The Shadow of Ashlydyat

He took him to another room, and shut the door. “I want the truth,” he said, “upon one or two points——”

“Mr. Hastings,” said George, drawing himself up, “I have told you nothing but the truth upon all points.”

“Were you never engaged to Charlotte Pain?” proceeded Mr. Hastings, taking no notice of the interruption.

“Never. I never sought or wished to be.”

“Then what did your good father, Sir George, mean, when he alluded to it the night he was dying? He asked if you and Charlotte were married yet, and you replied, ‘Plenty of time for that.’”

“I said it merely in answer to his words: it was not an hour for dissent or explanation. He was not conscious of what he said.”

“Had you expressed to him any particular liking for Charlotte Pain?”

“I had not; at any time. Sir George believed Miss Pain had a large fortune, and he recommended me, more than once, to think of her, and it. He said she was a handsome girl, and none the worse for possessing a fortune. He had heard she would have thirty thousand pounds. I used to laugh it off. I cared for Maria too much to cast a thought to Charlotte Pain. That is the whole truth, Mr. Hastings, on my honour.”

“Would he have objected to Maria?”

“To Maria I am certain he would not have objected. To her want of fortune he might. But that is a thing that only concerns myself. I do not require fortune with my wife, and I do not seek it. You will give her to me, Mr. Hastings? You will dispense with unnecessary ceremony, and let her go abroad with me?” he urged. “She will do me more good than all else.”

“I will give you no promise of any sort, Mr. George Godolphin. As to taking her abroad with you, it is absurd to think of it. And no daughter of mine shall enter a family where she is not sure of a hearty welcome. I must first know the sentiments of yours.”

George looked radiant. “Mr. Hastings, if they heartily welcome Maria, will you allow me to welcome her?”

“Possibly I may.”

“Then it is an affair decided. Janet will be relieved of a nightmare; and Maria is, I believe, Thomas’s prime favourite in all the world, now that Ethel is gone.”

“Of what nightmare will it relieve Miss Godolphin?” inquired the Rector.

A smile crossed George’s lips. “She, like you, has been fearing that I intended to connect myself with Charlotte Pain. Only yesterday I assured Janet that she was mistaken; but I scarcely think she placed entire faith in me. She does not like Miss Pain.”

“Do you think you have pursued a wise course in giving cause for this talk, regarding Miss Pain?”

“And myself also,” Mr. George might have added.

They left the room together. A servant came up to Mr. Hastings as he was crossing the hall, and said an applicant at the door craved speech of him. The Rector turned to it, and George entered the drawing-room alone.

Maria stood, pale, anxious, excited, leaning against a corner of the window, half shrouded by the muslin curtains. She scarcely dared look up when George entered. It was not his gaze that she dreaded to meet, but that of Mr. Hastings. To anger or displease her father was wormwood to Maria.

George cast a glance round the room. “Where’s Charlotte Pain?” he asked.

“She is gone,” was Maria’s answer. “Oh, George!” clasping her hands, and lifting to him her streaming eyes: “it was cruel of her to say what she did!”

“I could give it a better name than that, Maria. Never mind: we can afford to be generous to-day.”

“Is papa fully convinced that—that I do not deserve blame?”

“He was convinced of that before he left this room. You are to be mine, Maria,” he softly added in a whisper. “And very shortly. I must take you abroad with me.”

She stood before him, not daring to look up now: shrinking from his ardent gaze, the crimson mantling to her pure cheek.

“Mr. Hastings demurs at the haste; calls it absurd,” continued George; “but, if you will consent to waive ceremony, surely he may do so. Which would be more absurd, Maria? your marrying without the three months’ preparation for millinery deemed necessary by fashion, or my going away alone for an indefinite period, perhaps to die.”

“Not to die, George!” she involuntarily answered in a tone painfully beseeching—as if he held the fiat of life or death in his own hands. “But—about the haste—I don’t know—— I heard you thought of departing soon?”

“I ought to be away in a fortnight’s time.”

That startled her. “A fortnight’s time!” she echoed, in a voice of alarm. “Then it could not be. What would Prior’s Ash say?”

“Maria,” he gravely answered, “some nine months ago, when Sarah Anne Grame was seized with fever, my brother, alarmed for Ethel’s safety, would have married her hastily, so that he might have the right to remove her from danger. Ethel’s answer to him was, ‘What would Prior’s Ash say?’—as you have now answered me. Thomas bowed to it: he suffered the world’s notions to reign paramount—and he lost Ethel. What value do you suppose he sets now upon the opinions of Prior’s Ash? The cases may not be precisely parallel, but they are sufficiently so to decide me. If I go away from home, I take you: if I may not take you, I do not go. And now, my darling, I will say farewell to you for the present.”

She was surprised. She thought he had come to stay for some hours.

He bent to kiss her. Not in the stolen manner he had been accustomed to, but—quietly, gravely, turning her shy face to his, as if it were his legal province so to do. “A little while, young lady,” he saucily whispered, “and you will be giving me kiss for kiss.”

Mr. Hastings was in the porch still, holding a colloquy with ill-doing and troublesome Mrs. Bond. George held out his hand as he passed.

“You have not rested yourself,” said the Rector.

“I shall get back as far as the bank and rest there,” replied George. “I presume, sir, that you intend to see my brother?”

“And also Miss Godolphin,” curtly said the Rector.

His eyes followed George down the path to the gate, as he and his stick moved unsteadily along. “Marry now!” mentally cried Mr. Hastings, his brow contracting: “he looks more fit to take to his bed, and keep it. Now, Mrs. Bond,” he added aloud, “let me hear the conclusion of this fine tale.”

George took his way to the bank. He had not passed it in coming, having cut across from Ashlydyat by the nearer way at the back of the town. He took them by surprise. Mr. Crosse was out, but the clerks were warm in their congratulations; they had not believed him yet equal to the exertion.

“You look very tired,” said Thomas, when they were alone in the bank parlour.

“I feel fagged to death,” was George’s answer. “I must get you to send out for a fly for me, and go home in that. Thomas,” he continued, plunging into his business abruptly, “I expect you will have an application made to you, regarding me.”

“In what way?” quietly asked Thomas.

“Well—it is not exactly a certificate of character that’s required,” returned George, with a smile. “I—I am thinking of getting married. Will you approve of it?”

“I have no right to disapprove,” said Thomas, in a kind, grave tone. “You are your own master; free to act as you shall judge best. I only hope, George, that you will, in choosing, consider your future happiness.”

“Has it never occurred to you that I have chosen?”

“I used to think at times that you had chosen, or felt inclined to choose, Maria Hastings.”

“Right,” said George. “I have been speaking to Mr. Hastings, and it appears to have taken him entirely by surprise. He would give me no answer until he should have ascertained whether the alliance would be agreeable to you and Janet. He is a man of crotchets, you know. So I expect he will be coming to you, Thomas.”

Thomas Godolphin’s eyes lighted up with pleasure. “He shall receive my hearty approval,” he said, warmly. “George”—changing his tone to sadness—“in the days gone by I thought there were two young beings superior to the rest of the world: Ethel and Maria.”

“Certainly not to me. Ethel, whom I chose, had even less. If you think well to dispense with fortune in your wife, George, we have no right to object to it. I am glad that you have chosen Maria Hastings.”

But there was Janet yet to come. George went home in a fly, and threw himself on the first sofa he could find. Janet, full of concern, came to him.

“I said you were attempting too much, George!” she cried. “But you never will listen to me.”

“I’m sure, Janet, I listen to you dutifully. I have come home to consult you now,” he added, a little spirit of mischief dancing in his gay blue eyes. “It is not fatigue or illness that has brought me. Janet, I am going to be married.”

Janet Godolphin’s pulses beat more quickly. She sat down and folded her hands with a gesture of pain. “I knew it would be so. You need not have tried to deceive me yesterday, lad.”

“But the young lady’s friends refuse her to me, unless my family openly sanction and approve of the match,” went on George. “You’ll be kindly over it, won’t you, Janet?”

“No, lad. I cannot forbid it; I have no authority over you: but, sanction it, I never will. What has put it into your head to marry in this haste? You, with one foot in the grave, as may be said, and one out of it?”

“Well, you see, Janet, you won’t trust me abroad without some one to look after me,” he slowly answered, as if he were arguing some momentous question. “You say you can’t go, and Bessy can’t go, and Cecil may not, and I say I won’t have Margery. What was I to do, but marry? I cannot take a young lady, you know, without first marrying her.”

Janet Godolphin’s grave eyes were fixed on vacancy, and her thin lips drawn in to pressure. She did not answer.

“Thomas heartily approves,” he continued. “I have been with him.”

“Thomas must do as he likes,” said Janet. “But, unless you have unwittingly misunderstood him, George, you are telling me a deliberate falsehood. He will never approve of your marrying Charlotte Pain.”

“Charlotte Pain!” repeated George, with an air of as much surprise as if it were genuine, “who was talking about Charlotte Pain? What put her into your head?”

Janet’s face flushed. “Were you not talking of Charlotte Pain?”

“Not I,” said George. “In spite of the compliments you pay my truthfulness, Janet, I meant what I said to you yesterday—that I did not intend to make her my wife. I am speaking of Maria Hastings.”

“Eh, lad, but that’s good news!”

George burst into a laugh. “What green geese you must all have been, Janet! Had you used your eyes, you might have detected this long time past that my choice was fixed on Maria. But the Rector doubts whether you will approve. He will not promise her to me until he has your sanction.”

“I could manage to take some broth, Janet,” cried George, as she was leaving the room. “I have had nothing since breakfast.”

“To be sure. I am growing forgetful. Margery shall wait upon you, my dear. But, to go down to the Rectory without delay, is a courtesy due from me.”

So, no impediment was placed upon the marriage. Neither was any impediment placed upon its immediate celebration: the Rector permitting himself to be persuaded into it.

CHAPTER XXI.
CHARLOTTE’S BARGAIN.

Three weeks after that momentous day at All Souls’ Rectory, George Godolphin and Maria stood before the Rector in All Souls’ Church. George did not appear very ill now; he was not so shadowy, his fine complexion had returned, and stick the second was discarded. Maria was beautiful. Her soft bridal robes floated around her, her colour went and came as she glanced shyly up at George Godolphin. A handsome couple; a couple seldom seen.

It was quite a private marriage so to say; but few guests being present, and they relatives, or very close friends. Lady Godolphin had responded to the invitation (which Janet had not expected her to do), and was the guest of Ashlydyat. Very superb was she in silks and jewels this day. Old Mrs. Briscow had also remained for it. Mr. Crosse was present, and some relatives of the Hastings family: and Grace and Cecil were bridesmaids. The Rector joined their hands, speaking the necessary words slowly and emphatically; words that bound them to each other until death.

Then came the breakfast at the Rectory, and then the going away. The carriage waited at the gate. The Rector laid his hand upon George Godolphin’s arm as he was going out to it, and addressed him in a low tone.

“I have confided her to you in entire trust. You will cherish her in all love and honour?”

“Always!” emphatically pronounced George, grasping the Rector’s hand. “You shall never have cause to repent the gift.”

Thomas Godolphin was placing Maria in the carriage. She looked out through her tears, nodding her last adieus. George took his place beside her, and the postboy started on the first stage towards Dover.

Another moment, and they had whirled by, beyond view. George turned impulsively to Maria and drew her closer to him. “Thank God! thank God!” he earnestly said.

“For what?” she murmured.

“That you are mine. Maria, I dreamt last night that I had married Charlotte Pain, and that you were dying. The dream has been haunting me all day. I can laugh at it now, thank God!”

In the gayest and lightest room of Lady Godolphin’s Folly, its windows open to the green slopes, the gay flowers, the magnificent prospect which swept the horizon in the distance, was Mrs. Verrall. She lay back in a fauteuil, in the vain, idle, listless manner favoured by her; toying with the ribbons of her tasty dress, with the cluster of gleaming trifles on her watch-chain, with her gossamer handkerchief, its lace so fine in texture that unobservant eyes could not tell where the cambric ended and the lace began, with her fan which lay beside her, tapping her pretty foot upon an ottoman in some impatience; there she sat, displaying her conscious charms, and waiting for any callers, idle and vain as herself, who might arrive to admire them.

At a distance, in another fauteuil, listless and impatient also, sat Rodolf Pain. Time hung heavily on Mr. Pain’s hands just now. He was kept a sort of prisoner at Lady Godolphin’s Folly, and it appeared to be the chief business of Charlotte Pain’s life to be cross to him. Three weeks had his sojourn there lasted: and though he had hinted to Charlotte on his arrival that he might remain a goodly number of weeks—interminable weeks, was the expression, I think—he had not really expected to do so; and the delay was chafing him. What particular business might be keeping Mr. Pain at Prior’s Ash it is not our province at present to inquire: what his especial motive might be for rather shunning observation than courting it, is no affair of ours. He did not join Mrs. Verrall in her visiting: he had an innate dislike to visitors—to “fine people,” as he phrased it. Even now, if any carriage drove up and deposited its freight at the Folly, it would be the signal for Mr. Rodolf Pain to walk out of the drawing-room. He was shy, and had not been accustomed to society. He strolled in and out all day in his restlessness, nearly unnoticed by Mrs. Verrall, fidgeting Charlotte Pain; a cigar in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets; sauntering about the grounds, flinging himself into chairs, one sentence of complaint for ever on his lips: “I wish to goodness Verrall would write!”

But Verrall did not write. Mrs. Verrall had received one or two short notes from him after her return from London—where she had stayed but twenty-four hours—and all the allusion in them to Mr. Pain had been, “Tell Rodolf he shall hear from me as soon as possible.” Rodolf could only wait with what patience he might, and feel himself like a caged tiger, without its fierceness. There was no fierceness about Rodolf Pain;—timidity rather than that.

“Does she never mean to marry?”

“Who?” languidly asked Mrs. Verrall.

“Charlotte, of course. I have nothing to do with anybody else, that I should ask. She faithfully promised to be my wife: you know she did, Mrs. Verrall——”

“Don’t talk to me, Rodolf,” apathetically interrupted Mrs. Verrall; “As if I should interfere between you and Charlotte!”

“I think you are in league together to snub me, Mrs. Verrall, she and you; that’s what I think,” grumbled Rodolf. “If I only remind her of her promise, she snaps my nose off. Are we to be married, or are we not?”

“It is no affair of mine, I say,” said Mrs. Verrall, “and I shall not make it one. I had as soon Charlotte married you, as not; but I am not going to take an active part in urging it—probably only to be blamed afterwards. This is all I can say, and if you tease me more, Rodolf, I shall trouble you to walk into another room.”

Thus repulsed, Rodolf Pain held his tongue. He turned about in his chair, stretched out his feet, drew, them in again, threw up his arms with a prolonged yawn, and altogether proved that he was going wild for want of something to do. Presently he began again.

“Where’s she off to?”

“Charlotte?” cried Mrs. Verrall. “She went into Prior’s Ash. She said—yes, I think she said, she should call upon Lady Sarah Grame. Look there!”

Mrs. Verrall rose from her seat, and ran to a farther window, whence she gained a better view of the high-road, leading from Ashlydyat to Prior’s Ash. A chariot-and-four was passing slowly towards the town. Its postboys wore white favours, and Margery and a manservant were perched outside. Mrs. Verrall knew that it was the carriage destined to convey away George Godolphin and his bride, who were at that moment seated at the breakfast at All Souls’ Rectory, chief amidst the wedding guests.

“Then Margery does go abroad with them!” exclaimed Mrs. Verrall. “The servants had so many conflicting tales, that it was impossible to know which to believe. She goes as Mrs. George’s maid, I suppose, and to see after him and his rheumatism.”

“His rheumatism’s well, isn’t it?” returned Rodolf Pain.

“That is well; but he’s not. He is weak as water, needing care still. Prudent Janet does well to send Margery. What should Maria Hastings know about taking care of the sick? I think they have shown excessively bad manners not to invite me to the breakfast,” continued Mrs. Verrall, in a tone of acidity.

“I don’t care,” said Mrs. Verrall; “they might have made an exception in my favour. They know I like such things: and we lived in their house, Ashlydyat, and are now living at Lady Godolphin’s Folly.”

“That’s where Charlotte’s gone, I’ll lay,” cried Mr. Rodolf Pain.

Mrs. Verrall turned her eyes upon him with a slight accession of wonder in them. “Gone there! To the Rectory? Nonsense, Rodolf!”

“I didn’t say to the Rectory, Mrs. Verrall. She wouldn’t be so stupid as to go there without an invitation. She’s gone about the town, to stare at the carriages, and look out for what she can see.”

“Very possibly,” returned Mrs. Verrall, throwing herself into her chair in weariness. “What has become of all the people to-day, that no one comes to call upon me? I should think they are stopping to look at the wedding.”

Rodolf, in weariness as great, slowly lifted his body out of the chair, gave himself another stretch, and left the room. The curse of work! Never did work bring a curse half as great as that brought by idleness. Better break stones on the road, better work in galley-chains, than sit through the livelong day, day after day as the year goes round, and be eaten up by lassitude. Rodolf Pain’s compulsory idleness was only temporary; he was away from his occupation only for a time: but Mrs. Verrall possessed no occupation from year’s end to year’s end. Her hands had no duties to perform, no labour to transact: she never touched anything in the shape of ornamental work; she rarely, if ever, opened a book. She was one of those who possess no resources within themselves: and, may Heaven have mercy upon all such!

By-and-by, after Rodolf had smoked two cigars outside, and had lounged in again, pretty nearly done to death with the effort to kill time, Charlotte returned. She came in at the open window, apparently in the highest spirits, her face sparkling.

“Did you hear the bells?” asked she.

“I did,” answered Rodolf. “I heard them when I was out just now.”

“The town’s quite in a commotion,” Charlotte resumed. “Half the ragamuffins in the place are collected round the Rectory gates: they had better let the beadle get amongst them!”

“Commotion or no commotion, I know I have not had a soul to call here!” grumbled Mrs. Verrall. “Where have you been, Charlotte?”

“At Lady Sarah’s. And I have had the great honour of seeing the bride and bridegroom!” went on Charlotte, in a tone of complaisance so intense as to savour of mockery. “They came driving by in their carriage, and we had full view of them.”

This somewhat aroused Mrs. Verrall from her listlessness. “They have started, then! How did she look, Charlotte?”

“Look!” cried Charlotte. “She looked as she usually looks, for all I saw. His cheeks were hectic; I could see that. Mr. George must take care of himself yet, I fancy.”

“Could I see?—seated low in the carriage, as she was, and leaning back in it!” retorted Charlotte. “She wore a white bonnet and veil, and that’s all I can tell you. Margery and Pearce were with them. Kate, don’t you think Lady Sarah must feel this day? A few months ago, and it was her daughter who was on the point of marriage with a Godolphin. But she did not seem to think of it. She’d give her head for a daughter of hers to wed a Godolphin still.”

Mrs. Verrall raised her eyes to Charlotte’s with an expression of simple astonishment. The remark mystified her. Mrs. Verrall could boast little depth of any sort, and never saw half as far as Charlotte did. Charlotte resumed:

“I saw; I know: I have seen and known ever since Ethel died. My lady would like Sarah Anne to take Ethel’s place with Thomas Godolphin.”

“I can hardly believe that, Charlotte.”

“Disbelieve it then,” equably responded Charlotte, as she passed out to the terrace, and began calling to her dogs. They came noisily up in answer; and Charlotte disappeared with them.

And Mr. Rodolf Pain, sitting there in his embroidered chair, with a swelling heart, remarked that Charlotte had not vouchsafed the smallest notice to him. “I wouldn’t stop another hour,” he murmured to himself, “only that my going back would put up Verrall: and—and it might not do.”

Very intense was that gentleman’s surprise to see, not two minutes after, Mr. Verrall himself enter the room by the window. Mrs. Verrall gave a little shriek of astonishment; and the new-comer, throwing his summer overcoat upon a chair, shook hands with his wife, and gave her a kiss. Plenty of dust was mingled with his yellow whiskers, and his moustache.

“I came third-class most of the way,” explained Mr. Verrall, as an apology for the dust. “The first-class carriage was stuffing hot, and there was no getting a smoke in it. We had a troublesome guard: the fellow excused himself by saying one of the directors was in the train.”

“I have been all this time rubbing my eyes to find out whether they are deceiving me,” cried Rodolf Pain. “Who was to dream of seeing you here to-day, sir?”

“I should think you expected to see me before, Rodolf,” was Mr. Verrall’s answer.

“Well, so I did. But it seemed to be put off so long, that I am surprised to see you now. Is—is all straight?”

“Quite straight,” replied Mr. Verrall; “after an overwhelming amount of bother. You are going up to-day, Pain.”

“And not sorry to hear it, either,” cried Rodolf Pain, with emphasis. “I am sick of having nothing to do. Is Appleby settled?” he added, dropping his voice.

“Verrall,” said she, “if you come out, you can hear the bells. Do you know what they are ringing for?”

“What bells? Why should I listen to them?” inquired Mr. Verrall, turning from Rodolf Pain.

“They are ringing for George Godolphin’s wedding. He has been married to-day.”

The information appeared—as Rodolf Pain would have expressed it, had he given utterance to his sentiments—to strike Mr. Verrall all of a heap. “George Godolphin married to-day!” he repeated, in profound astonishment, remembering the weak state George had been in when he had left Prior’s Ash, some weeks before. “Married or buried, do you mean?”

Mrs. Verrall laughed. “Oh, he has got well from his illness: or, nearly so,” she said. “The bells would ring muffled peals, if he were buried, Verrall, as they did for Sir George.”

“And whom has he married?” continued Mr. Verrall, not in the least getting over his astonishment.

“Maria Hastings.”

Mr. Verrall stroked his yellow moustache; a somewhat recent appendage to his beauty. He was by no means a demonstrative man—except on rare occasions—and though the tidings evidently made a marked impression on him, he said nothing. “Is Charlotte at the wedding?” he casually asked.

“No strangers were invited,” replied Mrs. Verrall. “Lady Godolphin came for it, and is staying at Ashlydyat. She has put off her weeds for to-day, and appears in colours: glad enough, I know, of the excuse for doing so.”

“Where is Charlotte?” resumed Mr. Verrall.

He happened to look at Rodolf Pain as he spoke, and the latter answered, pointing towards some trees on the right.

“She went down there with her dogs. I’ll go and find her.”

Mr. Verrall watched him away, and then turned to his wife: speaking, however, impassively still.

“You say he has married Maria Hastings? How came Charlotte to let him slip through her fingers?”

“Because she could not help it, I suppose,” replied Mrs. Verrall, shrugging her pretty shoulders. “I never thought Charlotte had any chance with George Godolphin, Maria Hastings being in the way. Had Charlotte been first in the field, it might have made all the difference. He had fallen in love with Maria Hastings before he ever saw Charlotte.”

Mr. Verrall superciliously drew down his lips at the corners. “Don’t talk about a man’s ‘falling in love,’ Kate. Girls fall in love: men know better. Charlotte has played her cards badly,” he added, with some emphasis.

“I am sorry for that,” quietly remarked Mr. Verrall. “I was in hopes to have made some use of Mr. George Godolphin.”

“Use?” cried Mrs. Verrall. “What use?”

“Oh, nothing,” carelessly replied Mr. Verrall. “A little matter of business that I was going to propose to him.”

“Won’t it do when he comes home?”

“I dare say it may,” said Mr. Verrall.

Mr. Rodolf Pain had walked to the right, and plunged into the grove of trees in search of Charlotte. He was not long in finding her. The noise made by her dogs was sufficient guide to him. In one respect Charlotte Pain was better off than her sister, Mrs. Verrall: she found more resources for killing time. Charlotte had no greater taste for books than Mrs. Verrall had: if she took one up, it was only to fling it down again: she did not draw, she did not work. For some reasons of her own, Charlotte kept an ornamental piece of work in hand, which never got finished. Once in a way, upon rare occasions, it was taken up, and a couple of stitches done to it; and then, like the book, it was flung down again. Charlotte played well; nay, brilliantly: but she never played to amuse herself, or for the love of music—always for display. The resources which Charlotte possessed above Mrs. Verrall, lay in her horsemanship and her dogs. Mrs. Verrall could ride, and sometimes did so; but it was always in a decorous manner. She did not gallop, helter-skelter, across country as Charlotte did, with half a dozen cavaliers barely keeping up with her: she took no pleasure in horses for themselves, and she would as soon have entered a pigsty as a stable. With all Mrs. Verrall’s vanity, and her not over-strong intellect, she possessed more of the refinement of the gentlewoman than did Charlotte.

Rodolf Pain reached the bench. It was a lovely spot, secluded and shaded by trees; with an opening in front to admit a panoramic view of the enchanting scenery. But, on the mossy turf between that bench and the opening, snarled and fought those awful dogs: neither the noise nor the pastime particularly in accordance with that pleasant spot, so suggestive of peace. Charlotte looked on approvingly, giving a helping word to either side which she might deem required it; while the King Charley barked and struggled in her arms, because he was restrained from joining in the mêlée.

“I am going up at last, Charlotte.”

“Up where?” asked Charlotte, without turning her eyes on Rodolf Pain.

“To town. Verralls come back.”

Surprise caused her to look at him now. “Verrall back!” she uttered. “He has come suddenly, then; he was not back five minutes ago. When are you going up?”

“I will tell you all about it if you’ll muzzle those brutes, and so stop their noise.”

“Muzzle them yourself,” said Charlotte, kicking the muzzles on to the grass with her foot.

Mr. Pain accomplished his task, though he did not particularly like it; neither was it an easy one: the dogs were ferocious at the moment. He then drove them away, and Charlotte dropped her King Charley that he might run after them; which he did, barking his short squeaking bark. Rodolf held out his hand to help Charlotte down from the bench; but Charlotte chose to remain where she was, and seated herself on one of its arms. Rodolf Pain took a seat on the bench sideways, so as to face her, leaning his back against the other arm.

“When do you go?” repeated Charlotte.

“In an hour from this.”

“Quick work,” remarked Charlotte. “Verrall gives no time for the grass to grow in anything he has to do with.”

“The quick departure is mine,” said Mr. Pain. “So that I am in town for business to-morrow morning, it’s all that Verrall cares about. He suggested that I should go up by a night train.”

“I should,” cried Charlotte, bluntly.

“No you would not,” answered Rodolf Pain in a tone of bitterness. “Were you treated by any one as you treat me, you’d be glad enough to get away.”

“That’s good!” ejaculated Charlotte with a ringing laugh. “I’m sure I treat you beautifully. Many a one would jump at getting the treatment from me that I give you; I can tell you that, Mr. Dolf.”

Mr. Dolf smoked on in silence; rather savagely for him.

“What have you to complain of?” pursued Charlotte.

“Who says I have jilted you—or that I mean to jilt you?” asked Charlotte.

“Who says it?” retorted Rodolf Pain. “Why—are you not doing so?”

“No. I dare say I shall have you some time.”

“I am getting tired of it, Charlotte,” said he, in a weary tone of pain. “I have cared for nothing but you in the world—in the shape of woman—but I am getting tired; and I have had enough to make me. If you will fix our wedding now, before I go up, and keep to it, I’ll bless you for it, and make you a fonder husband than George Godolphin would have made you.”

“How dare you mention George Godolphin to me in that way?” cried Charlotte, with flashing eyes, for the sentence had roused all her ire. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dolf Pain! Has not George Godolphin—as it turns out—been engaged to Maria Hastings longer than I have known him, and has now married her? Do you suppose I could have spent that time with them both, in Scotland, at Lady Godolphin’s, and not have become acquainted with their secret? That must prove what your senseless jealousy was worth!”

“Charlotte,” said he, meekly, “as to George Godolphin, I readily confess I was mistaken, and I am sorry to have been so stupid. You might have set me right with a word, but I suppose you preferred to tease me. However, he is done with now. But, Charlotte, I tell you that altogether I am getting tired of it. Have me, or not, as you feel you can: but, played with any longer, I will not be. If you dismiss me now, you dismiss me for good.”

“I have half a mind to say yes,” returned Charlotte, in the coolest tone, as if she were deciding a trifling matter—the choice of a bonnet, or the route to be pursued in a walk. “But there’s one thing holds me back, Dolf.”

“What’s that?” asked Dolf, whose cheek had lighted up with eager hope.

Charlotte leaped off the bench and sat down on it, nearer to Dolf, her accent and face as apparently honest as if fibs were unknown to her. “And it is the only thing which has held me back all along,” she went on, staring unflinchingly into Dolf’s eyes.

“Well, what is it?” cried he.

“The hazard of the step.”

“The hazard!” repeated Dolf. “What hazard?”

Charlotte glanced round, as if to convince herself that nothing with human ears was near, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You and Verrall are not upon the safest course——”

“It’s as safe as many others,” interrupted Dolf Pain.

“Good gracious, no!” cried Rodolf Pain, flinging his cigar away in his surprise and anger. “What could put that into your head, Charlotte? The—profession—may not be one of the strictest honour, and it has its dark sides as well as its light; but there’s no danger of such a thing as you hint at. Where did you pick up the idea?”

“I don’t know where. I have caught a word or two, not meant for me; and now and then I see things reported in the newspapers. You can’t deny one thing, Dolf: that, if any unpleasantness should drop from the skies, it has been made a matter of arrangement that you should be the sufferer, not Verrall.”

Rodolf’s light eyes expanded beyond common. “How did you get to know that?” he asked.

“Never mind how I got to know it. Is it so?”

“Yes, it is,” acknowledged Mr. Pain, who was by nature more truthful than Charlotte. “But I give you my word of honour, Charlotte, that there’s no danger of our falling into such a pit as you have hinted at. We should not be such fools. The worst that could happen to me would be a sojourn, short or long, in some snug place such as this, while Verrall puts things right. As it has been now, for instance, through this business of Appleby’s.”

“You tell me this to satisfy me,” said Charlotte.

“I tell it because it is truth—so far as my belief goes, and as far as I can now foresee.”

“Very well. I accept it,” returned Charlotte. “But now, Rodolf, mark what I say. If this worst state of things should come to pass——”

“It won’t, I tell you,” he interrupted. “It can’t.”

“Will you listen? I choose to put the matter upon a supposition that it may do so. If this state of things should come to pass and you fall, I will never fall with you; and it is only upon that condition that I will become your wife.”

The words puzzled Mr. Pain not a little. “I don’t understand you, Charlotte. As to ‘conditions,’ you may make any for yourself that you please—in reason.”

“Very well. We will have an understanding with each other, drawn up as elaborately as if it were a marriage settlement,” she said, laughing. “Yes, Mr. Rodolf, while you have been ill-naturedly accusing me of designs upon the heart of George Godolphin, I was occupied with precautions touching my married life with you. You don’t deserve me; and that’s a fact. Let go my hand, will you. One of those dogs has got unmuzzled, I fancy, by the noise, and I must run or there’ll be murder committed.”

“Charlotte,” he cried, feverishly and eagerly, not letting go her hand, “when shall it be?”

“As you like,” she answered indifferently. “This month, or next month, or the month after: I don’t care.”

The tone both mortified and pained him. His brow knit: and Charlotte saw the impression her words had made. She put on a pretty look of contrition.

“You will take care to have that, Charlotte, whether it be an understood thing beforehand, or not,” replied he.

Charlotte laughed as she walked away. A ringing laugh of power, which the air echoed: of power, at any rate, over the heart and will of Mr. Rodolf Pain.

CHAPTER XXII.
DANGEROUS AMUSEMENT.

On an April day, sunny and charming, a gentleman with a lady on his arm was strolling down one of the narrowest and dirtiest streets of Homburg. A tall man was he, tall and handsome, with a fair Saxon face, and fair Saxon curls that shimmered like gold in the sunlight. Could it be George Godolphin—who had gone away from Prior’s Ash six months before, nothing but a shadowy wreck. It was George safe enough; restored to full strength, to perfect health. Maria, on the contrary, looked thin and delicate, and her face had lost a good deal of its colour. They had wintered chiefly at Pau, but had left it a month past. Since then they had travelled about from place to place, by short stages, taking it easy, as George called it: staying a day or two in one town, a day or two in another, turning to the right or left, as inclination led them, going forward, or backward. So that they were home by the middle of April, it would be time enough. George had received carte blanche from Thomas Godolphin to remain out as long as he thought it necessary; and George was not one to decline the privilege. Play before work had always been George’s motto.

On the previous evening they had arrived at Homburg from Wiesbaden, and were now taking their survey of the place. Neither liked its appearance so much as they had done many other places, and they were mutually agreeing to leave it again that evening, when a turning in the street brought them in view of another lady and gentleman, arm in arm as they were.

“English, I am sure,” remarked Maria, in a low tone.

“I should think so!” replied George, laughing. “Don’t you recognize them?”

She had recognized them ere George finished speaking. Mr. and Mrs. Verrall! It took about ten minutes to ask and answer questions. “How strange that we should not have met before!” Mrs. Verrall cried. “We have been here a fortnight. But perhaps you have only just come?”

“Only last night,” said George.

“My wife turned ill for a foreign tour, so I indulged her,” explained Mr. Verrall. “We have been away a month now.”

“It’s as good as any other of these German places, for all I see,” carelessly remarked Mr. Verrall. “How well you are looking!” he added to George.

“I cannot pay you the same compliment,” Mrs. Verrall said to Maria. “What have you done with your roses?”

Maria’s “roses” came vividly into her cheeks at the question. “I am not in strong health just now,” was all she answered.

George smiled. “There’s nothing seriously the matter, Mrs. Verrall,” said he. “Maria will find her roses again after a while. Charlotte has—I was going to say, changed her name,” broke off George; “but in her case that would be a wrong figure of speech. She is married, we hear.”

“Long ago,” said Mrs. Verrall. “Charlotte’s quite an old married woman by this time. It took place—let me see!—last November. They live in London.”

“Mr. Pain is her cousin, is he not?”

“Yes. It was an old engagement,” continued Mrs. Verrall, looking at George. “Many a time, when she and you were flirting together, I had to call her to account, and remind her of Mr. Pain.”

George could not remember that Mrs. Verrall had ever done such a thing in his presence: and she had been rather remarkable for not interfering: for leaving him and Charlotte to go their own way. But he did not say so.

They turned and continued their walk together. George—he had lost none of his gallantry—taking his place by the side of Mrs. Verrall.

In passing a spot where there was a partial obstruction, some confusion occurred. A house was under repair, and earth and stones lay half-way across the street, barely giving room for any vehicle to pass. Just as they were opposite this, a lumbering coach, containing a gay party with white bows in their caps—probably a christening—came rattling up at a sharp pace. George Godolphin, taking Mrs. Verrall’s hand, piloted her to safety. Maria was not so fortunate. Mr. Verrall was a little behind her or before her: at any rate, he was not adroit enough to assist her at the right moment; and Maria, seeing no escape between the coach and the débris, jumped upon the latter. The stones moved under her feet, and she slipped off again to the other side. It did not hurt her much, but it shook her greatly. George, who was looking back at the time, had sprung back and caught her before Mr. Verrall well saw what had occurred.

“My darling, how did it happen? Are you hurt? Verrall, could you not have taken better care?” he reiterated, his face flushed with emotion and alarm.

Maria leaned heavily upon him, and drew a long breath before she could speak. “I am not hurt, George.”

“Are you sure?” he anxiously cried.

Maria smiled reassuringly. “It is nothing indeed. It has only shaken me. See! I am quite free from the stones. I must have been careless, I think.”

George took her upon his arm, with an air that seemed to intimate he should not trust her to any one again, and they went back to their hotel, Mrs. Verrall saying she should call upon them in half an hour’s time.

Maria was looking pale; quite white. George, in much concern, untied her bonnet-strings. “Maria, I fear you are hurt!”

“Indeed I am not—as I believe,” she answered. “Why do you think so?”

“Because you are not looking well.”

“I was startled at the time; frightened. I shall get over it directly, George.”

“I think you had better see a doctor. I suppose there’s a decent one to be found in the town.”

“Oh no!” returned Maria, with much emphasis, in her surprise. “See a doctor because I slipped down a little? Why, George, that would be foolish! I have often jumped from a higher height than that. Do you remember the old wall at the Rectory? We children were for ever jumping from it.”

“That was one time, and this is another, Mrs. George Godolphin,” said he, significantly.

Maria laughed. “Only fancy the absurdity, George! Were a doctor called in, his first question would be, ‘Where are you hurt, madame?’ ‘Not anywhere, monsieur,’ would be my reply. ‘Then what do you want with me?’ he would say, and how foolish I should look!”

George laughed too, and resigned the point. “You are the better judge, of course, Maria. Margery,” he continued—for Margery, at that moment, entered the room—“your mistress has had a fall.”

“A fall!” uttered Margery, in her abrupt way, as she turned to regard Maria.

“It could not be called a fall, Margery,” said Maria, slightingly. “I slipped off some earth and stones. I did not quite fall.”

“Are you hurt, ma’am?”

“It did not hurt me at all. It only shook me.”

“Nasty things, those slips are sometimes!” resumed Margery. “I have known pretty good illnesses grow out of ’em.”

George did not like the remark. He deemed it thoughtless of Margery to make it in the presence of his wife, under the circumstances. “You must croak, or it would not be you, Margery,” said he, in a vexed tone.

It a little put up Margery. “I can tell you what, Master George,” cried she; “your own mother was in her bed for eight weeks, through nothing on earth but slipping down two stairs. I say those shakes are ticklish things—when one is not in a condition to bear them. Ma’am, you must just take my advice, and lie down on that sofa, and not get off it for the rest of the day. There’s not a doctor in the land as knows anything, but would say the same.”

“And pray, ma’am, what do you call yourself but delicate? You are not one of the strong ones,” cried Margery, as she left the room for a shawl.

George drew his wife’s face to his in an impulse of affection, and kissed it. “Don’t pay any attention to Margery’s croaking, my dearest,” he fondly said. “But she is quite right in recommending you to lie still. It will rest you.”

“I am afraid I shall go to sleep, if I am condemned to lie here,” said Maria.

“The best thing you can do,” returned George. “Catch me trusting you to any one’s care again!”

In a short time Mrs. Verrall came in, and told George that her husband was waiting for him outside. George went out, and Mrs. Verrall sat down by Maria.

“It is Margery’s doings, Margery’s and George’s,” said Maria, as if she would apologize for being found on the sofa, covered up like an invalid. “They made me lie down.”

“Are you happy?” Mrs. Verrall somewhat abruptly asked.

“Happy?” repeated Maria, at a loss to understand the exact meaning of the words.

“Happy with George Godolphin. Are you and he happy with each other?”

A soft blush overspread Maria’s face; a light of love shone in her eyes. “Oh, so happy!” she murmured. “Mrs. Verrall, I wonder sometimes whether any one in the world is as happy as I am!”

“Because it struck me that you were changed; you look ill.”

“Oh, that!” returned Maria, with a rosier blush still. “Can’t you guess the cause of that, Mrs. Verrall? As George told you, I shall, I hope, look well again, after a time.”

Mrs. Verrall shrugged her shoulders with indifference. She had never lost her bloom from any such cause.

Maria found—or Margery did for her—that the fall had shaken her more than was expedient. After all, a medical man had to be called in. Illness supervened. It was not a very serious illness, and not at all dangerous; but it had the effect of detaining them at Homburg. Maria lay in bed, and George spent most of his time with the Verralls.

With Mr. Verrall chiefly. Especially in an evening. George would go out, sometimes before dinner, sometimes after it, and come home so late that he did not venture into Maria’s room to say good night to her. Since her illness he had occupied an adjoining chamber. It did Maria no good: she would grow flushed, excited, heated: and when George did come in, he would look flushed and excited also.

“But, George, where do you stay so late?”

“Only with Verrall.”

“You look so hot. I am sure you are feverish.”

“The rooms were very hot. We have been watching them play. Good night, darling. I wish you were well!”

On the very first evening that they were together, the day of the slight accident to Maria, Mr. Verrall asked George to dine with him; and he afterwards took him to the tables. George did not play that evening; but he grew excited, watching others play. Heavy stakes were lost and won; evil passions were called forth; avarice, hatred, despair. Mr. Verrall played for a small sum; and won. “It whiles away an hour or two,” he carelessly remarked to George, as they were leaving. “And one can take care of one’s self.”

“All can’t take care of themselves, apparently,” answered George Godolphin. “Did you observe that haggard-looking Englishman, leaning against the wall and biting his nails when his money had gone? The expression of that man’s face will haunt me for a week to come. Those are the men who commit suicide.”

Mr. Verrall smiled, half-mockingly. “Suicide! Not they,” he answered. “The man will be there to-morrow evening, refeathered.”

“I never felt more pity for any one in my life,” continued George. “There was despair in his face, if I ever saw despair. I could have found in my heart to go up and offer him my purse; only I knew it would be staked the next moment at the table.”

“You did not know him, then?”

“No.”

Mr. Verrall mentioned the man’s name, and George felt momentarily surprised. He was a noted baronet’s eldest son.

The next evening came round. Maria was confined to her bed then, and George was a gentleman at large. A gentleman at large to be pounced upon by Mr. Verrall. He came—Verrall—and carried George off again to dinner.

“Let us take a stroll,” he said, later in the evening.

Their stroll took them towards the scene of the night before, Mr. Verrall’s being the moving will. “Shall we see who’s there?” he said, with great apparent indifference.

George answered as indifferently: but there was an undercurrent of meaning in his tone, wonderful for careless George Godolphin. “Better keep out of temptation.”

Mr. Verrall laughed till the tears came into his eyes: he said George made him laugh. “Come along,” cried he, mockingly. “I’ll take care of you.”

That night George played. A little. “As well put a gold piece down,” Mr. Verrall whispered to him; “I shall.” George staked more than one gold piece; and won. A fortnight had gone over since then, and George Godolphin had become imbued with the fearful passion of gambling. At any rate, imbued with it temporarily: it is to be hoped that he will leave it behind him when he leaves Homburg.

“Rouge,” called George.

It was noir. George flung his last money on the board, and moved away.

Mr. Verrall followed him. “Tired already?”

Mr. George let slip a furious word. “The luck has been against me all along; almost from the first night I played here. I am cleaned out again.”

“I can let you have——”

“Thank you!” hastily interrupted George. “You are very accommodating, Verrall, but it seems we may go on at the same thing for ever: I losing, and you finding me money. How much is it that I owe you altogether?”

“A bagatelle. Never mind that.”

“A bagatelle!” repeated George. “It’s well money is so valueless to you: I don’t call it one. And I have never been a man given to looking at money before spending it.”

“You can pay me when and how you like. This year, next year, the year after: I shan’t sue you for it,” laughed Mr. Verrall. “There! go and redeem your luck.”

He held out a heavy roll of notes to George. The latter’s eager fingers clutched them: but, even as they were within his grasp, better thoughts came to him. He pushed them back again.

“I am too deeply in your debt already, Verrall.”

“As you please,” returned Mr. Verrall, with indifference. “There the notes are, lying idle. As to what you have had, if it’s so dreadful a burden on your conscience, you can give me interest for it. You can let the principal lie, I say, though it be for ten years to come. One half-hour’s play with these notes may redeem all you have lost.”

He left the notes lying by George Godolphin—by hesitating George—with the fierce passion to use them that was burning within him. Mr. Verrall could not have taken a more efficient way of inducing him to play again, than to affect this easy indifference, and to leave the money under his eyes, touching his fingers, fevering his brain. George took up the notes.

“You are sure you will let me pay you interest, Verrall?”

“Of course I will.”

And George walked off to the gaming-table.

He went home later that night than he had gone at all, wiping the perspiration from his brow, lifting his face to the quiet stars, and gasping to catch a breath of air. Mr. Verrall found it rather cool, than not; shrugged his shoulders, and said he could do with an overcoat; but George felt stifled. The roll had gone; and more to it had gone; and George Godolphin was Mr. Verrall’s debtor to a heavy amount.

“Thank goodness the day has already dawned!” involuntarily broke from George.

“We shall get away from the place to-day,” said George. “If I stopped in it I should come to the dogs.”

“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mr. Verrall. “Luck is safe to turn some time. It’s like the tide, it has its time for flowing in, and its time for flowing out; once let it turn, and it comes rushing in all one way. But, what do you mean about going? Your wife is not well enough to travel yet.”

“Yes she is,” was George’s answer. “Quite well enough.”

“Of course you know best. I think you should consider——”

“Verrall, I should consider my wife’s health and safety before any earthly thing,” interrupted George. “We might have started to-day, had we liked: I speak of the day that has gone: the doctor said yesterday that she was well enough to travel.”

“I was not aware of that. I shall remain here a week longer.”

“And I shall be away before to-morrow night.”

“Not you,” cried Mr. Verrall.

“I shall: if I keep in the mind I am in now.”

Mr. Verrall smiled. He knew George was not famous for keeping his resolutions. In the morning, when his smarting should be over, he would stay on, fast enough. They wished each other good night, and George turned into his hotel.

To his great surprise, Margery met him on the stairs. “Are you walking the house as the ghosts do?” cried he, with a renewal of his good-humour. Nothing pleased George better than to give old Margery a joking or a teasing word. “Why are you not in bed?”

“There’s enough ghosts in the world, it’s my belief, without my personating them, sir,” was Margery’s answer. “I’m not in bed yet, because my mistress is not in bed.”

“Your mistress not in bed!” repeated George. “But that is very wrong.”

“So it is,” said Margery. “But it has been of no use my telling her so. She took it into her head to sit up for you; and sit up she has. Not there, sir”—for he was turning to their sitting-room—“she is lying back in the big chair in her bedroom.”

George entered. Maria, white and wan and tired, was lying back, as Margery expressed it, in the large easy-chair. She was too fatigued, too exhausted to get up: she only held out her hand to her husband.

“My darling, you know this is wrong,” he gently said, bending over her. “Good heavens, Maria! how ill and tired you look!”

“I should not have slept had I gone to bed,” she said. “George, tell me where you have been: where it is that you go in an evening?”

“Maria!” he exclaimed, “what are you thinking of? What is the matter?”

Maria changed her position. She let her head glide from the chair on to his sheltering arm. “Mrs. Verrall frightened me, George. Will you be angry with me if I tell you? She came in this evening, and she said you and Mr. Verrall were losing all your money at the gaming-table.”

George Godolphin’s face grew hot and angry, worse than it had been in the gambling-room, and mentally he gave Mrs. Verrall an exceedingly uncomplimentary word. “What possessed her to say that?” he exclaimed. And in truth he wondered what could have possessed her. Verrall, at any rate, was not losing his money. “Were you so foolish as to believe it, Maria?”

“Only a little of it, George. Pray forgive me! I am weak just now, you know, and things startle me. I have heard dreadful tales of these foreign gaming-places: and I knew how much you had been out at night since we came here. It is not so, is it, George?”

George made a show of laughing at her anxiety. “I and Verrall have strolled into the places and watched the play,” said he. “We have staked a few coins ourselves—not to be looked upon as two churls who put their British noses into everything and then won’t pay for the privilege. I lost what I staked, with a good grace; but as to Verrall, I don’t believe he is a halfpenny out of pocket. Mrs. Verrall must have been quarrelling with her husband, and so thought she’d say something to spite him. And my wife must take it for gospel, and begin to fret herself into a fever!”