April's Lady: A Novel

by Duchess

APRIL'S LADY.

"Must we part? or may I linger? Wax the shadows, wanes the day." Then, with voice of sweetest singer, That hath all but died away, "Go," she said, but tightened finger Said articulately, "Stay!"

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CHAPTER I.

"Philosophy triumphs easily over past and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy."

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"A letter from my father," says Mr. Monkton, flinging the letter in question across the breakfast-table to his wife.

"A letter from Sir George!" Her dark, pretty face flushes crimson.

"And such a letter after eight years of obstinate silence. There! read it," says her husband, contemptuously. The contempt is all for the writer of the letter.

Mrs. Monkton taking it up, with a most honest curiosity, that might almost be termed anxiety, reads it through, and in turn flings it from her as though it had been a scorpion.

"Never mind, Jack!" says she with a great assumption of indifference that does not hide from her husband the fact that her eyes are full of tears. "Butter that bit of toast for me before it is quite cold, and give Joyce some ham. Ham, darling? or an egg?" to Joyce, with a forced smile that makes her charming face quite sad.

"Have you two been married eight whole years?" asks Joyce laying her elbows on the table, and staring at her sister with an astonished gaze. "It seems like yesterday! What a swindler old Time is. To look at Barbara, one would not believe she could have been born eight years ago."

"Nonsense!" says Mrs. Monkton laughing, and looking as pleased as married women—even the happiest—always do, when they are told they look unmarried. "Why Tommy is seven years old."

"Oh! That's nothing!" says Joyce airily, turning her dark eyes, that are lovelier, if possible, than her sister's, upon the sturdy child who is sitting at his father's right hand. "Tommy, we all know, is much older than his mother. Much more advanced; more learned in the wisdom of this world; aren't you, Tommy?"

But Tommy, at this present moment, is deaf to the charms of conversation, his young mind being nobly bent on proving to his sister (a priceless treasure of six) that the salt-cellar planted between them belongs not to her, but to him! This sounds reasonable, but the difficulty lies in making Mabel believe it. There comes the pause eloquent at last, and then, I regret to say, the free fight!

It might perhaps have been even freer, but for the swift intervention of the paternal relative, who, swooping down upon the two belligerents with a promptitude worthy of all praise, seizes upon his daughter, and in spite of her kicks, which are noble, removes her to the seat on his left hand.

Thus separated hope springs within the breasts of the lookers-on that peace may soon be restored; and indeed, after a sob or two from Mabel, and a few passes of the most reprehensible sort from Tommy (entirely of the facial order), a great calm falls upon the breakfast-room.

"When I was your age, Tommy," says Mr. Monkton addressing his son, and striving to be all that the orthodox parent ought to be, "I should have been soundly whipped if I had behaved to my sister as you have just now behaved to yours!"

"You haven't a sister," says Tommy, after which the argument falls flat. It is true, Mr. Monkton is innocent of a sister, but how did the little demon remember that so apropos.

"Nevertheless," said Mr. Monkton, "if I had had a sister, I know I should not have been unkind to her."

"Then she'd have been unkind to you," says Tommy, who is evidently not afraid to enter upon a discussion of the rights and wrongs of mankind with his paternal relative. "Look at Mabel! And I don't care what she says," with a vindictive glance at the angelic featured Mabel, who glares back at him with infinite promise of a future settlement of all their disputes in her ethereal eyes. "'Twas my salt-cellar, not hers!"

"Ladies first—pleasure afterwards," says his father somewhat idly.

"Oh Freddy!" says his wife.

"Seditious language I call it," says Jocelyne with a laugh.

"Eh?" says Mr. Monkton. "Why what on earth have I been saying now. I quite believed I was doing the heavy father to perfection and teaching Tommy his duty."

"Nice duty," says Jocelyne, with a pretence of indignation, that makes her charming face a perfect picture. "Teaching him to regard us as second best! I like that."

"Good heavens! did I give that impression? I must have swooned," says Mr. Monkton penitently. "When last in my senses I thought I had been telling Tommy that he deserved a good whipping; and that if good old Time could so manage as to make me my own father, he would assuredly have got it."

"Oh! your father!" says Mrs. Monkton in a low tone; there is enough expression in it, however, to convey the idea to everyone present that in her opinion her husband's father would be guilty of any atrocity at a moment's notice.

"Well, 'twas my salt-cellar," says Tommy again stoutly, and as if totally undismayed by the vision of the grand-fatherly scourge held out to him. After all we none of us feel things much, unless they come personally home to us.

"Was it?" says Mr. Monkton mildly. "Do you know, I really quite fancied it was mine."

"What?" says Tommy, cocking his ear. He, like his sister, is in a certain sense a fraud. For Tommy has the face of a seraph with the heart of a hardy Norseman. There is nothing indeed that Tommy would not dare.

"Mine, you know," says his father, even more mildly still.

"No, it wasn't," says Tommy with decision, "it was at my side of the table. Yours is over there."

"Thomas!" says his father, with a rueful shake of the head that signifies his resignation of the argument; "it is indeed a pity that I am not like my father!"

"Like him! Oh no," says Mrs. Monkton emphatically, impulsively; the latent dislike to the family who had refused to recognize her on her marriage with their son taking fire at this speech.

Her voice sounds almost hard—the gentle voice, that in truth was only meant by Mother Nature to give expression to all things kind and loving.

She has leant a little forward and a swift flush is dyeing her cheek. She is of all women the youngest looking, for her years; as a matron indeed she seems absurd. The delicate bloom of girlhood seems never to have left her, but—as though in love of her beauty—has clung to her day by day. So that now, when she has known eight years of married life (and some of them deeply tinctured with care—the cruel care that want of money brings), she still looks as though the morning of womanhood was as yet but dawning for her.

And this is because love the beautifier went with her all the way! Hand in hand he has traveled with her on the stony paths that those who marry must undoubtedly pursue. Never once had he let go his hold, and so it is, that her lovely face has defied Time (though after all that obnoxious Ancient has not had yet much opportunity given him to spoil it), and at twenty-five she looks but a little older than her sister, who is just eighteen, and seven years younger than she is.

Her pretty soft grey Irish eyes, that are as nearly not black as it is possible for them to be, are still filled with the dews of youth. Her mouth is red and happy. Her hair—so distinctly chestnut as to be almost guilty of a shade of red in it here and there—covers her dainty head in rippling masses, that fall lightly forward, and rest upon a brow, snow-white, and low and broad as any Greek's might be.

She had spoken a little hurriedly, with some touch of anger. But quick as the anger was born, so quickly does it die.

"I shouldn't have said that, perhaps," says she, sending a little tremulous glance at her husband from behind the urn. "But I couldn't help it. I can't bear to hear you say you would like to be like him."

She smiles (a little, gentle, "don't-be-angry-with-me" smile, scarcely to be resisted by any man, and certainly not by her husband, who adores her). It is scarcely necessary to record this last fact, as all who run may read it for themselves, but it saves time to put it in black and white.

"But why not, my dear?" says Mr. Monkton, magisterially. "Surely, considering all things, you have reason to be deeply grateful to Sir George. Why, then, abuse him?"

"Grateful! To Sir George! To your father!" cries his wife, hotly and quick, and——

"Freddy!" from his sister-in-law brings him to a full stop for a moment.

"Do you mean to tell me," says he, thus brought to bay, "that you have nothing to thank Sir George for?" He is addressing his wife.

"Nothing, nothing!" declares she, vehemently, the remembrance of that last letter from her husband's father, that still lies within reach of her view, lending a suspicion of passion to her voice.

"Oh, my dear girl, consider!" says Mr. Monkton, lively reproach in his tone. "Has he not given you me, the best husband in Europe?"

"Ah, what it is to be modest," says Joyce, with her little quick brilliant laugh.

"Well, it's not true," says Mrs. Monkton, who has laughed also, in spite of herself and the soreness at her heart. "He did not give you to me. You made me that gift of your own free will. I have, as I said before, nothing to thank him for."

"I always think he must be a silly old man," says Joyce, which seems to put a fitting termination to the conversation.

The silence that ensues annoys Tommy, who dearly loves to hear the human voice divine. As expressed by himself first, but if that be impracticable, well, then by somebody else. Anything is better than dull silence.

"Is he that?" asks he, eagerly, of his aunt.

Though I speak of her as his aunt, I hope it will not be misunderstood for a moment that Tommy totally declines to regard her in any reverential light whatsoever. A playmate, a close friend, a confidante, a useful sort of person, if you will, but certainly not an aunt, in the general acceptation of that term. From the very first year that speech fell on them, both Mabel and he had refused to regard Miss Kavanagh as anything but a confederate in all their scrapes, a friend to rejoice with in all their triumphs; she had never been aunt, never, indeed, even so much as the milder "auntie" to them; she had been "Joyce," only, from the very commencement of their acquaintance. The united commands of both father and mother (feebly enforced) had been insufficient to compel them to address this most charming specimen of girlhood by any grown up title. To them their aunt was just such an one as themselves—only, perhaps, a little more so.

A lovely creature, at all events, and lovable as lovely. A little inconsequent, perhaps at times, but always amenable to reason, when put into a corner, and full of the glad, laughter of youth.

"Is he what?" says she, now returning Tommy's eager gaze.

"The best husband in Europe. He says he's that," with a doubtful stare at his father.

"Why, the very best, of course," says Joyce, nodding emphatically. "Always remember that, Tommy. It's a good thing to be, you know. You'll want to be that, won't you?"

But if she has hoped to make a successful appeal to Tommy's noble qualities (hitherto, it must be confessed, carefully kept hidden), she finds herself greatly mistaken.

"No, I won't," says that truculent person distinctly. "I want to be a big general with a cocked hat, and to kill people. I don't want to be a husband at all. What's the good of that?"

"To pursue the object would be to court defeat," says Mr. Monkton meekly. He rises from the table, and, seeing him move, his wife rises too.

"You are going to your study?" asks she, a little anxiously. He is about to say "no" to this, but a glance at her face checks him.

"Yes, come with me," says he instead, answering the lovely silent appeal in her eyes. That letter has no doubt distressed her. She will be happier when she has talked it over with him—they two alone. "As for you, Thomas," says his father, "I'm quite aware that you ought to be consigned to the Donjon keep after your late behavior, but as we don't keep one on the premises, I let you off this time. Meanwhile I haste to my study to pen, with the assistance of your enraged mother, a letter to our landlord that will induce him to add one on at once to this building. After which we shall be able to incarcerate you at our pleasure (but not at yours) on any and every hour of the day."

"Who's Don John?" asks Tommy, totally unimpressed, but filled with lively memories of those Spaniards and other foreign powers who have unkindly made more difficult his hateful lessons off and on.

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CHAPTER II.

"No love lost between us."

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"Well," says Mr. Monkton, turning to his wife as the study (a rather nondescript place) is reached. He has closed the door, and is now looking at her with a distinctly quizzical light in his eyes and in the smile that parts his lips. "Now for it. Have no qualms. I've been preparing myself all through breakfast and I think I shall survive it. You are going to have it out with me, aren't you?"

"Not with you," says she, returning his smile indeed, but faintly, and without heart, "that horrid letter! I felt I must talk of it to someone, and——"

"I was that mythical person. I quite understand. I take it as a special compliment."

"I know it is hard on you, but when I am really vexed about anything, you know, I always want to tell you about it."

"I should feel it a great deal harder if you didn't want to tell me about it," says he. He has come nearer to her and has pressed her into a chair—a dilapidated affair that if ever it had a best day has forgotten it by now—and yet for all that is full of comfort. "I am only sorry"—moving away again and leaning against the chimney piece—"that you should be so foolish as to let my father's absurd prejudices annoy you at this time of day."

"He will always have it in his power to annoy me," says she quickly. "That perhaps," with a little burst of feeling, "is why I can't forgive him. If I could forget, or grow indifferent to it all, I should not have this hurt feeling in my heart. But he is your father, and though he is the most unjust, the cruellest man on earth, I still hate to think he should regard me as he does."

"There is one thing, however, you do forget," says Mr. Monkton gravely. "I don't want to apologize for him, but I would remind you that he has never seen you."

"That's only an aggravation of his offence," her color heightening; "the very fact that he should condemn me unseen, unheard, adds to the wrong he has done me instead of taking from it." She rises abruptly and begins to pace up and down the room, the hot Irish blood in her veins afire. "No"—with a little impatient gesture of her small hand—"I can't sit still. Every pulse seems throbbing. He has opened up all the old wounds, and——" She pauses and then turns upon her husband two lovely flashing eyes. "Why, why should he suppose that I am vulgar, lowly born, unfit to be your wife?"

"My darling girl, what can it matter what he thinks? A ridiculous headstrong old man in one scale, and——"

"But it does matter. I want to convince him that I am not—not—what he believes me to be."

"Then come over to England and see him."

"No—never! I shall never go to England. I shall stay in Ireland always. My own land; the land whose people he detests because he knows nothing about them. It was one of his chief objections to your marriage with me, that I was an Irish girl!"

She stops short, as though her wrath and indignation and contempt is too much for her.

"Barbara," says Monkton, very gently, but with a certain reproach, "do you know you almost make me think that you regret our marriage."

"No, I don't," quickly. "If I talked for ever I shouldn't be able to make you think that. But——" She turns to him suddenly, and gazes at him through large eyes that are heavy with tears. "I shall always be sorry for one thing, and that is—that you first met me where you did."

"At your aunt's? Mrs. Burke's?"

"She is not my aunt," with a little frown of distaste; "she is nothing to me so far as blood is concerned. Oh! Freddy." She stops close to him, and gives him a grief-stricken glance. "I wish my poor father had been alive when first you saw me. That we could have met for the first time in the old home. It was shabby—faded"—her face paling now with intense emotion. "But you would have known at once that it had been a fine old place, and that the owner of it——" She breaks down, very slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Monkton understands that even one more word is beyond her.

"That the owner of it, like St. Patrick, came of decent people," quotes he with an assumption of gaiety he is far from feeling. "My good child, I don't want to see anyone to know that of you. You carry the sign manual. It is written in large characters all over you."

"Yet I wish you had known me before my father died," says she, her grief and pride still unassuaged. "He was so unlike anybody else. His manners were so lovely. He was offered a baronetcy at the end of that Whiteboy business on account of his loyalty—that nearly cost him his life—but he refused it, thinking the old name good enough without a handle to it."

"Kavanagh, we all know, is a good name."

"If he had accepted that title he would have been as—the same—as your father!" There is defiance in this sentence.

"Quite the same!"

"No, no, he would not," her defiance now changes into, sorrowful honesty. "Your father has been a baronet for centuries, my father would have only been a baronet for a few years."

"For centuries!" repeats Mr. Monkton with an alarmed air. There is a latent sense of humor (or rather an appreciation of humor) about him that hardly endears him to the opposite sex. His wife, being Irish, condones it, because she happens to understand it, but there are moments, we all know, when even the very best and most appreciative women refuse to understand anything. This is one of them. "Condemn my father if you will," says Mr. Monkton, "accuse him of all the crimes in the calendar, but for my sake give up the belief that he is the real and original Wandering Jew. Debrett—Burke—either of those immaculate people will prove to you that my father ascended his throne in——"

"You can laugh at me if you like, Freddy," says Mrs. Monkton with severity tempered with dignity; "but if you laughed until this day month you couldn't make me forget the things that make me unhappy."

"I don't want to," says Mr. Monkton, still disgracefully frivolous. "I'm one of the things, and yet——"

"Don't!" says his wife, so abruptly, and with such an evident determination to give way to mirth, coupled with an equally strong determination to give way to tears, that he at once lays down his arms.

"Go on then," says he, seating himself beside her. She is not in the arm-chair now, but on an ancient and respectable sofa that gives ample room for the accommodation of two; a luxury denied by that old curmudgeon the arm-chair.

"Well, it is this, Freddy. When I think of that dreadful old woman, Mrs. Burke, I feel as though you thought she was a fair sample of the rest of my family. But she is not a sample, she has nothing to do with us. An uncle of my mother married her because she was rich, and there her relationship to us began and ended."

"Still——"

"Yes, I know, you needn't remind me, it seems burnt into my brain, I know she took us in after my father's death, and covered me and Joyce with benefits when we hadn't a penny in the world we could call our own. I quite understand, indeed, that we should have starved but for her, and yet—yet—" passionately, "I cannot forgive her for perpetually reminding us that we had not that penny!"

"It must have been a bad time," says Monkton slowly. He takes her hand and smoothes it lovingly between both of his.

"She was vulgar. That was not her fault; I forgive her that. What I can't forgive her, is the fact that you should have met me in her house."

"A little unfair, isn't it?"

"Is it? You will always now associate me with her!"

"I shan't indeed. Do you think I have up to this? Nonsense! A more absurd amalgamation I couldn't fancy."

"She was not one of us," feverishly. "I have never spoken to you about this, Freddy, since that first letter your father wrote to you just after our marriage. You remember it? And then, I couldn't explain somehow—but now—this last letter has upset me dreadfully; I feel as if it was all different, and that it was my duty to make you aware of the real truth. Sir George thinks of me as one beneath him; that is not true. He may have heard that I lived with Mrs. Burke, and that she was my aunt; but if my mother's brother chose to marry a woman of no family because she had money,"—contemptuously, "that might disgrace him, but would not make her kin to us. You saw her, you—" lifting distressed eyes to his—"you thought her dreadful, didn't you?"

"I have only had one thought about her. That she was good to you in your trouble, and that but for her I should never have met you."

"That is like you," says she gratefully, yet impatiently. "But it isn't enough. I want you to understand that she is quite unlike my own real people—my father, who was like a prince," throwing up her head, "and my uncle, his brother."

"You have an uncle, then?" with some surprise.

"Oh no, had," sadly.

"He is dead then?"

"Yes. I suppose so. You are wondering," says she quickly, "that I have never spoken to you of him or my father before. But I could not. The thought that your family objected to me, despised me, seemed to compel me to silence. And you—you asked me very little."

"How could I, Barbara? Any attempt I made was repulsed. I thought it kinder to——"

"Yes—I was wrong. I see it now. But I couldn't bear to explain myself. I told you what I could about my father, and that seemed to me sufficient. Your people's determination to regard me as impossible tied my tongue."

"I don't believe it was that," says he laughing. "I believe we were so happy that we didn't care to discuss anything but each other. Delightful subjects full of infinite variety! We have sat so lightly to the world all these years, that if my father's letter had not come this morning I honestly think we should never have thought about him again."

This is scarcely true, but he is bent on giving her mind a happier turn if possible.

"What's the good of talking to me like that, Freddy," says she reproachfully. "You know one never forgets anything of that sort. A slight I mean; and from one's own family. You are always thinking of it; you know you are."

"Well, not always, my dear, certainly—" says Mr. Monkton temporizing. "And if even I do give way to retrospection, it is to feel indignant with both my parents."

"Yes; and I don't want you to feel like that. It must be dreadful, and it is my fault. When I think how I felt towards my dear old dad, and my uncle—I——"

"Well, never mind that. I've got you, and without meaning any gross flattery, I consider you worth a dozen dads. Tell me about your uncle. He died?"

"We don't know. He went abroad fifteen years ago. He must be dead I think, because if he were alive he would certainly have written to us. He was very fond of Joyce and me; but no letter from him has reached us for years. He was charming. I wish you could have known him."

"So do I—if you wish it. But—" coming over and sitting down beside her, "don't you think it is a little absurd, Barbara, after all these years, to think it necessary to tell me that you have good blood in your veins? Is it not a self-evident fact; and—one more word dearest—surely you might do me the credit to understand that I could never have fallen in love with anyone who hadn't an ancestor or two."

"And yet your father——"

"I know," rising to his feet, his brow darkening. "Do you think I don't suffer doubly on your account? That I don't feel the insolence of his behavior toward you four-fold? There is but one excuse for him and my mother, and that lies in their terrible disappointment about my brother—their eldest son."

"I know; you have told me," begins she quickly, but he interrupts her.

"Yes, I have been more open with you than you with me. I feel no pride where you are concerned. Of course my brother's conduct towards them is no excuse for their conduct towards you, but when one has a sore heart one is apt to be unjust, and many other things. You know what a heart-break he has been to the old people, and is! A gambler, a dishonorable gambler!" He turns away from her, and his nostrils dilate a little; his right hand grows clenched. "Every spare penny they possess has been paid over to him of his creditors, and they are not over-burdened with riches. They had set their hearts on him, and all their hopes, and when he failed them they fell back on me. The name is an old one; money was wanted. They had arranged a marriage for me, that would have been worldly wise. I too disappointed them!"

"Oh!" she has sprung to her feet, and is staring at him with horrified eyes. "A marriage! There was someone else! You accuse me of want of candor, and now, you—did you ever mention this before?"

"Now, Barbara, don't be the baby your name implies," says he, placing her firmly back in her seat. "I didn't marry that heiress, you know, which is proof positive that I loved you, not her."

"But she—she—" she stammers and ceases suddenly, looking at him with a glance full of question. Womanlike, everything has given way to the awful thought, that this unknown had not been unknown to him, and that perhaps he had admired—loved——

"Couldn't hold a candle to you," says he, laughing in spite of himself at her expression which, indeed, is nearly tragic. "You needn't suffocate yourself with charcoal because of her. She had made her pile, or rather her father had, at Birmingham or elsewhere, I never took the trouble to inquire, and she was undoubtedly solid in every way, but I don't care for the female giant, and so I—you know the rest, I met you; I tell you this only to soften your heart, if possible, towards these lonely, embittered old people of mine."

"Do you mean that when your brother disappointed them that they——" she pauses.

"No. They couldn't make me their heir. The property is strictly entailed (what is left of it); you need not make yourself miserable imagining you have done me out of anything more than their good-will. George will inherit whatever he has left them to leave."

"It is sad," says she, with downcast eyes.

"Yes. He has been a constant source of annoyance to them ever since he left Eton."

"Where is he now?"

"Abroad, I believe. In Italy, somewhere, or France—not far from a gaming table, you may be sure. But I know nothing very exactly, as he does not correspond with me, and that letter of this morning is the first I have received from my father for four years."

"He must, indeed, hate me," says she, in a low tone. "His elder son such a failure, and you—he considers you a failure, too."

"Well, I don't consider myself so," says he, gaily.

"They were in want of money, and you—you married a girl without a penny."

"I married a girl who was in herself a mine of gold," returns he, laying his hands on her shoulders and giving her a little shake. "Come, never mind that letter, darling; what does it matter when all is said and done?"

"The first after all these years; and the, last—you remember it? It was terrible. Am I unreasonable if I remember it?"

"It was a cruel letter," says he slowly; "to forget it would be impossible, either for you or me. But, as I said just now, how does it affect us? You have me, and I have you; and they, those foolish old people, they have——" He pauses abruptly, and then goes on in a changed tone, "their memories."

"Oh! and sad ones!" cries she, sharply, as if hurt. "It is a terrible picture you have conjured up. You and I so happy, and they—Oh! poor old people!"

"They have wronged you—slighted you—ill-treated you," says he, looking at her.

"But they are unhappy; they must be wretched always about your brother, their first child. Oh! what a grief is theirs!"

"What a heart is yours!" says he, drawing her to him. "Barbara! surely I shall not die until they have met you, and learned why I love you."

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CHAPTER III.

"It was a lover and his lass With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino! That o'er the green cornfield did pass In the Spring-time, the only pretty ring-time, When birds do sing hey-ding-a-ding, Sweet lovers love the Spring."

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Joyce is running through the garden, all the sweet wild winds of heaven playing round her. They are a little wild still. It is the end of lovely May, but though languid Summer is almost with us, a suspicion of her more sparkling sister Spring fills all the air.

Miss Kavanagh has caught up the tail of her gown, and is flying as if for dear life. Behind her come the foe, fast and furious. Tommy, indeed, is now dangerously close at her heels, armed with a ferocious-looking garden fork, his face crimson, his eyes glowing with the ardor of the chase; Mabel, much in the background, is making a bad third.

Miss Kavanagh is growing distinctly out of breath. In another moment Tommy will have her. By this time he has fully worked himself into the belief that he is a Red Indian, and she his lawful prey, and is prepared to make a tomahawk of his fork, and having felled her, to scalp her somehow, when Providence shows her a corner round a rhododendron bush that may save her for the moment. She makes for it, gains it, turns it, dashes round it, and all but precipitates herself into the arms of a young man who has been walking leisurely towards her.

He is a tall young man, not strictly handsome, but decidedly good to look at, with honest hazel eyes, and a shapely head, and altogether very well set up. As a rule he is one of the most cheerful people alive, and a tremendous favorite in his regiment, the —— Hussars, though just now it might suggest itself to the intelligent observer that he considers he has been hardly used. A very little more haste, and that precipitation must have taken place. He had made an instinctive movement towards her with protective arms outstretched; but though a little cry had escaped her, she had maintained her balance, and now stands looking at him with laughing eyes, and panting breath, and two pretty hands pressed against her bosom.

Mr. Dysart lets his disappointed arms fall to his sides, and assumes the aggrieved air of one who has been done out of a good thing.

"You!" says she, when at last she can speak.

"I suppose so," returns he discontentedly. He might just as well have been anyone else, or anywhere else—such a chance—and gone!

"Never were you so welcome!" cries she, dodging behind him as Tommy, fully armed, and all alive, comes tearing round the corner. "Ah, ha, Tommy, sold! I've got a champion now. I'm no longer shivering in my shoes. Mr. Dysart will protect me—won't you, Mr. Dysart?" to the young man, who says "yes" without stirring a muscle. The heaviest bribe would not have induced him to move, because, standing behind him, she has laid her dainty fingers on his shoulders, from which safe position she mocks at Tommy with security. Were the owners of the shoulders to stir, the owners of the fingers might remove the delightful members. Need it be said that, with this awful possibility before him, Mr. Dysart is prepared to die at his post rather than budge an inch.

And, indeed, death seems imminent. Tommy charging round the rhododendron, finding himself robbed of his expected scalp, grows frantic, and makes desperate passes at Mr. Dysart's legs, which that hero, being determined, as I have said, not to stir under any provocation, circumvents with a considerable display of policy, such as:

"I say, Tommy, old boy, is that you? How d'ye do? Glad to see me, aren't you?" This last very artfully with a view to softening the attacks. "You don't know what I've brought you!" This is more artful still, and distinctly a swindle, as he has brought him nothing, but on the spot he determines to redeem himself with the help of the small toy-shops and sweety shops down in the village. "Put down that fork like a good boy, and let me tell you how——"

"Oh, bother you!" says Tommy, indignantly. "I'd have had her only for you! What brought you here now? Couldn't you have waited a bit?"

"Yes! what brought you?" says Miss Kavanagh, most disgracefully going over to the other side, now that danger is at an end, and Tommy has planted his impromptu tomahawk in a bed close by.

"Do you want to know?" says he quickly.

The fingers have been removed from his shoulders, and he is now at liberty to turn round and look at the charming face beside him.

"No, no!" says she, shaking her head. "I've been rude, I suppose. But it is such a wonderful thing to see you here so soon again."

"Why should I not be here?"

"Of course! That is the one unanswerable question. But you must confess it is puzzling to those who thought of you as being elsewhere."

"If you are one of 'those' you fill me with gratitude. That you should think of me even for a moment——"

"Well, I haven't been thinking much," says she, frankly, and with the most delightful if scarcely satisfactory little smile: "I don't believe I was thinking of you at all, until I turned the corner just now, and then, I confess, I was startled, because I believed you at the Antipodes."

"Perhaps your belief was mother to your thought."

"Oh, no. Don't make me out so nasty. Well, but were you there?"

"Perhaps so. Where are they?" asks he gloomily. "One hears a good deal about them, but they comprise so many places that now-a-days one is hardly sure where they exactly lie. At all events no one has made them clear to me."

"Does it rest with me to enlighten you?" asks she, with a little aggravating half glance from under her long lashes; "well—the North Pole, Kamtschatka, Smyrna, Timbuctoo, Maoriland, Margate——"

"We'll stop there, I think," says he, with a faint grimace.

"There! At Margate? No, thanks. You can, if you like, but as for me——"

"I don't suppose you would stop anywhere with me," says he. "I have occasional glimmerings that I hope mean common sense. No, I have not been so adventurous as to wander towards Margate. I have only been to town and back again."

"What town?"

"Eh? What town?" says he astonished. "London, you know."

"No, I don't know," says Miss Kavanagh, a little petulantly. "One would think there was only one town in the world, and that all you English people had the monopoly of it. There are other towns, I suppose. Even we poor Irish insignificants have a town or two. Dublin comes under that head, I suppose?"

"Undoubtedly. Of course," making great haste to abase himself. "It is mere snobbery our making so much of London. A kind of despicable cant, you know."

"Well, after all, I expect it is a big place in every way," says Miss Kavanagh, so far mollified by his submission as to be able to allow him something.

"It's a desert," says Tommy, turning to his aunt, with all the air of one who is about to impart to her useful information. "It's raging with wild beasts. They roam to and fro and are at their wits' ends——" here Tommy, who is great on Bible history, but who occasionally gets mixed, stops short. "Father says they're there," he winds up defiantly.

"Wild beasts!" echoes Mr. Dysart, bewildered. "Is this the teaching about their Saxon neighbors that the Irish children receive at the hands of their parents and guardians. Oh, well, come now, Tommy, really, you know——"

"Yes; they are there," says Tommy, rebelliously. "Frightful beasts! Bears! They'd tear you in bits if they could get at you. They have no reason in them, father says. And they climb up posts, and roar at people."

"Oh, nonsense!" says Mr. Dysart. "One would think we were having a French Revolution all over again in England. Don't you think," glancing severely at Joyce, who is giving way to unrestrained mirth, "that it is not only wrong, but dangerous, to implant such ideas about the English in the breasts of Irish children? There isn't a word of truth in it, Tommy."

"There is!" says Monkton, junior, wagging his head indignantly. "Father told me."

"Father told us," repeats the small Mabel, who has just come up.

"And father says, too, that the reason that they are so wicked is because they want their freedom!" says Tommy, as though this is an unanswerable argument.

"Oh, I see! The socialists!" says Mr. Dysart. "Yes; a troublesome pack! But still, to call them wild beasts——"

"They are wild beasts," says Tommy, prepared to defend his position to the last. "They've got manes, and horns, and tails!"

"He's romancing," says Mr. Dysart looking at Joyce.

"He's not," says she demurely. "He is only trying to describe to you the Zoological Gardens. His father gives him a graphic description of them every evening, and—the result you see."

Here both she and he, after a glance at each other, burst out laughing.

"No wonder you were amused," says he, "but you might have given me a hint. You were unkind to me—as usual."

"Now that you have been to London," says she, a little hurriedly, as if to cover his last words and pretend she hasn't heard them, "you will find our poor Ireland duller than ever. At Christmas it is not so bad, but just now, and in the height of your season, too,——"

"Do you call this place dull?" interrupts he. "Then let me tell you you misjudge your native land; this little bit of it, at all events. I think it not only the loveliest, but the liveliest place on earth."

"You are easily pleased," says she, with a rather embarrassed smile.

"He isn't!" says Tommy, breaking into the conversation with great aplomb. He has been holding on vigorously to Mr. Dysart's right hand for the last five minutes, after a brief but brilliant skirmish with Mabel as to the possession of it—a skirmish brought to a bloodless conclusion by the surrender, on Mr. Dysart's part, of his left hand to the weaker belligerent. "He hates Miss Maliphant, nurse says, though Lady Baltimore wants him to marry her, and she's a fine girl, nurse says, an' raal smart, and with the gift o' the gab, an' lots o' tin——"

"Tommy!" says his aunt frantically. It is indeed plain to everybody that Tommy is now quoting nurse, au naturel, and that he is betraying confidences in a perfectly reckless manner.

"Don't stop him," says Mr. Dysart, glancing at Joyce's crimson cheeks with something of disfavor. "'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?' I defy you," a little stormily, "to think I care a farthing for Miss Maliphant or for any other woman on earth—save one!"

"Oh, you mustn't press your confidences on me," says she, smiling and dissembling rather finely; "I know nothing. I accuse you of nothing. Only, Tommy, you were a little rude, weren't you?"

"I wasn't," says Tommy, promptly, in whom the inborn instinct of self-defence has been largely developed. "It's true. Nurse says she has a voice like a cow. Is that true?" turning, unabashed to Dysart.

"She's expected at the Castle, next week. You shall come up and judge for yourself," says he, laughing. "And," turning to Joyce, "you will come, too, I hope."

"It is manners to wait to be asked," returns she, smiling.

"Oh, as for that," says he, "Lady Baltimore crossed last night with me and her husband. And here is a letter for you." He pulls a note of the cocked hat order out of one of his pockets.

---

CHAPTER IV.

"Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply."

---

"An invitation from Lady Baltimore," says Joyce, looking at the big red crest, and coloring slightly.

"Yes."

"How do you know?" asks she, rather suspiciously.

The young man raises his hands and eyes.

"I swear I had nothing to do with it," says he, "I didn't so much as hint at it. Lady Baltimore spent her time crossing the Channel in declaring to all who were well enough to hear her, that she lived only in the expectation of soon seeing you again."

"Nonsense!" scornfully; "it is only a month ago since I was staying there, just before they went to London. By the bye, what brings them home now? In the very beginning of their season?"

"I don't know. And it is as well not to inquire perhaps. Baltimore and my cousin, as all the world knows, have not hit it off together. Yet when Isabel married him, we all thought it was quite an ideal marriage, they were so much in love with each other."

"Hot love soon cools," says Miss Kavanagh in a general sort of way.

"I don't believe it," sturdily, "if it's the right sort of love. However, to go back to your letter—which you haven't even deigned to open—you will accept the invitation, won't you?"

"I don't know," hesitating.

"Oh! I say, do come! It is only for a week, and even if it does bore you, still, as a Christian, you ought to consider how much, even in that short time, you will be able to add to the happiness of your fellow creatures."

"Flattery means insincerity," says she, tilting her chin, "keep all that sort of thing for your Miss Maliphant; it is thrown away upon me."

"My Miss Maliphant! Really I must protest against your accrediting me with such a possession. But look here, don't disappoint us all; and you won't be dull either, there are lots of people coming. Dicky Brown, for one."

"Oh! will he be there?" brightening visibly.

"Yes," rather gloomily, and perhaps a little sorry that he has said anything about Mr. Browne's possible arrival—though to feel jealousy about that social butterfly is indeed to sound the depths of folly; "you like him?"

"I love him," says Miss Kavanagh promptly and with sufficient enthusiasm to restore hope in the bosom of any man except a lover.

"He is blessed indeed," says he stiffly. "Beyond his deserts I can't help thinking. I really think he is the biggest fool I ever met."

"Oh! not the biggest, surely," says she, so saucily, and with such a reprehensible tendency towards laughter, that he gives way and laughs too, though unwillingly.

"True. I'm a bigger," says he, "but as that is your fault, you should be the last to taunt me with it."

"Foolish people always talk folly," says she with an assumption of indifference that does not hide her red cheeks. "Well, go on, who is to be at the Court besides Dicky?"

"Lady Swansdown."

"I like her too."

"But not so well as you like Dicky, you love him according to your own statement."

"Don't be matter-of-fact!" says Miss Kavanagh, giving him a well-deserved snub. "Do you always say exactly what you mean?"

"Always—to you."

"I daresay you would be more interesting if you didn't," says she, with a little, lovely smile, that quite spoils the harshness of her words. Of her few faults, perhaps the greatest is, that she seldom knows her own mind, where her lovers are concerned, and will blow hot and cold, and merry and sad, and cheerful, and petulant all in one breath as it were. Poor lovers! they have a hard time of it with her as a rule. But youth is often so, and the cold, still years, as they creep on us, with dull common sense and deadly reason in their train, cure us all too soon of our pretty idle follies.

Just now she was bent on rebuffing him, but you see her strength failed her, and she spoiled her effect by the smile she mingled with the rebuff. The smile indeed was so charming that he remembers nothing but it, and so she not only gains nothing, but loses something to the other side.

"Well, I'll try to mend all that," says he, but so lovingly, and with such unaffected tenderness, that she quails beneath his glance. Coquette as undoubtedly Nature has made her, she has still so gentle a soul within her bosom that she shrinks from inflicting actual pain. A pang or two, a passing regret to be forgotten the next hour—or at all events in the next change of scene—she is not above imparting, but when people grow earnest like—like Mr. Dysart for example—they grow troublesome. And she hasn't made up her mind to marry, and there are other people——

"The Clontarfs are to be there too," goes on Dysart, who is a cousin of Lady Baltimore's, and knows all about her arrangements; "and the Brownings, and Norman Beauclerk."

"The—Clontarfs," says Joyce, in a hurried way, that might almost be called confused; to the man who loves her, and who is watching her, it is quite plain that she is not thinking of Lord and Lady Clontarf, who are quite an ordinary couple and devoted to each other, but of that last name spoken—Norman Beauclerk; Lady Baltimore's brother, a man, handsome, agreeable, aristocratic—the man whose attentions to her a month ago had made a little topic for conversation amongst the country people. Dull country people who never go anywhere or see anything beyond their stupid selves, and who are therefore driven to do something or other to avoid suicide or the murdering of each other; gossip unlimited is their safety valve.

"Yes, and Beauclerk," persists Dysart, a touch of despair at his heart; "you and he were good friends when last he was over, eh?"

"I am generally very good friends with everybody; not an altogether desirable character, not a strong one," says she smiling, and still openly parrying the question.

"You liked Beauclerk," says he, a little doggedly perhaps.

"Ye—es—very well."

"Very much! Why can't you be honest!" says he flashing out at her.

"I don't know what you mean," coldly. "If, however, you persist on my looking into it, I—" defiantly—"yes, I do like Mr. Beauclerk very much."

"Well, I don't know what you see in that fellow."

"Nothing," airily, having now recovered herself, "that's his charm."

"If," gravely, "you gave that as your opinion of Dicky Browne I could believe you."

She laughs.

"Poor Dicky," says she, "what a cruel judgment; and yet you are right;" she has changed her whole manner, and is now evidently bent on restoring him to good humor, and compelling him to forget all about Mr. Beauclerk. "I must give in to you about Dicky. There isn't even the vaguest suggestion of meaning about him. I—" with a deliberate friendly glance flung straight into his eyes—"don't often give in to you, do I?"

On this occasion, however, her coquetry—so generally successful—is completely thrown away. Dysart, with his dark eyes fixed uncompromisingly upon hers, makes the next move—an antagonistic one.

"You have a very high opinion of Beauclerk," says he.

"Have I?" laughing uneasily, and refusing to let her rising temper give way. "We all have our opinions on every subject that comes under our notice. You have one on this subject evidently."

"Yes, but it is not a high one," says he unpleasantly.

"After all, what does that matter? I don't pretend to understand you. I will only suggest to you that our opinions are but weak things—mere prejudices—no more."

"I am not prejudiced against Beauclerk, if you mean that," a little hotly.

"I didn't," with a light shrug. "Believe me, you think a great deal more about him than I do."

"Are you sure of that?"

"I am at all events sure of one thing," says she quickly darting at him a frowning glance, "that you have no right to ask me that question."

"I have not indeed," acknowledges he stiffly still, but with so open an apology in his whole air that she forgives him. "Many conflicting thoughts led me astray. I must ask your pardon."

"Why, granted!" says she. "And—I was cross, wasn't I? After all an old friend like you might be allowed a little laxity. There, never mind," holding out her hand. "Let us make it up."

Dysart grasps the little extended hand with avidity, and peace seems restored when Tommy puts an end to all things. To anyone acquainted with children I need hardly remark that he has been listening to the foregoing conversation with all his ears and all his eyes and every bit of his puzzled intelligence.

"Well, go on," says he, giving his aunt a push when the friendly hand-shake has come to an end.

"Go on? Where?" asks she, with apparent unconcern but a deadly foreboding at her breast. She knows her Tommy.

"You said you were going to make it up with him!" says that hero, regarding her with disapproving eyes.

"Well, I have made it up."

"No, you haven't! When you make it up with me you always kiss me! Why don't you kiss him?"

Consternation on the part of the principal actors. Dysart, strange to say, is the first to recover.

"Why indeed?" says he, giving way all at once to a fatal desire for laughter. This, Miss Kavanagh, being vexed with herself for her late confusion, resents strongly.

"I am sure, Tommy," says she, with a mildness that would not have imposed upon an infant, "that your lesson hour has arrived. Come, say good-bye to Mr. Dysart, and let us begin at once. You know I am going to teach you to-day. Good-bye, Mr. Dysart—if you want to see Barbara, you will find her very probably in the study."

"Don't go like this," says he anxiously. "Or if you will go, at least tell me that you will accept Lady Baltimore's invitation."

"I don't know," smiling coldly. "I think not. You see I was there for such a long time in the beginning of the year, and Barbara always wants me, and one should not be selfish you know."

"One should not indeed!" says he, with slow meaning. "What answer, then, must I give my cousin? You know," in a low tone, "that she is not altogether happy. You can lighten her burden a little. She is fond of you."

"I can lighten Barbara's burden also. Think me the very incarnation of selfishness if you will," says she rather unjustly, "but still, if Barbara says 'don't go,' I shall stay here."

"Mrs. Monkton won't say that."

"Perhaps not," toying idly with a rose, in such a careless fashion as drives him to despair. Brushing it to and fro across her lips she seems to have lost all interest in the question in hand.

"If she says to you 'go,' how then?"

"Why then—I may still remain here."

"Well stay then, of course, if you so desire it!" cries he angrily. "If to make all your world unhappy is to make you happy, why be so by all means."

"All my world! Do you suppose then that it will make Barbara and Freddy unhappy to have my company? What a gallant speech!" says she, with a provoking little laugh and a swift lifting of her eyes to his.

"No, but it will make other people (more than twice two) miserable to be deprived of it."

"Are you one of that quartette?" asks she, so saucily, yet withal so merrily that the hardest-hearted lover might forgive her. A little irresistible laugh breaks from her lips. Rather ruefully he joins in it.

"I don't think I need answer that question," says he. "To you at all events."

"To me of all people rather," says she still laughing, "seeing I am the interested party."

"No, that character belongs to me. You have no interest in it. To me it is life or death—to—you——"

"No, no, you mustn't talk to me like that. You know I forbid you last time we met, and you promised me to be good."

"I promised then the most difficult thing in the world. But never mind me; the principal thing is, your acceptance or rejection of that note. Joyce!" in a low tone, "say you will accept it."

"Well," relenting visibly, and now refusing to meet his eyes, "I'll ask Barbara, and if she says I may go I——" pause.

"You will then accept?" eagerly.

"I shall then—think about it."

"You look like an angel," says he, "and you have the heart of a flint."

This remark, that might have presumably annoyed another girl, seems to fill Miss Kavanagh with mirth.

"Am I so bad as that?" cries she, gaily. "Why I shall make amends then. I shall change my evil ways. As a beginning, see here. If Barbara says go to the Court, go I will. Now, stern moralist! where are you?"

"In the seventh heaven," says he, promptly. "Be it a Fool's Paradise or otherwise, I shall take up my abode there for the present. And now you will go and ask Mrs. Monkton?"

"In what a hurry to get rid of me!" says this coquette of all coquettes. "Well, good-bye then——"

"Oh no, don't go."

"To the Court? Was ever man so unreasonable? In one breath 'do' and 'don't'!"

"Was ever woman so tormenting?"

"Tormenting? No, so discerning if you will, or else so——"

"Adorable! You can't find fault with that at all events."

"And therefore my mission is at an end! Good-bye, again."

"Good-bye." He is holding her hand as though he never means to let her have it again. "That rose," says he, pointing to the flower that had kissed her lips so often. "It is nothing to you, you can pick yourself another, give it to me."

"I can pick you another too, a nice fresh one," says she. "Here," moving towards a glowing bush; "here is a bud worth having."

"Not that one," hastily. "Not one this garden, or any other garden holds, save the one in your hand. It is the only one in the world of roses worth having."

"I hate to give a faded gift," says she, looking at the rose she holds with apparent disfavor.

"Then I shall take it," returns he, with decision. He opens her pretty pink palm, releases the dying rosebud from it and places it triumphantly in his coat.

"You haven't got any manners," says she, but she laughs again as she says it.

"Except bad ones you should add."

"Yes, I forgot that. A point lost. Good-bye now, good-bye indeed."

She waves her hand lightly to him and calling to the children runs towards the house. It seems as if she has carried all the beauty and brightness and sweetness of the day with her.

As Dysart turns back again, the afternoon appears grey and gloomy.

---

CHAPTER V.

"Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go."

---

"Well, Barbara, can I go?"

"I don't know"—doubtfully. There is a cloud on Mrs. Monkton's brow, she is staring out of the window instead of into her sister's face, and she is evidently a little distressed or uncertain. "You have been there so lately, and——"

"You want to say something," says the younger sister, seating herself on the sofa, and drawing Mrs. Monkton down beside her. "Why don't you do it?"

"You can't want to go so very much, can you now?" asks the latter, anxiously, almost entreatingly.

"It is I who don't know this time!" says Joyce, with a smile. "And yet——"

"It seems only like yesterday that you came back after spending a month there."

"A yesterday that dates from six weeks ago," a little reproachfully.

"I know. You like being there. It is a very amusing house to be at. I don't blame you in any way. Lord and Lady Baltimore are both charming in their ways, and very kind, and yet——"

"There, don't stop; you are coming to it now, the very heart of the meaning. Go on," authoritatively, and seizing her sister in her arms, "or I'll shake it out of you."

"It is this then," says Mrs. Monkton slowly. "I don't think it is a wise thing for you to go there so often."

"Oh Barbara! Owl of Wisdom as thou art, why not?" The girl is laughing, yet a deep flush of color has crept into each cheek.

"Never mind the why not. Perhaps it is unwise to go anywhere too often; and you must acknowledge that you spent almost the entire spring there."

"Well, I hinted all that to Mr. Dysart."

"Was he here?"

"Yes. He came down from the Court with the note."

"And—who else is to be there?"

"Oh! the Clontarfs, and Dicky Browne, and Lady Swansdown and a great many others."

"Mr. Beauclerk?" she does not look at Joyce as she asks this question.

"Yes."

A little silence follows, broken at last by Joyce.

"May I go?"

"Do you think it is the best thing for you to do?" says Mrs. Monkton, flushing delicately. "Think, darling! You know—you must know, because you have it always before you," flushing even deeper, "that to marry into a family where you are not welcomed with open heart is to know much private discomfiture."

"I know this too," says the girl, petulantly, "that to be married to a man like Freddy, who consults your lightest wish, and is your lover always, is worth the enduring of anything."

"I think that too," says Mrs. Monkton, who has now grown rather pale. "But there is still one more thing to know—that in making such a marriage as we have described, a woman lays out a thorny path for her husband. She separates him from his family, and as all good men have strong home ties, she naturally compels him to feel many a secret pang."

"But he has his compensations. Do you think if Freddy got the chance, he would give you up and go back to his family?"

"No—not that. But to rejoice in that thought is to be selfish. Why should he not have my love and the love of his people too? There is a want somewhere. What I wish to impress upon you, Joyce, is this, that a woman who marries a man against his parents' wishes has much to regret, much to endure."

"I think you are ungrateful," says the girl a little vehemently. "Freddy has made you endure nothing. You are the happiest married woman I know."

"Yes, but I have made him endure a great deal," says Mrs. Monkton in a low tone. She rises, and going to the window, stands there looking out upon the sunny landscape, but seeing nothing.

"Barbara! you are crying," says Joyce, going up to her abruptly, and folding her arms round her.

"It is nothing, dear. Nothing at all, darling. Only—I wish he and his father were friends again. Freddy is too good a man not to regret the estrangement."

"I believe you think Freddy is a little god!" says Joyce laughing.

"O! not a little one," says Mrs. Monkton, and as Freddy stands six foot one in his socks, they both laugh at this.

"Still you don't answer me," says the girl presently. "You don't say 'you may' or 'you shan't'—which is it to be, Barbara?"

Her tone is distinctly coaxing now, and as she speaks she gives her sister a little squeeze that is plainly meant to press the desired permission out of her.

Still Mrs. Monkton hesitates.

"You see," says she temporizing, "there are so many reasons. The Court," pausing and flushing, "is not quite the house for so young a girl as you."

"Oh Barbara!"

"You can't misunderstand me," says her sister with agitation. "You know how I like, love Lady Baltimore, and how good Lord Baltimore has been to Freddy. When his father cast him off there was very little left to us for beginning housekeeping with, and when Lord Baltimore gave him his agency—Oh, well! it isn't likely we shall either of us forget to be grateful for that. If it was only for ourselves I should say nothing, but it is for you, dear; and—this unfortunate affair—this determined hostility that exists between Lord and Lady Baltimore, makes it unpleasant for the guests. You know," nervously, "I hate gossip of any sort, but one must defend one's own."

"But there is nothing unpleasant; one sees nothing. They are charming to each other. I have been staying there and I know."

"Have I not stayed there too? It is impossible Joyce to fight against facts. All the world knows they are not on good terms."

"Well, a great many other people aren't perhaps."

"When they aren't the tone of the house gets lowered. And I have noticed of late that they have people there, who——"

"Who what, Barbara?"

"Oh yes, I know they are all right; they are received everywhere, but are they good companions for a girl of your years? It is not a healthy atmosphere for you. They are rich people who think less of a hundred guineas than you do of five. Is it wise, I ask you again to accustom yourself to their ways?"

"Nonsense, Barbara!" says her sister, looking at her with a growing surprise. "That is not like you. Why should we despise the rich, why should we seek to emulate them? Surely both you and I have too good blood in our veins to give way to such follies." She leans towards Mrs. Monkton, and with a swift gesture, gentle as firm, turns her face to her own.

"Now for the real reason," says she.

Unthinkingly she has brought confusion on herself. Barbara, as though stung to cruel candor, gives her the real reason in a sentence.

"Tell me this," says she, "which do you like best, Mr. Dysart, or Mr. Beauclerk?"

Joyce, taking her arm from round her sister's neck, moves back from her. A deep color has flamed into her cheeks, then died away again. She looks quite calm now.

"What a question," says she.

"Well," feverishly, "answer it."

"Oh, no," says the girl quickly.

"Why not? Why not answer it to me, your chief friend? You think the question indelicate, but why should I shrink from asking a question on which, perhaps, the happiness of your life depends? If—if you have set your heart on Mr. Beauclerk——" She stops, checked by something in Miss Kavanagh's face.

"Well, what then?" asks the latter coldly.

"It will bring you unhappiness. He is Lady Baltimore's brother. She already plans for him. The Beauclerks are poor—he is bound to marry money."

"That is a good deal about Mr. Beauclerk, but what about the other possible suitor whom you suppose I am madly in love with?"

"Don't talk to me like that, Joyce. Do you think I have anything at heart except your interests? As to Mr. Dysart, if you like him, I confess I should be glad of it. He is only a cousin of the Baltimores, and of such moderate means that they would scarcely object to his marrying a penniless girl."

"You rate me highly," says Joyce, with a sudden rather sharp little laugh. "I am good enough for the cousin—I am not good enough for the brother, who may reasonably look higher."

"Not higher," haughtily. "He can only marry a girl of good birth. You are that, but he, in his position, will look for money, or else his people will look for it for him. Whereas, Mr. Dysart——"

"Yes, you needn't go over it all. Mr. Dysart is about on a level with me, he will never have any money, neither shall I." Suddenly she looks round at her sister, her eyes very bright. "Tell me then," says she, "what does it all come to? That I am bound to refuse to marry a man because he has money, and because I have none."

"That is not the argument," says Barbara anxiously.

"I think it is."

"It is not. I advise you strongly not to think of Mr. Beauclerk, yet he has no money to speak of."

"He has more than Freddy."

"But he is a different man from Freddy—with different tastes, different aspirations, different——He's different," emphatically, "in every way!"

"To be different from the person one loves is not to be a bad man," says Joyce slowly, her eyes on the ground.

"My dear girl, who has called Mr. Beauclerk a bad man?"

"You don't like him," says Miss Kavanagh, still more slowly, still with thoughtful eyes downcast.

"I like Mr. Dysart better if you mean that."

"No, I don't mean that. And, besides, that is no answer."

"Was there a question?"

"Yes. Why don't you like Mr. Beauclerk?"

"Have I said I didn't like him?"

"Not in so many words, but——Well, why don't you?"

"I don't know," rather lamely.

Miss Kavanagh laughs a little satirically, and Mrs. Monkton, objecting to mirth of that description, takes fire.

"Why do you like him?" asks she defiantly.

"I don't know either," returns Joyce, with a rueful smile. "And after all I'm not sure that I like him so very much. You evidently imagine me to be head over ears in love with him, yet I, myself, scarcely know whether I like him or not."

"You always look at him so kindly, and you always pull your skirts aside to give him a place by your side."

"I should do that for Tommy."

"Would you? That would be too kind," says Tommy's mother, laughing. "It would mean ruin to your skirts in two minutes."

"But, consider the gain. The priceless scraps, of wisdom I should hear, even whilst my clothes were being demolished."

This has been a mere interlude, unintentional on the part of either, and, once over, neither knows how to go on. The question must be settled one way or the other.

"There is one thing," says Mrs. Monkton, at length, "You certainly prefer Mr. Beauclerk to Mr. Dysart."

"Do I? I wish I knew as much about myself as you know about me. And, after all, it is of no consequence whom I like. The real thing is——Come, Barbara, you who know so much can tell me this——"

"Well?" says Mrs. Monkton, seeing she has grown very red, and is evidently hesitating.

"No. This absurd conversation has gone far enough. I was going to ask you to solve a riddle, but——"

"But what?"

"You are too serious about it."

"Not too serious. It is very important."

"Oh, Barbara, do you know what you are saying?" cries the girl with an angry little stamp, turning to her a face pale and indignant. "You have been telling me in so many words that I am in love with either Mr. Beauclerk or Mr. Dysart. Pray now, for a change, tell me which of them is in love with me."

"Mr. Dysart," says Barbara quietly.

Her sister laughs angrily.

"You think everybody who looks at me is in love with me."

"Not everyone!"

"Meaning Mr. Beauclerk."

"No," slowly. "I think he likes you, too, but he is a man who will always think. You know he has come in for that property in Hampshire through his uncle's death, but he got no money with it. It is a large place, impossible to keep up without a large income, and his uncle left every penny away from him. It is in great disrepair, the house especially. I hear it is falling to pieces. Mr. Beauclerk is an ambitious man, he will seek means to rebuild his house."

"Well what of that? It is an interesting bit of history, but how does it concern me? Take that troubled look out of your eyes, Barbara. I assure you Mr. Beauclerk is as little to me as I am to him."

She speaks with such evident sincerity, with such an undeniable belief in the truth of her own words, that Mrs. Monkton, looking at her and reading her soul through her clear eyes, feels a weight lifted from her heart.

"That is all right then," says she simply. She turns as if to go away, but Miss Kavanagh has still a word or two to say.

"I may go to the Court?" says she.

"Yes; I suppose so."

"But you won't be vexed if I go, Barbie?"

"No; not now."

"Well," slipping her arm through hers, with an audible sigh of delight. "That's settled."

"Things generally do get settled the way you want them to be," says Mrs. Monkton, laughing. "Come, what about your frocks, eh?"

From this out they spend a most enjoyable hour or two.

---

CHAPTER VI.

"Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, thinking the winter's near."

---

The visit to the Court being decided on, Miss Kavanagh undertakes life afresh, with a joyous heart. Lord and Lady Baltimore are the best host and hostess in the world, and a visit to them means unmixed pleasure while it lasts. The Court is, indeed, the pleasantest house in the county, the most desirable in all respects, and the gayest. Yet, strange and sad to add, happiness has found no bed within its walls.

This is the more remarkable in that the marriage of Lord and Lady Baltimore had been an almost idealistic one. They had been very much in love with each other. All the hosts of friends and relations that belonged to either side had been delighted with the engagement. So many imprudent marriages were made, so many disastrous ones; but here was a marriage where birth and money went together, and left no guardians or parents lamenting. All Belgravia stood still and stared at the young couple with genuine admiration. It wasn't often that love, pure and simple, fell into their midst, and such a satisfactory love too! None of your erratic darts that struck the wrong breasts, and created confusion for miles round, but a thoroughly proper, respectable winged arrow that pierced the bosoms of those who might safely be congratulated on the reception of it.

They had, indeed, been very much in love with each other. Few people have known such extreme happiness as fell to their lot for two whole years. They were wrapt up in each other, and when the little son came at the end of that time, nothing seemed wanted. They grew so strong in their belief in the immutability of their own relations, one to the other, that when the blow fell that separated them, it proved a very lightning-stroke, dividing soul from body.

Lady Baltimore could be at no time called a beautiful woman. But there is always a charm in her face, a strength, an attractiveness that might well defy the more material charms of a lovelier woman than herself. With a soul as pure as her face, and a mind entirely innocent of the world's evil ways—and the sad and foolish secrets she is compelled to bear upon her tired bosom from century to century—she took with a bitter hardness the revelations of her husband's former life before he married her, related to her by—of course—a devoted friend.

Unfortunately the authority was an undeniable one. It was impossible for Lady Baltimore to refuse to believe. The past, too, she might have condoned; though, believing in her husband as she did, it would always have been bitter to her, but the devoted friend—may all such meet their just reward!—had not stopped there; she had gone a step further, a fatal step; she had told her something that had not occurred since their marriage.

Perhaps the devoted friend believed in her lie, perhaps she did not. Anyway, the mischief was done. Indeed, from the beginning seeds of distrust had been laid, and, buried in so young and unlearned a bosom, had taken a fatal grip.

The more fatal in that there was truth in them. As a fact, Lord Baltimore had been the hero of several ugly passages in his life. His early life, certainly; but a young wife who has begun by thinking him immaculate, would hardly be the one to lay stress upon that. And when her friend, who had tried unsuccessfully to marry Lord Baltimore and had failed, had in the kindliest spirit, of course, opened her eyes to his misdoings, she had at first passionately refused to listen, then had listened, and after that was ready to listen to anything.

One episode in his past history had been made much of. The sorry heroine of it had been an actress. This was bad enough, but when the disinterested friend went on to say that Lord Baltimore had been seen in her company only so long ago as last week, matters came to a climax. That was a long time ago from to-day, but the shock when it came shattered all the sacred feelings in Lady Baltimore's heart. She grew cold, callous, indifferent. Her mouth, a really beautiful feature, that used to be a picture of serenity and charity personified, hardened. She became austere, cold. Not difficult, so much as unsympathetic. She was still a good hostess, and those who had known her before her misfortune still loved her. But she made no new friends, and she sat down within herself, as it were, and gave herself up to her fate, and would probably have died or grown reckless but for her little son.

And it was after the birth of this beloved child that she had been told that her husband had again been seen in company with Madame Istray; that seemed to add fuel to the fire already kindled. She could not forgive that. It was proof positive of his baseness.

To the young wife it was all a revelation, a horrible one. She had been so stunned by it, that she, accepted it as it stood, and learning that the stories of his life before marriage were true, had decided that the stories told of his life after marriage were true also. She was young, and youth is always hard.

To her no doubt remained of his infidelity. She had come of a brave old stock, who, if they could not fight, could at least endure in silence, and knew well the necessity of keeping her name out of the public mouth. She kept herself well in hand, therefore, and betrayed nothing of all she had been feeling. She dismissed her friend with a gentle air, dignified, yet of sufficient haughtiness to let that astute and now decidedly repentant lady know that never again would she enter the doors of the Court, or any other of Lady Baltimore's houses; yet she restrained herself all through so well that, even until the very end came, her own husband never knew how horribly she suffered through her disbelief in him.

He thought her heartless. There was no scandal, no public separation. She said a word or two to him that told him what she had heard, and when he tried to explain the truths of that last libel that had declared him unfaithful to her since her marriage, she had silenced him with so cold, so scornful, so contemptuous a glance and word, that, chilled and angered in his turn, he had left her.

Twice afterwards he had sought to explain matters, but it was useless. She would not listen; the treacherous friend, whom she never betrayed, had done her work well. Lady Baltimore, though she never forgave her, would not forgive her husband either; she would make no formal attempt at a separation. Before the world she and he lived together, seemingly on the best terms; at all events on quite as good terms as most of their acquaintances; yet all the world knew how it was with them. So long as there are servants, so long will it be impossible to effectually conceal our most sacred secrets.

Her friends, when the Baltimores went to visit them, made arrangements to suit them. It was a pity, everybody said, that such complications should have arisen, and one would not have expected it from Isabel, but then she seemed so cold, that probably a climax like that did not affect her as much as it might another. She was so entirely wrapped up in her boy—some women were like that—a child sufficed them. And as for Lord Baltimore—Cyril—why——Judgment was divided here; the women taking his part, the men hers. The latter finding an attraction hardly to be defined in her pure, calm, rather impenetrable face, that had yet a smile so lovely that it could warm the seemingly cold face into a something that was more effective than mere beauty. It was a wonderful smile, and, in spite of all her troubles, was by no means rare. Lady Baltimore, they all acknowledged, was a delightful guest and hostess.

As for Lord Baltimore, he—well, he would know how to console himself. Society, the crudest organization on earth, laughed to itself about him. He had known how to live before his marriage; now that the marriage had proved a failure, he would still know how to make life bearable.

In this they wronged him.

---

CHAPTER VII.

"Ils n'employent les paroles qué pour déguiser leurs pensées."—Voltaire.

---

Even the most dyspeptic of the guests had acknowledged at breakfast, some hours ago now, that a lovelier day could hardly be imagined. Lady Baltimore, with a smile, had agreed with him. It was, indeed, impossible not to agree with him. The sun was shining high in the heavens, and a soft, velvetty air blew through the open windows right on to the table.

"What shall we do to-day?" Lady Swansdown, one of the guests, had asked, addressing her question to Lord Baltimore, who just then was helping his little son to porridge.

Whatever she liked.

"Then nothing!" says she, in that soft drawl of hers, and that little familiar imploring, glance of hers at her hostess, who sat behind the urn, and glanced back at her ever so kindly.

"Yes, it was too warm to dream of exertion; would Lady Swansdown like, to remain at home then, and dream away the afternoon in a hammock?"

"Dreams were delightful; but to dream alone——"

"Oh, no; they would all, or at least most of them, stay with her." It was Lady Baltimore who had said this, after waiting in vain for her husband to speak—to whom, indeed, Lady Swansdown's question had been rather pointedly addressed.

So at home they all had stayed. No one being very keen about doing anything on a day so sultry.

Yet now, when luncheon is at an end, and the day still heavy with heat, the desire for action that lies in every breast takes fire. They are all tired of doing nothing. The Tennis-courts lie invitingly empty, and rackets thrust themselves into notice at every turn; as for the balls, worn out from ennui, they insert themselves under each arched instep, threatening to bring the owners to the ground unless picked up and made use of.

"Who wants a beating?" demands Mr. Browne at last, unable to pretend lassitude any longer. Taking up a racket he brandishes it wildly, presumably to attract attention. This is necessary. As a rule nobody pays any attention to Dicky Browne.

He is a nondescript sort of young man, of the negative order; with no features to speak of, and a capital opinion of himself. Income vague. Age unknown.

"Well! That's one way of putting it," says Miss Kavanagh, with a little tilt of her pretty chin.

"Is it a riddle?" asks Dysart. "If so I know it. The answer is—Dicky Browne."

"Oh, I like that!" says Mr. Browne unabashed. "See here, I'll give you plus fifteen, and a bisque, and start myself at minus thirty, and beat you in a canter."

"Dear Mr. Browne, consider the day! I believe there are such things as sunstrokes," says Lady Swansdown, in her sweet treble.

"There are. But Dicky's all right," says Lord Baltimore, drawing up a garden chair close to hers, and seating himself upon it. "His head is safe. The sun makes no impression upon granite!"

"Ah, granite! that applies to a heart not a head," says Lady Swansdown, resting her blue eyes on Baltimore's for just a swift second.

It is wonderful, however, what her eyes can do in a second. Baltimore laughs lightly, returns her glance four-fold, and draws his chair a quarter of an inch closer to hers. To move it more than that would have been an impossibility. Lady Swansdown makes a slight movement. With a smile seraphic as an angel's, she pulls her lace skirts a little to one side, as if to prove to Baltimore that he has encroached beyond his privileges upon her domain. "People should not crush people. And why do you want to get so very close to me?" This question lies within the serene eyes she once more raises to his.

She is a lovely woman, blonde, serene, dangerous! In each glance she turns upon the man who happens at any moment to be next to her, lies an entire chapter on the "Whole Art of Flirtation." Were she reduced to penury, and the world a little more advanced in its fashionable ways, she might readily make a small fortune in teaching young ladies "How to Marry Well." No man could resist her pupils, once properly finished by her and turned out to prey upon the stronger sex. "The Complete Angler" would be a title they might filch with perfect honor and call their own.

She is a tall beauty, with soft limbs, graceful as a panther, or a cat. Her eyes are like the skies in summer time, her lips sweet and full. The silken hair that falls in soft masses on her Grecian brow is light as corn in harvest, and she has hands and feet that are absolutely faultless. She has even more than all these—a most convenient husband, who is not only now but apparently always in a position of trust abroad. Very much abroad. The Fiji, or the Sandwich Islands for choice. One can't hear from those centres of worldly dissipation in a hurry. And after all, it really doesn't very much matter where he is!

There had been a whisper or two in the County about her and Lord Baltimore. Everybody knew the latter had been a little wild since his estrangement with his wife, but nothing to signify very much—nothing that one could lay one's finger on, until Lady Swansdown had come down last year to the Court. Whether Baltimore was in love with her was uncertain, but all were agreed that she was in love with him. Not that she made an esclandre of any sort, but one could see! And still! she was such a friend of Lady Baltimore's—an old friend. They had been girls together—that was what was so wonderful! And Lady Baltimore made very much of her, and treated her with the kindliest observances, and——But one had often heard of the serpent that one nourished in one's bosom only that it might come to life and sting one! The County grew wise over this complication; and perhaps when Mrs. Monkton had hinted to Joyce of the "odd people" the Baltimores asked to the Court, she had had Lady Swansdown in her mind.

"Whose heart?" asks Baltimore, à propos of her last remark. "Yours?"

It is a leading remark, and something in the way it is uttered strikes unpleasantly on the ears of Dysart. Baltimore is bending over his lovely guest, and looking at her with an admiration too open to be quite respectful. But she betrays no resentment. She smiles back at him indeed in that little slow, seductive way of hers, and makes him an answer in a tone too low for even those nearest to her to hear. It is a sort of challenge, a tacit acknowledgment that they two are alone even in the midst of all these tiresome people.

Baltimore accepts it. Of late he has grown a little reckless. The battling against circumstances has been too much for him. He has gone under. The persistent coldness of his wife, her refusal to hear, or believe in him, has had its effect. A man of a naturally warm and kindly disposition, thrown thus back upon himself, he has now given a loose rein to the carelessness that has been a part of his nature since his mother gave him to the world, and allows himself to swim or go down with the tide that carries his present life upon its bosom.

Lady Swansdown is lovely and kind. Always with that sense of injury full upon him, that half-concealed but ever-present desire for revenge upon the wife who has so coldly condemned and cast him aside, he flings himself willingly into a flirtation, ready made to his hand, and as dangerous as it seems light.

His life, he tells himself, is hopelessly embittered. The best things in it are denied him; he gives therefore the more heed to the honeyed words of the pretty creature near him, who in truth likes him too well for her own soul's good.

That detested husband of hers, out there somewhere, the only thought she ever gives him is when she remembers with horror how as a young girl she was sold to him. For years she had believed herself heartless—of all her numerous love affairs not one had really touched her until now, and now he is the husband of her oldest friend; of the one woman whom perhaps in all the world she really respects.

At times her heart smites her, and a terrible longing to go away—to die—to make an end of it—takes possession of her at other times. She leans towards Baltimore, her lovely eyes alight, her soft mouth smiling. Her whispered words, her only half-averted glances, all tell their tale. Presently it is clear to everyone that a very fully developed flirtation is well in hand.

Lady Baltimore coming across the grass with a basket in one hand and her little son held fondly by the other, sees and grasps the situation. Baltimore, leaning over Lady Swansdown, the latter lying back in her lounging chair in her usual indolent fashion, swaying her feather fan from side to side, and with white lids lying on the azure eyes.

Seeing it all, Lady Baltimore's mouth hardens, and a contemptuous expression destroys the calm dignity of her face. For the moment only. Another moment, and it is gone: she has recovered herself. The one sign of emotion she has betrayed is swallowed up by her stern determination to conceal all pain at all costs, and if her fingers tighten somewhat convulsively on those of her boy's, why, who can be the wiser of that? No one can see it.

Dysart, however, who is honestly fond of his cousin, has mastered that first swift involuntary contraction of the calm brow, and a sense of indignant anger against Baltimore and his somewhat reckless companion fires his blood. He springs quickly to his feet.

Lady Baltimore, noting the action, though not understanding the motive for it, turns and smiles at him—so controlled a smile that it quiets him at once.

"I am going to the gardens to try and cajole McIntyre out of some roses," says she, in her sweet, slow way, stopping near the first group she reaches on the lawn—the group that contains, amongst others, her husband, and——her friend. She would not willingly have stayed where they were, but she is too proud to pass them by without a word. "Who will come with me? Oh! no," as several rise to join her, laughing, though rather faintly. "It is not compulsory—even though I go alone, I shall feel that I am equal to McIntyre."

Lord Baltimore had started as her first words fell upon his ears. He had been so preoccupied that her light footfalls coming over the grass had not reached him, and her voice, when it fell upon the air, gave him a shock. He half rises from his seat:

"Shall I?" he is beginning, and then stops short, something in her face checking him.

"You!" she conquers herself a second later; all the scorn and contempt is crushed, by sheer force of will, out of look and tone, and she goes on as clearly, and as entirely without emotion, as though she were a mere machine—a thing she has taught herself to be. "Not you," she says gaily, waving him lightly from her. "You are too useful here"—as she says this she gives him the softest if fleetest smile. It is a masterpiece. "You can amuse one here and there, whilst I—I—I want a girl, I think," looking round. "Bertie,"—with a fond, an almost passionate glance at her little son—"always likes one of his sweethearts (and they are many) to accompany him when he takes his walks abroad."

"Like father, like son, I daresay. Ha, ha!" laughs a fatuous youth—a Mr. Courtenay—who lives about five miles from the Court, and has dropped in this afternoon, very unfortunately, it must be confessed, to pay his respects to Lady Baltimore. Fools always hit on the truth! Why, nobody knows, except the heavens above us—but so it is. Young Courtenay, who has heard nothing of the unpleasant relations existing between his host and hostess, and who would be quite incapable of understanding them if he had heard, now springs a remark upon the assembled five or six people present that almost reduces them to powder.

Dysart casts a murderous glance at him.

"A clever old proverb," says Lady Baltimore lightly. She is apparently the one unconcerned person amongst them. "I always like those old sayings. There is so much truth in them."

She has forced herself to say this; but as the words pass her lips she blanches perceptibly. As if unable to control herself she draws her little son towards her; her arms tighten round him. The boy responds gladly to the embrace, and to those present who know nothing, it seems the simplest thing in the world. The mother,—the child; naturally they would caress each other on each and every occasion. The agony of the mother is unknown to them; the fear that her boy, her treasure, may inherit something of his father, and in his turn prove unfaithful to the heart that trusts him.

It is a very little scene, scarcely worth recording, yet the anguish of a strong heart lies embodied in it.

"If you are going to the gardens, Lady Baltimore, let me go with you," says Miss Maliphant, rising quickly and going toward her. She is a big, loud girl, with money written all over her in capital letters, but Dicky Browne watching her, tells himself she has a good heart. "I should love to go there with you and Bertie."

"Come, then," says Lady Baltimore graciously. She makes a step forward; little Bertie, as though he likes and believes in her, thrusts his small fist into the hand of the Birmingham heiress, and thus united, all three pass out of sight.

---

CHAPTER VIII.

"I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so."

---

When a corner near the rhododendrons has concealed them from view, Dysart rises from his seat and goes deliberately over to where Lady Swansdown is sitting. She is an old friend of his, and he has therefore no qualms about being a little brusque with her where occasion demands it.

"Have a game?" says he. His suggestion is full of playfulness, his tone, however, is stern.

"Dear Felix, why?" says she, smiling up at him beautifully. There is even a suspicion of amusement in her smile.

"A change!" says he. His words this time might mean something, his tone anything. She can read either as she pleases.

"True!" says she laughing. "There is nothing like change. You have wakened me to a delightful fact. Lord Baltimore," turning languidly to her companion, who has been a little distrait since his wife and son passed by him. "What do you say to trying a change for just we two. Variety they say is charming, shall we try if shade and coolness and comfort are to be found in that enchanting glade down there?" She points as she speaks to an opening in the wood where perpetual twilight seems to reign, as seen from where they now are sitting.

"If you will," says Baltimore, still a little vaguely. He gets up, however, and stretches his arms indolently above his head as one might who is flinging from him the remembrance of an unpleasant dream.

"The sun here is intolerable," says Lady Swansdown, rising too. "More than one can endure. Thanks, dear Felix, for your suggestion. I should never have thought of the glade if you hadn't asked me to play that impossible game."

She smiles a little maliciously at Dysart, and, accompanied by Lord Baltimore, moves away from the assembled groups upon the lawn to the dim recesses of the leafy glade.

"Sold!" says Mr. Browne to Dysart. It is always impossible to Dicky to hold his tongue. "But you needn't look so cut up about it. 'Tisn't good enough, my dear fellow. I know 'em both by heart. Baltimore is as much in love with her as he is with his Irish tenants, but his imagination is his strong point, and it pleases him to think he has found at last for the twentieth time a solace for all his woes in the disinterested love of somebody, it really never much matters who."

"There is more in it than you think," says Dysart gloomily.

"Not a fraction!" airily.

"And what of her? Lady Swansdown?"

"Of her! Her heart has been in such constant use for years that by this time it must be in tatters. Give up thinking about that. Ah! here is my beloved girl again!" He makes an elaborate gesture of delight as he sees Joyce advancing in his direction. "Dear Joyce!" beaming on her, "who shall say there is nothing in animal magnetism. Here I have been just talking about you to Dysart, and telling him what a lost soul I feel when you're away, and instantly, as if in answer to my keen desire, you appear before me."

"Why aren't you playing tennis?" demands Miss Kavanagh, with a cruel disregard of this flowery speech.

"Because I was waiting for you."

"Well, I'll beat you," says she, "I always do."

"Not if you play on my side," reproachfully.

"What! Have you for a partner! Nonsense, Dicky, you know I shouldn't dream of that. Why it is as much as ever you can do to put the ball over the net."

"'Twas ever thus,'" quotes Mr. Browne mournfully. "The sincerest worship gains only scorn and contumely. But never mind! the day will come!—--"

"To an end," says Miss Kavanagh, giving a finish to his sentence never meant. "That," cheerfully, "is just what I think. If we don't have a game now, the shades of night will be on us before we can look round us."

"Will you play with me?" says Dysart.

"With pleasure. Keep your eye on this near court, and when this game is at an end, call it ours;" she sinks into a chair as she speaks, and Dysart, who is in a silent mood, flings himself on the grass at her feet and falls into a reverie. To be conversational is unnecessary, Dicky Browne is on the spot.

---

Hotter and hotter grows the sun; the evening comes on apace; a few people from the neighboring houses have dropped in; Mrs. Monkton amongst others, with Tommy in tow. The latter, who is supposed to entertain a strong affection for Lady Baltimore's little son, no sooner, however, sees Dicky Browne than he gives himself up to his keeping. What the attraction is that Mr. Browne has for children has never yet been clearly defined. It is the more difficult to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion about it, in that no child was ever yet left in his sole care for ten minutes without coming to blows, or tears, or a determined attempt at murder or suicide.

His mother, seeing Tommy veering towards this uncertain friend, turns a doubtful eye on Mr. Browne.

"Better come with me, Tommy," says she, "I am going to the gardens to find Lady Baltimore. She will have Bertie with her."

"I'll stay with Dicky," says Tommy, flinging himself broadcast on Mr. Brown's reluctant chest, that gives forth a compulsory "Wough" as he does so. "He'll tell me a story."

"Don't be unhappy, Mrs. Monkton," says the latter, when he has recovered a little from the shock—Tommy is a well-grown boy, with a sufficient amount of adipose matter about him to make his descent felt. "I'll promise to be careful. Nothing French I assure you. Nothing that could shock the young mind, or teach it how to shoot in the wrong direction. My tales are always strictly moral."

"Well, Tommy, be good!" says Mrs. Monkton with a last imploring glance at her son, who has already forgotten her existence, being lost in a wild wrestling match with his new friend. With deep forebodings his mother leaves him and goes upon her way. Passing Joyce, she says in a low whisper:

"Keep an eye on Tommy."

"Both eyes if you like," laughing. "But Dicky, in spite of his evil reputation, seldom goes to extremes."

"Tommy does, however," says Mrs. Monkton tritely.

"Well—I'll look after him."

And so perhaps she might have done, had not a light step sounding just behind her chair at this moment caused her to start—to look round—to forget all but what she now sees.

He is a very aristocratic-looking man, tall, with large limbs, and big indeed, in every way. His eyes are light, his nose a handsome Roman, his forehead massive, and if not grand in the distinctly intellectual way, still a fine forehead and impressive. His hands are of a goodly size, but exquisitely proportioned, and very white, the skin almost delicate. He is rather like his sister, Lady Baltimore, and yet so different from her in every way that the distinct resemblance that is surely there torments the observer.

"Why!" says Joyce. It is the most foolish exclamation and means nothing, but she finds herself a little taken off her guard. "I didn't know you were here!" She has half risen.

"Neither did I—how d'ye do, Dysart?—until half an hour ago. Won't you shake hands?"

He holds out his own hand to her as he speaks. There is a quizzical light in his eyes as he speaks, nothing to offend, but one can see that he finds amusement in the fact that the girl has been so much impressed by his unexpected appearance that she has even forgotten the small usual act of courtesy with which we greet our friends. She had, indeed, been dead to everything but his coming.

"You came——" falters she, stammering a little, as she notes her mistake.

"By the mid-day train; I gave myself just time to snatch a sandwich from Purdon (the butler), say a word or two to my sister, whom I found in the garden, and then came on here to ask you to play this next game with me."

"Oh! I am so sorry, but I have promised it to——"

The words are out of her mouth before she has realized the fact that Dysart is listening—Dysart, who is lying at her feet, watching every expression in her mobile face. She colors hotly, and looks down at him confused, lovely.

"I didn't mean—that!" says she, trying to smile indifferently, "Only——"

"Don't!" says Dysart, not loudly, not curtly, yet in so strange and decided a way that it renders her silent. "You mustn't mind me," says he, a second later, in his usual calm tone. "I know you and Beauclerk are wonderful players. You can give me a game later on."

"A capital arrangement," says Beauclerk, comfortably sinking into a chair beside her, with all the lazy manner of a man at peace with himself and his world, "especially as I shall have to go in presently to write some letters for the evening post."

He places his elbows on the arms of the chair, brings the ends of his fingers together, and beams admiringly at Joyce over the tops of them.

"How busy you always are," says she, slowly.

"Well you see, this appointment, or, rather, the promise of it, keeps me going. Tremendous lot of interest to work up. Good deal of bother, you know, but then, beggars—eh?—can't be choosers, can they? And I should like to go to the East; that is, if——"

He pauses, beams again, and looks boldly into Miss Kavanagh's eyes. She blushes hotly, and, dropping her fan, makes a little attempt to pick it up again. Mr. Beauclerk makes another little attempt, and so manages that his hand meets hers. There is a slight, an almost benevolent pressure.

Had they looked at Dysart as they both resumed their places, they could have seen that his face is white as death. Miss Kavanagh, too, looks a little pale, a little uncertain, but as a whole nervously happy.

"I've been down at that old place of mine," goes on Mr. Beauclerk. "Terrible disrepair—take thousands to put it in any sort of order. And where's one to get them? That's the one question that has got no answer now-a-days. Eh, Dysart?"

"There is an answer, however," says Dysart, curtly, not looking at him.

"Ah, well, I suppose so. But I haven't heard it yet."

"Oh, yes, I think you have," says Dysart, quite politely, but grimly, nevertheless.

"Dear fellow, how? where? unless one discovers a mine or an African diamond-field?"

"Or an heiress," says Dysart, incidentally.

"Hah! lucky dog, that comes home to you," says Beauclerk, giving him a playful pat on his shoulder, and stooping from his chair to do it, as Dysart still sits upon the grass.

"Not to me."

"No? You will be modest? Well, well! But talking of that old place, I assure you, Miss Kavanagh, it worries me—it does, indeed. It sounds like one's duty to restore it, and still——"

"There are better things than even an old place," says Dysart.

"Ah! you haven't one you see," cries Beauclerk, with the utmost geniality. "If you had——I really think if you had you would understand that it requires a sacrifice to give it up to moths and rust and ruin."

"I said there were better things than old places," says Dysart doggedly, never looking in his direction. "And if there are, make a sacrifice."

"Pouf! Lucky fellows like you—gay soldier lads—with hearts as light as sunbeams, can easily preach; but sacrifices are not so easily made. There is that horrid word, Duty! And a man must sometimes think!"

Joyce, as though the last word has struck some answering chord that wounds her as it strikes, looks suddenly at him. What was it Barbara had said? "He was a man who would always think,"—is he thinking now—even now—at this moment?—is he weighing matters in his mind?

"Hah!" says Beauclerk rising and pointing to the court nearest them; "that game is over. Come on, Miss Kavanagh, let us go and get our scalps. I say, Dysart, will you fight it out with us?"

"No thanks."

"Afraid?" gaily.

"Of you—no," smiling; the smile is admirably done, and would be taken as the genuine article anywhere.

"Of Miss Kavanagh; then?"

For a brief instant, and evidently against his wish, Dysart's eyes meet those of Joyce.

"Perhaps," says he.

"A poor compliment to me," says Beauclerk, with his pleasant laugh that always rings so softly. "Well, never mind; I forgive you. Get a good partner, my dear fellow, and she may pull you through. You see I depend entirely upon mine," with a glance at Joyce, full of expression. "There's Miss Maliphant now—she'd make a good partner if you like."

"I shouldn't," says Dysart, immovably.

"She plays a good game, I can tell you."

"So do you," says Dysart.

"Oh, now, Dysart, don't be sarcastic," says Beauclerk laughing. "I believe you are afraid of me, not of Miss Kavanagh, and that's why you won't play. But if you were to put yourself in Miss Maliphant's hands, I don't say but that you would have a chance of beating me."

"I shall beat you by myself or not at all," says Dysart suddenly, and for the first time looking fair at him.

"A single, you mean?"

"Yes, a single."

"Well—we shall see," says Beauclerk. "Hah, there is Courtenay. Come along, Miss Kavanagh, we must make up a set as best we may, as Dysart is too lazy to face us."

"The next game is ours, Mr. Dysart, remember," says she, glancing at Dysart over her shoulder. There is a touch of anxiety in her eyes.

"I always remember," says he, with a rather ambiguous smile. What is he remembering now? Joyce's mouth takes a grave curve as she follows Beauclerk down the marble steps that lead to the tennis-ground below.

The evening has grown very still. The light wind that all day long has sung among the leaves has gone to sleep. Only the monotonous countings of the tennis players can be heard. Suddenly above these, another sound arises. It is not the voice of the charmer. It is the voice of Tommy in full cry, and mad with a desire to gain the better of the argument now going on between him and Mr. Browne. Mr. Browne is still, however, holding his own. He generally does. His voice grows eloquent. All can hear.

"I shall tell my story, Tommy, in my own way, or I shall not tell it at all!" The dignity that Mr. Browne throws into this threat is hardly to be surpassed.

---

CHAPTER IX.

"Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge."

---

"Tisn't right," says Tommy.

"I think it is. If you kindly listen to it once again, and give your entire attention to it, you will see how faulty is the ignorant conclusion to which you have come."

"I'm not one bit ignorant," says Tommy indignantly. "Nurse says I'm the dickens an' all at my Bible, and that I know Genesis better'n she does."

"And a very engaging book it is too," says Mr. Browne, "but it isn't everything. What you want to study, my good boy, is natural history. You are very ignorant about that, at all events."

"A cow couldn't do it," says Tommy.

"History says she can. Now, listen again. It is a grand old poem, and I am grieved and distressed, Thomas, to find that you refuse to accept it as one of the gems of truth thrown up to us out of the Dark Ages. Are you ready?

"'Diddle-dee, diddle-dee dumpty, The cow ran up the plum-tree. Half-a-crown to fetch her——'"

"She didn't—'twas the cat," cries Tommy.

"Not in my story," says Mr. Browne, mildly but firmly.

"A cow couldn't go up a plum-tree," indignantly.

"She could in my story," persists Mr. Browne, with all the air of one who, even to avoid unpleasantness, would not consent to go against the dictates of his conscience.

"She couldn't, I tell you," roars Tommy, now thoroughly incensed. "She couldn't climb. Her horns would stick in the branches. She'd be too heavy!"

"I admit, Thomas," says Mr. Browne gravely, "that your argument sounds as though there were some sense in it. But who am I that I should dare to disbelieve ancient history? It is unsafe to throw down old landmarks, to blow up the bulwarks of our noble constitution. Beware, Tommy! never tread on the tail of Truth. It may turn and rend you."

"Her name isn't Truth," says Tommy. "Our cow's name is Biddy, and she never ran up a tree in her life."

"She's young," says Mr. Browne. "She'll learn. So are you—you'll learn. And remember this, my boy, always respect old legends. A disregard for them will so unsettle you that finally you will find yourself—at the foot of the gallows in all human probability. I suppose," sadly, "that you are even so far gone in scepticism as to doubt the glorious truth of the moon's being made of green cheese?"

"Father says that's nonsense," says Tommy promptly, and with an air of triumph, "and father always knows."

"I blush for your father," says Mr. Browne with increasing melancholy. "Both he and you are apparently sunk in heathen darkness. Well, well; we will let the question of the moon go by, though I suppose you know, Tommy, that the real and original moon first rose in Cheshire."

"No, I don't," says Tommy, with a militant glare. "There was once a Cheshire cat; there never was a Cheshire moon."

"I suppose you will tell me next there never was a Cheshire cheese," says Mr. Browne severely. "Don't you see the connection? But never mind. Talking of cats brings us back to our mutton, and from thence to our cow. I do hope, Tommy, that for the future you will, at all events, try to believe in that faithful old animal who skipped so gaily up and down, and hither and thither, and in and out, and all about, that long-suffering old plum-tree."

"She never did it," says Tommy stamping with rage and now nearly in tears. "I've books—I've books, and 'tisn't in any of them."

"It is in my book," says Mr. Browne, who ought to be ashamed of himself.

"I don't believe you ever read a book," screams Tommy furiously. "'Twas the cat—the cat—the cat!"

"No; 'twas the horned cow," says Mr. Browne, in a sepulchral tone, whereat Tommy goes for him.

There is a wild and desperate conflict. Tooth and nail Tommy attacks, the foe, fists and legs doing very gallant service. There would indeed have been a serious case of assault and battery for the next Court day, had not Providence sent Mrs. Monkton on the scene.

"Oh, Tommy!" cries she, aghast. It is presumably Tommy, though, as he has his head thrust between Mr. Browne's legs, and his feet in mid air, kicking with all their might, there isn't much of him by which to prove identification. And—"Oh, Dicky," says, she again, "how could you torment him so, when you know how easy it is to excite him. See what a state he is in!"

"And what about me?" demands Mr. Browne, who is weak with laughter. "Is no sympathy to be shown me? See what a state I'm in. I'm black and blue from head to heel. I'm at the point of death!"

"Nonsense! you are all right, but look at him! Oh! Tommy, what a terrible boy you are. And you promised me if I brought you, that you——Just look at his clothes!"

"Look at mine!" says Mr. Browne. "My best hat is done for, and I'm afraid to examine my trousers. You might tell me if there is a big rent anywhere. No? Eh? Well—if you won't I must only risk it. But I feel tattered and torn. By-the-bye, Tommy, that's part of another old story. I'll tell you about it some day."

"Come with me, Tommy," says his mother, with awful severity. She holds out her hand to her son, who is still glaring at Dicky with an undying ferocity. "You are a naughty boy, and I'm sure your father will be angry with you when he hears of this."

"Oh, but he must not hear of it, must he, Tommy?" says Mr. Browne, with decision, appealing to his late antagonist as airily, as utterly without arrière pensée as though no unpleasant passages have occurred between them. "It's awfully good of you to desire our company, Mrs. Monkton, but really on the whole I think——"

"It is Tommy I want," says Mrs. Monkton still with a meaning eye.

"Where Tommy goes, I go," says Mr. Browne, firmly. "We are wedded to each other for the day. Nothing shall part us! Neither law nor order. Just now we are going down to the lake to feed the swans with the succulent bun. Will you come with us?"

"You are very uncertain, Dicky," says Mrs. Monkton, regarding Mr. Browne with a gravity that savors of disapproval. "How shall I be sure that if you take him to the lake you will not let him drown himself?"

"He is far more likely to drown me," says Mr. Browne. "Come along, Tommy, the biscuits are in the hall, and the lake a quarter of a mile away. The day waneth; let us haste—let us haste!"

"Where has Dicky gone?" asks Joyce, who has just returned victorious from her game.

"To the lake with Tommy. I have been imploring him not to drown my son," says Mrs. Monkton with a rather rueful smile.

"Oh, he won't do that. Dicky is erratic, but pretty safe, for all that. And he is fond of Tommy."

"He teases him, however, beyond endurance."

"That is because he does like him."

"A strange conclusion to arrive at, surely," says Dysart, looking at her.

"No. If he didn't like him, he wouldn't take the trouble," says she, nonchalantly. She is evidently a little distrait. She looks as though she wanted something.

"You won your game?" says her sister, smiling at her.

"Yes, quite a glorious victory. They had only two games out of the six; and you know Miss Connor plays very well."

"Where is Mr. Beauclerk?"

"Gone into the house to write some letters and telegrams."

"Norman, do you mean?" asks Lady Baltimore, coming up at this moment, her basket full of flowers, and minus the little son and the heiress; "he has just gone into the house to hear Miss Maliphant sing. You know she sings remarkably well, and that last song of Milton Wettings suits her so entirely. Norman is very fond of music. Have you had a game, Joyce?"

"Yes, and won it," says Joyce, smiling back at her, though her face has paled a little. Had she won it?

"Well, I must take these into the house before they fade. Righton wants them for the dinner-table," says Lady Baltimore. A little hurried note has crept into her voice. She turns away somewhat abruptly. Lord Baltimore and Lady Swansdown have just appeared in view, Lady Swansdown with a huge bunch of honeysuckle in her hand, looking very picturesque.

Baltimore, seeing his wife move towards the house, and Lady Swansdown displaying the spoils of her walk to Dysart, darts quickly after her.

"Let me carry that burden for you," says he, laying his hand upon the basket of flowers.

"No, oh! no, thank you," says Lady Baltimore, glancing up at him for just a moment, with a little curious expression in her eyes. "I have carried it quite a long time. I hardly feel it now. No; go back to the lawn to Lady Swansdown—see; she is quite alone at this moment. You will be doing me a real service if you will look after our guests."

"As you will," says Baltimore, coldly.

He turns back with a frown, and rejoins those he had left.

Joyce is talking to Lady Swansdown in her prettiest way—she seems, indeed, exceptionally gay even for her, who, as a rule, is the life of every party. Her spirits seem to have risen to quite an abnormal height, and her charming laugh, soft as it is sweet, rings gaily. With the advent of Baltimore, however, Lady Swansdown's attention veers aside, and Joyce, feeling Dysart at her elbow, turns to him.

"We postponed one game, I think," says she. "Well—shall we play the next?"

"I am sorry," says he, deliberately, "but I think not." His eyes are on the ground.

"No?" says she, coloring warmly. There is open surprise in her glance. That he should refuse to accept an advance from her seems truly beyond belief.

"You must forgive me," says he, deliberately still. He had sworn to himself that he would not play second fiddle on this occasion at all events, and he holds himself to his word. "But I feel as if I could not play to-day. I should disgrace you. Let me get you another partner. Captain Grant is out there, he——"

"Thank you. I shall be able to provide myself with a partner when I want one," interrupts she, haughtily, turning abruptly away.

---

CHAPTER X.

"Nature has sometimes made a fool."

---

The fiddles are squeaking, the 'cellos are groaning, the man with the cornet is making a most ungodly row. As yet, the band have the ballroom all to themselves, and are certainly making the most of their time. Such unearthly noises rarely, if ever, have been heard in it before. Why they couldn't have tuned their instruments before coming is a question that fills the butler's mind with wrath, but perhaps the long journey down from Dublin would have untuned them all again, and left the players of them disconsolate.

The dismal sounds penetrate into the rooms right and left of the ballroom, but fail to kill the melancholy sweetness of the dripping fountains or the perfume of the hundred flowers that gave their sleeping draughts to all those who chose to come and inhale them. Mild draughts that please the senses without stealing them.

The sounds even penetrate to the library, where Joyce is standing before the low fire, that even in this July evening burns upon the hearth, fastening her long gloves. She had got down before the others, and now, finding the room empty, half wishes herself back again upstairs. But she is so young, so full of a fresh delight in all the gaiety around her, that she had hurried over her dressing, and, with the first dismal sounds of the toning, had turned her steps its way.

The library seems cold to her, bare, unfriendly. Had she expected to meet somebody there before her—somebody who had promised to get a fresh tie in a hurry, but who had possibly forgotten all about it in the joy of an after-dinner cigar?

It seems a long time since that first day when she had been startled by his sudden reappearance at the Court. A long, long time. Soon this last visit of hers to the Court must come to an end. The Baltimores will be going abroad in a fortnight or so—and he with them. The summer is waning—dreary autumn coming. He will go—and——

A sense of dissatisfaction sits heavily on her, toning down to rather a too cruel a degree the bright expectancy of her face. He had said he would come, and now——She drums in a heavy-hearted listless fashion on the table with the tips of her pale gloves, and noticing, half consciously in so doing, that they have not been sufficiently drawn up her arm, mechanically fits them closer to the taper fingers.

Certainly he had said he would be here. "Early you know. Before the others can get down." A quick frown grows upon her forehead, and now that the fingers are quiet, the little foot begins to beat a tattoo upon the ground. Leaning against the table in a graceful attitude, with the lamplight streaming on her pretty white frock, she gives a loose rein to her thoughts.

They are a little angry, a little frightened perhaps. During the past week had he not said many things that in the end proved void of meaning. He had haunted her in a degree, at certain hours, certain times, had loitered through gardens, lingered in conservatories by her side, whispered many things—looked so very many more. But——

There were other times, other opportunities for philandering (she does not give it this unpleasant name); how has he spent them?—A vague thought of Miss Maliphant crosses her mind. That he laughs at the plain, good-natured heiress to her (Joyce), had not prevented the fact that he is very attentive to her at times. Principally such times as when Joyce may reasonably be supposed to be elsewhere. Human reason, however, often falls short of the mark, and there have been unsuspected moments during the past week when Miss Kavanagh has by chance appeared upon the scene of Mr. Beauclerk's amusements, and has found that Miss Maliphant has had a good deal to do with them. But then—"That poor, good girl you know!" Here, Beauclerk's joyous laugh would ring forth for Joyce's benefit. "Such a good girl; and so—er—don't you know!" He was certainly always a little vague. He didn't explain himself. Miss Kavanagh, looking back on all he had ever said against the heiress, is obliged to confess to herself that the great "er" had had to express everything. Contempt, dislike, kindly disdain—he was always kindly—he made quite a point of that. Truly, thinks Miss Kavanagh to herself after this retrospective glance, "er" is the greatest word in the English language!

And so it is. It declares. It conceals. It conveys a laugh. It suggests a frown. It helps a sorrowful confession. It adorns a lame one. It is kindly, as giving time. It is cruel, as being full of sarcasm. It——In fact what is it it cannot do?

Joyce's feet have grown quite steady now. She has placed her hands on the table behind her, and thus compelled to lean a little forward, stands studying the carpet without seeing it. A sense of anger, of shame against herself is troubling her. If he should not be in earnest! If he should not—like her as she likes him!

She rouses herself suddenly as if stung by some thought. "Like" is the word. It has gone no deeper yet. It shall not. He is handsome, he has his charm, but if she is not all the world to him, why, he shall not be all the world to her. If it is money he craves, for the restoration of that old home of his, why money let it be. But there, shall not be the two things, the desire of one for filthy lucre, the desire of the other for love. He shall decide.

She has grown very pale. She has drawn herself up to her full height, and her lips are pressed together. And now a strange thought comes to her. If—if she loved him, could she bear thus to analyze him. To take him to pieces, to dissect him as it were? Once again that feeling of fear oppresses her. Is she so cold, so deliberate in herself that she suspects others of coldness. After all—if he does love her—if he only hesitates because——

A step outside the door!

Instinctively she glances at one of the long mirrors that line the walls from floor to ceiling. Involuntarily her hands rush to her head. She gives a little touch to her gown. And now is sitting in a lounging-chair, a little pale still perhaps, but in all other respects the very picture of unconsciousness. It is—it must be——

It isn't, however.

Mr. Browne, opening the door in his own delightfully breezy fashion that generally plays old Harry with the hinges and blows the ornaments off the nearest tables, advances towards her with arms outspread, and the liveliest admiration writ upon his features, which, to say the truth, are of goodly proportions.

"Oh! Thou wonder of the world!" cries he in accents ecstatic. He has been reading "Cleopatra" (that most charming of books) assiduously for the past few days, during which time he has made himself an emphatic nuisance to his friends: perpetual quotations, however apt or salutary, proving as a rule a bore.

"That will do, Dicky! We all know about that," says Miss Kavanagh, who is a little unnerved, a little impatient perhaps. Mr. Browne, however, is above being snubbed by anyone. He continues on his way rejoicing.

"Thou living flame!" cries he, making what he fondly supposes to be a stage attitude. "Thou thing of beauty. Though fleshpot of Egypt!"

He has at last surpassed himself! He stands silent waiting for the plaudits of the crowd. The crowd, however, is unappreciative.

"Nonsense!" says Miss Kavanagh shortly. "I wonder you aren't tired of making people tired. Your eternal quotations would destroy the patience of an anchorite. And as for that last sentence of yours, you know very well it isn't in Rider Haggard's book. He'd have been ashamed of it."

"Would he? Bet you he wouldn't! And if it isn't in his book, all I can say is it ought to have been. Mere oversight leaving it out. He will be sorry if I drop him a line about it. Shouldn't wonder if it produced a new edition. But for my part, I believe it is in the book. Fleshpots, Egypt, you know; hardly possible to separate 'em now from the public mind."

"Well; he could separate them any way. There isn't a single word about them in the book from start to finish."

"No? D'ye say so?" Here Mr. Browne grows lost in thought. "Fleshpots—pots—hot pots; hot potting! Hah!" He draws himself together with all the manner of one who has gone down deep into a thing, and comes up from it full of knowledge. "I've 'mixed those babies up,'" says he mildly. "But still I can hardly believe that that last valuable addition to Mr. Haggard's work is all my own."

"Distinctly your own," with a suggestion of scorn, completely thrown away upon the receiver of it.

"D'ye say so! By Jove! And very neat too! Didn't think I had it in me. After all to write a book is an easy matter; here am I, who never thought about it, was able to form an entire sentence full of the most exquisite wit and humor without so much as knowing I was doing it. Tell you what, Joyce, I'll send it to the author with a card and my compliments you know. Horrid thing to be mean about anything, and if I can help him out with a 999th edition or so, I'll be doing him a good turn. Eh?"

"I suppose you think you are amusing," says Miss Kavanagh, regarding him with a critical eye.

"My good child, I know that expression," says Mr. Browne, amiably. "I know it by heart. It means that you think I'm a fool. It's politer now-a-days to look things than to say them, but wait awhile and you'll see. Come; I'll bet you a shilling to a sovereign that he'll be delighted with my suggestion, and put it into his next edition without delay. No charge! Given away! The lot for a penny-three-farthings. In fact, I make it a present to him. Noble, eh? Give it to him for nothing!"

"About its price," says Miss Kavanagh thoughtfully.

"Think you so? You are dull to-night, Jocelyne. Flashes of wit pass you by without warming you. Yet I tell you this idea that has flowed from my brain is a priceless one. Never mind the door—he's not coming yet. Attend to me."

"Who's not coming?" demands she, the more angrily in that she is growing miserably aware of the brilliant color that is slowly but surely bedecking her cheeks.

"Never mind! It's a mere detail; attend to me and I entreat you," says Mr. Browne, who is now quite in his element, having made sure of the fact that she is expecting somebody. It doesn't matter in the least who to Mr. Browne, expectation is the thing wherein to catch the embarrassment of Miss Kavanagh, and forthwith he sets himself gaily to the teazing of her.

"Attend to what?" says she with a little frown.

"If you had studied your Bible, Jocelyne, with that care that I should have expected from you, you would have remembered that forty odd years the Israelites hankered after those very fleshpots of Egypt to which I have been alluding. Now I appeal to you, as a sensible girl, would anybody hanker after anything for forty odd years (very odd years as it happens), unless it was to their advantage to get it; unless, indeed, the object pursued was priceless!"

"You ask too much of this sensible girl," says Miss Kavanagh, with a carefully manufactured yawn. "Really, dear Dicky, you must forgive me if I say I haven't gone into it as yet, and that I don't suppose I shall ever see the necessity for going into it."

"But, my good child, you must see that those respectable people, the Israelites, wouldn't have pursued a mere shadow for forty years."

"That's just what I don't see. There are such a number of fools everywhere, in every age, that one couldn't tell."

"This is evasion," says Mr. Browne sternly. "To bring you face to face with facts must be my very unpleasant if distinct duty. Joyce, do you dare to doubt for one moment that I speak aught but the truth? Will you deny that Cleopatra, that old serpent of the——"

"Ha—ha—ha," laughs Joyce ironically. "I wish she could hear you. Your life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase."

"Mere slip. Serpent of old Nile. Doesn't matter in the least," says Mr. Browne airily, "because she couldn't hear me as it happens. My dear girl, follow out the argument. Cleopatra, metaphorically speaking, was a fleshpot, because the world hankered after her. And—you're another."

"Really, Dicky, I must protest against your talking slang to me."

"Where does the slang come in? You're another fleshpot. I meant to say—or convey—because we all hanker after you."

"Do you?" with rising wrath. "May I ask what hankering means?"

"You had better not," says Mr. Browne mysteriously. "It was one of the rites of Ancient Kem!"

"Now there is one thing, Dicky," says Miss Kavanagh, her wrath boiling over. "I won't be called names. I won't be called a fleshpot. You'll draw the line there if you please."

"My dear girl, why not? Those delectable pots must have been bric-à-brac of the most recherché description. Of a most delicate shape, no doubt. Of a pattern, tint, formation, general get up—not to be hoped for in these prosaic days."

"Nonsense," indignantly. She is fairly roused now, and Mr. Browne regarding her with a proud eye, tells himself he is about to have his reward at last. "You know very well that the term 'fleshpots' referred to what was in the pots, not to the pots themselves."

"That's all you know about it. That's where your fatal ignorance comes in, my poor Joyce," says he, with immense compassion. "Search your Bible from cover to cover, and I defy you to find a single mention of the contents of those valuable bits of bric-à-brac. Of fleshpots—heavy emphasis on the pots—and ten fingers down at once if you please—we read continually as being hankered after by the Israelites, who then, as now, were evidently avid collectors."

"You've been having champagne, Dicky," says Miss Kavanagh, regarding him with a judicial eye.

"So have you. But I can't see what that excellent beverage has got to do with the ancient Jews. Keep to the point. Did you ever hear that they expressed a longing for the flesh of Egypt? No. So far so good. The pots themselves were the objects of their admiration. During that remarkable run of theirs through the howling wilderness they, one and all, to a man, betrayed the true æsthetic tendency. They raved incessantly for the girl—I beg pardon—the land they had left behind them. The land that contained those priceless jars."

"I wonder how you can be so silly," says Miss Kavanagh disdainfully. Will he never go away! If he stays, and if—the other—comes——

"Silly! my good child. How silly! Why everything goes to prove the probability of my statement. The taste for articles of vertu—for antiquities—for fossils of all descriptions that characterized them then, has lived to the present day. Then they worried after old china, and who shall deny that now they have an overwhelming affection for old clo'."

"Well; your folly doesn't concern me," says Miss Kavanagh, gathering up her skirts with an evident intention of shaking off the dust of his presence from her feet and quitting him.

"I am sorry that you should consider it folly," says Mr. Browne sorrowfully. "I should not have said so much about it perhaps but that I wanted to prove to you that in calling you a fleshpot I only meant to——"

"I won't be called that," interrupts Miss Kavanagh angrily. "It's horrid! It makes me feel quite fat! Now, once for all, Dicky, I forbid it. I won't have it."

"I don't see how you are to get out of it," says Mr. Browne, shaking his head and hands in wild deprecation. "Fleshpots were desirable articles—you're another—ergo—you're a fleshpot. See the argument?"

"No I don't," indignantly. "I see only you—and—I wish I didn't."

"Very rude; very!" says Mr. Browne, regretfully. "Yet I entreat thee not to leave me without one other word. Follow up the argument—do. Give me an answer to it."

"Not one," walking to the door.

"That's because it is unanswerable," says Mr. Browne complacently. "You are beaten, you——"

There is a sound outside the door; Joyce with her hand on the handle of it, steps back and looks round nervously at Dicky. A quick color has dyed her cheeks; instinctively she moves a little to one side and gives a rapid glance into a long mirror.

"I don't think really he could find a fault," says Mr. Browne mischievously. "I should think there will be a good deal of hankering going on to-night."

Miss Kavanagh has only just barely time to wither him, when Beauclerk comes hurriedly in.

---

CHAPTER XI.

"Thinkest thou there are no serpents in the world But those who slide along the grassy sod, And sting the luckless foot that presses them? There are, who in the path of social life Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's son, And sting the soul."

---

"Oh, there you are," cries he jovially. "Been looking for you everywhere. The music has begun; first dance just forming. Gay and lively quadrille, you know—country ball wouldn't know itself without a beginning like that. Come; come on."

Nothing can exceed his bonhomie. He tucks her hand in the most delightfully genial, appropriative fashion under his arm, and with a beaming nod to Mr. Browne (he never forgets to be civil to anybody) hurries Joyce out of the room, leaving the astute Dicky gazing after him with mingled feelings in his eye.

"Deuce and all of a smart chap," says Mr. Browne to himself slowly. "But he'll fall through some day for all that, I shouldn't wonder."

Meantime Mr. Beauclerk is still carrying on a charming recitative.

"Such a bore!" he is saying, with heartfelt disgust in his tone. It is really wonderful how he can always do it. There is never a moment when he flags. He is for ever up to time as it were, and equal to the occasion. "I'm afraid you rather misunderstood me just now, when I said I'd been looking for you—but the fact is, Browne's such an ass, if he knew we had made an appointment to meet in the library, he'd have brayed the whole affair to any and every one."

"Was there an appointment?" says Miss Kavanagh, who is feeling a little unsettled—a little angry with herself perhaps.

"No—no," with a delightful acceptation of her rebuke. "You are right as ever. I was wrong. But then, you see, it gave me a sort of joy to believe that our light allusion to a possible happy half-hour before the turmoil of the dance began might mean something more—something——Ah! well never mind! Men are vain creatures; and after all it would have been a happy half-hour to me only!"

"Would it?" says she with a curious glance at him.

"You know that!" says he, with the full and earnest glance he can turn on at a second's notice without the slightest injury to heart or mind.

"I don't indeed."

"Oh well, you haven't time to think about it perhaps. I found you very fully occupied when—at last—I was able to get to the library. Browne we all know is a very—er—lively companion—if rather wanting in the higher virtues."

"'At last,'" says she quoting his words. She turns suddenly and looks at him, a world of inquiry in her dark eyes. "I hate pretence," says she curtly, throwing up her young head with a haughty movement. "You said you would be in the library at such an hour, and though I did not promise to meet you there, still, as I happened to be dressed earlier than I believed possible, I came down, and you——? Where were you?"

There is a touch of imperiousness in that last question that augurs badly for a false wooer; but the imperiousness suits her. With her pretty chin uptilted, and that little scornful curve upon her lips, and her lovely eyes ablaze, she looks indeed "a thing of beauty." Beauclerk regards her with distinct approbation. After all—had she even half the money that the heiress possesses, what a wife she would make. And it isn't decided yet one way or the other; sometimes Fate is kind. The day may come when this delectable creature may fall to his portion.

"I can see you are thinking hard things of me," says he reproachfully; "but you little know how I have been passing the time I had so been looking forward to. Time to be passed with you. That old Lady Blake—she would keep me maundering to her about that son of hers in the Mauritius; you know he and I were at St. Petersburg together. I couldn't get away. You blame me—but what was I to do? An old woman—unhappy——"

"Oh no. You were right," says Joyce quickly. How good he is after all, and how unjustly she had been thinking of him. So kind, so careful of the feelings of a tiresome old woman. How few men are like him. How few would so far sacrifice themselves.

"Ah, you see it like that!" says, Mr. Beauclerk, not triumphantly, but so modestly that the girl's heart goes out to him even more. How generous he is! Not a word of rebuke to her for her vile suspicion of him.

"Why you put me into good spirits again," says he laughing gaily. "We must make haste, I fear, if we would save the first dance."

"Oh yes—come," says Joyce going quickly forward. Evidently he is going to ask her for the first dance! That shows that he prefers her to——

"I'm so glad you have been able to sympathize with me about my last disappointment," says Beauclerk. "If you hadn't—if you had had even one hard thought of me, I don't know how I should have been able to endure what still lies before me. I am almost raging with anger, but when one's sister is in question——"

"You mean?" say Joyce a little faintly.

"Oh, you haven't heard. I am so annoyed myself about it, that I fancied everybody knew. You know I hoped that you would have been good enough to give me the first dance, but when Isabel asked me to dance it with that dreadful daughter of Lady Dunscombe's, what could I do, now I ask you?" appealing to her with hands and eyes. "What could I do?"

"Obey, of course," says she with an effort, but a successful one. "You must hurry too, if you want to secure Miss Dunscombe."

"Ah; what a misfortune it is to be the brother of one's hostess," says he, with a sort of comic despair. His eyes are centred on her face, reading her carefully, and with much secret satisfaction;—rapid as that slight change upon her face had been, he had seen and noted it.

"It couldn't possibly be a misfortune to be Lady Baltimore's brother," says she smiling. "On the contrary, you are to be congratulated."

"Not just at this moment surely!"

"At this or any other moment. Ah!"—as they enter the ballroom. "The room is already fuller than I thought. Engaged, Mr. Blake?" to Lord Blake's eldest son. "No, not for this. Yes, with pleasure."

She makes a little charming inclination of her head to Beauclerk, and laying her hand on Mr. Blake's arm, moves away with him to where a set is already forming at the end of the room. It is without enthusiasm she takes her place with Dysart and one of the O'Donovan girls as vis-à-vis, and prepares to march, retreat, twist and turn with the best of them.

"A dull old game," she is irreverently terming the quadrilles—that massing together of inelegant movements so dear to the bucolic mind—that saving clause for the old maids and the wall-flowers; when a little change of position shows her the double quartette on the right hand side of the magnificent ballroom.

She had been half through an unimportant remark to Mr. Blake, but she stops short now and forgets to finish it. Her color comes and goes. The sides are now prancing through their performance, and she and her partner are standing still. Perhaps—perhaps she was mistaken; with all these swaying idiots on every side of her she might well have mixed up one man's partner with another; and Miss Dunscombe (she had caught a glimpse of her awhile ago) was surely in that set on the right hand side.

She stoops forward, regardless—oblivious—of her partner's surprised glance, who has just been making a very witty remark, and being a rather smart young man, accustomed to be listened to, is rather taken aback by her open indifference.

A little more forward she leans; yes, now—the couples part—for one moment the coast lies clear. She can see distinctly. Miss Dunscombe is indeed dancing in that set but not as Mr. Beauclerk's partner. Miss Maliphant has secured that enviable rôle.

Even as Joyce gazes, Beauclerk, turning his head, meets her earnest regard. He returns it with a beaming smile. Miss Maliphant, whose duty it is at this instant to advance and retire and receive without the support of a chaperone the attacks of the bold, bad man opposite, having moved out of Beauclerk's sight, the latter, with an expressive glance directed at Joyce, lifts his shoulders forlornly, and gives a serio-comic shrug of his shoulders. All to show now bored a being he is at finding himself thus the partner of the ugly heiress! It is all done in a second. An inimitable bit of acting—but unpleasant.

Joyce draws herself up. Her eyes fall away from his; unless the distance is too far, the touch of disdain that lies in them should have disconcerted even Mr. Beauclerk. Perhaps it has!

"Our turn?" says she, giving her partner a sudden beautiful glance full of fire—of life—of something that he fails to understand, but does not fail to consider charming. She smiles; she grows radiant. She is a different being from a moment ago. How could he—Blake—have thought her stupid. How she takes up every word—and throws new meaning into it—and what a laugh she has! Low-sweet—merry—music to its core!

Beauclerk in his turn finds a loop-hole through which to look at her, and is conscious of a faint feeling of chagrin. She oughtn't to have taken it like that. To be a little pensive—a little sad—that would have shewn a right spirit. Well—the night is long. He can play his game here and there. There is plenty of time in which to regain lost ground with one—to gain fresh ground with the other. Joyce will forgive him—when she hears his version of it.

---

CHAPTER XII.

"If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?—Or is thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"

---

"Well, after all, life has its compensations," says Mr. Beauclerk, sinking upon the satin lounge beside Miss Kavanagh, and giving way to a rapturous sigh. He is looking very big and very handsome. His close-cropped eminently aristocratic head is thrown a little back, to give full play to the ecstatic smile he is directing at Joyce.

She bears it wonderfully. She receives it indeed with all the amiable imbecility of a person who doesn't understand what on earth you are talking about. Whether this reception of his little opening speech—so carefully prepared—puzzles or nettles Mr. Beauclerk there is no way of learning. He makes no sign.

"I thought I should never be able to get a dance with you; you see,"—smiling—"when one is the belle of the evening, one grows difficult. But you might have kept a fifth or sixth for a poor outsider like me. An old friend too."

"Old friends don't count at a dance, I'm afraid," says she, with a smile as genial as his own; "though for the matter of that you could have had the first; no one—hard as it may be to make you believe it—had asked the belle of the evening for that."

This is not quite true. Many had asked for it, Dysart amongst others; but she had kept it open for—the one who didn't want it. However, fibs of this sort one blinks at where pretty girls are the criminals. Her tone is delicately sarcastic. She would willingly suppress the sarcasm altogether as beneath her, but she is very angry; and when a woman is angry there is generally somebody to pay.

"Oh! that first!" says he, with a gesture of impatience. "I shan't forgive Isabel in a hurry about that; she ruined my evening—up to this. However," throwing off as it were unpleasant memories by a shake of his head, "don't let me spoil my one good time by dwelling upon a bad one. Here I am now, at all events; here is comfort, here is peace. The hour I have been longing for is mine at last."

"It might have been yours considerably earlier," says Miss Kavanagh with very noteworthy deliberation, unmoved by his lover-like glances, which after all have more truth in them than most of his declarations. She sits playing with her fan, and with a face expressionless as any sphinx.

"Oh! my dear girl!" says Mr. Beauclerk reproachfully, "how can you say that! You know in one's sister's house one must—eh? And she laid positive commands on me——"

"To dance the first dance with Miss Maliphant?"

"Now, that's not like you," says Mr. Beauclerk very gently. "It's not just. When I found Miss Dunscombe engaged for that ridiculous quadrille, what could I do? You were engaged to Blake. I was looking aimlessly round me, cursing my luck in that I had not thrown up even my sister's wishes and secured before it was too late the only girl in the room I cared to dance with when Isabel came again. 'Not dancing,' says she; 'and there's Miss Maliphant over there, partnerless!'"

He tells all this with as genuine an air as if it was not false from start to finish.

"You know Isabel," says he, laughing airily; "she takes the oddest fancies at times. Miss Maliphant is her latest craze. Though what she can see in her——A nice girl. Thoroughly nice—essentially real—a little too real perhaps," with a laugh so irresistible that even Miss Kavanagh against her will is compelled to join in it.

"Honest all through, I admit; but as a waltzer! Well, well, we shouldn't be too severe—but really, there you know, she leaves everything to be desired. And I've been victimized not once, but twice—three times."

"It is nothing remarkable," says Miss Kavanagh, coldly. "Many very charming girls do not dance well. It is a gift."

"A very precious one. When a charming girl can't waltz, she ought to learn how to sit down charmingly, and not oppress innocent people. As for Miss Maliphant!" throwing out his large handsome hands expressively, "she certainly should not dance. Her complexion doesn't stand it. Did you notice her?"

"No," icily.

"Ah, you wouldn't, you know. I could see how thoroughly well occupied you were! Not a thought for even an old friend; and besides you're a girl in ten thousand. Nothing petty or small about you. Now, another woman would not have failed to notice the fatal tendency towards rubicundity that marks Miss Maliphant's nose whenever——"

"I do so dislike discussing people behind their backs," says Miss Kavanagh, slowly. "I always think it is so unfair. They can't defend themselves. It is like maligning the dead."

"Miss Maliphant isn't dead at all events. She is dreadfully alive," says Mr. Beauclerk, totally unabashed. He laughs gaily. To refuse to be lectured was a rule he had laid down for his own guidance early in life. Those people who will not see when they ought to be offended have generally the best of the game.

"Would you have her dead?" asks Joyce, with calm interrogation.

"I don't remember saying I would have her any way," says he, still evidently clinging to the frivolous mood. "And at all events I wouldn't have her dancing. It disagrees with her nose. It makes her suggestive; it betrays one into the making of bad parodies. One I made to-night when looking at her; I couldn't resist it. For once in her life you see she was irresistible. Hear it. 'Oh! my love's got a red, red nose!' Ha! ha! Not half bad, eh? It kept repeating itself in my brain all the time I was looking at her."

"I thought you liked her," says Joyce, lifting her large dark eyes for the first time to his. Beautiful eyes! a little shocked now—a little cold—almost entreating. Surely, surely, he will not destroy her ideal of him.

"You think I am censorious," says he readily, "cruel almost; but to you"—with delicate flattery—"surely I may speak to you as I would speak to no other. May I not?" He leans a little forward, and compelling the girl's reluctant gaze, goes on speaking. It chafes him that she should put him on his defence; but some one divine instinct within him warns him not to break with her entirely. "Still," says he, in a low tone, always with his eyes on hers, "I see that you condemn me."

"Condemn you! No! Why should I be your judge?"

"You are, however—and my judge and jury too. I cannot bear to think that you should despise me. And all because of that wretched girl."

"I don't despise you," says the girl, quickly. "If you were really despicable I should not like you as well as I do; I am only sorry that you should say little unkind things of a girl like Miss Maliphant, who, if not beautiful, is surely to be regarded in a very kindly light."

"Do you know," says Mr. Beauclerk, gently, "I think you are the one sweet character in the world." There is a great amount of belief in his tone, perhaps half of it is honest. "I never met any one like you. Women as a rule are willing to tear each other to pieces but you—you condone all faults; that is why I——"

A pause. He leans forward. His eyes are eloquent; his tongue alone refrains from finishing the declaration that he had begun. To the girl beside him, however, ignorant of subterfuge, unknowing of the wiles that run in and out of society like a thread, his words sound sweet—the sweeter for the very hesitation that accompanies them.

"I am not so perfect as you think me," says she, rather sadly—her voice a little faint.

"That is true," says he quickly, as though compelled against his will to find fault with her. "A while ago you were angry with me because I was driven to waste my time with people uncongenial to me. That was unfair if you like." He throws her own accusation back at her in the gentlest fashion. "I danced with this, that, and the other person it is true, but do you not know where my heart was all this time?"

He pauses for a moment, just long enough to make more real his question, but hardly long enough to let her reply to it. To bring matters to a climax, would not suit him at all.

"Yes, you do know," says he, seeing her about to speak. "And yet you misjudge me. If—if I were to tell you that I would rather be with you than with any other woman in the world, you would believe me, wouldn't you?"

He stoops over her, and taking her hand presses it fondly, lingeringly. "Answer me."

"Yes," says Joyce in a low tone. It has not occurred to her that his words are a question rather than an asseveration. That he loves her, seems to her certain. A soft glow illumines her cheeks; her eyes sink beneath his; the idea that she is happy, or at all events ought to be happy, fills her with a curious wonderment. Do people always feel so strange, so surprised, so unsure, when love comes to them?

"Yet you did doubt," says Beauclerk, giving her hand a last pressure, and now nestling back amongst his cushions with all the air of a man who has fought and conquered and has been given his reward. "Well, don't let us throw an unpleasant memory into this happy hour. As I have said," taking up her fan and idly, if gracefully, waving it to and fro, "after all the turmoil of the fight it is sweet to find oneself at last in the haven where one would be."

He is smiling at Joyce—the gayest, the most candid smile in the world. Smiles become him. He is looking really handsome and happy at finding himself thus alone with her. Sincerity declares itself in every line of his face. Perhaps he is as sincere as he has ever yet been in his life. The one thing that he unquestionably does regard with interest beyond his own poor precious bones, is the exquisite bit of nature's workmanship now sitting beside him.

At this present moment, in spite of his flattering words, his smiles and telling glances, she is still a little cold, a little uncertain, a phase of manner that renders her indescribably charming to the one watching her.

Beauclerk indeed is enjoying himself immensely. To a man of his temperament to be able to play upon a nature as fine, as honest, as pure as Joyce's is to know a keen delight. That the girl is dissatisfied, vaguely, nervously dissatisfied, he can read as easily as though the workings of her soul lay before him in broad type, and to assuage those half-defined misgivings of hers is a task that suits him. He attacks it con amore.

"How silent you are," says he, very gently, when he has let quite a long pause occur.

"I am tired, I think."

"Of me?"

"No."

"Of what then?" He has found that as a rule there is nothing a woman likes better than to be asked to define her own feelings, Joyce, however, disappoints him.

"I don't know. Sitting up so late I suppose."

"Look here!" says he, in a voice so full of earnest emotion that Joyce involuntarily stares at him; "I know what is the matter with you. You are fighting against your better nature. You are trying to be ungenerous. You are trying to believe what you know is not true. Tell me—honestly mind—are you not forcing yourself to regard me as a monster of insincerity?"

"You are wrong," says she, slowly. "I am forcing myself, on the contrary, to believe you a very giant of sincerity."

"And you find that difficult?"

"Yes."

An intense feeling of admiration for her sways Beauclerk. How new a thing to find a girl so beautiful, with so much intelligence. Surely instinct is the great lever that moves humanity. Why has not this girl the thousands that render Miss Maliphant so very desirable? What a bêtise on the part of Mother Nature. Alas! it would be too much to expect from that niggardly Dame. Beauty, intelligence, wealth! All rolled into one personality. Impossible!

"You are candid,'" says he, his tone sorrowful.

"That is what one should always be," says she in turn.

"You are too stern a judge. How shall I convince you," exclaims he—"of what he leaves open? If I were to swear——"

"Do not," says she quickly.

"Well, I won't. But Joyce!" He pauses, purposely. It is the first time he has ever called her by her Christian name, and a little soft color springs into the girl's cheeks as she hears him. "You know," says he, "you do know?"

It is a question; but again what? What does she know? He had accredited her with remarkable intelligence a moment ago, but as a fact the girl's knowledge of life is but a poor thing in comparison with that of the man of the world. She belies her intelligence on the spot.

"Yes, I think I do," says she shyly. In fact she is longing to believe, to be sure of this thing, that to her is so plain that she has omitted to notice that he has never put it into words.

"You will trust in me?" says he.

"Yes, I trust you," says she simply.

Her pretty gloved hand is lying on her lap. Raising it, he presses it passionately to his lips. Joyce, with a little nervous movement, withdraws it quickly. The color dies from her lips. Even at this supreme moment does Doubt hold her in thrall!

Her face is marvelously bright and happy, however, as she rises precipitately to her feet, much to Beauclerk's relief. It has gone quite far enough he tells himself—five minutes more and he would have found himself in a rather embarrassing position. Really these pretty girls are very dangerous.

"Come, we must go back to the ballroom," says she gaily. "We have been here an unconscionable time. I am afraid my partner for this dance has been looking for me, and will scarcely forgive my treating him so badly. If I had only told him I wouldn't dance with him he might have got another partner and enjoyed himself."

"Better to have loved and lost," quotes Beauclerk in his airiest manner. It is so airy that it strikes Joyce unpleasantly. Surely after all—after——She pulls herself together angrily. Is she always to find fault with him? Must she have his whole nature altered to suit her taste?

"Ah, there is Dicky Browne," says she, glancing from where she is now standing at the door of the conservatory to where Mr. Browne may be seen leaning against a curtain with his lips curved in a truly benevolent smile.

---

CHAPTER XIII.

"Now the nights are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings."

---

"Why, so it is! Our own Dicky, in the flesh and an admirable temper apparently," says Mr. Beauclerk. "Shall we come and interview him?"

They move forward and presently find themselves at Mr. Browne's elbow; he is, however, so far lost in his kindly ridicule of the poor silly revolving atoms before him, that it is not until Miss Kavanagh gives his arm a highly suggestive pinch that he learns that she is beside him.

"Wough!" says he, shouting out this unclassic if highly expressive word without the slightest regard for decency. "What fingers you've got! I really think you might reserve that kind of thing for Mr. Dysart. He'd like it."

This is a most infelicitous speech, and Miss Kavanagh might have resented it, but for the strange fact that Beauclerk, on hearing it, laughs heartily. Well, if he doesn't mind, it can't matter, but how silly Dicky can be! Mr. Beauclerk continues to laugh with much enjoyment.

"Try him!" says he to Miss Kavanagh, with the liveliest encouragement in his tone. If it occurs to her that, perhaps, lovers, as a rule, do not advise their sweethearts to play fast and loose with other men, she refuses to give heed to the warning. He is not like other men. He is not basely jealous. He knows her. He trusts her. He had hinted to her but just now, so very, very kindly that she was suspicious, that she must try to conquer that fault—if it is hers. And it is. There can be no doubt of that. She had even distrusted him!

"Is that your advice?" asks Mr. Browne, regarding him with a rather piercing eye. "Capital, under the circumstances, but rather, eh?——Has it ever occurred to you that Dysart is capable of a good deal of feeling?"

"So few things occur to me, I'm ashamed to say," says Beauclerk, genially. "I take the present moment. It is all-sufficing, so far as I'm concerned. Well; and so you tell me Dysart has feeling?"

"Yes; I shouldn't advise Miss Kavanagh to play pranks with him," says Dicky, with a pretentiously rueful glance at the arm she has just pinched so very delicately.

"You're a poor soldier!" says she, with a little scornful uptilting of her chin. "You wrong Mr. Dysart if you think he would feel so slight an injury. What! A mere touch from me!"

"Your touch is deadlier than you know, perhaps," says Mr. Browne, lightly.

"What a slander!" says Miss Kavanagh, who, in spite of herself, is growing a little conscious.

"Yes; isn't it?" says Beauclerk, to whom she has appealed. "As for me——" He breaks off suddenly and fastens his gaze severely on the other side of the room. "By Jove! I had forgotten! There is my partner for this dance looking daggers at me. Dear Miss Kavanagh, you will excuse me, won't you? Shall I take you to your chaperone, or will you let Browne have the remainder of this waltz?"

"I'll look after Miss Kavanagh, if she will allow me," says Dicky, rather drily. "Will you?" with a quizzical glance at Joyce.

She makes a little affirmative sign to him, returns Beauclerk's parting bow, and, still with a heart as light as a feather, stands by Mr. Browne's side, watching in silence the form of Beauclerk as it moves here and there amongst the crowd. What a handsome man he is! How distinguished! How tall! How big! Every other man looks dwarfed beside him. Presently he disappears into an anteroom, and she turns to find Mr. Browne, for a wonder, as silent as herself, and evidently lost in thought.

"What are you thinking of?" asks she.

"Of you!"

"Nonsense! What were you doing just then when I spoke to you?"

"I have told you."

"No, you haven't. What were you doing?"

"Hankering!" says Mr. Browne, heavily.

"Dicky!" says she indignantly.

"Well; what? Do you suppose a fellow gets rid of a disease of that sort all in a minute? It generally lasts a good month, I can tell you. But come; that 'Beautiful Star' of yours, that 'shines in your heaven so bright,' has given you into my charge. What can I do for you?"

"Deliver me from the wrath of that man over there," says Miss Kavanagh, indicating Mr. Blake, who, with a thunderous brow, is making his way towards her. "The last was his. I forgot all about it. Take me away, Dicky; somewhere, anywhere; I know he's got a horrid temper, and he is going to say uncivil things. Where" (here she meanly tries to get behind Mr. Browne) "shall we go."

"Right through this door," says Mr. Browne, who, as a rule, is equal to all emergencies. He pushes her gently towards the conservatory she has just quitted, that has steps leading from it to the illuminated gardens below, and just barely gets her safely ensconced behind a respectable barricade of greenery before Mr. Blake arrives on the spot they have just vacated.

They have indeed the satisfaction of seeing him look vaguely round, murmur a gentle anathema or two, and then resign himself to the inevitable.

"He's gone!" says Miss Kavanagh, with a sigh of relief.

"To perdition!" says Mr. Browne in an awesome tone.

"I really wish you wouldn't, Dicky," says Joyce.

"Why not? You seem to think men's hearts are made of adamant! A moment ago you sneered at mine, and now——By Jove! Here's Baltimore—and alone, for a wonder."

"Well! His heart is adamant!" says she softly.

"Or hers—which?"

"Of course—manlike—you condemn our sex. That's why I'm glad I'm not a man."

"Why? Because, if you were, you would condemn your present sex?"

"Certainly not! Because I wouldn't be of an unfair, mean, ungenerous disposition for the world."

"Good old Jo!" says Mr. Browne, giving her a tender pat upon the back.

By this time Baltimore has reached them.

"Have you seen Lady Baltimore anywhere?" asks he.

"Not quite lately," says Dicky; "last tune I saw her she was dancing with Farnham."

"Oh—after that she went to the library," says Joyce quickly. "I fancy she may be there still, because she looked a little tired."

"Well, she had been dancing a good deal," says Dicky.

"Thanks. I dare say I'll find her," says Baltimore, with an air of indifference, hurrying on.

"I hope he will," says Joyce, looking after him.

"I hope so too—and in a favorable temper."

"You're a cynic, Dicky, under all that airy manner of yours," says Miss Kavanagh severely. "Come out to the gardens, the air may cool your brain, and reduce you to milder judgments."

"Of Lady Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Truly I do seem to be sitting in judgment on her and her family."

"Her family! What has Bertie done?"

"Oh, there is more family than Bertie," says Mr. Browne. "She has a brother, hasn't she?"

---

Meantime Lord Baltimore, taking Joyce's hint, makes his way to the library, to find his wife there lying back in a huge arm-chair. She is looking a little pale. A little ennuyée; it is plain that she has sought this room—one too public to be in much request—with a view to getting away for a little while from the noise and heat of the ballroom.

"Not dancing?" says her husband, standing well away from her. She had sprung into a sitting posture the moment she saw him, an action that has angered Baltimore. His tone is uncivil; his remark, it must be confessed, superfluous. Why does she persist in treating him as a stranger? Surely, on whatever bad terms they may be, she need not feel it necessary to make herself uncomfortable on his appearance. She has evidently been enjoying that stolen lounge, and now——

The lamplight is streaming full upon her face. A faint color has crept into it. The white velvet gown she is wearing is hardly whiter than her neck and arms, and her eyes are as bright as her diamonds; yet there is no feature in her face that could be called strictly handsome. This, Baltimore tells himself, staring at her as he is, in a sort of insolent defiance of the cold glance she has directed at him. No; there is no beauty about that face; distinctly bred, calm and pure, it might possibly be called charming by those who liked her, but nothing more. She is not half so handsome as—as—any amount of other women he knows, and yet——

It increases his anger towards her tenfold to know that in her secret soul she has the one face that to him is beautiful, and ever will be beautiful.

"You see," says she gently, and with an expressive gesture, "I longed for a moment's pause, so I came here. Do they want me?" She rises from her seat, looking very tall and graceful. If her face is not strictly lovely, there is, at all events, no lack of loveliness in her form.

"I can't answer for 'they,'" says Baltimore, "but"——he stops dead short here. If he had been going to say anything, the desire to carry out his intention dies upon the spot. "No, I am not aware that 'they' or anybody wants you particularly at this moment. Pray sit down again."

"I have had quite a long rest already."

"You look tired, however. Are you?"

"Not in the least."

"Give me this dance," then says he, half mockingly, yet with a terrible earnestness in his voice.

"Give it to you! Thank you. No."

"Fearful of contamination?" with a smiling sneer.

"Pray spare me your jibes," says she very coldly, her face whitening.

"Pray spare me your presence, you should rather say. Let us have the truth at all hazards. A saint like you should be careful."

To this she makes him no answer.

"What!" cries he, sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bête noire? your fear of gossip?"

"I fear nothing"—icily.

"You do, however. Forgive the contradiction," with a sarcastic inclination of the head. "But for this fear of yours you would have cast me off long ago, and bade me go to the devil as soon as—nay, the sooner the better. And indeed if it were not for the child——By the bye, do you forget I have a hold on him—a stronger than yours?"

"I forget nothing either," returns she as icily as before; but now a tremor, barely perceptible, but terrible in its intensity, shakes her voice.

"Hah! You need not tell me that. You are relentless as—well, 'Fate' comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance with me to-night, when all the County is present, and Mother Grundy goes to bed with a sore heart. Scandal lies slain. All will cry aloud: 'There they go! Fast friends in spite of all the lies we have heard about them.' Is it possible you can deliberately forego so great a chance of puzzling our neighbors?"

"I can."

"Why, where is your sense of humor? One trembles for it! To be able to deceive them all so deliriously; to send them home believing us on good terms, a veritable loving couple"—he breaks into a curious laugh.

"This is too much," says she, her face now like death. "You would insult me! Believe me, that not to spare myself all the gossip with which the whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!"

His short-lived, most unmirthful mirth has died from him, he has laid a hand upon the table near him to steady himself.

"You are candid, on my soul," says he slowly.

She moves quickly towards the door, her velvet skirt sweeping over his feet as she goes by—the perfume of the violets lying in her bosom reaches him.

Hardly knowing his own meaning, he puts out his hand and catches her by her naked arm, just where the long glove ceases above the elbow.

"Isabel, give me this dance," says he a little wildly.

"No!"

She shakes herself free of him. A moment her eyes blaze into his. "No!" she says again, trembling from head to foot. Another moment, and the door has closed behind her.

---

CHAPTER XIV.

"The old, old pain of earth."

---

It is now close upon midnight—that midnight of the warmer months when day sets its light finger on the fringes of it. There is a sighing through the woods, a murmur from the everlasting sea, and though Diana still rides high in heaven with her handmaiden Venus by her side, yet in a little while her glory will be departed, and her one rival, the sun, will push her from her throne.

The gleaming lamps among the trees-are scarcely so bright as they were an hour ago, the faint sighing of the wind that heralds the morning is shaking them to and fro. A silly bird has waked, and is chirping in a foolish fashion among the rhododendrons, where, in a secluded path, Joyce and Dicky Browne are wandering somewhat aimlessly. Before them lies a turn in the path that leads presumably into the dark wood, darkest of all at this hour, and where presumably, too, no one has ventured, though one should never presume about hidden corners.

"I can't think what you see in him," says Mr. Browne, after a big pause. "I'd say nothing if his face wasn't so fat, but if I were you, that would condemn him in my eyes."

"I can't see that his face is fatter than yours," says Miss Kavanagh, with what she fondly believes perfect indifference.

"Neither is it," says Mr. Browne meekly, "but my dear girl, there lies the gist of my argument. You have condemned me. All my devotion has been scouted by you. I don't pretend to be the wreck still that once by your cruelty you made me, but——"

"Oh, that will do," says Joyce, unfeelingly. "As for Mr. Beauclerk, I don't know why you should imagine I see anything in him."

"Well, I confess I can't quite understand it myself. He couldn't hold a candle to—er—well, several other fellows I could name, myself not included, Miss Kavanagh, so that supercilious smile is thrown away. He may be good to look at, there is certainly plenty of him on which to feast the eye, but to fall in love with——"

"What do you mean, Dicky? What are you speaking about—do you know? You," with a deadly desire to insult him, "must be in love yourself to—to maunder as you are doing?"

"I'm not," says Mr. Browne, "that's the queer part of it. I don't know what's the matter with me. Ever since you blighted me, I have lain fallow, as it were. I," dejectedly, "haven't been in love for quite a long, long time now. I miss it—I can't explain it. I can't be well, can I? I," anxiously, "I don't look well, do I?"

"I never saw you looking better," with unkind force.

"Ah!" sadly, "that's because you don't give your attention to me. It's my opinion that I'm fading away to the land o' the leal, like old What-you-may-call-'em."

"If that's the way he did it, it must have taken him some time. In fact, he must be still at it," says Miss Kavanagh, heartlessly.

By this time they had come to the end of the walk, and have turned the corner. Before them lies a small grass plot surrounded by evergreens, a cosy nook not to be suspected by any one until quite close upon it. It bursts upon the casual pedestrian, indeed, as a charming surprise. There is something warm, friendly, confidential about it—something safe. Beyond lies the gloomy wood, embedded in night, but here the moonbeams play. Some one with a thoughtful care for loving souls has placed in this excellent spot for flirtation a comfortable garden seat, just barely large enough for two, sternly indicative of being far too small far the leanest three.

Upon this delightful seat four eyes now concentrate themselves. As if by one consent, although unconsciously, Mr. Browne and his companion come to a dead stop. The unoffending seat holds them in thrall.

Upon it, evidently on the best of terms with each other, are two people. One is Miss Maliphant, the other Mr. Beauclerk. They are whispering "soft and low." Miss Maliphant is looking, perhaps, a little confused—for her—and the cause of the small confusion is transparent. Beauclerk's hand is tightly closed over hers, and even as Dicky and Miss Kavanagh gaze spellbound at them, he lifts the massive hand of the heiress and imprints a lingering kiss upon it.

"Come away," says Dicky, touching Joyce's arm. "Run for your life, but softly."

He and she have been standing in shadow, protected from the view of the other two by a crimson rhododendron. Joyce starts as he touches her, as one might who is roused from an ugly dream, and then follows him swiftly, but lightly, back to the path they had forsaken.

She is trembling in a nervous fashion, that angers herself cruelly, and something of her suppressed emotion becomes known to Mr. Browne. Perhaps, being a friend of hers, it angers him, too.

"What strange freaks moonbeams play," says he, with a truly delightful air of saying nothing in particular. "I could have sworn that just then I saw Beauclerk kissing Miss Maliphant's hand."

No answer. There is a little silence, fraught with what angry grief who can tell? Dicky, who is not all froth, and is capable of a liking here and there, is conscious of, and is sorry for, the nervous tremor that shakes the small hand he has drawn within his arm; but he is so far a philosopher that he tells himself it is but a little thing in her life; she can bear it; she will recover from it; "and in time forget that she had been ever ill," says this good-natured skeptic to himself.

Joyce, who has evidently been struggling with herself, and has now conquered her first feeling, turns to him.

"You should not condemn the moonbeams unheard," says she, bravely, with the ghost of a little smile. "The evidence of two impartial witnesses should count in their favor."

"But, my dear girl, consider," says Mr. Browne, mildly. "If it had been anyone else's hand! I could then accuse the moonbeams of a secondary offense, and say that their influence alone, which we all know has a maddening effect, had driven him to so bold a deed. But not madness itself could inspire me with a longing to kiss her hand."

"She is a very good girl, and I like her," says Joyce, with a suspicious vehemence.

"So do I; so much, indeed, that I should shrink from calling her a good girl. It is very damnatory, you know. You could hardly say anything more prejudicial. It at once precludes the idea of her having any such minor virtues as grace, beauty, wit, etc. Well, granted she is 'a good girl,' that doesn't give her pretty hands, does it? As a rule, I think that all good girls have gigantic points. I don't think I would care to kiss Miss Maliphant's hands, even if she would let me."

"She is a very honest, kind-hearted girl," says Miss Kavanagh a little heavily. It suggests itself to Mr. Browne that she has not been listening to him.

"And a very rich one."

"I never think about that when I am with her. I couldn't."

"Beauclerk could," says Mr. Browne, tersely.

There is another rather long silence, and Dicky is beginning to think he has gone a trifle too far, and that Miss Kavanagh will cut him to-morrow, when she speaks again. Her tone is composed, but icy enough to freeze him.

"It is a mistake," says she, "to discuss people towards whom one feels a natural antagonism. It leads, one, perhaps, to say more than one actually means. One is apt to grow unjust. I would never discuss Mr. Beauclerk if I were you. You don't like him."

"Well," says Mr. Browne, thoughtfully, "since you put it to me, I confess I think he is the most rubbishy person I ever met!"

After this sweeping opinion, conversation comes to a deadlock. It is not resumed. Reaching the stone steps leading to the conservatory, they ascend them in silence, and reach that perfumed retreat to find Dysart on the threshold.

"Oh, there you are!" cries he to Miss Kavanagh. "I thought you lost for good and all!" His face has lighted up. Perhaps he feels a sense of relief at finding her with Dicky, who is warranted harmless. He looks almost handsome, better than handsome! The very soul of honesty shines, in his kind eyes.

"Oh! it is hard to lose what nobody wants," says Joyce in a would-be playful tone, but something in the drawn, pained lines about her mouth belies her mirth. Dysart, after a swift examination of her face, takes her hand and draws it within his arm.

"The last was our dance," says he.

"Speak kindly of the dead," says Mr. Browne, as he beats a hasty retreat.

---

CHAPTER XV.

"Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; Most friendship is feigning, most loving is folly."

---

"Did you forget?" asks Dysart, looking at her.

"Forget?"

"That the last dance was mine?"

"Oh, was it? I'm so sorry. You must forgive me," with a feverish attempt at gayety, "I will try to make amends. You shall have this one instead, no matter to whom it may belong. Come. It is only just begun, I think."

"Never mind," says Dysart, gently. "We won't dance this, I think. It is cool and quiet here, and you are tired."

"Oh, so tired," returns she with a little sudden pathetic cry, so impulsive, so inexpressible that it goes to his heart.

"Joyce! what is it?" says he, quickly. "Here, come and sit down. No, I don't want an answer. It was an absurd question. You have overdone it a little, that is all."

"Yes, that is all!" She sinks heavily into the seat he has pointed out to her, and lets her head fall back against the cushions. "However, when you come to think of it, that means a great deal," says she, smiling languidly.

"There, don't talk," says he. "What is the good of having a friend if you can't be silent with him when it so pleases you. That," laughing, and arranging the cushions behind her head, "is one for you and two for myself. I, too, pine for a moment when even the meagre 'yes' and 'no' will not be required of me."

"Oh, no," shaking her head. "It is all for me and nothing for yourself!" she pauses, and putting out her hand lays it on his sleeve. "I think, Felix," says she, softly, "you are the kindest man I ever met."

"I told you you felt overdone," says he, laughing as if to hide the sudden emotion that is gleaming in his eyes. He presses the hand resting on his arm very gently, and then replaces it in her lap. To take advantage of any little kindness she may show him now, when it is plain that she is suffering from some mental excitement, grief or anger, or both, would seem base to him.

She has evidently accepted his offer of silence, and lying back in her soft couch stares with unseeing eyes at the bank of flowers before her. Behind her tall, fragrant shrubs rear themselves, and somewhere behind her, too, a tiny fountain is making musical tinklings. The faint, tender glow of a colored lamp gleams from the branches of a tropical tree close by, and round it pale, downy moths are flitting, the sound of their wings, as every now and then they approach too near the tempting glow and beat them against the Japanese shade, mingling with the silvery fall of the scented water.

The atmosphere is warm, drowsy, a little melancholy. It seems to seize upon the two sitting within its seductive influence, and threatens to waft them from day dreams into dreams born of idle slumber. The rustle of a coming skirt, however, a low voice, a voice still lower whispering a reply, recalls them both to the fact that rest, complete and perfect, is impossible under the circumstances.

A little opening among the tall evergreens upon their right shows them Lord Baltimore once more, but this time not alone. Lady Swansdown is with him.

She is looking rather lovelier than usual, with that soft tinge of red upon her cheeks born of her last waltz, and her lips parted in a happy smile. The subdued lights of the many lamps falling on her satin gown rest there as if in love with its beauty. It is an old shade made new, a yellow that is almost white, and has yet a tinge of green in it. A curious shade, difficult, perhaps, to wear with good effect; but on Lady Swansdown it seems to reign alone as queen of all the toilets in the rooms to-night. She looks, indeed, like a perfect picture stepped down from its canvas, "a thing of beauty," a very vision of delight.

She seems, indeed, to Joyce watching her—Joyce who likes her—that she has grown beyond herself (or rather into her own real self) to-night. There is a touch of life, of passionate joy, of abandonment, of hope that has yet a sting in it, in all her air, that, though not understood of the girl, is still apparent.

The radiant smile that illumines her beautiful face as she glances up at Baltimore—who is bending over her in more lover-like fashion than should be—is still making all her face a lovely fire as she passes out of sight down the steps that lead to the lighted gardens—the steps that Joyce had but just now ascended.

The latter is still a little wrapt in wonder and admiration, and some other thought that is akin to trouble, when Dysart breaks in upon her fancies.

"I am sorry about that," says he, bluntly, indicating with a nod of his head the departing shadows of the two who have just passed out. There are no fancies about Dysart. Nothing vague.

"Yes; it is a pity," says Joyce, hurriedly.

"More than that, I think."

"Something ought to be done," nervously.

"Yes," flushing hotly; "I know—I know what you mean"—she had meant nothing—"but it is so difficult to know what to do, and—I am only a cousin."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't, really," says she, a good deal shocked. "As you say, why should you speak, when——"

"There is Beauclerk," says Dysart, quickly, as if a little angry with somebody, but certainly not with her. "How can he stand by and see it?"

"Perhaps he doesn't see it," says she in a strange tone, her eyes on the marble flooring. It seems to herself that the words are forced from her. "Because—because he has——"

She brings her hands tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, indeed, to be base herself.

"Perhaps not," says Dysart, drily. In his secret heart this defence of his rival is detestable to him. Something in her whole manner when she came in from the garden had suggested to him the possibility that she had at last found him out. Dysart would have been puzzled to explain how Beauclerk was supposed to be "found out" or for what, but that he was liable to discovery at any moment on some count or counts unknown, was one of his Christian beliefs. "Perhaps not," says he. "And yet I cannot help thinking that a matter so open to all must be patent to him."

"But," anxiously, "is it so open?"

"I leave that to your own judgment," a little warmly. "You," with rather sharp question, "are a friend of Isabel's?"

"Yes, yes," quickly. "You know that. But——"

"But?" sternly.

"I like Lady Swansdown, too," says she, with some determination. "I find it hard to believe that she can—can——"

"Be false to her friend," supplements he. "Have you yet to learn that friendship ends where love begins?"

"You think——?"

"That she is in love with Baltimore."

"And he?"

"Oh!" contemptuously; "who shall gauge the depth of his heart? What can he mean?" he has risen and is now pacing angrily up and down the small space before her. "He used to be such a good fellow, and now——Is he dead to all sense of honor, of honesty?"

"He is a man," says Joyce, coldly.

"No. I deny that. Not a true man, surely."

"Is there a true man?" says she. "Is there any truth, any honesty to be found in the whole wide world?"

She too has risen now, and is standing with her large dark eyes fixed almost defiantly on his. There is something so strange, so wild, so unlike her usual joyous, happy self in this outburst, in her whole attitude, that Dysart regards her with an astonishment that is largely tinctured with fear.

"I don't know what is in your mind," says he, calmly; "something out of the common has occurred to disturb you so much, I can guess, but," looking at her earnestly, "whatever it maybe, I entreat you to beat it under. Conquer it; do not let it conquer you. There must be evil in the world, but never lose sight of the good; that must be there, just as surely. Truth, honor, honesty, are no fables; they are to be found everywhere. If not in this one, then in that. Do not lose faith in them."

"You think me evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest words into a jest, one can see that she is perilously near to tears.

"You mean that I am preaching to you," says he, smiling too. "Well, so I am. What right has a girl like you to disbelieve in anything? Why," laughing, "it can't be so very long ago since you believed in fairies, in pixies, and the fierce dragons of our childhood."

"I don't know that I am not a believer in them still," says she. "In the dragons, at all events. Evil seems to rule the world."

"Tut!" says he. "I have preached in vain."

"You would have me believe in good only," says she. "You assure me very positively that all the best virtues are still riding to and fro, redeeming the world, with lances couched and hearts on fire. But where to find them? In you?"

It is a very gentle smile she gives him as she says this.

"Yes: so far, at least, as you are concerned," says he, stoutly. "I shall be true and honest to you so long as my breath lives in my body. So much I can swear to."

"Well," says she, with a rather meagre attempt at light-heartedness, "you almost persuade me with that truculent manner of yours into believing in you at all events, or is it," a little sadly, "that the ways of others drive me to that belief? Well," with a sigh, "never mind how it is, you benefit by it, any way."

"I don't want to force your confidence," says Dysart; "but you have been made unhappy by somebody, have you not?"

"I have not been made happy," says she, her eyes on the ground. "I don't know why I tell you that. You asked a hard question."

"I know. I should have been silent, perhaps, and yet——"

At this moment the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the steps startles them.

"Joyce!" says he, "grant me one request."

"One! You rise to tragedy!" says she, as if a little amused in spite of the depression under which she is so evidently laboring. "Is it to be your last, your dying prayer?"

"I hope not. Nevertheless I would have it granted."

"You have only to speak," says she, with a slight gesture that is half mocking, half kindly.

"Come with me after luncheon, to-morrow, up to St. Bridget's Hill?"

"Is that all? And to throw such force into it. Yes, yes; I shall enjoy a long walk like that."

"It is not because of the walk that I ask you to go there with me," says Dysart, the innate honesty that distinguishes him compelling him to lay bare to her his secret meaning. "I have something to say to you. You will listen?"

"Why should I not?" returns she, a little pale. He might, perhaps, have said something further, but that now the footsteps sound close at hand. A glance towards the door that leads from the fragrant night into the still more perfumed air within reveals to them two figures.

Mr. Beauclerk and Miss Maliphant come leisurely forward. The blood receding to Joyce's heart leaves her cold and singularly calm.

---

CHAPTER XVI.

"Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight."

"Life, I know not what thou art."

---

"You two," cries Miss Maliphant pleasantly, in her loud, good-natured voice. She addresses them as though it has been borne in upon her by constant reminding that Joyce and Dysart are for the best of all reasons generally to be found together. There is something not only genial, but sympathetic in her tones, something that embarrasses Dysart, and angers Joyce to the last degree. "Well, I'm glad to have met you for one moment out of the hurly-burly," goes on the massive heiress to Joyce, with the friendliest of smiles. "I'm off at cock-crow, you know, and so mightn't have had the opportunity of saying good-bye to you, but for this fortunate meeting."

"To-morrow?" says Joyce, more with the manner of one who feels she must say something than from any desire to say it.

"Yes, and so early that I shall not have it in my power to bid farewell to any one. Unless, indeed," with a glance at Beauclerk, meant, perhaps, to be coquettish, but so elephantine in its proportions as to be almost anything in the world but that, "some of my friends may wish to see the sun rise."

"We shall miss you," says Joyce, gracefully, though with an effort.

"Just what I've been saying," breaks in Beauclerk at this juncture, who hitherto has been looking on, with an altogether delightful smile upon his handsome face. "We shall all miss Miss Maliphant. It is not often that one meets with an entirely genial companion. My sister is to be congratulated on securing such an acquisition, if only for a short time."

Joyce, lifting her eyes, stares straight at him. "For a short time!" What does that mean? If Miss Maliphant is to be Lady Baltimore's sister-in-law, she will undoubtedly secure her for a lifetime!

"Oh, you are too good," says Miss Maliphant, giving him a playful flick with her fan.

"Well, what would you have me say?" persists Beauclerk still lightly, with wonderful lightness, in fact, considering the weight of that playful tap upon his bent knuckles. "That we shall not be sorry? Would you have me lie, then? Fie, fie, Miss Maliphant! The truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth! At all risks and hazards!" here he almost imperceptibly sends flying a shaft from his eyes at Joyce, who receives it with a blank stare. "We shall, I assure you, be desolated when you go, specially Isabel."

This last pretty little speech strikes Dysart as being specially neat: This putting the onus of the regret on to Isabel's shoulders. All through, Beauclerk has been careful to express himself as one who is an appreciative friend of Miss Maliphant, but nothing more; yet so guarded are these expressions, and the looks that accompany them, that Miss Maliphant might be pardoned if she should read a warmer feeling in them.

A sensation of disgust darkens his brow.

"I must say you are all very nice to me," says the heiress complacently. Poor soul! No doubt, she believes in every bit of it, and a large course of kow-towing from the world has taught her the value of her pile. "However," with true Manchester grace, "there's no need for howling over it. We'll all meet again, I dare say, some time or other. For one thing, Lady Baltimore has asked me to come here again after Christmas; February, I dare say."

"So glad!" murmurs Joyce rather vaguely.

"So you see," said Miss Maliphant with ponderous gayety, "that we are all bound to put in a second good time together; you're coming, I know, Mr. Dysart, and Miss Kavanagh is always here, and Mr. Beauclerk "—with a languishing glance at that charming person, who returns it in the most open manner—"has promised me that he will be here to meet me."

"Well, if I can, you know," says he, now beaming at her.

"How's that?" says the heiress, turning promptly upon him. It is strange how undesirable the very richest heiress can be at times. "Why, it's only just this instant that you told me nothing would keep you away from the Court next spring. What d'ye mean?"

She brings him to book in a most uncompromising fashion; a fashion that betrays unmistakably her plebeian origin. Dysart, listening, admires her for it. Her rough and ready honesty seems to him preferable to the best bred shuffling in the world.

"Did I say all that?" says Beauclerk lightly, coloring a little, nevertheless, as he marks the fine smile that is curling Joyce's lips. "Why, then," gayly, "if I said it, I meant it. If I hesitated about indorsing my intentions publicly, it is because one is never sure of happiness beforehand; believe me, Miss Maliphant," with a little bow-to her, but with a direct glance at Joyce, "every desire I have is centered in the hope that next spring may see me here again."

"Well, I expect we all have the same wish," says Miss Maliphant cheerfully, who has not caught that swift glance at Joyce. "I'm sure I hope that nothing will interfere with my coming here in February."

"It is agreed, then," says Beauclerk, with a delightfully comprehensive smile that seems to take in every one, even the plants and the dripping fountain and the little marble god in the corner, who is evidently listening with all his might. "We all meet here again early next year if the fates be propitious. You, Dysart, you pledge yourself to join our circle then?"

"I pledge myself," says Dysart, fixing a cold gaze on him. It is so cold, so distinctly hostile, that Beauclerk grows uncomfortable beneath it. When uncomfortable his natural bias leads him towards a display of bonhomie.

"Here we have before us a prospect to cheer the soul of any man," declares he, shifting his eyes from Dysart to Miss Maliphant.

"It cheers me certainly," responds that heavy maiden with alacrity. "I like to think we shall all meet again."

"Like the witches in Macbeth," says Joyce, indifferently.

"But not so malignantly, I hope," says the heiress brilliantly, who, like most worthy people, can never see beyond her own nose. "For my part I like old friends much better than new." She looks round for the appreciation that should attend this sound remark, and is gratified to find Dysart is smiling at her. Perhaps the core of that smile might not have been altogether to her taste—most cores are difficult of digestion. To her, to whom all things are new, where does the flavor of the old come in?

Beauclerk is looking at Joyce.

"I hope the prospect cheers you too," says he a little sharply, as if nettled by her determined silence and bent on making her declare herself. "You, I trust, will be here next February."

"Sure to be!" says she with an enigmatical smile. "Not a jot or tittle of your enjoyments will be lost to you in the coming year. Both your friends—Miss Maliphant and I—will be here to welcome you when you return."

Something in her manner, in the half-defiant light in her eyes, puzzles Beauclerk. What has happened to her since they last were together? Not more than an hour ago she had seemed—er—well. Inwardly he smiles complacently. But now. Could she? Is it possible? Was there a chance that——

"Miss Kavanagh," begins he, moving toward her. But she makes short work of his advance.

"I repent," says she, turning a lovely, smiling face on Dysart. "A while ago I said I was too tired to dance. I did myself injustice. That waltz—listen to it"—lifting up an eager finger—"would it not wake an anchorite from his ascetic dreams? Come. There is time.".

She has sprung to her feet—life is in every movement. She slips her arm into Dysart's. Not understanding—yet half understanding, moves with her—his heart on fire for her, his puzzlement rendering him miserable.

Beauclerk, with that doubt of what she really knows full upon him, is wiser. Without hesitation he offers his arm to Miss Maliphant; and, so swift is his desire to quit the scene, he passes Dysart and Joyce, the latter having paused for a moment to recover her fan.

"You see!" says Beauclerk, bending over the heiress, when a turn in the conservatory has hidden him from the view of those behind. "I told you!" He says nothing more. It is the veriest whisper, spoken with an assumption of merriment very well achieved. Yet, if she would have looked at him, she could have seen that his very lips are white. But as I have said, Miss Maliphant's mind has not been trained to the higher courses.

"Yes. One can see!" laughs she happily. "And it is charming, isn't it? To find two people thoroughly in love with each other now-a-days, is to believe in that mad old world of romance of which we read. They're very nice too, both of them. I do like Joyce. She's one in a thousand, and Mr. Dysart is just suited to her. They are both thorough! There's no nonsense about them. Now that you have pointed it out to me, I think I never saw two people so much in love with each other as they."

Providentially, she is looking away from him to where a quadrille is forming in the ballroom, so that the deadly look of hatred that adorns his handsome face is unknown to her.

---

Meantime, Joyce, with that convenient fan recovered, is looking with sad eyes at Dysart.

"Come; the music will soon cease," says she.

"Why do you speak to me like that?" cries he vehemently. "If you don't want to dance, why not say so to me? Why not trust me? Good heavens! if I were your bitterest enemy you could not treat me more distantly. And yet—I would die to make you happy."

"Don't!" says she in a little choking sort of way, turning her face from him. She struggles with herself for a moment, and then, still with her face averted, says meekly: "Thank you, then. If you don't mind, I should rather not dance any more to-night."

"Why didn't you say that at first?" says he, with a last remnant of reproach. "No; there shall be no more dancing to-night for either you or me. A word, Joyce!" turning eagerly toward her, "you won't forget your promise about that walk to-morrow?"

"No. No, indeed."

"Thank you!"

They are sitting very close together, and almost insensibly his hand seeks and finds hers. It was lying idle on her lap, and lifting it, he would have raised it to his lips, but with a sharp, violent action she wrests it from him, and, as a child might, hides it behind her.

"If you would have me believe in you——No, no, not that," says she, a little incoherently, her voice rendering her meaning with difficulty. Dysart, astonished, stands back from her, waiting for something more; but nothing comes, except two large tears, that steal heavily, painfully, down her cheeks.

She brushes them impatiently away.

"Forgive me," she says, somewhat brokenly. "To you, who are so good to me, I am unkind, while to those who are unkind to me I——" She is trying to rally. "It was a mere whim, believe me. I have always hated demonstrations of any sort, and why should you want to kiss my hand?"

"I shouldn't," says he. "If——" His eyes have fallen from her eyes to her lips.

"Never mind," says she; "I didn't understand, perhaps. But why can't you be content with things as they are?"

"Are you content with them?"

"I think so. I have been examining myself, and honestly I think so," says she a little feverishly.

"Well, I'm not," returns he with decision. "You must give me credit for a great private store of amiability, if you imagine that I am satisfied to take things as they now exist—between you and me!"

"You have your faults, you see, as well as another," says she with a frown. "You are persistent! And the worst of it is that you are generally right." She frowns again, but even while frowning glances sideways from under her long lashes with an expression hardly uncivil. "That is the worst crime in the calendar. Be wrong sometimes, an' you love me, it will gain you a world of friends."

"If it could gain me your love in return, I might risk it," says he boldly. "But that is hopeless I'm afraid," shaking his head. "I am too often in the wrong not to know that neither my many frailties nor my few virtues can ever purchase for me the only good thing on which my soul is set."

"I have told you of one fault, now hear another," says she capriciously. "You are too earnest! What," turning upon him passionately, as if a little ashamed of her treatment of him, "is the use of being earnest? Who cares? Who looks on, who gives one moment to the guessing of the meaning that lies beneath? To be in earnest in this life is merely to be mad. Pretend, laugh, jest, do anything, but be what you really are, and you will probably get through the world in a manner, if not satisfactory to yourself, at all events to 'les autres.'"

"You preach a crusade against yourself," says he gently. "You preach against your own conscience. You are the least deceptive person I know. Were you to follow in the track you lay out for others, the cruelty of it would kill you.

"To your own self be true, And——"

"Yes, yes; I know it all," says she, interrupting him with some irritation. "I wish you knew how—how unpleasant you can be. As I tell you, you are always right. That last dance—it is true—I didn't want to have anything to do with it; but for all that I didn't wish to be told so. I merely suggested it as a means of getting rid of——"

"Miss Maliphant," says Dysart, who is feeling a little sore. The disingenuousness of this remark is patent to her.

"No; Mr. Beauclerk," corrects she, coldly.

"Forgive me," says Dysart quickly, "I shouldn't have said that. Well," drawing a long breath, "we have got rid of them, and may I give you a word of advice? It is disinterested because it is to my own disadvantage. Go to your room—to your bed. You are tired, exhausted. Why wait to be more so. Say you will do as I suggest."

"You want to get rid of me," says she with a little weary smile.

"That is unworthy of an answer," gravely; "but if a 'yes' to it will help you to follow my advice, why, I will say it. Come," rising, "let me take you to the hall."

"You shall have your way," says she, rising too, and following him.

A side door leading to the anteroom on their left, and thus skirting the ballroom without entering it, brings them to the foot of the central staircase.

"Good-night," says Dysart in a low tone, retaining her hand for a moment. All round them is a crowd separated into twos and threes, so that it is impossible to say more than the mere commonplace.

"Good night," returns she in a soft tone. She has turned away from him, but something in the intense longing and melancholy of his eyes compels her to look back again. "Oh, you have been kind! I am not ungrateful," says she with sharp contrition.

"Joyce, Joyce! Let me be the grateful one," returns he. His voice is a mere whisper, but so fraught is it with passionate appeal that it rings in her brain for long hours afterward.

Her eyes fall beneath his. She moves silently away. What can she say to him?

It is with a sense of almost violent relief that she closes the door of her own room behind her, and knows herself to be at last alone.

---

CHAPTER XVII.

"And vain desires, and hopes dismayed, And fears that cast the earth in shade, My heart did fret."

---

Night is waning! Dies pater, Father of Day, is making rapid strides across the heavens, creating havoc as he goes. Diana faints! the stars grow pale, flinging, as they die, a last soft glimmer across the sky.

Now and again a first call from the birds startles the drowsy air. The wood dove's coo, melancholy sweet—the cheep-cheep of the robin—the hoarse cry of the sturdy crow.

"A faint dawn breaks on yonder sedge, And broadens in that bed of weeds; A bright disk shows its radiant edge, All things bespeak the coming morn, Yet still it lingers."

As Lady Swansdown and Baltimore descend the stone steps that lead to the gardens beneath, only the swift rush of the tremulous breeze that stirs the branches betrays to them the fact that a new life is at hand.

"You are cold?" says Baltimore, noticing the quick shiver that runs through her.

"No: not cold. It was mere nervousness."

"I shouldn't have thought you nervous."

"Or fanciful?" adds she. "You judged me rightly, and yet—coming all at once from the garish lights within into this cool sweet darkness here, makes one feel in spite of oneself."

"In spite! Would you never willingly feel?"

"Would you?" demands she very slowly.

"Not willingly, I confess. But I have been made to feel, as you know. And you?"

"Would you have a woman confess?" says she, half playfully. "That is taking an unfair advantage, is it not? See," pointing to a seat, "what a charming resting place! I will make one confession to you. I am tired."

"A meagre one! Beatrice," says he suddenly, "tell me this: are all women alike? Do none really feel? Is it all fancy—the mere idle emotion of a moment—the evanescent desire for sensation of one sort or another—of anger, love, grief, pain, that stirs you now and then? Are none of these things lasting with you, are they the mere strings on which you play from time to time, because the hours lie heavy on your hands? It seems to me——"

"It seems to me that you hardly know what you are saying," said Lady Swansdown quickly. "Do you think then that women do not feel, do not suffer as men never do? What wild thoughts torment your brain that you should put forward so senseless a question?—one that has been answered satisfactorily thousands of years ago. All the pain, the suffering of earth lies on the woman's shoulders; it has been so from the beginning—it shall be so to the end. On being thrust forth from their Eden, which suffered most do you suppose, Adam or Eve?"

"It is an old story," says he gloomily, "and why should you, of all people, back it up? You—who——"

"Better leave me out of the question."

"You!"

"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"

"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I thought—I believed, that you at least—understood me."

"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful. Great heavens! if he only knew—could he then probe, and wound, and tempt!

"If you do——" begins he—then stops short, and passing her, paces to and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears—eyes "wild with all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this man—this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.

"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"

There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does he mean? To her—to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf, blind, mad—or only cruel?

A sort of recklessness seizes upon her. Well, if he doesn't know, he shall know, though it be to the loss of her self-respect forever!

"Never," says she, leaning a little forward until the moonbeams gleam upon her snowy neck and arms. "Never—never—until——"

The pause is premeditated. It is eloquence itself! The light of heaven playing on her beautiful face betrays the passion of it—the rich pallor! One hand resting on the back of the seat taps upon the iron work, the other is now in Baltimore's possession.

"Until now——?" suggests he boldly. He is leaning over her. She shakes her head. But in this negative there is only affirmation.

His hand tightens more closely upon hers. The long slender fingers yield to his pressure—nay more—return it; they twine round his.

"If I thought——" begins he in a low, stammering tone—he moves nearer to her, nearer still. Does she move toward him? There is a second's hesitation on his part, and then, his lips meet hers!

It is but a momentary touch, a thing of an instant, but it includes a whole world of meaning. Lady Swansdown has sprung to her feet, and is looking at him with eyes that seem to burn through the mystic darkness. She is trembling in every limb. Her nostrils are dilated. Her haughty mouth is quivering, and there—are there honest, real tears in those mocking eyes?

Baltimore, too, has risen. His face is very white, very full of contrition. That he regrets his action toward her is unmistakable, but that there is a deeper contrition behind—a sense of self-loathing not to be appeased betrays itself in the anguish of his eyes. She had accused him of falsity, most falsely up to this, but now—now——His mind has wandered far away.

There is something so wild in his expression that Lady Swansdown loses sight of herself in the contemplation of it.

"What is it, Baltimore?" asks she, in a low, frightened tone. It rouses him.

"I have offended you beyond pardon," begins he, but more like one seeking for words to say than one afraid of using them. "I have angered you——"

"Do not mistake me," interrupts she quickly, almost fiercely. "I am not angry. I feel no anger—nothing—but that I am a traitor."

"And what am I?"

"Work out your own condemnation for yourself," says she, still with that feverish self-disdain upon her. "Don't ask me to help you. She was my friend, whatever she is now. She trusted me, believed in me. And after all——And you," turning passionately, "you are doubly a traitor, you are a husband."

"In name!" doggedly. He has quite recovered himself now. Whatever torture his secret soul may impress upon him in the future, no one but he shall know.

"It doesn't matter. You belong to her, and she to you."

"That is what she doesn't think," bitterly.

"There is one thing only to be said, Baltimore," says she, after a slight pause. "This must never occur again. I like you, you know that. I——" she breaks off abruptly, and suddenly gives way to a sort of mirthless laughter. "It is a farce!" she says. "Consider my feeling anything. And so virtuous a thing, too, as remorse! Well, as one lives, one learns. If I had seen the light for the first time in the middle of the dark ages, I should probably have ended my days as the prioress of a convent. As it is, I shouldn't wonder if I went in for hospital nursing presently. Pshaw!" angrily, "it is useless lamenting. Let me face the truth. I have acted abominably toward her so far, and the worst of it is"—with a candor that seems to scorch her—"I know if the chance be given me, I shall behave abominably toward her again. I shall leave to-morrow—the day after. One must invent a decent excuse."

"Pray don't leave on Lady Baltimore's account," says he slowly, "she would be the last to care about this. I am nothing to her."

"Is your wish father to that thought?" regarding him keenly.

"No. I assure you. The failing I mention is plain to all the world I should have thought."

"It is not plain to me," still watching him.

"Then learn it," says he. "If ever she loved me, which I now disbelieve (I would that I had let the doubt creep in earlier), it was in a past that now is irretrievably dead. I suppose I wearied her—I confess," with a meagre smile, "I once loved her with all my soul, and heart, and strength—or else she is incapable of knowing an honest affection."

"That is not true," says Lady Swansdown, some generous impulse forcing the words unwillingly through her white lips. "She can love! you must see that for yourself. The child is proof of it."

"Some women are like that," says he gloomily. "They can open wide their hearts to their children, yet close it against the fathers of them. Isabel's whole life is given up to her child: she regards it as hers entirely; she allows me no share in him. Not," eagerly, "that I grudge him one inch the affection she gives him. He has a father worthless enough. Let his mother make it up to him."

"Yet he loves the father best," says Lady Swansdown quickly.

"I hope not," with a suspicion of violence.

"He does, believe me. One can see it. That saintly mother of his has not half the attraction for him that you have. Why, look you, it is the way of the world, why dispute it? Well, well," her triumphant voice deepening to a weary whisper. "When one thinks of it all, she is not too happy." She draws her hand in a little bewildered way across her white brow.

"You don't understand her," says Baltimore frigidly. "She lives in a world of her own. No one would dare penetrate it. Even I—her husband, as you call me in mockery—am outside it. I don't believe she ever cared for me. If she had, do you think she would have given a thought to that infamous story?"

"About Madame Istray?"

"Yes. You, too, heard of it then?"

"Who hasn't heard. Violet Walden was not the one to spare you." She pauses and looks at him, with all her heart in her eyes. "Was there no truth in that story?" asks she at last, her words coming with a little rush.

"None. I swear it! You believe me!" He has come nearer to her and taken her hand in the extremity of this desire to be believed in by somebody.

"I believe you," says she, gently. Her voice is so low that he can catch the words only; the grief and misery in them is unknown to him. Mercifully, too, the moon has gone behind a cloud, a tender preparation for an abdication presently, so that he cannot see the two heartbroken tears that steal slowly down her cheeks.

"That is more than Isabel does," says he, with a laugh that has something of despair in it.

"You tell me, then," says Lady Swansdown, "that you never saw Mme. Istray after your marriage?"

"Never, willingly."

"Oh, willingly!"

"Don't misjudge me. Hear the whole story then—if you must," cries he passionately—"though if you do, you will be the first to hear it. I am tired of being thought a liar!"

"Go on," says she, in a low shocked tone. His singular vehemence has compelled her to understand how severe have been his sufferings. If ever she had doubted the truth of the old story that has wrecked the happiness of his married life she doubts no longer.

"I tell you, you will be the first to hear it," says he, advancing toward her. "Sit down there," pressing her into the garden seat. "I can see you are looking overdone, even by this light. Well——" drawing a long breath and stepping back from her—"I never opened my lips upon this subject except once before. That was to Isabel. And she"—he pauses—"she would not listen. She believed, then, all things base of me. She has so believed ever since."

"She must be a fool!" says Lady Swansdown impetuously, "she could not——"

"She did, however. She," coldly, "even believed that I could lie to her!"

His face has become ashen; his eyes, fixed upon the ground, seemed to grow there with the intensity of his regard. His breath seems to come with difficulty through his lips.

"Well," says he at last, with a long sigh, "it's all over! The one merciful thing belonging to our life is that there must come, sooner or later, an end to everything. The worst grief has its termination. She has been unjust to me. But you," he lifts his haggard face, "you, perhaps, will grant me a kindlier hearing."

"Tell it all to me, if it will make you happier," says she, very gently. Her heart is bleeding for him. Oh, if she might only comfort him in some way! If—if that other fails him, why should not she, with the passion of love that lies in her bosom, restore him to the warmth, the sweetness of life. That kiss, half developed as it only was, already begins to bear fatal fruit. Unconsciously she permits herself a license in her thoughts of Baltimore hitherto strenuously suppressed.

"There is absurdly little to tell. At that time we lived almost entirely at our place in Hampshire, and as there were business matters connected with the outlying farms found there, that had been grossly neglected during my grandfather's time, I was compelled to run up to town, almost daily. As a rule I returned by the evening train, in time for dinner, but once or twice I was so far delayed that it was out of my power to do it. I laugh at myself now," he looks very far from laughter as he says it, "but I assure you the occasions on which I was compulsorily kept away from my home were——" He pauses, "oh, well, there is no use in being more tragic than one need be. They were, at least, a trouble to me."

"Naturally," says she, coldly.

"I loved her, you see," says Baltimore, in a strange jerky sort of way, as if ashamed of that old sentiment. "She——"

"I quite understand. I have heard all about it once or twice," says Lady Swansdown, with a kind of slow haste, if such a contradiction may be allowed. That he has forgotten her is evident. That she has forgotten nothing is more evident still.

"Well, one day, one of the many days during which I went up to town, after a long afternoon with Goodman and Smale, in the course of which they had told me they would probably require me to call at their office to meet one of the most influential tenants at nine the next morning, I met, on leaving their office, Marchmont—Marchmont of the Tenth, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"He and a couple of other fellows belonging to his regiment were going down to Richmond to dine. Would I come? It was dull in town, toward the close of the season, and I was glad of any invitation that promised a change of programme—anything that would take me away from a dull evening at my club. I made no inquiries; I accepted the invitation, got down in time for dinner, and found Mme. Istray was one of the guests. I——"

He hesitates.

"Go on."

"You are a woman of the world, Beatrice; you will let me confess to you that there had been old passages between me and Mme. Istray—well, I swear to you I had never so much as thought of her since my marriage—nay, since my engagement to Isabel. From that hour my life had been clear as a sheet of blank paper. I had forgotten her; I verily believe she had forgotten me, too. At that dinner I don't think she exchanged a dozen words with me. On my soul," pushing back his hair with a slow, troubled gesture from his brow, "this is the truth."

"And yet——"

"And yet," interrupting her with now a touch of vehement excitement, "a garbled, a most cursedly false account of that dinner was given her. It came round to her ears. She listened to it—believed in it—condemned without a hearing. She, who has sworn, not only at the altar, but to me alone, that she loved me."

"She wronged you terribly," says Lady Swansdown in a low tone.

"Thank you," cried he, a passion of gratitude in his tone. "To be believed in by someone so thoroughly as you believe in me, is to know happiness indeed. Whatever happens, I can count on you as my friend."

"Your friend, always," says she, in a very low voice—a voice somewhat broken. "Come," she says, rising suddenly and walking toward the distant lights in the house.

He accompanies her silently.

Very suddenly she turns to him, and lays her hand upon his arm.

"Be my friend," says she, with a quick access of terrible emotion.

Entreaty and despair mingle in her tone.

"Forever!" returns he, fervently, tightening his grasp on her hand.

"Well," sighing, "it hardly matters. We shall not meet again for a long, long time."

"How is that? Isabel, the last time she condescended to speak to me of her own accord," with an unpleasant laugh, "told me that she had asked you to come here again next February, and that you had accepted the invitation. She, indeed, made quite a point of it."

"Ah! that was a long time ago."

"Weeks do not make a long time."

"Some weeks hold more than years. Yes, you are right; she made quite a point about my coming. Well, she is always very civil."

"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil."

"She is proud," coldly.

"You will come?"

"I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up with her."

"The very essence of improbability."

"While I—shall not have made it up with my husband."

"One seems quite as possible as the other."

"Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her. Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh, "is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown. If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have nothing belonging to him."

"His name."

"Oh, as for that—does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a child he would have made a persecution of it—and so I am better off as it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of yours. However——"

"Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture——"

"Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"—with bitter meaning—"'sleeping dogs lie.'"

Baltimore laughs shortly.

"That is severe," says he.

"It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If," turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me, it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him."

She takes her hand from his arm and motions him to ascend the steps leading into the conservatory.

"But you?" says he, surprised.

"Let me remain here a little while. I am tired. My head aches, I——"

"Let me stay with you."

"No," smiling faintly. "What I want is to be alone. To feel the silence. Go. Do not be uneasy about me. Believe me you will be kind if you do as I ask you."

"It is a command," says he slowly. And slowly, too, he turns away from her.

Seeing him so uncertain about leaving her, she steps abruptly into a dark side path, and finding a chair sinks into it.

The soft breaking of the dawn over the tree tops far away seems to add another pang to the anguish that is consuming her. She covers her face with her hands.

Oh! if it had all been different. Two lives sacrificed! nay, three! For surety Isabel cannot care for him. Oh! if it had been she, she herself—what is there she could not have forgiven him? Nay, she must have forgiven him, because life without him would have been insupportable. If only she might have loved him honorably. If only she might ever love him—successfully—dishonorably!

The thought seems to sting her. Involuntarily she throws up her head and courts the chill winds of dawn that sweep with a cool touch her burning forehead.

She had called her proud. Would she herself, then, be less proud? That Isabel dreads her, half scorns her of late, is well known to her, and yet, with a very passion of pride, would dare her to prove it. She, Isabel, has gone even so far as to ask her rival to visit her again in the early part of the coming year to meet her present friends. So far that pride had carried her. But pride—was pride love? If she herself loved Baltimore, would she, even for pride's sake, entreat the woman he singled out for his attentions to spend another long visit in her country house? And if Isabel does not honestly love him, why then—is he not lawful prey for one who can, who does not love him?

One—who loves him. But he—whom does he love?

Torn by some last terrible thought she starts to her feet, and, as though inaction has become impossible to her, draws her white silken wrap around her, and sweeps rapidly out of all view of the waning Chinese lamps into the gray obscurity of the coming day that lies in the far gardens.

---

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Song have thy day, and take thy fill of light Before the night be fallen across thy way; Sing while he may, man hath no long delight."

---

"What a delicious day!" says Joyce, stopping short on the hill to take a look round her. It is the next day, and indeed far into it. Luncheon is a thing of the past, and both she and Dysart know that it will take them all their time to reach St. Bridget's Hill and be back again for afternoon tea. They had started on their expedition in defiance of many bribes held out to them. For one thing, there was to be a reception at the Court at five; many of those who had danced through last night having been asked to come over late in the afternoon of to-day to talk over the dance itself and the little etceteras belonging to it.

The young members of the Monkton family had been specially invited, too, as a sort of make up to Bertie, the little son of the house, who had been somewhat aggrieved at being sent to bed without his share of the festivities on hand. He had retired to his little cot, indeed, with his arms stuffed full of crackers, but how could crackers and cakes and sweets console any one for the loss of being out at an ungodly hour and seeing a real live dance! The one thing that finally helped him to endure his hard lot was a promise on his mother's part that Tommy and Mabel Monkton should come down next day and revel with him among the glorious ruins of the supper table. The little Monktons had not come, however, when Joyce left for her walk.

"Going out?" Lady Swansdown had said to her, meeting her in the hall, fully equipped for her excursion. "But why, my dear girl? We expect those amusing Burkes in an hour or so, and the Delaneys, and——"

"Yes, why go?" repeats Beauclerk, who has just come up. His manner is friendly in the extreme, yet a very careful observer might notice a strain about it, a determination to be friendly that rather spoils the effect. Her manner toward him last night after his interview with Miss Maliphant in the garden and her growing coldness ever since, has somewhat disconcerted, him mentally. Could she have heard, or seen, or been told of anything? There might, of course, have been a little contretemps of some sort. People, as a rule, are so beastly treacherous! "You will make us wretched if you desert us," says he with empressement. As he speaks he goes up to her and lets his eyes as well as his lips implore her. Miss Maliphant had left by the early train, so that he is quite unattached, and able to employ his whole battery of fascinations on the subjugation of this refractory person.

"I am sorry. Don't be more wretched than you can help!" says Joyce, with a smile wonderfully unconcerned. "After a dance I want to walk to clear my brain, and Mr. Dysart has been good enough to say he will accompany me."

"Is he accompanying you?" says Beauclerk, with an unpardonable supercilious glance around him as if in search of the absent Dysart.

"You mustn't think him a laggard at his post," says Miss Kavanagh, still smiling, but now in a little provoking way that seems to jest at his pretended suspicion of Dysart's constancy and dissolve it into the thinnest of thin air. "He was here just now, but I sent him to loose the dogs. I like to have them with me, and Lady Baltimore is pleased when they get a run."

"Isabel is always so sympathetic," says he, with a quite new and delightful rush of sympathy toward Isabel. "I suppose," glancing at Joyce keenly, "you would not care for an additional escort? The dogs—and Dysart—will be sufficient?"

"Mr. Dysart and the dogs will be," says she. "Ah! Here he comes," as Dysart appears at the open doorway, a little pack of terriers at his heels. "What a time you've been!" cries she, moving quickly to him. "I thought you would never come. Good-bye, Lady Swansdown; good-bye," glancing casually at Beauclerk. "Keep one teapot for us if you can!"

She trips lightly up the avenue at Dysart's side, leaving Beauclerk in a rather curious frame of mind.

"Yes, she has heard something!" That is his first thought. How to counteract the probable influence of that "something" is the second. A little dwelling upon causes and effects shows him the way. For an effect there is often an antidote!

---

"Delicious indeed!" says Dysart, in answer to her remark. His answer is, however, a little distrait. His determination of last night to bring her here, and compel her to listen to the honest promptings of his heart is still strong within him.

They have now ascended the hill, and, standing on its summit, can look down on the wild deep sea beneath them that lies, to all possible seeming, as calm and passive at their feet as might a thing inanimate.

Yet within its depths what terrible—what mournful tragedies lie! And, as if in contrast, what ecstatic joys! To one it speaks like death itself—to another:

"The bridegroom sea Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride, And in the fullness of his marriage joy He decorates her tawny brow with shells, Retires a pace to see how fair she looks, Then, proud, runs up to kiss her."

"Shall we sit here?" says Dysart, indicating a soft mound of grass that overlooks the bay. "You must be tired after last night's dancing."

"I am tired," says she, sinking upon the soft cushion that Nature has provided with a little sigh of satisfaction.

"Perhaps I should not have asked—have extracted—a promise from you to come here," says Dysart, with contrition in his tone. "I should have remembered you would be overdone, and that a long walk like this——"

"Would be the very thing to restore me to a proper state of health," she interrupts him, with the prettiest smile. "No, don't pretend you are sorry you brought me here. You know it is the sheerest hypocrisy on your part. You are glad, that you brought me here, I hope, and I"—deliberately—"am glad that you did."

"Do you mean that?" says Dysart, gravely. He had not seated himself beside her, and is now looking down her from a goodly height. "Do you know why I brought you?"

"To bring me back again as fresh as a daisy," suggests she, with a laugh that is spoiled in its birth by a glance from him.

"No, I did not think of you at all. I thought only of myself," says Dysart, speaking a little quickly now. "Call that selfish if you will—and yet——"

He stops short, and comes closer to her. "To think in that way was to think of you too. Joyce, there is at all events one thing you do know—that I love you."

Miss Kavanagh nods her head silently.

"There is one thing, too, that I know," says Dysart now with a little tremble in his voice, "that you do not love me!"

She is silent.

"You are honest," says he, after a pause. "Still"—looking at her—"if there wasn't hope one would know. Though the present is empty for me, I cannot help dwelling on the thought that the future may contain—something!"

"The future is so untranslatable," says she, with a little evasion.

"Tell me this at least," says Dysart, very earnestly, bending over her with the air of one determined to sift his chances to the last grain, "you like me?"

"Oh, yes."

"Better than Courtenay, for example?" with a fleeting smile that fails to disguise the real anxiety he is enduring.

"What an absurd question!"

"Than Dicky Brown?"

"Yes."

But here she lifts her head and gazes at him in a startled way that speaks of quick suspicion. There is something of entreaty, too, in her dark eyes, a desire that he will go no further.

But Dysart deliberately disregards it.

"Than Beauclerk?" asks he in a clear, almost cruel tone.

A horrible red rushes up to dye her pretty cheeks, in spite of all her efforts to subdue it. Great tears of shame and confusion suffuse her eyes. One little reproachful glance she casts at him, and then:

"Of course," says she, almost vehemently, if a little faintly, her eyes sinking to the ground.

Dysart stands before her as if stricken into stone. Then the knowledge that he has hurt her pierces him with a terrible certainty, overcomes all other thoughts, and drives him to repentance.

"I shouldn't have asked you that," says he bluntly.

"No, no!" says she, acquiescing quickly, "and yet," raising an eager, lovely face to his, "I hardly know anything about—about myself. Sometimes I think I like him, sometimes——" She stops abruptly and looks at him with a pained and frightened gaze. "Do you despise me for betraying myself like this?"

"No—I want to hear all about it."

"Ah! That is what I want to hear myself. But who is to tell me? Nature won't. Sometimes I hate him. Last night——"

"Yes, I know. You hated him last night. I don't wish to know why. I am quite satisfied in that you did so."

"But shall I hate him to-morrow? Oh, yes, I think so—I hope so," cries she suddenly. "I am tired of it all. He is not a real person, not one possible to class. He is false—naturally treacherous, and yet——"

She breaks off again very abruptly, and turns to Dysart as if for help.

"Let us forget him," she says, and then in a little frightened way, "Oh, I wish I could be sure I could forget him!"

"Why can't you?" says Dysart, in his downright way. "It means only a strong effort after all. If you feel honestly," with an earnest glance at her, "like that toward him, you must be mad to give him even a corner in your heart."

"That is it," says she, "there the puzzle begins. I don't know if he ever has a corner in my heart. He attracts me, but attraction is not affection, and the heart holds only love and hatred. Indifference is nothing."

"You can get rid of him finally," says Dysart, boldly, "by giving yourself to me. That will kill all——"

All he may be going to say is killed on his lips at this moment by two little wild shrieks of joy that sound right behind his head. Both he and Joyce turn abruptly in its direction—he with a sense of angry astonishment, she with a fell knowledge of its meaning. It is, indeed, no surprise to her when Tommy and Mabel appear suddenly from behind the rock just close to them, that hides the path in part, and precipitates themselves into her arms.

"We saw you, we saw you!" gasps Tommy, breathless from his run up the hill: "we saw you far away down there on the road, and we told Bridgie" (the maid) "that we'd run up, and she said 'cut along,' so here we are."

"You are, indeed," says Dysart, with feeling.

"We knew you'd be glad to see us," goes on Tommy to Joyce in the beautiful roar he always adopts when excited; "you haven't been home for years, and Bridgie says that's because you are going to be married to——"

"Get up, Tommy, you are too heavy, and, besides, I want to kiss Mabel," says Tommy's aunt with prodigious haste and a hot cheek.

"But mammy says you're a silly Billy," says Mabel in her shrill treble, "an' that——"

"Mammy is a shockingly rude person," says Mr. Dysart, hurrying to break into the dangerous confidence, no matter at what cost, even at the expense of the adored mammy. His remark is taken very badly.

"She's not," says Tommy, glowering at him. "Father says she's an angel, and he knows. I heard him say it, and angels are never rude!"

"'Twas after he made her cry about something," says Mabel, lifting her little flower-like face to Dysart's in a miniature imitation of her brother's indignation. "She was boo-booing like anything, and then father got sorry—oh!—dreadful sorry—and he said she was an angel, and she said——"

"Oh, Mabel!" says Joyce, weakly, "you know you oughtn't to say such——"

"Well, 'twas your fault, 'twas all about you," says Tommy, defiantly. "Why don't you come home? Father says you ought to come, and mammy says she doesn't know which of 'em it'll be; and father says it won't be any of them, and—what's it all about?" turning a frankly inquisitive little face up to hers. "They wouldn't tell us, and we want to know which of 'em it will be."

"Yes, an' is it jints?" demands Mabel, who probably means giants, and not cold meats.

"I don't know what she means," says Miss Kavanagh, coldly.

"I say, you two," says Mr. Dysart, brilliantly, "wouldn't you like to run a race? Bridget must be tired of waiting for you down there at the end of the hill, and——"

"She isn't waiting, she's talking to Mickey Daly," says Tommy.

"Oh, I see. Well, look here. I bet you, Tommy, strong as you look, Mabel can outrun you down the hill."

"She! she!" cries Tommy, indignantly; "I could beat her in a minute."

"You can't," cries Mabel in turn. "Nurse says I'm twice the child that you are."

"Your legs are as short as a pin," roars Tommy; "you couldn't run."

"I can. I can. I can," says Mabel, on the verge of a violent flood of tears.

"Well, we'll see," says Mr. Dysart, who now begins to think he has thrown himself away on a silly Hussar regiment, when he ought to have taken rank as a distinguished diplomat. "Come, I'll start you both down the hill, and whichever reaches Bridget first wins the day."

Instantly both children spring to the front of the path.

"You're standing before me, Tommy."

"No, I'm not."

"You're cheating—you are!"

"Cheat yourself! Mr. Dysart, ain't I all right?"

"I think you should give her a start; she's the girl, you know," says Dysart. "There now, go. That's very good. Five yards, Tommy, is a small allowance for a little thing like Mabel. Steady now, you two! One—Good gracious, they're off," says he, turning to Miss Kavanagh with a sigh of relief mingled with amusement. "They had no idea of waiting for more than one signal. I hope they will meet this Bridget, and get back to their mother."

"They are not going to her just now. They are going on to the Court to spend the afternoon with Bertie," says Joyce; "Barbara told me so last night. Dear things! How sweet they looked!"

"They are the prettiest children I know," says Dysart—a little absent perhaps. He falls into silence for a moment or two, and then suddenly looks at her. He advances a step.

---

CHAPTER XIX.

"A continual battle goes on in a child's mind between what it knows and what it comprehends."

---

"Well?" says he.

He advances even nearer, and dropping on a stone close to her, takes possession of one of her hands.

"As you can't make up your mind to him; and, as you say, you like me, say something more."

"More?"

"Yes. A great deal more. Take the next move. Say—boldly—that you will marry me!"

Joyce grows a little pale. She had certainly been prepared for this speech, had been preparing herself for it all the long weary wakeful night, yet now that she hears it, it seems as strange, as terrible, as though it had never suggested itself to her in its vaguest form.

"Why should I say that?" says she at last, stammering a little, and feeling somewhat disingenuous. She had known, yet now she is trying to pretend that she did not know.

"Because I ask you. You see I put the poorest reason at first, and because you say I am not hateful to you, and because——"

"Well?"

"Because, when a man's last chance of happiness lies in the balance, he will throw his very soul into the weighing of it—and knowing this, you may have pity on me."

As though pressed down by some insupportable weight, the girl rises and makes a little curious gesture as if to free herself from it. Her face, still pale, betrays an inward struggle. After all, why cannot she give herself to him? Why can't she love him? He loves her; love, as some poor fool says, begets love.

And he is honest. Yes, honest! A pang shoots through her breast. That, when all is told, is the principal thing. He is not uncertain—untrustworthy—double-faced, as some men are. Again that cruel pain contracts her heart. To be able to believe in a person, to be able to trust implicitly in each lightest word, to read the real meaning in every sentence, to see the truth shining in the clear eyes, this is to know peace and happiness; and yet—

"You know all," says she, looking up at him, her eyes compressed, her brow frowning; "I am uncertain of myself, nothing seems sure to me, but if you wish it——"

"Wish it!" clasping her hands closer.

"There is this to be said, then. I will promise to answer you this day twelve-month."

"Twelve months," says he, with consternation; his grasp on her hands loosens.

"If the prospect frightens or displeases you, there is nothing more to be said," rejoins she coldly. It is she who is calm and composed, he is nervous and anxious.

"But a whole year!"

"That is nothing," says she, releasing her hands, with a little determined show of strength, from his. "It is for you to decide. I don't care!"

Perhaps she hardly grasps the cruelty that lies in this half-impatient speech, until she sees Dysart's face flush painfully.

"You need not have said that," says he. "I know it. I am nothing to you really." He pauses, and then says again in a low tone, "Nothing."

"Oh, you mustn't feel so much!" cries she, as if tortured. "It is folly to feel at all in this world. What's the good of it. And to feel about me, I am not worth it. If you would only bear that in mind, it might help you."

"If I bore that in mind I should not want to make you my wife!" returns he steadily, gravely. "Think as you will yourself, you do not shake my faith in you. Well," with a deep breath, "I accept your terms. For a year I shall feel myself bound to you (though that is a farce, for I shall always be bound to you, soul and body) while you shall hold yourself free, and try to——"

"No, no. We must both be equal—both free, while I—" she stops short, coloring warmly, and laughing, "what is it I am to try to do?"

"To love me!" replies he, with infinite sadness in look and tone.

"Yes," says Joyce slowly, and then again meditatively, "yes." She lifts her eyes presently and regards him strangely. "And if all my trying should not succeed? If I never learn to love you?"

"Why, then it is all over. This hope of mine is at an end," say he, so calmly, yet with such deep melancholy, such sad foreboding, that her heart is touched.

"Oh! it is a hope of mine too," says she quickly. "If it were not would I listen to you to-day? But you must not be so downhearted; let the worst come to the worst, you will be as well off as you are at this instant."

He shakes his head.

"Does hope count for nothing, then?"

"You would compel me to love you," says she, growing the more vexed as she grows the more sorry for him. "Would you have me marry you even if I did not love you?" Her soft eyes have filled with tears, there is a suspicion of reproach in her voice.

"No. I suppose not."

He half turns away from her. At this moment a sense of despair falls on him. She will never care for him, never, never. This proposed probation is but a mournful farce, a sorry clinging to a hope that is built on sand. When in the future she marries, as so surely she will, he will not be her husband. Why not give in at once? Why fight with the impossible? Why not break all links (frail as they are sweet), and let her go her way, and he his, while yet there is time? To falter is to court destruction.

Then all at once a passionate reaction sets in. Joyce, looking at him, sees the light of battle, the warmth of love the unconquerable, spring into his eyes. No, he will not cave in! He will resist to the last! dispute every inch of the ground, and if finally only defeat is to crown his efforts still——And why should defeat be his? Be it Beauclerk or another, whoever declares himself his rival shall find him a formidable enemy to overcome.

"Joyce," says he quickly, turning to her and grasping her hands, "give me my chance. Give me those twelve months; give me your thoughts now and then while they last. I brought you here to-day to say all this knowing we should be alone, and without——"

"Tommy?" says she, with a little laugh.

"Oh, well! You must confess I got rid of him," says he, smiling too, and glad in his heart to find her so cheerful. "I think if you look into it, that my stratagem, the inciting him to the overcoming of his sister in that race, was the work of a diplomatist of the first water. I quite felt that——"

A war whoop behind him dissolves his self-gratulations into nothing. Here comes Tommy the valiant, triumphant, puffed beyond all description with pride and want of breath.

"I beat her, I beat her," shrieks he, with the last note left in his tuneful pipe. He staggers the last yard or two and falls into Joyce's arms, that are opened wide to receive him. Who shall say he is not a happy interlude? Evidently Joyce regards him as such.

"I came back to tell you," says Tommy, recovering himself a little. "I knew," with the fearless confidence of childhood, "that you'd be longing to know if I beat her, and I did. She's down there how with Bridgie," pointing to the valley beneath, "and she's mad with me because I didn't let her win."

"You ought to go back to her," says Dysart, "she'll be madder if you don't."

"She won't. She's picking daisies now."

"But Bridget will want you."

"No," shaking his lovely little head. "Bridgie said: 'ye may go, sir, an' ye needn't be in a hurry back, me an' Mickey Daily have a lot to say about me mother's daughter.'"

It would be impossible to describe the accuracy with which Tommy describes Bridget's tone and manner.

"Oh! I daresay," says Mr. Dysart. "Me mother's daughter must be a truly enthralling person."

"I think Tommy ought to be educated for the stage," says Joyce in a little whisper.

"He'll certainly make his mark wherever he goes," says Dysart, laughing. "Tommy," after a careful examination of Monkton, Junior's, seraphic countenance, "don't you think you ought to take your sister on to the Court?"

"So I will," says Tommy, "in a minute or two." He has climbed into Joyce's lap, and is now sitting on her with his arms round her neck. To make love to a young woman and to induce her to marry you with a barnacle of this sort hanging round her suggests difficulties. Mr. Dysart waits. "All things come to those who wait," says a wily old proverb. But Dysart proves this proverb a swindle.

"Now, Tommy," says he, "the two minutes are up."

"I don't care," says Tommy. "I'm tired, and Bridgie said I needn't hurry."

"The charms of Mr. Mickey Daly are no doubt great," says Dysart, mildly, "yet I think Bridget must by this time be aware that she wasn't sent out by your mother to tattle to him, but to take you and your sister to play with Bertie. Here, Tommy," decisively, "get off your aunt's lap and run away."

"But why?" demands Tommy, aggressively. "What harm am I doing?"

"You are tiring your aunt, for one thing."

"I'm not! She likes to have me here," defiantly. "I ride a 'cock horse' every night when she's at home, don't I, Joyce? I wish you'd go away," wrathfully, "because then Joyce would come home and play with us again. 'Tis you," glaring at him with deep-seated anger in his eyes, "who are keeping her here!"

"Oh, no; you are wrong there," says Dysart with a sad smile. "I could not keep her anywhere, she would not stay with me. But really, Tommy, you know you ought to go on to the Court. Poor little Bertie is looking out for you eagerly. See," plunging his hand into his pocket, "here is half a crown for you to spend on lollipops. I'll give it to you if you'll go back to Bridget."

Tommy's eyes brighten. But as quickly the charming blue in them darkens again. There is no tuck shop between this and the Court.

"'Tisn't any good," says he mournfully, "the shop's away down there," pointing vaguely backward on the journey he has come.

"You look strong in wind and limb; there is no reason to believe that the morrow's sun may not dawn on you," says Mr. Dysart. "And then think, Tommy, think what a joy you will be to old Molly Brien."

"Molly gives me four bull's-eyes for a penny," says Tommy reflectively. "That's two to Mabel and two to me, because mammy says baby mustn't have any for fear she'd choke. If there's four for a penny, how many is there for this?" holding out the half crown that lies upon his little brown shapely palm.

"That's a sum," says Mr. Dysart. "Tommy, you're a cruel boy;" and having struggled with it for a moment, he says "one hundred and twenty."

"No!" says Tommy in a voice faint with hopeful unbelief. "Joyce, 'tisn't true, is it?"

"Quite true," says Joyce. "Just fancy, Tommy, one hundred and twenty bull's-eyes, all in one day!"

There is such a genuine support of his desire to get rid of Tommy in her tone that Dysart's heart rises within him.

"Tie it into my hankercher," says Tommy, without another second's hesitation. "Tie it tight, or it'll slip out and I'll lose it. Good-bye, and thank you, Mr. Dysart," thrusting a hot little fist into his. "I'll keep some of the hundred and twenty ones for you and Joyce."

He rushes away down the hill, eager to tell his grand news to Mabel, and presently Joyce and Dysart are alone again.

"You see you were not so clever a diplomatist as you thought yourself," says Joyce, smiling faintly; "Tommy came back."

"Tommy and I have one desire in common; we both want to be with you."

"Could you be bought off like Tommy?" says she, half playfully. "Oh, no! Half a crown would not be good enough."

"Would all the riches the world contains be good enough?" says he in a voice very low, but full of emotion. "You know it would not. But you, Joyce—twelve months is a long time. You may see others—if not Beauclerk—others—and——"

"Money would not tempt me," says the girl slowly. "If money were your rival, you would indeed be safe. You ought to know that."

"Still—Joyce——" He stops suddenly. "May I think of you as Joyce? I have called you so once or twice, but——"

"You may always call me so," says she gently, if indifferently. "All my friends call me so, and you—are my friend, surely!"

The very sweetness of her manner, cold as ice as it is, drives him to desperation.

"Not your friend—your lover!" says he with sudden passion. "Joyce, think of all that I have said—all you nave promised. A small matter to you perhaps—the whole world to me. You will wait for me for twelve months. You will try to love me. You——"

"Yes, but there is something more to be said," cries the girl, springing to her feet as if in violent protest, and confronting him with a curious look—set—determined—a little frightened perhaps.

---

CHAPTER XX.

"'I thought love had been a joyous thing,' quoth my uncle Toby.'"

"He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper. For what his heart thinks his tongue speaks."

---

"More?" says Dysart startled by her expression, and puzzled as well.

"Yes!" hurriedly. "This!" The very nervousness that is consuming her throws fire into her eyes and speech. "During all these long twelve months I shall be free. Quite free. You forgot to put that in! You must remember that! If—if I should, after all this thinking, decide on not having anything to do with you—you," vehemently, "will have no right to reproach me. Remember," says she going up to him and laying her hand upon his arm while the blood receding from her face leaves her very white; "remember should such a thing occur—and it is very likely," slowly, "I warn you of that—you are not to consider yourself wronged or aggrieved in any way."

"Why should you talk to me in this way?" begins he, aggrieved now at all events.

"You must recollect," feverishly, "that I have made you no promise. Not one. I refuse even to look upon this matter as a serious thing. I tell you honestly," her dark eyes gleaming with nervous excitement, "I don't believe I ever shall so look at it. After all," pausing, "you will do well if you now put an end to this farce between us; and tell me to take myself and my dull life out of yours forever."

"I shall never tell you that," in a low tone.

"Well, well," impatiently; "I have warned you. It will not be my fault if——O! it is foolish of you!" she blurts out suddenly. "I have told you I don't understand myself: and still you waste yourself—you throw yourself away. In the end you will be disappointed in me, if not in one way, then in another. It hurts me to think of that. There is time still; let us be friends—friends——" Her hands are tightly clasped, she looks at him with a world of entreaty in her beautiful eyes. "Friends, Felix!" breathes she softly.

"Let things rest as they are, I beseech you," says he, taking her hand and holding it in a tight grasp. "The future—who can ever say what that great void will bring us. I will trust to it; and if only loss and sorrow be my portion, still——As for friendship, Joyce; whatever happens I shall be your friend and lover."

"Well—you quite know," says the girl, almost sullenly.

"Quite. And I accept the risk. Do not be angry with me, my beloved." He lifts the hand he holds and presses it to his lips, wondering always at the coldness of it. "You are free, Joyce; you desire it so, and I desire it, too. I would not hamper you in any way."

"I should not be able to endure it, if—afterward—I thought you were reproaching me," says she, with a little weary smile.

"Be happy about that," says he: "I shall never reproach you." He is silent for a moment; her last speech has filled him with thoughts that presently grow into extremely happy ones: unless—unless she liked him—cared for him, in some decided, if vague manner, would his future misery be of so much importance to her? Oh! surely not! A small flood of joy flows over him. A radiant smile parts his lips. The light of a coming triumph that shall gird and glorify his whole life illumines his eyes.

She regarding him grows suddenly uneasy.

"You—you fully understand," says she, drawing back from him.

"Oh, you have made me do that," says he, but his radiant smile still lingers.

"Then why," mistrustfully, "do you look so happy?" She draws even further away from him. It is plain she resents that happiness.

"Is there not reason?" says he. "Have you not let me speak, and having spoken, do you not still let me linger near you? It is more than I dared hope for! Therefore, poor as is my chance, I rejoice now. Do not forbid me. I may have no reason to rejoice in the future. Let me, then, have my day."

"It grows very late," says Miss Kavanagh abruptly. "Let us go home."

Silently they turn and descend the hill. Halfway down he pauses and looks backward.

"Whatever comes of it," says he, "I shall always love this spot. Though, if the year's end leave me desolate, I hope I shall never see it again."

"It is unlucky to rejoice too soon," says she, in a low whisper.

"Oh! don't say that word 'Rejoice.' How it reminds me of you. It ought to belong to you. It does. You should have been called 'Rejoice' instead of 'Joyce'; they have cut off half your name. To see you is to feel new life within one's veins."

"Ah! I said you didn't know me," returns she sadly.

---

Meantime the hours have flown; evening is descending. It is all very well for those who, traveling up and down romantic hills, can find engrossing matters for conversation in their idle imaginings of love, or their earnest belief therein, but to the ordinary ones of the earth, mundane comforts are still of some worth.

Tea, the all powerful, is now holding high revelry in the library at the Court. Round the cosy tables, growing genial beneath the steam of the many old Queen Anne "pots," the guests are sitting singly or in groups.

"What delicious little cakes!" says Lady Swansdown, taking up a smoking morsel of cooked butter and flour from the glowing tripod beside her.

"You like them?" says Lady Baltimore in her slow, earnest way. "So does Joyce. She thinks they are the nicest cakes in the world. By the by, where is Joyce?"

"She went out for a walk at twenty minutes after two," says Beauclerk. He has pulled out his watch and is steadily consulting it.

"And it is now twenty minutes after five," says Lady Swansdown, maliciously, who detests Beauclerk and who has read his relations with Joyce as clear as a book. "How she must have enjoyed herself!"

"Yes; but where?" says Lady Baltimore anxiously. Joyce has been left in her charge, and, apart from that, she likes the girl well enough, to be uneasy about her when occasion arises.

"With whom would be a more appropriate question," says Dicky Browne, who, as usual, is just where he ought not to be.

"Oh, I know where she is," cries a little, shrill voice from the background. It comes from Tommy, and from that part of the room where Tommy and Mabel and little Bertie are having a game behind the window curtains. Blocks, dolls, kitchens, farm yards, ninepins—all have been given to them as a means of keeping them quiet. One thing only has been forgotten: the fact that the human voice divine is more attractive to them, more replete with delightful mystery, fuller of enthralling possibilities than all the toys that ever yet were made.

"Thomas, are you fully alive to the responsibilities to which you pledge yourself?" demands Mr. Browne severely.

"What?" says Tommy.

"Do you pledge yourself to declare where Miss Kavanagh is now?"

"Is it Joyce?" says Tommy, coming forward and standing undaunted in his knickerbockers and an immaculate collar that defies suspicion.

"Yes—Joyce," says Mr. Browne, who never can hold his tongue.

"Well, I know." Tommy pauses, and an unearthly silence falls on the assembled company. Half the county is present, and as Tommy, in the character of reconteur, is widely known and deservedly dreaded, expectation spreads itself among his audience.

Lady Baltimore moves uneasily, and for once Dicky Browne feels as if he should like to sink into his boot.

"She's up on the top of the hill with Mr. Dysart," says Tommy, and no more. Lady Baltimore sighs with relief, and Mr. Browne feels now as if he should like to give Tommy something.

"How do you know?" asks Beauclerk, as though he finds it impossible to repress the question.

"Because I saw her there," says Tommy, "when Mabel and me was coming here. I like Mr. Dysart, don't you?" addressing Beauclerk specially. "He is a very kind sort of man. He gave me half a crown."

"For what, Tommy?" asks Baltimore, idly, to whom Tommy is an unfailing joy.

"To go away and leave him alone with Joyce," says Tommy, with awful distinctness.

Tableau!

Lady Baltimore lets her spoon fall into her saucer, making a little quick clatter. Everybody tries to think of something to say; nobody succeeds.

Mr. Browne, who is evidently choking, is mercifully delivered by beneficent nature from a sudden death. He gives way to a loud and sonorous sneeze.

"Oh, Dicky! How funny you do sneeze," says Lady Swansdown. It is a safety valve. Everybody at once affects to agree with her, and universal laughter makes the room ring.

"Tommy, I think it is time for you and Mabel to go home," says Lady Baltimore. "I promised your mother to send you back early. Give her my love, and tell her I am so sorry she couldn't come to me to-day, but I suppose last night's fatigue was too much for her."

"'Twasn't that," says Tommy; "'twas because cook——"

"Yes, yes; of course. I know," says Lady Baltimore, hurriedly, afraid of further revelations. "Now, say good-bye, and, Bertie, you can go as far as the first gate with them."

The children make their adieus, Tommy reserving Dicky Browne for a last fond embrace.

"Good-bye, old man! So-long!"

"What's that?" says Tommy, appealing to Beauclerk for information.

"What's what?" says Beauclerk, who isn't in his usual amiable mood.

"What's the meaning of that thing Dicky said to me?"

"'So-long?' Oh that's Browne's charming way of saying good-bye."

"Oh!" says Tommy, thoughtfully. He runs it through his busy brain, and brings it out at the other end satisfactorily translated. "I know," says he: "Go long! That's what he meant! But I think," indignantly, "he needn't be rude, anyway."

The children have hardly gone when Joyce and Dysart enter the room.

"I hope I'm not dreadfully late," cries Joyce, carelessly, taking off her cap, and giving her head a little light shake, as if to make her pretty soft hair fall into its usual charming order. "I have no idea what the time is."

"Broken your watch, Dysart?" says Beauclerk, in a rather nasty tone.

"Come and sit here, dearest, and have your tea," says Lady Baltimore, making room on the lounge beside her for Joyce, who has grown a little red.

"It is so warm here," says she, nervously, that one remark of Beauclerk's having, somehow, disconcerted her. "If—if I might——"

"No, no; you mustn't go upstairs for a little while," says Lady Baltimore, with kindly decision. "But you may go into the conservatory if you like," pointing to an open door off the library, that leads into a bower of sweets. "It is cooler there."

"Far cooler," says Beauclerk, who has followed Joyce with a sort of determination in his genial air. "Let me take you there, Miss Kavanagh."

It is impossible to refuse. Joyce, coldly, almost disdainfully and with her head held higher than usual, skirts the groups that line the walls on the western side of the room and disappears with him into the conservatory.

---

CHAPTER XXI.

"Who dares think one thing and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell."

---

"A little foolish going for that walk, wasn't it?" says he, leading her to a low cushioned chair over which a gay magnolia bends its white blossoms. His manner is innocence itself; ignorance itself would perhaps better express it. He has decided on ignoring everything; though a shrewd guess that she saw something of his passages with Miss Maliphant last night has now become almost a certainty. "I thought you seemed rather played out last night—fatigued—done to death. I assure you I noticed it. I could hardly," with deep and affectionate concern, "fail to notice anything that affected you."

"You are very good!" says Miss Kavanagh icily. Mr. Beauclerk lets a full minute go by, and then——

"What have I done to merit that tone from you?" asks he, not angrily; only sorrowfully. He has turned his handsome face full on hers, and is regarding her with proud, reproachful eyes. "It is idle to deny," says he, with some emotion, half of which, to do him justice, is real, "that you are changed to me; something has happened to alter the feelings of—of—friendship—that I dared to hope you entertained for me. I had hoped still more, Joyce—but——What has happened?" demands he suddenly, with all the righteous strength of one who, free from guilt, resents accusation of it.

"Have I accused you?" says she, coldly.

"Yes, a thousand times, yes. Do you think your voice alone can condemn? Your eyes are even crueller judges."

"Well I am sorry," says she, faintly smiling. "My eyes must be deceivers then. I bear you no malice, believe me."

"So be it," says he, with an assumption of relief that is very well done. "After all, I have worried myself, I daresay, very unnecessarily. Let us talk of something else, Miss Maliphant, for example," with a glance at her, and a pleasant smile. "Nice girl eh? I miss her."

"She went early this morning, did she?" says Joyce, scarcely knowing what to say. Her lips feel a little dry; an agonized certainty that she is slowly growing crimson beneath his steady gaze brings the tears to her eyes.

"Too early. I quite hoped to be up to see her off, but sleep had made its own of me and I failed to wake. Such a good, genuine girl! Universal favorite, don't you think? Very honest, and very," breaking into an apparently irrepressible laugh, "ugly! Ah! well now," with smiling self condemnation, "that's really a little too bad; isn't it?"

"A great deal too bad," says Joyce, gravely. "I shouldn't speak of her if I were you."

"But why, my dear girl?" with arched brows and a little gesture of his handsome hands. "I allow her everything but beauty, and surely it would be hypocrisy to mention that in the same breath with her."

"It isn't fair—it isn't sincere," says the girl almost passionately. "Do you think I am ignorant of everything, that I did not see you with her last night in the garden? Oh!" with a touch of scorn that is yet full of pain, "you should not. You should not, indeed!"

In an instant he grows confused. Something in the lovely horror of her eyes undoes him. Only for an instant—after that he turns the momentary confusion to good account.

"Ah! you did see her, then, poor girl!" says he. "Well, I'm sorry about that for her sake."

"Why for her sake?" still regarding him with that charming disdain. "For your own, perhaps, but why for hers?"

Beauclerk pauses: then rising suddenly, stands before her. Grief and gentle indignation sit upon his massive brow. He looks the very incarnation of injured rectitude.

"Do you know, Joyce, you have always been ready to condemn, to misjudge me," says he in a low, hurt tone. "I have often noticed it, yet have failed to understand why it is. I was right, you see, when I told myself last night and this morning that you were harboring unkindly thoughts toward me. You have not been open with me, you have been willfully secretive, and, believe me, that is a mistake. Candor, complete and perfect, is the only great virtue that will steer one clear through all the shoals and rocks of life. Be honest, above board, and, I can assure you, you will never regret it. You accused me just now of insincerity. Have you been sincere?"

There is a dead pause. He allows it to last long enough to make it dramatic, and to convince himself he has impressed her, and then, with a very perceptible increase of dignified pain in his voice, he goes on.

"I feel I ought not to explain under the circumstances, but as it is to you"—heavy emphasis, and a second affected silence. "You have heard, perhaps, of Miss Maliphant's cousin in India?"

"No," says Joyce, after racking her brain in vain for some memory of the cousin question. And, indeed, it would have been nothing short of a miracle if she could have remembered anything about that apocryphal person.

"You will understand that I speak to you in the strictest confidence," says Beauclerk, earnestly: "I wouldn't for anything you could offer me, that it should get back to that poor girl's ears that I had been discussing her and the most sacred feelings of her heart. Well, there is a cousin, and she—you may have noticed that she and I were great friends?"

"Yes," says Joyce, whose heart is beating now to suffocation. Oh! has she wronged him? Does she still wrong him? Is this vile, suspicious feeling within her one to be encouraged? Is all this story of his, this simple explanation—false—false?

"I was, indeed, a sort of confidant of hers. Poor dear girl! it was a relief to her to talk to somebody."

"There were others."

"But none here who knew him."

"You knew him then? Is his name Maliphant, too?" asks Joyce, ashamed of her cross-examination, yet driven to it by some power beyond her control.

"You mustn't ask me that," says Beauclerk playfully. "There are some things I must keep even from you. Though you see I go very far to satisfy your unjust suspicions of me. You can, however, guess a good deal; you—saw her crying?"

"She was not crying," says Joyce slowly, a little puzzled. Miss Maliphant had seemed at the moment in question well pleased.

"No! Not when you saw her? Ah! that must have been later then," with a sigh, "you see now I am betraying more than I should. However, I can depend upon your silence. It will be a small secret between you and me."

"And Miss Maliphant," says Joyce, coldly. "As for me, what is the secret?"

"You haven't understood? Not really? Well, between you and me and the wall," with delightful gaiety, "I think she gives a thought or two to that cousin. I fancy," whispering, "she is even in—eh? you know."

"I don't," says Joyce slowly, who is now longing to believe in him, and yet is held steadily backward by some strong feeling.

"I believe she is in love with him," says Beauclerk, still in a mysterious whisper. "But it is a sore subject," with an expressive frown. "Not best pleased when it is mentioned to her. Mauvais sujet, you understand. But girls are often foolish in that way. Better say nothing about it."

"I shall say nothing, of course," says Joyce. "Why should I? It is nothing to me, though I am sorry for her."

Yet as she says this, a doubt arises in her mind as to whether she need be sorry. Is there a cousin in India? Could that big, jolly, lively girl, who had come into the conservatory with Beauclerk last night, with the light of triumph in her eyes, be the victim of an unhappy love affair? Should she write and ask her if there is a cousin in India? Oh, no, no! She could not do that! How horrible, how hateful to distrust him like this! What a detestable mind must be hers. And besides, why dwell so much upon it. Why not accept him as a pleasing acquaintance. One with whom to pass a pleasant hour now and then. Why ever again regard him as a possible lover!

A little shudder runs through her. At this moment it seems to her that she could never really have so regarded him. And yet only last night——

And now. What is it? Does she still doubt? Will that strange, curious, tormenting feeling that once she felt for him return no more. Is it gone forever? Oh! that it might be so!

---

CHAPTER XXII.

"So over violent, or over civil!" "A man so various."

---

"Dull looking day," says Dicky Browne, looking up from his broiled kidney to glare indignantly through the window at the gray sky.

"It can't be always May," says Beauclerk cheerfully, whose point it is to take ever a lenient view of things. Even to heaven itself he is kind, and holds out a helping hand.

"I expect it is we ourselves who are dull," says Lady Baltimore, looking round the breakfast table, where now many vacant seats make the edges bare. Yesterday morning Miss Maliphant left. To-day the Clontarfs, and one or two strange men from the barracks in the next town. Desertion indeed seems to be the order of the day. "We grow very small," says she. "How I miss people when they go away."

"Do you mean that as a liberal bribe for the getting rid of the rest of us," says Dicky, who is now devoting himself to the hot scones. "If so, let me tell you it isn't good enough. I shall stay here until you choose to cross the channel. I don't want to be missed."

"That will be next week," says Lady Baltimore. "I do beseech all here present not to forsake me until then."

"I must deny your prayer," says Lady Swansdown. "These tiresome lawyers of mine say they must see me on Thursday at the latest."

"I shall meet you in town at Christmas, however," says Lady Baltimore, making the remark a question.

"I hardly think so. I have promised the Barings to join them in Italy about then."

"Well, here then in February."

Lady Swansdown smiles at her hostess, but makes no audible reply.

"I suppose we ought to do something to-day," says Lady Baltimore presently, in a listless tone. It is plain to everybody, however, that in reality she wants to do nothing. "Suggest something, Dicky."

"Skittles," says that youth, without hesitation. Very properly, however, no one takes any notice of him.

"I was thinking that if we went to 'Connor's Cross,' it would be a nice drive," says Lady Baltimore, still struggling with her duties as a hostess. "What do you say, Beatrice?"

"I pray you excuse me," says Lady Swansdown. "As I leave to-morrow, I must give the afternoon to the answering of several letters, and to other things besides."

"Connor's Cross," says Joyce, idly. "I've so often heard of it. Yet, oddly enough, I have never seen it; it is always the way, isn't it, whenever one lives very close to some celebrated spot."

"Celebrated or not, it is at least lovely," says Lady Baltimore. "You really ought to see it."

"I'll drive you there this afternoon, Miss Kavanagh," says Beauclerk, in his friendly way, that in public has never a tincture of tenderness about it. "We might start after luncheon. It is only about ten miles off. Eh?" to Baltimore.

"Ten," briefly.

"I am right then," equably; "we might easily do it in a little over an hour."

"Hour and a half with best horse in the stables. Bad road," says Baltimore.

"Even so we shall get there and back in excellent time," says Beauclerk, deaf to his brother-in-law's gruffness. "Will you come, Miss Kavanagh?"

"I should like it," says Joyce, in a hesitating sort of way; "but——"

"Then why not go, dear?" says Lady Baltimore kindly. "The Morroghs of Creaghstown live not half a mile from it, and they will give you tea if you feel tired; Norman is a very good whip, and will be sure to have you back here in proper time."

Dysart lifting his head looks full at Joyce.

"At that rate——" says she, smiling at Beauclerk.

"It is settled then," says Beauclerk pleasantly. "Thank you ever so much for helping me to get rid of my afternoon in so delightful a fashion."

"It is going to rain. It will be a wet evening," says Dysart abruptly.

"Oh, my dear fellow! You can hardly be called a weather prophet," says Beauclerk banteringly. "You ought to know that a settled gray sky like that seldom means rain."

No more is said about it then, and no mention is made of it at luncheon. At half-past two precisely, however, a dog cart comes round to the hall door. Joyce running lightly down stairs, habited for a drive, meets Dysart at the foot of the staircase.

"Do not go," says he abruptly.

"Not go—now," with a glance at her costume.

"I didn't believe you would go," says he vehemently. "I didn't believe it possible—or I should have spoken sooner. Nevertheless, at this last moment, I entreat you to give it up."

"Impossible," says she curtly, annoyed by his tone, which is perhaps, unconsciously, a little dictatorial.

"You refuse me?"

"It is not the question. I have said I would go. I see no reason for not going. I decline to make myself foolish in the eyes of everybody by drawing back at the last moment."

"You have forgotten everything then."

"I don't know," coldly, "that there is anything to remember."

"Oh!" bitterly, "not so far as I am concerned. I count for nothing. I allow that. But he—I fancied you had at least read him."

"I think, perhaps, there was nothing to read," says she, lowering her eyes.

"If you can think that, it is useless my saying anything further."

He moves to one side as if to let her pass, but she hesitates. Perhaps she would have said something to soften her decision—but—a rare thing with him, he loses his temper. Seeing her standing there before him, so sweet, so lovely, so indifferent, as he tells himself, his despair overcomes him.

"I have a voice in this matter," says he, frowning heavily. "I forbid you to go with that fellow."

A sharp change crosses Miss Kavanagh's face. All the sudden softness dies out of it. She stoops leisurely, and disengaging the end of the black lace round her throat from an envious banister that would have detained her, without further glance or word for Dysart, she goes up the hall and through the open doorway. Beauclerk, who has been waiting for her outside, comes forward. A little spring seats her in the cart. Beauclerk jumps in beside her. Another moment sees them out of sight.

---

The vagrant sun, that all day long had been coming and going in fitful fashion, has suddenly sunk behind the thunderous gray cloud that, rising from the sea, now spreads itself o'er hill and vale. The light has died out of the sky; dull muttering sounds come rumbling down from the distant mountains. The vast expanse of barren bog upon the left has become almost obscure. Here and there a glint of its watery wastes may be seen, but indistinctly, giving the eye a mournful impression of "lands forlorn."

A strange hot quiet seems to have fallen upon the trembling earth.

"We often see, against some storm. A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold wind speechless, and the orb below Is hushed as death."

Just now that "boding silence reigns." A sense of fear falls on Joyce, she scarcely knows why, as her companion, with a quick lash of the whip, urges the horse up the steep hill. They are still several miles from their destination, and, though it is only four o'clock, it is no longer day. The heavens are black as ink, the trees are shivering in expectant misery.

"What is it?" says Joyce, and even as she asks the question it is answered. The storm is upon them in all its fury. All at once, without an instant's warning, a violent downpour of rain comes from the bursting clouds, threatening to deluge them.

"We are in for it," says Beauclerk in a sharp, short tone, so unlike his usual dulcet accents that even now, in her sudden discomfort, it startles her. The rain is descending in torrents, a wild wind has arisen. The light has faded, and now the day resembles nothing so much as the dull beginning of a winter's night.

"Have you any idea where we are?" asks Beauclerk presently.

"None. You know I told you I had never been here before. But you—you must have some knowledge of it."

"How should I? These detestable Irish isolations are as yet unknown paths to me."

"But I thought you said—you gave me the impression that you knew Connor's Cross."

"I regret it if I did," shortly. The rain is running down his neck by this time, leaving a cold, drenched collar to add zest to his rising ill temper. "I had heard of Connor's Cross. I never saw it. I devoutly hope," with a snarl, "I never shall."

"I don't think you are likely to," says Joyce, whose own temper is beginning to be ruffled.

"Well, this is a sell," says Beauclerk. He is buttoning up a heavy ulster round his handsome form. He is very particular about the fastening of the last button—that one that goes under the chin—and having satisfactorily accomplished it, and found, by a careful moving backward and forward of his head, that it is comfortably adjusted, it occurs to him to see if his companion is weather-proof.

"Got wraps enough?" asks he. "No, by Jove! Here, put on this," dragging a warm cloak of her own from under the seat and offering it to her with all the air of one making a gift. "What is it? Coat—cloak—ulster? One never knows what women's clothes are meant for."

"To cover them," says Joyce calmly.

"Well, put it on. By Jove, how it pours! All right now?" having carelessly flung it round her, without regard for where her arms ought to go through the sleeves. "Think you can manage the rest by yourself? So beastly difficult to do anything in a storm like this, with this brute tugging at the reins and the rain running up one's sleeve."

"I can manage it very well myself, thank you," says Joyce, giving up the finding of the sleeves as a bad job; after a futile effort to discover their whereabouts she buttons the cloak across her chest and sits beside him, silent but shivering. A little swift, wandering thought of Dysart makes her feel even colder. If he had been there! Would she be thus roughly entreated? Nay, rather would she not have been a mark for tenderest care, a precious charge entrusted to his keeping. A thing beloved and therefore to be cherished.

"Look there," says she, suddenly lifting her head and pointing a little to the right. "Surely, even through this denseness, I see lights. Is it a village?"

"Yes—a village, I should say," grimly. "A hamlet rather. Would you," ungraciously, "suggest our seeking shelter there?"

"I think it must be the village called 'Falling,'" says she, too pleased at her discovery to care about his gruffness, "and if so, the owner of the inn there was an old servant of my father's. She often comes over to see Barbara and the children, and though I have never come here to see her, I know she lives somewhere in this part of the world. A good creature she is. The kindest of women."

"An inn," says Beauclerk, deaf to the virtues of the old servant, the innkeeper, but altogether alive to the fact that she keeps an inn. "What a blessed oasis in our wilderness! And it can't be more than half a mile away. Why," recovering his usual delightful manner, "we shall find ourselves housed in no time. I do hope, my dear girl, you are comfortable! Wrapped up to the chin, eh? Quite right—quite right. After all, the poor driver has the worst of it. He must face the elements, whatever happens. Now you, with your dear little chin so cosily hidden from the wind and rain, and with hardly a suspicion of the blast I am fighting, make a charming picture—really charming! Ah, you girls! you have the best of it beyond doubt! And why not? It is the law of nature—weak woman and strong man! You know those exquisite lines——"

"Can't that horse go faster?" said Miss Kavanagh, breaking in on this little speech in a rather ruthless manner. "Lapped in luxury, as you evidently believe me, I still assure you I should gladly exchange my present condition for a good wholesome kitchen fire."

"Always practical. Your charm—one of them," says Mr. Beauclerk. But he takes the hint, nevertheless, and presently they draw up before a small, dingy place of shelter.

Not a man is to be seen. The village, a collection of fifty houses, when all is told, is swept and garnished. A few geese are stalking up the street, uttering creaking noises. Some ducks are swimming in a glad astonishment down the muddy streams running by the edges of the curbstones. Such a delicious wealth of filthy water has not been seen in Falling for the past three dry months.

"The deserted village with a vengeance," says Beauclerk. He has risen in his seat and placed his whip in the stand with a view of descending and arousing the inhabitants of this Sleepy Hollow, when a shock head is thrust out of the inn ("hotel," rather, as is painted on a huge sign over the door) and being instantly withdrawn again with a muttered "Och-a-yea," is followed by a shriek for:

"Mrs. Connolly—Mrs. Connolly, ma'am! Sure, 'tis yourself that's wanted! Come down, I tell ye! There's ginthry at the door, an' the rain peltin' on em like the divil. Come down, I'm tellin' ye! Or fegs they'll go on to Paddy Sheehan's, an' thin where'll ye be? Och, murdher! Where are ye, at all, at all? 'Tis ruined ye'll be intirely wid the stayin' of ye!"

"Arrah, hould yer whisht, y'omadhaun o' the world," says another voice, and in a second a big, buxom, jolly, hearty-looking woman appears on the threshold, peering a little suspiciously through the gathering gloom at the dog cart outside. First she catches sight of the crest and coronet, and a gleam of pleased intelligence brightens her face. Then, lifting her eyes, she meets those of Joyce, and the sudden pleasure gives way to actual and honest joy.

"It is Mrs. Connolly," says Joyce, in a voice that is supposed to accompany a smile, but has in reality something of tears in it.

Mrs. Connolly, regardless of the pelting rain and her best cap, takes a step forward.

---

CHAPTER XXIII.

"All is not golde that outward shewith bright."

"I love everything that's old—old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine."

---

"An' is it you, Miss Joyce? Glory be! What a day to be out! 'Tis drenched y'are, intirely! Oh! come in, me dear—come in, me darlin'! Here, Mikey, Paddy, Jerry!—come here, ivery mother's son o' ye, an' take Mr. Beauclerk's horse from him. Oh! by the laws!—but y'are soaked! Arrah, what misfortune dhrove y'out to-day, of all days, Miss Joyce? Was there niver a man to tell ye that 'twould be a peltin' storm before nightfall?"

There had been one. How earnestly Miss Kavanagh now wishes she had listened to his warning.

"It looked so fine two hours ago," says she, clambering down from the dog cart with such misguided help from the ardent Mrs. Connolly as almost lands her with the ducks in the muddy stream below.

"Och! there's no more depindince to be placed upon the weather than there is upon a man. However, 'tis welcome y'are, any way. Your father's daughter is dear to me—yes, come this way—up these stairs. 'Tis Anne Connolly is proud to be enthertainin' one o' yer blood inside her door."

"Oh! I'm so glad I found you," says Joyce, turning when she has reached Mrs. Connolly's bedroom to imprint upon that buxom widow's cheek a warm kiss. "It was a long way here—long, and so cold and wet."

"An' where were ye goin' at all, if I may ax?" says Mrs. Connolly, taking off the girl's dripping outer garments.

"To see Connor's Cross——"

"Faith, 'twas little ye had to do! A musty ould tomb like that, wid nothin but broken stones around it. Wouldn't the brand-new graveyard below there do ye? Musha! but 'tis quare the ginthry is! Och! me dear, 'tis wet y'are; there isn't a dhry stitch on ye."

"I don't think I'm wet once my coats are off," says Joyce; and indeed, when those invaluable wraps are removed; it is proved beyond doubt—even Mrs. Connolly's doubt, which is strong—that her gown is quite dry.

"You see, it was such a sudden rain," says Joyce, "and fortunately we saw the lights in this village almost immediately after it began."

"Fegs, too suddint to be pleasant," says Mrs. Connolly. "'Twas well the early darkness made us light up so quickly, or ye might have missed us, not knowin' yer road. An' how's all wid ye, me dear—Miss Barbara, an' the masther, an' the darling childher? I've a Brammy cock and a hen that I'm thinkin' of takin' down to Masther Tommy this two weeks, but the ould mare is mighty quare on her legs o' late. Are ye all well?"

"Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Connolly."

"Wisha—God keep ye so."

"And how are all of you? When did you hear from America?"

"Last month thin—divil a less; an' the greatest news of all! A letther from Johnny—me eldest boy—wid a five-pound note in it, an' a picther of the girl he's goin' to marry. I declare to ye when that letther came I just fell into a chair an' tuk to laughin' an' cryin' till that ounchal of a girl in the kitchen began to bate me on the back, thinkin' I was bad in a fit. To think, me dear, of little Johnneen I used to nurse on me knee thinkin' of takin' a partner. An' a sthrappin' fine girl too, fegs, wid cheeks like turnips. But there, now, I'll show her to ye by-and-by. She's a raal beauty if them porthraits be thrue, but there's a lot o' lies comes from over the wather. An' what'll ye be takin' now, Miss Joyce dear?"—with a return to her hospitable mood—"a dhrop o' hot punch, now? Whiskey is the finest thing out for givin' the good-bye to the cowld."

"Oh, no, thank you, Mrs. Connolly"—hastily—"if I might have a cup of tea, I——"

"Arrah, bad cess to that tay! What's the good of it at all at all to a frozen stomach? Cowld pison, I calls it. Well, there! Have it yer own way! An' come along down wid me, now, an' give yerself to the enthertainin' of Misther Beauclerk, whilst I wet the pot. Glory! what a man he is!—the size o' the house! A fine man, in airnest. Tell me now," with a shrewd glance at Joyce, "is there anything betwixt you and him?"

"Nothing!" says Joyce, surprised even herself by the amount of vehement denial she throws into this word.

"Oh, well, there's others! An' Mr. Dysart would be more to my fancy. There's a nate man, if ye like, be me fegs!" with a second half sly, wholly kindly, glance at the girl. "If 'twas he, now, I'd give ye me blessin' wid a heart and a half. An' indeed, now, Miss Joyce, 'tis time ye were thinkin' o' settlin'."

"Well, I'm not thinking of it this time," says Joyce, laughing, though a little catch in her throat warns her she is not far from tears. Perhaps Mrs. Connolly hears that little catch, too, for she instantly changes her tactics.

"Faith, an' 'tis right y'are, me dear. There's a deal o' trouble in marriage, an' 'tis too young y'are intirely to undertake the likes of it," says she, veering round with a scandalous disregard for appearances. "My, what hair ye have, Miss Joyce! 'Tis improved, it is; even since last I saw ye. I'm a great admirer of a good head o' hair."

"I wonder when will the rain be over?" asks Joyce, wistfully gazing through the small window at the threatening heavens.

"If it's my opinion y'are askin'," says Mrs. Connolly, "I'd say not till to-morrow morning."

"Oh! Mrs. Connolly!" turning a distressed face to that good creature.

"Well, me dear, what can I say but what I think?" flinging out her ample arms in self-justification. "Would ye have me lie to ye? Why, a sky like that always——"

Here a loud crash of thunder almost shakes the small inn to its foundations.

"The heavens be good to us!" says Mrs. Connolly, crossing herself devoutly. "Did ye iver hear the like o' that?"

"But—it can't last—it is impossible," says Joyce, vehemently. "Is there no covered car in the town? Couldn't a man be persuaded to drive me home if I promised him to——"

"If ye promised him a king's ransom ye couldn't get a covered car to-night," says Mrs. Connolly. "There's only one in the place, an' that belongs to Mike Murphy, an' 'tis off now miles beyant Skibbereen, attindin' the funeral o' Father John Maguire. 'Twon't be home till to-morrow any way, an'-faix, I wouldn't wondher if it wasn't here then, for every mother's son at that wake will be as dhrunk as fiddlers to-night. Father John, ye know, me dear, was greatly respected."

"Are you sure there isn't another car?"

"Quite positive. But why need ye be so unaisy, Miss Joyce, dear? Sure, 'tis safe an' sure y'are wid me."

"But what will they think at home and at the Court?" says Joyce, faltering.

"Arrah! what can they think, miss, but that the rain was altogether too mastherful for ye? Ye know, me dear, we can't (even the best of us) conthrol the illimints!" This incontrovertible fact Mrs. Connolly gives forth with a truly noble air of resignation. "Come down now, and let me get ye that palthry cup o' tay y'are cravin' for."

She leads Joyce downstairs and into a snug little parlor with a roaring fire that is not altogether unacceptable this dreary evening. The smell of stale tobacco smoke that pervades it is a drawback, but, if you think of it, we can't have everything in this world.

Perhaps Joyce has more than she wants. It occurs to her, as Beauclerk turns round from the solitary window, that she could well have dispensed with his society. That lurking distrust of him she had known vaguely, but kept under during all their acquaintance, has taken a permanent place in her mind during her drive with him this afternoon.

"Oh! here you are. Beastly, smoky hole!" he says, taking no notice of Mrs. Connolly, who is doing her best curtsey in the doorway.

"I think it looks very comfortable," says Joyce, with a gracious smile at her hostess, and a certain sore feeling at her heart. Once again her thoughts fly to Dysart. Would that have been his first remark when she appeared after so severe a wetting?

"'Tis just what I've been sayin' to Miss Kavanagh, sir," says Mrs. Connolly, with unabated good humor. "The heavens above is always too much for us. We can't turn off the wather up there as we can the cock in the kitchen sink. Still, there's compinsations always, glory be! An' what will ye plaze have wid yer tay, Miss?" turning to Joyce with great respect in look and tone. In spite of all her familiarity with her upstairs, she now, with a looker-on, proceeds to treat "her young lady" as though she were a stranger and of blood royal.

"Anything you have, Mrs. Connolly," says Joyce; "only don't be long!" There is undoubted entreaty in the request. Mrs. Connolly, glancing at her, concludes it is not so much a desire for what will be brought, as for the bringer that animates the speaker.

"Give me five minutes, Miss, an' I'll be back again," says she pleasantly. Leaving the room, she stands in the passage outside for a moment, and solemnly moves her kindly head from side to side. It takes her but a little time to make up her shrewd Irish mind on several points.

"While this worthy person is getting you your tea I think I'll take a look at the weather from the outside," says Mr. Beauclerk, turning to Joyce. It is evident he is eager to avoid a tête-à-tête, but this does not occur to her.

"Yes—do—do," says she, nevertheless with such a liberal encouragement as puzzles him. Women are kittle cattle, however, he tells himself; better not to question their motives too closely or you will find yourself in queer street. He gets to the door with a cheerful assumption of going to study the heavens that conceals his desire for a cigar and a brandy and soda, but on the threshold Joyce speaks again.

"Is there no chance—would it not be possible to get home?" says she, in a tone that trembles with nervous longing.

"I'm afraid not. I'm just going to see. It is impossible weather for you to be out in."

"But you——? It is clearing a little, isn't it?" with a despairing glance out of the window. "If you could manage to get back and tell them that——"

She is made thoroughly ashamed of her selfishness a moment later.

"But my dear girl, consider! Why should I tempt a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs by driving ten or twelve miles through this unrelenting torrent? We are very well out of it here. This Mrs.—er—Connor—Connolly seems a very respectable person, and is known to you. I shall tell her to make you as comfortable as her 'limited liabilities,'" with quite a laugh at his own wit, "will allow."

"Pray tell her nothing. Do not give yourself so much trouble," says Joyce calmly. "She will do the best she can for me without the intervention of any one."

"As you will, au revoir!" says he, waving her a graceful farewell for the moment.

He is not entirely happy in his mind, as he crosses the tiny hall and makes his way first to the bar and afterward to the open doorway. Like a cat, he hates rain! To drive back through this turmoil of wind and wet for twelve long miles to the Court is more than his pleasure-loving nature can bear to look upon. Yet to remain has its drawbacks, too.

If Miss Maliphant, for example, were to hear of this escapade there might be trouble there. He has not as yet finally made up his mind to give inclination the go by and surrender himself to sordid considerations, but there can be no doubt that the sordid things of this life have, with some natures, a charm hardly to be rivaled successfully by mere beauty.

The heiress is attractive in one sense; Joyce equally so in another. Miss Maliphant's charms are golden—are not Joyce's more golden still? And yet, to give up Miss Maliphant—to break with her finally—to throw away deliberately a good £10,000 a year!

He lights his cigar with an untrembling hand, and, having found it satisfactory, permits his mind to continue its investigations.

Ten thousand pounds a year! A great help to a man; yet he is glad at this moment that he is free to accept or reject it. Nothing definite has been said to the heiress—nothing definite to Joyce either. It strikes him at this moment, as he stands in the dingy doorway of the inn and stares out at the descending rain, that he has shown distinct cleverness in the way in which he has manoeuvred these two girls, without either of them feeling the least suspicion of the other. Last night Joyce had been on the point of a discovery, but he had smoothed away all that. Evidently he was born to be a successful diplomatist, and if that appointment he has been looking for ever comes his way, he will be able to show the world a thing or two.

How charming that little girl in there can look! And never more so than when she allows her temper to overcome her. She had been angry just now. Yes. But he can read between the lines; angry—naturally that he has not come to the point—declared himself—proposed as the saying is. Well, puffing complacently at his cigar, she must wait—she must wait—if the appointment comes off, if Sir Alexander stands to him, she has a very good chance, but if that falls through, why then——

And it won't do to encourage her too much, by Jove! If Miss Maliphant were to hear of this evening's adventure, she is headstrong, stolid enough, to mark out a line for herself and fling him aside without waiting for judge or jury. Much as it might cost her, she would not hesitate to break all ties with him, and any that existed were very slight. He, himself, had kept them so. Perhaps, after all, he had better order the trap round, leave Miss Kavanagh here, and——

And yet to go out in that rain; to feel it beating against his face for two or three intolerable hours. Was anything, even £10,000 a year, worth that? He would be a drowned rat by the time he reached the Court.

And, after all, couldn't it be arranged without all this bother? He might easily explain it all away to Miss Maliphant, even should some kind friend tell her of it. That was his role. He had quite a talent for explaining away. But he must also make Joyce thoroughly understand. She was a sensible girl. A word to her would be sufficient. Just a word to show that marriage at present was out of the question. Nothing unpleasant; nothing finite; but just some little thing to waken her to the true state of the case. Girls, as a rule, were sentimental, and would expect much of an adventure such as this. But Joyce was proud—he liked that in her. There would be no trouble; she would quite understand.

"Tea is just comin' up, sorr!" says a rough voice behind him. "The misthress tould me to tell ye so!"

The red-headed Abigail who attends on Mrs. Connolly beckons him, with a grimy forefinger, to the repast within. He accepts the invitation.

---

CHAPTER XXIV.

"It is the mynd that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poore."

---

As he enters the inn parlor he finds Joyce sitting by the fire, listening to Mrs. Connolly, who, armed with a large tray, is advancing up the room toward the table. Nobody but the "misthress" herself is allowed to wait upon "the young lady."

"An' I hope, Miss Joyce, 'twill be to your liking. An' sorry I am, sir," with a courteous recognition of Beauclerk's entrance, "that 'tis only one poor fowl I can give ye. But thim commercial thravellers are the divil. They'd lave nothing behind 'em if they could help it. Still, Miss," with a loving smile at Joyce, "I do think ye'll like the ham. 'Tis me own curing, an' I brought ye just a taste o' this year's honey; ye'd always a sweet tooth from the time ye were born."

"I could hardly have had a tooth before that," says Joyce, laughing. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Connolly; it is a lovely tea, and it is very good of you to take all this trouble."

"Who'd be welcome to any trouble if 'twasn't yerself, Miss?" says Mrs. Connolly, bowing and retreating toward the door.

A movement on the part of Joyce checks her. The girl has made an impulsive step as if to follow her, and now, seeing Mrs. Connolly stop short, holds out to her one hand.

"But, Mrs. Connolly," says she, trying to speak naturally, and succeeding very well, so far as careless ears are in question, but the "misthress" marks the false note, "you will stay and pour out tea for us; you will?"

There is an extreme treaty in her tone; the stronger in that it has to be suppressed. Mrs. Connolly, halting midway between the table and the door with the tray in her hands, hears it, and a sudden light comes, not only into her eyes, but her mind.

"Why, if you wish it, Miss," says she directly. She lays down the tray, standing it up against the wall, and coming back to the table lifts the teapot and begins to fill the cups.

"Ye take sugar, sir?" asks she of Beauclerk, who is a little puzzled, but not altogether displeased at the turn affairs have taken. After all, as he has told himself a thousand times, Joyce is a clever girl. She is determined not to betray the anxiety for his society that beyond question she is feeling. And this prudence on her part will relieve him of many small embarrassments. Truly, she is a girl not to be found every day.

He is accordingly most gracious to Mrs. Connolly; praises her ham, extols her tea, says wonderful things about the chicken.

When tea is at an end, he rises gracefully, and expresses his desire to smoke one more cigar and have a last look at the weather.

"You will be able to put us up?" says he.

"Oh yes, sir, sure."

He smiles beautifully, and with a benevolent request to Joyce to take care of herself in his absence, leaves the room.

"He's a dale o' talk," says Mrs. Connolly, the moment his back is turned. She is now sure that Joyce has some private grudge against him, or at all events is not what she herself would call "partial to him."

"Yes," says Joyce. "He is very conversational. How it rains, still."

"Yes, it does," says Mrs. Connolly, comfortably. She is not at all put out by the girl's reserved manner, having lived among the "ginthry" for many years, and being well up to their "quare ways." A thought, however, that had been formulating in her mind for a long time past—ever since, indeed, she found her young lady could not return home until morning—now compels her to give the conversation a fresh turn.

"I've got to apologize to ye, Miss, but since ye must stay the night wid me, I'm bound to tell ye I have no room for ye but a little one leadin' out o' me own."

"Are you so very full, then, Mrs. Connolly? I'm glad to hear that for your sake."

"Full to the chin, me dear. Thim commercials always dhrop down upon one just whin laste wanted."

"Then I suppose I ought to be thankful that you can give me a room at all," says Joyce, laughing. "I'm afraid I shall be a great trouble to you."

"Ne'er a scrap in life, me dear. 'Tis proud I am to be of any sarvice to ye. An' perhaps 'twill make ye aisier in yer mind to know as your undher my protection, and that no gossip can come nigh ye."

The good woman means well, but she has flown rather above Joyce's head, or rather under her feet.

"I'm delighted to be with you," says Miss Kavanagh, with a pretty smile. "But as for protection—well, the Land Leaguers round here are not so bad as that one should fear for one's life in a quiet village like this."

"There's worse than Land Leaguers," says Mrs. Connolly. "There's thim who talk."

"Talk—of what?" asks Joyce, a little vaguely.

"Well now, me dear, sure ye haven't lived so long widout knowin' there's cruel people in the world," says Mrs. Connolly, anxiously. "An' the fact o' you goin' out dhrivin' wid Mr. Beauclerk, an' stayin' out the night wid him, might give rise to the talk I'm fightin' agin. Don't be angry wid me now, Miss Joyce, an' don't fret, but 'tis as well to prepare ye."

Joyce's heart, as she listens, seems to die within her. A kind of sick feeling renders her speechless; she had never thought of that—of—of the idea of impropriety being suggested as part of this most unlucky escapade. Mrs. Connolly, noting the girl's white face, feels as though she ought to have cut her tongue out, rather than have spoken, yet she had done all for the best.

"Miss Joyce, don't think about it," says she, hurriedly. "I'm sorry I said a word, but—An', afther all, I am right, me dear. 'Tis betther for ye when evil tongues are waggin' to have a raal friend like me to yer back to say the needful word. Ye'll sleep wid me to-night, an' I'll take ye back to her ladyship in the morning, an' never leave ye till I see ye in safe hands once more. If ye liked him," pointing to the door through which Beauclerk had gone, "I'd say nothing, for thin all would come right enough. But as it is, I'll take it on meself to be the nurse to ye now that I was when ye were a little creature creeping along the floor."

Joyce smiles at her, but rather faintly. A sense of terror is oppressing her. Lady Baltimore, what will she think? And Freddy and Barbara! They will all be angry with her! Oh! more than angry—they will think she has done something that other girls would not have done. How is she to face them again? The entire party at the Court seems to spread itself before her. Lady Swansdown and Lord Baltimore, they will laugh about it; and the others will laugh and whisper, and——

Felix—Felix Dysart. What will he think? What is he thinking now? To follow out this thought is intolerable to her; she rises abruptly.

"What o'clock is it, Mrs. Connolly?" says she in a hard, strained voice. "I am tired, I should like to go to bed now."

"Just eight, Miss. An' if you are tired there's nothing like the bed. Ye will like to say good-night to Mr. Beauclerk?"

"Oh, no, no!" with frowning sharpness. Then recovering herself. "I need not disturb him. You will tell him that I was chilled—tired."

"I'll tell him all that he ought to know," says Mrs. Connolly. "Come, Miss Joyce, everything, is ready for ye. An' a lie down and a good sleep will be the makin' of ye before morning."

Joyce, to her surprise, is led through a very well-appointed chamber, evidently unused, to a smaller but scarcely less carefully arranged apartment beyond. The first is so plainly a room not in daily use, that she turns involuntarily to her companion.

"Is this your room, Mrs. Connolly?"

"For the night, me dear," says that excellent woman mysteriously.

"You have changed your room to suit me. You mean something," says the girl, growing crimson, and feeling as if her heart were going to burst. "What is it?"

"No, no, Miss! No, indeed!" confusedly. "But, Miss Joyce, I'll say this, that 'tis eight year now since Misther Monkton came here, an' many's the good turn he's done me since he's been me lord's agint. An' that's nothing at all, Miss, to the gratitude I bear toward yer poor father, the ould head o' the house. An' d'ye think when occasion comes I wouldn't stand up an' do the best I could for one o' yer blood? Fegs, I'll take care that it won't be in the power of any one to say a word agin you."

"Against me?"

"You're young, Miss. But there's people ould enough to have sinse an' charity as haven't it. I can see ye couldn't get home to-night through that rain, though I'm not sayin'"—a little spitefully—"but that he might have managed it. Still, faith, 'twas bad thravellin' for man or baste," with a view to softening down her real opinion of Beauclerk's behavior. How can she condemn him safely? Is he not my lady's own brother? Is not my lord the owner of the very ground on which the inn is built, of the farm a mile away, where her cows are chewing the cud by this time in peace and safety?

"You have changed your room to oblige me," says Joyce, still with that strange, miserable look in her eyes.

"Don't think about that, Miss Joyce, now. An' don't fret yerself about anything else, ayther; sure ye can remimber that I'm to yer back always."

She bridles, and draws up her ample figure to its fullest height. Indeed, looking at her, it might suggest itself to any reasonable being that even the forlornest damsel with any such noble support might well defy the world.

But Joyce is not to be so easily consoled. What is support to her? Who can console a torn heart? The day has been too eventful! It has overcome her courage. Not only has she lost faith in her own power to face the angry authorities at home, she has lost faith, too, in one to whom, against her judgment, she had given more of her thoughts than was wise. The fact that she had recovered from that folly does not render the memory of the recovery less painful. The awakening from a troubled dream is full of anguish.

Rising from a sleepless bed, she goes down next morning to find Mrs. Connolly standing on the lowest step of the stairs, as if awaiting her, booted and spurred for the journey.

"I tould him to order the thrap early, me dear, for I knew ye'd be anxious," says the kind woman, squeezing her hand. "An' now," with an anxious glance at her, "I hope ye ate yer breakfast. I guessed ye'd like it in yer room, so I sint it up to ye. Well—come on, dear. Mr. Beauclerk is outside waitin'. I explained it all to him. Said ye were tired, ye know, an' eager to get back. And so all's ready an' the horse impatient."

In spite of the storm yesterday, that seemed to shake earth and heaven, to-day is beautiful. Soft glistening steams are rising from every hill and bog and valley, as the hot sun's rays beat upon them. The world seems wrapped in one vast vaporous mist, most lovely to behold. All the woodland flowers are holding up their heads again, after their past smiting from the cruel rain; the trees are swaying to and fro in the fresh morning breeze, thousands of glittering drops brightening the air, as they swing themselves from side to side. All things speak of a new birth, a resurrection, a joyful waking from a terrifying past. The grass looks greener for its bath, all dust is laid quite low, the very lichens on the walls as they drive past them look washed and glorified.

The sun is flooding the sky with gorgeous light; there are "sweete smels al arownd." The birds in the woods on either side of the roadway are singing high carols in praise of this glorious day. All nature seems joyous. Joyce alone is silent, unappreciative, unhappy.

The nearer she gets to the Court the more perturbed she grows in mind. How will they receive her there? Barbara had said that Lady Baltimore would not be likely to encourage an attachment between her and Beauclerk, and now, though the attachment is impossible, what will she think of this unfortunate adventure? She is so depressed that speech seems impossible to her, and to all Mr. Beauclerk's sallies she scarcely returns an answer.

His sallies are many. Never has he appeared in gayer spirits. The fact that the girl beside him is in unmistakably low spirits has either escaped him, or he has decided on taking no notice of it. Last night, over that final cigar, he had made up his mind that it would be wise to say to her some little thing that would unmistakably awaken her to the fact that there was nothing between him and her of any serious importance. Now, having covered half the distance that lies between them and the Court, he feels will be a good time to say that little thing. She is too distrait to please him. She is evidently brooding over something. If she thinks——Better crush all such hopes at once.

"I wonder what they are thinking about us at home?" he says presently, with quite a cheerful laugh, suggestive of amusement.

No answer.

"I daresay," with a second edition of the laugh, full now of a wider amusement, as though the comical fancy that has caught hold of him has grown to completion, "I shouldn't wonder, indeed, if they were thinking we had eloped." This graceful speech he makes with the easiest air in the world.

"They may be thinking you have eloped, certainly," says Miss Kavanagh calmly. "One's own people, as a rule, know one very thoroughly, and are quite alive to one's little failings; but that they should think it of me is quite out of the question."

"Well, after all, I daresay you are right. I don't suppose it lies in the possibilities. They could hardly think it of me either," says Beauclerk, with a careless yawn, so extraordinarily careless indeed as to be worthy of note. "I'm too poor for amusement of that kind."

"One couldn't be too poor for that kind of amusement, surely. Romance and history have both taught us that it is only the impecunious who ever indulge in that folly."

"I am not so learned as you are, but——Well, I'm an 'impecunious one,' in all conscience. I couldn't carry it out. I only wish," tenderly, "I could."

"With whom?" icily. As she asks the question she turns deliberately and looks him steadily in the eyes. Something in her regard disconcerts him, and compels him to think that the following up of the "little thing" is likely to prove difficult.

"How can you ask me?" demands he with an assumption of reproachful fondness that is rather overdone.

"I do, nevertheless."

"With you, then—if I must put it in words," says he, lowering his tone to the softest whisper. It is an eminently lover-like whisper; it is a distinctly careful one, too. It is quite impossible for Mrs. Connolly, sitting behind, to hear it, however carefully she may be attending.

"It is well you cannot put your fortune to the touch," says Joyce quietly; "if you could, disappointment alone would await you."

"You mean——?" ask he, somewhat sharply.

"That were it possible for me to commit such a vulgarity as to run away with any one, you, certainly, would not be that one. You are the very last man on earth I should choose for so mistaken an adventure. Let me also add," says she, turning upon him with flashing eyes, though still her voice is determinately low and calm, "that you forget yourself strangely when you talk in this fashion to me." The scorn and indignation in her charming face is so apparent that it is now impossible to ignore it. Being thus compelled to acknowledge it he grows angry. Beauclerk angry is not nice.

"To do myself justice, I seldom do that!" says he, with a rather nasty laugh. "To forget myself is not part of my calculations. I can generally remember No. One."

"You will remember me, too, if you please, so long as I am with you," says Joyce, with a grave and very gentle dignity, but with a certain determination that makes itself felt. Beauclerk, conscious of being somewhat cowed, is bully enough to make one more thrust.

"After all, Dysart was right," says he. "He prophesied there would be rain. He advised you not to undertake our ill-starred journey of—yesterday." There is distinct and very malicious meaning in the emphasis he throws into the last word.

"I begin to think Mr. Dysart is always right," says Joyce, bravely, though her heart has begun to beat furiously. That terrible fear of what they will say to her when she gets back—of their anger—their courteous anger—their condemnation—has been suddenly presented to her again and her courage dies within her. Dysart, what will he say? It strikes even herself as strange that his view of her conduct is the one that most disturbs her.

"Only, beginning to think it? Why, I always understood Dysart was immaculate—the 'couldn't err' sort of person one reads of but never sees. You have been slow, surely, to gauge his merits. I confess I have been even slower. I haven't gauged them yet. But then—Dysart and I were never much in sympathy with each other."

"No. One can understand that," says she.

"One can, naturally," with the utmost self-complaisance. "I confess, indeed," with a sudden slight burst of vindictiveness, "that I never liked Dysart; idiotic sort of fool in my estimation, self-opinionated like all fools, and deucedly impertinent in that silent way of his. I believe," with a contemptuous laugh, "he has given it as his opinion that there is very little to like in me either."

"Has he? We were saying just now he is always right," says Miss Kavanagh, absently, and in a tone so low that Beauclerk may be excused for scarcely believing his ears.

"Eh?" says he. But there is no answer, and presently both fall into a silent mood—Joyce because conversation is terrible to her, and he because anger is consuming him.

He had kept up a lively converse all through the earlier part of their drive, ignoring the depression that only too plainly was crushing upon his companion, with a view to putting an end to sentimentality of any sort. Her discomfort, her unhappiness, was as nothing to him—he thought only of himself. Few men, under the circumstances, would have so acted, for most men, in spite of all the old maids who so generously abuse them, are chivalrous and have kindly hearts; and indeed it is only a melancholy specimen here and there who will fail to feel pity for a woman in distress. Beauclerk is a "melancholy specimen."

---

CHAPTER XXV.

"Man, false man, smiling, destructive man."

"Who breathes, must suffer, and who thinks, most mourn; And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born."

---

"Oh! my dear girl, is it you at last?" cries Lady Baltimore, running out into the hall as Joyce enters it. "We have been so frightened! Such a storm, and Baltimore says that mare you had is very uncertain. Where did you get shelter?"

The very warmth and kindliness of her welcome, the utter absence of disapproval in it of any sort, so unnerves Joyce that she can make no reply; can only cling to her kindly hostess, and hide her face on her shoulder.

"Is that you, Mrs. Connolly?" says Lady Baltimore, smiling at mine hostess of the Baltimore Arms, over the girl's shoulder.

"Yes, my lady," with a curtsey so low that one wonders how she ever comes up again. "I made so bould, my lady, as to bring ye home Miss Joyce myself. I know Misther Beauclerk to be a good support in himself, but I thought it would be a raisonable thing to give her the company of one of her own women folk besides."

"Quite right. Quite," says Lady Baltimore.

"Oh! she has been so kind to me," says Joyce, raising now a pale face to turn a glance of gratitude on Mrs. Connolly.

"Why, indeed, my lady, I wish I might ha' bin able to do more for her; an' I'm sorry to say I'd to put her up in a small, most inconvenient room, just inside o' me own."

"How was that?" asks Lady Baltimore, kindly. "The inn so full then?"

"Fegs 'twas that was the matther wid it," says Mrs. Connolly, with a beaming smile. "Crammed from cellar to garret."

"Ah! the wet night, I suppose."

"Just so, my lady," composedly, and with another deep curtsey.

Lady Baltimore having given Mrs. Connolly into the care of the housekeeper, who is an old friend of hers, leads Joyce upstairs.

"You are not angry with me?" says Joyce, turning on the threshold of her room.

"With you, my dear child? No, indeed. With Norman, very! He should have turned back the moment he saw the first symptom of a storm. A short wetting would have done neither of you any harm."

"There was no warning; the storm was on us almost immediately, and we were then very close to Falling."

"Then, having placed you once safely in Mrs. Connolly's care, he should have returned himself, at all hazards."

"It rained very hard," says Joyce in a cold, clear tone. Her eyes are on the ground. She is compelling herself to be strictly just to Beauclerk, but the effort is too much for her. She fails to do it naturally, and so gives a false impression to her listener. Lady Baltimore casts a quick glance at her.

"Rain, what is rain?" says she.

"There was storm, too, a violent storm; you must have felt it here."

"No storm should have prevented his return. He should have thought only of you."

A little bitter smile curls the girl's lips: it seems a farce to suggest that he should have thought of her. He! Now with her eyes effectually opened, a certain scorn of herself, in that he should have been able so easily to close them, takes possession of her. Is his sister blind still to his defects, that she expects so much from him; has she not read him rightly yet? Has she yet to learn that he will never consider any one, where his own interests, comforts, position, clash with theirs?

"You look distressed, tired. I believe you are fretting about this," says Lady Baltimore, with a little kindly bantering laugh. "Don't be a silly child. Nobody has said or thought anything that has not been kindly of you. Did you sleep last night? No. I can see you didn't. There, lie down, and get a little rest before luncheon. I shall send you up a glass of champagne and a biscuit; don't refuse it."

She pulls down the blinds, and goes softly out of the room to her boudoir, where she finds Beauclerk awaiting her.

He is lounging comfortably on a satin fauteuil, looking the very beau ideal of pleasant, careless life. He makes his sister a present of a beaming smile as she enters.

"Ah! good morning, Isabel. I am afraid we gave you rather a fright; but you see it couldn't be helped. What an evening and night it turned out! By Jove! I thought the water works above were turned on for good at last and for ever. We felt like the Babes in the Wood—abandoned, lost. Poor, dear Miss Kavanagh! I felt so sorry for her! You have seen her, I hope," his face has now taken the correct lines of decorous concern. "She is not over fatigued?"

"She looks tired! depressed!" says Lady Baltimore, regarding him seriously. "I wish, Norman, you had come home last evening."

"What! and bring Miss Kavanagh through all that storm!"

"No, you could have left her at Falling. I wish you had come home."

"Why?" with an amused laugh. "Are you afraid I have compromised myself?"

"I was not thinking of you. I am more afraid," with a touch of cold displeasure, "of your having compromised Miss Kavanagh. There are such things as gossips in this curious world. You should have left Joyce in Mrs. Connolly's safe keeping, and come straight back here."

"To be laid up with rheumatism during the whole of the coming winter! Oh! most unnatural sister, what is it you would have desired of me?"

"You showed her great attention all this summer," says Lady Baltimore.

"I hope I showed a proper attention to all your guests."

"You were very specially attentive to her."

"To Miss Kavanagh, do you mean?" with a puzzled air. "Ah! well, yes. Perhaps I did give more of my time to her and to Miss Maliphant than to the others."

"Ah! Miss Maliphant! one can understand that," says his sister, with an intonation that is not entirely complimentary.

"Can one? Here is one who can't, at all events. I confess I tried very hard to bring myself to the point there, but I failed. Nature was too strong for me. Good girl, you know, but—er—awful!"

"We were not discussing Miss Maliphant, we were talking of Joyce," icily.

"Ah, true!" as if just awakening to a delightful fact. "And a far more charming subject for discussion, it must be allowed. Well, and what of Joyce—you call her Joyce?"

"Be human, Norman!" says Lady Baltimore, with a sudden suspicion of fire in her tone. "Forget to pose once in a way. And this time it is important. Let me hear the truth from you. She seems unhappy, uncertain, nervous. I like her. There is something real, genuine, about her. I would gladly think, that——Do you know," she leans towards him, "I have sometimes thought you were in love with her."

"Have you? Do you know, so have I," with a frankness very admirable. "She is one of the most agreeable girls of my acquaintance. There is something very special about her. I'm not surprised that both you and I fell into a conclusion of that sort."

"Am I to understand by that——?"

"Just one thing. I am too poor to marry."

"With that knowledge in your mind, you should not have acted towards her as you did yesterday. It was a mistake, believe me. You should have come home alone, or else brought her back as your promised wife."

"Ah! what a delightful vista you open up before me, but what an unkind one, too," says Mr. Beauclerk, with a little reproachful uplifting of his hands and brows. "Have you no bowels of compassion? You know how the charms of domestic life have always attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely to taunt and disappoint me?"

"I am neither Joyce nor Miss Maliphant," says Lady Baltimore, with ill-suppressed contempt. "I wish you would try to remember that, Norman; it would spare time and trouble. You speak of Joyce as if she were the woman you love, and yet—would you subject the woman you love to unkind comment? If you cared you would not have treated her as——"

"Ah, if I did care for her," interrupts he.

"Well, don't you?" sternly.

She has risen, and is looking down at him from the full height of her tall, slender figure, that now looks taller than usual.

"Oh, immensely!" declares Mr. Beauclerk, airily. "My dear girl, you can't have studied me not to know that; as I have told you, I think her charming. Quite out of the common—quite."

"That will do," shortly.

"You condemn me," says he, in an aggrieved tone that has got something of amused surprise in it. "Yet you know—you of all others—how poor a devil I am! So poor, that I do not even permit the idea of marriage in my head."

"Perhaps, however, you have permitted it to enter into hers!" says Lady Baltimore.

"Oh, my dear Isabel!" with a light laugh and a protesting glance. "Do you think she would thank you for that suggestion?"

"You should think. You should think," says Lady Baltimore, with some agitation. "She is a very young girl. She has lived entirely in the country. She knows nothing—nothing," throwing out her hand. "She is not awake to all the intriguing, lying, falsity," with a rush of bitter disgust, "that belongs to the bigger world beyond—the terrible world outside her own quiet one here."

"She is quiet here, isn't she?" says Beauclerk, with admirable appreciation. "Pity to take her out of it. Eh? And yet, so far as I can see, that is the cruel task you would impose on me."

"Norman," says his sister, turning suddenly and for the first time directly toward him.

"Well, my dear. What?" throwing one leg negligently over the other. "It really comes to this, doesn't it? That you want me to marry a certain somebody, and that I think I cannot afford to marry her. Then it lies in the proverbial nutshell."

"The man who cannot afford to marry should not afford himself the pleasures of flirtations," says Lady Baltimore, with decision.

"No? Is that your final opinion? Good heavens! Isabel, what a brow! What a terrible glance! If," smiling, "you favor Baltimore with this style of thing whenever you disapprove of his smallest action I don't wonder he jibs so often at the matrimonial collar. You advised me to think just now; think yourself, my good Isabel, now and then, and probably you will find life easier."

He is still smiling delightfully. He flings out this cruel gibe indeed in the most careless manner possible.

"Ah! forget me," says she in a manner as careless as his own. If she has quivered beneath that thrust of his, at all events she has had strength enough to suppress all signs of it. "Think—not of her—I daresay she will outlive it—but of yourself."

"What would you have me do then?" demands he, rising here and confronting her. There is a good deal of venom in his handsome face, but Lady Baltimore braves it.

"I would have you act as an honorable man," says she, in a clear, if icy tone.

"You go pretty far, Isabel, very far, even for a sister," says he presently, his face now white with rage. "A moment ago I gave you some sound advice. I give you more now. Attend to your own affairs, which by all account require looking after, and let mine alone."

He is evidently furious. His sister makes a little gesture towards the door.

"Your taking it like this does not mend matters," she says calmly, "it only makes them, if possible, worse. Leave me!"

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CHAPTER XXVI.