logic, Mr.Vansittart, and if the circ*mstantial evidence in this matter had beenobviously weak I should never have troubled Mrs. Vansittart or you withthe story.”

The mother spoke now for the first time since Sefton had begun hisrevelation. Her voice was low and sympathetic. Her son might doubt herwisdom, but he could not doubt her love.

“I am deeply sorry for you, Jack,” she said, “deeply sorry for poorEve, who is a blameless victim of evil surroundings, but I cannotthink that you will obstinately adhere to your engagement in the faceof these dreadful facts. It would have been bad enough to be ColonelMarchant’s son-in-law; but you cannot seriously mean to marry a girlwhose brother has committed murder.”

“It was not murder,” cried Vansittart, furiously. “Even Mr. Seftonacknowledges that the crime at worst was manslaughter—a fatal blow,struck in a moment of blind passion.”

“With a dagger against an unarmed man,” interjected Sefton. “You areinclined to minimize the crime when you call it manslaughter at theworst. I said that at the least—taking the most indulgent view of thecase—the crime was manslaughter; and I doubt if an Italian tribunalwould have dealt very leniently with that kind of manslaughter. I takeit that rapid run and long swim of his saved Harold Marchant some yearsof captivity in an Italian prison.”

“It is too horrible,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “My dear, dear son, forGod’s sake don’t underrate the horror of it all because of your lovefor this poor girl. You cannot marry a girl whose brother is anunconvicted murderer.”

How she harped upon the word murder! Vansittart ground his nails intothe palms of his clasped hands, as he stood up, frowning darkly, in anagony of indignant feeling. His mother to be so womanish, so illogical,so foolish in her exaggeration of evil.

“I say again, the man who struck that unlucky blow was no murderer.The word is a lying word applied to him,” he protested. “The storyyou have told me—the crime you try to fix upon Harold Marchant—canmake no shadow of difference in my love for Harold Marchant’s sister.Had she ten brothers, and every one of the ten were a felon, I wouldmarry her. It is she whom I love, mother—not her surroundings. And asfor your modern fad of heredity, I believe in it no more than I do intable-turning. God made my Eve—as pure, and single, and primitive abeing as that other Eve in His[Pg 161] Garden of Eden; and over the morning ofher fair life no act of her kindred can cast a shadow.”

There was a silence. Sefton had risen when Vansittart rose. He took uphis hat, and came through the flickering lights and shadows towardsMrs. Vansittart, who sat with drooping head and clasped hands, betwixtsorrow and anger—sorrow for her son’s suffering, anger at hisobstinate adherence to the girl he loved. She gave Sefton her handmechanically, without looking up.

“Good night, Vansittart,” said Sefton, as he moved towards the door. “Ican only admire your loyalty to Miss Marchant, though I may questionyour wisdom. She is a very charming person, I grant you; but, afterall”—with a little laugh—“she is not the only woman in the world.”

“She is the only woman in my world.”

“Really?”

The intonation of this one word, the slight shrug of the shoulders,were full of meaning. Vansittart perceived the covert sneer in thatparting speech, and saw in it an allusion to that lovely foreigner whomSefton had seen hanging affectionately upon his arm a few days ago onthe Chelsea Embankment.

“One word, Mr. Sefton,” said Vansittart, in a peremptory tone. “Itake it that your employment of detectives and couriers—that all youhave done in this business—has been done out of regard for a collegechum, who was once your friend, and from a kindly desire to relieveMiss Marchant’s anxiety about a brother whom—whom she appears to havedearly loved. I think, under these circ*mstances, I need not suggestthe wisdom of keeping this unhappy business to yourself—so far as sheis concerned.”

“You are right. I shall say nothing to Miss Marchant.”

“Remember that, clever as your courier may be, he is not infallible.The case is only a case of suspicion. The Smith, of Venice, maybe anybody. One missing link in your amateur detective’s chain ofevidence, and the whole fabrication would drop to pieces. Don’t letMiss Marchant be tortured needlessly. Promise me that you will nevertell her this story.”

“On my honour, I will not.”

“I thank you for that promise, and I beg you to forgive any unduevehemence upon my part just now.”

“There is nothing to forgive—I can sympathize with your feelings. Goodnight.”

“Good night.”

Vansittart dined in Bruton Street, as he had promised, sat by hisbetrothed, and listened to her happy talk of the things they had seenand the people they had met, sat behind her chair all through Boïto’sopera, unhearing, unseeing, his mind for ever and for ever travelling[Pg 162]over the same ground, acting over and over again the same scene—therow at Florian’s, the scuffle, the fall—his own fall—the knife; andthen that fatal fall of his adversary, that one gasping, surprised cryof the unarmed man, slain unawares.

Her brother! His victim, and her brother. The nearest, dearest kin ofthis girl on whose milk-white shoulder his breath came and went, as hesat with bent head in the shadow of the velvet curtain, and heard thestrange harmonies of Pandemonium, almost as if voices and orchestra hadbeen interpreting his own dark thoughts.

Charmed as she was with the music, Eve Marchant was far too sensitiveto be unconscious of her lover’s altered spirits. Once during theapplause that followed that lovely duet at the beginning of the lastact, and while Lady Hartley’s attention was fixed upon the stage, Eve’shand crept stealthily into the hand of her lover, while she whispered,“What has happened, Jack? I know there is something wrong. Why won’tyou trust me?”

Trust her? Trust her with a secret that must part them for ever—lether suffer the agony of knowing that this strong right hand which herslim fingers were caressing had stabbed her brother to the heart?

“There can be nothing wrong, dearest, while I have you,” he answered,grasping her hand as if he would never let it go.

“But outside me, you have been worried about something. You have quitechanged from your gay spirits at Hurlingham.”

“My love, I exhausted myself at Hurlingham. You and I were laughinglike children. That can’t last. But for me there is no outside world.Be sure of that. My world begins and ends where you are.”

“My own dear love,” she whispered softly.

And so hand in hand they listened to the last act, while Lady Hartleyamused herself now with the stage, and now with the audience, and leftthese plighted lovers alone in their fool’s paradise.

Sunday was given up to church and church parade, looking at peopleand gowns and bonnets in Hyde Park. Vansittart had to be observantand ready, amusing and amused, as he walked beside his sister and hisbetrothed. He had to say smart things about the people and the bonnets,to give brief biographies of the men whom he saluted, or with whom hespoke. He had to do this, and to be gay and light-hearted in the driveto Richmond, and at the late luncheon in the pretty upstairs room atthe Star and Garter, where the balcony hung high over the smilingvalley, over the river that meanders in gracious curves through woodedmeadows and past the townlet of “Twicks.” Happiness is the dominant inthe scale of prosperous love. Why or how should he fail to be happy,adored by this sweet girl, who in less than six weeks was to be his, tohave and to hold till death?

[Pg 163]

He played his part admirably, was really happy during some of thosefrivolous hours, telling himself that the thing which had happened atVenice was a casualty for which Fate would not too cruelly punish him.

“Even Œdipus Rex had a good time of it after he killed his father atthe cross roads,” he told himself mockingly. “It was not till hisdaughters were grown up that troubles began. He had a long run ofprosperity. And so, Dame Fortune, give me my darling, and let hernot know for the next twenty years that this right hand is red withher kindred’s blood. Let her not know! And after twenty years ofbliss—well, let the volcano explode, and bury me in the ashes. I shallhave lived my life.”

He parted with Eve in Bruton Street after tea. She was going to anevening service with Lady Hartley. They were to hear a famous preacher,while the mundane Sir Hubert dined at Greenwich with some men. Eve wasto leave Waterloo Station early next morning, and as Lady Hartley wassending her maid to see the young lady and her luggage safely lodged atthe Homestead, Vansittart was told he would not be wanted.

“This is a free country,” he said. “You will find me at the station tosay good-bye.”

He went home to dine with his mother, a very melancholy dinner. Mrs.Vansittart’s pale cheeks bore traces of tears, and she was obviouslyunhappy, although she struggled to keep up appearances, talked aboutthe weather, the sermon she had heard in the morning, the dinner,anything to make conversation while the servants were in the room.

Vansittart followed her to the drawing-room directly after dinner, andseated himself by her side in the lamplight, and laid his hand on hersas it turned the pages of the book upon her knee.

“Canon Liddon is a delightful writer, mother; logical, clear-headed,and eloquent, and you could hardly have a better book than his BamptonLectures for Sunday evening; but you might spare a few minutes for yourson.”

“As many minutes or as many hours as you like, Jack,” answered hismother, as she closed the book. “My thoughts are too full of you togive themselves to any book that was ever written. My dear son, whatcan I say to you? Do you really mean to persist in this miserablealliance?”

“Oh, mother, how cruel you are even in your kindness! How cruel amother’s love can be! It is not a miserable alliance—it is themarriage of true minds. Remember what your Shakespeare says, ‘Let menot to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’ Will you, mother,admit impediments here, where practically there is none?”

[Pg 164]

“Jack, Jack, love has made you blind. Is the existence of that wickedyoung man no impediment—a man who may at any day be tried for his lifeas a murderer?”

“Again, mother, I say he was no murderer. The utmost that can be urgedagainst this wicked young man is that he was a hot-tempered athletewho killed a man in a scuffle. Let us forget his existence, if we can.There is nothing in this life more unlikely than that we shall everhear of him again. From that night in the Venetian caffè he ceased toexist—at any rate for England and his kindred. Be sure, mother, thatHarold Marchant will never be heard of again.”

“You believe what you wish to believe, Jack, and you forget the Frenchproverb that nothing is so likely to happen as the unexpected.”

“No, I don’t, mother. That useful adage has been borne in upon me oflate. But now, dearest and best, let us be at peace for ever upon thisquestion. I mean to marry my beloved, and I mean you to love her,second only to Maud and me. She is ready to love you with all herheart—with all the stored-up feeling of those motherless years inwhich she has grown from child to woman, without the help of a mother’slove. You are not going to shut your heart against her, are you,mother?”

“No, Jack, not if she is to be your wife. I love you too well towithhold my love from your wife.”

“That’s my own true mother.”

On this mother and son, between whom there had hung a faint cloud ofdispleasure, kissed, not without tears; and it was agreed that forthese two henceforward the name of Harold Marchant should be a deadletter.

CHAPTER XVI.

TO LIVE FORGOTTEN AND LOVE FORLORN.

Vansittart had made up his mind. Were that which he accounted but adark suspicion to be made absolute certainty he meant still to cleaveto the girl whom he had chosen for his wife, and who had given him herwhole heart. He would marry her, even although his hand had shed herbrother’s blood, that brother whom of all her kindred she loved best,with the romantic affection which clings round the image of a friendlost in childhood, when the feelings are warmest, and when love asks noquestions.

Once, in the little room in Bruton Street, between two stolen kisses,he said to her, “You pretend to be very fond of me, Eve. I wonder whomyou love next best?”

“Harold,” she answered quickly. “I used to think I should never[Pg 165] giveany one his place in my heart. But you have stolen the first place. Heis only second now, poor dear—dead or living, only second.”

The tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke of him. A brother is notoften loved so fondly; hardly ever, unless he is a scamp.

And would she marry him, Jack Vansittart, if she knew that he hadkilled her brother? Alas, no! That dark story would make an impassablegulf between them. Loving him with all her heart, dependent upon himfor all the happiness and prosperity of her future life, she wouldsacrifice herself and him to the manes of that worthless youth, slainby the man his brutality had provoked to responsive violence.

“There was not much to choose between us,” Vansittart told himself;“ruffians both. And are two lives to be blighted because of those fewmoments of fury, in which the brute got the upper hand of the man? No,a thousand times no. I will marry her, and let Fate do the worst tous both. Fate can but part us. Why should I anticipate evil by takingthe initiative? A man who has happiness in his hand and lets it go,for any question of conscience, may be a fine moral character, but heis not the less a fool. Life is not long enough for scruples that partfaithful lovers.”

He looked the situation full in the face. He told himself that it wasfor Eve’s welfare as well as for his own that he should keep from herthe knowledge of his wrong-doing. Would she be happier, would mankindbe any the better off for his self-abnegation, if he should tell herthe truth, and accept his dismissal? Knowing what he knew she couldscarcely lay her hand in his and take him for her husband; but once thevow spoken, once his wife, he thought that she might forgive him evenher brother’s blood.

She must never know! He had blustered and raged in that troubled scenewith Sefton; but sober reflection taught him that if he were to be safein the future he must conciliate the man he hated. A word from Seftoncould spoil his happiness; and he could not afford to be ill friendswith the man who had power to speak that word; nor could he afford toarouse that man’s suspicions by any eccentricity of conduct. He hadrefused to hear the story of Harold Marchant’s life from the courier’slips, as Sefton suggested, had refused with scornful vehemence. Butreflection told him that he ought to examine the courier’s chain ofevidence, and to discover for himself if the links were strong enoughto make Harold Marchant’s identity with Fiordelisa’s lover an absolutecertainty. He wanted to know the worst, not to be deluded by theillogical imaginings of an amateur detective. Again, it was naturalthat a man in his position should look closely into this story, testingits accuracy by the severest scrutiny; and he wanted to act naturally,to act as Sefton would expect him to act.

[Pg 166]

Influenced by these considerations, he called in Tite Street on Mondayafternoon, and found Sefton at home, in a room which occupied theentire first floor of a small house, but which could be made into tworooms by drawing a curtain.

It was the most luxurious room that Vansittart had seen for a longtime, but there was a studied sobriety in its luxury which marked theman of sense as well as the sybarite. The colouring was subdued—dullolive—without relief save from a few pieces of old Italian ebony andivory work, a writing-table, a coffer, a book-case. Every inch of thefloor was carpeted with dark-brown velvet pile. No slippery parquetryor sham oak here, no gaudy variety of Oriental prayer-rugs or furrytrophies of the chase. Capacious armchairs tempted to idleness; achoice selection of the newest and oldest books invited to study;two large windows looking east and west flooded the room with light;and a fireplace wide enough for a baronial hall promised heat andcheerfulness when frosts and fogs combine to make London odious.

“You like my den,” said Sefton, when Vansittart murmured his surpriseat finding so good a room in so small a house. “Comfortable, ain’t it?The house is small, but I’ve reduced the number of rooms to three.Below I have only a dining-room; above, only my bedroom. There is arabbit-hutch at the back of the landing for my valet, and a garret inthe roof for the women. Living in a colony of artists, I have takenpains to keep clear of everything artistic. I have neither stainedglass nor tapestry, neither Raffaelle ware nor bronze idols; but I canoffer my friends a comfortable chair and a decently cooked dinner. Ihope you’ll put my professions to the test some evening, when I can getone or two of my clever neighbours to meet you.”

Vansittart professed himself ready to dine with Mr. Sefton on anyoccasion, and straightway proceeded to the business of his visit.

“You were good enough to suggest that I should see the courier,Ferrari,” he said, “and I was impolite enough to refuse—ratherroughly, I fear.”

“You were certainly a little rough,” answered Sefton, with his suavesmile, “but I could make allowances for a man in your position. Ihonour the warmth of your feelings; and I admire the chivalry whichmakes you indifferent to the belongings of the woman you love.”

“That which you are pleased to call chivalry, I take to be the naturalconduct of any man in such circ*mstances. Honestly, now, Mr. Sefton,would you give up the girl you love if you found her brother had beenthe—the chief actor in such a scene as that row in the Venetian caffè?”

“Well, I suppose not; if I were tremendously in love. But life[Pg 167] wouldbe considerably embittered, to my mind, by the apprehension of such abrother-in-law’s reappearance, or by any unlooked-for concatenationwhich might bring his personality into the foreground.”

“I am willing to risk such a concatenation. In the mean time it hasoccurred to me that I ought to see Ferrari, and look into his storydispassionately. If you will kindly give me his address I will writeand ask him to call upon me.”

“You will find him a very good fellow—a splendid animal, with a fairintelligence,” said Sefton, writing an address. “And now I hope youhave forgiven me for bringing an unpleasant train of circ*mstancesunder your notice. You must remember that the facts in question cameto my knowledge solely from my wish to oblige Miss Marchant. It wouldnot have been fair to you to leave you in ignorance of what so nearlyconcerned your future wife.”

“Certainly not; but it would have been kinder, or wiser, on your partto have kept this knowledge from my mother.”

“Mrs. Vansittart had won my warmest regard by her kindness to the sonof an old friend. I felt my first duty was to her.”

“That was unwise; and your unwisdom has caused much pain. However, Ithank you for having spared Miss Marchant the knowledge that would makeher miserable. I may rely upon you to keep the secret always—may Inot?” asked Vansittart, earnestly.

“Always. You have my promise.”

“Thank you. That sets my mind at rest. I know how to deal with mymother’s prejudices; and I know that her affection for Eve willovercome those prejudices—in good time.”

Ferrari called at Charles Street at eleven o’clock next morning, inaccordance with Vansittart’s request. As the clock struck the hour atall, good-looking man, with reddish-brown hair, reddish-brown eyes,and a cheerful, self-satisfied smile, was ushered into Vansittart’sstudy.

“You are punctual, Signor Ferrari. Sit down, please, and cometo business at once. Mr. Sefton tells me that you are the mostbusiness-like of men, as well as the best of fellows.”

“Mr. Sefton have know me many years, sir. I have had the honour tonurse the of him father in his last illness. Ten years ago we was atVenice, at the Grand Hotel—Mr. Sefton’s father threw himself out ofthe window in a paroxis of pain—I pick him out of the canal at risk ofto drown. The son does not forget what Ferrari did for the father.”

Those who knew Ferrari intimately discovered that this rescuing ofwould-be suicides from the Grand Canal was an idiosyncrasy of his. Heaffected to have saved half the distinguished travellers of Europe inthis manner.

[Pg 168]

“Now, Signor Ferrari, you have no doubt considered that the charge youhave brought against Mr. Harold Marchant is a very serious one——”

“Scusatemi, illustrissimo gentleman, I bring no charge,” protestedFerrari, in his curious English, which he spoke with an Americanaccent, having improved his knowledge of the language in the societyof American travellers, few of whom condescended to Italian or evenFrench. “I bring no charge. Mr. Sefton tell me, trace for me themovements of a young man called ’Arol Marchant. Find him for me. Hewas last heard of with a party of explorers in Mashonaland. He goodshot. Kill big game. With these bare facts I set to work. I am one whonever stop. I am like the devil in Job, always going to and fro overthe earth. I know men in all parts; couriers, interpreters, servants ofevery class, money-changers, shipping agents. From among these I get myinformation, and here it is tabulated. It is for the illustrissimo tojudge for herself, having seen my facts.”

He opened a neat little book, where, upon ruled paper, appeared arecord of the movements of Harold Marchant from the hour of hisappearing at the diamond fields to his return from New York with aparty of Americans, in whose company he put up at the Hotel di Roma,Pension Suisse, on the Grand Canal.

When he was at the Hotel di Roma he was known as Marchant. Hissignature was in the visitors’ book at the hotel. Ferrari had seenit, and had recorded the date, which was in the September precedingthat February in which Vansittart had shared in the gaieties of theCarnival at Venice. A fortnight later Mr. Marchant took a second floorin the Campo Goldoni, under the name of Smith. There was no doubt inthe courier’s mind as to the identity of the man in the Campo Goldoniwith the man at the Hotel di Roma. He had talked with a New Yorker whohad known Marchant under both names, and who knew of his relations withthe pretty lace-maker. But there was nothing in Ferrari’s statementwhich could be called proof positive of this identity. The facts restedon information obtained at second hand. It was open to Vansittartto doubt—since error was not impossible—error as complete as thatmistake which had put the man who was killed in the place of the manwho killed him.

Ferrari tracked the fugitive on his voyage to Alexandria: recorded thename of Smith given to the captain of the P. and O. After Alexandriathere was nothing.

“Do you think he came back to Europe by another steamer?” askedVansittart, testing the all-knowing Venetian.

“Not he, Altissimo. Having once set his foot upon the soil of Africahe would be too wise to return to Europe. He might go to[Pg 169] India, toAmerica—north or south—but he would not come to England, to answerfor the English life which he had taken. You Englishmen set great storeupon life.”

Vansittart dismissed the man with a present, but before he went Ferrarilaid his card upon the table, and begged that if ever the illustrissimorequired a travelling servant, he, Ferrari, might be remembered.

When he was gone Vansittart took up his pen and wrote hastily to Sefton.

He rather despised himself for writing in this friendly strain to a manfor whom he had an instinctive dislike; but he tried to believe thathis dislike was mere prejudice, and that Sefton’s manner with Eve, towhich he had taken such violent objection, was only Sefton’s manner toyoung women in general; a bad manner, but without any sinister feelingunderlying it—only a bad manner.

To-morrow he was to go to Redwold, to be his sister’s guest till afterWhitsuntide, or until the wedding, if he pleased. And before June waspushed aside by her sultrier sister July, he was to be Eve Marchant’shusband. Every day of his life brought that union a day nearer. It hadcome now to the counting of days. It seemed to him as if time and thecalendar were no more—as if he and his love were being swept alongon the strong current of their happiness. He could think of nothing,care for nothing but Eve. His bailiff’s letters, his lawyer’s letters,remained unanswered. He could not bring himself even to consider hismother’s suggestions as to this or that improvement at Merewood,whither Mrs. Vansittart was going at Whitsuntide, to prepare all thingsfor the coming of the bride, and to arrange for her own removal.

“Do as much or as little as you like, mother,” Vansittart said. “Youneed alter nothing. Eve will be pleased with things as they are.”

[Pg 170]

“It will be a great change from a cottage,” sighed Mrs. Vansittart.“I’m afraid she will be bewildered and overpowered by a largehousehold. She can have no idea of managing servants.”

“The servants can manage themselves, mother. I don’t want a managingwife. Yet from what I have seen of Eve in her own home I take her tobe well up in domestic matters. Everything at the Homestead seemed theessence of comfort.”

He remembered his wintry tea-drinking, the tea and toast, the cake andjam-pots, and Eve’s radiant face; the firelight on Eve’s hair; thesense of quiet happiness which pervaded the place where his love wasqueen. It seemed to him that there could not have been one inharmoniousnote in that picture. Order and beauty and domestic peace were there.Should Fate reduce him to poverty he could be utterly happy with hislove in just such a home. He wanted neither splendid surroundings norbrilliant society.

Having heard all that Ferrari could tell him, he felt easier in hismind than he had felt since that unpleasant hour with his mother andSefton on Saturday evening. The more he thought of the courier’s chainof evidence, the weaker it seemed to him. No, he could not think thatthe man he had killed was the brother of the woman he was going tomarry. He tried to recall the man’s face; but the suddenness and furyof that deadly encounter had afforded no time for minute observation.The man’s face had flashed upon him out of the crowd—fair-haired,fair-skinned, amidst all those olive complexions—a face and figurethat bore down upon him with the impression of physical power; handsomeonly as the typical gladiator is handsome. What more could he remember?Irregular features, strongly marked; a low forehead; and light blueeyes. The Marchants were a blue-eyed race; but that went for little ina country where the majority of eyes are blue or grey.

Vansittart remembered his promise to visit Fiordelisa and her aunt; andas this was his last day in London, perhaps, for some time, he gaveup his afternoon to the performance of that promise. Tuesday was oneof the Professor’s days; and he had promised to hear the Professor’sopinion of Signora Vivanti’s progress.

Since that painful hour on Saturday he had thought seriously of theimpulsive Venetian, and of his relations with her—relations whichhe felt to be full of peril. It had occurred to him that there wasonly one way to secure Fiordelisa’s future welfare, while strictlymaintaining his own incognito, and that was by the purchase of anannuity. It would cost him some thousands to capitalize that incomeof two hundred a year, which he had resolved to allow Lisa; but hehad reserves which he could afford to draw upon, the accumulations ofhis minority, invested in railway stock. Any lesser sacrifice wouldappear to him too poor an atonement; for after all,[Pg 171] it was possiblethat, but for him, Fiordelisa’s Englishman might have kept his promiseand married her. No, Vansittart did not think he would be doing toomuch in securing these two women against poverty for the rest oftheir lives—and the annuity once bought he would be justified indisappearing out of Fiordelisa’s life, and leaving her in ignorance ofhis name and belongings.

He spent an hour with his lawyer before going to Chelsea, and from thatgentleman obtained all needful information as to the proper manner ofpurchasing an annuity, and the best people with whom to invest hismoney.

This done, he walked across the Park, and arrived at Saltero’s Mansionon the stroke of four. Lisa had told him that her lesson lasted fromthree to four, so he had timed himself to meet the maestro.

The ripe round notes of Lisa’s mezzo soprano rose full and strong inone of Conconi’s exercises as la Zia opened the door. She attacked aflorid passage with force and precision, ran rapidly up the scale to Asharp, and held the high note long and clear as the call of a bird.

“Brava, brava!” cried Signor Zinco, banging down a chord and risingfrom the piano as Vansittart entered.

Lisa flew to meet him. She was in her black frock, with a bit ofscarlet ribbon tied round her throat, and another bit of scarlet tyingup her great untidy knot of blue-black hair. The rusty black gown, thescarlet ribbons, the olive face, with its carnation flush and star-likeeyes, made a brilliant picture after the school of Murillo. Vansittartcould but see that she was strikingly handsome—just the kind of womanto take the town by storm, if she were once seen and heard in operabouffe.

Zinco was a little old man, with no more figure than an eighteen-galloncask. He had a large bald head, and benevolent eyes. He was veryshabby. His coat, which might once have been black, was now a dullgreen—his old grey trousers were kneed and frayed, his old fat handswere dirty.

“Ah, I thought you had forgotten me again,” said Lisa. “But you arehere at last; and now ask the master if he is pleased with me.”

“I am more than pleased,” began Zinco, bowing and smiling at Vansittartas one who would fain have prostrated himself at the feet of so exalteda patron.

“Stay,” cried Lisa. “You shall not talk of me before my face. I will goand make the tea—and then Zinco will tell you the truth, Si’or mio,the very truth about me. He will not be obliged to praise.”

She dashed out of the room, as if blown out on a strong wind, soimpetuous were her movements. La Zia began to clear a table[Pg 172] for tea, atable heaped with sheets of music and play-books. Fiordelisa had beenlearning English out of Gilbert’s librettos, which were harder work forher than Metastasio for an English student.

“Well, Signor Zinco, what do you think of your pupil?” asked Vansittart.

“Sir, she is of a marvellous natural. She has an enormous talent, andwith that talent an enormous energy. She is destined to a prodigioussuccess upon the English scene.”

“I am delighted to hear it.”

“She has all the qualities which succeed with your English people—afine voice, a fine person, and—that that may not displease you—avulgarity which will command applause. Were I more diplomatist I shouldsay genius—where I say vulgarity—but this divine creature is adorablyvulgar. She has no nerves. I say to her sing, and she sings. ‘Attack methe A sharp,’ and she attacks, and the note rings out like a bell. Sheis without nerves, and she is without self-consciousness, and she hasthe courage of a lion. She has worked as no pupil of mine ever workedbefore. She is mastering your difficult language in as many months asit cost me years. She has laboured at the theory of music, and thoughshe is in most things of a surprising ignorance, she has made no meanprogress in that difficult science. She has worked as Garcia’s gifteddaughter worked; and were this age worthy of a second Malibran, she hasin her the stuff to make a Malibran.”

The fat little maestro stopped for breath, not for words. He stoodmopping his forehead and smiling at Vansittart, who was inclined tobelieve in his sincerity, for that roulade he had heard at thedoor just now displayed a voice of brilliant quality.

“You are enthusiastic, Signor Zinco,” he said quietly. “And pray whenyou have trained this fine voice to the uttermost what do you intend todo with it?”

“I hope to place the Signora in the way of making her fortune. Wereyou English a nation of music-lovers, I should say to this dear lady,give yourself up to hard study of classical opera for the next threeyears, before you allow yourself to be heard in public; but pardon meif I say, Signor, you English are not connoisseurs. You are taken withshow and brilliancy. You think more of youth and beauty in the primadonna than of finish or science. Before your winter season of operabouffe shall begin the Signora will have learnt enough to ensure her asucces fou. I count upon getting her engaged at the Apollo inNovember. There is a new opera being written for the Apollo—an operain which I am told there are several female characters, and there willbe a chance for a new singer. I have already spoken to the manager, andhe has promised to hear the Signora sing before concluding his autumnengagements.”

[Pg 173]

“Festina lente, Signor Zinco. You are going at railroad pace. Do notspoil the Signora’s future by a hasty début.”

“Have no fear, sir. She will have all the summer for practice, and forfurther progress in English. A foreign accent will be no disadvantage.It takes with an English audience. You have had so many sham Italiansin opera that it will be well to have a real one.”

The maestro bowed himself out, as Fiordelisa came in with the tea-tray,beaming with smiles, happy and important. She placed a chair forVansittart by the open window. She arranged the light bamboo tablein front of him, and began to pour out the tea, while la Zia seatedherself at a little distance.

“I have learnt to make tea in your English fashion,” Lisa said gaily,as she handed the teacups. “Strong, oh, so strong. No xe vero? Ourneighbour on the upper floor taught me. She laughed at my tea one daywhen she came to see me. And now, what did little Zinco say? He alwayspretends to be satisfied with me.”

“He praised you to the skies. He says you will make your fortune inopera.”

“And do you like operas?” Lisa asked, after a thoughtful pause.

“I adore music of all kinds, except hurdy-gurdies and banjos.”

“And will you come sometimes to hear me sing?”

“Assuredly! With the greatest pleasure.”

“I shall owe fame and fortune to you, if ever I am famous or rich,”said Lisa, seating herself on a low stool by the window, in the fullafternoon sunlight, basking in the brightness and warmth.

“What has become of Paolo?” asked Vansittart, looking round the room,where some scattered toys reminded him of the child’s existence.

“Paolo has gone to tea with the lady on the top floor. She has threelittle girls and a boy, and they all love el puttelo. They lethim play with their toys and pull their hair. Hark! there they go.”

A wild gallop of little feet across the ceiling testified to theanimation of the party.

“He has been there all the afternoon. He is a bold, bad boy, and sofull of mischief,” said Lisa, with evident pride. “He is very big forhis age, people say, and as active as a monkey. You must go and fetchhim directly you have had your tea, Carina mia,” she added to her aunt.“He has been with those children nearly two hours. He will be awake allnight with excitement.”

“Is he excitable?” asked Vansittart, who felt a new and painfulinterest in this child of a nameless parent.

“Oh, he is terrible. He is ready to jump out of the window when he ishappy. He throws himself down on the floor, and kicks[Pg 174] and screams tillhe is black in the face, when he is not allowed to do what he likes. Heis only a baby, and yet he is our master. That is because he is a man,I suppose. We were created to be your slaves, were we not, Si’or mio?La Zia spoils him.”

La Zia protested that the boy was a cherub, an angel. He wanted nothingin life but his own way. And he was so strong, so big, and so beautifulthat people turned in the streets to look at him.

“Among all the children in Battersea Park I have never seen his equal.And he is not yet three years old. He fought with a boy of six, andsent him away howling. He is a marvel.”

“When he is old enough I shall send him to a gymnasium,” said Lisa.“I want him to be an athlete, like his father. He told me once thathe won cups and prizes at the University by his strength. Oh, howwhite you have turned!” she cried, distressed at the ghastly changein Vansittart’s face. “I forgot. I forgot. I ought not to have spokenof him. I never will speak of him again. We will forget that he everexisted.”

She hung over his chair. She took up his hand and kissed it.

“Forgive me! Forgive me!” she murmured, with tears.

Unmoved by this little scene, la Zia emptied her teacup, rose, and leftthe room; and they two—Vansittart and Fiordelisa—were alone.

“You know that I would not pain you for the world,” she sighed. “Youhave been so good to me, my true and only friend.”

“No, no, Si’ora; I know that you would not willingly recall that memorywhich is branded upon my heart and brain. I can never forget. Do notbelieve even that I wish to forget. I sinned; and I must suffer for mysin. My friendship for you and for your good aunt arose out of thatsin. I want to atone to you as far as I can for that fatal act. Youunderstand that, I am sure.”

“Yes, yes; I understand. But you like us, don’t you?” she pleaded. “Youare really our friend?”

“I am really your friend. And I want to prove my friendship by settlingan income upon you, in such a manner that you will not be dependentupon my forethought for the payment of that income. It will be paid toyou as regularly as the quarter-day comes round. I am going to buy youan annuity, Lisa; that is to say, an income which will be paid to youtill the end of your life; so that whether you make your fortune as asinger or not, you can never know extreme poverty.”

“But who will give me the money when quarter-day comes?”

“It will be sent to you from an office. You will have no trouble aboutit.”

“I should hate that. I would rather have the money from your hand. Itis you who give it me—not the man at the office. I want[Pg 175] to kiss mybenefactor’s hand. You are my benefactor. That was one of the firstwords I taught myself after I came to this house. Bén-é-factor!” sherepeated, with her Italian accent; “it is easier than most of yourEnglish words.”

“Cara Si’ora, I may be far away. It would be a bad thing for you todepend on my memory for the means of living. Let us be reasonable andbusiness-like. I shall see to this matter to-morrow. And now, good-bye.”

He rose, and took up his hat. Lisa hung about him, very pale, and withher full lower lip quivering like the lip of a child that is trying notto cry.

“Why are you doing this? why are you changing to me?” she askedpiteously.

“I am not changing, Lisa. There is no thought of change in me. Only youmust be reasonable. There is a dark secret between us—the memory ofthat fatal night in Venice. It is not well that we should meet often.We cannot see each other without remembering——”

“I remember nothing when I am with you—gnente, gnente!” she criedpassionately. “Nothing except that I love you—love you with all myheart and soul.”

She tried to throw herself upon his breast, but as he recoiled,astonished and infinitely pained, she fell on her knees at his feet,and clasped his hand in both of hers, and kissed and cried over it.

“I love you,” she repeated; “and you—you have loved me—you must haveloved me—a little. No man was ever so kind as you have been, exceptfor love’s sake. You must have cared for me. You cared for me that dayin Venice—the happiest day in my life. Your heart turned to me as myheart turned to you, in the sunshine on the lagune, in the evening atthe theatre. Every day that I have lived since then has strengthened mylove. For God’s sake, don’t tell me that I am nothing to you.”

“You are very much to me, Lisa. You are a friend for whom I desire allgood things that this world and the world that comes after death cangive. Get off your knees, child. This is childish folly; no wiser thanPaolo’s anger when you won’t let him have all his own way. Come, Si’oramia, let us laugh and be friends.”

He tried to make light of her feelings; but she gave him a look thatfrightened him, a look of unmitigated despair.

“I thought you loved me; that by-and-by, when I was a famous singer,you would marry me. I should be good enough then to be your wife. Youwould forget that I was once a poor working girl at Burano. But I wasfoolish; yes, foolish. I could never be good enough to be your wife—I,the mother of Paolo. Let me go on loving you. Only come to see mesometimes—once a week, perhaps![Pg 176] The weeks are so long when you don’tcome. Only care for me a little, just a little, and I shall be happy.See how little I am asking. Don’t forsake me, don’t abandon me.”

“There is nothing further from my thoughts than to forsake you; butif you make scenes of this kind I can never trust myself to come hereagain,” he answered sternly.

“You will never come here again!” she cried, looking at him with wildeyes. “Then I will not live without you; I cannot, I will not.”

The window stood open with its balcony and flowers, and the sunlitriver, and the sunlit park and dim blue horizon of house-tops andchimneys stretching away to the hills of Sydenham. The girl looked athim for a moment, clenched her teeth, clenched her hands, and made arush for the balcony. Happily he was quick enough and strong enoughto stop her with one outstretched arm. He took her by the shoulder,savagely almost, with something of the brutal roughness of her oldlover it might be, but with no love. Beautiful as she was in herpassionate self-abandonment, he felt nothing for her in that moment butan angry contempt, which he was at little pains to conceal.

The revulsion of feeling upon that wild impulse towardsself-destruction came quickly enough. The tears rolled down her flushedcheeks, she sank into the chair towards which Vansittart led her, andsat, helpless and unresisting, with her hands hanging loose across thearms of the chair, her head drooping on her breast, the picture ofhelpless grief.

He could but pity her, seeing her so childlike, so unreasoning, swayedby passion as a lily is bent by the wind. He shut the window, andbolted it, against any second outbreak; and then he seated himself atLisa’s side and took one of those listless hands in his.

“Let us be reasonable, Si’ora,” he said, “and let us be good friendsalways. If I were not in love with a young English lady whom I hopevery shortly to make my wife I might have fallen in love with you.”

She gave a melancholy smile, and then a deep sigh.

“No, no, impossible! You would never have cared. I am too low—themother of Paolo—only fit to be your servant.”

“Love pardons much, Lisa; and if my heart had not been given to anotheryour beauty and your generous nature might have won me. Only my heartwas gone before that night at Covent Garden. It belonged for ever andfor ever to my dear English love.”

“Your English love! I should like to see her”—with a moody look. “Isshe handsome, much handsomer than I?”

“There are some people who would think you the lovelier. Beauty is notall in all, Lisa. We love because we love.”

[Pg 177]

“‘We love because we love,’” she repeated slowly. “Ah, that is whatmakes it so hard. We cannot help ourselves. Love is destiny.”

“Your destiny was in the past, Lisa. It came to you at Burano.”

“No, no, no. I never cared for him as I have cared for you. I washappier in that one day on the Lido, and that one evening in Venice,than in all my life with him. There was more music in your voice whenyou spoke to me, ever so lightly, than in all he ever said to me oflove. You are my destiny.”

“You will think the same about some one else by-and-by, Si’ora—someone whose heart will be free to love you as you deserve to be loved.You are so young and so pretty and so clever that you must needs win alove worth the winning by-and-by, if you will only be reasonable andlive a tranquil, self-respecting life in the meanwhile.”

She shook her head hopelessly.

“I shall never care for any one again,” she said. “No other voice wouldever sound sweet in my ears. Don’t despise me; don’t think of me as ashameless creature. I was mad just now. I should never have spoken as Idid; but I thought you cared for me. You were so kind; you did so muchfor us.”

“I have tried to do my duty, that was all.”

“Only duty! Well, it was a dream, a lovely dream—and it is over.”

“Let it go with a smile, Lisa. You have so much to make lifepleasant—a face that will charm every one; a voice that may make yourfortune.”

“I don’t care about fortune.”

“Ah, but you will find it very pleasant when it comes—carriages andhorses, a fine house, jewels, laurel wreaths, applause, all that ismost intoxicating in life. It is for that you have been working sohard.”

“No, it is not for that. I have been working only to please you; sothat you should say by-and-by, ‘This poor little Lisa, for whom I havetaken so much trouble, is something more than a common lace-worker,after all.’”

“This poor little Lisa is a genius, I believe, and will have the worldat her feet, by-and-by. And now, Si’ora, I must say good-bye. I amgoing into the country to-morrow.”

“For long?”

“Till after my marriage, perhaps.”

“Till after your marriage! And when you are married will you ever comeand see me?”

“Perhaps; if you will promise never again to talk as foolishly as youhave talked to-day.”

“I promise. I promise anything in this world rather than not see you.”

[Pg 178]

“If I come, be sure I shall come as your true and loyal friend. Ah,here is your son,” as a babyish prattle made itself heard in the littlevestibule.

First came a rattling of the handle, and then the door was burst open,and Paolo rushed in—a sturdy block of a boy, with flaxen hair andgreat black eyes—a curious compromise between the Saxon father and theVenetian mother; square-shouldered, sturdy, stolid, yet with flashesof southern impetuousness. He was big for his age, very big, standingstraight and strong upon the legs of an infant Hercules. He excelled ineverything but speech.

Vansittart lifted him in his arms, and looked long and earnestly intothe cherubic countenance, which first smiled and then frowned at him.He was trying, in this living picture of the dead, to see whether hecould discover any trace of the Marchant lineaments.

It might be that a foregone conclusion prompted the fancy—that thefear of seeing made him see—but in the turn of the eyebrow and thecontour of cheek and chin he thought he recognized lines which werefamiliar to him in the faces of Eve and her sisters—lines which werenot in Fiordelisa’s face.

He set the boy down with a sigh.

“Don’t spoil him, Signora,” he said to la Zia. “He looks like a boywith a good disposition, but a strong temper. He will want judicioustraining by-and-by.”

Lisa followed him to the vestibule, and opened the door for him.

“Tell me that you are not angry before you go,” she said imploringly.

“Angry? No, no; how could I be angry? I am only sorry that you shouldwaste so much warmth of feeling on a man whose heart belongs to someone else.”

“What is she like—that some one else? Tell me that—I want to know.”

“Very lovely, very good, very gentle and tender and dear. How can Idescribe her? She is the only woman in the world for me.”

“Shall I ever see her?”

“I think not, Si’ora. It would do no good. There is that sad secretwhich you and I know, but which she does not know. I could not tell herabout you without making her wonder how you and I had come to be suchfriends; and then——”

“You do not think that I would tell her?” exclaimed Lisa, with awounded air.

“No, no; I know you would not. Only secrets come to light, sometimes,unawares. Let the future take care of itself. Once more, good-bye.”

“Once more, good-bye,” she echoed, in tones of deepest melancholy.

“SHE WAS MORE FAIR THAN WORDS CAN SAY.”

If Easter had been a time of happiness for Vansittart and Eve, bringingwith it the revelation of mutual love, Whitsuntide was no less happy;happier, perhaps, in its serene security, and in the familiarity of alove which seemed to have lasted for a long time.

“Only seven weeks!” exclaimed Eve, in one of their wanderings amongthe many cattle-tracks on Bexley Hill, no sound of life or movement inall the world around them save the hum of insects and the chime of cowbells. “To think that we have been engaged only seven weeks! It seems alifetime.”

“Because you are so weary of me?” asked Vansittart, with a lover’sfatuous smile.

“No; because our love is so colossal. How can it have grown sotremendous in so short a time?”

“Romeo and Juliet’s love grew in a single night.”

“Ah, that was in Italy—and for stage effect. I don’t think much of apassion that springs up in a night, like one of those great red fungiwhich one sees in this wood on an October morning. I should like ourlove to be as strong and as deep-rooted as that old oak over there,with its rugged grey roots cleaving the ground.”

“Why, so it is; or it will be by the time we celebrate our goldenwedding.”

“Our golden wedding! Yes, if we go on living we must be old and greysome day. It seems hard, doesn’t it? How happy those Greek gods andgoddesses were, to be for ever young! It seems hard that we must changefrom what we are now. I cannot think of myself as an old woman, in ablack silk gown and a cap. A cap!” she interjected, with ineffabledisgust, and an involuntary movement of her ungloved hand to the coilsof bright hair which were shining uncovered in the sun. “And you withgrey hair and wrinkles! Wrinkles in your face! That is whatyour favourite Spencer calls ‘Unthinkable.’ Stay”—looking at himsearchingly in the merciless summer light. “Why, I declare there isjust one wrinkle already. Just one perpendicular wrinkle! That meanscare, does it not?”

“What care can I have when I have you, except the fear of losing you?”

“Ah, you can have no such fear. I think, like Juliet, ‘I should havehad more cunning to be strange.’ I let you see too soon that I adoredyou. I made myself too cheap.”

[Pg 180]

“No more than the stars are cheap. We may all see them and worshipthem.”

“But that deep perpendicular line, Jack. It must mean something. I havebeen reading Darwin on Expression, remember.”

“Spencer—Darwin. You are getting far too learned. I liked you betterin your ignorance.”

“How ignorant I was”—with a long-drawn sigh—“till you began toeducate me! Poor dear Mütterchen never taught us anything but themultiplication table and a little French grammar. We used to devourScott, and Dickens, and Bulwer, and Thackeray. The books on our shelveswill tell you how they have been read. They have been done to ragswith reading. They are dropping to pieces like over-boiled fowls.And we know our Shakespeare—we have learnt him by heart. We usedto make our winter nights merry acting Shakesperean scenes to Nancyand the parlour-maid. They were our only audience. But, except thosedear novelists and Shakespeare, we read nothing. History was a blank;philosophy a word without meaning. You introduced me to the world oflearned authors.”

“Was I wise? Was it not something like Satan’s introduction of Eve tothe apple?”

“Wise or foolish, you gave me Darwin. And now I want to know what kindof trouble it was that made that line upon your forehead. Some foolishlove affair, perhaps. You were in love—ever so much deeper in lovethan you are with me.”

“No, my dearest. All my earlier loves were lighter than vanity—no morethan Romeo’s boyish passion for Rosaline.”

“What other care, then? You, who are so rich, can have no money cares.”

“Can I not? Imprimis, I am not rich; and then what income I have isderived chiefly from agricultural land cut up into smallish farms, withhomesteads, and barns, and cowhouses, that seem always ready to tumbleabout the tenant’s ears, unless I spend half a year’s rent in repairs.”

“Dear, picturesque old homesteads, I’ve no doubt.”

“Eminently picturesque, but very troublesome to own.”

“And did repairs—the cost of roofs and drainpipes—write that deepline on your brow?”

“Perhaps. Or it may be only a habit of frowning, and of trying toemulate the eagles in looking at the sun.”

“Ah, you have been a wanderer in sunny lands—in Italy! And now we hadbetter go and look for the girls.”

They roamed over Bexley Hill or Blackdown during that happyWhitsuntide, favoured with weather that made these Sussex hills aparadise. It was the season of hawthorn blossom, and an undulatingline of white may bushes came dancing down the hill like a bridal[Pg 181]procession. It was the season of bluebells; and all the woodlandhollows trembled with azure bloom, luminous in sunlight, darkly purplein shadow; the season of blossoming trees in cottage gardens, of thelaburnum’s golden rain, the acacia’s perfumed whiteness, the tossingballs of the guelder rose, the mauve blossoms of wistaria glorifyingthe humblest walls, the small white woodbine scenting the warm air.It was a season that seemed especially invented for youth and love;for the young foals sporting in the meadow; for the young lambs on thegrassy hills; and for Eve and Vansittart.

They almost lived out of doors in this delicious weather. The foursisters were always ready to bear them company, and were alwaysdiscreet enough to leave them alone for the greater part of everyrambling expedition. Mr. Tivett had reappeared on the scene. He hadbeen particularly useful in London, where he was full of informationabout the very best places for buying everything, from a diamondbracelet to a tooth-brush, and had insisted upon taking Eve and LadyHartley to some of his favourite shops, and upon having a voice ina great many of their purchases. He took as much interest in Eve’strousseau as if he had been her maiden aunt.

The wedding was to be the simplest ceremonial possible. NeitherVansittart nor Eve wished to parade their bliss before a light-mindedmultitude. The Homestead was not a house in which to entertain a largeassembly; and Colonel Marchant was not a man to make a fuss aboutanything in life except his own comfort. He ordered a frock-coat and anew hat for the occasion; and the faithful Nancy, cook, housekeeper,and general manager, toiled for a week of industrious days in orderthat the house might be in faultless order, and the light collationworthy of the chosen few who were invited to the wedding. There were tobe no hired waiters, no stereotyped banquet from the confectioner’s,only tea and coffee, champagne of a famous brand—upon this theColonel insisted—and such cakes and biscuits and delicate sandwichesas Nancy knew well how to prepare. For bridesmaids, Eve had her foursisters, all in white frocks, and carrying big bunches of Maréchal Nielroses. Hetty and Peggy had been in ecstatic expectation of the dayfor a month, and full of speculation as to what manner of present thebridegroom would give them. They squabbled about this question almostevery night at bedtime, under the sloping roof of the attic which theyoccupied together, close to the overhanging thatch where there was sucha humming and buzzing of summer insects in the June mornings.

“He is bound to give us a present,” said Peggy. “It’setiquette”—accentuating the first syllable.

“You should say etiquette,” reproved Hetty. “Lady Hartley lays astress upon the kett.”

[Pg 182]

“Don’t bother about pronounciation,” muttered Peggy; “one can never geton with one’s talk when you’re so fine-ladyfied.”

“Pronounciation!” cried Hetty. “You pick up your language from Susan.No wonder Sophy is horrified at you.”

“Sophy is too fine for anything. Mr. Vansittart said so yesterdaywhen she gave herself airs at the picnic, because there were no tablenapkins. I wonder what the present will be! He’s so rich, he’s sure togive us something pretty. Suppose he gives us watches?”

A watch was the dream of Peggy’s life. She thought the differencebetween no watch and watch was the difference between a humdrumexistence and a life of exquisite bliss.

“Suppose he doesn’t,” exclaimed her sister, contemptuously. “Did youever hear of a bridegroom giving watches? Of course, the bridesmaidsare supposed to have watches. Their fathers give them watches directlythey are in their teens, unless they are hard-up, like our father. Ishouldn’t wonder if he were to give us diamond arrow brooches.”

Hetty had seen a diamond arrow in Lady Hartley’s bonnet-strings, andhad conceived a passion for that ornament.

“What do you bet that it will be diamond arrows?”

“There’s no use in betting. If you lose, one never gets paid.”

“I don’t often have any money,” Peggy replied naively; and then camea knocking at the lath and plaster partition, and Sophy’s sharp voiceremonstrating—

“Are you children never going to leave off chattering? You are worsethan the swallows in the morning.”

There was one blissfullest of days for Peggy during the week before thewedding, a balmy June morning on which Vansittart came in a dog-cartto take Eve and her youngest sister to Haslemere station, whence thetrain carried them through a smiling land, perfumed with bean blossomsand those fragrant spices which pine woods exhale under the summer sun,to Liss, where another dog-cart was waiting for them, and whence theydrove past copse and common to Merewood, Vansittart’s very own house,to which he brought his future wife on a visit of inspection—“to seeif she would like any alterations,” he said.

“As if any one could want to alter such a lovely house,” exclaimedPeggy, who was allowed to run about and pry into every hole and corner,and open all the wardrobes and drawers, except in Mrs. Vansittart’srooms, where everything was looked at with almost religious reverence.

There were boxes packed already in this lady’s dressing-room, the noteof departure already sounded.

“My mother talks of a house at Brighton,” said Vansittart.[Pg 183] “She has agood many friends settled there, and the winter climate suits her.”

“I am sorry she should feel constrained to go away,” said Eve, lookingruefully round the spacious morning-room, with its three French windowsopening on to a wide balcony, a room which could have swallowed up halfthe Homestead. “It seems as if I were turning her out. And I am surethere would have been ample room for both of us in this big house.”

“So I told her, love; but English mothers don’t take kindly to the ideaof a joint ménage. She will come to us often as our guest, I have nodoubt, but she insists upon giving up possession to you and me.”

They loitered in all the lower rooms, drawing-room and anteroom,library, billiard-room—an unpretentious country house, spread over agood deal of ground, roomy, airy, beautifully lighted, but boastingno art collections, no treasures of old books, unpretentiouslyfurnished after the fashion of a century ago, and with only such modernadditions as comfort required. The drawing-room would have appearedshabby to eyes fresh from London drawing-rooms; but the colouring washarmonious, and the room was made beautiful by the flowers on tables,chimney-piece, and cabinets.

“I dare say you would like to refurnish this room by-and-by,” saidVansittart.

“Not for worlds. I would not change one detail that can remind youof your childhood. I remember the drawing-room in Yorkshire, and howdearly I loved the sofas and easy-chairs—the glass cabinets of oldblue china. It would grieve me to go back and see strange furniture inthat dear old room; and I love to think that your eyes looked at thesethings when they were only on a level with that table”—pointing to alow table with a great bowl of roses upon it.

“Not my eyes alone, but my father’s and grandfather’s eyes have lookedfrom yonder low level. I am glad you don’t mind the shabby furniture. Iconfess to a weakness for the old sticks.”

“Shabby furniture!” repeated Eve. “One would think you were goingto marry a princess. Why, this house is a palace compared with theHomestead; and yet I have contrived to be happy at the Homestead.”

“Because Heaven has given you one of its choicest gifts—a happydisposition,” said Vansittart. “It is that sunny temperament whichirradiates your beauty. It is not that tip-tilted little nose, soslender in the bridge, so ethereal in its upward curve, nor yet thoseviolet eyes, which make you so lovely. It is the happy soul for eversinging to itself, like the lark up yonder in the fathomless blue.”

“I shouldn’t think you cared for me, if you didn’t talk nonsensesometimes,” answered Eve, gaily; “but it is a privilege to be[Pg 184]happy, isn’t it? Sophy and I have had the same troubles to bear, butthey have hurt her ever so much more than they hurt me. Jenny and Isometimes call her Mrs. Gummidge. I think it is because she has neverleft off struggling to be smart, never left off thinking that we oughtto be on the same level as the county families; while Jenny and I gaveup the battle at once, and confessed to each other frankly that we werepoor and shabby, and the daughters of a scampish father. And so we havemanaged to be happy. I love to think that I am like Beatrice, and thatI was born under a star that danced.”

“You were born under a star that brought me good luck.”

They were in the flower-garden, a delightful old garden of velvet turfand herbaceous borders, a garden brimful of roses, standard roses andclimbing roses and dwarf roses, arches of roses that made the bluesky beyond look bluer, alleys shaded with roses, like the vine-cladberceaux of Italy. It was a garden shut in by walls of ilex and yew,and so secluded as to make an al fresco saloon for summerhabitation; a saloon in which one could breakfast or dine, without fearof being espied by any one approaching the hall door.

Eve was enchanted with her new home. She poured out her confidenceto him who was so soon to be her husband, with the right to know herinmost thoughts, her every impulse or fancy. It was not often that shetalked of herself; but to-day she was full of personal reminiscences,and Vansittart encouraged her innocent egotism.

“I don’t think you realize that you are playing the part of KingCophetua, and marrying a beggar-maiden,” she said. “I don’t think youcan have any idea what a struggle my life has been since I was twelveyears old—how that dear Nancy and I have had to scheme and manage,in order to feed four hungry girls. You remember how Hetty and Peggygiggled when you talked about dinner. We scarcely ever had a mealwhich you and Lady Hartley would call dinner. We were vegetarians halfour time—we abstained when it wasn’t Lent. We had our Ember days allthe year round. Oh, pray don’t look so horrified. We had the kindof food we liked. Vegetable soups, and savoury messes, salads andcheese, cakes and buns, bread and jam. We had meals that we all enjoyedtremendously—only we could not have asked a dropper-in to stay andlunch or dine—could we? So it was lucky people took so little noticeof us.”

“My darling, you were the pearls, and your neighbours were the swine.”

“And then our dress. How could we be neat tailor-made girls when aten-pound note once in a way was all we could extort from father forthe whole flock? Ten pounds! Lady Hartley would[Pg 185] pay as much for abonnet as would buy gowns for all five of us. And then you bring meto this delicious old house—so spacious, so dignified, with sucha settled air of wealth and comfort—and you ask if I can suggestimprovement in things which to my mind are perfect.”

“My dearest, I want you to be happy, and very happy; and to feel thatthis house is your house, to deal with as you please.”

“I only want to live in it, with you,” she answered shyly, “and not todisappoint you. What should I do if King Cophetua were to repent hisromantic marriage, and were to think of all the brilliant matches hemight have made?”

“When we are settled here I will show you the girls my mother wouldhave liked me to marry, and you will see that they are not particularlybrilliant. And I do not even know if any of them would have acceptedme, had I been minded to offer myself.”

“They could not have refused you. No one could. To know you is to adoreyou. Come, Jack, you have been talking rodomontade to me. It is myturn now. You are not extraordinarily handsome. I suppose, as a sobermatter of fact, Mr. Sefton is handsomer. Don’t wince at the sound ofhis name. You know I have always detested him. I doubt if you are evenexceptionally clever—but you have a kind of charm—you creep into agirl’s heart unawares. I pity the woman who loved you, and whom you didnot love.”

Vansittart thought of Fiordelisa. Perhaps in every man’s life therecomes one such ordeal as that—love cast at his feet, love worthless tohim; but true love all the same, and priceless.

Eve Marchant’s wedding gifts were few but costly. She had no widecircle of acquaintances to shower feather fans and ivory paper-knives,standard lamps and silver boxes, teapots and cream-jugs, fruit spoonsand carriage clocks upon her, till she sat among her treasures,bewildered and oppressed, like Tarpeia under the iron rain from warriorhands. Neighbours had stood aloof from the family at the Homestead, andcould hardly come with gifts in their hands, now that the slighted girlwas going to marry a man of some standing in an adjoining county, andto take her place among the respectabilities. The givers therefore werefew, but the gifts were worthy. Mrs. Vansittart gave the pearl necklacewhich she had worn at her own bridal—a single string of perfectpearls, with a diamond clasp that had been in the family for a centuryand a half. Lady Hartley gave a set of diamond stars worthy to blazein the fashionable firmament on a Drawing-Room day. Sir Hubert gave athree-quarter bred mare of splendid shape and remarkable power, perfectas hack or hunter, on whose back Eve had already taken[Pg 186] her firstlessons in equitation. And for the bridegroom! His gifts were of thechoicest and the best considered; jewels, toilet nécessaire, travellingbag, books innumerable. He watched for every want, anticipated everyfancy.

“Pray, pray don’t spoil me,” cried Eve. “You make me feel so horriblyselfish. You load me with gifts, and you say you are not rich. You areruining yourself for me.”

“A man can afford to ruin himself once in his life for his nearest anddearest,” he answered gaily. “Besides, if I give you all you want now,I shall cure you of any incipient tendency to extravagance.”

“I have no such tendency. My nose has been kept too close to thegrindstone of poverty.”

“Poor, pretty little nose! Happily the grindstone has not hurt it.”

“And as for wants, who said I wanted Tennyson and Browning bound invellum, or a travelling bag as big as a house? I have no wants, or theyare all centred upon one object, which isn’t to be bought with money. Iwant you and your love.”

“I and my love are yours—have been yours since that night in the snowyroad, when you entered into my life at a flash, like the sunlightthrough Newton’s shutter, like Undine, like Titania.”

One of the few wedding presents was embarrassing alike to bride andbridegroom, for it came from a man whom both disliked, but whom one ofthe two would rather not offend.

Eve’s appearance in the family sitting-room just a little later thanusual one morning was loudly hailed by Hetty and Peggy, who weresquabbling over a small parcel which had arrived, registered andinsured, by the morning post.

“It is a jeweller’s box in the shape of a crescent,” cried Peggy. “Itmust be a crescent brooch. How too utterly lovely! But it is not fromMr. Vansittart.”

They called him Mr. Vansittart still, although he had begged them tocall him Jack.

“It would be too awfully free and easy to call so superb a gentleman bysuch a vulgar name,” Hetty said, when the subject came under discussion.

“I say it is from Mr. Vansittart,” protested Hetty. “Who else wouldsend her a diamond crescent?”

“How do you know it’s diamonds?”

“Oh, of course. Bridegrooms always give diamonds. Did you ever seeanything else in the weddings in the Lady’s Pictorial?”

“Bother the Lady’s Pictorial! it ain’t his handwriting.”

“Ain’t it, stupid? Who said it was? It’s the jeweller’s writing, ofcourse—with Mr. Vansittart’s card inside.”

[Pg 187]

“Perhaps you will allow me to open the parcel, and see what it allmeans,” said Eve, with the eldest sister’s dignity.

The two young barbarians had had the breakfast-table to themselves,Sophy and Jenny not having appeared. There were certain operations withspirit-lamp and tongs which made these young ladies later than theunsophisticated juniors.

“I shall scold him savagely for sending me this, after what I told himyesterday,” said Eve, as she tore open the carefully sealed parcel.

She was of Hetty’s opinion. The gift could be from none but her lover.

“Oh, oh, oh!” they cried, all three of them, in a chorus of rapture, asthe box was opened.

The crescent was of sapphires, deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,without flaw or feather. Small brilliants filled in the corners betweenthe stones, but these hardly showed in that blue depth and darkness.The effect was of a solemn, almost mysterious splendour.

“Oh, how wicked, how wilful of him, to waste such a fortune upon me!”cried Eve, taking the crescent out of its velvet bed.

Under the jewel, like the asp under the fig-leaves, there lay avisiting-card.

“From Mr. Sefton, with all best wishes.”

Eve dropped the brooch as if it had stung her.

“From him?” she cried. “How horrid!”

“I call it utterly charming of him,” protested Hetty, who had adoptedas many of Lady Hartley’s phrases as her memory would hold. “We allknow that he admired you, and I think it too sweet of him to show thathe bears no malice now that you are marrying somebody else. Had he sentyou anything paltry I should have loathed him. But such a present asthis, so simple yet so distingué, in such perfect taste——”

“Cease your raptures, Hetty, for mercy’s sake!” cried Eve, wrapping thejewel-box in the crumpled paper, and tying the string round it ratherroughly. “Would you accept any gift from a man you hate?”

“It would depend upon the gift. I wouldn’t advise my worst enemy to tryme with a sapphire crescent—such sapphires as those!”

“You are a mighty judge of sapphires!” said Eve, contemptuously; afterwhich unkind remark she ate her breakfast of bread and butter andhome-made marmalade in moody silence. And it was a rare thing for Eveto be silent or moody.

Vansittart’s step was heard upon the gravel before the curling-tongswere done with in the upper story, and Eve ran out to the porch tomeet him, with the jeweller’s parcel in her hand. They[Pg 188] walked aboutthe garden together, between rows of blossoming peas and featheryasparagus, by borders of roses and pinks, talking of Sefton and hisgift. Eve wanted to send it back to the giver.

“I can decline it upon the ground that I don’t approve of weddingpresents except from one’s own and one’s bridegroom’s kindred,” shesaid. “I won’t be uncivil.”

“I fear he would think the return of his gift uncivil, however sweetlyyou might word your refusal. Wedding gifts are such a customarybusiness; it is an unheard-of act to send one back. No, Eve, I fear youmust keep the thing,” with a tone of disgust; “but you need not wearit.”

“Wear it! I should think not! Of course I shall obey you; but I hatethe idea of being under an obligation to Mr. Sefton, who—well, whoalways made me feel more than any one else that I wasn’t one of theelect. His friendliness was more humiliating than other people’sstand-offishness. I wonder you mind offending him, Jack. I know youdon’t like him.”

“No; but he is my sister’s neighbour; and he and the Hartleys are byway of being friendly.”

“Ah, I see! That is a reason. I wouldn’t for the world do anything tomake Lady Hartley uncomfortable. He might go to her and tax her withhaving an unmannerly young woman for a sister-in-law. So I suppose Imust write a pretty little formal letter to thank him for his mostexquisite gift, the perfect taste of which is only equalled by hiscondescension in remembering such an outsider as Colonel Marchant’sdaughter. Something to that effect, but not quite in those words.”

She broke into gay laughter, the business being settled, and stoodon tiptoe to offer her rosy lips to Vansittart’s kiss; and all theinvisible fairies in the peaseblossom, and all the microscopic Cupidslurking among the rose leaves, beheld that innocent kiss and laughedtheir noiseless laugh in sympathy with these true lovers.

“I have a good mind,” said Eve, as she ran back to the house, “to givePeggy the blue crescent to fasten her pinafore.”

The wedding at Fernhurst Church was as pretty a wedding as any oneneed care to see, although it was a ceremony curtailed of all thosesurroundings which make weddings worthy to be recorded in the Societypapers. There was no crowd of smart people, no assemblage of smartgowns stamped with the mantua-maker’s cachet, and marking thelatest development of fashion. No long train of carriages choked therural road, or filled the little valley with clouds of summer dust.Only the kindred of bride and bridegroom were present; but even thesemade a gracious group in the chancel, while the music of the rusticchoir and the school children[Pg 189] with their baskets of roses were enoughto give a bridal aspect to the scene.

Eve, in her severely simple gown, with no ornaments save the stringof pearls round her full firm throat, and the natural orange blossomsin her bright hair, was a vision of youthful grace and beauty thatsatisfied every eye, and made the handsome bridegroom in all hisheight, and breadth, and manly strength, a mere accessory, hardlyworth notice. The four sisters, in their gauzy white frocks andGainsborough hats, when clustered in a group at the church door, mighthave suggested four cherubic heads looking out of a fleecy cloud, sofresh and bright were the young faces, in the unalloyed happiness ofthe occasion—happiness almost supernal, for, regardless of precedent,and mysteriously divining Peggy’s desire, the bridegroom had given themwatches, dainty little watches, with an “E” in brilliants upon eachgolden back—E, for Eve; E, for Ecstasy; E, for Everlasting bliss!Peggy felt she had nothing more to ask of life. And for spectators, whoneed have wished a friendlier audience than honest Yorkshire Nancy, andthe cottagers who had seen Eve Marchant grow up in their midst, and hadexperienced many kindnesses from her—the cottagers whose children shehad taught in the Sunday-school, whose old people she had comforted ontheir death-beds, and for whose sake she had often stinted herself inorder to take a jug of good soup, or a milk pudding, to a sick child?

Colonel Marchant made a dignified figure at the altar, in a frock-coatextorted from the reviving confidence of a tailor, who saw hope in MissMarchant’s marriage. He did all that was required of him with the graceof a man who had not forgotten the habits of good society. The modestcollation at the Homestead was a success; for everybody was in goodspirits and good appetite. Even Mrs. Vansittart was reconciled to amarriage which gave her son so fair a bride, content to believe that,whatever evil Harold Marchant might have done upon the earth, no shadowfrom his dark past need ever fall across his sister’s pathway.

And so in a clash of joy-bells, and in a shower of rice from girlishhands, Eve and Vansittart ran down the steep garden path to thecarriage which was to take them to Haslemere, whence they were going toSalisbury, on the first stage of their journey to that rock-bound coast

“THE SHADOW PASSETH WHEN THE TREE SHALL FALL.”

What a happy honeymoon it was, along the porphyry walls of WesternEngland; what joyous days that were so long and seemed so short! Therenever was a less costly honeymoon, for the bride’s tastes were simpleto childishness, and the bridegroom was too deeply in love to care foranything she did not desire. To ramble in that romantic land, stayinghere a few days, and there a week, all along the wild north coast, fromTintagel to St. Ives, southward then to Penzance, and Falmouth, andFowey, was more than enough for bliss. And yet in all Eve’s childishtalk with her sisters of what she would do if ever she married a richman, the honeymoon tour in Italy had been a leading feature in herprogramme; but in those girlish visions beside the schoolroom fire thehusband had been a nonentity, a mere purse-bearer, and all her talk hadbeen of the places she was to see. Now, with this very real husband,all earth was paradisaic, and Sorrento could not have seemed more likea dream of beauty than Penzance. She was exquisitely happy; and whatcan the human mind require beyond perfect bliss?

These wedded lovers lingered long over that summer holiday. It wasan ideal summer—a summer of sunshine and cloudless skies, variedonly by an occasional thunderstorm—tempest enjoyed by Vansittart andEve, who loved Nature in her grand and awful as well as in her milderaspects—and a tempest from the heights above Boscastle, or from thegrassy cliffs of the Lizard, is a spectacle to remember. They spun outthe pleasures of that simple Cornish tour. There was nothing to callthem home—no tie, no duty, only their own inclination; for the dowagerMrs. Vansittart was staying at Redwold, absorbed in worship of thethird generation, and was to go from Redwold to Ireland for a roundof visits to the friends of her early married life. The lovers weretherefore free to prolong their wanderings, and it was only when theshortening days suggested fireside pleasures that Vansittart proposedgoing home.

“Going home,” cried Eve; “how sweet that sounds! To think that yourhome is to be my home for evermore; and the servants, your old,well-trained servants, will be bobbing to me as their mistress—Iwho never had any servant but dear old motherly Nancy, who treatsme as if I were her own flesh and blood, and an untaught chit for aparlour-maid, a girl who was always dropping knives off her tray, orsmashing the crockery, in a most distracting manner. We had only thecheapest things we could buy at Whiteley’s[Pg 191] sales, with a few relicsof former splendour; and it was generally the relics that suffered. Icannot imagine myself the mistress of a fine house, with a staff ofcapable servants. What an insignificant creature I shall seem amongthem!”

“You will seem a queen—a queen out of the great kingdom of poetry—aqueen like Tennyson’s Maud, in a white frock, with roses in your hair,and an ostrich fan for a sceptre. Don’t worry about the house, Eve. Itwill govern itself. The servants are all old servants, and have beentrained by my mother, whose laws are the laws of Draco. Everything willwork by machinery, and you and I can live in the same happy idleness wehave tasted here.”

“Can we? May we, do you think? Is it not a wicked life? We care onlyfor ourselves; we think only of ourselves.”

“Oh, we can mend that in some wise. I’ll introduce you to all mycottage tenants; and you will find plenty of scope for your benevolencein helping them through their troubles and sicknesses. You can starta village reading-room; you can start—or revive—a working man’sclub. You shall be Lady Bountiful—a young and blooming Bountiful—notdealing in herbs and medicines, but in tea, and wine, and sagopuddings, and chicken broth; finding frocks for the children, andSunday bonnets for the mothers—flashing across poverty’s thresholdlike a ray of sunshine.”

Life that seems like a happy dream seldom lasts very long. There isgenerally a rough awakening. Fate comes, like the servant bidden tocall us of a morning, and shakes the sleeper by the shoulder. The dreamvanishes through the ivory gate, and the waking world in all its harshreality is there.

Eve’s awakening came in a most unexpected shape. It came one Octobermorning in the first week of her residence at Merewood. It came ina letter from her old servant, a letter in a shabby envelope, lyinghidden among that heap of letters, monogrammed, coroneted, fashionable,which lay beside Mrs. Vansittart’s plate when she took her seat at thebreakfast table.

She left that letter for the last, not recognizing Nancy’s penmanship,an article of which the faithful servant had always been sparing.Eve read all those other trivial letters—invitations, acceptances,friendly little communications of no meaning—and commented uponthem to her husband as he took his breakfast—and finally openedNancy’s letter. It was October, and Vansittart was dressed forshooting. October, yet there was no house-party. Eve had pleaded fora little more of that dual solitude which husband and wife had foundso delightful; and Vansittart had been nothing loth to indulge herwhim. November would be time enough to invite his friends; and in themean time they had their pine woods[Pg 192] and copses and common all tothemselves; and Eve could tramp about the covers with him when he wentafter his pheasants, without feeling herself in anybody’s way. Octoberhad begun charmingly, with weather that was balmy and bright enoughfor August. They were breakfasting with windows open to the lawn andflower-beds, and the bees were buzzing among the dahlias, and the airwas scented with the Dijon roses that covered the wall.

“Why, it is from Nancy,” exclaimed Eve, looking at the signature. “Dearold Nancy. What can she have to write about?”

“Read, Eve, read,” cried Vansittart. “I believe Nancy’s letter will bemore interesting than all those inanities you have been reading to me.There is sure to be some touch of originality, even if it is only inthe spelling.”

Eve’s eyes had been hurrying over the letter while he spoke.

“Oh, Jack,” she exclaimed, in a piteous voice, “can there be any truthin this?”

The letter was as follows, in an orthography which need not bereproduced:—

“What an alarming preamble!” said Jack. “What does it all mean?”

“It means that Peggy is very ill. Peggy, who seemed the strongest ofall of us.”

She went on reading the letter.

“Died of consumption!” The words came upon Vansittart like the icy handof Death himself, taking hold of his heart.

“Is that true, Eve?” he asked. “Did your mother die of consumption?”

“I never heard exactly what her complaint was. She was far away from uswhen she died. I remember she always had a cough in the winter, and shehad to be very careful of herself—or, at least, people told her sheought to be careful. She seemed to fade away, and I have always fanciedthat her grief about Harold had a good deal to do with her death.”

“Ah, that was it, no doubt. It was grief killed her. Her son’s exile,her change of fortune, were enough to kill a sensitive woman. She diedof a broken heart.”

Anything! He would believe anything rather than accept the idea ofthat silent impalpable enemy threatening his beloved—the horror ofhereditary consumption—the shadow that walketh in noonday.

“My sweet Peggy!” cried Eve, with brimming eyes. “I have been home aweek, and I have not been to see my sisters—only an hour’s journey byroad and rail! It is nearly three months since I saw them, and we werenever parted before in all our lives. May I go to-day—at once, Jack? Ishall be miserable——”

“Till you have discovered a mare’s nest, which I hope and believeNancy’s letter will prove,” her husband interjected soothingly. “Yes,dear, we’ll go to Haslemere by the first train that will carry us, andwe’ll telegraph for a fly to take us on to Fernhurst. There shall notbe a minute lost. You shall have[Pg 194] Peggy in your arms before lunch-time.Dear young Peggy! Do you suppose she is not precious to me, as well asto you? I promised I would be to her as a brother. Your sisters are mysisters, Eve.”

He rang the bell at the beginning of his speech, and ordered thedog-cart at the end.

“We must catch the London train, at 10.15,” he told the footman. “Letthem bring round the cart as soon as it can be got ready. And now,dearest, your hat and jacket, and I am with you.”

There was comfort in this prompt action. Eve rushed upstairs, threwon the first hat she could find, too eager to ring for her maid, withwhose attendance she was always willing to dispense, as a novel and notalways pleasant sensation. She came flying down to the hall ten minutesbefore the cart drove round, and she and Vansittart walked up and downin front of the porch, talking of the sisters, she breathless and withfast-beating heart, protesting more than once at the slowness of thegrooms.

“My dearest, for pity’s sake be calm. Why should you think the veryworst, only because Nancy is an alarmist? These people are always fullof ghoulish imaginings. Peasants gloat over the idea of sickness anddeath. They will stab one to the heart unwittingly; they will look atone’s nearest and dearest, and say, ‘Poor Miss So-and-so does not lookas if she was long for this world.’ Long for this world, forsooth!Thank Heaven the threatened life often outlasts the prophet’s. Come,here is the cart. Jump in, Eve. The drive through the fresh air willrevive your spirits.”

She was certainly in better spirits by the time the cart drew up at therailway station, and in better spirits all the way to Haslemere; but itwas her husband’s hopefulness rather than the crisp autumn air whichrevived her. Yes, she would take comfort. Jack was right. Nancy was thebest of creatures, but very apt to dwell upon the darker aspects oflife, and to prophesy evil.

Yes, Jack was right; for scarcely had the fly stopped at the littlegate when Peggy came dancing down the steep garden path, withoutstretched arms, and wild hair flying in the wind, and legs muchtoo long for her short petticoats—that very Peggy whom Eve’s fearfulimaginings had depicted stretched on a sick-bed, faint almost tospeechlessness. No speechlessness about this Peggy, the real flesh andblood Peggy, whose arms were round Eve’s neck before she had begun theascent of the pathway, whose voice was greeting her vociferously, andwho talked unintermittingly, without so much as a comma, till they werein the schoolroom. The arms that clung so lovingly were very skinny,and the voice was somewhat hoarse; but the hoarseness was no doubt onlythe consequence of running fast, and the skinnyness was the normalcondition of a growing girl. Yes, Peggy had grown during her sister’slong[Pg 195] honeymoon. There was decidedly an inch or so more leg under theshort skirt.

Eve wept aloud for very joy, as she sat on the sofa with Peggy on herlap—the dear old Yorkshire sofa—the sofa that had been a ship, anexpress train, a smart barouche, an opera-box, and ever so many otherthings, years ago, in their childish play. She could not restrain hertears as she thought of that terrible vision of a dying Peggy, and thenclasped this warm, joyous, living Peggy closer and closer to her heart.The other sisters had gone to a morning service. She had this youngestall to herself for a little while.

“I don’t go to church on weekdays now,” said Peggy, “only on Sundays.It makes my chest ache to sit so long.”

Ah, that was like the dull sudden sound of the death-bell.

“That’s because you’re growing so fast, Peg,” said Vansittart’s cheeryvoice. “Growing girls are apt to be weak. I shall send you some portwhich will soon make you sit up straight.”

“You needn’t trouble,” said Peggy. “I could swim in port if I liked.Sir Hubert sent a lot for me—the finest old wine in his cellar—justbecause Lady Hartley happened to say I was growing too fast. And theyhave sent grapes, and game, and all sorts of delicious things fromRedwold, only because I grow too fast. It’s a fine thing for all of usthat I grow so fast—ain’t it, Eve?—for, of course, I can’t eat allthe grapes or the game.”

Peggy looked from wife to husband, with a joyous laugh. She had redspots on her hollow cheeks, and her eyes were very bright. Vansittartheard the death-bell as he looked at her.

The sisters came trooping in, having seen the fly at the door andguessed its meaning. They were rapturous in their greetings, had worldsto say about themselves and their neighbours, and were more eagerto talk of their own experiences than to hear about Eve’s Cornishwanderings.

“You should just see how the people suck up to us, now you are LadyHartley’s sister-in-law,” said Hetty, and was immediately silenced forvulgarity, and to make way for her elder sisters.

Vansittart left them all clustered about Eve, and all talking together.He went out into the garden—the homely garden of shrubs and fruit andflowers and vegetables, garden which now wore its autumnal aspect ofover-ripeness verging on decay, rosy-red tomatoes hanging low upon thefence, with flabby yellowing leaves, vegetable marrows grown out ofknowledge, and cucumbers that prophesied bitterness, cabbage stumps,withering bean-stalks—a wilderness of fennel: everywhere the growththat presages the end of all growing, and the long winter death-sleep.

It was not to muse upon decaying Nature that Vansittart had come outamong the rose and carnation borders, the patches of[Pg 196] parsley andmint. He had a purpose in his sauntering, and made his way to the backof the straggling cottage, where the long-tiled roof of the kitchenand offices jutted out from under the thatch. Here through the opencasem*nt he saw Yorkshire Nancy bustling about in the bright littlekitchen, her pupil and slave busy cleaning vegetables at the sink, anda shoulder of lamb slowly revolving before the ruddy coal fire—anhonest, open fireplace. “None of your kitcheners for me,” Nancy waswont to say, with a scornful emphasis which recalled the fox in hiscondemnation of unattainable grapes.

Vansittart looked in at the window.

“May I have a few words with you, Nancy?” he asked politely.

“Lor, sir, how you did startle me to be sure. Sarah, look to lamb andput pastry to rise,” cried Nancy, whisking off her apron, and dartingout to the garden. “You see, sir, you and Miss Eve have took us bysurprise, and it’s as much as we shall have a bit of lunch ready foryou at half-past one.”

“Never mind lunch, my good soul. A crust of bread and cheese would beenough.”

“Oh, it won’t be quite so bad as that. Miss Eve likes my chiss-cakes,and she shall have a matrimony cake to her afternoon tea.”

“Nancy, I want a little serious talk with you,” Vansittart begangravely, when they had walked a little way from the house, and werestanding side by side in front of the untidy patch where the vegetablemarrows had swollen to huge orange-coloured gourds. “I am full of fearabout Miss Peggy.”

“Oh, sir, so am I, so am I,” cried Nancy, bursting into tears. “Ididn’t want to frighten dear Miss Eve—I beg pardon, sir, I never canthink of her as Mrs. Vansittart.”

“Never mind, Nancy. You were saying——”

“I didn’t want to frighten your sweet young lady in the midst of herhappiness; but when I saw that dear child beginning to go off just likeher poor mother——”

“Oh, Nancy!” cried Vansittart, despairingly, with his hand on theYorkshirewoman’s rough red arm. “Is that a sure thing? Did Mrs.Marchant die of consumption?”

“As sure as you and I are standing here, sir. It was a slow decline,but it was consumption, and nothing else. I’ve heard the doctors sayso.”

CHAPTER XIX.

“HE SAID, ‘SHE HAS A LOVELY FACE.’”

December’s fogs covered London as with a funeral pall, and hansomand four-wheeler crept along the curb more slowly than a funeralprocession. It was the winter season, the season of cattle-shows,and[Pg 197] theatres, and middle-class suburban gaieties, and snug littledinners and luncheons in the smart world, casual meetings of birds ofpassage, halting for a few days between one country visit and another,or preparing for migration to sunnier skies. There were just peopleenough in Mayfair to make London pleasant; and there were people enoughin South Kensington and Tyburnia to fill the favourite theatres tooverflowing.

A new comic opera had been produced at the Apollo at the beginning ofthe month, and a new singer had taken the town by storm.

The opera was called Fanchonette. It was a story of the Regency;the Regency of Philip of Orleans and his roués; the age of redheels and lansquenet, of little suppers and deadly duels; a periodaltogether picturesque, profligate, and adapted to comic opera.

Fanchonette was a girl who sang in the streets; a girl born in thegutter, vulgar, audacious, irresistible, and the good genius of thepiece.

Fanchonette was Fiordelisa—and Fiordelisa in her own skin;good-natured, impetuous, a creature of smiles and tears; buoyant as asea-gull on the crest of a summer wave; rejoicing in her strength andher beauty as the Sun rejoiceth to run his race.

What people most admired in this new songstress was her perfectabandon, and that abundant power of voice which seemedstrong enough to have sustained the most exacting rôle inthe classic repertoire, with as little effort as the light music ofopera bouffe—the power of a Malibran or a Tietjens. The music ofFanchonette was florid, and the part had been written up for thenew singer. Manager, artists, and author had thought Mervyn Hawberk,the composer, reckless almost to lunacy when he elected to entrust theleading part in his new opera to an untried singer; but Hawberk hadmade Signora Vivanti rehearse the music in his own music-room, notonce, but many times, before he resolved upon this experiment; andhaving so resolved, he turned her over to Mr. Watling, the author ofthe libretto, to be coached in the acting of her part; and Mr. Watlingwas fain to confess that the young Venetian’s vivacity and quickness ofapprehension, the force and fire, the magnetism of her southern nature,made the work of dramatic education a very different thing to the wearylabour of grinding his ideas into the bread-and-butter misses who weresometimes sent to him as aspirants for dramatic fame. This girl was soquick to learn and to perceive, and struggled so valiantly with thedifficulties of a foreign language. And her Venetian accent, with itssoft slurring of consonants, was so quaint and pretty. Mr. Watling tookheart, and began to think that his friend and partner, Mervyn Hawberk,had some justification for his faith in this untried star.

The result fully justified Hawberk’s confidence. There were two[Pg 198]principal ladies in the opera—the patrician heroine, written for alight soprano, and the gutter heroine, a mezzo soprano, whose musicmade a greater call upon the singer than the former character, whichhad been written especially for the Apollo’s established prima donna,a lady with a charming birdlike voice, flexible and brilliant, but alittle worn with six years’ constant service, and a handsome face whichwas somewhat the worse for those six years in a London theatre. Therecould have been no greater contrast to Miss Emmeline Danby, with hersharp nose, blonde hair, sylph-like figure and canary-bird voice, thanthis daughter of St. Mark, whose splendour of colouring and fulnessof form seemed in perfect harmony with the power and compass of hervoice. The town, without being tired of Miss Danby, was at once caughtand charmed by this new singer. Her blue-black hair and flashing eyes,her easy movements, her broken English, her girlish laughter, were allnew to the audience of the Apollo, who hitherto had been called uponto applaud only the highest training of voice and person. Here was agirl who, like the character she represented, had evidently sprungfrom the proletariat, and who came dancing on to the London stage,fresh, fearless, unsophisticated, secure of the friendly feeling of heraudience, and giving full scope to her natural gaiety of heart.

Signora Vivanti’s personality was a new sensation; and to ablasé London public there is nothing so precious as a newsensation. Signor Zinco proved a true prophet. That touch of vulgaritywhich he had spoken of deprecatingly to Vansittart had made Lisa’sfortune. Had she come straight from the Milan Conservatorio, cultivatedto the highest pitch, approved by Verdi himself, she would hardly havesucceeded as she had done, with all the rough edges of her grand voiceunpolished, and all the little caprices and impertinences of a daughterof the people unchastened and unrestrained.

Lisa took the town by storm, and “Fanchonette,” in her little mob capand striped petticoat, appeared on half the match-boxes that were soldby the London tobacconists; and “Fanchonette,” with every imaginableturn of head and shoulder, smiled in the windows of the StereoscopicCompany, and of all the fashionable stationers.

Among the many who admired the new singer one of the most enthusiasticwas Wilfred Sefton, who generally spent a week or two of the earlywinter in his bachelor quarters at Chelsea, for the express purpose ofseeing the new productions at the fashionable theatres, and of diningwith his chosen friends.

Sefton was passionately fond of music, and knew more about it than isknown to most country gentlemen. The loftiest classical school was nottoo high or too serious for him; and the lightest opera bouffe was nottoo low. He had a taste sufficiently catholic[Pg 199] to range from Wagner toOffenbach. He was a profound believer in Sullivan, and he had a warmaffection for Massenet.

Fanchonette was by far the cleverest opera which Mervyn Hawberkhad written; and Sefton was at the Apollo on the opening night, charmedwith the music, and amused by the new singer. He went a second, athird, a fourth time during his fortnight in town; and the oftener heheard the music the better he liked it; and the oftener he saw SignoraVivanti the more vividly was he impressed by her undisciplined gracesof person and manner. She had just that spontaneity which had everexercised the strongest influence over his mind and fancy. He hadpassed unmoved through the furnace of the best society, had dancedand flirted, and had been on the best possible terms with some of thehandsomest women in London, and had yet remained heart-whole. He hadnever been so near falling in love in all seriousness as with EveMarchant; and Eve’s chief charm had been her frank girlishness, herunsophisticated delight in life.

Well, he was cured of his passion for Eve, cured by that cold doucheof indifference which the young lady had poured upon him; cured by thefeeling of angry scorn which had been evoked by her preference forVansittart; for a man who, in worldly position, in good looks, and inculture, Wilfred Sefton regarded as his inferior. He could not go oncaring for a young woman who had shown herself so deficient in taste asnot to prefer the dubious advances of a Sefton to the honest love of aVansittart. He dismissed Eve from his thoughts for the time being; butnot without prophetic musings upon a day when she might be wearied ofher commonplace husband, and more appreciative of Mr. Sefton’s finerqualities of intellect and person. He was thus in a measure fancy freeas he lolled in his stall at the Apollo, and listened approvingly toLisa’s full and bell-like tones in the quartette, which was alreadybeing played on all the barrel-organs in London, a quartette in whichthe composer had borrowed the dramatic form of the famous quartettein Rigoletto, and adapted it to a serio-comic situation. Hewas free to admire this exuberant Italian beauty, free to pursue adivinity whom he judged an easy conquest. He and the composer were oldfriends—Hawberk being a familiar figure at all artistic gatheringsin the artistic suburb of Chelsea—and from the composer Sefton hadheard something of the new prima donna’s history. He had been toldthat she was a daughter of the Venetian people, a lace-maker from oneof the islands; that she had come to London with her aunt, to seek herfortune; and that her musical training had been accomplished within thespace of a year, under the direction of Signor Zinco, the fat littleItalian who played the ’cello at the Apollo.

Such a history did not suggest inaccessible beauty, and there was[Pg 200] atouch of originality in it which awakened Sefton’s interest. The veryname of Venice is a sound of enchantment for some minds; and Sefton,although a man of the world, was not without romantic yearnings. He wasalways glad to escape from beaten tracks.

He had been troubled and perplexed from the night of Signora Vivanti’sdébut by the conviction that he had seen that brilliant facebefore, and by the inability to fix the when or the where. Yes, thatvivid countenance was decidedly familiar. It was the individual andnot the type which he knew—but where and when—where and when? Thebrain did its work in the usual unconscious way, and one night, sittinglazily in his stall, dreamily watching the scene, and the actress whoseimage seemed to fill the stage to the exclusion of all other figures,the memory of a past rencontre flashed suddenly upon the dreamer.The face was the face of the foreign girl he had seen on the ChelseaEmbankment, hanging upon Vansittart’s arm.

“By Heaven, there is something fatal in it,” thought Sefton. “Are thethreads always to cross in the web of our lives? He has worsted me withEve; and now—now am I to fall in love with his cast-off mistress?”

He had been quick to make inferences from that little scene on theEmbankment; the girl hanging on Vansittart’s arm, looking up at himpleadingly, passionately. What could such a situation mean but a loveaffair of the most serious kind?

Had there been any doubt in Sefton’s mind as to the nature of theintrigue, Vansittart’s evident embarrassment would have settled thequestion. Mr. Sefton was the kind of man who always thinks worst abouteverybody, and prejudice had predisposed him to think badly of Eve’sadmirer.

This idea of the singer’s probable relations with Vansittart produceda strong revulsion of feeling. An element of scorn was now mixed withhis admiration of the lovely Venetian. Until now he had approached herwith deference, sending her a bouquet every evening, with his card, butmaking no other advance. But the day after his discovery he sent her adiamond bracelet, and asked with easy assurance to be allowed to callupon her.

The bracelet was returned to him, with a stately letter signed Zinco; aletter wherein the ’cello player begged that his pupil might be sparedthe annoyance of gifts, which she could but consider as insults indisguise.

This refusal stimulated Sefton to renewed ardour. He forgot everythingexcept the rebuff, which had taken him by surprise. He put the braceletin a drawer of his writing-table, and turned the key upon it with asmile.

“She will be wiser by-and-by,” he said to himself.

He went back to the country next day, and tried to forget Signora[Pg 201]Vivanti’s eyes, and the thrilling sweetness of her voice, tried tobanish that seductive image altogether from his mind, while he devotedhimself to the conquest of an untried hunter, a fine bay mare, whosepace was better than her manners, and who showed the vulgar strain inher pedigree very much as Signora Vivanti showed her peasant ancestry.

The season was not a good one, and after a couple of days with thehounds a hard frost set in, and the bay mare’s evolutions were confinedto the straw-yard, where she might walk on her hind legs to her heart’scontent; while her owner had nothing to do but brood upon the imagethat had taken possession of his fancy. It was only when he foundhimself amidst the tranquil surroundings of his country seat that heknew the strength of his infatuation for the Venetian singer.

He looked back upon his life as he strolled round the billiard table,cue in hand, trying a shot now and then yawningly, as the snow camesoftly down outside the Tudor windows, and gradually clouded andmuffled garden and park. He looked back upon his life, wonderingwhether he had done the best for himself, starting from such anadvantageous standpoint; whether, in his own careless phraseology, hehad got change for his shilling.

He had always had plenty of money; he had always been his own master;he had always studied his own pleasure; and yet there had been burdens.His first love affair had turned out badly; so badly that there werepeople in Sussex who still gave him the cold shoulder on account ofthat old story. He had admired a good many women since he left Eton;but he had never seen the woman for whom he cared to sacrifice hisliberty, for whose sake he could bind himself for all his life tocome. He knew himself well enough to know that all his passions wereshort-lived, and that, however deeply he might be in love to-day,satiety might come to-morrow.

He was ambitious, and he meant to marry a woman who could bring himincrease of fortune and social status. He was not to be drifted intomatrimony by the caprice of the hour. Much as he had admired EveMarchant, he had never thought of marrying her. A penniless girl witha disreputable father and a bevy of half-educated sisters was no matefor him. He had allowed himself full license in admiring her, and inletting her see that he admired her; and he had wondered that sheshould receive that open admiration as anything less than an honour.

And then a fool had stepped in to spoil sport—a besotted fool who tookthis girl for his wife, careless of her surroundings, defiant of Fate,which might overtake him in the shape of a blackguard brother. He feltonly contempt for Vansittart when he thought over the story.

“He might have been content with his Venetian sweetheart,” he[Pg 202] thought.She is ever so much handsomer than Eve, and she obviously adored him;while that kind of ménage has the convenience of being easily got ridof when a man tires of it.

The snow lay deep on all the country round before nightfall, and Seftonwent back to his nest in Chelsea on the following afternoon, and was ina stall at the Apollo in the evening. He tried to persuade himself thatthe music was the chief attraction.

“Your music is like a vice, Hawberk,” he told the composer, at atea-party next day. “It takes possession of a man. I go night afternight to hear Fanchonette, though I know I am wasting my time.”

“Thanks. Fanchonette is a very pretty opera, quite the bestthing I have done,” replied Hawberk, easily; “and it is very well sungand acted. The singing is good all round, but Lisa Vivanti is a pearl.”

“You are enthusiastic,” said Sefton; and then smiling at the composer’syoung wife, who went everywhere with her husband, and whose provincewas to wear smart frocks and look pretty, “You must keep your eye uponhim, Mrs. Hawberk, lest this Venetian siren should prove as fatal asthe Lurlei.”

“No fear,” cried Hawberk. “Little Lisa is as straight as an arrow andas good as gold. She lives as sedately as a nun, with a comfortabledragon in the shape of an aunt. She would hardly look at a rippingdiamond bracelet which some cad sent her the other day. She justtossed bracelet and letter over to her old singing master, and toldhim to send it back to the giver. She has no desire for carriages andhorses and fine raiment. She comes to the theatre in a shabby littleblack frock, and she lives like a peasant on a third floor in thisneighbourhood.”

“That will not last,” said Sefton. “Your rara avis will soonrealize her own value. The management will be called upon to provideher with a stable and a chef, and diamonds will be accepted freely asfitting tribute to her talents.”

“I don’t believe it. I think she is a genuine, honest, right-mindedyoung woman, and that she will gang her ain gait in spite of allcounter influences. There may have been some love affair in the pastthat has sobered her. I think there has been; for there is a little boywho calls her mother, and for whom she takes no trouble to account. Iwill vouch for my little Lisa, and I have allowed Mrs. Hawberk to goand see her.”

“She is quite too sweet,” assented the lady; “such a perfectly naïvelittle person.”

“Upon my honour,” said Hawberk, as his wife fluttered away and wasabsorbed in a group of acquaintances, “I believe Vivanti is a goodwoman, in spite of the little peccadillo in a sailor suit.”

“I am very glad to hear it, for I want you to introduce me to thelady.”

[Pg 203]

“Oh, but really now that is just what I don’t care about doing. Sheis keeping herself to herself, and is working conscientiously at hermusical education. She is a very busy woman, and she has no idea ofsociety, or its ways and manners. What can she want with such anacquaintance as you?”

“Nothing; but I very much want to know her; and I pledge myself toapproach her with all the respect due to the best woman in England.”

“To approach her, yes; I can believe that. No doubt Lucifer approachedEve with all possible courtesy; yet the acquaintance ended badly. Idon’t see that any good could arise from your acquaintance with mycharming Venetian.”

“I understand,” said Sefton, with an aggrieved air; “she is so charmingthat you would like to keep her all to yourself.”

“Oh, come now, that’s a very weak thing in the way of sneers,”exclaimed the composer. “I hope I am secure from any insinuations ofthat sort. Look here, Sefton, I’m just a bit afraid of you; but if youpromise to act on the square I’ll get my wife to send you a card for aSunday evening, at which I believe she is going to get Vivanti to singfor her. That is always the first thing Lavinia thinks of if I ventureto introduce her to a singer.”

“That would be very friendly of you, and I promise to act on thesquare. I am not a married man, and I am my own master. If I weredesperately in love——”

“You wouldn’t marry a Venetian lace-maker, with a damaged reputation. Iknow you too well to believe you capable of that sort of thing.”

“Nobody knows of what a man is capable; least of all the man himself,”said Sefton, sententiously.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawberk lived in a smart little house in that dainty andartistic region of Cheyne Walk, which even yet retains a faint flavourof Don Saltero, of Bolingbroke and Walpole, of Chelsea buns and Chelseachina, Ranelagh routs, and Thames watermen. Mr. Hawberk’s house was ina terrace at right angles with the Embankment, but further west thanTite Street. It was a new house, with all the latest improvements,and all the latest fads—tiny panes to Queen Anne windows, admittingthe minimum of light and not overmuch air; a spacious ingle nook in aminiature dining-room, whereby facetious friends had frequently beenheard to ask Mrs. Hawberk which was the ingle nook and which was thedining-room.

The house was quaint and pretty, and being entirely furnished withJapaneseries was a very fascinating toy, if not altogether the mostcommodious thing in the way of houses. For party-giving it wasdelightful, for less than a hundred people choked every inch[Pg 204] of spacein rooms and staircase, and suggested a tremendous reception: so thatthe smallest of Mrs. Hawberk’s parties seemed a crush.

Sefton arriving at half-past ten, only half an hour after the timeon Mrs. Hawberk’s card, found the drawing-rooms blocked with people,mostly standing, and could see no more of Signora Vivanti than if shehad been on the other side of the river; but the people in the doorwaywere talking about her, and their talk informed him that she wassomewhere in the innermost angle of the back drawing-room, behind thegrand piano, and that she was going to sing.

Then there came an authoritative “Silence, please,” from Hawberk,followed by a sudden hush as of sentences broken off in the middle, andanon a firm hand played the symphony to Sullivan’s Orpheus, andthe grand mezzo soprano voice rolled out the grand Shakesperean wordsset to noble music. The choice of the song was a delicate compliment toHawberk’s master in art, who was among Mrs. Hawberk’s guests.

The Venetian accent was still present in Lisa’s pronunciation, buther English had improved as much as her vocalization, under Hawberk’straining. He had taken extraordinary pains with this particular song,and every note rang out clear as crystal, pure as thrice-refined gold.The composer’s “Brava, bravissima!” was heard amidst the applause thatfollowed the song.

Sefton elbowed his way through the crowd—as politely as was consistentwith a determination to reach a given point—and contrived to minglewith the group about the singer. She was standing by the piano in acareless attitude, dressed in a black velvet gown, which set off theyellowish whiteness of her shoulders and full round throat. Claspedround that statuesque throat, she wore a collet necklace of diamonds,splendid in size and colour, a necklace which could not have beenbought for less than six or seven hundred pounds.

“So,” thought Sefton. “Those diamonds don’t quite come into Hawberk’snotion of the lady’s character.”

Mr. Sefton did not know that, after the manner of Venetian women,Lisa looked upon jewellery as an investment, and that nearly all herprofessional earnings since her début were represented by thediamonds she wore round her neck. She and la Zia were able to live onso little, and it was such a pleasure to them to save, first to gloatover the golden sovereigns, and then to change them into preciousstones. There was such a delightful feeling in being able to wear one’sfortune round one’s neck.

Mr. Hawberk had accompanied the singer, and he was still sitting at thepiano, when Sefton’s eager face reminded him of his promise.

“Signora, allow me to introduce another of your English admirers.[Pg 205] Mr.Sefton, a connoisseur in the way of music, and a cosmopolitan in theway of speech.”

Lisa turned smilingly to the stranger. “You speak Italian,” she said inher own language, and Sefton replying in very good Tuscan, they weresoon on easy terms; and presently he had the delight of taking her downto the supper-room, where there was a long narrow table loaded withdelicacies, and a perpetual flow of champagne.

Lisa enjoyed herself here as frankly as she had enjoyed herself atthe sign of the Black Hat, in the Piazza di San Marco. She was thesame unsophisticated Lisa still, in the matter of quails and lobstermayonnaise, creams and jellies. She stood at the table and eat all thegood things that Sefton brought her, and drank three or four glasses ofchampagne with jovial unconcern, and talked of the people and the gownsthey were wearing in her soft southern tongue, secure of not beingunderstood, though Sefton warned her occasionally that there might beother people in the room besides themselves who knew the language ofDante and Boccaccio.

Never had he talked to any beautiful woman who was so thoroughlyunsophisticated; and that somewhat plebeian nature had a curious charmfor him. He could understand Vansittart’s infatuation for such awoman, but could not understand his giving her up for the sake of EveMarchant, whose charms as compared with Lisa’s were

He hoped to discover all the history of that intrigue by-and-by, seeinghow freely Lisa talked of herself to an acquaintance of an hour. Hemeant to follow up that acquaintance with all the earnestness of whichhe was capable.

“There are no finer diamonds in the room than your necklace,” he said,when she had been praising an ancient dowager’s jewels, gems whosebeauty was not enhanced by a neck that looked as if its bony structurehad been covered with one of the family parchments.

“Do you really like them?” asked Lisa, with a flashing smile.

“She doesn’t even blush for her spoil,” thought Sefton.

“I’m so glad you think them good,” continued Lisa. “They are all myfortune. The jeweller told me I should never repent buying them.”

“What, Signora, did you buy them? I thought they were the offering ofsome devoted admirer.”

“Do you suppose I would accept such a gift from any one except—exceptsomebody I cared for?” she exclaimed indignantly. “A man sent mea diamond bracelet one night at the theatre—I found it in mydressing-room when I arrived—with his card. I sent it back nextmorning—or at least Zinco sent it back for me.”

[Pg 206]

“And I dare say you have even forgotten the man’s name?” said Sefton.

“Yes. Your English names are very ugly, and very difficult to remember.They are so short; so insignificant.”

And then she told him the history of her diamonds; how the managerof the Apollo had first doubled, and then trebled, and quadrupledher salary; how she had kept the money in her trunk, all in gold,sovereigns upon sovereigns, and how she and her aunt had counted thegold every week, and how only last Saturday she and la Zia had gone offin a cab to Piccadilly, with a bag full of gold, and had bought thediamonds, which were now shining on Fiordelisa’s throat.

“We had less than half the price of the necklace,” concluded Lisa, “butwhen the jeweller heard who I was, he insisted that I should take itaway with me, and pay him by degrees, just as I find convenient, so Ishall pay him my salary every Saturday until I am out of debt.”

“It sounds like a fairy tale,” said Sefton. “Do you and your aunt liveupon rose leaves and dew, Signora; or how is it that you can afford toinvest all your earnings in diamonds?”

“Oh, we have other money,” answered Lisa, with a defiant glance at thequestioner. “I need not sing unless I like.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Sefton, strengthened in his conviction that SignoraVivanti was not altogether so “straight” as Hawberk believed, oraffected to believe.

Mr. Sefton was not so confiding as the composer. He was a man proneto think badly of women, and he was inclined to think the worst ofthis brilliant Venetian, much as he admired her. He followed her likea shadow for the rest of the evening, escorted her up the narrowstaircase, and stood near the piano while she sang, and then took herfrom the stifling atmosphere of the lamp-lit house to the semi-darknessof the garden, which Mrs. Hawberk had converted into a tent, shuttingout the wintry sky, and enclosing the miniature lawn and surroundingshrubbery; a tent dimly lighted with fairy lamps, nestling among thefoliage. Here he sat talking with Lisa in a shadowy corner, whilethree or four other couples murmured and whispered in other nooksand corners, and while Hawberk, feeling he had done his duty ashost, smoked and drank whisky and soda with a little group of chosenfriends—an actor, a journalist, a playwright, and a brace of musicalcritics, who had an inexhaustible flow of speech, and a deliciousunconsciousness of time.

Sefton too was unconscious of time, talking with Lisa in that softItalian tongue, having to bend his head very near the full red lips inorder to catch the Venetian elisions, the gentle, sliding syllables.

[Pg 207]

The hum of voices, the occasional ripples of laughter, the music andsong, dwindled and died into silence—even the lights in the lowerwindows grew dim, and gradually Sefton awakened to the fact that theparty was at an end, and that he and Signora Vivanti, and Hawberk’sBohemian group yonder, were all that remained of Mrs. Hawberk’s musicalevening. He bent down to look at his watch by one of the fairy lamps.

Three o’clock.

“By Jove, we are sitting out everybody else,” he said, with a pleasedlaugh, triumphant at the thought that he had been able to amuse andinterest his companion. “Three o’clock. Very late for a musicalevening. You did not know it was so late, did you, Signora?”

“No,” answered Lisa, carelessly; “but I don’t mind. I’ve been enjoyingmyself.”

“So have I; but it’s rather rough on Mrs. Hawberk, who may want to restfrom her labours.”

“I am quite ready to go home as soon as I get my shawl,” said Lisa,rising from the low wicker chair, straight as a dart, her neck andshoulders and long bare arms looking like marble in the glimmer of thetoy lamps. Sefton stood and looked at her, drinking her loveliness asif it had been a draught of wine from an enchanted cup. Oh, the charmof those Italian eyes; so brilliant, yet so soft; so darkly deep! Couldthere be any magic in fairyland more potent than the spell this Calypsowas weaving round him?

“May I call your carriage?” he asked.

“I have no carriage. I live close by.”

“Let me see you home, then.”

She shrugged her shoulders with a gesture which meant that the questionwasn’t worth disputing, and Sefton followed her across the little bitof grass to the house door. Hawberk stopped her on her way.

“What, my Vivanti not gone yet!” he cried. “I would have had anothersong out of you if I had known you were there. What have you and Mr.Sefton found to say to each other all this time?”

“We have found plenty to say. He has been talking Italian, which noneof you stupid others can talk. It is a treat to hear my own languagefrom some one besides la Zia. Good night, Signor. Shall I find laSignora to wish her good night?”

“No, child. La Signora Hawberkini retired to rest an hour ago, when allthe respectable people had gone. She did not wait to see the last ofsuch night-birds as you and Sefton, and these disreputable journalistshere.”

“I love the night,” said Lisa, in no wise abashed. “It is ever so muchnicer than day.”

[Pg 208]

The servants had vanished, but she found her wrap lying on a sofa—anold red silk shawl, a Bellagio shawl, whose dinginess went ill with hervelvet gown and diamond necklace; but she wrapped it about her head andshoulders, nothing caring, and she looked a real Italian peasant as sheturned to Sefton in the light of the hall lamps. He admired her evenmore at this moment than he had admired her before—he liked to thinkof her as a peasant; with no womanly sensitiveness to suffer, no prideto be wounded; divided from him socially by a great gulf of difference;and so much the more surely, and so much the more lightly to be won.

They went out into the street together. It was moonlight, a Februarymoon, cold, and sharp, and clear, with a hoar frost whitening thewintry shrubs and iron railings. Lisa caught up her velvet train, andtripped lightly along the pavement in bronze beaded slippers and brightred stockings, Sefton at her side. She would not take his arm, bothhands being occupied, one clutching the silk shawl, the other holdingup her skirt. The walk was of the shortest, for Saltero’s Mansion wasonly just round the corner; nor could Sefton detain her on the doorstepfor any sentimentality about the moonlit river. She had her key inthe door in a moment, and as he pushed the big, heavy door open forher, she vanished behind it with briefest “Grazie, e buona notte, caroSignor.”

There had not been time for the gentlest pressure of her strong, broadhand, or for his tender “Addio, bellissima mia,” to be heard.

But to know where she lived was something gained, and as he walkedhomeward humming “la donna è mobile,” he meant to follow up thatadvantage. He had told her that he was her near neighbour. He had goneeven further, and had asked her if she would sing for him at a littletea-party, were he to give one in her honour; on which she had onlylaughed, and said that she had never heard of a man giving a tea-party.

The acquaintance begun so auspiciously gave Wilfred Sefton a new zestfor London life. He hailed the hardening frosts of February withabsolute pleasure, he for whom that month had hitherto been the creamof the hunting season. He cared nothing that his latest acquisitions,the hunters in whose perfections he still believed, whose vices hehad not had time to discover, were eating their heads off in hisSussex stables. He was in his stall at the Apollo every night; andLisa’s singing and Lisa’s beauty, and the “quips and cranks and wantonwiles” which constituted Lisa’s idea of acting, were enough for hiscontentment.

He waited till Wednesday before he ventured to call upon his divinity.He would gladly have presented himself at her door on Monday afternoon;but he did not want to appear too eager. Tuesday seemed a long blankday to his impatience, although there[Pg 209] was plenty to do in London for aman of intellect and taste; pictures, people, politics, all manner ofinterests and amusem*nts.

Lisa had told him about the aunt who lived with her and kept housefor her. There could be no impropriety in his visit. He made up hismind indeed to ask for the elder lady in the first instance; but alluncertainty was saved him, as it was la Zia who opened the door. Thosediamonds of Lisa’s could not have been earned so speedily had theVenetians taken upon themselves the maintenance of a servant. What wasshe there for, argued la Zia—when Hawberk suggested the necessity of aparlour-maid—except to sweep and dust, and market and cook? An Englishservant, who would want butcher’s meat every day, and would object tothe cuisine à l’huile, would be a ruinous institution.

La Zia was not too tidy in her indoor apparel, since her love forfinery was stronger than her sense of the fitness of things. She hadone gown at a time, a gown of silk or plush or velveteen, which shewore as a best gown till it began to be shabby or dilapidated, whenLisa bought her another fine gown, and the old one was taken for dailyuse.

Lisa’s taste had become somewhat chastened since she had lived atChelsea. A casual word or two from Vansittart, whose lightest speechshe remembered, had made her scrupulously plain in her attire—saveon such an occasion as Mrs. Hawberk’s party, when her innate loveof finery showed itself in scarlet stockings and beaded shoes. Thisafternoon Sefton found her sitting on the hearthrug in front of thebright little tiled grate, in the black stuff gown she had worn when hefirst saw her, and with just the same touch of colour at her throat,and in her blue-black hair.

She and the little boy were sitting on the rug together, dividing thecaprices of a white kitten, the plaything of mother and son, motherand son laughing gaily, with laughter which harmonized and soundedlike music. The boy made no change in his sprawling attitude as Seftonentered; but he looked up at the stranger with large dark eyes,wondering, and slightly resentful.

“His boy,” thought Sefton, and felt a malignant dispositionto kick the sprawling imp, hanging on to the mother’s skirts, andpreventing her from rising to greet her visitor.

“Let go, Paolo,” said Lisa, laughing. “What with you and the kitten, Ican’t stir.”

She shook herself free, transferred the kitten to the boy’s eagerarms, rose, and gave Sefton her hand, with a careless grace which wascharming from an artistic point of view, but which showed him how faintan impression all his attentions of Sunday night had made upon her. Awoman who had thought of him in the interval would have been startledat his coming. Lisa took his visit much too easily. There was neithersurprise nor gladness in her greeting.

[Pg 210]

“I saw you in the stalls,” she said, “last night, and the night before.Aren’t you tired of Fanchonette?”

“Not in the least.”

“You must be monstrously fond of music,” she said, always in Italian.

“I am—monstrously; but I have other reasons for likingFanchonette. I like to see you act, as well as to hear you sing.”

“So do other people,” she answered, with frank vanity, tossing up herhead. “They all applaud me when I first come on, before I have sung anote. I have to stand there in front of the lights for ever so long,while they go on applauding like mad. And yet people say you Englishhave no enthusiasm, that you care very little for anything.”

“We care a great deal for that which is really beautiful; most of allwhen it is fresh and new.”

“Ah! that’s what Mr. Hawberk says—I am all the better because I am nothighly trained like other singers. My ignorance is my strength.”

“But she has worked,” interposed la Zia; “ah! how hard she has worked!At her piano; at the English language. She has such a strong will. Shehas but to make up her mind, and the thing is done.”

“One can read as much, Signora, in those flashing eyes; in thatsquare brow and firmly moulded chin,” said Sefton, putting down hishat and cane, and establishing himself in one of the prettily drapedbasket-chairs. “And pray how did it happen that you two ladies made upyour minds to seek your fortunes in London?”

“It was the impresario who brought us. We were at Milan, and we cameto London to sing in the chorus at Covent Garden. It was good fortunewhich brought us so far from home.”

“And you hate London, no doubt, after Italy?”

“No, indeed, Signor. London is a city to love—the wide, wide streets;the big, big houses; the great squares—ah! the Piazza is nothing toyour square of Trafalgar—and the shops, the beautiful shops! Yoursky is often gloomy, but there are summer days—heavenly days—whenthe wind blows down to the sea, and sweeps all the darkness out ofthe heavens, and your sky grows blue, like Italy. Those are days toremember.”

“True! They are rare enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand,”answered Sefton, stooping to take hold of the boy, who had beenpursuing his kitten on all-fours, and had this moment plunged betweenSefton’s legs to extract the animated ball of white fluff from underhis chair. He felt nothing but aversion for the handsome, dark-eyedbrat; but he felt that he must take some notice of the creature, if hewanted to stand well with the mother.

[Pg 211]

“Che sta facendo, padroncino?”

The boy was friendly, and explained himself in a torrent of brokenspeech. The cat was a bad cat, and wouldn’t stay with him. Would theSignor make him stay? Sefton had to stoop and risk a scratching fromthe tiny claws, in a vain endeavour to get hold of the rebelliousbeast, which rolled away from him, hissing and spitting, and finallyscampered across the room and took refuge behind the piano. Seftonlifted the boy on to his knee, and produced his watch, that unfailingobject of interest to infancy, usually denominated, on the principle ofall slang nomenclature, “tick-tick.” Once interested in the opening andshutting of the “tick-tick,” Paolo sat on the visitor’s knee, commeun image, and allowed Sefton to talk to Lisa and her aunt.

He was careful to make himself agreeable to the elder lady, who wascharmed to find an Englishman who understood her native tongue. Shehad contrived to learn a little English, but had made no such progressas her niece, and it was a labour to her to talk. What a pleasure,therefore, to find this suave, handsome Englishman, with his courtlymanners, quick comprehension, and ready replies.

From la Zia he heard a good deal about Lisa’s early life; yet therewas a certain wise reticence even on that loquacious lady’s part. Shebreathed no word of Lisa’s Englishman, the first Mr. Smith, or of thesecond. In all her talk of their old life, in Venice, at Milan, therewas no hint of any one but themselves. They appeared to have beenalone, unprotected, dependent on their own small earnings.

After waiting in vain for any allusion to Vansittart, Sefton camestraight to the point, with a direct question.

“I think you know a friend of mine, Signora,” he said to Lisa. “Mr.Vansittart?”

“Vansittart?”

Lisa repeated the name slowly, with a look of blank wonder.

“Have you never heard that name before?”

“Never.”

“So,” thought Sefton, “she knew him under an alias. That means a gooddeal, and confirms my original idea.”

He put the boy off his knee almost roughly, and rose to depart.

“Good-bye, Signora. You will let me call in again some day, I hope?”

“If you like. Why did you think I knew your friend, Mr. Van—sit—tart?”

“Because last May I saw you in Cheyne Walk talking to a man whom I tookfor Vansittart. A tall man, with fair hair. You seemed very friendlywith him; your hands were clasped upon his arm: you were smiling up athim.”

[Pg 212]

This time Lisa blushed a deep carnation, and her face saddened.

“Oh, that,” she stammered—“that was some one I knew in Italy.”

“Not Vansittart?”

“No.”

“But the gentleman has a name of some kind,” persisted Sefton.

“Never mind his name,” she answered abruptly. “I don’t want to talkabout him. I may never see him again, perhaps.” And then, brushing awaya tear, and becoming suddenly frivolous, she asked, “How did you cometo remember me—after so long?”

“Because that moment by the river yonder has lived in my memory eversince—because no man can forget the loveliest face he ever saw in hislife.”

With that compliment, and with a lingering clasp of the strong hand, heconcluded his first visit to Saltero’s Mansion, la Zia accompanying himto the door and curtsying him out.

CHAPTER XX.

PEGGY’S CHANCE.

If there were blue skies now and then in a London February, what wasFebruary along the Riviera but the most exquisite springtime? Andperhaps on all that favoured shore, Cannes has the richest firstfruitsof the fertile year, for it is then that the mimosas are in theirglory, and the hill of Californie is a yellow fairyland, an enchantedregion, where all the trees drop golden rain.

Eve and her lover husband were at Cannes. Delicious as the place was atthis season, and new as the shores of the Mediterranean were to Eve,she and her husband had not come there for their own pleasure. They hadcome at the advice of the doctors—to give Peggy a chance. That waswhat it had come to. Peggy’s only chance of living through the winterwas to be found in the south. One doctor had suggested Capri, anotherSorrento; but for some unexplained reason Vansittart objected to Italy,and then Mentone or Cannes had been talked about; and finally Canneswas decided upon, for medical reasons, in order that Peggy might havethe watchful care of Dr. Bright, which might give her an additionalchance in the hand-to-hand struggle with her grim adversary.

Vansittart had offered, in the first instance, to send Peggy to thesouth in the care of one of her elder sisters and an experiencedtravelling-maid, who should be also a skilled nurse; but Eve had beenso distressed at the idea of parting with the ailing child, that of hisown accord he had offered to accompany his youngest sister-in-law onthe journey that was to give her a chance—alas! only a[Pg 213] chance. Noneof the doctors talked of cure as a certainty. Peggy’s family historywas bad; and Peggy’s lungs were seriously affected.

It was almost inevitable that the youngest child—born after themother’s health had begun to fail—should inherit the mother’s fataltendency to lung disease; but things were altogether different in thecase of Eve, the eldest daughter, born before her mother had begun todevelop lung trouble. For Eve there was every chance. This was whata distinguished specialist told Vansittart, when he asked piteouslyif the hereditary disease shown too clearly by Peggy, were likelyto appear by-and-by in Eve’s constitution. He was obliged to takewhat comfort he could from this assurance. He would not alarm Eve bysuggesting that her chest should be sounded by the physician who hadjust passed sentence upon her sister. Perhaps he did not want to knowtoo much. He was content to see his young wife fair and blooming, withall the indications of perfect health, and to believe that she mustneeds be exempt from inherited evil.

She was enraptured when he offered to take her to the south with Peggy.

“You are more than good, you are adorable,” she cried. “Now I feeljustified in having worshipped you. What, you will leave Hampshire justwhen the hunting is at its best? You will forego all your plans for thespring? And you will put up with a sick child’s company?”

“I shall have my wife’s company, and that is enough. I shall see youhappy and at ease, and not wearing yourself to death with anxieties andapprehensions about Peggy.”

“Yes, I shall be ever so much happier with her, should things come tothe worst”—her eyes brimmed over with sudden tears at the thought—“itwill be so much to be with her—to know that we have made her quitehappy.”

They went to Haslemere next morning, and there was a grand scene withPeggy, who screamed with rapture on hearing that Eve and Jack weregoing to take her to Cannes their very own selves. She, who fancied shehad lost Eve for ever, was to live with her, to sleep in the next roomto her, to see her every day and all day long.

Then came the journey—the long, long journey, which made Eve andPeggy open wondering eyes at the width of France from sea to sea.They travelled with all those luxuries which modern civilizationprovides for the traveller who is able and willing to pay. And everydetail of the journey was a surprise and a joy for Peggy, who broughtupon herself more than one bad fit of coughing by her irrepressibleraptures. The luncheon and dinner on board the rushing Rapide;the comfortable wagon-lit to retire to at Lyons, when darknesshad fallen over the monotony of the landscape—and anon the surprise ofawaking at midnight in a large bright room[Pg 214] where two small beds wereveiled like brides in white net curtains, and where piled up pine-logsblazed on a wide open hearth, such as Peggy only knew of in fairy tales.

How comforting was the basin of hot soup which Peggy sipped, squattingbeside this cavernous chimney, while Benson, the courier-maid, skilledin nursing invalids, who had been engaged chiefly to wait upon Peggy,unpacked the Gladstone bag, and made everything comfortable for thenight. Peggy had slept fitfully all the way from Lyons, hearing as ina dream the porters shouting “Avignon,” at a place where they stoppedin the winter darkness, and faintly remembering having heard of a citywhere Popes lived and tortured people once upon a time. She woke nowand again in her white-curtained bed at Marseilles; for however happyher days might be her nights were generally restless and troubled. Thenew maid was very attentive to her, and gave her lemonade when herthroat was parched, but the maid was able to sleep soundly betweenwhiles, when Peggy was lying awake gazing through the white netcurtains, and half expecting Robin Goodfellow to come creeping out ofthe wide black chimney, where the spark had faded from the heap of palegrey ashes on the hearth.

Towards morning Peggy fell into a refreshing slumber, and when sheopened her eyes again the room was full of sunshine, and there was aband playing the “Faust Waltz” in the public gardens below.

“Why, it’s summer!” cried Peggy, clapping her hands, and leaping out ofthe parted white curtains, and rushing to the open window.

The maid was dressed, and Peggy’s breakfast was ready for her. “Oh,such delicious coffee!” she told Eve afterwards, “in a sweet littlecopper pot, and rolls such as were never made in humdrum England.”

Yes, it was summer, the February summer of that lovely shore. TheVansittarts stayed nearly a week at Marseilles, to rest Peggy afterher forty-eight hours’ journey; and to see the Votive Church on thehill, and that famous dungeon on the rock which owes more of itsrenown to fiction than to fact; and the parting of the ways where theships sail east and west, to Orient or Afric, the two wonder-worldsfor the untravelled European. Eve and Peggy looked longingly at thegreat steamers vanishing on the horizon, hardly knowing whether, ifthe choice were put to them, they would go right or left—to thecountry were the Great Moguls, the jewelled temples, the tiger hunts,the palanquins, the tame elephants with castles on their backs are tobe found; or to the country where the Moors live, and where moderncivilization camps gipsy-fashion among the vestiges of earth’s mostancient people.

“Where would you like to go best, India or Africa?” asked Eve, as sheand Peggy sat side by side in a fairy-like yawl, that went dipping anddancing over those summer waves, and seemed like a[Pg 215] toy boat as itsailed under the lee of an Orient steamer bound for Alexandria.

“Oh, I think I would rather go up a pyramid than anything,” gaspedPeggy, breathless at the mere thought. “Don’t you remember ‘Belzoni’sTravels,’ that tattered little old book which once was mother’s,and how they used to grope about, Belzoni and his people, and losethemselves in dark passages, and make discoveries inside the Pyramids?And then the Nile, and the crocodiles, which one could always run awayfrom, because they can’t turn, don’t you know? Oh, I think Egypt mustbe best of all.”

Peggy and her companions were out driving along the Corniche road orsailing over the blue waters every day, and all day long; and theinvalid made a most wonderful recovery during that week.

Her nights were ever so much quieter, her appetite had improved.Peggy’s chance began to look like a certainty, and hope revived inEve’s breast. Hope had never died there. She could not believe thatthis bright, happy young creature was to be taken away from her. Therewas such vitality in Peggy, such vigour in those thin arms when theyclasped themselves round Eve’s neck, such light and life in the fullblue eyes when they looked out upon the movement and variety of the RueCannebière, or the bustle of the quays.

They went on to Cannes, and alighted first at one of the mostcomfortable hotels in Europe, the Mont Fleuri, so as to take theirtime in the selection of a home; for they meant to stay in Provencetill there was an end of cold weather in England, to go back onlywhen an English spring should have done its worst, and the footstepsof summer should be at hand. If Cannes should grow too warm, therewas Grasse; and there were cool retreats perched still higher on themountain slopes, where they might spend the last month or so of theirsojourn. There were reasons why Eve would be glad to escape from thelittle world in which she was known, reasons why she should preferthe absolute retirement of a villa in a strange land, where she needreceive no more visitors than she chose, where she might let it beknown among the little community of British residents that she did notdesire to be called upon.

They found just the retreat that suited them, high on the eastern hill,which at this season was cloaked with the mimosa’s golden bloom aswith a royal garment. The villa stood on higher ground than the HotelCalifornie, and all the gulf of San Juan lay at its feet, and the shipsat anchor looked like toy ships in the distance of that steep descent,where palm and pine, cypress and olive, lent their varying form andcolour to the rough grey rocks, and where garden below garden spreada carpet of vivid flowers, hedges of roses, beds of pink and purpleanemones, the scarlet and orange of the ranunculus, amidst the gloom ofrocky gorge and pine forest.

[Pg 216]

Beyond the gulf rose the islands, shadowy at eventide, clear and sunlitin those early mornings when Peggy watched the red fires of dawnlighting up far away yonder towards Italy. She shared Eve’s imaginingsabout that neighbouring country, and thought with wonder of being sonear the border of that mystical land. All her ideas of Italy werederived from “Childe Harold,” the more famous passages of which she hadread and learnt diligently under Eve’s instruction, the eldest daughtercarrying on the education of the youngest in a casual way, after thehomely governess had vanished from the scene.

The villa was small and unpretentious, flung down carelessly, as itseemed, in a spacious garden, a garden which had been neglected of lateyears, since much smarter villas had risen up, white and ornamental,upon the heights of Californie. But the garden had once been cared for.It was full of roses and ivy-leaved geranium, anemones and narcissi,and, what pleased Peggy most of all, there was a grove of orangetrees, where she could lie upon the grass and let the mandarin orangesdrop into her lap. Eve and her young sister sat among the oranges forhours at a stretch, Eve working at one of those tiny garments whichit was her delight to make—“dressing dolls,” Vansittart called it;Peggy pretending to read, but for the most part gazing at sky or sea,watching the white clouds or the white ships sailing by in the blue.

“Don’t you think heaven must be very like this?” Peggy asked, one quietnoontide, when the sky was of its deepest sapphire, and the air had thewarmth and perfume of an English midsummer.

“What, Peg, do you suppose there are orange trees in the ‘Land of theLeal’—orange trees, and smart villas, and afternoon parties?”

“No, no—only the blue sky, and the sea, and the hills jutting out, onebeyond another, till they melt into the sky. It looks as if one couldnever come to the end of it all. It looks just like heaven.”

“Endless, and without limits, like Eternity,” said Vansittart, smilingat her, unconscious that Eve’s head was bending lower and lower overher work to hide the streaming tears. “A pretty fancy. But thatboundless-seeming sea is only a big round pool after all; and think howclever it was of Columbus to find his way across the great ocean, andwhat rapture for Cortez to discover a second ocean, bigger than thefirst. And yet this earth of ours is only like a grain of sand in themultitude of worlds.”

“Don’t,” cried Peggy, with her fingers in her ears. “You make myhead ache. I can’t bear to think of the universe. It’s much too big.Mütterchen used to tell me about it when I was a small child. She mademe dream bad dreams. Why isn’t there one nice, comfortable world for usto live in, and one lovely heaven for us to go to after we are dead,and one horrid hell for the very bad[Pg 217] people, just to preventtheir mixing with the good ones? That’s what the Bible means, doesn’tit? I can’t bear to think of anything more than that.”

“Don’t think, darling,” said Eve, sitting down on the grass beside her,and drawing the fragile form close against her own—“don’t think. Onlybe happy. Breathe this delicious air, bask in this delightful sun, behappy, and get well.”

“Oh, I am getting well as fast as ever I can. Except for my tiresomecough, I am as well as anybody can be. I wonder what they are doingat Fernhurst. Skating on Farmer Green’s pond, perhaps, or crouchingover the fire. You know how Hetty would always sit with her headhanging over the coals, in spite of all you could say about spoilingher complexion. And here we spoil our complexions in the sun. Isn’t itwonderful?”

“Everything in our lives is wonderful, Peggy. Most of all, that Ishould have such a husband as Jack.”

Eve held out her hand to that model husband, smiling at him, with eyesthat were veiled in tears, more grateful for his goodness to thisailing child than for all the love that he had lavished upon herself.

What a happy season this would have been on the lovely hill beside thetideless sea, if hope had never been dashed with fear! But, alas! therewere moments, even at Peggy’s best, when the shadow of doom fell darkacross the summer glory of a land that knows not winter. Sometimes,in the midst of her joyous delight in the things around her, a suddenparoxysm of coughing would surprise the poor child, shaking her asif some invisible demon had seized the wasted form by the narrowshoulders, and were trying to tear it piecemeal.

“My enemy has been very cruel to me to-day,” Peggy would sayafterwards, with a serio-comic smile. “I thought Dr. Bright would getthe better of him.”

At first she used to call that wearing cough her enemy, as she hadheard old people talk of their gout or their rheumatism. Later, shetalked of her cough as the dragon, and of Dr. Bright as St. George;but although the medical champion might get the better of the dragonnow and again, he was a sturdy monster, and harder to kill than thetoughest crocodile along the sandy shores of old Nile. Peggy waswonderfully patient, wonderfully hopeful about herself, even when hopebegan to wax faint in the hearts of her companions, when the trainedattendant could tell of sorely troubled nights, and when Eve, creepingin from her adjoining bed-chamber half a dozen times between night andmorning, was saddened at finding the fevered head tossing unquietlyupon the heaped-up pillows, the blue eyes wide open, and the parchedlips uttering speech that told of semi-delirium.

[Pg 218]

However bad Peggy’s nights were, her days were generally cheerful.She was never tired of the hillside paths, the luxury of ferns, andpalms, and aloes, the glory of the golden-tufted mimosas, the peachblossom, the anemones, the silvery threads of water creeping down therocky gorges, such narrow streamlets, cleaving Titanic rocks. To Peggythese things brought no satiety; while the more earthly enjoyment ofafternoon tea at Rumpelmeyer’s, sitting out of doors, and eating asmany cakes and bon-bons as ever she liked, was only a lesser revelationof a world where all was beauty. Eve and her husband saw the crowds atRumpelmeyer’s with an amused interest. They looked on at this curiouslyblended smart world, this odd mixture of Royal duch*esses and Liverpoolmerchants, millionaires and impecunious cavalière servente,Parisian celebrities, the old nobility of France and England—old asthe Angevin kings, when England and France were one monarchy—and thenewly-gotten wealth of New York and Chicago. Eve and Vansittart lookedon and were amused, and then drove back to the villa on the hill,and rejoiced in the seclusion of their own garden, which it had beentheir delight to improve and beautify. Everything grew so quickly—therose-trees they planted throve so well that it was like gardening infairyland.

They were not intruded upon by that smart world which they saw at thetea-shop on the Croisette. At Cannes two things only count as worthyof regard or reverence—the first, fashion; the second, money. Eveand her husband had neither one nor the other. A Hampshire squire,with three thousand a year and a young wife, was a person who couldinterest nobody. Had he been a bachelor and a dancing man, he wouldhave been eligible and even courted; for dancing men are in a minority,and a ball at the Cercle Nautique is apt to recall Edwin Long’s famouspicture of the Babylonian Marriage Market, women of all nationalitieswaiting to be asked to dance. A Hampshire squire, living quietly withhis wife and her sister in one of the cheapest villas in Californie wasa person to seek, and not to be sought. If the Vansittarts wanted to bein society they should have brought letters of introduction, observed aJewish Plutocrat whose garden joined the Vansittarts’ modest enclosure.“We can’t be expected to take any interest in people of whom we knowabsolutely nothing.”

It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the leaders ofCannes society, the owners of palatial villas, and givers of luncheonsand dances, to understand that these pariahs did not desire to enterthe charmed circle where wealth was the chief qualification, andwhere the triple millionaire, however humble his origin, and howeverdubious the source of his gold, was sure of welcome. Granted that suchmillionaires were talked of lightly as “good fun.” The smart[Pg 219] peoplewho laughed were pleased to eat their luncheons, and dance at theirballs, or drive on their coaches, or sail in their yachts. For thesmart world of Californie and La Route de Frejus February meant a roundof luncheons and teas, dinners and dances. Everybody complained of the“strain,” of being “dragged” from party to party, of having “so muchto do;” these butterflies treating the futilities of life as if theywere penal servitude without option. To these the tranquil happiness ofsuch a couple as Eve and Vansittart was unthinkable. Of course the poorthings would be in society if society would have them. Cannes must bevery dreary for such as they. It was really a pity that this kind ofpeople did not stop at St. Raphael or go on to Alassio.

While society—looking at the “pretty young woman with therather handsome husband” from afar, through a tortoiseshellmerveilleuse—compassionated their forlorn condition, Eve andVansittart found the resources of the neighbourhood inexhaustible,had schemes and delights for every day, and Peggy was never tired ofcomparing the Maritime Alps to heaven. What less in loveliness thanheaven could be a land where one could picnic in February? For Peggy’ssake there were many picnics—now in a rocky gorge on the road toVallauris, where one could sit about the dry bed of a cataract, andset out one’s luncheon on great rocky boulders, screened by featherypalm trees that suggested the South Sea Islands; now on the hilltop atMougins, with the pinnacled walls of Grasse looking at them, acrossthe deep valley of flower fields and mulberry orchards, blossominglilies and budding vines; and now, with even more delight, in somesheltered inlet on the level coast of St. Honorat, some tiny cove wherethe water was brilliant as the jasper sea of the Apocalypse. Sometimesthey landed and took their picnic luncheon under the pine trees, or onthe edge of the sea—Peggy keenly interested in everything she saw,the time-worn fortress-monastery that rose tall above the level shore,and the modern building with its low-roofed cells and modest chapel, abuilding whose monastic rule forbade the entrance of Peggy and all hersex, and which therefore inspired the liveliest curiosity on her part.Not less delightful was the sister island of St. Marguerite, with itsthrilling mystery of the nameless prisoner, whom Peggy would allow tobe none other than a twin brother of the great Louis, and whose fadedred velvet chair she looked at with affection and awe.

“To think of his meekly worshipping in this chapel, with an iron maskupon his face, when he might have been reigning over France and makingwar all over Europe, like the great King.”

“But in that case Louis must have been here. You wouldn’t have a braceof monarchs, Peggy. One brother must have gone to the wall,” arguedVansittart.

[Pg 220]

“They needn’t have shut him up in a dungeon, and made him wear a mask,”said Peggy.

“True, Peggy; the whole story involves a want of common sense whichmakes it incredible. I no more believe in a twin brother of LouisQuatorze than in a twin brother of our Prince of Wales, languishing inthe Tower of London at this present moment.”

“But you believe there was a masked prisoner,” exclaimed Peggy, withkeen anxiety.

“Oh yes, I am willing to believe in the Italian exile. The record ofthat gentleman’s existence seems tolerably reliable, and a very badtime he had of it. They managed things wonderfully well in those days.A political agitator, or the writer of an unpleasant epigram, could bepromptly suppressed. They had prison walls for inconvenient people ofall kinds.”

Peggy sighed. She did not care about the Italian politician. She hadread her Dumas, and had a settled belief in the royal twin. She likedto think that he had lived and suffered in that cold grey fortress.She cared nothing for Marshal Bazaine, and his legendary leap from theparapet, which the soldier guide recited with his tongue in his cheek.She despised Vansittart for being so curious about such a humdrumincident—an elderly general creeping out of captivity under the noseof guardians who were wilfully blind, and slipping quietly off in asteamer.

Those tranquil days on the islands or on the sea would have been asexquisite for Eve as for Peggy if the heart of the elder sister had notbeen heavy with anxiety about the younger. During the first few weeksin that soft climate Peggy’s chance had seemed almost a certainty ofcure. Even Dr. Bright had been hopeful for those first weeks, surprisedby the marked improvement in his patient; but of late he had been graveto despondency, and every consultation strengthened Eve’s fears.

Indeed, there was little need of medical science to reveal the crueltruth. Every week that went by left something of Peggy’s youth andstrength behind it. The walks which were easy for her in February weredifficult in March, and impossible in April. The ground that was lostwas never regained. Eve looked back, and remembered how Peggy hadwalked to the Signal with her a fortnight after their arrival. They hadwalked very slowly, and they had sat down to rest several times in thecourse of the journey; but the ascent had been accomplished withoutpain, and Peggy had been wild with delight at the prospect whichrewarded them at the top.

“We’ll come up here often, won’t we, Eve?”

“As often as you like, darling.”

The second ascent was made in March, when the peach trees[Pg 221] and anemoneswere all in bloom, and the gold of the mimosas was a glory of thepast. This time Peggy found the winding walks long and wearisome, andalthough, in spite of Eve’s entreaties, she persisted in reaching thesummit, the journey had evidently been too much for her. She sankexhausted on a bench, and it was nearly an hour before she was restedenough to mount the little platform on which the telescope stood,and explore the distance, looking for the French squadron which wasrounding the point of the Esterelles, on its way to Toulon. Poor littlePeggy! She was the only person who did not believe in the seriousnessof her case.

“You and Dr. Bright make too much fuss about me,” she said to Eve,seeing tears in the fond sister’s eyes. “I am only growing. See howshort my frock is! I have grown inches since Christmas.”

She stretched out her thin legs—so thin as to make the feet lookabnormally big, and contemplated the spectacle with a satisfied air.

“I am going to be very tall,” she said. “I have only outgrown mystrength. That is all that is the matter with me. Sophy and Jennyalways said as much. And as for the cough which seems to frighten youso, it’s only a stomach cough. Sophy said so.”

Vansittart had procured every contrivance which could make Peggy’s lifeeasier. He bought her a donkey, on whose back she could be carriedup to the Signal, and when her own back grew too weak to endure thefatigue of sitting on the donkey he bought her a wheel chair, which apatient Provençal two-legged beast of burden was willing to drag aboutall day, if Peggy pleased. And at each stage of her weakness—at eachstep on the downward road—he found some contrivance to make locomotioneasier, so that Peggy might live out of doors, in the sunshine and onthe sea.

Alas! there came a day when Peggy no longer cared to be carriedabout, when even the ripening loveliness of the land, the warmthand splendour of the southern spring, the white-sailed skiff withits quaint old sailors talking their unintelligible Cannois, andchivalrously attentive to Peggy’s lightest wish—the time came wheneven these things could not tempt her from the couch in the garden,where she lay and watched the opening orange blossoms, and wonderedwho would be there to mark the first change from green to gold in theturn of the year, or thought of Eve’s wedding and the orange wreath inher hair, and marvelled to remember how strong her young limbs feltin that gladdest of midsummers, and how slight a thing it had been towalk to the Roman village upon Bexley Hill, or to the pine-crownedcrest of Blackdown. And now Vansittart had to carry her to the sofain the orange grove, and she lay there supine all through the goldenafternoon, while Eve, who was said to be herself in delicate health,sat in a low chair near her, and read aloud from Dumas’ historicalnovels, or some fairy tale.

[Pg 222]

But this increasing weakness was of no consequence, Peggy protested,when she saw Eve looking anxious about her. She had only outgrown herstrength. When she had done growing she would be as strong as ever,and able to climb those Sussex hills just as well as ever. But shewould not be here to see the flower change to the fruit. That miracleof Nature’s handicraft would be for other eyes—for the eyes of someother weakling, perhaps, passing, like Peggy, through the ordeal ofovergrowth. But there was something far more wonderful than tree orflower, which had been whispered about by Peggy’s nurse. There was thehope of a baby nephew or a baby niece in the first month of summer, ababy that was to open its eyes on some cool Alpine valley, to whichMr. and Mrs. Vansittart and their charge would migrate, when the planetrees by the harbour had unfolded their broad leaves, and the sunthat looked upon Cannes was too fierce for any but the hardy nativesof the old fishing village. In that sweet summer time a baby was toappear among them, and take its place in all their hearts and on alltheir knees, and was to reign over them by the divine right of thefirstborn. Peggy’s nurse told her that, were it only for the sake ofthis new-comer, she ought to take care of herself, and get well quickly.

“You wouldn’t like not to see the baby, would you, Miss Margaret?”

Peggy always felt inclined to laugh when her prim attendant called herMiss Margaret. She had never been addressed by her baptismal name byany one else; but Benson was a superior person, who had lived only inthe best families, and who did everything in a superior way.

“Like not to see Eve’s baby? Why, of course I shall see it—see it andnurse it, every day of my life,” answered Peggy.

“Of course, miss, if you are well enough when June comes.”

“If—I—am—well—enough,” Peggy repeated slowly, turning towards thenurse with an earnest gaze. “Perhaps you mean that I may not live tillJune. I heard you say something about me to the housemaid yesterdaymorning when she was making your bed. I was only half asleep; thoughI was too drowsy to speak and let you know I could hear all you weresaying. You are quite wrong—both of you. I have only outgrown mystrength. I shall grow up into a strong young woman, and I shall bevery fond of Eve’s baby. I shall be the first aunt he will know.”

She stopped to laugh—a hoarse little laugh, which it pained Benson tohear.

“Isn’t that absurd?” she asked. “I am calling the baby ‘he.’ But I dohope it will be a boy—I adore little boys—and I’m afraid I ratherhate little girls.”

[Pg 223]

“A son and heir,” said the nurse, placidly. “That will look nice in thenewspapers.”

“Yes, baby will have to be in the newspapers,” agreed Peggy. “His firstappearance upon any stage. I should so love to make something for himto wear. Eve is always working for him; though she contrives to keepher work a secret, even from me. ‘Mothers’-meeting work,’ she said,when I asked her what she was so busy about. As if I didn’t know betterthan that! One doesn’t use the finest lawn and real Valenciennes formothers’-meeting work. Let me make something for Eve’s baby, Benson,there’s a dear. I would take such pains with my stitches.”

“It would tire you too much, Miss Margaret.”

“No, no, it won’t. My legs are weak—not my fingers. Let me makesomething, and surprise Eve with it when it is finished.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Vansittart would like you to know, miss. It is asecret.”

“Yes, but Eve knows that I know. I told her that I had been dreamingabout her, and that I dreamt there was a baby. It was after I heard youand Paulette whispering—I really did dream—and Eve kissed me, andcried a little, and said perhaps my dream might come true.”

Peggy being very urgent, her nurse brought her some fine flannel,as soft as silk, and cut out a flannel shawl for the unknown, andinstructed Peggy as to the manner in which it was to be made, and Peggywas propped up with pillows, and began a floss-silk scallop with neatlittle stitches, and with an earnest laboriousness which was a touchingspectacle; but, alas! after ten minutes of strenuous labour, greatbeads of perspiration began to roll down Peggy’s flushed face, and thethin arm and hand trembled with the effort.

“Oh, Miss Margaret, you mustn’t work any more,” cried Benson, shockedat her appearance.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Nurse; not any more to-day,” sighed Peggy, sinkingback into the pillows, breathless and exhausted. “But I’ll go on withbaby’s shawl to-morrow. Please fold it up for me and keep it in yourbasket. Eve mustn’t see it till it’s finished. The stitches are not toolong, are they?”

No, the stitches were very small, but crowded one upon another in amanner that indicated resolute effort and failing sight.

“I feel as if I had been making shawls all day, like the poor woman inthe poem,” said Peggy. “‘Stitch, stitch, stitch, with eyelids heavy anddim!’ How odd it is that everything seems difficult when one is ill!I thought it was only my legs that were weak, but I’m afraid it’s thewhole of me. My finger aches with the weight of my thimble—the dearlittle gold thimble my brother-in-law gave me on Christmas Day.”

[Pg 224]

She put the little thimble to her lips, and kissed it as if it were asentient thing. Vansittart came into the room while she was so engaged.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Do you know what I was thinking about?”

“Not I, quotha,” said he, sitting down by Peggy’s couch and taking herthin little hand in his. “Who can presume to thread the labyrinth ofa young lady’s mind, without the least little bit of a clue? You mustgive me a clue, Peg, if you want me to guess.”

“Well, then, I was thinking of you. Is that a clue?”

“Not much of a one, my pet. You might be thinking anything—that mylast coat is a bad fit about the shoulders—a true bill, Peggy; that Iam growing stupid and indolent in this inconsistent climate, where onesleeps half the day and lies awake more than half the night.”

“I was thinking of your goodness to Eve, and to all of us. My goldthimble; your bringing us here when you would rather have stayed inHampshire to hunt. And I was thinking how different our lives wouldhave been if you had never come to Fernhurst. Eve would just have goneon slaving to make both ends meet, cutting out all our frocks, andworking her Wilcox and Gibbs, and bearing with father’s temper, andgoing without things. I should have outgrown my strength all the same;but there would have been no one to bring us to Cannes. I should neverhave seen the Mediterranean, or the Snow Alps, or mother’s grave. Ishould never have seen Eve in pretty tea-gowns, with nothing in theworld to do except sit about and look lovely. You have changed ourlives.”

“For better, Peggy?” he asked earnestly.

“Yes, yes; for worlds and worlds better,” she answered, with her armsround his neck.

Benson had crept off to her dinner; Peggy and her brother-in-law werealone.

“God bless you for that assurance, Peggy dear. And—if—if I were notby any means a perfect Christian—if I had done wicked things in mylife—given way to a wicked temper, and done some great wrong, not intreachery but in passion, to a fellow-man—could you love me all thesame, Peggy?”

“Of course I could. Do you suppose I ever thought you quite perfect?You wouldn’t be half so nice if you were outrageously good. I know youcould never be false or treacherous. And as for getting in a passion,and even hitting people, I shouldn’t love you one morsel the less forthat. I have often wanted to hit people myself. My own sister Sophy,for instance, when she has been too provoking, with her superior airsand high-flown notions. Kiss me,[Pg 225] Jack, again and again. If you wereever so wicked I think I should love you all the same.”

That was Vansittart’s last serious talk with Peggy. It was indeedPeggy’s last serious talk upon this planet, save for the murmuredconversation in the dawn of an April day, when the London vicar, whowas doing duty at St. George’s, came in before an early celebrationto sit beside Peggy’s pillow and speak words of comfort and promise,words that told of a fairer world, whither Peggy’s footsteps were beingguided by an impalpable Hand—a world where it might be she would seethe faces of the loved and lost—those angel faces, missed here, butliving for ever there.

“Do you really believe it, sir?” Peggy asked eagerly, with her thinhand on the grave Churchman’s sleeve, her imploring looks perusing theworn, elderly face. “Shall I really see my mother again—see her andknow her in heaven?”

“We know only what He has told us, my dear. ‘In My Father’s housethere are many mansions’—and it may be that the homes we havelost—the firesides we remember dimly—the faces that looked upon ourcradles—will be found—again—somewhere.”

“Ah, you are crying,” said Peggy. “You would like to believe—just as Iwould. That is the only heaven I care for—to be with mother—and forEve and Jack to come to us by-and-by.”

This day, when the vicar came in the early morning, was thought tobe Peggy’s last on earth, but she lingered, rallied, and slowly sankagain, a gradual fading—painless towards the end; for the stagesof suffering which she had borne so patiently were past, and thelast hours were peaceful. She could keep her arms round Eve’s neckand listen to the soothing voice of sorrowing love, till even thiseffort was too much, and the weak arms relaxed their hold, and weregently laid upon the bed in that meek attitude which looked like thefinal repose. She could hear Eve still—speaking or reading to her inthe soft, low voice that was like falling waters—but her mind waswandering in a pleasant dreamland, and she thought she was driftingon a streamlet that winds through the valley between Bexley Hill andBlackdown; through summer pastures where the meadow-sweet grew tall andwhite beside the water, and where the voices of haymakers were callingto each other across the newly cut grass.

“I should like to have lived to see your child,” were Peggy’s lastwords, faltered brokenly into Eve’s ear as she knelt beside the bed.

There were long hours of silence; the mute faint struggles of thedeparting spirit; but that wish was the last of Peggy’s earthly speech.

Eve was broken-hearted. She never knew till the end came how[Pg 226] shehad clung to some frail thread of hope; in spite of the Destroyer’spalpable advance; in spite of the physician’s sad certainty; in spiteof her husband’s gentle warnings, striving to prepare her for the end.The blow was terrible. Vansittart trembled for life and reason whenhe saw the intensity of her grief. Always highly strung, she was in acondition of health which made hysteria more to be dreaded. The briefdelay between death and burial horrified her; yet to Vansittart thatswift departure of the lifeless clay seemed an unutterable relief. Forjust a few hours the wasted form lay on the rose-strewn bed; and thenin the early dimness, before the mists had floated up from the valley,before harbour and parish church stood out clear and bright in theface of the morning sun, came the bearers of the coffin, and at nineo’clock Vansittart went alone to see the loved youngest sister laidin the cemetery on the hill, in the secluded corner he himself hadchosen—near the mother’s grave—as a spot where Eve might like to sitby-and-by, when sorrow should be less poignant, a nook from which shecould see the shallow bay, and the cloud-capped islands jutting outinto the sea, and the tall white lighthouse of Antibes, standing upabove the crest of the hill, glorified in the afternoon sun, as if itwere nearer heaven than earth.

In everything that Vansittart did at this time his thought was of Eveand her feelings. His grief for her sorrow was no less keen than thesorrow itself. He had been very fond of poor little Peggy, and hadgrown fonder of her as her weakness increased, and strengthened herclaim upon his compassion. But now he saw with Eve’s eyes, thoughtwith Eve’s mind, and every sigh and every tear of hers wrung his heartafresh.

Those earnest words of Peggy’s, spoken with the wasted arms about hisneck, were very precious to him. It seemed as if they were in somewise his absolution for the wrong which he had done in keeping thesecret of Harold Marchant’s death. Peggy had told him that she andher sister owed comfort and happiness to him—that he had changed thetenor of their lives from struggling penury to luxury and ease. He knewthat over and above all these material advantages he had given HaroldMarchant’s sister a profound and steadfast love—a love which wouldlast as long as his life, and which was and would be the governingprinciple of his life—and he told himself that in keeping that darksecret he had done well.

Tranquillized by this assurance he put aside the old fear as somethingto be forgotten. But there was a nearer fear, a fear which had grownout of Peggy’s illness and death, which no casuistry could lessen orthrust aside. The fear of hereditary phthisis came upon him in the deadof night, and flung its dark shadow across his path by day. He hadtalked long with Dr. Bright after Peggy’s death, and the kind physicianhad calmly discussed the probabilities of evil;[Pg 227] had held nothing back.Fear there must needs be, in such a case; but there was also ground forhope. Vansittart told the doctor of Eve’s buoyant spirits and energy,her long walks and untiring pleasure in natural scenery. “That doesnot look like hereditary disease, does it?” he asked, pleading for ahopeful answer.

“Those are good signs, no doubt. Your wife is of an active temperament,highly nervous, but with a very happy disposition. Her sister’s fatalillness has tried her severely; but we must look to the arising of anew interest as the best cure for sorrow.”

“Poor Peggy! Yes, we shall brood less upon her loss when we have ourlittle one to think about.”

The thought of Eve’s coming happiness as a mother was his chiefcomfort. She could not fail to be consoled by the infant whose tenderlife would absorb her every thought, whose sleeping and waking wouldbe a source of interest and anxiety. But before the consoler’s comingthere was a dreary interval to be bridged over, and this was a cause offear.

There was a journey to be taken, for the climate of Cannes would be toohot for health, or even for endurance, before mother and child couldbe moved. Thus it was imperative that they should move without delay.Indeed, Vansittart thought they could not too soon leave the sceneso closely associated with the image of the dead—where everythingrecalled Peggy, and the alternating hopes and fears of those gradualstages on her journey to the grave. On this path her feet had trippedso lightly last February, when her illness was talked of as “only acough.” Under this giant eucalyptus her couch had been established inApril, when walking had become a painful effort, and she could only lieand absorb the beauty of her surroundings, and talk of the coming daysin which she would be strong again, and able to go up to the Signalwith Jack.

Vansittart fancied that Eve would catch eagerly at the idea of leavingthat haunted house; but her grief increased at the thought of goingaway.

“I like to be here in the place she loved. I can at least consolemyself with remembering how happy she was with us; and what a joyCalifornie and the wild walks above Golfe Juan were to her. SometimesI think she is in the garden still. I lie upon the sofa here and watchthe window, expecting to see her come creeping in, leaning upon thestick you gave her—so white and weak and thin—but so bright, sopatient, so lovable.”

Then came the inevitable burst of tears, with the threatening ofhysteria, and it was all her husband could do to tranquillize her.

“The comfort you get here is a cruel comfort, dearest,” he said. “Weshall both be ever so much better away from Cannes—at St. Martin deLantosque, in the cool mountain air. Our rooms are ready[Pg 228] for us, weshall have our own servants, and if the accommodation be somewhatrough——”

“Do you think I mind roughness with you? I could be happy in a hut.Oh, Jack, you are so patient with my grief! There are people who wouldsay I am foolish to grieve so much for a young sister; but it is thefirst time Death has touched us since mother went. We were such a happylittle band. I never thought that one of us could die, and that one theyoungest, the most loving of us all.”

“Dearest, I shall never think your grief unreasonable; but I want youto grieve less, for my sake, for the sake of the future. Think, Eve,only think what it will be to have that new tie between us, a child,belonging equally to each, looking equally to each for all it has ofsafety and of gladness upon this earth.”

CHAPTER XXI.

“FROM THE EVIL TO COME.”

Vansittart and his wife never went to the village in the mountains,where all things had been made ready for their coming. Eve spentthat afternoon which should have been her last at Cannes in theburial-ground on the hill, now in its glory of May flowers, a paradiseof roses and white marble, a place full of tenderest memorials to theearly dead, a spot which seemed especially dedicated to those whom thegods love best, the holy ones and pure of spirit, removed from the evilto come for hard middle-life and selfish old age. Eve gave herself upto the luxury of grief on that last day, taking her fond farewell ofthat quiet bed where, under a coverlet of pale roses, the happy childslept the everlasting sleep. She lingered, and lingered, as the sunsloped towards the dark ridge of hills; lingered when the great flamingdisc touched the rugged line, until there was only the afterglow tolight her back to Californie. Vansittart had trusted her alone with thesteady Benson, now promoted from Peggy’s nurse to be Eve’s own maid.He had cheques to write and final arrangements to make; and he thoughtthat there would be greater tranquillity for Eve in solitude, with onlyan attendant. It was better there should be no one to whom she couldexpatiate on her grief, for her talk with him had always tended tohysteria. Thus convenience and prudence had both counselled his leavingher to herself; and it was only when the clock on the mantelpiecechimed the quarter before eight and the shadows deepened in the cornersof the room that he felt he had been imprudent. He went hurriedly outto the terrace in front of the villa, and felt that creeping chillnessin the air which follows quickly upon sundown on this southern shore.The carriage stopped at the gate as he went out,[Pg 229] and Eve was in hisarms, to be welcomed first and scolded afterwards.

“It is with you I am most angry, Benson,” he said to his wife’sattendant; “you ought to have been wiser.”

“I won’t have you scold Benson,” remonstrated Eve; “it is my fault. Sheteased me to come home ever so long ago, and I wouldn’t. I wanted tostay with Peggy till the last moment. It was like bidding her good-byeagain. And now I have left her lying in her quiet grave, near the poormother whom she hardly knew. I didn’t know how late it was till we werein the carriage coming home, and I began to feel rather chilly.”

“You are shivering now, Eve. You should have remembered what Dr. Brightsaid about sunset.”

“Ah, that was on Peggy’s account. It is different for me.”

“Well, I won’t try to frighten you into a cold. Run to yourmistress’s-room, Benson, and make a good fire. I ordered tea to beready.”

He almost carried Eve upstairs, and with his own hands manipulatedthe olive logs, and set the merry pine cones blazing and crackling,while she lay on the sofa in front of the fireplace and watched theflames; but the shivering continued in spite of the cheery woodfire, and eiderdown coverlet, and hot tea; so Dr. Bright was sentfor hurriedly, and came to find his patient with a temperature thatindicated grave disturbance. He came, and left only to come back again,with another English doctor, who did not leave his patient all night;and between midnight and morning the young wife’s existence trembledin the balance, and the husband, pacing to and fro and in and out onthe lower floor, ground his teeth and beat his head in a passion ofself-reproach, hating himself for having allowed that perilous visit tothe cemetery, cursing himself for his folly in not having gone with herif she must needs go.

“There is a blight upon us and upon our love,” he told himself in hisdespair. “Nemesis will have her due.”

His fondest hope was blighted—the hope of a living link which shouldbind him closer to his wife and make severance impossible—a child,whose innocent eyes should turn from father to mother, and plead to themother for the father’s sin—the child who, in direct contingency, wasto be his champion and his saviour. He passed through an ordeal of suchagony and apprehension on his wife’s account as to make him for thetime being comparatively indifferent to the loss of his son, who cameupon this mortal scene only to vanish from it for ever; but when atlast, in mid-June, while Californie and her fir woods were baking undera tropical sun, his wife was restored to him, strong enough to travelto cooler regions[Pg 230] in the shadow of the great Alps, there fell upon himthe sense of an irreparable loss.

They went by easy stages to Courmayeur, and established themselvesthere for the rest of the summer, in a reposeful solitude, keepingaloof from the climbers and explorers and the race of touristsgenerally. They had their own rooms, in a Dépendance of the hotel,rooms whose windows commanded valley and mountain. Here Eve first feltthe tranquillizing influence of Alpine scenery, and her quiet rambleswith Vansittart soon brought back the bloom of her girlish beauty, andrestored something of the frank gladness of those younger years whenshe and her sisters used to ramble over the undulating ridge of BexleyHill, and think it a mountain.

“Dear old Bexley,” sighed Eve, with her eyes dreamily contemplatingMont Chetif; “I hope I shall never begin to despise you, even thoughyou are a hill to put in one’s pocket as compared with these whitegiants.”

The peaceful days, the perfect union between husband and wife, revivedEve’s spirits and did much to restore her health, sorely shaken by theordeal through which she had passed. Fever had raged fiercely in thebattle between life and death, and the long bright hair, which had madeso fair a diadem in the days of her poverty, had been shorn from theburning head. She looked quaintly pretty now, with her boyish crop,framing the broad white forehead with crisp short curls. She laughedwhen Vansittart talked of next season, when his mother was to lend themthe house in Charles Street.

“You can never appear in society with a cropped head for yourcompanion,” she said. “People will say you have married a lady doctor,or some other learned monstrosity from Girton. I shall be tabooed inthe smart world where ignorance is de rigueur, and to knowanything about books is a sign of inferiority.”

“What care I if they think my sweet love a senior wrangler disguised asa fine lady? You are pretty enough to set the fashion of cropped heads.”

They moved slowly homeward in the late autumn, loitering besidethe great Swiss lakes till the October mists began to make Pilatusinvisible and to hang low over the steep gables of Lucerne. Theylingered under Mr. Hauser’s hospitable roof so long that the greatblack St. Bernard lifted his head and howled an agonizing farewellwhen the carriage drove off to the station with Eve and her husband.That leonine beast was sagacious enough to know that the trunks andtravelling-bags and bustle of departure meant something more than thedaily drive, and that he was to see these kind friends no more, and eatno more sweet biscuits out of Eve’s soft white hands.

[Pg 231]

It was late in October when they found themselves among the pine woodsand hillocks of Hampshire, and insignificant as the hills were therewas pleasure in feeling one’s self at home. Eve’s mother-in-law wasat Merewood to receive them, and to make much of her son’s wife, whomshe found thinner and more fragile-looking than when she left for theRiviera, but with all the beauty and brightness which had captivatedher lover. Mrs. Vansittart’s welcome had in it more of affection thanshe had ever given her son’s wife in the past.

“I think you are beginning to love me,” Eve said, too sensitive not tofeel the change.

“My dear child, I always loved you.”

“Only a very little,” argued Eve. “You liked me pretty well in theabstract, I dare say, but you did not care for me as Mrs. JohnVansittart. It was very natural. You had your own favourites, any oneof whom you would have liked Jack to marry; dear, nice girls who alwayswear tidy frocks, play the ‘Lieder ohne Worte,’ and visit the poor. Iwas altogether a detrimental.”

“It was not you, Eve—only your people.”

“My people—meaning my father. Yes, he was a stumbling-block, nodoubt—a man who had gone down in the world, and about whom malevolentpeople said cruel things. Well, he has not been obtrusive, has he? Hehas kept himself in the background.”

“My dear, he has been admirable, and your sisters, when I came to knowthem and understand them, proved altogether unobjectionable. We saw agood deal of each other while you were away.”

“Sophy told me how kind you had been. Yes, they are good girls. Theirfaults are all on the surface. But the flower of the flock is gone—thebrightest and the most loving. She was all love.”

“Take comfort, dear; there is deep sorrow, but there can be nobitterness in the thought of a child’s death.”

“Ah, that is what you religious people say,” cried Eve, rebelliously,“but I have not faith enough to feel that. Why should she be taken?Life was all before her, full of happiness, of beautiful sights andsounds, and joys untasted. She was taken from the evil to come, youwill say—but there might be no evil. There has been no evil in yourlife! See how peacefully it has glided by.”

“You forget, Eve, that I have had to sorrow for a beloved husband.”

“Oh, forgive me. Yes, you have felt the burden—the shadow has fallenupon you too—the shadow, and the burden of death. Why did the Creatormake a beautiful world, and then spoil it?”

“Eve, this is blasphemy.”

“The heart must rebel sometimes; one must ask these questions. ‘Thefool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’ Is it only the[Pg 232] fool whosays that? Is it not the bitter cry of all humanity at some time orother?”

“Eve, you are writhing under your first sorrow. Let it turn your heartto God, not away from Him. Do you think the unbeliever’s creed willgive you any comfort?”

“Comfort? No. There is no comfort in religion, or in unbelief. Religiononly means obedience, and public worship, and kindness to the poor, anda good orderly life. It doesn’t mean the certainty of getting back ourdead—somewhere, somehow, and being happy again as we have been.”

“We can rest in the hope of that, Eve, knowing that we are immortal.”

“Knowing? But we don’t know. Nobody has ever come back to tell us. Oh,if but once, only once, for one moment in a year, our dead could comeback and look at us, and speak to us, death would not be death.”

Mrs. Vansittart spoke no more of comfort. It was better perhaps to letthe troubled heart tire itself out with grieving. Tranquillity wouldcome afterwards.

“And our son, our son who breathed only to die. He did not live evenlong enough for baptism. He was dead when the Bishop came hurriedlyfrom his house on the hill. You think perhaps—you who are a strictAnglican—that his soul is in limbo—that he will never see the throneof God. We were going to be so fond of him, Jack and I—and Peggywanted to live long enough to see him—but she was gone before hecame, and he didn’t care about living. If she had been well and happyall things would have been different. They would have been runningabout together in a year or two from now. And now she would havebeen carrying him about in her arms. He would have been beginning tonotice people, and to laugh and coo like that cottager’s child we sawyesterday, just about as old as my baby would have been now.”

“My dearest, do you suppose I am not sorry for your loss and for yourhusband’s? But God never meant us to rebel, even in our grief. Thatmust not be.”

“I know I am wicked,” said Eve, with a long-drawn sigh. “I have my fitsof wickedness. In church yesterday, on my knees at the altar, I thoughtthat I was resigned, I almost believed in the heaven where we shall seeand know our friends again.”

The dark hour passed, and at sunset, when Vansittart came home from along day in the plantations, his wife received him with her brightestsmile. His coming back after a few hours’ absence meant the fulness ofjoy.

She had spent a day at Fernhurst, and the sight of her three sistersin their somewhat ostentatious mourning had renewed her[Pg 233] grief. Shehad sent them money for mourning, which largesse they had spentconscientiously, and so were swathed in crape and distinctly funerealof aspect.

There were Peggy’s sisters, whose very existence recalled her imagetoo vividly; and there was Peggy’s room, the room which she had sharedwith Hetty; and the little bed where she had slept so peacefully, withher nose almost touching the sloping roof, before the cruel cough tookhold of her, and disturbed those happy, childish slumbers, with theirvisions of fairyland, or of castles in the air which seemed solid andreal to the dreamer. Everything in that cottage chamber suggested herwho slept in a far lovelier spot.

The room remained just as the child had left it. Peggy’s things weresacred. There was her workbox, the substantial, old-fashioned rosewoodbox, inlaid with mother-o’-pearl, and lined with blue silk, the old,old blue, a colour such as modern taste holds up to scorn—for the boxwas nearly half a century old, and had belonged to Peggy’s grandmotherfirst and to her mother afterwards. It had been given to Peggy becauseshe was the youngest, and the little stock of trinkets was exhausted bythe time her four sisters had each received a souvenir. The amethystearrings, utterly unwearable, for Eve; the watch which had not gone foryears, to Sophy; and a couple of poor little brooches for Jenny andHetty. After these jewels had been dealt out there remained only theworkbox for Peggy. It had been to her a source of infinite delight.What treasures of doll’s clothing, what varieties of fancy-work;kettle-holders, never to be polluted by a kettle; mats, never finished;Berlin-wool cuffs, and point-lace handkerchiefs. Peggy had seldomfinished anything; but the rapture of beginning things had beenintense, a fever of enjoyment.

There were her books upon a little carved Swiss shelf, by her bed. Herlesson-books, thumbed and dog’s-eared, everybody else’s lesson-booksbefore they descended to her; that “Grammaire des Grammaires” overwhich the whole family had toiled, and the Primers which make learningeasy and people the world with smatterers. There were gift-books,birthday presents from governess or sisters; the immortal FamilyRobinson, Grimm, Hans Andersen, Bluebeard, Cinderella. How manya summer dawn Peggy had lain upon that pillow, reading the oldfairy-tales before a foot was stirring in the house. Her bed was there,with the prettiest of Bellagio rugs laid over it, sacred as a shrine.The little room would have been far more convenient for Hetty if thatbed had been taken down and put away; but no one dreamed of removingit. There would have been unlovingness in the mere suggestion.

Well, they had all to do without Peggy henceforward. There was onelink gone from the chain of love. Vansittart looked round[Pg 234] at hissisters-in-law’s faces with an agonized dread. Who would be the next?Which among that tainted flock would be the first to show the inheritedpoison, the first to feel the cold hand of the destroyer?

They all looked bright and healthy. They had all the fair complexionand fine roseate bloom which mark the typical English beauty, aloveliness of colour which can almost afford to dispense withperfection of form. They were slenderly made. In a doctor’s parlance,there was not much of them to fall back upon—not much in hand atthe beginning of a long illness. They were tall and willowy, rathernarrow-chested, Vansittart noted with a pang. Yes, assuredly Eve wasthe flower of the flock. Her chest was broader, her throat fuller andmore firmly moulded than the chests and throats of her sisters. Thepoise of her head was more decided, her whole bearing argued a strongerconstitution. She was the offspring of her mother’s youth, beforeany indication of disease had darkened the young life. She was theoffspring of her father’s early manhood. The doctors had augured wellfor her on this account.

The winter was spent very quietly at Merewood. Vansittart hunted andshot, and he often went home earlier in the winter dusk than becamehim as a sportsman, in order to take tea with Eve beside the fire. Hismother lingered at Merewood, so that Eve should not be alone, the linkbetween the two women strengthening day by day. The sisters came overfrom Haslemere, and enjoyed all the luxuries of a well-appointed house.Eve and her husband went for two or three short visits to RedwoldTowers, and Sir Hubert and Lady Hartley came to Merewood; he for thelast of the pheasants—having pretty nearly cleared his own woods,extensive as they were—she for the pleasure of being with Eve, to whomshe was sincerely attached.

And so the winter went by, a not unhappy winter. How could a young wifebe unhappy, adoring and adored by her husband? Hymen’s torch glowedwith gentlest light beside that hearth where the pine logs were heapedso liberally, pine logs from Vansittart’s paternal woods.

Eve was in high health at Easter, radiant, full of life and spirits,albeit in no wise forgetful of that grave on the hill where theMaréchal Niel roses were growing so luxuriantly, and which was beingcarefully tended by stranger hands. There are those at Cannes who takea loving pride in that Garden of Death, whose care it is that thisplace of rest should be for ever beautiful, a paradise of peace, thevery memory whereof should be sweet in the thoughts of the bereaved.Eve could think now with resignation of that tranquil spot, and of theyoung life which had come to a[Pg 235] sudden pause on earth. Was it a fullstop, or only a hyphen? Was it the end of the book, or only the bottomof the page, with the last word repeated over-leaf, to carry on thestory without a break?

Mrs. Vansittart insisted that her children should have the free useof the house in Charles Street for the London season. She wanted Eveto enjoy the privileges of her position as the wife of a man of goodfamily and good means. She had also a lingering hope that in thehigh pressure of London society her son might awaken to some worthyambition—political or social, and might try to make his mark in theworld. She had always been ambitious for him—had always wanted him todo something more than shoot his own pheasants, improve the cottages onhis estate, and live within his means. For a young man of his socialstatus, the political arena offered fair scope for ambition, and Mrs.Vansittart had the common idea that any man of good abilities cansucceed in politics.

CHAPTER XXII.

“SO VERY WILFUL.”

Another Easter over, another season beginning, and with all the usualauguries of a season of exceptional splendour—auguries to be exchangedlater for dismal elegies upon a season of surpassing dulness andstagnation, which had disappointed everybody, and all but ruined theWest End tradesmen. As this jubilant vaticination and these melancholywailings are repeated year after year, they have come to be of littlemore significance than the chirping of the newly arriving swifts underthe eaves, or the twittering of the swallows assembled for theirautumnal flight. Seasons come and seasons go. People are hopeful beforethe fact, and disappointed after the fact; the great chorus of humanitygoes on. Such is life. A season of hope and disillusion. Contemplateexistence from the severest standpoint of the agnostic metaphysician,or from the most exalted platform of the Christian saint, and theultimate fact is the same. We begin in hope to end in sorrow.

For Signora Vivanti the after-Easter season began under cheeriestconditions. Her success at the Apollo had been unbroken. The longershe acted a part, the more spirited her acting became. Ignorant anduncultured as she was, she possessed the gift of “gag,” knew when andwhere to introduce a word or a look which delighted her audience; andthe management and her brother and sister artists—more especially thebrothers—gave her full scope. These little inspirations of hers becamelicensed liberties, and her rôle grew and strengthened under herhands. She was the most popular actress who had appeared at the Apollosince the building of the theatre.

[Pg 236]

So at Easter the impresario increased the lady’s salary for the fourthtime since her début. He knew what tempting offers had been madeto her by managers and by agents—how eager one was to send her toAmerica, what dazzling lures another held out for Australasia. Happily,la Vivanti liked London—big, dirty, bustling London—and was contentto make her fortune within the sound of Big Ben, whose mighty voicecame booming along the tide to Chelsea when the wind blew from theEssex marshes and the German Ocean.

Lisa was making her fortune as fast as a young woman of moderatedesires could wish to make it. To herself she appeared inordinatelyrich. The collet necklace had now a fine half-hoop bracelet to keepit company in the strong box under Lisa’s bed, and she had a numberof brooches which studded her corsage like a constellation. What theoutside world said of Lisa’s diamonds was very different from thetruth; but the Venetian neither knew nor cared what the outside worldwas saying. The people in the theatre were all very kind to her. Theyknew that she was what Mr. Hawberk called “straight,” and that thegems she flashed upon the public eye were honestly come by, the resultof an economical existence. She and la Zia were able to live upon solittle. A few shreds of meat, messed up in some occult manner withtheir perpetual pasta, sufficed for dinner. A breakfast of coffee androlls; a supper of highly odorous cheese, with sometimes for a festa adish of cheap pastry from the Swiss confectioner’s in the King’s Road.Such a cuisine did not make much impression upon Signora Vivanti’ssalary. She had no servant, except a slovenly female, with depressingmanners, who came two mornings a week to scrub floors, clean windows,and black-lead grates. La Zia did all the rest, and delighted in herwork. To sweep and dust those palatial apartments was a perpetual joyto her, second only to the delight of tramping up and down the King’sRoad, exploring every greengrocer’s shop till she secured the cheapestvegetables, and lamenting the Rialto, where three lemons could be hadfor two soldi, and where the pale, bloodless asparagus was less than aquarter the London price of that luxury. Pleasant also was it to la Ziato take the ’bus for Coventry Street, and to prowl about the foreignsettlement between the churches of St. Anne and St. Giles; but oh, whata dull and dismal aspect had the restaurants and table d’hôtesin this quarter, as compared with the Cappello Nero and the movement andbrightness of the Piazza.

La Zia was happy, but in spite of an altogether phenomenal success,and of wealth that far surpassed her dreams of fortune, the samecould not be said of Fiordelisa. There was that lacking in her younglife which changed her gold to dross, her laurels to worthless weeds.She had loved, and loved passionately, with all the[Pg 237] force of herundisciplined heart, and her love had been rejected. She had steepedher soul in the promise of bliss, had told herself again and again thatthe kindnesses she received from the man she loved could only be givenby a lover. Her notion of ethics was not exalted enough to comprehendVansittart’s desire to atone for a great wrong, or to understand thatso much gentleness and generosity could be lavished upon her by any oneless than a lover. She had built her soul a palace—not of art, but oflove—and when the unreal fabric fell her disappointment had been ascrushing as it was unforeseen.

After that passionate scene with Vansittart Lisa gave herself up tothe luxury of grief. For days she would hardly eat enough to sustainlife; for many nights she tossed sleepless on her bed, sobbing overher vanished hopes, as an undisciplined child weeps for the loss of apromised pleasure. It was only good little Tomaso Zinco’s strenuousarguments which ultimately brought her to reason. La Zia could donothing with her. She turned her face to the wall, like David, and herlong blue-black hair was tangled with tossing on her pillow, and wetwith her passionate tears. She would not get up, or put on her clothes,or even wash her face. It was her way of scattering ashes on her head,and rending her garments. Her grief had all the fervid unreasonablenessof Oriental mourning.

La Zia was obliged to take the ’cello player into the bedroom, and showhim this spectacle of angry despair.

“He has deserted her—the father of her child,” muttered Zinco, in thevestibule, as la Zia tried to explain the situation. “That is bad, bad,bad. Very bad.”

“No, no,” said la Zia, shaking her head vehemently; “it is not that. Hehas done no wrong. He has paid for her lessons, paid her rent, he hasdone much for us. Only she loved him, and he did not love her. She islike a child. She will not be consoled.”

Zinco nodded a vague assent, but did not believe the good aunt’sassurance. Of course this man was the father of her child. Of courseshe had been his mistress. He had brought her from Venice, andestablished her in these comfortable lodgings, and now he was tired ofher. These things always end so. “Chi va all’acqua si bagna, e chi va acavallo cade.”

The good little Zinco crept into the room as softly as a cat, andseated his stout and oily person by the bed, where Lisa was lyingface downwards, her tearful countenance buried in the pillow, andnothing but a mass of tangled black hair visible above the gaudyMexican blanket. He gently patted her shoulder, which acknowledged theattention with an angry shrug.

“Come, come, cara mia,” pleaded the singing-master. “Is not this a merechildishness, to cry for the moon, when we have good[Pg 238] fortune almost atour feet? To cry because just one foolish young man among all the menin the world is not wise enough to know that there is no more beautifulwoman than us in London! And not to eat, and not to sleep, and to cryand sob all day and night. Ahimé, che bestia! This is just the very wayto lose our voice, to become mute as one of those nightingales whosetongues were cut out to flavour the pasta for Vitellius. Was there eversuch foolishness? Were I a beautiful girl with a fine voice, I would bequeen of the world. If he has been cold and cruel show him what a pearlhe has lost. It is not by lying here and crying that you will bring himto reason. Get up and dress yourself, and come to the piano. I’ll wageryou will not be able to take the upper C in ‘Roberto.’”

Lisa listened in sullen silence, but she did listen, and it seemed toher that the words of Zinco were the words of wisdom. To lose hervoice—her voice which was her fortune—and to lose her good looks,which alone had lifted her from the herd of peasants, living in penury,toiling from sunrise to sunset, unknown and ill-clad, and dying uncaredfor, save by creatures as poor and as hopeless as themselves! Yes,Zinco was right; that would indeed be foolishness, and not the way towin him whose love her sick soul longed for. Perhaps if she were apublic singer, and all the world admired her, he would admire her too.He would see in the eyes of other men that she was handsome, and worthyto be admired. He would hear on the lips of other men that she wasworthy of praise.

“I’ll get up,” she said, without lifting her tear-stained face from thepillow. “Go into the sala and wait for me. I won’t be long. You shallsee I haven’t lost my voice.”

“Bene, benissimo, Si’ora,” cried the master, rubbing his fat littlehands, “now she speaks like a woman of spirit. She is not going to giveup the world for love, like Marc Antony at Actium.”

He shuffled off to the sitting-room, seated himself at the piano, andbegan to play the symphony of “Una Voce” with that grandly decisivestyle of a man who has played all his life in an orchestra. It was arefreshment to Lisa’s weary spirit to hear that sparkling music, light,gay, capricious as summer wavelets.

She joined her teacher at the piano in a much shorter time than ayoung Englishwoman would have needed to complete her toilet, yet shelooked fresh enough in her southern beauty, and there were glitteringwater-drops in her hair which gave a suggestion of a young rivergoddess.

“Now, then, sir, play ‘Roberto’ and you will see if my voice is broken.”

She attacked the scena with wonderful dash and spirit, and was, insporting phraseology, winning easily till she came to that C in[Pg 239]alt—but here her voice snapped. She tried a second time, and a thirdtime—but the note was gone. She gave a cry of rage, and then burstinto tears.

“Ecco,” exclaimed Zinco, with a triumphant air, “that is what yourlove-sick nonsense has done for you. You have been singing as false asa prima donna at a café chantant in the Boulevard St. Michel,and your upper C is gone. It would have been worth £40 a week to you,but you have thrown it away.”

At this; Lisa continued her lamentation, deeply sorry for herself.

“There’s no use in crying,” said Zinco; “that only makes things worse.Bisogna sempre aver pazienza in questo mondo. You had better dry yourtears and eat a beefsteak—bleeding—and drink a pint of port-beer.Malibran used to drink port-beer. In one of her great scenes she hadher quart pot on the stage, hidden behind a set piece—a rock, or whatnot—and after her cavatina she would fall on the stage as if fainting,and drag herself to the back of the rock and drink; ah, how she woulddrink!”

“I don’t want to lose my voice,” sobbed Lisa, to whom Malibran was butan empty name.

“No. Yet you go just the right way to lose it. Come, cheer up, Si’ora.Eat much steaks, drink much stout, for the next three days. Andiamoadagio. Don’t sing a note till I come next Saturday afternoon to giveyou your lesson.”

Zinco’s policy prevailed. Lisa fretted sorely at the thought of losingthat voice which was to be her fortune. She had told herself in herdespair that fame and fortune would be useless without the man sheloved—that she had only wished to succeed as a singer in order toplease him. And now she began to see the situation in a new light. Shewanted to be admired and famous like the singers whom she had seen atCovent Garden, curtsying behind a pile of bouquets, while the houseresounded with applause. She wanted to be applauded like those famoussingers, so that the cruel Smith might see her, and be sorry thathe had refused her his heart. Who could tell? Perhaps seeing her soadmired, hearing her voice ring clear and sweet through the theatre, hemight abandon his tuneless English sweetheart, and come back to Lisa,come back as lover, as husband. Zinco had told her that a fashionableprima donna could not look too high. She would have all London at herfeet. It would be for her to choose.

Lisa had a strong will, and a wonderful power of self-command when shereally wanted to command herself; so she dried her tears, ate Britishbeef, almost raw, and drank British stout; and under this régime hernerves speedily recovered from the rude shaking which passion had giventhem, and when the good little ’cello player came to give her theSaturday lesson, her voice rang out[Pg 240] sound as a bell, and B natural wasproduced with perfect ease—a round and perfect note.

“We’ll wait till next Tuesday for the C,” said Zinco, “and we won’t try‘Roberto’ for a week or so. Stick to the Solfeggi.”

“And I have not lost my voice, caro?”

“No more than I have lost a thousand pounds, poveretta.”

After this things went smoothly. Life seemed very dreary to Fiordelisawithout the friend whose rare visits had been her delight; but her mindwas braced and fortified by a steady purpose. She meant to win thegreat British public; and behind that indefinite monster there shonethe image of the man she loved. He would go to the theatre where shesang. He would see her, and understand at last that she was beautifuland gifted, and worthy to be loved.

“And then he knows that I love him with all the strength of my heart,”she said to herself. “That ought to count for something. Yet when Itold him of my love he shrank from me, as if he hated me for lovinghim. That is his cold English nature, perhaps. An Englishman does notlike unasked love.”

Lisa was two years older than in that day of despair, and Zinco’spromises had been realized. She had the town at her feet; and if thecoronet matrimonial had not yet been laid there she had received plentyof that adulation and of those advances which cannot be acceptedwithout peril. All such advances Lisa had repulsed with a splendidscorn. Carriages, servants, West End apartments, and St. John’s Woodvillas had been offered her; but she still rode in penny omnibuses ortwopenny steamers, or trudged valiantly in cheap shoes. She might havehad an open account with any silk mercer in London. She might have hadher frocks made by the dressmaker on the crest of fashion’s changefulwave—but she was content to wear a black stuff gown, with a bit ofbright ribbon tied round her neck, and another bit twisted in her hair.When she wanted to look her best she put on her bead necklace—oneof those necklaces which the man she loved bought for her in theProcuratie Vecchie on that fatal night. The idea that he had bought themurderous dagger at the same shop in no wise lessened her pleasure inthese gifts of his.

Among her numerous admirers one only had been received by the lady andher aunt, and that was Wilfred Sefton, who had contrived to establisha footing in the Signora’s drawing-room before Zinco could protestagainst his admission. He had so managed as to be regarded as a friendby both aunt and niece, and the boy, whom he detested, had grownodiously fond of him. He had known Lisa for a year and a half, hadseen her often, had spent long summer days in her company, and in allthat time he had never addressed her as[Pg 241] a lover. He knew, too well,from many a subtle sign and token, that his going or coming affectedher not at all; that she liked him and welcomed him only because hispresence and his attentions made a pleasant variety in the dulnessof her domestic life. He knew this. He knew that whatever she mighthave been in the past, she was a virtuous woman in the present, thatshe courted no man’s admiration, and was tempted by no man’s gold.Convinced of this, finding her as remote in her quiet indifferenceas if she had been some young patrician pacing her ancestral parkin maiden meditation, fancy free, his desire to win her intensifieduntil she seemed to him the only woman in the world worth winning. Hadshe been easily won he might have been tired of her before now. Hisgrandes passions in the past had been of short duration. Unspeakableweariness had descended upon him as a blight; the loathing of life andall it could yield him. Lisa’s indifference gave a piquancy to theirrelations. He told himself that he could afford to bide his time. Hehad done a good deal of mischief in the world; but he was not a vulgarprofligate. His love was an unscrupulous but not a vulgar love.

The white kitten, a thoroughbred Persian, and a gift from Mrs. Hawberk,had grown into a great white cat, stolid, beautiful, resentful ofstrange caresses, but devotedly attached to Lisa and her boy. He wascalled Marco, after the patron saint of Venice; and he looked like thewhite cat of fairy tale, who might be transformed at any moment intoPrince Charming.

By the time Marco had grown up Mr. Sefton had made himself accepted asa trusted and familiar friend, and in this season of ripening spring,when the lilacs and laburnums filled the suburban gardens with perfumeand colour, and when the hawthorn bushes were beginning to break intoclusters of scented blossom here and there, it was his business and hispleasure to afford some glimpses of a fairer world to the little familyat Chelsea.

The holiday which Fiordelisa and her belongings most enjoyed was a dayon the river. They would have taken boat at Chelsea, if Sefton hadallowed them, and would have been content to be rowed to HammersmithBridge; but he insisted on introducing them to Father Thames under afairer aspect; so they usually took the train to Richmond, and fromRichmond Bridge Sefton rowed them to Kingston or Hampton, where theylunched at some quiet inn, and sat in some rustic inn garden, orsauntered in those lovely old Palace gardens by the river, till it wastime to go back to the boat and the train. Sefton was too punctualand business-like to permit any risk of the singer’s non-appearance.He took care that Lisa should always be at the Apollo in time for herwork.

[Pg 242]

These days were very delightful to him, even in spite of Paolo, whoseattentions were sometimes boring. Happily, Paolo loved the waterwith an instinctive hereditary passion, the instinct of amphibiousancestors, born and bred on a level with the lagunes—reared half onsea and half on land. It was amusem*nt enough for him to sit in thestern of the skiff and dabble a bare arm in the stream, or to watchthe little paper boats which la Zia made for him, or the great whiteswans which hissed menaces at him with horizontal necks as they paddledslowly by, sacrificing grace and stateliness to unreasoning anger.Sefton put up with Paolo, and was happy in the society of two ignorantwomen, delighting in Lisa’s naïveté, finding a deliciousoriginality in all her remarks upon life and the world she lived in,her stories of green-room quarrels and side-scene flirtations. Talkwhich might have sounded silly and vulgar in English was fascinatingin Italian—all the more fascinating in that Venetian dialect whichso languidly slurred the syllables, lazily dropping the consonants,and which had in its soft elisions something childlike that touchedSefton’s fancy. He took pleasure in Lisa’s talk almost as if she hadbeen a child, while those sudden flashes of shrewdness, natural to thepeasant of all countries, assured him that she was no fool.

He thought of Emma Hamilton, and wondered whether the charm which heldNelson till the hour of death, and made his Emma the last thought whenlife grew dim, were some such childlike spontaneous charm as this ofLisa’s, the charm of unsophisticated womanhood, adapted to no universalpattern, cut and polished in no social diamond-mill.

Yes, she had charmed him in their first interview, sitting out in thechilly tent, amidst the glimmer of fairy lamps. She charmed him still,after a year and a half of familiar friendship. She, the ignorantand low-born; he, the modern worldling, who had touched the highestculture at every point, strained his intellect to reach every goal,measured himself against every theory of life here and hereafter, andfound happiness nowhere. She pleased him all the more because she wasnot a lady, and made none of the demands which the modern lady makesover-strenuously—the demand to be treated as a boon companion and yetworshipped as a goddess; the demand of your money, your mind, yourtime, your wit, your trouble. Lisa had no idea of women’s rights, andshe was grateful for the simplest festa which her admirer offered her.Never had a grande passion cost him so little. This girl, who hadworked in the lace factory at Burano for a few pence per day, and hadlived mostly on polenta, sternly refused anything in the shape of agift, even to a bunch of flowers, if she thought they were costly.

“I like the cheap flowers best,” she said, “the blue and yellow[Pg 243] onesthat they sell in the streets, or the great red poppies la Zia buys,which flame in the fireplace, ever so much brighter than a real fire.”

Often, in a casual way, he had tried to make her talk of Vansittart,but in vain. She would say nothing about him, yet she was curious toknow all that Sefton could tell her about the man with whom he had seenher talking. Sefton took his revenge by a studious reticence.

“Yes, I know the man,” he said, when the subject was mooted in theearly days of their acquaintance.

“Do you know him intimately? Is he your friend?”

“No.”

“You look and speak as if you did not like him.”

“I look and speak as I feel.”

“Why don’t you like him?” urged Lisa.

“Who knows? We all have our likings and our antipathies.”

“But if he has never injured you——”

“That is a negative merit. I dislike a good many people who have neverdone me any harm.”

“He is going to be married, I hear.”

“He is married. He was married last summer.”

“Do you know his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“Not so beautiful as you; but she has a complexion like the inside ofa sea-shell. You know those pale shells, almost transparent, with arosy flush that is less a colour than a light. She has pale gold hair,which shines round her low, broad forehead like a nimbus in one of FraAngelica’s pictures of Virgins and angels. She is rather like an oldItalian picture, of that early school which chose a golden-haired idealand left your glowing Southern beauty out in the cold. She is not sohandsome as you, bellissima.”

“Yet he liked her better than he liked me. What is the good of my beinghandsome? He did not care,” said Lisa, passionately.

It was the first time she had betrayed herself to Sefton. He smiled,and glanced from the mother’s angry face to the boy, who was hangingabout her knee, unconsciously reproducing the attitude of many aninfant St. John.

“Yes, there can be no doubt,” he told himself, “Vansittart is the manshe loved, and this brat must be Vansittart’s offspring.”

Lady Hartley had told him that her brother had been a rambler in Italyand the Tyrol for years before her marriage.

THE LITTLE RIFT.

It was summer-time in London; the butterfly season, in which themetropolis of the world puts on such a splendour of gaiety and luxurythat it is hard to remember the fog and damp and dreariness of a longwinter; hard to believe that this stately West End London can everbe otherwise than beautiful. Are not her hotels palaces, and herparks paradises of foliage and flowers, fashion and beauty—with onlyan occasional incursion from the Processional Proletariat? Countrycousins seeing the great city in this joyous season may be excused forthinking that life in London is always delectable; and, bored to deathin their country quarters in the dull depth of an agricultural winter,or suffering under the discomforts of a ten-mile journey behind a pairof “boilers,” on a snow-bound road, to a third-rate ball, may notunnaturally envy the children of the city their January and Februarydances, and dinners, and theatres, all, as these rustics imagine,within a quarter of an hour’s drive.

Eve Vansittart thoroughly enjoyed the pleasures of a London season;the jaunts and excitements by day; Hurlingham, Sandown, Ascot, Henley,Lord’s, Barn Elms; the ever-delightful morning ride, the evening drivein the Park, with its smiling flower-beds, ablaze with gaudy colourthat rivalled the scarlet plumes and shining breast-plates flashingpast now and again between the close ranks of carriages. Yes, Londonwas brilliant, vivid, noisy, full of startling sights and sounds byday; and by night a city of enchantment, where one might wander fromhouse to house to mingle in a mob of more or less beautiful women, andbeautiful gowns, and diamonds that took one’s breath away by theirmagnificence. A city of fairyland, with awnings over stately doorways,and gardens and balconies aglitter with coloured lamps; and gorgeousreception-rooms where one heard all that there is of the most exquisitein modern music—violin and ’cello, tenor and soprano—the stars ofopera and concert-hall, breathing their finer strains for the delightof these choicer assemblies.

There are circles and circles in London, as many as in the progressiveAfter-life of Esoteric Buddhism, and it is not to be supposed that asmall Hampshire squire, with a paltry three thousand a year, was in theuppermost and most sacred heaven; but the circles touch and mingle veryoften in the larger gatherings of the season, and though Eve Vansittartwas not on intimate terms with duch*esses, she often rubbed shoulderswith them, and for an evening[Pg 245] lived the life they lived, and thrilledto the same melodious strains, and melted almost to tears to the samemusic of Wolff or Hollmann, till pleasure verged upon pain, and borneupon the long-drawn notes of violin or ’cello, came sad, sweet memoriesof the years that were gone. Vansittart knew plenty of people who weredecidedly “nice,” and these included a sprinkling of the nobility, anda good many givers of fine parties. His wife’s beauty and charm ofmanner ensured her a prompt acceptance among people outside that circleof old friends who would have accepted her as a duty, even had she beenneither lovely nor amiable.

The most enjoyable parties must at last produce satiety, if they comeevery night, and sometimes two or three in a night; and there came atime when Eve’s strength began to flag, and her spirits to droop alittle in the midst of these pleasures, this paradise of music andParisian comedy, of dances after midnight, and coaching meets at noon.

Vansittart noticed the pallid morning face and purple shadows under thedark grey eyes.

“We are doing too much, Eve,” he said anxiously. “I am letting you killyourself.”

“It is a very pleasant kind of death,” answered Eve, smiling at himacross the small breakfast-table, where a grilled chicken for him, adish of strawberries for her, comprised the simple repast, a repastover which they always lingered as long as their engagements allowed,since it was the only confidential hour in the day. At luncheon peoplewere always running in; or there was a snug little party invited forthat friendly meal. Dinner was rarely eaten at home, except when theyhad a dinner-party. “It is a very delicious death, and I shall takea long time killing. Perhaps when I am as old as Honoria, duch*ess ofBoscastle, I shall begin to feel I have had enough.”

“My dearest, I love to see you happy and amused, but I mustn’t let youwear yourself out. We must have a quiet day now and then.”

“As many quiet days as you like, as long as they are spent with you.Shall we go to Haslemere and take the girls for a picnic—this veryday? No, there is Maud’s dinner-party to-night. Fernhurst would betoo far. We could not get home to dress, without a rush, if we took areally long day on Bexley Hill.”

“Fernhurst and the sisters will keep till the autumn, especially as youwill be having Sophy here to-morrow.”

“Yes, I shall be having Sophy”—with a faint sigh. “We shall have nomore cosy little breakfasts like this for a whole week.”

“Nonsense. We can send Sophy’s breakfast up to her room, with strictinjunctions not to get up till eleven. People who ain’t[Pg 246] used toparties always want a lot of sleep in the morning. Sophy shall be madeto sleep. But, for to-day, now? What should you say to a long, lazyday on the river? We can take the train to Moulsey, and row down toRichmond.”

“Too delicious for words. But there is a tea-party in Berkeley Square,and another at Hyde Park Gardens. I promised to go to both.”

“Then you will go to neither. You can send telegrams from Moulseyto say you are seedy, and your doctor ordered a quiet day in thecountry—I being your doctor for the nonce. We’ll steep ourselves inthe mild beauty of Old Father Thames, a poor little river when oneremembers Danube and Rhine; but he will serve for our holiday.”

He rang for a time-table, found a train that was to leave Waterloo ateleven, and ordered the victoria to take them to the station.

“Now, Eve, your coolest frock, and your favourite poet to read in yourluxurious seat in the stern, while I toil at the oar. Be sure you willnot read a page during the whole afternoon! The willows and rushes, thevilla gardens dipping to the water’s edge, the people in the passingboats, the patient horses on the tow-path—those will be your books,living, moving, changing things, compared with which Keats and Mussetare trash, Endymion colourless, La Carmago a phantom.”

“I’ll take Musset,” said Eve, pouncing upon a vellum-bound duodecimo—achef d’œuvre of Zaehnsdorf’s, which was one of Vansittart’slatest gifts. “He has opened a new world to me.”

“A very wicked world for your young innocence to explore; a world ofmidnight rendezvous and early morning assassinations; a world of unholyloves and savage revenges—the dagger, the bowl, the suicide’s despair,the satiated worldling’s vacuity. Yet he is a poet—ain’t he, Eve?—thegreatest France ever produced. Compared with that fiery genius Hugo isbut a rhetorician.”

They were at Hampton before noon, and on the river in the fierce goldensunlight, when Hampton Church clock struck the hour, Eve leaning backin her cushioned seat, gazing dreamily at the lazy rower midships. Theyhad the current to help them, so there was no need for strenuous toil.The oars dipped gently; the church and village, Garrick’s Temple, thegaily decked house-boats with gardens on their roofs and bright stripedawnings, barracks, bridge, old Tudor Palace, drifted by like shadows ina dream. Eve did not open De Musset, though the ribbon marked a pagewhere passion hung suspended in tragic possibilities; a crisis whichmight well have stimulated curiosity. She was too happy to be curiousabout anything. It was her first holiday on the river, they two alone.

“If this is your idea of resting let us rest very often,” said Eve.

[Pg 247]

She would not hear of landing at Kingston for luncheon. She wantednothing but the river, and the sunshine, and his company, all toherself. She would have some tea, if he liked, later; and seeing anopen-air tea-house a little lower down the river, and a garden where atthis early hour there were no visitors, Vansittart pushed the nozzleof his skiff in among the reeds, and they landed, and ordered tea andeggs and bread and butter to be served in a rustic arbour close by theglancing tide.

“I dare say there are water-rats about,” said Eve, gathering her palepink frock daintily round her ankles, “but I feel as if I should hardlymind one to-day.”

They both enjoyed this humble substitute for their customary luncheon.It was a relief to escape the conventional menu—the everlastingmayonnaise, the cutlets hot or cold, the too familiar chicken and lamb.The tea and eggs in this vine-curtained bower had the most exquisite ofall flavours—novelty.

“I am so happy,” cried Eve, “that I think, like Miss de Bourgh in‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I could sing—if I had learnt.”

“Your face is my music,” said her husband, his face reflecting herhappy smile; “your laughter is better than singing.”

“Oh, you mustn’t, you really mustn’t talk like that; at least, not tillour silver wedding,” protested Eve. “You will have to make a speech,perhaps, on that anniversary, and you might incorporate that idea init. ‘What, ladies and gentlemen, in returning thanks for your kindcompliments and this truly magnificent epergne, can I say of my wife offive and twenty blissful years, except that I love her, I love her, Ilove her? Her face is my music; her laughter is better than singing.’How would that do, Jack?”

Her clear laugh rang out in the still summer air. No female of thegreat Bounder tribe could have enjoyed herself more frankly. Vansittartwould hardly have been surprised if she had offered to exchange hatswith him.

“Five and twenty years! A quarter of a century,” she said musingly. “Iwonder what we shall be like, three and twenty years hence—what theworld will be like—what kind of frocks will be worn?”

“Will the cylinder hat be abolished?”

“Shall we still travel by steam, or only by electricity?”

“What gun-maker will be in vogue?”

“What kind of lap-dog will be the rage?”

In this wise they dawdled an hour away, having garden and arbour all tothemselves, till after three o’clock, when a couple of Bounder-ladenboats came noisily to the reedy bank, and their human cargo landed,scrambling upon shore, hilarious, exploding into joyous co*ckney jests,with the true South London twang.

[Pg 248]

“Come,” said Vansittart, “it is time we were off.”

“Are you sure you have rested?”

“From my Herculean labours? Yes.”

They drifted down the river, praising or dispraising the villas on theMiddlesex shore, inhaling the sweetness of flowering clover from theSurrey fields; he leaning lazily on his sculls, she prattling to him,as much lovers as in the outset of their wooing; and so to TeddingtonLock, where they had to wait for a boat to come out, before their boatwent in.

It was the laziest hour of the day, and scarcely a leaf stirred amongthe willows on the eyot hard by. There was only the sound of the water,and the voices of the rowers, muffled by the heavy wooden gates andhigh walls of the smaller lock. Suddenly the doors opened. A skiff withfour passengers slowly emerged from the yawning darkness, and a voice,strong, yet silvery sweet, broke upon the quiet of the scene, a voiceat whose first word Vansittart started as if he had been shot.

The speaker started too, and gave a cry of surprise that was almostrapture. A girl, hatless, with dark hair heaped carelessly on the topof her small head, a girl with the loveliest Italian eyes Eve hadever seen, leaned forward over the gunwale, stretching out both hergloveless hands to Vansittart.

“It is you,” she cried in Italian; “I thought I should never see youagain;” and then, with a quick glance at Eve, and in almost a whisper,“Is that your wife?”

“Si, Si’ora.”

The girl looked at Eve with bold unfriendly eyes, and from her lookedback again to Vansittart, as his boat passed into the lock. Her mannerhad been so absorbing, her beauty was so startling, that it was onlyin this last moment that Eve recognized the man rowing as Sefton, andsaw that the other two passengers were a stout middle-aged woman and alittle boy, both of them dark eyed and foreign looking, like the girl.

When Eve and Vansittart looked at each other in the gloom of the lockboth were deadly pale.

“Who is that girl?” she asked huskily.

“An Italian singer—Signora Vivanti. You must have heard of her; she isthe rage at the Apollo.”

“But she knows you—intimately. She was enraptured at seeing you. Herwhole face lighted up.”

“That is the southern manner; an organ-grinder will do as much for youif you fling him a penny.”

“How did you come to know her?”

“In Italy, years ago, before she began to be famous.”

They were out of the lock by this time, and in the broad sunshine.[Pg 249] Evecould see that her husband’s pallor was not an illusive effect of thegreen gloom in that deep well they had just left.

He was white to the lips.

Sefton! Sefton and Fiordelisa hand in glove with each other! That wasa perilous alliance. And Lisa’s manner, claiming him so impulsively,darting that evil look at his wife! He saw himself hemmed round withdangers, saw the menace of his domestic peace from two most formidableinfluences: on the one hand Lisa’s slighted love; on the other Sefton’shatred of a successful rival. The fear of untoward complications,coming suddenly upon the happy security of his wedded life, was soabsorbing that he was unconscious of Eve’s pallor and of her suppressedagitation while questioning him.

“You knew her in Italy,” said Eve, her head bent a little, one listlesshand dabbling in the sunlit water that reflected the vivid colouringof the boat in gleams of lapis and malachite. “In what part of Italy?Tell me all about her. I am dying of curiosity. There was such odiousfamiliarity in her manner.”

“Again I must refer you to any organ-grinder as an example of southernexuberance.”

“Yes, yes, that is all very fine, but Signora Vivanti must belong toa higher grade than the organ-grinder. She is not to be judged by hisstandard.”

“There you are wrong. She is of peasant birth.”

“Indeed. She certainly looks common; beautiful, but essentially common.Well, Jack, where and when did you meet her?”

“Years ago, as I told you. Where?” hesitatingly, as if trying to fix avague memory, while lurid before his mental vision there rose the sceneat Florian’s, the lights, the crowd, the Babel of music from brassand strings, mandoline and flute, every stone of the city resonantwith varied melodies. “Where?” he repeated, seeing her looking at himimpatiently. “Why, I think it was in Verona.”

“You think. She had a very distinct memory of meeting you, at anyrate”—with a little scornful laugh. “If you were her bosom friend hergreeting could not have been warmer.”

“Mere Celtic impulsiveness. One meets with as much warmth in the southof Ireland. Hotel waiters have the air of clansmen, who would shedtheir blood for us. Hotel acquaintances seem as old friends.”

“How did you come to know this girl—peasant born, as you say?”

“She was in a factory, and I was going over the factory, and I talkedto her, and she told me her troubles, and I was interested and——Thesame sort of thing happens a dozen times on a Continental tour. Youdon’t want chapter and verse, I hope. That memory is immeshed in atangle of other memories. I should only deceive you if I went intoparticulars.”

[Pg 250]

He had recovered himself by this time, and the colour had come slowlyback to his face. Eve sat dumbly watching him as he bent over thesculls, rowing faster than he need have done, much faster than onthe other side of the lock. He was ready to lie with an appallingrecklessness if he could by so doing set up a barrier of falsehoodbetween his wife and the true story of that night in Venice. He lookedat her presently, and saw that she was troubled. He smiled, but therewas no answering smile.

“My darling, you are not by way of being jealous, I hope,” he saidgaily. “You are not unhappy because a peasant girl held out her handsto me.”

“Signora Vivanti has been long enough in England to know that a womandoes not behave in that way to an almost stranger,” said Eve. “Why didyou look frightened at the sound of her voice when the boat came out ofthe lock? Why did you turn pale when she spoke to you?”

“Did I really turn pale? I suppose I was a little scared at herdemonstrative address, fearing lest it should offend you. One has timeto think of so many contingencies in a few moments. But I did notimagine you would take the matter so very seriously. Come, dearest, Ithink you know I have but one divinity below the stars, and worship atonly one shrine.”

“Now, perhaps—but what do I know of the past?”

“If in the past I have admired and even fancied I loved women lessadmirable than yourself, be sure this woman was not one of them. Noghost of a dead love looks out of her eyes, beautiful as they are.”

“I must believe you,” sighed Eve. “I want to believe you, and to behappy again.”

“Foolish Eve. Can it be that an irrepressible young woman’s greetingcould interfere with your happiness?”

“It was foolish, no doubt. Women are very foolish when they love theirhusbands as I love you. There are scores of women I meet who thinkof their husbands as lightly as of their dressmakers. Would you likeme to be that kind of wife—to be lunching and gadding, and drivingand dancing in one direction, while you are betting and dining andcard-playing somewhere else? I should be nearer being a woman offashion than I am now.”

“Be ever what you are now. Be jealous, even, if jealousy be a proof oflove.”

“There was a child in the boat—a handsome black-eyed boy. Is he herchild, do you think?”

Having affected ignorance at the outset, Vansittart was forced tomaintain his attitude.

“Chi lo sa?” he said, with a careless shrug.

“Was it not odd that Mr. Sefton should be escorting her?”

[Pg 251]

“Not especially odd. She is a public character, and has troops ofadmirers, no doubt. Why should not Sefton be among them?”

“I never heard him mention her when he was talking of the theatres.”

“Men seldom speak of the woman they admire—especially if the lady isnot in society—and Sefton is reticent about a good many things.”

After this they talked of trifles, lightly, but with a somewhat studiedlightness. Eve seemed again content; but her gaiety was gone, as if herspirits had drooped with the vanishing of the sun, which now at fiveo’clock was hidden by threatening clouds.

At Richmond Bridge they left their boat, to be taken back by awaterman, and walked through the busy town to the station. An expresstook them to London in good time for dressing and dining at LadyHartley’s state dinner. She had a large house in Hill Street this year,and was entertaining a good deal.

“My dear Eve, you are looking utterly washed out,” she said to hersister-in-law in the drawing-room after dinner. “You must come to us atRedwold directly after Goodwood—you could come straight from Goodwood,don’t you know—and let me nurse you.”

“You are too kind. I think, though, it would be a greater rest if Iwere to go to Fernhurst for a few days, and let the sisters and Nancytake care of me. A taste of the old poverty, the whitewashed attics,and the tea-dinners would act as a tonic. I am debilitated by pleasuresand luxuries.”

“You were looking bright enough last night at Mrs. Cameron’s Frenchplay.”

“Was I? Perhaps I laughed too much at Coquelin cadet, or eat too manystrawberries.”

Lady Hartley had an evening party after the dinner, and it was a shockfor Vansittart on coming into the drawing-room at half-past ten, aftera long-drawn-out political discussion with a big-wig of Sir Hubert’sparty, to find Sefton and Eve sitting side by side in a flowery nooknear the piano, where at this moment Oscar de Lampion, the Belgiantenor, was casting his fine eyes up towards the ceiling, preparatory tothe melting strains of his favourite serenade—

There was a second verse to the same effect, exquisitely sung, but[Pg 252]worn threadbare by familiarity, which Vansittart heard impatiently,watching Eve and her companion, and longing to break in upon theirseclusion. They were silent now, since they could not with decency talkwhile De Lampion was singing.

There were only two verses. De Lampion was too much an artist to singlengthy songs, although too lazy to extend his repertoire. He likedpeople to be sorry when he left off.

Vansittart dropped into a chair near his wife. The rooms had notfilled yet, so there was a possibility of sitting down, and this quietcorner, screened by an arrangement of palms and tall golden lilies, wasa pleasant haven for conversation in the brief intervals between themusic, which was of that superior order which is heard in respectfulsilence by everybody within earshot, though the people outside the roomtalk to their hearts’ content, a buzz of multitudinous voices breakingin upon the silence whenever a door is opened.

Sefton and Vansittart shook hands directly the song was over.

“I was told you were to dine here,” said Vansittart, as an obviousopening.

“Lady Hartley was kind enough to ask me, but I had an earlierengagement in Chelsea. I have been dining with the Hawberks—thecomposer, don’t you know. Sweet little woman, Mrs. Hawberk—sosympathetic. You know them, of course.”

“Only from meeting them at other people’s houses.”

“Ah, you should know Hawberk. He’s a glorious fellow. You must spare mean hour or two to meet him at breakfast some Sunday morning, when Mrs.Vansittart doesn’t want you to go to church with her.”

“I always want him,” said Eve, with a decisive air.

“And does he always go?”

“Always.”

“A model husband. I put down the husbands who attend the morningservice among the great army of hen-pecked, together with the husbandswho belong to only one rather fogeyish club. But that comes of mydemoralized attitude towards the respectabilities. Well, it shall notbe a Sunday, but you must meet Hawberk en petit comité beforethe season is over. He is a very remarkable man. It was he who inventedSignora Vivanti, the lady who claimed your acquaintance so effusivelyto-day.”

“Indeed!” said Vansittart, with a scowl which did not invite furthercomment; but Sefton was not to be silenced by black looks.

“Did Mr. Hawberk bring Signora Vivanti from Italy?” asked Eve; andSefton could see that she paled at the mere mention of the singer’sname.

“I think not. She was established in very comfortable quarters atChelsea when Hawberk first heard of her. Some good friend[Pg 253] brought herto London and paid for her training. The rest of her career is history.Hawberk finished her artistic education, and had the courage to trustthe fate of a new opera to an untried singer. The result justified hisaudacity, and the Vivanti is the rage. She is original, you see; and agrain of originality is worth a bushel of imitative excellence!”

“I should like to hear her sing,” said Eve.

“Then you are in a fair way of being gratified. She is to singto-night. Lady Hartley has engaged her.”

“Really! How odd that Lady Hartley never mentioned her when she wastelling me about her programme.”

“The engagement was made only two or three days ago, after I met LadyHartley at Lady Belle Teddington’s evening party. It was my suggestion.Musical evenings are apt to be so dismal—Mendelssohn, de Beriot,Spohr, relieved by a portentous Scotch ballad of nine and twenty versesby a fashionable baritone. Vivanti has sentiment and humour, chic andfire. She will be the bouquet, and send people away in good spirits.”

A duet for violin and ’cello began at this stage of conversation, andwhen it was over Vansittart moved away to another part of the room,and talked to other people. It was past eleven. He knew not how soonthe Venetian might appear upon the scene; but he was determined tokeep out of her way. He would not risk another effusive greeting; andwith a woman of her type there was no reliance upon the restraintsof society. She might be as demonstrative in a crowded drawing-roomas on the river Thames. Of all irritating chances what could be moreexasperating than this young woman’s appearance at his sister’s house,even as a paid entertainer? And it was Sefton’s doing; Sefton, whohad seen him with Fiordelisa two years ago on the Embankment, and whodoubtless remembered that meeting; Sefton, who had admired Eve and hadbeen scorned by her, and who doubtless hated Eve’s husband.

Nothing could be more disquieting for Vansittart than that Seftonshould have made himself the friend and patron of Fiordelisa—even ifhe were no more than friend or patron. If he were pursuing the Venetiangirl with evil meaning it would be Vansittart’s duty to warn her. Hehad urged her to lead a good life—to redeem the error of her girlhoodby a virtuous and reputable womanhood. It would be the act of a cowardto stand aside and keep silence, while her reputation was beingblighted by Sefton’s patronage. True that her aunt and son had been thecompanions of to-day’s river excursion; true that their presence hadgiven respectability to the jaunt; yet with his knowledge of Sefton’scharacter Vansittart could hardly believe that his intentions towardsthis daughter of the people could be altogether free from guile. Hehated the idea[Pg 254] of an interview with Lisa; but he told himself that itwas his duty to give her fair warning of Sefton’s character. She mighthave been Harold Marchant’s wife, perhaps, with a legitimate protector,but for his—Vansittart’s—evil passions. This gave her an indisputableclaim upon his care and kindness—a claim not to be ignored because itinvolved unpleasantness or risk for himself.

He went back to Eve presently, and asked her to come into the innerdrawing-room, where there were people who wanted to see her; an excusefor getting her away from Sefton, who still held his ground by herchair.

“I shall lose my place if I stir,” she said; “and I want to hearSignora Vivanti.”

“I’ll bring you back.”

“There’ll be no getting back through the crowd. Please let me stay tillshe has sung.”

“As you please.”

He turned and left her, offended that she should refuse him; vexed ather desire to hear the woman who had already been a bone of contentionbetween them. He went back to the inner drawing-room, as far aspossible from the piano and the clever German pianist who had arrangedthe programme for Lady Hartley, and who was to accompany—somewhatreluctantly—the lady from the Apollo, whose performance might pass theboundary line of the comme il faut, he thought.

Vansittart stood where he could just see Lisa, by looking over theheads of the crowd. She took her stand a little way from the piano,with admirable aplomb, though this was her first society performance.She was in yellow—a yellow crape gown, very simply made, with a babybodice and short puffed sleeves; and on the clear olive of her finelymoulded neck there flashed the collet necklace which represented thefirstfruits of her success. Vansittart shuddered as he noted thejewels, for he had the accepted idea of actress’s diamonds, and hebegan to fear that Lisa had already taken the wrong road.

She sang a ballad from the new serio-comic opera, HarounAlraschid, a ballad which all the street organs and all the smartbands were playing, and which was as familiar in the remotest slums ofthe east as in the gardens of the west.

[Pg 255]

It was the song of a slave to her Sultan, and glanced from the supremeof sentiment to the absurdity of burlesque. The song was the rage,but it was the power and passion of the singer that made it so. Thesudden silvery laugh with which she finished the second verse, changinginstantaneously from pathos to mocking gaiety—with a sudden changeof metre—was a touch of originality that delighted her audience, andthe song was applauded to the echo. Vansittart had moved into themusic-room while she sang, as if drawn irresistibly by the power ofsong, and he was near enough to see his wife and Sefton talking to thesinger; praising her, no doubt; uttering only the idle nothings whichare spoken upon such occasions; but the idea that Eve should get toknow this woman’s name, that they should talk together familiarly, andabove all, that Lisa should know his name, and be able to approach wifeor husband whenever some wild impulse urged her attack, was dreadful tohim. How could he be sure henceforward that his secret would remain asecret? Was the Venetian a person to be trusted with the power of lifeor death?

He went back to the inner room, and was speedily absorbed in the dutyof attending two colossal dowagers with monumental necks and shoulders,and diamonds as large as chandelier drops, to steer whom down aLondon staircase, past a stream of people who were ascending, was notrifling work. In the dining-room the débris of dessert and the ashesof cigarettes had given place to old Derby china, peaches, grapes, andstrawberries, chicken salad, and foie gras sandwiches, and tothis light refreshment people were crowding as eagerly as if dinnerwere an obsolete custom among the upper classes. Blocked in between twogreat ladies, pouring out champagne for one, and peeling a peach foranother, Vansittart was secure from being pounced upon by Fiordelisa.He saw Sefton sitting with her at a little table in a corner, as hepiloted his aristocratic three-deckers to the door. Sefton was plyingher with champagne and lobster salad, and her joyous laugh rang outabove society’s languid jabber.

He hated Sefton with all his heart that night; and he was too angrywith Eve to speak to her, either as they waited in the hall for theircarriage, or during the short drive home.

Never before had he treated her with this sullen rudeness. She followedhim into his den, where he went for a final smoke before goingupstairs. She stood by his chair for a few minutes in silence, watchinghim as he lighted his cigar, and then she said gently—

“What is the matter with you to-night, Jack? Have I vexed you?”

“I don’t know that you have vexed me—but I know that I am vexed.”

[Pg 256]

“About what?”

“I didn’t like to see you so civil to Signora Vivanti. It is all verywell for dowagers and fussy matrons to take notice of a public singer,but it is a new departure for you.”

“I could hardly help myself. She sang so delightfully, and I waspleased with her, and then Mr. Sefton introduced her to me. What couldI do but praise her, when I really admired her?”

“No, you were blameless. It was Sefton’s fault. He had no right tointroduce her to you.”

“But is she not respectable?”

“I cannot answer for her respectability. I know nothing of what kind oflife she has led since she made her début. She wears diamonds,and that is not a good sign.”

“She does not look like a disreputable person,” said Eve, verythoughtfully. “There is something frank and simple about her. Thatboy must be hers, he is so like her. Do you know if she was evermarried—if the boy’s father was her husband?”

“I know very little about her, as I told you to-day; but I should saynot.”

“Poor thing! I am very sorry for her.”

“Don’t waste your pity upon her. She seems perfectly happy. A peasantgirl, reared upon polenta, does not consider these things so tragicallyas they are considered in Mayfair.”

“How scornfully you speak of her. I am sure she is a good girl atheart. She remembered seeing me in the boat to-day, and she asked me ifI was your wife. She repeated my name curiously, as if she had neverheard it before. Did not she know your name when you met her in Verona,or wherever it was?”

“Very likely not. I was an Englishman. That might have been asufficient distinction in her mind.”

“I hope she is not leading a wicked life,” said Eve, with a sigh. “Shehas a good face.”

“Do not let us trouble about her any more,” said Vansittart, lookingearnestly up at the thoughtful face that was looking down at him. “Shehas almost brought dissension between us—for the first time.”

“Only almost. We could not be angry with each other long, could we,Jack? But you must own it was enough to take any wife by surprise. Abeautiful Italian girl stretching out both her hands in eager greeting,almost throwing herself out of her boat into ours. Any wife caringvery much for her husband would have felt as I did—a sudden pang ofjealousy.”

“Any wife must be a foolish wife if she felt that pang, knowing herselfbeloved as you do.”

“Yes, I think that now you are honestly fond of me. Ah, how[Pg 257] can Ithink otherwise when you have been so indulgent, so dear? Yet in thepast you might have loved that dark-eyed girl. You never pretended Iwas your first love. And if you did care for her, do please be candidand tell me. I should be happier if I knew the worst. It could notmatter much to me, you see, Jack, that you should have been fond ofher—once. Dearest, dearest,” she repeated coaxingly, with her headbent down till her soft cheek leaned against his own, “tell me theworst.”

“Eve, how often must I protest that I never cared for this girl—thatshe was never anything to me but a friendless woman—friendless exceptfor an aunt as poor and as ignorant as herself. She was never anythingto me—never. Are you satisfied now? As far as Fiordelisa is concernedyou know the worst.”

“I am satisfied. But if you did not care for her she cared for you. Shecould not have looked as she looked to-day—her whole face lightingup with rapture—if she had not loved you. Only love can smile likethat. But I won’t tease you. The thought of her shall never again comebetween us.”

“So be it, Eve. We have had our much ado about nothing. We will giveSignora Vivanti a holiday. Sophy will be with you to-morrow, andwill want no end of amusem*nt—exhibitions all day and a theatreevery night, with an evening party afterwards. I know what countrycousins—or country sisters are. Besides, it will be Sophy’sdébut, and she will expect to make an impression.”

“I hope she will not be too fine,” said Eve, remembering Sophy’sstrivings to be smart under difficulties.

“She will be as fine as the finest, be sure of that. She will expectmatrimonial offers—to be a success in her first season. Why don’t youmarry her to Sefton?”

“I don’t like Mr. Sefton.”

“But Sophy might like him, and he is rich and well born. If he is not agentleman that is his own fault—not any flaw in his pedigree.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

“POOR KIND WILD EYES SO DASHED WITH LIGHT QUICK TEARS.”

Sophy arrived next day with portentous punctuality, in time forluncheon, intent on pleasure, and dressed in a style which she believedin as the very latest Parisian fashion; for this damsel creditedherself with an occult power of knowing what was “in” and what was“out,” and, with no larger horizon than a country church and anoccasional rustic garden-party, set up as an authority upon dress, andgave her instructions to the village dressmaker, who made up ladies’own materials, and worked at ladies’ houses, with the air of a KateReilly directing an apprentice.

[Pg 258]

Eve had been very generous, and Sophy’s costume was a great advanceupon those days when Lady Hartley had talked of the sisters as ColonelMarchant’s burlesque troupe. Eve had sent down a big parcel ofmaterials from a West End draper’s, the newest and the best, and Sophyhad exercised her fingers and her taste in the confection of stylishgarments; yet it must be owned there was an unmistakable air of homedress-making—of fabrications suggested by answers to correspondentsin a ladies’ newspaper—about those smart gowns, jackets, capes, andfichus which Sophy wore with such satisfaction. This showed itselfmost in an unconscious exaggeration of every fashion; just as a womanwho rouges exceeds the bloom of natural carnations. Sophy’s Medicicollars were higher than anybody else’s. The military collar of Sophy’shome-made tailor gown was an instrument of torture. Sophy’s waistcoatsand sleeves were more mannish and sporting than anything the West Endtailors had produced for Eve. In a word, there was a touch of Sophy’spersonality about every garment; just as in every picture there is theindividuality of the painter.

But Sophy, flushed with the delights of a London season, was quitepretty enough to be forgiven a little provincialism in her dress andmanners, and she was well received by Eve’s friends.

It was good for Eve that she should be obliged to exert herself inorder to amuse Sophy, and that the sweet solitude of two was no longerpossible for her and Vansittart.

He said nothing further about his wife’s need of repose. He was glad tosee her occupied from morning till long past midnight, showing Sophywhat our ancestors used to call “the town;” but which now includes awide range of the suburbs, and occasional garden-parties as far off asMarlow or Hatfield. He was glad of anything which could distract hiswife’s thoughts from too deep a consideration of his relations withSignora Vivanti, and he encouraged Sophy in every form of dissipation,until he found, to his annoyance, that an evening had been allotted tothe Apollo.

The fame of Haroun Alraschid and of Signora Vivanti’s beauty andtalent had penetrated beyond Haslemere, and Sophy had written to hersister imploring her to secure places for an evening during her visit.A box had been taken six weeks in advance, and Eve, who was alwaysindulged in every theatrical fancy, had not thought it necessary toinform her husband of the fact.

To forbid the occupation of that box would have been too marked anexercise of authority; to absent himself from the party would have madeEve uneasy; so he went with his wife and sister-in-law, and saw Lisa onthe stage for the first time since he had watched her in the chorus atCovent Garden.

The box was one of the best in the house, and very near the[Pg 259] stage.Vansittart felt assured that Lisa would recognize his wife and wouldsee him standing behind her chair; and with a young woman of Lisa’stemperament he knew not what form that recognition might assume.

Fortunately Lisa had now become too much of an artist to do anythingwhich would take her “out of the picture.” She gave Vansittart onelittle look which told him he was seen in the shadow where he stood;and for the rest she was no longer Lisa, the Venetian, but Haroun’sdevoted slave-girl, bought from a cruel master, during one of Haroun’snocturnal explorations of the city, and following him ever after witha devoted love, watchful, ubiquitous, his guardian angel in everydanger, his resource and protection in every serio-comic dilemma. Hersinging, her acting, were alike instinct with passion and genius, agenius unspoiled by that higher culture which is too apt to bringself-consciousness and over-elaboration in its train, and so to missall broad and spontaneous effects. Fiordelisa flung herself into herrôle with a daring energy which always hit the mark.

Sefton was in the stalls, attentive, but not applauding. He left allnoisy demonstration to the British public. It was enough for himto know that Lisa liked to see him there, tranquil and interested.The highest reward she had ever given him for his devotion was theconfession that she missed him when he was absent, and found somethingwanting in her audience when his stall was empty. For the most part hewent as regularly to hear Lisa sing as he took his coffee after dinner.The dinner-party must be something very much out of the common run ofdinners which could draw him from his place at the Apollo; and peopleremarked that for the last two seasons Mr. Sefton was seldom to be metin society until late in the evening.

He went to Mrs. Vansittart’s box between the acts, and made himselfparticularly agreeable to Sophy, whom he had not seen since hersister’s marriage.

“This is your first season, ain’t it, Miss Marchant?” he said. “What alarge reserve fund of enjoyment you must have to spend!”

Sophy was not going to accept compliments upon her ignorance.

“Fernhurst is so near town,” she said. “One sees everybody, and onebreathes the town atmosphere.”

“Ah, but you only see people on their rustic side. They wear tailorgowns and talk about fox-hunting and sick cottagers. They leave theirLondon intellect in Mayfair, like the table-knives rolled up in muttonfat, to come out sharp and bright next season. You don’t know what weare like in town if you see us only in the country.”

“I don’t find a remarkable difference in you,” said Sophy,pertly. “You always try to be epigrammatic.”

[Pg 260]

“Oh, I am no one—a poor follower of the fashion of the hour, whateverit may be. How do you like the music?”

“For music to hear and forget I think it is absolutely delightful.”

“There are some numbers which the piano-organs and the fashionablebands won’t allow you to forget—Zuleika’s song, for instance, and thequartette.”

“I rather hate all but classical music,” replied Sophy, with her fineair, “and I find your famous Signora Vivanti odiously vulgar.”

“Deliciously vulgar, you should have said. Her vulgarity is one of herattractions. To be so pretty, and so graceful, and so clever, and atthe same time a peasant to the tips of her fingers—there is the charm.”

“I hate peasants, even when they are as clever as Thomas Carlyle.”

Sefton looked at the pert little face meditatively. She was like Eve,but without Eve’s exceptional loveliness—the loveliness that consistschiefly in delicacy and refinement, an ethereal beauty which makes awoman like a flower. She had Eve’s transparent complexion and changefulcolouring. There was the same type, but less beautifully developed.She was quite pretty enough for Sefton to find amusem*nt in teasingher, although all his stronger feelings were given to Signora Vivanti.He called in Charles Street on the following afternoon. It was Mrs.Vansittart’s afternoon at home; and she could not shut her door evenagainst her worst enemy.

Sefton found the usual feminine gossips—mothers and daughters, maidenaunts, and cousins from the country, with fresh-coloured cheeks, andunremarkable faces—the usual sprinkling of well-dressed young men.Among so many people he could secure a few confidential words with Eve,while she poured out the tea, a duty she always performed with herown hands. It was the one thing that reminded her of the old life atFernhurst, and those jovial teas which had stood in the place of dinner.

She spoke frankly enough of the performance at the Apollo, praisedthe music and the libretto, declared she had enjoyed it more than anyserio-comic opera she had heard during the season; yet Sefton detecteda certain constraint when she spoke of Signora Vivanti, which toldhim that the meeting of the two boats was not forgotten, and that thelittle scene had left almost as angry a spot upon her memory as thatwhich burnt in his.

“And had you really never seen her on the stage before last night?” heasked.

“Never!”

“How very odd. I think you and Vansittart must have been about the onlypeople at the West End who have not seen Haroun Alraschid—andyet you are playgoers.”

[Pg 261]

“I was saving the Apollo for my sister,” she answered, perfectlyunderstanding his drift.

She knew that he was trying to give her pain, that he wanted to makeher distrust her husband. Lisa’s conduct had impressed him as it hadimpressed her, and now he was gloating over her jealous agony.

She turned from him to talk to an aristocratic matron, a large andgrand-looking woman, who would have looked better in peplum and chitonthan in a flimsy pongee confection which she called her “frock.” Thematron had heard the word Apollo, and had a good deal to say aboutSignora Vivanti, whose performance she deprecated as too realistic.

“Dramatic passion is all very well in a classic opera like Gluck’sOrphée,” she said authoritatively, “but that mixture of passionwith broad comedy is too bizarre for my taste.”

“My dear Lady Oriphane, that is just what we want nowadays. We alllanguish for the bizarre. If we travel we want Africa and pigmyblackamoors. If we go to the play we want to be startled by theoutrageous, rather that awed by the sublime. The stories we read musthave some strange background, or be dotted about with unknown tongues.An author can interest us in a footman if he will only call him aKitmutghar. With us the worship of the bizarre marks the highest pointof culture.”

Mr. Tivett was there, and chimed in at this stage of the conversationwith his pretty little lady-like voice.

“It all means the same thing,” he said; “Neo-paganism. We are thechildren of a decadent age. We have come to the top of the ladder oflife—life meaning civilization and culture—and there is nothing leftfor us but to climb down again. All the strongest spirits are harkingback to the uncivilized. That is at the bottom of the strong man’spassion for Africa. The strong men will all go to Africa, and in afew generations Europe will be peopled by weaklings and hereditaryimbeciles. Then the strong men will come back and pour themselves overthe civilized world, as the Vandals poured themselves over Italy, andLondon and Paris will be the spoil of the Anglo-African.”

“Why not the Dutch-African, or the Portuguese-African?” asked Sefton,when everybody had laughed at little Mr. Tivett’s gloomy outlook.

“Oh, the Anglo-Saxon race will prevail on the Dark Continent, just asthey have prevailed in the East. Our future kings will style themselvesEmperor of India and Africa. No other race can stand against us inthe game of colonization. We have the courage which conquers, and thedogged patience which can keep what boldness has won.”

[Pg 262]

Mr. Tivett was not allowed to indulge in any further prophecies, forSophy absorbed him in a discussion about the plays she ought to see,and the music she ought to hear while she was in town.

“You are too late for Sarasate,” he said tragically. “Last Saturday washis final performance. He leaves us in the flood-tide of the season,leaves us lamenting. But there are plenty of good things left. CliffordHarrison gives some of his delicious recitations next Saturday. Be sureyou hear him. Hollmann and Wolff are to be heard almost daily. Andthen there is the opera three nights a week. I hope you have no horriddinner-parties to prevent your enjoying yourself.”

“Only one this week, I am thankful to say,” said Sophy, who was dyingto see what London dinners were like, and was deeply grateful to thatone generous hostess who, hearing of her expected visit, had sent her acard for the stately feast to which the Vansittarts were bidden.

Eve had refused other dinner invitations during her sister’s visit.She made all engagements subservient to Sophy’s pleasure. Vansittartwas not rich enough to give his wife an opera-box for the season, buthe had taken a box for four evenings in the fortnight that Sophy wasto spend in Charles Street, and four operas, with different sets ofartists, for a young woman who had never heard an opera in her life,was an almost overpowering prospect. It needed all Sophy’s aplomb totalk of operas of which she only knew the overtures, and an occasionalhackneyed scena, as if every page of the score were familiar to her;but Sophy was equal to the occasion, and discussed the merits ofsopranos, tenors, and baritones with as critical an air as if heropinions were the growth of years of experience, rather than the resultof a careful study of Truth and The World, sent herregularly by Eve, so soon as they had been read in Charles Street.

Sefton joined in the conversation between Sophy and Mr. Tivett, and hada good deal of advice to offer as to the things that were worthy of theyoung lady’s attention; the result of which advice appeared to be thatthere was really very little to be heard worth hearing, or to be seenworth seeing.

While tea and gossip occupied Eve and her friends in Charles Street,Vansittart had taken advantage of his wife’s “afternoon,” an occasionwhich he rarely honoured with his presence, and had driven to Chelseato see Lisa and her aunt, and to impart that warning which he hadresolved upon giving, at any hazard to himself. It was dangerousperhaps, in his position, to renew any relations with the Venetian; yeton the other hand it might be needful to assure himself of her loyalty,now that she had been brought suddenly into the foreground of his life,and might, at any hour, reveal his fatal secret to her from whom hewould have it for ever hidden.

[Pg 263]

All things considered, after two days and nights of anxious thought, itseemed to him best, for his own sake, as well as for Lisa’s, that heshould have some serious talk with her.

He heard the prattle of the child as la Zia opened the door to him, andthe mother’s voice telling him to be quiet. La Zia received him withopen arms, and praised his kindness in coming to see them after such along absence.

“If it had not been for the discovery that the rent was paid when wetook our money to the agent on Our Lady’s Day, we should have thoughtyou had forgotten us,” said la Zia.

She had her bonnet on, ready to take Paolo to Battersea Park, where shetook him nearly every afternoon, while Lisa practised, or slept, oryawned over an English story-book. She would read nothing but English,in her determination to master that language; but history was too dull,novels were too long, and she cared only for short stories in whichthere was much sentimental love-making, generally by lords and ladieswith high-sounding titles. These she read with rapture, picturingherself as the heroine, Vansittart as the high-born lover. She couldnot understand how so grand a gentleman could have missed a title. InItaly he would have been a Marquis or a Prince, she told herself.

She started up at the sound of his voice, and welcomed him joyously,pale but radiant.

“Why would you not come near me the other night?” she asked. “I was inyour sister’s house—Mr. Sefton told me that the gracious lady is yoursister—and you were there, and you hid yourself from me.”

“I was afraid, Si’ora,” he answered, coming to the point at once. “Youknow what lies between you and me—a secret the telling of which wouldblight my life—and you are so reckless, so impetuous. How could I tellwhat you might say?”

She looked at him with mournful reproachfulness.

“Do you know me so little as that?” she said. “Don’t you know that Iwould cut my tongue out—that I would die on the rack, as torturedprisoners died in Venice hundreds of years ago—rather than I wouldspeak one word that could hurt you?”

“Forgive me, Si’ora. Yes, yes, I know that you would not willinglyinjure me—but you might ruin my life by a careless speech. You havearoused my wife’s suspicions already—suspicious of she knows notwhat—vague jealousies that have made her unhappy. She could notunderstand your impulsive greeting; and I could not tell her how muchyou were my friend, without telling her the why and the wherefore. Iam hemmed round with difficulty when I am questioned about you. Ifyou were old and ugly it would be different—but I dare not avow myinterest in a young and beautiful woman[Pg 264] without revealing the claimshe has upon my friendship—and in that claim lies the secret of mycrime. Do you understand, Lisa?”

“Yes, I understand,” she answered moodily.

Her aunt lingered on the threshold of the door, the boy tugging at herskirts, and urging her to go out. Battersea Park was his favouriteplayground. He carried a wooden horse with a fine development of head,but with only a stick and a wheel to represent his body, which equinecompromise he bestrode and galloped upon in the course of his airing.La Zia carried his pail and the shovel with which he was wont to scrapeup the loose gravel in the roadway as blissfully as if he had beendisporting himself beside the waves that roll gaily in to splash thechildren at play on the sands.

La Zia looked at her niece interrogatively, and the niece nodded “go,”whereupon aunt and boy vanished. She was always bidden to stop whenSefton was the visitor.

“You need not be frightened,” said Lisa. “We are not likely to meetagain, as we met on the river. It was so long since I had seen you! Iwas taken by surprise, and forgot everything except that it was you,whom I thought I should never see again. I shall be wiser in future,now that I know more about you, and now that I have seen your wife.”

“That is my own good Lisa! She is a sweet wife, is she not? Worthy thata man should love her?”

“Yes, she is worthy; and she is fair and beautiful, like theMary-lilies. I don’t wonder that you love her. And she has never doneany evil thing in her life, has she? If a young man had said to her,‘Come with me to Venice, and be my little wife,’ she would not havebelieved him, as I did. She would have said, ‘You must marry me firstin the church.’ She would have believed in nothing but the church andthe priest. She was not ignorant and poor, like me.”

“Lisa, do you suppose that I was making any unkind comparisons? I saidonly that she is worthy to be loved—that all men and women must loveand honour her, and that her husband must needs adore her. And now,Si’ora, promise me that you will respect her jealousy, which is onlythe shadow cast by her love, and that you will do or say nothing thatcan make her unhappy.”

“I will do or say nothing to hurt you,” Lisa answered, somewhatsullenly. “She has little need to be unhappy, having all your love. Butshe is very sweet, as you say. She spoke to me graciously the othernight, although she had a curious look, as if she were half afraid ofme. Yes, she is beautiful. Did you know her and love her long beforethat day on the Lido, when you were so friendly with my aunt and me?”

[Pg 265]

“No, Si’ora.”

“What! your heart was free then?”

“Free as air.”

“And afterwards—when I saw you at the opera? When you came to ourlodgings?”

“Ah, then I had seen her, I was captive. I loved her at first sight,but went about foolishly hiding my chains, trying not to love her.And now that we understand each other fully upon one point—now thatI can trust my happiness in your hands, I want to talk to you aboutyourself, Lisa. I am not over-fond of that Mr. Sefton with whom you areso friendly.”

“No more am I over-fond of him. He is kind to us. He brings toys forPaolo; and he takes us on the river. He is the only friend little Zincohas allowed me to have.”

“He gives Paolo toys? And he gave you that diamond necklace, did henot?”

“Gave me my necklace! I should think not! Do you suppose I wouldbe beholden to him, or to any one? Do you know how many braceletsand brooches I have sent back to the fools who bought them for me?Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires—all the colours of the rainbow.I just look at them and laugh, and carry them off to little Zinco,and he packs them up and sends them back to the giver, with hiscompliments, and his assurance that Signora Vivanti is not in the habitof accepting gifts. Mr. Sefton give me my necklace! Why, my necklace ismy fortune!”

And then she told him how she and la Zia had scraped and saved, andlived upon pasta and Swiss cheese, in order to buy that necklace fromMr. Attenborough, who had allowed her to pay a considerable part of theprice by weekly instalments. It was a bankrupt Contessa’s necklace—aContessa who had run away from her husband.

“I am very glad to hear that,” said Vansittart. “I was afraid all wasnot well when I saw my little Si’ora blazing in diamonds.”

“Did they blaze?” she cried, delighted. “You thought that I was likesome of the singers who spend all their salary on a carriage, and granddinners, and fine silk gowns—a hundred pounds for a single gown! Iwanted to buy something that would last, something that I could turninto money whenever I liked.”

“But your diamonds yield no interest, Si’ora, so they are hardly a wiseinvestment.”

“I don’t want interest; I want something that is pretty to look at. Didmy diamonds blaze? Your sister’s is the only grand house I have sungat. I sing for Mrs. Hawberk, but her house is not grand, and I take nomoney for singing at her parties. But I had ten guineas for singing atLady Hartley’s—ten guineas for two little songs.”

“Bravissima, Si’ora! There are plenty of drawing-rooms in[Pg 266] London whereyou may pick up gold and silver. There is a freshness about you andyour singing that people will like, as a pleasant relief, after a grandopera. But now, Cara, I would earnestly warn you to have very littleto do with Mr. Sefton, to keep him at the furthest possible distance.Believe me, he is a dangerous acquaintance.”

“Not to me,” said Lisa, snapping her fingers. “He is nothing to me,niente, niente, niente! My heart has never beat any faster for hiscoming. I am never sorry when he goes. He is kind to Paolo, and myaunt thinks him a delightful gentleman. He tells us stories about thelords and ladies he knows, and he helps me with my English. He makesme read to him. He tells me the meaning of words, and teaches me howto pronounce them. I should not have got on nearly so fast without hishelp.”

“Dangerous help, Si’ora. You are encouraging a traitor. Be sure hiskindness springs from no good motive. He doesn’t want to marry you.”

“Do you think I want him for a husband?” exclaimed Lisa, with supremecontempt. “I shall never marry. No one will ever have the right toquestion me about Paolo’s father.”

There was a dignity in this assertion which showed that theunsophisticated daughter of the Isles had made some progress in socialscience. She knew at least that a husband was a person who might callher to account for her past life.

“I tell you that I don’t care for Mr. Sefton; but he amuses la Zia andme, and our lives would be very dull without him.”

“Better dulness than danger. The man is bad, Lisa, bad to the core.Some men are made so. In the county where he was born, among theneighbours who respected his father and mother, and who tolerate himfor his name’s sake, he is neither trusted nor liked. Before he leftthe University, when he had only just come of age, there was a villagetragedy in which he was known to be implicated, a tenant-farmer’spretty daughter drowned in the mill-dam with her nameless child. Thegirl’s father was a tenant on the Sefton estate, as his father andgrandfather had been before him. A connection of that kind with mostyoung men would be sacred—but Wilfrid Sefton had no compunction. Hewas saved from exposure, for the love that the sufferers bore to hispeople; but the scandal became pretty well known in the neighbourhood,and the friends of his family who might have pitied him for the awfulconsequences of his sin, were disgusted by the indifference with whichhe treated the tragedy—living it down with a brazen front, and later,when he was owner of the estate, turning the girl’s father out of hisholding, on the flimsiest excuse. Do you think such a man as that isworthy to be admitted to the home of an unprotected woman on a footingof friendship?”

[Pg 267]

“No, no, he is not worthy. If you tell me to shut my door against him,the door shall be shut. But is it true? Did this poor girl really drownherself because she could not bear to live disgraced? Are there womenin England like that?”

“Yes, Lisa. There have been many such women. This girl belonged to theyeoman class—her forefathers had been settled in the land for twohundred years, sons of the soil, respected by their neighbours, andas proud of their good name as if it had been a patent of nobility;and this girl was young and sensitive. I have heard her story fromthose who saw her grow up from infancy to womanhood—gentle, yielding,guileless—an easy prey for an unscrupulous young man with a handsomeface and a winning manner. He won her, blighted her, murdered her.Yes, Lisa, his crime came nearer murder than that dagger-thrust atFlorian’s.”

“Don’t speak of that,” she cried, putting her fingers on his lips.“We must forget it. There never was such a thing—or at least you hadnothing to do with it. It was Fate, not your will, that he should dielike that. It was to be. Non si muove foglia che Iddio non voglia. I amglad you have told me about that girl. I never liked Mr. Sefton—neverreally liked him. However pleasant he was I had always a feeling thathe was hiding something. There is a light in his eyes as if he werelaughing at one. He is like Mephistopheles in the opera. It is not inhis nature to be sorry for any one.”

“And you will give him his congé?”

“Yes; he shall come here no more. I shall not let him know that youhave told me that poor girl’s story. He might want to fight a duel withyou, if he knew what you have said of him.”

“I don’t think he would, Lisa; but it is wiser to tell him nothing. Youcan say you have been told you are compromising yourself by receivinghis visits.”

“Little Zinco does not love him,” said Lisa; “he will be pleased to seehim dismissed. He says I should have no friend but him and my piano.”

“Zinco is a worthy soul.”

“Is he not? He pretends to be very proud of my success. For the firstyear of my engagement at the Apollo I used to give him a quarter of mysalary; but now I only pay him for my lessons. He goes on teaching megrand opera. It broadens and refines my style, he tells me—but Mr.Hawberk implores me never to leave off being vulgar. It would be myruin, he says.”

“Be yourself. Lisa—bright, candid, and original. Your transparentnature will always pass for genius, from its rarity. And now good-bye.I must not come here any more. I came to-day because I felt I had aduty to do as your friend, but my wife would not like[Pg 268] to hear of meas your visitor. She and I love each other too well not to be easilyjealous.”

“It has been sweet to see you,” answered Lisa, gravely, “but I will notask you to come again. Yes, yes,” she added musingly. “I understand!Love is always jealous.”

She gave him her hand, and bade him good-bye, with a gentle resignationwhich touched him more deeply than her passionate moods had everdone. The beautiful dark eyes looked into his, and said, “I love youstill—shall love you always,” in language which a man need not be acoxcomb to understand. And so they parted, each believing that thismight be a final parting.

Vansittart looked at his watch as he ran downstairs. It was nearlysix o’clock. At the bottom of the last flight he met Sefton, who wasentering with an easy air and self-satisfied smile, which changed to afrown as he recognized Lisa’s departing visitor.

“I have just come from Charles Street,” he said, recovering himselfinstantly, “where I expected to find you. But I dare say you have beenmore amused here than you would have been there. The narrow footpathsand shady woodland walks are generally pleasanter than the broadhigh-road.”

“Is that a truism, or an allegory? If the latter, it bears noapplication to my visit here.”

“Doesn’t it really? You don’t mean that you, Mrs. Vansittart’s husband,call upon Signora Vivanti in the beaten way of friendship?”

“In friendship, at least, if not in the beaten way; but whatever mymotive in visiting that lady, I don’t admit your right to question meabout it; or”—with a laugh—“to resort to allegory. Good day to you.”

He ran down the steps to his hansom, and Sefton went slowly up thethree flights of stone stairs which led to Signora Vivanti’s bower,brooding angrily upon his encounter with Vansittart. He had never beenable to extort any admissions from Lisa about this man. She had beensecret as the grave; yet he was convinced that her past history wasthe history of an intrigue with Vansittart; and after that effusivegreeting from the boat, and remembering the expression of her face morethan two years ago, as she hung upon his arm on the Embankment, he wasconvinced that she loved him still, and that this passion was the causeof her coldness to him, Wilfred Sefton.

CHAPTER XXV.

“AND EVERY GENTLE PASSION SICK TO DEATH.”

Although in his leisurely ascent to the third story Mr. Sefton hadtime to recover the appearance of serenity, he was by no means masterof himself as he waited for Lisa’s door to be opened. Still[Pg 269] less washe master of himself when the door was opened by Lisa herself, lookingflushed and excited, her eyes brilliant with newly shed tears.

He went through the little vestibule and into the sunlit drawing-roomwith the air of a man who had the right to enter unbidden, and flunghimself sullenly into one of Lisa’s basket chairs, which creaked underhis weight.

“It is very late,” said Lisa, evidently fluttered and uneasy. “I oughtto be starting for the theatre.”

“You needn’t hurry,” Sefton answered coolly. “It isn’t six o’clock; andyou don’t come on the stage till half-past eight. You’d better sit downand take things easily. You don’t look much like going into the street,with that crying face. You’d better get over your scene with your loverbefore you go out of doors.”

“I have no lover,” Lisa answered indignantly, tossing up her head.

In Sefton’s eyes she had never looked lovelier than at that moment;every feature instinct with passion; red lips and delicate nostrilsfaintly quivering; a rich carmine flushing the pale olive of hercheeks; the great dark eyes brightened by tears; the haughty pose ofthe head giving something of aristocracy to that uncultured beauty.He loved her with a passion which every fresh indication of her coldindifference had stimulated to increasing warmth. He loved her firstbecause she was lovely and fascinating in her childish simplicity.He loved her next and best because she, who by every common ruleof life should have been so easily won, had proved invincible.The greatest princess in the land—the woman most hedged round byconventionalities—could not have held herself more aloof than Lisa haddone, even while condescending to accept his friendship. She had heldherself aloof; and she had shown him that she was not afraid of him.

He saw her now under a new aspect, saw her deeply moved, with all thepotentialities of tragedy in those tremulous lips and shining eyes.He saw now in all its reality the passion which informed her acting,and gave pathetic reality to all that there was of sentiment in herrôle. He saw the moving spring which had made it so easy for herto represent in all its touching details the passion of hopeless love.

“You have no lover? You are an audacious woman to make that assertionto me when I have seen you in his company, after an interval of years,and when each time I saw you, your face has been a declaration of love.I met the man on your staircase just now; and I can read the history ofhis visit in your eyes. Do you mean to tell me that he is anything lessthan your lover?”

“I mean to tell you nothing. Che diavolo! What are you to me that youshould call me to account? Signor Zinco said I was very foolish to letyou come here. It was only because my aunt and[Pg 270] the boy liked you thatI let you come. And you took us on the river, which was pleasant. Onemust have some one.”

“You will have me no more until we understand each other,” criedSefton, furiously. “Voglio finirla. I will not be fooled. I will notbe duped. I will not be your abject slave as I have been, going nightafter night to feast upon your beauty, to drink the music of yourvoice, giving you my whole mind and heart, and getting nothing for mypains, not even the assurance that you are growing fonder of me, thatlove will come in good time. Do you think I am the man to endure thatsort of torture for ever?”

“I do not think at all about you. Voglio finirla, io! I have made up mymind that it will be better for you not to come here any more. We shallmiss you and your clever talk, and the days on the river—but we canlive without you—and as for love, that is over and done with. I shallnever love anybody but Paolo and la Zia. I have cared for two peoplein this world—and my love ended badly with both. The one who lovedme died. The one I loved the most never loved me. There, you have myconfession without questioning. Are you satisfied now?”

“Not quite. The man you love is the man who left you just now—Paolo’sfather?”

He came nearer to her as he asked this daring question; the questionhe had been longing to ask from the beginning of things. He took holdof her arm almost roughly, and drew her towards him, scrutinizing herface, and trying to read her secret in her eyes.

She answered him with a mocking laugh.

“You are very clever at guessing riddles,” she said. “I have mademy confession. You will get no more out of me. And now, with yourpermission, I will put on my hat. It takes me a long time to get to thetheatre—I always go by the steamboat on fine evenings—and it takes mea still longer time to dress for the stage.”

She went to the door and opened it for him, waiting with a courteousair for him to go out; but he took hold of her again, even more roughlythan before, shut the door violently, and drew her back into the room.

“There is time enough for you to talk to me,” he said. “I will answerfor your being at the theatre—but you must hear me out. We must havean explanation. I never knew how fond I was of you till just now, whenI met that man leaving your house. I was satisfied to go danglingon—playing with fire—so long as I was the only one. But now that heis hanging about you, there must be no more uncertainty. I must knowmy fate. Lisa, you know how I love you. There is no use in talking ofthat. If I were to talk for an hour I could say no more than every wordI have spoken for the last year and a half—ever since we sat togetherin the tent that Sunday night[Pg 271] at Hawberk’s—has been telling you. Ilove you. I love you, Lisa: with a love that fuses my life into yours,which makes life useless, purposeless, hopeless without you.”

He had not loosened his hold. That strong, sinewy hand of his wasgrasping her firm, round arm, his other hand and arm drawing heragainst his heart. She could feel how furiously that heart was beating;she could see his finely cut face whitening as it looked into hers; hiseyes with a wild light in them. He stood silent, holding her thus, likea bird caught in a springe, while she struggled to release herself fromhim. He stood thinking out his fate, with the woman he loved in hisarms.

In those few moments he was asking himself the crucial question,Could he live without this woman? Passion—a passion of slow andsilent growth—answered no. Then came another question, Would she behis mistress? Was it any use to sing the old song, to offer her themarket price for her charms—a house at the West End, a carriage, asettlement; all except his name and the world’s esteem? Common senseanswered him sternly no. This woman, struggling to escape from anunwelcome caress, was not the woman to accept dishonourable proposals.She had been showing him for the last year and a half, in the plainestmanner, that he was positively indifferent to her. She was no fonderof him now than at the beginning of their acquaintance. Love couldnot tempt her. Wealth could hardly tempt her, since she could earn anincome which was more than sufficient for her needs. To such a woman asthis, peasant born as she was, uncultivated, friendless, he must offerthe highest price—that price which he had told himself he would offerto no woman living. He must offer his name, and he must enter upon thatsolemn contract between man and woman which had always seemed to him ananomaly in the legislature of a civilized people—a contract which onlydeath or dishonour could break.

“Lisa,” he said, “I am not the enemy you think me. There is nosacrifice I would not make for you. You know so little of the worldthat perhaps you hardly know how much a man of good birth sacrificeswhen he takes a wife who can bring him nothing but his heart’s desire.Try and understand that, Lisa. I love you too well to count thecost—too well to care that marriage with you cuts me off from allchance of marrying a woman whose money would quadruple my fortune andbuy me a peerage. I could make such a marriage as that to-morrow ifI choose, Lisa. It has been made very plain to me that I should beaccepted by a lady who will carry a million sterling to the husband ofher choice. Don’t think me a snob for telling you this. I want you tounderstand that I am worth something in the world’s market. Be my wife,Lisa. I am a rich man. I can take you to a fine old country house, aslarge as one of the[Pg 272] palaces on the Canal Grande. I can give you allthings women value—horses and carriages, fine rooms, pictures, silver,jewels—and I give you with them the devotion of a man who has lovedmany women with a light and passing love, but who never knew what thereality of love meant till he knew you, who never until now has asked awoman to be his wife.”

He released her with those last words, and they stood looking at eachother, she breathless with surprise.

“Do you really mean that?” she asked.

“Really, really, really. Say yes, Lisa. Kiss me, my beloved, kiss methe kiss of betrothal”—holding out his arms to her pleadingly. “Wecan be married two or three days hence, before the registrar, andafterwards in any church you like. You will throw up your engagementat once. We will go to the Tyrol, bury ourselves in the hills and thewoods, and in November I will take you home, and let all the countyenvy me my lovely wife.”

“You would marry me—me, the lace-girl of Burano; common, oh, socommon! And so poor; brought up among ragged children, earning sevensoldi a day, living on polenta. You would marry Paolo’s mother?”

“Yes, I would marry Paolo’s mother, without even knowing the secret ofPaolo’s parentage. I would marry you because I love you, Lisa—madly,foolishly, obstinately, with a love that does not count the cost.”

“And I should be a great lady? I should drive about in a grandcarriage, and have footmen—powdered footmen like Lady Hartley’s—towait upon me?”

“Yes, child, yes—frivolous, foolish child. Come! Come to my heart,Lisa! Non posso stare senza te!”

He would have taken her to his heart triumphantly, believing himselfaccepted; but she stretched out her two hands with a repelling gestureas he approached her, and held him at arm’s length.

“Not if you could make me a queen,” she said. “You do not knowFiordelisa, when you try to tempt her with house and land. Your Englishladies marry like that, I have heard, for houses and jewels and horses,to be called Principessa or Contessa—but I will never belong to a manI don’t love. I have belonged to one man, and he was a hard master,and I felt like a slave with a chain. My life was not my own. I knowwhat it is to belong to a man. It doesn’t mean paradise. But I lovedhim dearly at the first, when he was kind to me, and took me away fromwork and poverty. I loved him a little to the last even, though he wasa hard master.”

“I would never be hard with you, Lisa. I could never be[Pg 273] your master.Love has made me your slave. Carissima mia, be not so foolish as todeny me. Think how gay, how luxurious, how happy your life may be.”

He was pleading to her in her own dulcet language, the soft Italian,softened to even more liquid utterance by those elisions he had caughtfrom her Venetian tongue.

She stood a few paces from him, her arms folded tightly across herbreast, defying him. Marco, the cat, had awakened from his longafternoon sleep in a luxurious basket—Sefton’s offering—and wasarching his back and rubbing his soft white fur against his mistress’sblack gown. She looked like a witch, Sefton thought, standing there inher defiant beauty, shabbily clad in rusty black, and with the whitecat protecting her, glaring and spitting at him in unreasoning anger.

“My life could never be happy with a man I did not love,” she saidresolutely. “Even if I believed in your promises I would not marry you.I would not accept your generous sacrifice. But I don’t believe in yourgrand offers. I have been warned. I know your character better than youthink. You are trying to deceive me with promises that you don’t meanto keep, as you deceived the farmer’s daughter, who drowned herselfbecause of your lies.”

“Ah!” he cried furiously. “You have heard that village slander. Itcould only reach you from one source—the lips of the man who left youjust now. Don’t you know that when a poor man’s daughter goes wrongit is always the richest man in the neighbourhood who is accused ofseducing her? I dare say that rule holds good in Italy as well as inEngland. I am in earnest, Lisa. I mean no less than I say. Meet me nextMonday at the registrar’s office, with your aunt, and with Signor Zincoif you like, to see that the marriage is a good marriage, and we willleave that office as man and wife.”

“No,” she answered doggedly. “Even if you are in earnest it can make nodifference to me. I don’t want to be a great lady. People would laughat me, and I should be miserable. You wouldn’t like la Zia to live inyour fine house, would you now?”

“We could make her happy in a house of her own, or send her back toVenice with a comfortable income.”

“Just so. You would want to get rid of la Zia. That would not do forme. She and I have never been parted. And Paolo; you would marryPaolo’s mother; but you would want to send him back to Venice with laZia, I dare say.”

“It would be the simplest way of solving a difficulty; but if he werenecessary to your happiness he should stay with us, Lisa. I would doanything to make you happy.”

She looked at him with a touch of sadness, and shook her head.

[Pg 274]

“You are a generous lover,” she said, “if you mean what you say; butit is all useless. You could not make me happy; and I could not makeyou happy. You would very soon be sorry for your sacrifice. You wouldregret the English lady and her million. I am content as I am—contentif not happy. I have as much money as I want, and this room is fineenough for me. If you saw the hovel in which I was reared you wouldthink me a lucky woman to have such a beautiful home. In ten years Ishall have saved a fortune, and la Zia and I can go back to Venice andlive like ladies on the Canal Grande; or I can go on singing if I’m nottired, and then I shall grow richer every day.”

“Lisa, Lisa, how cold and how cruel you are—cruel to a poor wretch whoadores you. To me you are ice, but to Vansittart you are fire. Yourface lighted, your whole being awoke to new life, at sight of him.”

Lisa shrugged her shoulders, irritated by his persistency, and provokedinto candour.

“Suppose I like him and don’t like you, can I help it? God has made meso,” she said carelessly. “Ah, here is la Zia—la Zia whom you wouldbanish,” she cried, clapping her hands as a key turned in the vestibuledoor.

“It looked like rain,” said la Zia, as she came in, “so Paolo and Imade haste home.”

Lisa caught the boy up in her arms, and kissed him passionately. Neverhad she felt so glad to see him. Her active imagination had picturedherself separated for ever from her son, living in an atmosphere ofpomp and powdered footmen, learning to forget her fatherless boy.

He had thriven on English fare, and the mild breezes of BatterseaPark, and frequent airings upon the Citizen steamers. He was a greatlump of a boy, with large black eyes, and long brown hair, and hismother’s Murillo colouring. The only traces of the other parentage werein the square Saxon brow and the firm aquiline of the nose. He wasa magnificent outcome of a mixed race, and a fine example of what aboy of four years old ought to be. Lisa dropped into a chair with herburden, still hugging him, but borne down by his weight.

“Santo e santissimo!” exclaimed la Zia. “You will be late at thetheatre. You must take a cab, quanto che costa.”

The Venetians had a horror of cabs, which were not alone costly, butfraught with the hazard of vituperation from fiery-faced cabmen.They delighted in the penny distances of road cars and other publicconveyances. To exceed the limit of a penny ride was to la Zia’s mindculpable extravagance. A cab was only to be thought of in emergencies.

[Pg 275]

“Pardon, Signor,” she said, “the pleasure of your most desired companyhas made my niece forget her duties.”

She bustled into the adjoining room, and returned with Lisa’s blacklace hat and little merino cape. There was no chorus girl at the Apollowho dressed as shabbily as the Venetian prima donna. La Zia bundled onthe hat and tied on the cape, and dismissed her niece with a kiss.

“Zinco will bring you home, as always,” she said.

The ’cello lived in a shabby old street hard by, and was Lisa’s nightlyescort from the Apollo to Chelsea. On fine nights they walked allthe way, hugging the river, and praising the Embankment, which Zincodeclared to be as much finer than the Lung ’Arno, as London was in hisopinion superior to Florence.

Lisa and Sefton went downstairs together, both silent. He hailed acrawling hansom a few paces from the house-door, and put her intoit, without a word. When she was seated he lifted his hat, and badeher good night; and it seemed to her that there was deadly hatred inthe face which had looked at her a little while ago transfigured bypassionate love.

Hatred of some one; herself, perhaps; or it might be of a fanciedrival. Her heart grew cold as she thought of Vansittart. Unreasoningjealousy on her account had cost one man his life, and had burdenedthe life of another man with inextinguishable remorse. Would Sefton,whose love expressed itself with appalling vehemence, try to injure theone man she cared for, the man for whose sake she would give her life?It would be well to warn him, perhaps. To warn him? But how? She didnot even know where he lived; but she knew his sister’s house, and hissister’s servants would be able to tell her his address. She knew hisreal name now—Vansittart, a grandly sounding name. She repeated itto herself with a kind of rapture as the cab rattled along the King’sRoad, taking her to the Apollo.

She wrote to Vansittart next day, telling him that Sefton had offeredto marry her, and that she had refused him.

“He is jealous and angry about you,” she told him, in conclusion. “Hefancies because I was so pleased to see you that day on the riverthat it is my love for you that made me refuse him, and I think hewould like to kill you. His face looked like murder as he bade megood-bye—and I’m afraid it is you he wants to murder, not me. Praybe on your guard about him. He may hire some one to stab you in thestreet, after dark. Please don’t go out at night except in yourcarriage. Forgive me for writing to you; but when I think that yourlife may be in danger, I cannot refrain from sending you this warning.You warned me of my danger, which was no danger, because I never caredfor the man. I warn you of yours.”

[Pg 276]

With this letter in her pocket, Lisa put herself into one of herfavourite omnibuses, which took her to Albert Gate, and from AlbertGate she found her way across the Park to Hill Street. She rememberedthe number, though she would hardly have known the house in its morningbrightness of yellow marguerites and pale blue silk blinds.

The haughtiest of footmen opened the door, and looked at her from headto foot with the deliberate eye of scorn. Her beauty made not thefaintest impression upon his rhinoceros hide. She was on foot, andshabbily clad, and he took her for a work-girl.

“I have a letter for Mr. Vansittart,” she began timidly.

The footman interrupted her with stern decisiveness. “This is not Mr.Vansittart’s ’ouse. This is Lady ’Artley’s.”

“I want to know where Mr. Vansittart lives.”

“Charles Street. Number 99a.”

“Please tell me the way.”

The magnificent creature stalked slowly to the doorstep, movingwith the languid hauteur which befitted one whose noble height andwell-grown legs gave him first rank in the army of London footmen.He was not ill-natured, but he took what he called a proper pridein himself, conscious that his livery was made by one of the mostexpensive tailors in the West End, and that his shoes came from BondStreet.

Lifting his arm with a haughty grace, he indicated the turning whichwould be Lisa’s nearest way to Charles Street.

She thanked him and tripped lightly away, he watching her with alanguid gaze, too obtuse to recognize the brilliant Venetian primadonna—whose eyes, and shoulders, and diamonds he had approved theother night, when he hung over her with peaches and champagne—in theyoung person in rusty black.

Lisa found 99a, again a house with flowers in all the windows, anddainty silken blinds—a house of brighter and fresher aspect than thehouses of Venice, where the effects of form and colour are broader,bolder, and more paintable, but lack that finish and neatness whichdistinguish a well-kept house at the West End of London: a house whereno expenditure is spared in the struggle between the love of beauty andcolour, and the curse of coal fires and gloomy skies. Another footmanlooked at Lisa with the cold eye of indifference, less haughty thanLady Hartley’s superb menial only because Vansittart’s smaller meansdid not afford prize specimens of the footman genus.

“Any answer?” asked the youth, as Lisa delivered her letter.

No, there was no answer required—but would he be sure to give theletter to Mr. Vansittart?

There was a rustle of silken skirts on the stairs as she spoke, and twoladies came tripping down, talking as they came.

[Pg 277]

“The carriage is not there yet,” cried Sophy, glancing at the opendoorway. “I’m afraid we shall be late for luncheon.”

Eve followed her, and was in the hall in time to see Lisa as she turnedfrom the door—to see her and to recognize her as the woman who hadbrought perplexity and apprehension into the clear heaven of her life.

The victoria came to the door. The footman stood ready to hand hismistress to her carriage and to take his place beside the coachman.

“What did that person want?” asked Eve, sharply.

“She brought a letter for my master, ma’am.”

“Where is it? Give it to me.”

She took the letter, and looked at it frowningly.

“Mr. Vansetart!” The woman could not even spell his name, and yet wasable to darken his wife’s existence.

“What a shabby letter!” cried Sophy, struggling with the top button ofa tight glove. “It must be a begging letter, I should think. But what apretty dark-eyed woman that was. I seem to remember her face. Really,really, Eve, we shall be late! Mrs. Montford told us her luncheons arealways punctual. She wouldn’t wait for a Bishop.”

Eve was staring at the letter. Vansittart was out, or she would havegone to him with it. She wanted to put it into his hands, and to seehow he took its contents; but she did not even venture to keep theletter in her possession till they met. She ran into her husband’sstudy, and put the odious letter on the mantelpiece, in a spot where hemight overlook it. If it were overlooked until the afternoon she mightbe with him when he opened it.

She went into society with her heart aching. Whatever her husband’sfeelings might be, this shameless Italian was running after him.What insolence! What consummate audacity! To come to his house, topursue him with letters, even in his wife’s presence! And Sefton hadintroduced this brazen creature to her; and she—Vansittart’s wife—hadbeen weak enough to be civil.

Sophy’s perpetual prattle agonized her all the way to GrosvenorGardens; nor was the smart luncheon which awaited them there lessagonizing. She had to brace herself for the ordeal, to smile andtalk, and laugh at good stories, pretending to see the point of them;laughing when other people laughed; pretending to enjoy that happymixture of society to be met at some hospitable tables—a dash ofliterature and art, a fashionable priest and a fashionable actor, anarchæological Dean from a grave old Midland city, a young marriedbeauty, a Primrose League enthusiast, a foreign diplomatist, and asporting peer owning a handsome slice of the shires.

Mr. Sefton came in after they were seated, and dropped into the onevacant chair beside Sophy.

[Pg 278]

“You are always late,” Mrs. Montford said reproachfully. “I supposethat is because you are the idlest man I know.”

He was a favourite of Mrs. Montford’s—l’ami de la maison—andallowed to come and go as he pleased. When he gave a tea-party it wasgenerally Mrs. Montford who invited half the company, helped him tochoose the flowers and to receive the guests.

“You have hit the mark,” he said. “A man who has no specific occupationnever has time to be punctual. Nobody respects him. He can’t look athis watch in the middle of a friend’s prosing and pretend importantbusiness. I think I shall article myself to a civil engineer; and thenwhen people are boring I can say I am waited for about the caissons forthe new bridge. What bridge? My dear fellow, no time to explain! Onesprings into a hansom, and is gone. Your idler can’t extricate himselffrom the Arachne web of boredom. His time is everybody’s property.”

“Elaborate, but not convincing,” said Mrs. Montford, smiling at him,as he helped himself with a leisurely air to a cutlet en papillote. “Iwould wager all the gloves that I shall wear at Etretat that you werelying in your easiest chair, with your feet on that high fender ofyours, reading Maupassant’s new story.”

“For once in your life you have succeeded as a reader of character—orno character. I was reading ‘Le Pas Perdu.’ Don’t you see how red myeyelids are?”

“Exactly. You are the kind of man who can weep over a book and refuse asovereign to a poor relation.”

“That,” said Sefton, “was almost unkind.”

Sophy now claimed her right of being talked to.

“Why were you not at Lady Dalborough’s last night?” she asked.

“My dear Miss Marchant, you can’t expect to see me at all the stupidestparties in London.”

“The party was rather dull,” assented Sophy, who until this moment hadthought it brilliant, “but there was some good music.”

“One can have that for filthy lucre at the St. James’s Hall. I adoreOscar de Lampion’s love ditties, but not at the price of perspiring ina mob of second-best people.”

“It was my fault that we went to Lady Dalborough’s,” said Sophy,remorsefully.

“Oh, I forgive anybody for going there—once. You will be wiser nextyear.”

His eyes were watching Eve across the table, while he talked withSophy. She was very pale, and instead of the delicate blush rose of hercomplexion there were hectic spots under the eyes, which accentuatedher pallor. He who once cared for her almost to the point of passion,felt a thrill of pain at seeing in a face a hint of the consumptivetendency which he had heard of about Peggy. “Those[Pg 279] girls are allconsumptive,” some village gossip had said to him, with the morbidrelish of gloomy possibilities which is an outcome of village monotony.He was shocked to think that she, too, perhaps, was doomed; but thethought suggested no pity for her husband—not even that pity whichwould have prevented him striking at his enemy through her. The ragethat consumed him knew no restraining power. If he had lived in theMiddle Ages that rage would have meant murder—but bloodshed in thenineteenth century involves too many inconvenient possibilities to bethought of lightly by a man of landed estate. It means throwing upeverything for the rapture of gratified revenge—melting all the pearlsof life into one fiery draught.

“Why is not Vansittart with you?” he asked Sophy, still looking at Eve.

“He had business in the City this morning.”

“Business—in the City? What could take Vansittart to the City? Thatseems quite out of his line.”

“Yes, it does, don’t it,” said Sophy, impressed by the significanceof his tone, which seemed to veil a deeper meaning. “What should aHampshire squire have to do in the City?”

Sefton did not dwell upon the question. He saw that he had awakenedvague suspicions in Sophy’s mind, the first faint hint of a domesticmystery. He talked of other things—of people—lightly, delightfully,Sophy thought. He told her of two marriages which had just occurred, onthe summit of the fashionable mountain—took her behind the scenes, asit were, and introduced her to the inner life of the chief actors inthose elegant ceremonials—the impecunious father of one bride sellinghis daughter to a man she hated, the angry mother of the bridegroom inthe other marriage raging against the girl her son had chosen.

“You don’t know the bad blood which was hidden among the champagnebottles on the buffet,” he said.

Sophy was charmed to hear about these smart people—charmed most of allat the idea that they were miserable—that the women whose toilettesher soul sickened for often wore the hair-shirt of the penitent under agown which Society papers extolled.

Sefton was very attentive to Sophy, albeit his furtive glances werealways returning to the lovely face on the other side of the table.Poor Sophy thrilled at startling possibilities. He had admired Evein the past, had seemed devoted almost to the point of proposing.And she, Sophy, had been told she was growing daily more like Eve.More wonderful things had happened than that he should fall in lovewith her—the old fancy for Eve reviving for Eve’s younger sister.Now that the detrimental father had taken up his abode permanently onthe Continent, his domestic responsibilities much[Pg 280] lightened by Eve’sliberality to her sisters, there could be less objection to an alliancewith the house of Marchant. Mr. Sefton was his own master. He had lostEve by his hesitancy and hanging back. Might he not act more noblyin his dealings with Eve’s sister? That low, thrilling note which heknew how to put into his voice, which was a mere mechanism of the man,touched Sophy’s senses like exquisite music. Her eyelids sank, hercheek kindled, though he talked only of common things.

He had seen enough of Eve, while thus entertaining Sophy, to be assuredthat she had lately suffered some painful experience—a quarrel withVansittart, perhaps. Or it might be that silent jealousy had beengnawing at her heart since that day on the river. No woman could seeLisa’s behaviour and not be jealous. The husband would explain, nodoubt, but explanations go for very little in such a case. They areaccepted for the moment; wife and husband “kiss again with tears;”and the next morning at the breakfast-table the husband sees broodingbrows, and knows that there is a scorpion coiled in his wife’s heart.Her faith in him has been shaken. He may scotch the snake, but hecannot kill it.

Eve was glad when Mrs. Montford gave the signal for a move to thedrawing-room. The men stayed behind to smoke, all but Sefton, whofollowed the ladies, a proceeding which Sophy ascribed to his interestin her conversation. At the luncheon-table Eve had been all talk andgaiety, deceiving every one except the man who watched her face in itsoccasional moments of repose. In the drawing-room she abandoned alleffort, sank into a chair near the window, evidently sick at heart,glancing first at the clock on the chimney-piece and then at the streetto see if her carriage were approaching. She had ordered it for aquarter past three. She started up the instant it was announced, andwent over to Mrs. Montford to make her adieux, that lady being deep ina murmured discussion of the latest Mayfair scandal with a brace ofmatrons, while Sophy was being taken round the rooms by Sefton, to lookat the pictures and curios.

“You needn’t have been in such an absurd hurry to come away,”remonstrated this young lady in a lugubrious tone, as they drovehomeward. “Nobody else was moving.”

“They will be gone in a quarter of an hour. Only the bores ever lingerafter a London luncheon. Everybody has something to do.”

“We have nothing to do till five o’clock; unless you go to LadyThornton’s at home before five. The card says four till seven.”

“Then we can go at six. That will be quite early enough.”

“And what are we to do in the interval? It isn’t half-past three yet.”

“Rest, Sophy; sleep if you can. We are going to a theatre to-night, anda dance afterwards.”

[Pg 281]

“It is so near the end of the season,” sighed Sophy. “People are allrushing off to Germany for their cures. One feels quite out of it whenone has no complaint to talk about.”

Vansittart was at home. Eve went straight to his den, sure to find himthere, smoking over a book or a newspaper.

He looked up at her smilingly, but she thought he looked weary and wornout, and when the smile was gone there was a troubled expression.

“Was it a lively luncheon, Eve?” he asked, giving her his hand as shetook up her favourite position behind his high-backed chair.

It was a colossal chair, with cushioned arms, upon one of which shesometimes seated herself, liking to nestle against him, yet not soloquacious as to interrupt his reading; sometimes reading with him;dipping into some French novel which he read from sheer idleness, notbecause he had any taste for the thinly beaten gold-leaf of Maupassantor Bourget.

To-day she stood behind his chair, silent, meditative, while he readand smoked.

“Was it pleasant—your party?” he asked presently, repeating thequestion she had left unanswered.

“Oh, it was pleasant enough. Sophy will tell you that it wasdelightful. I leave her to expatiate upon the people and the dishes andthe talk. I was not in a very pleasant mood. There is a letter for youon the mantelpiece. You have not seen it, perhaps?”

“No,” he said, startled by the angry agitation in her tone. “Is thereanything particular about the letter?”

He put down his pipe and stood up, looking at her inquiringly. She wasvery pale, always with the exception of that hectic spot which Seftonhad noticed, and which burned more fiercely now.

He stretched out his hand to take the letter, half hidden by a littlebronze Buddha with malevolent onyx eyes.

He recognized Lisa’s unformed scrawl at the first glance.

“What is the matter with the letter?” he asked coldly.

“She brought it here herself, Jack,—that Italian woman—SignoraVivanti. I was coming downstairs while she was at the door. I saw hergive the letter to James. What can she have to write to you about?Why should she bring the letter with her own hand? How could she darecome to the house where your wife lives?” She flamed up at the lastquestion, and her voice trembled at the word wife.

“I don’t see why my wife’s presence should alarm her, if she had needof immediate help from me.”

“What should she want? Why should she come to you for help? Because youhelped her once, in Italy, when she was poor[Pg 282] and friendless? Is that areason why she should pester you now?”

“If you will let me read her letter I may be able to tell you,” heanswered gravely.

It was a long letter, for in writing to the man she adored, Lisa lether pen run away with her. Nothing would ever induce her to marrySefton, she told him; her heart was given to another; he knew who thatother was, and that she could never change. Then came the warning ofhis danger. Sefton’s savage hatred. It was a letter he could under nocirc*mstances show to his wife. And there she stood waiting for theletter to be shown her, raging with jealousy, the love which had madeher so angelic in her self-abnegation now transformed into a fire thatmade her almost diabolical.

“Well! May I see her letter?”

“No, Eve. The letter is confidential. She asks nothing from me—exceptperhaps approval of the course she has taken. She has had an offer ofmarriage—an offer that most young women in her position would acceptwithout a second thought.”

“And she has refused?” cried Eve, breathlessly.

“She has refused.”

“Because she loves some one else—some one who can’t marry her—butwho can carry on an intrigue with her—an old intrigue—begun yearsago. Some one whom she is trying to get into her net again. The net isspread—before my very eyes. That letter is to make an appointment.”

He tore the letter across and across, and dropped the pieces into hiswaste-paper basket.

“Your thought is as far from the truth as it is unworthy of you, Eve,”he said, with grave displeasure. “This young woman has never been moreto me than I have told you. A woman in whom I was interested, chieflybecause she was friendless.”

“Chiefly,” she cried, catching at the qualifying word; “and the otherreason?”

“If there was another reason, it had nothing to do with love. Does thatsatisfy you?”

“No,” she answered gloomily. “Nothing you can say will prevent my beingmiserable. That woman has come into my life and spoilt it.”

“Only because you are unreasonably and absurdly jealous. You aremiserable of your own choice. You have me here, your faithful husband,unchanged in thought, act, or feeling since the day we rowed down theriver; and yet you choose to torture yourself with vile suspicions,unworthy of a lady, unworthy of a wife.”

“I cannot help it,” she said. “We all have some latent sin, I suppose.Perhaps jealousy is mine. I never knew what it was to feel wickedbefore. Forgive me, Jack, if you can.”

[Pg 283]

She took up his hand, kissed it, and then sank sighing into her chair,the chair she had christened Joan, while his, the colossal armchair,was Darby.

“I forgive you with all my heart, Eve, on condition that this littlestorm is the last outbreak. I should be sorry to think our married lifewas to be a succession of tempests in teacups.”

“I promise to behave better in future. I hate myself for my folly.”

Vansittart resumed his newspaper, too much disturbed to courtconversation. He felt himself living upon the crust of a volcano. Thisceaseless jealousy was a matter of trivial moment in itself. He couldhave laughed it off, as too absurd for serious argument; but thisjealousy brought Eve to the brink of that revelation which might wrecktwo lives. The horror in front of him was a horror that meant doom.

Eve bore with the silence for a few minutes, took off her bonnet, andcarefully adjusted the petals of an artificial rose, studied the littlefantasy of lace and flowers as if it were the gravest thing in theworld, then flung it impatiently on a chair, and began to smooth outher long suède gloves on her soft, silken knee. Her nerves were strungto torture. She had pretended to be satisfied, while the tempest in herheart was still raging. She looked at her husband as if she hated him.Yes; it was hateful to see him sitting there, silent, imperturbable,reading his newspaper, while she was in the depths of despair. The factthat he had refused to show her that letter seemed almost an admissionof guilt. If the thing which he had told her was true, the letter wouldhave borne witness to his truth. He would have been eager to show it toher. “Here,” he would have said, “under the woman’s own hand, you willsee that she is nothing to me.”

She brooded thus for about ten minutes, and then her irritation couldsubmit to silence no longer.

“What was the City doing?” she asked. “The City which deprived me ofyour company at Mrs. Montford’s luncheon.”

“It was not the City’s fault. I surrendered my place to Sophy.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense. There is always room enough and a welcome at Mrs.Montford’s luncheons; but no doubt on a warm July morning the City ismore attractive than Mayfair.”

“Certainly, for those who are making or losing money,” he answered,throwing down his paper and preparing to be sociable, though therewas that in his wife’s tone which told him her heart was not at ease.“What was the City doing?” he repeated. “Buying and selling, gettingand losing. It is not half a bad place on a summer morning, though youspeak of it with the voice of the scorner. I walked across St. Paul’sChurchyard. They have turned an old burial-ground into a flower-garden;and there were nurses and children,[Pg 284] and homeless ragamuffins lyingasleep in the sun, and pigeons—tame pigeons—that fed out of thechildren’s hands. It might have been Venice.”

He started and turned deadly pale. It was the first time he had everpronounced the name of the fatal city, voluntarily, in his wife’shearing. His nerves were overstrained—as much as hers, perhaps—andthe mere name took his breath away.

Eve saw the startled look, the sudden pallor.

“I understand!” she cried passionately. “It was at Venice you met thatwoman. Venice, not Verona. The very name of the place agitates you! Thevery name of the place where you knew her and loved her moves you morethan all I have said to you—than all my pain!”

“You are a fool,” he said roughly, “like Fatima, the type of allwoman-fools.”

“It was Venice.”

“It may have been Venice. Who cares; or what does it matter?”

“It may have been! What hypocrisy! Do you think I am a child, to behoodwinked by your feeble prevarications? Every look, every word, tellsme that you have loved that woman better than you ever loved me—thatyou are still in her net.”

“It was at Venice, then, if you will have it,” he answered, besidehimself. “At Venice, on a Shrove Tuesday, in Carnival time, five yearsago. Are you satisfied now? That is the first half of the riddle.”

His pale cheek grew whiter, his head fell back upon the velvet cushion,his whole frame collapsed. He was as near fainting as a strong mancould be.

Eve rushed to a little table, where she was privileged to write herletters now and then—business letters, she called them, chieflyrelating to spending money. Here, among silver ornaments and fancifulcutlery, there was a big bottle of eau de Cologne, which she halfemptied over her husband’s temples.

“Thanks,” he murmured. “You meant it kindly; but you’ve almost blindedme. I’m all right now. It was only a touch of vertigo. I’ve had noluncheon; and a man can’t live upon tobacco and emotional arguments.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

“CLOSER AND CLOSER SWAM THE THUNDER-CLOUD.”

Eve was very sorry for her husband after that tragical scene inthe study; but what profiteth a jealous wife’s sorrow if she isunconvinced; if heart and brain are still racked with doubts and angry[Pg 285]questionings, while her calmness, her submission are only on thesurface, the subterranean fires still burning?

Vansittart took a high hand with the woman he loved. There must be nomore quarrels, he told himself. He could not control his tongue even inhis own interests, if she were to goad him any further. In their nextencounter the secret would explode. He could not live this slave’s lifefor ever. It was not in him to go on prevaricating and fencing with thetruth.

He told her, gently but firmly, that she must torment him no more withfalse imaginings. If she could not believe in his fidelity it would bewiser for them to part. Better to be miserable asunder, than to livetogether in an atmosphere of distrust.

At this hint of parting she flamed up, her doubt changed for a momentto conviction.

“Part!” she cried. “Perhaps that is what you would like?”

“I would like anything better than this madness, Eve,” he answeredwearily. “We cannot be worse than utterly wretched, and we are thatnow, and shall be as long as you harbour unworthy suspicions.”

His face looked like truth, his voice rang true. She flung herself onher knees beside his chair, and clasped and cried over his hand.

“I will not torment you. I will not plague and torture myself anymore,” she sobbed. “It is only because I love you too much, and abreath makes me fear I may lose you. I will trust you, Jack, in spiteof your mysteriousness, in spite of your refusing to show me thatletter, which I had a right to see, a right as your wife. No husbandshould receive a letter from any woman which he dare not show his wife.”

“I did not choose to show you that letter.”

“Well, you did not choose, perhaps. It was temper, I dare say. I waslike the children who are refused a thing because they don’t askproperly. I did not ask properly, and you snubbed me, and treated me asa child. But I won’t be Fatima again, Jack. If there is a blue chamberin your life, I won’t tease you for the key.”

“That’s my own good wife. Remember how happy we were at Bexley Hill,Eve, in our courting days, when you knew me so little and trusted me somuch. Surely after two years of wedlock you should trust me more andnot less—two years in which you and I have been all the world to eachother.”

“Yes, yes, I was foolish. I hate myself for my mad jealousy. You havefound the ugly spot in my character, Jack. I did not know it was there.”

“Shall I be angry with my love for loving me too well?” he said, as hefolded the slender form to his heart.

How slender, how ethereal she was, the tall slip of a girl whosegraceful shape had never developed matronly solidity. A thrill of[Pg 286] fearran through him at the thought of her fragility, too frail a sapling tostand firm against the storms of life.

“God keep her from knowing the truth,” he prayed dumbly, as she hungupon his breast. “It would break her heart.”

After this there came a halcyon interval. Eve was convinced that shewas beloved, and what more could a woman want in this world? There wasonly one thing that stood in the way of perfect peace. Vansittart hadbusiness in the City on two other mornings, and those disappearancesCitywards worried her. The City, as Sefton had said, was not in herhusband’s line.

When she questioned him about the business that drew him eastwardhe answered lightly that he went to his stockbroker’s to make somesmall changes in his investments. That very lightness of his, whichwas meant to spare her a serious anxiety, awakened her suspicions.The actual cause of Vansittart’s unusual interest in the money marketwas sufficiently serious. A panic had occurred in some South AmericanRailway Stock from which some part of his income was derived, and hewas watching the market and the tide of affairs in Brazil, waiting thehour when it might be needful to sell out and snatch the remnant of hiscapital, or the turn of the tide which should justify his holding onand hoping for a renewal of the good days gone.

To this end he went to his stockbroker’s every day, and heard thelatest news, the last opinions, dawdling in the office, hearing thewise men of the East and their counsel. The hazards, the suspense,excited him. He grew interested in the money market, and felt all thegambler’s keenness. The City drew him like the loadstone rock that tookthe nails out of Sinbad’s ship. It was better than Monte Carlo. A thirdof his fortune trembled in the balance.

He would not tell Eve the whole truth, believing that it wouldworry her into a fever. She would exaggerate this fear as she hadexaggerated her jealous doubts. She would foresee beggary, and dreamof houselessness and starvation. He did not know that to a womanmoney-troubles are the lightest of all woes. A husband suspected ofinfidelity, a child down with measles, will afflict the average womanmore than the loss of a fortune.

Sophy was enjoying herself to her uttermost capacity of enjoyment.This was life indeed. It was the last week of the season, the weekbefore Goodwood, and there was a sense of the end of all things inthe air. A good many of the people who were not going to Goodwoodwere going away, starting for Homburg, Marienbad, Wildbad, Auvergne,or the Pyrenees, in advance of the universal rush which would makesleeping-cars impossible, and travelling odious. It annoyed Sophy tohear people talk of getting away; as if London were worn out and donewith, London which she was[Pg 287] enjoying so intensely. This was the fly inthe ointment for Sophy. She felt aggrieved that her sister should haveinvited her at the end of the season. Yet there was one compensatingdelight. The sales were on: those delicious drapery sales, which hadalways been Sophy’s highest ideal of earthly happiness, even whenher strained resources had compelled her to turn with unsatisfiedlonging from a counter where odd lengths of silk and velvet were beingall but given away. She had lain broad awake in her attic chamberat Fernhurst regretting those bargains, which would have made hera richly dressed woman at the most moderate cost. The counters ofMarshall, and Debenham, and Robinson, and Lewis, at the end of theseason, were to Sophy as the board of green cloth to the gambler. Shefelt that fortunes were to be won for those who had money to stake,fifteen guinea frocks for three pounds, two guinea parasols at nine andeleven-pence.

Eve took her sister to the sales, and financed the situation. With ajudicious expenditure of twenty pounds Sophy secured treasures thatwould last her through the coming autumn and winter, and, with Eveat her elbow, resisted the allurements of unsuitable finery. Theseshopping mornings were rapture to Sophy, and not without pleasure toEve. It was pleasant to see Sophy’s joyous excitement, as she hungtremulously between two fabrics which the shopman exhibited for herchoice—a bengaline at three and ninepence, which had been sevenshillings—a watered silk at two and eleven-pence, which had been eightand sixpence. After intense consideration Sophy settled on the wateredsilk, not because she liked it best, but because of the “had been.” Theoriginal price decided her—not taking into account that the price wasreduced in the exact ratio of the material’s unfashionableness, andthat she might find herself next winter the only young woman in wateredsilk. There was for Eve also the pleasure of buying presents for Jennyand Hetty, the two sisters who were pining in their rustic bower, whileSophy was draining the wine-cup of London gaieties. It was delightfulto Eve to feel that a few pounds could buy them happiness: and shebrought all her knowledge of good and evil to bear upon her selectionsfor those absent ones.

“You have such a very quiet taste,” said Sophy, rather regretfully. “Icall those cottons and foulards you have chosen almost dowdy.”

“You won’t think so when you see them made up. I’m afraid your scarletpongee will look rather too showy for country lanes.”

“My dear Eve, I shall keep it for garden-parties till it begins to getshabby. Scarlet gives just the right touch of colour in a landscape.”

“Yes, but I think one would always rather that somebody else shouldgive the touch.”

[Pg 288]

“Mr. Sefton said yesterday that fair-haired women should wear scarlet.”

Sefton was Sophy’s great authority. He had been very polite to her,very pleasant, very confidential, talking to her about London societyas if she were to the manner born, and had been brought up in thevery midst of these people whom she saw to-day for the first time.This flattered her; indeed, his whole speech was made up of flattery,that subtle adulation which did not express itself in mere words, butwhich was indicated rather by a deference to her opinion, a quicknessin laughing at her little jokes, an acceptance of her as on his ownintellectual level. “You and I know better than the common herd,” wasexpressed in all his conversation with her.

When they met in the evening it was only natural she should tell himher sister’s plans for the next day, whether they were going to spendthe morning in the Park or at the picture-galleries. Sophy was eagerfor picture-seeing when there was nothing better to be done. Thosegalleries would give her so much to talk about at autumn tea-parties,such a superior air among women who thought they did a great deal forart when they fatigued themselves at the Royal Academy.

If they sat in the Park for an hour or so before luncheon Seftoncontrived to find them there—if they were picture-seeing he droppedinto the gallery, and criticized the pictures in technical phraseologywhich provided Sophy with a treasury of art talk especially adapted forcountry use. If they were at a theatre in the evening he was there too.Eve warned Sophy that he was only a philanderer.

“You remember how disagreeably attentive he was to me,” she said,reddening at the recollection, “and yet, you see, he never meantanything.”

“We were worse detrimentals then than we are now,” argued Sophy. “Yourmarriage has altered our position, and now that the father lives abroada man need not be afraid of marrying one of us. I don’t mean to saythat Mr. Sefton is going to make me an offer; but he is certainly veryattentive.”

“Yes, he is very attentive, I admit. He likes being attentive to girls.Nothing pleases him better than to try the effect of that musical voiceof his, and his nicely chosen phrases, upon any girl who will listen tohim—like Orpheus leading the brute beasts with his lyre. I doubt if hecares any more for the girls than Orpheus cared for the beasts. He isfalse for falsehood’s sake.”

“You are very bitter against him, Eve,” retorted Sophy. “Yet I dare sayyou would have married him if he had asked you.”

“I think not.”

[Pg 289]

“Oh, nonsense. You would not have refused to be mistress of the Manor.Merewood is a hovel in comparison.”

“Merewood has the man I love for master. If Jack had been thelodge-keeper I would have married him, and washed and cooked and mendedfor him, and opened the gate and curtsied to the gentry, and beenhappy.”

“Bosh!” said Sophy, very angry. “That’s the way girls talk when theyare first engaged. It sounds ridiculously sentimental from an oldmarried woman like you. You are absurdly prejudiced against Mr. Sefton.”

“Call it prejudice, if you like. I call it instinct. Birds areprejudiced against cats. I look upon Mr. Sefton as my natural enemy.”

“And I suppose, if he should call, you will be uncivil, and spoil mychances?”

“No, I will not spoil your chances—such as they are.”

“How disagreeably you say that. One would think you were jealous of anold admirer.”

“No, I am not jealous; only I don’t like to see you duped bymeaningless attentions. I have no doubt Mr. Sefton does admire you—Ionly fear his admiration is worthless—but I will do everything that asister can do to encourage him.”

After this conversation Eve was particularly polite to Mr. Sefton.Poor Sophy was so terribly in earnest in her desire to make a goodmarriage. The elder sister’s success had been so startling, so easy aconquest, so delightful a settlement in life, that it was natural theyounger sister should cherish hopes on her own account. People toldSophy that she was growing more and more like Eve. Hope’s flatteringtale told her that she was quite as pretty, while vanity suggested thatshe had more savoir faire. Poor Sophy had always prided herselfupon her savoir faire, though how a quality which is, as itwere, the final polish produced by society friction, could have beenacquired by a young lady in a cottage at Fernhurst, must needs remain amystery. Eve looked at her sister, and saw that she was prettier thanthe ruck of girls to be met in a London season. Her beauty had the dewyfreshness that comes of a rustic rearing; her eyes were brighter thanthe eyes of the hardened fashionable belle. Her complexion had thedelicacy of colouring which was characteristic of Colonel Marchant’sdaughters—which had been, alas! Peggy’s chief beauty.

Sophy, dressed as Eve had dressed her, and with her somewhat rebellioushair treated artistically by the skilful Benson, was certainly avery attractive young woman; and it seemed to Eve not impossiblethat Sefton, beginning the flirtation without any serious aim, mightend by asking Sophy to be his wife. He was entirely[Pg 290] his own master,could marry to please himself, without consideration of worldlyadvantage; only, unhappily, those are just the men who marry forself-aggrandizement rather than for simple inclination. It is not asif all heiresses were hideous or disagreeable, ignorant or underbred.Even England can furnish richly dowered young women who are bothhandsome and amiable; so why, asks the youthful peer or landowner,should I marry some portionless beauty, when I may as easily add tomy revenue or treble my acreage? The original possessor considers hisestate as the nucleus of a great property, which he and each successiveholder should increase by judicious alliances; until the rolling massswells into a territory like the duchy of Cleveland, and its acresare reckoned by thousands. Eve had heard the mothers and fathers talkof their sons’ views and duties, even if the sons themselves did notopenly avow their intention of marrying to better themselves.

The only hope in Sophy’s case lay in a certain eccentricity of temperin Wilfred Sefton which might show itself in a disadvantageousmarriage. The very fact that he had remained so long a bachelorindicated that he was not eager for a prize in the matrimonial market.He had been content to stand by and see many prizes carried off by menwho were personally and socially his inferiors.

He had been a frequent visitor in Charles Street since Sophy’s arrival.Her liveliness evidently pleased him; they were always talking andlaughing in corners wherever they met, and seemed to have worlds to sayto each other.

“It is delightful to meet any one so fresh as your sister at the endof the season,” he explained to Eve, “just when most of us are feelingdull and jaded, and almost ready to yawn in each other’s faces, like mylord and my lady in the ‘Marriage à la Mode.’”

He invited Mrs. Vansittart and her sister to a tea-party, given inhonour of Sophy, who had expressed an ardent desire to see the house inTite Street—the bachelor den which little Mr. Tivett had described toher in glowing colours. Eve hesitated about accepting the invitation,knowing that her husband disliked Sefton as much as she did herself;but the hesitation was overcome by Sophy’s arguments.

“He is giving the party on purpose for me,” she pleaded. “Theinvitation arose out of my wish to see his library, which Mr. Tivetthad been praising. He could not pay me a more marked attention, couldhe now?”

“It is certainly an attention,” assented Eve, distressed by Sophy’ssanguine hopes, so likely to end in disappointment.

“Don’t spoil all my chances by refusing,” urged Sophy. “He would beoffended—and men are so easily choked off.”

[Pg 291]

“Not a man who is really in earnest.”

“Perhaps not—but he may not be quite in earnest yet. He may not havemade up his mind. Of course I should be a very bad match. He cannotforget that all at once. There is a stage in which a man who isinclined to fall in love lets himself drift, don’t you know, Eve? Hemay be drifting—and it would be a pity to discourage him.”

Every woman is at heart a matchmaker. Eve yielded, and acceptedSefton’s invitation for five o’clock tea and a little music.

“Shall you have any singing?” she asked, with a sudden fear of meetingSignora Vivanti.

No—there would be no singing.

“I only asked the American banjo man to amuse you,” said Mr. Sefton.“He is a capital fellow, and he does the most wonderful things withhis banjo. He is a Paganini among banjoists. That, with the inevitablepiano, will be more than enough music.”

The afternoon, at the end of a brilliant July, was delightful, andthe Embankment, with its red-brick palaces and its little bit of oldChelsea, looked just the one perfect place in which to live; to livean idle, artistic life, bien intendu, and bask in sunshinereflected from blue water. The tide was at the flood, the gardens werefull of gaudy July flowers.

“How horrid Fernhurst will be after this!” sighed Sophy. “What a luckyman Mr. Sefton is to have a house in Tite Street, as well as the Manor!”

“Ah, but it is only a bachelor den, remember,” said Eve. “He will doaway with it when he marries.”

“Not if his wife has any sense—unless she makes him change it for alarger house facing the river.”

Mr. Sefton’s house was near the corner, and commanded a sidelong viewof the Thames from all the front windows, and a still better view froman oriel in the library, which projected so as to rake the street.Sophy thought this small house in Tite Street, with its rich and sombrefurniture and subdued colouring, one of the most enchanting houses shehad ever entered, second only to the Manor House, which she had seensome years before on the never-to-be-forgotten occasion of a PrimroseLeague garden-party given by Mr. Sefton in the interests of the cause.The Manor House and its splendours of art, its old gardens, and antiquefurniture, were the growth of centuries, and owed their existence toSeftons who were dust. This twelve-roomed house in Tite Street wasan emanation of the man himself. His temperament, his education, histastes were all embodied here. This was the pleasure dome which he hadbuilt for himself—this was his palace of art.

She went about peeping and peering at everything, escorted by[Pg 292] Mr.Tivett, who expatiated and explained to his heart’s content, pointingout the workmanship which made a mahogany table as precious as jasperor ivory; the artistic form of those high-backed chairs, copied from anold French model; the Gobelin tapestry, which had neither the glow norsheen of silken fabrics, and yet was six times as costly.

“This house of Sefton’s just serves to remind one of what a parvenu’shouse is not,” said little Tivett, sententiously.

Sophy looked at the titles of the books. How ignorant they made herfeel! There was hardly one that she had ever seen before; and yet nodoubt they were the very cream of classic and modern literature, not tohave read which stamped one as illiterate.

“I have been looking at your books,” she said, when Sefton came in withEve. “They are too lovely.”

“Rather nicely bound, aren’t they?” he said, smiling gently at herenthusiasm. “They are a somewhat scratch collection, not quite familyliterature; but those vellum bindings with the blue labels give a nicetone of colour against the prevailing brown.”

“That is so like Sefton,” said Mr. Tivett. “He values his books from anæsthetic standpoint. Thinks of the effect of their bindings, not of theliterature inside.”

“As one gets older reading becomes more and more impossible. There is asatisfaction in possessing books, but one’s chief pleasure is in theiroutsides. I sit here sometimes after midnight, smoking the pipe of thelotus-eater and looking at my bindings, and I feel as if that wereenough for culture.”

“I dare say that is quite the pleasantest way of enjoying a library,”said Mr. Tivett, as if he saw the matter in a new light.

“Of course it is. There’s no use in thinking of the lifetime it wouldneed to read all the great books. That way madness lies. De Quinceywent into the question once arithmetically, and to read his barestatement is distraction. I think it was that calculation of his whichfirst put me off reading.”

“Then your books are only ornaments?” said Sophy, disappointed.

“My books are a dado by Riviere and Zaehnsdorf. There are a great manyof them with the leaves unopened. I take out a volume now and then,and peep between the pages. One gets the best of a book that way—theflavour without the substance of the author. But I came to take youdown to tea, Miss Marchant. My banjoist has arrived, and Lady Hartleyand Mrs. Montford are doing all they can to spoil him.”

“Is Lady Hartley here? How nice!” exclaimed Sophy, to whom LadyHartley’s dress, manners, and way of thinking were a continual study.

Eve’s sister-in-law was Sophy’s ideal fine lady.

[Pg 293]

“Lady Hartley is always nice to me,” replied Sefton. “She never missesone of my afternoons if she is in town. She would sacrifice theMarlborough House garden-party for my tea and muffins.”

“Ah, but I dare say you contrive to make your tea-parties exceptional.This banjoist, now. Everybody is dying to hear him.”

They went down to tea, which was served in a little bit of a roomat the back of the dining-room, from which it was divided only bya curtain of old Italian tapestry; a mere alcove in which eight orten people made a mob. Flowers, ices, tea, chocolate, cakes, china,silver, damask embroidered by industrious Bavarians, everything wasthe choicest of its kind; and Mr. Sefton’s valet, with a footman anda smart parlour-maid, waited admirably. The squeeziness of the roommade the entertainment all the more enjoyable. The banjoist stood inthe centre of the crowd, talking in the true American style, withan incisive cleverness, and a clear metallic enunciation which madeeverybody else’s speech sound slipshod and slovenly.

People were amused and delighted. He told anecdotes, firing them offas fast as the crackers which demon boys explode on the pavement. Theadmiring circle forgot that his distinction was the banjo, and beganto accept him as a wit. Mrs. Montford asked him to lunch; Lady Hartleybooked him for her next cosy little dinner.

After tea they all trooped up the narrow staircase to the librarywhich had to serve Mr. Sefton for a drawing-room. More people droppedin—neighbours, most of them, including Mervyn Hawberk and hiswife—and the room filled before the banjoist began to play.

He played wonderfully, surprising the metallic instrument intomelodious utterances. He sang and accompanied himself; he played ina concertante duet for banjo and piano—a delightful arrangement ofthe serenade from Don Giovanni, in which the banjo was nowthe melody, and now the accompaniment; he played on his banjo witha bow, as if it had been a violin, and produced an effect which wasremarkable, although somewhat distressing. His banjo laughed; his banjocried; and with those wailing notes there stole over the senses of hisaudience a dream of weary Ethiopians resting from their labours amidstthe sunlit verdure beside some broad Virginian river.

Mr. Sefton’s visitors, who were chiefly feminine, flocked round theAmerican, praising and descanting upon his talent. Little Tivett wentabout explaining, after his wont. He talked as if he had invented thebanjoist.

“Did you really know him in America?” inquired Mrs. Montford, deludedby this little way of Mr. Tivett’s.

[Pg 294]

“No, no; I was never in America in my life; but I knew him when firsthe came to London, before people began to talk about him. I told himwhat a hit he was going to make.”

While Society was prostrating itself before a novel entertainer, Mr.Sefton and Sophy had drifted through the curtained archway to thelittle back room, which seemed, from its smallness, a kind of innertemple, where the treasures of the house might be found; as in thesmallest rooms in old Italian palaces one looks for the choicest gemsin the princely collection.

Sophy was talking and laughing with her host, radiant and happy. Thistea-party seemed to her full of meaning. It was assuredly given forher pleasure. Mr. Sefton had said so. She had expressed a curiosityabout his small house in Chelsea, and he had said instantly, “Youmust come and see it. I will ask some people to tea.” What more coulda man do for the woman he meant to marry? Sophy was intoxicated withthis delicate token of subjugation. She imagined herself looked at andtalked about as the future Mrs. Sefton. Unconsciously she gave herselfsome small airs of an affianced wife; chiding him; making little jokesat his expense; pretending to underrate his surroundings—the prettychildish graces and little pettish tricks which come naturally to theweaker sex before marriage, as if they were recompensing themselves inadvance for the iron heel under which they are to exist afterwards.

They sauntered into the inner room, brushing against the tapestrycurtains, and one glance at the sanctuary sent the blood to Sophy’scheeks in a hot, angry blush.

The most prominent position in the room was filled by an easel drapedwith orange and gold brocade, and on the easel appeared a full-lengthportrait of Signora Vivanti in her character of “Fanchonette.”

It was a bold sketch in water-colours, suggested by a photograph, butwith all the grace and power of a picture painted from the livingmodel. The painter had caught the fire and sparkle of the Italian face,the richness of colouring, the wealth of a somewhat vulgar beauty.The photographer had seized a happy moment of graceful abandon—not aphotographer’s pose.

She was half reclining in her chair, with averted shoulder, and lookingbackward out of the picture with a most provoking smile—Fanchonette’saudacious smile, which had taken the town by storm.

The velvet bodice set off the bust and shoulders in all their beauty,the blue and white striped petticoat was short enough to show thewell-shaped leg and large useful foot in scarlet stocking and neatbuckled shoe. A grisette’s little white muslin cap sat airily upon thesplendid coils of blue-black hair. Beauty of the plebeian type could gono further. Eyes, hair, complexion, figure, all were perfect;[Pg 295] and overand above all there was the charm of mutinous lip and flashing smile,a look that was bold without immodesty, the frank outlook of a natureunacquainted with guile.

Sefton watched Sophy’s face as she stared at the portrait, and herpinched lips, her sickly pallor, smote him with a sudden remorse.He had been fooling this rustic for his own purposes, making her aninstrument in his scheme of evil. He felt that he had gone too far.Poor simpleton! What had she done that he should give her pain? Eve hadslighted him; Eve’s husband had come between him and the woman who washis passion; but this simpering, chattering, giggling girl had donehim no wrong; and it was a base treachery to have deluded her withflattering speeches and meaningless attentions. However, the harm wasdone, done with deliberate purpose; and he had only to carry out hisplan to the end. He meant Sophy to be his means of communication withEve. He meant to reach the wife’s ear through the sister.

“I’ll make his life as miserable as he has made mine, if I can,” hesaid to himself.

Sophy stood before the portrait, dumb with misery. What did hemean—what could he mean by placing the singer’s portrait there, thecrowning gem of his luxurious rooms, a portrait which even her ignoranteye told her must be by the brush of a master, so bold and brilliantwas the handling? Even the easel, with its costly draping of orange andgold, was a work of art. What right had he to exhibit such a portrait;the portrait of an improper young woman, in all probability?

She felt sorry that she had accepted his invitation. She felt as if shehad been brought to a house which was hardly fit for her to enter. Andyet there were the Montfords and Lady Hartley chattering at their easein the next room; so it could hardly be “bad form” to come here.

“What do you think of the likeness?” asked Sefton, lolling against atall Versailles chair, and contemplating the brilliant face in thepicture with a smile.

“I suppose it is a very good likeness,” said Sophy, “but of a vulgarface—very handsome, no doubt; nobody can deny that—but quitepeuple.”

“Yes, it is peuple. That is one of its charms. It has allthe fire and freshness of an unsophisticated race, generations offishermen, sailors, gondoliers, all that there is of a frank free lifebetween sea and sky. You can’t get such beauty as that from a racereared indoors. It is an open-air loveliness, as rich in grace andcolouring as one of those sea-flowers that unfold their living petalsunder the clear bright water.”

“You admire her very much?” faltered Sophy.

[Pg 296]

“Yes, I admire her very much. You and I have got on so well together,Miss Marchant, that I feel I may talk to you with all the freedom offriendship—and confide in you as I have confided in no one else. Ido admire that woman, have admired her ever since she made her firstappearance at the Apollo. I began by liking to hear her sing, likingto watch her bright spontaneous acting, like the acting of a cleverchild in its naturalness. Even her beauty charmed me less than thatdelicious spontaneity which struck a new chord in the genius of thestage. I went night after night to see her and hear her, without fearof danger; and one day I awoke and found myself her slave. I love heras I never loved before—not even when I used to fancy myself in lovewith your charming sister. Against every other love, a selfish desireto retain my liberty, a vacillating temper, which made the desireof to-morrow unlike the desire of yesterday, have prevailed; butagainst the love I bear that woman,” pointing to the laughing face inthat picture, “reason has been powerless. Another man in my positionmight have tried to do what other men have been doing, ever since thefirst girl-Desdemona disgusted John Evelyn and began the long line ofactresses who have charmed the civilized world. Another man might havetried to win her by dishonourable means. I was not base enough forthat.”

Sophy crimsoned, remembering that dark story of the farmer’s daughter,which Nancy had related to her, that well-meaning woman not being overscrupulous in her communications to the ear of girlhood.

She waited silently, and Sefton went on, looking at the portrait, notat the woman to whom he was talking. An angry glow was on his cheek. Anangry light was in his eyes. The thought of the social sacrifice he hadbeen prepared to make and the futility of his offer lashed him to fury.

“I would not degrade her by a dishonourable proposal. No—though I knewshe was not spotless—though I knew her as the mother of a namelesschild. She was all the world to me, and what social considerationshould a man set against that which is his all of happiness or hope? Iasked her to be my wife, offered her my place in society, my passionatelove, a life’s devotion; and she refused me—refused me after more thana year of friendship, a friendship which had seemingly brought us verynear to each other.”

“She refused you?” exclaimed Sophy, beholding in one comprehensiveglance this charming house in Tite Street, the Manor, and all itsbelongings dead and alive, together with this remarkably handsome andagreeable man to whom these things belonged! “She refused you! Why,what a preposterous minx she must be!”

“Yes, that’s the word, Miss Marchant. It seems preposterous, doesn’tit, that a Venetian peasant, with only her voice and good looks—and[Pg 297]the hazardous fortunes of an opera singer—should refuse an Englishgentleman with a handsome rent-roll. But the thing is true all thesame. She refused me. Can you guess why?”

“I can only imagine that she is a brainless idiot,” said Sophy, feelingthat she might be tempted to take out her bonnet pin and run it intothat vivid face, if it were not for the glass which protected thepicture.

She was too angry with Signora Vivanti for having won Mr. Sefton’saffections to be grateful to her for having refused his hand.

“There is always a reason for everything,” said Sefton, after abackward glance at the other room, which showed him that there was noone near enough or unoccupied enough to overhear or observe him; thebanjoist being still the centre of attraction, and everybody groupedabout him in the neighbourhood of the piano. “There is always a reasonif one will only look for it. Signora Vivanti refused me because shewas in love with another man, the man she knew and loved in Venice,the man who brought her to London and established her in the house sheoccupies, and had her trained for the stage. Forgive me, Miss Marchant,if I go a step further and say the man who is the father of her son!”

Sophy drew herself up with an offended air, and flashed an angry lookat him.

“You have no right to talk to me in this way, Mr. Sefton. I don’tunderstand why you should select me for your confidante,” she saidicily, moving towards the next room.

“Pray forgive me. You are clever and sympathetic. I have no sister, andin certain crises of life a man feels the need of a woman’s sympathy.And then there were other reasons; or at least there was anotherreason.”

He stopped, embarrassed, looking at her with a curious hesitation;looking from her to the group by the piano, where Eve’s face shone outamong the rest, smiling at the American’s last ebullition.

“You are hinting at something dreadful,” Sophy said, with a scaredlook. “Do you mean that the man is—is some one I know?”

“Don’t tell her, Miss Marchant. I would not for worlds have herknow. It would do no good. It might make her miserable. Women are sosensitive, even about the past, and I fear this affair is going on inthe present.”

“Don’t tell her!” echoed Sophy. “You mean my sister! And the manis—Jack! Oh, what a wretch he must be!”

“Weak rather than wicked, perhaps. Don’t be too hard upon him in yourinnocence of life. When a man has forged fetters of that kind it ain’teasy to break them.”

“A man so fettered has no right to marry. It would break her heart ifshe knew.”

[Pg 298]

“She need not know. You won’t tell her; and you may be sure I shan’t.But you are a girl with strong sense; and you love your sister. Ithought it only right that you should know.”

“You may be mistaken.”

“Hardly likely. It is an open secret that he established her inlodgings and paid for her education. And over and above that evidencethere is the fact that he still visits her. I met him leaving her roomsonly a few days ago.”

“The wretch! The hypocrite! He seems to idolize Eve!”

“And your sister is happy in that idolatry. For pity’s sake, MissMarchant, don’t let her see the seamy side of a husband’s character.”

Eve came towards the archway at this moment.

“You have lost ever so many amusing stories,” she said to Sophy. “Yourbanjoist is the most entertaining person I have met this season,Mr. Sefton, and he has made us all oblivious of time. I have justdiscovered that it is ever so much past six.”

“‘Ever so much’ meaning a quarter of an hour,” retorted Sefton,laughing.

He dropped a fold of the brocade drapery as Eve drew near, and theportrait was hidden before her face appeared in the curtained arch.

He looked at her, trying to recall his feelings of a time gone by, whenhe had been—or had fancied himself—in love with her. Oh, what a weak,hesitating love that had been, as measured against his devotion to thisscum of the lagunes—this gutter-bred minx who had scorned him!

“A preposterous minx!” he repeated to himself by-and-by, when he wasalone. “I thank thee, child, for teaching me that word. Well, I havesown the wind; I wonder whether I shall have a prosperous harvest, andreap the whirlwind?”

CHAPTER XXVII.

“THOU MAYST BE FALSE AND YET I KNOW IT NOT.”

Before addressing his confidences to Sophy Marchant, Mr. Sefton hadassured himself that she did not belong to that exceptional order ofwomankind who, in honour and discretion, are on a level with wise andhonourable men. He had known the young lady quite long enough to knowthat, although sharp and clever, she was shallow-brained, impulsive,and emotional. He was very sure that with every desire to spare hersister pain she would end by telling Eve of her husband’s infidelity.The secret would be kept for some days, perhaps, or even for someweeks; but it would be as a consuming fire, and would ultimately burstinto flame—a flame that would devastate his rival’s home.

[Pg 299]

The more scathing that whirlwind which was to come from the wind ofhis sowing, the happier the result for Sefton. It was in vain thatLisa had denied her son’s paternity. In Sefton’s mind there wasno shadow of doubt that Vansittart had been, and even now was herlover—and it was for love of Vansittart that his, Sefton’s, honourableattachment had been scorned by her. King Cophetua had offered himselfto the beggar-maid, and the beggar-maid had refused him. Was that ahumiliation for a man to forgive? Was that a disappointment to gounavenged? All the latent malignity of Sefton’s nature was aroused intoactive life by that fierce passion of jealousy.

He had not misinterpreted Sophy’s character. She was very silent duringthe homeward drive with her sister, lolling back in the victoria,looking vacantly at the carriages and the people as they passed.

“How tired you look, Sophy!” Eve said, as they crossed the path, wherethe carriages and riders and loungers had dwindled considerably withinthe past week. “I fancy even you begin to feel you have had enough ofgadding about?”

“Yes, I have had enough, more than enough,” Sophy answered, with alittle choking sob.

She could no more suppress her own feelings, bear her own troubles, andbe dumb, than a child can. It was quite as much as she could do to keepherself from crying, in the broad light of summer evening and Hyde Park.

“My poor Sophy, what has happened to distress you?” Eve askedaffectionately. “You and Mr. Sefton had such a long confabulation inthat inner room. I really thought the crisis had come.”

“There was no crisis; there never will be. You were right. He was onlyfooling me. All his fine speeches, his sentimental talk—his way ofholding one’s hand as if he would like to squeeze it, and was onlyprevented by his deep respect for one—he did squeeze it at thecarriage door that night when we stayed so late at Mrs. Macpherson’sdance—it all meant nothing—less than nothing.”

“But how do you know, Sophy?” Eve asked earnestly. “He can’t have toldyou that he doesn’t care for you?”

“No; but he can have told me that he is in love with another woman—alow-born, ignorant creature, who can do nothing but sing and strutabout the stage in the boldest, horridest way, showing her lacepetticoats and her legs,” said Sophy, disgustedly, forgetting how shehad admired Signora Vivanti.

“Do you mean the singer at the Apollo?” asked Eve.

“Yes, Signora Vivanti. He is in love with her, if you please, and shehas refused him.”

Eve remembered her husband’s explanation of Lisa’s letter.

[Pg 300]

“He told you this—chose you for his confidante. How odd!”

“Rather bad form, wasn’t it? I fear I had been too—what young Theobaldcalls—coming on. I thought he liked me, and I encouraged him, and herewards me by confiding his attachment to that creature.”

“And she has refused to marry him. Why?” asked Eve, very pale.

“Who knows? Mere airs and graces, I dare say. She thinks she has allLondon at her feet, and that she can pick and choose. How I wish I wereon the stage! I can sing pretty well, can’t I, Eve? And I have oftenbeen told that I am like Ellen Terry.”

In her angry excitement, Sophy saw a vision of herself as the queen ofa theatre, all the town rushing to see her act, as they went to seethis Venetian peasant. Surely a young lady with good blood in her veinsmust be better than a girl bred in a hovel. Sophy did not pause toconsider that it was the rough freshness, the primitive vigour of thepeasant which constituted Signora Vivanti’s chief claim to notice.

Sophy had exercised no small amount of self-control in restrainingher tears during the homeward drive; but once safe in the sanctuaryof her bedroom she let loose the flood of her emotions, with itscross-currents of anger and sorrow, disappointed ambition, anddisappointed love. Yes, love. Considering Mr. Sefton, in the firstinstance, only from the social point of view, with the mercenaryfeelings engendered by a youth of poverty, she had allowed herself tobe beguiled by his attentions, and had entered at the golden gate ofthat fool’s paradise which first love creates for its victim—a worldof fevered dreams, where nothing is but what is not. Walking in theenchanted groves of that paradise, she had seen Wilfred Sefton in thelight that never was on land or sea—the light that beautifies allwaking dreams—and she had interpreted every speech of his after herown fashion. Words lightly spoken took the deepest meaning—not hismeaning, but hers. She told herself again and again that, if he had notactually asked her to be his wife, he had spoken words which a man onlyspeaks to the woman whose life is to be interwoven with his own.

Eve came to her sister’s door and insisted upon being admitted.

“Oh, what streaming eyes! Sophy, dearest, I am so sorry you haveallowed yourself to care for him. I warned you, dear; I warned you.”

“Yes,” retorted Sophy, irritated beyond measure at a form of speechwhich is always irritating, “but you didn’t warn me of anything likethe truth. You didn’t tell me that he was passionately, ridiculously,degradingly in love with that Venetian girl.”

“My dearest, how could I warn you of what I did not know?”

“Don’t dearest me. I am almost out of my mind—indeed, I should not besurprised if I were to have brain fever, or something. When I rememberhow I have lowered myself—letting him see that I cared for him; for Ihave no doubt he did see, and that was why he made[Pg 301] me his confidantethis afternoon, and told me about that creature—a woman with anameless son. Do you think I can ever get over the degradation of beingtalked to about such a subject?”

Eve did not answer. She sank down upon the sofa, while her sister stoodbefore the looking-glass, frowning at her tear-stained face as sheunbuttoned the bodice of her gown, that gown which she made a point ofcalling her “frock.”

Her nameless son. Eve remembered the boy in the boat, the Murillo-facedboy, looking up with big wondering eyes as his mother and Vansittartclasped hands. Her nameless son. She remembered that curious speech ofVansittart’s a week ago—“Yes, it was at Venice we met. That is thefirst half of the riddle.” What was the second half? The parentage ofthat boy, perhaps. His son—his son—another woman’s and his. And she,his adoring wife, had no son to place in his arms, no child to gratifythe well-born man’s desire to see his race prolonged.

“If I live to be an old woman he may die without an heir,” she thought.“There may be no more Vansittarts of Merewood. Hannah’s husband did nothate her because she was childless—but then he had other wives.”

She pictured her husband loving that alien’s son, making him his heirperhaps by-and-by, desiring to bring him into his home, asking her toreceive Hagar’s child, to let him call her mother. She had heard ofsuch things being done.

“No, no, no, not for worlds,” she protested to herself. “I could not doit.”

She got up and walked about the room, while Sophy bathed her eyes, andtried to undo the damages her emotions had inflicted on her delicateprettiness.

“I can’t go to the party looking like this,” exclaimed Sophy, ruefullycontemplating her swollen eyelids in the glass.

“We need not go till half-past ten. Eleven o’clock would be earlyenough. There is time for you to get back your good looks. Benson shallbring you a light little dinner, and then you had better lie down andtake a long nap.”

“Do you think I can eat or sleep in my state of mind?” protested Sophy;but a quarter of an hour later, when Benson appeared with an appetizingmeal, the victim of misplaced affection found that violent emotions arenot incompatible with hunger.

She eat her dinner, cried a little now and then between whiles, andat half-past ten went down to the drawing-room in her most attractivefrock, and with her light fluffy hair piled as high as she could pileit, and sparkling with those dainty paste stars which Eve had sportedat the memorable hunt ball.

“Sophy,” cried Vansittart, “I vow you look almost as pretty as[Pg 302] Evelooked that night in the snow. And what do I see? Surely I know thosequivering starlets! You are wearing the family diamonds.”

Sophy rewarded him with a most ungracious scowl, and moved to the otherside of the room. Vansittart was looking at an evening paper, and wasserenely unconscious of the change in his sister-in-law’s manner; butEve saw that angry glance and movement of avoidance, and wondered whatcould have caused such rudeness. Temper, perhaps; only poor Sophy’spetulant temper, which had never been discriminating in its outbursts.

This was Sophy’s way of keeping a secret. Her visit to Charles Streetended two days later. She was studiously uncivil to her host up tothe hour of her departure; and in her farewell talk with her sister,being closely questioned by Eve as to the reason of this change in hermanner, she prevaricated, hesitated, said things and unsaid them; andfinally, in a flood of compassionate tears, she protested that it wasonly on Eve’s account she was angry with Eve’s husband. Mr. Sefton hadtold her that Vansittart still visited that odious woman. Mr. Seftonhad met him leaving her house only a few days previously; and Mr.Sefton had assured her that it was he, Eve’s husband, who had broughtSignora Vivanti to London, and paid for her musical education.

“Can you wonder that I am angry with him, Eve, loving you as I do?You have been so good to me, so generous. It would be wicked of meto go away without warning you. I hated the idea of telling you. Ihave thought over it again and again. I promised Mr. Sefton that Iwould tell you nothing; but I could not bear the idea of your beinghoodwinked by an unfaithful husband. It was right to tell you, wasn’tit, dear? It is better for you to know the truth, is it not?”

“Yes, yes, it is better for me to know,” Eve answered, in a hard, coldvoice.

“How quietly she takes it!” thought Sophy, as the footman announced thecarriage.

Benson had gone on with Sophy’s luggage in a four-wheel cab; twice asmuch luggage as Sophy had brought from Fernhurst.

“I shall never forget your kindness to me,” said Sophy, with herparting kiss.

“And I shall never forget your visit,” answered Eve.

Eve was not at home at luncheon time, so Vansittart went off to hisclub, and only returned to Charles Street at Eve’s usual hour forafternoon tea, when he was told that Mrs. Vansittart had gone out atthree o’clock, and had left a note for him in the study.

The note was a letter.

[Pg 303]

“I am taking a step which will no doubt make you angry,” Eve began,“but I cannot help myself. I cannot go on living as we are living now.Every hour of my life increases my misery. I have been told that youvisit that woman—that woman who is the cause of all my unhappiness. Ihave been told that it is you who brought her to London, and had hereducated for the stage; that her child is your child. I ought to haveknown all this without being told; but I shut my eyes to the truth. Iwanted so to believe in you. I clung so desperately to that which makesthe happiness of my life. You accuse me of unreasoning jealousy; butcould any wife help being jealous, seeing what I have seen, hearingwhat I hear? That woman’s face and manner spoke volumes. I tried toaccept your explanation—tried to believe you. I had even begun tofeel happy again, when I learnt this hateful fact of your visit to herhouse. I cannot believe that you would have gone there, knowing myfeelings on the subject, if this love of the past had not been more toyou than your love for me, your wife. There is but one thing for me todo, only one thing which can set my mind at rest, or make me wretchedfor ever; and that is to see this woman, and hear her story from herown lips. I have no fear that I shall fail in getting at the truth whenshe and I are face to face. Woman against woman, wife against mistress,I know who will be the stronger.

“If I have wronged you, my beloved, your wife in penitent love. If youhave wronged me, your wife no longer—Eve.”

A pleasant letter to greet a husband on his home-coming.

“Woman against woman, face to face, those two!” thought Vansittart.“She will discover—not that which she fears to discover, but a darkersecret—and then it will be as she has said, my wife no longer.”

He stood with his finger on the button of the bell till a servant came.

“A hansom instantly, but be sure you get a good horse,” he said, andwent into the hall to wait for the man’s return.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN THE BLUE CHAMBER.

Eve had learnt Madame Vivanti’s address from Lady Hartley the day afterthe singer’s appearance in Hill Street. So her letter to her husbandwritten, and her mind made up, she had only to drive to Don Saltero’sMansion, and to make her way to that upper floor in which the singerhad her bower. The door was opened by Fiordelisa herself, who gavea little look of surprise at seeing her[Pg 304] visitor, and then stood inmute wonder, waiting for Eve to speak, smiling faintly, and evidentlyembarrassed.

She wore her accustomed black stuff gown, with a yellow silkhandkerchief knotted carelessly on her breast. The boy was hanging onto her gown, and peeping shyly at the strange lady, so pure and freshlooking in her soft grey silk, and dainty grey hat with pale pinkroses. Lisa noted her rival’s toilette in all its details, the longloose grey gloves, the grey parasol.

For a minute or so the two women stood thus, looking at each other insilence. Then, with an effort, Eve spoke.

“Are you alone, Madame Vivanti?”

“Alone, all but Paolo, and I don’t suppose you count him anybody,Eccellenza. La Zia has gone to London.”

“I have come to talk to you—about my husband.”

Lisa flushed crimson.

“Please take the trouble to sit down, Eccellenza,” she said politely,placing her prettiest armchair in front of the open window.

There were flowers in the balcony, a bed of marigolds, a flower whichla Zia had discovered to be decorative and cheap. For perfume therewere stocks and mignonette. The balcony was wide enough to hold plentyof flowers, and a couple of basket chairs in which Lisa and her auntsat for many idle hours in fine weather, breathing the cool breezesfrom the river, and submitting to the blacks. They thought of theirattic window in the Campo, and the life and movement in the pavedsquare below, the passing and repassing of the light-hearted crowdto and fro on the Rialto, the twanging of a guitar now and then, thetinkling of wiry mandolines, the nasal tones of a street-singer. Herethey had a wider horizon, but a murkier sky, and not that concentrationof gaiety which makes every campo in Venice a busy little world,self-contained and self-sufficing. Eve looked round the room, notingthe pretty furniture, obviously chosen by a person of taste; the openpiano; the glimpse of a somewhat untidy bedroom through a door ajar.Her husband had chosen the furniture, Eve told herself. He had builtthis nest for his singing-bird.

“I am looking at your rooms,” she said, with pale lips; “the rooms myhusband furnished for you.”

Lisa had not even the grace to attempt a denial.

“He was very good, very generous,” she faltered, her eyes suffused withtears, those tears which came so readily to Lisa’s eyes, on the stageor off. “There never was any one so good as he.”

“He owed you at least as much as that,” said Eve, sternly. “It was theleast he could do.”

“Ah, he has told you then,” cried Lisa, eagerly; “he has told you hissecret.”

[Pg 305]

“No, he has not told me. He was too much ashamed to tell me of anythingso infamous. He is not shameless like you,” said Eve, trembling withindignant feeling.

It was all true then, all that Sefton had told her sister; all thather own jealous fears had suggested. This woman stood before her,unabashed, ready to expatiate upon her sin.

“He has told me nothing,” she said, “or if he has spoken of you it hasonly been to deceive me. But there are some things that are easy toguess, when a woman has lived in the world as I have, and has heardother women talk. Two years ago perhaps I might have been fooled by hisfalsehoods; but I am wiser now. I knew from the first that you had beenhis mistress; that he was the father of that boy.”

She pointed to the unconscious Paolo, sprawling on the floor, turningthe leaves of a picture-book, and doing his utmost to destroy anindestructible “Jack the Giant Killer,” printed on stout linen.

“You knew what was not true, then,” said Lisa, drawing herself up, withcrimson cheeks and flaming eyes. “You pretend to know that which isfalse, false, una bugia indegna. He was never anything to me buta friend, my generous and noble friend. He hired this apartment for us,for la Zia and me, and he furnished these rooms, and he bought me thatpiano, and he paid the good Zinco to teach me to sing. E vero! Iowe him my fortune, and all I have in the world. I would walk barefootall over this earth if I could make him happier by my toil. There isnothing in this world I would not do for him.”

“And you ask me to believe that he did all this for friendship—merefriendship—he, an English gentleman, for an Italian peasant?”

“I don’t ask you to believe anything, and I don’t care what youbelieve. He is all the world to me. You are nothing—less thannothing!” cried Lisa, passionately. “I hate you. If it had not been foryou he would have married me, perhaps. Who knows?”

“You think he would have married you! And yet he was only your friend,you say.”

“He was only my friend.”

“He brought you and your aunt from Italy and set you up in London; andyet he was only your friend.”

“He did not bring us from Italy. We came to London of our own accord.He was only my friend. He was never any more than my friend. If he hadbeen I would not disown him. I love him too well to be ashamed.”

“You own that you love him?”

“Yes, I am not ashamed of my love. There are people somewhere whoworship the sun. I am no more ashamed than they are. I told him of mylove on my knees in this room, where you are[Pg 306] sitting. I knelt at hisfeet and asked him to give me heart for heart. I thought then that hewould hardly have been so kind unless he loved me. But he told me thathe loved an English girl, and that she was to be his wife. There was nohope for me. I wanted to kill myself, but he stopped me with his strongarms. Yes, for just one moment I was in his arms! Only one moment, andthen he flung me from him as if I were dirt.”

“He must have been very chivalrous to do so much for friendship,” saidEve, shaken, but not convinced.

The woman spoke with the accents of truth; but Eve remembered that shewas an actress, trained in the art of simulated passion. No doubt itwas easy for an actress to lie like truth.

“He wanted to help us,” protested Lisa; “he blamed himself so muchfor——”

She stopped, coloured, and then grew pale. It was evident to her nowthat Vansittart’s wife had been told nothing, and she, Lisa, had beenon the point of betraying him.

“For what? Why did he blame himself?”

“Did I say ‘blame’? I use wrong words sometimes,” she said, quick torecover herself. “I hardly know your language. He pitied us: that iswhat I meant to say. He pitied us because we were alone and poor—twohelpless women.”

“And the father of your child, where was he?” Eve asked sternly, onlyhalf convinced. “Why did not he help you?”

Paolo had grown tired of his book, and had gone back to his mother’sknee. He stood half hidden in Lisa’s gown, looking earnestly at thestranger, his infantile mind puzzled at the tone and manner of thetwo women, feeling dimly that there was a tempest in the atmosphere,feeling it as the birds feel when they twitter apprehensively beforethe coming of the thunder. Inquisitive as well as alarmed, and bold inhis wonder, he went over to Eve, and took hold of her gown, and lookedup in her face.

She looked down at him, and it was her turn to wonder.

Of whom did the face remind her? He was like his mother; but it wasnot her face he recalled to Eve. Nor was it Vansittart’s face, thoughshe tried, shrinkingly, to trace a resemblance there, looking forsomething she hoped not to see. No, the face recalled some other face,and the likeness, faint and indefinable as it was, thrilled her with atremulous awe, as if she had seen a ghost.

“You had a claim upon this child’s father,” said Eve, her hand lightlytouching the boy’s head, and then shrinking away as from pollution;“the strongest possible claim, for he ought to have been your husband.Why did not he help you?”

“Because he was in his grave,” said Lisa; and again the ready tearsgushed out.

[Pg 307]

There was a pause, and then Eve spoke in a gentler tone.

“That was hard for you,” she said, with a touch of pity.

“Yes, it was hard. He had promised to marry me. I think he wouldhave married me, for Paolo’s sake. My baby was not born tillafterwards—after his father’s death.”

“Poor creature! All that was very sad. Was my husband—was Mr.Vansittart a friend of the man who died? Was it for his friend’s sakehe was so kind to you?”

“No, he was not a friend. It was for my sake, and la Zia’s, that he waskind. I tell you again, he pitied us.”

Eve sank into a chair, drooping, miserable. Even yet she could notbelieve in this story of Vansittart’s chivalrous kindness to twoforeign waifs who had no claim upon his friendship, not even theclaim of country. She knew him to be benevolent, generous, full ofcompassion for all suffering of man or beast; but there was nothingQuixotic in his benevolence. That which he had done for Lisa was toomuch to be expected of any man who was not a millionaire or a musicalfanatic. He could not have done so much without a strong motive. Andthen once again she reminded herself that Lisa was an actress, to whomall falsehoods and simulations must be easy. She started to her feet;indignant with this woman for deceiving her; angry with herself forbeing so easily duped.

“I don’t believe a word you have told me,” she cried. “I believe thatMr. Vansittart was your lover; my husband, John Vansittart, and noother; and when he came here the other day you had lured him back toyour net.”

“You don’t believe—you don’t believe in Paolo’s dead father? Don’tcry, Carissimo; she is a cruel woman, but she shan’t hurt you.” Theboy had begun to whimper, scared by the angry voices. “I will make youbelieve. I will show you his likeness—the likeness I have never shownto any one else. It is a bad one; it does not make him half handsomeenough. He was handsome; he had hair as light as yours, only redder,and he was very fair—a true Englishman. He was not as handsome as yourhusband—no, there is no one else like him. Shall I show you hispicture? Will you believe me then?”

She did not wait for an answer, but ran into the adjoining room, pulleda heavy, iron-clamped box from under the bed—the box which containedher jewels—unlocked it, and came running back with a photograph in herhand.

“Ecco, Signora. It was taken at Burano, by a man who came from Veniceone summer morning, and photographed the church, and the street, andthe bridge, and as many of the people as would pay him a few soldi fora likeness. I have kept it hidden away since he died. It hurt me tolook at it, remembering his end. But[Pg 308] there!”—pushing the photographin front of Eve’s gloomy, distrustful countenance—“look at it to yourheart’s content, Signora. That man was the father of my child! Believe,or not believe, as you please.”

Eve glanced with a careless contempt at the faded sun-picture—a badphotograph, which time had made worse—the blurred image of a facewhich, as her widening gaze fastened upon it, flashed back all thepicture of her childhood upon the mirror of her memory.

“Oh, God!” she cried. “My brother Harold!”

The door opened as she spoke, and looking up she saw her husbandstanding on the threshold.

She appealed to him hopelessly in her bewilderment.

“Did you know?” she asked. “Was it for my sake you were kind to her?Was that the link between you?”

“No, Fatima,” he answered sternly. “My Blue Chamber holds a ghastliersecret than that. I was kind to her because I killed her lover. Are yousatisfied now? You wanted to know the worst. You would not be content.We were united, happy, adoring each other; the happiest husbandand wife in all London, perhaps; but you would not be satisfied. Ientreated you to trust me. I assured you, with every asseveration a mancould make, that I was true to you. But you would not believe. You werelike your first namesake; you lent your ear to the hiss of the snake.You were jealous by a woman’s instinct, and you let Sefton feed yourjealousy. Well, you are content now, perhaps. You have his picture inyour hand—the picture of the man I killed.”

“You killed him? You?”

“It sounds like madness, doesn’t it, but it’s true all the same. Avulgar incident enough—nothing romantic about the story. The man whoselikeness you hold, and whom you recognize as your brother—that manand I met as strangers in a Venetian caffè, in Carnival time. Thisyoung woman here and her aunt were with me—the chance acquaintanceof the afternoon. We had known each other only a few hours, had we,Fiordelisa? You did not even know my name.”

“Only a few hours,” nodded Lisa.

“He had been on a journey, and had been drinking. He came on usunawares; and he chose to take offence because Lisa and her aunt and Iwere sitting at the same table. He was easily jealous—as you are. Itruns in the family, perhaps. He assaulted me brutally, and I fought himalmost as brutally. It would have all ended harmlessly enough with arough mauling of each other—perhaps a black eye, or a broken nose—butas Fate would have it I had a dagger ready to my hand—and exasperatedat a little extra brutality on his part I stabbed him. Luck was againstus both.[Pg 309] That casual thrust of a dagger might have resulted in aslight flesh wound. It killed him.”

“And you let me love you—you let me be your wife—knowing that you hadmurdered my brother,” said Eve, trembling in every limb, white as death.

“No, Eve. It was not murder. It is the intention that makes the crime.He was unarmed, drunk. I ought to have spared him, I suppose—but hefell upon me like a tiger. It was brute force against brute force. Theknife was an unlucky accident.”

“He had just bought it in the Procuratie,” explained Lisa; “he had nothought of killing him. You do not know how violent the Englishmancould be. He was cruel to me sometimes—he struck me many times when hewas angry.”

“You take the part of the murderer against the murdered—though thisman would have married you, would have made you an honest woman.”

“He had promised,” said Lisa, doubtfully.

Eve put the photograph to her white lips and kissed it passionately,again, and again, and again.

“Oh, Harold,” she said, “to have hoped so long for your return, to haveprayed so many useless prayers! You were dead—dead before that childwas born.”

She looked at the boy, reckoning the years by the child’s growth. Fouryears, at least, she told herself.

“And you dared to make me your wife, to let me love you with a lovethat was almost idolatry,” she cried, turning upon Vansittart withdilated eyes, “knowing that you had killed my brother. You heard metalk of him—you pretended to sympathize with me—and you knew that youhad killed him.”

“I did not know. There was no such thing as certainty. When I askedyou to be my wife I knew nothing of your brother’s fate. Afterwards,when we were engaged, the idea was suggested to me by your officiousfriend Sefton—who wanted to put a stumbling-block in the way of ourmarriage. He succeeded in tracing your brother to Venice, and he readthe story after his own lights. He thought Harold Marchant was the manwho struck the fatal blow. He did not take him for the victim. But thelinks in his chain of evidence were not over strong—and I had amplejustification for not accepting his assertions as certainties. And youloved me, did you not; and our marriage was likely to make your lifefairer and brighter, was it not?”

“What of that? Do you think I should have weighed my own love or my ownhappiness against my brother’s life? Do you think I would have marriedyou if I had known the truth?”

“You would not, perhaps; and two lives would have been spoilt[Pg 310] by yourloyalty to the dead—who would sleep none the more peacefully becauseyou and I were miserable. Did you owe him so much, this wanderingbrother of yours? What kindness had he ever shown you? What care had heever taken of you?”

“He was my brother, and I loved him dearly.”

“And did not I love you, and had not I some claim upon you?” askedVansittart, indignantly. “Could you have let me go without a tear?”

“No, no, no. I adored you from the first—yes, that first night on thesnowy road, and at the ball, when you were so kind. I began to love youalmost at once, foolishly, ridiculously, without a hope of being lovedagain. But, let my love be what it would, the love of a lifetime, itwould have made no difference. Nothing would have induced me to marrythe man who killed my brother. Oh, God,” she cried hysterically, “thehands that I have kissed so often—stained with Harold’s life-blood!”

“I thought as much,” said Vansittart, doggedly. “I told myself thatyou would not marry me if you knew my secret. I told myself that twolives would be spoilt—it was a question, perhaps, of half a centuryof happiness for two people, to be sacrificed because of the angrypassions of one night—of one minute. The deed was done in less timethan the bronze giants of the clock-tower would have taken to strikethe hour. Because once in my life, for one instant, under grossestprovocation, I let my temper master me—because of that one savageimpulse two hearts were to be broken. I spent a night of agonydeliberating this question, Eve. Mark you, it was within a few weeks ofour wedding-day that your kindred with the dead man was first suggestedto me.”

“You knew that you had killed a fellow-creature?”

“Yes, I knew, and I had suffered all the bitterness of a long remorse;and I had given myself absolution. And when I knew the worst, knew atleast the probability that I had killed your brother, even then, aftermost earnest questioning, I told myself that it was best for both ofus that we should marry. Our lives were our own. Neither of us wasresponsible to that dead man in his grave. But now, now that I see howdear he was to you, now that I know which way your heart turns, I wishto God that he had killed me, and that I were lying where he lies,among that quiet company by the lagune.”

They were alone together, Lisa having slipped away, taking the boy withher, when she found the revelation inevitable. Let them fight it out,these two; and if this Englishwoman loved her dead brother better thanher living husband, and chose to desert that noble husband, and thusshow of what poor stuff she was made, there was Lisa who adored him,who would follow him through the[Pg 311] world, if he would let her, withfidelity that neither time nor trouble could change.

Eve stood for a few moments mutely looking at the blurred photograph,the wretched production of an itinerant photographer’s camera, in whichone hand was out of focus, jointless, fingerless, monstrous. Poor asthe image was, it brought back the days of her childhood as vividly asif it had been the finest work of art that Venice, in her golden ageof Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese, could have produced. How well sheremembered him! How dearly she had loved him! His holidays had been aseason of boisterous gladness, his return to school or university atime of mourning. He had given interest and delight to all her childishamusem*nts. He had taught her to ride. He had taught her to shoot withan air-gun, which was one of his choicest possessions. He had taughther to serve at tennis, to play billiards on the worn-out table, wherethe balls rattled against the cushions as on cast iron. He had doneall these things in a casual way, never sacrificing any inclination orengagement of his own to her pleasure—but in after days, when he hadvanished out of her life, she knew not whither, it seemed to her thathe had been the kindest and most unselfish of brothers. And he wasdead, had been dead for years, cut off in the prime of his manhood bya remorseless hand. He was dead, and the man who had slain him stoodbefore her, undaunted, impenitent—her husband.

And the boy whose treble voice sounded now and again from the nextroom—the child from whose lightest contact she had shrank with jealousabhorrence—that child was of her kindred, no matter how basely born.He was all that was left to her of the brother she had loved, and itwas not for her to shrink from him.

CHAPTER XXIX.

“’TIS NOT THE SAME NOW, NEVER MORE CAN BE.”

Vansittart was the first to break that agony of silence.

“Does this mean the end of love?” he asked. “Is all over and done withbetween you and me? Is love only a dream that we have dreamed?”

“Yes; it is a dream,” she answered, looking at him with tearless eyes,which had more misery in them than all the tears he had ever seen inthe eyes of women. “It is something perhaps to have believed one’s selfhappy for two blessed years. You have been so good to me—so good topoor Peggy. She loved you almost as much as I did. You have been allgoodness,—and you did not know that he was my brother. Yet, yet, whenyou killed him you must have[Pg 312] known that some heart would be broken.No, I can never forget how good you have been—or how dear. Don’t thinkthat I can change in an hour from love to hate. No, no; that cannot be.To my dying day I must love you—but I cannot live with the man whokilled my brother. I can never be your wife again. That is all over. Wemust be strangers on this side of the grave.”

“A hard sentence, Eve; it could not be harder if I were a deliberatemurderer. And yet perhaps it is no more than I deserve—perhaps eventhe gallows would be no more than my desert——”

“The gallows! Oh, God, could they kill you because——?”

The words died in her throat, choked by the agony of a great fear.

“But no one knows—no one will ever know,” she cried. “She will nevertell”—pointing to the door. “She loves you too dearly.”

“No, she will not tell.”

“Is there any one else who knows?”

“Only her aunt, who may be trusted. No, I don’t think I am in anydanger from the law,” he said carelessly, as if that hardly mattered.“But you—you are my supreme judge; and you look upon me as a murderer.Well, perhaps you are right. Let me sophisticate with myself as I will,in that one moment I was in mind and instinct a homicide. When I struckthat blow I did not care about consequences. All the savage impulseswithin me were raging. Yes, I was a murderer. And you say that we mustpart! That is your sentence?”

She nodded yes.

“Very well; then I must do all I can to make our parting easy andreputable. The world will wonder and talk, but we must bear that. Ithink I know a way of lessening the scandal. You will live at Merewood,and I will travel. That will make things easy.”

“Live at Merewood without you! Not for all the world. I can go backto Fernhurst to my sisters. What does it matter where I live? Theworst is that I must live. You will let me give them some of mypin-money, I know, so that I may not be a burden upon them.”

“Let you? Why, your pin-money is your own, to throw in the gutter ifyou like.”

“No, no; it was meant for your wife. I shall have no claim upon it whenwe are parted. But I don’t want to be a burden at the Homestead. Ishould like to give them fifty pounds a year. I shall not cost them somuch as that.”

“I dare say not. Why do you torture me with this talk of money? Allthe money I have is turned to withered leaves. Eve, Eve,” he criedpassionately, “you could not do this cruel thing if our child hadlived!”

“Could I not? Would that have altered the fact that you killed[Pg 313] mybrother? No, for God’s sake don’t come near me,” as he approached herwith extended hand, trying to clasp her hand in his, passionatelylonging for reunion. “There is a ghost between us. I should hate myselfif I could forget the dead.”

“Ah, that is the worst sting of death,” he cried bitterly, “theinfluence of the dead which blights the living. Is there no hope,Eve—no hope? Is your mind made up?”

“Alas! alas! I have no choice.”

“Take time to think, at least, before you act.”

“Time to think? Why, I have been thinking for an eternity. It is agessince that woman put this picture in my hand. Oh, I have thought, Jack.I have thought. If I could shut my eyes and say I forget—if I couldsay the past is past, and the dead are no better for our tears and oursacrifices, our crape gowns, or the roses we plant on their graves—ifI could be like the heathens who said, ‘Let us be happy to-day, forto-morrow we die,’ how gladly would I blot thought and memory from mybrain! But you see while I live I must think and remember; and everyhour of my life with you would be darkened by one hideous memory. Ishould see my brother in his blood-stained winding-sheet standingbetween us. There are some things that cannot be, that heart, andmind, and conscience cry out against, and our marriage is one of thosethings. Oh, it was wicked, wicked, to marry me, knowing what you knew.”

“Was it wicked? If it was, I don’t repent of that sin. I repent myfirst crime—the crime of bloodshed—not my second, the crime of makingyou my wife. I have had two years of bliss. How many men can say asmuch? Well, since you are resolute—have weighed what you are doing,and still decide against me, I will leave you in peace. If the memoryof those years cannot plead for me, all words are idle.”

She heard the strangled sob in his voice as he turned from her andwent slowly to the door: but she did not call him back. She stoodlike a woman of stone till the door closed on him, and the outer dooropened and shut again. Then she clasped her hands above her head with adistracted gesture, and rushed out upon the balcony to see the last ofhim. She leant over the high iron rail to watch him as he sprang intothe waiting hansom. She saw him drive away, and did not shriek to himto come back, though her whole being, brain, heart, nerves, yearnedafter him with despairing love. She watched till the cab vanishedfrom her sight, hidden by the foliage on the Embankment, and then shedragged herself slowly back to the room, as a wounded animal crawls toits lair, and flung herself upon Lisa’s sofa, a broken-hearted woman.

“Could I act otherwise,—could I, could I?” she asked herself.[Pg 314] “Mybrother, my own flesh and blood! Even if I had not loved him, could Ilive with the man who killed him?”

Lisa crept into the room, while Eve sat sobbing, with her face hiddenin the sofa pillow. Lisa crept to her side, and sat on the ground byher, pitying her, and looking up at her with mute doglike tenderness.“What have you done?” she asked at last. “Have you sent him fromyou—your husband who loves you?”

“Yes, he is gone. It is our fate.”

“Fate!” cried Lisa, contemptuously. “What is fate? It is you, not Fate,that make the parting. If you loved him you would not let him go.”

“If I loved him? Why, my whole being is made up of love for him.”

“What then? And you send him from you for an accident—for somethingwhich no one could help. I was there—these eyes saw it. A moment andit was done! There was not time for thought. For that one instant ofwrong-doing are you to make his life miserable?”

“He killed my brother. Do you understand that, Lisa? The man who oughtto have been your husband was my brother. Did you care nothing forhim—you, the mother of his child?”

“Si, si, I cared for him. When first he came to Burano I worshipped himas if he had been St. Mark. And when he said, ‘Come to Venice with me,Lisa, and be my little wife,’ I went. It was wicked, I know. I oughtnot to have left Burano till I had been to confession, and the priesthad married us; but when I said, ‘You will marry me, Signor Inglese,’he said, ‘Yes, Lisa, by-and-by,’ and that was what he always said tillthe last—‘by-and-by.’ He was not always kind to me, Si’ora, thoughhe was your brother. He beat me sometimes when the luck had been badat cards. When he had been sitting up half the night playing cardswith his friends, and I crept into the room and begged him to play nomore—he was not kind then. He would start up out of his chair, andswear a big English oath, and strike at me with his clenched fist. Butam I sorry? Yes, of course I am sorry. It was dreadful to see him falldead in a moment; but is that to be remembered against your husbandyears afterwards? He was brutal that night, so brutal that he deservedhis death, almost. He flew at the strange Englishman like a tiger. Hewould not listen, he would not believe that I was not false to him. Hewas mad with drink and foolish anger. He was like a wild beast. And foran accident like that you would make the noblest of men unhappy. Ah,Si’ora, that is not love. If your husband belonged to me, and he lovedme as he loves you, he might kill twenty men, and I would cling to himand love him still. What would their life be to me, or their death, ifI had him?”

“You are a semi-civilized savage, and you can’t understand,”[Pg 315] said Eve,sternly. “Life and death, good name, and honour, have no meaning foryou.”

“Love means more than all,” said Lisa, doggedly.

“There is only one man you have the right to love,” said Eve; “the manwho ought to have been your husband. You must be indeed a wretch if youcan love the man who killed him.”

“Ah, madonna mia, we do not make our hearts. They are made for us,”Lisa pleaded naively. “The Signor Inglese was very good to me atBurano in my poverty; but afterwards, at Venice, I had a good deal tosuffer. It was a hard life sometimes. One had need be young, and ableto laugh, and forgive and forget. But he—Signor Vansittart—he wasalways kind. His face haunted me after that Shrove Tuesday on the Lido,and when we met again—when la Zia and I were strangers in London,without a friend in the world—oh, how kind and generous he was! Allthat I have of fame and fortune I owe to him, and though he does notcare for me so much as that,” with a contemptuous wave of her fingers,“yet he is always gentle, always good. Do not tell me that I am to caremore for the dead man who deceived me and beat me than for the livingman who has been my benefactor, my guardian angel, and for whom I saya paternoster and two aves every night of my life. It is sweet to saythese for his sake: that his sin may be forgiven.”

“Ah, you do not understand. You do not know what death is,” said Eve,with gloomy anger, getting up from the sofa, and rearranging herloosened hair with trembling hands.

“It must come to all of us,” answered Lisa, with a philosophical shrug.“Better that it should come in a moment as his came, without suffering,without fear, than that we should live to be old and fat and full ofmaladies. People die of dreadful diseases that one shudders only tohear of, and that is called a natural death. How much better to bestabbed to the heart unawares.”

“I cannot reason with you,” said Eve, haughtily. “I loved my brother.You, his mistress, evidently cared nothing for him.”

And with this verbal stab, she departed. Who shall say whether she wasmore indignant with the Venetian for loving Harold Marchant too littleor for loving John Vansittart too much?

Her carriage was waiting for her; the servants were asleep in theafternoon sun. She was only just able to utter the monosyllabic “Home,”in answer to the footman’s question.

How strange the streets and all their movement of everyday life seemedto her, as she drove along the interminable King’s Road, and by SloaneStreet and the Park—how careless the faces of the people. Was thereno other trouble in the world but her own? Was everybody else busy,and bustling, and happy? She felt as if she had been driving home froma funeral, wondering to find a world[Pg 316] where there were no signs ofsorrow. Had she not verily parted from her dead? The dead brother whomshe had always pictured to herself as alive and happy in some far-offAfrican wilderness, leading the adventurer’s reckless life, caring forno one he had left in the civilized world, but destined to come backto her hereafter with that wild spirit tamed, and his home affectionsreviving with mature years. He was dead, and she would see him no moreon earth—killed in a tavern brawl, for the sake of a worthless woman.And the husband she adored, he, too, was dead—dead to her for ever.She had renounced him, and he was free to go his own way, and leadhis own life, and find consolation and happiness where he could. Herfriends of Mayfair had told her that no man laments long for the lossof any woman; that one beautiful face blots out another; that there isno image, however cherished, which does not grow faint, and fade andvanish, as a circle widens and melts away upon still water.

Even the house in Charles Street had a strange aspect when shere-entered it. Should she find him there? Would he plead with heragain, in their own house, where she had been so happy with him, whereall mute things reminded her of the glad life he had given her? Wouldhe plead with her once more, and renew the struggle between love forthe living and loyalty to the dead? No; she was spared that ordeal. Theservant who opened the door told her that his master had been summonedhurriedly to Southampton, and had left a letter for her. She caught upthe letter eagerly, hungry, in her desolation, for some sign from him,some last link between them.

“I start by the mail for Southampton,” he wrote. “Till nine I shall bewithin reach of a telegram at the Travellers, if you change your mind.Before to-morrow night I shall be outward bound; but till to-morrownight a wire to the Post Office at Southampton would find me. I havemade no plans as yet, but you may think of me as an exile and awanderer.”

He was gone! She had been obeyed. The wrench was over; and now she hadto face life calmly and deliberately without him. She had sacrificedall that was nearest and dearest to her on this earth to the shadowof the dead. She had made her choice between the dead and the living.Could she have chosen otherwise?

That was the question she asked herself when she had locked the door ofher room and was alone with her misery, walking to and fro among thefamiliar surroundings which had been the background of a happy union.How could she have chosen otherwise?

“He killed him!” she repeated to herself with dogged insistency. “Hekilled my brother. What should I be if I could stay with him—call himhusband, love him and obey him for the rest of my[Pg 317] life—the man whokilled my brother? Was it murder or not murder, he killed him. It wasdeath. Oh, to think of my poor Harold—to think that he entered thatfatal place in all the strength of his manhood; a young man, with along life before him, perhaps; with all the chances of fortune andhappiness which length of years can bring; and there in a moment he wasbreathing his last breath, stabbed to the heart!”

Memory recalled that fondly loved brother in the flush of his activeboyhood—a cricket field shining in the sunlight, the white tents,the village crowd, and that tall, muscular form, the sunburnt face,blue eyes, and auburn hair, the type of English boyhood at its best.One scene after another of her childhood passed before her as in apanorama, and Harold was the central figure in every picture. Sostrong, so brave, so intelligent, so kind to her always, even when atwar with others; loving her to the last, even when an outcast from hishome.

How cruelly Fate had used him—an unkind father—a forced exile—anearly and a violent death!

For more than an hour—for an eternity of suffering—she paced herroom—or knelt beside the bed, not praying, nor yet crying—onlythinking, thinking of the life that had been and that was over forever—her childish life in Yorkshire while her brother was still thecherished son, the honoured heir—the later season of disgrace andparting—her life with the husband of her love.

“And Peggy,” she thought, with a new agony of unavailing love, “oh, howgood he was to my poor Peggy; but if she had known that the hand whichsmoothed her pillow was the hand that killed her brother—if she hadknown! Does she know now, I wonder, and know what I suffer, and pityme, from the far distance, in the land where there are no tears?”

She refused admittance to her maid at the usual hour of dressing. Shetold Benson that she had a headache, and would not go down to dinner.Later in the evening she wandered about the house, looking at the roomsin which she had been so happy—remembering the days of her courtship,when those rooms were still new to her, and when they realized all shehad ever imagined of luxury and refinement. She went about bidding therooms good-bye, looking at them for the last time, as she believed, forshe meant to depart on her journey early next morning.

To depart whither?

On thinking out the question of her future she rejected the notion ofthat return to the old home of which she had spoken to Vansittart.

She could not go to her sisters at Fernhurst, the refuge which shewould instinctively have chosen, content to hide herself in the[Pg 318]humble home of her girlhood, to live the old unluxurious life, to sitby the cottage hearth, and read the tattered old books, and try tothink herself a girl again, a girl who had never seen the face of JackVansittart.

Fernhurst would not do. It was too near Lady Hartley; it was not remoteenough from Merewood. She had to find some abiding place which shouldbe unknown to all the world except the servant who went with her. Shedid not feel herself equal to travelling without a servant. The ways ofwealth had spoiled her for the ways of penury. She was no longer thesame young woman who used to head an early expedition from Haslemereto Waterloo, travelling third class, among soldiers and workmen,to be first in the scramble for bargains at a sale of drapery. Shefelt herself powerless, in her bruised and broken state, to face theconfusion of a crowded railway station, the bewilderment of foreigntravel, with its stringent demands upon the traveller’s calmness andintelligence.

She found her good Benson waiting for her in her boudoir dressing-roomwith a tea-tray, and a meal of cold chicken, fruit and jelly, set outtemptingly to beguile her into eating.

“You have had nothing since lunch, ma’am.”

“I can’t eat anything—yes,” as Benson looked distressed, “some breadand butter. You can leave that and the tea—but take away all the rest,please. And then give me Bradshaw—and I want you to pack before you goto bed. It is not very late, is it?”—looking hopelessly at the watchon her chatelaine, but unable to see the quaint old figures with thosetired eyes.

“Past eleven, ma’am; but I can pack to-night, if you like. Are we toleave early to-morrow?”

Eve turned the leaves of Bradshaw before she answered, and pored over apage for a few minutes.

“The Continental train leaves Charing Cross at eight,” she said.

“Then I must certainly pack to-night, ma’am. Shall I take manydresses—evening gowns—tea-gowns? Shall you be going out much in theevenings?”

“I shan’t be going out at all. Take my plainest walking gowns, and,yes, a tea-gown or two; one black evening gown will do. Take plenty ofthings. I shall be abroad a long time.”

“It is very sudden, ma’am,” faltered Benson, who was honestly fond ofher mistress.

“Yes, it is very sudden. You must not ask me any questions. You musttake it on trust that there is nothing wrong in my life.”

“Oh, ma’am, I should never think that, whatever happened. I know youtoo well. Are we going to join Mr. Vansittart on the Continent?”

[Pg 319]

“No, Benson. We are going away from him. Mr. Vansittart and I haveparted for ever. Please don’t speak of it to any one downstairs. I wantto avoid all talk and scandal. I tell you because you are going withme. You will share in my new life—if you like to go.”

“I would go to the end of the world with you, ma’am. But, dear, dear,dear, to think that you and Mr. Vansittart can be parted—you whohave been so happy together, like children almost! It can only be atemporary misunderstanding. I am sure of that.”

“Benson, if you talk about my trouble I shall go alone. Can’t youunderstand that there are griefs that won’t bear to be spoken of? Mineis one of them. I am going abroad; I hardly know where as yet. To somequiet place in Brittany or Normandy most likely, where I can justexist.”

“Oh, my dear young lady, you will kill yourself with grief,” sobbedBenson, as she poured out tea for her mistress.

While Benson was packing, with all the dexterity and method of anaccomplished packer, Eve was employed in writing the most difficultletter she had ever written in her life.

She was writing to her husband’s mother, the woman who had receivedher at first reluctantly, but afterwards with motherly affection; thewoman who had surrendered the son she adored to the wife he had chosenfor himself, and who looked to that wife for the happiness of her son’sfuture years. Penniless, the daughter of a disreputable father, withno social surroundings or family influence to recommend her, she hadbeen accepted by Jack Vansittart’s relations; petted and praised by hissister; lovingly cherished by his mother; and for recompense of theirtrust in her what was she going to give them?

She was going to spoil her husband’s life in the heyday of youth andlove; to leave him bound in wedlock and yet companionless; with a wifeand no wife. He could not divorce her; she could not divorce him. Hissin was not of the kind which breaks marriage bonds.

What could she say to her mother-in-law which could in any mannerexplain or justify the parting of husband and wife who until yesterdayhad been living together in seemingly happiest union? There was noexplanation, no justification possible. The mystery of those two brokenlives must remain for ever dark to their kindred and the world.

“My husband and I have agreed to part, and our parting must needs befor a lifetime,” she wrote. “We can tell no one our reasons, not evenyou, mother, who of all people have the strongest right to question us.Unfaithfulness or lessening love has nothing to do with our separation.I never loved my husband better than I love him now; or, at least, Inever knew the strength of my love[Pg 320] for him so well as I know it now.What must be must be. It is Fate, and not our own will, that dividesus. Wherever he may go my heart will go with him. Think of me withindulgence if you can; pity me if you can, for I have direst need ofyour pity.”

She said nothing about her destination. She had not made up her mindyet where she was to go. She sat for an hour or more turning the leavesof the Continental time-table; now thinking she would go by Ostend, andto the Ardennes; and then again deciding upon Brittany. It matterednothing to her where she went; all places were alike, except for herdesire to avoid the people she knew.

Finally she decided upon crossing to St. Malo by the boat that leftSouthampton at five o’clock next day; and from St. Malo to Dinan orAvranches. She would avoid the seaside, where English visitors wouldbe likely to be met at this season. The Norman and Breton towns sheknew by repute as places where people lived quietly and economically,forgotten by the world.

The same post which brought Mrs. Vansittart Eve’s letter from Londonbrought her a letter from her son, written from Southampton.

“You will be surprised at the address from which I write, and stillmore surprised when I tell you that Southampton is only the first stageon my journey to South Africa. I sail from here to the Cape, and fromthence shall make my way to whichever portion of the Dark Continentpromises best for health and enjoyment at this time of year. Do not beuneasy about me, my dear mother. I shall take counsel with experiencedtravellers before I turn my back upon the civilized world; and I shallnot go to meet fever, famine, or assassination. You shall hear from meat each stage of my wanderings. I do not go as a scientific explorer,or as a sportsman in quest of big game, though I hope to make good useof my gun. I go with the desire to escape from civilization, monotony,and my own thoughts, which just now are of the saddest.

“A cloud has spread itself between Eve and me, and we two, who wereso happy in each other’s affection a little while ago, have agreedto part, I fear never again to live together. I cannot tell you ourreasons, for they involve a secret the revelation of which wouldbe disastrous to me—the only secret I ever kept from you. Eve isblameless—chaste and faithful as in the beginning of our weddedlives. I implore you to think of her always with affection; toshelter and cherish her if ever she appeal to your love or claim yourprotection. She is entitled to your respect and to your pity. The onlysinner—never a deliberate sinner—is your son, who in his shattereddomestic life pays the forfeit of one unhappy act.”

A DOUBLE EXILE.

Hail, dark mother of wanderers, parched nurse of lions! Amidst thyromantic wildernesses grief and dishonour may forget themselves; withthee man is only man! He leaves that other half of himself, reputation,yonder in the crowd, and in these solitudes becomes a creature of thewsand sinews, valuable only for his strength and endurance, for the rangeof his eye and the truth of his hand. He has done with the outwardshows of life, and with all nice differences between good and bad.Here, worth is to be measured by the hunter’s fleetness of foot, andhonour by the marksman’s aim. What a man is counts for but little; whathe can do for much. In that aching misery which possessed him when heleft England, John Vansittart looked to the desert as his best refuge.The hunter’s life in Mashonaland gives scanty leisure for brooding overthe ruins of a home in England. The early trek with the waggons, or thestart on foot from the skerm; the hard day’s tramp under the blazingsun; the need of providing meat for the boys—the long following onthe spoor of giraffe or antelope, with the wild ride or cautious stalkat the end—which that need involves; the charm of the life, itspoetry, its absolute novelty, and the ever-recurring vicissitudes whicheach new day brings forth, leave the head of the expedition briefesttime for introspective thought. His slumbers are for the most partdreamless; or his dreams are of lions prowling by the camp-fire, or ofthe dark forms and wild gestures of those he has last seen dancing byits flickering light; not of the lost faces of home. Best of all, hisconscience is at ease, for face to face with man in his most primitiveaspect he loses the habit of weighing his past acts and comparing, withfutile regret, the things he has done with the things he ought to havedone.

For Vansittart there could have been no better refuge than the desert.

Here, if his heart wounds were not healed, his consciousness of sinwas deadened. Here, where no exaggerated value was set on human life,he could remember Harold Marchant’s death with less intensity of pain.Here, where the native freely turned his gun or his assegai against hisfellow-man, a mischance such as that of Florian’s Caffè seemed a smallthing—the fortune of war, a spurt of anger, an unlucky blow, and therean end. Every man must die somehow; and it may not be the worst doomto drop down in the fulness of youth and vigour, knowing not the slowagonies of gradual extinction, the torture of dying by inches.

[Pg 322]

Vansittart’s thoughts were tempered by his surroundings. His charactertook new colours in that vivid life, in that lapse backward from thecivilized and the complicated to the primitive stage of man’s history.It was as if Time had turned his glass and the earth were young. Thewild race of Cain, the outcast, could have been no wilder than thesewoolly-haired followers of his, who were faithful to him because he wasa good shot.

Nature, the great consoler, helped him to forget his grief byforgetting himself. Here, face to face with Nature’s mightiest forces,man’s sense of his own personality dwindles to the faintest shadow inthe vastness of his surroundings. Instead of Trafalgar Square he hasthe Falls of the Zambesi; instead of the languid club lounger he hasthe elephant and the lion for his companions—the purring growl of thelion instead of the gossip of the smoking-room; the trumpet of theelephant instead of the chatter of the dinner-table. Surely it is goodfor a man to be alone in the wilderness—alone save for the company offollowers to whom, though he be their leader, he is as another being,a white man, a stranger in their land, between whose thoughts andfeelings and their own a great gulf is for ever fixed. It is good forhim to feel his own insignificance among men who value him only forhis powder and shot, and who will lose their reverence for his whitesuperiority with the spending of his last cartridge. Here he must needsforget that pride of place which at home was a part of his being. Herethere are no tradesmen to fawn upon him, no servants to touch theirhats to him, no women to praise him. Small food for vanity here, wherethe darkies call his smooth, flat hair dog’s hair, and who liken hishairy arm to a baboon’s arm. Here if the women fawn upon him it is notfor his smiles or his favour, but for beads or printed calico, suchvivid orange or scarlet fabrics, figured with stars or half moons, asManchester weaves for the Torrid Zone. Here if the men are true to himit is because he can feed them and pay them. He is in a world of sternfacts, where sentiment and sophistication are unknown.

The atmosphere suits him. The primitive interests of this primitivelife help to shut off that other life where all is gloom, the life ofthought and of memory. Sufficient for the day, that is the motto here:food for the day; safety for the day; wood for the fires, water for manand beast. Beside them, behind them, ahead of them, stalk dangers thatEurope knows not. Danger from beasts of prey; danger from men as cruel;fever, starvation, death in many shapes—all the vicissitudes of a lifebetween the desert and the sky.

Fortune favours him in his desolation of spirit. A happier man mighthave been less lucky. A man more careful of his life, with more tolive for, might have hardly escaped scot-free from all the[Pg 323] dangers ofthe hunter’s life in an unknown land. Travellers far more experiencedwondered afterwards when they heard the story of this man’s travels,and the impunity with which he had done desperate things.

His daring had been the audacity of ignorance, they said. If he hadknown the extent of the peril in such unconsidered wanderings, withso small a party, with such inadequate preparation, he would havebeen a madman to set his life upon such chances. Had he answered themtruthfully he would have told them that he was a madman when he turnedhis face towards the desert; mad with the agony of a life that wasblighted; mad with the bitter memories of lost happiness.

Of these wedded lovers, parted in the noontide of their love,one carried his wounded heart to the wilderness, and sought fortranquillity of spirit in a life of movement and peril; the other, theweaker vessel, had no such large resources. The life of adventure, theever-changing horizon, were not for her. She could only creep to somequiet haven and sit alone and brood upon her grief.

She went first to Avranches; then late in the autumn she took a fancyto the solitude of Mont St. Michel, the quaint monastic citadel, thefortress on the rock; and here, when the last of the tourists had gone,and the equinoctial gales were roaring round the Gothic towers, shetook up her abode in an apartment specially prepared for her by thecheery patronne of the Inn at the Gate, an apartment upon the ramparts,with windows looking wide over the sea towards Coutances and Jersey.

Benson, who had a constitution of iron, complained bitterly of thiswind-swept rock, yet had to own later that her health had never beenbetter. Eve stopped here late into the winter, sketching a little,reading a great deal, wandering on the sands in all weathers, andsometimes wishing that her footsteps would take her unawares to thatportion of the bay, where, as in the Kelpie’s flow, sorrow might find agrave.

An imprudent ramble in the marshy fields between Pontorson and theMount, which left her belated in the mists of a November evening,resulted in congestion of the lungs. She had contrived to lose herselfamong those salt meadows as completely as ever her husband had losthimself in Mashonaland, and it was eleven o’clock when she and herwhimpering attendant tottered along the causeway leading to the gatesof the fortress, footsore and weary, their shoes worn out in that longtramp over coarse grass and sandy hillocks.

Benson telegraphed to Miss Marchant at Fernhurst, and Sophy appearedon the scene as quickly as boat and rail, and a wretched[Pg 324] fly fromAvranches, with harness eked out by bits of rope, could bring her.Sophy was broken-hearted at this cruel turn which her sister’s brightfortunes had taken, and agonized with remorseful retrospection. It wasshe, perhaps, whose imprudent tongue had parted husband and wife, haddestroyed that happy home. Sophy hated herself for the folly of thatrevelation. Why could she not have let well alone? Why could she nothave left undisturbed that happy state of things by which she herselfhad profited so richly? Looking back upon her conduct of that fatalweek, she saw that it was her own disappointment which had souredher, and her own selfish vexation which had made her so angry withVansittart.

It was a long time before Eve was well enough for serious talk ofany kind. She rallied slowly, and during the monotonous days of herconvalescence she was treated as a child, who must only hear ofpleasant things; but when she was well again, quite well—save for thatlittle hacking cough which seemed to have become an element of herbeing—Sophy ventured to approach the subject of her domestic sorrows.

“I have been utterly miserable since the day I left Charles Street,”said Sophy, seated beside Eve’s easy-chair, and resting her foreheadon the cushioned arm as she talked, so that her face was invisible.“I have hated myself for speaking of your husband as I did—onlyupon hearsay. After all, Mr. Sefton might have misinterpreted Jack’sconduct. It might all have been a mistake.”

“It was a mistake, Sophy.”

“Oh, I am so glad. You found out at once that Mr. Sefton was wrong.”

“Yes.”

“Thank God! But then”—looking up at her sister in blankastonishment—“if that is so, why are you parted, Jack and you?”

“That is our secret, Sophy.”

“But why, but why? I can’t understand. There could be only one reasonfor your leaving him when you loved him so dearly. Nothing but theknowledge of his infidelity would justify——”

“Stop, Sophy,” said Eve, peremptorily. “There is nothing gained byspeculating about other people’s business. My husband and I have ourown reason for taking different roads. We have never quarrelled; wehave never ceased to care for each other. I shall love him with all myheart, and mind, and strength, till my last breath.”

“I guess your reason,” answered Sophy, nodding sagaciously. “He is anAtheist, and you, who have always been a good Church-woman, could notgo on living with an unbeliever. You are like poor Catherine in ‘RobertElsmere.’”

“Oh, Sophy, do you think I should forsake him because he was[Pg 325] withouthope or comfort from God? Why do you tease me with foolish guesses? Itell you again the reason of our parting is our secret. A secret thatwill go down with me to the grave.”

Sophy’s eager imagination ran riot in the world of mystery. Politics,Freemasonry, Hypnotism, Theosophy, Nihilism, hereditary madness,epilepsy, hydrophobia, a family ghost, a family fatality! That livelymind of hers touched each possibility, rejected each, and flew off tothe next; and lastly, with a sigh of relief, she exclaimed—

“I am more thankful than I can say that it was not my imprudent tonguewhich parted you.”

An hour later, walking alone on the ramparts, she told herself that inall probability this desolate wife was only throwing dust in her eyes,and that Vansittart’s inconstancy had been clearly demonstrated inaccordance with Sefton’s story. It would be only like a devoted wife toviolate truth in order to vindicate her husband. Pride and love wouldalike urge Eve to deny her husband’s infidelity.

CHAPTER XXXI.

“OH TELL HER, BRIEF IS LIFE, BUT LOVE IS LONG.”

As soon as Eve was well enough to be moved she left the rock and wentto finish the winter at Dinard. The doctor who attended her throughher illness suggested the south of France, Cannes for instance, asthe better climate for her; but she told him she had lost a sister atCannes, and that all that lovely coast was associated with her loss.

“It is very beautiful,” she said; “but I shall never go there again.My sister was sent there because she was consumptive; but my caseis altogether different. It would be absurd to go to the south justbecause I have had a touch of congestion, in consequence of an autumnalramble.”

“It was a somewhat severe touch, madam,” said the doctor; “but perhapsDinard may suit you very well. There are some people who say theclimate is almost as good as Provence.”

Sophy went with her sister to Dinard, which she pronounced aconsiderable improvement upon Mont St. Michel, the mediævalism of whichpicturesque settlement had in no wise reconciled her to existence ina place without people and without shops. At Dinard there were smartresidents even in winter, and if Eve had not been obstinately bent uponisolation they might have known people, as Sophy murmured regretfully.

Not knowing people, she soon wearied of Dinard, which was only thesands and the sea over again, when one had exhausted the town and thequaintness of shops which were unlike English shops, and[Pg 326] had exploredSt. Malo and St. Servan, and excursionized, chaperoned by Benson, asfar as Dinan, where she was more impressed by the bad drainage than bythe fine architecture.

Sophy began to talk of her home duties. Jenny’s letters had been mostexasperating of late, and it was too evident she was interfering withNancy, and making a mess of the housekeeping. Finally Sophy declaredthat things at Fernhurst could go on no longer without her. Jenny hadbeen entertaining in a most reckless manner—people to luncheon, peopleto tea. “She will be giving dinner-parties next,” said Sophy. “Nancy isso weak about her, because she saved her life in the measles—as if itwas any merit of Jenny to have had measles worse than any of us.”

Eve did not oppose her departure, being somewhat weary of that lighttalk which centred chiefly in self, one’s own experiences, sensations,hopes, disappointments.

“How I wish you would go back with me, Eve!” urged Sophy, with veryreal warmth. “Surely you would be happier at Fernhurst than here, andit would be like the old days for us to have you again. You would beone of us, the head of the family once more. You would forget that youhad ever left home.”

“Ah, Sophy, if that were possible! If any one could forget! They can’t,dear. They only harden their hearts and call it forgetting. Dear oldFernhurst! Yes, I should love to be there; to ramble over Blackdownagain, and hear the wind whistling in the dark fir trees; to look overthe weald far off to the faint streak of distant sea, just a line oflight on the horizon and no more. But it can’t be, Sophy. Fernhurst istoo near Redwold Towers, too near Mr. Sefton’s place, too near all thepeople I have done with.”

“Poor Eve, it is sad to hear you talk of yourself as if you hadcommitted a crime. It was most trying when Mrs. Vansittart came over tosee us, and questioned us so closely about you. Did we think this orthat? Had we known of any unhappiness between you and Jack? Had we anyidea why you parted? I felt it more than the others, for I thought Iwas at the bottom of it all with my foolish speech about your husband.But I held my tongue. The others declared they knew nothing, couldnot even surmise a reason for your conduct. They adored Jack, thoughthim simply perfect as a husband, and Eve the luckiest girl of theiracquaintance. And then there was Lady Hartley. Of course we had to gothrough the same kind of thing with her, not once but several times,for she is always nice in asking us to her house, and in coming to teawith us every now and then, and I know that she is very fond of you, inher light-minded way. But, indeed, Eve, I don’t see any reason why youshould not go home with me. Nobody will venture to question you, andJack is in Africa——”

[Pg 327]

“No, no; I could not bear to see the people I know, or the old places.I should be miserable. I see them often in my dreams—hill and common,and lane, and cottage garden—and wake disappointed to find myself sofar away. But I could not bear to be there again—without him. No,dear. Jack is travelling, and I am travelling. That is much the bestarrangement.”

“But you don’t travel,” remonstrated Sophy. “You bury yourself alive ina place like this, and walk up and down the same stretch of sand everyday, or tramp along the same chalky road, or cross the same ridiculousferry, and march round the same windy ramparts. Surely you don’t callthat travelling.”

“I mean to do better by-and-by. I mean to go to Italy. Perhaps youwould spare me Hetty for a travelling companion?”

“Spare her, indeed! You have but to ask her, and she will spareherself. She won’t ask my leave. She is pining for a change. She evenwanted to go into a convent by way of variety. She would think nothingof going over to Rome; and if you take her to Italy you will have to bevery careful that the priests don’t get hold of her.”

“I will take care of her, Sophy. Benson and I will keep the priests atbay. Benson is a dragon of Protestantism.”

It was settled that Hester should meet Eve and her maid in Paris earlyin April, and that they should travel from that city, slowly and attheir ease, by Basle and Lucerne to Milan, and thence to the Italianlakes, or possibly to Venice. Eve trembled as she spoke the name ofthat fatal city. She had a morbid longing to go there to look upon herbrother’s grave before she died. She could afford to indulge any fancyin the way of travelling, for the pin-money sent her quarterly by thetrustee to her marriage settlement was sufficient for her wants, andover and above this private income of hers the trustee, who was alsoher husband’s solicitor, sent her a hundred and fifty pounds quarterly,in accordance with Mr. Vansittart’s parting instructions. She hadprotested against this extra allowance, assuring the solicitor that theincome under her settlement was sufficient for her maintenance, and thesolicitor had replied that he was instructed to furnish her with sixhundred a year during his client’s absence from Europe, and that as hisclient was in Africa, beyond the reach of letters, it was impossibleto depart from his instructions. Eve was thus richer than her needs,and was able to be generous to the sisters, whose letters informed herof the result of her bounty, in the shape of a much smarter style ofliving at the Homestead. They had a page to open the door; they dinedat eight o’clock, and they always had dessert on the table. They hadtheir afternoon; and carriages—chiefly pony—came from far distancesto take tea with them, Jenny assured her sister.

[Pg 328]

“Your marriage lifted us all out of the mire,” wrote Jenny; “butit is too sad to think of Jack in Africa and you a broken-heartedwanderer. It is awfully sad, and we can none of us guess the why orthe wherefore. We feel that there must be some terrible secret. Nolight reason could have parted you. Mr. Sefton is at the Manor, huntingevery day, and going long distances by rail when there are no houndsin the neighbourhood. We hear he has been paying attentions to LordHaverstock’s only daughter, who will be enormously rich. No doubt hewill end by marrying for money. Poor Sophy turned deadly pale the firstSunday she saw him in church. We were earlier than usual, and we wereseated in our pew as he came up the nave, staring about him as if hehad been in a theatre.”

With Hetty for her travelling companion, Eve felt more her ownmistress, and, therefore, happier than she had felt with Sophy. Hettywas only fifteen, and might be treated as a child, and, indeed, shestill possessed some of the best attributes of childhood; was incuriousabout the future save when it promised some novelty, change of place,new possession, amusem*nt or excitement; was deeply interested intrifles, and had no margin of mind left for serious things.

Such a companion may do much for a heart weighed down by the burdenof unavailing regret. Hetty, when allowed to give full scope to herown absorbing individuality, left very little room for any one else’sfeelings. Her delight in travelling was so intense as to be almostcontagious. Everything interested her, and the newness of things was aperpetual surprise. She paused in her raptures only to pity the peoplewho are doomed never to travel. She kept a list of the towns throughwhich she passed, were it only sitting in a railway carriage. She hadbrought the shabby old family atlas from the Homestead, and had it openon her lap in the railway carriage, poring over it till her eyes ached,and rarely able to find the place she was looking for in that pale andfaded type.

They stopped a couple of nights at Basle, where the Rhine was rapture.They stopped a week at the Schweitzerhoff, and exhausted the drives andexcursions about Lucerne, and explored the lake of the Forest Cantons,and climbed the Righi, and did all that the veriest co*ckney tourist cando, personally conducted by Hetty, who read her Baedeker every morning,and gave her sister no rest till the day’s excursion had been settledupon.

“Sophy said I was not to let you brood,” explained Hetty. “I was totake care you went about and enjoyed the scenery.”

Eve went about uncomplainingly, first to please Hetty, and next becausedays and weeks must be got rid of somehow, and sorrow must keep movingby day if it would court a few hours’ respite by[Pg 329] night. Eve had herlittle cough still—only a little cough; but the experienced Bensonheard that dull, hacking sound with some anxiety, remembering poorPeggy’s chance, and how little it had done for her. Would it ever cometo that pass with her young mistress, Benson wondered? Was the fatalstrain in the blood of all these fair sisters, with their transparentcomplexions and hectic bloom? Half a year ago Eve had seemed inexuberant health, as well as in exuberant spirits, the fairest type ofyouthful womanhood, dancing along the flowery path of life with foot solight as never to touch the thorns, or disturb the snake asleep in thesun. The parting with the man she adored had changed her whole being,and the sound of her laughter was heard no more, despite of the livelyHetty’s provocations to mirth.

They went from Lucerne to Como, and lingered in that enchanting regionuntil the midsummer heat drove them into the mountains. They roughed itin the Dolomites till October, and then went down to Lake Leman, andestablished themselves for the winter at Lausanne, where Eve took hersister’s education seriously in hand, and placed her as day-boarder ina very superior establishment “to be finished.” Here they lived veryquietly, Hetty interested in her work, and improving herself with arapidity which astounded her mistresses, who had been scandalized ather benighted condition from the educational point of view, and who hadnot yet grasped the idea that a girl who has led a free out-of-doorlife until she is fifteen years old has a stock of brain power thatmakes education a much easier business for her between that age andtwenty than it is for the victim of premature culture, who has beenstraining and exhausting the growing brain ever since she was five.

Hetty revived her juvenile French, and took to German and Italian asreadily as to tennis or golf. Eve was delighted with her progress, andfor Hetty’s sake she stayed at Lausanne, with only a summer holiday inthe Jura, until the second winter of her exile, when by her Englishdoctor’s advice she went up to St. Moritz, Hetty, who was growinga very pretty girl, accompanying her, and turning the heads of allthe young men at the Kulm Hotel, most especially when she played oneof poor Samary’s characters in a little French duologue with theall-accomplished Dr. Holland.

Home letters told Eve that Vansittart was still in Africa, and that hismother was living very quietly at Merewood. From that lady, directly,Eve had not heard of late. She had answered her daughter-in-law’sletter coldly and cruelly, as it seemed to Eve.

“I cannot enter into your domestic mystery,” she wrote. “I only knowthat you took my son’s life into your keeping, and that you havewrecked it. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Wewere very happy together till you crossed his[Pg 330] path; and now he is anexile, and I do not even know the reason of his banishment. Forgive meif I say I wish he had never seen your face.”

Lord Haverstock’s daughter was now the Honourable Mrs. Sefton, andher husband was said to have secured the highest matrimonial prize inSussex. The lady’s aristocratic features had the stamp of a shrewishtemper, as plainly as ever a knife was stamped “Sheffield.” She wasproud of her birth and of her money, and a lesser man than WilfredSefton would have had a bad time with her, but he was reported tobe equal to the situation. They entertained enormously, and wereconsidered an acquisition to the neighbourhood. The Miss Marchantshad been bidden to all their parties, and Sophy’s cheerful tone indescribing the high jinks at the Manor showed that she had outlived herdisappointment.

“Everybody knows that he married for money,” concluded Sophy, aftera graphic account of a New Year’s dance given by Mrs. Sefton, “andeverybody admires the way he manages his wife. He is obviously supremein everything. If he had married a curate’s daughter he could not bemore completely the master, although her income is nearly treble his,and they are always buying land, either adding to the Sefton property,or creeping over the county in other directions. They have no heiras yet, or promise of an heir, which is a disappointment to LordHaverstock, who wanted a grandson immediately. I don’t believe it ispossible to imagine a more unhappy marriage, looked at from our pointof view; but as, in my opinion, he never had a heart, in spite of hisfolly about the Venetian singer, it is just the kind of marriage tosuit him.

“Lady Hartley’s last baby is perfection—a girl—and I am asked to begodmother, a great compliment, considering her extensive circle andwhat snobs people are.

“Nancy sends you her dear love, and wants me to tell you that shealways uses the lovely carved workbox, with the sleeping lion on thelid, which you sent her from Lucerne.

“Shall I secure you a few remnants at Marshall’s or Robinson’s beforethe January sales are over? You must pay outrageous prices foreverything in Switzerland.”

So much for news from home. The London papers afforded ampleinformation about Signora Vivanti, who pursued her successful careerunchecked, and rose a step or so in public estimation with eachnew part she created—“created” was the word the critics used ofthis uncultured islander’s impersonations. She had fresh whims,and eccentricities, and gaieties for each new character. She waspeuple to the marrow of her bones, and she had all thecleverness and unflagging pleasure in life which belongs to thepopulace.[Pg 331] Her London public adored her, and to provincial audiencesshe came as a revelation of what gaiety of heart really means. Sheseemed a well-spring of joyousness, and sent her audience homeconvinced that life was not so very dreary after all.

Could Eve have known more than the newspapers told her she would haveknown that the Signora was keeping herself what Mr. Hawberk called“straight.” Slander had not breathed upon her name. She had loved,and her love had been rejected; and from the hour of that disillusionshe had concentrated her affections upon that which never betrays ordisappoints. Lisa and her aunt found the chief delight of their livesin the scraping and self-denial which enabled them to add to theirhoard.

Lisa no longer bought diamonds, and wore her whole fortune upon herneck and arms. The diamonds were a very delightful form of investment,but the elementary theory of principal and interest had been graduallyborne in upon her mind, and she now knew enough of finance to know thatshe ought to get something for her money. Reluctantly, and with seriousmisgivings, she followed the advice of her manager and opened a depositaccount at the Union Bank, whither her light feet tripped gaily once aweek, and where she handed in the major part of her salary to a clerkwho could scarcely write the receipt under the too near radiance ofthose dazzling eyes.

Life was so cheap for two abstemious women and one little boy.Vansittart had paid three years’ rent of the flat in advance beforehe left Southampton. Lisa and la Zia were on velvet, and while thedeposit account was growing there came offers from America, which wereintoxicating in their liberality. American agents had seen and heardthe lovely Venetian; Anglo-American newspapers had written about hertalents and her beauty; and the always enterprising agent-in-advancewas eager to introduce her to the Western world.

Lisa carried the tempting offers to her London manager, who shruggedhis shoulders, and raised her salary, for the sixth or seventh time.

“You will ruin me if I try to keep you, Signora,” he said; “but I can’tafford to lose you.”

The prima donna and her aunt used to sit over their handful of firein the small hours after a cheap but savoury supper of liver, or someother abomination, chopped up in a seething mass of macaroni, reekingof garlic and oil. There was no dish the smartest restaurant in Londoncould have provided that they would have enjoyed better than theirnative kitchen. They came of a people who can make a feast out of amorsel of meat which the sturdy British workman would toss to his dog.Their luxuries and their pleasures were alike of the cheapest. A jauntto Greenwich or Kew by river,[Pg 332] a long day roaming about the CrystalPalace, idle afternoons on the grassy levels of Battersea Park, baskingin the sunshine while Paolo made pies in the sand. Pleasures as simpleas these sufficed for Lisa, while her fortune was growing at the UnionBank. By the kind manager’s advice she had invested the bulk of herwealth in railway shares, to which she had added from time to time asher deposit account grew. She had at first been very chary of trustingthe railway with her savings, preferring to confide in the bank, whichlooked solid and respectable; but on being assured that she would getbetter interest from the railway with equal security, she consented tobecome a shareholder. It was pleasant when sitting with her aunt in athird-class carriage on the way to Windsor or Richmond to be able toremind that good lady that she, Lisa, was part owner of the carriage,and indeed of the whole line.

Economical as the two women were their parsimony never degenerated intomeanness. If their fare was humble they were always ready to share itwith a friend. Little Zinco, who was a bachelor, dined with his pupilevery Sunday, la Zia devoting the whole morning, after an early Mass inthe chapel near Sloane Street, to the preparation of a little bit ofbeef stuffed with raisins, and a mess of rice and cheese, while Lisain her best gown, escorted by the faithful Zinco, attended Mass at theOratory or the Pro-Cathedral.

In their after-midnight talk by the fire, when autumnal or wintrynights made a fire a necessity, Lisa and la Zia built their castle inthe air, and that castle was a small house on the Guidecca, a house ofwhich they could let a couple of floors, reserving the piano nobile, orupper story, with its fine views over the blue water, for themselves,and furnishing the same gorgeously with carved chestnut wood and inlaidebony, from one of the big manufactories on the Grand Canal. Here theywere to live happily ever after, when once Fiordelisa had earned anincome that would maintain them for the rest of their days, and pay forPaolo’s education.

Already he had shown a passionate love of music, and Zinco saw in himthe makings of a fine opera singer.

“He will be handsome, he will be big,” said the ’cello, “and already atfive years old he shows me that he has an ear as true as a bird’s, oras yours. You will send him to the Conservatorio at Milan as soon as heis old enough to enter, and he will find his fortune in his larynx asyou have.”

“A SCENE OF LIGHT AND GLORY.”

It was April, the third springtime after the parting of the weddedlovers, and to Eve it seemed as if many years had come and gone sinceshe looked upon her husband’s face. She had endured her life somehow,a life of mornings and afternoons, of twilight and sunrise, of moonsthat waxed and waned, of seasons that changed from hot to cold andback again, an existence like a squirrel’s wheel, and having nothingin common with that happy wedded life in which her eyes opened everymorning upon joy and love—the joy of knowing the beloved companionnear, the love which seemed ever near and ever growing.

Hetty had been a comfort to her in all that time, and had shown herselfso sympathetic that Eve had resolved never to part with her, exceptto a husband; and, as yet, among Hetty’s numerous admirers there hadbeen no one whom she cared for as a future husband. So far Hetty washeart-whole and devoted to her sister, more than ever devoted, alas!now, when the red flag of phthisis flaunted upon Eve’s hollow cheeks,and too surely marked the beginning of the end.

She had borne up bravely in those years of exile, making the best oflife in some of earth’s pleasantest places, courting cheerfulness forher young sister’s sake, and never wearing her widowed heart upon hersleeve. She had borne up bravely, though the enemy had been at work allthe time, and the fatal strain which had developed so early in Peggy,showed itself in Eve by occasional illnesses, through which she battledsuccessfully, with the aid of much careful nursing by the skilledBenson and the devoted Hetty. They had patched her up time after time,as Benson told her compatriots in the courier’s room at the hotel, butthe day was coming when patching would no longer serve—when the frailframe and the brave spirit must yield to the inevitable.

“Well, it’ll have to come to all of us, in our time,” said Benson,brushing away a tear or two, “but it seems hard it should come toher before she’s six and twenty. So pretty, too, and such a sweetdisposition. It’ll be a long time before I shall get a mistress I shalllike as well, though when I first took the place I thought I shouldfind it strange like, after being used only to titled people. Butthere, we’re all human, and there ain’t much difference between a plaincountry gentleman’s wife and a duch*ess when you’re putting a poulticeon her chest.”

In the bright April weather Eve and her sister came to Venice,[Pg 334] thecity to which all Eve’s thoughts had been trending ever since she leftEngland, nearly three years before. She had always meant to go there,always wished to look upon the scene of her brother’s untimely death,and to kneel beside his nameless grave; but she had shrunk with anindescribable dread from the accomplishment of her desire, her heartaching even at the thought of the pain it must cost her to look uponthat place, which was associated with all her misery.

Hetty had talked about Venice very often, in her ignorance of allpainful associations, and Eve had put her off with promises. “Yes,dear, I mean to go there, sooner or later;” and Hetty hung overthe coloured plan in Baedeker—the blue canal, with its curiousserpentine curve—and longed to be there with all the intensity whichpertains to the juvenile side of twenty. Venice, a name to conjurewith! She repeated those lines of Rogers’, the plain unvarnishedstatement—“There is a glorious city by the sea; the sea is in thebroad, the narrow streets”—which brings that wonder-city before theeye of the mind more vividly than all the fire and fervour of Byron, orthe word-painting of Dickens and Howells.

And now, now, in the beginning of the end, Eve knowing there was notime to lose, the sisters were here in the spring sunset, their gondolamoving with the smooth, delicious motion which serves as a balm fortroubled spirits, a cure for all the agitations of life, moving in andout of the labyrinthine rios, as the hansom cabman of Venice takes hisshort cut to the Riva degli Schiavoni, and the comfortable hostelryof Danieli, where at Benson’s advice rooms had been secured on theentresol facing the lagoon, Benson professing familiarity with almostevery hotel in Europe. She had stayed at Danieli’s with her duch*ess,stayed there for a month, occupying the piano nobilissimo, in the mostpalatial wing of that patchwork of palaces, where the traveller mayeither find himself ushered into the mediæval splendour of a kinglychamber, or may be conducted by a labyrinth of passages to a garretlooking out upon a slum that recalls St. Giles’s. The wise traveller,of course, is he who gives Danieli ample notice of his coming, and forhim the noble floors are reserved.

The entresol was cosy rather than palatial; the rooms were spacious,although low; and the windows opened directly upon all the lifeand movement of this noisiest and gayest spot of Venice, curiouslysuggestive of Margate in the co*ckney season, save that it iscosmopolitan instead of co*ckney, and that instead of the Jew ofHoundsditch one may meet the Jew from Damascus or Cairo, from Ispahanor Hungary, from Frankfort or Rome. Here all nations meet and mingle,and all tongues are heard in the voices that mix with the tramp ofpassing footsteps from morning till midnight. For people who want thesilence of the city by the sea, this entresol[Pg 335] would be hardly thechoicest portion of Danieli’s rambling caravanserai; but to Hetty’smind those windows opened on a scene of enchantment.

The fishing-boats were coming in, their painted sails gaudier thanthe sunset, and an Italian man-of-war was lying between the Riva andthe Island church yonder. How familiar that church of St. George theGreater seemed to Hetty, and the Custom House, and the dome of SantaMaria della Salute. She had known them all her life in pictures andphotographs—sham Canalettis, books of engravings—but the glory oflight and colour were as new to her dazzled eyes as if she had diedunawares and had come to life again in Paradise.

“Lovely, lovely; quite too lovely,” was all she could say, not having aRuskinesque vocabulary at her command.

When she looked round, appealing to her sister for sympathy in this newdelight, it was a shock to find the room empty.

She ran into the adjoining bedroom, where Benson was unpacking, andthen into her own little room further on; but there was no sign of Eve.

“She must have gone out for a stroll,” Hetty said ruefully. “She mightas well have told me she was going. She ought to know that I am dyingto see St. Mark’s.”

Hetty knew her sister’s dislike of all public rooms in hotels,so she had very little hope of finding her in any of thoselounges—reading-room, hall, salon—which Signor Campi has providedfor his guests. There was no doubt in Hetty’s mind that Eve had goneto look at St. Mark’s, before the twilight shadows began to veilthe splendour of the façade. Hetty went back to the window, andamused herself with the perpetual movement on the quay, and on thewater, man-of-war, P. and O., fishing-boats, barges, gondolas movingdiagonally across the crimsoned water towards the crimson sky, lightand colour reflected upon all things, save where the dark cool shadowsaccentuated that sunset splendour.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

“BOTH TOGETHER, HE HER GOD, SHE HIS IDOL.”

Pale, quiet, resolute, with her mind made up as to what she had todo, Eve Vansittart crossed the Piazzetta towards Florian’s Caffè, andslowly, very slowly, passed in front of the windows, looking at theloungers seated here and there at the marble tables, and wonderingwhether this was the scene of her brother’s fate. She had not beentold the name of the caffè. She only knew that it was at Venice,[Pg 336] inCarnival time, and at a crowded caffè that the fatal encounter hadhappened.

She passed Florian’s, and a door or two further on was assailed by aphotographer, who wanted to sell her views of the city at five francsa dozen, and who would not believe that she could exist without them.She looked at him absently for a minute or two while he showed hisviews, expatiating upon their beauty and cheapness, and after thatthoughtful pause went into his shop, seated herself, and turned overthe leaves of an album of specimen photographs, choosing a dozen atrandom—“this—and this—and this”—without looking at them.

“Have you had this shop long?” she asked.

“Fifteen years.”

“Then you must remember something that happened in a caffè in thePiazza—Florian’s, most likely—seven years ago. It was on a ShroveTuesday, late at night. A young man was killed, accidentally, in ascuffle. Do you remember?”

The photographer shrugged his shoulders.

“That is a thing that might happen any year at Carnival time,” he saidlightly. “There is much excitement. Our people are good-natured, verygood-natured, but they are hot-tempered, and a blow is quickly given,even a blow that may prove fatal. I cannot say that I remember anyparticular case.”

“The man who was killed was an Englishman, and the man who killed himwas an Englishman.”

“Strange,” said the photographer. “The English are generally cool andcollected—a serious nation. Had it been an American I should be lesssurprised. The Americans are more like us. There is more quicksilver intheir blood.”

“Cannot you remember now? An Englishman, a gentleman, stabbed by anEnglish gentleman,” urged Eve. “Surely such things do not happen everyday?”

“Every day? No, Signora. But in Carnival time one is prepared forstrange things happening. I begin to recall the circ*mstance, but notvery clearly. A young Englishman stabbed with a dagger that had beenbought over the way a short time before. He had been drinking, and wasjealous of a young woman who was present. He attacked his compatriotwith savage violence. Yes, I recall the affair more clearly now. Therewere those present who said he brought his fate upon himself by hisbrutality. The man who stabbed him made a bolt of it, on a hint froma bystander—ran across the Piazzetta, jumped into the water, andswam for his life. No one in Venice ever knew what became of him. Hemust have been picked up by a gondola, and must have got away by therailroad. Who knows? He may have got ashore on the mainland,[Pg 337] and madehis way to Mestre, so as to avoid the railway station here, where thepolice might be on the watch for him. Anyhow, he got away. He hadcourage, quickness, his wits well about him.”

“It was at Florian’s that this happened?” asked Eve.

“Yes, at Florian’s—where else? There is no caffè in Venice equal toFlorian’s.”

That was all. She paid for her photographs and went back to Florian’s,and peered in at the bright, pretty salons, where the Italians werelounging over their coffee, with here and there a group playingdominoes, and where tourists—English, American, German—were enjoyingthemselves more noisily. She wondered in which of those salons thetragedy had been acted. Was the stain of her brother’s blood on thefloor ineffaceable, like Rizzio’s in the fatal room at Holyrood? Sheloitered for a few minutes, looking in through the open doors andwindows shudderingly; and seeing she was observed, she moved quicklyaway, and presently was being followed across the piazza by a Venetianseeker of bonnes fortunes, she herself happily unconscious ofthe fact.

She looked at the shops in the Procuratie Vecchie, and was pestered bythe touting shopkeepers after their Venetian manner. She looked in atall those Eastern toys and Italian gewgaws, and jewellery which hashere and there a suggestion of Birmingham.

“Do you sell daggers?” she asked a black-eyed youth, who had entreatedher earnestly to ascend to the show-room above, assuring her that the“to look costs nothing.”

Her question startled him. “Daggers, yes, assuredly. Was it a jewelleddagger for her hair that the Signora desired? He had of the mostmagnificent.”

No. She wanted no dagger, only to know whether he sold them, realdaggers, strong enough to wound fatally.

He showed her a whole armoury of Moorish knives, any one of whichlooked as if it might be deadly.

“Do you remember a young Englishman being killed with such a dagger asthis?” she said, pointing to one of the deadliest, “by accident, inCarnival time?”

He remembered, or affected to remember, nothing.

Leaving his shop, after buying half a dozen bead necklaces forcivility, Eve found herself face to face with her Venetian admirer,upon whom she turned so dark a frown as to repel even that practisedLothario. She hurried back to Danieli’s, and arrived there flushed andbreathless, and far too much exhausted to do justice to the simplelittle dinner of clear soup and roast chicken which Benson had ordered,a dinner served in her own sitting-room, which privilege of diningalone was Eve’s only extravagance in her travels.

[Pg 338]

Hetty questioned her sister closely, and reproached her for unkindnessin going out unaccompanied; but Eve gave her no explanation of thatexcursion.

“You are not strong enough to walk about alone, dear,” the sister saidtenderly. “You want a giraffe like me to give you an arm.” This wasHetty’s way of alluding to the tall slim figure which had been so muchadmired on the tennis courts of St. Moritz and Maloja.

Eve engaged a gondola next morning. It was to be her own gondola,and the gondolier was to give allegiance to no one else, so long asMrs. Vansittart remained in Venice. She set out alone in her gondoladirectly after breakfast, in spite of Hetty’s remonstrances.

“I have some business in Venice that I must keep to myself, Hetty. Itwill be the greatest kindness in you to ask no questions.”

“You are full of mysteries,” said Hetty, “but I won’t tease you. Onlytake care of yourself, dearest, and don’t be unhappy about anything,for the sake of the sisters who idolize you.”

Eve kissed her, and went away without another word. Hetty marchedabout all the morning with Benson, who showed her St. Mark’s and thepigeons, and the Doge’s Palace, whisking her rapidly through all thepicture-rooms, but not letting her off a single dark cell on eitherside the Bridge of Sighs.

Eve’s first visit was to the chief office of the Venetian police, whereshe found an obliging functionary, who, at her desire, produced therecord of the unknown Englishman’s death.

The story was bald and brief. A scuffle, ending in a fatal wound from adagger. The man who used the dagger had escaped. The weapon was in thepossession of the police.

“Was every means taken to find the man who killed him?” Eve asked.

“Every means, although there was no extra pressure put upon us. Nobodycame forward to identify the victim or to claim the body. He must havebeen a waif and stray; his name, Smith, is one of the commonest Englishnames, I am told, and it may have been an assumed name in his case. Hewas a fine young fellow, but showed marks of having lived recklesslyand drunk hard. The lines in his face were the lines that dissipatedhabits leave on young faces. It was a sad business. Has the Signora anypersonal interest in this unfortunate gentleman?”

“Yes, he was my relation. I have come to Venice on purpose to find hisgrave.”

“That will be difficult, I fear. He belonged to nobody. His bones willhave been mingled with other bones in the public grave ere now.”

[Pg 339]

“Oh, that is hard,” said Eve, in a broken voice. “A pauper’s grave. Hewas a gentleman by birth and education. There were those in his owncountry who would have starved rather than let him lie in a namelessgrave.”

The official shrugged his shoulders with the true philosophical shrug.

“Does the Signora really think that it matters whether we have as granda tomb as Titian or lie nameless and forgotten in some quiet corner?For my part, the finest monument that was ever set up would not consoleme for a short life. When these bones of mine are only aches and pains,and can carry me about no longer, away with them to the crematorium.The Signora will pardon me for venturing to state my own views, andif she desires it I will try to discover the exact circ*mstances ofthe Englishman’s burial. It is possible that there may have been someone interested in his last resting-place, and the grave may have beenbought. There was a young Venetian, the girl who caused the quarrel,who seems to have been attached to him. She may have done something. Ifthe Signora will be good enough to wait till to-morrow I may be able tofurnish her with better information.”

Eve thanked him for his polite interest, and promised to recompense himfor any trouble he might take on her behalf.

She received a letter from him the next morning.

“The grave is the last in the avenue leading due west by the side ofthe south wall in the cemetery at San Michele. There is a wooden cross,and the name Smith. The grave was bought and the cross erected at theexpense of the Venetian girl.”

Eve’s gondola took her to the sea-girt burial-place in the morningsunshine. She carried a basket of roses and narcissus, to lay upon herbrother’s grave, and her mind was full of the hour when she saw him forthe last time. How near in its distinctness of detail, of sensationeven! how far in that sense of remoteness which made her feel as ifshe were looking across a gulf of death and time to another life! Wasthat really herself—that impetuous girl, whose arms had clung roundher brother’s neck in the agony of parting, and who had never known anyother love?

To-day there was a conflict of feeling. There was the thought of theman whose crime had been the crime of a moment, whose punishment wasthe punishment of a lifetime.

“I know that he loved me,” she told herself. “I know that I wasnecessary to his happiness, and yet I sent him away from me. Could I dootherwise? No. The man who killed my brother could not be my husband, Iknowing what he had done. Ah, as long as I did not know, what a happywoman I was! And I might have lived happy in my ignorance to the endbut for my own fault.”

[Pg 340]

And then with bitterest smile she said aloud—

“Ah, Fatima, Fatima, how dearly you have paid for the turning of thekey!”

She found San Michele, the quiet island of the dead, sleeping in thesoft haze of morning on the bosom of the lagune. A little way off,the chimneys of Murano were tarnishing the clear Italian sky withtheir smoke; the barges were loading and unloading; the glass-makerswere passing to and fro—women and girls flip-flopping over the dampstones in their quarter-less shoes! the children and the beggars weresprawling in the sun. There the stir and variety of life: here thesilence and the sameness of death.

She found her brother’s grave, and the monument which Fiordelisa andher aunt had set up in his honour. The grave was a mound on which thegrass grew tall and rank, as it grows at Torcello, above the ruins ofthe mother city. The monument—poor tribute of faithful poverty—wasa wooden cross painted black, with an inscription in white lettering,rudely done:—

SIR SMIZZ
MORTO A VENEZIA,
MARTEDI-GRASSO, 1885.

Below this brief description were seven of those conventionalfigures—in shape like a chandelier-drop—which often ornament thefuneral drapery that marks the house of death. These chandelier-drops,painted white on the black ground of the cross, represented tears. Theywere seven, the mystic number, sacred to every Catholic mind.

These seven tears—seven heart-wounds—were all the epitaph Lisa couldgive to her lover. A wreath of immortelles, black with the blackness ofyears, hung upon the cross. It dropped into atoms as Eve touched it,was blown away upon the salt sea wind, vanishing as if it had been thespectral form of a wreath rather than the thing itself.

Eve sank on her knees in the hollow between two graves, and abandonedherself to a long ecstasy of supplication, praying not for the dead, atpeace beneath that green mound where the grasshoppers were chirping,and the swift lizards gliding in and out,—not for the dead, but forthe man who killed him, for the conscience-burdened wanderer, undertorrid suns, far from peace, and home, and all the pleasures andcomforts of civilization, seeking forgetfulness in the arid desert, inthe fever-haunted swamp, among savage beasts and savage men, going withhis life in his hand, lying down to sleep at the end of a weary day,with the knowledge that if his camp-fires were not watched he mightwake to find himself face to face with a lion. Oh, what a life for himto lead, for him whose days had been[Pg 341] spent so pleasantly in the busyidleness of a man whose only occupation is the care of a small landedestate, and whose only notion of hard work is the early rising in theseason of cub-hunting, or the strenuous pleasures of salmon-fishingbeyond the Scottish border.

When her prayer was done—her prayer that her beloved might besheltered and guarded by a Power which guides the forces of Nature,and bridles the neck of the lion, and can disperse the pestilence witha breath—prayer is a dead letter for those who believe less thanthis—Eve sat upon the grass, under her Italian umbrella, the redumbrella which all the peasants use as shelter from sun and rain, andabandoned herself to thoughts of the wanderer.

She knew more of his wanderings than she had hoped to know when Sophy’sletter from Fernhurst first told her that he was travelling with afriend in the Mashona country; thanks to an occasional letter from hisown pen which appeared in the Field, and over which his wifehung with breathless interest, and read and re-read, returning to itagain and again long after the date of publication, as she returnedto Hamlet or “In Memoriam.” Week after week she searched thepaper eagerly for any new letter, or any stray paragraph giving newsof the wanderer; but the letters appeared at long intervals, and thelast was nearly three months old. He had turned his face homeward, hesaid, in that last letter. Her heart thrilled at the thought that hemight have returned ere now, that he might be at Merewood perhaps, inthe rooms where they had lived together, in the garden which was oncetheir earthly Paradise, in which she had watched the growth of everyflowering shrub, and counted every rose, in that mild Hampshire whereroses flourish almost as abundantly as in balmy Devon. She thought ofthe tulip tree she had planted on their favourite lawn, he standingbeside her as she bent to her work, laughingly prophetic of the daywhen they should sit on a rustic bench together under the spreadingbranches of that sapling of to-day, to accept the congratulations ofgarden-party guests upon their golden wedding.

“‘We must really go and speak to the old people,’ some pert youngvisitor would say to a perter granddaughter of the house, ‘only onehardly knows what to say to people of that prodigious age.’”

Eve remembered her feeling of vague wonder what it was like to be old,whilst Vansittart jestingly forecast the future.

Well, all speculation of that kind was at an end now. She would neverknow what it was like.

“Those the Gods love die young,” she repeated to herself,[Pg 342] dreamily.“I would not mind dying—any more than Peggy minded, happy-souledPeggy—if I could but see him before I die. There could be no harm inmy seeing him—just at the end—no treason to my flesh and blood lyinghere.”

She laid her wasted cheek upon the mound, and let her tears mix withthe last lingering dew on the long grass. She wanted to be loyal to herdead; but her heart yearned with a sick yearning for one touch from thehand of the living, for one look from the eyes that would look onlylove. Love, and pardon, and fond regret.

It was a fortnight after that morning in the cemetery at San Michele,that in poring over her Field Eve came upon a two-line paragraphat the bottom of a column, a most obscure little paragraph—side byside with one of those little anecdotes of intensest human interestwhich chill one at the end by the fatal symbol, “Advt.”—a tiny scrapof news which any but the most searching reader would have been likelyto overlook.

“Among the passengers on board the City of Zanzibar, which leftCape Town on the 3rd inst., for Alexandria and Brindisi, were Mr.Murthwait and Mr. Vansittart, returning from a hunting expedition toLobengula’s country.”

Eve sent for her doctor that evening, the English doctor who hadattended her at St. Moritz in January and February, and who was nowtaking a semi-professional holiday in Venice—willing to see oldpatients who might have drifted to the city in the sea, but notdesiring new ones.

She submitted patiently to the necessary auscultation, while her sisterstood by, pale and breathless, waiting to hear the words of doom.

The doctor’s face, when he laid down the stethoscope, was grave evento sorrowfulness. He had been warmly interested in this case in thewinter, had hoped against hope.

“Am I worse than I was in February?” Eve asked quietly.

“I am very sorry to have to say it—yes, you are worse.”

“And you think badly of my case? You think it quite hopeless?”

“There is no such thing as hopelessness,” said the doctor, respondingto an appealing look from Hetty. “You are so young—have such afine constitution, and even after what you told me of your familyhistory—who knows?—there is always a chance.”

“Yes, there was a chance for my youngest sister,” answered Eve, with afaint smile. “Peggy’s chance lasted six months.”

“If there is anything you want to settle—any business matter, such asthe disposal of property, which makes your mind uneasy—it is alwayswell to set such anxieties at rest,” answered the doctor, soothingly.

[Pg 343]

“Yes, I must see to that. My settlement gives me the right to disposeof my property—the property my husband gave me. I had none of my own.But it is not of that I am thinking. Oh, doctor, be frank with me. Ihave a reason for wanting to know. Do you think that I am dying?”

“Alas, dear lady! I cannot promise you many years of life.”

“Or many months? Or many weeks? Oh, doctor, don’t think I am afraid ofthe truth. I am not one of those consumptives who deceive themselves. Ihave no spurious hopes—perhaps because I do not set a great value onlife. Only there is some one I want to see before I die.”

“Send for him, then,” said the doctor, divining that the some one washer husband. “Send for him, and set your mind at rest.”

“I will,” she answered resolutely, and before the doctor had left herhalf an hour she had written and despatched her telegram—

“John Vansittart, Steamer City of Zanzibar, Poste Restante,Brindisi.—I am at Venice, and would give much to see you on your wayhome.—Eve.—Danieli’s.”

The windows of Mrs. Vansittart’s salon on the entresol at Danieli’sopened upon a balcony—a balcony shaded and sheltered by a stripedawning, under which Eve loved to sit at her ease, nestling among thecushions which Hetty arranged for her, on days when, in her own words,she felt hardly equal to the gondola. There had been many days sincethe despatch of that message to Brindisi when Eve had felt unequal tothe gondola, and Hetty had by this time exhausted all the sights ofVenice under the chaperonage of Benson—who gave herself as many airsas if she had been Ruskin—and had yawned as heartily in the Accademiaas ever she had yawned in the National Gallery. She had wearied ofTitian and Tintoretto. She had tried her hardest to admire Carpaccio,and to pin her mind to her limp little piratical edition of the “Stonesof Venice.” She thought of Ruskin religiously every day as she trippedpast Figtree Corner. More fondly, perhaps, did she affect the shopsin the Merceria, and all those wonderful little streets which to theco*ckney of mature years recall all that was most precious—that is tosay, most characteristic of the little industries and little tradesof a great city—in the vanishing alleys and paved courts betweenLeicester Square and Oxford Street. Here there was always somethingto interest the girl from Sussex; and the Rialto, market and bridge,afforded never-failing pleasure. Thus the gondolier had an easy time ofit, and slept away the brightening hours, and basked in the sun, andfattened on golden messes of polenta.

It was quite true that Eve felt less capable of exertion—even thatslight effort of going downstairs and stepping from Danieli’s doorstepinto a gondola—than when first she came to Venice; but she[Pg 344] hadanother and stronger reason for preferring her cushioned nest on thebalcony to the Lido or the lagunes, lovely as those smooth waterswere in the lovely May weather. She was waiting for the result of hertelegram, she was watching for the coming of her husband. He wouldcome to her. On that question she had no fear. If he lived to landat Brindisi and to receive her message, he would come to Venice. Shewould see him, and forgive, and be forgiven, before she died. Forgivehim; forgive the wrong done to another? For her own part there hadnever been anything less than pardon in her mind. She had made everyexcuse that love can make—love, the special pleader—the infallibleadvocate for a criminal at the court of a woman’s conscience. She hadexcused his crime until it was no crime; but she had been firm in herconviction that she could not live with the man who killed her brother.Looking back now at the years of a double exile there was no waveringin her mind, no regret for what she had done. She felt only gratitudeto Providence who had shortened the lonely years, and brought the endso near.

Three weeks of watching and waiting passed like a slow pensive dream—adream of blue water—and lounging gondoliers—and flower-girls withbaskets of ragged pink peonies, and the shriek and whistle of thesteamer for the Lido, and the passing of many footsteps, and soundof many voices, grey-coated tourists, American and British, for evercoming and going, so light-hearted, so light-minded, so noisy, thatone might think care and sorrow had no part in their lives or in theirmemories. To Eve, dwelling for ever on the memory of the life whichhad been, on the thought of the parting which was to be, all thattumultuous movement and gaiety seemed a thing of wonder.

“How happy they all are!” she said. “What a happy world it seems—forother people.”

“Ah, but you see people must wear their happy side outermost,” answeredHetty, “and I dare say even Americans know what care means, though theyalways seem wallowing in money and new clothes. I wish you would comedown to the hall to-night, and hear the little concert we have everyevening, and see my favourite young lady from Boston. She has all herfrocks from Paris, and her waist is under nineteen inches. Yet sheeats! Ah, what a privilege to be able to eat as much as she does, andyet keep one’s waist under nineteen inches!”

The day had been almost oppressively warm, and the fishing-boats werecoming home through a sea of molten gold in the unspeakable splendourof a Venetian sunset, when May has breathed the first breath of summerheat over land and water. Eve had been sitting in the balcony all dayreading those little books of Howells’[Pg 345] and his contemporaries, whichseem especially invented for the traveller in fair countries, light,portable, dainty to touch and gracious to look upon, and eminentlyproper. She had read, and dreamed her waking dreams, and dozed a gooddeal at intervals—for her nights now were sadly broken, and sadlywakeful—quite as bad as poor Miss Margaret’s nights, as Benson toldher sympathetically. Miss Margaret? Who was Miss Margaret? And then Everemembered how the respectful Benson had insisted on calling Peggy by aname which no other lips had ever addressed to her.

Benson was an admirable nurse, wakeful, watchful, really attached toher mistress; but she was just a shade too business-like, and toomuch inclined to look upon Eve as a case rather than an individual.She watched the progress of decay with a ghoulish gusto, and told hermistress more about former patients than it was cheering for an invalidto know.

To-day, after the weariness of the night, and the long, long hoursbetween sunrise and the breakfast hour of civilization, Eve’s fitfulslumbers were sound and deep, deeper than dreamland, deep as the darkabyss of unconsciousness. She had been falling into this gulf now andagain all day, falling suddenly from her book or her daydream into thatblack pit of sleep.

A cooler breeze sprang up with the sinking of the sun, and the waterbetween the Riva and the island church was stirred into bolder ripplesas the dark gondolas stood sharply out against the reddening light. Thesalt breath of the Adriatic was blowing across the sandy bar yonderwith revivifying freshness. Eve rose from her nest of pillows in thelow canvas chair, and stood leaning against the balcony, looking atthe animated scene. There was a paper lantern twinkling here and therewith a pale fantastic light, in sickly contrast to that blaze of sunsetcolour, and as the crimson faded in the low western sky the littleearthly lights brightened and grew bold, and there came the sound ofthat light music which Venetians love, music that seems only a naturalaccompaniment to the ripple of the incoming tide.

“How bright and gay it all looks!” said Eve. “Is there anything onearth to equal Venice? Oh, how strange that I should love this city sowell!” she murmured, in self-reproach, remembering the purpose that hadbrought her there.

The charm of the city had crept upon her unawares. She was glad to livethere, glad that she was to die there.

She looked towards the bridge by the Doge’s Palace, and saw a manwalking quickly down the steps—a bearded man, with a brown skin and aweather-beaten look. He was coming quickly towards the hotel; he waslooking up at the windows, scanning the wide frontage with a sweepingglance, now high, now low, till his eyes[Pg 346] lighted on the balcony whereshe stood, lighted on herself, and never unfixed their gaze.

Changed as he was, she had known him from the first instant. She hadknown him when he appeared at the top of the steps for John Vansittartand no other. There was something in his walk, something in thecarriage of his head, something which to the eyes of love seemed todistinguish him from all the rest of the world—characteristics thatmight have been invisible to all other eyes.

He ran towards the low doorway, and scarcely had he vanished fromthe outer world below when she heard a door bang at the end of thecorridor and the rush of hurrying feet. How quick, how impetuous, whata creature of fire and name he seemed as he dashed into the room andclasped her in his arms!

“Are these your African manners?” she gasped, laughing and crying inthe same moment.

“Oh, my love, my love, how sweet to hold you on my heart again and beforgiven! I am forgiven, am I not, dear? My calamity, or my crime—callit what you will—is forgiven. Oh, love, I have suffered. I have drunkthe cup of atonement.”

She was sobbing upon his shoulder, her face hidden, as she clung tohim, with wasted arms wreathing his neck. In the blindness of hisjoy—for joy, like fortune, is stone blind—he had not noticed howpitiably thin those caressing arms had grown. Suddenly, scared by hersilence, he withdrew himself from that caress, and held her from him atarm’s length, and, looking into her face, saw the sign manual of death,and knew why she had summoned him.

By a heroic effort he commanded his countenance, and smiled faintlyback her own faint smile.

“There is no question of the past between you and me,” she said, “onlylove, a world of love.”

He drew her to his breast again, cradling the thin cheek against hisbrown and bearded countenance, holding her to him as if he would holdher there against the grim assailant Death, breathing his own stronglife into her as their lips met and their breath mingled. Surelybetween them there was life and vigour enough to ward off Death.

“My darling, my darling, my darling!”

It was all that he could say just yet. The rapture of reunion, theagony of an unspeakable dread were storming heart and mind. He feltlike a man lashed to the mast in a hurricane, all the forces of Naturewarring round him, unable to measure his danger or his chance of rescue.

To have her, to hold her again, loving him as of old. And then tolose her! But must he lose her? Could neither love nor science work amiracle, and snatch her from the jaws of the Destroyer?

[Pg 347]

He grew calmer presently, and they sat side by side in the deepeningshadows, and began to talk to each other quietly, in soft hushedvoices, while the music and the voices of the Riva mixed with theirhalf-whispered sentences, and the footsteps went by with a gay springin them as if all Venice were hurrying from pleasure to pleasure.

“Oh, dearest, it was time you sent for me; it was time,” he said. “Youhave given me a long penance. Nothing but Africa could have helped meto bear my life. In a world less full of strange hazards I must havelost patience with calamity, and made a swift and sudden end of myself.Thanks to the Dark Continent I have lived somehow, as you see, and comeback a semi-savage, a creature of thews and sinews.”

“No, you are only rougher looking and browner. I can see the soulshining through your eyes. Africa has not altered that.”

“But you, dear love,” he said, with a thrill in his voice that markedthe strangled sob, “you are altered. You are looking tired and ill. Iam afraid you have been neglecting yourself. I shall take you to theEngadine, where we ought to have taken poor Peggy. The Riviera was amistake. A winter at St. Moritz would have cured her. We will startto-morrow.”

She did not answer for a minute or so, but nestled nearer to him, withher wan cheek leaning against his shoulder, and her waxen fingersclasping his strong wrist, hardened and roughened by weather and toil.

“The Engadine can do nothing for me, Jack—no more than it could havedone for Peggy. South or north, mountain or valley, the end would havebeen the same. It is our family history, Jack. We were doomed from ourbirth. I was sent to the Engadine last winter, and Hetty and I onlyleft St. Moritz in March. We stayed at Varese for nearly a month, andthen came here. Hetty is with me, so bright, so active, so happy; butsome day perhaps she will look in the glass as I have looked, and willsee the summons written on her face. Dear husband, don’t be too sorryfor me. This parting must have come, even if we had escaped the other;even if I had never known what happened at Florian’s; never kneltbeside my brother’s grave in the island cemetery. Let me lie near him,Jack: and whatever your future life may be—and God grant it may berich in blessings, you have suffered enough for your sin—think of mesometimes; and sometimes, in your wanderings, go to San Michele andlook upon my grave.”

He clasped her close against his heart, with a shuddering sigh.

Two days after, he took her away from the life and movement of the Rivato a palace on the Grand Canal, where the quiet of the[Pg 348] Silent City hada soothing influence on her overwrought spirit. If any life could havebeen happy in which the end was so near, theirs would have been happyin that delicious beginning of the Venetian summer, a season when mereexistence is a privilege. Whatever love which passeth understandingcan do to smooth the last days of a fading life was done for Eve; andit may be that the footsteps of the invincible Enemy were slackenedsomewhat by that unsleeping watchfulness.

The end came slowly, and not ungently, and till the end her husband washer devoted nurse and companion, thinking no thought that was not ofher.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74385 ***