Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series

“Gone into Essex, I suppose; she has talked sometimes of her cousin there,” was all the remark made by Bevere. And he set the note alight, and sent it blazing up the chimney. Of course I did not mention Scott’s fancy about the red-gold hair.

Sunday. We crossed the waste land in the morning to the little church I have spoken of. A few cottages stood about it, and a public-house with a big sign, on which was painted a yellow bunch of wheat, and the words The Sheaf o’ Corn. It was bitterly cold weather, the wind keen and cutting, the ground a sort of grey-white from a sprinkling of snow that had fallen in the night. I suppose they don’t, as a rule, warm these rural churches, from want of means or energy, but I think I never felt a church so cold before. Mr. Brandon said it had given him a chill.

In the evening, after tea, we went to church by moonlight. Not all of us this time. Mr. Brandon stayed away to nurse his chill, and Roger on the plea of headache. The snow was beginning to come down smartly. The little church was lighted with candles stuck in tin sconces nailed to the wall, and was dim enough. Lady Bevere whispered to me that the clergyman had a service elsewhere in the afternoon, so could only hold his own in the evening.

It was snowing with a vengeance when we came out—large flakes half as big as a shilling, and in places already a foot deep. We made the best of our way home, and were white objects when we got there.

“Ah!” remarked Mr. Brandon, “I thought we should have it. Hope the wind will go down a little now.”

The girls and their mother went upstairs to take off their cloaks. I asked Mr. Brandon where Roger was. He turned round from his warm seat by the fire to answer me.

“Roger is outside, enjoying the benefit of the snow-storm. That young man has some extraordinary care upon his conscience, Johnny, unless I am mistaken,” he added, his thin voice emphatic, his eyes throwing an inquiry into mine.

“Do you fancy he has, sir?” I stammered. At which Mr. Brandon threw a searching look at me, as if he had a mind to tax me with knowing what it was.

“Well, you had better tell him to come in, Johnny.”

Roger’s great-coat, hanging in the hall, seemed to afford an index that he had not strayed beyond the garden. The snow, coming down so thick and fast but a minute or two ago, had temporarily ceased, following its own capricious fashion, and the moon was bright again. Calling aloud to Roger as I stood on the door-step, and getting no answer, I went out to look for him.

On the side of the garden facing the church, was a little entrance-gate, amid the clusters of laurels and other shrubs. Hearing footsteps approach this, and knowing all were in from church, for the servants got back before we did, I went down the narrow cross-path leading to it, and looked out. It was not Roger, but a woman. A lady, rather, by what the moonbeams displayed of her dress, which looked very smart. As she seemed to be making for the gate, I stepped aside into the shrubs, and peered out over the moor for Roger. The lady gave a sharp ring at the bell, and old Jacob came from the side-door of the house to answer it.

“Is this Prior’s Glebe?” she asked—and her voice gave an odd thrill to my pulses, for I thought I recognized it.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jacob.

“Lady Beveer’s, I think.”

“That’s near enough,” returned Jacob, familiar with the eccentricities of pronunciation accorded to the name. “What did you please to want?”

“I want Miss Field.”

“Miss Field!” echoed the old man.

“Harriet Field. She lives here, don’t she? I’d like to see her.”

“Oh—Harriet! I’ll send her out,” said he, turning away.

The more I heard of the voice, the greater grew my dismay. Surely it was that of Roger’s wife! Was it really she that Scott had seen at the station? Had she come after Roger? Did she know he was here? I stood back amid the sheltering laurels, hardly daring to breathe. Waiting there, she began a little dance, or shuffle of the feet, perhaps to warm herself, and broke into a verse of a gay song. “As I live, she’s not sober!” was the fear that flashed across me. Harriet, her things still on, just as she came in from church, came swiftly to the gate.

“Well, Harriet, how are you?”

“Why, Lizzie!—it’s never you!” exclaimed Harriet, after an amazed stare at the visitor.

“Yes, it’s me. I thought I’d come over and see you. That old man was polite though, to leave me standing here.”

“But where have you come from? And why are you so late?”

“Oh, I’m staying at Brighton; came down on the spree yesterday. I’m late because I lost my way on this precious moor—or whatever it calls itself—and got a mile, or so, too far. When the snow came on—and ain’t it getting deep!—I turned into a house to shelter a bit, and here I am. A man that was coming out of church yonder directed me to the place here.”

She must have been at The Sheaf o’ Corn. What if she had chanced to ask the route of me!

“You got my letter, then, telling you I had left my old place at Worthing, and taken service here,” said Harriet.

“I got it safe enough; it was directed to the Bell-and-Clapper room,” returned Lizzie. “What a stick of a hand you do write! I couldn’t decipher whether your new mistress was Lady Beveen or Lady Beveer. I had thought you never meant to write to me again.”

“Well, you know, Lizzie, that quarrel between us years back, after father and mother died, was a bitter one; but I’m sure I don’t want to be anything but friendly for the future. You haven’t written, either. I never had but that one letter from you, telling me you had got married, and that he was a gentleman.”

“And you wrote back asking whether it was true, or whether I had jumped over the broomstick,” retorted Lizzie, with a laugh. “You always liked to be polite to me, Harriet.”

“Do you ever see Uncle Dyke up in London, Lizzie?”

“And Aunt Dyke too—she’s his second, you know. They are both flourishing just now with rheumatism. He has got it in his chest, and she in her knees—tra, la, la, la! I say, are you not going to invite me in?”

Lizzie’s conversation had been interspersed with laughs and antics. I saw Harriet look at her keenly. “Was it a public-house you took shelter in, Lizzie?” she asked.

“As if it could have been a private one! That’s good.”

“Is your husband with you at Brighton? I suppose you are married, Lizzie?”

“As safe as that you are an old maid—or going on for one. My husband’s a doctor and can’t leave his patients. I came down with a friend of mine, Miss Panken; she has to go back to-night, but I mean to stay over Christmas-Day. I’ll tell you all about my husband if you’ll be civil enough to take me indoors.”

“I can’t take you in to-night, Lizzie. It’s too late, for one thing, and we must not have visitors on a Sunday. But you can come over to tea to-morrow evening; I’m sure my lady won’t object. Come early in the afternoon. And look here,” added Harriet, dropping her voice, “don’t drink anything beforehand; come quiet and decent.”

“Who has been telling you that I do drink?” demanded Lizzie, in a sharp tone.

“Well, nobody has told me. But I can see it. I hope it’s not a practice with you; that’s all.”

“A practice! There you go! It wouldn’t be you, Harriet, if you didn’t say something unpleasant. One must take a sup of hot liquor when benighted in such freezing snow as this. And I did not put on my warm cloak; it was fine and bright when I started.”

“Shall I lend you one? I’ll get it in a minute. Or a waterproof?”

“Thanks all the same, no; I shall walk fast, I don’t feel cold—and I should only have the trouble of bringing it back to-morrow afternoon. I’ll be here by three o’clock. Good-night, Harriet.”

“Good-night, Lizzie. Go round to that path that branches off from our front-gate; keep straight on, and you can’t miss the way.”

I had heard it all; every syllable; unable to help it. The least rustle of the laurels might have betrayed me. Betrayed me to Lizzie.

What a calamity! She did not appear to have come down after Roger, did not appear to know that he was connected with Lady Bevere—or that the names were the same. But at the tea-table the following evening she would inevitably learn all. Servants talk of their masters and their doings. And to hear Roger’s name would be ruin.

I found Roger in his chamber. “Uncle Brandon was putting inconvenient questions to me,” he said, “so I got away under pretence of looking at the weather. How cold you look, Johnny!”

“I am cold. I went into the garden, looking for you, and I had a fright there.”

“Seen a ghost?” returned he, lightly.

“Something worse than a ghost. Roger, I have some disagreeable news for you.”

“Eh?—what?” he cried, his fears leaping up: indeed they were very seldom down. “They don’t suspect anything, do they? What is it? Why do you beat about the bush?”

“I should like to prepare you. If——”

“Prepare me!” sharply interrupted Roger, his nerves all awry. “Do you think I am a girl? Don’t I live always in too much mental excruciation to need preparation for any mortal ill?”

“Well, Lizzie’s down here.”

In spite of his boast, he turned as white as the counterpane on his bed. I sat down and told him all. His hair grew damp as he listened, his face took the hue of despair.

“Heaven help me!” he gasped.

“I suppose you did not know Harriet was her sister?”

“How was I to know it? Be you very sure Lizzie would not voluntarily proclaim to me that she had a sister in service. What wretched luck! Oh, Johnny, what is to be done?”

“Nothing—that I see. It will be sure to come out over their tea to-morrow. Harriet will say ‘Mr. Roger’s down here on a visit, and has brought Mr. Johnny Ludlow with him’—just as a little item of gossip. And then—why, then, Lizzie will make but one step of it into the family circle, and say ‘Roger is my husband.’ It is of no use to mince the matter, Bevere,” I added, in answer to a groan of pain; “better look the worst in the face.”

The worst was a very hopeless worst. Even if we could find out where she was staying in Brighton, and he or I went to her to try to stop her coming, it would not avail; she would come all the more.

“You don’t know her depth,” groaned Roger. “She’d put two and two together, and jump to the right conclusion—that it is my home. No, there’s nothing that can be done, nothing; events must take their course. Johnny,” he passionately added, “I’d rather die than face the shame.”

Lady Bevere’s voice on the stairs interrupted him. “Roger! Johnny! Why don’t you come down? Supper’s waiting.”

“I can’t go down,” he whispered.

“You must, Roger. If not, they’ll ask the reason why.”

A fine state of mental turbulence we were in all day on Monday. Roger dared not stir abroad lest he should meet her and have to bring her home clinging to his coat-tails. Not that much going abroad was practicable, save in the beaten paths. Snow had fallen heavily all night long. But the sky to-day was blue and bright.

With the afternoon began the watching and listening. I wonder whether the reader can picture our mental state? Roger had made a resolve that as soon as Lizzie’s foot crossed the threshold, he would disclose all to his mother, forestalling her tale. Indeed, he could do nothing less. Says Lord Byron, “Whatever sky’s above me, here’s a heart for every fate.” I fear we could not then have said the same.

Three o’clock struck. Roger grew pale to the lips as he heard it. I am not sure but I did. Four o’clock struck; and yet she did not come. The suspense, the agony of those few afternoon hours brought enough pain for a lifetime.

At dusk, when she could not have known me at a distance, I went out to reconnoitre, glad to go somewhere or do something, and prowled about under shelter of the dark shrubs, watching the road. She was not in sight anywhere; coming from any part; though I stayed there till I was blue with cold.

“Not in a state to come, I expect,” gasped Roger, when I got in, and reported that I could see nothing of her, and found him still sitting over the dining-room fire.

He gave a start as the door was flung open. It was only Harriet, with the tea-tray and candles. We had dined early. George, the clergyman, was expected in the evening, and Lady Bevere thought it would be more sociable if we all took supper with him. Tottams followed the tea-tray, skipping and singing.

“I wish it was Christmas-Eve every day!” cried the child. “Cook’s making such a lot of mince pies and cakes in the kitchen.”

“Why, dear me, somebody has been drawing the curtains without having shut the shutters first!” exclaimed Harriet, hastening to remedy the mistake.

I could have told her it was Roger. As the daylight faded and the fire brightened, he had shut out the window, lest dreaded eyes should peer through it and see him.

“Your sister’s not come yet, Harriet!” said Tottams. For the advent of Harriet’s expected visitor was known in the household.

“No, Miss Tottams, she is not,” replied Harriet, “I can’t think why, unless she was afraid of the snow underfoot.”

“There’s no snow to hurt along the paths,” contended Tottams.

“Perhaps she’d not know that,” said Harriet. “But she may come yet; it is only five o’clock—and it’s a beautiful moon.”

Roger got up to leave the room and met Lady Bevere face to face. She caught sight of the despair on his, for he was off his guard. But off it, or on it, no one could fail to see that he was ill at ease. Some young men might have kept a smooth countenance through it all, for their friends and the world; Roger was sensitive to a degree, refined, thoughtful, and could not hide the signs of conflict.

“What is it that is amiss with him, Johnny?” Lady Bevere said, coming to me as I stood on the hearthrug before the fire, Tottams having disappeared with Harriet. “He looks wretchedly ill; ill with care, as it seems to me; and he cannot eat.”

What could I answer? How was it possible, with those kind, candid blue eyes, so like Roger’s, looking confidingly into mine, to tell her that nothing was amiss?

“Dear Lady Bevere, do not be troubled,” I said at length. “A little matter has been lately annoying Roger in London, and—and—I suppose he cannot forget it down here.”

“Is it money trouble?” she asked.

“Not exactly. No; it’s not money. Perhaps Roger will tell you himself. But please do not say anything to him unless he does.”

“Why cannot you tell me, Johnny?”

Had Madam Lizzie been in the house, rendering discovery inevitable, I would have told her then, and so far spared Roger the pain. But she was not; she might not come; in which case perhaps the disclosure need not be made—or, at any rate, might be staved off to a future time. Lady Bevere held my hands in hers.

“You know what this trouble is, Johnny; all about it?”

“Yes, that’s true. But I cannot tell it you. I have no right to.”

“I suppose you are right,” she sighed. “But oh, my dear, you young people cannot know what such griefs are to a mother’s heart; the dread they inflict, the cruel suspense they involve.”

And the evening passed on to its close, and Lizzie had not come.

A little circumstance occurred that night, not much to relate, but not pleasant in itself. George, a good-looking young clergyman, got in very late and half-frozen—close upon eleven o’clock. He would not have supper brought back, but said he should be glad of some hot brandy-and-water. The water was brought in and put with the brandy on a side-table. George mixed a glass for himself, and Roger went and mixed one. By-and-bye, when Roger had disposed of that, he went back to mix a second. Mr. Brandon glided up behind him.

“No, Roger, not in your mother’s house,” he whispered, interposing a hand of authority between Roger and the brandy. “Though you may drink to an unseemly extent in town, you shall not here.”

“Roger got some brandy-and-water from mamma this afternoon,” volunteered Miss Tottams, dancing up to them. She had been allowed to sit up to help dress the rooms; and, of all little pitchers, she had the sharpest ears. “He said he felt sick, Uncle John.”

They came back to the fire and sat down again, Roger looking in truth sick; sick almost unto death.

Mr. Brandon went up to bed; Lady Bevere soon followed, and we began the rooms, Harriet and Jacob coming in to help. Roger exclaimed at the splendid heaps of holly. Of late years he had seen only the poor scraps they get in London.

“A merry Christmas to you, Roger!”

“Don’t, Johnny! Better that you should wish me dead.”

The bright sun was shining into his room as I entered it on this Christmas morning: Roger stood brushing his hair at the glass. He looked very ill.

“How can I look otherwise?” retorted poor Roger. “Two nights and not a wink of sleep!—nothing but fever and apprehension and intolerable restlessness. And you come wishing me a merry Christmas!”

Well, of course it did sound like a mockery. “I will wish you a happier one for next year, then, Roger. Things may be brighter then.”

“How can they be?—with that dreadful weight that I must carry about with me for life? Do you see this?”—sweeping his hand round towards the window.

I saw nothing but the blessed sunlight—and said so.

“That’s it,” he answered: “that blessed sunlight will bring her here betimes. With a good blinding snowfall, or a pelting downpour of cats and dogs, I might have hoped for a respite. What a Christmas offering for my mother! I say!—don’t go away for a minute—did you hear Uncle John last night about the brandy?”

I nodded.

“It is not that I like drink, or care for it for drinking’s sake; I declare it to you, Johnny Ludlow; but I take it, and must take it, to drown care. With that extra glass last night, I might have got to sleep—I don’t know. Were my mind at ease, I should be as sober as you are.”

“But don’t you see, Roger, that unless you pull up now, while you can, you may not be able to do it later.”

“Oh yes, I see it all,” he carelessly said. “Well, it no longer matters much what becomes of me. There’s the breakfast-bell. You can go on, Johnny.”

The rooms looked like green bowers, for we had not spared either our pains or the holly-branches, and it would have been as happy a Christmas-Day as it was a bright one, but for the sword that was hanging over Roger Bevere’s head. Neither he nor I could enjoy it. He declined to go to church with us, saying he felt ill: the truth being that he feared to meet Lizzie. Not to attend divine service on Christmas-Day was regarded by Mr. Brandon as one of the cardinal sins. To my surprise he did not remonstrate with Roger in words: but he looked the more.

Lady Bevere’s dinner hour on Christmas-Day was four o’clock, which gave a good long evening. Roger ate some turkey and some plum-pudding, mechanically; his ears were listening for the dreaded sound of the door-bell. We were about half-way through dinner, when there came a peal that shook the house. Lady Bevere started in her chair. I fancy Roger went nearly out of his.

“Why, who can be coming here now—with such a ring as that?” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps it is Harriet’s sister!” cried the little girl, in her sharp, quick way. “Do you think it is, Harriet?”

“She’s free enough for it,” returned Harriet, in a vexed tone. “I told her she might come yesterday, Miss Tottams, my lady permitting it, but I did not tell her she might come to-day.”

I glanced at Roger. His knife and fork shook in his hands; his face wore the hue of the grave. I was little less agitated than he.

Another respite. It was only a parcel from the railway-station, which had been delayed in the delivery. And the dinner went on.

And the evening went on too, as the past one went on—undisturbed. Later, when some of us were playing at snap-dragon in the little breakfast-room, Harriet came in to march Miss Tottams off to bed.

“Your sister did not come after all, did she, Harriet?” said Mary.

“No, Miss Mary. She’s gone back to London,” continued Harriet, after a pause. “Not enough life for her, I dare say, down here.”

Roger glanced round. He did not dare ask whether Harriet knew she was gone back, or only supposed it.

Mary laughed. “Fond of life, is she?”

“She always was, Miss Mary. She is married to a gentleman. At least, that is her account of him: he is a medical man, she says. But it may be he is only a medical man’s assistant.”

“Did she go back yesterday, or to-day?” I inquired, carelessly. “She would have a cold journey.”

“Yesterday, if she’s gone at all, sir,” replied Harriet: “she’d hardly travel on Christmas-Day. If not, she’ll be here to-morrow.”

Roger groaned—and turned it off with a desperate cough, as though the raisins burnt his throat.

The next day came, Wednesday, again clear, cold, and bright. At breakfast George and Mary agreed to walk to Brighton. “You will come too,” said George, looking at us.

I said nothing. Roger shook his head. Of all places in the known world he’d not have ventured into Brighton, and run the risk of meeting her, perambulating its streets.

“No!—why, it will be a glorious walk,” remonstrated George.

“Don’t care for it this morning,” shortly answered Roger. “I’m sure Johnny doesn’t.”

Mr. Brandon came, if I may so put it, to the rescue. “I shall take a walk myself, and you two may go with me,” said he to us. “I should like to see what the country looks like yonder”—pointing to the unknown regions beyond the little church. And as this was just in the opposite direction to Brighton, Roger made no objection, and we set off soon after breakfast. The sky overhead was blue and clear, the snow on the ground dazzlingly white.

The regions beyond the church were the same as these: a long-stretched-out moor of flat dreariness. Mr. Brandon walked on. “We shall come to something or other in time,” said he. Walking with him meant walking when he was in the mood for it.

A mile or two onwards, more or less, a small settlement loomed into view, with a pound and a set of rusty stocks, and an old-fashioned inn, its swinging sign, The Rising Sun, as splendid as that other sign nearer Prior’s Glebe: and it really appeared to us as if all the inhabitants had turned out to congregate round the inn-door.

“What’s to do, I wonder?” cried Mr. Brandon: “seems to be some excitement going on.” When near enough he inquired whether anything was amiss, and the whole throng answered together.

A woman had been found that morning frozen to death in the snow, and had been carried into The Rising Sun. A young woman wearing smart clothes, added a labourer, as the rest of the voices died away: got benighted, perhaps, poor thing, and lost her way, and so lay down to die; seemed to have been dead quite a day or two, if not more. The missis at The Sheaf o’ Corn yonder had been over, and recognized her as having called in there on Sunday night and had some drink.

Why, as the man spoke, should the dread thought have flashed into my mind—was it Lizzie? Why should it have flashed simultaneously into Roger’s? Had Lizzie lost her way that past Sunday night—and sunk down into some sheltered nook to rest awhile, and so sleep and then death overtook her? Roger glanced at me with frightened eyes, a dawn of horror rising to his countenance.

“I will just step in and take a look at her,” I said, and bore on steadily for the door of the inn, deaf for once to Mr. Brandon’s authoritative call. What did I want looking at dead women, he asked: was the sight so pleasant? No, it was not pleasant, I could have answered him, and I’d rather have gone a mile away from it; but I went in for Roger’s sake.

The innkeeper—an elderly man, with a bald head and red nose—came forward, grumbling that for the past hour or two it had been sharp work to keep out the crowd, all agape to see the woman. I asked him to let me see her, assuring him it was not out of idle curiosity that I wished it. Believing me, he acquiesced at once; civilly remarking, as he led the way through the house, that he had sent for the police, and expected them every minute.

On the long table of a bleak-looking outer kitchen, probably used only in summer, lay the dead. I took my look at her.

Yes, it was Lizzie. Looking as peaceful as though she had only just gone to sleep. Poor thing!

“Do you recognize her, sir? Did you think you might?”

I shook my head in answer. It would not have done to acknowledge it. Thanking him, I went out to Roger. Mr. Brandon fired off a tirade of reproaches at me, and said he was glad to see I had turned white.

“Yes,” I emphatically whispered to Roger in the midst of it. “Go you in, and satisfy yourself.”

Roger disappeared inside the inn. Mr. Brandon was so indignant at the pair of us, that he set off at a sharp pace for home again, I with him, Roger presently catching us up. Twice during the walk, Roger was taken with a shivering-fit, as though sickening for the ague. Mr. Brandon held his tongue then, and recommended him, when we got in, to put himself between some hot blankets.

In the dead woman’s pocket was found Harriet Field’s address; and a policeman presented himself at Prior’s Glebe with the news of the calamity and to ask what Harriet knew of her. Away went Harriet to The Rising Sun, and recognized the dead. It was her sister, she said; she had called to see her on Sunday night, having walked over from Brighton, and must have lost her way on the waste land in returning. What name, was the next question put; and, after a moment’s hesitation, Harriet answered “Elizabeth Field.” Not feeling altogether sure of the marriage, she said nothing about it.

Will you accuse Roger Bevere of cowardice for holding aloof; for keeping silence? Then you must accuse me for sanctioning it. He could not bring himself to avow all the past shame to his mother. And what end would it answer now if he did?—what good effect to his poor, wretched, foolish wife? None.

“Johnny,” he said to me, with a grasp of his fevered hand, “is it wrong to feel as if a great mercy had been vouchsafed me?—is it wicked? Heaven knows, I pity her fate; I would have saved her from it if I could. Just as I’d have kept her from her evil ways, and tried to be a good husband to her—but she would not let me.”

They held an inquest upon her next day: or, as the local phraseology of the place put it, “Sat upon the body of Elizabeth Field.” The landlady of The Sheaf o’ Corn was an important witness.

She testified that the young woman came knocking at the closed door of the inn on the Sunday evening during church time, saying she had lost her way. Nobody was at home but herself and the servant-girl, her husband having gone to church. They let her in. She called for a good drop of drink—brandy-and-water—while sitting there, and was allowed to have it, though it was out of serving hours, as she declared she was perishing with cold. Before eight o’clock, she left, and was away about half-an-hour. Then she came back again, had more to drink, and bought a pint bottle of brandy, to carry, as she told them, home to her lodgings, and she got the girl to draw the cork, saying her rooms did not possess a corkscrew. She took the bottle away with her. Was she tipsy? interposed the coroner at this juncture. Not very, the witness replied, not so tipsy but that she could walk and talk, but she had had quite enough. She went away, and they saw her no more.

Harriet’s evidence, next given, did not amount to much. The deceased, her younger sister, had lived for some years in London, but she did not know at what address latterly; she used to serve at a refreshment-bar, but had left it. Until the past Sunday night, when Lizzie called unexpectedly at Prior’s Glebe, they had not met for five or six years: it was then arranged that Lizzie should come to drink tea with her the next afternoon: but she never came. Felt convinced that the death was pure accident, through her having lost her way in the snow.

With this opinion the room agreed. Instead of taking the direct path to Brighton, as Harriet had enjoined, she must have turned back to The Sheaf o’ Corn for more drink. And that she had wandered in a wrong direction, upon quitting it, across the waste land, there could not be any doubt; or that she had sat down, or fallen down, possibly from fatigue, in the drift where she was found. The brandy bottle lay near her, empty. Whether she died of the brandy, or of the exposure to the cold night, might be a question. The jury decided that it was the latter.

And nothing whatever had come out touching Roger.

Harriet had already given orders for a decent funeral, in the neighbouring graveyard. It took place on the afternoon of the following day, Friday. By a curious little coincidence, George Bevere was asked to take the service, the incumbent being ill with a cold. It afforded a pretext for Roger’s attending. He and I walked quietly up in the wake of George, and stood at the grave together. Harriet thanked us for it afterwards: she looked upon it as a compliment paid to herself.

“Scott shall forward to her every expense she has been put to as soon as I am back in London,” said Roger to me. “He will know how to manage it.”

“Shall you tell Mrs. Dyke?”

“To be sure I shall. She is a trustworthy, good woman.”

Our time at Prior’s Glebe was up, and we took our departure from it on the Saturday morning; another day of intense cold, of dark blue skies, and of bright sunshine. George left with us.

“My dear, you will try—you will try to keep straight, won’t you; to be what you ought to be,” whispered Lady Bevere in the bustle of starting, as she clasped Roger’s hands in the hall, tears falling from her eyes: all just as it was that other time in Gibraltar Terrace. “For my sake, dear; for my sake.”

“I shall do now, mother,” he whispered back, meeting her gaze through his wet eyelashes, his manner strangely solemn. “God has been very good to me, and I—I will try from henceforth to do my best in all ways.”

And Roger kept his word.

KETIRA THE GIPSY.

I.

“I tell you what it is, Abel. You think of everybody else before yourself. The Squire says there’s no sense in it.”

“No sense in what, Master Johnny?”

“Why, in supplying those ill-doing Standishes with your substance. Herbs, and honey, and medicine—they are always getting something or other out of you.”

“But they generally need it, sir.”

“Well, they don’t deserve it, you know. The Squire went into a temper to-day, saying the vagabonds ought to be left to starve if they did not choose to work, instead of being helped by the public.”

Our hen-roosts had been robbed, and it was pretty certain that one or other of the Standish brothers was the thief. Perhaps all three had a hand in it. Chancing to pass Abel Carew’s garden, where he was at work, I turned in to tell him of the raid; and stayed, talking. It was pleasant to sit on the bench outside the cottage-window, and watch him tend his roots and flowers. The air was redolent of perfume; the bees were humming as they sailed in the summer sunshine from herb to herb, flower to flower; the dark blue sky was unclouded.

“Just look at those queer-looking people, Abel! They must be gipsies.”

Abel let his hands rest on his rake, and lifted his eyes to the common. Crossing it, came two women, one elderly, one very young—a girl, in fact. Their red cloaks shone in the sun; very coarse and sunburnt straw hats were tied down with red kerchiefs. That they belonged to the gipsy fraternity was apparent at the first glance. Pale olive complexions, the elder one’s almost yellow, were lighted up with black eyes of wonderful brilliancy. The young girl was strikingly beautiful; her features clearly cut and delicate, as though carved from marble, her smooth and abundant hair of a purple black. The other’s hair was purple black also, and had not a grey thread in it.

“They must be coming to tell our fortunes, Abel,” I said jestingly. For the two women seemed to be making direct for the gate.

No answer from Abel, and I turned to look at him. He was gazing at the coming figures with the most intense gaze, a curious expression of inquiring doubt on his face. The rake fell from his hand.

“My search is ended,” spoke the woman, halting at the gate, her glittering black eyes scanning him intently. “You are Abel Carew.”

“Is it Ketira?” he asked, the words dropping from him in slow hesitation, as he took a step forward.

“Am I so much changed that you need doubt it for a moment?” she returned: and her tone and accent fell soft and liquid; her diction was of the purest, with just the slightest foreign ring in it. “Forty years have rolled on since you and I met, Abel Carew; but I come of a race whose faces do not change. As we are in youth, so we are in age—save for the inevitable traces left by time.”

“And this?” questioned Abel, as he looked at the girl and drew back his gate.

“She is Ketira also; my youngest and dearest. The youngest of sixteen children, Abel Carew; and every one of them, save herself, lying under the sod.”

“What—dead?” he exclaimed. “Sixteen!”

“Fifteen are dead, and are resting in peace in different lands: ten of them died in infancy ere I had well taken my first look at their little faces. She is the sixteenth. See you the likeness?” added the gipsy, pointing to the girl’s face; as she stood, modest and silent, a conscious colour tingeing her olive cheeks, and glancing up now and again through her long black eyelashes at Abel Carew.

“Likeness to you, Ketira?”

“Not to me: though there exists enough of it between us to betray that we are mother and daughter. To him—her father.”

And, while Abel was looking at the girl, I looked. And in that moment it struck me that her face bore a remarkable likeness to his own. The features were of the same high-bred cast, pure and refined; you might have said they were made in the same mould.

“I see; yes,” said Abel.

“He has been gone, too, this many a year; as you, perhaps, may know, Abel; and is with the rest, waiting for us in the spirit-land. Kettie does not remember him, it is so long ago. There are only she and I left to go now. Kettie——”

She suddenly changed her language to one I did not understand. Neither, as was easy to be seen, did Abel Carew. Whether it was Hebrew, or Egyptian, or any other rare tongue, I knew not; but I had never in my life heard its sounds before.

“I am telling Kettie that in you she may see what her father was—for the likeness in your face and his, allowing for the difference of age, is great.”

“Does Kettie not speak English?” inquired Abel.

“Oh yes, I speak it,” answered the girl, slightly smiling, and her tones were soft and perfect as those of her mother.

“And where have you been since his death, Ketira? Stationary in Ai——”

He dropped his voice to a whisper at the last word, and I did not catch it. I suppose he did not intend me to.

“Not stationary for long anywhere,” she answered, passing into the cottage with a majestic step. I lifted my hat to the women—who, for all their gipsy dress and origin, seemed to command consideration—and made off.

The arrival of these curious people caused some commotion at Church Dykely. It was so rare we had any event to enliven us. They took up their abode in a lonely cottage no better than a hut (one room up and one down) that stood within that lively place, the wilderness on the outskirts of Chanasse Grange; and there they stayed. How they got a living nobody knew: some thought the gipsy must have an income, others that Abel helped them.

“She was very handsome in her youth,” he said to me one day, as if he wished to give some explanation of the arrival I had chanced to witness. “Handsomer and finer by far than her daughter is; and one who was very near of kin to me married her—would marry her. She was a born gipsy, of what is called a high-caste tribe.”

That was all he said. For Abel’s sake, who was so respected, Church Dykely felt inclined to give respect to the women. But, when it was discovered that Ketira would tell the fortune of any one who cared to go surreptitiously to her lonely hut, the respect cooled down. “Ketira the gipsy,” she was universally called: nobody knew her by any other name. The fortune-telling came to the ears of Abel, arousing his indignation. He went to Ketira in distress, begging of her to cease such practices—but she waved him majestically out of the hut, and bade him mind his own business. Occasionally the mother and daughter shut up their dwelling and disappeared for weeks together. It was assumed they went to attend fairs and races, camping out with the gipsy fraternity. Kettie at all times and seasons was modest and good; never was an unmaidenly look seen from her, or a bold word heard. In appearance and manner and diction she might have been a born lady, and a high-bred one. Graceful and innocent was Kettie; but heedless and giddy, as girls are apt to be.

“Look there, Johnny!”

We were at Worcester races, walking about on the course. I turned at Tod’s words, and saw Ketira the gipsy, her red cloak gleaming in the sun, just as it had gleamed that day, a year before, on Dykely Common. For the past month she had been away, and her cottage shut up.

She stood at the open door of a carriage, reading the hand of the lady inside it. A notable object was Ketira on the course, with her quaint attire, her majestic figure, her fine olive-dark features, and the fire of her brilliant eyes. What good or ill luck she was promising, I know not; but I saw the lady turn pale and snatch her hand away. “You cannot know what you tell me,” she cried in a haughty tone, sharp enough and loud enough to be heard.

“Wait and see,” rejoined Ketira, turning away.

“So you have come here to see the fun, Ketira,” I said to her, as she was brushing by me. During the past year I had seen more of her than many people had, and we had grown familiar; for she, as she once expressed it, “took” to me.

“The fun and the business; the pleasure and the wickedness,” she answered, with a sweep of the hand round the course. “There’s plenty of it abroad.”

“Is Kettie not here?” I asked: and the question made her eyes glare. Though, why, I was at a loss to know, seeing that a race-ground is the legitimate resort of gipsies.

“Kettie! Do you suppose I bring Kettie to these scenes—to be gazed at by this ribald mass?”

“Well, it is a rabble, and a good one,” I answered, looking at the crowd.

“Nay, boy,” said she, following my glance, “it’s not the rabble Kettie need fear, as you count rabble; it’s their betters”—swaying her arms towards the carriages, and the dandies, their owners or guests; some of whom were balancing themselves on the steps to talk to the pretty girls within, and some were strolling about the enclosed paddock, forbidden ground but to the “upper few.” “Ketira is too fair to be shown to them.”

“They would not eat her, Ketira.”

“No, they would not eat her,” she replied in a dreamy tone, as if her thoughts were elsewhere.

“And I don’t see any other harm they could do her, guarded by you.”

“Boy,” she said, dropping her voice to an impressive whisper, and lightly touching my arm with her yellow hand, “I have read Kettie’s fate in the stars, and I see that there is some great and grievous peril approaching her. It may be averted; there’s just a chance that it may: meanwhile I am encompassing her about with care, guarding her as the apple of my eye.”

“And if it should not be averted?” I asked in the moment’s impulse, carried away by the woman’s impressive earnestness.

“Then woe be to those who bring the evil upon her!”

“And of what nature is the evil?”

“I know not,” she replied, her eyes taking again their dreamy, far-off look. “Woe is me!—for I know it not.”

“How do you do, Ludlow? Not here alone, are you?”

A good-looking young fellow, Hyde Stockhausen, had reined in his horse to ask the question: giving at the same time a keen glance to the gipsy woman and then a half-smile at me, as if he suspected I was having my fortune told.

“The rest are on the course somewhere. The Squire is driving old Jacobson about.”

As Hyde nodded and rode on, I chanced to see Ketira’s face. It was stretched out after him with the most eager gaze on it, a defiant look in her black eyes. I thought Stockhausen must have offended her.

“Do you know him?” I asked involuntarily.

“I never saw him before; but I don’t like him,” she answered, showing her white and gleaming teeth. “Who is he?”

“His name is Stockhausen.”

“I don’t like him,” she repeated in a muttering tone. “He is an enemy. I don’t like his look.”

Considering that he was a well-looking man, with a pleasant face and gay blue eyes, a face that no reasonable spirit could take umbrage at, I wondered to hear her say this.

“You must have a peculiar taste in looks, Ketira, to dislike his.”

“You don’t understand,” she said abruptly: and, turning away, disappeared in the throng.

Only once more did I catch sight of Ketira that day. It was at the lower end of Pitchcroft, near the show. She was standing in front of a booth, staring at a group of horsemen who seemed to have met and halted there, one of whom was young Stockhausen. Again the notion crossed me that he must in some way have affronted her. It was on him her eyes were fixed: and in them lay the same curious, defiant expression of antagonism, mingled with fear.

Hyde Stockhausen was the step-son of old Massock of South Crabb. The Stockhausens had a name in Worcestershire for dying off, as I have told the reader before. Hyde’s father had proved no exception. After his death the widow married Massock the brickmaker, putting up with the man’s vulgarity for the sake of his riches. It took people by surprise: for she had been a lady always, as Miss Hyde and as Mrs. Stockhausen; one might have thought she would rather have put up with a clown from Pershore fair than with Massock the illiterate. Hyde Stockhausen was well educated: his uncle, Tom Hyde the parson, had taken care of that. At twenty-one he came into some money, and at once began to do his best to spend it. He was to have been a parson, but could not get through at Oxford, and gave up trying for it. His uncle quarrelled with him then: he knew Hyde had not tried to pass, and that he openly said nobody should make a parson of him. After the quarrel, Hyde went off to see what the Continent was like. He stayed so long that the world at home thought he was lost. For the past ten or eleven months he had been back at his mother’s at South Crabb, knocking about, as Massock phrased it to the Squire one day. Hyde said he was “looking-out” for something to do: but he was quite easy as to the future, feeling sure his old uncle would leave him well off. Parson Hyde had never married; and had plenty of money to bequeath to somebody. As to Hyde’s own money, that had nearly come to an end.

Naturally old Massock (an ill-conditioned kind of man) grew impatient over this state of things, reproaching Hyde with his idle habits, which were a bad example for his own sons. And only just before this very day that we were on Worcester racecourse, rumours reached Church Dykely that Stockhausen was coming over to settle there and superintend certain fields of brick-making, which Massock had recently purchased and commenced working. As if Massock could not have kept himself and his bricks at South Crabb! But it was hardly likely that Hyde, really a gentleman, would take to brick-making.

We did not know much of him. His connection with Massock had kept people aloof. Many who would have been glad enough to make friends with Hyde would not do it as long as he had his home at Massock’s. His mother’s strange and fatal marriage with the man (fatal as regarded her place in society) told upon Hyde, and there’s no doubt he must have felt the smart.

The rumour proved to be correct. Hyde Stockhausen took up his abode at Church Dykely, as overseer, or clerk, or manager—whatever might be the right term for it—of the men employed in his step-father’s brick operations. The pretty little house, called Virginia Cottage, owned by Henry Rimmer, which had the Virginia creeper trailing up its red walls, and flowers clustering in its productive garden, was furnished for him; and Hyde installed himself in it as thoroughly and completely as though he had entered on brick-making for life. Some people laughed. “But it’s only while I am turning myself round,” he said, one day, to the Squire.

Hyde soon got acquainted with Church Dykely, and would drop into people’s houses of an evening, laughing over his occupation, and saying he should be able to make bricks himself in time. His chief work seemed to be in standing about the brick-yard watching the men, and in writing and book-keeping at home. Old Massock made his appearance once a month, when accounts and such-like items were gone over between them.

When it was that Hyde first got on speaking terms with Kettie, or where, or how, I cannot tell. So far as I know, nobody could tell. It was late in the autumn when Ketira and her daughter came back to their hut; and by the following early spring some of us had grown accustomed to seeing Hyde and Kettie together in an evening, snatching a short whisper or a five-minutes’ walk. In March, I think it was, she and Ketira went away again, and returned in May.

The twenty-ninth of May was at that time kept as a holiday in Worcestershire, though it has dropped out of use as such in late years. In Worcester itself there was a grand procession, which country people went in to see, and a special service in the cathedral. We had service also at Church Dykely, and the villagers adorned their front-doors with immense oak boughs, sprays of which we young ones wore in our jackets, the oak-balls and leaves gilded. I remember one year that the big bough (almost a tree) which Henry Rimmer had hoisted over his sign, the “Silver Bear,” came to grief. Whether Rimmer had not secured it as firmly as usual, or that the cords were rotten, down came the huge bough with a crash on old Mr. Stirling’s head, who chanced to be coming out of the inn. He went on at Rimmer finely, vowing his neck was broken, and that Rimmer ought to be hung up there himself.

On this twenty-ninth of May I met Kettie. It was on the common, near Abel Carew’s. Kettie had caught up the fashion of the place, and wore a little spray of oak peeping out from between the folds of her red cloak. And I may as well say that neither she nor her mother ever went out without the cloak. In cold and heat, in rain and sunshine, the red cloak was worn out-of-doors.

“Are you making holiday to-day, Kettie?”

“Not more than usual; all days are the same to us,” she answered, in her sweet, soft voice, and with the slightly foreign accent that attended the speech of both. But Kettie had it more strongly than her mother.

“You have not gilded your oak-ball.”

Kettie glanced down at the one ball, nestling amid its green leaves. “I had no gilding to put on it, Mr. Johnny.”

“No! I have some in my pocket. Let me gild it for you.”

Her teeth shone like pearls as she smiled and held out the spray. How beautiful she was! with those delicate features and the large dark eyes!—eyes that were softer than Ketira’s. Taking the little paper book from my pocket, and some of the gilt leaf from between its tissue leaves, I wetted the oak-ball and gilded it. Kettie watched intently.

“Where did you get it all from?” she asked, meaning the gilt leaf.

“I bought it at Hewitt’s. Don’t you know the shop? A stationer’s; next door to Pettipher the druggist’s. Hewitt does no end of a trade in these leaves on the twenty-ninth of May.”

“Did you buy it to gild oak-balls for yourself, sir?”

“For the young ones at home: Hugh and Lena. There it is, Kettie.”

Had it been a ball of solid gold that I put into her hand, instead of a gilded oak-ball, Kettie could not have shown more intense delight. Her cheeks flushed; the wonderful brilliancy that joy brought to her eyes caused my own eyes to turn away. For her eighteen years she was childish in some things; very much so, considering the experience that her wandering life must (as one would suppose) have brought her. In replacing the spray within her cloak, Kettie dropped something out of her hand—apparently a small box folded in paper. I picked it up.

“Is it a fairing, Kettie? But this is not fair time.”

“It is—I forget the name,” she replied, looking at me and hesitating. “My mother is ill; the pains are in her shoulder again; and my uncle Abel has given me this to rub upon it, the same that did her good before. I cannot just call the name to mind in the English tongue.”

“Say it in your own.”

She spoke a very outlandish word, laughed, and turned red again. Certainly there never lived a more modest girl than Kettie.

“Is it liniment?—ointment?”

“Yes, it is that, the last,” she said: “Abel calls it so. I thank you for what you have done for me, sir. Good-day.”

To show so much gratitude for that foolish bit of gilt leaf on her oak-ball! It illumined every line of her face. I liked Kettie: liked her for her innocent simplicity. Had she not been a gipsy, many a gentleman might have been proud to make her his wife.

Close upon that, it was known that Ketira was laid up with rheumatism. The weather came in hot, and the days went on: and Kettie and Hyde were now and then seen together.

One evening, on leaving Mrs. Scott’s, where we had been to arrange with Sam to go fishing with us on the morrow, Tod said he would invite Hyde Stockhausen to be of the party; so we took Virginia Cottage on our road home, and asked for Hyde.

“Not at home!” retorted Tod, resenting the old woman’s answer, as though it had been a personal affront. “Where is he?”

“Master Hyde has only just stepped out, sir; twenty minutes ago, or so,” said she, pleadingly excusing the fact. Which was but natural: she had been Hyde’s nurse when he was a child; and had now come here to do for him. “I dare say, sir, he be only walking about a bit, to get the fresh air.”

Tod whistled some bars of a tune thoughtfully. He did not like to be crossed.

“Well, look here, Mrs. Preen,” said he. “Some of us are going to fish in the long pond on Mr. Jacobson’s grounds to-morrow: tell Mr. Hyde that if he would like to join us, I shall be happy to see him. Breakfast, half-past eight o’clock; sharp.”

In turning out beyond the garden, I could not help noticing how pretty and romantic was the scene. A good many trees grew about that part, thick enough almost for a wood in places; and the light and shade, cast by the moon on the grass amidst them, had quite a weird appearance. It was a bright night; the moon high in the sky.

“Is that Hyde?” cried Tod.

Halting for a moment in doubt, he peered out over the field to the distance. Some one was leisurely pacing under the opposite trees. Two people, I thought: but they were completely in the shade.

“I think it is Hyde, Tod. Somebody is with him.”

“Just wait another instant, lad, and they’ll be in that patch of moonlight by the turning.”

But they did not go into that patch of moonlight. Just before they reached it (and the two figures were plain enough now) they turned back again and took the narrow inlet that led to Oxlip Dell. Whoever it was with Hyde had a hooded cloak on. Was it a red one? Tod laughed.

“Oh, by George, here’s fun! He has got Kettie out for a moonlight stroll. Let’s go and ask them how they enjoy it.”

“Hyde might not like us to.”

“There you are again, Johnny, with your queer scruples! Stuff and nonsense! Stockhausen can’t have anything to say to Kettie that all the world may not hear. I want to tell him about to-morrow.”

Tod made off across the grass for the inlet, I after him. Yes, there they were, promenading Oxlip Dell in the flickering light, now in the shade, now in the brightest of the moonbeams; Hyde’s arm hugging her red cloak.

Tod gave a grunt of displeasure. “Stockhausen must be doing it for pastime,” he said; “but he ought not to be so thoughtless. Ketira the gipsy would give the girl a shaking if she knew: she——”

The words came to an abrupt ending. There stood Ketira herself.

She was at the extreme end of the inlet amid the trees, holding on by the trunk of one, round which her head was cautiously pushed to view the promenaders. Comparatively speaking, it was dark just here; but I could see the strangely-wild look in the gipsy’s eyes: the woe-begone expression of her remarkable face.

“It is coming,” she said, apparently in answer to Tod’s remarks, which she could not have failed to hear. “It is coming quickly.”

“What is coming?” I asked.

“The fate in store for her. And it’s worse than death.”

“If you don’t like her to walk out by moonlight, why not keep her in?—not that there can be any harm in it,” interposed Tod. “If you don’t approve of her being friendly with Hyde Stockhausen,” he went on after a pause, for Ketira made no answer, “why don’t you put a stop to it?”

“Because she has her mother’s spirit and her mother’s will” cried Ketira. “And she likes to have her own way: and I fear, woe’s me! that if I forced her to mine, things might become worse than they are even now: that she might take some fatal step.”

“I am going home,” said Tod at this juncture, perhaps fancying the matter was getting complicated: and, of all things, he hated complications. “Good-night, old lady. We heard you were in bed with rheumatism.”

He set off back, up the narrow inlet. I said I’d catch him up: and stayed behind for a last word with Ketira.

“What did you mean by a fatal step?”

“That she might leave me and seek the protection of the Tribe. We have had words about this. Kettie says little, but I see the signs of determination in her silent face. ‘I will not have you meet or speak to that man,’ I said to her this morning—for she was out with him last evening also. She made me no reply: but—you see—how she has obeyed! Her heart’s life has been awakened, and by him. There’s only one object to whom she clings now in all the whole earth; and that is to him. I am nothing.”

“He will not bring any great harm upon her: you need not fear that of Hyde Stockhausen.”

“Did I say he would?” she answered fiercely, her black eyes glaring and gleaming. “But he will bring sorrow on her and rend her heart-strings. A man’s fancies are light as the summer wind, fickle as the ocean waves: but when a woman loves it is for life; sometimes for death.”

Hyde and Kettie had disappeared at the upper end of the dell, taking the way that in a minute or two would bring them out in the open fields. Ketira turned back along the narrow path, and I with her.

“I knew he would bring some ill upon me, that first moment when I saw him on Worcester race-ground,” resumed Ketira in a low tone of pain. “Instinct warned me that he was an enemy. And what ill can be like that of stealing my young child’s heart! Once a girl’s heart is taken—and taken but to be toyed with, to be flung back at will—her day-dreams in this life are over.”

Emerging into the open ground, the first thing we saw was the pair of lovers about to part. They were standing face to face: Hyde held both her hands while speaking his last words, and then bent suddenly down, as if to whisper them. Ketira gave a sharp cry at that, perhaps she fancied he was stealing a kiss, and lifted her right hand menacingly. The girl ran swiftly in the direction of her home—which was not far off—and Hyde strode, not much less quickly, towards his. Ketira stood as still as a stone image, watching him till he disappeared within his gate.

“There’s no harm in it,” I persuasively said, sorry to see her so full of trouble. But she was as one who heard not.

“No harm at all, Ketira. I dare answer for it that a score of lads and lasses are out. Why should we not walk in the moonlight as well as the sunlight? For my part, I should call it a shame to stay indoors on this glorious night.”

“An enemy, an enemy! A grand gentleman, who will leave her to pine her heart away! What kind of man is he, that Hyde Stockhausen?” she continued, turning to me fiercely.

“Kind of man? A pleasant one. I have not heard any ill of him.”

“Rich?”

“No. Perhaps he will be rich some time. He makes bricks, you know, now. That is, he superintends the men.”

“Yes, I know,” she answered: and I don’t suppose there was much connected with Hyde she did not know. Looking this way, looking that, she at length began to walk, slowly and painfully, towards Hyde’s gate. The thought had crossed me—why did she not take Kettie away on one of their long expeditions, if she dreaded him so much. But the rheumatism lay upon her still too heavily.

Flinging open the gate, she went across the garden, not making for the proper entrance, but for a lighted room, whose French-window stood open to the ground. Hyde was there, just sitting down to supper.

“Come in with me,” she said, turning her head round to beckon me on.

But I did not choose to go in. It was no affair of mine that I should beard Hyde in his den. Very astonished indeed must he have been, when she glided in at the window, and stood before him. I saw him rise from his chair; I saw the astounded look of old Deborah Preen when she came in with his supper ale in a jug.

What they said to one another, I know not. I did not wish to listen: though it was only natural I should stay to see the play out. Just as natural as it was for Preen to come stealing round through the kidney beans to the front-garden, an anxious look on her face.

“What does that old gipsy woman want with the young master, Mr. Ludlow? Is he having his fortune told?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Wish some good genius would tell mine!”

The interview seemed to have been short and sharp. Ketira was coming out again. Hyde followed her to the window. Both were talking at once, and the tail of the dispute reached our ears.

“I repeat to you that you are totally mistaken,” Hyde was saying. “I have no ‘designs,’ as you put it, on your daughter, good or bad; no design whatever. She is perfectly free to go her own way, for me. My good woman, you have no cause to adjure me in that solemn manner. Sacred? ‘Under Heaven’s protection?’ Well, so she may be. I hope she is. Why should I wish to hinder it? I don’t wish to, I don’t intend to. You need not glare so.”

Ketira, outside the window now, turned and faced him, her great eyes fixed on him, her hand raised in menace.

“Do not forget that. I have warned you, Hyde Stockhausen. By the Great Power that regulates all things, human and divine, I affirm that I speak the truth. If harm in any shape or of any kind comes to my child, my dear one, my only one, through you, it will cost you more than you would now care to have foretold.”

“Bless my heart!” faintly ejaculated old Preen. And she drew away, and backed for shelter into the bean rows.

Ketira brushed against me as she passed, taking no notice whatever; left the garden, and limped away. Hyde saw me swinging through the gate.

“Are you there, Johnny?” he said, coming forward. “Did you hear that old gipsy woman?” And in a few words I told him all about it.

“Such a fuss for nothing!” he exclaimed. “I’m sure I wish no ill to the girl. Kettie’s very nice; bright as the day: and I thought no more harm of strolling a bit with her in the moonlight than I should think it if she were my sister.”

“But she is not your sister, you see, Hyde. And old Ketira does not like it.”

“I’ll take precious good care to keep Kettie at arm’s-length for the future; make you very sure of that,” he said, in a short, fractious tone. “I don’t care to be blamed for nothing. Tell Todhetley I can’t spare the time to go fishing to-morrow—wish I could. Good-night.”

A fine commotion. Church Dykely up in arms. Kettie had disappeared.

About a fortnight had gone on since the above night, during which period Ketira’s rheumatism took so obstinate a turn that she had the felicity of keeping her bed. And one morning, upon Duffham’s chancing to pay his visit to her before breakfast, for he was passing the hut on his way home from an early patient, he found the gipsy up and dressed, and just as wild as a lioness rampant. Kettie had gone away in the night.

“Where’s she gone to?” naturally asked Duffham, leaning on his cane, and watching the poor woman; who was whirling about like one demented, her rheumatism forgotten.

“Ah, where’s she gone to?—where?” raved old Ketira. “When I lay down last night, leaving her to put the plates away and to follow me up when she had done it, I dropped asleep at once. All night long I never woke; the pain was easier, all but gone, and I had been well-nigh worn out with it. ‘Why, what’s the time, Kettie?’ I said to her in our own tongue, when I opened my eyes and saw the sun was high. She did not answer, and I supposed she had gone down to get the breakfast. I called, and called; in vain. I began to put my clothes on; and then I found that she had not lain down that night; and—woe’s me! she’s gone.”

Duffham could not make anything of it; it was less in his line than rheumatism and broken legs. Being sharp-set for his breakfast, he came away, telling Ketira he would see her again by-and-by.

And, shortly afterwards, he chanced to meet her. Coming out on his round of visits, he encountered Ketira near Virginia Cottage. She had been making a call on Hyde Stockhausen.

“He baffles me,” she said to the doctor: and Duffham thought if ever a woman’s face had the expression “baffled” plainly written on it, Ketira’s had then. “I don’t know what to make of him. His speech is fair: but—there’s the instinct lying in my heart.”

“Why, you don’t suppose, do you, that Mr. Stockhausen has stolen the child?” questioned Duffham, after a good pause of thought.

“And by whom do you suppose the child has been stolen, if not by him?” retorted the gipsy.