Chapter Thirty Six.

“Comes a little cloudlet ’twixt ourselves and heaven,
And from all the river fades the silver track;
Put thine arms around me, whisper low, Forgiven,
See how on the river starlight settles back!”
Lord Lytton.

When Anthony was looking down upon the fir-trees, there were two people standing under them, and talking earnestly. One of them was putting out her hand and saying in a voice which was very sad and kind,—

“I believe I am a hundred years older than you, Frank. Do people’s hearts go on getting older and older at this rate, I wonder? I don’t seem to feel as if all that you are saying could be so. Perhaps I am beginning not to feel anything any more.”

“Don’t disbelieve me,” Frank said eagerly. “That is all I ask you, Winifred. Only try to believe how dearly I love you, and trust me, or let me have time to show you.”

She did not turn away from him, she did not even take away her hand which he had clasped, and yet nothing in her attitude or in her eyes seemed to have grown nearer to him during that moment in which they stood so close to each other under the fir-trees, a little hidden from the soft, warm sun. Winifred stood as if she were thinking, but it might have been of something outside herself, and with which she was only concerned as a looker-on. Her face was tenderly grave, but Frank sought in vain for any glow which should answer his. She was silent so long, however, that at last he could bear it no longer, and said in a voice which was all uneven and broken,—

“What do you say, Winifred? You will not refuse me that one little promise?”

She said immediately, looking into his face with unshrinking eyes,—

“Ah, Frank, it is because it is so little that I feel I dare not give it. Dear Frank, what are you offering me?—do you think I do not know its worth?—and for all your heart you ask no more than just a little dead sufferance. You want to give everything, and to have nothing back again.”

“What you call nothing—” began Frank, flushing, but she interrupted him quickly, with a new tone of pain in her voice.

“No, no,—why do we go on talking?—let us try to forget it all, let us try to be dear friends always, but do not ask me to do you a wrong which would make me hate myself.”

Winifred might have been impetuously thrusting back something. Perhaps she was: perhaps she had a little secret, impatient longing to escape somehow, anyhow, from the associations which imprisoned her. Frank, who knew all her little story, and knew no more than she who was coming at that moment with swift steps across the dewy grass, looked at her, and felt his heart sink, though he had not lost all hope. He could wait a lifetime, he thought, and patient waiting must gain her at last. Just then the little iron gate clicked as Anthony came through: he saw them standing with clasped hands, saw Winifred look up, and turn away quickly to the house. Was his secret misgiving true?—was it too late, after all? He half stopped; but Frank had seen him, and was strolling towards him.

The two men did not meet very cordially, but they went through the usual conventionalities.

“So you’re not off?” said Anthony.

Captain Orde, whose face was white, and whose hand was not quite so steady as usual, took out his fusee-box and struck a light.

“No, I’m not off till to-morrow,” he said, lighting his cigar slowly. “Will you have a cigar? I shall make one push for it to Colchester. Do you ever come that way?”

“Not nowadays. Though I don’t know where I shall find myself next. Sometimes I think of travelling for a year or two.”

“You don’t mean just knocking about Europe?”

“No, I should go farther afield.”

Captain Orde gave him a quick, rather questioning glance, and walked on silently.

“How will that agree with your other prospects?” he said at last.

“I have no particular prospects, as you call them,” said Anthony, shortly. “If you mean the engagement in which I had the honour to be concerned, it has come to an end.”

“Does Winifred know this?” Frank was asking very gravely in a moment.

“How should she?” said Anthony, angrily. He was intending to speak without excitement, but that little scene under the fir-trees danced up and down before his eyes. “You need not think that I shall tell her,” he went on in hot tumult, “for probably at this time Miss Chester is too much taken up with her own affairs to have thought to bestow upon those of other people.”

“Miss Chester is not going to marry me, if that is what you mean,” said Captain Orde, quietly. “I have asked her—more than once—and now for the last time.”

He spoke in a dull strained voice. For him there was neither charm nor glory, only a dreary pain, a grey colourless sky. Anthony was not worthy of Winifred, but, alas, did he not know that she cared for him; that she was at this very moment, perhaps, weeping for the helplessness, the sadness of her love; that he, whose path must not touch hers any more, might send her the light and joy for which she longed? He did not hear much of what Anthony was saying, until he found that he had left him, and was making his way towards the house with quick, hopeful steps. Frank, who was going up to the clump, stood still and watched. It is a little hard to run for a prize, and see it carried off by some one who has never seemed to set his heart upon it. When a man has struggled neck and neck with you, it is easier to yield than to another who has loitered carelessly, and yet comes up, and sweeps by with triumphant ease. Anthony was going to his victory, while Frank was left out in the cold. Yet, if there are failures out of which grow success, so also there are defeats which bring rejoicing songs, though we do not hear them yet, and all that reaches us is the sadness of sighing and the weariness of tears.

Winifred was crossing the hall as Anthony Miles came in. Mrs Orde had caught her for some consultation about Bessie’s masters, and she had been obliged for a little while to make and answer indifferent remarks while every nerve was on the strain, until she could bear it no longer, and, escaping from the room, was, as I have said, just crossing the hall when Anthony Miles came in.

There must be a world of subtile influences in the midst of which we live, and which is not the least wonderful part of our existence. As he, seeing her, stood for a moment with the door in his hand, the pretty lights and shades and trembling sunshine behind him, and his face so much in shadow that it was impossible for her hasty, tearful glance to read its expression, what strange joy sent a new thrill into her heart, and quickened it with intensest life? What swift movement of pity, tender and womanly, went out to Frank with the touch of wondering compassion for sorrows past so long ago, that since she had known of them night had turned into day, winter into spring, perplexity into contentment? It all only lasted for a moment, but why had it been? Anthony’s own glow of eagerness died out of his heart as he came upon her in that sudden fashion, looked at her standing in the delicate light, and felt as if he could not say a word. To them both that instant seemed endless, and yet it was only an instant.

For then they came back to—realities, shall we say? Anthony left the sunshine and sparkling greens behind him, and walked into the hall where Winifred was waiting and putting out her hand calmly.

“How is Mrs Miles?” she said, “Bessie was going to take the club books to her this afternoon, for I am ashamed to say that we have kept them two or three days beyond our time.”

“What will Mrs Featherly do to you?” said Anthony, holding her hand in his.

I do not think they were either of them conscious of what he was about. Perhaps it is part of the mystery of that strange world of which I have been speaking that there are states of feeling in which things that would thrill us at other times come and go quite unnoticed, and both Winifred and Anthony believed that they were cool and self-possessed, and did not think that he had her hand in his. Sniff, who had been in wild pursuit of a rabbit, dashed in at this moment, and flung himself down panting in a dark corner.

“Were you coming into the garden?” said Anthony. “Will you come?”

Winifred remembered Frank, and flushed and withdrew her hand.

“I don’t think I can,” she said, shaking her head. “I owe so many letters that it quite frightens me to think about it.”

“One day can make very little difference,” urged Anthony. “Pray come; I have something to tell you.”

She looked at him, and that first flash of conviction had so faded away that her heart swelled with the thought, “He is come to tell me of their marriage.” It did not cause her any surprise, but it made her hand tremble as she took down her garden hat and went slowly out into the sunshine. Once there, she began to walk quickly, so that Anthony became a little vexed by the idea that she wished to avoid listening to him. The path was so narrow that he could not walk by her side, until presently it led to a wider part where were some horse-chestnuts bursting into leaf, and Winifred stood still and leaned over the iron railings to coax an old pet pony of the Squire’s. It was one of those soft bright growing days which are the most perfect in the world. Things were thrusting themselves out, calling, answering. Broken lights fell tenderly on the delicate tints. Sheets of pure blossoms swelled round the farms; the air was full of young, hopeful scents, of dancing insects; the grass was starred with innumerable daisies; a little troop of lambs came rushing up from, the end of the field, and leaped away again at sight of Sniff. Does Arcadia come sometimes?—Have we all felt it? It was Anthony on whom it was smiling now while he looked at Winifred, at her cheek a little turned from him, at the pretty curve of her arm as she held out some leaves for the old pony to nibble. As for her, she was thinking of an Arcadia for him and for another. And Frank, who had got up to the clump by this time, and could just see the two figures below him in the midst of all this peaceful greenery, thought that Arcadia had already begun for them. It looks like fairy-land to those that are shut out, and still its loveliness is not enough to satisfy us, little as we believe it. There are sweeter countries yet, though no outward beauty makes us long for them, and we see the dusty feet of the pilgrims, and the sadness of the journey, while the smile upon their hearts is hidden from us for a time. Arcadia may lie on the road, but it is not the end, and we may pass through other and harsher ways, and yet meet those we love. And up there under the trees were the sweet breezes, and the sunshine, and the larks singing overhead. Do not fear. There is no desolation in God’s earth.

“You have not heard what I came to tell you,” said Anthony, doubtfully.

The old pony’s head was close to Winifred, and she was twisting his white forelock round her fingers. The words did not come easily with which she wanted to assure him that she had guessed his errand, and at last she spoke hastily, though with no disturbance in her voice.

“Is it that your marriage day is fixed? If so you must let us wish you joy.”

“No, it is not that. It is just the reverse,” he said, with an unreasonable feeling that Winifred ought to know and understand all at once. She looked round at him with quick surprise, but she did not answer in any other manner, and he was obliged to go on. “Miss Lovell has changed her mind, and prefers marrying some one else.”

“You are laughing!” said Winifred, flushing angrily. “And it is not kind. You may suppose we care about it.”

“But I am not laughing,” said Anthony, in a low voice. When she looked at him, and saw that he was very grave, her hand began to tremble a little. He had become suddenly despairing with the conviction that it was an impossible thing to say, “I was engaged this morning to another woman, and yet I have always loved you;” he felt as if he dared not treat her so, and yet that he could not leave her.

“I don’t understand it,” Winifred began to say slowly. “Do you mean that she has been so heartless and cruel? O, I don’t think so, it is a mistake; you fancy things sometimes which people do not intend in the least! Have you been to Underham? Have you seen Miss Lovell yourself?”

“I have seen Mr Bennett. I assure you it was put in the plainest possible English. Young Warren is the lucky fellow.”

Perhaps her anger was useful, as it occasionally is, in keeping off other emotions. She threw back her head, with a gesture she sometimes used, a flush was on her cheek, and her eyes sparkled.

“How can you speak like that!” she said passionately. “I hate that people should pretend not to care for what hurts them. Why can’t you let us be sorry for you?”

“Because I am not sorry for myself, Winifred,” he said in a changed, deep tone. He took her hand in his, and held it close, and looked down into her eyes. “Because I have known for some time that the maddest mistake I ever made in my life was when I asked Ada Lovell to marry me. Because I feel as if a weight were lifted off my heart. Because I can breathe now, and live,—yes, and love,—I must say it, Winifred, my darling—”

For she had caught back her hand, and was standing, drawn to her full height, with her breath coming quickly, and no softening in her eyes. The words fell away from his lips. He, too, stood still and silent, looking at her with a dreary sinking of his heart. So this was the end.

“You are right,” he said, quietly, in another moment. “I ought to have known better. Well,—at least you will say good by? Things don’t straighten themselves in the way we are fools enough to dream they will. Good by, Winifred. Come, you’ll say good bye?”

He stood still for another minute, waiting, and a lark that had been singing jubilantly overhead dropped swiftly down in a hush of tender silence. Winifred scarcely dared move, Anthony’s tone heaped pain upon her heart, tears rushed into her eyes, but she said “Good bye,” putting out her hand, at which he caught.

“No, it is not good by,” he said suddenly. “Why should I be sent away?”

There was a quick change in his voice which set a hundred conflicting strings vibrating in her heart. How dared he speak in such a tone, and yet how dear it was! His strong feeling was carrying her with it, but she still found voice to say,—

“How can I know what you mean? How can you be one thing one day and another the next?” But Anthony disregarded the reproach. He said eagerly, “If you don’t love me, at least we are old friends; let us go back to what we were, and begin again. Don’t you think if you were to try very hard you might learn to like me a little bit, just a little bit?”

“I cannot learn to like you,” said Winifred, simply, “because we have always liked each other, and there can be no beginning again.” She said this very quietly, and then suddenly broke down. “O Anthony, Anthony,” she said, covering her face with her hands, “you have made it so difficult!”

And then she was in his arms. She had never consented, and yet he held her close to him. “My darling,” he said under his breath, “can you forgive me?”

Forgive him? Ah, yes, she loved him, and love will lavish forgiveness with a free hand, and a sweet joy in the bounty of its giving. If it were not so, how would it be with any of us? Was there ever such a moment,—so rich, so tender? And yet there must be better things, or Frank would not have been up there under the clump alone, there would not be so many sad hearts in the world, David Stephens would not have been lying under the grass.

Well, we shall know it all one day.

Very little has been said of late touching Marmaduke and his wife, the truth being that there is very little to say. They lived what must be called a prosperous life; at least, if there were any signs of disturbance in the midst of it, they were not such as became apparent to their neighbours. It was sometimes said that Mrs Lee was cold and distant, even with her husband, and that her looks had changed since her marriage, but her ill health was supposed to account satisfactorily for this, and nothing ever reached the ears of the outer world which could make it suppose that they were not a happy couple. Miss Philippa lived with them, by Mrs Lee’s especial request, and there could be no doubt of her happiness. But no children were born, and rumour declared, how truly it is impossible to say, that, after Mr and Mrs Lee died, their money would be bequeathed to a great London charity.

Anthony’s first attempt to find Margaret Hare’s husband and child had been checked by the despondency with which he had been visited when his world had lost its faith in him; but under a new spring of energy, he and Mr Robert were soon able to track the wanderers in Australia. Some of the circumstances were communicated to the father; he, however, utterly rejected all old Mr Tregennas’s intentions as a too late atonement. He was wealthy, and there was but one girl, and the certain hard determination which had carried him up in the struggle for existence now made him obstinately resolute against accepting his father-in-law’s money.

Anthony, Winifred, and their children live in London, but are often in Thorpe, where there are both living and dead to draw them, besides its own quiet and tender beauty. Anthony’s life was, perhaps, too soon filled with the things it wanted to admit of its ever becoming great in the manner in which people talk of greatness. But it is an exceedingly active and useful life, in the course of which he has made war upon more than one hydra-headed monster, and that with a success of which he often said his wife ought to share half the praise. She used to smile when she heard this, thinking of the many things which had helped her champion, besides her happy love. And, indeed, the influences that mould our lives are often scarcely known to ourselves, and come from as many sides as the winds that sweep the earth.

The End.