John, A Love Story; vol. 1 of 2

“How good of you to come and tell me! May Parsons go down and bring me a cup?” said the girl. She had been seated by the open window, with the breath of the lilies stealing up from the dark garden, and a reverie had stolen over her, about nothing in particular; only the soft night was in it, and the lilies, and the vague delights of youth. I almost think she had felt John Mitford’s incipient undeveloped sentiment breathing up to her in the vagueness and darkness, with an indefinite perfume, like the flowers. And Kate had no mind to leave this sweet confusion of dreams and odours and far-off suggestion, for actual talk and commonplace intercourse; and her first impulse was to get gently rid of her visitor, if that might be.

“It would lose all its fragrance coming up-stairs,” said Mrs Mitford. “You have not begun to undress, or even taken down your pretty hair; come down, my dear, for half an hour,—I know it will do your head good. You know, everybody says ours is such good tea.”

“Don’t I know it!” said Kate; “but——”

“But I can’t take any refusal,” said Mrs Mitford, drawing the girl’s arm within her own. Oh, how little she wanted her at that moment, had the truth been known! and yet she coaxed and wooed her as if it were a personal grace. And the girl yielded, thinking more a great deal of the sweetness of being thus sought and coaxed by the mother, than of the son who was sitting in the dumps on the sofa in the dark corner down-stairs.

“If you want me,” she said, with a faint accent of inquiry, and gave Mrs Mitford a soft little kiss. “I think mamma must have been like you,” she said in apology, a remark which confused John’s mother, and made her feel guilty. For it was not kindness to this motherless creature that moved her, but the maternal passion which paused at nothing which could give pleasure to her boy.

John was standing in the open window hesitating whether he should plunge out into the darkness, when he heard the voices of the two ladies coming down-stairs, and all the room immediately filled with radiance and splendour. In a moment he was back again, standing, hovering over Kate, who sank into an easy-chair close to the light, and gave herself up to the delights of the promised cup of tea. He did not say a dozen words to her all the rest of the evening, but he was happy; and she lying back at her ease, with the consciousness of an admiring audience, chattered and sipped, and was happy too. It did not occur to Kate that every word she said was being closely criticised by the woman who had gone to seek her, who was basking in the pleasant rays of her youth, and smiling at all her nonsense and chatter, and looking so wistfully at her by times. She thought she had made a conquest of Mrs Mitford too, and was pleased and proud. “I cannot be just a little flirt and a stupid,” Kate was saying to herself, “for Mrs Mitford is fond of me too.” And with this pleasant sense of having an utterly indulgent audience, she rattled on more freely than she had ever before found it possible to do at Fanshawe. And Mrs Mitford made secret notes of all the nonsense, and laid up in her memory everything that was said. And then the Doctor came in from his study, and the bell was rung, and the servants appeared dimly, and sat down in a row against the further wall where it was dark; and they had prayers. Mrs Mitford was scrupulous about having a shade over the lamp—she thought it was good for the eyes—so that there was one brilliant spot round the table, and all the rest was dim and vague, darkness deepening into the corners, and intensifying to a centre in the great window full of night, the open abyss into the garden all sweet with roses and lilies, through which there puffed by times a breath of summer wind. Now that the tea-things were removed, it was Dr Mitford’s white head, and his open book, and the whiter hand which was laid upon it, that were the foremost objects in the room; and in the middle distance among the shadows was Mrs Mitford; and at the back, like ghosts, the maids and the man. Kate joined very devoutly in the prayers, and felt glad she had come down-stairs. “How good they are, how quiet it is, how nice to have prayers! and oh, what sweetness in the air!” she said to herself, when she ought to have been praying. It was novel to her, and the composition of the picture was so pretty. And they were all so kind—fond of her, indeed. Kate went back to her room, when all was over, with a soft complacency and satisfaction with herself possessing her heart.

CHAPTER VII.

The next afternoon John and Kate were on the lawn, with Mrs Mitford sitting by, when Fred Huntley suddenly rode in at the gate. The two young people had no particular inclination for croquet, but the lawn had been mowed, and Mrs Mitford had given up her schools for one day, and seated herself outside the drawing-room window to countenance their intercourse. She did not take any part in their talk, but knitted with as much placidity as she could command, having reasoned with herself all the night through, and finally made up her mind that it would be better for her to take no part, but let things take their course. “If I try to influence her, she will think I have interested motives; and if I try to influence him, my boy will turn against me,” she had said to herself piteously, shedding a few silent tears under cover of the night; and her decision had been, that she would only stand by and look on, that was all. For the first time in his life John’s mother felt herself incapable of helping, or guiding, or being of any service to her boy. She had to see him face the danger, and say nothing—the danger on one hand of being secularised, and his heart turned to frivolity; and on the other, of having that heart broken. Which was the worse his mother could scarcely tell.

So these two were trifling, each with a mallet, and talking, and getting more and more interested in each other, when Fred Huntley, as I have said, rode suddenly in upon them. He gave a very keen knowing glance at the two on the lawn, as he passed them to pay his respects to Mrs Mitford. Was it her doing? was it their own doing? Fred caught the secret of the situation as a well-trained man of the world would naturally do. He had first a natural impulse to interfere; and then he paused and stopped himself, and declared to himself that he would not spoil sport. He was a man to whom generous thoughts came not, as is natural, by impulse, but upon thought. And after all, why should he meddle with them? If she married John, it would be a good thing for John, and, most likely, for her too—and why should I interfere? said Fred, without a doubt of his capability to do so; so he went and talked to Mrs Mitford, while the two on the lawn pursued their languid sport. “I hate him,” Kate had said on his arrival; “let us pretend we have begun a game;” and John was but too happy—too much delighted, by the suggestion. So they kept the lawn to themselves, and trifled and talked, while Fred chatted with the chaperone over her knitting. He had come to make the apologies of his family, expecting to find an assemblage of ladies with John in the midst, the one island of black among clouds of muslin. The ladies in Fanshawe Regis were not even young, and consequently it was a relief to him to see one pretty figure only, and the mother sitting by; and he did his best to make himself agreeable, having, as it happened, a more interesting subject than “le beau temps et la pluie.”

“I hear John has been distinguishing himself,” he said; and though he did not in the least intend it, there was something in his tone which made Mrs Mitford flush red to the edge of her hair, and raise herself stiffly on her seat. The truth was, John had been in competition with Fred more than once at college, and had not been held to have distinguished himself—which naturally drove his mother to arms at the first word.

“Not anything particular that I am aware of,” she said, drawing herself up stiffly; “he always is the best son and the kindest heart in the world.”

“But about Miss Crediton,” said Fred.

“Oh, that was a mere accident,” said John’s mother. “You see he can’t help having a warm heart, and being so big and strong.”

Fred was fully three inches shorter than John, and in this way at least he had never distinguished himself. “To be sure, that is an easy way of accounting for it,” he said, with much command of temper. “It must be very nice to be big and strong, especially when pretty girls and heiresses are in danger in one’s way.”

“Is she an heiress?” said Mrs Mitford, with the most innocent face in the world.

“Well, rather,” said Fred; and here the little passage of arms came to a close. “My sisters were very sorry they could not come,” he went on after an interval, during which he had been intently watching the two figures on the lawn. “They sent all kinds of messages, but I fear I have lost them on the way. They could scarcely have been more sorry had it been a dance—and what could a young lady say more?”

“I wish they could have come,” said Mrs Mitford; and just then Lizzie came and whispered something in her ear. “Will you excuse me for two minutes, Mr Huntley? It is one of my poor people. I am so sorry to be rude, and go away.”

Fred said something that was very polite, and went slowly towards the croquet-players as she left him. He thought Kate was very pretty—he had never seen her look so pretty. She was dressed in fresh muslin all but white, with her favourite blue ribbons, and looked so dainty, so refined, such a little princess beside John’s somewhat heavy large figure. Not but what he looked a gentleman too—but a rural gentleman, a heavy weight, and standing side by side with a creature made of sunshine and light. Fred Huntley had never admired Kate particularly heretofore, but he did that day, and wondered at himself. He sauntered up to them, watching their looks and movements, and stood by and criticised their play. “Miss Crediton, you have it all in your own hands,” he said. “He has not the heart to hit your ball. You have nothing to do but go in and win. My good fellow, I never saw such bad play!”

“As if one cared for winning!” said Kate, dragging her mallet along the grass. “What do we all play croquet for, I wonder?” And she gave vent to her feelings in a delicate yawn, and sank into the chair which John had brought out for her. He had placed it under the shadow of a graceful acacia, which kept dropping its white blossoms at her feet, and the two young men drew near and looked at her. Fred was much the more ready of the two, so far as talk was concerned.

“That is a tremendous question,” he said. “It is as bad as if you had invited us to clear up the origin of evil. But there is nobody like women for going to the bottom of things. We do it because somebody once considered it pleasant, I suppose.”

“Or because we are believed to have nothing else to do,” said John.

“Then why can’t we be permitted to do nothing? It tires me to death standing about in the sun,” said Kate, in a plaintive voice. “I’d rather lean back and be comfortable, and listen to the leaves. I’d rather even have you two sit down here in the shade,” and she waved her hand like a little princess towards the turf on each side of her, “and quarrel about something—so long as you did not come to blows. Talk—oh, please, talk about something women are not supposed to understand!”

“By all means,” said Fred, throwing himself down at her feet; “what shall it be? Sophocles, or steam-engines, or the Darwinian theory? Mitford is up in everything, I know, and one has a few vague ideas on general subjects—which shall it be?”

But John said nothing. He stood bending towards her with that great, tall, somewhat heavy figure of his. He had been talking not unagreeably so long as the two were alone, but Fred’s interposition quenched him. He stood with an inexpressible something in his look and attitude, which said, “I am here to watch over you, to serve you, not to take my ease and talk nonsense in your presence,” which brought a little colour to Kate’s cheeks. She looked at the young men in her turn, involuntarily contrasting the ease of the man of the world with the almost awkwardness of the other. Under such circumstances one knows what the verdict of a frivolous girl would naturally be. One of them could enter into all her habitual chatter, and give her all her nonsense back. He was handsomer than John Mitford, though neither was an Adonis. He was more successful; he had the prestige about him of a man of intellect, and yet he was just like other people. Whereas John, without the prestige, was unlike other people. Kate looked at them with a curious impression on her mind, as if she were making that grand decision which the heroes of olden time used to be called upon to make between the true and the false—between Pleasure and Goodness. A slight shiver went over her, she could not tell why. Neither of them was asking anything of her at that moment. As for Fred Huntley, he had never shown the slightest inclination to ask anything of her, and yet in some mysterious way she felt as if she were deciding her fate.

“You are cold—let me go and bring you a shawl,” said John.

“Oh, it is nothing. It is because I have been ill. I never was so stupid in all my life before. Thanks, Mr Mitford, that is so nice,” said Kate. But she was not cold, though she accepted the shawl he brought her. She was trembling before her fate. And it was John to whom some unseen counsellor seemed to direct her. It was John she liked best, she said to herself. His was the good face, the tender eyes, the loyal soul. Why such a crisis should come upon her in the middle of a game at croquet, Kate could not imagine; nor why her innocent intention of bewildering poor John’s being for him, and giving a sharp tug at his heart-strings by way of diversion, should have changed all at once into this sudden compulsion of fate upon herself to choose or to reject. Such nonsense! when nobody was asking her—nobody thinking of such a thing! She got out of it precipitately, with the haste of fear, not knowing or caring what nonsense she spoke. “You make me so uncomfortable when you stand like that,” she cried. “Sit down, as Mr Huntley has done. There are only us three, and why should we make martyrs of ourselves? and when Mrs Mitford comes back, you can go and bring her chair under this tree. Mr Huntley, are you going to the ball at the Castle when the young Earl comes of age?”

“I had not heard anything about it,” said Fred. “I don’t care for balls in a general way; but if you are to be there, Miss Crediton——”

“Of course you will go,” said Kate; “oh, I understand that. I wish you gentlemen would now and then say something a little original. Mr Mitford, I suppose I must not ask if you are going, or you will answer me the same?”

“No, I don’t think there is any chance that I shall go,” he said, with a smile, “not even if you are there.”

“That is not original,” said Fred, “it is only ringing the changes. But I suppose you will be going up to the bishop then, Mitford, eh? When is it? You ought not to speak to him about balls, and tempt him, Miss Crediton, at this moment of his life.”

Kate started a little in spite of herself. “Is it so near as that? Oh, Mr Mitford, is it true?”

“Quite true,” John answered, facing her, with a certain faltering steadiness which she found it hard to understand; “but I don’t think the temptation of balls, so far as that goes, is likely to do me much harm.”

“And I hope you are all right in other respects, old fellow,” said Fred Huntley, suddenly, in an undertone. “You are not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable, I hope. You are not going to make any sacrifice of—of opinion—of—— I remember the talks we used to have long ago.”

“I am not going to sacrifice my conscience, if that is what you mean,” said John, shortly, growing very red; “but this is not the moment for such a discussion.”

“I wonder where Mrs Mitford can be for so long,” cried Kate, rushing into the conversation; “it must be some of her poor people. I think, as the croquet has been a failure, I shall go and see; but in the mean time, Mr Huntley, tell me what the girls are about, and where they are going. Are they to pay as many visits this year as they did last? or are you going to have your house full of people? Papa has asked some hundreds to Fernwood, I believe. I hate autumn and the shooting, and all the people that come from town. Why should the poor partridges lose their lives and we our tempers every year, as soon as September comes? It is very hard upon us both. Or else you all go off to the grouse, and then there is not a man left in the place to fill a corner at dinner. What harm have those poor birds ever done to you?”

“They are very nice to eat,” said Fred, “and I suppose if we did not kill them they’d kill us in time. But, Miss Crediton, you are too philosophical. May not a man play croquet or shoot partridges without rendering a reason? One does so many things without any reason at all.”

“Well,” said Kate, smothering another yawn, “if you will not say anything that is amusing, or argue, or do anything I tell you, I shall go and look for Mrs Mitford. I don’t think it is quite proper to sit here by myself and talk to two gentlemen, especially as you let me do almost all the talking. And it is hot out of doors. I will go in till tea is ready; but, Mr John, you do not need to trouble yourself. There is not even a door to open. I shall go in at the window. Pray don’t come,” she added, in a lower tone, as he followed her across the lawn; “go and talk to him.”

“I would much rather attend upon you, even though you don’t want me,” said John, with a half-audible sigh.

“But I do want you,” said Kate, touched by his tone, “you are always so good to me; and I can’t bear him, with his chatter and talk. Do keep him away as long as you can—until we call you in to tea.”

And then she gave the poor fellow a little nod of friendship, and a smile which dazzled him. He went away strengthened in his soul to be more than civil to Fred Huntley—poor Fred, upon whom this sunshine had not fallen—whom, indeed, she was inclined to avert her countenance from. He strolled about the garden with that unfortunate but unconscious being for half an hour, and then took him to see the church, which was a fine one, wondering in himself all the time when that summons would come to tea. Huntley seemed abstracted too, and it came natural to John to think that everybody must be moved as he himself was, and that it was absence from her which made a cloud over his visitor. Their conversation strayed to a hundred other subjects as they strolled gravely up and down. They talked of the doings in Parliament, of the newspapers, of the county member, of the nature of the county architecture, of the difference in point of age between the chancel and the nave of Fanshawe Regis church, which was a question much discussed in antiquarian circles; but it was not until a full hour had elapsed that anything was said of Kate. At last,—

“By the by,” said Huntley, “what was that accident that happened to Miss Crediton? One hears different accounts of it all over the country, and she does not seem to know very well herself.”

“It was not much,” said John, with rising colour. “Her horse ran away with her—he was making for the cliff, you know, at Winton, that overhangs the river—I beg your pardon, but the thought makes me sick—and I stopped him—that’s all.”

“But how did you stop him?”

“It does not greatly matter,” said John; “I did somehow. I don’t know much more about it than she does. And don’t speak of it to her, for heaven’s sake! She does not know what an awful danger she escaped.”

“But surely she knows what happened?” said Fred.

“Oh yes—she knows, and she does not know. I tell you I don’t know myself. Don’t say anything more about it, please.”

“That is all very well, my dear fellow,” said Huntley; “but Kate Crediton is an heiress, and a very nice girl; and if you were to go in for her, I can tell you it would be a very good thing for you.”

This time John grew pale—so pale that the keen observer by his side was filled with sudden consternation, and could not make it out. “Suppose, in the mean time, we go in to tea,” he said, with a curious sternness. Not another word was said, for Huntley was too much a man of the world to repeat an unpalatable piece of advice; but he was rather relieved, on the whole, when the ceremonial was over, the tea swallowed, and half an hour of talk in the drawing-room added on to the talk on the lawn. “I should like to know what she means by it,” Fred said to himself, indignantly, as he rode home to dinner. John Mitford was a simpleton, an innocent, an ass, if you please; but Kate knew what was what, and must have some idea where she was drifting. And what could she mean, did anybody know?

She herself did not know, at least. She was very good to John all that evening, asking him questions about his Oxford life, and humouring him in a hundred little ways, of which he himself was but half conscious. And after dinner it so happened that they were left in the garden together, for Mrs Mitford had relaxed a little in the sternness of the chaperone’s duties, which were new to her, and began to forget that the boy and the girl were each other’s natural enemies. It was a lovely night, and Kate lingered and walked round and round the old house till she was compelled at last to acknowledge herself tired. And John, well pleased, gave her his arm; and it was only when she had accepted that support, and had him at a vantage, that she put the question she had been meditating. The soft air enclosed them round and round, and the soft darkness, and all the delicate odours and insensible sounds of night. He could scarcely see her, and yet she was leaning on him with her face raised and his bent, each toward the other. Then it was, with just a little pressure of his arm to give emphasis to her question, that she opened her batteries upon him at one coup.

“Is it really true,” she said, with a certain supplication in her voice, “that you are determined to be a clergyman, Mr John?”

“True!” he said, staggering under it as he received the blow, and in his confusion not knowing what to say.

“Yes, true. Will you tell me? I should so very much like to know.”

And then John’s heart stood still for one painful moment. The question was so easy to ask, and the answer was not so easy. He drew his breath like a man drowning, before he could muster strength to reply.

CHAPTER VIII.

“Yes—of course it just comes to that; other men will go on and on while you remain behind,” cried Kate. “I could not bear it. That Fred Huntley, for example—he is reading for the bar, I believe, and he is clever, and he will be Lord Chancellor, or something, while you are only Rector of Fanshawe Regis. That is what I could not bear.”

John shook his head with a feeling that she did not understand him; and yet was attracted, not repelled. “That is not my feeling,” he said. “I don’t think you would think so either if you looked into it more. Huntley has more brains than I have; he will always rise higher if he takes the trouble—but I don’t care for that. The thing is—but, Miss Crediton, it would bore you to listen to such a long story; suppose we go in to my mother—she knows nothing about my vain thoughts, thank heaven!”

“Oh no, no,” said Kate, clinging still closer to his arm; “tell me everything—I shall not be bored. That is, if you will—if you don’t mind trusting me.”

“Trusting you!” It was curious how much more impressive his voice was, coming out of the darkness. His awkwardness, his diffidence, everything that made him look commonplace in the daylight, had disappeared. Kate felt a little thrill, half of excitement, half of pride. Yes, he would trust her, though nobody else (he said) in all the world. It was not John that thus moved her; it was the sense of being the one selected and chosen—one out of a hundred—one out of the world—which is the sweetest flattery which can be addressed to man or woman. She looked up to him, though he could not see her, raising that face which John already felt was the sweetest in the world. And he bent over her, and her little hand trembled on his arm, and the darkness wrapped them round and round, so that they could not see each other’s faces—the very moment and the very circumstances which make it sweet to confide and to be confided in. It was not yet ten days since he had seen her first, and she had not as yet shown the least trace of a character likely to understand his, and yet he was ready to trust her with the deepest secrets of his heart.

“It is not that,” said John. “I am sure you are not the one to bid a man forsake his duty that he might rise in the world. If I were as sure about everything I ought to believe as—as my father is, I should go into the Church joyfully to-morrow.”

“Should you?” said Kate, feeling chilled in spite of herself.

“I should; and you would approve me for doing so, I know,” he said, earnestly. “But don’t think me worse than I am, Miss Crediton. I am not a sceptic nor an infidel, that you should draw away from me. Yes, you did, ever so little—but if it had only been a hair-breadth, I should have felt it. It is not so much that I doubt—but I can’t feel sure of things. My father is sure of everything; that is the superiority of the older generations. They knew what they believed, and so they were ready to go to the stake for it——”

“Or send other people to the stake,” said Kate. The conversation was getting so dreadfully serious that she turned it where she could to the side of laughter; but it was not possible in this case.

“Yes, I know,” he said, softly, altogether ignoring her lighter tone; “the one thing implies the other. I acknowledge it does; we are such confused creatures. But as for me, I could neither die for my belief nor make any one else die. I don’t feel sure. I say to myself, how do you know he is wrong and you are right? How do I know? But you see my father knows; and most of the old people in the village are just as certain as he. Is it because we are young, I wonder?” said John.

“Oh, don’t speak like that—pray don’t. Why should it be because we are young?”

“That I can’t tell,” said John, in the darkness. “It might be out of opposition, perhaps, because they are so sure—so sure—cruelly sure, I often think. But when a man has to teach others, I suppose that is how he ought to be; and my very soul shrinks, Miss Crediton——”

“Yes?”

“You will not say anything to my mother? She has brought me up for it, and set her heart on it, and I would not fail her for the world.”

“But, Mr John,” said Kate, “I don’t understand; if you are not a—I mean, if you don’t believe—the Bible—should you be a clergyman for any other reason? Indeed I don’t understand.”

“No,” he said, vehemently; “you are right and I am wrong. I ought not, I know. But then I am not sure that I don’t believe. I think I do. I believe men must be taught to serve God. I believe that He comforts them in their distress. You are too true, too straightforward, too innocent to know. I believe and I don’t believe. But the thing is, how can I teach, how can I pronounce with authority, not being sure?—that is what stops me.”

Kate stopped too, being perplexed. “I don’t like the thought of your being a clergyman,” she said, with what would have been, could he have seen it, a pleading look up into his face.

And then a long sigh came from John’s breast. She heard that, but she did not know that he shook his head as well; and in her ignorance she went on.

“It would be so much better for you to do anything else. Of course, if you had had a very strong disposition for it—but when you have not. And you would do so very much better for yourself. If you were to give it up——”

“Give it up!” cried John; “the only work that is worth doing on earth!”

“But, good heavens! Mr Mitford, what do you mean? for I don’t understand you. If it is the only work worth doing on earth, why do you persuade people you don’t mean to do it? I don’t understand.”

“Where is there any other work worth doing?” said John. “I don’t want to be a soldier, which might mean something. Could I be a doctor, pretending to know how to cure people of their illnesses—or a lawyer, taking any side he is paid for? No, that is the only work worth doing: to devote one’s whole life to the service of men—to save them, mend them, bring them from the devil to God. Where is there any such work? And yet I pause here on the threshold, all for a defect of nature. I know you are despising me in your heart.”

“No, no,” said Kate, quite bewildered. She did not despise him; on the contrary, it just gleamed across her mind that here was something she had no comprehension of—something she had never met with before. “Mr John, it is you who will think me very stupid. But I don’t understand you,” she said, with a certain humility. The answer he made was involuntary. He had no right to do it on such short acquaintance—a mere stranger, you might say. He pressed to his side with unconscious tenderness the hand that rested on his arm.

“You don’t understand such pitiful weakness,” he said. “You would see what was right and do it, without lingering and hesitating. I know you would. Don’t be angry with me. We two are nearer each other than anybody else can be—are not we? We were very near for one moment, like one life; and we might have died so—together. That should make us very close—very close—friends.”

“Oh, Mr John!”

“Don’t cry. I should not have reminded you,” he said, with sudden compunction. “I am so selfish; but you said you felt as if—I belonged to you. So I do—to be your servant—your—anything you please. And that is why I tell you all this weakness of mine, because it was just a chance that we did not die in a moment—together. Oh, hush, hush! I said it to rouse myself, and because it was so sweet. I forgot it must be terrible to you.”

“I—I understand,” said Kate, with a sob. “It makes us like—brother and sister. But I never can do anything like that for you. I can only help you with—a little sympathy; but you shall always have that—as if you were—my brother. Oh, never doubt it. I am glad you have told me—I shall know you better now.”

“And here I have gone and made her cry like a selfish beast,” said John. “Just one more walk round—and lean heavier on me: and I will not say another word to vex you—not one.”

“I am not vexed,” said Kate, with a soft little smile among her tears, which somehow diffused itself into the darkness, one could not tell how. He felt it warm him and brighten him, though he could not see it; and thus they made one silent round, pausing for a moment where the lilies stood up in that tall pillar, glimmering through the night and breathing out sweetness. John, whose heart was full of all unspeakable things, came to a moment’s pause before them, though he was faithful to his promise, and did not speak. Some angel seemed to be by, saying Ave, as in that scene which the old painters always adorn with the stately flower of Mary. John believed all the poets had said of women at that moment, in the sweetness of the summer dark. Hail, woman, full of grace! The whole air was full of angelic salutation. But it was he, the man, who had the privilege of supporting her, of protecting her, of saving her in danger. Thus the young man raved, with his heart full. And Kate in the silence, leaning on his arm, dried her tears, and trembled with a strange mixture of courage and perplexity and emotion. And then she wondered what Mrs Mitford would say.

Mrs Mitford said nothing when the two came in by the open window, with eyes dazzled by the sudden entrance into the light. Kate’s eyes were more dazzling than the lamp, if anybody had looked at them. The tears were dry, but they had left a humid radiance behind, and the fresh night air had ruffled the gold in her hair, and heightened the colour on her cheeks, which betrayed the commotion within. Mrs Mitford made no special remark, except that she feared the tea was cold, and that she had just been about to ring to have it taken away. “You must have tired her wandering so long about the garden. You should not be thoughtless, John,” said his mother; “and it is almost time for prayers.”

“It was my fault,” said Kate; “it was so pleasant out of doors, and quiet, and sweet. I am sorry we have kept you waiting. I did not know it was so late.”

“Oh, my dear, I do not mind,” said Mrs Mitford, smothering a half-sigh; for, to be sure, she had been alone all the time while they were wandering among the lilies; and she was not used to it—yet. “But Dr Mitford is very particular about the hour for prayers, and you must make haste, like a good child, with your tea. I never like to put him out.”

“Oh, not for the world!” cried Kate; and she swallowed the cold tea very hurriedly, and went for Dr Mitford’s books, and arranged them on the table with her own hands; and then she came softly behind John’s mother, and gave her a kiss, as light as if a rose-leaf had blown against her cheek. She did not offer any explanation of this sudden caress, but seated herself close by Mrs Mitford, and clasped her hands in her lap like a young lady in a picture of family devotion; and then Dr Mitford’s boots were heard to creak along the long passage which led from his study, and the bell was rung for prayers.

This conversation gave Kate a great deal to think about when she went up-stairs. John’s appeal to her had gone honestly to her heart. She was touched by it in quite a different way from what she would have been had he been making love. “Yes, indeed, we do belong to each other—he saved my life,” she said to herself; “we ought always to be like—brother—and sister.” When she said it, she felt in her heart of hearts that this did not quite state the case; but let it be, to save trouble. And then she tried to reflect upon the confession he had made to her. But that was more difficult. Kate was far better acquainted with ordinary life than John. She would have behaved like an accomplished woman of the world in an emergency which would have turned him at once into a heavy student or awkward country lad; but in other matters she was a baby beside him. She had never thought at all on the subjects which had occupied his mind for years. And she was thunder-struck by his hesitation. Could it be that people out of books really thought and felt so? Could it be? She was so perplexed that she could not draw herself out of the maze. She reflected with all her might upon what she ought to do and say to him; but could not by any means master his difficulty. He must either decide to be a clergyman or not to be a clergyman—that was the distinct issue; and if he could, by any sort of pressure put upon him, be made to give up the notion, that would be so much the better. Going into the Church because he had been brought up to it, and because his friends desired it, was a motive perfectly comprehensible to Kate. But then had not she, whatever might come of it, stolen into his confidence closer than any of his friends? and it was his own life he had to decide upon; and, in the course of nature, he must after a while detach himself from his father and mother, and live according to his own judgment, not by theirs. If she could move him (being, as he said, so close to him) to choose a manner of life which would be far better for him than the Church, would not that be exercising her influence in the most satisfactory way? As for the deeper question, it puzzled her so much, that after one or two efforts she gave it up. The progress of advanced opinions has been sufficiently great to render it impossible even for a fashionable young lady not to be aware of the existence of “doubts;” but what did he mean by turning round upon her in that incomprehensible way, and talking of “the only work worth doing,” just after he had taken refuge in that sanctuary of uncertainty which every man, if he likes, has a right to shelter himself in? To have doubts was comprehensible, too; but to have doubts and yet to think a clergyman’s work the only work worth doing! Kate’s only refuge was to allow to herself that he was a strange, a very strange fellow; was he a little—cracked?—was he trying to bewilder her? “Anyhow, he is nice,” Kate said to herself; and that covered a multitude of sins.

Meanwhile John, poor fellow, went out after they had all gone up-stairs, and had a long walk by himself in the night, to tone himself down a little from the exaltation of the moment in which he had told her that he and she had almost died together. There was the strangest subtle sweetness to himself in the thought. To have actually died with her, and for her, seemed to him, in his foolishness, as if it would have been so sweet. And then he felt that he had opened his heart to her, and that she knew all his thoughts. He had told them to her in all their inconsistency, in all their confusion, and she had understood. So he thought. He went out in the fervour of his youth through the darkling paths, and brushed along the hedges, all crisp with dew, and said to himself that henceforth one creature at least in the world knew what he meant. His feelings were such as have not been rare in England for half a century back. He had been trained, as it were, in the bosom of the Church, and natural filial reverence, and use and wont, had blinded him to the very commonplace character of its labours as fulfilled by his father. His father was—his father; a privileged being, whose actions had not yet come within the range of things to be discussed. And the young man’s mind was full of the vague enthusiasm and exaltation which belong to his age. Ideally, was not the work of a Christian priest the only work in the world? A life devoted to the help and salvation of one’s fellow-creatures for here and for hereafter—no enterprise could be so noble, none so important. And must he relinquish that, because he felt it difficult to pronounce with authority, “without doubt he shall perish everlastingly”? Must he give up the only purely disinterested labour which man can perform for man—the art of winning souls, of ameliorating the earth, of cleansing its hidden corners, and brightening its melancholy face? No, he could not give it up; and yet, on the other hand, how could he utter certain words, how make certain confessions, how take up that for his faith which was not his faith? John’s heart had been wrung in many a melancholy hour of musing with this struggle, which was so very different from Kate’s conception of his difficulties. But now there stole into the conflict a certain sweetness—it was, that he was understood. Some one stood by him now, silently backing him, silently following him up,—perhaps with a shy hand on his arm; perhaps—who could tell?—with a shy hand in his, ere long. It did not give him any help in resolving his grand problem, but it was astonishing how it sweetened it. He walked on and on, not knowing how far he went, with a strange sense that life was changed—that he was another man. It seemed as if new light must come to him after this sudden enhancement of life and vigour. Was it true that there were two now to struggle instead of one? John was not far enough gone to put such a question definitely in words to himself, but it lingered about the avenues of his mind, and sweet whispers of response seemed to breathe over him. Two, and not one! and he was understood, and his difficulties appreciated; and surely now the guiding light at last must come.

His mother heard him come in, as she lay awake thinking of him, and wondered why he should go out so late, and whether he had shut the door, and thanked heaven his father was fast asleep, and did not hear him; for Dr Mitford would have become alarmed had he heard of such nocturnal walks—first, for John’s morals, lest he should have found some unlawful attraction in the village; and, second, for the plate, if the house was known to be deprived of one of its defenders. His anxious mother, though she had thought of little else since his birth except John’s ways and thoughts, had yet no inkling of anything deeper that might be in his mind. That he might love Kate, and that Kate might play with him as a cat plays with a mouse—encourage him for her own amusement while she stayed at Fanshawe Regis, and throw him off as soon as she left—that was Mrs Mitford’s only fear respecting him. It was so painful that it kept her from sleeping. She could not bear to think of any one so wounding, so misappreciating, her boy. If she but knew him as I know him, she would go down on her knees and thank God for such a man’s love, she said to herself in the darkness, drying her soft eyes. But how was his mother—a witness whose impartiality nobody would believe in—to persuade the girl of this? And Mrs Mitford was a true woman, and ranked a “disappointment” at a very high rate among the afflictions of men. And it was very, very grievous to her to think of this little coquette trifling with her son, and giving the poor boy a heartbreak. She was nearly tempted half-a-dozen times to get up and throw her dressing-gown about her, and make her way through the slumbering house, and through the ghostly moonlight which fell broadly in from the staircase-window upon the corridor, to Kate’s room, to rouse her out of her sleep, and shake her, and say, “Oh you careless, foolish, naughty little Kate! You will never get the chance of such another, if you break my boy’s heart.” It would have been very, very foolish of her had she done so; and yet that was the impulse in her mind. But it never occurred to Mrs Mitford that when he took that long, silent, dreary walk, he might be thinking of something else of even more importance than Kate’s acceptance or refusal. She had watched him all his life, day by day and hour by hour, and yet she had never realised such a possibility. So she lay thinking of him, and wondering when he would come back, and heard afar off the first faint touch of his foot on the path, and felt her heart beat with satisfaction, and hoped he would lock the door; but never dreamed that his long wandering out in the dark could have any motive or object except the first love which filled his heart with restlessness, and all a young man’s passionate fears and hopes. Thank heaven! his father slept always as sound as a top, and could not hear.

Poor Mrs Mitford! how bitter it would have been to her could she have realised that Kate was lying awake also, and heard him come in, and knew what he was thinking of better than his mother did! “Poor boy!” Kate murmured to herself, between asleep and awake, as she heard his step; “I must speak to him seriously to-morrow.” There was a certain self-importance in the thought; for it is pleasant to be the depositary of such confidences, and to know you have been chosen out of all the world to have the secret of a life confided to you. The difference was that Kate, after this little speech to herself, fell very fast asleep, and remembered very little about it when she woke in the morning. But Mrs Mitford’s mind was so full that she could neither give up the subject nor go to sleep. As for the Doctor, good man, he heard nothing and thought of nothing, and had never awakened to the fact that John was likely to bring any disturbance whatever into his life. Why should anything happen to him more than to other people? Dr Mitford would have said; and even the love-story would not have excited him. Thus the son of the house stole in, in the darkness, with his candle in his hand, through the shut-up silent dwelling, passing softly by his mother’s door not to wake her, with the fresh air still blowing in his face, and the whirl of feeling within, uncalmed even by fatigue and the exertion he had been making. And the two women waked and listened, opening their eyes in the dark that they might hear the better:—a very, very usual domestic scene; but the men who are thus watched and listened for are seldom such innocent men as John.

CHAPTER IX.

Some time passed after this eventful evening before Kate had any opportunity of making the assault upon John’s principles which she proposed to herself. There were some days of tranquil peaceful country life, spent in doing nothing particular—in little walks taken under the mother’s eye—in an expedition to St Biddulph’s, the whole little party together, in which, though Dr Mitford took the office of cicerone for Kate’s benefit, there was more of John than of his father. This kind of intercourse which threw them continually together, yet never left them alone to undergo the temptation of saying too much, promoted the intimacy of the two young people in the most wonderful way. They were each other’s natural companions, each other’s most lively sympathisers. The father and the mother stood on a different altitude, were looked up to, respected perhaps, perhaps softly smiled at in the expression of their antiquated opinions; but the young man and the young woman were on the same level, and understood each other. As for poor John, he gave himself up absolutely to the spell. He had never been so long in the society of any young woman before; his imagination had not been frittered away by any preludes of fancy. He fell in love all at once, with all his heart and strength and mind. It was his first great emotion, and it took him not at the callow age, but when his mind (he thought) was matured, and his being had reached its full strength. He was in reality four-and-twenty, but he had felt fifty in the gravity of his thoughts; and, with all the force of his serious nature, he plunged into the extraordinary new life which opened like a garden of Paradise before him. It was all a blaze of light and splendour to his eyes. The world he had thought a sombre place enough before, full of painful demands upon his patience, his powers of self-renunciation, and capacity of self-control. But now all at once it had changed to Eden. And Kate, of whom he knew so little, was the cause.

She, too, was falling under this natural fascination. She was very much interested in him, she said to herself. It was so sad to see such a man, so full of talent and capability, immolate himself like this. Kate felt as if she would have done a great deal to save him. She represented to herself that, if he had felt a special vocation for the Church, she would have passed on her way and said nothing, as became a recent acquaintance; but when he was not happy! Was it not her duty, in gratitude to her preserver, to interfere according to her ability, and deliver him from temptation? Yes! she concluded it was her duty with a certain enthusiasm; and even, if that was necessary, that she would be willing to do something to save him. She would make an exertion in his behalf, if there was anything she could do. She did not, even to herself explain what was the anything she could do to influence John one way or another. Such details it is perhaps better to leave in darkness. But she felt herself ready to exert herself in her turn—to make an effort—what, indeed, if it were a sacrifice?—to preserve him as he had preserved her.

It was only on what was to be the day before her departure that Kate found the necessary opportunity. About a mile from Fanshawe Regis was a river which had been John’s joy all his life; and on Kate’s last day, he was to be permitted the delight of introducing her to its pleasures. Mrs Mitford was to have accompanied them, but she had slackened much in her ferocity of chaperonage, and had grown used to Kate, and not so much alarmed on her account. And it was a special day at the schools, and her work was more than usual. “My dear, if you wish it, of course I will go with you,” she said to her young guest; “and you must not think me unkind to hesitate—but you are used to him now, and you will be quite safe with John. You don’t mind going with John?”

“Oh, I don’t mind it at all,” said Kate, with a little blush, which would have excited John’s mother wonderfully two days before. But custom is a great power, and she had got used to Kate. So Mrs Mitford went to her parish work, and the two young people went out on their expedition. They had nearly a mile to walk across fields, and then through the grateful shade of a little wood. It was a pretty road, and from the moment they entered the wood, the common world disappeared from about the pair. They walked like a pair in romance, often silent, sometimes with a touch of soft embarrassment, in that silent world, full of the flutter of leaves and the flitting of birds, and the notes of, here and there, an inquiring thrush or dramatic blackbird. Boughs would crackle and swing suddenly about them, as if some fairy had swung herself within the leafy cover: unseen creatures—rabbits or squirrels—would dart away under the brushwood. Arrows of sunshine came down upon the brown underground. The leaves waved green above and black in shadow, strewing the chequered path. They walked in an atmosphere of their own, in dreamland, fairyland, by the shores of old romance; the young man bending his head in that attitude of worship, which is the attitude of protection too, towards the lower, slighter, weaker creature, who raised her eyes to his with soft supremacy. It was hers to command and his to obey. She had no more doubt of the loyalty of her vassal than he had of her sweet superiority to every other created thing. And thus they went through the wood to the river,—two undeveloped lives approaching the critical point of their existence, and going up to it in a dream of happiness, without shadow or fear.

The river ran through the wood for about a mile; but as it is a law of English nature that no stream shall have the charm of woodland on both sides at once, the northern bank was a bit of meadowland, round which ran, at some distance, a belt of trees. Kate recovered a little from the spell of silence as she took into her hands the cords of the rudder, and looked on at her companion’s struggle against the current. “It must be hard work,” she said. “How is it you are so fond of taking trouble, you men? They say it ruins your health rowing in all those boat-races and things—all for the pleasure of beating the other colleges or the other university; and you kill yourselves for that! I should like to do it for something better worth, if it were me.”

“But if you don’t get the habit of the struggle, you will want training when you try for what is better worth,” said John. “How one talks! I say you, as if by any chance you could want to struggle for anything. Pardon the profanity—I did not mean that.”

“Why shouldn’t I want to struggle?” said Kate, opening her eyes very wide. “I do, sometimes—that is, I don’t like to be beaten; nobody does, I suppose. But hard work must be a great bore. I sit and look at my maid sometimes, and think, after all, how much superior she is to me. There she sits, stitching, stitching the whole day through, and it does not seem to do her any harm—whereas it would kill one of us. And then I order this superior being about—me, the most useless wretch! and she gets up from her work to do a hundred things for me which I could quite well do for myself. Life is very odd,” said the young moralist, pulling the wrong string, and sending the boat high and dry upon a most visible bank of weeds and gravel. “Oh, Mr John, I am sure I beg your pardon! What have I done?”

“Nothing of the least importance,” said John; and while Kate sat dismayed and wondering, he had plunged into the sparkling shallow stream, and pushed the fairy vessel off into its necessary depth of water. “Only pardon me for jumping in in this wild way and sprinkling your dress,” he said, as he took his seat and his oars again. Kate was silent for the moment. She gazed at him with her pretty eyes, and her lips apart, wondering at the water-god; from which it will be clear to the reader that Kate Crediton was unused to river navigation, and the ways of boating men.

“But you will catch your death of cold, and what will your mother say?” said Kate; and this danger filled her with such vivid feminine apprehensions, that it was some time before she could be consoled. And then the talk ran on about a multitude of things—about nothing in particular—while the one interlocutor steered wildly into all the difficulties possible, and the other toiled steadily against the current. It was a rapid, vehement little river, more like a Scotch or Welsh stream than a placid English one; and sometimes there were snags to be avoided, and sometimes shallows to be run upon, so that the voyage was not without excitement, with such a pilot at the helm.

But when John turned his little vessel, and it began to float down stream, the dreamy silence of the woodland walk began to steal over the two once more. “Ah! now the work is over,” Kate said, with a little sigh; “yes, it is very nice to float—but then one feels as if one’s own will had nothing to do with it. I begin to understand why the other is the best.”

“I suppose they are both best,” said John—which was not a very profound observation; and yet he sighed too. “And then it is so much easier in everything to go with the stream, and to do what you are expected to do.”

“But is it right?” said Kate, with solemnity. “Ah! now I know what you are thinking about. I have so wanted to speak to you ever since that night. Don’t you think that doing what you are expected to do would be wrong? I have thought so much about it——”

“Have you?” said John; and a delicious tear came to the foolish fellow’s eye. “It was too good of you to think of me at all.”

“Of course I could not help thinking of you,” said Kate, “after what you said. Perhaps you will not think my advice of much value; but I don’t think—I don’t really think you ought to do it. I feel that it would be wrong.”

“There is no one in the world whose advice would be so much to me,” cried foolish John. “My sight is clouded by—by self-interest, and habit, and a thousand things. I have never opened my heart to any one but you—and how I presumed to trouble you with it I can’t tell,” he went on, gazing at her with fond eyes, which Kate found it difficult to meet.

“Oh, that is natural enough. Don’t you remember what you said?” she answered, softly; “what you did for me—and that moment when you said we might have died;—we should be like—brother and sister—all our lives.”

“Not that,” said John, with a little start; “but—— Yes, I hold by my claim. I wish I had done something to deserve it, though. If I had known it was you——”

“How could you possibly know it was me when you did not know there was such a person as me in the world?” said Kate. “Don’t talk such nonsense, please.”

“No; was it possible that there was once a time when I did not know that there was you in the world? What a cold world it must have been!—how sombre and miserable!” cried the enthusiast. “I can’t realise it now.”

“Oh, please!—what nonsense you do talk, to be sure!” cried Kate; and then she gave her pretty head a little shake to dissipate the blush and the faint mist of some emotion that had been stealing over her eyes, and took up the interrupted strain. “Now that you do know there is a me, you must pay attention to me. I have thought over it a great deal. You must not do it—indeed you must not. A man who is not quite certain, how can he teach others? It would be like me steering—now there! Oh, I am sure, I beg your pardon. Who was to know that nasty bank would turn up again?’

“Never mind,” said John, when he had repeated the same little performance which had signalised their upward course; “that is nothing—except that it interrupted what you were saying. Tell me again what you have thought.”

“But you never mean to be guided by me all the same,” said Kate, incautiously, though she must have foreseen, if she had taken a moment to think, that such a remark would carry her subject too far.

“Ah! how can you say so—how can you think so?” cried John, crossing his oars across the boat, and leaning over them, with his eyes fixed upon her, “when you must know I am guided by your every look. Don’t be angry with me. It is so hard to look at you and not say all that is in my heart. If you would let me think that I might—identify myself altogether—I mean, do only what pleased you—I mean, think of you as caring a little——”

“I care a great deal,” said Kate, with sudden temerity, taking the words out of his mouth, “or why should I take the trouble to say so much about it? I consider that we are—brother and sister; and that gives me a sort of right to speak. Stay till I have done, Mr John. Don’t you think you could be of more use in the world, if you were in the world and not out of it? Now think! Looking at it in your way, no doubt, it is very fine to be a clergyman; but you can only talk to people and persuade them, you know, and don’t have it in your power to do very much for them. Now look at a rich man like papa. He does not give his mind to that, you know. I am very sorry, but neither he nor I have had anybody to put it in our heads what we ought to do—but still he does some good in his way. If you were as rich as he is, how much you could do! You would be a good angel to the poor people. You could set right half of those dreadful things that Mrs Mitford tells us of, even in the village. You could give the lads work, and keep them steady. You could build them proper cottages, and have them taught what they ought to know. Don’t shake your head. I know you would be the people’s good angel, if you were as rich as papa.”

Poor John’s countenance had changed many times during this address. His intent gaze fell from her, and returned and fell again. A shade came over his face—he shook his head, not in contradiction of what she said so much as in despondency; and when he spoke, his voice had taken a chill, as it were, and lost all the musical thrill of imagination and passion that was in it. “Miss Crediton,” he said, mournfully, “you remind me of what I had forgotten—the great gulf there is between you and me. I had forgotten it, like an ass. I had been thinking of you not as a rich man’s daughter, but as—— And I, a poor aimless fool, not able to make up my mind as to how I am to provide for my own life! Forgive me—you have brought me to myself.”

“Now I should like to know what that has to do with it,” cried Kate, with a little air of exasperation—exasperation more apparent than real. “I tell you I want you to be rich like papa, and you answer me that I remind you I am a rich man’s daughter! Well, what of that? I want you to be a rich man too. I can’t help whose daughter I am. I did not choose my own papa—though I like him better than any other all the same. But I want you to be rich too, you understand; for many reasons.”

“For what reasons?” said John, lighting up again. She had drooped her head a little when she said these last words. A bright blush had flushed all over her. Could it be that she meant—— John was not vain, and yet the inference was so natural; he sat gazing at her for one long minute in a suggestive tremulous silence, and then he went faltering, blundering on. “I would be anything for your sake—that you know. I would be content to labour for you from morning to night. I would be a ploughman for your sake. To be a rich man is not so easy; but if you were to tell me to do it—for you—I would work my fingers to the bone; I would die, but I should do it—for you. Am I to be rich for you?”

“Oh, fancy! here we are already,” cried Kate, in a little tremor, feeling that she had gone too far, and he had gone too far, and thinking with a little panic, half of horror, half of pleasure, of the walk that remained to be taken through the enchanted wood. “How fast the stream has carried us down! and yet I don’t suppose it can have been very fast either, for the shadows are lengthening. We must make haste and get home.”

“But you have not answered me,” he said, still leaning across his oars with a look which she could not face.

“Oh, never mind just now,” she cried; “let us land, please, and not drift farther down. You are paying no attention to where the boat is going. There! I knew an accident would happen,” cried Kate, with half-mischievous triumph, running the boat into the bank. She thought nothing now of his feet getting wet, as he stepped into the water again to bring it to the side that she might land. She even sprang out and ran on, telling him to follow her, while he had to wait to secure the boat, and warn the people at the forester’s cottage that he had left it. Kate ran on into the wood, up the broad road gradually narrowing among the trees, where still the sunshine penetrated like arrows of gold, and the leaves danced double, leaf and shadow, and the birds carried on their ceaseless interluding, and the living creatures stirred. She ran on mischievously, with a little laugh at her companion left behind. But that mood did not long balance the influence of the place. Her steps slackened—her heart began to beat. All at once she twined her arms about a birch to support herself, and, leaning her head against it, cried a little in her confusion and excitement. “Oh, what have I done? what shall I say to him?” Kate said to herself. Was she in love with John that she had brought him to this declaration of his sentiments? She did not know—she did not think she was—and yet she had done it with her eyes open. And in a few minutes he would be by her side insisting on an answer. “And what shall I say to him?” within herself cried Kate.

But when John came up breathless, she was going along the road very demurely, without any signs of emotion, and glanced at him with the same look of friendly sovereignty, though her heart was quailing within her. He joined her, breathless with haste and excitement, and for a moment neither spoke. Then it was Kate who, in desperation, resumed the talk.

“You must tell me what you think another time,” she said, with an air of royal calm. “Perhaps what I have said has not been very wise; but I meant it for good. I meant, you know, that the man of action can do most. I meant—— But, please, let us get on quickly, for I am so afraid we shall be too late for dinner. Your father does not like to wait. And you can tell me what you think another time.”

“What I think has very little to do with it,” said John. “It should be what you think—what you ordain. For you I will do anything—everything. Good heavens, what a nuisance!” cried the young man.

At this exclamation Kate looked up, and saw,—was it Isaac’s substitute—the ram caught in the thicket?—Fred Huntley riding quietly towards them, coming down under the trees, like somebody in romance. “It is Mr Huntley,” said Kate, with a mental thanksgiving which she dared not have put into words. “It is like an old ballad. Here is the knight on the white horse appearing under the trees just when he is wanted—that is, just when you were beginning to tire of my society; and here am I, the errant damosel—— What a nice picture it would make if he were only handsome, which he is not! But all the same, his horse is white.”

“And I suppose I am the magician who is to be discomfited and put to flight,” said John, with a grim attempt at a smile.

And here Kate’s best qualities made her cruel. “You are—whatever you please,” she said, turning upon him with the brightest sudden smile. She could not bear, poor fellow, that his feelings should be hurt, when she felt herself so relieved and easy in mind; and John, out of his despondency, went up to dazzling heights of confidence and hope. Fred, riding up, saw the smile, and said to himself, “What! gone so far already?” with a curious sensation of pique. And yet he had no occasion to be piqued. He had never set up any pretensions to Kate’s favour. He had foreseen how it would be when he last saw them together. It was something too ridiculous to feel as if he cared. Of course he did not care. But still there was a little pique in his rapid reflection as he came up to them. And they were all three a little embarrassed, which, on the whole, seemed uncalled for, considering the perfectly innocent and ordinary circumstances, which the boating-party immediately began with volubility to explain.

“We have been on the river,” said Kate. “Mr Mitford so kindly offered to take me before I went away. And we hoped to have Mrs Mitford with us; but at the last moment she could not come.”

I daresay not, indeed, Fred Huntley said in his heart; but he only looked politely indifferent, and made a little bow.

“Perhaps it was better she did not, for the boat is very small,” said John, carrying on the explanation. Was it an apology they were making for themselves? And so all at once, notwithstanding Kate’s romance about the knight on the white horse, all the enchantment disappeared from the fairy wood. Birds and rabbits and squirrels, creatures of natural history, pursued their common occupations about, without any fairy suggestions. It was only the afternoon sun that slanted among the trees, showing it was growing late, and not showers of golden arrows. The wood became as commonplace as a railroad, and Kate Crediton related to Fred Huntley how she was going home, and what was to happen, and how she hoped to meet his sisters at the Camelford ball.

Thus the crisis which John thought was to decide everything for him passed off in bathos and commonplace. He walked on beside the other two, who did all the talking, eating his heart. Had she been playing with him, making a joke of his sudden passion? But then she would give him a glance from time to time which spoke otherwise. “There is still an evening and a morning,” John said to himself; and he stood like a churl at the Rectory gate, and suffered Huntley to ride on without the slightest hint of a possibility that he should stay to dinner. Such inhospitable behaviour was not common at Fanshawe Regis. But there are moments in which politeness, kindness, neighbourly charities, must all give way before a more potent feeling, and John Mitford had arrived at one of these. And his heart was beating, his head throbbing, all his pulses going at the highest speed and out of tune—or, at least, that was his sensation. Kate disappeared while he stood at the gate, shutting it carefully upon Fred, and heaven knows what frightful interval might be before him ere he could resume the interrupted conversation, and demand the answer to which surely he had a right!