Into the Highways and Hedges

CHAPTER VII.

The events of that evening followed on each other so quickly that it seemed to Meg afterwards as if she had been impelled by some power outside herself, though whether of Heaven or hell she doubted later in life.

She heard the crunch of gravel under the carriage wheels, as her aunt drove away to the ball over which they had had such contention; then she dried her eyes and drew a breath of relief.

Meg always felt happier when Mrs. Russelthorpe was out of the house; and her antipathy was the more painful because she blamed herself for it. It was wicked to hate any one. Unfortunately, naming the devil doesn't always exorcise him!

One thing at least was clear to the girl,—it was impossible to go on "for the next few years" as they had been going on lately; and that lightly written sentence of Mr. Deane's stung her almost into despair.

Then she remembered that at least she had his address now, and could send the letters that Aunt Russelthorpe had refused to forward, and in which she had poured out all her difficulties, and asked his decision on them, as if he had been confessor as well as father. Meg looked upon that refusal as a piece of gratuitous and incomprehensible cruelty; but then, in spite of Laura's plain speaking, she never quite understood Mrs. Russelthorpe. She might have abjured gaieties if she had only refrained from claiming her father's sympathy and counsel in her temporary insanity; though even if she had fully recognised that fact, it is doubtful whether she would have sold her birthright. She threw it away instead, which, to some temperaments, is easier than selling.

Balls were early in those days, and it was only eight o'clock, when, with her letter in her hand, she started for the Dover post-office.

It was a long lonely walk; and an older woman than Meg might have thought twice about it, but the girl was too ignorant of evil to be afraid.

She had scruples about asking a servant of her aunt's to accompany her, but she had no doubt that she was justified in her own action.

Her father had told her to write to him,—that was reason enough, and to do anything was a relief to her.

Meg's strength and weakness both rose from the same source: she could be unhesitatingly daring for the person she loved, but if that support should fail, would slip into confusion and despair. Even now there was a leaven of bitterness working in her, a terror that was making her restless. Were Aunt Russelthorpe and Laura right? Did "father" not "care" much after all?

She turned instinctively from that suggestion, and tried to fix her mind on the topics that had lately filled it. As she took the short cut over the cliffs, and walked quickly along the footway that skirts their edge, she thought of that still narrower path which Barnabas Thorpe had pointed out as the only way of salvation.

The sky still glowed behind Dover Castle, though the sun had disappeared; there was hardly a breath of wind to stir the short crisp grass, the broad downs lay still and peaceful in the gathering dusk: Meg was the only human being to be seen, but the little brown rabbits scurried by, and peeped at her from a safe distance, making her smile in spite of her sadness. She was as easily moved to smiles as she was to sighs.

It had been a hot summer, and there were ominous cracks across the footway, which had been deserted of late. Meg, who was Kentish born, ought to have known what those fissures and gaps meant. Perhaps the rabbits would have warned her if they could; for one of them loosened a morsel of chalk as he leaped, which bounded and rebounded down the side of the cliff. She watched it idly, not considering the signification.

Earlier in the day there had been a heavy thunderstorm, which was growling still in the far distance. Meg lingered a moment, listening to the echo among the chalk caves below,—smuggling haunts, where many a keg of brandy had been hidden.

If she had not paused, her light footsteps would have carried her safely over the dangerous bit. As it was, the "crack" she had just stepped carelessly over suddenly widened to a chasm, the earth seemed to give way under her; she stretched out her arms with a wild cry, and fell,—fell, with a vision of clouds of white powder and flashing lights, stopping at last, with a sharp jarring shock, to find herself grasping desperately at something steady, just above her, in a reeling tumbling world! She lay on her side on a narrow ledge a quarter of the way down the cliff, her right shoulder and arm bruised by the fall; but she was hardly conscious of pain, her mind being set on clinging fast to the friendly poppy root that was keeping her from death.

She could hear the sea washing hungrily, with a sullen break, and a strong backward suck, many feet below; she shuddered, and then screamed with all her might, again and again, waking the echoes and the seagulls, who answered her derisively.

She was in terror lest her fingers should relax their hold, in spite of her will. She lost count of time, and began to feel as if she had lain for ages between earth and sky.

Her left arm was getting numb, and her brain dizzy; she was dreadfully afraid of losing consciousness, and tried hard to keep possession of "herself," knowing that if she fainted she would slip down at once, and the green water would roll her over and draw her back.

"Like a cat with a mouse," thought Meg. Her reflections were getting indistinct, and she gathered her strength together to scream once more. A horror of losing her identity, of being swamped in a "black nothingness," was strong on her.

"Help me!" she cried, with an effort to make the words articulate, that was followed by a vague recollection that she had asked some one to "help her" once before, but he never did or never could.

She couldn't quite remember how it was: her past life seemed to have got far away, to have dropped off her, leaving her soul all alone, face to face with this black empty space that was trying to engulf it.

"There isn't any help," she said to herself. "It's all really like the sea, or cats and mice, and my fingers don't seem to belong to me any more," and then——

"Hold on!" said a voice above her. "Don't move, I'll run for a rope."

She opened her eyes and tried to collect her wits.

"I can't hold on more than a minute more," she said a little indistinctly. "If you go I shall fall." While she spoke the root she was clinging to "gave" a little, and a light shower of chalk fell on her face.

"I'm falling! oh be quick!" she cried; and the next moment something blue dangled above her face.

"Let go those leaves, and catch hold of my jersey. I'll pull ye up by it," shouted the voice, the owner of which had flung himself full length on the cliff, his face and arms over the edge.

"Do it at once!" He called, this time as peremptorily as he could, for he was in momentary terror lest yellow poppy and girl should go together to the bottom.

To his relief she obeyed him.

"Both hands!" he cried encouragingly. "I can't pull you up by one."

"I can't move my right arm," she answered. "It's twisted somehow;" and he whistled in dismay.

Meg was as white as the chalk, but she showed some courage now that help was at hand, and she managed to pull herself into a sitting posture, holding tight to his jersey. Further than that he couldn't get her, and he did not dare to leave her lest she should turn giddy.

"I tell you what," he said at last. "There is only one way; I can't pull ye up, an' I doan't risk leaving ye on that narrow bit: ye must e'en come down to me. If I drop over the face o' the cliff there's a foothold close beside ye, now that you're sitting up, and a drop below that again, there's a broader ledge and a cave. Ye'll be safe enough there. Will 'ee try? but we must, for there's naught else to be done. Can ye let go my jersey and sit quite still one minute? Doan't 'ee look, lass, shut your eyes and put your hands down each side."

Meg nodded and held her breath. She felt him alight at her side, and then heard him shout from below.

"All right! There's room enough here," he cried. "Edge along sideways as far as ye can to the right. Don't be scared, ye won't fall! It's quite possible."

He spoke with assurance, and his confident tone gave her courage as he intended it should; but, nevertheless, his own pulses were beating rather fast, albeit his nerves were good as a rule.

Would the girl do it, or would she slip before he could catch her? She was directly over him at last. "Now," he said, "your foot almost touches my shoulder. Ay—that's it, put your weight on it and—ah! that's right. Thank God!" He held her in his arms now, and the next moment she was safe at his side.

Meg leant against the entrance of the cave, half laughing and half crying.

She was not in the least surprised to see that it was the preacher who had saved her, but the absurdity of the situation struck her with a sudden reaction.

The cave was dark, and very damp and ill-smelling; the ledge was just wide enough for them to stand quite safely on it. They were perched like two big birds on the face of the cliff, with a sheer descent that not even Barnabas could have swarmed down, below them.

"Yes, yes!" she gasped in answer to his ejaculation of thankfulness. "But—we shall never, never get up again!"

The preacher made no reply directly. Possibly the same idea had occurred to him.

She sat down in the entrance of the cave, and he tied up her bruised arm as well as he could, improvising a sling with the lace scarf she wore round her neck.

Fortunately, no bones were broken; and she assured him with a smile that he "hardly hurt her at all," though the muscles had been badly strained and her arm was still quite useless. He looked at her doubtfully, but could hardly gather from her face how much or how little she was suffering. He was not accustomed to women of Meg's class, and was sorely puzzled as to what he had best do next.

"Look here!" he said at last. "It's not possible that ye should spend the night in this wet hole; ye'd be fairly starved wi' cold, and no one's likely to come by before morning. I'll climb up somehow and run to the coastguard for help. Ye won't be scared here, eh?"

He bent down and put his jersey between her and the wall of the cave.

"It's been an Irish way of helping ye up!"

Meg looked at him. Her face was very pale, but she had quite recovered her self-command now.

"Don't go," she said. "You might so easily be killed trying to climb in the dark. It is dark. I can hardly see the sea now. It would be my fault if you were to fall, and really I don't think I am worth it."

"If I am to die it 'ull happen the same whatever I do, an' if not, I'll be as safe as if I were in my bed," said Barnabas Thorpe. "But I doan't fancy ye need be scared, for I believe neither you nor I ha' come to an end o' things yet. It has been on my mind that I'd see ye again."

He turned, and began to swarm up the cliff as he spoke; and Meg stopped her ears, for the sound of the crumbling chalk sickened her, and waited in the dark.

The preacher shouted cheerfully when he scrambled to his feet at the top; and then, without further loss of time, started off towards the coastguard station. He was barefooted, having taken off his boots in order to climb; but that troubled him little, as he ran steadily across the night-curtained sleeping country.

Some hours later they stood together in the hall at Ravenshill, Mrs. Russelthorpe facing them.

It was one o'clock; the short summer's night was nearly spent, but the big swinging lamp was still burning. To Meg and Barnabas, coming in from the sweet dark garden, the house seemed in a blaze of light.

The men were all out, searching far and wide for Meg. Only Mr. Russelthorpe had not been told of her absence: he had gone early to bed, and locked the door on himself; giving orders that no one was to disturb him.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was white with passion. Meg was quite silent.

Barnabas Thorpe stood looking from one woman to the other.

"You are a disgrace to the house! You have no shame left!" said Mrs. Russelthorpe. Then the man's blue eyes flashed angrily.

"There's only one of us three has any cause for shame, an' it's not this maid nor me. It's not fit that any should say such things to her. Have ye no brother or father, lass? If ye have, I would like to speak wi' him."

Meg shook her head.

"Yes; but he is a very long way off; and I don't quite know where," she said; "and, perhaps, he'll believe Aunt Russelthorpe."

Mrs. Russelthorpe's face hardened; the preacher could not have done worse than appeal from her to Meg's father. She was a hard woman, and rather a coarse one; but she would scarcely have said what she said that night, if the jealousy which always smouldered between her and her brother's child had not been fanned by his words.

"He will most certainly believe me," she said. "But it is almost a pity (for his sake) that, having stayed away so long, you ever came back at all."

Meg caught her breath with a low cry, as if she had been stabbed; but a sudden light broke over the preacher's face.

"Cast thy garments about thee, and follow me," he cried. "I did not understand before. My eyes were holden; but now it is made clear to us: it is the message from the Lord."

He made one stride forward and stretched out both his hands.

"Come now!" he cried. "I will snatch you like a brand from the burning. Come with me! Let us go out together and preach the Master in the Highways and Hedges. Your example shall be as a shining light to guide the feet of those who are snared by riches. Come! The world has called you on one side and the Master on the other, and you have hesitated; and now the call has been made clearer. Choose quickly, before it is too late. Let me take you from the evil that you feel too strong for you. No one can stay us. You shall go like Peter through the prison doors at the call of the Lord, an' in His strength I will hold ye safe."

Meg looked at him, one long earnest look, then away from him, at the familiar hall, where she had danced gaily three months ago. She thought of the portrait of the great-aunt whose eyes always followed her, and who had done something mysteriously "dreadful". Aunt Russelthorpe would say she was as bad, but she wasn't, she was following a call. She thought of her old uncle, who was sleeping through all this commotion; she thought of Laura and Kate; her aunt's words about her father had hurt her so much that she tried not to think of him; she saw again the preacher on the beach, ah! that was the beginning, and to-night only grew out of it; or was the beginning further back still in the days when her father had told her of Lazarus waiting "outside"?

"Choose while ye may," said Barnabas Thorpe. And she put her hand in his with an odd sense that very little "choice" was left.

"You say it is a message?" she said. "Very well. Let it be so—I will go with you."

Mrs. Russelthorpe had stood with lips compressed, rigidly still, during the preacher's extraordinary proposal; she made one faint attempt to stop them now—but it was too late.

Barnabas Thorpe put her aside as easily as he would have brushed away a fly. "You ha' said your say. It was a cruel one," he said. "You ha' done wi' this maid." And they went out together into the night.

The men who had been sent out to search for Meg returned in the early morning. Their mistress met them in the hall; she had evidently taken no rest, and her face in the pitiless daylight looked haggard and worn.

It had been known in the household that Mrs. Russelthorpe and Miss Margaret didn't get on; but the servants whispered to each other now, that Mrs. Russelthorpe took it harder than might have been expected.

Later in the day, the coastguard from the station on the downs brought news of Miss Deane, and told how Barnabas Thorpe had come to his cottage for ropes, and of how they had gone together to the young lady's assistance.

The coastguard would hardly believe that the preacher had not brought his charge safely home. "I would have trusted my own daughter with him anywhere," he kept repeating. Of that strange scene in the hall, no one but the three concerned ever knew.

Later still they heard of Meg's marriage;—the bare announcement and no more. Mrs. Russelthorpe handed the missive to her husband.

"The girl is crazy," she said. "There is no other explanation."

Mr. Russelthorpe laid down his book—they were in the library—with a groan.

"I can't face Charles. I shall go away when he comes back," was the only comment he made.

"Why? It wasn't your fault," said his wife impatiently. "You had nothing to do with the unhappy child."

"Nothing, nothing!" muttered the old man. "She told me she was desperate, and I did nothing."

Mrs. Russelthorpe turned on him sharply; her face was hard and drawn.

"Margaret told you that? Then hold your tongue about it, Joseph. It is better she should be mad, than that she should have taken this scamp of her own free will."

Mr. Russelthorpe shook his head.

"You have never liked the girl," he said. "But she is no more mad than you are. She was in our charge, and we have been bad guardians; and when your brother comes——"

"When he comes I will meet him," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; "it is between him and me."

The old man gave her a quick furtive glance.

"You have never wanted any one else to come between you and him," he said; and Mrs. Russelthorpe winced.

"We'll talk of it no more," she cried. "Meg is dead to us."

"Yes," said Uncle Russelthorpe, "but that won't prevent there being the devil to pay."

There is—or rather there was when Margaret Deane was young—a fishing hamlet on the Kentish coast that consisted of just one line of tarred wooden huts, and a square-towered chapel.

The women would put their candles in the windows after the sun had dipped, that the twinkling friendly eyes of their houses might guide the fishermen home; but whether it was day or night Sheerhaven had always the air of a watcher by the sea.

The glow of dawn was just warming the grey water when a boat grated on Sheerhaven beach, and a man and a woman climbed slowly up the yellow shelving bank. When they had gone a few steps the man turned and held out his hand. "You are over weary, an' it's no wonder," he said. "Best let me help you."

A fisherman who was pushing off his boat paused and marvelled, as well he might.

"That's Barnabas Thorpe. But who is the girl?"

They walked along the queer old street, that was bounded on one side by the shingle, and was often wave- as well as wind-swept, in the high spring-tides.

Barnabas knocked at a door. His mind was still running on St. Peter and the angel. "It 'ull be the mistress not the maid who will open to us here," he remarked.

The smell of a clover field was blown to them, and a cock crew lustily while they waited.

"The new day has begun," said the girl in a low voice.

The woman who opened the door, a muscular large-featured fish-wife, started when she saw them.

"Dear heart! it's the preacher,—and wet through," she cried. "Now step in, Barnabas, and I'll have a fire in a minute. Eh! what's this? What do you say? A maid as wants shelter?" her good-natured face fell. She had little doubt that it was some "unfortunate" the preacher had rescued.

"We—el—yes; let her come along, she'll do us no harm."

She took them into the parlour, and began to lay the sticks.

"Ran down with the tide from Dover, eh? Well, you've given the lass a salt baptism; she's not got a dry stitch on her. Come nearer, my woman; the fire will blaze up in a minute. Why!" with a sudden change of voice as Meg obeyed her. "The Lord have mercy on us, Barnabas! What have you been about?"

"I'll tell ye by-and-by when she is a bit dryer," said the preacher; but Mrs. Cuxton's eyes did not wait for his telling. She took one more long stare at her strange visitor, who had taken off the rough coat Barnabas had wrapped round her in the boat, and who stood shivering a little by the fire.

Her glance fell from the delicate refined face to the small nervous hands, and the dainty shoes soaked in salt water.

"You belong to gentlefolk, missy?" she said. "Ah, yes! I can see——"

"I don't belong to them any more," said the girl, speaking for the first time with a thrill of excitement, but with an intonation and accent which belied her words; and their hostess shook her head, and looked again at Barnabas, who was staring thoughtfully at the flames.

"I'd as lief speak a word to 'ee," he said gravely; and she followed him out of the room with the liveliest interest depicted on her face.

When she returned alone she found her guest sleeping from sheer exhaustion, her head on the seat of the wooden chair, her slim girlish form on the sanded floor.

Mrs. Cuxton bent over her, her gratified curiosity giving place to a protective motherly compunction; Meg's fair hair was wet with the sea, and shone in the firelight like a halo, her lips were just parted, she looked less than her twenty-one years.

"Poor lamb! to think what I thought of her! Eh! but it's a bad enough business as it is!" muttered the woman; and even while she watched her heart went out to the girl.

Meg awake might possibly have aroused criticism or disapproval; Meg sleeping took her unawares.

Mrs. Cuxton made up a bed on the settle, and drew it to the fire and then took off the wet shoes and stockings, warming the cold feet between her hands. Meg woke up and remonstrated faintly, but was too utterly worn out to care much what happened. The reaction from the tremendous excitement of the night was telling on her, and she was almost too weary to stand, though she felt a sort of comfort in this rough woman's tenderness.

"How kind you are, and what a deal of trouble I am giving you!" she said, as Mrs. Cuxton made her lie down in the improvised bed, and tucked her in with a motherly admonition to "put sleep betwixt her and her sorrows".

"I can't think whatever your people were about to let you do such a thing, and you only a slip of a girl. Trouble? you're no trouble in the world, missy; but your mother must be breaking her heart to-night for you!" cried Mrs. Cuxton; and there were actually tears in her eyes.

"I haven't got a mother," said Meg. "Nobody's heart will break for me, so it really doesn't much matter, you know, what happens, and I am too tired to think; besides, it's done now!" Her eyelids closed again, almost while she was speaking; and Mrs. Cuxton left her with a muttered ejaculation, worn out with weariness and excitement, sleeping like a child over the very threshold of the new life.

It was in Sheerhaven that Meg was married to Barnabas Thorpe. She took that last irrevocable step with a curious unflinching determination,—a sense, half womanly, half childish, that having gone so far, there had better be no going back; that having trusted him so much, the responsibility was his altogether.

"I can't do any other way," he had told her. "I couldn't take ye with me without that; ye must have the protection o' my name, and give me that much right i' the eyes o' the world to fend for ye,—that's all I am wanting. I ha' never thought to marry since I was 'called'."

The girl, standing in the door of the black hut where he had brought her the night before, was quite silent for a full minute, her face full of conflicting emotions.

"If you say we must do it, then—very well," she said at last. "I may as well be Margaret Thorpe as Margaret Deane."

The preacher turned quickly; her quiet assent discomposed him, though in his heart he believed his own words: for the sake of the maid's good name there was no other way.

"Lass!" he said earnestly, "it seemed to me a call o' the Lord's, an' I had no doubts; but ye are young, an' I'm no natural mate for ye. If ye choose, I'll find that father ye talk of, wherever he may be, an' make him understan' the truth. I'll leave ye here this hour and go; but, having come out o' the city o' destruction, to my mind ye had better stay out."

"You will find my father?" Her face brightened and flushed for a second, and then rather a painful look crossed it, and she shook her head.

"Aunt Russelthorpe will see him first," she said; "so it is of no use."

No stranger could ever understand how much despair there was in that last sentence.

"Then there's just naught else possible," said the man: and she bent her head in assent.

She did not see him again till she saw him in the church, where they exchanged vows. Mrs. Cuxton gave her away with grim disapproval.

The guest whom the sea had brought in the early dawn, and who had spent two whole days under her roof, had charmed the heart out of the woman like a white witch.

Meg's fineness and slenderness touched the big fish-wife. Meg's sweet smile, the manner that was her father's, and her pretty voice, when she sat singing the whole of one morning to the little cripple lad whose life Barnabas Thorpe had once saved, were all part of the witchery. During the whole of her chequered life there were always some people (and generally people of a very opposite type to her own) who were inclined to give her that peculiarly warm and instinctive service that has something of the romance of loyalty in it; her home had been somewhat over-cold, but more than once the gift of love, unexpected and unasked, was held out by strange hands as she passed by.

It was a gusty morning, and the break of the waves sounded all through the short service when Meg was married. She paused when they stood on the steps of the church and looked across the sea,—a long look—(somewhere on the other side of that water was her father); then they went inside.

The bride had on a close-fitting plain straw bonnet that Mrs. Cuxton had bought in the village, and her white dress was simpler than what might have been worn by a woman of the preacher's own class; but the old clergyman who was to tie the knot (blind and sleepy though he was) peered hard at her, then looked at Barnabas Thorpe uncertainly. They were a strangely matched couple, he thought. If Meg had seemed frightened he would possibly have spoken; but when her courage was at the sticking-point she did not hesitate, and nothing would have induced her to show the white feather then. It was a plainly furnished church, small and light. The walls were whitewashed, the communion table was covered with a much-patched cloth. It was so small that the fishermen seemed almost to fill it.

They were a deeply interested congregation. All of them knew the preacher; many of them were bound to him by close ties.

Meg's fresh sweet voice, with its refined pronunciation, troubled the clergyman afresh; but it was too late to ask questions, and the service went on undisturbed to its conclusion.

The two signatures are still visible in the vestry. "Margaret Deane," in the fine Italian hand that Mrs. Russelthorpe had inculcated; and underneath, in laboured characters like a schoolboy's, "Barnabas Thorpe".

Meg's pride carried her safely through the meal that waited them on their return; it was spread in the kitchen, and some of the fishermen who had been in the church lounged in, and stared silently at her through the sheltering clouds of tobacco. She made a valiant attempt to eat, and then escaped to change her dress, for the blue serge skirt and cotton body, that Mrs. Cuxton had got with the slender stock of money Meg had had in her pocket.

Mrs. Cuxton followed her after a minute.

"Barnabas is writing them word at home that he has married you. He says have you aught to say?" she said.

"No," answered the girl; "there will never be anything more said between them and me."

Mrs. Cuxton nodded: her manner had changed slightly since the deed had been done, and the last gleam of doubt as to Meg's "really going on with it" had disappeared.

"I don't know what led you to this," she said, putting her hand on Meg's shoulder; "but you say true—you've done it! And whether the blame was mostly yours or not, it's you that must take the consequences! But you've a bit of a spirit of your own, that I fancy may carry you through; and Barnabas Thorpe is a good man, for all I blame him for this day's work. You just stick by him now, and don't never look back at what you've left—it's your only way!"

Meg made no answer: an odd frightened expression crossed her face; then she drew herself up. "I am ready," she said; "only just say 'Good Luck' to me before I go."

"God help you and bless you," said Mrs. Cuxton earnestly, "and him too!"

There was a hush when the bride came in, as unlike a fish-wife in her fish-wife's gear, as well could be.

Barnabas Thorpe sprang to his feet and cut leave-takings short. A cart was waiting for them; he threw up a bundle and lifted Meg in, before she knew what he was about, and they were off at a rather reckless pace down the uneven street.

Meg leant back to wave her hand to Mrs. Cuxton; she had not said good-bye, or thanked her, but she watched her till they were out of sight. It seemed to the good woman that those grey eyes were saying a good deal that Meg's tongue had not said; and as the cart dwindled to a speck in the distance she turned indoors with a heavy heart.

SECOND PART.

CHAPTER I.

Ravenshill was shut up after its brief season of gaiety, and the Deanes came back to it no more.

Margaret's father felt very bitterly the blow that had fallen on him. Both his affection and his pride were outraged; and he was wanting in neither quality, though, in the first shock of the news, the latter seemed to outweigh the former.

That Meg, his special pet, his favourite daughter, of whose beauty he had been so proud, whose very failings were so like his own that he had felt them a subtle form of flattery, that Meg should have done this thing,—it seemed monstrous and impossible.

At first he absolutely refused to credit her aunt's letter, throwing it into the fire with a quick scornful gesture and an angry laugh; but by the time he had reached England, the reality of what had happened had entered into his soul.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was not a sympathetic woman, but she cared for her brother; and the sight of his face on their first meeting in the drawing-room made her blench for once, and avert her gaze.

He uttered no word of reproach, he asked few questions, and made no comments.

If Margaret had been dead he would have wept for her; but she was too far away for tears. She had given the lie to her past; and, had he found her in her coffin, he felt that she would have been less utterly lost to him.

Death might have drawn a veil between them, but it is only life that can separate utterly.

Mrs. Russelthorpe made one faint attempt at consolation; but consoling was not in her line, and she did it awkwardly.

Mr. Deane lifted his head and looked at her, with a face that seemed to have grown grey, and eyes that were terribly like Meg's.

"Don't, please!" he said; "you mean well, sis—but you don't understand. She was my child, and is my grief." And Mrs. Russelthorpe was silent. If she had ever felt moved to a revelation of what had led to Meg's flight, she said to herself now that her brother's own entreaty sealed her lips.

No one spoke to him of Meg after that, though every one felt sorry for him. The quiet dignity with which he bore his trouble awoke more sympathy than any lamentations would have aroused; but he was a man who always and involuntarily awoke sympathy, whether in his joy or in his grief.

It was not till he had been some weeks in the house that he noticed his brother-in-law's absence.

"Joseph is quite as well as usual," Mrs. Russelthorpe said coldly, in reply to his inquiry. "He fancies himself an invalid, and will never make the slightest exertion now. It's no use for you to try and see him, Charles;" and Charles did not try.

Perhaps he rather dreaded the old man's sharp-edged cynicism just then; though he need not have been afraid: Meg's uncle was quite as sore about her as was Meg's father, and a good deal more remorseful.

Very few people saw anything of Mr. Russelthorpe during the last years of his life. George Sauls declared that the poor old fellow was scandalously neglected; but then George Sauls was a good hater, and not likely to take a lenient view of Mrs. Russelthorpe.

Oddly enough, Mr. Sauls was the only person who guessed how heavily Meg's last hopeless appeal weighed on her uncle's mind. He was fiercely angry himself, inclined to quarrel (if they would give him the chance) with all Meg's relatives, to scoff at the popular sympathy for Mr. Deane, and to be unamiably sceptical when he was told that Mrs. Russelthorpe was an altered woman, and felt far more deeply than might have been supposed.

People said, indignantly, that Mr. Sauls did not show himself in at all a pleasing light; and that, considering how kind Mr. Deane had been to him, he might have exhibited more feeling for his friend's trouble; and, indeed, the worst side of the man seemed uppermost at that time.

Yet he called at the house in Bryanston Square when the Russelthorpes returned to town, showing some boldness in continuing his visits in spite of Mrs. Russelthorpe's surprised looks when they encountered each other in the hall. Mr. Russelthorpe had a liking for the young Jew, whose secret he had guessed; and though George had made his way into the library, in the first instance, from purely interested motives, being determined to know all there was to be known about Meg, yet he came again and again, from an unexpressed friendship for the queer, whimsical recluse, who was nominally master of that big house, but who was of no account whatever, and who seemed to grow lonelier and queerer as the years went by.

On the occasion of his first visit after hearing of Meg's departure, George had almost forced an entry, and had found Meg's uncle sitting almost as Meg herself had found him, save that he was making no pretence of reading now, and that his little wizened face was surmounted by a nightcap.

"Go away, I am ill!" he cried fretfully, when the door opened; but when he saw who his visitor was, he straightened himself, and held out his hand.

"Have you come to look at my Egyptian coins again, Sauls?" he asked. "You haven't heard the news then, or you would know that the study of antiquities won't repay you,—won't repay you at all."

"It is true, then!" said Mr. Sauls, a trifle hoarsely. "Would you mind telling me what you know about it, sir?"

"Yes, I should mind," said the old man. Then, when he looked at Mr. Sauls, he apparently relented. "Sit down; though the story won't take long. It's short, and not particularly sweet," he remarked; and he told it in as few words as possible.

"Put not your trust in women," said George, with rather a futile attempt at flippancy, when he had heard the end. "What a fool I've been! I thought I had bought all my experience in that line years ago. Oh well! it's done now, and the sweetest ingénue in the world won't take me in again."

Mr. Russelthorpe looked up sharply. "I suppose when a man's hurt he must blame some one," he said; "and it's easiest to throw the blame on the woman; and this, perhaps, is as good a reason for raving against her as any other. Otherwise, I should say that whoever has cause of complaint, you've none; but my eyes are old and blind. You talk of being 'taken in'. Possibly she encouraged you more than I knew."

George coloured. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I did not mean to imply that Miss Deane—Mrs. Thorpe, I mean—ever did more than barely tolerate me at times. She was a cut above me, I fancied. As events have proved, I was a trifle too modest. It isn't generally my failing; but, evidently, her taste was not so fastidious as I supposed. Barnabas Thorpe knew better. D——n him!" he added savagely.

"Oh certainly!" said Mr. Russelthorpe. "We'll do that, with all my heart. Not that it will make any difference. But, as to her, you're wrong. If it's any consolation to you, I don't think that she would have married you in any case. Not that I don't believe she would have done a wise thing if she had," he added, holding out his hand with a gleam of sympathy. "I should have been glad to see it; but—and this is one of those little arrangements that make one wonder whether there isn't a devil at the steering wheel after all—the purer minded and more innocent a girl is, the more likely she is to fling herself away for an empty idea, and the more faith she'll have in any canting fool who appeals to her 'higher motives'. It is born with some women, that pining to sacrifice themselves, and to spend all their energies on other people. It used to amuse me, when my niece was a child, to see how she was always throwing pearls before swine. Well! well! she's done it with a vengeance this time!"

"Ah! I am glad it amuses you so much," said Mr. Sauls. "It's a very entertaining story from first to last, isn't it? I don't know which is funniest, the thought of that girl's lonely girlhood in this house, where no one seems to have cared twopence about her, or her reckless marriage with a man who'll probably make her repent every hour of her life. Do you suppose he'll kick her when he gets sick of the pearls? That would be most amusing of all, wouldn't it?"

He spoke almost brutally. Mr. Deane, however angry, could not have used that tone to an old man; but George had been brought up in a less strict school of manners, and, perhaps, at that moment had a revulsion of feeling against these grandees amongst whom he had pushed himself in,—to his own undoing, as he felt just then.

At that moment he found it hard to look at things calmly, or to consider that, after all, a love affair was an episode he would get over; whereas the advantages he had derived from an intimacy with the Deanes were solid and lasting, the entrée to Mr. Deane's house having been a decided step upwards on the social ladder. Mr. Russelthorpe made no reply, and George took up his hat.

"I am in too bad a temper to be good company, sir," he said; "though, I daresay, I amuse you. Good-bye."

"You are young still, and angry with fate, or Providence, or the devil,—whichever you like to call it," said the old man. "But as for me, I am old,—too old to be indignant any more, or to go on knocking my head against stone walls; but—I am sorry too—I have not outlived sorrow yet;—unfortunately, that is the last thing we leave behind."

George twisted his eyeglass rapidly. "There are a good many years before me, in all probability," he said. "I may meet her again. In fact, I will try to, sooner or later. One would like to know how it answers, but not just yet. I don't want to be taken up for assault, and I should find it hard to keep my hands off that preaching villain. I will wait."

"Well," said Mr. Russelthorpe drily, "I think you'd better; for I've heard that Barnabas Thorpe knows how to use his fists too: it would be undignified, should you get the worst of it. Besides (though you can hardly be expected to see this), though I've met hypocrites in my time, I doubt whether they are common. Self-deceived idiots there are in plenty, who dub their own desires and prejudices the 'Voice of the Lord'; but villains are scarce. He may be one; of course, it simplifies matters to believe that he is; one can curse him the more heartily,—but I doubt it."

"Do you?" said George shortly; "I don't!"

"No," said the old man; "I don't suppose you do. You're young and hard, as I said before, and sure about everything. Well, don't go and make a fool of yourself about her. What good do you suppose you could do? You might, of course, do harm—that is always so much easier—harm to her and yourself too. I don't know that it would amuse me much if harm should come to you. I should miss you rather—though probably I should do nothing to prevent it."

His voice died away sadly, in a rambling sentence, about something he had said or had not said, and might have prevented and hadn't prevented.

"But you are in such a hurry, Margaret, and I am too old to think so quickly—too old, too old!" he mumbled.

Mr. Sauls, who was just going away, turned back, arrested by that long weak murmur. He crossed the room again, made up the fire, and pushed the armchair closer to it.

"You are not well, sir. Ought you to be alone like this? shall I fetch any one?"

"No—no—don't fetch her. I can't stand her. Don't, I say, don't!" cried Mr. Russelthorpe so nervously that George gave up the idea at once.

"I'll look in again if you would like it," he said, half wondering at himself while he spoke.

"Yes; come again, and, Sauls—come nearer—I've something to say."

George came nearer, and bent over him. "If ever they tell you that I am dying, you insist on coming in, and turn her out," he whispered. "You turn her out! And—and—I want to make my will. Come in and talk it over. I wish to make you executor—and I'll tell you where I put it—then you can find it, when I am dead; but don't let her know—she knows only about the old one. Promise me!"

"All right!" said George; "I promise." Mr. Russelthorpe broke into a low chuckle.

"I wish my spirit could be there to see," he said. "Who knows? it may be, eh? We really know nothing after all. You won't mind a scene with her, will you?"

"With Mrs. Russelthorpe?" said George. "Oh, no; I shall rather like it!"

"Ah!" said the old man. "So shall I, if I am there, released from this feeble old body. I hope I may be." Arid he chuckled again. "Well, good-night, lad."

As for George, he wended his way to Hill Street to dine with his mother. He had pulled his rather unpresentable family up with him, and he was worshipped at home. He always gave Mrs. Sauls the pleasure of his society on one evening in the week; and, considering how busy he was, and how manifold were his engagements, his constancy in keeping to this rule showed some tenacity of purpose.

Mrs. Sauls most firmly believed that all the grand ladies he met were simply dying for "her George," and that he might, as she elegantly expressed it, "'ave 'is pick of them". Perhaps some of "George's" partners might have been rather appalled at the idea of having her for a mother-in-law; but then, as she said, "Lord bless you, they won't marry me; and George's wife will be able to afford to put up with my yellow old face if the Sauls' diamonds set off her young one. I shan't grudge 'em to her, though I won't give them up to any one else; and she'll have the finest in London."

While awaiting the arrival of "George's wife," who had been discussed and speculated on since George had been in petticoats, his mother wore the diamonds herself, in season and out of season. She had a gay taste in dress, delighting in crimsons and yellows, and she always put on her best clothes for her son. Rebecca Sauls had had a bad husband; but George more than made up, as she never tired of saying.

He had been a most objectionable little boy, and had sown a too liberal supply of wild oats as a youth; but his manhood had repaid her: he had turned out cleverer than his father; for, while old Sauls had known only how to make and to save, George, in addition, knew how to spend.

It had required something of an effort on George's part to tear himself away from the old place in the City; but his ambition was even stronger than his talent for money-making, and he boldly cut the shop, and went in for the law. His mother supported him, though all his father's relations held up their hands in holy horror.

"And now my son sits down at table in houses where the Benjamin Mosses and Joseph Saulses wouldn't dream of putting the tips of their long noses!" said she. "And, what's more, they are glad and thankful to get him; but he won't give me up, not for the grandest of them; he'll dine here on a Saturday night, let alone who wants him." And that Saturday night was Mrs. Sauls' gala day. Then she donned her lowest and gayest dress, and most fearful and wonderful headgear, and ordered an aldermanic feast. She would have given George melted pearls to drink, had he expressed any desire that way.

She was an odd-looking old lady, with jet black hair and curiously light-coloured eyes, which were in strong contrast to her very dark complexion, and gave her rather a strange expression. Her mouth was coarse, like her son's, and, like him also, she had plenty to say for herself, and was excellent company.

Some cousins came to dinner, also loud-voiced and bedizened with diamonds. The youngest cousin was at the age when Jewesses are handsomest, being barely seventeen.

She flirted outrageously with George, and he patronised her in a free and easy style. He could generally suit his manners to his company, and this company was rather a rest and relaxation to him.

They all made a great deal of noise after dinner; it struck George that seven people in Hill Street were noisier than fourteen in Bryanston Square, and probably merrier. Mrs. Russelthorpe's hair would have stood on end if she could have seen that entertainment.

Mrs. Sauls enjoyed it as much as any one; but when the company had gone off hilariously, and George, having seen his guests out of the hall door, returned for a tête-à-tête with her,—then she tasted the crowning felicity of the evening.

George always paid his mother the compliment of talking to her about his professional ambitions and interests. She was his only confidante, and he never forgot how she had encouraged him at the very outset of his career. He was not a man who forgot either injuries or benefits.

He talked a long time. Neither of them minded sitting up half the night; and the old lady liked the smell of his cigar, and enjoyed mixing his whisky and water for him, and rejoiced in the sound of his voice.

"Really!" he exclaimed at last, when two o'clock struck. "I am teaching you very bad ways, mother! I say, do you suppose that Miriam Moss will dream of forfeits to-night? She's a very precocious little girl! It's odd how early Jewesses develop. I've known other women of twenty or one and twenty not a quarter so 'formed' as she is."

His mother looked anxiously at him. "You are not thinking of marrying her, are you?" she asked. "You should do better than that, my son. The Mosses are rich, certainly; but I should like to see you go in for a title, myself; and you needn't be afraid that I'll stand in your way when you want to bring a wife home. Indeed, I'd like to have a grandson on my knee before I die, George; though I don't deny that it's been luck for me, in some respects, that you haven't married before. 'A son's a son till he gets him a wife.' Still, it's time now; and, if I were you, I'd look not lower than a county family. You've got money enough. And you may tell the lady from me," and her hard old face softened at the words, "you may tell her from me, that she'll be a lucky woman, for your vulgar old mother says so, and she has had reason enough to swear to it."

George laughed, and put his arm round her. The caress meant a good deal more than all the pretty speeches he had made to Miriam.

"The lucky young woman of title to whom I shall so kindly condescend to throw the handkerchief hasn't appeared on the horizon yet," he said. "When she does, she shan't turn up her highly aristocratic little nose at you, mother! Nobody shall come between you and me."

Mrs. Sauls nodded till her earrings twinkled again. "So much the better for me, my son; but wives aren't so amenable as mothers. Don't answer for her too soon!"

"One can answer for any woman—just as far as one can see her, eh?" said George, yawning; and his mother looked hard at him.

Possibly she guessed that the horizon had not been quite so clear as he would have had her believe; and had a pretty shrewd suspicion that something besides work had deepened the lines on his face. But she was wise in her generation, and kept her counsel.

He talked on for some time, chiefly on business, after that; bidding her good-night only when the dawn began to creep through the shutters.

"Good-night, my dear," said his mother, "and God bless you for a good son, as I'm sure He ought."

She had a wistful feeling while she said the words that Providence had somehow been unduly hard on George lately. Her son laughed profanely: "I believe you think that the Almighty is rather honoured in having me to bless!"

But he was fond of his mother all the same, and her blessing did him no harm.

After all, he couldn't go and make an utter fool of himself—or worse,—while the old woman believed in him so.

A girl begged of him on his way through the streets, and his sallow cheek flushed, for the colour of her hair was like Meg's.

Her innocent face swam before him for a moment, and he put his hand before his eyes with a sense of sacrilege at the reminder. He believed himself as little given to sentiment as any man; but he had felt, since he had known Meg, that his other thoughts were not good enough company for those of her. Now, with a bitter revulsion, he declared to himself that the preacher, who had had no scruples, had fared the best.

He thrust the girl aside, and quickened his steps with compressed lips.

When he got to his rooms he walked straight up to his writing-table drawer, and took from it a little water-colour sketch that had been torn out of Laura's sketch book.

"I can't afford this nonsense," he said. "I shall murder the preacher, if I let you stay here now."

He tore the portrait across, and burnt it in the flame of his lamp. And this was, perhaps, the most sensible thing he could have done; but George seldom lost his head, whatever happened to his heart.

CHAPTER II.

She has tied a knot with her tongue that she'll not undo with her teeth.

Caulderwell Farm is built on the edge of the "flats". All round it, in the days of which I write, was unreclaimed land—broad salt marshes, where the water crept slowly up at high tide, oozing between the rank grass and the sand banks, where the wild ducks nested and the frogs croaked. Fresh-water springs there were too, making tender green splotches in the midst of the redder salt-fed vegetation, and deep black pools, that only the wind and the rain and the shy water-birds visited from one year's end to the other.

From the windows that face south the silver streak of salt water could be seen five miles as the crow flies across the marshes,—a lonely sea breaking on no cheerful child-haunted beach, but rolling in in long grey waves over the soft reed-tufted sand, where the rime clung in crusted serpentine ridges, and where bits of timber and shells got caught among the weeds, till the waves carried them back again.

A lonely country, whose lover's salt kisses left her the more barren.

The grey walls of the solitary house stood sturdily square to every wind that blew; the bit of cultivated ground was dyked all round, and the one road across the marsh led straight to the house door, and there stopped, for beyond the farm was no man's land.

The Thorpes had lived here from generation to generation. They boasted that the marsh ague never touched them, and that their cattle never got lost in the "mosses". They had always been noted for a particular breed of horses, for which they got a sale at the annual horse fair at N——; for the gift of "bone setting," which had appeared in the family again and again; and for a certain obstinate originality, a "way of their own," which the first Thorpe had exemplified in his choice of a home. That good man was popularly supposed to have had a hard tussle with the marsh devil (who was peculiar to the soil, and was an unclean spirit with a head like a horse), over the building of the house. Apparently he had worsted his adversary thoroughly; for Caulderwell Farm still stands, and was three hundred years old when Margaret—who had been Margaret Deane—first made its acquaintance. Daughters had been scarce in the farm. In that respect also the Thorpe family had showed a decided peculiarity. Of the children born to it by far the larger proportion had been boys; and the few girls who had had the temerity to open their eyes in that wind-circled house had generally died before maturity.

Barnabas Thorpe's father had had no sisters, and his wife had brought him sons only.

He had been ambitious as a young man, separated as he was from the people about him by his new-fangled ideas, his greater education, and the touch of something that appeared very like genius in his youth, and like madness in his old age; the "something" that had been always cropping up afresh in each succeeding generation.

It seemed likely that his sons might be sent to college, and rise to the level of gentlefolk; but nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary, the family fortunes fell back; a sort of melancholy blight seemed to have infected the man; he lost interest and energy; the tide of his ambition turned and ebbed, as that quiet creeping sea turned and ebbed from the pools outside.

People said that the two calamities of his life had soured him, that he had never been the same after the death of his wife, and that the accident that had made his first-born, his favourite son, grow up deformed in body, had given a morbid twist to the father's mind.

It may have been so; but it is more probable that the "twist" was there before,—born with him as surely as the colour of his eyes, and the shape of his head, and that it was only accentuated by circumstances.

His wife had died in childbirth; and, out of his passionate and extreme grief, grew, hardly controllable, an aversion for the innocent cause of it.

Tom Thorpe "fathered" his brother to the best of his ability, and kept him out of his real father's sight. Barnabas grew up sturdy and strong; a lover of "out-of-door" pursuits; a hater of books; a child possessed of immense animal spirits, noisy, and rather unruly, who played truant from school whenever he could, and took the consequent thrashings carelessly; a lad with a violent temper and a kind heart; who never puzzled his brains about anything, and was popular in spite of being slightly overbearing and obstinate, as all his forbears had been; a man who became a wanderer on the face of the earth, and startled every one who had known him by the suddenness and power of his "conversion".

He had been fifteen years in that service, to which he had given heart and life, when Margaret first saw him.

During that time he had come back to the farm at intervals, drawn by an overmastering longing for his native marshes; and, possibly, by a strong though undemonstrative affection for Tom. He had always returned, as he had gone, alone; until the night when he had brought home his wife.

It was late October. In the south, the trees still clung to their red and gold glories, and there was mellowness in the air, the afterglow of departing summer; but here, in the north, winter had already claimed possession, and had cut short brusquely the tender leave-takings of the warm weather.

The few trees that there were, little gnarled stunted specimens, had been violently bereft of their leaves, and leaned to one side, adapting themselves to the constant bullying of the gales, that swept through their thin knotted branches, and dashed against Caulderwell Farm, as if in hopes of, at last, laying that stern and sturdy old building low.

The lonely house looked cold and desolate enough from outside; but the heart of it, the cheerful kitchen where Mr. Thorpe and his son sat, was warm, even hot, on the coldest of nights.

The man who planned the farm had made the kitchen the noblest room in it. The prim "best parlour," and even the dining-room which no one ever used, but which boasted a curiously blazoned ceiling, were nothing in comparison.

The kitchen was oak-panelled, wide and essentially comfortable, with red brick floor and huge fireplace fitted with corner seats.

Candles, smoked hams, and rows of onions hung from the rafters. The china, genuine old willow, was piled on the oak dresser; pewter pots gleamed cheerfully in the firelight, though they were muddled up with pipes and fishing tackle in a way that would have made a good housewife's heart sink; and the rubicund face of an "old toby" beamed from among them,—a sort of presiding genius.

Two tallow candles stood on the square wooden table in the middle of the room. The remains of a meal were shoved together at one corner of the table, and books littered the other side. The candles cast deep eerie shadows, but never flickered; though the wind was tossing against the lozenge-shaped windows in angry gusts. The thick walls of the farm were quite draught-proof, let the storm shriek as it would.

Mr. Thorpe was walking with long uneven steps up and down the room. His hands—thin narrow hands—were clasped behind his back, his head poked forward a little.

He was a loose-limbed, gaunt man; big-boned, though he stooped so that it was difficult to guess his real height; his chest seemed to have sunk in, and his shoulders to have become permanently rounded.

His clothes hung on him as if they had been put on with a pitchfork, and his silky black beard straggled untidily over his old-fashioned flowered waistcoat.

His eyes were deep-set, blue, like his younger son's; but here the resemblance ended, for Mr. Thorpe was olive-complexioned, and his features were fine and clear cut. His was a more refined face than the preacher's. Evidently, Barnabas had inherited from his mother's side his fair skin and curly hair; also, probably, his incapacity for learning and his splendid health.

Tom Thorpe sat at the table with a pile of books in front of him; his shadow danced in the firelight, as if cruelly caricaturing the reality.

He was deformed, hunchbacked, and slightly crippled as well, one leg being oddly twisted inwards.

He had an odd face too, with a very big forehead, and rough jet black hair. He might have been taken for any age, having the sort of countenance that looks as if it had never been young, and yet is slow to grow old. In reality he was nearly forty.

His eyes were a greenish hazel, with curiously big pupils—very expressive eyes, that could be as soft as a woman's, though "softness" was not Tom's ordinary characteristic.

The mouth showed signs of pain endured silently and frequently; the lines about it were deep, and the lips closed very tightly when he was not talking.

Seated at the other end of the table, engaged in eating her supper, which she did with a kind of injured air, as if every mouthful were pain and grief to her, was a prim middle-aged woman, with an appearance of fretful, would-be gentility.

When she had finished, she rose with a stifled sob and seemed about to clear away, but Tom jumped, or rather hopped up, shut his book with a bang of suppressed irritation, limped round the table with surprising celerity, and took the plates out of her hands.

"If you are sartain you don't want more, I'll put 'em by," he said.

"I couldn't eat! not with you reading all the time, and Cousin Thorpe walking up and down like a wild beast in a cage," she murmured, with a quiver in her voice. "It takes all the heart out of one's meal!"

"But, my good soul, you ain't obliged to read," said Tom, "and I'm sure you are welcome to be as many hours over your supper as you like. If you've done, I'll put 'em off the table."

The corners of her mouth twitched downwards. "It never was cast up at me before that I take longer than is fitting over my food," she said; "but to see a person reading the whole of supper, with not a word to throw at one, and never caring what he's eating, no more than if it was dust and ashes, does break one's spirit; but if you think I consume more than I am entitled to, Tom, or if——"

"Look 'ee here!" cried Tom, "I never said nothing of the sort. Do you think I count your mouthfuls? If you dare hint such a thing again, I'll make you finish the ham before you go to bed." He caught it up by the bone as he spoke, and waved it aloft. Mrs. Tremnell looked terrified; she was always rather afraid of Tom, and could not have seen a joke to save her life. She retreated hastily from the combat to a far-off corner, where she produced a black silk workbag, and solaced her soul with tatting.

Tom put away the dishes, unwashed, with wonderful celerity, and buried himself again in his studies.

He rightly felt that if a woman were once allowed to have a hand in their extremely untidy domestic arrangements, she would never rest till she had revolutionised everything.

"Dad an' I'd be tidied out o' the kitchen before we knew where we were," he reflected; and poor Cousin Tremnell's desire after usefulness was vigorously snubbed whenever it durst show itself.

She sniffed over her work every now and then, and Tom glanced up irritably, yet with a suspicion of a smile at the corners of his lips. He was just opening his mouth to speak, this time with overtures of peace, when there was a thundering knock at the outer door.

"Who ever can it be at this time of night?" cried Mrs. Tremnell. And Mr. Thorpe paused in his restless walk.

"It's Barnabas!" cried Tom, his face lighting up. And he caught up his sticks, and was in the hall unbolting the massive door before the others had recovered from their surprise.

They heard his joyful, "Why, lad, I thought it was you!" and then a smothered exclamation of surprise. And then Barnabas came in, bringing a whiff of icy air with him.

The moisture was hanging from his beard, and dripping from his hat, making little pools on the red bricks. But not even Mrs. Tremnell noticed that; both she and Mr. Thorpe were staring in utter astonishment at a third figure,—a slight pale woman, with hair cut short, and big sad eyes, who followed him into the room silently.

"Father, this is my wife," said Barnabas Thorpe. "I wrote you a letter about her, but I doubt you never got it. It's a dirty night, and she's a bit weary."

There was a moment's silence; then the old farmer drew himself up, and held out his hand to the stranger with a gentle dignity that would have done credit to the finest gentleman in the land.

"You are welcome, ma'am," he said. "Will you come to the fire and rest? The storm's bad outside."

He demanded no explanation then. It was his house, and she his guest—on a night too when he wouldn't have shut out a dog,—that was enough for the present. All the rest could wait.

Cousin Tremnell burnt with curiosity; and so did the hunchback, who looked dismayed as well; but neither of them durst ask anything.

Cousin Tremnell, indeed, was too much "taken aback," as she would have expressed it, to move; but Tom hopped across the room with the kettle, and cast furtive glances at the woman who stood on the hearth slowly unwinding a heavy shawl, which she let fall at last in a heap at her feet. She was rather uncanny—like a spirit, or like one of the elves, with golden hair and no backs to them, who dance on the marsh to the destruction of the unwary, he thought.

At the second glance he revised that impression: his shrewd eyes told him that there was nothing of the temptress about this girl; she did not look bad; she had never inveigled any one; but, good Lord! what a queer wife to have! How tiny her hands were, and how still she stood; not blushing, nor rolling her fingers in her apron, nor doing any of the things women generally do when they are nervous; but only looking gravely into the fire, and waiting patiently. He made the tea and cut thick slices of bread and ham, and then addressed himself directly to the stranger, being filled with great curiosity to hear her voice.

"Will 'ee sit down with us?" he said; and looked inquiringly at his brother, as though to ask whether this strange wife of his ate or drank like ordinary mortals.

Barnabas sat down with good appetite; his wife took her place beside him, and Mr. Thorpe drew his chair to the table as a mark of respect to his unexpected guest: he had had his own supper long before.

Mrs. Tremnell brought her sewing up to the light, though she was too flustered to work; and Tom hopped round the table offering Barnabas' wife everything he could think of.

On the whole, and considering the startling way in which Margaret had been introduced into their midst, it was wonderful how well the Thorpes behaved.

Meg's own father could not have shown finer courtesy than did the preacher's.

She ate her supper with outward composure, if with some inward tremor. Meg had seen so many strange scenes, and found herself in so many strange places, since the day when she had shut the door for ever on the old life, that she was not now so completely overcome by the position as she might once have been.

The preacher was too indifferent to other people's opinions to suffer from embarrassment; and, though deeply attached to his home, he had, for many a long year, held himself quite independent in the ordering of his life.

Meg noticed that he met his brother's eyes with the reassuring glance that told of mutual understanding; but that he and his father had apparently little in common.

The old man's sharply chiselled and refined features, as well as his gentler accent, surprised her; and she looked up gratefully when he asked her about their journey.

"You clip your words like a Londoner," he remarked smiling; but he thought to himself that she was a pretty spoken lass anyhow.

"I have always lived in London part of the year," said Meg. "We went out of town in July."

"Why?" asked Tom abruptly.

Meg looked confused, and silence fell on them.

"The upper circles vacate town at the close of the opera," said Cousin Tremnell. She was privately wondering whether the stranger had been in service, and rather hoped she had. She herself, driven by stress of circumstances, had been maid in a very "good family" for some months. She knew that the Thorpes looked down on her for it; and, while she felt herself their superior in gentility and manners, she was yet not strong-minded enough for her self-respect to be unruffled by their opinion.

"We've naught to do wi' upper circles, and doan't want to have," said Tom. "I'm going to see about your room. Will 'ee come, lad?"

He limped off with marvellous quickness.

Barnabas pushed back his chair, and followed him.

Mr. Thorpe got up too; and resumed the restless pace up and down that had been broken into by his new daughter-in-law's advent. She sat twisting the ring on her thin finger, and wondering whether the preacher was telling the whole story now, and what his brother thought of it. As it happened, she was not left long in doubt on that score.

The tap of Tom's sticks sounded again along the stone passage; he was talking eagerly; when he almost reached the door, she heard his final dictum: "E—eh, lad! Now, I doan't know on my soul which was th' biggest fule, you or she!"

So Meg was brought to Barnabas Thorpe's kin; and, sitting alone in her room, looked over the wide marshes that were to become familiar to her; and knew herself a stranger in a strange land.

It was two months since she had become his wife in name; and the two months' experience had made its mark on her,—a mark so deep that she believed herself to be hardly recognisable—a different woman altogether.

Her face had sharpened in outline, and deepened in expression; the girlish beauty of colour had faded, and she had cut off her abundant soft hair.