Innocent

Innocent looked at him wonderingly with vague consternation. Did she understand what he said? Certainly not the inference conveyed in his words—the more serious meaning. But she had no time to reply, for the short drive was over, and the High Lodge in sight. It was a curious old straggling house, with an old chapel standing detached, but connected by a covered way with the house. The grounds were large and well kept, and the quaint little lattice windows showed their several clusters of faces peeping out. The door stood open, flooded with evening sunshine. Great feathery branches of the clematis which had done flowering, and was now all cottony with seed pods, hung about the porch. The wall was one mass of creeping plants; late roses were flaunting out of reach high up about the clustered chimneys and gables; and the flower borders about the house were bright with asters and scarlet geraniums, and all kinds of autumn flowers. The chapel bell began to tinkle as they drove in at the gate, and from all the corners of the irregular old house appeared groups of women and children. Even Innocent was roused into curiosity by the strange sight. In the slanting afternoon light, with that background of old wall, matted all over with interlacing wreaths of jessamine, clematis, honeysuckle, and roses, and pierced with twinkling casements, each looking out as with so many eyes through the little diamond panes—the sight was a very pretty one. One or two women in the dress of Sisters lent an additional quaintness to the picture; the children were of various ages and of various dress, fluttering like flowers along the trim and well-kept walk. John Vane laughed as men laugh who are half-amused, half-affected by the scene before them.

“Now we shall see Letty in all her glory,” he said.

This sight, which was so unusual and so little expected, had actually driven from Innocent’s mind for the moment all recollection of herself, and all thoughts of the meeting with another stranger which was about to follow. She woke up with a start to find herself lifted out of the carriage, and taken suddenly with a rapid salute into some one’s arms. The new figure was that of a little woman with very bright eyes, and a very alert and lively aspect, who kissed Innocent in a business-like manner, and then turning, raised her cheek to her brother, who was about three times as tall as she was.

“So here you are,” said Miss Vane, “fifteen minutes late, as that train always is. Quick, come in, Reginald, there is tea in the parlour. I have only time to say a word to you before chapel. This way, my dear, follow me; the passage is rather narrow, and there are two steps, just at the most unlikely places—but you will get used to it in time.”

Thus talking she led them in to a large low room, with great beams across the roof, and a multiplicity of small windows, deeply recessed in the thick old wall. There was a great open fireplace, with a few logs of wood burning on the hearth, and a little white-covered table with tea, standing before it; this table, and the easy chair, and a number of books, were the only modern things in the room. It was panelled with dark oak, and had, consequently, nothing of the brightness of the modern English rooms which Innocent knew; neither was it like the spare and lofty magnificence of those Italian apartments which had once been familiar to her. There were some small but rare pictures on the walls, and some portraits. Vane looked round it with the familiar satisfaction of one who returns to an old home.

“Thank heaven, whatever you have done to the rest of the house, Letty,” he said, “you have spared my mother’s old room.”

“Yes,” said Miss Vane, “I am far from perfection yet, if I ever attain to it. I don’t expect I shall. It is not the drawing-room now, it is only the parlour; but beyond that sacrifice I can’t go any further, which is contemptible. So this is Gilbert Vane’s daughter? Innocent, my dear, you are very welcome. I like you for your name. Reginald and I had a sister Innocent. You must try to like me and be happy here as long as your aunt will let you stay. Sit down and pour out some tea for yourself and him;—I must go off to chapel. You are excused to-day, as your train is late. Take care of the child, Reginald, and see she has some tea. I must be off or else I shall be late as well. Very glad to see you both. Au revoir in half an hour.”

She went on talking till she reached the door, when she disappeared, still talking and waving her hand. Her brother followed her with his kind eyes.

“Dear old Letty!” he said, “I told you we should see her in all her glory. Sit down, Innocent, and warm your poor little hands, and take your tea.”

With this brief advice he left her, and went round the room, looking at all the pictures, the books, everything about. Innocent sat down as she was bid in the great easy chair. She poured out the tea as she had been bid, for herself and for him. A soft sensation of well-being stole over her; the sweetness of the mignonette outside, the tinkling of the bell, the sunshine which slanted in through the deep, small windows, and the soft warmth of the fire, all soothed the girl; but what soothed her most was the charmingly matter-of-fact way in which she had been received, in which she had been bidden to do this and that. No response, no emotion had been required from her; there was no cause for emotion; she was told what to do, and left to do it in peace. Her fright went away in this quiet moment; her whole nature was soothed; here was the place for her; now she knew and saw, and the terrors of the change fled away. She did not care for the tea, and probably would not have taken it, but that she recollected suddenly that she had been told to do so, on which recollection Innocent sipped and was glad. The afternoon was sweet, the rest and quiet were sweet after so much confused motion and vision; and it was sweet to be no longer frightened, to feel the excitement and the terror over. She did not know how long it was till the children began to stream again past the windows, and Miss Vane came back; but even then no call was made upon her. She was allowed to sit in peace while the others talked, pleasant family talk, playful discussions, inquiries after one and another. Innocent paid very little attention to the subject of the conversation, but it was a pleasant sound in her ears, and the very air of the gentle house was pleasant. Then Miss Vane took her to one of the little rooms, with the shining casements, up-stairs, where pale roses were still looking in at the window, and showed her where to put her things, and told her at what hour she must be ready in the morning, and all that was done at the High Lodge. It was the beginning of a new life to the wondering girl. No more indulgence, consultation of her wishes—she who had no wishes! but gentle control, absolute rule, matter-of-fact kindness—nothing but obedience required of her; and that was the easiest thing to give.

Miss Vane, however, as it turned out, was as much pleased with Innocent as Innocent was with Miss Vane. After one day with his sister, which, perhaps, in the circumstances, was enough for both, John Vane set off to pay various visits, promising to return again for Innocent, and warning his sister only to keep her apart from “the Frederick Eastwoods” and Mr. Batty’s house in Sterborne. This Miss Vane cheerfully agreed to do without any question; for, certainly, it was very undesirable that a relation of her own should have any intercourse or connexion with Mr. Batty’s daughter. The religious vocation of the mistress of the High Lodge did not make her indifferent to the claims of family. Religious vocations seldom do; a well-born woman is well-born in a Carmelite cloister as well as in a king’s court, and generally thinks quite as much of it in the one region as the other. It seemed accordingly a perfectly simple matter that Innocent should be permitted to accept no invitation from Mrs. Frederick Eastwood; and indeed no such invitation came. Otherwise things went on with the most perfect comfort between the girl and her new relation. She did not talk much, it is true; she was not interested, as Miss Vane expected her to be, in the upper school, where half-a-dozen “daughters of gentlemen” were being educated in one wing of the old house; or the lower school, where children who had no gentility to boast of were being trained in another; or in the orphanage, even though she herself was an orphan, and might have been supposed likely to “take an interest” in the young creatures—girls like herself, who found refuge there. Innocent went through the whole establishment, making no remark. When asked if she liked it, she said Yes: when asked if she was tired, she said No: when asked if she would like to see something more, she said Yes again. She smiled upon the little children, and said ma sœur to the sisters when they spoke to her, which pleased them. She was everything that was docile, gentle, and obedient, and she grew in a few weeks to look stronger and better than she had ever done in her life; but she did not become more communicative. One thing, however, Innocent did which found high favour in everybody’s eyes. She would go and sit for hours together in the little chapel, with her eyes fixed upon the pictured Christ (an old Italian picture, full of true early Italian sentiment for the divine and holy) which was hung over the altar. The chapel was low, like the house, an old Early English building in good repair, but homely as became its date, with low windows, filled with grisaille glass, dim and silvery. Here Innocent would sit, taking no note of time; it felt to her like the little church of the Spina over again; and here, as there, she said “Our Father,” vaguely reverential, and sat in a soft quiescence, scarcely thinking—happy, she knew not why. The habit she thus showed commended her to the community beyond expression. She was so Catholic, so pious, so saintlike, they said; and indeed Innocent in those gentle days made the first great success of her life. It was the pause before the storm.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE MINSTER AND THE VILLA.

“We must take care not to be late coming back,” said Miss Vane, throwing an additional shawl upon Innocent’s lap before she got into the little carriage, and took the reins. Miss Vane herself wore no conventional costume; she had not abandoned the pleasant things of this life. She wore rich silks, moaning over her own imperfection, which never could attain to the virtue of serge, and was fond of her pretty ponies and her pleasant little carriage. They had a cheerful drive into Sterborne, Miss Vane pointing out everything on the way, and naming every house they passed, Innocent paying little attention, yet listening to all that was said to her, and enjoying in her passive way the air, the sunshine, the rapid movement. Things no longer seemed to rush past her, moved by some dreadful whirl of their own, but it was she who was in motion, lightly, cheerfully—the centre, not a passive object in the scene. This, which she could not have explained for her life, but which she felt vaguely yet strongly, made the greatest difference to Innocent. She was more alive than she had ever been before in her life.

Miss Vane took her over the Minster, rapidly pointing out all the chief wonders; and then left her, seated within sight of the high altar, to enjoy what everybody at the High Lodge supposed to be meditation of the devoutest kind.

“You will be quite happy here,” Miss Vane said, kissing her softly, and feeling, with warm compunctions for her own worldliness, how superior was her young relation. She stopped at the door, ere she went about her many businesses, to point out Innocent to the chief verger, and commend her to his care. “I will come back in about an hour and a half,” she said. Thus Innocent was left alone.

I do not think she had ever been left entirely alone before, save on the one occasion of her visit to the Methodist chapel, since she had been under her aunt’s care, and the sensation was sweet to her,—quite alone, silent, no one interfering with her, free to do as she would, to be still, without speaking, without feeling, without thinking. The solemn nave of the Minster, the lovely, lessening arches of the apse, the silvery glow of the painted glass in the windows, made no special impression upon her for themselves. As she sat silent they mingled in a confused but grateful calm with the little church of the Spina—the lingering memories of her past life. Subdued steps came and went about her as in the other little sanctuary by the Arno; the light was subdued as by the influence of the place; no sound above a whisper was audible; gliding figures appeared in the distance, into which she gazed, not, indeed, coming there to pray, as in Santa Maria, but yet moving softly, with a certain reverence. No gleaming tapers on the altar, no chanting priest interposed to furnish a background for her dreams; but Innocent scarcely felt the want. She said her prayers, kneeling down, all unconscious of observation, on the stone pavement. She sat down again in a hush of soft and peaceful feeling—to dream? No, nor even to think. The mind of this poor little Innocent had no need for any exercise; she rested, before the fiery coming of her fate.

It was not till the verger, much bewildered by a stillness of attitude to which he was quite unused, came to ask whether the young lady would like to see the chapter-house, or the crypt, or any of the special sights of the Minster, that the girl was roused. She rose then, always acquiescent, smiling upon the old man. But as she turned round, Innocent’s eye caught a figure much more interesting to her than the verger’s. It was Frederick, who turned round at the same moment, and came forward to her, holding out both his hands. “Ah, Innocent, at last!” he cried. There was real pleasure in his face.

“Miss Vane has left me here to wait for her,” said Innocent, “but, oh, I am so glad to see you!” It seemed to her that she had found him again—that all the intermediate time had glided away, that she was in the church of the Spina, and he, her new-discovered only guardian and protector again.

“I am glad that you are glad,” said Frederick. “I thought you might have forgotten all about us among the Vanes. How is it that they neglect you like this? I suppose you are the poor relation there, Innocent, eh? You never were so at The Elms.”

“I do not know what you mean,” said Innocent; but she put her hand within his arm, with her old use and wont, looking up at him brightly with her soft smile. The verger looking on, felt that, perhaps, it was his duty to interfere, but had not the heart to do it.

“You’ll find me in the porch, Miss, if you want me,” he said. If the young lady had met with some one as she liked better than them Papistical nunnery-folks at the High Lodge, was it his business? He went away heavily, dragging his feet upon the pavement, as ecclesiastical attendants for ages and ages have dragged them, with stooped shoulders and shuffling gait; and the two, whom he thought lovers, were left alone.

They were not lovers, far from that; but Innocent clung to the arm of the first man whom she had ever identified and felt any warm personal regard for, and Frederick looked down upon her with a complacency which half arose from a vain belief that she loved him, and partly from a real kindness for his little cousin, and partly from a sensation of thankfulness to have some one belonging to him to look at and speak to—some one not of the terrible Batty tribe, to which he was bound until Monday morning. This was Saturday, and he had been imperatively summoned to visit his wife, who was still ill. He could not get back until Monday morning, and the thought that this terrible moment of duty might be softened by the presence of Innocent, who adored him, was sweet. He told her that Amanda was ill in bed, not able to come out with him, or to be his companion. “I cannot spend my whole time with her,” said Frederick, “and her father is more odious than I can tell you. You must come to see her; you must stay with me, Innocent, till I go back.”

“If Miss Vane will let me,” said Innocent, brightly.

“You would like it? You were always a dear girl. When I take you home with me, Innocent,” said Frederick solemnly, “you will learn a lesson which I have learnt too late, that it is a fatal thing to connect one’s self with people of a different class from one’s own, who cannot understand one, whose life is a contradiction to all one feels and wishes. I don’t speak, of course, of my wife; that is my own affair; whatever I may have to put up with I say nothing on that score to any one. But, Innocent, a man of honour has many things to bear which women never know.”

These fine sentiments were wasted upon Innocent, who looked up at him wondering, and received what he said docilely, but made no attempt to understand. I don’t know why Frederick, knowing her well enough to be aware of this, should have thought it necessary to make so solemn a statement. He did it, perhaps, from the habit he had acquired of posing as a victim to honour. He led her about the Minster, and showed her many things which Innocent looked at with her usual docility, pleased to be with him, if not much excited by anything else. She had been happy at the High Lodge, but after all Frederick was her first friend, her discovery, and to be thus alone with him, cared for by him, no one else interfering, carried her back to the first startled awakening of her torpid youth. He was always kind to her when she was thus thrown upon his care, and Innocent was happy, with her hand clinging to his arm. When Miss Vane came to recall her to the present, she looked with perhaps a warmer personal wish than had ever been seen in her eyes before at her temporary guardian, pleading for the granting of the request which Frederick made, with his very finest Charles I. look, and melancholy gentlemanlike grace. Miss Vane, a busy woman, had partially forgotten her brother’s warning about Mrs. Frederick. She knew the young man before her had made a very foolish marriage, but still he was an Eastwood, of prepossessing appearance, and a compunction crossed her mind as to her want of civility in not “calling on” the daughter-in-law of Innocent’s good aunt. A woman takes rank from her husband, not from her father, Miss Vane reflected, and if this poor fellow had found out, as might be guessed from his resigned manner, that he had made a terrible mistake, it was only right that a connexion should stand by him as far as was practicable. After a few difficulties, therefore, as to Innocent’s dress, &c., she consented, promising to send the gardener with her bag, and to drive in for her on Monday morning, “when I will take the opportunity of leaving a card for Mrs. Eastwood. I am sorry to hear she is so poorly,” said Miss Vane in her most gracious manner. Innocent could scarcely believe it when she saw her energetic relation drive away, and found herself left in Frederick’s charge. “I am to stay, then?” she said, with a smile which lighted up her whole face; then added, with a faint shadow stealing over it, “but with you, Frederick? I do not like—your wife——”

“You shall be with me,” said Frederick; “but, Innocent, you must not say such things. It is imprudent—you might be misunderstood. I know very well what you mean, and that, of course, it is impossible you should feel towards poor Amanda as you do to me; but you must not forget what I have told you so often, that a woman’s best policy is always to make friends with her own sex. You are coming now, you understand, to visit my wife, who is far from well; but I shall take care to have you a great deal with me.”

Innocent’s enjoyment was a little damped by this long speech; but as she was still walking with Frederick, and had, as, yet, no drawback to the pleasant sensation of being with him, the shadow flitted rapidly from her face. He took her all over the village, showing her everything that was to be seen, before he turned his step towards the Villa, where Amanda, fretful and peevish, awaited him, longing for news, for change, for something to amuse her. Frederick cared very little for the fact that his once-worshipped beauty was now waiting for him. His little cousin, with her dreamy delight in his society, her refined and gradually developing beauty, and the strange attraction of her visionary abstractedness from the common world, was very amusing and pleasant to him. The mere fact of not seeing her every day, as he had been in the habit of doing, had made him perceive Innocent’s beauty, and a mingled feeling, half wholly good, half dubious in character, inclined him towards the girl who clung to him. She was very pretty and “very fond of him,” which pleased his vanity highly, and made him feel vaguely self-complacent and on good terms with himself in her company; and by the side of this doubtful and not very improving sensation, the man, who was not wholly bad, had actually a little wholesome, brotherly, protecting affection for the child who had clung to him from the first moment of seeing him. Thus they wandered through the village, round and round the Minster, looking at everything and at nothing till the October afternoon began to cloud over. “Now you must come and see Amanda,” said Frederick with a sigh. Innocent sighed too. It seemed to her very hard that there was this inevitable “Frederick’s wife” to be always the shadow to the picture, to take him away from his family, to separate him from herself, to worry and vex him whatever he was doing. Innocent hesitated at the corner of the street.

“Are you sure I should go?” she said. “She will scold me. She will not be kind like Cousin Lætitia or you. She does not like me, and I do not like her. Shall I go back now? I have had all I wanted, Frederick; I have seen you.”

“That would never do,” said Frederick. “If it were known that you had met me in the Minster and walked about so long with me, and then returned without seeing my wife, people would talk—unpleasant things would be said.”

“What could be said?” asked Innocent.

“Upon my life, one doesn’t know whether to laugh at you or be angry,” cried Frederick, impatient. “Will you never understand? But, come along, it is no use wasting words. Don’t you see you must come now?”

“I do not want to come. She will scold me,” said Innocent, standing firmly, with a cloud upon her face. It was the first time she had openly resisted him or any one. Poor child, was it some angel who stayed her feet? She felt ready to cry, which was an unusual thing with her, and with a frightened instinctive recoil, stood still, refusing to go on.

Poor Innocent! Safety and shelter, and the life of order and peace which suited her half-developed faculties, lay calm and sunshiny on one side. On the other was conflict, confused darkness and misery, pain and shame, gathering in heavy clouds to swallow her up. For one moment it hung on the balance which her fate was to be; terrible moment, which we, none of us, divine, during which we have to exercise that great and awful choice which is the privilege of humanity, in blindness and unconsciousness, ignorant of the issues, stupid to the importance of the decision. This was decided, however, not by Innocent. Impatient Frederick seized her hand and drew it through his arm.

“This is folly,” he cried. “What you, Innocent! you be such a little traitor and resist me and get me into trouble? No, no, come along. This is out of the question now.”

Next moment he had knocked at his father-in-law’s door.

The Villa looked very much as it had done the day that Frederick first made his appearance there. The sun was still shining by intervals, but glimmers of firelight came from the window, and the garden behind was spare of flowers. Mr. Batty met them as they came in, and stared hard at the girl whom Frederick led by the hand into the narrow light passage which traversed the house from the street to the garden door. “This is my cousin, sir, Miss Innocent Vane,” said Frederick. “I have brought her to see Amanda. She is on a visit at the High Lodge, as you may have heard.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard,” said Batty, “and I think it’s time she should turn up, the only one of your family as has ever come near my girl. You’re welcome, my dear, better late than never; though I think, considering how kind the Eastwoods have been to you, that you might have come a little sooner to show Mrs. Frederick some respect.”

Innocent listened, wondering, to this address, gazing at the man whom she had a confused recollection of having seen before. All that she comprehended now was, more or less, that he was scolding her, though about what she could not tell. He was a kind of man totally unknown to Innocent—his thick figure, his coarse air, his loud voice and red hands, surprised, without so much revolting her as they might have done, had her organization been more perfect. She was frightened, but made an effort of politeness to conceal it.

“Is she better?” she asked, not knowing what to say.

“You’ll see what she’ll say to you when she sees you,” said Batty to Frederick with a chuckle, “and I don’t blame her, poor girl. If this is what you call visiting your wife when she’s poorly, things have changed since my day. It’s close on five, and nearly time for dinner, and you’ve been out since the moment you swallowed your lunch.”

“I have been with my little cousin here, and Miss Vane of the High Lodge, who is coming to call on Amanda on Monday,” said Frederick. “In the meantime I took the liberty of inviting my cousin to stay with my wife for a couple of nights. I hope it is practicable——”

“Oh, practicable enough,” said Batty, with a laugh. “I’m not one of those as leaves themselves without a room to give to a friend. Plenty of accommodation here for as many as you like to bring—and the more the merrier, if they’re the right sort. Glad to see you, Miss Innocent. Training up for your trade, eh?—at that old nunnery out there. Lord, to see that old Lady Abbess in my house will be a sight! ’Manda will tackle her, I’ll be bound. Walk up, walk up-stairs, Eastwood will show you the way; and he’s sure of a warm welcome, he is. Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

Batty stood in the passage holding his sides, while Frederick, with disgust on every line of his fine features, strode up-stairs. Innocent followed her cousin wondering. What the man meant, whether he was merry, or angry, or simply the most disagreeable strange man she had ever seen, she could not make out. She remembered vaguely what Frederick had told her so lately—what she had heard repeated on all sides at The Elms—that Frederick’s wife was of “another class.” And the stairs were narrow, the passage contracted, the maid who had opened the door not like the maids at The Elms; and Batty’s dress, and appearance, and manner of speech very different from anything Innocent had ever known before. This was what it meant, then, to be of “another class.” Thus she followed with some new speculations rising in her passive brain, into the presence of Frederick’s wife.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE MOMENT OF FATE.

“Oh, so here is Innocent! and the old nun is coming?—a great deal I care! This is how you try to hoodwink me. Innocent, come here! How long has he been walking about with you, talking, and holding your hand, and turning your head, you little fool? You think he cares? He cares as much for you as he does for me; he cares for no one but himself. Oh, go away, or I shall throw something at you! Go away, or——”

She had put out her hand to clutch at a glass which stood by her on a little table.

“Go! Go!” cried some one from behind the curtain.

Frederick made a rapid step to the door, but before he had reached it his wife’s mood had changed.

“Oh, you tell him to go, do you?” she cried. “Then I tell him to stay. Come here, Innocent; you shall stay and nurse me; I know you’ll like it; and, Fred, turn that woman out—turn her off, turn her out of doors. She has been my plague ever since I can recollect. Oh, you thought you would keep me all to yourself, did you, and get the better of me? but I haven’t got a husband for nothing. Fred, turn her out of doors.”

Frederick opened the door with servile haste. He dragged the poor aunty, the souffre-douleur of the household, out by the sleeve, escaping himself along with her. Amanda leant back upon her pillow, laying her hand upon her breast.

“How hot it is,” she said, panting. “Open the window—take this fan and fan me; can’t you make yourself useful? Oh, you are well named; you are a true Innocent! If you will tell me all that he was saying to you, I will forgive you. Tell me what he said.”

“He told me that I was to come and see you; that I was not to be frightened,” said the girl, who was trembling, yet not confused by mental dread, as she had sometimes felt on less occasion.

“And are you frightened?”

“N—no.” She spoke with a little hesitation, but still succeeded in making this answer. She did not shrink from Amanda’s blazing red-hazel eyes. The excited creature somehow did not alarm her. She had done all that Amanda had told her with the happy habit of instant obedience, which she had learned at the High Lodge, and kept fanning her, according to her orders, as she spoke.

“You are very odd,” said Amanda, whose passion was over. “But you know how to fan one; not like that woman who saws the air like a windmill. You may take off your hat and sit down by me. I have a hasty temper. I sometimes say things and do things I am sorry for; but I’m very good-hearted. There, sit down and let us have a talk. Weren’t you glad to get off? Don’t you hate that old cat, with her sermons and her prayers? So she is coming to call?—what an honour, to be sure, for me! But I think the Eastwoods can hold up their heads as high as the Vanes any day—and she’s nothing but an interloper. Why, John Vane’s father bought that house,” said Amanda; “it is no more an old family place than this is. I am glad you are going to stay. If you are a good girl, I will try what I can do for you, and make a friend of you. I never could make a friend of that little stuck-up Nelly. What airs she does give herself to be sure! and not so much to be proud of. Why, that wretched little Molyneux, that she thinks such great things, is no better than a shopkeeper’s grandson. I know the judge’s father was a jeweller in Brook Street, and there is nothing so very grand in having a judge in the family, unless you were going to be tried for your life, and wanted him to get you off——”

“Can judges get people off?” said Innocent. Heaven knows why she asked such a question! It was an echo rather of her companion’s last words than said by any free-will of her own. But Frederick heard it as he came in, and so did poor aunty, who stood outside, trembling at the door.

“Of course they can, you little stupid. It is all they are good for,” said Amanda, benignantly. “Oh, you may come in. I am such a soft-hearted ninny, I always forgive people when my passion is over. And none of you ought to cross me; you know you oughtn’t. Some of these days, if you don’t mind, just to punish you I shall die——”

She laughed and laid her head back upon the pillow, with her blue ribbons and blue gown thrown sharply out by the rose-coloured bed. She was amused by her own threat. But passion and self-indulgence had made great havoc in the undisciplined creature, and to a serious looker-on that menace would have seemed not so unlikely as Amanda thought, to come to reality. Her breath came quick and with difficulty, heaving her breast at every respiration. A high hectic colour was on her cheek, and the cheekbones themselves which bore these dangerous roses were sharpened by the wasting processes of continual excitement. Innocent stood all this time by the bed, fanning her slowly and steadily. She was getting tired, but did not think of stopping till she was told. Her visionary looks, and the mechanical occupation which was so much more natural to her than anything of a visionary character, contrasted strangely, as she stood thus docile, always passive, by that bed. I suppose she would literally have gone on for ever, like an Eastern slave, had no one interposed.

This steady service pleased Amanda hugely. She took full advantage of it, keeping the girl employed until her very arm was drooping with the fatigue of the monotonous motion; and she was so generous as to allow Frederick to sit down and tell her “the news.” Frederick had brought down, as in duty bound, a few scandalous anecdotes from the fountain-head of gossip—anecdotes circumstantialized by date and name, but probably as false as was the taste that desired them. He made, indeed, a few demurs at repeating these wonderful pieces of history before Innocent, which were speedily silenced by his wife.

“Innocent is paying no attention. She never listens to what any one says,” cried Amanda, “and, besides, no one thinks of that sort of old-fashioned nonsense nowadays. Go on——”

In this edifying way the time was spent till dinner. Amanda declared that she never felt better, that she would certainly get up next day. “And I’ll go to church at the Minster if there is a good anthem,” she said, “and you shall give me your arm, Fred, and everybody will think us a model couple.” This last outburst of amiability was called forth by a delightful piece of scandal about what the newspapers called a very elevated personage, and which Frederick vouched for as authentic. Mrs. Frederick, whose “set” were of those who called the heir to the throne by the name of his principality tout court, was altogether conciliated by this delightful communication. Innocent, as Amanda said, paid very little attention. She listened yet did not listen, half pleased that Frederick seemed pleased, half wondering, by an instinct which was more penetrating than reason, that he should be satisfied, and should take so much trouble to keep Amanda in good temper. Innocent was not observant, she was not conscious of any faculty of criticism in her own undeveloped mind; she made no voluntary contrast between Frederick in this fretful sick chamber trying to please, and Frederick at home, contemptuously indifferent to what any one did or said. Only a little vague wonder at him rose in her mind; her sense of Mrs. Frederick’s imperfections was not more distinct than the mere feeling of personal dislike—dislike which was not softened by this sight of her, or by the exacting and selfish demands she made upon everybody. Innocent was born to obey. She did what Miss Vane had told her with the most docile unquestioning readiness, and with the consent of her whole being; and she did also whatever Mrs. Frederick told, but with how different a feeling. That she could have explained the difference to herself, or that she even fully defined and recognized it, I am far from asserting; but the fact that she was conscious of this difference was at least a proof of the expanding of her mental powers.

Mrs. Frederick consented that her husband and Innocent should leave her to go to dinner, with reluctance, but she did consent. Before the meal was over, however, they heard loud and repeated knockings on the floor above, signals of her impatience. Frederick was in a state of unusual exhilaration, perhaps excited by finding the weary evening pass less disagreeably than he thought—for Innocent, passive as she was, was yet a shield between him and his coarse father-in-law; and even Amanda’s knocking, as he was out of her reach, did not disturb him.

“Come round the garden with me while I smoke my cigar,” he said, “and then you can go to her.”

The evening was soft and warm and mellow, with a large full October moon less white than usual, throwing broad beams of the palest gold over the dark garden. Batty watched them go out with doubtful eyes, unable quite to keep himself from vulgar interpretations of Innocent’s submission to her cousin, yet confident in the power of “my girl” to retain her husband’s devotion, and caring very little about the other. Besides he was flattered in spite of himself that Innocent should be there under his roof. Two great families, the one more “stuck up” than the other, seemed thus to be holding out an olive branch to him, and already Batty felt himself mounting the steps of social grandeur. He sat over his port, meditating on the moment when he could change that drink for more natural brandy and water—when another vehement assault upon the floor overhead roused him.

“She’ll make herself worse than ever,” Batty said to himself; and going to the stairs he shouted in his great voice, “Steady there, steady, ’Manda. She’s a coming; she’s a coming.” Then he went out into the garden to seek the other two. The grass was wet with dew, the leaves, which had begun to change colour, showed like flowers in the moonlight. He followed the soft sound of sauntering steps along two or three windings of the path. Then he came in sight of the pair he sought; Frederick was walking along indifferently enough, smoking his cigar, with one hand thrust into his pocket! Innocent by his side held his arm so cavalierly and carelessly bent with her hand. She went along by him like his shadow; she looked up at him with a half smile upon her face, to which the moonlight lent an aspect of deeper and more impassioned self-devotion than Innocent knew. Frederick, in low tones, and with now and then a demonstrative gesture of the disengaged hand with which he sometimes took his cigar from his lips, was laying down the law about something. Probably he was inculcating that first duty of woman, to “consider me, not yourself,” or some other equally plain and fundamental principle. The sight struck Batty with a certain jealousy by reflection. So intimate a conversation could scarcely be without somehow infringing upon the rights of “his girl.” Had it been Frederick’s sister, probably he would have had the same feeling; but in that case he would have been less at liberty to interfere.

“Hollo!” he said, “don’t you know Mrs. Frederick is all alone, while you two are gallivanting and philandering here? Come along, Miss; you’re safer with my ’Manda than with that young spark. I know him better than you do. Come along, come along, or she’ll bring down the house; and not much wonder either if she saw as much as I see—but I’ll tell no tales,” he said, with a coarse laugh.

Innocent stood bewildered with the sudden shock—for at the moment that Batty’s voice became audible, Frederick, with an instinctive movement, cast her off from his arm. To her who knew no wrong, who thought no evil, this movement was simply incomprehensible. He was angry, that could be the only reason; but why, or with whom? She stood turning her wandering looks towards Batty, towards the house, with its lighted windows, the moonbeams pouring over her, lighting up her raised face, with its wistful gaze. Frederick, as an expression of his feeling, tossed away the end of his cigar.

“We were coming in,” he said. “Innocent, perhaps you had better go first, and let me know if I’m wanted. I am tired. Tell Amanda I have got some letters to write, office work which I was obliged to bring with me. Batty, suppose you order some coffee, and let me get to work,” he added, carelessly leading the way into the house. He left Innocent to follow as she might, and to deal with Batty as she might. He had put up with him long enough; he saw no reason for exerting himself further now.

“Confound his impudence!” said Batty. “Now, Miss, come along. You’d best stay with ’Manda, if you’ll take my advice, while you are here.”

“If you please,” said Innocent, with a sigh.

“Oh, if I please—you’d rather be with him, eh? Pleasanter ain’t it?” said Batty, with a grin of airy raillery.

“Yes,” said simple Innocent. “I know Frederick, and I don’t know you.” A courteous instinct which she could not have explained kept her from adding that she did not like Mrs. Frederick, which was her usually unconcealed sentiment. She added quite gravely, altogether unaware that his laugh had anything to do with her, “if I am to go to Frederick’s wife, will you show me the way?”

Batty led the way without another word—he was curiously impressed by her gravity, by a certain solemn simplicity about the pale creature, who stood there facing him in the moonlight impervious to his gibes. He took her to his daughter’s room, and looked in, giving Amanda a word of warning. “Keep your temper, ’Manda,” he said; I do not know that he could have explained why.

This was what Amanda was little inclined to do. She assailed Innocent with a storm of questions; what had she been doing? where had she been?

“I have been in the garden with Frederick,” said the girl, with that serious and quiet calm, which already had so much impressed Mrs. Frederick’s father.

“In the garden with Frederick! and you tell me so with that bold face! What was he doing? what was he saying? oh, I know him, and his false ways,” said the excited wife; “making you think all sorts of things, you little fool—and then sending you to me with your innocent face. Innocent, indeed! Oh, no; I didn’t call—I don’t want you. Innocent, to be sure! You are a pretty Innocent for the nunnery; just the sort of creature to go there if all tales be true—to learn to deceive—as if you wanted teaching! You never thought of me lying up here, while you went wandering about the garden with Frederick—nor he didn’t, neither. Who cares for me? I was everything that was sweet before I married, but now much he cares. Oh, if I just had him here to tell him what I think of him! Call him to tell him what I think of him—both him and you!”

Innocent had never been thrown upon her own resources before. She was not prepared for the emergency, and had those who loved her best foreseen the possibility of such a trial for her she never would have been allowed to risk it; but in the meantime it did her good. A certain curious practical faculty had been developed in her by the life of rule and order at the High Lodge. She went forward to the bedside with her visionary look, but the most serious matter-of-fact meaning, ignoring the passion as completely as if it did not exist; which, indeed, to her it did not, being a thing beyond her range of perception.

“You make yourself ill when you are angry,” she said, seriously, looking down upon Amanda’s worn and flushed countenance; “it makes you very ill; it would be far better not to be angry. When you scold me I am sorry; but it does not make me ill. It hurts you most. You should stop yourself when you feel it coming on; because, perhaps, when you are scolding you might die—and it would be better to live and not to scold. I have thought about it, and that is what I think.”

Amanda was aghast at this speech—it subdued her as if a baby had suddenly opened its mouth, and uttered words of wisdom. She gave a gasp, half of wonder, half of terror, and felt herself checked and subdued as she had never been in her life before. The effect was so strange that she did not know what to make of it. She tried to laugh, and failed; finally, she said, “What an odd girl you are!” and settled down among her pillows, calmed in spite of herself. “Read to me,” she said, after a little pause, thrusting a book into Innocent’s hand. The calm was as sudden as the storm. The moment that she was told to do something definite Innocent resumed her usual obedient frame of mind, after this the longest speech she had ever made, and the most completely independent mental action she had ever been conscious of. She sat down and read, opening the book where she was told, pursuing without a question the course of a foolish story. She never thought of asking who or what were the personages she suddenly began to read about; she took the book as she had taken the fan, and used it in a similar way. And then there followed a curious little interval of calm. Amanda had prepared herself for the night while the others were at dinner; she had taken off her blue dressing-gown and her pretty ribbons; she was all white now, ready to go to sleep when the moment came. The room had been partially darkened for the same reason. Behind the curtain at the head of the bed was a lamp shaded from the eyes, but the other lights had been taken away, and the profound quiet grew slumbrous as Innocent’s soft voice rose through it, reading steadily and gently with a certain sweet monotony. I cannot tell how long Innocent continued reading. The calm grew more and more profound; no one came near the room; Amanda’s retirement was not invaded. Innocent herself grew drowsy as she listened to her own voice; it rose and fell with a gentle, but incessant, repetition; sometimes she would almost fall asleep, stumbling over the words—and then, as Mrs. Frederick, who was drowsy too, stirred and murmured at the cessation of the voice which acted upon her like a lullaby, the girl would resume her reading, startled into wakefulness. Once or twice poor aunty, who had been banished from the room, put in her head noiselessly at the door, and withdrew it as gently, seeing that all was still. Batty himself once did the same; but the household was too glad of the unusual stillness to do anything to disturb it. At length the soft girlish voice, after repeated breaks and faltering recommencements, dropped altogether, and Innocent fell fast asleep, with her head leaning upon the back of her chair, and the book in her clasped hands. She and the lamp by which she had been reading and the little table covered with medicine phials, were separated from the sleeper in the bed by the dropped curtain, which threw a rose-coloured reflection over Amanda in her sleep; this lasted for an hour or two, during which the patient and the young attendant who was so little used to watch, slept peacefully with but the veil of this curtain between them. Then Amanda began to stir. Her sleep was always broken and uncertain; the poor aunty to whom she was so cruel had accustomed her to constant and unfailing attendance—and when she woke and called and saw no one, sudden wrath flamed up in Amanda’s bosom. Gradually the circumstances came back upon her mind, and plucking back the curtain she saw poor Innocent quietly sleeping, her hair falling in the old childish way about her shoulders, and her dark eyelashes resting on her cheek, which looked so pale under them. Amanda did not care for the weary grace and abandon of the girl’s attitude, nor was she at all touched by the thought that Innocent had been occupied in her own service to her last moment of consciousness. Mrs. Frederick, on the contrary, was furious to find herself “left alone” with no obsequious nurse ready to attend to her wants. She shrieked at Innocent to rouse her, and stretching out of bed shook the girl, who started violently, and sprang up trembling and nervous. Amanda’s eyes were blazing, her figure trembling with sudden irritation.

“How dare you fall asleep?” she cried, “am I to be left with no one to take care of me? oh, you all want to kill me. Give me my drops, you cruel, wicked, sleepy, lazy, wicked girl! You don’t know how?—oh, you know well enough how to walk about with my husband—how to make love to him. My drops! can’t you understand?—there, in that bottle; you can read, I suppose, though you are a fool. Oh, to leave me to this horrid girl! Oh, to have no one to take care of me! My drops? can’t you hear? I’ll make it heard all over the house. My drops! Oh, you little idiot, can’t you do that much? I always said you was a fool; walk about with another woman’s husband—torment a man with clinging to him—but as for being of use. My drops! Put them in the glass, idiot! Can’t you see I want to go to sleep?”

Innocent trembling, chilled, ignorant, incapable, only half awake, took the bottle that was pointed out to her, and endeavoured, as she had seen people do, to drop the liquid into a glass; she failed twice over in her fright and tremor. Then she kneeled down by the table to try for the third time, propping herself up against the chair. I don’t know what thoughts might be passing unconscious through her mind. I don’t think she was conscious of anything, except the miserable feeling of sudden waking—the cold, the sense of being beaten down with angry words—and the frightened attempt to do what she could not do, in obedience to the fiercest order she had ever received in her life. Where she knelt, painfully endeavouring to count the drops of the opiate, she was within reach of Amanda’s arm, who by this time had worked herself into a wild, shrieking passion. Once more she dashed aside the curtain, and plucked at Innocent, calling to her with words which had become unintelligible to the ears of the frightened girl. “Give it me, you fool—give it me, you fool!” she said, then snatched the glass out of Innocent’s hand, and lifted it to her lips. Between the fright of the one and the passion of the other the bottle had been half emptied into the glass. Amanda held it for a moment in one hand, grasping Innocent with the other, and trying to recover breath. She was past thinking of any consequences, as Innocent was past knowing what was happening under her eyes. With a sudden long effort to regain her breath she put the glass to her panting lips, and drank it. How much she swallowed no one ever knew; the glass dropped out of her hand, spilling some dark drops upon the white coverlid, and Amanda dropped back heavily upon the pillows. Then there followed such a stillness as seemed to make the whole house, the very walls, shiver. Innocent, with the little phial clutched in one hand, with Amanda’s fingers slowly relaxing from the other, stood stupefied, listening to the horrible stillness. Oh, God, what did it mean?

CHAPTER XXXIII.

FLIGHT.

“What is it?” she said shivering, and in low tones of terror. “Look, look! what does it mean——”

Next moment a great cry rang through the silent house—the windows were thrown open, the bells rung, the maids rushed in, half frantic with excitement; what was it? A dreadful interval followed while they crowded about the bed, and while aunty, moaning, weeping, calling upon Amanda, tried to raise the senseless figure, to bring back animation by all the means which she had so often used before. The wild yet subdued bustle of such a terrible domestic incident, the hurried sending for the doctor, the running hither and thither for remedies, the strange dream-like horror of that one unresponsive, unmoving figure in the midst of all this tumult of anxious but bootless effort—how can I describe it? The cold night air poured into the room, ineffectually summoned to give breath to the lips that could draw breath no longer, and waved the lights about like things distracted, and chilled the living to the bone, as they ran to and fro, seeking this and that, making one vain effort after another. Innocent stood behind, leaning against the wall, like a marble image. She had been pushed aside by the anxious women. She stood with her eyes fixed on the bed, with a vague horror on her face. It was a dream to her, which had begun in her sleep; was she sleeping still? or was this a horrible reality? or what had she to do with it? she, a little while ago the chief actor, now the spectator, helpless, knowing nothing, yet with a chill of dread gnawing at her, like the fox in the fable, gnawing her heart. Innocent’s head seemed to turn round and round, as the strange group which had swept in, made all those wild circles round the bed, doing one strange thing after another, incoherent to her—moving and rustling, and talking low under the disturbed waving of the lights, and in the shadow of the curtains. When, after a long terrible interval, these figures dispersed, and one alone remained, throwing itself upon the bed in wild weeping, the girl roused herself.

“What is it?” she asked, drawing a step nearer. “What is it?” It seemed to Innocent that something held her, that she could not look at the figure in the bed.

“Oh, my darling! my darling! I have nursed her from a baby—she never was but good to me. Oh, my child, my ’Manda! Will you never speak to me again! Oh, ’Manda, my darling! Oh, my lovely angel!” Thus poor aunty moaned and wept.

“What is it?” cried Innocent, with a voice which took authority from absolute despair.

“Oh, can’t you see for yourself? It’s you as has done it, driving that angel wild. She’s dead! Oh, merciful Heaven, she’s dead——”

Then a sudden flood of light seemed to pour through Innocent’s darkened mind. The horror which she had felt vaguely took shape and form. Heaven help the child! She had done it! She gave a low wild cry, and looked round her with a despairing appeal to heaven and earth. Was there no one to protect her—no one to help her? One moment she paused, miserable, bewildered, then turned and fled out of the awful room, where so much had befallen her. What could she do? where could she go? She fled as an animal flies to its cover—to its home, unreasoning, unthinking. Frederick would have represented that home to her in any other circumstances; but she had killed Frederick’s wife. This horror seemed to take form and pursue her. The maids were all gone: one to call the unhappy father, one to the husband, another to watch for the doctor; this last had left the door open, through which another blast of night-air swept through the house. Down the narrow staircase poor Innocent fled noiseless, like a thief. Upon a table in the passage lay her hat as she had thrown it off when she came in that afternoon with Frederick, and the warm wrap in which Miss Vane had enveloped her when they started, so peacefully, so happily, for their drive. Was it only that morning? The High Lodge, and its orderly life and its calm inhabitants, seemed to Innocent like things she had known ages ago; older even than Pisa and Niccolo—almost beyond the range of memory. She stole out at the open door, drawing Miss Vane’s great shawl round her, and for a moment feeling comforted in the chill of her misery by its warmth. For one second she stood on the step, with the moonlight on her face, wondering where she was to go. The maid who was watching for the doctor saw her, and cried out with terror, thinking her a ghost. Then a sudden cloud came over the moon, and in that shelter, like a guilty thing, Innocent stole away. She did not know where to go. She wandered on through the dark and still village streets to the great Minster, with some vain childish imagination of taking refuge there. But here chance befriended the unhappy girl, or some kind angel guided her. The railway was close by, with some lights yet unextinguished. Vaguely feeling that by that was the only way home, she stole into the station, with some notion of hiding herself till she could get away. The express train to town, which stopped at Sterborne, though poor Innocent knew nothing of it, was late that night. It had just arrived when she got in. The little station was badly lighted, the officials sleepy and careless. By instinct Innocent crept into an empty carriage, not knowing even that it was going on, and in five minutes more was carried, unconscious, wrapt in a tragic stupor of woe and terror, away from the scene of this terrible crisis of her life.

Gradually, slowly, the sense of motion roused her, brought her to herself. In her hand, firmly clasped, was the little phial which had been so deadly. She unclosed her fingers with an effort, and looked at it with miserable curiosity. That had done it—a thing so small that it was hidden altogether in her small and delicate hand. What had Innocent done? How could she have helped herself? What could she have done different? For the first time in all her life she turned her hot confused eyes upon herself. She tried to go back over the events of the night;—not as in a mental survey with all their varieties of feeling disclosed, but like an external picture did they rise before her. First that moment when she (Innocent could think of her now by no name) was not angry or scolding, when Frederick sat and talked, and she herself stood and fanned her, the central figure to which henceforward all her terrified thoughts must cling. Then came the moonlight in the garden, the smell of the dewy earth, and her hand on Frederick’s arm; then the reading, which seemed like some strange incantation, some spell of slumbrous power; then the horrible sudden waking, the clutch of that hot hand, the incoherent half-conscious effort she made to do what was told her, the black drops of liquid falling, the interrupted counting which she seemed to try to take up again and complete—“ten, eleven, fifteen;” and then the terror of the renewed clutch and grasp, the sudden stillness, the black drops standing out on the white coverlid, the great open eyes dilated, fixed upon her, holding her fast so that she could not stir. God help the child! She cried aloud, but the noise drowned her cry; she struggled under the intolerable sense of anguish, the burden of the pang which she could not get free from, could not shake off. So many pangs come in youth which are imaginary, which can be thrown off, as the first impression fades; but when for the first time there comes something which fixes like the vulture, which will not be got rid of!—Innocent writhed under it, holding up her feeble hands in an appeal beyond words—an appeal which was hopeless and which was vain.

It was still only the middle of the night when she arrived in London, and by some fortunate chance or other crept out again without being perceived. Poor child! Far from her distraught soul was any intention of deceiving; she thought nothing at all about it, and in her innocence, without consciousness of harm, escaped all penalties and questioning. She did not know her way about London, but by mere chance took the right direction, and by dint of wandering on and on, came at last by a hundred detours, as morning began to break into a region with which she was familiar. The movement did her good. She felt her misery less when she was walking on and on through interminable streets, wrapping her shawl about her, feeling her limbs ready to sink under her, and her power of feeling dulled by fatigue. Probably this exercise saved her from going mad altogether. Life and more than life hung on the balance. She was not clever; she had no grasp of mind, no power of reason, nothing which could be called intellectual development at all, and yet the difference between sanity and insanity was as much to her as to others. She kept her reason through the subduing force of this exercise, the blessed movement and the weariness of body which counteracted the unaccustomed struggles of her mind.

It was gray dawn, that chill twilight of the morning which is so much colder and less genial than the twilight of night, when Innocent came at last in sight of her home. Her strength and courage were almost at an end, but her feeble heart leapt up within her at sight of the familiar place in which she knew shelter and comfort were to be found. She had never said anything which showed her appreciation of her aunt’s tenderness, and had offered but little response to all the affection that had been lavished on her; but yet a slow-growing trust had arisen in her mind. She had no doubt how she was to be received; she knew that kind arms would take her in, kind eyes pity her, kind voices soothe her trouble—and never in all her life had Innocent stood in such need of succour. The house was like some one asleep, with its eyes closed, so to speak, the shutters shut, the curtains drawn, and no one stirring. Innocent sat down upon the step to wait. She did not ring or knock for admittance. She sat down and leant upon the pillar of the porch with a patience which had some hope in it. She could wait now, for her difficulties were over, and her goal within reach. She had fallen half asleep when the housemaid undid the door, and with a scream perceived the unexpected watcher.

“Miss Innocent!” cried the woman, half in terror, half in disapproval; for indeed Innocent’s odd ways were the wonder of the house, and the servants professed openly that they would not be surprised whatever she might choose to do. Innocent opened her eyes and roused herself with an effort.

“Yes, it is me,” she said softly. “I had to come home—by the night train.”

“Oh, how could any one let you wander about like this!” cried the maid, “and where is your luggage? Come to the kitchen, miss, there’s no other fire lighted. You are as cold as ice, and all of a tremble. Come in, come in for goodness’ sake, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Innocent smiled her habitual smile of vague and dreamy sweetness in acknowledgment of this kindness—but she shook her head and went straight up-stairs to the door of Mrs. Eastwood’s room. Her first arrival there came up before her as she paused at the door—her dissatisfaction, her indifference—oh, if she had stayed in the little room, within Nelly’s, within the mother’s, could this thing have happened to her, could any such harm have reached her? This question floated wistfully before her mind, increasing the strange confusion of feelings of which she was vaguely conscious; but she did not pause for more than an instant. Mrs. Eastwood was still asleep, or so at least Innocent thought; but the very aspect of the familiar room was consolatory. It seemed to protect her, to make her safe. She stole softly to the alcove where the grey morning light struggled in through the closed curtains. As Innocent approached Mrs. Eastwood opened her eyes, with the instinctive promptitude of a mother, used to be appealed to at all times and seasons. She started at the sight of the strange figure in hat and shawl, and sat up in her bed, with all her faculties suddenly collecting to her, to prepare her for the something, she knew not what, which she instinctively felt to have befallen.

“Innocent! Good heavens, how have you come? What is the matter?” she cried. Innocent fell down on her knees by the bed; the fatigue, the cold, the personal suffering of which up to this moment she had been scarcely conscious, seemed suddenly to overflow, and become too much for her to bear. She clasped Mrs. Eastwood’s arm between her own, and looked up to her with a ghastly face, and piteous looks of appeal; her lips moved, but no words came. Now she had got to the end of her journey, the end of her troubles; but now all capacity seemed to fail her. She could not do more.

“My child—my poor child!” said Mrs. Eastwood. “Oh, Innocent, why did I let you go from me? Speak, dear, tell me what it is? Innocent, speak!”

“Do not be angry,” said poor Innocent, raising her piteous face, with a child’s utter abandonment and dependence upon the one standard of good and evil which alone it understands. And yet the face was more woeful, more distraught, than child’s face could be. Mrs. Eastwood, anxious yet reassured, concluded that the poor girl, weary and frightened of strangers, had run away from the High Lodge to come home, an offence which might well seem terrible to Innocent. What could it be else? She bent over her and kissed her, and tried to draw her into her arms.

“My poor child, how you are trembling. I am not angry, Innocent; why are you so frightened? Sit down and rest, and let me get up, and then you can tell me. Come, dear, come; it cannot be anything so very bad,” said Mrs. Eastwood with a smile, endeavouring to disengage her arm from Innocent’s hold.

But the girl’s fixed gaze, and her desperate clasp did not relax. Her white face was set and rigid. “Do not be angry!” she said again, with a voice of woe strangely at variance with the simple entreaty; and while Mrs. Eastwood waited expecting to hear some simple confession, such as that Innocent had been frightened by the strange faces, or weary of the monotonous life, and had run away—there suddenly fell upon her horrified ears words which stunned her, and seemed to make life itself stand still. They came slow, with little pauses between, accompanied by a piteous gaze which watched every movement of the listener’s face, and with a convulsive pressure of the arm which Innocent held to her bosom.

“I have killed Frederick’s wife,” she said.

“What does she say? She must be mad!” cried Mrs. Eastwood. The housemaid had followed Innocent into the room with officious anxiety, carrying the cup of tea, which was a means of satisfying her curiosity as to this strange and sudden arrival. Just as these terrible words were said she appeared at the foot of the bed, holding the tray in her hand.

“No,” said Innocent, seeing nothing but her aunt’s face; “no, I am not mad. It was last night. I came home somehow, I scarcely know how—it was last night.”

“And, Innocent, Innocent—you——?”

“Oh, do not be angry!” cried Innocent, hiding her piteous face upon her aunt’s breast. The woe, the horror, the distracting sense of sudden misery seemed to pass from the one to the other in that rapid moment. But the mother thus suddenly roused had to think of everything. “Put down the tray,” she said quickly to the staring intruder at the foot of the bed, “call Alice to me, get Miss Innocent’s room ready, and send some one for the doctor. She is ill—quick, go and call Alice, there is not a moment to lose. Innocent,” she whispered in her ear as the woman went away, “Innocent, for God’s sake look at me! Do you know what you are saying? Innocent! Frederick’s wife?”

Innocent raised herself up with a long-drawn sigh. Her face relaxed; she had put off her burden. “It was last night,” she repeated, “we were alone; I did not want to go, but they made me. She was angry—very angry—and then—oh! She opened her eyes and looked at me, and was still—still.—Till they came I did not know what it was.”

“And it was——? For God’s sake, Innocent, try to understand what you are saying. Did she die—when you were with her? You are not dreaming? But, Innocent, you had nothing to do with it, my poor, poor child?”