Carità

CHAPTER XXXII.

TAKING UP DROPT STITCHES.

Next day Mr. Beresford paid Mrs. Meredith a visit of condolence. It was natural and necessary, considering their friendship; but the manner in which that friendship had been interrupted, and the occasion upon which it was resumed, were both embarrassing. It had been a short note from Maxwell which had communicated the news to him, and in this it had been taken for granted that he would now remain at home. Old Mr. Sommerville had himself communicated the information to Maxwell, and his letter was enclosed. ‘I hear your friend Beresford had made up his mind to go away, out of consideration for Mrs. Meredith,’ he had written, ‘which was very gentlemanly on his part, and showed fine feeling. I think it right accordingly to let you know at once of the great change which has taken place in her position. I have received the news this morning of her husband and my poor friend John Meredith’s death at Calcutta on the 3rd inst. It was sudden, but not quite unexpected, as he had been suffering from fever. This of course changes Mrs. Meredith’s situation altogether. She is now a widow, and of course responsible to no one. I would not for the world be answerable for depriving her of the sympathy of a kind friend, which may in the long run be so important for her, at a period of trouble. So I trust you will communicate the news to your friend with the least possible delay. I have not seen Mrs. Meredith; but as they have been long separated, I do not doubt that she bears the loss with Christian composure,’ said the sharp-witted old man. ‘I send you old Sommerville’s letter,’ Mr. Maxwell added on his own account; ‘it does not require any comment of mine; and of course you will act as you think proper; but my own opinion is, that he is an old busybody, making suggestions of patent absurdity.’ Mr. Beresford was much nettled by this note. Whatever Sommerville’s suggestion might mean it was for him to judge of it, not Maxwell, who thrust himself so calmly into other people’s business. Sommerville’s letter might not have pleased him by itself, but Maxwell’s gloss was unpardonable. He tore it up and threw it into his waste-basket with unnecessary energy. But for that perhaps he might have felt more abashed by the embarrassing character of the reunion; but being thus schooled, he rebelled. He went to the house next door in the afternoon, towards the darkening. The spring sunshine had died away, and the evening was cold as winter almost. There had been no reception that day—visitor after visitor had been sent away with the news of the ‘bereavement.’ The same word has to be used whether the loss is one which crushes all delight out of life, or one which solemnly disturbs the current for a moment, to leave it only brighter than before. All the servants at Mrs. Meredith’s were preternaturally solemn. The aspect of the house could not have been more funereal had half the population succumbed. Already, by some wonderful effort of millinery, the maids as well as their mistress had got their black gowns.

Mrs. Meredith herself sat in the drawing-room, crape from head to foot, in all the crispness of a fresh widow’s cap. Never was black so black, or white so white. She had an innocent satisfaction in heaping up this kind of agony. Already a design drawn by Oswald was in the hands of the goldsmith for a locket to hold her husband’s hair. She would not bate a jot of anything that the most bereaved mourner could do to show her ‘respect.’ Even the tears were ready, and they were sincere tears. A pang of compunction, a pang of regret, of remorseful pity and tenderness, melted her heart, and there was a certain pleasure of melancholy in all this which made it spontaneous. It was the very luxury of sentiment, to be able to feel your heart untouched underneath, and yet to be so deeply, unfeignedly sorry, to be so true a mourner at so little real cost. Mrs. Meredith held out her hand to her visitor as he came in—he was the only one whom she had received.

‘This is kind,’ she said—‘very kind. As you were always such a good friend to us, I could not say no to you.’

‘I was very sorry,’ he said; as indeed what else was there to say?

‘Oh, yes, I knew you would feel for us. It was so sudden—quite well when the last mail came in, and this one to bring such news! You scarcely knew him; and, oh, I feel it so much now, that none of my friends, that not even the boys knew him as they ought to have known him. It seems as if it must have been my fault.’

‘That it could never have been. You must not reproach yourself; though one always does, however the loss happens,’ he said, in a low and sorrowful tone. He was thinking of his wife, for whom he had mourned with the intensity of despair, but the same words answered both cases. He stood as he had done the last time he was there, not looking at her in her panoply of mourning, but looking dreamily into the fire. And she cried a little, with a childish sob in her throat. The grief was perfectly real, childlike, and innocent. He was much more affected by the recollection of that last meeting at which he had taken leave of her than she was—he remembered it better. The new incident even kept her from seeing anything more than the most ordinary every-day fact, one friend coming to see another, in his return.

‘I suppose you have no details?’

‘Not one. We cannot hear till the next mail. It will be some comfort to have particulars. Poor John! he was always so strong, one never had any fear. I was the one that could not stand the climate; and yet I am left and he is taken!’

‘But you have not been exposed to the climate,’ said Mr. Beresford. She was not wise in these expressions of her personal grief, though her friends always thought her so wise in her sympathy. She resumed softly:

‘I have no fears about the boys to embitter my grief. I know they will be well cared for. He was so good a father, though he had them so little with him. Oh, why did you not tell me to send him one of the boys?’

Mr. Beresford would have felt himself the cruellest of malignants, had he ventured to make such a suggestion in former days, but he did not say this now. ‘You did what you thought was best for them,’ he said.

‘Ah, yes,’ she said eagerly, ‘for them; there was their education to be thought of. That was what I considered; but I do not think—do you think,’ she added, with an unconscious clasping of her hands and entreating look, ‘that, since the great occasion for it is over—Edward need go to India now?’

The form of the speech was that of an assertion—the tone that of a question. She might follow her own inclinations like other people; but she liked to have them sanctioned and approved by her friends.

‘Surely not, if you don’t wish it. There is only your wish to be considered.’

‘It is not myself I am thinking of. It is for him,’ she said, faltering. Of all things that could happen to her, she was least willing to allow that her own will or wish had any share in her decisions. It was a weakness which perhaps the more enlightened of her friends were already aware of. As for Mr. Beresford, he was more critical of her than ever he had been before, although more entirely sympathetic, more ready to throw himself into her service. She looked at him so anxiously. She wanted his opinion and the support of his concurrence. There was nothing for him to do, to be of use as he proposed, but to agree with her, to support what she had thought of—that was friendship indeed.

On the next day Miss Cherry paid a similar visit of condolence, but she was not so tenderly sympathetic as, under other circumstances, she would naturally have been. She looked at the new-made widow with a critical eye. A short time before no one had been more anxious than Miss Cherry that Mrs. Meredith should suffer no harm, should lose no title of respect due to her. She had with her own soft hand struck a blow, the severity of which astonished herself, at her favourite and only brother on Mrs. Meredith’s account; but the sudden revolution in their neighbour’s affairs, instead of touching her heart, closed it. The position was changed, and a hundred tremors and terrors took at once possession of her gentle bosom. Who could doubt what James would wish now—what James would do? and who could doubt that the woman who had permitted him so intimate a friendship would respond to these wishes? This idea leaped at once into the minds of all the lookers-on. Old Sommerville sent the news with a chuckle of grim cynicism yet kindness; Maxwell communicated it with a grudge; and Miss Cherry received it with an instant conviction yet defiance. They had no doubt of what would, nay, must ensue, and jumped at the conclusion with unanimous agreement; and it would be quite true to say that Mr. Meredith’s death brought quite as great a pang to Miss Cherry, who had never seen him, as it did to his wife, though in a different way. If the first marriage, the natural youthful beginning of serious life, brings often with it a train of attendant embarrassments, almost miseries, what is a second marriage to do? Good Miss Cherry’s maidenly mind was shocked by the idea that her brother, so long held up somewhat proudly by the family as an example of conjugal fidelity and true sorrow, had allowed feelings less exalted to get possession of him. And what would Cara do? How would her imaginative delicate being, too finely touched for common issues, conform to the vulgar idea of a stepmother? Miss Cherry grew hot and angry as she thought of it. And a man who had such a child, a grown-up daughter, sweetest and only fit substitute for the mother dead, what did he want with a new companion, a new love? Faugh! to use such a word disgusted her; and that James—James! the most heart-broken and inconsolable of mourners, should come to that! With all this in her mind, it may be supposed that Miss Cherry’s feelings when she went to see Mrs. Meredith and found her in all her crape, crying softly by the fire, were not so sweet as they ought to have been. She said the usual things in the way of consolation—how, as it was to be, perhaps it was best that they had heard of it all at once, and had not been kept in anxiety; and how she supposed such afflictions were necessary for us, though it was very sad that the dear boys had known so little of their father; but, on the other hand, how that fact must soften it to them all, for of course it was not as if he had died at home, where they would have felt the loss every day. This last speech had a sting in it, which was little intentional, and yet gave Miss Cherry a sense of remorse after it was said; for though she had a certain desire to give pain, momentary, and the result of much provocation, yet the moment the pain was given, it was herself who suffered most. This is what it is to have a soft nature; most people have at least a temporary satisfaction in the result when they have been able to inflict a wound.

‘Oh, yes, my dear, she feels it, I suppose,’ Miss Cherry said, when she returned. ‘She was sitting over the fire, and the room much too warm for the season; for it is really like spring to-day. Of course a woman must feel it more or less when she has lost her husband. I have never been in these circumstances, but I don’t see how one could help that—however little one cared for the man.’

‘Did she care little for the man?’ Cara was at the age when most things are taken for granted. She had not entered into any peculiarities in the position of Mrs. Meredith with her husband. She was like Hamlet, recognising more and more, as she realised her own position, the quagmires and unsafe footing round her—was this another? There was a sinking sensation in Cara’s youthful mind, and a doubt and faltering wherever she thought to place her foot.

‘My dear child,’ said Miss Cherry, ‘when a woman spends years after years away from her husband, never making any effort to join him, quite satisfied with a letter now and then, receiving her own friends, making a circle, going into society—while the poor man is toiling to keep it up, thousands and thousands of miles away’—here Miss Cherry paused, a little frightened by the blackness of the picture which she had herself drawn. ‘I hope I am not doing anyone injustice,’ she faltered. ‘Oh, my dear, you may be sure I don’t mean that. And I believe poor Mrs. Meredith could not stand the climate, and of course there was the boys’ education to think of—children always must come home. Indeed, how anyone can settle in India knowing that their children must be sent away——’

‘Aunt Cherry, no one is to be trusted,’ said the girl, tears coming to her eyes; ‘there is no truth anywhere. We are all making a pretence one way or another; pretending to care for people who are living, pretending to mourn for people who are dead; pretending that one thing is our object, while we are trying for another; pretending to be merry, pretending to be sad. Ah! it makes my heart sick!’

‘Cara, Cara! What do you know about such things? They say it is so in the world, but you and I have very little to do with the world, dear. You must not think—indeed, indeed, you must not think that it is so with us.’

‘I don’t know anything of the world,’ said Cara. ‘I only know what is round me. If Mrs. Meredith is false, and papa false, and other people——’

‘My dear,’ said Miss Cherry, trembling a little, ‘it is always dangerous to apply abstract principles so. When I say that Mrs. Meredith was a long time away from her husband, I do not say that she is false. Oh, Cara, no! that would be terrible. If I say anything, all I mean is that she could not be so grieved, not so dreadfully grieved, as a woman would be whose husband had been always with her. Think of the boys, for instance; they did not know him really; they may be very sorry; but, how different would it be if it was a father like your father! And other people—what do you mean by other people?’

‘Nothing,’ said Cara, turning away, for she could not reply to Miss Cherry’s argument. Would she indeed, in her own person, grieve for her father more than the Merediths did for theirs? Here was another mystery unpenetrated by Miss Cherry, incomprehensible to herself. Nobody knew the gulf that lay between her and him, and she could not tell herself what it meant. How kind he had been to her, though she repaid him in this way; but did he love—really love—his child any more than she loved him? Did anybody love any other, or only pretend and go through the semblance of loving? She did not doubt her aunts, it is true; but then her certainty in respect to them took, to some degree, the form of indifference. Taken for granted, not inquired into, that love itself might have failed, perhaps—but Cara never thought of it as possible. It was like the sunny house it dwelt on, always open, due not to anything in her, but to the mere fact that she was Cara. They would have loved any other kind of girl, she said to herself, under the same name just as well. Poor child! she was like Hamlet, though unaware of that sublimity. Friends, lovers, relations, all had failed her. Every soul thought of himself—no one truly or unfeignedly of others. Her head swam, her heart sank, the firm ground gave way under her feet wherever she turned. It might not cost the others much, but it cost her a great deal; even she herself in her own person: did she love more truly than they did? No; she was not devoted to her father, nor to Oswald, whom she was supposed to care for; and if to—anyone else, then they did not care for her, Cara said to herself, and fled from her thoughts with a beating heart.

That evening there was an interchange of visits, something in the old fashion. Edward thought he might come in, in the evening, when the public about would not be scandalised by the idea that he was able to visit his friends so soon after his father’s death; and Mr. Beresford said to himself that, surely he might go for a little to comfort his neighbour who was in trouble, and who had not herself been out of doors for these two long days. The young man and the older man crossed each other, but without meeting; and both of the visits were very pleasant. Miss Cherry was as kind to Edward as she had been cold to his mother. She got up to meet him and took his two hands in hers. She called him, inarticulately, her dear boy, and asked after his health tenderly, as if he had been ill. As for Cara, she did nothing but look at him with a wistful look, trying to read in his eyes what he felt; and when her aunt entered into the usual commonplaces about resignation to God’s will, Cara broke in almost abruptly, impatient even of this amiable fiction.

‘You forget what you were saying to-day,’ she said: ‘that Edward did not know his father, and therefore could not grieve as—I should.’

‘That is quite true,’ he said, ‘and therefore it is a different kind of feeling. Not the grief that Cara would feel; but that painful sense of not being able to feel, which is almost worse. I never thought of my father—scarcely knew him. Some time, of course, we were to meet—that was all; and gratitude to him, or any attempt to repay him, was not in my thoughts. And now it is impossible ever, in any place, were one to go to the world’s end—or at any time, were one to live as long as Methuselah, to say a kind word to him, to try to make up to him a little. This is more painful than Cara’s worst grief would be, knowing she had done everything, made everything bright.’

‘Oh, no, no!’ she said, putting up her hands.

‘Ah, yes, yes!’ he said, looking at her with melting eyes, softened and enlarged by the moisture in them, and smiling upon her. Cara, in her confusion, could not meet the look and the smile.

‘Oh, Edward,’ she said, ‘it is you who are the best of us all. I am not good, as you think me. I am a sham, like all the rest; but if there is one that is true——’

‘Cara is foolish,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘I don’t know what is come to her, Edward. She talks as if nobody was to be relied upon; but I suppose she is at the age of fancy, when girls take things into their heads. I remember when I was your age, my darling, I had a great many fancies too. And I am afraid I have some still, though I ought to know better. I suppose you will take your mother away somewhere, Edward, for a little change?’

‘I have not heard anything about it, Miss Cherry; but there will be one change, most likely, very important to me, if I settle to do it. I need not go out to India now—unless I please.’

‘Oh, Edward, I am so glad; for, of course, you would not wish it—you did not wish it?’

‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘I did not wish it; but, after all, if that seemed the best way to be good for something—to make some use of one’s life——’

He spoke to Miss Cherry, but his eyes were on Cara. If she had said anything; if she had even lifted her eyes; if she had made any sign to show that even as her brother—her husband’s brother—he could be of use to her! But Cara made no reply either by word or look. She put her hand nervously upon the book which lay on the table—the book he had been reading.

‘Oh, Cara, you must not think of that,’ said Miss Cherry; ‘we can’t be so selfish as to ask Edward to read to-night.’

‘Yes; let me read,’ he said. ‘Why should not I? I am glad to do anything after these two days. It seemed unkind to him, not to make some break in life—though I don’t know why; and there is nothing within reach to do. Let me read.’

Then Cara looked at him, with eyes like his own, suffused; her heart was melting, her mind satisfied. ‘But this is the one who does not care for me,’ she was saying to herself.

Next door there was less conversation between the elder people. Mr. Beresford tried, indeed, to take upon him the part of consoler—to talk to her and lessen her burden; but that change of all their relations did not answer. He fell silent after a while, and she dried her eyes and began to talk to him. The maid who brought up tea announced that Missis had picked up wonderful; while the other servants in the kitchen looked at each other, and shook their heads.

‘Anyhow, that’s better than the other way,’ the cook said, oracularly, ‘and we knows what we has before us—if the young gentlemen don’t find nothing to say.’

CHAPTER XXXIII.

LITTLE EMMY’S VISITORS.

Oswald had found his particular pursuit interrupted by his father’s death. He could not go that day, which happened to be the hospital day, to meet Agnes at the gate; indeed, for once, his own inclinations were, for the moment, driven out of his head; and, in the many things there were to think of, from hatbands upwards, he forgot that this was the day on which alone he could secure a little conversation with the object of his thoughts. When the recollection flashed upon him in the evening, he was more disturbed than was at all usual to his light-hearted nature. What would she think of him? that he had deserted her, after compromising her; an idea equally injurious to his pride and to his affection; for he had so much real feeling about Agnes, that he was not self-confident where she was concerned, and shrank from the idea of appearing in an unfavourable light. Ordinarily, Oswald did not suppose that anyone was likely to look at him in an unfavourable light. And then there was the fear which sprang up hastily within him that this day which he had missed might be the last hospital day. Little Emmy had been gradually getting better, and when she was discharged, what means would he have of seeing Agnes? This thought took away all the pleasure from his cigar, and made him pace back and forward in his room, in all the impatience of impotence, ready to upbraid his father with dying at such an inconvenient moment. Yesterday would not have mattered, or to-morrow—but to-day! How often, Oswald reflected, it happens like this in human affairs. Given an unoccupied day, when an anything might occur without disturbing your arrangement—when, indeed, you have no engagements, and are perfectly free and at the command of fate—nothing, even under the most favourable circumstances, happens; but let it be a moment when something very urgent is on your hands, when you have an opportunity that may never occur again, and immediately earth and heaven conspire to fill it with accidents, and to prevent its necessary use. At that hour, however, nothing could be done. It was nearly midnight, and the House, with all its swarms of children and kindly attendants, must be wrapped in the sleep of the innocent. Would Agnes, he asked himself, share that sleep, or would any troubled thoughts be in her mind touching the stranger who had so sought her society, and who had exposed her to reproof, and then left her to bear it as she might? This, it is to be feared, drove out of Oswald’s mind any feeling he might have had for his father. In any case, such feeling would have been short-lived. He had no visionary compunctions, such as Edward had, though it was Oswald, not Edward, who was supposed to be the poetical one of the brothers; but then Edward was not ‘in love,’ at least not in Oswald’s way.

A week had to elapse before the day on which he could hope to see Agnes again, and this contrariety made him more earnest in his determination to let nothing stand in his way a second time. He was so eager, indeed, that he neglected what would otherwise have been so important in his eyes—the arrival of the mail, which brought definite information as to Mr. Meredith’s property, and must settle what his own prospects were to be.

No man could give a warmer evidence of his love than this he felt within himself as he took his way towards the hospital. During the intervening week he had seen the little teacher almost daily, accompanying the procession of school-girls, and she had, he thought, been conscious that he was there, though she would not look at him. Naturally, Oswald made all he could of his deep hatband, his black gloves, and even the black border of his handkerchief, as he crossed the line; and once he felt that Agnes perceived these indications of woe in a quick glance she gave at him, though she avoided his eyes. This then was a point in his favour—if only little Emmy were still at the hospital. This time he was more bold than usual, and asked to be admitted to see the child, explaining who he was, and what was his connection with the accident. In this respect he took upon himself more than was necessary, blaming himself for being the cause of it—and at length got admittance, his mourning naturally standing him in stead with all the officials. Little Emmy had been by this time transported into the convalescent ward, and was lying on a sofa there, very bright-eyed and pale, looking eagerly, as Oswald saw, with a leap of his heart, for some visitor. When she perceived him a cloud of disappointment passed over her little face, then a glimpse of surprise and recognition, then the swift-rising colour of weakness.

‘Do you know me?’ said Oswald, taking the chair the nurse offered him.

‘Oh, yes!’ cried the child, with a mixture of awe and delight. No further preliminaries were necessary.

He listened, with patience, to an account of all the stages of her recovery, and delicately introduced his own inquiries. The ladies at the House had been very kind to her; had they not? They had come to see her?

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ cried little Emmy. ‘Miss Burchell came every week, and Sister Mary Jane has been twice. Miss Burchell is the kindest of all. I thought she was coming to-day; oh, isn’t she coming to-day?’ the child added, after a pause, looking at him with rising tears. ‘Did she send you instead, please?’ and though Oswald was so grand a gentleman, and his inquiries filled her with pride, yet his possible substitution for her more beloved visitor made Emmy ready to cry. Oswald did not like to be thus thrust into a secondary place, even with a child. A momentary irritation arose in his mind; then he laughed and forgave Emmy, remembering who it was that she preferred to him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said; ‘I have not come instead of Miss—did you say Burchell? Is she one of the Sisters?’ he asked, hypocritically. ‘I thought you called them by their Christian names.’

‘Oh, sir, Miss Burchell is not a Sister. She is the teacher. I am in the third division,’ said the child, with pride; ‘and she teaches us. She is a lady—not like Miss Davies, in the infant school, you know; but a real, real lady. And all the Sisters are ladies. It is for goodness they take care of us, and not because they are obliged. Such a trouble as they take!’ said little Emmy, with the naïve surprise of her class, ‘and for nothing at all! And Miss Burchell is the kindest of them all.’

‘She has come to see you very often?’

‘Oh, sir, every open day! and she told me that—that—you had come to ask for me. She said it was so good and kind. She said, sir, as you were a very kind gentleman, and took an interest in poor children—especially orphans like me.’

‘Yes; I take a great interest in you, my poor little Emmy,’ said Oswald, blushing with pleasure. ‘I think you ought to have change of air after your long illness. Is there not a place where the children at the House go to when they have been ill?’

‘Oh!’ cried the little girl, with eyes as round as her exclamation, ‘Nelly Brown went to Margate after the fever. She used to tell us about the sands and the shells, and riding on donkeys; but Nelly had a kind lady who took an interest in her,’ said Emmy, her countenance falling, ‘and paid for her. There are such a many orphans, sir,’ she added, with a wistful look at him. ‘Such a many! They would do more for us, if there wasn’t such a many of us, Sister Mary Jane says.’

A certain half-aggrieved and serious wonder was in the child’s eyes. Why there should be so many orphans puzzled little Emmy; and she felt that it was a special grievance to her, as one of them, debarred from the privileges which a smaller number might have shared.

‘And you have a kind gentleman, Emmy,’ said Oswald. ‘I hope it comes to the same thing. This is what I came to talk to you about——’

‘Ah, there she is!’ said little Emmy, growing red with delight.

Oswald got up precipitately from his chair. What would she say to find him here already installed before her? She came up, light-footed, in her nun’s dress; her face looked doubly sweet, or so, at least, her young lover thought, in the close circle of the poke-bonnet, to meet the rapture in the child’s eyes.

Agnes had no thought that Oswald was likely to penetrate here; therefore, she did not see him or think of him as she came up to the child, and he was a witness of the clinging to the little orphan’s arms, the tender sweetness of the salutation. Agnes could not have said anything more homely than the ‘How have you been, dear?’ but it sounded like the very softest utterance of loving kindness—maternal, dove-like murmurings, tender and caressing, to Oswald’s ear.

‘Oh, I am well—almost well; and here is the kind gentleman come to see me!’ cried little Emmy.

Agnes turned quickly, and looked at him. She thought it was the surgeon, who was young too, and had shown an almost unprofessional eagerness to explain to her all the peculiarities of this interesting case. When she saw who it really was she turned crimson, gave him a look which was half reproach and half satisfaction, and went away to the other side of the sofa, keeping the little patient between them. This suited both parties very well: for while Agnes felt it at once a demonstration of displeasure and flight out of a dangerous vicinity, it brought her face to face with him, and gave him a favourable point of view for all her changes of countenance. And who could object to his visit here, which charity—only charity—could have brought about? By little Emmy’s sofa, Oswald felt brave enough to defy all the Sisters in the world.

‘I came to inquire into Emmy’s prospects of convalescence,’ said Oswald, insinuatingly; ‘and she tells me there is some place in Margate where children are sent to from the House. If the Sisters will let me pay for the child—she wants sea breezes, I think,’ and he looked at her in a serious parental way, ‘before she can be fit for work again.’

‘Oh, I think they will be very glad!’ said Agnes, somewhat breathless. She did not want him to know that she had as much as remarked his absence; and yet, in spite of herself, there was a slight tone of coldness and offence in her voice.

‘May I ask you to arrange it for me? I don’t know when she will be able to be moved; but when she is—summer is coming on, and the weather is quite genial already.’ (The weather is quite genial generally, one time or other, in April, to take the unwary in.)

‘Oh, yes,’ said Agnes again, assenting out of sheer timidity and embarrassment. Then she said, hesitating a little, ‘Perhaps it would be better to send word to the Sister Superior yourself.’

‘Is it necessary? I have been in great trouble lately, which is why I could not ask for poor Emmy last week,’ he said; and so managed as that the deep hatband should catch the eye of Agnes. Her face softened at once, as he saw, and her eyes, after a momentary glance at the hatband, returned inquiring and kind, not furtive or offended, to his face.

‘I am very sorry,’ she said, looking again at the hat, and in an eager, half-apologetic tone. ‘I will speak of it, if you wish. It is very kind of you to think of her—very kind.’

‘Kind! How can I be sufficiently grateful to Emmy?’ he said, low and quickly, in a tone which the child could not hear; and then he took the little girl’s thin small hand into his, and folded the fingers on a gold coin.

‘This is to hire donkeys on the sands, Emmy,’ he said, ‘but mind you must tell me all about it when you come back.’

‘Oh, sir! Oh, Miss Burchell! look what he has given me,’ said the child in ecstasy. But Oswald knew how to beat a retreat gracefully. He gave a little squeeze to Emmy’s fist, keeping it closed over the sovereign, and, bowing to Agnes, went away.

Was that the last of him? Better, far better, that it should be the last of him, poor Agnes felt, as her heart contracted, in spite of herself, at his withdrawal; but the surprise, and that pang of disappointment, which she would have gone to the stake rather than acknowledge, made her incapable of speech for the moment. It is very wicked and wrong to speak to a gentleman to whom you have never been introduced; but, then, when that gentleman has a legitimate opportunity of making a little acquaintance in a natural way, how strange, and rather injurious, that he should not take advantage of it! This failure of all necessity for resistance at the moment when she was buckling on her best armour to resist, gave an extraordinary twist to Agnes Burchell’s heart. It almost would have brought the tears to her eyes, had not she started in instant self-despair—though she would not have shed such tears for all the treasures of the world.

‘Oh, look what he has given me!’ cried little Emmy, ‘a sovereign, a whole sovereign—all to myself!’

‘He is—very kind,’ said Agnes, stiffly, and she was restrained even in her intercourse with Emmy, not saying half so much to her as she did on ordinary occasions, which was wrong; for, in fact, Emmy could not justly bear blame for anything committed, neither for his coming nor his going away. The child was quite cast down by Miss Burchell’s coldness. She began to inquire if Agnes was ill, if she was tired, if she thought the Sisters would object to let her go to Margate; thus plainly showing that she perceived her visitor’s abstraction, which was, of all things in the world, the last thing which Agnes wished to be remarked. And poor Agnes could not conceal how worried she was by these questions; she could not account for the discouragement, the sickness of heart, that had come over her. She was tired all at once—overcome by the heat or the cold; which was it?

‘It is the spring, miss,’ said the nurse.

And she was very willing to allow that it must be the spring.

‘I will send you word as soon as I have spoken to the Sister,’ she said, kissing little Emmy as she went away; ‘and forgive me, dear—for I have a headache. I have not been able to talk to you to-day.’

‘Oh, have you a headache?’ cried poor little Emmy, ready to cry for sympathy. What perverse things hearts are when they are young! Agnes walked away through the wards the emblem, of peaceful quiet, in her black bonnet, her soft face breathing serenity and ease, as one sufferer and another thought as she passed, but under that conventual drapery a hundred thoughts rustling and stinging, so that the girl was afraid lest they should be heard. Oh, she was glad that he was gone! Glad to be spared the struggle and the necessity for telling him that he must haunt her steps no more. Glad to be let alone, to do her work in peace; her work, that was what she lived for, not absurd romances which she was ashamed even to dream of. Her mind was brimful and running over with these thoughts. It was like carrying a hive full of bees, or a cage full of birds through the place, to walk through it like this, her heart beating, and so many voices whispering in her ears. But suddenly, all at once, as she came out of the great doors, they all hushed in a moment. Her heart stopped (she thought); her thoughts fled like frightened children. She was stilled. Why? It was all for no better reason than that Oswald Meredith was visible at the gate, in his black clothes, looking (the hospital nurses thought) like an interesting young widower, bereaved and pensive, yet not inconsolable. He had put on a look in conformity with his hatband, and stood there waiting for her as she came out, claiming her sympathy. Agnes grew still in a moment, the tumult and the commotion ceasing in her mind as by magic. She tried to look as if she did not see him, and then to pass him when she got out beyond the gate; but he stepped forward quickly into her path.

‘May I ask if you will speak for me about little Emmy?’ he said. ‘The child looks weak and rather excitable. I should like, if the authorities will permit me, to pay her expenses to the sea.’

‘Oh, yes, they will permit you,’ said Agnes, smiling in spite of all her terrors. ‘You are very kind. I will speak—if you wish it.’

‘And write to me,’ said Oswald, eagerly. ‘It will be necessary to write to me to let me know.’

But Agnes demurred to this easy settlement of the matter. ‘Sister Mary Jane will write. She manages these things herself. But she will be pleased. Good morning,’ she said, making am attempt to quicken her steps.

‘I am going this way,’ said Oswald. ‘I could not come last week. We had bad news.’

She looked up at him, half alarmed, half sympathetic. She was sorry, very sorry, that he should suffer. It was not possible (she thought) to be like the priest and the Levite, pass on on the other side, and pretend to care nothing for one’s neighbour. But then she ought to tell him to go away. So Agnes compounded with her conscience by uttering nothing; all she did was to look up at him with tender brown eyes, so full of pity and interest, that words would have been vain to express all they were able to say.

‘My father is dead in India,’ said Oswald. ‘You may fancy how hard it is upon us to hear of it without any details, without knowing who was with him, or if he was properly cared for. I have not had time for anything since but to attend upon my mother, and see to what had to be done.’

He felt that this was a quite correct, description; for had he not sacrificed the last hospital day to the shock of the news, if not to the service of his mother; and there had been things to do, hatbands, &c., which had kept him occupied.

‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes, with downcast eyes.

‘You who are so tender and sympathetic, I knew you would feel for—my mother,’ said Oswald; upon which name the girl looked up at him again. To feel for his mother—surely there could not be anything more natural, more right, than this.

‘You would like my mother—everyone does. It is amusing the way in which people run after her. Not that there is any room for amusement in our mournful house at present,’ said Oswald, correcting himself. ‘This is the first day the sun has seemed to shine or the skies to be blue since I saw you last.’

‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes again; and then, after a pause, she added nervously, ‘It is not that I think anything—and, oh, I hope you will not be vexed now that you are in trouble!—but you must not come with me. The Sister thinks it is not right, and neither do I.’

‘Not right!’ said Oswald, with an ingenuous look of surprise.

Agnes was driven to her wit’s end. ‘I do not want to seem absurd,’ she said, trembling, ‘and indeed there is no need for explanation. Please, you must not wait for me at the hospital, or walk back with me any more.’

‘Alas! have we not been planning to send little Emmy away? That means that I shall not have the chance, and that the brightest chapter in my life is almost over. Must it be over? You don’t know what it has been to me. You have made me think as I never thought before. Will you abandon me now, just when I feel on the threshold of something better?’

‘You must not talk so,’ said Agnes, roused to something like anger. ‘You know very well that, meeting me as you have done, it is wrong; it is not the part of a gentleman to talk so.’

‘Is it not the part of a gentleman to admire, to reverence—to love?’ Oswald said the last words almost under his breath, and yet she heard them, notwithstanding the noises in the street.

‘Mr. Meredith!’ She gave him an indignant look, but it ended in a blush, which ran like a warm suffusion all over her, and checked further words on her lips.

‘I know your name, too,’ he said. ‘And it is not love only, but reverence, that is in my heart. Oh, Agnes! don’t turn me away! May not my mother come, when she is well enough to go anywhere, and plead my cause? She might speak if I may not.’

‘Oh, go away, please, go away,’ said Agnes, in distress. ‘We are almost at the House again.’

‘And why should not we be at the House, if you will let me hope?’ cried Oswald. ‘I don’t want to skulk away! Yes, I will go and hide myself somewhere if you will not hear me. I shall not care what becomes of me. But Agnes——’

‘Oh, Mr. Meredith! Go, please. I cannot think it is right. I—don’t understand you. I ought not to listen to you—in this dress; and I have only begun the work.’

‘There are other kinds of work. There is the natural work. Is not a wife better than a sister?’

Agnes lighted up with the sudden flash which was characteristic of her. She raised her eyes to him glowing with indignant fire, her face suffused with colour. ‘Better?’ she said; ‘better to live for one’s self and one other than for the poor and helpless and the miserable! Oh! do you know what you say? You are a tempter; you are not a true Christian! Better! when there are so many who are wretched and friendless in the world, with no one to care whether they live or die? Do you think a woman does better who tries to make you happy than one who gives herself up for them?’

In the heat of this sudden burst of controversial eloquence, she turned aside into another street, which led out of the way of the House. Nothing else would have tempted her to such a curious breach of decorum; but the argument did, which filled her with indignant fervour. She did it only half consciously, by impulse, burning to know what he would answer, what plea he could bring up against her. But here Oswald’s cleverness failed him. He was not wise enough to see that a little argument would have led her on to any self-committal. He answered softly, with mistaken submission.

‘I will retract. I will say anything you please. No, not better; only happier. You would make me the most blessed of men; and what can you do for the poor? So little; everybody says, so little! But for me there would be no limit to what you could do. I have the most need of conversion. Ah! let your mission be me!’

Agnes started and came to herself. She looked round her, alarmed and scared, when she knew, yet only half knew, that she had left the direct road. ‘I have taken the wrong turn,’ she said, with confusion. ‘Mr. Meredith, let us forget that we have ever met. How could I turn back, having just put my hand to the plough? Oh, it is very weak and wicked of me, but I do not want the Sister to see you. She will think—but you have been kind, and I will say good-by here.’

‘Do you want to say good-by? Why should we forget we have ever met? Tell me to forget that I am born!’

‘Oh, no, no; it is not like that. Mr. Meredith, we have only known each other four or five—a few weeks.’

‘Six—I have kept closer count than you.’

‘And what does that matter in a life?’ said Agnes, looking up at him with a courageous smile. ‘Nothing! no more than a moment. We have not done any harm,’ she added, collecting all her strength. ‘We have not neglected our work nor wasted our time. And we never meant anything. It was all an accident. Mr. Meredith, good-by. I shall pray that you may be happy.’

‘Ah! that is like what the world says of saints,’ he said, sharply. ‘You make me wretched, and then pray that I may be happy.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ she cried, the tears coming to her eyes. ‘How can I have made you wretched? It was only an accident. It has been only a moment. You will not refuse to say good-by.’

Foolish Agnes! she had nothing to do but to leave him, having said her say. But, instead of this she argued, bent upon making a logical conclusion to which he should consent, convinced, though against his will. On the whole she preferred that it should be against his will—but convinced she had determined that he must be. They walked away softly through the little street into the sunset, which sank lower every moment, shedding a glory of slant light upon the two young figures so sombre in garb, so radiant in life. Where they were going they did not know, nor how the charmed moments were passing. Every shade of the coming evening lay behind them, but all the glory of the rose tints and glowing purple, the daffodil skies and gates of pearl, before.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE WIDOW.

Oswald was playing with a paperknife, balancing it on his finger, and paying no attention. He was thinking of something else with a vague smile on his face. He was as rich almost as he had hoped—made an ‘eldest son’ of, in so far at least that his portion was the biggest; and he was thinking of a house of his own, taking no thought for his mother, and a wife of his own soon to be beguiled out of poke-bonnets and convent cloaks, yet all the more piquant from the comparison. Naturally this was more interesting to him than his mother, and the house that he had been used to for years. But Edward, who, whatever he was himself doing, managed somehow to see what Oswald was about, and who thought he knew what that preoccupation and absorption meant, interposed hastily. ‘Of course my mother will keep her house. It is quite unnecessary to enter into such questions. The economy of the household is unchanged,’ he said.

‘But, my lad, I don’t agree with you,’ said old Sommerville. ‘You may both take to chambers, your brother and you. Most young men do now-a-days, so far as I can see. I will not say whether it’s better for them, or worse for them. Anyhow, your mother must be on her own footing. You must not be dependent on the whimsies of a boy. I would advise you, my dear madam, to look out for a smaller house.’

‘A smaller house?’ she repeated again, in dismay. ‘Why a smaller house?’ Then her eyes fell upon Oswald. ‘Yes, I understand. Oswald will perhaps—marry. It is quite true; but I have lived in this house so long—I am used to it. I do not wish to change.’

‘You will not be able to afford it—on your income, madam,’ said old Sommerville, watching her keenly. He was fond of studying mankind, and to see how a fellow-creature encountered a change of fortune was keenly interesting to the old man.

She looked at him, opening her eyes wider with a curious gaze of surprise; then paused a moment, looking round her as if for some explanation. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I begin to understand.’ Nobody spoke to her; the other two old friends who were present turned aside and talked to each other. Mr. Beresford looked over a photograph book as earnestly as if he hoped to find a fortune between the pages; only the old spy watched the new-made widow, the admired and beloved woman to whom in this distinct way it was becoming apparent that she had not been so much beloved after all.

And her face was worth a little study—there came over it a momentary gloom. She had been thinking with so much tender kindness of him; but he, it was evident, had been less tender in his thoughts of her. But then, he had died, and she lived. No doubt, if it had been she who had died, his mind too would have been softened, and his heart grown tender. The cloud lightened, a soft smile came into her eyes; and then two tears sprang quickly over the smile, because he had slighted her publicly in these last settlements; he had put her down willingly and consciously out of the position she had held as his wife. She felt this sting, for love and honour were the things she prized most. Then her courageous spirit roused up, and this time the smile descended softly, seriously, to touch her mouth.

‘What does it matter?’ she said, with her habitual sweetness. ‘My husband knew I had a little of my own. If I am not able to keep up this house, I must get another house, Mr. Sommerville, that I can keep up.’

‘Madam,’ said Mr. Sommerville, ‘that is the way to take it. I respect you for what you say; many a woman now would have raged at us that cannot help it, would have abused the maker of the will, and made a disturbance.’

‘Made a disturbance?’ said Mrs. Meredith. The smile brightened into a momentary laugh. It was the first time she had allowed herself to stray beyond the gloomy pale of memory which she considered her husband’s due. But the sound of her own laugh frightened her. She shrank a little, saying hastily, ‘Oh, Edward, my dear boy, forgive me!’ He was not her favourite son, or at least he had thought so; but he was the one to whom she clung now.

‘I thought you knew my mother,’ said Edward, proudly, ‘after knowing her so long. That is all; is it not? We can settle among ourselves about houses, &c. I think my mother has had enough of it now.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘oh, no; whatever ought to be done, I am quite able for; if there is any stipulation as to what I must do, or about the boys—if the boys should marry; but to be sure they are of age, they are their own masters,’ she added, with once more a faint smile. ‘Whether their mother is considered wise enough—oh, Edward! no, I am in earnest. Perhaps there is some task for me, something to do.’

This was the only little resentment she showed; and even the sharp-witted old Sommerville scarcely took it for resentment. The friends took luncheon with the family at an early hour, and departed, carrying away the unnecessary papers, and leaving everything as it had been; the blinds were all drawn up, the sunshine coming in as usual. Oswald, with his hat brushed to a nicety and his cigars in his pocket, went out just as usual. The usual subdued domestic sounds were in the house, and in the course of the afternoon four or five visitors were allowed to come in. Everything was as it had been; only Mrs. Meredith’s pretty ribbons, all soft in tint as in texture, her dove-coloured gown, her lace, her Indian shawls and ornaments, were all put away, and crape reigned supreme. There was no further conversation on the subject until after dinner, when Edward and his mother were alone. Oswald was dining with one of his friends; it was hard to hold him to the etiquette of ‘bereavement.’ ‘Besides,’ Mrs. Meredith said, ‘no one thinks of these rules with a young man.’

‘It will be strange to have to leave this house,’ she said, when the servants had left the dining-room. ‘It was the first house I had in England, when I brought you home. Some people thought the country would have been best; but I liked the protection of a town, and to see my friends, and to be near a good doctor; for you were delicate, Edward, when you were a child.’

‘Who, I, mother? I don’t look much like it now.’

‘No, heaven be praised—but you were delicate; two little white-faced things you were, with India written in your little pale cheeks. That was the first thing that brought me home. You could not have stayed in India; and then the question was, Edward, to leave your father, or to leave you—and, oh—you seemed to have so much more need of me!’

‘Do not go over the question again, mother. You did not do it, I am sure, without thought. Let us think of the future now. You are to stay in the house you like, and which is all the home I have ever known; as for a smaller house, or for what you are able to afford, that is simple nonsense. It appears I have a separate income now, not merely an allowance. You don’t mean to turn me out, do you, to the streets?’

‘My dear boy!—of course, wherever I have a roof, there is a place for you.’

‘Very well, mother; this is the place. You don’t want me to go off and live in chambers?’

‘Not unless—you think it necessary; unless—you would like it better, Edward. Oh, I hope not, my dear!’

‘So do I,’ he said, smiling. ‘I hope you don’t mean to turn me out for the sake of something you can afford. We must live together, mother, you and I. I can’t be idle; you know, I must do something; and all the pleasure I shall ever get out of life,’ he added, with the solemnity of youthful conviction, ‘will be to find my home always the same—and my mother. I look for no other happiness.’

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘that is all very well at present, till you see someone who is dearer to you than either your mother or your home. That will come some time; but in the meantime, dear——’

‘The meantime will be always, mother—the other time will never come.’

Mrs. Meredith gave him a sudden look—then checked herself when about to say something, sighed a little, and made a pause; and then she began to talk on another subject between which and this there seemed little connection, though Edward perceived the connection easily enough.

‘We shall have it all to ourselves apparently,’ she said, with a faint smile. ‘Oswald, I suppose, will be thinking of a house for himself; and why should he wait? There is no reason why he should wait. To be sure, they are young. Has he said anything to you, Edward?’

‘Nothing, mother.’

‘Well; they must have their reasons, I presume. One does not like to be left quite out; but it is the thing one ought to expect as one gets old. Old people are supposed not to sympathise with youth. It is a mistake, Edward—a great pity; but I suppose it will be the same as long as the world lasts. I did the same, no doubt, when I was young too.’

He made no reply. So sure as he was that he never could have such secrets to communicate, how could he say anything? and she went on.

‘I am not finding fault with Oswald. He has always been a good boy—both of you,’ she said, smiling upon him. ‘You have never given me any great anxiety. And everything has turned out well hitherto. They will have plenty of money; but so long as Oswald does not say anything, how can I speak to her father, as I should like to do? Men do not notice such things; and it seems uncandid with so good a friend; but till Oswald speaks—I hope he will be an attentive husband, Edward. He will be kind; but there are many little attentions that a fanciful girl expects—and feels the want of when they fail her.’

Edward said nothing to all this; how could he? He winced, but bore it stoutly, though he could not make any reply. It was better to accustom himself to have it talked about; but he could not himself enter upon the subject. ‘Will you mind if I leave this evening, for a little?’ he said.

‘No, dear; certainly not—but, Edward,’ she said, coming round to him as she rose from the table, and laying her hand on his arm, ‘are you sure it is good for you, my dear boy? are you not making it harder for yourself?’

‘Let me alone, mother—so long as I can,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘No; it does not make it harder; and it can’t last long now.’

‘No—there is no reason why they should wait. I wish—I wish he may not be a careless husband, Edward. Why should he spend all his evenings away? There is something in it I cannot understand.’

‘He has always been the happy one, mother. Whatever he has wished for has come to him. He does not know what it is to be so fortunate—nothing has cost him any trouble—not even this.’

‘Still, he should not be away every evening,’ said the mother, shaking her head; and she drew him down to her and kissed his cheek tenderly. ‘My boy! we must comfort each other,’ she said, with soft tears in her eyes. Her heart bled for him in the troubles she divined, and she was one of the women who never lose their interest in the trials of youthful love. Yet, sympathetic as she was, she smiled too as she went upstairs. He thought this would last for ever—that he would never change his mind, nor suffer a new affection to steal into his heart. She smiled a little, and shook her head all by herself. How short-lived were their nevers and for evers! She went up to the drawing-room, where she had spent so many quiet evenings, pleased to think that her boys were happy, though they were not with her; where she had thought of them at school, at college, in all the different places they had passed through, trying to follow them in her thoughts, anxiously wondering what they were doing, often pausing to breathe out a brief, silent prayer for them in the midst of her knitting, or when she closed her book for a moment. This had become so habitual to her, that she would do it almost without thinking. ‘Oh, bless my boys; keep them from evil!’—between how many sentences of how many books—in the pauses of how many conversations—woven through and through how many pieces of wool, had those simple supplications gone!

By-and-by she heard the door close of the next house, the bell ring in her own, the familiar step on the stair, and the neighbour came in and took his usual place. They sat on each side of the fireplace, in which still glimmered a little fire, though the season was warm. It irked her that she could not continue with him the conversation she had been having with Edward; but till Oswald spoke what could she say? and they had plenty to talk about.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if it was a bad dream when I was sent away—not knowing why, or where to go?’

‘Where were you going? I never wished it. How I should have missed you now! It is in trouble that we want our friends most. Edward has been so good and kind. He says he will never leave me; that we must live together. And he thinks he will always think so—poor boy! I have not the heart to tell him that he will soon change.’

‘Why should he change? He may search far enough before he will find such another home. If I were he, I would not change either. He is more to be trusted than Oswald.’

‘Oh, you are mistaken. My boy is——’

‘I am not saying ill of him. If I ever wish to do that, I will not come to his mother with it. But Oswald thinks more of himself. Where is he to-night? He has left you alone, to bear all your loneliness, to think over everything.’

‘You know I never taught my children that they were to keep by me. I might have liked it, but I did not think it right. They are very, very good; but no one can upbraid me with keeping them at my apron-strings.’

‘That is one thing I object to in women,’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘The most sensible are so sensitive about those wretched little things that people say. What does it matter what people say who know nothing? Do you think a club is so much better than your apron-strings, as you call them? Why should you care for such vulgar reproach?’

‘I don’t know why; we are made so, I suppose; and if women are sensitive, you must know the best of men will talk about our apron-strings; when all we are thinking of is what is best for the children—trembling, perhaps, and wondering what is best—giving all our hearts to it—some careless fool will spoil all we are planning with his old joke about our apron-strings—or some wise man will do it. It is all the same. But, never mind; I have locked up all my tremblings in my own mind, and left them free.’

‘And you have not repented? You have more confidence in them now than if you had been less brave. But I wish Oswald had stayed at home with you to-night.’

‘Oh, you must not blame Oswald,’ she cried, doubly anxious not to have her son blamed, and not to allow Cara’s father to conceive any prejudice against him. ‘It is in the evening he sees his friends; he is always ready when I want him—during the day. It would not be good for the boy to let him shut himself up. Indeed, it is my own doing,’ said Mrs. Meredith, smiling upon him, with one of those serene and confident lies which the sternest moralist cannot condemn.

Mr. Beresford shook his head a little; but he could not undeceive the mother about her son, any more than she could confess how well she was aware of all Oswald’s selfishnesses. They were selfishnesses, to be sure; or, at least, the outside world would naturally call them so. To her the boy’s conduct bore a different appearance. He thought of himself—this was how she explained it. And how natural that was for anyone so watched over and cared for as he had been! Was it not, indeed, her fault, who had always supplied every want, satisfied every wish she knew of, and trained him, so to speak, to have everything his own way, and to think that every other way should yield to his? It was her fault; and as he grew older, and his mind enlarged, he would grow out of it. This, though with an uneasy twinge now and then, Mrs. Meredith believed, and though as clear-sighted as anyone to her boy’s faults, thought less hardly, and perhaps more truly, of them than strangers did. But there was a little pause after this, and a sense in her mind that she had not convinced this critic, who considered himself more clear-sighted than Oswald’s mother, and internally half pitied, had smiled at her blindness. If critics in general only knew! for who is so sharp-sighted to all these imperfections as the parent who thus endeavours to convince them of the excellence of a child!

‘Edward gives up India, then!’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘I do not wonder; but it is a fine career, and with his connections and antecedents——’

Mrs. Meredith gave a little shiver. ‘Do you think he should still go?’ she asked, anxiously. ‘Indeed, I have not persuaded him. I have held my tongue. And he never liked the idea. He did it for duty only. But he does not mean to sink into idleness—he will work here.’

‘At what will he work? The Bar? Every young man I ever meet is going to the Bar. There will soon be nobody left to make the necessary mischief, and provide work for them. But if a man wants a fine career, India is the place. You are going to stay in this house, notwithstanding your old adviser?’

‘It does not matter to me,’ she said. ‘I can be as happy in one house as another. It is Edward who wishes it.’

‘And then, if he sees someone he likes—and marries, and leaves you in the lurch? Boys who are independent so young are sure to marry young.’

She shook her head. ‘Ah! how I wish it might be so! I would forgive him for leaving me—if only my boy was happy.’

Mr. Beresford got up, and walked about the room. It was nothing extraordinary, but only a way he had, and did not suggest to his friend any accès of excitement.

‘You think marriage, then, so much the happiest condition?’ he said.

Mrs. Meredith made a pause before she replied. ‘Is that the question? How can I answer at my age, and in—the circumstances you know. We have not to settle abstract happiness. Feelings of that kind die out, and I am not the person to speak. I think a woman—at one time of life—loves her children more than ever she loved man.’

‘Some women——’

‘But it is not marrying in the abstract. My boy would be happy if he could get—what he wants. But he never will get that,’ she added, with a sigh.

‘What is so tragic about Edward’s love affairs?’ he asked, half laughing; ‘is it ever so serious at two-and-twenty?’

‘Ah, you laugh! but you would not have laughed, at his age, if you had seen someone you were fond of secured by—another—who was not half so true a lover perhaps; or, at least, you thought so.’

‘No,’ he said, growing grave. ‘That was different, certainly.’ And the mind of the man travelled suddenly off, like a flash of lightning, back to the flowery land of youth, that lay so far behind. The mind of the woman took no such journey. Her love had ended, not in the anguish of a death parting, but in estrangement, and coldness, and indifference. She remained where she was, thinking only, with a sigh, how willingly she would give a bit of her life, if she could—a bit of her very heart—to get happiness for her boy; yet believing that to make one happy would be to ruin the other, and standing helpless between the two. This was the only complication in her mind. But in this the complications were many. Why did she say this, and send him back to the days of young romance and passion? just when his mind was full of the calmer affections and expedients of middle age, and the question whether—to secure such a tender companion as herself, whom he loved in a way, and whose absence impoverished life beyond bearing—he should endeavour to return into the traditions of the other love which was past for him as for her. Was it her friendly, gentle hand, so unconscious of what he was meditating, that put him thus back at a touch into the old enchanted world, and showed him so plainly the angel at the gates of that faded, unfading Paradise; an angel, not with any naming sword, but with the stronger bar of soft uplifted hands! Impossible! So it was—and yet what else could be?