Carità

No, he thought with a faint half-smile, it would not be his death. If such things happened once they did not happen now. It was not so easy to die. A man had got to live and make the best of it—to forget what was so near to him, yet so unattainable, and fix his thoughts on law-cases instead. This was the modern form of tragedy. To go and work, and to live, and do as other men did—yet never be as other men. Who does not know the poignant yet sweet misery that is in that thought: never to be as other men—to carry the wound all through one’s life—to be struck with a delicate arrow which would vibrate in the wound for ever! And then, with renewed zeal, he would plunge into his work. What notes he made, what reports he drew out, digests of the dreariest books, accounts of the dullest trials! I think he liked the dullest best; anything that was interesting, anything that had any humanity in it, seemed by some strange by-path or other to take him back to Cara. Poor boy! and then, when it suddenly occurred to him that Cara was alone on the other side of the wall, the book would fall out of his hand or the pen from his fingers. She was alone as he was alone. Oswald, who ought to bear her company, was away somewhere following his own fancies—her aunt was gone—and her father was here. Then Edward trembled in mind and in body, under the force of the temptation to go to her, to cheer her, whatever might happen to him. He seemed to see her, lonely in a corner. She had not even work to do as he had, to force her from herself. How the poor boy’s heart would beat!—but then—if she were his he knew he would not fear solitude, nor dislike having nothing to do—to think of her would keep him happy; and perhaps if she loved Oswald as Edward loved her—— This thought stung him back to his work again with greater energy than ever. Most likely she loved her solitude, which was sweet with recollections. Then there would break through all his law and all his labour a violent hot pulse of resentment. For Oswald’s sake!—who went wandering about, gay and light-hearted, from club to club, from dinner to dinner, and had not so much gratitude, so much decency, as to give one evening out of a dozen to her!

But Cara, as the reader knows, had not the consolation with which Edward credited her. Happiness of all kinds, she thought, had deserted her for ever. There was not even a fire to keep her company, to make her an imitation of a companion. If one could choose the time to be unhappy, it would be always best in winter, when one can cower over the glow of the fire, and get some comfort out of the warmth. It was like stealing away her last friend from her to take away her fire. When she sat in her usual place the dark fire-place seemed to glare at her like a kind of grave. And when she sat at the window, all the evening lights got into her eyes and drew tears, so sweet were they and wistful, even though it was but a London sky. Cara had once read a foolish little poem somewhere, in which the twilight was embodied in the form of a poor girl looking stealthily in at the open windows, to look for her lost lover, and sighing when she could not find him. At her age allegory is still beautiful—and the very dimness shadowed into visionary form about her, looking for something—for what? for happiness, that was lost and could not be found again, never could be found. She did not think any longer as she had done at first, with a half-superstitious tremor, of her mother who might be about, looking at her with anxious spiritual eyes, unable to make herself known. It was a lower level of thought upon which the girl had fallen; she had strayed from the high visionary ground, and had begun to think of herself. She wanted someone near, some voice, some touch, some soft words breaking the stillness; but these sweetnesses were not for her. By turns she too would study like Edward; but then she had no occasion to study, there was no bond of duty upon her. She read Elaine over again, poring over her book in the twilight, which was a congenial light to read by, and the same words which pursued Edward went thrilling through her also like the note of a nightingale floating through the dark—‘Loved him with that love that was her fate’—but how fortune favoured Elaine! what an end was hers! whereas there was nothing wonderful about poor little Cara, only a foolish mistake which she could not set right, which nobody cared enough about her to set right, and which must mar her whole life without remedy. The house was quite still as it had been before Miss Cherry came—but worse than that; for then there was no imbroglio, no web of falsehood about her poor little feet. Things had grown worse and worse for her as the days went on. She wrote little formal letters to the Hill saying that she and papa were quite well. She went out to take a walk every day with nurse, and according to the orders of that authority. She asked cook what there was to be for dinner, and agreed to it whatever it was. She made her father’s coffee in the morning, and was very quiet, never disturbing him, saying Yes or No, when he asked her any question—and sat at the other end of the table when he dined at home. He thought she was a very good little girl—not so clever as he had expected; but children so often grow up different from their promise—a very good little girl of the old-fashioned type, made to be seen and not heard. He had never been used to her, and did not require his child to sympathise with him or amuse him as some men do—and his mind was full of other things. It did occur to him as the summer went on that she was pale—‘I think you ought to see Maxwell, Cara,’ he said; ‘you are looking very colourless; write a little note, and ask him to come to put you to-rights.’

‘I am quite well, papa—I don’t want Mr. Maxwell or anyone.’

‘Well, if you are sure—but you look pale; I will speak to Mrs. Meredith, and see what she thinks.’ Cara felt a sensation of anger at this suggestion. She denied again with much earnestness that there was anything the matter with her—and though the heat of her reply almost roused her father to real consideration, it did not after all go quite so far as that. He went to his library, and she to her drawing-room. The morning was the cheerful time of her day. It was the hour for Oswald, who came in quite pleasantly excited, and told her of the expedition he was going to make into the country on the chance of having an interview and explanation with his Agnes. Cara thought this was a very good thing to do. ‘She ought to know exactly what you feel about her,’ she said; ‘and oh, Oswald, you ought to tell everybody, and make an end of all these mysteries.’

‘That is one word for her and two for yourself, Cara,’ he said, laughing; ‘you want to be free of me. But no, wait just a little longer. Look here, I will send you the Vita Nuova, and there you will see that Dante had a screen to keep people from suspecting that it was Beatrice.’

‘I will not be your screen,’ said Cara, with energy; ‘it is wicked of you to speak so.’

‘Why, it is in the Vita Nuova!’ said Oswald, with indignant innocence; ‘but never mind, it will be over directly; and you shall come and see her, and help us. My mother must come too.’

‘I am glad of that. I am sure that Mrs. Meredith would go to-day if you were to ask her.’

‘Not to-day, let us get our holiday first. I want to see her blush and her surprise as she sees me—but after that you shall see how good and reasonable and correct I shall be.’

He went away smiling. It was June, and the very atmosphere was a delight. He had brightened Cara for the moment, and she stepped out upon the balcony and breathed the sweet air, which was sweet even there. Oswald thought she was looking after him as he walked away, and was flattered by Cara’s affection—and other people thought so too. As she looked down into the Square she caught the eyes of Edward who had just come out, and who took it for granted that this was a little overflowing of tenderness on her part, a demonstration of happy love. He looked up at her almost sternly she thought, but he did not mean it so. He had grown pale and very serious these last few weeks. And he took off his hat to her without a word. Cara went in again as if she had received a blow. She covered her face with her hands and cried. Oh, if it really was in the Vita Nuova! Cara hoped the lady who was the screen for Beatrice did not feel it as she did—and what did it matter?—that lady, whoever she was, must have been dead for hundreds of years. But she was alive, and this falsehood embittered her whole life.

CHAPTER XLI.

TWO—TO BE ONE?

James Beresford was full of perturbation and troubled thoughts as well as his child. The romance of middle age is more difficult to manage than that of youth. It is less simple, less sure of its own aim; indeed, it has so often no aim at all, but cherishes itself for itself disinterestedly, as youthful sentiment never does. The death of Mr. Meredith had exercised a great, but at first undefined, influence on Mr. Beresford’s affairs. He was as good as told by everybody that there was now no reason for putting restrictions upon his friendship and intercourse with Mrs. Meredith, a thing which had been demanded of him as his duty a little while before; and he had accepted this assurance as an immediate relief, and had gladly fallen back into the old habits in which had lain so much of the comfort of his life. And he could not have left his friend, who had been so much to him in his trouble at this moment of distress for her. But there was something in the air which made him conscious of a change. He could not tell what it was; no one said anything to him; his own feelings were unaltered; and yet it was not the same. He evaded making any inquiry with himself into what had happened for some time; but the question was not to be evaded for ever; and gradually he gleaned from all sides—from looks and significant words, and a hundred little unexpressed hints, that there was but one thing expected by everybody—and that was, with all the speed consistent with decency, a marriage between himself and his neighbour. Everybody took it for granted that the death of her husband was ‘a special providence’ to make two good people happy; and that poor Mr. Meredith (though probably he had no such benevolent intention) could not have done a kinder thing than to take himself out of the way at this particular moment. There was not one of their mutual friends who did not think so; no one blamed the pair whose friendship was supposed to have fallen into ‘a warmer feeling’ in the most innocent way, without any intention of theirs; and who were ready to make the necessary sacrifice to propriety as soon as they found it out. What so natural as that this should have happened? An attractive and charming woman left in the position of a widow, year after year, by her uncongenial husband—and an intellectual, accomplished man, left alone in the prime of life, to whom in kindness she had opened her doors. Some people had shaken their heads, but everybody allowed that there was but one end to such an intimacy. And it was very seldom that anything so convenient happened in the world as the death of the husband so absolutely in the nick of time. Of course what would happen now was clear to the meanest apprehension. Probably being, as they were, excellent people both, and full of good feeling, they would wait the full year and show ‘every respect’ to the dead man who had been so considerate of them; but that, at that or an earlier period, Mrs. Meredith would become Mrs. Beresford, was a thing that everyone felt convinced of, as sure as if it had already taken place.

It would be difficult to tell how this general conviction forced itself upon James Beresford’s mind. The efforts which had to be made to send him away awoke him to a startled sense that his intimacy with his neighbour was regarded by his friends under a strange and uncomfortable light; and he had yielded to their efforts with no small agitation on his own part, and a sense of pain and desolation which made him ask himself whether they were right. Probably had he gone away, and Mrs. Meredith been forcibly separated from him, an unlawful object of affection, he would have ended by believing that they were right, and that the consolation and comfort and pleasures of his intercourse with her had grown into ‘a warmer feeling.’ But now that Mr. Meredith was well out of the way, and even the excitement attending his end over, he was by no means so clear in his mind, and the subject became one of great trouble and complication. Somehow it seems always possible, always within the modesties of nature even to the least vain of men, or women, that some other, any other, may regard him (or her) with a specially favourable eye. No one does wrong in loving us, nor are we disposed to blame them for it. So that there was perhaps a time in which Mr. Beresford took his friends’ opinion for granted, and was not unprepared to believe that perhaps Mrs. Meredith would be happy in being his wife; and that, in his state of mind, was a final argument against which nothing could be said. But lately he had begun to doubt this; his coming did not clear away the clouds that had invaded her brows. She would strike into sudden talk about Edward and his going away, when her friend with much delicacy and anxiety was endeavouring to sound her feelings. She seemed unconscious of his investigation—her mind was pre-occupied. Sometimes, on the other hand, she would betray a certain uneasiness, and change the subject in a way that betrayed her consciousness; but that was only when her mind was quite free. From the time when she began to have a grievance, an anxiety of her own, she escaped from the most cautious wiles of his scrutiny. She was more occupied by thoughts of her son than by thoughts of him. Was this consistent with love? Poor James Beresford, feeling that this would decide him in a moment could he know, one way or another, what her feelings were, was thus thrown out and forced to fall back upon his own.

And what were his own?—A maze of conflicting ideas, wishes, prejudices, and traditions of old affection. There was nothing in the world he would not have given up cheerfully rather than lose this sweet friend—this consoler and sympathiser in all his troubles. But he did not want her to be his wife. His Annie, it might be, had faded into a distant shadow; but that shadow represented to him a whole world past and over—the world of love and active, brilliant, joyous happiness. His nature, too, had fallen into the shadows—he did not want that kind of happiness now; one passion had been enough for him; he wanted a friend, and that he had—he did not want anything more. And the idea of disturbing all the unity of his life by a second beginning gave him a smart shock. Can a man have more wives than one?—Can he have more lives than one?—He was a fanciful man, of fastidious mind, and with many niceties of feeling such as ruder minds called fantastic. He shrank from the thought of banishing from his house even the shadow and name of her who was gone. To be sure if he could make up his mind that she wished it, all these resolutions would have gone to the winds; and it is very likely that he would have been very happy—happier than he could ever be otherwise. But then he could not make her feelings out. Would she go visibly away from him, even while he was sitting by her, into her troubles about Edward—eyes and heart alike growing blank to him, and full of her boy—if she had given to him a place above her boys in her affections? Surely no. I would not even assert that there was not the slightest possible suspicion of pique in this conclusion, for the man would have been flattered to know that the woman loved him, even though he was conscious that he did not so regard her. But ‘the warmer feeling’ of which all their friends were so sure, of which everybody concluded that it had grown unconsciously en tout bien et tout honneur out of that friendship which the world holds to be impossible between man and woman—was just the one thing about which the principal person concerned could have no certainty at all. He knew what the friendship was—it was almost life to him; it was his strongest support—his best consolation; it was the only thing that could make a second, a kind of serious sweet successor, to the love that was never to come again; but it was not that love—certainly not in his heart—so far as he could make out, not in hers either; but who could tell? Weak man! he would rather have preferred that she should have felt differently, and that it should have been his duty to marry for her sake.

His life had settled down into all its old lines since Mr. Meredith’s death. He had his business about the societies—his meetings—his lectures to arrange—sometimes his articles to write. Now and then he dined out in the best and most learned of company. He was pointed out to the ignorant when he went into society as a distinguished person. He was in the front of the age, knowing a great deal more than most people knew, doing things that few people could do. His mornings were spent in these refined and dignified occupations; and when he dined out with his remarkable friends, or when he dined at home with only his silent little girl to keep him company, as regularly as the clock struck he knocked at the next door, and had his hour of gentle talk, of mutual confidence. They knew all about each other, these two; each could understand all the allusions the other made—all the surrounding incidents in the other’s life. They talked as man and wife do, yet with a little element of unconvention, of independence, of freshness in the intercourse, which made it more piquant than that between man and wife. What could be more agreeable, more desirable, more pleasant? But to break off all this delightful ease of intercourse by some kind of antiquary courtship, by the fuss of marriage, by fictitious honeymooning, and disturbance of all their formed and regular habits of life,—what nonsense it would be—and all for the sake of their friends, not of themselves! But if she should wish it, of course that would give altogether another character to the affair.

This was what Mr. Beresford at last made up his mind to ascertain boldly one way or another. It was about the same time as Oswald, approaching the railway junction, was turning over his dilemma and seeing no way out of it. Mr. Beresford had been hearing a lecture, and was in a chastened state of mind. He had been hearing about the convulsions of the early world, and by what means the red-hot earth cooled down and settled itself, after all manner of heavings and boilings, into something of the aspect it wears. As he walked home he dwelt upon the wonderful grandeur of such phenomena. What did it matter, after all, what happened to a few small insignificant persons on the crust which had formed over all these convulsions? What of their little weepings and lovings and momentary struggles, to one who could study such big and mighty strainings of force against force? A little while at the most, and the creatures who made so much fuss about their feelings would be a handful of dust; but volcanic action would go on for ever. Notwithstanding this philosophy, however, it must be allowed that, whereas he had heard of these convulsions with the calmest bosom, his heart began to beat as he approached Mrs. Meredith’s door. If the moon had tumbled out of the sky, or a boiling caldron suddenly revealed itself in the earth, so long as it was at a safe distance, even Mr. Beresford, who was so fond of science, would not have cared a tenth part so much about it as he did to know what his neighbour meant; which was inconsistent, but natural perhaps. The philosophy went out of his head as he approached the door. Little fusses of loving and of liking—momentary cross-lights, or, let us say, flickering farthing candles of human sentiment—what are they to the big forces that move the world? Is not a bit of chalk more interesting than all your revolutions and changes?—your petty sufferings, passions, heroisms, and the like? Mr. Beresford thought he believed all that—yet, heaven above! how calm he was when the chalk was under consideration, and how much perturbed when he went up the steps of the house next door!

‘You have been out to-night?’

‘Yes, I have been hearing Robinson—a remarkably interested, intelligent audience. Where are the boys? Edward should come—it would interest him.’

‘Edward is always at work. He is killing himself for this examination. I wish he could be interested in something less serious. Oswald has been away all day. I think he said he was going to the country. If we could only mix them up a little,’ said the mother, with an anxious smile—‘to one a little more gravity, to the other a little more of his brother’s light-heartedness.’

Mr. Beresford did not say anything about the superior interest of volcanic action, as he might, nay, perhaps ought, to have done. He said instead, in the feeblest way, ‘That will come as they get older. You must give them time.’

Mrs. Meredith did not say anything. She shook her head, but the faint smile on her face remained. There was nothing tragical yet about either one or the other. Mr. Beresford was less calm than usual. He sat down and got up again; he took up books and threw them away; he fidgeted about the room from one point to another. At last even Mrs. Meredith’s composure gave way. She jumped to one of those sudden conclusions which foolish women who are mothers are so apt to think of. It suddenly rushed upon her mind that some accident had happened to Oswald, and that Mr. Beresford had been sent to her to break the news.

‘You are put out,’ she said; ‘something has happened. Oh, tell me—something about the boys? Oswald!’

‘Nothing of the sort,’ he said. ‘Don’t think it for a moment! The boys are perfectly well, I hope. I was going to ask you an odd sort of question, though,’ he added, with an awkward smile, rushing into the middle of the subject. ‘Did it never occur to you that you would be the better for having someone to help you with the boys?’

Now, there could not have been a more foolish question—for until a very short time back the boys’ father had been in existence—and since then, there had been no time for the widow to take any such step. She looked at him with much surprise. ‘Someone to help me? Whom could I have to help me? Their poor dear father was too far away!’

‘Ah! I forgot their father,’ said Mr. Beresford, with naïve innocence, and then there was a pause. He did not know how to begin again after that very evident downfall. ‘I mean, however, as a general question,’ he added, ‘what do you think? Should you approve of a woman in your own position—marrying, for instance—for her children’s sake?’

‘That is a curious question,’ she said, with a little laugh; but the surprise brought the colour into her face. ‘I suppose it would depend on the woman. But I don’t know,’ she added, after a moment, ‘how a woman could put her children into any stranger’s—any other man’s hands.’

‘Ah, a stranger! perhaps I did not mean a stranger.’

‘I don’t think you know what you meant,’ she said, with a smile; but there was some terror in her eyes. She thought she knew what was coming. She was like him in her own sentiments, and still more like him in her speculations about himself. She had been brought to believe that he loved and wanted to marry her. And, if it could not be otherwise, she felt that she must consent; but she did not wish it any more than he did. However, while he thought the best policy was to find out what ought to be done at once, she was all for putting off, avoiding the consideration, trusting in something that might turn up. Mr. Beresford, however, had wound himself up to this interview, and was not to be put off.

‘Between people of our sober years such questions may be discussed—may they not?’ he said. ‘I wonder what you think really? There is nothing I so much wish to know—not the conventional things that everybody says—but what you think. You have been my other conscience for so long,’ he added, jesuitically, in order to conceal the cunning with which he was approaching the subject—asking for her opinion without specifying the subject on which he wanted it.

But she saw through him, with a little amusement at the artifice employed. He wanted to know what she thought without asking her. Fortunately, the being asked was the thing she wanted to avoid. But, just when they had got to this critical point, Edward came upstairs. He was not friendly, as he had been to his mother’s friend; he came in with the gloom upon his face, and a look of weariness. Mr. Beresford heard the door open with great impatience of the newcomer, whoever it might be. Nothing could be more inopportune. He wished Edward in Calcutta or wherever else it might be best for him to be on the other side of the seas. But, as for Mrs. Meredith, her attention fled on the moment to her boy. She forgot her friend and his questioning, and even the delicate position which she had realised, and the gravity of the relations which might ensue. All this went out of her mind in comparison with Edward’s fatigued look. She got up and went to him, putting her hand very tenderly upon his shoulder.

‘You have been working too long, dear. Oh, Edward, don’t be so anxious to get away from me! You are working as if this was your dearest wish in the world.’

‘So it is,’ he said; ‘not to leave you, mother; but to feel that I am doing something, not merely learning or enjoying myself.’

‘Edward is quite right,’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘It is by far the most worthy feeling for a young man.’

But Edward did not take this friendly support in a good spirit; he darted a half-savage glance at his backer-up.

‘Oh, if you take it in that light, that is not what I meant,’ he said. ‘I am not of that noble strain. It is not pure disinterestedness. I think it is a pity only to lose one’s advantages, and I should have some advantages of connection and that sort of thing. At least, I suppose so; and it is what is called a fine career.’

‘Yes, it is a fine career.’

‘If it is fine to separate yourself from all you care for in the world,’ cried Mrs. Meredith, ‘from all who care for you—not only must we be left behind, but when you have got beyond me, when you have a family of your own——’

‘Which I never shall have, mother.’

‘Nonsense! boys and girls say so, and end just like others; even your own, your very own must be taken from you. You must give up everything—and you call that a fine career.’

‘Men do, if women don’t,’ said the young man, not looking at her. His heart was so wrung and sore that he could not keep the gloom off his face.

‘And you don’t care what women think? You might have put off that lesson till you were a little older. At your age what your mother thinks should surely be something to you still.’

He gave her a look which was full of pain. Was that what he was thinking? Was he sure to care little for what women thought? ‘You know better, mother,’ he said harshly. He was all rubbed the wrong way—thwarted, wearied, unhappy. ‘I only came for a book,’ he continued, after a moment, picking up the first one he got hold of, and then, with a little nod to the visitor, went upstairs again. What did that visitor want here? Why did he leave his own house, and Cara alone—poor Cara!—whom nobody loved as Edward did? It would be a great deal better for Mr. Beresford if he would stay at home. After this little episode Edward sat down stubborn and unyielding to his work again. What did it matter if a man was happy or unhappy? He had his day’s work to get through all the same.

‘Don’t think him harsh. I am afraid my boy is not quite happy,’ said Mrs. Meredith, with tears in her eyes.

‘That is nothing,’ he said. ‘I am not a friend of yesterday; but he came in when we were talking——’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said, but her eyes were still full of Edward; ‘what was it we were talking about?’

‘I am afraid if you say that, it is sufficient answer to my question,’ said Mr. Beresford, more wounded than he could have supposed possible; for he wanted to be first with her, though he did not wish it in the vulgar way that was supposed.

‘You are not to be angry,’ she said, with a deprecating look, laying her hand softly on his arm; ‘you must not be hard upon me. When they are boys we wish them to be men, but anxiety grows with their growth; and now I think sometimes I should be glad to have them boys again.’

‘Boys, boys!’ he exclaimed, with natural impatience, ‘is that all you think of? Yet there are other interests in the world.’

‘How selfish I am!’ she cried, rousing herself suddenly. ‘That is true. You must forgive me; but I am so used to talk to you of everything, whatever is in my heart.’

This melted him once more. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we talk to each other of everything; we have no secrets between us. There is nothing in the world I would not do for you, nor you, I think, for me. Do you know what people are thinking about you and me? They think that being so near we should be nearer; that we might help one another better. That was what I wanted to ask you. Don’t you think it is so?’

He wanted her to commit herself first, and she was willing enough that he should commit himself, but not that she should. She was embarrassed, yet she met his eyes with a half smile.

‘I think it is not a case for heeding what people think. Are we not very well as we are? How could we be better than as fast friends—friends through fire and water?’

‘That we should always be,’ he said, grasping her hand, ‘that we should always be; and yet without becoming less we might be more. Speak to me frankly, dear; you know all my heart. Do not you think so too?’

CHAPTER XLII.

A GREAT REVOLUTION.

Notwithstanding the directness of this questioning, it was by no means a direct reply which Mr. Beresford got from Mrs. Meredith. It was not a refusal, but neither was it a consent. ‘Let us not do anything rashly,’ and ‘I think we are very well as we are,’ was what she said, and yet the change was certainly a step nearer accomplishment now that the possibility of it had been mentioned between them. He had grown rather earnest in pressing the expediency of this step as soon as the ice was fairly broken, and had been piqued by her reluctance into more warmth than he had expected himself to feel. Nevertheless, when he came back to his own house, uncomfortable matters of detail came into Mr. Beresford’s mind, and annoyed him more than he could have believed, more than they were worth. About the houses, for instance; if this happened, they could not go on living next door to each other. Would she come to his, or should he go to hers?—if indeed the matter came to anything. This bothered him, and suggested many other details—changes of habit which would bother him still more. Altogether it was a troublesome business. He liked her best in her own drawing-room; but then he liked himself much best in his own library, and there were moments in which he felt disposed to denounce the fool who had first thought of any change. All things considered, how much better it would have been that they should remain as they were! but that was no longer to be thought of. How was he to tell Cara? How was she to tell her boys, upon whom she was so much more dependent than he was upon Cara? If the boys disapproved strenuously, then Mr. Beresford felt it would come to nothing after all; and in that case how much better to have said nothing! for he felt that he would not like to stand in the position of a man refused. So that altogether this middle-aged romance was not without its troubles; troubles—as, for instance, that about the houses—which you may laugh at if you please, but which involved much more personal embarrassment and inconvenience, you will allow, than many of the sentimental difficulties which you are ready to weep over in the romances of the young.

Mrs. Meredith was kept in some uneasiness also by the fact that Oswald did not return that night. The servants sat up for him, and lights burned all night in the house, affronting the dawn which came so early; but he did not appear. This was not at all usual; for Oswald, though he liked his own way, and was frivolous enough, had never been dissipated in the ordinary sense of that word; and what made it more unpleasant still was the fact that next day was Sunday, and that no communication either by telegram or letter was possible. This fact drove everything else out of Mrs. Meredith’s head. When James Beresford went to her, she could talk of nothing but Oswald; where he could have gone, how he might have been detained. That he had not sent them any news of his movements was easily explained. Sunday! ‘I would not say a word against Sunday,’ said poor Mrs. Meredith, who went to church dutifully as Sunday came; ‘but, oh! when one is anxious, when there is no post and no telegraph, what a day!’ They were all telling her how easily explainable Oswald’s absence was; and when they stopped explaining it to her, she herself would take up the parable, and protest that she knew exactly how it must have happened. It was all as clear as daylight. He had been detained by his friends whoever they might happen to be, or he had lost the last train. It was Oswald’s way to lose the last train, and no one had asked where he was going when he said he was going to the country. And, of course, it had been too late to telegraph on Saturday night, and how was he to know, a boy of his late habits, that the telegraph offices were open early on Sunday morning? All these explanations were most plausible—the worst of such things, however, is that, plausible as they are, they satisfy nobody. But it annoyed Mr. Beresford immensely to find that Oswald’s unexpected absence took up all Mrs. Meredith’s thoughts. She had no leisure for him, though surely he ought to have been at least as important as Oswald. Whatever he talked to her about, she replied to him with something about her boy. As if her boy could have come to any harm! as if it was not all his own levity and selfishness! Mr. Beresford, having an object of his own to pursue, was quite indignant with and impatient of Oswald. What was he, a frivolous do-nothing unsatisfactory young man, that so much fuss should be made about him? He was one of ‘the boys’—what more could be said? and how unsatisfactory the best of women were when this motive came into play! Cara never thus distracted her father’s mind; he did not think of her. To be sure she was a girl, and girls never get into scrapes. He did not quite like, it is true, the task of opening this question, of which his mind was full, to Cara. He thought, perhaps, that when all was settled, she (meaning Mrs. Meredith) might do it. Women know best how to deal with girls; but to make Cara, whatever might happen to her, into a hindrance of other intercourse, into an obstacle which stopped everything, that was not a weakness of which he would be capable. Mr. Beresford did not scoff at women; it was not a sentiment congenial to him; but still he had a feeling that in this respect the comparative strength and weakness of male and female character was certainly shown. But he would not say so rudely. He was obliged to submit.

On Monday morning a telegram did come from Oswald. He had been detained; would write to explain, but did not expect to get home till Thursday or Friday; please send portmanteau to Cloak-room, Clapham Junction. ‘Do any of his friends live in that quarter?’ Mrs. Meredith asked Edward, with astonishment. ‘He has friends everywhere,’ said Edward, with a half sigh. This pleased the mother, though he had not said it with such an intention. Yes, he had friends everywhere. He was a harum-scarum boy, too careless perhaps, but everywhere, wherever he went, he had friends; and the portmanteau was sent, and the letter of explanation waited for—but it did not come. In short, the week had nearly run round again without any news of him, and everything else was arrested, waited for Oswald’s reappearance. Mrs. Meredith evaded all recurrence to the more important subject by constantly falling back upon Oswald—perhaps she was rather glad of the chance of escape it gave her—and Mr. Beresford was no nearer a settlement than ever. This fretted him, and put him in a sort of secondary position which he did not like, but which it was useless to struggle against; and so the days and the hours went on.

It was the Friday when two visitors almost at the same moment approached the two adjoining houses in the Square, both of them with faces full of seriousness, and even anxiety. One of them was Mr. Maxwell in his brougham, who sprang out with a kind of nervous alacrity unusual to him, and knocked at Mrs. Meredith’s door. The other was a solid and portly clergyman, who got out of a four-wheeled cab, paying his fare with a careful calculation of the distance which produced bad language from his driver, and knocked at Mr. Beresford’s. They were admitted about the same moment, and received in the two corresponding rooms with nothing but a wall between them; and both of them had very serious business in hand. Cara’s visitor was Mr. Burchell, from the Rectory, who asked, with a countenance full of strange things, and with many apologies, whether Miss Beresford had lately seen ‘our Agnes.’ Agnes! the name made Cara start.

‘I have not seen anyone but Roger since I left the Hill. I hope he—I mean all, are well. Is Agnes in town, Mr. Burchell?’ Agnes was four or five years older than Cara, and therefore out of her sphere.

‘I thought your aunt would certainly have mentioned it to you; indeed, Mrs. Burchell was much surprised that she did not see her when she was in town. Agnes has been in—an educational establishment for some time. We are a little anxious about her,’ said the Rector, with a quaver in his voice.

‘Is she ill?’ Cara did not love the clergyman under whom she had sat for ten years, but her heart was touched by that unmistakable trembling in his commonplace voice.

‘I don’t suppose she is ill; we—don’t know. The fact is she left—the House last Saturday—and has never come back. We don’t know what has become of her,’ he said, with real trouble. ‘You won’t mention it to anyone. Oh, I suppose it is nothing, or something quite easily explainable; but her mother is anxious—and I thought you might have seen her. It is nothing, nothing of any real consequence,’ he added, trying to smile, but with a quiver in his lips. He was stout and commonplace and indeed disagreeable, but emotion had its effect upon him as well as another, and he was anxious about his child. He looked Cara wistfully in the face, as if trying to read in the lines of it something more than she would allow.

‘Agnes! the House—O Mr. Burchell!’ said Cara, waking up suddenly to a full sense of all that was in the communication. ‘Do you mean to say that it was Agnes—Agnes! that was the Agnes in the House?’

Mr. Maxwell was more uncertain how to open the object of his visit. He sat for some time talking of la pluie et le beau temps. He did not know how to begin. Then he contrived little traps for Mrs. Meredith, hoping to bring her to betray herself, and open a way for him. He asked about Cara, then about Mr. Beresford, and how he heard he had given up all ideas of going away. But, with all this, he did not produce the desired result, and it was necessary at last, unless he meant to lose his time altogether, to introduce his subject broadly without preface. He did so with much clearing of his throat.

‘I have taken rather a bold thing upon me,’ he said. ‘I have thought it my duty—I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Meredith. I have come to speak to you on this subject.’

‘On what subject?’ she said simply, with a smile.

This made it more difficult than ever. ‘About you and Mr. Beresford,’ he said, abruptly blurting it out. ‘Don’t be offended, for heaven’s sake! You ought to have known from the first; but I can’t let you walk blindly into—other relations—without letting you know.’

‘Doctor, I hope you are not going to say anything that will make a breach between us,’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘You have no right to suppose that I am about to form other relations—I only a few months a widow! I hope I have done nothing to forfeit my friends’ respect.’

‘Then I am not too late,’ he said, with an air of relief. ‘There is still time! I am very glad of that. Respect—forfeit your friends’ respect? who could suppose such a thing? You have only too much of your friends’ respect. We would all go through fire and water for you.’

‘Thanks, thanks,’ she said; ‘but you must not let me be gossiped about,’ she added, after a moment, which made the doctor, though he was not of a delicate countenance, blush.

‘That is all very well,’ he said, ‘but those who have so many friends, and friends so warmly interested, must expect a little talk. It has been spoken of, that there was something, that there might be—in short, that Mr. Beresford and you—forgive me! I don’t mean to say that it would not be most suitable. Everybody knows how fond he is of you—and not much wonder.’

‘Indeed, indeed you must not talk to me so,’ cried Mrs. Meredith, distressed; ‘my affairs are not public business, Mr. Maxwell.’

‘I came to tell you,’ he said, doggedly, ‘something you ought to know. I have no dislike to James Beresford. On the contrary, we are old friends; we were boys together. I did my best to shelter him from any reproach at the time. Everything I could do I did, and I think I succeeded. Perhaps now when one comes to reflect, it would have been better if I had not succeeded so well. But I could not stand by and see him ruined, see his peace of mind destroyed.’

‘Are you talking of Mr. Beresford? Have you lost your senses, doctor? what do you mean?’

‘You remember all that happened when Mrs. Beresford died?’

‘I remember—oh yes—poor Annie! how she suffered, poor soul, and how truly he mourned for her—how heart-broken he was.’

‘He had occasion,’ said the doctor, grimly.

‘Had occasion! I cannot imagine what you mean—there was never a better husband,’ said Mrs. Meredith, with some fervour; ‘never one who loved a woman better, or was more tender with her.’

‘Too tender. I am not saying that I condemn him absolutely. There are cases in which in one’s heart one might approve. Perhaps his was one of these cases; but anyhow, Mrs. Meredith, you ought to know.’

She got impatient, for she, too, had the feeling that to see her friend’s faults herself was one thing, but to have him found fault with quite another. ‘I should have thought that I knew Mr. Beresford quite as well as you did, doctor,’ she said, trying to give a lighter tone to the conversation. ‘I have certainly seen a great deal more of him for all these years.’

‘You could not know this,’ said Mr. Maxwell, ‘nor would I have told you but for the extremity of the case. Listen! She might have lingered I cannot tell how long—weeks, months—it was even possible years.’

‘Yes!’ the assent was no assent, but an exclamation of excitement and wonder.

‘I believe he meant it for the best. She was mad about having something given to her to put her out of her misery, as soon as we knew that she was past hope. Mrs. Meredith, I feel bound to tell you—when you know you can judge for yourself. He must have given her something that day after the consultation. It is no use mincing words—he must have given her—her death.’

‘Doctor! do you know what you are saying?’ She rose up from her chair—then sank back in it looking as if she were about to faint.

‘I know too well what I am saying. I huddled it up that there might be no inquiry. I don’t doubt she insisted upon it, and I don’t blame him. No, I should not have had the courage to do it, but I don’t blame him—altogether. It is a very difficult question. But you ought not to marry him—to be allowed to marry him in ignorance.’

She made no answer. The shock came upon her with all the more force that her mind was already weakened by anxiety. Given her her death! what did that mean? Did it mean that he had killed poor Annie, this man who was her dearest friend? A shiver shook all her frame. ‘I think you must be wrong. I hope you are wrong,’ she said. It was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering. The sudden horror chilled and froze her. ‘Oh, Mr. Maxwell, he never could have done it! No, no, I will never believe it,’ she said.

‘But I know it,’ said the doctor; ‘there could be no doubt of it; I could not have been deceived, and it was no crime in my eyes. He did it in love and kindness—he did it to serve her. But still no woman should marry him, without knowing at least——’

‘There was never any question of that,’ she said, hurriedly, in the commotion of her mind. Then it seemed cowardly of her to forsake him. She paused. ‘He is worthy of any woman’s confidence. I will not hear a word against him. He did not do it. I am sure he did not do it! or, if he did, he was not to blame.’

The words had not left her lips when the door was opened, and the subject of this strange conversation, Mr. Beresford himself, came into the room. They were both too agitated for concealment. She looked at the doctor with sudden terror. She was afraid of a quarrel, as women so often are. But Maxwell himself was too much moved to make any pretences. He rose up suddenly, with an involuntary start; but he was shaken out of ordinary caution by the excitement of what he had done. He went up to the new comer, who regarded him with quiet surprise, without any salutation or form of politeness. ‘Beresford,’ he said, ‘I will not deceive you. I have been telling her what it is right she should know. I don’t judge you; I don’t condemn you; but whatever happens, she has a right to know.’

It is one of the penalties or privileges of excitement that it ignores ignorance so to speak, and expects all the world to understand its position at a glance. James Beresford gazed with calm though quiet astonishment upon the man who advanced to meet him with tragedy in his tone. ‘What is the matter?’ he said, with the simplicity of surprise. Then seeing how pale Mrs. Meredith was, he went on with some anxiety, ‘Not anything wrong with Oswald? I trust not that?’

Mrs. Meredith stirred in her chair and held out her hand to him. She could not rise. She looked at him with an agitated smile. ‘I put perfect faith in you, perfect faith!’ she said, ‘notwithstanding what anyone may say.’

‘In me!’ he said, looking from one to another. He could not imagine what they meant.

‘Beresford,’ said Maxwell again, ‘I will not hide it from you. It has been in my mind all this time. I have never been able to look upon you as I did before; at a crisis like this I could hold my tongue no longer. I have been telling all that happened at the death of your first poor wife.’

‘My first—!’ the exclamation was under his breath, and Maxwell thought he was overcome with horror by the recollection; but that was not what he was thinking of: his first wife!—there was something sickening in the words. Was this his Annie that was meant? It seemed profanation, sacrilege. He heard nothing but that word. Maxwell did not understand him, but there was another who did. The doctor went on,

‘I have never said a word about it till this day, and never would but for what was coming. You know that I took the responsibility, and kept you free from question at the time.’

‘What does he mean?’ This question, after a wondering gaze at the other, Beresford addressed to Mrs. Meredith behind him. ‘All this is a puzzle to me, and not a pleasant one; what does he mean?’

‘This is too much,’ said the doctor. ‘Be a man, and stand to it now at least. I have not blamed you, though I would not have done it myself. I have told her that you consented—to what I have no doubt was poor Mrs. Beresford’s prayer—and gave her—her death——’

‘I—gave her her death—you are mad, Maxwell! I, who would have died a dozen times over to save her!’

‘There is no inconsistency in that. You could not save her, and you gave her—what? I never inquired. Anyhow it killed her, poor girl! It was what she wanted. Am I blaming you? But, James Beresford, whatever may have been in the past, it is your duty to be open now, and she ought to know.’

‘My God, will you not listen to me?’ cried Beresford, driven to despair. He had tried to stop him, to interrupt him, but in vain. Maxwell had only spoken out louder and stronger. He had determined to do it. He was absolutely without doubts on the matter, and he was resolute not to be silenced. ‘She ought to know,’ he went on saying under his breath to himself.

‘But it is not true. It is an invention, it is a mistake! I do anything against her dear life!—even in suffering, even in misery, was she not everything to me?’

‘That is all very well to say. You did it in love, not in hatred, I acknowledge that. Beresford, no one here will betray you. Why not be bold and own to what you did? I could not be deceived; it was from your hand and no other your wife got her death. How could I, her doctor, be deceived?’

‘Dr. Maxwell,’ said a low voice from the door; and they all started with a violent shock, as if it had been Annie Beresford herself come back from the grave. Mrs. Meredith rose hastily and went towards this strange apparition. It was Cara, with cheeks perfectly colourless, with blue eyes dilated, standing as she had entered, transfixed by those terrible words. But the girl took no notice of her friend’s rush towards her. She put out her hand to put Mrs. Meredith away, and kept her eyes fixed on the doctor, as if there was no one else in the room.

‘Dr. Maxwell,’ said Cara, her young bosom heaving, ‘I have come just in time. You are making a great, great mistake, for that is not true.’

‘Cara, child, go away, go away; I never meant this for you.’

‘No one knows but me,’ she said; ‘I was in the room all the time. I have never forgotten one thing, nor a word she said. She wanted him to do it, but he would not. He rushed away. I did not understand then what it meant.’

The girl stood trembling, without any support, so slight, so young, so fragile, with her pale face. Her father had scarcely thought of Cara before since she was the plaything of his younger life. All at once his eyes seemed to be opened, and his heart. He went to her by an irresistible impulse, and put his arm round her. Love seemed to come to life in him with very terror of what he was about to hear.

‘It was not you!’ he said, with a low cry of anguish; ‘it was not you!’

‘She would not let me,’ said Cara. ‘I asked to do it, but she would not let me. She looked up—to God,’ cried the girl, the tears rushing to her eyes, ‘and took it. Did not He know everything? You would not be angry, papa? you would not have cast me away if I had taken something to get free of pain? Would He? He was her father too.’

‘O, Cara, no one blames her—no one blames her!’ said Mrs. Meredith, with unrestrained tears.

‘She looked up to God,’ said the girl, with her voice full of awe. ‘She said I was to tell you; but I did not understand what it meant then, and afterwards I could not speak. It has always seemed to stand between us, papa, that I had this to tell you and could not speak.’

‘My child,’ said the father, his lips trembling, ‘it has been my fault; but nothing shall stand between us any more.’

The two others looked on for a moment with conflicting feelings. Mrs. Meredith looked at them with generous tears and satisfaction, yet with a faint pang. That was over now. She had always intended it should end thus; but yet for the moment, such is the strange constitution of the heart, it gave her a passing pang. As for the doctor, he gathered his gloves and his hat together with great confusion. He had made a fool of himself. Whatever the others might do, how could he contemplate this solemn disclosure he had come to make, which had been turned into the officious interference of a busybody? He took no leave of anyone; but when they were all engaged with each other, made a bolt for the door of the back drawing-room, and got out, very red, very uncomfortable, and full of self-disgust. He was touched too by the scene which had been so unexpectedly brought before him, and felt tears, very unusual to him, tingling in the corners of his eyes. He met Edward on the stairs; but Edward was too much preoccupied to observe how Maxwell was looking.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘if Miss Beresford is in the drawing-room? There is a gentleman waiting for her downstairs.’

‘If you mean Cara,’ said the doctor, ‘she is there, and the mistress of the situation, I can tell you. Oh, never mind; I can let myself out. You’ll find them all there.’

Edward stared a little, but went on to deliver his message. ‘I hope I am not disturbing anyone,’ he said, in the formal manner which he had put on; ‘but there is someone, very impatient, waiting for Miss Beresford—I mean Cara,’ he added, half ashamed of himself, ‘downstairs.’

Cara roused herself from her father’s arm. It revived her more than anything else to see that Edward was turning away again to leave the room. She shook the tears from her eyes, and roused herself into sudden energy. ‘That was why I came,’ she said. ‘O, Mrs. Meredith, where is Oswald? We must find him, or they will all break their hearts.’

‘Who—you, Cara, my darling? no one shall break your heart.’

‘No, no,’ she cried, with a little start of impatience. ‘It is time this was over. He never would tell you the truth. Oh, we must find him, wherever he is, for Agnes has gone too.’

They all gathered about with looks of wonder, Edward making but one step from the door where he stood. His countenance gleamed over with a sudden light; he put out his hands to her unawares.

‘Agnes—who is Agnes!’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘O, Cara, what does it all mean? I know nothing about him—where he is. He was to come back to-day.’

‘Agnes is Agnes Burchell,’ said Cara. ‘He has been telling me of her all this time. He has been spending his whole time going after her. And she is gone too, and it is her father who is downstairs. Oh, think how we can find them! Her father is very anxious. Oswald should not have done it,’ said Cara, with the solemnity of her age. ‘I always begged him, and he always promised, to ask you to go.’

‘This is extraordinary news,’ said Mrs. Meredith, dropping into the nearest chair. She was trembling with this renewed agitation. ‘And you knew it, Cara; you have been his confidante? Oh, what a strange mistake we have all made!’

‘It was not my fault,’ said Cara, softly. She gave a furtive glance at Edward as she spoke, and his mother looked at him too. Edward’s countenance was transformed, his eyes were lit up, smiles trembling like an illumination over his face. Mrs. Meredith’s heart gave a leap in her motherly bosom. She might have been wounded that it was none of her doing; but she was too generous for so poor a thought. He will not go to India now, she said to herself in her heart. The pang which Cara had given her unwittingly was nothing to the compensation thus received from her equally unconscious hands.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE WORST SCRAPE OF ALL.

A rumour had spread in the little hamlet which had gathered about the junction, of some travellers who had missed their train. The faintest rumour echoes a long way in the quiet of the country, and as the village was chiefly formed of the cottages of railway labourers and porters, it was natural that this kind of report should travel more swiftly than anything else. Oswald and his companion walked down the still road in the soft dusk like two ghosts. In the mind of Agnes nothing less than despair was supreme. What was to become of her? Shame, disgrace, destruction, the loss of all things. How could she dare to face the wondering women in the House? Sister Mary Jane might understand her, but who else? And what comments there would be, and what talk! And home—how could she go home? To spend a night at an inn at all was something entirely strange to Agnes. But thus—all alone, and with a gentleman; one who was not related to her, of whom she could give no account or befitting explanation! A wild fancy seized her of flying from him, disappearing into some corner behind a high hedge, some nook under the trees. But this was as futile as everything else, and might be worse than anything else. She had the bondage of custom before her, though she had put herself into a position in which all her familiar habits were thrown to the winds. And yet going to the inn with Oswald was about as bad as spending a night in direful desolation in the dark corner of a field. The one was not much better than the other! If she could have got away at once, it was the field she would have chosen. She could have crept into a corner in the dark, and there waited, though she might have been frightened, till the morning broke and there was an early train. Had she but done that at once, stolen away before he could see what she was doing! But she could not disappear from his side now, at the risk of being pursued and argued with and entreated and brought back. So, with her mind in a blank of despair, not knowing what to think, she walked close by his side between the hedgerows through the soft darkness. Oh, what a punishment was this for the indiscretion of the day! It was indiscretion, perhaps, but surely the punishment was more terrible than the guilt. She drew the thick gauze veil which was attached to her bonnet over her face. What could anyone think of her—in that dress? Then there came into her mind, to increase her pain, an instant vivid realisation of what her mother would say. Mrs. Burchell would judge the very worst of any such victim of accident. ‘Why did she lose her train?’ her mother would have said. ‘Depend upon it, such things don’t happen when people take common care.’ Agnes knew how her mother would look, denouncing the unfortunate with hard eyes in which was no pity; and naturally her mother was her standard. So, no doubt, people would think—people who were respectable, who never placed themselves in embarrassing situations. They would go further, she thought, with a still more poignant touch of anguish—they would say that this is what comes of religious vagaries, of sisterhoods, of attempts at being or doing something more than other people. They would laugh and sneer, and hold her up as an example—and oh, never, never, never, could she get the better of this! it would cling to her all her life—never, never could she hold up her head again!

Oswald too was full of thought, planning in his mind how he was to carry out his intentions, his mind so overflowing with plans that he could not talk. He had been grieved to the heart by the dilemma into which his carelessness had plunged them. But now he began to recover, and a certain sensation of boyish pleasure in the escapade came stealing into his mind. He would not have acknowledged it, but still there it was. The village was a mere collection of common cottages in yellow brick, as ugly as it was possible to imagine; but the inn was an old roadside inn of past times, red, with a high-pitched roof all brown with lichen, showing the mean modernness of the others. An inquisitive landlady stood at the door watching for them, inquisitive but good-natured, the fame of their failure having travelled before them. Oswald strode on in advance when he saw the woman. ‘Good evening,’ he said, taking off his hat, which was a civility she was not used to. ‘If you are the landlady, may I speak to you? There is a young lady here who has missed her train. She is very much frightened and distressed. Can you give her a room and take care of her. It is all an accident. Can you take care of her for the night?’

‘And you too, sir?’ asked the woman.

‘Oh, never mind me. It is the young lady who is important. Yes, Miss Burchell,’ he said, going back to Agnes, ‘here is someone who will attend to you. I will not ask you to talk to me to-night,’ he added, dropping his voice, ‘but do not be surprised if you find me gone in the morning. I shall be off by the first train, and you will wait for me here. I think you will be comfortable—everything shall be settled directly.’

‘Oh, how can I, how can I? Mr. Meredith, it is not possible. I must bear it. It was not our fault. I will tell them everything, and—I will go home.’

‘Yes, darling, with your husband. What does it matter this month or next. You have promised me one way or the other. There is no harm in getting married,’ he said, with a breathless eagerness in his voice. ‘Is it not by far the best thing? And then all will be settled at once.’

‘No, not that!’ she said, breathless too with excitement. ‘But if you will go to the House and tell Sister Mary Jane everything—you must tell her everything——’

‘I will,’ he said fervently. ‘Surely you may trust me. And I will bring her to you in the afternoon. Everything shall be right. Now go, my dearest, and rest, and don’t worry yourself. I will take all the blame upon myself.’

‘The blame was mine too,’ she said, gravely. She strained her eyes through the darkness to see his face. Was he taking it with levity—was he unaware of the terrible, terrible seriousness of the whole business? She could not bear the idea that it was anything less than tragic to him too.

‘No, I cannot allow that. It was my folly, my thoughtlessness. But could I be expected to think to-day? I can’t even say good-night to you, darling. Promise me to sleep, and not to worry yourself with thinking. By six o’clock I shall be off to set all right.’

‘To bring the Sister?’ she said, casting a soft look back at him. ‘I shall be very, very grateful. Good-night.’

‘Good-night,’ he said. He stood in the little hall and watched her going upstairs, her slight little figure drooping in its black drapery, the cheerful landlady preceding her with a light. What a revolution since the morning! Then she had been a kind of divinity worshipped at a distance, now she was his; and not only his, but already dependent upon him, absolutely in his hands. To do Oswald justice, this consciousness only increased the touch of reverence which had always mingled with his love. She was not a girl like other girls, though, indeed, full of levity and carelessness as he was, Oswald had never been disrespectful even of those ‘other girls,’ who were not to be mentioned in the same breath with Agnes. She was by herself; there was no one like her. Even in this indiscretion which she had committed—and though it was entirely his fault yet it could not be denied that it was an indiscretion—what a delicate veil of maidenly reserve had been about her! Still like one of Perugino’s angels just touching earth, ready to fly if exposed to a look or word less exquisite than her own purity. This was how he thought of her, and it is well for all parties when young lovers think so; though not the wildest extravagance of ‘fastness’ could be worse than what Agnes thought of it in the silence of the little room upstairs where she had already fallen down upon her knees by the bed, crying her heart out, her face hidden in an anguish of shame. Oswald’s feelings were less acute. He went out when she disappeared and sat down on the bench outside, where two or three silent men were sitting smoking, drinking their beer, and giving forth a fragmentary remark at intervals. There was no light but that which streamed from the open door, and the little red-curtained window beside it, where the same kind of dull sociable drinking was going on. Outside, the soft night air and pale yet warm night sky elevated the homely scene. Oswald took off his hat and exposed his head to the fresh caressing of the air, which blew his hair about and refreshed him body and soul. He was tired, for he had taken an unusual amount of exercise, not to speak of the strain of mind he was still undergoing. He took a mighty draught of beer, and felt himself strong again. Naturally there had been no such beverage in the boat, and even the smile of Agnes, which, though sweet was very timid, did not sustain his strained muscles; and he had rowed hard for the last half-hour at least, and was unaccustomed to the exertion—out of training, as he would have said. So that altogether it was in a very agreeable moment of repose that he set himself to a final arrangement of his plan. He was in a scrape, no doubt; but that he was used to, and this time what a glorious scrape it was! a fit climax to all the others of which he had exhausted the sensations; but for Agnes indeed, and her pain, it was, he said to himself, the very way he would have chosen to settle his marriage. No lingering negotiations, no presentations to her family, and sense of being on his best behaviour while they inspected him, no fuss of presents and trousseau, and tiresome delay (to tell the truth, no one would have enjoyed the presents and the preparations, and all the importance of the intervening time more than Oswald; but his easy mind easily ignored this, and took refuge in the most desirable aspect of the alternative). The only thing he disliked in the prospect before him was the idea of having to get up very early in the morning, which, especially after the fatigue and excitement of this day, was a bore to think of. Otherwise everything was ideal, he persuaded himself. He watched a light come into a window overhead as he sat resting enjoying the fresh air. That must be her room, bless her! Poor darling, how pale she had grown, how frightened! But never in her sweet life to come should there be anything to be frightened of. Thus Oswald resolved in his tender thoughts.

‘Do you know at what hour the first train goes?’ he asked of one of the men who were sitting by.

‘Well, master, mostly it’s at six o’clock,’ was the answer; ‘but to-morrow, you see, being Sunday——’

‘Good heavens! Sunday!’ he said, with a cry of dismay.

‘Well, wherever ‘ave you been a-living not to know it was Sunday. Any fool knows that. I reckon, master, as you’ve come from abroad. They don’t take no notice of Sundays there, I’ve heard say. It’s Sunday, and ten o’clock is the first train; and early enough too,’ said the man, who was a porter on the railway, and felt the hardship of the rest disturbed.

Oswald could not find a word to say. He had forgotten this terrible fact. It made everything doubly terrible for the moment, and it turned all his own plans into foolishness. He sat dumb, unable to say a word, unable even to think, his mouth open, his heart beating. What was to be done? Now, indeed, he felt the harm of his folly; a whole day lost, and Agnes kept in this equivocal position, and all tongues let loose. This fairly sobered the light-hearted young man. He stole upstairs to the little bedroom which had been prepared for him, still speechless, as much cast down as Agnes was. What were they to do? He flung himself on his bed in a kind of despair.

Next morning, though it was not his custom, Oswald was awake as early as if the train had been six o’clock, as he thought. It was better not to let her know, not to agitate her further. Having once got this idea into his head, he went further, and resolved upon the most disinterested course of action possible. He would go all the same, though he could do nothing he wished to do—and carry out her will; she should be satisfied. To do this, with newborn delicacy, he left the inn early, so that she might suppose he had only carried out his original intention. What would Sister Mary Jane say to him? He would be the wolf and Agnes the lamb in her eyes. How could anyone think otherwise? But what did it matter so long as Agnes had justice? He went up to town in the aggravating tedium of a slow Sunday train. It was true he had come down in a slow train the day before, but that was entirely different, there was no tedium in it. The streets were very still when he got to town, everybody being at church, as good Christians ought, and it was only after repeated knockings that he got admission at the big door of the House. The porteress gave a little scream at sight of him. ‘Oh, sir, can you tell us anything of Miss Burchell? She never wrote to say she was going to stay, and we’ve been that anxious about her!’

‘Can I speak to the Sister Superior?’ said Oswald, somewhat troubled in his mind as to the reception he would receive.

‘The Sister Superior has been sent for to the mother-house, sir,’ said the porteress. ‘She had to go yesterday. It is some meeting—nobody knew it till yesterday. Perhaps she will be back to-morrow, but we don’t know. Would Sister Catherine do? If it was anything about Miss Burchell——’

‘It was the Sister Superior I wanted,’ said Oswald, and after a pause he turned away. He would not say anything about Miss Burchell. After he had left the House, it occurred to him that even this humble porteress would have been better than nothing, but then it was too late. He walked about the streets for a whole hour, questioning with himself what he ought to do. His mother? She was very kind, but she was not without her prejudices; and would not she recollect afterwards that her first sight of her daughter-in-law had been at the railway inn at the junction, in a semi-conventual dress, and a most equivocal position. If he could but have laid hands on Cara? But on what excuse could he run away with a second young lady? No—there was nothing for it now; he must go back to Agnes, and tell her of his non-success, which was not his fault, and next day he must carry out his own plan. There was nothing else for it. He went to the chambers of a friend, not venturing to go home, and borrowed some clothes; then went back again in the afternoon. There were few trains, and not many people were travelling so far. He was the only individual who got out at the junction, where already he was a person of importance.