The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow

CHAPTER V.

‘ARE WE QUITE ALONE?’

Mrs. Blencarrow had just been saying good-bye to a number of her guests, and, what was of more importance, her boys had just left her upon a visit to one of their uncles who lived in a Midland county, and who, if the weather was open (and there had been a great thaw that morning), could give them better entertainment than could be provided in a feminine house. There was a look in her face as if she were almost glad to see them drive away. She was at the hall-door to see them go, and stood kissing her hand to them as they drove off shouting their good-byes, Reginald with the reins, and Bertie with his curly head uncovered, waving his cap to his mother. She watched them till they disappeared among the trees, with a smile of pride and pleasure on her face, and then there came a dead dulness over it, like a landscape on which the sun had suddenly gone down.

‘Emmy, you should not stand here in the cold,’ she said; ‘run upstairs, my dear, to a warm room.’

‘And what are you going to do, mamma?’

‘I have some business to look after,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said. She went along the stone passage and down the stairs where Kitty and Walter had gone on the night of the ball. She had a weary look, and her footsteps, usually so elastic, dragged a little. The business-room was as cheerful as a large fire could make it; she opened the door with an anxious look in her eyes, but drew a breath of relief when she saw that no one was there. On the mantelpiece was a note in a large bold handwriting: ‘Out on the farm, back at five,’ it said. Mrs. Blencarrow sat down in the arm-chair in front of her writing-table. She leant her head in her hands, covering her face, and so remained for a long time, doing nothing, not even moving, as if she had been a figure in stone. When she stirred at last and uncovered her face, it was almost as white as marble. She drew a long sigh from the very depths of her being. ‘I wonder how long this can go on,’ she said, wringing her hands, speaking to herself.

These were the same words which Kitty and Walter had overheard in the dark, but not from her. There were, then, two people in the house to whom there existed something intolerable which it was wellnigh impossible to bear.

She drew some papers towards her and began to look over them listlessly, but it was clear that there was very little interest in them; then she opened a drawer and took out some letters, which she arranged in succession and tried to fix her attention to, but neither did these succeed. She rose up, pushing them impatiently away, and began to pace up and down the room, pausing mechanically now and then to look at the note on the mantelpiece and to look at her watch, both of which things she did twice over in five minutes. At five! It was not four yet—what need to linger here when there was still an hour—still a whole hour? Mrs. Blencarrow was interrupted by a knock at her door; she started as if it had been a cannon fired at her ear, and instinctively cast a glance at the glass over the mantelpiece to smooth the agitation from her face before she replied. The servant had come to announce a visitor—Mrs. Bircham—awaiting his mistress in the drawing-room. ‘Ah! she has come to tell me about Kitty,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said to herself.

She went upstairs wearily enough, thinking that she had no need to be told what had become of Kitty, that she knew well enough what must have happened, but sorry, too, for the mother, and ready to say all that she could to console her—to put forth the best pleas she could for the foolish young pair. She was so full of trouble and perplexity herself, which had to be kept in rigorous concealment, that anything of which people could speak freely, upon which they could take others into their confidence, seemed light and easy to her. She went upstairs without a suspicion or alarm—weary, but calm.

Mrs. Bircham did not meet her with any appeal for sympathy either in look or words; there was no anxiety in her face. Her eyes were full of satisfaction and malice, and ill-concealed but pleasurable excitement.

‘I can see,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, ‘that you have news of Kitty,’ as she shook hands with her guest.

‘Oh, Kitty is right enough,’ said the other hastily; and then she cast a glance round the room. ‘Are we quite alone?’ she asked; ‘there are so many corners in this room, one never knows who may be listening. Mrs. Blencarrow, I do not come to speak of Kitty, but about yourself.’

‘About myself?’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Bircham, with a gasp, ‘you speak in that innocent tone as if it was quite surprising that anyone could have anything to say of you.’

Mrs. Blencarrow changed her position so as to get her back to the light; one of those overwhelming flushes which were habitual to her had come scorching over her face.

‘No more surprising to me than—to any of us,’ she said, with an attempt at a smile. ‘What is it that I have done?’

‘Oh, Mrs. Blencarrow—though why I should go on calling you Mrs. Blencarrow when that’s not your name——’

‘Not my name!’ There was a shrill sort of quaver in her voice, a keen note as of astonishment and dismay.

‘I wish,’ cried Mrs. Bircham, growing red, and fanning herself with her muff in her excitement—‘I wish you wouldn’t go on repeating what I say; it’s maddening—and always as if you didn’t know. Why don’t you call yourself by your proper name? How can you go on deceiving everybody, and even your own poor children, living on false pretences, “lying all round,” as my husband says? Oh, I know you’ve been doing it for years; you’ve got accustomed to it, I suppose; but don’t you know how disgraceful it is, and what everybody will say?’

Had there been any critic of human nature present, it would have gone greatly against Mrs. Blencarrow that she was not astonished at this attack. She rose up with a fine gesture of pride.

‘This is an extraordinary assault to make upon me,’ she said, ‘in my own house.’

‘Is it your own house, after disgracing it so?’ cried the visitor. And then she added, after an angry pause for breath: ‘I came out of kindness, to let you know that everything was discovered. Mr. Bircham and I thought it was better you should have it from a friend than from common report.’

‘I appreciate the kindness,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, with something like a laugh; then she walked to the side of the fire and rang the bell. Mrs. Bircham trembled, but her victim was perfectly calm; the assailant looked on in amazed expectation, wondering what was to come next, but the assailed stood quietly waiting till the servant appeared. When the man opened the door, his mistress said: ‘Call Mrs. Bircham’s carriage, John, and attend her downstairs.’

Mrs. Bircham stood gasping with rage and astonishment. ‘Is that all?’ she said; ‘is that all you have got to say?’

‘All—the only reply I will make,’ said the lady of the house. She made her visitor a stately bow, with a wave of the hand towards the door. Mrs. Bircham, half mad with baffled rage, looked round as it were for some moral missile to throw before she took her dismissal. She found it in the look of the man who stood impassive at the door. John was a well-trained servant, bound not to look surprised at anything. Mrs. Bircham clasped her hands together, as if she had made a discovery, made a few hasty steps towards the door, and then turned round with an offensive laugh. ‘I suppose that’s the man,’ she said.

Mrs. Blencarrow stood firm till the door had closed and the sound of her visitor’s laugh going downstairs had died away: then she sank down upon her knees in the warm fur of the hearthrug—down—down—covering her face with her hands. She lay there for some time motionless, holding herself together, feeling like something that had suddenly fallen into ruin, her walls all crumbled down, her foundations giving way.

The afternoon had grown dark, and a gray twilight filled the great windows. Nothing but the warm glow of the fire made any light in the large and luxurious room. It was so full of the comforts and brightness of life—the red light twinkling in the pretty pieces of old silver and curiosities upon the tables, catching in ruddy reflection the picture-frames and mirror, warming and softening the atmosphere which was so sheltered and still; and yet in no monastic cell or prison had there ever been a prostrate figure more like despair.

The first thing that roused her was a soft, caressing touch upon her shoulder; she raised her head to see Emmy, her delicate sixteen-year-old girl, bending over her.

‘Mamma, mamma, is anything the matter?’ said Emmy.

‘I was very tired and chilly; I did not hear you come in, Emmy.’

‘I met Mrs. Bircham on the stairs; she was laughing all to herself, but when she saw me she began to cry, and said, “Poor Emmy! poor little girl! You’ll feel it.” But she would not tell me what it was. And then I find you, mamma, looking miserable.’

‘Am I looking miserable? You can’t see me, my darling,’ said her mother with a faint laugh. She added, after a pause: ‘Mrs. Bircham has got a new story against one of her neighbours. Don’t let us pay any attention, Emmy; I never do, you know.’

‘No, mamma,’ said Emmy, with a quaver in her voice. She was very quiet and said very little, but in her half-invalid condition she could not help observing a great many things that eluded other people, and many alarms and doubts and suppressed suspicions were in her mind which she could not and would not have put in words. There was something in the semi-darkness and in the abandon in which she had found her mother which encouraged Emmy. She clasped Mrs. Blencarrow’s arm in both of hers, and put her face against her mother’s dress.

‘Oh, mamma,’ she said, ‘if you are troubled about anything, won’t you tell me? Oh, mamma, tell me! I should be less unhappy if I knew.’

‘Are you unhappy, Emmy?—about me?’

‘Oh! I did not mean quite that; but you are unhappy sometimes, and how can I help seeing it? I know your every look, and what you mean when you put your hands together—like that, mamma.’

‘Do you, Emmy?’ The mother took her child into her arms with a strong pressure, as if Emmy’s feeble innocence pressed against her own strong, struggling bosom did her good. The girl felt the quiver in her mother’s arm, which enfolded her, and felt the heavy beating of the heart against which she was pressed, with awe and painful sympathy, but without suspicion. She knew everything without knowing anything in her boundless sympathy and love. But just then the clock upon the mantelpiece tingled out its silvery chime. Five o’clock! Mrs. Blencarrow put Emmy out of her arms with a sudden start. ‘I did not think it was so late. I have to see some one downstairs at five o’clock.’

‘Oh, mamma, wait for some tea; it is just coming.’

‘You are very late,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow to the butler, who came in carrying a lamp, while John followed him with the tray. Tea in the afternoon was a very novel invention, at that time known only in a few houses. ‘Do not be so late another day. I must go, Emmy—it is business; but I shall be back almost directly.’

‘Oh, mamma, I hate business; you say you will be back directly, and you don’t come for hours!’

Mrs. Blencarrow kissed her daughter and smiled at her, patting her on the shoulder.

‘Business, you know, must be attended to,’ she said, ‘though everything else should go to the wall.’

Her face changed as she turned away; she gave a glance as she passed at the face of the man who held open the door for her, and it seemed to Mrs. Blencarrow that there was a gleam of knowledge in it, a suppressed disrespect. She was aware, even while this idea framed itself in her mind, that it was a purely fantastic idea, but the profound self-consciousness in her own soul tinged everything she saw; she hurried downstairs with a sort of reluctant swiftness, a longing to escape and yet an eagerness to go.

CHAPTER VI.

‘IS IT TRUE?’

A few days passed without any further incident. Mrs. Blencarrow’s appearance in the meantime had changed in a singular way. Her wonderful self-command was shaken; sometimes she had an air of suppressed excitement, a permanent flush under her eyes, a nervous irritation almost uncontrollable; at other moments she was perfectly pale and composed, but full of an acute consciousness of every sound. She spent a great part of her time in her business-room downstairs, going and coming on many occasions hurriedly, as if by an impulse she could not resist. This could not be hidden from those keen observers, the servants, who all kept up a watch upon her, quickened by whispers that began to reach them from without. Mrs. Blencarrow, on her side, realized very well what must be going on without. She divined the swiftness with which Mrs. Bircham’s information would circulate through the county, and the effect it would produce. Whether it was false or true would make no difference at first. There would be the same wave of discussion, of wonder, of doubt; her whole life would be investigated to see what were the likelihoods on either side, and her recent acts and looks and words all talked over. She was a very proud woman, and her sensations were something like those of a civilized man who is tied to a stake and sees the savages dancing round him, preparing to begin the torture. She expected every moment to see the dart whirl through the air, to feel it quiver in her flesh; the waiting at the beginning, anticipating the first missile, must be, she thought, the worst of all.

She watched for the first sound of the tempest, and Emmy and the servants watched her, the one with sympathy and terror, the others with keen curiosity not unheightened by expectation. She was a good mistress, and some of them were fond of her; some of them were capable of standing by her through good and evil; but it is not in human nature not to watch with excitement the bursting of such a cloud, or to look on without a certain keen pleasure in seeing how a victim—a heroine—will comport herself in the moment of danger. It was to them as good as a play. There were some in her own house who did not believe it; there were some who had long, they said, been suspicious; but all, both those who believed it and those who did not believe it, were keen to see how she would comport herself in this terrible crisis of fate.

The days went by very slowly in this extraordinary tension of spirit; the first stroke came as such a stroke generally does—from a wholly unexpected quarter. Mrs. Blencarrow was sitting one afternoon with Emmy in the drawing-room. The large room looked larger with only these two in it. Emmy, a little figure only half visible, lay in a great chair near the fire, buried in it, her small face showing like a point of whiteness amid the ruddy tones of the firelight and the crimson of the chair. Her mother was on the other side of the fire, with a screen thrown between her and the glow, scarcely betraying her existence at all, in the shade in which she sat, by any movement. The folds of her velvet dress caught the firelight and showed a little colour lying coiled about her feet; but this was all that a spectator would have seen. Emmy was busy with some fleecy white knitting, which she could go on with in the partial darkness; the faint sound of her knitting-pins was audible along with the occasional puff of flame from the fire, or falling of ashes on the hearth. There was not much conversation between them. Sometimes Emmy would ask a question: ‘When are the boys coming home, mamma?’ ‘Perhaps to-day,’ with a faint movement in the darkness; ‘but they are going back to school on Monday,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said, with a tone of relief. It might have been imagined that she said ‘Thank Heaven!’ under her breath. Emmy felt the meaning of that tone as she felt everything, but blamed herself for thinking so, as if she were doing wrong.

‘It is a strange thing to say,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘but I almost wish they were going straight back to school, without coming home again.’

‘Oh, mamma!’ said Emmy, with a natural protest.

‘It seems a strange thing,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, ‘to say——’ She had paused between these two last words, and there was a slight quiver in her voice.

She had paused to listen; there was some sound in the clear air, which was once more hard with frost; it was the sound of a carriage coming up the avenue. All was so still around the house that they could hear it for a long way. Mrs. Blencarrow drew a long, shivering breath.

‘There’s somebody coming,’ said Emmy; ‘can it be Rex and Bertie?’

‘Most likely only somebody coming to call. Emmy!’

‘What, mamma?’

‘I was going to say, don’t stay in the room if—if it were. But no, never mind; it was a mistake; I would rather you did stay.’

‘I will do whatever you please, mamma.’

‘Thank you, Emmy. If I turn to you, go. But perhaps there will be no need.’

They waited, falling into a curious silence, full of expectation; the carriage came slowly up to the door; it jingled and jogged, so that they recognised instinctively that it must be the fly from the station.

‘It will be the boys, after all,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said, with something between relief and annoyance. ‘No,’ she added, with a little impatience; ‘don’t run to the door to meet them. It is too cold for you; stay where you are; I can’t have you exposing yourself.’

Something of the irritability of nervous expectation was in her voice, and presently the door opened, but not with the rush of the boys’ return. It was opened by the butler, who came in solemnly, his white shirt shining out in the twilight of the room, and announced in his grandest tone, ‘Colonel and Mr. d’Eyncourt,’ as two dark figures followed him into the room. Mrs. Blencarrow rose to her feet with a low cry. She put her hand unconsciously upon her heart, which leaped into the wildest beating.

‘You!’ she said.

They came forward, one following the other, into the circle of the firelight, and took her hand and kissed her with solemnity. Colonel d’Eyncourt was a tall, slim, soldierly man, the other shorter and rotund. But there was something in the gravity of their entrance which told that their errand was of no usual kind. When Emmy came forward to greet her uncles, they turned to her with a mixture of impatience and commiseration.

‘Are you here, my poor child?’ said one; and the other told her to run away, as they had something particular to say to her mamma.

The butler in the meantime was lighting the candles on the mantelpiece, which made a sudden blaze and brought the two gentlemen into sight.

‘I am sorry I did not know you were coming,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, recovering her fortitude with the sudden gleam of the light, ‘or I should have sent for you to the station. Preston, bring some tea.’

‘No tea for us,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt; ‘we have come to see you on family business, if you could give us an hour undisturbed.’

‘Don’t bring any tea, then, Preston,’ she said with a smile, ‘and don’t admit anyone.’ She turned and looked at Emmy, whose eyes were fixed on her. ‘Go and look out for the boys, my dear.’

The two brothers exchanged glances—they were, perhaps, not men of great penetration—they considered that their sister’s demeanour was one of perfect calm; and she felt as if she were being suffocated, as she waited with a smile on her face till her daughter and the footman, who was more deliberate, were gone. Then she sat down again on her low chair behind the screen, which sheltered her a little from the glare of the candles as well as the fire.

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘it is nothing of a disagreeable kind—you both look so grave.’

‘You must know what we have come to talk about, Joan.’

‘Indeed I don’t,’ she said; ‘what is it? There is something the matter. Reginald—Roger—what is it? You frighten me with your grave faces—what has happened?’

The gentlemen looked at each other again; their eyes said, ‘It cannot be true.’ The Colonel cleared his voice; he was the eldest, and it was upon him that the special burden lay.

‘If it is true,’ he said—‘you know best, Joan, whether it is true or not—if it is true, it is the most dreadful thing that has happened in our family.’

‘You frighten me more and more,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. ‘Something about John?’

John was the black sheep of the D’Eyncourt family. Again the brothers looked at each other.

‘You must be aware of the rumour that is filling the county,’ said the younger brother. ‘I hear there is nothing else talked of, Joan. It is about you—you, whom we have always been so proud of. Both Reginald and I have got letters. They say that you have made a disgraceful marriage; that it’s been going on for years; that you’ve no right to your present name at all, nor to your position in this house. I cannot tell you the half of what’s said. The first letter we paid no attention to, but when we heard it from half a dozen different places—Joan—nothing about John could be half so bad as a story like this about you.’

Mrs. Blencarrow had risen slowly to her feet, but still was in the shade. She did not seem able to resist the impulse to stand up while she was being accused.

‘So this is the reason of your sudden visit,’ she said, speaking with deliberation, which might have meant either inability to speak, or the utmost contempt of the cause.

‘What could we have done else?’ they both cried together, apologetic for the first moment. ‘We, your brothers, with such a circumstantial story,’ said the Colonel.

‘And your nearest friends, Joan; to nobody could it be of so much importance as to us,’ said the other.

‘Us!’ she said; ‘it is of more importance to the children.’

‘My dear girl,’ said the Colonel, putting his hand on her shoulder, ‘I am most thankful we did not trust to letters, but came. It’s enough to look at you. You must give us your authority, and we will soon make an end of these slanderers. By Jove! in the old days it would have been pistols that would have done it.’

‘You can’t use pistols to women,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt, ‘if you were the greatest fire-eater that ever was.’

They both laughed a little at this, but the soul was taken out of the laugh by the perception slowly dawning upon both that Mrs. Blencarrow had said nothing, did not join either in their laugh or their thankfulness for having come, and had, indeed, slightly shrunk from her brother’s hand, and still stood without asking them to sit down.

‘I’m afraid you are angry with us,’ said Roger d’Eyncourt, ‘for having hurried here as if we believed it. But there never is any certainty in such matters. We thought it better to settle it at once—at the fountain-head.’

‘Yes,’ she said, but no more.

The brothers looked at each other again, this time uneasily.

‘My dear Joan,’ said the Colonel—but he did not know how to go on.

‘The fact is,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt, ‘that you must give us your authority to contradict it, don’t you know—to say authoritatively that there is not a shadow of truth——’

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Mrs. Blencarrow.

‘Eh? Ah! Oh yes,’ said both men together. They thought for a moment that she was giving them her ‘authority,’ as they said. The Colonel rolled an easy chair near to her. Roger d’Eyncourt stood up against the glow of the fire.

‘Of course, that is all we want—your word,’ said the Colonel.

She was still standing, and seemed to be towering above him where he sat in that low chair; and there was a dumb resistance in her attitude which made a strange impression upon the two men. She said, after a moment, moistening her lips painfully, ‘You seem to have taken the word of other people against me easily enough.’

‘Not easily; oh no! with great distress and pain. And we did not take it,’ said the younger brother; ‘we came at once, to hear your own——’

He stopped, and there was a dead silence. The Colonel sat bending forward into the comparative gloom in which she stood, and Roger d’Eyncourt turned to her in an attitude of anxious attention; but she made no further reply.

‘Joan, for God’s sake say something! Don’t you see that pride is out of the question in such circumstances? We must have a distinct contradiction. Heavens! here’s someone coming, after all.’

There was a slight impatient tap at the door, and then it was opened quickly, as by someone who had no mind to be put back. They all turned towards the new-comer, the Colonel whirling his chair round with annoyance. It was Brown—Mrs. Blencarrow’s agent or steward. He was a tall young man with a well-developed, athletic figure, his head covered with those close curling locks which give an impression of vigour and superabundant life. He came quickly up to Mrs. Blencarrow with some papers in his hand and said something to her, which, in their astonishment and excitement, the brothers did not make out. He had the slow and low enunciation of the North-country, to which their ear was not accustomed. She answered him with almost painful distinctness.

‘Oh, the papers about Appleby’s lease. Put them on the table, please.’

He went to the table and put them down, turned for a moment undecided, and then joined the group, which watched him with a surprised and hostile curiosity, so far as the brothers were concerned. She turned her face towards him with a fixed, imperious look.

‘I forgot,’ she said hurriedly; ‘I think you have both seen my agent, Mr. Brown.’

Roger d’Eyncourt gave an abrupt nod of recognition; the Colonel only gazed from his chair.

‘I thought Mr. Brown had been your steward, Joan.’

‘He is my—everything that is serviceable and trustworthy,’ she said.

The words seemed to vibrate in the air, so full of meaning were they, and she herself to thrill with some strong sentiment which fixed her look upon this man. He paused a little as if he intended to speak, but after a minute’s uncertainty, with a rustic inclination of his head, went slowly away. Mrs. Blencarrow dropped suddenly into her chair as the door closed, as if some tremendous tension had relaxed. The brothers looked wonderingly at each other again. ‘That is all very well; the people you employ are in your own hands; but this is of far more consequence.’

‘Joan,’ said the Colonel, ‘I don’t know what to think. For God’s sake answer one way or another! Why don’t you speak? For the sake of your children, for the sake of your own honour, your credit, your family—Is it true?’

‘Hush, Rex! Of course we know it isn’t true. But, Joan, be reasonable, my dear; let’s have your word for it, that we may face the world. Of course we know well enough that you’re the last woman to dishonour Blencarrow’s memory—poor old fellow! who was so fond of you—and deceive everybody.’

‘You seem to have believed me capable of all that, or you would not have come here!’

‘No, Joan, no—not so. Do, for God’s sake, take the right view of it! Tell us simply that you are not married, and have never thought of such a thing, which I for one am sure of to begin with.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, with a curious hard note of a laugh, ‘they have told you, having told you so much, whom I am supposed to have married, as you say.’

Again they looked at each other. ‘No one,’ said the Colonel, ‘has told us that.’

She laughed again. ‘Then if this is all you know, and all I am accused of, to have married no one knows who, no one knows when, you must come to what conclusion you please, and make what discoveries you can. I have nothing to say.’

‘Joan!’ they both cried.

‘You must do exactly what seems good to you,’ she said, rising hastily. ‘Find out what you can, say what you like—you shall not have a word from me.’

CHAPTER VII.

A NIGHT OF MISERY.

For the rest of the night Mrs. Blencarrow shut herself up in her own room; she would not come downstairs, not even to dinner. The boys arrived and sought their mother in the drawing-room, wondering that she did not come to meet them, but found only their uncles there, standing before the fire like two baffled conspirators. Reginald and Bertie rushed to their mother’s room, and plunged into it, notwithstanding her maid’s exhortation to be quiet.

‘Your mamma has got a bad headache, sir.’

They were not accustomed to any régime of headaches. They burst in and found her seated in her dressing-gown over the fire.

‘Is your head so bad? Are you going to stay out?’ said Reginald, who had just learnt the slang of Eton.

‘And there’s Uncle Rex and Uncle Roger downstairs,’ said Bertie.

‘You must tell them I am not well enough to come down. You must take the head of the table and take care of them instead of me,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow.

‘But what is the matter, mamma?’ said Bertie. ‘You do not look very bad, though you are red here.’ He touched his own cheeks under his eyes, which were shining with the cold and excitement of arriving.

‘Never mind, my dear. Emmy and you must do the honours of the house. I am not well enough to come downstairs. Had you good sport?’

‘Oh, very good one day; but then, mamma, you know this horrid frost—— ’

‘Yes, yes. I should not wonder if the ice on the pond would bear to-morrow,’ she said with a smile. ‘Now run away, dear boys, and see that your uncles have everything they want; for I can’t bear much talking, you know, with my bad head.’

‘Poor mamma!’ they cried. Reginald felt her forehead with his cold hand, as he had seen her do, and Bertie hugged her in a somewhat rude embrace. She kissed both the glowing faces, bright with cold and fun and superabundant life. When they were gone, noisily, yet with sudden starts of recollection that they ought to be quiet, Mrs. Blencarrow got up from her chair and began to walk hurriedly about the room, now and then wringing her hands.

‘Even my little boys!’ she said to herself, with the acutest tone of anguish. ‘Even my little boys!’

For she had no headache, no weakness. Her brain was supernaturally clear, seeing everything on every side of the question. She was before a problem which it needed more than mortal power to solve. To do all her duties was impossible; which was she to fulfil and which abandon? It was not a small contradiction such as sometimes confuses a brain, but one that was fundamental, striking at the very source of life. She was not angry with her brothers, or with the others who had made this assault upon her. What were they, after all? Had they never spoken a word, the problem would still have been there, more and more difficult to solve every day.

No one disturbed her further that night; she sent word downstairs that she was going to bed, and sent even her maid away, darkening the light. But when all was still, she rose again, and, bringing out a box full of papers, began to examine and read them, burning many—a piece of work which occupied her till the household noises had all sunk into silence, and the chill of midnight was within and around the great house full of human creatures asleep. Mrs. Blencarrow had all the restlessness about her of great mental trouble. After she had sat long over her papers, she thrust them from her hastily, throwing some into the fire and some into the box, which she locked with a sort of fierce energy; then rose and moved about the room, pausing to look at herself, with her feverish cheeks, in the great mirror, then throwing herself on her knees by her bedside as if to pray, then rising with a despairing movement as if that was impossible. Sometimes she murmured to herself with a low, unconscious outcry like some wounded animal—sometimes relieved herself by broken words. Her restlessness, her wretchedness, all seemed to breathe that question—the involuntary cry of humanity—‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ At length she opened her door softly and stole downstairs. There was moonlight outside, and stray rays from a window here and there made the long corridors and stairs faintly visible. One broad sweep of whiteness from a great window on the staircase crossed the dark like a vast ribbon, and across this ghostly light her figure appeared and passed, more strangely and in a more awful revelation than had all been dark. Had anyone seen her, it would have been impossible to take her for anything but a ghost.

She went down to the hall, then noiselessly along the further passage and bare stone stairs to the little business room. All was dark and silent there, the moonlight coming in through the chinks of the closed shutters. Mrs. Blencarrow stood on the threshold a moment as if she had expected to find someone there, then went in and sat down a few minutes in the dark. Her movements and her sudden pauses were alike full of the carelessness of distracted action. In the solitude and midnight darkness and silence, what could her troubled thoughts be meditating? Suddenly she moved again unseen, and came out to the door by which tenants and other applicants came for business or charity. She turned the key softly, and, opening it, stood upon the threshold. The opening from the darkness into the white world unseen was like a chill and startling transformation; the white light streamed in, opening a narrow pathway in the darkness, in the midst of which she stood, a ghost indeed—enough to have curdled the blood of any spectator. She stood for another moment between the white world without and the blackness of night and sleep within. To steal away and be lost for ever in that white still distance; to disappear and let the billows of light and space and silence swallow her up, and be seen no more. Ah! but that was not possible. The only thing possible to mortal power was a weary plodding along a weary road, that led not to vague distances, but to some village or town well known, where the fugitive would be discovered by the daylight, by wondering wayfarers, by life which no one can escape. Even should death overtake her, and the welcome chill extinguish existence, yet still there would be found somewhere, like a fallen image, her empty shell, her mortal garment lying in the way of the first passenger. No; oh no; rather still the struggle, the contradictions, the despair——

And how could she ask God to help her?—that one appeal which is instinctive: for there was nothing she could do that would not be full of lies or of treachery, a shirking of one duty or another, the abandonment of justice, truth, and love. She turned from the world outside and closed the door; then returned again up the long stairs, and crossed once more the broad belt of moonlight from the window in the staircase. It was like resigning all hope of outside help, turning back to the struggle that had to be fought out inch by inch on the well-known and common ground. She was chilled to the heart with the icy air of the night, and threw herself down on the hearthrug before the fire, with a forlorn longing for warmth, which is the last physical craving of all wounded and suffering things; and then she fell into a deep but broken sleep, from which she fortunately picked herself up before daylight, so as to prevent any revelation of her agitated state to the maid, who naturally suspected much, but knew, thanks to Mrs. Blencarrow’s miraculous self-command, scarcely anything at all.

She did not get up next morning till the brothers, infinitely perplexed and troubled, believing their sister to be mortally offended by the step they had taken, and by their adoption or partial adoption of the rumours of the neighbourhood, had gone away. They made an ineffectual attempt to see her before they left, and finally departed, sending her a note, in which Roger d’Eyncourt expressed the deep sorrow of both, and their hope that she would come in time to forgive them, and to see that only solicitude for herself and her family could have induced them to take such a step.

‘I hope,’ he added, ‘my dear sister, that you will not misunderstand our motives when I say that we are bound in honour to contradict upon authoritative grounds this abominable rumour, since our own character may be called in question, for permitting you to retain the guardianship of the children in such circumstances. As you refuse to discuss it with us (and I understand the natural offence to your pride and modesty that seems involved), we must secure ourselves by examining the books in which the record of the marriage was said to have been found.’

Mrs. Blencarrow received this note while still in bed. She read it with great apparent calm, but the great bed in which she lay quivered suddenly, all its heavy satin draperies moving as if an earthquake had moved the room. Both her maid and Emmy saw this strange movement with alarmed surprise, thinking that one of the dogs had got in, or that there had been some sinking of the foundation.

‘The bed shook,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, clutching with her hand at the quilt, as if for safety. ‘Yes, I felt something; but the flooring is not very even, and worm-eaten at some places, you know.’

She got up immediately after, making a pretence of this to account for her recovery so soon after her brothers’ departure, and appeared soon afterwards downstairs, looking very pale and exhausted, but saying she felt a little better. And the day passed as usual—quite as usual to the boys and the servants; a cheerful day enough, the children in the foreground, and a good deal of holiday noise and commotion going on. Emmy from time to time looked wistfully at her mother, but Mrs. Blencarrow took no notice, save with a kiss or an especially tender word.

‘I think you have got my headache, Emmy.’

‘Oh, mamma, I don’t mind if I can take it from you.’

The mother shook her head with a smile that went to Emmy’s heart.

‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘no one can do that.’

In the afternoon she sent a man over to the Vicarage, with a note to the clergyman of the parish. He was a middle-aged man, but unmarried; a studious and quiet parson, little in society, though regarded with great respect in the neighbourhood; a man safe to confide in, with neither wife nor other belongings to tempt him to the betrayal of a secret entrusted to him. Perhaps this was why, in her uttermost need, Mrs. Blencarrow bethought herself of Mr. Germaine. She passed the rest of the day in the usual manner, not going out, establishing herself behind the screen by the drawing-room fire with some work, ready to be appealed to by the children. It was the time at which she expected visits, but there had been no caller at Blencarrow for a day or two, which was also a noticeable thing, for the neighbourhood was what is called sociable, and there had been rarely a day in which some country neighbour or other did not appear, until the last week, during which scarcely any stranger had crossed the threshold. Was it the weather which had become so cold? Was it that there were Christmas parties in most of the houses, which perhaps had not quite broken up yet? Was it——? It was a small matter, and Mrs. Blencarrow was thankful beyond expression to be rid of them, to be free of the necessity for company looks and company talks—but yet——

In the evening, after dinner, when the children were all settled to a noisy round game, she went downstairs to her business room, bidding them good-night before she left, and requesting that she should not be disturbed, for her headaches lately had made her much behind with her work, which, of course, was unusually heavy at the beginning of the year. She went away with a curious stillness about her, pausing at the door to give a last look at the happy little party, all flushed with their game. It might have been the last look she should ever have of them, from the expression in her face; and then she closed the door and went resolutely away. The servants in their regions below sounded almost as merry as the children, in the after-dinner ease; but they were far from the business-room, which was perfectly quiet and empty—a shaded lamp burning in it, the fire blazing. Mrs. Blencarrow sat down at her writing-table, but, though she was so busy, did nothing. She looked at her watch with a weary sigh, then leaning her head on her hands, waited—for whom and for what, who could say?

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. BLENCARROW’S CONFESSION.

She had been there for some time when the sound of a footstep on the gravel outside made her start. It was followed by a knock at the door, which she herself opened almost before the summons. She came back to the room, immediately followed by a tall man in clerical dress. The suppressed excitement which had been in Mrs. Blencarrow’s aspect all the day had risen now to an extraordinary height. She was very pale, with one flaring spot on either cheek, and trembled so much that her teeth were with difficulty kept from chattering against each other. She was quite breathless when she took her seat again, once more supporting her head in her hands.

The clergyman was embarrassed, too; he clasped and unclasped his hands nervously, and remarked that the night was very cloudy and that it was cold, as if, perhaps, it had been to give her information about the weather that he came. Mr. Germaine giving her his views about the night, and Mrs. Blencarrow listening with her face half hidden, made the most curious picture, surrounded as it was by the bare framework of this out-of-the-way room. She broke in abruptly at last upon the few broken bits of information which he proceeded to give.

‘Do you guess why I sent for you, Mr. Germaine?’

The Vicar hesitated, and said, ‘I am by no means sure.’

‘Or why I receive you here in this strange place, and let you in myself, and treat you as if you were a visitor whom I did not choose to have seen?’

‘I have never thought of that last case.’

‘No—but it is true enough. It is not an ordinary visit I asked you to pay me.’ She took her hands from her face and looked at him for a moment. ‘You have heard what people are saying of me?’ she said.

‘Yes, but I did not believe a word. I felt sure that Kitty only meant to curry favour at home.’

She gave him a strange, sudden look, then paused with a mechanical laugh. ‘You think, then,’ she said, ‘that there are people in my own county to whom that news would be something to conciliate; something—something to make them forgive?’

‘There are people everywhere who would give much for such a story against a neighbour, Mrs. Blencarrow.’

‘It is sad that such a thing should be.’ She stopped again, and looked at him once more. ‘I am going to surprise you very much, Mr. Germaine. You are not like them, so I think I am going to give you a great shock,’ she said.

She had turned her face towards him as she spoke; the two red spots on her cheeks were like fire, yet her paleness was extreme; they only seemed to make this the more remarkable.

In the momentary silence the door opened suddenly, and someone came in. In the subdued light afforded by the shaded lamp it was difficult to see more than that a dark figure had entered the room, and, crossing over to the further side, sat down against the heavy curtains that covered the window. Mrs. Blencarrow made the slightest movement of consciousness, not of surprise, at this interruption, which, indeed, scarcely was an interruption at all, being so instantaneous and so little remarked. She went on:

‘You have known me a long time; you will form your own opinion of what I am going to tell you; I will not excuse or explain.’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow, I am not sure whether you have perceived that we are not alone.’

She cast a momentary glance at the new-comer, unnecessary, for she was well aware of him, and of his attitude, and every line of the dark shadow behind her. He sat bending forward, almost double, his elbows upon his knees, and his head in his hands.

‘It makes no difference,’ she said, with a slight impatience—‘no difference. Mr. Germaine, I sent for you to tell you—that it was true.’

‘What!’ he cried. He had scarcely been listening, all his attention being directed with consternation, almost with stupefaction, on the appearance of the man who had come in—who sat there—who made no difference. The words did not strike him at all for the first moment, and then he started and cried in his astonishment, ‘What!’ as if she had struck him a blow.

Mrs. Blencarrow looked at him fixedly and spoke slowly, being, indeed, forced to do so by a difficulty in enunciating the words. ‘The story you have heard is—true.’

The Vicar rose from his chair in the sudden shock and horror; he looked round him like a man stupefied, taking in slowly the whole scene—the woman who was not looking at him, but was gazing straight before her, with those spots of red excitement on her cheeks; the shadow of the man in the background, with face hidden, unsurprised. Mr. Germaine slowly received this astounding, inconceivable thought into his mind.

‘Good God!’ he cried.

‘I make no—explanations—no—excuses. The fact is enough,’ she said.

The fact was enough; his mind refused to receive it, yet grasped it with the force of a catastrophe. He sat down helpless, without a word to say, with a wave of his hands to express his impotence, his incapacity even to think in face of a revelation so astounding and terrible; and for a full minute there was complete silence; neither of the three moved or spoke. The calm ticking of the clock took up the tale, as if the room had been vacant—time going on indifferent to all the downfalls and shame of humanity—with now and then a crackle from the glowing fire.

She said at last, being the first, as a woman usually is, to be moved to impatience by the deadly silence, ‘It was not only to tell you—but to ask, what am I to do?’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow—I have not a word—I—it is incredible.’

‘Yes,’ she said with a faint smile, ‘but very true.’ She repeated after another pause, ‘What am I to do?’

Mr. Germaine had never in his life been called upon to face such a question. His knowledge of moral problems concerned the more primitive classes of humanity alone, where action is more obvious and the difficulties less great. Nothing like this could occur in a village. He sat and gazed at the woman, who was not a mere victim of passion—a foolish woman who had taken a false step and now had to own to it—but a lady of blameless honour and reputation, proud, full of dignity, the head of a well-known family, the mother of children old enough to understand her downfall and shame, with, so far as he knew, further penalties involved of leaving them, and every habit of her life, and following the man, whoever he was, into whatsoever wilderness he might seek. The Vicar felt that all the ordinary advice which he would give in such a case was stopped upon his lips. There was no parallel between what was involved here and anything that could occur among the country folk. He sat, feeling the problem beyond him, and without a word to say.

‘I must tell you more,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. At her high strain of excitement she was scarcely aware that he hesitated to reply, and not at all that he was so much bewildered as to be beyond speech. She went on as if she had not paused at all. ‘A thing has happened—which must often happen; how can I tell you? It has been—not happy—for either. We miscalculated—ourselves and all things. If I am wrong, I am—subject—to contradiction,’ she said, suddenly stopping with a gasp as if for breath.

The shades of the drama grew darker and darker. The spectator listened with unspeakable excitement and curiosity; there was a silence which seemed to throb with suspense and pain; but the figure in the background neither moved nor spoke—a large motionless figure, doubled upon itself, the shaggy head held between the hands, the face invisible, the elbows on the knees.

‘You see?’ she said, with a faint movement of her hands, as though calling his attention to that silence. There was a painful flicker of a smile about her lips; perhaps her pride, perhaps her heart, desired even at this moment a protest. She went on again: ‘It is—as I say; you will see how this—complicates—all that one thinks of—as duty. What am I to do?’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow,’ said the clergyman—then stopped with a painful sense that even this name could be no longer hers, a perception which she divined, and responded to with again a faint, miserable smile—‘what can I say to you?’ he burst out. ‘I don’t know the circumstances; what you tell me is so little. If you are married a second time——’

She made a movement of assent with her hand.

‘Then, of course—it is a commonplace; what else can I say?—your duty to your husband must come first; it must come first. It is the most primitive, the most fundamental law.’

‘What is that duty?’ she said, almost sharply, looking up; and again there was a silence.

The clergyman laboured to speak, but what was he to say? The presence of that motionless figure in the background, had there been nothing else, would have made him dumb.

‘The first thing,’ he said, ‘in ordinary circumstances—Heaven knows I speak in darkness—would be to own your position, at least, and set everything in its right place. Nature itself teaches,’ he continued, growing bolder, ‘that it is impossible to go on living in a false position, acting, if not speaking, what can be nothing but a lie.’

‘It is commonplace, indeed,’ she cried bitterly, ‘all that: who should know it like me? But will you tell me,’ she said, rising up and sitting down in her excitement, ‘that it is my duty to leave my children who want me, and all the work of my life which there is no one else to do, for a useless existence, pleasing no one, needed by no one—a life without an object, or with a hopeless object—a duty I can never fulfil? To leave my trust,’ she went on, coming forward to the fire, leaning upon the mantelpiece, and speaking with her face flushed and her voice raised in unconscious eloquence, ‘the office I have held for so many years—my children’s guardian, their steward, their caretaker—suppose even that I had not been their mother, is a woman bidden to do all that, to make herself useless, to sacrifice what she can do as well as what she is?’

She stopped, words failing her, and stood before him, a wonderful noble figure, eloquent in every movement and gesture, in the maturity and dignity of her middle age; then suddenly broke down altogether, and, hiding her face, cried out:

‘Who am I, to speak so? Not young to be excused, not a fool to be forgiven; a woman ashamed—and for no end.’

‘If you are married,’ said the Vicar, ‘it is no shame to marry. It may be inappropriate, unsuitable, it may be even regrettable; but it is not wrong. Do not at least take a morbid view.’

She raised her drooping head, and turned round quickly upon him.

‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘What am I to do?’

The Vicar’s eyes stole, in spite of himself, to the other side of the room. The dark shadow there had not moved; the man still sat with his head bent between his hands. He gave no evidence that he had heard a word of the discussion; he put forth no claim except by his presence there.

‘What can I say?’ said Mr. Germaine. ‘Nothing but commonplace, nothing but what I have already said. Before everything it is your duty to put things on a right foundation; you cannot go on like this. It must be painful to do, but it is the only way.’

‘It is seldom,’ she said, ‘very seldom that you are so precise.’

‘Because,’ he said firmly, ‘there is no doubt on the subject. It is as clear as noonday; there is but one thing to do.’

Mrs. Blencarrow said nothing; she stood with a still resistance in her look—a woman whom nothing could overcome, broken down by circumstances, by trouble, ready to grasp at any expedient; yet unsubdued, and unconvinced that she could not struggle against Fate.

‘I can say nothing else,’ the Vicar repeated, ‘for there is nothing else to say; and perhaps you would prefer that I should go. I can be of no comfort to you, for there is nothing that can be done till this is done—not from my point of view. I can only urge this upon you; I can say nothing different.’

Again Mrs. Blencarrow made no reply. She stood so near him that he could see the heaving of strong passion in all her frame, restrained by her power of self-command, yet beyond that power to conceal. Perhaps she could not speak more; at least, she did not. Mr. Germaine sat between the two, both silent, absorbed in this all-engrossing question, till he could bear it no longer. He rose abruptly to his feet.

‘May God give you the power to do right!’ he said; ‘I can say no more.’

Mrs. Blencarrow followed him to the door. She opened it for him, and stood outside on the threshold in the moonlight to see him go.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘you will keep my secret; I may trust you with that.’

‘I will say nothing,’ he replied, ‘except to yourself; but think of what I have said.’

‘Think! If thinking would do any good!’

She gave him her hand, in all the veins of which the blood was coursing like a strong stream, and then she closed the door behind him and locked it. During all this time the man within had never stirred. Would he move? Would he speak? Or could he speak and move? When she went back——

CHAPTER IX.

‘I AM HER HUSBAND.’

A night and a day passed after this without any incident. What the chief persons in this strange drama were doing or thinking was hid under an impenetrable veil to all the world. Life at Blencarrow went on as usual. The frost was now keen and the pond was bearing; the youngsters had forgotten everything except the delight of the ice. Even Emmy had been dragged out, and showed a little colour in her pale cheeks, and a flush of pleasure in her eyes, as she made timid essays in the art of skating, under the auspices of her brothers. When she proved too timid for much progress, they put her in a chair and drew her carriage from end to end of the pond, growing more and more rosy and bright. Mrs. Blencarrow herself came down in the afternoon to see them at their play, and since the pond at Blencarrow was famed, there was a wonderful gathering of people whom Reginald and Bertie had invited, or who were used to come as soon as it was known that the pond ‘was bearing.’

When the lady of the house came on to this cheerful scene, everybody hurried to do her homage. The scandal had not taken root, or else they meant to show her that her neighbours would not turn against her. Perhaps the cessation of visits had been but an accident, such as sometimes happens in those wintry days when nobody cares to leave home; or perhaps public opinion, after the first shock of hearing the report against her, had come suddenly round again, as it sometimes does, with an impulse of indignant disbelief. However that might be, she received a triumphant welcome from everybody. To be sure, it was upon her own ground. People said to each other that Mrs. Blencarrow was not looking very strong, but exceedingly handsome and interesting; her dark velvet and furs suited her; her eyes were wonderfully clear, almost like the eyes of a child, and exceptionally brilliant; her colour went and came. She spoke little, but she was very gracious and made the most charming picture, everybody said, with her children about her: Emmy, rosy with unusual excitement and exercise, clinging to her arm, the boys making circles round her.

‘Mamma, come on the chair—we will take you to the end of the pond.’

‘Put mamma on the chair,’ they shouted, laying hold upon her.

She allowed herself to be persuaded, and they flew along, pushing her before them, their animated, glowing faces full of delight, showing over her shoulders.

‘Brown, come and give us a hand with mamma. Brown, just lay hold at this side. Brown! Where’s Brown? Can’t he hear?’ the boys cried.

‘Never mind Brown,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘I like my boys best.’

‘Ah! but he is such a fellow,’ they exclaimed. ‘He could take you over like lightning. He is far the best skater on the ice. Turn mamma round, Rex, and let her see Brown.’

‘No, my darlings, take me back to the bank; I am getting a little giddy,’ she said.

But, as they obeyed her, they did not fail to point out the gyrations of Brown, who was certainly, as they said, the best skater on the ice. Mrs. Blencarrow saw him very well—she did not lose the sight—sweeping in wonderful circles about the pond, admired by everybody. He was heavy in repose, but he was a picture of agile strength and knowledge there.

And so the afternoon passed, all calm, bright, tranquil, and, according to every appearance, happy, as it had been for years. A more charming scene could scarcely be, even summer not brighter—the glowing faces lit up with health and that invigorating chill which suits the hardy North; the red sunset making all the heavens glow in emulation; the graceful, flying movements of so many lively figures; the boyish shouts and laughter in the clear air; the animation of everything. Weakness or trouble do not come out into such places; there was nothing but pleasure, health, innocent enjoyment, natural satisfaction there. Quite a little crowd stood watching Brown, the steward, as he flew along, making every kind of circle and figure, as if he had been on wings—far the best skater of all, as the boys said. He was still there in the ruddy twilight, when the visitors who had that privilege had streamed into the warm hall for tea, and the nimble skaters had disappeared.

The hall was almost as lively as the pond had been, the red firelight throwing a sort of enchantment over all, rising and falling in fitful flames. Blencarrow had not been so brilliant since the night of the ball. Several of the young Birchams were there, though not their mother; and Mrs. Blencarrow had specially, and with a smile of meaning, inquired for Kitty in the hearing of everybody. They all understood her smile, and the inquiry added a thrill of excitement to the delights of the afternoon.

‘The horrid little thing! How could she invent such a story?’ people said to each other; though there were some who whispered in corners that Mrs. Blencarrow was wise, if she could keep it up, to ‘brazen it out.’

Brazen it out! A woman so dignified, so proud, so self-possessed; a princess in her way, a queen-mother. As the afternoon went on, her strength failed a little; she began to breathe more quickly, to change colour instantaneously from red to pale. Anxiety crept into the clear, too clear eyes. She looked about her by turns with a searching look, as if expecting someone to appear and change everything. When the visitors’ carriages came to take them away, the sound of the wheels startled her.

‘I thought it might be your uncles coming back,’ she said to Emmy, who always watched her with wistful eyes.

Mr. Germaine had gone back to his parsonage through the moonlight with a more troubled mind than he had perhaps ever brought before from any house in his parish. A clergyman has to hear many strange stories, but this, which was in the course of being enacted, and at a crisis so full of excitement, occupied him as no tale of erring husband or wife, or son or daughter going to the bad—such as are also so common everywhere—had ever done. But the thing which excited him most was the recollection of the silent figure behind, sitting bowed down while the penitent made her confession, listening to everything, but making no sign. The clergyman’s interest was all with Mrs. Blencarrow; he was on her side. To think that she—such a woman—could have got herself into a position like that, seemed incredible, and he felt with an aching sympathy that there was nothing he would not do to get her free—nothing that was not contrary to truth and honour. But, granted that inconceivable first step, her position was one which could be understood; whereas all his efforts could not make him understand the position of the other—the man who sat there and made no sign. How could any man sit and hear all that and make no sign?—silent when she made the tragical suggestion that she might be contradicted—motionless when she herself did the servant’s part and opened the door to the visitor—giving neither support, nor protest, nor service—taking no share in the whole matter except the silent assertion of his presence there? Mr. Germaine could not forget it; it preoccupied him more than the image, so much more beautiful and commanding, of the woman in her anguish. What the man could be thinking, what could be his motives, how he could reconcile himself to, or how he could have been brought into, such a strange position, was the subject of all his thoughts. It kept coming uppermost all day; it became a kind of fascination upon him; wherever he turned his eyes he seemed to see the strange image of that dark figure, with hidden face and shaggy hair pushed about, between his supporting hands.

Just twenty-four hours after that extraordinary interview these thoughts were interrupted by a visitor.

‘A gentleman, sir, wishing to see you.’

It was late for any such visit, but a clergyman is used to being appealed to at all seasons. The visitor came in—a tall man wrapped in a large coat, with the collar up to his ears. It was a cold night, which accounted sufficiently for any amount of covering. Mr. Germaine looked at him in surprise, with a curious sort of recognition of the heavy outline of the man; but he suddenly brightened as he recognised the stranger and welcomed him cheerfully.

‘Oh! it is you, Brown; come to the fire, and take a chair. Did you ever feel such cold?’

Brown sat down, throwing back his coat and revealing his dark countenance, which was cloudy, but handsome, in a rustic, heavy way. The frost was wet and melting on his crisp, curly brown beard; he had the freshness of the cold on his face, but yet was darkly pale, as was his nature. He made but little response to the Vicar’s cheerful greeting, and drew his chair a little distance away from the blaze of the fire. Mr. Germaine tried to draw him into conversation on ordinary topics, but finding this fail, said, after a pause: