Heriot's Choice: A Tale

THE DESERTED COTTON-MILL IN HILBECK GLEN

Richard came home for a few days towards the end of the long vacation. He was looking pale and thin in spite of his enforced cheerfulness, and it was easy to see that the inaction of the last few weeks had only induced restlessness, and a strong desire for hard, grinding work, as a sedative for mental unrest. His brotherly congratulations to Polly were mixed with secret amusement.

'So you are "Heriot's choice," are you, Polly?' he said, taking her hand kindly, and looking at the happy, blushing face.

'Are you glad, Richard?' she whispered, shyly.

'I can hardly tell,' he returned, with a curiously perplexed expression. 'I believe overwhelming surprise was my first sensation on hearing the wonderful intelligence. I gave such an exclamation that Roy turned quite pale, and thought something had happened at home, and then he got in a temper, and carried off the letter to read by himself; he would have it I was chaffing him.'

Polly pouted half-seriously. 'You are not a bit nice to me, Richard, or Roy either. Why has he never written to me himself? He must have got my two letters.'

'You forget; I have never seen anything of him for the last six weeks. Fancy my finding him off on the tramp when I returned that night, prosecuting one of his art pilgrimages, as he calls them, to some shrine of beauty or other. He had not even the grace to apologise for his base desertion till a week afterwards. However, Frognal without Rex was not to be borne; so I started off to Cornwall in search of our reading party, and then got inveigled by Oxenham, who carried me off to Ilfracombe.'

'It was very wrong of Rex to leave you; he is not generally so thoughtless,' returned Polly, who had been secretly chagrined by this neglect on the part of her old favourite. 'Is there no letter from Rex?' had been a daily question for weeks.

'Rex is a regular Bohemian since he took to wearing a moustache and a velvet coat. All the Hampstead young ladies are breaking their hearts over him. He looks so handsome and picturesque; if he would only cut his hair shorter, and open his sleepy eyes, I should admire him myself.'

Polly sighed.

'I wish he would come home, dear old fellow. I long to see him; but I am dreadfully angry with him, all the same; he ought to have written to Dr. Heriot, if not to me. It is disrespectful—unkind—not like Rex at all.' And Polly's bright eyes swam with tears of genuine resentment.

'I shall tell Roy how you take his unkindness to heart.'

She shook her head.

'It is very ungrateful of him, to say the least of it. You have spoiled him, Polly.'

'No,' she returned, very gravely. 'Rex is too good to be spoiled: he must have some reason for his silence. If he had told me he was going to be married—to—to any of those young ladies you mention, I would have gone to London to see his wife. I know,' she continued, softly, 'Rex was fonder of me than he was of Olive and Chriss. I was just like a favourite sister, and I always felt as though he were my own—own brother. Why there is nothing that I would not do for Rex.'

'Dear Polly, we all know that; you have been the truest little sister to him, and to us all.'

'Yes, and then for him to treat me like this—to be silent six whole weeks. Perhaps he did not like Aunt Milly writing. Perhaps he thought I ought to have written to him myself; and I have since—two long letters.'

'Dr. Heriot will be angry with Rex if he sees you fretting.'

'I am not fretting; I never fret,' she returned, indignantly; 'as though that foolish boy deserved it. I am happier than I can tell you. Oh, Richard, is he not good?'

And there was no mistaking the sweet earnestness with which she spoke of her future husband.

'Ah, that he is.'

'How grave you look, Richard! Are you really glad—really and truly, I mean?'

'Why, Polly, what a little Jesuit you are, diving into people's secret thoughts in this way.' And there was a shadow of embarrassment in Richard's cordial manner. 'Of course I am glad that you should be happy, dear, and not less so that Dr. John's solitary days are over.'

'Yes, but you don't think me worthy of him,' she returned, plaintively, and yet shrewdly.

'I don't think you really grown up, you mean; you wear long dresses, you are quite a fashionable young lady now, but to me you always seem little Polly.'

'Rude boy,' she returned, with a charming pout, 'one would think you had gray hairs, to listen to you. I can't be so very young or so very silly, or he would not have chosen me, you know.'

'I suppose you have bewitched him,' returned Richard, smiling; but Polly refused to hear any more and ran away laughing.

Richard's face clouded over his thoughts when he was left alone. Whatever they were he kept them locked in his own breast; during the few days he remained at home, he was observant of all that passed under his eyes, and there was a deferential tenderness in his manner to Mildred that somewhat surprised her; but neither to her nor to any other person did he hint that he was disappointed by Dr. Heriot's choice.

During the first day there had been no mention of Kirkleatham or Ethel Trelawny, but on the second day Richard had himself broken the ice by suggesting that Mildred should contrive some errand that should take her thither, and that in the course of her visit she should mention his arrival at the vicarage.

'I must think of her, Aunt Milly; we are neither of us ready to undergo the awkwardness of a first meeting. Perhaps in a few months things may go on much as usual. I always meant to write to her before my ordination. Tell her that I shall only be here for a few days—that Polly wants me to wait over her birthday, but that I have no intention of intruding on her.'

'Are you so sure she will regard it as an intrusion?' asked Mildred, quietly.

'There is no need to debate the question,' was the somewhat hasty reply. 'I must not deviate from the rule I have laid down for myself, to see as little as possible of her until after my ordination.'

'And that will be at Whitsuntide?'

'Yes,' he returned, with an involuntary sigh; 'so, Aunt Milly, you will promise to go after dinner?'

Mildred promised, but fate was against her. Olive and Polly had driven over to Appleby with Dr. Heriot, and relays of callers detained her unwillingly all the afternoon; she saw Richard was secretly chafing, as he helped her to entertain them with the small talk usual on such occasions. He was just bidding a cheerful good-bye to Mrs. Heath and her sister, when horses' hoofs rung on the beck gravel of the courtyard, and Ethel rode up to the door, followed by her groom.

Mildred grew pale from sympathy when she saw Richard's face, but there was no help for it now; she saw Ethel start and flush, and then quietly put aside his assistance, and spring lightly to the ground; but she looked almost as white as Richard himself when she came into the room, and not all her dignity could hide that she was trembling.

'I did not know, I thought you were alone,' she faltered, as Mildred kissed her; but Richard caught the whisper.

'You shall be alone if you wish it,' he returned, trying to speak in his ordinary manner, but failing miserably.

Poor lad, this unexpected meeting with his idol was too much even for his endurance. 'I was not prepared for it,' as he said afterwards. He thought she looked sweeter than ever under the influence of that girlish embarrassment. He watched her anxiously as she stood still holding Mildred's hand.

'You shall not be made uncomfortable, Miss Trelawny; it is my fault, not yours, that I am here. I told Aunt Milly to prevent this awkwardness. I will go, and then you two will be alone together;' and he was turning to the door, but Ethel's good heart prompted her to speak, and prevented months of estrangement.

'Why should you go, Richard? this is your home, not mine; Mildred, ask him not to do anything so strange—so unkind.'

'But if my presence embarrasses you?' he returned, with an impetuous Cœur-de-Lion look that made Ethel blush.

She could not answer.

'It will not do so if you sit down and be like yourself,' said Mildred, pleadingly. She looked at the two young creatures with half-pitying, half-amused eyes. Richard's outraged boyish dignity and Ethel's yearning overture of peace to her old favourite—it was beautiful and yet sad to watch them, she thought. 'Richard, will you ring that bell, please?' continued the wary woman; 'Ethel has come for her afternoon cup of tea, and she does not like to be kept waiting. Tell Etta to be quick, and fetch some of her favourite seed-cake from the dining-room sideboard.'

Mildred's common sense was rarely at fault; to be matter-of-fact at such a crisis was invaluable. It restored Richard's calmness as nothing else could have done; it gave him five minutes' grace, during which he hunted for the cake and his mislaid coolness together; that neither could be found at once mattered little. Richard's overcharged feelings had safe vent in scolding Etta and creating commotion and hubbub in the kitchen, where the young master's behests were laws fashioned after the Mede and Persian type.

When he re-entered the room Mildred knew she could trust him. He found Ethel sitting by the open window with her hat and gauntlets off, enjoying the tea Mildred had provided. He carried the cake gravely to her, as though it were a mission of importance, and Ethel, who could not have swallowed a mouthful to save her life, thanked him with a sweet smile and crumbled the fragments on her plate.

By and by Mildred was called away on business. She obeyed reluctantly when she saw Ethel's appealing look.

'I shall only be away a few minutes. Give her some more tea, Richard,' she said as she closed the door.

Richard did as he was bid; but either his hand shook or Ethel's, though neither owned to the impeachment, and the cup slipped, and some of the hot liquid was spilt on the blue cloth habit.

The laugh that followed was a very healing one. Richard was on his knees trying to undo the mischief and blaming himself in no measured terms for his awkwardness. When he saw the sparkle in Ethel's eye his brow cleared like magic.

'You are not angry with me, then?'

'Angry with you! What an idea, Richard; such a trifling accident as that. Why it has not even hurt the cloth.'

'No, but it has scalded your hand; let me look.' And as Ethel tried to hide it he held it firmly in his own.

'You see it is nothing, hardly a red spot!' but he did not let it go.

'Ethel, will you promise me one thing? No, don't draw your hand away, I shall say nothing to frighten you. I was a fool just now, but then one is a fool sometimes when one comes suddenly upon the woman one loves. But will you promise not to shun me again, not as though you hated me, I mean?'

'Hated you! For shame, Richard.'

'Well, then, as though you were afraid of me. You disdained my assistance just now, you would not let me lift you from your horse. How often have I done so before, and you never repulsed me!'

'You ought not to have noticed it, you ought to have understood,' returned Ethel, with quivering lips. It was very sweet to be talking to him again if only he would not encroach on his privilege.

'Then let things be between us as they always have been,' he pleaded. 'I have done nothing to forfeit your friendship, have I? I have humbled myself, not you,' with a flavour of bitterness which she could not find it in her heart to resent. 'Let me see you sitting here sometimes in my father's house; such a sight will go far to soothe me. Shall it be so, Ethel?'

'Yes, if you wish it,' she returned, almost humbly.

Her only thought was how she should comfort him. Her womanly eyes read signs of conflict and suffering in the pale, wan face; when she had assented, he relinquished her hand with a mute clasp of thanks. He looked almost himself when Mildred came back, apologising for her long delay. Had she really been gone half-an-hour—neither of them knew it. Ethel looked soothed, tranquillised, almost happy, and Richard not graver than his wont.

Mildred was relieved to find things on this agreeable footing, but she was not a little surprised when two days afterwards Richard announced his intention of going up to Kirkleatham, and begged her to accompany him.

'I will promise not to make a fool of myself again; you shall see how well I shall behave,' he said, anticipating her remonstrance. 'Don't raise any objection, please, Aunt Milly. I have thought it all over, and I believe I am acting for the best,' and of course Richard had his way.

Ethel's varying colour when she met them testified to her surprise, and for a little while her manner was painfully constrained, but it could not long remain so. Richard seemed determined that she should be at her ease with him. He talked well and freely, only avoiding with the nicest tact any subject that might recall the conversation in the kitchen garden.

Mildred sat by in secret admiration and wonder; the simple woman could make nothing of the young diplomatist. That Richard could talk well on grave subjects was no novelty to her; but never had he proved himself so eloquent; rather terse than fluent, addicted more to correctness than wit, he now ranged lightly over a breadth of subjects, touching gracefully on points on which he knew them to be both interested, with an admirable choice of words that pleased even Ethel's fastidiousness.

Mildred saw that her attention was first attracted, and then that she was insensibly drawn to answer him. She seemed less embarrassed, the old enthusiasm woke. She contradicted him once in her old way, he maintained his opinion with warm persistence;—they disagreed. They were still in the height of the argument when Mildred looked at her watch and said they must be going.

It was Ethel's turn now to proffer hospitality, but to her surprise Richard quietly refused it. He would come again and bid her good-bye, he said gravely, holding her hand; he hoped then that Mr. Trelawny would be at home.

His manner seemed to trouble Ethel. She had stretched out her hand for her garden-hat. It had always been a custom with her to walk down the croft with Mildred, but now she apparently changed her mind, for she replaced it on the peg.

'You are right,' said Richard, quietly, as he watched this little by-play, 'it is far too hot in the crofts, and to-day Aunt Milly has my escort. Old customs are sometimes a bore even to a thorough conservative such as you, Miss Trelawny.'

'I will show you that you are wrong,' returned Ethel, with unusual warmth, as the broad-brimmed hat was in her hand again. There was a pin-point of sarcasm under Richard's smooth speech that grazed her susceptibility.

Perhaps Richard had gained his end, for an odd smile played round his mouth as he walked beside her. He did not seem to notice that she did not address him again, but confined her attention to Mildred. Her cheeks were very pink, possibly from the heat, when she parted from them at the gate, and Richard got only a very fleeting pressure of the hand.

'Richard, I do not know whether to admire or to be afraid of you,' said Mildred, half in jest, as they crossed the road.

A flash of intelligence answered her.

'Did I behave well? It is weary work. Aunt Milly; it will make an old man of me before my time, but she shall reverence me yet,' and his mouth closed with the old determined look she knew so well.

Dr. Heriot had planned a picnic to Hillbeck in honour of Polly's eighteenth birthday, the vicarage party and Mr. Marsden being the only guests.

Hillbeck Wood was a very favourite place of resort on hot summer days. To-day dinner was to be spread in the deep little glen lying behind an old disused cotton-mill, a large dilapidated building that Polly always declared must be haunted, and to please this fancy of hers Dr. Heriot had once fabricated a weird plot of a story which was so charmingly terrible, as Chriss phrased it, that the girls declared nothing would induce them to remain in the glen after sundown.

There was certainly something weird and awesome in the very silence and neglect of the place, but the glen behind it was a lovely spot. The hillsides were thickly wooded; through the bottom of the glen ran a sparkling little beck; the rich colours of the foliage, wearing now the golden and red livery of autumn, were warm and harmonious; while a cloudless sky and a soft September air brightened the scene of enjoyment.

Mildred, who, as usual on such occasions, was doomed to rest and inaction, amused herself with collecting a specimen of ruta muraria for her fernery, while Polly and Chriss washed salad in the running stream, and Richard and Hugh Marsden unpacked the hampers, and Olive spread the tempting contents on dishes tastefully adorned with leaves and flowers under Dr. Heriot's supervision, while Mr. Lambert sat by, an amused spectator of the whole.

There was plenty of innocent gaiety over the little feast. Hugh Marsden's blunders and large-handed awkwardness were always provocative of mirth, and he took all in such good part. Polly and Chriss waited on everybody, and even washed the plates in the beck, Polly tucking up her fresh blue cambric and showing her little high-heeled shoes as she tripped over the grass.

When the meal was over the gentlemen seemed inclined to linger in the pleasant shade; Chriss was coaxing Dr. Heriot for a story, but he was too lazy to comply, and only roused himself to listen to Richard and Hugh Marsden, who had got on the subject of clerical work and the difficulty of contesting northern prejudice.

'Their ignorance and hard-headedness are lamentable,' groaned Hugh; 'dissent has a terrible hold over their mind; but to judge from a few of the stories Mr. Delaware tells us, things are better than they were.'

'My father met with a curious instance of this crass ignorance on the part of one of his parishioners about fifteen years ago,' returned Richard. 'I have heard him relate it so often. You remember old W——, father?'

'I am not likely to forget him,' replied Mr. Lambert, smiling. 'It was a very pitiful case to my mind, though one cannot forbear a smile at the quaintness of his notion. Heriot has often heard me refer to it.'

'We must have it for Marsden's benefit then.'

'I think Richard was right in saying that it was about fifteen years ago that I was called to minister to an old man in his eighty-sixth year, who had been blind from his birth, I believe, and was then on his deathbed. I read to him, prayed for him, and talked to him; but though his lips moved I did not seem to gain his attention. At last, in despair, I said good-afternoon, and rose to go, but he suddenly caught hold of me.

'"Stop ye, parson," he said; "stop ye a bit, an' just hear me say my prayers, will ye?" I thought it a singular request, but I remained, and he began repeating the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the collect "Lighten our darkness," and finished up with the quaint old couplet beginning—

and after he had finished he said triumphantly, "Hoo d'ye think I've deean?" I said, "em gay weel. D'ye think I'll pass?"

ROYAL

'My dear boy, were you hiding from us?'

Mildred had recovered from her brief shock of surprise; her heart was heavy with all manner of foreboding as she noted Royal's haggard and careworn looks, but she disguised her anxiety under a pretence of playfulness.

'Have you been masquerading under the title of Leonard-du-Bray, my dear?' she continued, with a little forced laugh, holding his hot hands between her own, for Rex was still Aunt Milly's darling; but he drew them irritably, almost sullenly, away. There was a lowering look on the bright face, an expression of restless misery in the blue eyes, that went to Mildred's heart.

'I am in no mood for jests,' he returned, bitterly; 'do I look as though I were, Aunt Milly? Come a little farther with me behind this wall where no one will spy upon us.'

'They have all gone to the Fox Tower, they will not be back for an hour yet. Look, the glen is quite empty, even Etta has disappeared; come and let me make you some tea; you look worn out—ill, and your hands are burning. Come, my dear, come,' but Roy resisted.

'Let me alone,' he returned, freeing himself angrily from her soft grasp, 'I am not going to make one of the birthday party, not even to please the queen of the feast. Are you coming, Aunt Milly, or shall I go back the same way I came?'

Roy spoke rudely, almost savagely, and there was a sneer on the handsome face.

'Yes, I will follow you, Rex,' returned Mildred, quietly.

What had happened to their boy—to their Benjamin? She walked by his side without a word, till he had found a place that suited him, a rough hillock behind a dark angle of the wall; the cotton-mill was between them and the glen.

'This will do,' he said, throwing himself down on the grass, while Mildred sat down beside him. 'I had to make a run for it before. Dick nearly found me out though. I meant to have gone away without speaking to one of you, but I thought you saw me.'

'Rex, dear, have you got into trouble?' she asked, gently. 'No, do not turn from me, do not refuse to answer me; there must be some reason for this strange behaviour, or you would not shun your best friends.'

He shook his head, but did not answer.

'It cannot be anything very wrong, but we must look it in the face, Roy, whatever it is. Perhaps your father or Richard could help you better than I could, or even—' she hesitated slightly—'Dr. Heriot.'

Roy started convulsively.

'He! don't mention his name. I hate—I hate him,' clenching his hand, his white artist hand, as he spoke.

Mildred recoiled. Was he sane? had he been ill and they had not known it? His fevered aspect, the restless brilliancy of his eyes, his incoherence, filled her with dismay.

'Roy, you frighten me,' she said, faintly. 'I believe you are ill, dear—that you do not know what you are saying;' but he laughed a strange, bitter laugh.

'Ill! I wish I were; I vow I should be glad to have done with it. The life I have been leading for the last six weeks has been almost unbearable. Do you recollect you once told me that I should take trouble badly, that I was a moral coward and should give in sooner than other men? Well, you were a true prophet, Aunt Milly.'

'Dear Roy, I am trying to be patient, but do you know, you are torturing me with this suspense.'

He laughed again, and patted her hand half-kindly, half-carelessly.

'You need not look so alarmed, mother Milly,' his pet name for her; 'I have not forged a cheque, or put my name to a bill, or got into any youthful scrape. The trouble is none of my making. I am only a coward, and can't face it as Dick would if he were in my place, and so I thought I would come and have a look at you all before I went away for a long, long time. I was pretty near you all the time you were at dinner, and heard all Dad's stories. It is laughable, isn't it, Aunt Milly?' but the poor lad's face contracted with a look of hopeless misery as he spoke.

'My dear, I am so glad,' returned Mildred in a reassured tone; 'never mind the trouble; trouble can be borne, so that you have done nothing wrong. But I feared I hardly know what, you looked and spoke so mysteriously; and then, remember we have heard nothing about you for so long—even Polly's letters have been unanswered.'

'Did she say so? did she mind it? What does she think, Aunt Milly?'

'She has not complained, at least to me, but she has looked very wistful I notice at post-time; once or twice I fancied your silence a little damped her happiness.'

'She is happy then? what an ass I was to doubt it,' he groaned; 'as though she could be proof against the fascinations of a man like Dr. Heriot; but oh! Polly, Polly, I never could have believed you would have thrown me over like this,' and Roy buried his face in his hands with a hoarse sob as he spoke.

Mildred sat almost motionless with surprise. Strange to say, she had not in the least realised the truth; perhaps her own trouble had a little deadened her quick instinct of sympathy, or Roy's apparently brotherly affection had deceived her, but she had never guessed the secret of his silence. He had seemed such a boy too, so light-hearted, that she could hardly even now believe him the victim of a secret and hopeless attachment.

And then the complication. Mildred smiled again, a little smile; there was something almost ludicrous, she thought, in the present aspect of affairs. Was it predestined that in the Lambert family the course of true love would not run smooth? Richard, refused by the woman he had loved from childhood, she herself innocent, but self-betrayed, wasting strangely under the daily torture she bore with such outward patience, and now Roy, breaking his heart for the girl he had never really wooed.

'Rex, dear, I have been very stupid, but I never guessed this,' waking up from her bitter reverie as another and another hoarse sob smote upon her ear. Poor lad, he had been right in asserting himself morally unfit to cope with any great trouble; weak and yet sensitive, he had succumbed at once to the blow that had shattered his happiness. 'Hush, you must hear this like a man for her sake—for Polly's sake,' she whispered, bending over him and trying to unclench his fingers. 'Rex, there is more than yourself to think about.'

'Is that all you have to say to me?' he returned, starting up; 'is that how you comfort people whose hearts are broken, Aunt Milly? How do you know what I feel, what I suffer, or how I hate him who has robbed me of my Polly? for she is mine—she is—she ought to be by every law, human and divine,' he continued, in the same frenzied voice.

'Hush, this is wrong, you must not talk so,' replied Mildred, in the firm soothing voice with which she would have controlled a passionate child. 'Sit down by me again, Rex, and we will talk about this,' but he still continued his restless strides without heeding her.

'Who says she loves him? Let him give me my fair chance and see which she will choose. It will not be he, I warrant you. Polly's heart is here—here,' striking himself on the breast, 'but she is too young to know it, and he has taken a mean advantage of her ignorance. You have all been against me, every one of you,' continued the poor boy, in a tone so sullen and despairing that it wrung Mildred's heart. 'You knew I loved her, that I always loved her, and yet you never gave me a hint of this; you have been worse than any enemy to me; it was cruel—cruel!'

'For shame, Rex, how dare you speak to Aunt Milly so!'—and Richard suddenly turned the angle of the wall and confronted his brother.

'I heard your voice and the last sentence, and—and I guess the rest, Rex,' and Richard's wrathful voice softened, and he laid his hand on Roy's shoulder.

The other looked at him piteously.

'Are they all with you? have you brought them to gloat over my misery? Speak out like a man, Dick, is Dr. Heriot behind that wall? I warn you, I am in a dangerous mood.'

'No one is with me,' returned Richard, in a tone of forced composure, 'they are in the woods a long way off still; I came back to see what had become of Aunt Milly. You are playing us a sorry trick, Rex, to be hiding away like this; it is childish, unmanly to the last degree.'

'Ah, you nearly found me out once before, Dick; Polly was with you. I had a good sight of her sweet face then, the little traitor. I saw the diamonds on her finger. You little knew who Leonard was. Ah, ha!' and Roy wrenched himself from his brother's grasp as he had done from Mildred's, and resumed his restless walk.

'We must get him away,' whispered Mildred.

Richard nodded, and then he went up and spoke very gently to Roy.

'I know all about it, Rex; we must think what must be done. But we cannot talk here; some one else will be sure to find us out, and you are not in a fit state for any discussion; you must come home with me at once.'

'Why so?'

Richard hesitated and coloured as though with shame. Rex burst again into noisy laughter.

'You think I am not myself, eh! that I have had a little of the devil's liquor,' but Richard's grave pitying glance subdued him. 'Don't be hard on me, Dick, it was the first time, and I was so horribly weak and had dragged myself for miles, and I wanted strength to see her again. I hated it even as I took it, but it has answered its purpose.'

'Richard, oh, Richard!' and at Mildred's tone of anguish Richard went up to her and put his arms round her.

'You must leave him to me, Aunt Milly. I must take him home; he has excited himself and taken what is not good for him, and so he cannot control himself as well as usual. Of course it is wrong, but he did not mean it, I am sure. Poor Rex, he will repent of it bitterly to-morrow if I can only persuade him to leave this place.'

But Mildred's tears had already sobered Roy; his manner as he stood looking at them was half ashamed and half resentful.

'Why are you both so hard on me?' he burst out at last; 'when a fellow's heart is broken he is not always as careful as he should be. I felt so deadly faint climbing the hill in the sun that I took too much of what they offered as a restorative; only Dick is such a saint that he can't make allowances for people.'

'I will make every allowance if you will only come home with me now,' pleaded his brother.

'Where—home? Oh, Dick, you should not ask it,' returned Roy, turning very pale; 'I cannot, I must not go home while she is there. I should betray myself—it would be worse than madness.'

'He is right,' assented Mildred; 'he must go back to London, but you cannot leave him, Richard.'

'Yes, back to London—Jericho if you will; it is all one and the same to me since I have lost my Polly. I left my traps at an inn five miles from here where I slept, or rather woke, last night. I shouldn't wonder if you have to carry me on your back, Dick, or leave me lying by the roadside, if that faintness comes on again.'

'I must get out the wagonette,' continued Richard, in a sorely perplexed voice, 'there's no help for it. Listen to me, Rex. You do not wish to bring unhappiness to two people besides yourself; you are too good-hearted to injure any one.'

'Is not that why I am hiding?' was the irritable answer, 'only first Aunt Milly and then you come spying on me. If I could have got away I should have done it an hour ago, but, as ill-luck would have it, I fell over a stone and hurt my foot.'

'Thank Heaven that we are all of the same mind! that was spoken like yourself, Rex. Now we have not a moment to lose, they cannot be much longer; I must get out the horses myself, as Thomas will be at his sister's, and it will be better for him to know nothing. Follow me to the farm as quickly as you can, while Aunt Milly goes back to the glen.'

Roy nodded, his violence had ebbed away, and he was far too miserable and subdued to dispute his brother's will. When Richard left them he lingered a moment by Mildred's side.

'I was a brute to you just now, Aunt Milly, but I know you will forgive me.'

'It was not you, my dear, it was your misery that spoke;' and as a faint gleam woke in his eyes, as though her kindness touched him, she continued earnestly—'Be brave, Rex, for all our sakes; think of your mother, and how she would have counselled you to bear this trouble.'

They were standing side by side as Mildred spoke, and she had her hand on his shoulder, but a rustling in the steep wooded bank above them arrested all further speech—her fingers closed nervously on his coat-sleeve.

'Hush! what was that! not Richard?'

Roy shook his head, but there was no time to answer or to draw back into the shelter of the old wall; they were even now perceived. Light footsteps crunched over the dead leaves, there was the shimmer of a blue dress, a bright face peeped at them between the branches, and then with a low cry of astonishment Polly sprang down the bank.

'Be brave, Rex, and think only of her.'

Mildred had no time to whisper more, as the girl ran up to them and caught hold of Roy's two hands with an exclamation of pleasure.

'Dear Roy, this is so good of you, and on my birthday too. Was Aunt Milly in your secret? did she contrive this delightful surprise? I shall scold you both presently, but not now. Come, they are all waiting; how they will enjoy the fun,' and she was actually trying to drag him with gentle force, but the poor lad resisted her efforts.

'I can't—don't ask me, Polly; please let me go. There, I did not mean to hurt your soft, pretty hand, but you must not detain me. Aunt Milly will tell you; at least there is nothing to tell, only I must go away again,' finished Roy, turning away, not daring to look at her, the muscles of his face quivering with uncontrollable emotion.

Polly gave a terrified glance at both; even Aunt Milly looked strangely guilty, she thought.

'Yes, let him go, Polly,' pleaded Mildred.

'What does it all mean, Aunt Milly? is he ill, or has something happened? Why does he not look at me?' cried the girl, in a pained voice.

Roy cast an appealing glance at Mildred to help him; the poor fellow's strength was failing under the unexpected ordeal, but Mildred's urgent whisper, 'Go by all means, leave her to me,' reached Polly's quick ear.

'Why do you tell him to go?' she returned resentfully, interposing herself between them. 'You shall not go, Roy, till you have looked at me and told me what has happened. Why, his hand is cold and shaking, just as yours did that hot night, Aunt Milly,' and Polly held it in both hers in her simple affectionate way. 'Have you been ill, Roy? no one has told us;' but her lips quivered as though she had found him greatly changed.

'Yes—no; I believe I must be ill;' but Mildred, truthful woman, interposed—

'He has not been ill, Polly, but something has occurred to vex him, and he is not quite himself just now. He has told Richard and me, and we think the best thing will be for him to go away a little while until the difficulty lessens.' Mildred was approaching dangerously near the truth, but she knew how hard it would be for Polly's childish mind to grasp it, unless Roy were weak enough to betray himself. His working features, his strange incoherence, had already terrified the girl beyond measure.

'What difficulty, Aunt Milly? If Roy is in trouble we must help him to bear it. It was wrong of you and Richard to tell him to go away. He looks ill enough for us to nurse and take care of him. Rex, dear, you will come home with us, will you not?'

'No, she says right; I must go,' he returned, hoarsely. 'I was wrong to come here at all, but I could not help myself. Dear Polly, indeed—indeed I must; Dick is waiting for me.'

'And when will you come again?'

'I cannot tell—not yet.'

'And you will go away; you will leave me on my birthday without a kind word, without wishing me joy? and you never even wrote to me.' And now the tears seemed ready to come.

'This is past man's endurance,' groaned Roy. 'Polly, if you cared for me you would not torture me like this.' And he turned so deadly pale that even Mildred grew alarmed. 'I will say anything you like if you will only let me go.'

'Tell me you are glad, that you are pleased; you know what I mean,' stammered Polly. She had hung her head, and the strange paleness and excitement were lost on her, as well as the fierce light that had come in Roy's eyes.

'For shame, Polly! after all, you are just like other women—I believe you like to test your power. So I am to wish you joy of your John Heriot, eh?'

'Yes, Rex. I have so missed your congratulation.'

'Well, you shall have it now. How do people wish each other joy on these auspicious occasions? We are not sister and brother—not even cousins. I have never kissed you in my life, Polly—never once; but now I suppose I may.' He snatched her to him as he spoke with an impetuous, almost violent movement, but as he stooped his head over her he suddenly drew back. 'No, you are Heriot's now, Polly—we will shake hands.' And as she looked up at him, scared and sorely perplexed, his lips touched her bright hair, softly, reverently. 'There, he will not object to that. Bless you, Polly! Don't forget me—don't forget your old friend Roy. Now I must go, dear.' And as she still held him half unconsciously, he quickly disengaged himself and limped painfully away.

Mildred watched till he had disappeared, and then she came up to the girl, who was standing looking after him with blank, wide-open eyes.

'Come, Polly, they will be waiting for us, you know.' But there was no sign of response.

'They will be seeking us everywhere,' continued Mildred. 'The sun has set, and my brother will be faint and tired with his long day. Come, Polly, rouse yourself; we shall have need of all our wits.'

'What did he mean?—I do not understand, Aunt Milly. Why was it wrong for him to kiss me?—Richard did. What made him so strange? He frightened me; he was not like Roy at all.'

'People are not like themselves when something is troubling them. I know all about Roy's difficulty; it will not always harass him. Perhaps he will write to us, and then we shall feel happier.'

'Why did he not tell me himself?' returned the girl, plaintively. 'No one has ever come between us before. Roy tells me everything; I know all his fancies, only they never come to anything. It is very hard that I am to be less to him now.'

'It is the way of the world, little one,' returned Mildred, gravely. 'Roy cannot expect to monopolise you, now that another has a claim on your time and thoughts.'

'But Dr. Heriot would not mind. You do not know him, Aunt Milly. He is so good, so above all that sort of thing. He always said that he thought our friendship for each other so unique and beautiful—he understood me so well when I said Roy was just like my own, own brother.'

'Dear Polly, you must not fret if Roy does not see it in quite the same light at first,' continued Mildred, hesitating. 'He may feel—I do not say he does—as though he has lost a friend.'

'I will write and undeceive him,' she returned, eagerly. 'He shall not think that for a moment. But no, that will not explain all his sorrowful looks and strangeness. He seemed as though he wanted to speak, and yet he shunned me. Oh, Aunt Milly, what shall I do? How can I be happy and at ease now I know Roy is in trouble?'

'Polly, you must listen to me,' returned Mildred, taking her hand firmly, but secretly at her wits' end; even now she could hear voices calling to them from the farther side of the glen. 'This little complication—this difficulty of Roy's—demands all our tact. Roy will not like the others to know he has been here.'

'No! Are you sure of that, Aunt Milly?' fixing her large dark eyes on Mildred.

'Quite sure—he told me so himself; so we must guard his confidence, you and I. I must make some excuse for Richard, who will be back presently; and you must help me to amuse the others, and make time pass till he comes back.'

'Will he be long gone? What is he doing with Roy?' pushing back her hair with strangely restless fingers—a trick of Polly's when in trouble or perplexity; but Mildred smoothed the thick wild locks reprovingly.

'He will drive him for a mile or two until they meet some vehicle; he will not be longer than he can help. Roy has hurt his foot, and cannot walk well, and is tired besides.'

'Tired! he looks worn out; but perhaps we had better not talk any more now, Aunt Milly,' continued Polly, brushing some furtive tears from her eyes; 'there is Dr. Heriot coming to find us.'

'We were just going to scour the woods for you two,' he observed, eyeing their discomposed faces, half comically and half anxiously. 'Were you still looking for Leonard-du-Bray?' But as Polly faltered and turned crimson under his scrutinising glance, Mildred answered for her.

'Polly was looking for me, I believe. We have been sad truants, I know, and shall be punished by cold tea.'

'And Richard—have you not seen Richard?' he demanded in surprise.

'Yes, but he left me before Polly made her appearance; he has gone farther on, and will be back presently. Polly is dreadfully tired, I am afraid,' she continued, as she saw how anxiously he was eyeing the girl's varying colour; but Polly, weary and over-anxious, answered with unwonted irritability—

'Every one is tired, more or less; these days are apt to become stupid in the end.'

'Well, well,' he returned, kindly, 'you and Aunt Milly shall rest and have your tea, and I will walk up to the farm and order the wagonette; it is time for us to be going.'

'No, no!' exclaimed Polly, in sudden fright at the mistake she had made. 'Have you forgotten your promise to show us the glen in the moonlight?'

'But, my child, you are so tired.' But she interrupted him.

'I am not tired at all,' she said, contradicting herself. 'Aunt Milly, make him keep his promise. One can only have one birthday in a year, and I must have my own way in this.'

'I shall take care you have it very seldom,' he returned, fondly. But she only shivered and averted her face in reply.

During the hour that followed, while they waited in suspense for Richard, Polly continued in the same variable mood. She laughed and talked feverishly; a moment's interval in the conversation seemed to oppress her; when, in the twilight, Dr. Heriot's hand approached hers with a caressing movement, she drew herself away almost petulantly, and then went on with her nonsense.

Mildred's brow furrowed with anxiety as she watched them. She could see Dr. Heriot was perplexed as well as pained by the girl's fitful mood, though he bore it with his usual gentleness. After her childish repulse he had been a little silent, but no one but Mildred had noticed it.

The others were talking merrily among themselves. Olive and Mr. Marsden were discussing the merits and demerits of various Christian names which according to their ideas were more or less euphonious. The subject seemed to interest Dr. Heriot, and during a pause he turned to Polly, and said, in a half-laughing, half-serious tone—

'Polly, when we are married, do you always mean to call me Dr. Heriot?'

For a moment she looked up at him with almost a scared expression. 'Yes, always,' she returned at last, very quietly.

'But why so, my child,' he replied, gravely, amusing himself at her expense, 'when John Heriot is my name?'

'Because—because—oh, I don't know,' was the somewhat distressed answer. 'Heriot is very pretty, but John—only Aunt Milly likes John; she says it is beautiful—her favourite name.'

It was only one of Polly's random speeches, and at any other time would have caused Mildred little embarrassment; but anxious, jaded, and weary as she was, her feelings were not so well under control, and as Dr. Heriot raised his eyes with a pleased expression as though to hear it corroborated by her own lips, a burning blush, that seemed to scorch her, suddenly rose to her face.

'Polly, how can you be so foolish?' she began, with a trace of real annoyance in her clear tones; but then she stopped, and corrected herself with quiet good sense. 'I believe, after all, it is my favourite name. You know it belonged to the beloved disciple.'

'Thank you,' was Dr. Heriot's low reply, and the subject dropped; but Mildred, sick at heart, wondered if her irritability had been noticed. The pain of that dreadful blush seemed to scorch her still. What would he think of her?

Her fears were not quite groundless. Dr. Heriot had noticed her sudden embarrassment, and had quickly changed the subject; but more than once that night he went over the brief conversation, and questioned himself as to the meaning of that strange sudden flush on Mildred Lambert's face.

Most of the party were growing weary of their enforced stay, when Richard at last made his appearance in the glen. The moon had risen, the heavy autumnal damps had already saturated the place, the gipsy fire had burnt down to its last ember, and Etta sat shivering beside it in her red cloak.

Richard's apologies were ample and sounded sincere, but he offered no explanation of his strange desertion. The wagonette was waiting, he said, and they had better lose no time in packing up. He thought even Polly must have had enough of her beloved cotton-mill.

Polly made no answer; with Richard's reappearance her forced spirits seemed to collapse; she stood by listlessly while the others lifted the hampers and wraps; when the little cavalcade started she followed with a step so slow and flagging that Dr. Heriot paused more than once.

'Oh, Heartsease, how tired you are!' he said, pityingly, 'and I have not a hand to give you. Wrap yourself in my plaid, darling. I have seen you shiver more than once.' But she shook her head, and the plaid still trailed from her arm over the dewy grass.

But Mildred noticed one thing. She saw, when the wagonette had started along the dark country road, that Dr. Heriot had taken the plaid and wrapped it round the weary girl; but she saw something else—she saw Polly steal timidly closer to the side of her betrothed husband, saw the kind arm open to receive her, and the little pale face suddenly lay itself down on it with a look of weariness and grief that went to her heart.