“Miss Atheling! That girl! What an absurd idea! Why should she give Lord Exham a ring?”

“Why! There are so many ‘whys’ that nobody can answer.” And with this remark, Annabel felt that her opportunity for confession had quite lapsed. For if the Duchess had thought it right to reprove her for such freedom as she had shown towards Cecil North, what would she say about an act so daring, so really improper in a social sense, as the removal of a ring from her son’s hand? Annabel had no mind to bring on herself the disagreeable looks and words she merited. She gave the conversation the political turn that answered all purposes, by asking the Duchess if she was not afraid Piers’s principles might be influenced by his friendship with young Atheling. “They were David and Jonathan yesterday,” she said; “and as for Cecil North, he is a Radical of the first water.”

“Lord Exham is not so easily persuaded,” answered the Duchess, loftily. “He could as readily change his nose as his principles. But I am seriously annoyed at this intercourse with a family distinctly out of our own caste. The Duke has been very foolish to encourage it.”

“You have also encouraged Miss Atheling.”

“I have been too good-natured. I admit that. But as I have promised to present her, I must honourably keep my word; that is, if any opportunity offers. It now appears as if there would be no court functions. The King declined the Lord Mayor’s feast,–a most unprecedented thing,–and it is said the Queen is averse to receive while the Reform agitation continues. When it will end, nobody knows.”

“It will end when it succeeds, not before,” said Annabel. “I am only a woman, but I see that conclusion very clearly.” It gave her pleasure to make this statement. It was her way of returning to the Duchess the disagreeable words she had been obliged to take from her; and she was not at all dismayed by the look of anger she provoked.

“I am astonished at you, Annabel. Are you also in danger of changing your opinions?”

“I am astonished at myself, Duchess. My opinions are movable; but I have not yet changed them. Truth, however, belongs to all sides, and I cannot avoid seeing things as they are.”

“That is, as young Atheling and Cecil North show them to you.”

“Lord Exham has still more frequent opportunities of showing me the course of events. I have ‘influences’ on both sides, you see, Duchess; but, after all, I form my own opinions.”

“Reform will never be accomplished. The people must follow the nobles, as surely as the thread follows the needle.”

“I have ceased to prophesy. Anything can happen in a long enough time; and I often heard my father say that, ‘They who care and dare may do as they like.’ I think the Reform party both ‘care’ and ‘dare.’”

“Have you fallen in love with Cecil North, or with Mr. Atheling?”

“I am in love with Annabel Vyner. I worship none of the idols that have been set up, either by Tories or Reformers. Men who talk politics are immensely stupid. I shall marry a man who is a good fighter. Mere talkers are like barking dogs. Why don’t these Reformers stop whimpering, and fly like a bull dog at the throat of their wrongs? Then I should go with them, heart and soul and purse.”

“You are talking now for talking’s sake, Annabel. You are actually advocating civil war.”

“Am I really? Well, war is man’s natural condition. It takes churches, and priests, and standing armies, and constables always on hand, to keep peace in any sort of fashion. We are all barbarians under our clothes,–just civilised on the top.”

“Such assertions are odious, and you cannot prove them.”

“I can. The other evening I was reading to Lord Tatham a most exquisite poem by that young man Tennyson; and he seemed to be enjoying it, until Algernon Sydney showed him his watch, and said something about ‘the Black Boy.’ Then his face fairly glowed, and he went off with a compliment that meant nothing. The next morning I found out ‘the Black Boy’ was a famous pugilist. We are all of us, in some way or other, in this mixed condition.”

“I think you are particularly disagreeable this morning, Miss.”

“Pardon, Duchess. We have fallen on a disagreeable subject. Let us change it. Are we to drive to Richmond to-day?”

“If Piers will accompany us. Ay! that is his knock.” She turned a radiant face to meet her son, but received a sudden chill. Piers was pale and sombre-looking; he said he had not slept, and politely declined the Richmond excursion. Annabel was sure he would. “He will have an explanation at the Athelings instead,” she thought; and she waited curiously for some remark which might open the way for her confession–or else close it. But Lord Exham did not allude to his loss, and the Duchess either attached no importance to the subject, or else thought it too important to bring forward. The tone of the room was not brightened by the young lord’s advent, and Annabel quickly excused herself from further attendance.

“He will tell his mother when I am not there; and I shall get his opinions, with commentaries from her,” she thought, as she hurried to her own rooms. Once there, she dismissed her maid, and sat down to realise herself. She doubled her little hands, and beat her knees softly with them. It was her way of summoning her mental forces, and of collecting vagrant and undecided thought.

“I am just here,” she said to her own consciousness. “I have taken a ring from Lord Exham’s finger. What for? Mischief or a joke? Which? Probably mischief. I wanted to turn it into a joke, and my opportunity is gone. Not my fault. If the Duchess had been in a good humour, I should have told her all about it. If Exham’s manner had not frozen everything but the commonplaces of propriety, I would have teased him a little, and then given up the ring. It is their own fault. If people are cross at breakfast, they deserve a disagreeable day. I am not sorry to give them their deserts.”

Then she rose and went to her jewel-case, and took the ring out and put it on her finger. “It is a poor little thing after all,” she said as she turned it round and round. “The stones are not very fine; I have sapphires of far finer colour. If I give Kate Atheling my diamond locket, she will have reason to be grateful,–the setting is, however, really beautiful; that is the point, I suppose. I would like to have a ring set in the same way; but it would be dangerous–” and she laughed as if she enjoyed the thought of the danger. She took off the ring at this point, and looked at it more critically. “What must I do with the troublesome thing?” she asked herself. “Justine is a curious, suspicious creature, and when she hears the talk in the servants’ hall, if she got but a glimpse of it, she would put two and two together.” A momentary resolve to throw it into the fire-place of the Duke’s parlour came into her mind. “If it is found there,” she argued, “the only supposition will be that Piers dropped it on the hearth. If it is not found, there will be no suppositions at all.”

This resolve, however, received no real encouragement. There is a perverse disposition in human nature to keep with special care things that incriminate, or which might become sources of suspicion or trouble; and the ring exercised over the girl this fatal fascination. She closed her jewel-case deliberately, holding the lid a trifle open for a moment or two of last consideration; then she dropped it with decision, and took from her pocket a small purse, made of gold as flexible as leather or satin. There were a few sovereigns in one compartment, and a Hindoo charm in another. She put the ring with the charm, and closed the purse with a smile of satisfaction. For the time being, at any rate, it was out of her way; and there were yet possibilities of turning the whole matter into a pleasantry.

“I may even take it to Kate Atheling and tell her to claim my forfeit.” This very improbable solution satisfied Annabel’s conscience; she was at peace after it, and able to consider more personal affairs.

In order to do this under the most favourable conditions, she placed herself comfortably on her lounge. Her fine, tall form lay at length, supine and indolent, the feet, in their crimson sandals, crossed at the ankles. Her dark, powerful head, with its masses of strong, black hair, looked almost handsome on the pale amber cushions, with the hands and arms–jewelled though it was only morning–clasped above it. She was going to examine herself, and she was not one to shirk even the innermost chamber of her heart.

“First,” she thought, “there is Lord Exham. Do I really want to marry him? Let me be sure of this, and then there is nothing for him to do, but make out the settlements. He cannot resist my influence when I choose to exert it. As yet I have not troubled him much; but I can trouble him–and I will, if I want to. Do I? Be honest, Annabel. There is no use lying to yourself. Well, then, I want to be Duchess of Richmoor; but I do not want to be Exham’s wife. And if I marry him, the present Duke may live ten, twenty, even thirty years. I would not wait for the crown of England thirty years, with a husband I rather despised; only–only what? I do not want that Atheling girl to marry him. Jane Warwick, or Helen Percy, or Margaret Gower, I would not mind–but Kate Atheling! No! Why? I cannot tell.” Nor could she. It was one of those apparently unreasonable dislikes we bring into the world with us, and which, probably, are the most reasonable dislikes of all. “Very well, then,” she continued, “I will not marry Piers, nor shall Kate Atheling marry him. That is fair enough. If I manage to make her give him up, I give him up myself also. I am only doing to her as I do to myself.

“Now there is Wynn, and Sidmouth, and Russell–and others. Every one of them have appraised my value, and made inquiries about my wealth. No one has told me this, but I know it. I know it with that invincible certainty with which women know things they are never told. Cecil North? Yes, I like Cecil North. He really fell in love with me,–with me, myself. A woman knows; she is never deceived about that unless she wants to be deceived. He is poor,–the Westovers are all poor,–I do not care if he is as poor as Job. I am tired to death of rich people. If Cecil North would get a military commission in India, I could be his wife. I could follow the drum, or live in quarters with him, and I should be a better and a happier woman than I am here. This life is too small for me.”

She was right in this estimation of herself. Her nature was one fitted to respond to great emergencies. She was a woman for frontiers and forts, for strife with men or elements, for days of danger in the shadow of suffering or death; and she was living in a society so artificial that any real cry of nature and needless familiarity, any sign of genuine passion was startling and distasteful to it. The soldierly temper inherited from her father demanded an adventurous life, because people made for overcoming obstacles cannot be morally healthy without obstacles to overcome. And, therefore, it was a poor life for Annabel Vyner that offered her no difficulty to surmount but the claims of Kate Atheling. She was quite aware of this, and the ring in her purse was no real triumph. It was rather one of those irreparable facts, the very thought of which gives pain.

If she had been morally stronger, she would have dominated her environment, and defied the circumstances that so easily prevented her from doing the right thing. She would have been obedient to Duty; and that grand, immutable principle would have given her strength to resist temptation, or, having fallen into it, to make the obvious reparation; for

This morning, though she was far from diagnosing her feelings correctly, Annabel soon began to suffer from that nervous and even that physical fatigue which is bred of moral indifference. For nothing is more certain than that moral strength is the very Life of life. She yawned; she felt the hours too long to be endured, while she pictured to herself the scene in the Atheling parlour, when Piers would confess the loss of the ring, and Kate lovingly excuse it. Finally, she became nervously angry at the persistence of the vision. In every possible way she tried to banish it, but though she fetched memories from farthest India, the exasperating phantasm would not be driven away.

In reality the affair produced very little apparent effect. Piers made his confession to Mrs. and Miss Atheling with so much genuine emotion that they could not but make light of the loss while he was present. Yet it troubled both women very much. Mrs. Atheling cried over it when she was alone; and Kate took it as a sign of some untoward event in the course of love between Piers and herself. No one is able to put aside such inferences and presentiments; and, quite unconsciously, it worked towards the end Kate feared. Piers began to fancy–perhaps unjustly–that he never entered Kate’s or Mrs. Atheling’s presence without seeing in their first glance an unspoken inquiry after the lost ring. In some measure he was to blame, if this was so. He had employed detectives to watch such servants of the Richmoor household as could have had access to the Duke’s parlour on that unhappy night; and as the ladies were aware of this movement, it was only natural they should desire to know if any result came from it.

Of course there was no result; and the real culprit remained absolutely unsuspected. As the days wore away, her conscience grew accustomed to the situation; it made no troublesome demands; and Annabel even began to feel a certain pleasurable excitement in holding in her hands what might prove to be a power for great good, or great evil,–for she was not yet ready to admit an entirely evil intention; she chose rather to regard it as a practical jest which she might undo, or explain, in some future, favourable hour.

She kept the jewel always in her purse; she went frequently to the Athelings; and once or twice she had a transitory impulse to tell Kate the whole circumstance, and be guided by her advice in the matter. But the Evil One, who had prompted her in the first instance to take it, always met these intents or impulses with some plausible excuse; and every good impulse which does not crystallise into a good action, only tends towards the strengthening of the evil one. Then outside events made delay more easy. On the fifteenth of November, there was a short, decided argument in the House of Commons on the Civil List; a division was promptly taken, and the Government was found to be in a minority of twenty-nine. The Squire and Lord Exham returned home together, both very much annoyed at this result.

“All this election business will be to go over again,” the Squire said, wearily. “Wellington and Peel are sure to take this opportunity to resign.”

“Why should they resign, John?” asked Mrs. Atheling.

“Well, Maude,” he answered, “they are bound to resign sooner or later; and I should think, if they have any sense left, they will go out as champions of the royal prerogative, rather than be driven out by a Reform division, which is sure to come. They will go out, my word for it, Maude!”

“And what then, John?”

“Well, then, we shall have all the bother of another election; and Earl Grey will form a new Ministry, and Lord Brougham will bully the new Ministry, as he has done the old one, about this Reform Bill. He intended to have begun that business this very night; but there wasn’t any Ministers, nor any Administration to arraign, and so he said, in his domineering way, that he would put the question of Reform off until the twenty-fifth of this month, and not a day longer, no matter what circumstances prevailed, nor who were His Majesty’s Ministers. I can tell you the city was in a pretty commotion as we came home. We shall have a Reform Government now, with Earl Grey at the head, and the real fight will then begin.”

“Earl Grey!” said Mrs. Atheling; “that is Edgar’s friend.”

“Well, I wouldn’t brag about it, Mother, if I was thee. I shall have to go back to Yorkshire, and so will Exham; and there will be no end of bother, and a Reform Ministry at the end of it. It is too bad! What they will do with Mr. Brougham, I am sure I don’t know. No Ministry can live without him; and it will be hard work for any Ministry to live with him; for if he drew up a bill himself, he would find faults in it, and never rest until he had torn it to pieces.”

Piers was sitting in the embrasure of a window, holding Kate’s hands, and talking to her in those low, sweet tones that women love; and at this remark he rose, and, coming towards the Squire, said with a grave smile, “For such dilemmas, Squire, there are remedies made and provided. If it is a clever clergyman who arraigns the church, or his superiors, he is made a bishop; and thereafter, he sees no faults. If it is a clever Commoner who arraigns the Government, the Government makes him a peer; and in the House of Lords, he finds the grace of silence. Earl Grey will have Mr. Brougham made Lord High Chancellor, and then Lord Brougham will only have the power to put the question.”

Exham’s prophecy proved to be correct. Brougham had declared that under any circumstances he would bring up Reform on the twenty-fifth of November; but, on the twenty-second of November, he took his seat as Chancellor in the House of Lords. It was said the Great Seal had been forced upon him; but the Squire wondered what pressure, never before known, had been discovered to make Henry Brougham do anything, or take anything, he did not want to do or take.

However the feat was an accomplished one; and with Earl Gray, Lord Durham, Sir James Graham, Viscounts Melbourne and Palmerston, and other great leaders, Brougham kissed the King’s hand on his appointment just three days before his threatened demonstration for Reform. Soon after Parliament adjourned for the re-election of Members in the Lower House; and the Duke, with Lord Exham and Squire Atheling, went down into Yorkshire.

Edgar and Cecil North also disappeared. “They have gone into the country on business, and I’ll tell you what it is, Kitty,” said Mrs. Atheling, with a little happy importance. “A friend of Earl Grey has a close borough, and Edgar is to have it. I am sure I don’t know what will happen, if he should clash with father in the House. Father cannot bear contradicting.”

“Nothing wrong will happen, Mother.”

“To be sure, the floor of the House of Commons is a bit different from his own hearthstone. When Edgar is a Parliament man, father will give him his place.”

“And Edgar will never forget to give father his place, I am sure of that.”

“I wouldn’t stand a minute with him if he did. What a father and son say to each other in their homestead, is home talk; but Edgar must not threep his father before strangers. No, indeed!”

“I wouldn’t wonder if father comes round a little to Edgar’s views. He listened very patiently to Cecil North, the last time they talked on politics.”

“He has to listen in Parliament, and so he is getting used to listening. He never listened patiently at home–not even to me. But we can hope for the best anyhow, Kitty.”

“To be sure, Mother. Hoping for the best is far better than looking for the worst.”

“I should think it was. Do you believe Piers will be in London at Christmas?”

“I fear not. Mother, he is going to send us each a ring at Christmas; then we will forget the other ring–shall we not?”

“I don’t know, Kitty. I think a deal of that other ring. No new one can make up for it. Why, my dear, your father gave it to me the night I promised to marry him. We were standing under the big white hawthorn at Belward. I’ll never forget that hour.”

“It is so long ago, Mother–you cannot care very much now about it.”

“Now, Kitty, if you think only young people can be in love, get that idea out of your mind at once. You don’t know anything about love yet. After twenty-five years bearing, and forbearing, and childbearing, you will smile at your gentle-shepherding of to-day. Your love is only a fancy now, it will be a fact then that has its foundations in your very life. You do not love Piers Exham, child, as I love your father. You can’t. It isn’t to be expected. And it is a good thing, love is so ordered; for if it did not grow stronger, instead of weaker, marrying would be a poor way of living.”

“That weary ring! I am so sorry that I ever put it on.”

“I did not ask you to put it on, Kitty. I did not want you to put it on.”

“Mother, please don’t be cross.”

“Kitty, don’t be unjust; it is not like you.”

Then Kitty laid her cheek against her mother’s cheek, and said sadly, “I fear, somehow, that ring will make trouble between Piers and me.”

“Nonsense, dearie! The ring is lost and gone. It can’t make trouble now.”

“Its loss was a bad omen, Mother.”

“There is no omen against true love, Kitty. Love counts every sign a good sign.”

“The Duke was very formal with me at my last visit. The Duchess dislikes me; and Miss Vyner has so many opportunities; it seems nearly impossible that Piers should ever marry me.”

“If Piers loves you, there is no impossibility. Love works miracles. You cannot say ‘impossible’ to Love. Love will find out a way.”

CHAPTER NINTH
A FOOLISH VIRGIN

Consequently life was depressed, and not disposed to any exhibition of wealth or festivity; the most heartless and reckless feeling that it would not be endured by men and women on the very verge of starvation. The Queen also was unpopular, and the great social leaders were, as a general thing, bitter political partisans; in theatres and ball-rooms and even on the streets, the Whig and Tory ladies, when they met, looked at one another as Guelphs and Ghibellines, instead of christened English gentlewomen.

Both the Duchess of Richmoor and Miss Vyner were women of strong and irrepressible prejudices; and, before Parliament adjourned, they had made for themselves an environment of active, political enemies. And women carry their politics into their domestic and social life; the Duchess had wounded many of her oldest friends; and Annabel, with the haughty intolerance of youth and wealth, had succeeded in making herself a person whom all the ladies of the Reform party delighted either to positively offend, or to scornfully ignore.

These circumstances, with all her audacity and advantages, she was unable to control. Her brilliant beauty, her clever tongue, her ostentatious dress and display were as nothing against the united disposition of a score of other women to make her understand that they neither desired her friendship nor felt her influence; and she had at least the sense to retire from a conflict “whose weapons,” she said contemptuously, “were not in her armory.” This condition of affairs naturally threw her very much upon the Athelings for society. While the Duchess sat with a few old ladies of her own caste and political persuasion, talking fearfully of the state of English society and of the horrors Reform would inaugurate for the nobility, Annabel spent her time with Mrs. and Miss Atheling, and learned to look hopefully into a future in which, perhaps, there would be neither dukes nor lords. Besides, Cecil North had a habit of visiting the Athelings also; and, without expressed arrangement, both Cecil and Annabel looked forward to those charming lunches which Mrs. Atheling dispensed with so little ceremony and so much good nature. It had been Cecil’s intention to go with Edgar into the country; but when the hour for departure arrived, he had not been able to leave Annabel’s vicinity, and, in some of those mysterious ways known to Love, she understood, and was pleased with this evidence of her power.

Cecil’s mother had been particularly prominent in that social ostracism the Reform ladies had meted out to her; and it gave to the real liking which she had for Cecil a piquant relish to parade the young man as her devoted servant in all places where his noble mother would be likely to see or hear tell of her son’s “infatuation.” But Cecil North’s affection, and the favour it received, did not much influence Kate. With the perversity of a woman in love, she believed Annabel to be only amusing herself during Lord Exham’s absence; and she accepted, without a doubt, all the little innuendoes, and half-truths, and half-admissions which Annabel suffered herself, as it were, without intent, to make.

Thus the dreary winter days passed slowly away. In January Edgar returned. His election had been a mere walk over the ground. The patron of the borough of Shereham had spoken the word, and Edgar Atheling was its lawful representative. It was a poor little place, but it gave Edgar a vote on the right side; and Earl Grey also hoped much from his power as a natural orator. He might take Brougham’s place, and be far more amenable to directions than Brougham had ever been. Mrs. Atheling considered none of these things. She took in only the grand fact that her son was in Parliament, and that he must have won his place there by some transcendent personal merit. True, she had some little qualms of fear as to how Edgar’s father would treat the new representative of Englishmen; but her invincible habit of hoping and her cheerful way of looking into the future did not suffer these passing doubts to seriously mar her glory and pride in her son’s dignity.

In fact, even in Annabel’s eyes, Edgar Atheling was now an important person. Women do not consider causes, they look at results; and in Edgar Atheling’s case the result was satisfactory. On the day the new member for Shereham returned home, she was lunching with the Athelings, eating her salad and playing with Cecil North’s heart, when Edgar entered the room. His honour sat well on him; he neither paraded, nor yet affectedly ignored it. His mother’s pride, his sister’s pleasure, and the congratulations of his friends made him happy, and he showed it. The lunch that was nearly finished was delayed for another hour. No one liked to break up the delightful meal and conversation; and when Annabel got back to Richmoor House the short day was over, and the Duchess had sent an escort to hurry her return.

“You are exceedingly imprudent, Annabel,” she said, when the girl entered her presence; “and I do think it high time you stopped visiting so much at one house.”

“Duchess, will you say what other house equally charming is open to me? You know how little of a favourite I am. To-day I was delayed by an event,–the return of young Atheling after his election. He is now an M. P.,–a great honour for so young a man, I think.”

“Honour, indeed! Grey or Durham, or some of those renegades to their own caste, have given him a seat. Grey would give a seat to a puppy if it could bark ‘aye’ for him.”

“Well, I should not think Atheling will be a dumb dog; he has a ready tongue. Mr. North says he will take Brougham’s place.”

“He will do nothing of the kind. Young Atheling is a fine talker when he has to face a mob of grumbling men on a Yorkshire moor or a city common. It is a different thing, Annabel, to stand up before the gentlemen of England. As for Mr. North, I have told you before that both the Duke and myself seriously object to that entanglement.”

Annabel laughed. “There is no entanglement, Duchess,–that is, on my part.”

“Then why throw yourself continually in the young man’s way?”

“You are scarcely polite. He throws himself in my way.”

“Pardon. I meant nothing disrespectful.”

“And I have reasons.”

“May I know them?”

“Yes. Mr. North’s mother was particularly insulting to me at the last Morning Concert I attended. I heard also that she had spoken of me as ‘an Indian girl of doubtful parentage.’ She is particularly fond of Cecil, who is her youngest child, and she is trying to make a marriage between him and that enormously rich Miss Curzon. I am going to defeat her plans.”

Then the Duchess laughed. “I never interfere with any woman’s retributions,” she said. “But do not burn yourself at the fire you kindle for others.”

“I am fire-proof.”

“I must think so, or surely Piers would have influenced you.”

“Lord Exham never tried to ‘influence’ me; and only one woman in the world can ‘influence’ him.”

“You mean Miss Atheling, of course; and I have already told you that there is not even a supposition in that case. Miss Atheling is out of the question. The Duke would never consent to such a marriage; and I would never forgive it. Never! I should prefer to lose my son altogether.”

“Then you ought to let Miss Atheling know how you feel. She is a very honourable, yes, a very proud girl. She would not force herself into your family, no matter how much she loved your son. Now, I would. If I had thought you did not want me to marry Lord Exham, I should probably have been his wife to-day.”

The Duchess glanced at the speaker a little scornfully, and said, “Perhaps you over-estimate your abilities. However, Annabel, your suggestion about Miss Atheling has much likelihood. I shall make an opportunity to speak to her. Will you go out to-night? There will be the usual crush at Lady Paget’s.”

“Excuse me, I do not wish to go.” The statement was correct. She had begun to weary of a routine of visiting that lacked decisive personal interest. She had many lovers; but even love-making grows tiresome unless it is reciprocal, or has some spice of jealousy, or some element of the chase in it. Cecil North did interest her, and Piers Exham did stimulate her desire for conquest; but Cecil was most pleasantly met at the Athelings, and Lord Exham was in Yorkshire.

So, after dining alone with the Duchess, she went to a little drawing-room that was her favourite resort. The great ash logs burned brightly on the white marble hearth, and threw shifting lights on the white-and-gold furnishings, on the pictured walls, on the ferns and flowers, and on the lovely marble forms of two wood nymphs among them. She placed herself comfortably in a large easy-chair, with her back to the argand lamp, and stretched out her sandalled feet before the blaze, and nestled her head among the soft white cushions. The delicious drowsy atmosphere was a physical satisfaction of the highest order to her, quite as much so as it was to the splendid Persian cat that grumblingly resigned, at her order, the pleasantest end of the snow-white rug.

“Now I can think,” she said with lazy satisfaction, as she closed her restless eyes and began the operation. “In the first place, I have set a ball rolling that I may not be able to manage. It is in the hand of the Duchess, and she will have no scruples–she never has, if she is fighting for her own side. Perhaps I ought not to have given her such a ‘leader,’ for Kate Atheling has always been kind to me–thoughtful about Cecil, ready at making excuses to let us have a little solitude, arranging shopping excursions in his presence, so that he would know where he could ‘accidentally’ meet us–and so on. No, it was not exactly kind; but then, in love and war, all things are fair–and I dare say Miss Kate’s motives were probably selfish enough. She would give me Cecil to make her own way clear to Piers; and, also, Cecil is a favourite with the Athelings and young Atheling’s friend; and they know that he is poor, and doubtless wish to help him to a rich wife. Every one works out their own plan, why should not I do the same? But I must find out something about that ring, and, as the straight way is the best way, I will ask Kate the necessary questions. She will be sure to betray herself.”

Then she opened her purse, took out the ring, and placed it upon her finger, holding up her hand to the blaze to catch its reflections. “It is a pretty little thing, but I have bought it two or three times over with my diamond locket. I wonder why Kate never wears that locket! Is it too fine? Or has she some feeling against me? I gave her it at Christmas, and I have only seen it once on her neck–that is strange! I never thought of it before–it really is not much of a ring–I have twenty finer ones–and I dare say I shall give it back some day: yes, of course I shall give it back–but at present–” and she stopped thinking of the demands of the present, and taking the ring off her finger laid it in the palm of her hand, and softly tossed it and the Hindoo charm up and down together ere she replaced them in their receptacle.

Evidently she had arranged things comfortably with herself, for, after closing the purse, she began to swing it by its golden chain before the cat’s eyes, until the creature became thoroughly annoyed, and tried to catch the gleaming, tantalising worry with its claws. The play delighted her; she gave herself up to its tormenting charm, and for once lost, in the momentary amusement, all consciousness of herself and her appearance. It was then the great white door swung noiselessly open, and Lord Exham stood within it. The sensuous little drama, so full of colour and life, instantly arrested him; and he stood motionless to watch it. The girl’s strong, vivid face, her black hair, her dress of bright scarlet, her arms and hands flashing with gems, were thrown into dazzling prominence by the chair of white brocade in which she sat, and the white rug at her feet, and the lamp shining behind her. She waved the golden purse before the cat’s eyes, and let it almost fall into the eager paws, and then drew it backward with a little laugh, and was not aware that she was, in the act, an absolutely bewitching type of mere physical beauty.

But Piers was aware of it. He forgot everything but delight in the moving picture; and, as he advanced, he cried, in a voice full of pleasure, “Annabel! Annabel!” And the girl answered her name with an instantaneous movement towards him. Her radiant face looked into his face, and ere they were aware they had met in each other’s arms and Piers had kissed her.

She was silent and smiling, and he instantly recovered himself. “I ask your pardon,” he said, releasing her and bowing gravely; “but you are one of the family, you know, and I have been long away, and am so glad to get home again that some liberty must be excused me.”

“Oh, indeed!” she answered, with a pretty pout, “I think the apology is the worst part of the business,” and she looked into his eyes with that steady, unwinking gaze which none withstand. Then he drew her closer, and said softly, “You are simply bewildering to-night, Annabel. How have you made yourself so beautiful?” As he spoke he led her to her seat, and drew a chair close to her side; and the cat leaped to his knee and began to loudly purr her satisfaction in her master’s return.

“Are you alone to-night?” he asked. “Or perhaps you are expecting company?”

“I am alone. I expected no company; but Destiny loves surprises, and to-night she has surpassed herself. The Duchess has gone to Lady Paget’s. I could not sacrifice myself so far. You know what her political nights are. And if it is not Relief Bills, and Reform Bills, then it is Mr. Clarkson and Anti-Slavery; and we are solemnly told to make little petticoats for the negro children if we desire to go to heaven.” She laughed, and dropped her eyes, and was silent; and the silence grew dangerous. Fortunately, she herself broke the spell by asking Piers if he had seen Squire Atheling in Yorkshire.

“We came from Yorkshire together,” he said. Then he began to talk about the election, and in a few minutes a butler announced his dinner, and Annabel’s hour was over.

She was not disappointed. “We went far enough,” she thought. “I am not yet ready to put my hand out further than I can draw it back. I cannot give up Cecil now; he is the only private pleasure I have. Every other thing I share with the Duchess, or somebody else. And Piers I should have to share with her and the Duke. As heir to the dukedom, they will always retain a right in his time and interests. No, Lord Exham, not yet–not yet.”

She rose with the words, and went to the piano and dashed off in splendid style that famous old military fantasia, “The Battle of Prague.” And the drift of her uncontrolled thoughts during it may be guessed by the first query she made of her intelligence when the noisy music ceased:–

“I wonder what the Athelings are doing? Piers says the Squire is at home. I suppose Mrs. Atheling and Kate are coddling, and petting, and feeding him.”

In some respects Annabel judged fairly well. The Squire reached his home about the same time that Lord Exham arrived at Richmoor House, and found Mrs. Atheling waiting to receive him. He made no secret of his joy in seeing her again. “I was afraid thou mightst be gadding about somewhere, Maude,” he said. “It is pleasant to find thee at home.”

“John Atheling!”

“Well, it is too bad to say such a thing, Maude. I knew well I would find thee at home when there was either chance or likelihood of my getting back there. But where is little Kitty? It isn’t right without Kitty.”

“Well, John, Squire Pickering’s family came to London a few days ago, and Kitty has gone to the theatre with them.”

“I’ll tell thee a good joke about Squire Pickering, Maude,” said the Squire, laughing heartily as he spoke. “He was feared young Sam Pickering was going to vote for Reform, and he served a writ on him for a trespass, or something of that sort, and got him put safely in jail till voting time was over. Then he quashed the writ and let the lad out. But, my word! young Sam is fighting furious, and he has treated his father nearly as bad as Edgar treated me.”

“Edgar is going to Parliament now. I told thee he would. John, for goodness’ sake, don’t quarrel with him before all England!”

“Maude Atheling! I never quarrelled with Edgar. Never! He quarrelled with me. If he had done his duty by his father, we would have been finger and thumb, buckle and strap, yesterday, and to-day, and to-morrow, and every other day. The Duke says my anger at Edgar is quite reasonable and justifiable.”

“The Duke! So then thou art framing thy opinions to what he says. Dear me! I wouldn’t have believed such a thing could ever come to pass.”

“Wait till it does come to pass. Why, Richmoor and I very near came to quarrelling point because I would not frame my opinions by his say-so. I have been looking into things a bit, Maude, more than I ever did before, and I have learned what I am not going to deny for anybody. I met Philip Brotherton of Knaseborough, and he asked me to go home with him for two or three days–You know Philip and I have been friends ever since we were lads, and our fathers before us.”

“I know that.”

“So I went with him, and he showed me how working men live and labour in such towns as Leeds and Manchester; and I am not going to say less than it is a sin and a shame to keep human beings alive on such terms. I do not believe any Reform Bill is going to help them; but they ought to be helped; and they must be helped; or else government is nothing but blunderment, and legislating nothing but folly. And I said as much to Richmoor, and he asked me if my son had been lecturing me; and I told him I had been using my own eyes, and my own ears, and my own conscience.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said, ‘Squire, I do not like your associating with Philip Brotherton. The man has radical ideas, though he does not profess them.’ And I said, ‘I like Philip Brotherton, and I shall associate with him whenever I can make it convenient to do so; and as for his ideas, if they are radical, then Christianity is radical; and as for professing them, Philip Brotherton does better than that, he lives them;’ and I went on to say that I thought it would be a right and righteous thing if both landlords and loomlords would do the same.”

“My word, John! Thou didst speak up! I’ll warrant Richmoor was angry enough.”

The Squire laughed a little as he answered, “Well, Maude, he got as red in the face as a turkey-cock, and he asked me if I was really going to be Philip Brotherton’s fool. And I answered, ‘No, I am like you, Duke, I do my own business in that line.’ And he said, ‘Squire Atheling!’ and turned on his heel and walked one way; and I said, ‘Duke Richmoor!’ and turned on my heel and walked the other way. Now then, Maude, dost thou think he orders my opinions for me?”

And Mrs. Atheling smiled understandingly in her lord’s face, and cut him a double portion from the best part of the haunch of venison she was carving.

A few days after this event Annabel called one morning at the Athelings. She expected Cecil North to be there, and he was not there; she waited for him to come, and he did not come; she tried in many devious ways to get Kate to express an opinion about his absence, and Kate seemed entirely unconscious of it. It provoked her into an ill-natured anger; and, casting about in her mind for something disagreeable to say, she remembered her resolve to find out how the sapphire ring came to be in Lord Exham’s possession. Even if “the straight way had not been the best way,” she was by nature inclined to direct inquiries; and she had just proven in her mental manœuvring about Cecil North that indirect methods were not satisfactory. So she said bluntly:–

“Kate, did you ever hear about Lord Exham losing a ring he valued very much?”

“Yes,” answered Kate, without the slightest embarrassment; “it was my mother’s ring.”

“Your mother’s ring?”

“Yes.”

“But Lord Exham had it on his finger.”

“My mother loaned it to him. He admired it very much, and wished to have one made like it.”

“The Duchess was sure that some lady had given it to him as a love gage. Do you know that he has fretted himself sick about its loss?”