Joyce

CHAPTER XXXVIII

‘Well, Henry, I would not say even that if I were you. I have given Baker his orders never to let that man in again. I hate to take servants into my confidence, but still—— Fortunately nobody has seen him or knows anything about him,’ said the deceived woman, with mistaken calm. She was not so sure about Joyce’s good sense as her husband was; but even in the midst of her annoyance a certain compassion for Joyce had awakened in her mind. Poor thing! to feel herself bound to such a man. ‘And we are not done with him,’ Mrs. Hayward said to herself. She sighed for the calm of those days when there were no complications—when it was quite unnecessary to give Baker any instructions as to who should be admitted—when a disturbance and angry controversy in her pretty drawing-room would have been a thing inconceivable. She thought she could decipher a trace of Andrew’s country boots on the Persian rug, a delightful specimen upon which (she had remarked at the time) he had placed his chair. The Colonel in his anger had crushed up between his hands a piece of fine embroidery, and ravelled out some of the gold thread which formed the exquisite pattern. In spite of these things Mrs. Hayward, for the first time, was sorry for Joyce. She felt with an impatient vexation that if Captain Bellendean had but ‘spoken’ when she thought he did, all this might have been avoided. There would no doubt still have been a struggle. The schoolmaster would not have given in without a fight; but Mrs. Hayward knew human nature well enough to be sure that with a man behind her whom she loved, Joyce would have felt her bond to the man whom she did not love to be still more impossible. In such a case fidelity was no longer a virtue but a crime.

But Bellendean had gone, and had not spoken. Mrs. Hayward had been both angry and disappointed by this failure. She had blamed Joyce for it, and she had blamed the Colonel for it. That a man should afficher himself and then go away was a thing not to be endured, according to her ideas. And now she was really sorry for Joyce, in both these aspects of her case. If Joyce had but known how much her stepmother divined, all her troubles would have been increased tenfold. But fortunately she did not know, although the additional kindness of Mrs. Hayward’s manner gave her now and then a thrill of fear.

She was walking with her father in the park one morning, not long after these events. Winter was coming on with great strides, and the leaves fell in showers before every breath of wind. Some of the trees were already bare. Some stood up all golden yellow against the background of bare boughs, lighting up the landscape. The grass was all particoloured with the sprinklings of the fallen leaves. Under the hill the river flowed down the valley, coming out of distances unseen. The Colonel and his daughter paused at a favourite point of theirs to look at the prospect. The wide vault of firmament above and the great breadth of air and space beyond were always a refreshment and consolation. ‘O Thames! flow softly while I sing my song,’ Joyce said, under her breath.

‘Eh?—what were you saying, Joyce?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, with a smile; ‘only a line out of a poem.’

‘Ah! you know so much more about books, my dear, than I have ever done. You must get that turn in your education early, or you never take it of yourself. I have never asked you, Joyce, though it has often been on the tip of my tongue. How do you like the place, now you know it? I hope you like your home.’

‘It is very—bonnie. I use that word,’ said Joyce, ‘because it means the most. Pretty would be impertinent to the Thames—and beautiful——’

‘Do you think beautiful’s too much? Well, my dear, tastes differ; but I never saw anything that pleased me like the course of the river and the splendid trees. You should have lived in a hot climate to appreciate fully English trees.’

‘Oh, but I do,’ cried Joyce. ‘They are finer than we have—in Scotland,’ she said, after a pause. It had been on her lips to say ‘at home.’

‘Much finer,’ said the Colonel, with conviction; ‘but that is not exactly an answer to my question. I asked if you liked it—as your home.’

Joyce raised her eyes to him, moist and shining. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘it is you who are my home.’

‘My love!’ the Colonel stammered and faltered, in unexpected emotion. The water came to his eyes and blotted out the landscape. ‘You make me very happy and very proud, Joyce. This is more, much more than I had any right to.’ He took her hand in his and drew it within his arm. ‘I have wanted,’ he said, ‘to surround you with everything that your poor mother did not have—to make you happy if I could, my dear: but I scarcely expected such a return as this. God bless you, Joyce! Still,’ said the pertinacious inquirer, caressing the hand upon his arm, ‘that’s not quite what I asked, my dear.’

Joyce had twice avoided the direct response he demanded. She paused before she replied. ‘Some,’ she said, ‘father, are happy enough never to need to think, or ask such a question. I wish I had been always where you were, and never to have had any life but yours; or else——’ Colonel Hayward fortunately did not remark these two syllables, which were softly said, and breathed off into a sigh.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘under the best of circumstances that could never have been, for you know the most of my life has been spent in India. The worst of India is, that parents must part with their children. We should not really have known very much more of each other if—if you had been born, as you should have been, in your father’s house.’

‘Then there is little harm done,’ said Joyce, this time with a smile.

‘Not if you trust us fully, my dear, and love your home.’ He patted her hand again, then moved on unsatisfied. ‘I think, however, you are beginning to like the people, and feel at home among them. And they like you. I am sure they like you—and admire you, Joyce, and feel that you are—— There is Lady St. Clair, my dear, with all her bevy of girls. You will want to stop and speak to them. My wife says they’re the best people, but I’m not myself very fond—— How do you do?’ cried the Colonel cheerily, taking off his hat with a flourish. ‘Lovely morning! How do you do?’

The old soldier stood the image of good-humour and cheerful courtesy, holding his hat in his hand. There were so many ladies to share his bow that it was longer than usual, and gave the wind time to blow about a little the close curly locks, touched with gray, which covered the Colonel’s head with all the vigour of youth. His countenance beamed with kindness and that civility of the heart which made the fact that he was not himself very fond of this group inoperative. But when Lady St. Clair, picking her steps to the other side of the road, delivered in return the most chilling of faint bows, while her daughters hurried like a flock of birds across the park to avoid the encounter, Colonel Hayward stood dumb with consternation in the middle of the path. His under lip dropped in his astonishment, he forgot to put on his hat. He turned to Joyce, holding it in his hand, with dismay in his face. ‘What—what,’ he cried, ‘is the meaning of that?’

‘Indeed I don’t know,’ said Joyce. She was not aroused to the importance of the action. Unfortunately she did not care, nor did it seem to her that so slight a matter was worth noticing. ‘They were perhaps in a hurry,’ she said.

‘In a hurry! They meant to avoid us. They would rather not have seen us. What does it mean, Joyce? They consulted together, and the girls rushed off, and their mother—I am utterly astounded, Joyce.’

‘But,’ said Joyce, very calmly, ‘if they did not wish to speak to us, why should they? I do not think I care.’

The Colonel put on his hat. He had grown a little pale. ‘Elizabeth will not like it,’ he said. ‘She will not like it at all. For a long time she would not go into society, because of—— But now that she does she likes to know all the best people. I am not myself fond of those St. Clairs. But any unpleasantness, I am sure, would make her unhappy. Can I have done anything, I wonder? I am a blundering old fellow,—I may have neglected some etiquette——’

‘Perhaps it would be better to say nothing about it,’ said Joyce.

‘Much better!’ cried the Colonel. ‘That’s the right way—take no notice. I am glad you are of that opinion. But I’m very bad at keeping a secret, Joyce. Probably I’ll blurt it out.’

‘No, father. I will look at you when I see you approaching the subject,’ said Joyce. She was quite unconscious of any seriousness in the matter. Lady St. Clair and her girls seemed incapable of any influence on her fate. She even laughed, looking up at him with a lightness quite unusual to her. ‘It will be a little secret between us,’ she said.

‘So it will,’ said the Colonel, brightening; ‘but you must keep your eyes upon me, Joyce. I never could keep a thing to myself in my life, particularly from Elizabeth. But this cannot be of any importance after all, can it? No, I don’t think it can be of any importance. Lady St. Clair may be vexed with me perhaps for the moment. I may have done some silly thing or other. I would not for the world have a secret from Elizabeth—but such a trifle as this.’

‘It cannot be of the least importance,’ said Joyce. She was more confident of being right than he had ever known her before.

‘Well, my dear: but you must keep your eyes upon me,’ Colonel Hayward said.

He came back to the subject several times as they went on, and worked out the shock, so that by the time they reached home, he himself had come to regard Lady St. Clair’s incivility as a matter of little importance. ‘Perhaps she had something on her mind, my dear; their eldest boy, I believe, gives them a great deal of trouble. And I know they are not rich—and with that large family. People are not always in the mood for a conversation on the roadside. You are quite right, Joyce. I daresay it meant just nothing at all but the humour of the moment. It will be a little secret between you and me—but you must keep your eyes upon me. Give a little cough, or put your hand up to your brooch, or some sign I shall know—for I am an old goose, I know it: I can keep nothing to myself.’

When they reached home, however, the incident and the secret were both forgotten in the surprise which awaited them. They found Mrs. Hayward in the drawing-room entertaining Mrs. Bellendean. Joyce, though she had always been more shy of her dear lady since she had discovered how much Mrs. Bellendean’s behaviour to herself was influenced by her change of circumstances, was startled out of all her preventions by this unexpected visit. But the sight of the woman to whom she had looked up with such sincere reverence, and admired before everybody in the world, was not now to her so simple a matter as it had once been: after the first burst of pleasure it was impossible to forget how closely associated she was both with the old life and the new. And Mrs. Bellendean herself was changed. There were lines of anxiety and care in her face. She was no longer the calm queen in her own circle, the centre of pleasure and promotion she had once appeared to Joyce. The peace of the old life was gone from her, and something of its largeness and dignity. She talked of her present plans and purposes in such a way that Joyce, though little accustomed to the subtleties of conventional life, slowly came to perceive that the object of Mrs. Bellendean’s visit was not that which it professed to be. She explained to them that she was about to leave England with her husband for Italy, and that she had come to take leave of her friends—but this was not all. Joyce’s training in the net-work of motives which lie under the surface was very imperfect. She wondered, without at all divining, what the other object was.

‘Things have changed very much since Bellendean ceased to be our headquarters,’ she said with a smile which was not a very cheerful one. ‘You remember how much I threw myself into it, Joyce. After having nothing particular to do, to come into that full life with so many things to look after was delightful to me. But my husband never liked it,’ she added quickly. ‘He dislikes the worry and the responsibility. He thinks it worry: you know I never did.’

‘My friend Norman,’ said the Colonel, ‘will be lost without you. It must have been such a thing for him.’

‘Oh, Norman has been very good.’ Lines came out on Mrs. Bellendean’s brow which had not been there before. ‘You saw something of him during the summer?’

‘Something—oh, a great deal! We got quite used to see him appearing in his flannels. Fine exercise for a young fellow: It helped him to support London,’ said the guileless Colonel. ‘I think he found us very handy here.’

‘Old fellows, I suspect, think more of exercise than young fellows,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘and London is very supportable in Captain Bellendean’s circumstances—but we did see a little of him from time to time.’

Joyce said nothing at all. She kept a little behind, away from Mrs. Bellendean’s anxious eyes. She could not prevent the colour from deepening in her face, or her heart from beating high and loud in her breast—so loud that she felt it must be heard by others as well as herself, the most distinct sound in the room.

‘He has not been here very lately, I suppose?’ Mrs. Bellendean said.

‘Oh no, not since August—when he came to bid us good-bye.’

‘As I am doing now,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. She could not see Joyce, who was behind her, but she was noting, with the intensest observation, every movement and word. She was on a voyage of discovery, not quite knowing what she expected, almost too eager to distinguish what she imagined from what she saw.

‘Shooting, I suppose,’ said the Colonel. ‘I hope he has had good sport. There was some talk of his coming back, but I never expected him for my part, until the moors began to pall; and that doesn’t happen soon, your first year at home. You preserved, of course, at Bellendean.’

‘There are always plenty of partridges—nothing more exciting. He has been up in the Highlands, coming and going. I think he has thoroughly enjoyed himself—as you say, the first year at home.’

These words were all very simple and natural; but there was a little emphasis here and there, which betrayed a meaning more than met the ear. Joyce felt them fall upon her heart like so many stones, thrown singly, resolutely, with intention. It had never occurred to her before that any one could wish to give her pain: and that her own lady should do it—her model of all that was greatest and sweetest! The cruel boys throw stones at wounded, helpless things. She remembered suddenly, with that quickness of imagination which enhances every impression, a scene which detached itself from the past—a boy in the village aiming steadily at a lame dog, and how she had flung herself upon him in a blaze of indignation, to his supreme astonishment. Why this should come into her head she could not tell. The dog could yelp at least, but Joyce could not cry out. It seemed to her that it was Mrs. Bellendean, in her mature, middle-aged beauty, tall, dignified, and serene, who stood and took aim. It was all new to Joyce—the covert blow, the deliberate intention, the strong necessity of keeping still, uttering no sound, giving no look even of consciousness. Nothing in her past experience had prepared her for this.

‘I have more sympathy with your plans than with Captain Bellendean’s amusements,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘Sport’s monotonous, at least to women who only look on. But to get away for the winter is always delightful. Oh, not to you, Henry, I know! You like your walks. And he tells me it is so English, so like home. Very English indeed, and pleasant, for girls who skate, and all that; but when one begins to get old and go about in a shawl!’

‘I would willingly compound for the shawl,’ said the visitor. ‘It is cold enough at Bellendean; but there one had both duties and pleasures. I hate to be one of a useless crowd, drifting about pleasure-places. When it’s health it is dismal enough; but at least there is some meaning in that.’

‘Oh, there is a great deal of meaning in being warm,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, with a little shiver, ‘in seeing sunshine and the blue sky instead of universal greyness and fogs. The Colonel takes a pleasure in it, even in east wind; but so do not I.’

‘My dear,’ cried Colonel Hayward anxiously, ‘if you really do feel so strongly about it, you don’t think that I would ever object? I like my own country, I confess; and to understand what everybody’s saying—but if you feel the cold so much——’

It was not much wonder that he should not understand; but Joyce, for whom the thing was done, knew almost as little as he did that this diversion was for her benefit. A half-forlorn wonder arose in her mind that so much useless, aimless talk should mingle with the torture through which she was going. Better that the stones should all be thrown, and the victim left in peace. But this was not how it was to be. The gong sounded, beaten by Baker’s powerful hand, and the little procession went in to luncheon. Joyce had to expose her face, with all its clouds, the burning red which she felt on her cheek, the heavy shadow about her eyes, to the full daylight and Mrs. Bellendean’s searching gaze. Nobody could help her now.

CHAPTER XXXIX

‘You used to be—devoted to me, Joyce; as I always was very fond of you. A little cloud has come between us somehow—I can’t tell how—but it has made no difference to my feelings.’ Mrs. Bellendean was a little short of breath. She paused, pressing Joyce’s arm with hers, leaning over her, with anxious eyes upon her face. But something prevented Joyce from making any response—that cloud was still between them, whatever it was.

‘You know very well the interest I have always taken in you from the very beginning, before any one suspected—— And Greta—Greta was always fond of you. You have not met much lately.’

‘No.’ Nothing would come but monosyllables.

‘I want to speak to you of Greta, Joyce. She is younger than you are, though you are young enough. She has never been crossed or disappointed in her life. I can’t think of that for her without a shudder. She would die. It would break her heart.’

‘What?’ said Joyce.

‘Joyce, I am going to take you into our confidence—to tell you our secret; you will never betray us. If things should happen so that what we wish never came to pass, you would not betray us?’

For the first time Joyce raised her eyes to Mrs. Bellendean’s face.

‘I know—I know—I never doubted for a moment. It will rest with you to decide. Joyce, you have got Greta’s life in your hands.’

‘I! in my hands.’ She looked up again into the face which was bending so closely with such an anxious look over hers. The lace of Mrs. Bellendean’s veil swept her forehead. The breath, which came so quick, breathed upon her cheek.

‘Joyce,’ said the lady again, ‘I know that it was not a little that you saw Norman. I know that he was here day after day. I know that he was—in love with you.’

Joyce detached herself suddenly from that close enlacement. She drew her arm away, shook off the draperies which half enveloped her. ‘I do not think you have any right—to say that to me,’ she said.

‘If I did not know it to be true—and you know it’s true. He came here day after day till he imagined—he was in love with you. And then he came to Bellendean. All this time he has been seeing Greta every day. He has made her believe that it is she whom he loves.’

The heart of Joyce gave one bound as if it would have burst out of her breast.

‘And she believes it,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘She is a tender little flower; she has never been crossed in her life. She believes that it is she whom he loves—and she loves him.’

There was a momentary silence, complete and terrible. A little gust of wind burst forth suddenly, and sent a small shower of leaves at their feet. They both started, as if these had been the footsteps of some intruder.

‘It has always been our desire:’—the visitor began again in a low voice, as if she were afraid of being overheard—‘everybody has wished and expected it. They suit each other in every way. She has been brought up for him. She has always thought of Norman all her life. Poor little Greta! she is so young—not strong either; her mother died quite young. And she doesn’t know what disappointment is. We are all to blame; we have petted her and made her think there was nothing but happiness before her. And she was always fond of you, Joyce. You, too’—Mrs. Bellendean added, after a pause—‘you were devoted to her.’

Joyce’s voice sounded harsh and hoarse. After the silence it came out quite suddenly, all the music and softness gone out of it: ‘What have I to do with all this? What has it to say to me?’

‘Joyce! do you think I would come to you without strong reason—betraying Greta?’

‘This has nothing to do with me,’ said Joyce again.

‘It has everything to do with you. So long as he has been at home all has been well. He has seen her every day. He has got to appreciate her, and to see that she is the right wife for him, his own class, his own kind, fit to take her place in the county, and help him to his right position. But he is coming up to town. He will be coming here,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, putting her hand again upon the girl’s arm. ‘Oh, Joyce, Joyce——’

‘I have nothing to do with it,’ said Joyce. ‘What—what do you think I can do?’

‘He—can be nothing to you,’ said the visitor tremulously. ‘You—you’re engaged already. You’ve given your word to a—good respectable man. Norman is only a stranger to you.’

Joyce did not reply. She drew herself away a little, but could not escape the pressure of that eager, persuasive hand.

‘I understand it all,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘He is not clever, but he has the manners of a man that knows the world, and he has been very much struck with you. And you have been—flattered. You have liked to have him come, even though he could never be anything to you.’

She had got Joyce’s arm again in her close clasp, and she felt the strong pulsations, the resistance, the movements of agitation, which, with all her power of self-control, the girl could not restrain.

‘Oh, think, Joyce, before it goes any further! Will you for simple vanity—or like one of the flirts that would have every one at their feet—will you break Greta’s heart, and make a desert of both their lives? All for what?—for a brag,—for a little pleasure to your pride,—for it can be nothing else, seeing you’re engaged to another man!’

The woman was cruel, remorseless,—for she felt Joyce’s arm vibrate in her clasp, which she could not loosen,—and thus commanded her secrets, and forced her to betray herself. The girl felt herself driven to bay.

‘I don’t understand—the things you say,’ she answered slowly at last. ‘You speak as if I had a power—a power—that I know nothing about. And oh, you’re cruel, cruel! to put all that in my mind. What—do you think I can do?’

‘Oh, Joyce, I knew you would never fail me. You have such a generous heart. Let him see, only let him see, that between him and you there can be nothing. He will accept it quickly enough. A man’s pride is soon up in arms. It has only been a passing fancy, and he will soon see that everything is against it; while everything is in favour of the other. If you will only be firm, and let him see—oh, Joyce, you who are so clever! dear Joyce!’

Joyce’s heart swelled almost to bursting. ‘You call me clever, and dear,’ she cried; ‘and you tell me I must save Greta’s heart from breaking; but what if I were to break mine,—and what if I were to hurt his,—and what if I were to make three miserable instead of one? You never think of that.’

‘No,’ cried Mrs. Bellendean, with a tone of indignation; ‘because I would never do you that wrong, Joyce,—you that are honour itself and the soul of truth,—to believe that you had even a thought of Norman, being engaged to another man.’

Joyce shrank as if she had received a blow. ‘Oh,’ she cried, in a broken voice, ‘you never ceased to say that I had done wrong—that it was not a fit thing for me—that I would change, that I would find it not possible to keep my word. You said so—not I.’

‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Mrs. Bellendean.

‘No,’ said Joyce, ‘don’t call me so. I am not dear any more. You know that there was a time when Joyce would do what you said, if it was small or great, if it was to give you a flower or to give you her heart; and then you changed, and that ceased to be; and we got all wrong because I was Colonel Hayward’s daughter. And now you come and put me back again in my old place, but far, far lower—the girl engaged to Andrew Halliday, whom you never could bear to hear of—and bid me do what may be, perhaps, for all you know, a heartbreak to me——’

‘No, Joyce—no, dear Joyce!’

‘For what?’ she said sadly—‘that you may call me that—you that raised me up to your arms, for being not myself but my father’s daughter—and now drop me down, down again, for fear I should come in your way. And why should I break my heart more than Greta? why should I be disappointed and not she? why should I give up my hope to save her—if it was so?’

‘But, Joyce, Joyce!—it is not so!’

Joyce made no reply.

The two figures moved on together slowly in silence, with the autumn leaves dropping over them, and the afternoon growing grey. Mrs. Bellendean felt upon her arm the strong beating of the girl’s heart, and the tremor that went through her; and her own heart smote her for what she was doing: but not for so little as that did she give up the work which was already more than half done. She followed all the movements of the girl’s mind with an extraordinary sympathy, even while she set herself to the task of overcoming them; for she was not the less fond of Joyce, and scarcely felt with her less, for this determination to subdue her. She was conscious of the commotion, the revolt, the sense of personal wrong, yet underneath all the strong fidelity and loyalty of the spirit over which she was exercising a tyrannical power. She let her own influence work in the silence, without saying a word, with an assurance of victory. The only thing that lessened the cruelty of the undertaking was that she did not really know whether Joyce’s heart was or was not engaged—even now she could not fathom that—but was able to persuade herself that the girl’s protest was one of indignation only, not of outraged love; and that the sacrifice, if she made it, would only be a sacrifice of her pleasure in a conquest and of her vanity, not of any real happiness or hope.

Mrs. Bellendean’s confidence was justified. After a minute or two, which had seemed hours, Joyce spoke again. ‘There is no need to tell you,’ she said, very low, so that the lady had to stoop to hear her—for Joyce’s head was bent, and her voice scarcely audible—‘there is no need to tell you—that as far as in me lies I will do what you say.’

‘My dearest, kind girl—my own Joyce!’

‘No,’ she said, with a shudder, drawing away her arm, ‘not that—never that. It is all changed and different, Mrs. Bellendean. I am not even Joyce, your schoolmistress, that was so proud to please you; but in another parish, with another name—as you think best for me.’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, with real pain, ‘don’t say that! I only think so because you yourself thought so; and with your father’s help and that of your friends, it need not be another parish, nor any parish. He is a most respectable, clever man. We will find him something far better, something more worthy of you.’

Joyce said nothing more. She turned round and led the way back to the house, keeping apart from her companion, walking with a new-born dignity and pride. There was not another word said as they returned to the verandah, from which Mrs. Hayward was looking out, looking for them. She had a shawl wrapped close round her, yet shivered a little in the early falling twilight. ‘You will both get your death of cold,’ she cried. ‘Come in, come in, and have some tea. Joyce, you really carry rashness too far: you must be chilled to death.’

‘I am afraid it is my fault,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘I forgot she had no wrap. It was such a pleasure to have a little talk with her’—the lady hesitated for a moment, then added with a tremble in her voice—‘as in the old days.’

As in the old days!—a pleasure to talk! ‘Yes, it is very cold,’ said Joyce, holding her hands to the fire. She stood up there, a dark shadow against the warm glow. A strange fascination kept her in the presence of the woman whom she had so loved, who had turned her love to such account. She stood there without moving, trembling with the cold, and something more than the cold. So long as these entreaties were not repeated here! so long as her step-mother was not taken into the lady’s confidence too. Nothing was further from Mrs. Bellendean’s mind. She took with pleasure the warm cup of tea, which, and the warm air of the fire-lighted room, brought back a genial heat all over her. She was a little tremulous, yet satisfied, feeling that she had done all for which she had come. And no harm had been done to Joyce—no harm. She wished the girl would not stand there, cold, reproaching her by the silent shiver with which she held her hands to the fire. But that was all. What is a little cold at her age?—no more than the little puncture of her vanity, the little salutary wound which was all, Mrs. Bellendean persuaded herself, that she had given.

‘It was foolish of me to forget that Joyce had no shawl. She has always been so hardy, I hope it will not matter. It is such a long time since I have seen her.’ It seemed impossible to change the subject, to get out of these banalités which meant so much worse than nothing, which conveyed so false a sense to Joyce’s keen ear. Mrs. Bellendean was embarrassed, but she was not conscious of being false. She added, ‘And it will be a long time before we meet again. I shall have to try and dismiss all my anxieties about my friends from my mind. Joyce is one whom I can always trust not to misunderstand me, not to forget anything,’ Mrs. Bellendean said.

Joyce heard everything, even the rustle of Mrs. Bellendean’s gown, the movement of her arm as she lifted her teacup to her lips, but could not move or say a word. She stood still, warming herself, while the two ladies carried out the usual little interchange of nothings. All they said entered into her brain, and remained in her memory like something of importance. But it was of no importance. Presently Mrs. Bellendean remembered that she must go by a certain train, and a cab had to be sent for. There was a little bustle of leave-taking. Joyce felt herself enclosed in a warm embrace, tenderly kissed, still more tenderly said farewell to. ‘I don’t say, Remember, for I am sure you will not forget me, Joyce,’ were Mrs. Bellendean’s last words, ‘nor what I have said.’ But to this also Joyce replied nothing.

‘I thought she was never going away,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘She must have had something very particular to say to you, Joyce.’

Joyce was walking across the hall towards the stair without any response. Mrs. Hayward stood still under the light and cried impatiently, ‘You don’t seem to have heard me. You look dazed. What had she to say to you, Joyce?’

Joyce turned half round, holding by the banister of the stair. She said, ‘Nothing—it was I myself——’ then paused. ‘She was telling me about Greta. Greta—has never been disappointed—not like—like other folk.’

‘Never disappointed!’ cried Mrs. Hayward. ‘Do they think she can get through life like that? And was this all Mrs. Bellendean came to say? I think she might have saved herself the trouble. I would let Miss Greta look after her own affairs.’

CHAPTER XL

Perhaps that is as real a claim upon human compassion as is the claim of the long-suffering and much-tried. Perhaps it is even a stronger claim. It is the claim of a child. Who would be the one to open the doors of human trouble to a child?—to give the first blow?—to begin the disenchantment which is the rule of life? People get used to disappointments as to the other burdens of human existence; but to snatch the first light away and replace it by darkness, who would do that willingly? to change the firmament and eclipse the sunshine, where all had been brightness and hope! There had been a sombre anger roused in Joyce’s heart by that appeal. She had said, Why should one be spared by the pain of another? Why should her heart break, that Greta’s should be saved from aching? But she no longer asked herself that question. She said to herself that it was just. There are some that must be saved while the others go bleeding. It is the rule of life—not justice, perhaps, but something that is above justice. Some must have flowers strewn upon their path, while others walk across the burning ploughshares. There was no reason in it, perhaps, no logic, but only truth: for some object unknown, which God had made a law of life. Greta had been the idol of her family all her life. Everybody had loved her, and cared for her. She had been sheltered from every wind that blew. Joyce was only a little older, but already had passed through so many experiences. She knew what it was to be disappointed, to have all her dreams cut short, and the current of her being changed. Another pang to her, who was accustomed to it, would not be half so much as the first pang of wounding misery to Greta. Poor little Greta! fed on the roses, and laid in the lilies of life, to give her all at once the apples of Gomorrah, to wrap her in the poisoned robe. Oh no! oh no! It was a just plea. Let the heart that is used to it go on breaking; let the child’s heart go free.

Joyce’s room was the one full of thoughts in the middle of that peaceful house. In all the others was the regular breathing of quiet sleepers—the rest of the undisturbed. She alone waked, with her little light burning, throwing a faint gleam across the invisible river-banks, on the dark stream floating unseen. Had there been any wayfarer belated, any boat floating down-stream, the gleam from that window would have given cheer in the middle of the darkness and night. But there was not much cheer in it. The room it lighted was full of thoughts and cares, and sheltered a human creature facing a sea of troubles, doing her best to keep afloat—sometimes almost submerged by these rising waves: and there is this additional pang in the troubles of a woman—of a girl like Joyce—that there is no motive to strive against them. The Hamlets of existence have a great life and great possibilities before them; but what profit is there to the world in one poor girl the more or less? If she is glad or sad—a victim or a conqueror—what matter? Her poor old people were separated from her. They would never know. Her father would not suffer, and no one else in the world would care. There was no mother, no sister, to wish her woes their own—not even a friend—not a friend! for Mrs. Bellendean and Greta were those who had been most dear. There would be some use in her suffering, but none in her happiness—none at all: rather evil to all concerned. A selfish good purchased by others’ disadvantage. No good—no good to any one in the world.

Joyce said to herself, in her profound discouragement, that after all Mrs. Bellendean’s prayer had made no change in anything. She had already made up her mind. Happiness was a very doubtful thing in any case, everybody said. It was not the end of existence, it was a chimera that flew from you the more you sought it. But your honour was your life. To be faithful and true, to be worthy of trust, to stand to your word whatever happened, that was the best thing in the world, the only thing worth living and dying for. Even if you could not keep your word to the letter, she said to herself with a shudder, at least to do nothing against it, not to contradict it before earth and heaven! No human creature but can do that. She would never, never turn her back upon her pledge. What was the need of invoking another motive, of adjuring her by Greta’s happiness, by Norman’s advantage? This was only to irritate, to import into the question a sense of injustice and wrong. It had been decided before there was a word of all that. Everything that Mrs. Bellendean had said had been an irritation to Joyce. To take it for granted that her happiness should yield to that of Greta,—that Norman’s interests should be considered before hers,—that she would be a burden, a disadvantage to Norman, while Greta would be nothing but good and happiness:—and finally to thrust her back to what they considered her own place, into the arms of the man whom they all had thought unworthy of Joyce in Joyce’s humblest days,—to thrust her back into his arms, to speak of promotion for him, of humble advancement, comfort which would make him a match for her!

Mrs. Bellendean’s appeal had only brought a succession of irritations, one more keen than the other. Joyce felt herself angered, wounded, driven to bay. She had not needed any inducement to do what she felt to be right; but now it required an effort to return to the state in which she had been when she had renewed her pledge and promised to keep to her word. She would stand by that resolution whatever might be said; but she was angry, offended, wounded, in her deepest heart. Her friends, her own friends, those who were most dear, had torn away all veils from the helpless and shrinking soul. She had been Joyce, their handmaiden—oh, eager to do their will; ready to spend her life for them, in proud yet perfect humility. And then they had lifted her up, called her their equal, pretended to treat her as such, because of the change—though there was no change in her. And yet again, last phase of all, they had flung her down from that fictitious position, and shown her that to them in truth she never had been more than a handmaiden, a being without rights or feelings, born only to yield to them. And these were her dearest friends, the friends of her whole life, whose affection had elevated her above herself! Joyce hid her face, that she might not see the thoughts that rent her heart. Her friends, her familiar friends, in whom she had trusted; her dear lady, who had been to her like the saints in heaven; her Greta, whom she had thought like an angel. They had betrayed her, and after this, what did it matter what man or woman could do?

The night was half over before the little light in the window disappeared from the darkling world through which the Thames flowed unseen. It disappeared, and all was black and invisible, the dark sky and the darker earth lost in the night and the blackness of the night and its silence. No such watch had ever been kept in that peaceful house before.

Next morning, when Joyce came downstairs, looking very pale and sleepless, with dark lines under her eyes, she found her stepmother standing in the hall, turning over a letter, with great surprise in her face. ‘It is inconceivable,’ she was saying.

‘It must be a mistake,’ said the Colonel; ‘depend upon it, it must be a mistake.’

‘To ask you and me and not Joyce,—I cannot understand it. Can Joyce have done anything to offend them? Why should I be asked to a ball but for Joyce? We are not dancing people, you and I. I might have gone for Joyce, and Joyce is left out. What can it mean? She must have done something to offend them.’

‘That reminds me, my dear.’ said the Colonel, ‘of something that happened yesterday. We met the St. Clairs, that huge regiment. I took off my hat—oh!’ said the Colonel suddenly, beholding Joyce with her finger up, standing behind Mrs. Hayward.

‘What do you mean by breaking off like this?’ What happened?’ cried his wife.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear,’ said the veteran, with confusion and dismay.

‘Nothing, Henry? you change your tone very quickly. You spoke as if it had some bearing upon this strange invitation, which wants explanation very much.’

‘No, my dear, no. I was mistaken; it couldn’t have anything to do with that. In short, it was nothing—nothing—only a piece of nonsense—one of my mistakes.’ He looked piteously at Joyce, standing behind, who had dropped her hand, as if abandoning the warning which she had given him. Joyce, in the extremity of her trouble, had fallen into that quiescence which comes with the failure of hope. She remembered the bargain that had been made between them at the instant, but that and everything else seemed of too little importance now to move her beyond a moment. Mrs. Hayward, however, turned round, following her husband’s look.

‘Oh, it is you, Joyce! You wish your father not to tell me.’

‘The fact is,’ said the Colonel, eager to speak, ‘we thought it might annoy you, Elizabeth.’

‘You are taking the best way to annoy me,’ she cried. ‘What is this you have been making up between you? Henry, I have a right at least to the truth from you.’

‘The truth!’ he said; ‘surely, my dear, the truth, if it was of any consequence. Joyce will tell you what happened. It was of no importance. Most likely Lady St. Clair is short-sighted. Many ladies are, you know. Most likely she didn’t make out who we were. That was your opinion, Joyce, wasn’t it?’ The Colonel felt that the best thing he could do, as Joyce did not help him out in safety, was to drag her into her share of the danger.

‘There might be many reasons. I did not think it mattered at all,’ said Joyce.

‘Reasons for what?’ said Mrs. Hayward, stamping her foot on the ground. ‘I think between you you will drive me mad.’

‘My dear! for nothing at all, Elizabeth. She scarcely returned my salutation. The girls all scuttled off across the park like so many rabbits. They are not unlike rabbits,’ the Colonel said, with an ingratiating smile. ‘But we agreed it was of no importance, and that it was useless to speak to you of it, as it might annoy you: we agreed——’

‘You agreed!’ Mrs. Hayward gave Joyce an angry look. ‘I wish in such matters, Henry, you would act from your own impulse, and never mind any one else.’ She swept in before the others into the dining-room, where it was the wont of the household that the Colonel every morning should read prayers. But it is to be feared that these prayers were not so composing to the soul of the mistress of the house as might have been wished. ‘We agreed’—these words kept ringing through the devotions of the family, as if some sprite of mischief had thrown them, a sort of demoniac squib or cracker through the quiet air. To have her husband consult with his daughter as to what should or should not be told to her was more than she could bear.

Mrs. Hayward went out in the afternoon alone to make a call at a much frequented house, where she hoped to discover what was the cause of Lady St. Clair’s rudeness and Mrs. Morton’s strange invitation. She met a great many acquaintances, as was natural in a small place, where all ‘the best people’ knew each other. Among them was Lady St. Clair, who, instead of avoiding her as she had done the Colonel, came forward with empressment, showing the most sympathetic civility. ‘How are you, dear Mrs. Hayward? I hope you are well. I do hope you are bearing—the beginning of the severe weather,’ that lady said, shaking her hand warmly, and looking with tender meaning in her eyes.

‘I don’t pay much attention to the weather, thank you,’ said Mrs. Hayward, ‘and we can’t complain of it so far. I am glad to see you so well. My husband thought he saw you yesterday, and that you were put out about something.’

‘Put out! I did see Colonel Hayward,’ said Lady St. Clair, with dignity; ‘but I am sure you will understand, dear Mrs. Hayward, that charming as he is, and much as we all like him, there are circumstances——’

‘Circumstances!’ cried Mrs. Hayward. ‘I don’t know indeed any circumstances which can possibly affect my husband. None, certainly, that don’t affect me.’

‘Oh, we all feel for you,’ said the leader of society, pressing Mrs. Hayward’s hand.

She had to pass on, fuming with indignation and astonishment, and next minute it was her fortune to meet the lady who had sent her the invitation of the morning: for Mrs. Hayward had by chance stumbled into a tea-party specially convoked for the purpose of talking over the last great piece of news. Though she had as yet no clue to what it was, she felt there was something in the air, and that both in the salutations and the silence of those about her, and the evidently startling effect of her unexpected appearance, there was a secret meaning which was at once perplexing and exasperating. The mere fact of a tea-party of which she knew nothing, in a house so familiar, was startling in the highest degree. She went up eagerly to Mrs. Morton, with a belligerent gaiety. ‘How kind of you,’ she said, ‘to ask me to your ball, the Colonel and me! It is very flattering that you should think me the young person—unless it was all a mistake, as I am obliged to believe.’

‘Oh, no mistake,’ said the lady, a little tremulous. ‘I hope you can come.’

‘I—come? But you must be laughing at me,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, with a little burst of gaiety. ‘Of course I go everywhere as Joyce’s chaperon: but to ask me, at my age, to a dance! My dear Mrs. Morton, you must think me an old fool.’

‘Oh, indeed, I should have liked to ask—indeed, if it hadn’t been for what was said,—but I hope, I do hope you will come. I am sure I did not mean any—any disrespect——’

‘Disrespect! oh, flattery I call it! to think a dance was just the thing for me. My step-daughter will be asked to the dinner-parties, I suppose, now that it is evident the balls are for a young creature like me.’

This lady, who could not conduct matters with so high a hand as Lady St. Clair, slid away behind backs, and concealed herself from those severe yet laughing looks. She had thought it would please Mrs. Hayward to be the one chosen, while the other was left out. Presently Mrs. Hayward fell into the hands of the lady of the house, who led her aside a little. ‘I am so glad,’ said this friendly person, ‘to see you here by yourself. It is so lucky. Of course I should have asked you to come if it had not been—many of us, you know, don’t think we would be doing right if we were to countenance——’

‘To countenance—what?’ Mrs. Hayward grew pale with astonishment and wrath.

‘But I assure you,’ cried this lady, ‘no one blames you. We quite understand how you have been led to do it to please him and for the sake of peace. We don’t think one bit the less of you, dear.’

‘The less—of me!’

‘Rather the more,’ said the mistress of the house, giving her bewildered guest a hasty kiss; and then she was hurried off to receive some new-comers. Mrs. Hayward stood and stared round her for a minute or two, neglecting several kind advances that were made to her, and then, without any leave-taking, she walked out of the room and out of the house. She was in a whirl of anger and astonishment. ‘Don’t blame—me! don’t think the less—of me!’ This was the most astounding deliverance that had ever come to Elizabeth’s ear. She was not in the habit of supposing that any one could think less than the highest of her. The assertion was the profoundest offence. And what could it mean? What was the cause?

Coming down the hill she was met by the Thompsons’ big resplendent carriage, which stopped as she drew near, and Lady Thompson leant out, holding forth both hands. ‘Oh, how is the poor dear?’ said Lady Thompson, beginning to cry: ‘I am sure you ’ave too much heart to forsake ’er whatever happens. Oh, how is the poor dear?’

‘I don’t know whom you mean, Lady Thompson. I never forsake anybody I am interested in—but I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’re a good woman. I’m sure you’re a real lady,’ Lady Thompson cried.

Mrs. Hayward walked away from the side of the carriage. Her head seemed turning round. What did it mean? She? Who was she? Utter perplexity took possession of her. She was so angry she could scarcely think: and Lady Thompson, notwithstanding that warm unnecessary expression of confidence, was, with her blurred eyes and eager tone, almost more incomprehensible than the rest. She walked quickly home to avoid any further insinuated confidence, to think it over, to make out what it meant. Who could tell her what it meant? She saw Mrs. Sitwell at a little distance, and concluded that she would be the most fit interpreter; but the parson’s wife saw her too, and quickened her steps, hurrying away. ‘It is her doing,’ Mrs. Hayward said to herself. At last she came to her own door. Some one was there before her, standing in the porch waiting till the door should be opened. He turned round at the sound of her step, and stood aside to let her pass, holding out at the same time his hand.

‘Captain Bellendean! it is a long time since we have seen you.’

‘Yes, a long time. I have been a fool. I mean I have been—busy. I hope you are all well, Mrs. Hayward. My dear old Colonel, and——’

‘He is quite well—but I fear you will not find him at home. This is not his hour for being at home.’ She stood between him and the open door, barring his passage, as it seemed. It was a way of working off the disturbance and trouble in her mind.

‘I hope you will let me in,’ he said humbly. ‘It is not a mere call. I could wait till he came back. I—I have something important to say to him: and—and—I hope you will let me come in and wait.’

‘That is a modest prayer. I cannot refuse it,’ she said, leading the way.

CHAPTER XLI

Of whom could she ask, and who could fill this place to her? Not her father. Joyce did not say to herself that the good Colonel was not a wise man, though he was so kind. Had he been the wisest of men, she would have shrunk from placing her heart unveiled in his hand. For to the father everything must be said. He is no oracle; he is a sovereign judge: that was not the help her case required. Her step-mother was more impossible still. If not to him, still less to her, could the girl, so cruelly wounded, so torn in divers directions, lay open her misery and difficulty. Not to any one could she lay them open. It was an oracle she wanted—something to which a half-revelation, an enigmatical confession would suffice—who would understand before anything was spoken, and give a deliverance which, perhaps, would be capable of various interpretations, which should not approach too closely to the facts. This was what she wanted without knowing what she wanted, with only a strong longing to have light—light such as was not in her own troubled self-questionings and thoughts.

Joyce had not many friends among the people who surrounded Mrs. Hayward with a flutter of society and social obligations. Indeed Mrs. Hayward herself had not many friends, and it is doubtful whether she would have found one to whose judgment she could resort for advice, as Joyce meant to do. But, the girl was perhaps more discriminating by a natural instinct as to who was to be trusted—perhaps in her far higher ideality more trustful. At all events, there were two very different persons to whom, after much tossing about on the dark sea of her distress, her thoughts turned. A little light might come from them; she might unfold herself to them partially, fancifully, leaving them to guess the word of the enigma, finding some comfort in what they said, even if it should fall wide of the mark. When Mrs. Hayward set out to pay her visits in the afternoon, Joyce stole forth almost furtively, though all the world might have seen her going upon her innocent search after wisdom; but the world, even as represented in a comparatively innocent suburban place, would have been at once startled and amused to note at what shrine it was that Joyce sought wisdom and the teaching of the oracle. She went not to any of the notable people, not to the clergy, or even to Mrs. Sitwell, who was supposed to be her friend, and who was known to be so clever. Joyce did not at all know that the parson’s wife had played her false, and she had seen more of that lady than of any one else in the place. But this was not because of any innate sympathy, but because of the pertinacity with which Mrs. Sitwell had seized upon Joyce as a useful auxiliary in the carrying out of her own ends—and the girl’s instinct rejected that artificial bond, and put no faith in the cleverness which she acknowledged, nor even in the goodness after its kind, which Joyce’s mind was large enough to acknowledge too. She went not to Mrs. Sitwell, nor to the parson, Mrs. Sitwell’s husband, but she threaded through many lanes and devious ways until she came to a door in a wall with a little bright brass knocker, and a grating, and great thorny branches of a bare rose-tree straggling over. Within was a small neat green garden, and a little house looking out upon it with shining windows. And within that, coming hastily to the door to meet her, was Miss Marsham, whom everybody knew to be as good as gold, but nobody imagined to be wise or instructive in any way. Joyce had come to find her oracle here.

The room was small and low, full of old china, old pictures, a little collection of relics, in the midst of which their gentle mistress, a mild spirit clad with only as much body as was strictly essential, and with an old gown constructed on the same principles, with just as much old and somewhat faded silk as was strictly necessary, appeared in perfect harmony, the soul of the little dainty place. She received Joyce with the tenderest welcome, in which there was something more than her usual kindness, and an anxiety which Joyce, full of her own thoughts, never perceived. Miss Marsham was ready and prepared to be confided in. She was prepared for the story of Joyce’s youth, for the revelation of her peasant parents, and how for their good she had sacrificed herself to Colonel Hayward’s fancy—ready to understand at half a word, to condone and to condole, to give praise for the noble motive, the self-sacrifice, and only gently—very gently—to touch upon the deception, which the severest critic could not consider to be Joyce’s fault. She kissed her and said, ‘My dear child, my poor Joyce,’ with a tender pity which forestalled every explanation. Did she then already know Joyce’s trouble and sore perplexity? but how was it possible that she should know?

‘You must not think I have come just to call,’ Joyce said.

‘No, dear? but why shouldn’t you come just to call? There will never, never be any circumstances in which I shall not be glad to have you come. My dear, circumstances don’t matter at all to me when I know any one as I know you!’

Joyce was a little bewildered by this effusion. She said, with a faint smile, ‘And yet you don’t know me well. I have been here just five months, and part of that away——’

‘My love, when you understand a person and love a person, as I do you, the time does not count by months.’

‘That is what I feel: and I have nobody—nobody to look to:—you will say my father, Miss Marsham. He is kind, kind—but oh, I have not been brought up with him nor used to open my heart,—and in some things he knows only one language and me another—and besides, if I were to tell him everything, he would say what I was to do, and I would have to obey. And Mrs. Hayward with him, they would settle it all,—and I am not used to it, and I cannot——’

‘No, Joyce, I understand—it is they who have led you into it—you can’t ask advice from them.’

‘They did not lead me into it,’ said Joyce. ‘It was just nature led me into it, and the perversity of things. Will you ever have noticed in your life how things go wrong? Nobody means any harm, and all you do is innocent; and even if you were very prudent and weighed everything beforehand, there would not be one step that you could say afterwards—This was wrong. And yet things all turn wrong, and your heart is broken, and nothing is to blame.’

‘Oh, Joyce, words cannot say how sorry I am! There was one thing perhaps, my dear, a little wrong—for to deceive in any way, even if it seems to do no harm and is with the best motive—the highest motive, to help those you love——’

Joyce sighed softly to herself, no longer asking how Miss Marsham could know, then shook her head. ‘I wish it had been for that motive; but there was no love, no love,—I,’ with a sudden blush, ‘did not know what love meant.’

Miss Marsham looked up with an exclamation of astonishment on her lips, but stopped with her mouth open, wondering. Joyce, whose eyes were cast down, did not see the impulse at all.

‘He had read a great deal—a great deal,’ said the girl. ‘I have never met any one—oh, not here nor anywhere—so well instructed. I thought then that there was nothing so grand as that. He had read a great deal more than I!—he was my—superior in that. It is true, I always knew all the time that I was not—what seemed—— But that might never have come to anything, and besides, I would have thought shame. For I thought that to know the poets, and all that has been written—that was what made a gentleman. Oh, I think shame to say such a thing,—it doesn’t—— how can I say it? It seems there must be something more.’

Miss Marsham remained silent in simple bewilderment. Joyce was now talking her own language, which nobody understood.

‘You may say it was deceiving to let him think I cared for him, but that was never what I intended. He said at first, it was enough for him to care for me. Oh, but that is nothing, nothing!’ cried Joyce suddenly, ‘that is only the beginning. Though I cannot keep my word to him, I need not break it,—that would have been easy. It is far, far worse what is to come.’

Miss Marsham took Joyce’s hands into hers. She was lost in amazement, and felt herself swimming, floating wildly, at sea, among things altogether strange and incomprehensible. She could not reply, but there is always sympathy in a pressure of the hands.

‘There was nothing wrong in meeting another man that was my father’s friend, that was my dear lady’s son,’ said Joyce, very low; ‘how was I to know that he and me would see each other different from—common folk? How was I to know that they had made it up for him to be the love of—of another girl? And now here I stand,’ she cried, rising up holding out her hands in piteous explanation, ‘pledged to one, and caring nothing for him, harming another that but for me would do what was meant for him, would do—would do well—with a lady bred like himself, born like himself, not one that had been abandoned like me. Tell me what you would do if you were me! The lady comes and asks me—she has no right. She says that I know trouble and sorrow, but Greta never a disappointment, never a thing that was not happy—and that she’ll break her heart; and nobody cares for mine. And she says I should keep my word, though she was the first to say he was not the one for me. And oh, what am I to do—what am I to do?’

Joyce sank down again upon the seat, and covered her face with her hands.

‘Oh, my poor Joyce—my dear Joyce!’ Miss Marsham cried.

Her head was not very clear at any time—it was apt to get confused with a very small matter. And Joyce’s story was confusion worse confounded to the anxious hearer. Even what she thought to be her knowledge of the circumstances deepened Miss Marsham’s bewilderment. She knew of the man to whom Joyce was engaged, from whom all the information came; but the after episode—half told, hurried over, which Joyce had no mind to explain fully, which she addressed to the oracle—was as a veil thrown over poor Miss Marsham’s understanding. She knew none of these people; the name of Greta brought no enlightenment to her, nor did she know who the lady was, nor who the man was who was mixed up inextricably in this strange imbroglio. She drew Joyce’s hands from her face, and laid that hidden face upon her own kind breast, kneeling down to caress and to soothe the poor girl in her trouble. But what to say or what to do Miss Marsham knew not. She did not understand the delicate case upon which her advice was required. And the oracle was mute. There was no response to give. ‘Oh, my poor child, my dear child, my poor dear love!’ Miss Marsham cried.

After a minute Joyce raised her head and looked at her friend in whom she trusted. She was very pale, her eyes were wet with tears, and looked large and liquid in caves of trouble,—her mouth quivered a little, like the mouth of a child when its passion-fit is over, and there was a pathetic little break in her voice. ‘Tell me,’ she said, with a look that searched the very soul, ‘tell me what you would do—if you were me.’

‘Oh, my pretty Joyce—my poor dear!’

‘Tell me,’ the girl said, ‘would you break her heart and wound him, all for yourself? Would you break your word and your pledge that you gave when you were poor, all for yourself? as if you had to be happy whatever happened—you! And what right had you to be happy, any more than Greta—or Greta more than you?’

The question, heaven knows, was vague enough—but the oracle was no longer mute. The pilgrim at the shrine had touched the true chord, and at last the priestess spoke. She had a moment of that ecstasy, of that semi-trance of mingled reluctance and eagerness, which makes those pause who have the response of the unseen to give forth to feeble men. Her gentle eyes lit up, then dimmed again; a brightness came over her faded face, giving it a momentary gleam of eternal youth, then disappeared. She trembled a little as she held the votary to her breast.

‘Oh Joyce! my darling Joyce! I don’t know that I quite understand you, dear. It is all so mixed up. Things that I have heard and that you tell me are so different. I don’t know what to think—but if it’s a question between you and another, which is to take the happiness and let the other suffer—oh, my child, my dear! do I need to say it to you—do I need to tell you? Joyce, your heart tells you—it’s like a, b, c, to a woman. You know——’

‘I thought,’ said Joyce, with that sob in her throat, following with intent eyes every little movement of her agitated instructor— ‘I thought that was what you would say.’

‘Yes,’ said the vestal, the priestess of this new Dodona, ‘it is not in our will to choose or to change. You can’t leave the heartbreak to another. You have to take it, though your spirit may cry out and refuse. I am not wise to give you advice, oh my darling! but I know this, and every woman knows it. Oh, it isn’t all that do it, I know, for it’s not an easy thing. But when you have strength from above, you can do it. And what is more, it is not in your nature to do anything else. So don’t ask me what I would do. You could not—do—any other thing: being you and nobody else: Joyce that I know.’

‘No,’ said Joyce, stumbling, rising to her feet, meeting with a solemn look the wet and weeping eyes of her oracle, ‘no, not any other thing.’

‘Not any other thing.’ Miss Marsham would have kept her in her arms, would have wooed her to further speech, would have wept over her and caressed her, and expended all the treasures of her heart in soothing the martyr whom she had thus consecrated. But of this Joyce was not capable. She had got her oracle, and it was clear. It was what she had wanted, not advice, but that divine and vague enigma which corresponded with the enigma of her confession. She resisted gently the softness of her friend’s clinging embrace. Her eyes were full of the awe of the victim who consents and accepts, and is restrained by every solemnity of her religion from any struggle—but who already feels herself to be outside this world of secondary consolations, face to face with the awful realities of the sacrifice. ‘Don’t keep me,’ she said faintly, putting away the thin kind hands that would have held her, ‘I must go—I must go.’

‘Oh Joyce,’ cried Miss Marsham, stricken with a secret terror, ‘I hope I have said right!’

‘I am sure you have said right; it is what I knew. I could not—do—any other thing. Let me go, Miss Marsham, let me go, for more I cannot bear.’

‘Oh, my dearest, I hope I have done right! Oh, stay a little and tell me more! Oh Joyce, God bless you, God bless you, my dear, if you must go!’

She followed the girl to the little door, so flowery and embowered in summer, now overshadowed by those straggling bare branches of the rose-tree, which were good for nothing but to make, had that been wanted, a sharp garland of thorns. Joyce scarcely turned to answer her blessings and good-byes, but went on straight from the door as if hurrying to the place of sacrifice. The thought was folly, Miss Marsham said to herself, and yet it went with a chill to her heart and would not be chased away.