The Marriage of Elinor

It was about the 10th of June when Mrs. Dennistoun left London. She had been in town for about five weeks, which looked like as many months, and it was with a mingled sense of relief, and of that feeling which is like death in the heart, the sense of nothing further to be done, of the end of opportunity, the conclusion of all power to help, which sometimes comes over an anxious mind, without in any respect diminishing the anxiety, giving it indeed a depth and pang beyond any other feeling that is known to the heart of man. What could she do more for her child? Nothing. It was her only policy to remain away, not to see, certainly not to remark anything that was happening, to wait if perhaps the moment might come when she would be of use, and to hope that perhaps that moment might never need to come, that by some wonderful turn of affairs all might yet go well. She went back to Windyhill with the promise of a visit "soon," Philip himself had said—in the pleasure of getting the house, which was her house, which she had paid for and provisioned, to himself for his own uses. Mrs. Dennistoun could not help hearing through her maid something of the festivities which were in prospect after she was gone, the dinners and gay receptions at which she would have been de trop. She did not wish to hear of them, but these are things that will make themselves known, and Mrs. Dennistoun had to face the fact that Elinor was more or less consenting to the certainty of her mother being de trop, which gave her a momentary pang. But after all, what did it matter? It was not her fault, poor child. I have known a loving daughter in whose mind there was a sentiment almost of relief amid her deep grief when her tender mother died. Could such a thing be possible? It was; because after then, however miserable she might be, there was no conflict over her, no rending of the strained heart both ways. A woman who has known life learns to understand and forgive a great many things; and Mrs. Dennistoun forgave her Elinor, her only child, for whose happiness she had lived, in that she was almost glad when her mother went away.

Such things, however, do not make a lonely little house in the country more cheerful, or tend to make it easier to content one's self with the Rector's family, and the good old, simple-minded, retired people, with their little complaints, yet general peacefulness, and incompetence to understand what tragedy was. They thought on the whole their neighbour at the Cottage ought to be very thankful that she had got her daughter well, or, if not very well, at least fashionably, married, with good connections and all that, which are always of use in the long run. It was better than marrying a poor curate, which was almost the only chance a girl had on Windyhill.

It was a little hard upon Mrs. Dennistoun, however, that she lost not only Elinor, but John, who had been so good about coming down when she was all alone at first. Of course, during the season, a young rising man, with engagements growing upon him every day, was very unlikely to have his Saturdays to Mondays free. So many people live out of town nowadays, or, at least, have a little house somewhere to which they go from Saturday to Monday, taking their friends with them. This was no doubt the reason why John never came; and yet the poor lady suspected another reason, and though she no longer laughed as she had done on that occasion when the Honourable Phil gave her her dismissal, a smile would come over her face sometimes when she reflected that with her two thousand pounds she had purchased the hostility of both Philip and John.

John Tatham was indeed exceedingly angry with her for the weakness with which she had yielded to Phil Compton's arguments, though indeed he knew nothing of Phil Compton's arguments, nor whether they had been exercised at all on the woman who was first of all Elinor's mother and ready to sacrifice everything to her comfort. When he found that this foolish step on her part had been followed by her retirement from London, he was greatly mystified and quite unable to understand. He met Elinor some time after at one of those assemblies to which "everybody" goes. It was, I think, the soirée at the Royal Academy—where amid the persistent crowd in the great room there was a whirling crowd, twisting in and out among the others, bound for heaven knows how many other places, and pausing here and there on tiptoe to greet an acquaintance, at the tail of which, carried along by its impetus, was Elinor. She was not looking either well or happy, but she was responding more or less to the impulse of her set, exchanging greetings and banal words with dozens of people, and sometimes turning a wistful and weary gaze towards the pictures on the walls, as if she would gladly escape from the mob of her companions to them, or anywhere. It was no impulse of taste or artistic feeling, however, it is to be feared, but solely the weariness of her mind. John watched her for some time before he approached her. Phil was not of the party, which was nothing extraordinary, for little serious as that assembly is, it was still of much too serious a kind for Phil; but Lady Mariamne was there, and other ladies with whom Elinor was in the habit of pursuing that gregarious hunt after pleasure which carries the train of votaries along at so breakneck a pace, and with so little time to enjoy the pleasure they are pursuing. When he saw indications that the stream was setting backwards to the entrance, again to separate and take its various ways to other entertainments, he broke into the throng and called Elinor's attention to himself. For a moment she smiled with genuine pleasure at the sight of him, but then changed her aspect almost imperceptibly. "Oh, John!" she said with that smile: but immediately looked towards Lady Mariamne, as if undecided what to do.

"You need not look—as if I would try to detain you, Elinor."

"Do you think I am afraid of your detaining me? I thought I should be sure to meet you to-night, and was on the outlook. How is it that we never see you now?"

He refused the natural retort that she had never asked to see him, and only said, with a smile, "I hear my aunt is gone."

"Do you mean to say that you only came for her? That is an unkind speech. Yes, she has gone. It was cruel to keep her in town for the best part of the year."

"But she intended to stay till July, Elinor."

"Did she? I think you are mistaken, John. She intended to watch over me—dear mamma, she thinks too much of me—but when she saw that I was quite well——"

"You don't look to me so extraordinarily well."

"Don't I? I must be a fraud then. Nobody could be stronger. I'm going to a multitude of places to-night. Wherever my Hebrew leader goes I go," said Elinor, with a laugh. "I have given myself up for to-night, and she is never satisfied with less than a dozen."

"Ten minutes to each."

"Oh, half an hour at least: and with having our carriage found for us at every place, and the risk of getting into a queue, and all the delays of coming and going, it cannot be much less than three-quarters of an hour. This is the third. I think three more will weary even the Jew."

"You are with Lady Mariamne then, Elinor?"

"Yes—oh, you need not make that face. She is as good as the rest, and pretends to nothing, at least. I have no carriage, you know, and Phil took fright at my dear old fly. He thought a hired brougham was not good when I was alone."

"That was quite true. Nevertheless, I should like above all things to keep you here a little longer to look at some of the pictures, and take you home in a hansom after."

She laughed. "Oh, so should I—fancy, I have not seen the pictures, not at all. We came in a mob to the private view; and then one day I was coming with mamma, but was stopped by something, and now—— Always people, people—nothing else. 'Did you see So-and-so? There's some one bowing to you, Nell. Be sure you speak a word to the Thises or the Thats'—while I don't care for one of them. But I fear the hansom would not do, John."

"It would have done very well in the old days. Your mother would not have been displeased."

"The old days are gone and will never return," she said, half sad, half smiling, shaking her head. "So far as I can see, nothing ever returns. You have your day, and if you do not make the best of that——"

She stopped, shaking her head again with a laugh, and there were various ways in which that speech might be interpreted. John for one knew a sense of it which he believed had never entered Elinor's head. He too might have had his day and let it slip. "So you are making the most of yours," he said. "I hear that you are very gay."

Elinor coloured high under his look. "I don't know who can have told you that. We have had a few little dinners since mamma left us, chiefly Phil's business friends. I would not have them while she was with us—that is to say, to be honest," cried Elinor, "while we were with her: which of course was the real state of the case. I myself don't like those people, John, but they would have been insupportable to mamma. It was for her sake——"

"I understand," he said.

"Oh, but you must not say 'I understand' with that air of knowing a great deal more than there is to understand," she said, with heat. "Mamma said it would do me much more good to go—home for a night now and then and sleep in the fresh air than for her to stay; and though I think she is a little insane on the subject of my health, still it was certainly better than that she should stay here, making herself wretched, her rest broken, and all that. You know we keep such late hours."

"I should not have thought she would have minded that."

"But what would you have thought of me if I did not mind it for her? There, John, do you see they are all going? Ah, the pictures! I wish I could have stayed with you and gone round the rooms. But it must not be to-night. Come and see me!" she said, turning round to him with a smile, and holding out her hand.

"I would gladly, Elinor—but should not I find myself in the way of your fine friends like——"

He had not the heart to finish the sentence when he met her eyes brimming full of tears.

"Not my fine friends, but my coarse friends," she said; "not friends at all, our worst enemies, I am sure."

"Nell!" cried Lady Mariamne, in her shrill voice.

"You will come and see me, John?"

"Yes," he said, "and in the meantime I will take you down-stairs, let your companions think as they please."

It proved when he did so that John had to escort both ladies to the carriage, which it was not very easy to find, no other cavalier being at hand for the moment; and that Lady Mariamne invited him to accompany them to their next stage. "You know the Durfords, of course. You are going there? What luck for us, Nell! Jump in, Mr. Tatham, we will take you on."

"Unfortunately Lady Durford has not taken the trouble to invite me," said John.

"What does that matter? Jump in, all the same, she'll be delighted to see you, and as for not asking you, when you are with me and Nell——"

But John turned a deaf ear to this siren's song.

He went to Curzon Street a little while after to call, as he had been invited to do, and went late to avoid the bustle of the tea-table, and the usual rabble of that no longer intimate but wildly gregarious house. And he was not without his reward. Perhaps a habit he had lately formed of passing by Curzon Street in the late afternoon, when he was on his way to his club, after work was over, had something to do with his choice of this hour. He found Elinor, as he had hoped, alone. She was sitting so close to the window that her white dress mingled with the white curtains, so that he did not at first perceive her, and so much abstracted in her own thoughts that she did not pay any attention to the servant's hurried murmur of his name at the door. When she felt rather than saw that there was some one in the room, Elinor jumped up with a shock of alarm that seemed unnecessary in her own drawing-room; then seeing who it was, was so much and so suddenly moved that she shed a few tears in some sudden revulsion of feeling as she said, "Oh, it is you, John!"

"Yes," he said, "but I am very sorry to see you so nervous."

"Oh, it's nothing. I was always nervous"—which indeed was the purest invention, for Elinor Dennistoun had not known what nerves meant. "I mean I was always startled by any sudden entrance—in this way," she cried, and very gravely asked him to be seated, with a curious assumption of dignity. Her demeanour altogether was incomprehensible to John.

"I hope," he said, "you were not displeased with me, Elinor, for going off the other night. I should have been too happy, you know, to go with you anywhere; but Lady Mariamne is more than I can stand."

"I was very glad you did not come," she said with a sigh; then smiling faintly, "But you were ungrateful, for Mariamne formed a most favourable opinion of you. She said, 'Why didn't you tell me, Nell, you had a cousin so presentable as that?'"

"I am deeply obliged, Elinor; but it seems that what was a compliment to me personally involved something the reverse for your other relations."

"It is one of their jokes," said Elinor, with a voice that faltered a little, "to represent my relations as—not in a complimentary way. I am supposed not to mind, and it's all a joke, or so they tell me; but it is not a joke I like," she said, with a flash from her eyes.

"All families have jokes of that description," said John; "but tell me, Nelly, are you really going down to the cottage, to your mother?"

Her eyes thanked him with a gleam of pleasure for the old familiar name, and then the light went out of them. "I don't know," she said, abruptly. "Phil was to come; if he will not, I think I will not either. But I will say nothing till I make sure."

"Of course your first duty is to him," said John; "but a day now or a day then interferes with nothing, and the country would be good for you, Elinor. Doesn't your husband see it? You are not looking like yourself."

"Not like myself? I might easily look better than myself. I wish I could. I am not so bigoted about myself."

"Your friends are, however," he said: "no one who cares for you wants to change you, even for another Elinor. Come, you are nervous altogether to-night, not like yourself, as I told you. You always so courageous and bright! This depressed state is not one of your moods. London is too much for you, my little Nelly."

"Your little Nellie has gone away somewhere John. I doubt if she'll ever come back. Yes, London is rather too much for me, I think. It's such a racket, as Phil says. But then he's used to it, you know. He was brought up to it, whereas I—I think I hate a racket, John—and they all like it so. They prefer never having a moment to themselves. I daresay one would end by being just the same. It keeps you from thinking, that is one very good thing."

"You used not to think so, Elinor."

"No," she said, "not at the Cottage among the flowers, where nothing ever happened from one year's end to another. I should die of it now in a week—at least if not I, those who belong to me. So on the whole perhaps London is the safest—unless Phil will go."

"I can only hope you will be able to persuade him," said John, rising to go away, "for whatever you may think, you are a country bird, and you want the fresh air."

"Are you going, John? Well, perhaps it is better. Good-by. Don't trouble your mind about me whether I go or stay."

"Do you mean I am not to come again, Elinor?"

"Oh, why should I mean that?" she said. "You are so hard upon me in your thoughts;" but she did not say that he was wrong, and John went out from the door saying to himself that he would not go again. He saw through the open door of the dining-room that the table was prepared sumptuously for a dinner-party. It was shining with silver and crystal, the silver Mrs. Dennistoun's old service, which she had brought up with her from Windyhill, and which as a matter of convenience she had left behind with her daughter. Would it ever, he wondered, see Windyhill again?

He went on to his club, and there some one began to amuse him with an account of Lady Durford's ball, to which Lady Mariamne had wished to take him. "Are not those Comptons relations of yours, Tatham?" he said.

"Connections," said John, "by marriage."

"I'm very glad that's all. They are a queer lot. Phil Compton you know—the dis-Honourable Phil, as he used to be called—but I hear he's turned over a new leaf——"

"What of him?" said John.

"Oh, nothing much: only that he was flirting desperately all the evening with a Mrs. Harris, an American widow. I believe he came with her—and his own wife there—much younger, much prettier, a beautiful young creature—looking on with astonishment. You could see her eyes growing bigger and bigger. If it had not been kind of amusing to a looker-on, it would be the most pitiful sight in the world."

"I advise you not to let yourself be amused by such trifles," said John Tatham, with a look of fire and flame.

As a matter of fact, Elinor did not go to the Cottage for the fresh air or anything else. She made one hurried run in the afternoon to bid her mother good-by, alone, which was not a visit, but the mere pretence of a visit, hurried and breathless, in which there was no time to talk of anything. She gave Mrs. Dennistoun an account of the usual lists of visits that her husband and she were to make in the autumn, which the mother, with the usual instinct of mothers, thought too much. "You will wear yourself to death, Elinor."

"Oh, no," she said, "it is not that sort of thing that wears one to death. I shall—enjoy it, I suppose, as other people do——"

"I don't know about enjoyment, Elinor, but I am sure it would be much better for you to come and stay here quietly with me."

"Oh, don't talk to me of any paradises, mamma. We are in the working-day world, and we must make out our life as we can."

"But you might let Philip go by himself and come and stay quietly here for a little, for the sake of your health, Elinor."

"Not for the world, not for the world," she cried. "I cannot leave Phil:" and then with a laugh that was full of a nervous thrill, "You are always thinking of my health, mamma, when my health is perfect: better, far better, than almost anybody's. The most of them have headaches and that sort of thing, and they stay in bed for a day or two constantly, but I never need anything of the kind."

"My darling, it would not be leaving Philip to take, say, a single week's rest."

"While he went off without me I should not know where," she said, sullenly; then gave her mother a guilty look and laughed again. "No, no, mamma; he would not like it. A man does not like his wife to be an incapable, to have to leave him and be nursed up by her mother. Besides, it is to the country we are going, you know, to Scotland, the finest air; better even, if that were possible, than Windyhill."

This was all that was said, and there was indeed time for little more; for as the visit was unexpected the Hudsons, by bad luck, appeared to take tea with Mrs. Dennistoun by way of cheering her in her loneliness, and were of course enchanted to see Elinor, and to hear, as Mrs. Hudson said, of all her doings in the great world. "We always look out for your name at all the parties. It gives one quite an interest in fashionable life," said the Rector's wife, nodding her head, "and Alice was eager to hear what the last month's novelties were in the fashions, and if Elinor had any nice new patterns, especially for under-things. But what should you want with new under-things, with such a trousseau as you had?" she added, regretfully. Elinor in fact was quite taken from her mother for that hour. Was it not, perhaps, better so? Her mother herself was half inclined to think that it was, though with an ache in her heart, and there could be no doubt that Elinor herself was thankful that it so happened. When there are many questions on one side that must be asked, and very little answer possible on the other, is it a good thing when the foolish outside world breaks in with its banal interest and prevents this dangerous interchange?

So short time did Elinor stay that she had kept the fly waiting which brought her from the station: and she took leave of her mother with a sort of determination, not allowing it even to be suggested that she should accompany her. "I like to bid you good-by here," she said, "at our own door, where you have always come all my life to see me off, even when I was only going to tea at the Rectory. Good-by, good-by, mother dear." She drove off waving her hand, and Mrs. Dennistoun sat out in the garden a long time till she saw the fly go round the turn of the road, the white line which came suddenly in sight from among the trees and as suddenly disappeared again round the side of the hill. Elinor waved her handkerchief from the window and her mother answered—and then she was gone like a dream, and the loneliness closed down more overwhelming than ever before.

Elinor was at Goodwood, her name in all the society papers, and even a description of one of her dresses, which delighted and made proud the whole population of Windyhill. The paper which contained it, and which, I believe, belonged originally to Miss Dale, passed from hand to hand through almost the entire community; the servants getting it at last, and handing it round among the humbler friends, who read it, half a dozen women together round a cottage door, wiping their hands upon their aprons before they would touch the paper, with many an exclamation and admiring outcry. And then her name appeared among the lists of smart people who were going to the North—now here, now there—in company with many other fine names. It gave the Windyhill people a great deal of amusement, and if Mrs. Dennistoun did not quite share this feeling it was a thing for which her friends blamed her gently. "For only think what a fine thing for Elinor to go everywhere among the best people, and see life like that!" "My dear friend," said the Rector, "you know we cannot hope to keep our children always with us. They must go out into the world while we old birds stay at home; and we must not—we really must not—grudge them their good times, as the Americans say." It was more wonderful than words could tell to Mrs. Dennistoun that it should be imagined she was grudging Elinor her "good time!"

The autumn went on, with those occasional public means of following her footsteps which, indeed, made even John Tatham—who was not in an ordinary way addicted to the Morning Post, being after his fashion a Liberal in politics and far from aristocratical in his sentiments generally—study that paper, and also other papers less worthy: and with, of course, many letters from Elinor, which gave more trustworthy accounts of her proceedings. These letters, however, were far less long, far less detailed, than they had once been; often written in a hurry, and short, containing notes of where she was going, and of a continual change of address, rather than of anything that could be called information about herself. John, I think, went only once to the Cottage during the interval which followed. He went abroad as usual in the Long Vacation, and then he had this on his mind—that he had half-surreptitiously obtained a new light upon the position of Elinor, which he had every desire to keep from her mother; for Mrs. Dennistoun, though she felt that her child was not happy, attributed that to any reason rather than a failure in her husband's love. Elinor's hot rejection of the very idea of leaving Phil, her dislike of any suggestion to that effect, even for a week, even for a day, seemed to her mother a proof that her husband, at all events, remained as dear to her as ever; and John would rather have cut his tongue out than betray any chance rumour he heard—and he heard many—to this effect. He was of opinion, indeed, that in London, and especially at a London club, not only is everything known that is to be known, but much is known that has never existed, and never will exist if not blown into being by those whose office it is to invent the grief to come; therefore he thought it wisest to keep away, lest by any chance something might drop from him which would awaken a new crowd of disquietudes in Mrs. Dennistoun's heart. Another incident, even more disquieting than gossip, had indeed occurred to John. It had happened to him to meet Lady Mariamne at a great omnium gatherum of a country house, where all sorts of people were invited, and where that lady claimed his acquaintance as one of the least alarming of the grave "set." She not only claimed his acquaintance, but set up a sort of friendship on the ground of his relationship to Elinor, and in an unoccupied moment after dinner one day poured a great many confidences into his ear.

"Isn't it such a pity," she said, "that Phil and she do not get on? Oh, they did at first, like a house on fire! And if she had only minded her ways they might still have been as thick—— But these little country girls, however they may disguise it at first, they all turn like that. The horridest little puritan! Phil does no more than a hundred men—than almost all men do: amuse himself with anything that throws itself in his way, don't you know. And sometimes, perhaps, he does go rather far. I think myself he sometimes goes a little too far—for good taste you know, and that sort of thing."

It was more amazing to hear Lady Mariamne talk of good taste than anything that had ever come in John Tatham's way before, but he was too horribly, desperately interested to see the fun.

"She will go following him about wherever he goes. She oughtn't to do that, don't you know. She should let him take his swing, and the chances are it will bring him back all right. I've told her so a dozen times, but she pays no attention to me. You're a great pal of hers. Why don't you give her a hint? Phil's not the sort of man to be kept in order like that. She ought to give him his head."

"I'm afraid," said John, "it's not a matter in which I can interfere."

"Well, some of her friends should, anyhow, and teach her a little sense. You're a cautious man, I see," said Lady Mariamne. "You think it's too delicate to advise a woman who thinks herself an injured wife. I didn't say to console her, mind you," she said with a shriek of a laugh.

It may be supposed that after this John was still more unwilling to go to the Cottage, to run the risk of betraying himself. He did write to Elinor, telling her that he had heard of her from her sister-in-law; but when he tried to take Lady Mariamne's advice and "give her a hint," John felt his lips sealed. How could he breathe a word even of such a suspicion to Elinor? How could he let her know that he thought such a thing possible?—or presume to advise her, to take her condition for granted? It was impossible. He ended by some aimless wish that he might meet her at the Cottage for Christmas; "you and Mr. Compton," he said—whom he did not wish to meet, the last person in the world: and of whom there was no question that he should go to the Cottage at Christmas or any other time. But what could John do or say? To suggest to her that he thought her an injured wife was beyond his power.

It was somewhere about Christmas—just before—in that dread moment for the lonely and those who are in sorrow and distress, when all the rest of the world is preparing for that family festival, or pretending to prepare, that John Tatham was told one morning in his chambers that a lady wanted to see him. He was occupied, as it happened, with a client for whom he had stayed in town longer than he had intended to stay, and he paid little more attention than to direct his clerk to ask the lady what her business was, or if she could wait. The client was long-winded, and lingered, but John's mind was not free enough nor his imagination lively enough to rouse much curiosity in him in respect to the lady who was waiting. It was only when she was ushered in by his clerk, as the other went away, and putting up her veil showed the pale and anxious countenance of Mrs. Dennistoun, that the shock as of sudden calamity reached him. "Aunt!" he cried, springing from his chair.

"Yes, John—I couldn't come anywhere but here—you will feel for me more than any one."

"Elinor?" he said.

Her lips were dry, she spoke with a little difficulty, but she nodded her head and held out to him a telegram which was in her hand. It was dated from a remote part of Scotland, far in the north. "Ill—come instantly," was all it said.

"And I cannot get away till night," cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a burst of subdued sobbing. "I can't start till night."

"Is this all? What was your last news?"

"Nothing, but that they had gone there—to somebody's shooting-box, which was lent them, I believe—at the end of the world. I wrote to beg her to come to me. She is—near a moment—of great anxiety. Oh, John, support me: let me not break down."

"You will not," he said; "you are wanted; you must keep all your wits about you. What were they doing there at this time of the year?"

"They have been visiting about—they were invited to Dunorban for Christmas, but she persuaded Philip, so she said, to take this little house. I think he was to join the party while she—I cannot tell you what was the arrangement. She has written very vaguely for some time. She ought to have been with me—I told her so—but she has always said she could not leave Philip."

Could not leave Philip! The mother, fortunately, had no idea why this determination was. "I went so far as to write to Philip," she said, "to ask him if she might not come to me, or, at least begging him to bring her to town, or somewhere where she could have proper attention. He answered me very briefly that he wished her to go, but she would not: as he had told me before I left town—that was all. It seemed to fret him—he must have known that it was not a fit place for her, in a stranger's house, and so far away. And to think I cannot even get away till late to-night!"

John had to comfort her as well as he could, to make her eat something, to see that she had all the comforts possible for her night journey. "You were always like her brother," the poor lady said, finding at last relief in tears. And then he went with her to the train, and found her a comfortable carriage, and placed her in it with all the solaces his mind could think of. A sleeping-carriage on the Scotch lines is not such a ghastly pretence of comfort as those on the Continent. The solaces John brought her—the quantities of newspapers, the picture papers and others, rugs and shawls innumerable—all that he possessed in the shape of wraps, besides those which she had with her. What more could a man do? If she had been young he would have bought her sugar-plums. All that they meant were the dumb anxieties of his own breast, and the vague longing to do something, anything that would be a help to her on her desolate way.

"You will send me a word, aunt, as soon as you get there?"

"Oh, at once, John."

"You will tell me how she is—say as much as you can—no three words, like that. I shall not leave town till I hear."

"Oh, John, why should this keep you from your family? I could telegraph there as easily as here."

He made a gesture almost of anger. "Do you think I am likely to put myself out of the way—not to be ready if you should want me?"

How should she want him?—a mother summoned to her daughter at such a moment—but she did not say so to trouble him more: for John had got to that maddening point of anxiety when nothing but doing something, or at least keeping ready to do something, flattering yourself that there must be something to do, affords any balm to the soul.

He saw her away by that night train, crowded with people going home—people noisy with gayety, escaping from their daily cares to the family meeting, the father's house, all the associations of pleasure and warmth and consolation—cold, but happy, in their third-class compartments—not wrapped up in every conceivable solace as she was, yet no one, perhaps, so heavy-hearted. He watched for the last glimpse of her face just as the train plunged into the darkness, and saw her smile and wave her hand to him; then he, too, plunged into the darkness like the train. He walked and walked through the solitary streets not knowing where he was going, unable to rest. Had he ever been, as people say, in love with Elinor? He could not tell—he had never betrayed it by word or look if he had. He had never taken any step to draw her near him, to persuade her to be his and not another's; on the contrary, he had avoided everything that could lead to that. Neither could he say, "She was as my sister," which his relationship might have warranted him in doing. It was neither the one nor the other—she was not his love nor his sister—she was simply Elinor; and perhaps she was dying; perhaps the news he would receive next day would be the worst that the heart can hear. He walked and walked through those dreary, semi-respectable streets of London, the quiet, the sordid, the dismal, mile after mile, and street after street, till half the night was over and he was tired out, and might have a hope of rest.

But for three whole days—days which he could not reckon, which seemed of the length of years—during which he remained closeted in his chambers, the whole world having, as it seemed, melted away around him, leaving him alone, he did not have a word. He did not go home, feeling that he must be on the spot, whatever happened. Finally, when he was almost mad, on the morning of the third day, he received the following telegram: "Saved—as by a miracle; doing well. Child—a boy."

"Child—a boy!" Good heavens! what did he want with that? it seemed an insult to him to tell him. What did he care for the child, if it was a boy or not?—the wretched, undesirable brat of such parentage, born to perpetuate a name which was dishonoured. Altogether the telegram, as so many telegrams, but lighted fresh fires of anxiety in his mind. "Saved—as by a miracle!" Then he had been right in the dreadful fancies that had gone through his mind. He had passed by Death in the dark; and was it now sure that the miracle would last, that the danger would have passed away?

It was not till nearly three weeks after this that John received another brief dispatch. "At home: come and see us." He had indeed got a short letter or two in the interval, saying almost nothing—a brief report of Elinor's health, and of the baby, against whom he had taken an unreasoning disgust and repugnance. "Little beast!" he said to himself, passing over that part of the bulletin: for the letters were scarcely more than bulletins, without a word about the circumstances which surrounded her. A shooting lodge in Ross-shire in the middle of the winter! What a place for a delicate woman! John was well enough aware that many elements of comfort were possible even in such a place; but he shut his eyes, as was natural, to anything that went against his own point of view.

And now this telegram from Windyhill—"At home: come and see us"—us. Was it a mistake of the telegraph people?—of course they must make mistakes. They had no doubt taken the me in Mrs. Dennistoun's angular writing for us—or was it possible—— John had no peace in his mind until he had so managed matters that he could go and see. There was no very pressing business in the middle of January, when people had hardly yet recovered the idleness of Christmas. He started one windy afternoon, when everything was grey, and arrived at Hurrymere station in the dim twilight, still ruddy with tints of sunset. He was in a very contradictory frame of mind, so that though his heart jumped to see Mrs. Dennistoun awaiting him on the platform, there mingled in his satisfaction in seeing her and hearing what she had to tell so much sooner, a perverse conviction of cold and discomfort in the long drive up in the pony carriage which he felt sure was before him. He was mistaken, however, on this point, for the first thing she said was, "I have secured the fly, John. Old Pearson will take your luggage. I have so much to tell you." There was an air of excitement in her face, but not that air of subdued and silent depression which comes with solitude. She was evidently full of the report she had to make; but yet the first thing she did when she was ensconced in the fly with John beside her was to cover her face with her hands, and subside into her corner in a silent passion of tears.

"For mercy's sake tell me what is the matter. What has happened? Is Elinor ill?"

He had almost asked is Elinor dead?

She uncovered her face, which had suddenly lighted up with a strange gleam of joy underneath the tears. "John, Elinor is here," she said.

"Here?"

"At home—safe. I have brought her back—and the child."

"Confound the child!" John said in his excitement. "Brought her back! What do you mean?"

"Oh, John, it is a long story. I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask your advice upon; but the main thing is that she is here. I have brought her away from him. She will go back no more."

"She has left her husband?" he said, with a momentary flicker of exultation in his dismay. But the dismay, to do him justice, was the strongest. He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Things," he said, "must have been very serious to justify that."

"They were more than serious—they had become impossible," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

And she told him her story, which was a long one. She had arrived to find Elinor alone in the little solitary lodge in the midst of the wilds, not without attention indeed or comfort, but alone, her husband absent. She had been very ill, and he had been at the neighbouring castle, where a great party was assembled, and where, the mother discovered at last, there was—the woman who had made Elinor's life a burden to her. "I don't know with what truth. I don't know whether there is what people call any harm in it. It is possible he is only amusing himself. I can't tell. But it has made Elinor miserable this whole autumn through, that and a multitude of other things. She would not let me send for him when I got there. It had gone so far as that. She said that the whole business disgusted him, that he had lost all interest in her, that to hear it was over might be a relief to him, but nothing more. Her heart has turned altogether against him, John, in every way. There have been a hundred things. You think I am almost wickedly glad to have her home. And so I am. I cannot deny it. To have her here even in her trouble makes all the difference to me. But I am not so careless as you think. I can look beyond to other things. I shrink as much as you do from such a collapse of her life. I don't want her to give up her duty, and now that there is the additional bond of the child——"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said John, "leave the child out of it! I want to hear nothing of the child!"

"That is one chief point, however, that we want your advice about, John. A man, I suppose, does not understand it; but her baby is everything to Elinor: and I suppose—unless he can really be proved as guilty as she thinks—he could take the child away."

John smiled to himself a little bitterly: this was why he was sent for in such a hurry, not for the sake of his society, or from any affection for him, but that he might tell them what steps to take to secure them in possession of the child. He said nothing for some time, nor did Mrs. Dennistoun, whose disappointment in the coldness of his response was considerable, and who waited in vain for him to speak. At length she said, almost tremblingly, "I am afraid you disapprove very much of the whole business, John."

"I hope it has not been done rashly," he said. "The husband's mere absence, though heartless as—as I should have expected of the fellow—would yet not be reason enough to satisfy any—court."

"Any court! You don't think she means to bring him before any court? She wants only to be left alone. We ask nothing from him, not a penny, not any money—surely, surely no revenge—only not to be molested. There shall not be a word said on our side, if he will but let her alone."

John shook his head. "It all depends upon the view the man takes of it," he said.

Now this was very cold comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun, who had by this time become very secure in her position, feeling herself entirely justified in all that she had done. "The man," she said, "the man is not the sufferer: and surely the woman has some claim to be heard."

"Every claim," said John. "That is not what I was thinking of. It is this: if the man has a leg to stand upon, he will show fight. If he hasn't—why that will make the whole difference, and probably Elinor's position will be quite safe. But you yourself say——"

"John, don't throw back upon me what I myself said. I said that perhaps things were not so bad as she believed. In my experience I have found that folly, and playing with everything that is right is more common than absolute wrong—and men like Philip Compton are made up of levity and disregard of everything that is serious."

"In that case," said John, "if you are right, he will not let her go."

"Oh, John! oh, John! don't make me wish that he may be a worse man than I think. He could not force her to go back to him, feeling as she does."

"Nobody can force a woman to do that; but he could perhaps make her position untenable; he would, perhaps, take away the child."

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, in alarm, "if you tell her that, she will fly off with him to the end of the world. She will die before she will part with the child."

"I suppose that's how women are made," said John, not yet cured of his personal offence.

"Yes," she said, "that's how women are made."

"I beg your pardon," he said, coming to himself; "but you know, aunt, a man may be pardoned for not understanding that supreme fascination of the baby who cares no more for one than another, poor little animal, so long as it gets its food and is warm enough. We must await and see what the man will do."

"Is that the best?—is there nothing we can do to defend ourselves in the meantime—to make any sort of barricade against him?"

"We must wait and see what he is going to do," said John; and they went over and over the question, again and again, as they climbed the hills. It grew quite dark as they drove along, and when they came out upon the open part of the road, from which the Cottage was visible, they both looked out across the combe to the lights in the windows with an involuntary movement. The Cottage was transformed; instead of the one lonely lighted window which had indicated to John in former visits where Mrs. Dennistoun sat alone, there was now a twinkle from various points, a glow of firelight, a sensation of warmth, and company. Mrs. Dennistoun looked out upon it and her face shone. It was not a happy thing that Elinor should have made shipwreck of her life, should have left her husband and sought refuge in her mother's house. But how could it be otherwise than happy that Elinor was there—Elinor and the other little creature who was something more than Elinor, herself and yet another? As for John, he looked at it too, with an interest which stopped all arguments on the cause of it. She was there—wrong, perhaps, impatient; too quick to fly as she had been too quick to go—but still Elinor all the same, whether she was right or wrong.

The cab arrived soberly at the door, where Pearson with the pony carriage, coming by the shorter way with the luggage, had just arrived also. Mrs. Dennistoun said, hurriedly, "You will find Elinor in the drawing-room, John," and herself went hastily through the house and up the stairs. She was going to the baby! John guessed this with a smile of astonishment and half contempt. How strange it was! There could not be a more sad position than that in which, in their rashness, these two women had placed themselves; and yet the mother, a woman of experience, who ought to have known better, got out of the carriage like a girl, without waiting to be helped or attended to, and went up-stairs like the wind, forgetting everything else for that child—that child, the inheritor of Phil Compton's name and very likely of his qualities—fated from his birth (most likely) to bring trouble to everybody connected with him! And yet Elinor was of less interest to her mother. What strange caprices of nature! what extraordinary freaks of womankind!

The Cottage down-stairs was warm and bright with firelight and lamplight, and in the great chair by the fire was reclining, lying back with her book laid on her lap and her face full of eager attention to the sounds outside, a pale young woman, surrounded by cushions and warm wraps and everything an invalid could require, who raised to him eyes more large and shining than he had ever seen before, suffused with a dew of pain and pleasure and eager welcome. Elinor, was it Elinor? He had never seen her in any way like an invalid before—never knew her to be ill, or weak, or unable to walk out to the door and meet him or anyone she cared for. The sight of her ailing, weak, with those large glistening eyes, enlarged by feebleness, went to his very heart. Fortunately he did not in any way connect this enfeebled state with the phenomenon up-stairs, which was best for all parties. He hurried up to her, taking her thin hands into his own.

"Elinor! my poor little Nelly—can this be you!"

The water that was in her eyes rolled over in two great tears; a brief convulsion went over her face. "Yes, John," she said, almost in a whisper. "Strange as it may seem, this is all that is left of me."

He sat down beside her and for a moment neither of them spoke. Pity, tenderness, wrath, surged up together in John's breast; pity, tender compassion, most strong of all. Poor little thing; this was how she had come back to her home; her heart broken, her wings broken, as it were; all her soaring and swiftness and energy gone. He could scarcely look upon her for the pity that overflowed his heart. But underneath lay wrath, not only against the man who had brought her to such a pass, but against herself too.

"John," she said, after a while, "do you remember saying to me that I was not one to bear, to put up with things, to take the consequences if I tried a dangerous experiment and failed?"

"Did I ever say anything so silly and so cruel?"

"Oh, no, no; it was neither silly nor unkind, but quite, quite true. I have thought of it so often. I used to think of it to stir up my pride, to remind myself that I ought to try to be better than my nature, not to allow you to be a true prophet. But it was so, and I couldn't change it. You can see you were right, John, for I have not been like a strong woman, able to endure; I have only been able to run away."

"My poor little Nelly!"

"Don't pity me," she said, the tears running over again. "I am too well off; I am too well taken care of. A prodigal should not be made so much of as I am."

"Don't call yourself a prodigal, Nelly! Perhaps things may not be as bad as they appear. At least, it is but the first fall—the greatest athlete gets many before he can stand against the world."

"I'll never be an athlete, John. Besides, I'm a woman, you know, and a fall of any kind is fatal to a woman, especially anything of this kind. No, I know very well it's all over; I shall never hold up my head again. But that's not the question—the question is, to be safe and as free as can be. Mamma takes me in, you know, just as if nothing had happened. She is quite willing to take the burden of me on her shoulders—and of baby. She has told you that there are two of me, now, John—my baby, as well as myself."

John could only nod an assent; he could not speak.

"It's a wonderful thing to come out of a wreck with a treasure in one's arms; everything going to pieces behind one; the rafters coming down, the walls falling in and yet one's treasure in one's arms. Oh, I had not the heart or the strength to come out of the tumbling house. My mother did it all, dragged me out, wrapped me up in love and kindness, carried me away. I don't want you to think I was good for anything. I should just have lain there and died. One thing, I did not mind dying at all—I had quite made up my mind. That would not have been so disgraceful as running away."

"There is nothing that is disgraceful," said John, "for heaven's sake don't say so, Nelly. It is unfortunate—beyond words—but that is all. Nobody can think that you are in any way disgraced. And if you are allowed just to stay quietly here in your natural home, I suppose you desire nothing more."

"What should I desire more, John? You don't suppose I should like to go and live in the world again, and go into society and all that? I have had about enough of society. Oh, I want nothing but to be quiet and unmolested, and bring up my baby. They could not take my baby from me, John?"

"I do not think so," he said, with a grave face.

"You do not—think so? Then you are not sure? My mother says dreadful things, but I cannot believe them. They would never take an infant from its mother to give it to—to give it to—a man—who could do nothing, nothing for it. What could a man do with a young child? a man always on the move, who has no settled home, who has no idea what an infant wants? John, I know law is inhuman, but surely, surely not so inhuman as that."

"My dear Nelly," he said, "the law, you know, which, as you say, is often inhuman, recognizes the child as belonging to the father. He is responsible for it. For instance, they never could come upon you for its maintenance or education, or anything of that kind, until it had been proved that the father——"

"May I ask," said Elinor, with uplifted head, "of what or of whom you are talking when you say it?"

It was all John could do not to burst into a peal of aggrieved and indignant laughter. He who had been brought from town, from his own comforts such as they were, to be consulted about this brat, this child which belonged to the dis-Honourable Phil; and Elinor, Elinor, of all people in the world, threw up her head and confronted him with disdain because he called the brat it, and not him or her, whichever it was. John recollected well enough that sentence at which he had been so indignant in the telegram—"child, a boy "—but he affected to himself not to know what it was for the indulgence of a little contumely: and the reward he had got was contumely upon his own head. But when he looked at Elinor's pale face, the eyes so much larger than they ought to be, with tears welling out unawares, dried up for a moment by indignation or quick hasty temper, the temper which made her sweeter words all the more sweet he had always thought—then rising again unawares under the heavy lids, the lips so ready to quiver, the pathetic lines about the mouth: when he looked at all these John's heart smote him. He would have called the child anything, if there had been a sex superior to him the baby should have it. And what was there that man could do that he would not do for the deliverance of the mother and the child?

It cannot be said that this evening at the Cottage was an agreeable one. To think that Elinor should be there, and yet that there should be so little pleasure in the fact that the old party, which had once been so happy together, should be together again, was bewildering. And yet there was one member of it who was happy with a shamefaced unacknowledged joy. To think that that which made her child miserable should make her happy was a dreadful thought to Mrs. Dennistoun, and yet how could she help it? Elinor was there, and the baby was there, the new unthought-of creature which had brought with it a new anxiety, a rush of new thoughts and wishes. Already everything else in the mind of Elinor's mother began to yield to the desire to retain these two—the new mother and the child. But she did not avow this desire. She was mostly silent, taking little part in the discussion, which was indeed a very curious discussion, since Elinor, debating the question how she was to abandon her husband and defend herself against him, never mentioned his name.

She did not come in to dinner, which Mrs. Dennistoun and John Tatham ate solemnly alone, saying but little, trying to talk upon indifferent topics, with that very wretched result which is usual when people at one of the great crises of life have to make conversation for each other while servants are about and the restraints of common life are around them. Whether it is the terrible flood of grief which has to be barred and kept within bounds so that the functions of life may not altogether be swept away, or the sharper but warmer pang of anxiety, that which cuts like a serpent's tooth, yet is not altogether beyond the reach of hope, what poor pretences these are at interest in ordinary subjects; what miserable gropings after something that can furnish a thread of conversation just enough to keep the intercourse of life going! These two were not more successful than others in this dismal pursuit. Mrs. Dennistoun found a moment when the meal was over before she left John, poor pretence! to his wine. "Remember that she will not mention his name; nothing must be said about him," she said. "How can we discuss him and what he is likely to do without speaking of him?" said John, with a little scorn. "I don't know," replied the poor lady. "But you will find that she will not have his name mentioned. You must try and humour her. Poor Elinor! For I know that you are sorry for her, John."

Sorry for her! He sat over his glass of mild claret in the little dining-room that had once been so bright; even now it was the cosiest little room, the curtains all drawn, shutting out the cold wind, which in January searches out every crevice, the firelight blazing fitfully, bringing out all the pretty warm decorations, the gleam of silver on the side-board, the pictures on the wall, the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was nothing wanted under that roof to make it the very home of domestic warmth and comfort. And yet—sorry for Elinor! That was not the word. His heart was sore for her, torn away from all her moorings, drifting back a wreck to the little youthful home, where all had been so tranquil and so sweet. John had nothing in him of that petty sentiment which derives satisfaction from a calamity it has foreseen, nor had he even an old lover's thrill of almost pleasure in the downfall of the clay idol that has been preferred to his gold. His pain for Elinor, the constriction in his heart at thought of her position, were unmixed with any baser feeling. Sorry for her! He would have given all he possessed to restore her happiness—not in his way, but in the way she had chosen, even, last abnegation of all, to make the man worthy of her who had never been worthy. Even his own indignation and wrath against that man were subservient in John's honest breast to the desire of somehow finding that it might be possible to whitewash him, nay to reform him, to make him as near as possible something which she could tolerate for life. I doubt if a woman, notwithstanding the much more ready power of sacrifice which women possess, could have so fully desired this renewal and amendment as John did. It was scarcely too much to say that he hated Phil Compton: yet he would have given the half of his substance at this moment to make Phil Compton a good man; nay, even to make him a passable man—to rehabilitate him in his wife's eyes.

John stayed a long time over "his wine," the mild glass of claret (or perhaps it was Burgundy) which was all that was offered him—partly to think the matter over, but also partly perhaps because he heard certain faint gurglings, and the passage of certain steps, active and full of energy, past the door of the room within which he sat, going now to the drawing-room, now up-stairs, from which he divined that the new inmate of the house was at present in possession of the drawing-room, and of all attention there. He smiled at himself for his hostility to the child, which, of course, was entirely innocent of all blame. Here the man was inferior to the woman in comprehension and sympathy; for he not only could not understand how they could possibly obtain solace in their trouble from this unconscious little creature, but he was angry and scornful of them for doing so. Phil Compton's brat, no doubt the germ of a thousand troubles to come, but besides that a nothing, a being without love or thought, or even consciousness, a mere little animal feeding and sleeping—and yet the idol and object of all the thoughts of two intelligent women, capable of so much better things! This irritated John and disgusted him in the midst of all his anxious thoughts, and his profound compassion and deliberations how best to help: and it was not till the passage of certain feeble sounds outside his door, which proceeded audibly up-stairs, little bleatings in which, if they had come from a lamb, or even a puppy, John would have been interested, assured him that the small enemy had disappeared—that he finally rose and proceeded to "join the ladies," as if he had been holding a little private debauch all by himself.

There was a little fragrance and air of the visitor still in the room, a little disturbance of the usual arrangements, a surreptitious, quite unjustifiable look as of pleasure in Elinor's eyes, which were less expanded, and if as liquid as ever, more softly bright than before. Something white actually lay on the sofa, a small garment which Mrs. Dennistoun whisked away. They were conscious of John's critical eye upon them, and received him with a warmth of conciliatory welcome which betrayed that consciousness. Mrs. Dennistoun drew a chair for him to the other side of the fire. She took her own place in the middle at the table with a large piece of white knitting, to which she gave her whole attention, and thus the deliberation began.

"Elinor wants to know, John, what you think we ought to do—to make quite sure—that there will be no risk, about the baby."

"I must know more of the details of the question before I can give any advice," said John.

"John," said Elinor, raising herself in her chair, "here are all the details that are necessary. I have come away. I have come home, finding that life was impossible there. That is the whole matter. It may be, probably it is, my own fault. It is simply that life became impossible. You know you said that I was not one to endure, to put up with things. I scoffed at you then, for I did not expect to have anything to put up with; but you were quite right, and life had become impossible—that is all there is any need to say."

"To me, yes," said John, "but not enough, Elinor, if it ever has to come within the reach of the law."

"But why should it come within the reach of the law? You, John, you are a lawyer; you know the rights of everything. I thought you might have arranged it all. Couldn't you try to make a kind of a bargain? What bargain? Oh, am I a lawyer, do I know? But you, John, who have it all at your fingers' ends, who know what can be done and what can't be done, and the rights that one has and that another has! Dear John! if you were to try, don't you think that you could settle it all, simply as between people who don't want any exposure, any struggle, but only to be quiet and to be let alone?"

"Elinor, I don't know what I could do with so little information as I have. To know that you found your life impossible is enough for me. But you know most people are right in their own eyes. If we have some one opposed to us who thinks, for instance, that the fault was yours?"

"Well," she cried, eagerly, "I am willing to accept that: say that the fault was mine! You could confirm it, that it was likely to be mine. You could tell them what an impatient person I was, and that you said I was not one to try an experiment, for I never, never could put up with anything. John, you could be a witness as well as an advocate. You could prove that you always expected—and that I am quite, quite willing to allow that it was I——"

"Elinor, if I could only make you understand what I mean! I am told that I am not to mention any names?"

"No, no names, no names! What is the good? We both know very well what we mean."

"But I don't know very well what you mean. Don't you see that if it is your fault—if the other party is innocent—there can be no reason in the world why he should consent to renounce his rights. It is not a mere matter of feeling. There is right in it one way or another—either on your side or else on the other side; and if it is on the other side, why should a man give up what belongs to him, why should he renounce what is—most dear to him?"

"Oh, John, John, John!" she made this appeal and outcry, clasping her hands together with a mixture of supplication and impatience. Then turning to her mother—"Oh, tell him," she cried, "tell him!"—always clasping those impatient yet beseeching hands.

"You see, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "Elinor knows that the right is on her side: but she will consent to say nothing about it to any one—to give herself out as the offender rather—that is to say, as an ill-disciplined person that cannot put up with anything, as you seem to have said."

John laughed with vexation, yet a kind of amusement. "I never said it nor thought it: still if it pleases her to think so—— The wiser thing if this separation is final——"

"If it is final!" Elinor cried. She raised herself up again in her chair, and contemplated the unfortunate John with a sort of tragic superiority. "Do you think that of me," she said, "that I would take such a step as this and that it should not be final? Is dying final? Could one do such a thing as this and change?"

"Such things have been done," said John. "Elinor, forgive me. I must say it—it is all your life that is in the balance, and another life. There is this infant to be struggled over, perhaps rent in two by those who should have united to take care of him—and it's a boy, I hear. There's his name and his after-life to think of—a child without a father, perhaps the heir of a family to which he will not belong. Elinor—tell her, aunt, you understand: is it my wish to hand her back to—to—— No, I'll speak no names. But you know I disliked it always, opposed it always. It is not out of any favour to—to the other side. But she ought to take all these things into account. Her own position, and the position in the future of the child——"

Elinor had crushed her fan with her hands, and Mrs. Dennistoun let the knitting with which she had gone on in spite of all fall at last in her lap. There was a little pause. John Tatham's voice itself had began to falter, or rather swelled in sound as when a stream swells in flood.

"I do not go into the question about women and what they ought to put up with," said John, resuming. "There's many things that law can do nothing for—and nature in many ways makes it harder for women, I acknowledge. We cannot change that. Think what her position will be—neither a wife nor with the freedom of a widow; and the boy, bearing the name of one he must almost be taught to think badly of—for one of them must be in the wrong——"

"He shall never, never hear that name; he shall know nothing, he shall be free of every bond; his mind shall never be cramped or twisted or troubled by any—man—if I live."

This Elinor said, lifting her pale face from her hands with eyes that flashed and shone with a blaze of excitement and weakness.

"There already," said John, "is a tremendous condition—if you live! Who can make sure that they will live? We must all die—some sooner, some later—and you wearing yourself out with excitement, that never were strong; you exposing your heart, the weakest organ——"

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, grasping him by the arm, "you are talking nonsense, you don't know what you are saying. My darling! she was never weak nor had a feeble heart, nor—anything! She will live to bring up his children, her baby's children, upon her knees."

"And what would it matter?" said Elinor—looking at him with clear eyes, from which the tears had disappeared in the shock of this unlooked-for suggestion—"suppose I have no more strength than that, suppose I were to die? you shall be his guardian, John, bring him up a good man; and his Heavenly Father will take care of him. I am not afraid."

A man had better not deal with such subjects between two women. What with Mrs. Dennistoun's indignant protest and Elinor's lofty submission, John was at his wits' end. "I did not mean to carry things to such a bitter end as that," he said. "You want to force me into a corner and make me say things I never meant. The question is serious enough without that."

There was again a little pause, and then Elinor, with one of those changes which are so perplexing to sober-minded people, suddenly turned to him, holding out both her hands.

"John—we'll leave that in God's hands whatever is to happen to me. But in the meantime, while I am living—and perhaps my life depends upon being quiet and having a little peace and rest. It is not that I care very much for my life," said Elinor, with that clear, open-eyed look, like the sky after rain—"I am shipwrecked, John, as you say—but my mother does, and it's of—some—consequence—to baby; and if it depends upon whether I am left alone, you are too good a friend to leave me in the lurch. And you said—one night—whatever happened I was to send for you."

John sprang up from his seat, dropping the hands which he had taken into his own. She was like Queen Katherine, "about to weep," and her breast strained with the sobbing effort to keep it down.

"For God's sake," he cried, "don't play upon our hearts like this! I will do anything—everything—whatever you choose to tell me. Aunt, don't let her cry, don't let her go on like that. Why, good heavens!" he cried, bursting himself into a kind of big sob, "won't it be bad for that little brat of a baby or something if she keeps going on in this way?"

Thus John Tatham surrendered at discretion. What could he do more? A man cannot be played upon like an instrument without giving out sounds of which he will, perhaps, be ashamed. And this woman appealing to him—this girl—looking like the little Elinor he remembered, younger and softer in her weakness and trouble than she had been in her beauty and pride—was the creature after all, though she would never know it, whom he loved best in the world. He had wanted to save her, in the one worldly way of saving her, from open shipwreck, for her own sake, against every prejudice and prepossession of his mind. But if she would not have that, why it was his business to save her as she wished, to do for her whatever she wanted; to act as her agent, her champion, whatever she pleased.

He was sent away presently, and accepted his dismissal with thankfulness, to smoke his cigar. This is one amusing thing in a feminine household. A man is supposed to want all manner of little indulgences and not to be able to do without them. He is carefully left alone over "his wine"—the aforesaid glass of claret; and ways and means are provided for him to smoke his cigar, whether he wishes it or not. He had often laughed at these regulations of his careful relatives, but he was rather glad of them to-night. "I am going to get Elinor to bed," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "It has, perhaps, been a little too much for her: but when you have finished your cigar, John, if you will come back to the drawing-room for a few minutes you will find me here."

John did not smoke any cigar. It is all very well to be soothed and consoled by tobacco in your own room, at your own ease: but when you are put into a lady's dining-room, where everything is nice, and where the curtains will probably smell of smoke next morning: and when your mind is exercised beyond even the power of the body to keep still, that is not a time to enjoy such calm and composing delights. But he walked about the room in which he was shut up like a wild beast in his cage, sometimes with long strides from wall to wall, sometimes going round, with that abstract trick of his, staring at the pictures, as if he did not know every picture in the place by heart. He forgot that he was to go back to the drawing-room again after Elinor had been taken to bed, and it was only after having waited for him a long time that Mrs. Dennistoun came, almost timidly, knocking at her own dining-room door, afraid to disturb her visitor in the evening rites which she believed in so devoutly. She did go in, however, and they stood together over the fire for a few minutes, he staring down upon the glow at his feet, she contemplating fitfully, unconsciously, her own pale face and his in the dim mirror on the mantelpiece. They talked in low tones about Elinor and her health, and her determination which nothing would change.