"What light is that?" asked Dr. Macpherson of the two who were on trial, amidst breathless silence.

A momentary pause. Colonel West and Cooper turned their eyes up to the raised lamp; the crowd turned theirs.

"It's green," said the colonel.

"It's red," said Cooper.

And there arose a general laugh. For the lamp was blue.

Two lamps were next run up.

"What are they?" was the demand

A dead silence ensued. Neither Cooper nor the colonel could tell.

"I ask what are the colours of these two lamps?" repeated the professor.

"I think they are green and white," hazarded Cooper, at length.

"And I say they are red and blue," cried the colonel.

They were white and blue.

Then the four lamps were exhibited, green, red, white, and blue, and the mistakes made by both essayists kept the platform in a roar. The colonel did tell which was the white--but it was probably more of a guess than a certainty. They could distinguish a "difference," they said, between two or more colours when exhibited at once, but were unable to state what that difference was. Both of them were honestly anxious that the test should be fully carried out, and answered to the utmost of their ability. Various colours were exhibited, sometimes two of nearly the same shade: it all came to the same. Long before the experiment came to an end, the fact had been fully established that both Colonel West and Matthew Cooper laboured under the defect of colour-blindness.

"Cooper," said Oliver Jupp, in a good-natured tone, "they must never make an engine-driver of you again."

"Well, I don't know, sir," returned Cooper, who seemed very chapfallen, "if it's true what this strange gentleman says, why--I suppose it is true. But I hope they'll make something else of me; I know I am keen enough at most things. If a man is deficient in one line, he may be all the quicker in another."

"Now you have given utterance to a truism, without perhaps knowing it," interposed the professor, cheerily. "Be assured that where a defect does exist, it is amply made up for by the largeness of some other gift. Never fear that an intelligent man, like you, will want employment, because you are found not suited to the one they placed you on."

"About the worst they could have given him, as it turns out," remarked Oliver Jupp, as he stood aside with the professor out of the hearing of others. "An engine-driver ought, of all men, to be able to distinguish colours."

"There are some of our engine-drivers who do not, though," was the reply, as the professor cautiously lowered his voice. "Several of our worst accidents have occurred from this very fact."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it. It is a more frequent defect than would be thought, this absence of the organ of colour, but it is one to which little attention has been hitherto given; a subject that with some excites ridicule. A company engaging an engine-driver would as soon think of testing his capacity for eating a good dinner, as that of being able to distinguish signal lights. Most essentially necessary is it, though, that drivers, present or future, should undergo the examination."

"It seems so to me," said Oliver. "And always will seem so--after this night's experiment."

"And until such examination is made general, I should change the form of the signal lamps," remarked Dr. Macpherson. "Let the safety signal be of one uniform shape, and small; let the red, or danger signal, be of as different a shape as can be made, and large; so different that it could never fail to catch the eye. For, look you, a head deficient in the organ of colour will usually have that of form very much developed: and if a driver could not see the light, he might the form: and so save his train."

"Quite right," said. Oliver.

"In many of the railway calamities we read of, you find that a difference of testimony exists as to the colour of the signal exhibited. One side or the other is supposed to swear falsely; just as it has been in this case. But for the testimony of Colonel West, the jury would have returned a verdict against Cooper at once, and convicted him of falsehood. But rely upon it, the cause, generally speaking, of these conflicting and painful cases lies not in false swearing, but in colour-blindness."

So concluded the professor. And so was concluded the long-adjourned puzzle that had set Coombe Dalton together by the ears. Once more the inquest was called for the last time; and the jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death." In the face of the proved defect in Cooper's capacity for distinguishing the different signals, how could they with justice punish him? He was sent forth, a free man so far, but discharged from his employment to begin the world again.

Now, my friendly readers, the above is a bit of honest truth; a fact from the past. It may be that you will not believe it; may feel inclined to cavil at it. But search cases out and mark for yourselves. Blindness to colour is a far more common defect than the world suspects: it has existed--and does exist--in some of the railway-engine guards and drivers.

CHAPTER X.

Mary Jupp's Explosion.

A frosty day in December. Time had gone on, winter had come in: the seasons go their round, whatever the world may be doing.

How grew Clara Lake? Better? Well, she did not seem to grow much better; at any rate, she was not well, and the old doctor at Katterley, who had known her constitution from infancy, appeared puzzled. She dressed, as in her days of health, and went about the house: on fine days would go out for a walk in the sunshine: but she remained weak and debilitated, and could not get rid of her cough.

Compared to the dangerous attack she had at Guild, of course her present state seemed to be a vast improvement. On first coming home, the change for the better appeared to be marvellous; and Mr. Lake, never seeing anything but the bright side of things, congratulated himself that she was well again. The improvement did not go on as it ought to have gone; but the falling off was so gradual, the increasing degrees of weakness were so imperceptible, that he neither saw nor suspected either. Had any one told him his wife was in a bad way, he had simply stared in amazement. Latterly the inertness, the seeming debility had certainly made itself apparent to him, but only as a dim idea; so little importance did he attach to it, that he set it all down to apathy on his wife's part, and chided her for not "rousing herself." He did not mean to be unkind; never think that of him; for his wife he would have gone through fire and water, as the saying runs; but he was light, unobservant by nature, and careless.

He was enjoying himself immensely. Chiefly dividing his leisure time between Katterley and Guild. To-day he would be at home with his wife, tomorrow with Lady Ellis; the affectionate husband to the one, saying soft nothings (it must be supposed) to the other. Of course he never went for the sake of seeing my lady; certainly not; there was an excuse ever ready. Mrs. Chester had given him this commission, and he must go and report to her; or Mrs. Chester had given him the other; or she wanted to consult him on her affairs, which were going downwards; or he went over to escort some of the Jupps; or he had business with his tailor; for he had fallen into a freak to employ one who lived at Guild. On one plea or another, a plausible excuse for taking him to Guild never failed.

The fault of this lay partially with Mrs. Chester. Nearly at her wits' end lest Lady Ellis, wearied with the monotony of the house, should leave her; plainly seeing that Mr. Lake's visits were the sole attraction that kept her, Mrs. Chester invented demands upon him to draw him over to Guild. That the confidential footing on which he and Lady Ellis continued was scarcely seemly for a married man, Mrs. Chester completely ignored. She shut her eyes to it; just as she had shut them in the days when Clara was at Guild. I am telling the simple truth of the woman, and things took place exactly as I am relating them. What mattered it to Mrs. Chester whether the wife's feelings were pained, outraged, so long as her own ends were served? Clara was at a safe distance, seeing nothing; and, after all, it was but a bit of passing nonsense between them--there was no real wrong, reasoned Mrs. Chester in her sophistry. "What the eye does not see the heart cannot rue."

"But Mr. Lake ought not to have given way to her," remonstrates the upright reader. Of course he ought not, everybody knows that; but he liked the pastime. Lady Ellis made herself uncommonly attractive to him, and it never occurred to him to see that she ought not to have done so. She was exacting now; saying to him "You must come tomorrow," or "You must come the next day." They rode together and walked together as before; not so much, because it was winter weather; and they strolled out in the wide gardens in the dim afternoons, and sat alone very much in the drawing-room by twilight.

Unfortunately these pleasant arrangements were not kept from Clara. If she had partially forgotten her jealousy upon returning home, her husband's constant visits to Guild, and the whispers reaching her from thence, brought it back in all its unhappy force. She was not told purposely. Of the Jupps, the only one whose eyes were open to the flirtation going on--that is, to a suspicion that it was deeper than it ought to be, considering that Mr. Lake had a wife--was the eldest of them, Mary. She held her tongue. But the others, after a day spent at Guild, would jokingly allude in Clara's hearing to the soft hours spent together by him and Lady Ellis, and tell her she ought to keep her husband in better order. They meant nothing. Had Clara been there she might have thought far less of it than she was doing; incertitude always increases suspicion, just as jealousy makes the food it feeds on. So Mrs. Lake sat at home with her cough, and her increasing weakness, and her miserable torture; conscious of little save one great fact, that her husband was perpetually at Guild. Had he gone more openly, as it were, without framing (as he invariably did) some plausible plea for the journey, she had thought less. What could Clara do? Could she descend to say to him, you shall not go there? No; she suffered in silence; but it was killing her.

A bright December morning, clear and frosty, Mrs. Lake was seated at the window in their comfortable room, making tiny little flannel petticoats. There was a good deal of distress in Katterley, and she was intending to give warm garments to sundry poor half-naked children. Stooping over the work, her cheeks had acquired their hectic tinge, seen frequently now, otherwise the face was pale and thin; the fingers were attenuated. Mr. Lake, who had been looking at the newspaper, reading occasional scraps of news from it to his wife, rose from his chair by the fire and stretched himself.

"How busy you are, little wife! Who on earth are all those small things for?"

"The poor children in the cottages by the brick-fields. They are so badly off, Robert," she added, glancing up, with a pleading look. "I could not help doing something for them."

"All right, my dear; do whatever you like. Only, don't over-work yourself."

"There's no fear of that. Elizabeth will do part of them; and Mary Jupp is coming to help me."

"What a lovely day it is for December!" he added, looking at the sparkling sunlight.

"Very. It almost tempts me to go out."

"I will take you tomorrow, Clara; I must go to Guild today."

Mrs. Lake resumed her work with trembling fingers. "Penelope's watch is at Van Buren's. I promised faithfully to take it to her today."

"Are there no watchmakers at Guild, that Mrs. Chester should send her watch to Katterley?"

"I don't know. I brought it to him at her request a fortnight ago. Van Buren has a great name in his trade, you know."

As he spoke he looked at his own watch; it was time to depart.

"Shall you be home to dinner, Robert?"

"No. But I shall to tea. I shall be in by the seven train. Good-bye, Clary."

She raised her face with its crimson hectic colour, the result of emotion, to receive his farewell kiss. Its loveliness could but strike him.

"How well you are getting to look, my darling," he said, tenderly.

And it would no doubt have astonished Mr. Lake excessively could he have glanced back at his wife through the garden and the walls of the house as he went off, gaily whistling. Dropping her work on the floor, she fell into a storm of sobs in her utter self-abandonment. Miss Jupp came in, and so found her.

"Clara! Clara!"

Up she got: but to affect indifference was an impossibility. Mary Jupp, greatly shocked, took the sorrowful face in her sheltering arms.

"Tell me what it is, Clara. Open your poor little heart to me, my dear. I am older than you by many years, and have had trouble myself. Where's your husband?"

"Gone to Guild."

"Oh," said Miss Jupp, shortly, who had her private opinion on many things. "Well, dear, he has got a nice day for it."

Clara dried her eyes and stifled her sobs, and sat down to work again.

"I am so stupid," she said, in a tone of apology. "Since my illness I don't feel strong; it makes me cry sometimes."

Mary Jupp said no more, perhaps wisely. She took her things off and remained the day. And Mr. Lake got home, not by seven at night, but by the last train.

Christmas approached, and Mrs. Lake got thinner and weaker. Still her husband suspected nothing amiss. She rose in the morning, went through her duties, such as they were, and had a bright colour. How was he, an unobservant man by nature and habit, to detect that it was all wrong? Had he suspected the truth, none would have been more anxiously troubled than he.

It was in Clara Lake's nature to conceal what was amiss. With these reticent temperaments, a great grief touching the heart, a grief unto death, never can be spoken of. At the last, perhaps, when hours are numbered, but not always then. He saw no signs of it: the low spirits, the nervous weakness were given way to when alone: never before him. Except that she had grown strangely still and quiet, he saw no alteration. She tried to be cheerful, and succeeded often.

So the days, as I have said, glided on, bringing the end nearer and nearer. Mr. Lake went on his heedless way, and she sat at home and did silent battle with the anguish that was killing her. Her history is drawing to a close. The world, going round in its hard, matter-of-fact reality, is apt to laugh at such stories; but they are taking place, for all that, in some of its nooks and corners.

One day, when it wanted but three or four to Christmas, Mr. Lake tempted his wife into the greenhouse to see his winter plants. She was more cheerful than customary--talked more; an artificial renovation had brought back some of the passing strength.

"Clary, I have promised to spend Christmas-day with Penelope."

A sudden rush of colour to her wasted cheeks, a pause, and a response that came forth faintly.

"Have you?"

"She said how dull it would be for us at home, and would not take a denial. You will be able to go?"

"I go!" She glanced at him in surprise, and shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I am too ill."

Mr. Lake felt annoyed. The proposed expedition had been presenting itself to his mind in a very agreeable light: for his wife to set her face against it, whether on the plea of ill-health or any other plea, would be especially provoking.

"My dear, I tell you what it is," he said in a voice that betrayed his temper, "you will fancy yourself ill and lie-by and stay at home, until it ends in your being ill."

"Do you think I am well?"

"You are not strong; but if you would rouse yourself, and go more out, and shake off fancies, you would soon become so. An illness, such as yours was in the autumn, leaves its weakening effects behind it as a matter of course; but there's no sense in giving way to them."

"I go out sometimes."

"Just for a walk or so; that does little good. What you want is cheerful society; change. You have not been once to Guild since we came home."

"You make up for it, then; you are there often enough."

She could not help the retort; it seemed to slip from her tongue unguided. Mr. Lake kicked out at a broken pot.

"Something or other is always happening to take me there. Mrs. Chester loads me with commissions, and I don't like to refuse to execute them."

They went in. Mr. Lake returned to the charge.

"You will go on Christmas-day, Clary, won't you? Penelope is preparing for us."

"No; I am not well enough. And if I were, I should prefer to be at home. Say no more," she added almost passionately interrupting what he was about to urge. "You ought not to wish me to go there."

A long silence. "I shall go. I must. I can't get off it."

She did not speak.

"What is to be done, Clara? It will never do for me to spend Christmas-day there, and you to spend it at home." And he finished the clause by breaking out, half-singing, half muttering, with the lines of a popular ditty that our childhood was familiar with--

She sat with her hands folded before her, and did not immediately answer. If he could not tell what was to be done, or what ought to be done, she would not. Mr. Lake looked at her and waited.

"You must do as you think right," she said, laying a slight stress upon the word. "I am too unwell to be anywhere but at home on Christmas-day."

Mr. Lake left the room, whistling to hide his anger. Had he possessed the worst wife in the world he had never reproached or quarrelled with her. Some men cannot be actively unkind to women, and he was one. He thought her very obstinate, unreasonably so, and said to himself that he would go to Guild. If Clara did not come to her senses beforehand and accompany him, his going without her would bring her to them after. Not another word was said between them; each seemed to avoid the subject.

Christmas-day dawned, cloudy but tolerably fine. Mr. Lake was going to Guild. Not doing exactly as he thought right, for his conscience was giving him a sharp twinge or two, but following the bias of his inclination, which urged him into the sunshine of my Lady Ellis's smiles. Clara felt worse that morning, dreadfully weak and languid, but she put on her things to attend church. Mr. Lake went with her, and they sat out the service together. At its termination he rose to quit the church; she remained.

"Shall you not be too tired with the long service, Clara?" he whispered. "You had better leave it until another opportunity."

"Please don't! let me stay."

There was something in the pleading words--in the pleading up-turned glance of the wan face, that struck upon him as being strange, leaving a momentarily unpleasant impression. He never stayed the sacrament himself, and went out.

She gathered herself into the corner of their high, broad, old-fashioned pew, and knelt down, leaning her arms and head on the seat. An intense weariness was upon her frame and spirit; she did not feel things as keenly as she used--it was as if the world were drifting away from her. Her soul was longing for the comfort of the approaching rite--for its comfort. Ah, my friends, we kneel periodically at the altar, and take the bread and wine, and hope that we return comforted and refreshed. Believe me, it is but those from whom the comfort of this world has utterly departed who can indeed realize what that other comfort is, and how great our need of it. Only when earth and its interests fail us, when the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl broken--in that hour do we desire the rest from travail, as a yearning longing. That hour had come for Clara Lake: she knelt there, feeling that earth had no longer a place for her,--the home above was ready for her,--the Redeemer at hand to welcome her, and take her to God.

She walked home quietly, a dim consciousness upon her that it might be the last time she should partake of the sacrament here. It was not far off two o'clock, and Mr. Lake was walking about, all impatience, for his train started at five minutes past. She had thought he would be gone.

"I waited for you, Clary. Won't you come with me?"

"Indeed I cannot."

"Then it's a case of Johnny Gilpin."

With a farewell to his wife, full of paraded affection, Mr. Lake took himself off to the station, telling his wife to be sure and eat a good dinner and drink everybody's health in champagne, including his and her own.

In spite of the inward peace that was hers, she was feeling terribly dispirited. A fond thought had delusively whispered that, after all, perhaps he might not go. She remembered the epoch of her dream; how he had stayed at home then in tender consideration of her wishes. Things were altered now.

At three o'clock she sat down to dinner, cutting herself a small slice from the turkey placed before her. When the sauces were brought round she simply shook her head. She had no appetite: an oppressive feeling of bitter grief sat on her spirit; the tears dropped on her plate silently, and she could not control them.

Presently she laid down her knife and fork, the little bit of meat only half eaten. Elizabeth ventured to remonstrate.

"I can't swallow it; it is like dry chips in my throat."

"And no wonder, ma'am: the meat's dry by itself. And such delicious bread-sauce and gravy that's here."

Sauce or no sauce, gravy or no gravy, Mrs. Lake could not eat. They brought in the pudding. She cut it, eat a mouthful, and, sent it away again.

Leaving her to her solitary dessert--for her a mere matter of form--the servants sat down to their own dinner. Some short time had elapsed, when Elizabeth thought she heard a noise in the dining-parlour, and went in to see if her mistress wanted anything. A cry of alarm burst from the girl as she opened the door: Mrs. Lake was lying on the carpet.

Whether she had fainted--whether she had been crossing the room and fell over anything--could not then be ascertained. As the servants raised her, a thin stream of blood issued from her mouth. Nearly beside themselves with terror, they laid her on the sofa, and Elizabeth ran for the doctor. She had to pass Mr. Jupp's house, and on her return it occurred to Elizabeth to call and ask to see Miss Jupp. That young lady came out to her from the dining-room, her mouth full of turkey.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, half petrified at the news. "Burst a blood-vessel! Dying! Is any one with her besides Mr. Lake?"

"He is not with her--there's nobody with her," answered Elizabeth. "That's why I made bold to disturb you, miss. He is gone off to dine at Mrs. Chester's."

Catching up a garden hat and woollen shawl that hung close at hand, Mary Jupp flung them on without a moment's pause for consideration, and started at a gallop down the street. The worthy shopkeepers, standing at their sitting-room windows, saw the transit with amazement, and thought the eldest Miss Jupp had gone suddenly mad. She was in the house before Dr. Marlow: his old steps were slow at the best--hers fleet. Mrs. Lake had broken a vessel on the chest or lungs.

"There is no immediate danger, as I hope," said the old doctor in Miss Jupp's ear; "but her husband ought to be here." Mary looked at her watch, and found that she had just time to catch a train.

But that Mary Ann Jupp was a strong-minded female, she might not have cared to go a journey on Christmas-day in the guise she presented. It may be questioned if she as much as gave a thought to her attire, except to remember that there was no time to go home and change it. In addition to being strong-minded, she was also an exceedingly upright-minded, right-feeling young woman, and had for a long while past greatly condemned what was going on--the absurd intimacy between Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis, and his consequent neglect of his wife. Her eyes had been open to it if nobody else's had; and Mary Jupp, in her impulsive way, had threatened herself that she should "one day have it out with the lot." That day had come.

Very considerably astonished was Mr. Lake to find himself burst in upon by Mary Jupp. Mrs. Chester and Lady Ellis looked up in amaze. They had dined together, a family party, and Mrs. Chester's children, with Anna and the two Clapperton girls, who were guests that day, had retired to another room to make what noise they pleased, leaving the trio round the comfortable fire, wine and good things on the table behind them. Miss Jupp walked in without notice or ceremony. Her old red woollen shawl had jagged ends and a slit; her brown hat, white once, was vastly disreputable, and had a notch in the brim. Excited and out of breath, having run all the way from Guild station, she walked straight up to Mr. Lake and spoke. "Would you see your wife before she dies?"

He had risen and stood in consternation. Mrs. Chester rose. She sat still, calmly equable, listening and looking. Mr. Lake's lips turned white as he asked Miss Jupp for an explanation.

It was given in a sharp, ringing tone. Mrs. Lake had been found on the floor in her solitary dining-room, and when they lifted her up blood issued from her mouth. A vessel of some sort had given way. Dr. Marlow was with her, and said that Mr. Lake ought to be found. "Will you go to her?" asked the young lady as she finished her recital; "or shall I go back and take word that you will not?"

"Why do you say that to me?" he asked with emotion.

"My dear Miss Jupp!" struck in Mrs. Chester, in a voice of remonstrance.

"Why do I say it to you?" retorted Mary Jupp, in her storm of angry indignation. "It is time some one said it to you. You have been killing her by inches: yes, I speak to all of you," she added, turning about upon them. "You have been killing his wife by inches: you, Angeline Ellis, with your false and subtle snares; and you, Penelope Chester, with your complacent winking at sin. He is weak and foolish--look at him, as he stands there in his littleness!--but he would scarcely have been wicked, had not you drawn him to it. You wonder that I can thus speak out"--drowning some interrupted words of Mrs. Chester's--"is it right for me to be silent, a hypocritical glosser over of crime, when she is dying? I am an English gentlewoman, with a gentlewoman's principles about me, and I hope some Christian ones: it behoves such to speak out sometimes."

"You are mad," gasped Mrs. Chester.

"You have been mad, to allow this conduct in your house--folly, frivolity, much that is bad going on under your very eyes. Had your brother been a single man, it might have been deemed excusable by some: never by me: but he had a fair young wife, and you deliberately set to work to injure her. You did, Penelope Chester: you knew quite well what you were doing: and to encourage ill by winking at it, is the same thing as committing it. I say nothing more to you," she added, turning upon Lady Ellis with ineffable scorn. "You may remember certain words you said to me regarding Mr. Lake and his wife, the first afternoon you came here: I did not understand them then; I do now; and I know that, in that first hour of your meeting, you were laying your toils around him to gain his admiration and wean him from his wife. If you retain a spark of feeling, of conscience, the remembrance of Clara Lake, when the grave shall have closed on her, will be as a sharp iron, ever eating into it."

Lady Ellis rose, her jet-black eyes flashing. "Who are you, that you should dare thus insult me?"

Mary Jupp dropped her tone to one of calmness--mockingly calm it was, considering the scorn that mingled with it. "I have told you who I am: an English gentlewoman amidst gentlewomen: and with such I should think you will never henceforth presume to consort."

Mr. Lake had made no further retort, good or bad. While they were speaking, he took out his watch, saw that he had time, too much of it, to catch the next train, and quitted the room. Mary Jupp was following. Up started Mrs. Chester.

"If Clara is in the sad state you describe, Mary Jupp, I ought to go to her."

Mary Jupp turned short round and faced them. "I do not pretend to any right of control over your actions; but, were I you, I would at least allow my brother to be alone with his wife in her last hours. You have come between them enough, as it is, Mrs. Chester. The sight of you cannot be pleasant to her."

She quitted the room, condescending to give no farewell to either of those she left in it, and followed in the steps of Mr. Lake, who was already on his way to the station, buttoning his coat as he went, taking care not to catch him up. On the platform, as the train was dashing in, he spoke to her.

"Your accusations have been harsh, Mary."

"What has your conduct been?" she sharply retorted. "I loved your wife, and I feel her unhappy fate as keenly as though it had fallen on one of my own sisters. The world may spare you; it may flatter and caress you, for it is wonderfully tender to these venial sins of conduct; but you cannot recall to life her whom you vowed before God to love and to cherish."

"Step in. The train is going."

"Not into that carriage--with you. Others are in it, and I might be saying things that they would stare at. My temper is up, today."

"First class, miss?" cried an impatient porter "There's only that there one first-class carriage on."

And Mary Jupp walked away; opened the door of another, which was a third-class, and took her seat in it.

Thus they reached Katterley. Mr. Lake came to the carriage to assist her out, but she simply put his arm away. Her face looked awfully severe as the gaslights fell upon it.

"One moment," he said, arresting her as she was passing. "I do not know what turn your suspicions can have taken; a very free one, as it seems to me. Let me assure you that you are mistaken. On my word of honour as a man there has been nothing; nothing wrong. In justice to Lady Ellis I am bound to say this."

"Justice to Lady Ellis! Don't talk to me about justice to Lady Ellis," was the young lady's retort. Her temper, as she said, was up, that day. "Think of justice to your wife, rather. You are either a fool or a knave, sir."

"Thank you, Miss Jupp."

"Nothing wrong!" she repeated, returning to the charge. "I don't know what you mean. What do you call wrong? You have been tied to that woman's skirts these five months; lavishing your money and your time upon her; and leaving your wife alone to die. If that's not wrong, I should like to know what is."

He made no reply; almost too confounded to do it.

"I don't blame you, Robert Lake, as much as I blame them," she took occasion to say as they were parting. "You are a vain, thoughtless, empty-headed fellow, made so, I believe, by your enforced idleness; and they, those two women, are old and crafty. Mrs. Chester was serving her self-interest; the other her unjustifiable woman's vanity. You yielded yourself a willing prisoner to the birdlime spread under your feet, and now your folly has come home with interest. I saw your wife was dying of the pain, if you did not."

Without another word, whether of adieu or apology, she brushed past him up the street; and Mr. Lake turned to his home, something like a beaten dog that dare not lift its tail from between its legs.

CHAPTER XI.

The Dream worked out.

Mrs. Lake was better. The bleeding was stopped, the doctor gone, and she seemed comfortable. There was less danger than Miss Jupp had supposed, for the blood-vessel which had broken proved to be only a small one on the chest--not the lungs. To her husband it appeared incomprehensible that she should be in any danger at all: his mind had never admitted the possibility of it.

He was all alive to it now. As long as she lay in bed he scarcely left her chamber. To talk with her much was not allowed, but he sat there, holding her hand, looking into her eyes with the old love in his. What his reflections were, or how great his self-reproaches, was best known to himself. When these men, essentially kind and tender by nature, have to indulge in such remorse, be assured it is not very light. He could not bring himself to believe that any conduct of his had contributed to his wife's illness; still less that he had caused it. That was a flight of fancy not easy to him to understand; but he saw now how ill she must have been all along, and bitterly regretted that he had left her so much alone. Rather than have wilfully ill-treated her, he would have forfeited his life. His love had come back to him, now that it was too late--it may be more appropriate to say his senses had come back to him.

In a day or two she grew so much better that she was allowed to leave her bed for a small sitting-room on the same floor, carried into it by him. Late in the afternoon, he left her comfortably lying back in the easy chair, and inclined to sleep. Taking his hat, he walked out.

His errand was to the doctor. His wife seemed to assume that she should not recover; Miss Jupp and the servants the same; for all he saw, she might be well in a week or two: and he went to put the question. Dr. Marlow had said nothing particular to him of her state, one way or the other, and he could not question him before his wife.

Dr. Marlow was at home, and came to him at once. The two families had been very intimate; on familiar terms one with the other. Mr. Lake plunged into the matter at once, speaking of the danger other people seemed to apprehend, and of his own inability to see it.

"Is she, or is she not, in peril?" he asked. "Tell me the plain truth."

The old man laid his hand upon the speaker's shoulder. "What if the truth should be painful? Will you hear it--the whole of it?"

"I am come to hear it."

"Then I can only tell you that she is in danger; and I fear that a little time will see the end."

Very rapidly beat his pulses as he listened. Repentant pulses. A whole lifetime of repentance seemed, in that moment, to be in every one of them.

"But what is killing her? What is it?"

"The primary cause is of course that cold she caught at Guild. It laid hold of her system. Still, I think she might have rallied: many a time, since she came home, I have deemed her all but well again. You ought to know best, Master Robert, but to me it appears as though she had some grievance on her mind, and that it has been working mischief. I hope you have been a good husband to her, as Joan says to Hodge," added the doctor, turning from Mr. Lake to take a pinch of snuff. "Your wife has possessed one of those highly sensitive, rarely-refined temperaments, that, when joined to a fragile body, an unkind blow would shatter. I once told you this."

He made no comment; he was battling with his pain. Dr. Marlow continued.

"The body was a healthy body; there was no inherent disease, as I have always believed, and I cannot see why it should not have recovered; but the mind seemed to pull it back; two powers, one working against the other. Between them they have conquered, and will lay her low."

"Do you call it consumption?" Mr. Lake jerked out. And really the words were jerked out, rather than fairly spoken.

"Decidedly not. More of a decline: a waste of the system."

"Those declines are cured sometimes."

"Not often: when they fairly set in."

"Oh, doctor," he cried, clasping the old man's hand, and giving vent to some of the anguish that was rending him, "try and save her! Save her for my sake! You don't know the cause I have to ask it."

"I wish I could--for both your sakes. She is beyond earthly aid."

They stood looking at each other. Dr. Marlow, willing if possible to soothe in a degree the blow, resumed.

"I suppose I must, after all, have been mistaken in her constitution. When consumption showed itself in her brother, and he died of it, I watched her all the closer. But I could detect nothing wrong: though she was always one of those blossoms that a sharp wind would blow away. The disease was there, we must assume, and I failed to detect it."

"You say--you said but now--that it is not consumption," returned Mr. Lake, speaking sharply in his pain.

"Neither is it. But when unsoundness is inherent in the constitution it does not always show itself in the same form. Sometimes it comes out in one shape, sometimes in another."

There was no more to be said; nothing further to be learnt. Mr. Lake returned home with his burden of knowledge, wondering how much of this dread fiat Clara suspected, how much not. The shades of evening were on the room when he entered it, imparting to it a semi-gloom, but the rays of the fire-light fell on his wife's wasted face. Stirring the coals into a bright blaze, he sat down by her chair, and took her hand. Her wasted fingers entwined themselves fondly with his.

"I know where you have been, Robert. And I guess for what purpose."

"Ah. You are wise, my little wife. I went out to get a breath of fresh air."

"You have been to Dr. Marlow's. Margaret Jupp called, and she said she saw you turn into his house. You went to ask him whether I should get well. He told you No: for he knows I shall not. Was it not so?"

She leaned a little forward to look at him. He suddenly clasped her to his breast with a gush of passionate tenderness, and his hot tears fell upon her face.

"Oh, my darling! my darling!"

"It must be," she softly whispered. "There is no appeal against it now."

"Clara, if we are indeed to part, at least let perfect confidence be restored between us," he resumed, controlling his emotion with an effort. "What is the trouble that has been upon you?"

"The trouble?"

"Some of them are hinting at such a thing," he said, thinking of the doctor and of Miss Jupp: "I must know from you what it is."

"Need you ask?"

"Yes. For I cannot comprehend it. My darling, you must tell me."

"If she had never come between us, I do not think I should have been ill now."

"I cannot understand it," he repeated, a wailing sound in his emphasized words. "I have been foolish, thoughtless, wrong: though not to the extent you may possibly have imagined. But surely, taking it at its worst, that was not cause sufficient to bring you to death."

"Your love left me for another. It seemed to me--it seemed to me--more than I could bear."

Partly from the agitation the topic called up, partly that she was in hesitation how to frame her words, the pauses came. It was as if she would fain have said more.

"My love? oh no. It was but a passing--" the word at his tongue's end was "fancy," but he substituted another--"folly. Clara! do not give me more than my share of blame; that will be heavy enough, Heaven knows. The old man says that the violent cold you caught at Guild, was the primary cause of decay: surely that cannot be charged upon me."

She was silent a few moments--but, as he had said, there ought to be full confidence between them now--and she had been longing to tell him the whole unreserved truth; a longing that had grown into a sick yearning.

"I will tell you now how I caught that cold. Do you remember the night?"

"Not particularly." He was of a forgetful nature, and the events of the night had only been those of many another.

"Don't you remember it? When you were walking with--her--in the shrubbery in the raw twilight.--"

Mr. Lake slightly shook his head in the pause she made. Twilight shrubbery walks were lying in numbers on his conscience.

"She complained of cold, and you went to get her shawl out of the summer-house, leaving her seated on the bench in front of the green alcove. She sang a song to herself: I think I could repeat its words now. You brought the shawl and folded it lovingly around her, and kissed her afterwards, and called her--"

In great astonishment he raised his wife's face to gaze into it. Where had she learnt that little episode? Had she dreamt it? He did not ask: he only stared at her.

She bent down her head again to its resting-place, and folded her arm round him in token of forgiveness. "And called her 'My dearest.' I was standing there, Robert, behind the bench. I saw and heard all."

Not a word spoke he. He hardly dared to accept the loving sign of pardon, or to press her to him. Had she glanced up she would have seen his face in a hot glow. These little private episodes may be very gratifying in the passing, but it is uncommonly disagreeable to find out that your wife has made a third at them.

"It was very thoughtless of me to run out from the heated room on that cold damp night without anything on," she resumed hastily, as if conscious of the feeling and wishing to cover it "But oh! I was so unhappy--scarcely, I think, in my senses. I thought you had not returned from Guild: Fanny came in and said you had been home a long while and were with her. An impulse took me that I would go and see: I never did such a thing in my life; never, never, before or since: and I opened the glass doors and went out. I was half way down the shrubbery when I heard you coming into it from a cross walk, and I darted into the green alcove, and stood back to hide myself; not to spy upon you."

She paused, but was not interrupted. Mrs. Lake began to hurry over her tale.

"So you see that, in a measure, she was the cause of the cold which struck to me. And then I was laid up; and many a time when you deemed I should fancy you were out shooting, or had gone to Guild, or something or other, you were with her. I knew it all. And since we came home, you have been ever restless to go to her--leaving me alone--even on Christmas-day."

Ay: even on Christmas-day. He almost gnashed his teeth, in his self-condemnation. She, with her impassioned and entire love for him, with her rare and peculiar temperament that, as the doctor had observed, a rude blow would destroy! The misery of mind reacting upon a wasted frame! He no longer wondered why she was dying.

"Why could you not speak out and tell me this?"

"But that the world seems to have nearly passed away from me, and that earthly passions--pride, self-reticence, shame, I mean the shame of betraying one's dearest feelings, are over--I could not tell you now."

"But don't you see the bed of remorse you have made for me? Had I suspected the one quarter of what you tell me you felt, the woman might have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, for me. I wish you had spoken."

"It might not have prevented it. My belief is that it would not. It was to be."

Mr. Lake looked at her.

"You remember the dream: how it shadowed forth that I was to meet, in some way, my death through going to Mrs. Chester's."

"Child! Can you still dwell upon that dream?"

"Yes. And so will you when the hearse comes here to take me away. Never was a dream more completely worked out. Not quite yet: it will be shortly. I have something else to tell you; about it and her."

Mr. Lake passed his hand across his brow. It seemed to him that he had heard enough already.

"The very first moment, when I met Lady Ellis at your sister's, her eyes puzzled me: those strange, jet-black eyes. I could not think where I had seen them. They seemed to be familiar to my memory, and I thought and thought in vain, even when the weeks went on. On this same night that we are speaking of, I alarmed you by my looks. Mrs. Chester happened to look at me as I sat by the fire; she called out; and you, who were at chess with--with her, came up. You all came round me. I was shaking, and my cheeks were scarlet, somebody exclaimed: I believe you thought I was seized with an ague-fit. Robert, I was shaking with fear, with undefined dread: for an instant before, as I sat looking at her eyes, it flashed into my mind whose eyes they were."

"Well, whose?" he asked, for she paused.

"They were those of the man who drove the hearse in my dream," she whispered in an awestruck tone. "The very same. You must recollect my describing them to you when I awoke: 'strangely black eyes, the blackest eyes I ever saw,' though of his face I retained no impression. It was singular it should have struck upon me then, when I had been for weeks trying unsuccessfully to get the thread of the mystery."

"Oh Clara, my darling, these superstitious feelings are very sad!" he remonstrated. "You ought not to indulge them."

"Will you tell me how I could have avoided them? It was not my fault that the dream came to me: or that the eyes of the driver were her eyes: or that my death had been induced through going to Mrs. Chester's. Both you and Mrs. Chester seemed to help me on to it in my dream: and as surely as the man appeared to drive me to the grave in the hearse, so has she driven me to it in reality. I wrote out the dream in full at the time, and you will find the paper in my desk. Read it over when I am gone, and reflect how completely it has been fulfilled."

He was silent. A nasty feeling of superstition was beginning to creep over himself.

"Will you let me ask you something?" she whispered, presently.

He bent his tearful face down upon hers. "Ask me anything."

"When--I--am--no longer here, shall you marry her?"

Robert Lake darted up with a tremendous word, almost flinging his wife's face from him. His anger bubbled over for a few moments: not at his wife's question, but at the idea it suggested. For remorse was very strong upon him then; the image of Lady Ellis in consequence distasteful.

"Mary her! Her! I would rather take a pistol, and shoot myself through the heart--and--sin that it implies--I assert it before my Maker."

Clara gave utterance to a faint sigh of relief, and unclasped her arms. "Then you do not love her as you have loved me?"

He flung himself on his knees before her, and sobbed aloud in his repentant anguish. She leaned over him endearingly, stroking his face and his hair.

"I only wanted to know that. The misery is over now, darling. For the little while we have to be together, let us be as happy as we used to be."

Emotion shook him to the very centre as he listened. Scarcely twice in a lifetime can a man give way to such. For the little while they had to be together! Ay. As Mary Jupp had said, he could not recall her back to life: he could not keep her here to make reparation.

Mrs. Lake lay back in her chair exhausted. Her husband stood by the mantelpiece gazing at her with his yearning eyes, hot and feverish after their tears. Silence had succeeded to the interview of agitation: these strong emotional storms always bring their reaction.

A knock at the room door, followed by the entrance of Elizabeth. She came to say that Mrs. Chester was below, asking if she might come up. A moment's pause, and Mrs. Lake answered "yes." The impulse to deny it had been upon her, but she wished to be at peace with all the world. Mr. Lake, less forgiving than his wife, did not care to meet Mrs. Chester, and quitted the room to avoid her. In his propensity to blame somebody else for the past as well as himself, he felt very much inclined to curse Mrs. Chester.

But she had been very quick, and encountered him outside the door, inquiring after his wife in a whisper. Mr. Lake muttered some unintelligible answer, and passed on.

"There's a friend in the drawing-room waiting to see you, Robert," she called after him.

Now, strange though it may seem, the thought of who the "friend" really was, did not occur to Mr. Lake. After the explosion of Christmas-day, brought about by Miss Jupp, he had never supposed that Lady Ellis would show herself at his house. He went downstairs mechanically, expecting to see nobody in particular; some acquaintance might have called. In another moment he stood face to face with her--Angeline Ellis. The exceeding unfitness of her visit, the bad taste which it displayed after that public explosion, struck him with dismay. Perhaps the recent explanation with his wife, their reconciliation, and his own bitter repentance helped the feeling. He bit his angry lips.

She extended to him her delicately-gloved hand, lavender, sewn with black, and melted into her sweetest smile. But the smiles had lost their power. He glanced at her coal-black eyes, as they flashed in the rays of the lamp, remembered the eyes of his wife's dream, and--shuddered.

"You have become a stranger to Guild," she said. "Has that mad woman, Mary Jupp, persuaded you that you will be poisoned if you come?"

He did not choose to see her proffered hand "I can no longer spare time from my wife, Lady Ellis: I have spared too much from her."

The resentful tone struck her with wonder; the cold manner chilled her unpleasantly: but she smiled yet.

"Is it really true that your wife is so very ill?" she asked. "The maid says so. We had news that she was better, recovering fast; and of course treated Miss Jupp's assertion for what it was worth--as we did the rest she said."

Had he been covered with quills like a porcupine every one of them would have bristled up on end in defence of his wife. Surely her ladyship should have exercised better judgment an' she wished to win him back to her.

Never again! Never again!

"She is dying," he hoarsely answered; "dying through our folly. I beg your pardon, my lady," he added, speaking the two last words in, as it struck her, the refinement of mockery, "it had been better perhaps that I had said my folly."

"Folly? Oh!"

"It has been a folly that will entail upon me a lifetime of repentance. Were my whole days to be spent in striving to work it off, as we work off a debt, they could not make atonement. There are follies that leave their results behind them--a heavy burthen to be borne afterwards throughout life. Take a seat, I beg, while you wait for Mrs. Chester."

He quitted the room; and she compressed her thin lips, which had turned white, for she fully understood him to imply that he had quitted herself and the "folly" for ever. Rarely had her ears heard such truths spoken, and they set on to glow with resentment. She saw Mr. Lake walk out at the garden gate and up the road, all to avoid her. Why? She had committed no wrong--as she counted wrong, as the world counts it: never a woman less likely to commit that than Lady Ellis. She had but amused herself, and he the same; and she really could not understand why Mrs. Lake should make a fuss over it.

Mrs. Chester, meanwhile, seated with Clara, was in her most amiable mood. That the episode of Christmas-day had taken her aback far more than it had taken Lady Ellis, was indisputable; but she was one of those easy-going women who never retain unpleasant impressions long. Besides, she had her way to make in the world. Before Mr. Lake had left her house many minutes, Miss Jupp in his wake, she had recovered her equanimity, and was laughing over the matter with my lady, assuring her that Mary Jupp was taken with these fits sometimes, and tried to set the world to-rights--the result of bile. Anything rather than that Lady Ellis should quit her now, in the depth of winter. They had come over today, my lady fully understanding and tacitly falling into her plans, hoping to patch up a reconciliation. He was but a light-headed fellow at best--turned about any way, as the wind turns a feather, mentally argued Mrs. Chester; and he was safe not to have said anything to his wife.

"You are looking so very much better than I expected, dear Clara. All you want is complete rest, with good nursing; as I remarked to Anna Chester the day after Christmas-day, when she came over to inquire about you. I was glad you saw her. I couldn't come myself--I had one of my wretched sick-headaches."

She spoke quickly, running one sentence into another. Clara sat back in her chair, meek, quiet, calm, a smile of peace upon her face.

"I should not have asked your husband to dine with us that day without you," spoke Mrs. Chester, deliberating how to heal breaches--"we should never have cared to see him at any time unaccompanied by you, but that you were not able to come."

Mrs. Lake made no reply.

"Clara, I must speak out. There's poor Lady Ellis downstairs wanting to see you. She says she has talked and laughed with Mr. Lake, and is terribly afraid now that you might not have liked it. She meant nothing. He is ten years younger than she is. Goodness me, child! you could never have thought ill of it. Surely you will see her?"

"I could not talk with her about--about the past," murmured poor Clara, the hectic cheeks becoming crimson.

"Good gracious me! who said anything of talking about it with her?" exclaimed Mrs. Chester. "My dear Clara, she'd not speak of it for the world. She has not spoken of it to me; but I can see what she feels. She's so afraid you should reproach her in your heart; she would so like to be reconciled in spirit. Oh! my dear, there's nothing like peace."

With the peace on her own spirit; with the fresh love of her husband in her heart; with the consciousness that she should soon be with Him who has enjoined love and peace on earth if we would inherit Heaven, Clara did not hesitate. Lady Ellis could do her no harm with her husband now: and a sudden wish for at least a tacit proof of the full forgiveness she accorded, arose within her. But she did not speak immediately; and Mrs. Chester was impatient.

"You would not bear malice, Clara?"

"I will see Lady Ellis. As to bearing malice, if you only knew how different it is! All that kind of feeling has passed away from me. I wish you would note what I say now, Mrs. Chester, and--and repeat it, should you think it might be acceptable after I am dead. Should anybody in the world have injured me, intentionally or unintentionally, I give them my free and full forgiveness, as I hope to be myself forgiven. I trust we shall meet in Heaven; you, and I, and Lady Ellis, and all the world, and live together in happy bliss for ever. There's a great joy upon me when I say this."

The words were a little different from any anticipated by Mrs. Chester. She rubbed her face with her handkerchief and stared; and her tone, as she rejoined, partook in a degree of the solemnity of that other one.

"After you are dead, Clara! You are not surely going to die?"

Mrs. Lake did not answer in words. She looked full at Mrs. Chester with her clear brown eyes, and the wan face from which the hectic was fading.

"Good patience me!" thought that lady, "I hope I shan't dream of her as she looks now."

Elizabeth entered with a cup of tea on a waiter. "Here comes my tea," said Clara. "Would you like some?"

"Indeed I should: my mouth is quite parched. And poor Lady Ellis? You will let her drink one, too, here with us, Clara? It will be the seal of peace."

"Bring two cups of tea and some bread and butter," said Clara to the maid in a low tone. Certainly she had not intended to invite the lady downstairs to tea with her; but Mrs. Chester had put it in a point of view scarcely rejectable.

Now Mrs. Chester, crafty and clever, had been drawing largely upon her own active imagination. It had never occurred to Lady Ellis to wish for the kiss of peace, or for any token of reconciliation whatsoever. Therefore when Mrs. Chester brought her up and introduced her to the room, the two--her ladyship and the dying woman--were inwardly at cross purposes.

Nothing of which was betrayed, or likely to be. Lady Ellis's delicately-gloved hand met that attenuated one in a moment's greeting, and she sat down with calm composure. A few remarks passed upon indifferent topics between the three, and Elizabeth came in with the tea. The next moment another visitor appeared on the scene--Mary Jupp, shown in by Mr. Lake. To describe their faces of astonishment at seeing the ladies there, would take the pen of a great artist in words. Not seeing Lady Ellis downstairs, he thought they had left. Miss Jupp stood with a stony stare; and her companion bit his annoyed lips.

"Come in, Mary; come in."

Mrs. Lake's invitation bore a hurried pleading sound to Miss Jupp's ear, as if she had been uneasy in her company, and welcomed the relief. But for that, the strong-minded lady had turned away again without leaving behind her so much as a word. She came forward and sat down.

"Elizabeth shall bring you some tea."

"Tea for me!" cried Miss Jupp, bluntly. "I couldn't drink a drop. It would choke me."

"Is your throat bad, Mary Jupp?" asked Mrs. Chester.

"No; only my temper."

A frightened look in Clara's eyes, a pleading gaze that went right into Mary Jupp's. The young lady, doing violence to her inclinations, shut up her month resolutely, and folded her hands upon her lap, and spoke not another word, good, bad, or indifferent.

The curious meeting came to an end, brought to a summary close by Mrs. Chester. That lady, not altogether liking the aspect of affairs, and privately wishing Miss Jupp at the antipodes, thought it good to take herself away, and leave, so to say, well alone. Lady Ellis and Clara Lake shook hands for the last time in life.

"I wish you well," Clara whispered.

"Thanks," airily answered my lady.

Mr. Lake, in the very commonest politeness, went down with them. As they stood in the garden Mrs. Chester went back to get her muff, and they waited for her.

"Are you reconciled to me, Mr. Lake?" asked Lady Ellis.

"I wish to beg your pardon for aught I may have said that was unwarrantable," he rejoined. "I had no right to reproach you when the fault of the past was mine."

Mrs. Chester came forth, and he held the gate open for them. But my lady noticed that he did not choose to see her hand when she held it out.

My lady gave a little toss to her head. If this was to be the end of platonic friendships, keep her from them in future.

And Robert Lake, a whole world of self-condemning bitterness in his face, leaned on the gate, and looked after them.