'^7 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES r cr cr % -' \0C .- 4bbl ^° This BOOK may be kept out WtfT WEEKS ONLY, and is subject to a fine of MPE CENTS a day thereafter. It is DUE on the DAY indicated below: ry i e COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 2615. THE DAY WILL COME BY M. E. BRADDON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. TAUCHNTTZ EDITION. By the same Author, LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET 2 V. JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DaVgH- AURORA FLOYD 2 V. TER 2 V. ELEANOR'S YICTORY . . 2 V. AYEAYERS AND WEFT . . I V. JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGAC\ 2 V. IN GREAT WATERS', ETC. I V. HENRY DUNBAR . . . 2 V. AN OPEN YERDICT . . . 3 V - THE DOCTOR'S WIFE . . 2 V. YLXEN 3 V - ONLY A CLOD .... 2 V. THE CLOYEN FOOT . . . 3 v - SLR JASPER'S TENANT 2 V. THE STORY OF BARBARA . 2 V. THE LADY'S MILE . . 2 V. JUST AS I AM 2V. RUPERT GODWIN . . . 2 V. ASPHODEL 3 v - DEAD-SEA FRUIT . . . 2 V. MOUNT ROYAL . . . . 2 V. RUN TO EARTH . . . 2 V. THE GOLDEN CALF . . . 2 V. FENTON'S QUEST . . . . 2 V. FLOWER AND WEED . . . I V. THE LOYELS OF ARDEN . . 2 V. PHANTOM FORTUNE . . . 3 V - STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 2 V. UNDER THE RED FLAG . . I v. LUCIUS DAVOREN . . . 3 V - ISHMAEL 3 V - TAKEN AT THE FLOOD . ■ 3 V - YYYLLARD'S WEIRD . . . 3 V - LOST FOR LOYE . . . . 2 V. ONE THING NEEDFUL . . 2 V. A STRANGE WORLD . . . 2 V. CUT BY THE COUNTY . . I V. HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE . . 2 V. LIKE AND UNLLKE . . . 2 V. DEAD MEN'S SHOES . . . 2 V. THE FATAL THREE . . . 2 V. THE DAY WILL COME A NOVEL mm ■4/ M. E. BRADDON, AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. COPYRIGHT EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES, VOL. I. LEIPZIG BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ 1889. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/daywillcomenovelbraddon THE DAY WILL COME. CHAPTER I. "Farewell, too — now at last — Farewell, fair lily." The joy-bells clashed out upon the clear, bright air, startling the rooks in the elm-trees that showed their leafy tops above the grey gables of the old church. The bells broke out with sudden jubilation; sudden, albeit the vil- lage had been on the alert for that very sound all the summer afternoon, uncertain as to when the signal for that joy peal might be given. The signal had come now, given by the telegraph wires to the old post-mistress, and sent on to the expectant ringers in the church tower. The young couple had arrived at Wareham station, five miles off; and four horses were bringing them to their honeymoon home yonder amidst the old woods of Cheriton Chase. Cheriton village had been on tiptoe with expectancy ever since four o'clock, although common sense ought to have informed the villagers that a bride and bridegroom who were to be married at two o'clock in Westminster Abbey were not very likely to appear at Cheriton early in the afternoon. But the village having made up its 674781 . THE DAY WILL COME. mind to a half holiday was glad to begin early. A little knot of gipsies from the last race meeting in the neigh- bourhood had improved the occasion and set up the friendly and familiar image of Aunt Sally on the green in front of the Eagle Inn; while a rival establishment had started a pictorial shooting gallery, with a rubicund giant's face and wide-open mouth, grinning at the populace across a barrel of Barcelona nuts. There are some people who might think Cheriton village and Cheriton Chase too remote from the busy world and its traffic to be subject to strong emotions of any kind. Yet even in this region of Purbeck, cut off from the rest of England by a wind- ing river, and ostentatiously calling itself an island, there were eager interests and warm feelings, and many a link with the great world of men and women on the other side of the stream. Cheriton Chase was one of the finest places in the county of Dorset. It lay south of Wareham, between Corfe Castle and Branksea Island, and in the midst of scenery which has a peculiar charm of its own, a curious blending of level pasture and steep hillside, barren heath and fertile water-meadow; here a Dutch landscape, graz- ing cattle, and winding stream; there a suggestion of some lonely Scottish deer walk; an endless variety of outline; and yonder on the steep hilltop the grim stone walls and mouldering bastions of Corfe Castle, standing dark and stern against the blue fair-weather sky or boldly confronting the force of the tempest. Cheriton House was almost as old as Corfe in the estimation of some of the country people. Its history went back into the nip-ht of acres. But while the Castle had suffered siege and battery by CromwelPs ruth- less cannon, and had been left to stand as that arch THE DAY WILL COME. 7 destroyer left it, until only the outer walls of the mighty fabric remained, with a tower or two, and the mullions of one great window standing up above the rest, the mere skeleton of the gigantic pile, Cheriton House had been cared for and added to century after century, so that it presented now a picturesque blending of old and new, in winch almost every corridor and every room was a surprise to the stranger. Never had Cheriton been better cared for than by its present owner, nor had Cheriton village owned a more beneficent lord of the manor. And yet Lord Cheriton was an alien and a stranger to the soil, and that kind of person whom rustics mostly are inclined to look down upon — a self-made man. The present master of Cheriton was a man who owed wealth and distinction to his own talents. He had been raised to the peerage about fifteen years before this day of clashing joy-bells and village rejoicings. He had been owner of the Cheriton estate for more than twenty years, having bought the property on the death of the last squire, and at a time of unusual depression. He was popularly supposed to have got the estate for an old song; but the old song meant something between seventy and eighty thousand pounds, and represented the bulk of his wife's fortune. He had not been afraid so to swamp his wife's dowry, for he was at this time one of the most popular silk gowns at the equity Bar. He was making four or five thousand a year, and he was strong in the belief in his power to rise higher. The purchase, prompted by ambition, and a desire to take his place among the landed gentry, had turned out a very lucky one from a financial point of view, for a stone quarry that had been unworked for more than a 8 THE DAY WILL COME. century was speedily developed by the new owner of the soil, and became a source of income which enabled him to improve mansion-house and farms without embarrass- ment. Under Mr. Dalbrook's improving hand the Cheriton estate, which had been gradually sinking to decay in the oc- cupation of an exhausted race, became as perfect as human ingenuity, combined with judicious outlay, can make any estate. The falcon eye of the master was on all things. The famous advocate's only idea of a holiday was to work his hardest in the supervision of his Dorsetshire property. He thought of Cheriton many a time in the law courts, as Fox used to think of St. Anne's and his turnips amidst the debauchery of a long night's card-playing, or in the whirl of a stormy debate. Purbeck might have been the motto and password of his life. He was born at Dor- chester, the son of humble shopkeeping parents, and was educated at the quaint old stone grammar school in that good old town. All his happiest hours of boyhood had been spent in the Isle of Purbeck. Those watery meadows and breezy commons and break-neck hills had been his playground; and when he went back to them as a hard-headed, over- worked man of the world, made arrogant from the magnitude of a success which had never known check or retrogression, the fountains of his heart were unlocked by the very atmosphere of that fertile land where the salt breath of the sea came tempered by the balmy perfume of the heather, the odour of hedgerow flowers, rosemary, and thyme. At Cheriton James Dalbrook unbent, forgot that he was a great man, and remembered only that his lot was cast in a pleasant place, and that he had the most lov- able of wives and the loveliest of daughters. THE DAY WILL COME. Cj His daughter had been born at Cheriton, had known no other country home, and had never considered the first- floor flat in Victoria Street where her father and mother spent the London season, and where her father had his pied-a-terre all the year round, in the light of a home. His daughter, Juanita, was the eldest of three children born in the old manor house. The two younger, both sons, died in infancy; and it seemed to James Dalbrook that there was a blight upon his offspring, such a blight as that which withered the male children of Henry of England and Catherine of Arragon. Much had been given to him. He had been allowed to make name and fortune, he whose sole heritage was a little crockery shop in a second-rate street of Dorchester. He had enjoyed the lordship of broad acres, the honours and position of a rural squire ; but he was not to be allowed that crown- ing glory for which strong men yearn. He was not to be the first of a long line of Barons Cheriton of Cheriton. After the grief and disappointment of those two deaths — first of an infant of a few weeks old, and afterwards of a lovely child of two years— James Dalbrook hardened his heart for a little while against the fair young sister who survived them. She could not perpetuate that barony which was the crown of his greatness; or if by special grace her father's title might be in after days bestowed upon the husband of her choice — which in the event of her marrying judiciously and marrying wealth, might not be impracticable — it would be an alien to his race who would bear the title which he, James Dalbrook, had created. He had so longed for a son, and behold two had been given to him, and upon both the blight had fallen. When people praised his daughter's childish loveliness he shook his head despondently, thinking that 10 THE DAY WILL COME. she too would be taken, like her brothers, before ever the bud became a flower. His heart sickened at thought of this contingency, and of his heir-at-law in the event of his dying childless, a first cousin, clerk in an auctioneer's office at Weymouth, a sandy-haired freckled youth, without an aspirate, with a fixed idea that he was an authority upon dress, style, and billiards, an insupportable young man under any con- ditions, but hateful to murderousness as one's next heir. To think of that freckled snob strutting about the estate in years to come, blinking with his white eyelashes at those things which had been so dear to the dead. His wife, to whom he owed the estate, had no re- lations nearer or dearer to her than the freckled auctioneer was to her husband. There remained for them both to work out their plans for the disposal of that estate and fortune which was their own to deal with as they pleased. Already James Dalbrook had dim notions of a Dalbrook Scholarship Fund, in which future barristers should have their long years of waiting upon fortune made easier to them, and for which they should bless the memory of the famous advocate. Happily those brooding fears were not realized; this time the bud was not blighted, the flower carried no canker in its heart, but opened its petals to the morning of life, a strong bright blossom, revelling in sun and shower, wind and spray. Juanita grew from babyhood to girlhood with hardly an illness, save the regulation childish complaints, which touched her as lightly as a butterfly's wing touches the flowers. Her mother was of Spanish extraction, the grand- daughter of a Cadiz merchant, who had failed in the wine trade and had left his sons and daughters to carve THE DAY WILL COME. I I their own way to fortune. Her father had gone to San Francisco at the beginning of the gold fever, had been one of the first to understand the safest way to take ad- vantage of the situation, and had started a wine shop and hotel, out of which he made a splendid fortune within fifteen years. He acquired wealth in good time to send his two daughters to Paris for their education, and by the time they were grown up he was rich enough to retire from business, and was able to dispose of his hotel and wine store for a sum which made a consider- able addition to his capital. He established himself in a brand new first floor in one of the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne, a rich widower, more of an American than a Spaniard after his long exile, and he launched his two handsome daughters in Franco- American society. From Paris they went to London, and were well received in that upper middle -class circle in which wealth can generally command a welcome, and in which a famous barrister, like Mr. Dalbrook, ranks as a star of the first magnitude. James Dalbrook was then at the apogee of his success, a large handsome man on the right side of his fortieth birthday. He was not by any means the kind of man who would seem a likely suitor for a beauti- ful girl of three and twenty; but it happened that his heavily handsome face and commanding manner, his deep, strong voice and brilliant conversation possessed just the charm that could subjugate Maria Morales' fancy. His conquest came upon him as a bewildering surprise, and nothing could be further from his thoughts than a marriage with the Spaniard's daughter; and yet within six weeks of their first meeting at a Royal Academy soiree in the shabby old rooms in Trafalgar Square, Mr. Dalbrook and Miss Morales were engaged, with the full 12 THE DAY WILL COME. consent of her father, who declared himself willing to give his daughter forty thousand pounds, strictly settled upon herself, for her dowry, but who readily doubled that sum when his future son-in-law revealed his desire to become owner of Cheriton, and to found a family. For such a laudable purpose Mr. Morales was willing to make sacrifices; more especially as Maria's elder sister had offended him by marrying without his consent, an offence which was only cancelled by her untimely death soon after her marriage. Juanita was only three years old when her father was raised to the bench, and she was not more than six when he was offered a peerage, which he accepted promptly, very glad to exchange the name of Dalbrook — still ex- tant over the old shop window in Dorchester, though the old shopkeepers were at rest in the cemetery outside the town — for the title of Baron Cheriton. As Lord Cheriton James Dalbrook linked himself in- dissolubly with the lands which his wife's money had bought; money made in a 'Frisco wine-shop for the most part. Happily, however, few of Lord Cheriton's friends were aware of that fact. Morales had traded under an assumed name in the miners' city, and had only resumed his patronymic on retiring from the bar and the wine vaults. It will be seen, therefore, that Juanita could not boast of aristocratic lineage upon either side. Her beauty and grace, her lofty carriage and high-bred air, were spon- taneous as the beauty of a wild flower upon one of those furzy knolls over which her young feet had bounded in many a girlish race with her dogs or her chosen com- panion of the hour. She looked like the daughter of a duke, although one of her grandfathers had sold pots and pans, and the other had kept order, with a bowie- THE DAY WILL COME. I 3 knife and revolver in his belt, over the humours of a 'Frisco tavern, in the days when the city was still in its rough and tumble infancy, fierce as a bull-pup. Her father, who as the years went on, worshipped this only child of his, never forgot that she lacked that one sovereign advantage of good birth and highly-placed kindred; and thus it was that from her childhood he had been on the watch for some alliance which should give her these ad- vantages. The opportunity had soon offered itself. Among his Dorsetshire neighbours one of the most distinguished was Sir Godfrey Carmichael, a man of old family and good estate, highly connected on the maternal side, and well connected all round, and married to the daughter of an Irish peer. Sir Godfrey showed himself friendly from the hour of Mr. Dalbrook's advent in the neighbourhood. He declared himself delighted to welcome new blood when it came in the person of a man of talent and power. Lady Jane Carmichael was equally pleased with James Dalbrook's gentle wife. The friendship thus begun never knew any interruption till it ended suddenly in a ploughed field between Wareham and "Wimbourne, where Sir God- frey's horse blundered at a fence, fell, and rolled over his rider, ten years after Juanita's birth. There were two daughters and a son, considerably their junior, who succeeded his father at the age of fifteen, and who had been Juanita's playfellow ever since she could run alone. The two fathers had talked together of the possibilities of the future while their children were playing tennis on the lawn at Cheriton, or gathering blackberries on the common. Sir Godfrey was enough a man of the world to rejoice in the idea of his son's marriage w T ith the heiress 14 THE DAY WILL COME. of Cheriton, albeit he knew that the little dark-eyed girl, with the tall slim figure and graceful movements, had no place among the salt of the earth. His own estate was a poor thing compared with Cheriton and the Cheriton stone quarries; and he knew that Dalbrook's professional earnings had accumulated into a very respectable fortune invested in stocks and shares of the soundest quality. Altogether his son could hardly do better than continue to attach himself to that dark-eyed child as he was at- taching himself now in his first year at Eton, riding his pony over to Cheriton every non-hunting day, and minister- ing to her childish caprices in all things. The two mothers had talked of the future with more detail and more assurance than the fathers, as men of the world, had ventured upon. Lady Cheriton was in love with her little girl's boyish admirer. His frank, handsome face, open-hearted manner, and undeniable pluck realised her ideal of high-bred youth. His mother was the daughter of an earl, his grandmother was the niece of a duke. He had the right to call an existing duke his cousin. These things counted for much in the mind of the storekeeper's daughter. Her experience at a fashionable Parisian convent had taught her to worship rank; her experience of English middle-class society had not eradicated that weakness. And then she saw that this fine, frank lad was devoted to her daughter with all a boy's ardent feeling for his first sweetheart. The years went on, and young Godfrey Carmichael and Juanita Dalbrook were sweethearts still — sweethearts always — sweethearts when he was at Eton, sweethearts when he was at Oxford, sweethearts in union, and sweet- hearts in absence, neither of them ever imagining any other love; and now, in the westering sunlight of this THE DAY WILL COME. I 5 July evening, the bells of Cheriton Church were ringing a joy-peal to celebrate their wedded loves, and the little street was gay with floral archways and bright-coloured bunting, and mottoes of welcome and greeting, and Lady Cheriton's barouche was bringing the bride and bride- groom to their first honeymoon dinner, as fast as four horses could trot along the level road from quiet little Wareham. By a curious fancy Juanita had elected to spend her honeymoon in that one house of which she ought to have been most weary, the good old house in which she had been born, and where all her days of courtship, a ten- years' courtship, had been spent. In vain had the fairest scenes of Europe been suggested to her. She had travelled enough to be indifferent to mountains and lakes, glaciers, and fjords. "I have seen just enough to know that there is no place like home," she said, with her pretty air of authority. "I won't have a honeymoon at all if I can't have it at Cheriton. I want to feel what it is like to have you all to myself in my own place, Godfrey, among all the things I love. I shall feel like a queen with a slave; I shall feel like Delilah with Samson. When you are quite tired of Cheriton — and subjection, you shall take me to the Priory; and once there you shall be master and I will be slave." " Sweet mastership, tyrannous slavery," he answered, laughing. "My darling, Cheriton will suit me better than any other place in the world for my honeymoon, for I shall be near my future electors, and shall be able to study the political situation in all its bearings upon — the Isle of Purbeck." Sir Godfrey was to stand for his division of the county I 6 THE DAY WILL COME. in the election that was looming in the distance of the late autumn. He was very confident of success, as a young man might be who came of a time-honoured race, and knew himself popular in the district, armed with all the newest ideas, too, full to the brim of the most modern intelligence, a brilliant debater at Oxford, a favourite everywhere. His marriage would increase his popularity and strengthen his position, with the latent power of that larger wealth which must needs be his in the future. The sun was shining in golden glory upon grey stone roofs and grey stone walls, clothed with rose and honey- suckle, clematis and trumpet ash — upon the village forge, where there had been no work done since the morning, where the fire was out, and the men were lounging at door and window in their Sunday clothes — upon the three or four village shops, and the two village inns, the humble little house of call opposite the forge, with its queer old sign, "Live and Let Live," and the good old "George Hotel," with sprawling, dilapidated stables and spacious yard, where the mail-coach used to stop in the days that were gone. There was a floral arch between the little tavern and the forge — a floral display along the low rustic front of the butcher's shop — and the cottage post-office was con- verted into a bower. There were calico mottoes flapping across the road — "Welcome to the Bride and Bride- groom," "God Bless Them Both," "Long Life and Happi- ness," and other fond and hearty phrases of time-honoured familiarity. But those clashing bells, with their sound of tumultuous gladness, a joy that clamoured to the blue skies above and the woods below, and out to the very sea yonder, in its loud exuberance, those and the smiling faces of the villagers were the best of all welcomes. THE DAY WILL COME. I 7 There were gentlefolks among the crowd — a string of pony carts and carriages drawn up on the long slip of waste grass beyond the forge, just where the road turned off to Cheriton Chase; and there were two or three horsemen, one a young man upon a fine bay cob, who had been walking his horse about restlessly for the last hour or so, sometimes riding half a mile towards the station in his impatience. The carriage came towards the turning point, the bride bowing and smiling as she returned the greetings of gentle and simple. Emotion had paled the delicate olive of her complexion, but her large dark eyes were bright with gladness. Her straw-coloured tussore gown and leghorn hat were the perfection of simplicity, and seemed to surround her with an atmosphere of coolness amidst the dust and glare of the road. At sight of the young man on the bay cob she put her hand on Sir Godfrey's arm and said something to him, on which he told the coachman to stop. They had driven slowly through the village, and the horses pulled up readily at the turn of the road. "Only to think of your coming so far to greet us, Theodore," said Juanita, leaning out of the carriage to shake hands with the owner of the cob. "I wanted to be among the first to welcome you, that was all," he answered, quietly. "I had half a mind to ride to the station and be ready to hand you into your carriage, but I thought Sir Godfrey might think me a nuisance." "No fear of that, my dear Dalbrook," said the bride- groom. "I should have been very glad to see you. Did you ride all the way from Dorchester?" "Yes; I came over early in the morning, breakfasted The Day will come. I. 2 18 THE DAY WILL COME. with a friend, rested the cob all day, and now he is ready- to carry me home again." "What devotion!" said Juanita, laughingly, yet with a shade of embarrassment. "What good exercise for Peter, you mean. Keeps him in condition against the cubbing begins. God bless you, Juanita. I can't do better than echo the invocation above our heads, 'God bless the bride and bridegroom.'" He shook hands with them both for the second time. A faint glow of crimson sw^ept over his frank fair face as he clasped those hands. His honest grey eyes looked at his cousin for a moment with grave tenderness, in which there was the shadow of a life-long regret. He had loved and wooed her, and resigned her to her more favoured lover, and he w T as honest in his desire for her happiness. His own gladness, his own life, seemed to him of small account when weighed against her well-being. "You must come and dine with us before we leave Cheriton, Dalbrook," said Sir Godfrey. "You are very good. I am off to Heidelberg for a holiday as soon as I can wind up my office work. I will offer myself to you later on, if I may, when you are settled at the Priory." "Come when you like. Good-bye." The carriage turned the corner. The crowd burst into a cheer: one, two, three, and then another one: and then three more cheers louder than the first three, and the horses were on the verge of bolting for the rest of the way to Cheriton. Theodore Dalbrook rode slowiy aw r ay from the village festivities, rode away from the clang of the joy bells, and the sound of rustic triple bob majors. It would be night before he reached Dorchester; but there was a moon. THE DAY WILL COME. I Q. and he knew every yard of high road, every grassy ride across the wide barren heath between Cheriton and the old Roman city. He knew the road and he knew his horse, which was as good of its kind as there was to be found in the county of Dorset. He was not a rich man, and he had to work hard for his living, but he was the son of a well-to-do father, and he never stinted the price of the horse that carried him, and which was something more to Theodore Dalbrook than most men's horses are to them. It was his own familiar friend, companion, and solace. A man might have understood as much only to see him lean over the cob's neck, and pat him, as he did to-night, riding slowly up the hill that leads from Cheri- ton to the wild ridge of heath above Branksea Island. Theodore Dalbrook, junior partner in the firm of Dalbrook & Son, Cornhill, Dorchester, was a more distant relative of Juanita's than the sandy first cousin in the auctioneer's office whom Lord Cheriton had once hated as the only alternative to a charitable endowment. The sandy youth was the only son of Lord Cheriton's elder brother, long since dead. Theodore was the grandson of a certain Matthew Dalbrook, a second cousin of Lord Cheriton's, and once upon a time the wealthiest and most important member of the Dalbrook family. The humble- minded couple in the crockery shop had looked up to Matthew Dalbrook, solicitor, with a handsome old house in Cornhill, a smart gig, a stud of three fine horses, and half the county people for his clients. To the plain folks behind the counter, who dined at one and supped on cold meat and pickles and Dutch cheese at nine of the clock, Mr. Dalbrook, the lawyer, was a great man. They were moved by his condescension when he dropped in to the five o'clock tea, and talked over old family reminiscences, 20 THE DAY WILL COME. the farmhouse on the Weymouth Road, which was the cradle of their race, and where they had all known good days while the old people were alive, and while the homestead was a family rendezvous. That he should deign to take tea and water-cresses in the little parlour behind the shop, he who had a drawing-room almost as big as a church, and a man servant in plain clothes to wait upon him at his six o'clock dinner, was a touching act of humility in their eyes. When their younger boy brought home prizes and certificates of all kinds from the grammar school it was from Matthew they sought advice, modestly, and with the apprehension of being deemed over-ambitious. "I'm afraid he's too much of a scholar for the busi- ness," said the mother, shyly, looking fondly at her tall overgrown son, pallid with rapid growth and overmuch Greek and Latin. "Of course he is; that boy is too good to sell pots and pans. You must, send him to the University, Jim." Jim, the father, looked despondently at James, the son. The University meant something awful in the crockery merchant's mind; a vast expenditure of money; dreadful hazards to religion and morals; friendships with dukes and marquises, whose influence would alienate the boy from his parents, and render him scornful of the snug back parlour, with his grandfather's portrait over the mantelpiece, painted in oils by a gifted townsman, who had once had a picture very nearly hung in the Royal Academy. . "I couldn't afford to send him to college," he said. " Oh, but you must afford it. I must help you, if you and Sarah haven't got enough in an old stocking any- where — as I dare say you have. My boys are at the THE DAY WILL COME. 2 1 University, and they didn't do half as well at the gram- mar school as your boy has done. He must go to Cam- bridge, he must be entered at Trinity Hall, and if he works hard and keeps steady he needn't cost you a for- tune. You would work, eh, James?" "Wouldn't I just, that's all," James replied with em- phasis. His heart had sickened at the prospect of the crockery business; the consignments of pots and pans; the returned empties, invoices, quarterly accounts, matchings, rivetings, dust, straw, dirt, and degradation. He could not see the nobility of labour in that dusty shop, below the level of the pavement, amid ewers and basins, teacups and beer jugs, sherries and ports. But to work in the University — hard by that great college where Bacon had worked, and Newton, and a host of the mighty dead, and where Whewell, a self-made man, was still head — to work among the sons of gentlemen, and with a view to the profession of a gentleman. That would be labour for which to live; for which to die, if need be. "If — if mother and me were to strain a p'int," mused the crockery man, who was better able to afford the Uni- versity for his son than many a gentleman of Dorset whose boys had to be sent there, willy nilly, "if mother and me that have worked so hard for our money was willing to spend a goodish bit of it upon sending him to college, what are we to do with him after we've made a fine gentleman of him? That's where it is, you see, Mat." "You are not going to make a fine gentleman of him. God forbid. If he does well at Cambridge you can make a lawyer of him. Trinity Hall is the nursery of lawyers. You can article him to me; and look you here, Jim, if I 2 2 THE DAY WILL COME. don't have to help you pay for his education, I'll give him his articles. There, now, what do you say to that?" The offer was pronounced a generous one, and worthy of a blood relation; but James Dalbrook never took ad- vantage of his kinsman's kindness. His University career was as successful as his progress at the quaint stone grammar school, and his college friends, who were neither dukes nor marquises, but fairly sensible young men, all advised him to apply himself to the higher branch of the law. So James Dalbrook, of Trinity Hall, ate his dinners at the Temple during his last year of undergraduate life, came out seventh wrangler, was called to the Bar, and in due course wore crimson, velvet, and ermine, and be- came Lord Cheriton, a man whose greatness in somewise overshadowed the small provincial dignity of the house of Matthew Dalbrook, erstwhile head of the family. The Dalbrooks, of Dorchester, had gone upon their way quietly, thriving, respected, but in no wise dis- tinguished. Matthew, junior, had succeeded his father, Matthew, senior, and the firm in Cornhill had been Dal- brook & Son for more than thirty years; and now Theo- dore, the eldest of a family of five, was Son, and his grandfather, the founder of the firm, was sleeping the sleep of the just in the cemetery outside Dorchester. Lord Cheriton was too wise a man to forget old obligations or to avoid his kindred. There was nothing to be ashamed of in his connection with a thoroughly reputable firm like Dalbrook & Son. They might be , provincial, but their name was a synonym for honour and honesty. They had taken as firm root in the land as the county families whose title-deeds and leases, wills and codicils they kept. They were well-bred, well- educated, God-fearing people, with no struggling ambi- THE DAY WILL COME. 23 tions, no morbid craving to get upon a higher social level than the status to which their professional position and their means entitled them. They rode and drove good horses, kept good servants, lived in a good house, visited among the county people with moderation, but they made no pretensions to being "smart." They offered no sacri- fices of fortune or self-respect to the modern Moloch — Fashion. There was a younger son called Harrington, destined for the Church, and with advanced views upon church architecture and music, and there were two unmarried daughters, Janet and Sophia, also with advanced views upon the woman's rights question, and with a sovereign contempt for the standard young lady. Theodore's lines were marked out for him with in- evitable precision. He had been taken into partnership the day he was out of his articles, and at seven-and- twenty he was his father's right hand, and represented all that was modern and popular in the firm. He was steady as a rock, had an intellect of singular acuteness, a ready wit, and very pleasing manners. He had, above all things, the inestimable gift of an equable and happy temper. He had been everybody's favourite from the nursery upwards, popular at school, popular at the Uni- versity, popular in the local club, popular in the hunting field; and it was the prevailing opinion of Dorchester that he ought to marry an heiress and make a great position for the house of Dalbrook. Some people had gone so far as to say that he ought to marry Lord Cheriton's daughter. He had been made free of the great house at Cheri- ton from the time he was old enough to visit anywhere. His family had been bidden to all notable festivities; had 24 THE DAY WILL COME. been duly called upon, at not too long intervals, by Lady Cheriton. He had ridden by Juanita's side in many a run with the South Dorset foxhounds, and had waited about with her outside many a covert. They had pic- nicked and made gipsy tea at Corfe Castle; they had rambled in the woods near Studland; they had sailed to Branksea, and, further away, to Lulworth Cove, and the romantic caves of Stare; but this had been all in frank cousinly friendship. Theodore had seen only too soon that there was no room for him in his kinswoman's heart. He began by admiring her as the loveliest girl he had ever seen; he had ended by adoring her, and he adored her still; but with a loyal regard which accepted her position as another man's wife; and he would have died sooner than dishonour her by one unholy thought. It was nearly ten o'clock when he rode slowly along the avenue that led into Dorchester. The moon was shining between the overarching boughs of the sycamores. The road with that high overarching roof had a solemn look in the moonlit stillness. The Roman amphitheatre yonder, with its grassy banks rising tier above tier, shone white in the moonbeams; the old town seemed half asleep. The house in Cornhill had a very Philistine look as com- pared with that fine old mansion of Cheriton which was present to his mind in very vivid colours to-night, those two wandering about the old Italian garden, hand-in- hand, wedded- lovers, with the lamplit rooms open to the soft summer night, and the long terrace and stone balus- trade and moss-grown statues of nymph and goddess silvered by the moonbeams. The Cornhill house was a good old house notwithstanding, a panelled house of the Georgian era, with a wide entrance hall, and a well- staircase with carved oak balusters and a baluster rail a THE DAY WILL COME. 2$ foot broad. The furniture had been very little changed since the days of Theodore's great-grandfather, for the late Mrs. Dalbrook had cherished no yearnings for modern art in the furniture line. Her gentle spirit had looked up to her husband as a leader of men, and had re- verenced chairs and tables, bureaus and wardrobes that had belonged to his grandfather, as if they were made sacred by that association. And thus the good old house in the good old town had a savour of bygone generations, an old family air which the parvenu would buy for much gold if he could. True that the dining-room chairs were over-ponderous, and the dining-room pictures belonged to the obscure school of religious art in which you can only catch your saint or your martyr at one particular angle; yet the chairs were of a fine antique form, and bore the crest of the Dalbrooks on their shabby leather backs, and the pictures had a respectable brownness which might mean Holbein or Rembrandt. The drawing-room was large and bright, with four narrow, deeply-recessed windows commanding the broad street and the Antelope Hotel over the way, and deep window seats crammed with flowers. Here the oak panel- ling had been painted pale pink, and the mouldings picked out in a deeper tint by successive generation of Vandals, but the effect was cheerful, and the pink walls made a good background for the Chippendale secretaires and cabinets filled with willow-pattern Worcester or Crown Derby. The window-curtains were dark brown cloth, with a border of Berlin wool lilies and roses, a border which would have set the teeth of an aesthete on edge, but which blended with the general brightness of the room. Old Mrs. Matthew Dalbrook, the grandmother, and her three spinster daughters had toiled over those cross-stitch 2 6 THE DAY WILL COME. borders, and Theodore's mother would have deemed it sacrilege to have put aside this labour of a vanished life. Harrington Dalbrook and his two sisters were in the drawing-room, each apparently absorbed in an instructive book, and yet all three had been talking for the greater part of the evening. It was a characteristic of their highly intellectual lives to nurse a volume of Herbert Spencer or a treatise upon the deeper mysteries of Buddha, while they discussed the conduct or morals of their neighbours — or their gowns and bonnets. "I thought you were never coming home, Theo," said Janet. "You don't mean to say you waited to see the bride and bridegroom?" "That is exactly what I do mean to say. I had to get old Sandown's lease executed, and when I had finished my business I waited about to see them arrive. Do you think you could get me anything in the way of supper, Janie?" "Father went to bed ever so long ago," replied Janet; "it's dreadfully late." "But I don't suppose the cook has gone to bed, and perhaps she would condescend to cut me a sandwich or two," answered Theodore, ringing the bell. His sisters were orderly young women who objected to eating and drinking out of regulation hours. Janet looked round the room discontentedly, thinking that her brother would make crumbs. Young men she had ob- served, are almost miracle workers in the way of crumbs. I'hey can get more superfluous crumbs out of any given piece of bread than the entire piece would appear to contain, looked at by the casual eye. "I have found a passage in Spencer which most fully bears out my view, Theodore," said Sophia, severely, THE DAY WILL COME. 27 referring to an argument she had had with her brother the day before yesterday. "How did she look?" asked Janet, openly frivolous for the nonce. "Lovelier than I ever saw her look in her life," an- swered Theodore. "At least I thought so." He wondered, as he said those words, whether it had been his own despair at the thought of having irrevocably lost her which invested her familiar beauty with a new and mystic power. "Yes, she looked exquisitely lovely, and completely happy — an ideal bride." "If her nose were a thought longer her face would be almost perfect," said Janet. "How was she dressed?" "I could no more tell you than I could say how many petals there are in that Dijon rose yonder. She gave me an impression of cool soft colour. I think there was yellow in her hat — pale yellow, like a primrose." "Men are such dolts about women's dress," retorted Janet, impatiently; "and yet they pretend to have taste and judgment, and to criticize everything we wear." "I think you may rely upon us for knowing what we don't like," said Theodore. He seated himself in his father's easy chair, a roomy old chair with projecting sides, that almost hid him from the other occupants of the room. He was weary and sad, and their chatter irritated his overstrung nerves. He would have gone straight to his own room on arriving, but that would have set them wondering, and he did not want to be wondered about. He wanted to keep his secret, or as much of it as he could. No doubt those three knew that he had been fond of her, very fond; that he would have sacrificed half his lifetime to win her for the other half; but they did not know how fond. 28 THE DAY WILL COME. They did not know that he would fain have melted down all the sands of time into one grain of gold — one golden day in which to hold her to his heart and know she loved him. CHAPTER II. "And warm and light I felt her clasping hand When twined in mine; she followed where I went." There is a touch of childishness in all honeymoon couples, a something which suggests the Babes in the Wood, left to play together by the Arch Deceiver, Fate; wandering hand in hand in the morning sunshine, gather- ing flowers, pleased with the mossy banks and leafy glades, like those children of the old familiar story, be- fore ever hunger or cold or fear came upon them, before the shadow of night and death stole darkly on their path. Even Godfrey Carmichael, a sensible, highly-educated young man, whose pride it was to march in the van of progress and enlightenment, even he had that touch of childishness which is adorable in a lover, and which lasts, oh, so short a time: transient as the bloom on the peach, the down on the butterfly's wing, the morning dew on a rose. He had loved her all his life, as it seemed to him. They had been companions, friends, lovers, for longer than either could remember, so gradual had been the growth of love. Yet the privilege of belonging to each other was not the less sweet because of this old familiarity. "Are we really married — really husband and wife — Godfrey?" asked Juanita, nestling to his side as they THE DAY WILL COME. 2 0, stood together in the wide verandah where they break- fasted on these July mornings among climbing roses and clematis. "Husband and wife — such prosaic words. I heard you speak of me to the Vicar yesterday as 'my wife.' It gave me quite a shock." "Were you sorry to think it was true?" "Sorry — no! But wife. The word has such a matter- of-fact sound. It means a person who writes cheques for the house accounts, revises the bill of fare, and takes all the blame when the servants do wrong." "Shall I call you my idol, then, my goddess — the enchantress whose magic wand wafts gladness and sun- shine over my existence?" "No, call me wife. It is a good word, after all, God- frey — a good serviceable word, a word that will stand wear and tear. It means for ever." They breakfasted tete-a-tete in their bower of roses; they wandered about the Chase or sat in the garden all day long. They led an idle desultory life like little children, and wondered that evening came so soon, and stayed up late into the summer night, steeping themselves in the starshine and silence which seemed new to them in their mutual delight. There was a lovely view from that broad terrace, with its Italian balustrade and statues, its triple flight of marble steps descending to an Italian garden, which had been laid out in the xAaigustan age of Pope and Addison, when the distinctive feature of a great man's garden was stateliness. Here was the lovers' favourite loitering place when the night grew late, Juanita looking like Juliet in her loose white silk tea gown, with its Venetian ampli- tude of sleeve and its mediaeval gold embroidery. The fashionable dressmaker who made that gown had known 30 THE DAY WILL COME. how to adapt her art to Miss Dalbrook's beauty. The long straight folds accentuated every line of the finely moulded figure, fuller than the average girlish figure, suggestive of Juno rather than Psyche. She was two inches taller than the average girl, and looked almost as tall as her lover as she stood beside him in the moon- light, gazing dreamily at the landscape. This hushed and solemn hour on the verge of mid- night was their favourite time. Then only were they really alone, secure in the knowledge that all the house- hold was sleeping, and that they had their world verily to themselves, and might be as foolish as they liked. Once at sight of a shooting star Juanita flung herself upon her lover's breast and sobbed aloud. It was some minutes before he could soothe her. "My love, my love, what does it mean?" he asked, perplexed by her agitation. "I saw the star, and I prayed that we might never be parted; and then it flashed upon me that we might, and I could not bear the thought," she sobbed, clinging to him like a frightened child. "My dear one, what should part us, except death?" "Ah, Godfrey, death is everywhere. How could a good God make His creatures so fond of each other and yet part them so cruelly as He does sometimes?" "Only to unite them again in another world, Nita. I feel as if our two lives must go on in an endless chain, circling among those stars yonder, which could not have been made to be for ever unpeopled. There are happy lovers there at this instant, I am convinced — lovers who had lived before us here, and have been translated to a higher life yonder; lovers who have felt the pangs of parting, the ecstacy of reunion." THE DAY WILL COME. 3 I He glanced vaguely towards that starry heaven, while he fondly smoothed the dark hair upon Juanita's brow. It was not easy to win her back to cheerfulness. That vision of possible grief had too completely possessed her. Godfrey was fain to be serious, finding her spirits so shaken; so they talked together gravely of that unknown hereafter which philosophy or religion may map out with mathematical distinctness, but which remains to the indi- vidual soul for ever mysterious and awful. Her husband found it wiser to talk of solemn things, finding her so sad, and she took comfort from that serious conversation. "Let us lead good lives, dear, and hope for the best in other worlds," he said. "There is sound sense in the Buddhist theory, that we are the makers of our own spiritual destiny, and that a man may be in advance *of his fellow men, even in getting to Heaven." Those grave thoughts had little place in Juanita's mind next day, which was the first day the lovers devoted to practical things. They started directly after breakfast for a tcte-a-tete drive to Milbrook Priory, where certain alterations and improvements were contemplated in the rooms which were to be Juanita's. Godfrey's widowed mother, Lady Jane Carmichael, had transferred herself and her belongings to a villa at Swanage, where she was devoting herself to the creation of a garden, which was on a small scale to repeat the beauties of her flat old- fashioned flower garden at the Priory. It irked her some- what to think how long the hedges of yew and holly would take to grow; but there was a certain pleasure in creation. She was a mild, loving creature, with an aristo- cratic profile, silvery grey hair, and a small fragile figure; a woman who looked a patrician to her finger tips, and $2 THE DAY WILL COME. whom everybody imposed upon. Her blue blood had not endowed her with the power to rule. She adored her son, was very fond of Juanita, and resigned her place in her old home without a sigh. "The Priory was a great deal too big for me," she told her particular friends. "I used to feel very dreary there when Godfrey was at Oxford, and afterwards, for of course he was often away. It was only in the shooting season that the house looked cheerful. I hope they will soon have a family, and then that mil enliven the place a little." Milbrook Village and Milbrook Priory lay twelve miles nearer Dorchester than Cheriton Chase. Juanita enjoyed the long drive in the fresh morning air through a region of marsh and watery meadow, where the cattle gave charm and variety to a landscape which would have been barren and monotonous without them, a place of winding streams on which the summer sunlight was shining. The Priory was by no means so fine a place as Cheriton, but it was old, and not without interest, and Lady Jane was justified in the assertion that it was too large for her. It w T ould be too small perhaps for Sir Godfrey and his wife in the days to come, when in the natural course of events James Dalbrook would be at rest after his life labour, and Cheriton would belong to Juanita. "No doubt they will like Cheriton better than the Priory when we are all dead and gone," said Lady Jane, with her plaintive air. "I only hope they will have a family. Big houses are so dismal without little people." This idea of a family was almost a craze with Lady Jane Carmichael. She had idolized her only son, had THE DAY WILL COME. $$ been miserable at every parting, and it had seemed a hard thing to her that there was not more of him, as she had herself expressed it. "Godfrey has been the dearest boy. I only wish I had six of him/ 5 she would say piteously; and now her mind projected itself into the future, and she pictured a bevy of grandchildren — numerous as a covey of partridges in the upland fields of the home farm at Cheriton — and fancied herself lavishing her hoarded treasures of love upon them. She had grandchildren already, and to spare, the offspring of her two daughters, but these did not bear the honoured name of Carmichael, and, though they were very dear to her maternal heart, they were not what God- frey's children would be to her. She would be gone, she told herself, before they would be old enough to forsake her. She would be gone before those young birds grew too strong upon the wing. A blessed spell of golden years lay before her; nursery, and then a schoolroom; and then perhaps before the last dim closing scene a bridal, a granddaughter clinging to her in the sweet sadness of leave-taking, a fair young face crowned with orange flowers pressed against her own in the bride's happy kiss — and then she would say Nunc dimittis , and feel that her cup of gladness had been filled to the brim. The lovers' talk was all of that shadowy future, as the pair of greys bowled gaily along the level road. The horses were Godfrey's favourite pair, and belonged to a team of chestnuts and greys which had won him some distinction last season in Hyde Park, when the coaches met at the corner by the Magazine, and when the hand- some Miss Dalbrook, Lord Cheriton's heiress, was the cynosure of many eyes. The thoughts of Sir Godfrey The Day will come, I. "2 34 THE DAY WILL COME. and his wife were far from Hyde Park and the Four-in- Hand Club this morning. Their minds were filled with simple rural anticipations, and had almost a patriarchal turn, as of an Arcadian pair whose wealth was all in flocks and herds, and green pastures like these by which they were driving. The Priory stood on low ground between Wareham and Wimbourne, sheltered from the north by a bold ridge of heath, screened on the east by a little wood of oaks and chestnuts, Spanish chestnuts, with graceful drooping branches, whose glossy leaves contrasted with the closer foliage of the rugged old oaks. The house was built of Purbeck stone, and its bluish grey was touched with shades of gold and silvery green where the lichens and mosses crept over it, while one long southern wall was clothed with trumpet-ash and magnolia, myrtle and rose, as with a closely interwoven curtain of greenery, from which the small latticed windows flashed back the sun- shine. Nothing at the Priory was so stately as its counter- part at Cheriton. There were marble balustrades and rural gods there on the terrace; here there was only a broad gravel walk along the southern front, with a little old shabby stone temple at each end. At Cheriton three flights of marble steps led from the terrace to the Italian garden, and then again three more flights led to a garden on a lower level, and so by studied gradations to the bottom of the slope on which the mansion was built. Here house and garden were on the same level, and those gardens which Lady Jane had so cherished were dis- tinguished only by an elegant simplicity. Between the garden and a park of less than fifty acres there was only a sunk fence, and the sole glory of that modest domain THE DAY WILL COME. 35 lay in a herd of choice Channel Island cows, which had been Lady Jane's pride. She had resigned them to Juanita without a sigh, although each particular beast had been to her as a friend. "My dear, what could I do with cows in a villa?" she said, when Juanita suggested that she should at least keep her favourites, Beauty, and Maydew, and Coquette. "Of course, as you say, I could rent a couple of paddocks; but I should not like to see the herd divided. Besides, you will want them all by-and-by, when you have a family." Nita stepped lightly across the threshold of her future home. The old grey porch was embedded in roses and trailing passion flowers. Everything had a shabby, old- world look compared with Cheriton. Here there had been no improvement for over a century; all things had been quiescent as in the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. "What a dear old house it is, Godfrey, and how everything in it speaks to me of your ancestors — your own ancestors — not other people's! That makes all the difference. At Cheriton I feel always as if I were sur- rounded by malevolent ghosts. I can't see them, but I know they are there. Those poor Strangways, how they must hate me." "If there are any living Strangways knocking about the world houseless, or at any rate landless, I don't sup- pose they feel over kindly disposed to you," said God- frey; "but the ghosts have done with human habitations. It can matter very little to them who lives in the rooms where they were once happy or miserable, as the case may be. Has your father ever heard anything of the old family?" "Never. He says there are no Strangways left on 3* 6 THE DAY WILL COME. this hemisphere. There may be a remnant of the race in Australia," he says, "for he heard of a cousin of Reginald Strangway's who went out to Brisbane years ago to work with a sheep farmer on the Darling Downs. There is no one else of the old race and the old name that he can tell me about. I take a morbid interest in the subject, you know. If I were to meet a very evil- looking tramp in the woods and he were to threaten me, I should suspect him of being a Strangway. They all must hate us." "With a very unreasonable hatred, then, Nita, for it was no fault of your father's that the family went to the bad. I have heard my father talk of the Strangways many a time over his wine. They had been a reckless, improvident race for ever so many generations, men who lived only for the pleasure of the hour, whose motto was "Carpe diem" in the worst sense of the words. There was a Strangway who was the fashion for a short time during the Regency, wore a hat of his own invention, and got himself entangled with a popular actress, who sued him for breach of promise. He dipped the pro- perty. There was a racing Strangway who kept a stable at Newmarket, and married — well — never mind how. He dipped the property. There was Georgiana Strangway, an heiress and a famous beauty, in the Sailor King's reign. Two of the Royal Dukes wanted to marry her; but she ran away with a bandmaster in the Blues. She used to ride in Hyde Park at nine o'clock every morning in a green cloth spencer trimmed with sable, at a time when very few women rode in London. She saw the bandmaster, fell over head and ears in love with him, and bolted. They were married at Gretna. He spent as much of her fortune as he could get at, and was re- THE DAY WILL COME. 37 ported to have thrashed her before they parted. She set up a boarding-house at Ostend, gambled, drank cheap brandy, and died at five-and-forty." "What a dreaful ghost she would be to meet," said Nita, with a shudder. "From first to last they have been a bad lot," con- cluded Sir Godfrey, "and the Isle of Purbeck was a prodigious gainer when your father became master of Cheriton Chase and Baron Cheriton of Cheriton." "That is what they must feel worst of all," said Nita, speaking of the dead and the living as if they were one group of banished shades. "It must be hard for them to think that a stranger takes his title from the land that was once theirs, from the house in which they were born. Poor ill-behaved things, I can't help being sorry for them." "My fanciful Nita, they do not deserve your pity. They made their own lives, love. They have only suffered the result of their own Karma." "I only hope they will be better off in their next in- carnations, and that they won't get to that dreadful eighth world which leads nowhere," said Juanita. She made this light allusion to a creed which she and her lover had discussed seriously many a time in their graver moods. They had read Mr. Sinnett's books together, and had given themselves up in somewise to the fascinating theories of Esoteric Buddhism, and had been impressed by the curious parallel between that semi-fabulous Reformer of the East and the Teacher and Redeemer in whom they both believed. They went about the house together, Nita admiring everything, as if she were seeing those old rooms for the first time. The alterations to be made were of the smallest. Nita would allow scarcely any change. 38 THE DAY WILL COME. "Whatever was nice enough for Lady Jane must be good enough for me," she said, decisively, when Godfrey proposed improvements which would have changed the character of his mother's morning room; a conservatory, and a large bay window opposite the fire-place, for instance. "But it is such a shabby old hole, compared with your room at Cheriton." "It is a dear old hole, sir, and I won't have it altered in the smallest detail. I adore those deep-set windows and wide window-seats; and this apple-blossom chintz is simply delicious. Faded, sir? What of that? One can't buy such patterns now-a-days, for love or money. And that old Chinese screen must have belonged to a man- darin of the highest rank. My only feeling will be that I am a wretch in appropriating dear Lady Jane's sur- roundings. This room fitted her like a glove." "She is charmed to surrender it to you, love; and your forbearance in the matter of improvement will de- light her." "Your improvements would have been destruction. A conservatory opening out of that window would suggest a city man's drawing-room at Tulse Hill. I have seen such in my childhood when mother used to visit odd people on the Surrey side of the river." "Loveliest insolence!" "Oh, I am obliged to cultivate insolence. It is a parvenue's only defensive weapon. We new-made people always give ourselves more airs than you who were born in the purple." She roamed from room to room, expatiating upon everything with a childlike pleasure, delighted at the idea of this her new kingdom, over which she was to reign with undivided sovereignty. Cheriton was ever so THE DAY WILL COME. 39 much grander; but at Cheriton she had only been the daughter of the house; indulged in every fancy, yet in somewise in a state of subjection. Here she was to be sole mistress, with Godfrey for her obedient slave. "And now show me your rooms, sir," she exclaimed, with pretty authority. "I may wish to make some im- provements there." "You shall work your will with them, dearest, as you have done with their master." He led her to his study and general den, a tine old room looking into the stable-yard, capacious, but gloomy. "This is dreadful," she cried, "no view, and ever so far from me! You must have the room next the morn- ing-room, so that we can run in to each other, and talk at any moment." "That is one of the best bedrooms." "What of that! We can do without superfluous bed- rooms; but I cannot do without you. This room of yours will make a visitor's bedroom. If he or she doesn't like it, he or she can go away, and leave us to ourselves, which we shall like ever so much better, shan't we?" she asked, caressingly, as if life were going to be one long honeymoon. Of course he assented, kissed the red frank lips, and assured her that for him bliss meant a perpetual tete-a- tete. Yes, his study should be next her boudoir; so that even in his busiest hours he should be able to turn to her for gladness — refreshing himself with her smiles after a troublesome interview with his bailiff — taking counsel with her about every change in his stable, sharing her interest in every new book. "I will give orders about the change at once," he 4-0 THE DAY WILL COME. said, "so that everything may be ready for us when you are tired of Cheriton." They lunched gaily in the garden. Nita hated eating indoors when the weather was good enough for an al fresco meal. They lunched under a Spanish chestnut that made a tent of foliage on the lawn in front of the house. They lingered over the meal, full of talk, finding a new world of conversation suggested by their surround- ings; and then the greys were brought round to the hall door, and they started on the return journey. It began to rain before they reached Cheriton, and the afternoon clouded over with a look of premature winter. . No saunterings on the terrace this evening; no midnight meanderings among the cypresses and yews, the gleaming statues and dense green walls; as if they had been Romeo and Juliet, wedded and happy, in the garden at Verona. For the first time since the beginning of their honeymoon they were obliged to stay indoors. "It is positively chilly," exclaimed Juanita, as her maid carried off her damp mantle. "My dearest love, I'm afraid you've caught cold," said Godfrey, with apprehension. "Do I ever catch cold, Godfrey?" she cried, scorn- fully; and indeed her splendid physique seemed to negative the idea as she stood before him, tall and buoyant, with the carnation of health upon cheek and lips, her eyes sparkling, her head erect. "Well, no, my Juno, I believe you are as free from all such weakness as human nature can be; but I shall order fires all the same, and I implore you to put on a warm gown." "I will," she answered, gaily. "You shall see me in my copper plush. THE DAY WILL COME. 4 I "Thanks, love. That is a vision to live for." " Shall we have tea in my dressing-room — or in yours?" "In mine. I think we have taken tea in almost every other room in the house, as well as in every corner of the garden." It had been one of her girlish caprices to devise new places for their afternoon tea. Whether it had been as keen a delight to the footmen to carry Japanese tables and bamboo chairs from pillar to post was open to ques- tion; but Juanita loved to colonize, as she called it. "I feel that wherever we establish our teapot we in- vest the spot with the sanctity of home," she said. Fires were ordered, and tea in Sir Godfrey's dressing- room. It was Lord Dalbrook's dressing-room actually, and altogether a sacred chamber. It had been one of the best bedrooms in the days of the Strangways; but his Lordship liked space, and had chosen this room for his den — a fine old room, with full length portraits of the Sir Joshua period let into the panelling. The furniture was of the plainest, and very different from the luxurious appointments of the other rooms, for these very chairs and tables, and yonder substantial mahogany desk, had done duty in James Dalbrook's chambers in the Temple thirty years before. So had the heavy-looking clock on the chimney-piece, surmounted by a bronze Saturn lean- ing upon his scythe. So had the brass candlesticks, and the ink-stained red morocco blotter on the desk. He had fallen asleep in that capacious arm-chair many a time in the small hours, after struggling with the intricacies of a railway bill or poring over a volume of precedents. The thick Persian carpet, the velvet window-curtains, panelled walls, and fine old fireplace gave a look of sub- 42 THE DAY WILL COME. dued splendour to the room, in spite of the dark and heavy furniture. There was a large vase of roses on the desk, where Lord Cheriton never tolerated a flower; and there were more roses on the chimney-piece; and some smart bamboo chairs, many-coloured, like Joseph's coat, had been brought from Nita's morning room — and so, with logs blazing on the floriated iron dogs, and a scarlet tea-table set out with blue and gold china, and a Moorish copper kettle swinging over a lamp, the room had as gay an aspect as any one could desire. Juanita had made her toilet by the time the tea-table was ready, and came in from her room next door, a radiant figure in a gleaming copper-coloured gown, flow- ing loose from throat to foot, and with no adornment except a broad collar and cuffs of old Venice point. Her brilliant complexion and southern eyes and ebon hair triumphed over the vivid hue of the gown, and it Avas at her Sir Godfrey looked as she came beaming to- wards him, and not at the dressmaker's master-piece. "How do you like it?" she asked, with childlike pleasure in her fine raiment. "I ought to have kept it till October, but I couldn't resist putting it on, just to see what you think of it. I hope you won't say it's gaudy." "My dearest, you might be clad in a russet cloud for anything I should know to the contrary. A quarter of a century hence, when you are beginning to fancy yourself passe'e we will talk about gowns. It will be of some con- sequence then how you dress. It can be none now." "That is just a man's ignorance, Godfrey," she said, shaking her finger at him, as she seated herself in one of the bamboo chairs, a dazzling figure in the light of the blazing logs, which danced about her eyes and hair THE DAY WILL COME. 43 and copper-coloured gown in a bewildering manner. "You think me handsome, I suppose?'"' ''Eminently so." "And you think I should be just as handsome if I dressed anyhow — in a badly-fitting Tussore, for instance, made last year and cleaned this year, and with a hat of my own trimming, eh, Godfrey?" "Every bit as handsome." "That shows what an ignoramus a University educa- tion can leave a man. My dearest boy, half my good looks depend upon my dressmaker. Not for worlds would I have you see me a dowdy, if only for a quarter of an hour. The disillusion might last a lifetime. I dress to please you, remember, sir. It was of you I thought when I was choosing my trousseau. I want to be lovely in your eyes always, always, always." "You need make no effort to attain your wish. You have put so strong a spell upon my eyes that with me at least you are independent of the dressmaker's art." "Again I say you don't know what you are talking about. But frankly now, do you think this gown too gaudy?" "That coppery background to my Murillo Madonna. No, love; the colour suits you to perfection." She poured out the tea, and then sank back in her comfortable chair, in a reverie, languid after her explora- tions at the Priory, full of a dreamlike happiness as she basked in the glow of the fire, welcome as a novel in- dulgence at this time of the year. "There is nothing more delightful than a fire in July," she said. Her eyes wandered about the room idly. "Do you call them handsome?" she asked presently. 44 THE DAY WILL COME. Godfrey looked puzzled. Was she still harping on the dress question, or was she challenging his admiration for those glorious eyes which he had been watching in their rovings for a lazy five minutes. "I mean the Strangways. That is their famous beauty — the girl in the scanty white satin petticoat, with the goat. Imagine any one walking about a wood, with a goat, in white satin. What queer ideas portrait painters must have had in those days. She is very lovely though, isn't she?" "She is not my ideal. I don't admire that narrow Cupid's-bow mouth, the lips pinched up as if they were pronouncing 'prunes and prism.' The eyes are large and handsome, but too round, the complexion is wax-dollish. No, she is not my ideal." "I should have been miserable if you had admired her." "There is a face in the hall which I like ever so much better, and yet I doubt if it is a good face." "Which is that?" "The face of the girl in that group of John Strang- way's three children." "That girl with the towsled hair and bright blue eyes. Yes, she must have been handsome — but she looks — I hope you won't be shocked, but I really can't help saying it — that girl looks a devil." "Poor soul! Her temper did not do much good for her. I believe she came to a melancholy end." "How was that?" "She eloped from a school in Switzerland with an officer in a line regiment — a love match; but she went wrong a few years afterwards, left her husband, and died in poverty at Boulogne, I believe." "Another ghost!" exclaimed Juanita, dolefully. "Poor, THE DAY WILL COME. 45 lost soul, she must walk. I can't help feeling sorry for her — married to a man who was unkind to her, perhaps, and whom she discovered unworthy of her love. And then years afterwards meeting some one worthier and better, whom she loved passionately. That is dreadful! Oh, Godfrey! if I had been married before I saw you — and we had met — and you had cared for me— God knows what kind of woman I should have been. Per- haps I should have been one of those poor souls who have a history, the women mother and her friends stare at and whisper about in the Park. Why are people so keenly interested in them, I wonder? Why can't they leave them alone?" "It would be charity to do so." "No one is charitable — in London." "Do you think people are more indulgent in the country?" "I suppose not. I'm afraid English people keep all their charity for the Continent. I shall never look at the girl in that group without thinking of her sad story. She looks hardly fifteen in the picture. Poor thing! She did not know what was coming." They loitered over their tea table, making the most of their happiness. The sweetness of their dual life had not begun to pall. It was still new and wonderful to be together thus, unrestrained by any other presence. In the midst of their gay talk Juanita's eyes wandered to the bronze Time upon the chimney piece, and the familiar figure suggested gloomy ideas. "Oh, Godfrey! look at that grim old man with his scythe, mowing down our happy moments so fast that we can hardly taste their sweetness before they speed away. To think that our lives are hurrying past us like 46 THE DAY WILL COME. a rapid river, and that we shall be like him" (pointing distastefully to the type of old age — the wrinkled brow and flowing beard) "before we know that we have lived." "It is a pity, sweet, that life should be so short." Her glance wandered to the dark oak panel above the clock, and she started up from her low chair with a faint scream, stood on tiptoe before the fire-place, snatched half-a-dozen scraggy peacock's feathers from the panel, and threw them at her husband's feet. "Look at those," she exclaimed, pointing to them as they lay there. "Peacock's feathers! What have they done that you should use them so?" "Oh, Godfrey, don't you know?" she asked, earnestly. "Don't I know what?" "That peacock's feathers bring ill luck. It is fatal to take them into a house. They are an evil omen. And father will pick them up when he is strolling about the lawn, and will bring them indoors; though I am always scolding him for his obstinate folly, and always throwing the horrid things away." "And this kind of thing has been going on for some years, I suppose?" asked Godfrey, smiling at her intensity. "Ever since I can remember." "And have the peacock's feathers brought you mis- fortune?" She looked at him gravely for a few moments, and then burst into a joyous laugh. "No, no, no, no," she said, "Fate has been over kind to me. I have never known sorrow. Fate has given me you. I am the happiest woman in the world — for there can't be another you, and you are mine. It is like owning the Kohinoor diamond; one knows that one stands alone. THE DAY WILL COME. 47 Still, all the same, peacock's feather's are unlucky, and I will not suffer them in your room." She picked up the offending feathers, twisted them into a ball, and flung them at the back of the deep old chimney, behind the smouldering logs; and then she pro- duced a chess board, and she and Godfrey began a game with the board on their knees, and played for an hour by firelight. CHAPTER III. "A deadly silence step by step increased, Until it seemed a horrid presence there." That idea of the Strangways had taken hold of the bride's fancy. She went into the hall with Godfrey after dinner, and they looked together at the family group. The picture was a bishop's half-length, turned lengthwise, and the figures showed only the head and shoulders. The girl stood between the two boys, her left arm round her younger brother's neck. He w r as a lad of eleven or twelve, in an Eton jacket and broad white collar. The other boy was older than the girl, and was dressed in dark green corduroy. The heads were masterly, but the picture was uninteresting. "Did you ever see three faces with so little fascina- tion among the three?" asked Godfrey; "the boys look arrant cubs; the girl has the makings of a handsome wo- man, but the lines of her month and chin have firmness enough for forty, and yet she could hardly have been over fifteen when that picture was painted." "She has a lovely throat and lovely shoulders." "Yes, the painter has made the most of those." 48 THE DAY WILL COME. "And she has fine eyes." "Fine as to colour and shape, but as cold as a Toledo blade — and as dangerous. I pity her husband." "That must be a waste of pity. If he had been good to her she would not have run away from him," "I am not sure of that. A woman with that mouth and chin would go her own gate if she trampled upon bleeding hearts. I wonder your father keeps these sha- dows of a vanished race." "He would not part with them for worlds. They are like the peacock's feathers that he will bring indoors. I sometimes think he has a fancy for unlucky things. He says that as we have no ancestors of our own — to speak of — I suppose we must have ancestors, for everybody must have come down from Adam somehow " "Naturally, or from Adam's ancestor, the common progenitor of the Darwinian thesis." "Don't be horrid. Father's idea is that as we have no ancestors of our own, we may as well keep the Strangway portraits. The faces are the history of the house, father said, when mother wanted those dismal old pictures taken down to make way for a collection of modern art. So there they are, and I can't help thinking that they overlook us." They were still standing before the trio of young faces contemplatively. "Are they all dead?" asked Juanita, after a pause. "God knows. I believe it is a long time since any of them were heard of. Jasper Blake talks to me about them sometimes. He was in service here, you know, be- fore he became my father's bailiff. In fact, he only left Cheriton after the old squire's death. He is fond of talking of the forgotten race, and it is from him that THE DAY WILL COME. 4§ most of my information is derived. He told me about that unlucky lad," pointing to the younger boy. "He was in the navy, distinguished himself out in China, and was on the high road to getting a ship when he got broke for drunkenness — a flagrant case, which all but ended in a tremendous disaster and the burning of a man-of- war. He went into the merchant service — did well for a year or two, and then the old enemy took hold of him again, and he got broke there. After that he dropped through — disappeared in the great dismal swamp where the men who fail in this world sink out of knowledge." "And the elder boy; what became of him?" "He was in the army — a tremendous swell, I be- lieve, married Lord Dangerfield's youngest daughter, and cut a dash for two or three years, and then disappeared from society, and took his wife to Corsica, on the ground of delicate health. For anything I know to the contrary they may still be living in that free-and-easy little island. He was fond of sport, and liked a rough life. I fancy that Ajaccio would suit him better than Purbeck or Pall Mall." "Poor things; I wonder if they ever long for Cheriton?" "If old Jasper is to be believed, they were passion- ately fond of the place, especially that girl. Jasper was groom in those days, and he taught her to ride. She was a regular dare devil, according to his account, with a temper that no one had ever been able to control. But she seems to have behaved pretty well to Jasper, and he was attached to her. Her father couldn't manage her anyhow. They were too much alike. He sent her to a school at Lausanne soon after that picture was painted, and she never came back to Cheriton. She ran away with an English officer who was home from India The Day will come. I, a 5<3 THE DAY WILL COME. on furlough, and was staying at Ouchy for his health. She represented herself as of full age, and contrived to get married at Geneva. The squire refused ever to see her or her husband. She ran away from the husband afterwards, as I told you. In fact, to quote Jasper, she was an incorrigible bolter." "Poor, poor thing. It is all too sad," sighed Juanita. "Let us go into the library and forget them. There are no Strang ways there, thank Heaven." She put her arm through Godfrey's and led him off, unresisting. He was in that stage of devotion in which he followed her like a dog. The library was one of the best rooms in the house, but the least interesting from an archaeologist's point of view. It had been built early in the eighteenth century for a ballroom, a long narrow room, with five tall win- dows, and it had been afterwards known as the music room; but James Dalbrook had improved it out of its original character by throwing out a large bay, with three windows opening on to a semicircular terrace, with marble balustrade and steps leading down to the prettiest portion of that Italian garden which was the crowning glory of Cheriton Manor, and which it had been Lord Cheriton's delight to improve. The spacious bay gave width and dignity to the room, and it was in the space between the bay and the fireplace that people naturally grouped themselves. It was too large a room to be wanned by one fire of ordinary dimensions, but the fireplace added by James Dalbrook was of abnormal width and grandeur, while the chimney-piece was rich in coloured marbles and massive sculpture. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Clusters of wax candles were burn- ing on the mantelpiece, and two large moderator lamps THE DAY WILL COME. 5 I stood on a massive carved oak table in the centre of the room — a table spacious enough to hold all the magazines, reviews, and periodicals in three languages that were worth reading — Quarterlies, Revue rfcs Deux Mondes, Rmndschau, Figaro, World, Saturday, Truth, and the rest of them— as well as guide books, peerages, clergy and army lists — which made a formidable range in the middle. Godfrey flung himself into a long, low, arm-chair, and Juanita perched herself lightly beside him on the cushioned arm, looking down at him from that point of vantage. There was a wood fire here as well as in the hall; but the rain was over now, the evening had grown warmer, and the French windows in the bay stood open to the dull grey night. "What are you reading now, Godfrey?" asked Juanita, glancing at the cosy double table in a corner by the chimney-piece, loaded with books above and below. "For duty reading Jones' book on 'Grattan and the Irish Parliament;' for old books 'Plato;' for new 'Wider Horizons.' " He was an insatiable reader, and even in those long summer days of honeymoon bliss he had felt the need of books, which were a habit of his life. "Is 'Wider Horizons' a good book?" "It is full of imagination, and it carries one away; but one has the same feeling as in 'Esoteric Buddhism.' It is a very comforting theory, and it ought to be true; but by what authority is this gospel preached to us, and on what evidence are we to believe?" " 'Wider Horizons' is about the life to come?" "Yes; it gives us a very vivid picture of our existence in other planets. The author writes as if he had been there." 52 THE DAY WILL COME. "And according to this theory you and I are to meet and be happy again in some distant star?" "In many stars — climbing from star to star, and achieving a higher spirituality, a finer essence, with every new existence, until we attain the everlasting perfection/' "And we who are to die old and worn out here are to be young and bright again there — in our next world?" "Naturally." "And then we shall grow old again — go through the same slow decay — grey hairs, fading sight, duller hear- ing?" "Yes; as we blossom so must we fade. The withered husk of the old life holds the seed from which the new flower must spring; and with every incarnation the flower is to gain in vigour and beauty, and the life period is to lengthen till it touches infinity." "I must read the book, Godfrey. It may be all a dream; but I love even dreams that promise a future in which you and I shall always be together — as we are now, as we are now." She repeated those last four words with infinite tender- ness. The beautiful head sank down to nestle upon his shoulder, and they were silent for some minutes in a dreamy reverie, gazing into the fire, where the logs had given out their last flame, and were slowly fading from red to grey. It was a quarter to eleven by the dial let into the marble of the chimney-piece. The butler had brought a tray with wine and water at ten o'clock, and had taken the final orders before retiring. Juanita and her husband were alone amid the stillness of the sleeping household. The night was close and dull, not a leaf stirring, and only a few dim stars in the heavy sky. THE DAY WILT, COME. 53 As the clock told the third quarter with a small silvery chime, as if it were a town clock in fairyland, Juanita started suddenly from her half reclining position, and listened intently, with her face towards the open window. "A footstep!" she exclaimed. "I heard a footstep on the terrace." "My dearest, I know your hearing is quicker than mine; but this time it is your fancy that heard and not your ears. I heard nothing. And who should be walking on the terrace at such an hour, do you suppose?" "I don't suppose anything about it, but I know there was some one. I heard the steps, Godfrey. I heard them as distinctly as I heard you speak just now; light footsteps — slow, very slow, and with that cautious, treacherous sound which light, slow footsteps always have, if one hears them in the silence of night." "You are very positive." "I know it, I heard it!" she cried, running to the window, and out into the grey night. She ran along the whole length of the terrace and back again, her husband following her with slower steps, and they found no one, heard nothing from one end to the other. "You see, love, there was no one there," said Godfrey. "I see nothing of the kind — only that the some one who was there has vanished very cleverly. An eaves- dropper might hide easily enough behind any one of those cypresses," she said, pointing to the obelisk-shaped trees which showed black against the dim grey of the night. "Why should there be any eavesdropper, love? What secrets have you and I that any prowler should care to 54 THE D AY WILL COME. watch or listen. The only person of the prowling kind to be apprehended would be a burglar; and as Cheriton has been burglar-free all these years, I see no reason for fear; so unless your mysterious footfall belonged to one of the servants or a servant's follower, which is highly improbable on this side of the house, I take it that you must have heard a ghost." He had his arm around her, and was leading her out of the misty night into the warm, bright room, and his voice had the light sound of laughter; but at that word ghost she started and trembled, and her voice was very serious as she answered, "A ghost, yes! It was just like the footfall of a ghost — so slow, so soft, so mysterious. I believe it was a ghost, Godfrey — a Strangway ghost. Some of them must revisit this house." CHAPTER IV. "Who will dare To pluck thee from me? And of thine own will, Full well I feel that thou would'st not leave me." The sunshine of a summer morning, streaming in through mullioned windows that looked due south, raised Juanita's spirits, and dispersed her fears. It was impos- sible to feel depressed under such a sky. She had been wakeful for a considerable part of the night, brooding upon that ghostly footstep which had sent such a sudden chill to her warm young heart, but that broad clear light of morning brought common sense. "I daresay it was only some love-sick housemaid, THE DAY WILL COME. 55 roaming about after all the others had gone to bed, in order to have a quiet think about her sweetheart, and what he said to her last Sunday as they went home from church. I know how / used to walk about with no company but my thoughts of you, Godfrey, and how sweet it used to be to go over all your dearest words — over and over again — and no doubt the heart of a housemaid is worked by just the same machinery that sets mine going — and her thoughts would follow the same track." "That is what we are taught to believe, dearest, in this enlightened age." "Why should it be a ghost?" pursued Juanita, leaning back in her bamboo chair, and lazily enjoying the summer morning, somewhat languid after a sleepless night. They were breakfasting at the western end of the terrace, with an awning over their heads, and a couple of footmen travelling to and from the house in attendance upon them, and keeping respectfully out of earshot be- tween whiles. The table was heaped with roses, and the waxen chalices of a great magnolia on the lower level showed above the marble balustrade, and shed an almost overpowering perfume on the warm air. "Why should a ghost come now?" she asked, harping upon her morbid fancies. "There has never been a hint of a ghost in all the years that father and mother have lived here. Why should one come now, unless " "Unless what, love?" "Unless one of the Strangways died last night — at the very moment when we heard the footfall — died in some distant land, perhaps, and with his last dying thought revisited the place of his birth. One has heard of such things." 56 THE DAY WILL COME. "One has heard of a great many strange things. The human imagination is very inventive. " "Ah, you are a sceptic, I know. I don't think I actually believe in ghosts — but I am afraid of being forced to believe in them. Oh, Godfrey, if it were meant for a warning," she cried, with sudden terror in the large dark eyes. "What kind of warning?" "A presage of misfortune — sickness — death. I have read so many stories of such warnings." "My dearest love, you have read too much rubbish in that line. Your mind is full of morbid fancies. If the morning were not too warm, I should say put on your habit and let us go for a long ride. I am afraid this sauntering life of ours is too depressing for you." "Depressing — to be with you all day! Oh, Godfrey, you must be tired of me if you can suggest such a thing." "But, my Nita, when I see you giving yourself up to gloomy speculations about ghosts and omens." " Oh, that means nothing. When one has a very pre- cious treasure one must needs be full of fears. Look at misers; how nervous they are about their hidden gold. And my treasure is more to me than all the gold of Ophir — infinitely precious." She sprang up from her low chair, and leaned over the back of his to kiss the broad brow which was lifted up to meet those clinging lips. "Oh, my love, my love, I never knew what fear meant till I knew the fear of parting from you," she mur- mured. "Put on your habit, Nita. We will go for a ride in spite of the sun. Or what do you say to driving to Dorchester, and storming your cousins for a lunch? I THE DAY WILL COME. 57 want to talk to Mr. Dalbrook about Skinner's bill of dilapidations." Her mood changed in an instant. "That would be capital fun," she cried. "I wonder if it is a breach of etiquette to lunch with one's cousins during one's honeymoon?" "A fig for etiquette. Thomas," to an approaching footman, "order the phaeton for half-past eleven." "What a happy idea," said Juanita, "a long, long drive with you, and then the fun of seeing how you get on with my strong-minded cousins. They pretend to despise everything that other girls care for, don't you know — and go in for literature, science, politics, every- thing intellectual, in short — and I have seen them sit and nurse Darwin or Buckle for a whole evening, while they have talked of gowns and bonnets and other girls' flirta- tions." "Then they are not such Roman maidens as they affect to be." "Far from it. They will take the pattern of my frock with their eyes before I have been in the room ten minutes. Just watch them." "I will; if I can take my eyes off you." Juanita ran away to change her white peignoir for a walking dress, and reappeared in half an hour radiant and ready for the drive. "How do you like my frock?" she asked, posing her- self in front of her husband, and challenging admiration. The frock was old gold Indian silk, soft and dull, made with an exquisite simplicity of long flowing draperies, over a kilted petticoat which just showed the neat little tan shoes, and a glimpse of tan silk stocking. The bodice fitted the tall supple figure like a glove; the sleeves were 58 THE DAY WILL COME. loose and short, tied carelessly at the elbow with a broad satin ribbon, and the long suede gloves matched the gown to the nicest shade. Her hat was Leghorn, broad enough to shade her eyes from the sun, high enough to add to her importance, and caught up on one side with a bunch of dull yellow barley and a few cornflowers, whose vivid hue was repeated in a cluster of the same flowers em- broidered on one side of the bodice. Her large sunshade was of the same silk as her gown, and that was also em- broidered with cornflowers, a stray blossom flung here and there with an accidental air. "My love, you look as if you had stepped out of a fashion book." "I suppose I am too smart," said Juanita with an im- patient sigh; "and yet my colouring is very subdued. There is only that touch of blue in the cornflowers — just the one high light in the picture. That is the only draw- back to country life. Everything really pretty seems too smart for dusty roads and green lanes. One must be content to grope one's obscure way in a tailor gown or a cotton frock all the year round. Now this would be per- fection for a Wednesday in Hyde Park, wouldn't it?" "My darling, it is charming. Why should you not be prettily dressed under this blue summer sky? You can sport your tailor gowns in winter. You are not too smart for me, Nita. You are only too lovely. Bring your dust cloak, and you may defy the perils of the road." Celestine, Lady CarmichaePs French-Swiss maid, was in attendance with the dust cloak, an ample wrap of creamy silk and lace, cloudlike, indescribable. This muffled the pretty gown from top to toe, and Nita took her seat in the phaeton, and prepared for a longer drive and a longer talk than they had had yesterday. THE DAY WILL COME. 59 She was pleased at the idea of showing off her hand- some young husband and her new frock to those advanced young ladies, who had affected a kind of superiority on the ground of what she called "heavy reading," and what they called advanced views. Janet and Sophia had ac- cepted Lady Cheriton's invitations with inward protest, and in their apprehension of being patronized had been somewhat inclined to give themselves airs, taking pains to impress upon their cousin that she was as empty-headed as she was beautiful, and that they stood upon an intel- lectual plane for which she had no scaling ladder. She had put up with such small snubbings in the sweetest way, knowing all the time that as the Honourable Juanita Dalbrook, of Cheriton Chase, and one of the debutantes whose praises had been sung in all the society papers, she inhabited a social plane as far beyond their reach as their intellectual plane might be above hers. "I don't suppose we shall see Theodore," said Juanita, as the bays bowled merrily along the level road. The greys were getting a rest after yesterday's work, and these were Lady Cheriton's famous barouche horses, to whom the phaeton seemed a toy. "He must have gone to Heidelberg before now," added Juanita. "He must be fond of Heidelberg to be running off there when it is so jolly at home." "He was there for a year, you know, before he went to Cambridge, and he is always going back there or to the Hartz for his holidays. I sometimes tell him he is half a German." She rather hoped that Theodore was in Germany by this time; and yet she had assured herself in her own mind that there could be no pain to him in their meet- 60 THE DAY WILL COME! ing. She knew that he had loved her — that in one rash hour, after a year's absence in America, when he had not known, or had chosen to forget, the state of affairs between her and Godfrey, he had told her of his love, and had asked her to give him hope. It was before her engagement; but she was not the less frank in confessing her attachment to Godfrey. "I can never care for any- one else," she said; "I have loved him all my life." All her life! Yes, that was Theodore's irreparable loss. While he, the working man, had been grinding out his days in the treadmill round of a country solicitor's office, the young patrician had been as free as the butter- flies in Juanita's rose garden; free to woo her all day long, free to share her most trifling pleasures and sym- pathize with her lightest pains. What chance had the junior partner in Dalbrook & Son against Sir Godfrey Carmichael of Milbrook Priory? Theodore had managed his life so well after that one bitter rebuff that Juanita had a right to suppose that his wound had healed, and that the pain of that hour had been forgotten. She was sincerely attached to him, as a kinsman, and respected him more than any other young man of her acquaintance. Had not Lord Cheriton, that admirable judge of character, declared that Theodore was one of the cleverest men he knew, and regretted that he had not attached himself to the higher branch of the law, as the more likely in his case to result in wealth and fame? The phaeton drove up to the old Hanoverian door- way as St. Peter's clock chimed the quarter after one. The old man-servant looked surprised at this brilliant vision of a beautiful girl, a fine pair of horses, a smart groom, and Sir Godfrey Carmichael. The tout-ensemble THE DAY WILL COME. 6 I was almost bewildering even to a man accustomed to see the various conveyances of neighbouring landowners at his master's door. "Yes, my lady, both the young ladies are at home," said Brown, and led the way upstairs with unshaken dignity. He had lived in that house five-and-thirty years, be- ginning as shoe-black and errand boy, and he was proud to hear his master tell his friends how he had risen from the ranks. He had indulged in some mild philanderings with pretty parlour-maids in the days of his youth, but had never seriously entangled himself, and was a confirmed bachelor, and something of a misogynist. He was a pattern of honesty and conscientiousness, having no wife and family to be maintained upon broken victuals and illuminated with filched candle-ends or stolen oil. He had not a single interest outside his master's house, hardly so much as a thought; and the glory and honour of "family" were his honour and glory. So as he ushered Lady Carmichael and her husband to the drawing-room he was meditating upon what additions to the luncheon he could suggest to cook which might render that meal worthy of such distinguished guests. Sophia was seated by one of the windows painting an orchid in a tall Venetian vase. It was a weakness with these clever girls to think they could do everything. They were not content with Darwin and the new learning, but they painted indifferently in oils and in water colours, played on various instruments, sang in three languages, and fancied themselves invincible at lawn-tennis. The orchid was top-heavy, and had been tumbling out of the vase every five minutes in a manner that had been very trying to the artist's temper, and irritating to 6 2 THE DAY WILL COME. Janet, who was grappling with a volume of Johann Miiller, in the original, and losing herself in a labyrinth of words beginning with ver and ending with heit. They both started up from occupations of which both were tired, and welcomed their visitors with a show of genuine pleasure; for although they had been very deter- mined in their resistance to any thing like patronage on Juanita' s part when she was Miss Dalbrook, they were glad that she should be prompt to recognize the claims of kindred now that she was Lady Carmichael. "How good of you to come," exclaimed Janet, "I didn't think you would remember us, at such a time." "Did you think I must forget old friends because I am happy?" said Juanita. "But I mustn't take credit for other people's virtues . It was Godfrey who proposed driving over to see you." "I wanted to show you what a nice couple we make," said Sir Godfrey, gaily, drawing his bride closer to him, as they stood side by side, tall and straight, and glowing with youth and gladness, in the middle of the grave old drawing-room. "You young ladies were not so cousinly as your brother Theodore. You didn't drive to Cheriton to welcome us home." "If Theo had told us what he was going to do we should have been very glad to be there too," replied Sophy, "but he rode off in the morning without saying a word to anybody." "He is in Germany by this time, I suppose?" said Juanita. "He is downstairs in the office. His portmanteau has been packed for a week, I believe," explained Janet, "but there is always some fresh business to prevent his starting. My father relies upon him more every day." THE DAY WILL COME. 63 "Dear, good Theodore, he is quite the cleverest man I know," said Juanita, without the slightest idea of dis- paraging her husband, whom she considered perfection. "I think he must be very much like what my father was at his age." "People who are in a position to know tell us that he is exactly what his own father was at that age," said Janet, resenting this attempt to trace her brother's gifts to a more distant source. "I don't see why one need go further. My father would not have been trusted as he has been for the last thirty years if he were a simpleton; and Galton observes " The door opened at his moment and Theodore came in. He greeted his cousin and his cousin's husband with unaffected friendliness. "It is against my principles to take luncheon," he said laughingly, as he gave Juanita his hand, "but this is a red-letter day. My father is waiting for us in the dining-room." They all went down stairs together, Theodore leading the way with his cousin, talking gaily as they went down the wide oak staircase, between sober panelled walls of darkest brown. The front part of the ground floor was given up to offices, and the dining-rooom was built out at the back, a large bright-looking room with a bay window, opening on to a square town garden, a garden of about half an acre, surrounded with high walls, above which showed the treetops in one of the leafy walks that skirt the town. It was very different to that Italian garden at Cheriton where the peacocks strutted slowly between long rows of cypresses, where the Italian statues showed white in every angle of the dense green wall, and where 64 THE DAY WILL COME. the fountain rose and fell with a silvery cadence in the still summer atmosphere. Here there was only a square lawn, just big enough for a tennis court, and a broad border of hardy flowers, with one especial portion at the end of the garden, where Sophia experimented in cross fertilisation after the manner of Darwin, seeming for ever upon the threshold of valuable discoveries. Mr. Dalbrook was a fine-looking man of some unas- certained age between fifty and sixty. He boasted that he was Lord Cheriton's junior by a year or two, although they had both come to a time of life when a year or two more or less could matter very little. He was very fond of Juanita, and he welcomed her with especial tenderness in her new character as a bride. He kissed her, and then held her away from him for a minute, with a kindly scrutiny. "Lady Godfrey surpasses Miss Dalbrook," he said, smiling at the girl's radiant face. "I suppose now you are going to be the leading personage in our part of the county. We quiet townspeople will be continually hearing of you, and there will not be a local paper without a notice of your doings. Anyhow I am glad you don't forget old friends." He placed her beside him at the large oval table, on which the handsomest plate and the oldest china had been set forth with a celerity which testified to Brown's devotion. Mr. Dalbrook was one of those sen- sible people who never waste keep or wages upon a bad horse or a bad servant, whereby his cook was one of the best in Dorchester; so the luncheon, albeit plain and unpretentious, was a meal of which no man need feel ashamed. Juanita was fond of her uncle, as she called this distant cousin of hers, to distinguish him from the younger THE DAY WILL COME. 65 generation, and she was pleased to be sitting by him, and hearing all the news of the county town and the county people who were his clients, and in many cases his friends. It may be that his cousinship with Lord Cheriton had gone as far as his professional acumen to elevate him in the esteem of town and county, and that some people who would hardly have invited the provincial solicitor for his own sake, sent their cards as a matter of course to the law lord's cousin. But there were others who esteemed Matthew Dalbrook for his own sterling qualities, and who even liked him better than the somewhat severe and self- assertive Lord Cheriton. While Juanita talked confidentially to her kinsman, and w T hile Sir Godfrey discussed the latest theory about the sun, and the probable endurance of our own little planet, with Janet and Sophia, Theodore sat at the bottom of the table, silent and thoughtful, watching the lovely animated face with its look of radiant happiness, and telling himself that the woman he loved was as far away from him sitting there, within reach of his touch, within the sound of his lowest whisper, as if she had been in another world. He had borne himself bravely on her wedding-day, and smiled back her happy smile, and clasped her hand with the steady grip of friendship; but after that ordeal there had been a sad relapse in his fortitude, and he had thought of her ever since as a man thinks of that supreme pos- session without which life is worthless — as the miser thinks of his stolen gold — or the ambitious man of his blighted name. Yes, he had loved her with all the strength of his heart and mind, and he knew that he could never again love with the same full measure. He was too wise a man, and too experienced in life, to tell himself that for The Day will come. I. C 66 THE DAY WILL COME. him time could have no healing power — that no other woman could ever be dear to him; but he told himself that another love like unto this was impossible, and that all the future could bring him would be some pale faint copy of this radiant picture. "I suppose it's only one man in fifty who marries his first love," he thought, and then he looked at Godfrey Carmichael and thought that to him over much had been given. He was a fine young fellow, clever, unassuming, with a frank good face; a man who was liked by men as well as by women; but what had he done to be worthy of such a wife as Juanita? Theodore could only answer the question in the words of Figaro, "He had taken the trouble to be born." That one thoughtful guest made no difference in the gaiety of the luncheon table. Matthew Dalbrook had plenty to say to his beautiful cousin, and Juanita had all the experiences of the last season to talk about, while once having started upon Sir William Thomson and the ultimate exhaustion of the sun's heat, the sisters were not likely to stop. CHAPTER V. "Poor little life that toddles half an hour, Crowned with a flower or two, and there an end — " Sir Godfrey's device for diverting his wife's mind from the morbid fancies of the previous night answered admirably. She left Dorchester in high spirits, after having invited her cousins to Cheriton for tennis and lunch on the following day, and after having bade an THE DAY WILL COME. 67 affectionate good-bye to Theodore, who was to start on his holiday directly he could make an end of some im- portant business now in hand. His father told him laugh- ingly that he might have gone a week earlier had he really wanted to go. "I believe there must be some attraction for you in Dorchester, though I am not clever enough to find out what it is," said Mr. Dalbrook, innocently, "for you have been talking about going away for the last fortnight, and yet you don't go." Lady Carmichael had lingered in the homely old house till afternoon tea, had lingered over her tea, telling her cousins all they wanted to know about smart society in London, that one central spot of bright white light in the dull, grey mass of a busy, common-place world, of which she knew so much, and of which they knew so little. Janet and Sophia professed to be above caring for these things, except from a purely philosophical point of view, as they cared for ants, bees, and wasps; but they listened eagerly all the same, with occasional expressions of wonder that human beings could be so trivial. "Five hundred pounds spent in flowers at Lady Drum- lock's ball!" cried Sophy, "and to think that in a few more million years the sun may be as cold as the north pole, and what trace will there be then of all this butterfly world?" "Did the Mountains cut a tremendous dash this season?" asked Janet, frivolously curious about their im- mediate neighbours, county people who went to London for the season. "Of course you know she had thirty thousand pounds left her by an uncle quite lately. And she is so utterly without brains that I daresay she will spend it all in entertainments." 68 THE DAY WILL COME. "Oh, they did entertain a good deal, and they did their best, poor things, and people went to them," Juanita answered, with a deprecating air; "but still I should hardly like to say that they are in society. In the first place, she has never succeeded in getting the Prince at any of her dances; and in the next place, her parties have a cloud of provincial dulness upon them, against which it is in vain to struggle. He can never forget his constituents and his duty to his borough, and that kind of thing does not answer if one wants to give really nice parties. I'm afraid her legacy won't do her much good, poor soul, un- less she gets some clever person to show her how to spend it. There is a kind of society instinct, don't you know, and she is without it. I believe the people who give good parties are born, not made — like -poets and orators." Sir Godfrey looked down at her, smiling at her juvenile arrogance, which, to his mind, was more bewitch- ing than another woman's humility. "We mean to show them the way next year, if we take a house in town," he said. "But we are not going to have a house in town," answered Juanita, quickly. "Why, Godfrey, you know I have done with all that kind of frivolity. We can go to Victoria-street in May, and stay with our people there long enough to see all the pictures and hear some good music, and just rub shoulders with the friends we like at half-a-dozen parties, and then we will go back to our nest at the Priory. Do you think that I am like Lady Mountain, and want to waste my life upon the society struggle, when I have you?" It was after five o'clock when they left Dorchester. It was more than half-past seven when they drew near THE DAY WILL COME. 69 Cheriton, and the sun was setting behind the irregular line of hills towards Studland. They approached the Manor by one of the most picturesque lanes in the dis- trict, a lane sunk between high banks, rugged and rocky, and with here and there a massive trunk of beech or oak jutting out above the roadway, while the gnarled and twisted roots spread over the rough, shelving ground, and seemed to hold up the meadow-land upon the higher level; a dark, secret-looking lane it must have seemed on a moonless night, sunk so deeply between those earth walls, and overshadowed by those gigantic trunks and interlacing branches; but in this mellow evening light it was a place in which to linger. There was a right of way through Cheriton Chase, and this sunk lane was the favourite ap- proach. A broad carriage drive crossed the Chase and park, skirted the great elm avenue that led to the house, and swept round by a wide semi-circle to the great iron gates which opened on the high road from Wareham. The steep gable ends of an old English cottage rose amidst the trees, on the upper ground just outside the gate at the end of the lane. It was a veritable old Eng- lish cottage, and had been standing at that corner of the park-like meadow for more than two hundred years, and had known but little change during those two centuries. It was a good deal larger than the generality of lodges, and it differed from other lodges insomuch as it stood outside the gate instead of inside, and on a higher level than the road; but it was a lodge all the same, and the duty of the person who lived in it was to open the gate of Cheriton Chase to all comers, provided they came in such vehicles as were privileged to enjoy the right of way. There was a line drawn somewhere; perhaps at coal waggons or tradesmen's carts; but for the generality 70 THE DAY WILL COME. of vehicles the carnage road across Cheriton Chase was free. A rosy-faced girl of about fourteen came tripping down the stone steps built into the bank as the carriage approached, and was curtseying at the open gate in time for Sir Godfrey to drive through without slackening the pace. He gave her a friendly nod as he passed. "Does Mrs. Porter never condescend to open the gate herself?" he asked Juanita. "Seldom for anyone except my father. I think she makes a point of doing it for him, though I believe he would much rather she didn't. You mustn't sneer at her, Godfrey. She is a very unassuming person, and very grateful for her comfortable position here, though she has known better days, poor soul." "That is always such a vague expression. What were the better days like?" "She is the widow of a captain — in the mercantile marine, I think it is called — a man who was almost a gentleman. She was left very poor, and my father, who knew her husband, gave her the lodge to take care of, and a tiny pension — not so much as I spend upon gloves and shoes, I'm afraid; and she has lived here contentedly and gratefully for the last ten years. It must be a sadly dull life, for she is an intellectual woman, too refined to associate with upper servants and village tradespeople; so she has no one to talk to — literally no one — except when the Vicar, or any of us call upon her. But that is not the worst, poor thing," pursued Juanita, dropping her voice to a subdued and sorrowful tone; "she had a great trouble some years ago. You remember, don't you, Godfrey?" THE DAY WILL COME. 7 I "I blush to say that Mrs. Porter's trouble has escaped my memory." "Oh, you have been so much away; you would hardly hear anything about it, perhaps. She had an only daughter — her only child — a very handsome girl, whom she had educated most carefully; and the girl went wrong, and disappeared. I never heard the circumstances. I was not supposed to know, but I know she vanished suddenly, and that there was a good deal of fuss with mother and the servants, and the Vicar; and Mrs. Porter's hair began to whiten from that time, and people who had not cared much for her before were so sorry that they grew quite fond of her." "It is a common story enough," said Godfrey, "what could a handsome girl do — except go wrong — in such a life as that. Did she open the gate while she was here?" "Only for my father, I believe. Mrs. Porter has al- Avays contrived to keep a girl in a pinafore, like that girl you saw just now. All the girls come from the same family, or have done for the last six or seven years. As soon as the girl grows out of pinafores she goes off to some better service, and a younger sister drops into her place." "And her pinafores, I suppose." "Mrs. Porter's girls always do well. She has a re- putation for making a good servant out of the raw material." "A clever woman, no doubt; very clever, to have secured a lodge-keeper's berth without being obliged to open the gate; a woman who knows how to take care of herself." "You ought not to disparage her, Godfrey. The poor thing has known so much trouble — think of what it was to lose the daughter she loved — and in such a way — worse than death." *]2 THE DAY WILL COME. "I don't know about that. Death means the end. A loving mother might rather keep the sinner than lose the saint, and the sinner may wash herself clean and be- come a saint — after the order of Mary Magdalene. If this Mrs. Porter had been really devoted to her daughter she would have followed her and brought her back to the fold. She would not be here, leading a life of genteel idleness in that picturesque old cottage while the lost sheep is still astray in the wilderness." "You are very hard upon her, Godfrey." "I am hard upon all shams and pretences. I have not spoken to Mrs. Porter above half-a-dozen times in my life — she never opens the gate for me, you know — but I have a fixed impression that she is a hypocrite — a harm- less hypocrite, perhaps — one of those women whose chief object in life is to stand well with the Vicar of her parish." They were at the hall door by this time, and it was a quarter to eight. "Let us sit in the drawing-room this evening, God- frey," said Juanita, as she ran off to dress for dinner. "The library would give me the horrors after last night." "My capricious one. You will be tired of the drawing- room to-morrow. I should not be surprised if you ordered me to sit on the housetop. We might rig up a tent for afternoon tea between two chimney stacks." Juanita made a rapid toilet, and appeared in one of her graceful cream white tea gowns, veiled in a cloud of softest lace, just as the clocks were striking eight. She was all gaiety to-night, just as she had been all morbid apprehension last night; and when they went to the drawing-room after dinner — together, for it was not to be supposed that Sir Godfrey would linger over a solitary glass of claret — she flew to the grand piano and began THE DAY WILT, COME. 73 to play Tito Mattei's famous waltz, which seemed the most consummate expression of joyousness possible to her. The brilliant music filled the atmosphere with gaiety, while the face of the player, turned to her hus- band as she played, harmonized with the light-hearted melody. The drawing-room was as frivolously pretty as the library was soberly grand. It was Lady Cheriton's taste which had ruled here, and the room was a kind of re- cord of her ladyship's travels. She had bought pretty things, or curious things wherever they took her fancy, and had brought them home to her Cheriton drawing- room. Thus the walls were hung with Algerian em- broideries on damask or satin, and decorated with Rhodian pottery. The furniture was a mixture of old French and old Italian. The Dresden tea services and ivory statu- ettes, and capo di monte vases, and Copenhagen figures, had been picked up all over the Continent, without any regard to their combined effect; but there were so many things that the ultimate result was delightful, the room being spacious enough to hold everything without the slightest appearance of over-crowding. The piano stood in a central position, and was draped with a Japanese robe of state — a mass of rainbow-hued embroidery on a ground of violet satin almost covered with gold thread. It was the most gorgeous fabric God- frey Carmichael had ever seen, and it made the piano a spot of vivid parti-coloured light, amidst the more sub- dued colouring of the room — the silvery silken curtains, the delicate Indian muslin draperies, and the dull tawny plush coverings of sofas and chairs. The room was lighted only by clusters of wax candles, and a reading lamp on a small table near one of the 74 THE DAY WILL COME. windows. It was a rule that wherever Sir Godfrey spent his evening there must always be a reading table and lamp ready for him. He showed no eagerness for his books yet awhile, but seemed completely happy lolling at full length on a sofa near the piano listening and watching as Juanita played. She played more of Mattel's brilliant music — another waltz — an arrangement of Non e ver — and then dashed into one of Chopin's wildest mazurkas, with an audacious self-abandonment that was almost genius. Godfrey listened rapturously, delighted with the music for its own sake, but even more delighted for the glad- ness which it expressed. She stopped at last, breathless, after Mendelssohn's Capriccio. Godfrey had risen from the sofa and was standing by her side. "I'm afraid I must have tired you to death," she said, "but I had a strange sort of feeling that I must go on playing. That music was a safety valve for my high spirits." "My darling, I am so glad to see that you have done with imaginary woes. We may have real troubles of some kind to face by-and-by, perhaps, as we go down the hill, so it would be very foolish to abandon ourselves to fancied sorrows while we are on the top." "Real troubles — yes — sickness, anxiety, the fear of parting," said Juanita, in a troubled voice. "Oh, God- frey, if we were to give half our fortune to the poor — if we were to make some great sacrifice — -do you think God would spare us such pangs as these — the fear — the horrible fear of being parted from each other?" "My dearest, we cannot make a bargain with Pro- vidence. We can only do our duty, and hope for the best." THE DAY WILL COME. 75 "At any rate, let us be very — very good to the poor," urged Juanita, with intense earnestness, "let us have their prayers to plead for us." The night was warm and still, and the windows were all open to the terrace. Godfrey and Juanita took their coffee in their favourite corner by the magnolia tree, and sat there for a long time in the soft light of the stars, talking the old sweet talk of their future life. "We must drive to Swanage and see Lady Jane to- morrow," said Juanita by-and-by. "Don't you think it was very wrong to go to see my people — only cousins after all — before we went to your mother?" " She will come to us, dear, directly we give her per- mission. I know she is dying to see you in your new character." "How lovely she looked at the wedding, in her pale grey gown and bonnet. I love her almost as well as I love my own dear, good, indulgent mother, and I think she is the most perfect lady I ever met." "I don't think you'll find her very much like the typical mother-in-law, at any rate," replied Godfrey, gaily. They decided on driving to Swanage next morning. They would go in the landau, and bring "the mother" back with them for a day or two, if she could be per- suaded to come. Juanita stifled a yawn presently, and seemed some- what languid after her sleepless night and long day of talk and vivacity. "I am getting very stupid company," she said. "I'll go to bed early to-night, Godfrey, and leave you an hour's quiet w T ith 'Wider Horizons.' I know you are longing to go on with that book, but your chatter-box wife won't let you." 76 THE DAY WILL COME. Of course he protested that her society was worth more than all the books in the British Museum. He offered to take his book up to her room and read her to sleep, if she liked; but she would not have it so. "You shall have your own quiet corner and your books, just as if you were still a bachelor," she said, caressingly, as she hung upon his shoulder for a good- night kiss. "As for me, I am utterly tired out. Janet and Sophy talked me to death; and then there was the long drive home. I shall be as fresh as ever to-morrow morning, and ready to be off to dear Lady Jane." He went into the hall with her, and to the top of the stairs for the privilege of carrying her candlestick, and he only left her at the end of the corridor out of which her room opened. She did not ring for her maid, preferring solitude to that young person's attendance. She did not want to be worried with elaborate hair-brushing or ceremonies of any kind. She was thoroughly exhausted with the alterna- tions of emotion of which her life had been made up of late, and she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched her pillow. The bedroom was over the drawing-room. Her last look from the open casement had shown her the reflection of the lights below on the terrace. She was near enough to have spoken out of the window to her husband, had she been so minded. She could picture him sitting at the table at the corner window, in his thoughtful attitude, his head bent over his book, one knee drawn up nearly to his chin, one arm hanging loosely across the arm of his low, easy chair. She had watched him thus many a time, completely absorbed in his book. She slept as tranquilly as an infant, and her dream- THE DAY WILL COME. 77 wanderings were all in pleasant places ; with him; always with him; confused after the manner of all dreams, but with no sign of trouble. What was this dream about being with him at Wool- wich where they were firing a big gun? A curious dream! She had been there once with her father to see a gun drawn — but she had never seen one fired there — and now in her dream she stood in a crowd of strange faces, fronting the river, and there was a long grey iron- clad on the water — a turret ship — and there came a flash, and then a puff of white smoke, and the report of a gun, short and sharp, not like the roar of a cannon by any means, and yet her dream showed her the dark sullen gun on the grey deck, the biggest gun she had ever seen. She started up from her pillow, cold and trembling. That report of the gun had seemed so real and so near, that it had awakened her. She was wide awake now, and pushed back her loose hair from her eyes, and felt under her pillow for her watch, and looked at it in the dim light of the nightlamp on the table by her bed. "A quarter to one." She had left the drawing-room a few minutes after ten. It was long for Godfrey to have sat reading alone; but he was insatiable when he had a new book that in- terested him. She got up and put on her slippers and dressing-gown, prepared to take him to task for his late hours. She was not alarmed by her dream, but the sound of that sharp report was still in her ears as she lighted her candle and went down into the silent house. She opened the drawing-room door, and looked across to the spot where she expected to see her husband sitting. His chair was empty. The lamp was burning just as she 78 THE DAY WILL COME. had left it hours ago, burning with a steady light under the green porcelain shade, but he was not there. Puzzled, and with a touch of fear, she went slowly across the room towards his chair. He had strayed out on to the terrace perhaps — he had gone out for a final smoke. She would steal after him in her long white gown, and frighten him if she could. "He ought at least to take me for a ghost," she thought. She stopped transfixed with a sudden horror. He was lying on the carpet at her feet in a huddled heap, just as he had rolled out of his chair. His head was bent forward between his shoulders, his face was hidden. She tried to lift his head, hanging over him, calling to him in passionate entreaty; and, behold, her hands and arms were drowned in blood. His blood splashed her white peignoir. It was all over her. She seemed to be steeped in it, as she sat on the floor trying to get a look at his face — to see if his wound was mortal. For some moments she had no other thought than to sit there in her horror, repeating his name in every accent of terror and of love, beseeching him to answer her. Then gradually came the conviction of his unconsciousness, and of the need of help. He was badly hurt — dangerously hurt — but it might not be mortal. Help must be got. He must be cured somehow. She could not believe that he was to die. She rushed to the bell and rang again, and again, and again, hardly taking her finger from the little ivory knob, listening as the shrill electric peal vibrated through the silent house. It seemed an age before there was any response, and then three servants came hurrying in — the butler, and one of the footmen, and a scared housemaid. THE DAY WILL COME. 7Q They saw her standing there, tall and white, dabbled with blood. "Some one has been trying to murder him," she cried. "Didn't you hear a gun?" No, no one had heard anything till they heard the bell. The two men lifted Sir Godfrey from the floor to the sofa, and did all they could do to staunch that deadly wound in his neck, from which the blood was still pouring — a bullet wound. Lambert, the butler, w T as afraid that the bullet had pierced the jugular vein. If there was life still, it was only ebbing life. Juanita flung herself on the ground beside that prostrate form and kissed the unconscious lips, and the cold brow, and those pallid cheeks; kissed and cried over him, and repeated again and again that the wound was not mortal. "Is any one going for the doctor?" she cried, fran- tically. "Are you all going to stand still and see him die?" Lambert assured her that Thomas was gone to the stable to wake the men, and despatch a mounted messenger for Mr. Dolby, the family doctor. "He might have helped us more if he had run there himself," cried Juanita. "There will be time lost in waking the men, and saddling a horse. I could go there faster." She looked at the door as if she had half resolved to rush off to the village in her dressing-gown and slippers. And then she looked again at that marble face, and again fell upon her knees by the sofa, and laid her cheek against that bloodless cheek, and moaned and cried over him;, while the butler went to get brandy, with but little hope in his own mind of any useful result. "What an end to a honeymoon," he said to himself despondently. 80 THE DAY WILL COME. CHAPTER VI. "Is not short payne well borne that bringes long ease, And laves the soule to sleepe in quiet grave? Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life . . . ." The morning dawned upon a weeping household. There was nothing to be done when Mr. Dolby, the village surgeon, arrived at Cheriton House. He could only examine the death-wound and express his opinion as to its character. "It was certainly not self-inflicted," he told the servants, as they stood about him in a stony group. "Self-inflicted, indeed!" echoed Lambert, "I should think not. If ever there was a young man who had cause to set store by his life it was Sir Godfrey Carmichael. It's murder, Mr. Dolby, rank murder." "Yes, I'm afraid it's murder," said Dolby, with an air which implied that suicide would have been a baga- telle in comparison. "But who can have done it, and why?" he asked after a pause. The servants inclined to the opinion that it was the act of a poacher. Lord Cheriton had always been what they called a mark upon poachers. There was doubtless a vendetta to which the pheasant snaring fraternity had pledged themselves, and Sir Godfrey was the victim of that vendetta; however strange it might appear . that hatred of Lord Cheriton should find its expression in the murder of Lord Cheriton's son-in-law. "We must wait for the inquest before we can know THE DAY WILL COME, 8 I anything," said Dolby, when he had done all that surgery could do for that cold clay, which was to compose the lifeless form in its final rest in a spare bedroom at the end of the corridor, remote from that bridal chamber where Juanita was lying motionless in her dumb despair. The local policeman was on the scene at seven o'clock, prowling about the house with a countenance of solemn stolidity, and asking questions which seemed to have very little direct bearing on the case, and taking measurements between the spot where the murdered man had been found, too plainly marked by the pool of blood which had soaked into the velvet pile, and imaginary points upon the terrace outside, with the doctor at his elbow to make suggestions, and as far as in him lay behaving as a skilled London detective might have behaved under the same circumstances, which conduct on his part did not prevent Mr. Dolby telegraphing to Scotland Yard as soon as the wires were at his disposal. He was in the village post-office when the clock struck eight, and the post-mistress, who had hung out a flag and decorated her shop front with garlands on the wedding day, was watching him with an awe-stricken countenance as he wrote his telegrams. The first was to Scotland Yard: — "Sir Godfrey Carmichael murdered late last night. Send one of your most trustworthy men to investigate." The second was to Lord Cheriton, Grand Hotel, Parame St. Malo, France: — "Sir Godfrey Carmichael was murdered last night, between twelve and one o'clock. Murderer unknown. Death instantaneous. Pray come immediately." The third was to Matthew Dalbrook, more briefly an- nouncing the murder. The Day will come. I. 6 82 THE DAY WILL COME. He was going to send a fourth message to Lady Jane Carmichael, began to write her address, then thought better of it, and tore up the form. "Ill drive over and tell her," he said to himself. "Poor soul, it will break her heart, let her learn it how she may. But it would be cruel to telegraph, all the same." Every one at Cheriton knew that Lady Jane's affec- tions were centred upon her only son. She had daughters, and she was very fond of them. They were both mar- ried, and had married well; but their homes lay far off, one in the Midlands, the other in the North of England, and although in each case there was a nursery full of grandchildren, neither the young married women nor the babies had ever filled Lady Jane's heart as her son had filled it. And now Mr. Dolby had taken upon himself to go and tell this gentle widow that the light of her life was extinguished; that the son she adored had been brutally and inexplicably murdered. It was a hard thing for any man to do; and Mr. Dolby was a warm-hearted man, with home ties of his own. Before Mr. Dolby's gig was half-way to Swanage, his telegram had been delivered at Dorchester, and Matthew Dalbrook and his son were starting for Cheriton with a pair of horses in the solicitor's neat T cart, which was usually driven with one. Theodore drove, and father and son sat side by side in a dreary silence. What could be said? The telegram told so little. They had speculated and wondered about it in brief broken sentences as they stood in the office fronting the sunny street, waiting for the carriage. They had asked each other if this ghastly thing could be; if it were not THE DAY WILL COME. 83 some mad metamorphose of words, some blunder of a telegraph clerk's, rather than a horrible reality. Murdered — a man who had been sitting at their table, full of life and spirits, in the glow of youth, and health, and happiness, less than twenty-four hours ago! Murdered — a man who had never known what it was to have an enemy, who had been popular with all classes! Had been! How awful to think of him as beloncnns; to the past, he who yesterday looked forward to so radiant a future. And Theodore Dalbrook had envied him, as even the most generous of men must needs envy the winner in the race for love. Could it be? Or if it were really true, how could it be? What manner of murderer? What motive for the murder? Where had it happened? On the highway — in the woody labyrinths of the Chase? And upon the mind of Theodore flashed the same idea which had sug- gested itself to the servants. It might be the work of a poacher whom Sir Godfrey had surprised during a late ramble. Yet a poacher must be hard bested before he resorts to murder, and Sir Godfrey — easy tempered and generous — was hardly the kind of man to take upon him- self the functions of a gamekeeper, and give chase to any casual depredator. It was useless to wonder or to argue while the facts of the case were all unrevealed. It would be time to do that when they were at Cheriton. So the father and son sat in a dismal silence, save that now and again the elder man sighed "Poor Juanita, my poor Juanita; and she was so happy yesterday." Theodore winced at the words. Yes, she had been so happy, and he had despaired because of her happi- ness. The cup of gladness which had brimmed over for her had been to him a fountain of bitterness. It seemed 84 THE DAY WILL COME. to him as if he had never realized how fondly he loved her till he saw her by her husband's side, an embodi- ment of life's sunshine, innocently revealing her felicity in every look and word. It was so long since he had ceased to hope. He had even taught himself to think he was resigned to his fate, that he could live his life without her. But that delusion ceased yesterday, and he knew that she was dearer than she had ever been to him now that she was irrevocably lost. It was human nature, perhaps, to love her best when love was most hopeless. They drove along the level road towards Cheriton, in the dewy freshness of the summer morning, by meadow and copse, by heath and cornfield, the skylarks carolling in the hot blue sky, the corncrake creaking inside the hedge, the chaffinch reiterating his monotonous note, the jay screaming in the wood, all living creatures revelling in the cloudless summer. It was hard, awful, unsupport- able, that he who was with them yesterday, who had driven along this road under the westering sun, was now cold clay, a subject for the coroner, a something to be hidden away in the family vault, and forgotten as soon as possible; for what does consolation mean except per- suasion to forget? Never had the way between Dorchester and Cheriton Chase looked lovelier than in this morning atmosphere; never had the cattle grouped themselves into more delight- ful pictures amidst those shallow waters which reflected the sky; never had the lights and shadows been fairer upon those level meadows and yonder broken hills. Theo- dore Dalbrook loved every bit of that familiar landscape; and even to-day, amidst the horror and wonder of his distracted thoughts, he had a dim sense of surrounding beauty, as of something seen in a dream. He could have THE DAY WILL COME. 85 hardly told where he was, or what the season was, or whether it was the morning or the evening light that was gilding the fields yonder. The lowered blinds at Cheriton told only too surely that the ghastly announcement in the telegram was no clerical error. The face of the footman who opened the door was pale with distress. He conducted Mr. Dalbrook and his son to the library, where the butler appeared almost immediately to answer the elder man's eager questions. Not on the highway, not in the woods or the Park, but in the drawing-room where the butler had seen him sitting in a low arm-chair by the open window, in the tranquil summer night, absorbed in his book. "He was that wrapped up that I don't believe he knew I was in the room, sir," said Lambert, "till I asked him if there was anything further wanted for the night, and then he starts, looks up at me with his pleasant smile, and answers in his quiet friendly way, 'Nothing more, thank you, Lambert. Is it very late?' I told him it was past eleven, and I asked if I should shut the drawing- room shutters before I went to bed, but he says 'No, I'll see to that — I like the windows open,' and then he went on reading, and less than two hours afterwards he was lying on the ground, in front of the window — dead." "Have you any suspicion, Lambert, as to the mur- derer?" "Well, no, sir; not unless it was a poacher or an escaped lunatic." "The lunatic seems rather the more probable con- jecture," said Matthew Dalbrook. "The police are at work already, I hope." "Well, sir, yes; our local police are doing all that 86 THE DAY WILL COME. lies in their power, and I have done what I could to assist them. Mr. Dolby wired to Scotland Yard at the same time as he wired to you." "That was wisely done. Have there been no traces of the murderer discovered? No indication of any kind?" "Nothing, sir; but one of the under-housemaids re- members to have heard footsteps about on the terrace, after dark, on several occasions within the last fortnight; once while Sir Godfrey and our young lady were at dinner, and two or three times at a later hour when they were in the drawing-room or the library." "Did she see any one?" "No, sir; she is rather a dull kind of girl, and never so much as troubled to find out what the footsteps meant. Her bedroom is one of the old attics on the south side of the house, and she was sitting at work near her open ■window when she heard the footsteps — going and coming — slow and stealthy like — upon the terrace at intervals. She is sure they were not her ladyship's nor Sir Godfrey's steps on either occasion. She says she knows their walk, and she would swear to these footsteps as altogether dif- ferent. Slower, more creeping-like, as she puts it." "Has no one been seen lurking about after dark?" "No one, sir, as we have heard of; and the constable questioned all the servants, pretty close, I can tell you. He hasn't left much for the London detective to do." Matthew Dalbrook had been the only questioner in this interrogatory. Theodore had sunk into a chair on entering the room, and sat silent, with a face of marble. He was thinking of the stricken girl whose life had been desolated by this mysterious crime. His father had not forgotten her; but he had wanted, first of all, to learn all he could about her husband's death. THE DAY WILL COME. 87 "How does Lady Carmichael bear it?" he asked presently. "Very sadly, sir; very sadly. Mrs. Morley and Celestine are both with her. Mr. Dolby ordered that she should be kept as quiet as possible, not allowed to leave her room if they could help it, but it has been very difficult to keep her quiet. Poor dear young lady! She wanted to go to him." "Poor girl! poor girl! So happy yesterday!" said Matthew Dalbrook. His son sat silent, as if he were made of stone. Far, very far off, as it were at the end of a long dark vista, cut sharply across an impenetrable wood of choking thorns and blinding briars, he saw Juanita again radiant, again happy, again loving and beloved, and on the threshold of another life. The vision dazzled him, almost to blindness. But could it ever be? Could that loving heart ever forget this agony of to-day — ever beat again to a joyful measure? He wrenched himself from that selfish reverie; he felt a wretch for having yielded up his imagination, even for a moment, to that alluring vision. He was here to mourn with her, here to pity her — to sympathize with this unspeakable grief. Murdered ! Her lover-husband shot to death by an unknown hand, her honeymoon ended with one murderous flash — that honey- moon which had seemed the prelude to a lifetime of love. "I should like to see her," said Mr. Dalbrook. "I think it would be a comfort to her to see me, however agitated she may be. Will you take my name to the housekeeper, and ask her opinion?" Lambert looked doubtful as to the wisdom of the course, but was ready to obey all the same. 88 THE DAY WILL COME. "Mr. Dolby said she was to be kept very quiet, sir — that she wasn't to see anybody." "That would hardly apply to her own people. Mr. Dolby telegraphed for me." "Did he, sir? Then I conclude he would not object to her ladyship seeing you. I'll send up your name. Perhaps, while the message is being taken, you would like to have a look at the spot where it happened?" "Yes. I want to know all that can be known." Lambert had been so busy with the constable all the morning that he felt himself almost on a level with Scot- land Yard talent, and he took a morbid interest in that dark stain on the delicate half tints of the velvet pile, and in such few details as he was able to expound. He despatched a footman upstairs, and he led the Dalbrooks to the drawing-room, where he opened the shutters of that window through which the assassin must have aimed, and let a flood of sunshine into the darkened room. The chair, the table, and lamp stood exactly as they had stood last night. Lambert took credit to himself for not having allowed them to be moved by so much as an inch. "Any assistance in my power I shall be only too happy to give to the London detective," he said. "Of course, coming on the scene as a total stranger, he can't be ex- pected to do much without help." There was no need to point out that ghastly stain upon the carpet. The shaft of noonday sunshine seemed to concentrate its brightness on that grisly patch. Dark, dark, dark with the witness of a cruel murder — the murder of a man who had never done an unkindly act, or har- boured an unworthy thought. Theodore Dalbrook stood looking at that stain. It THE DAY WILL COME. 89 seemed to bring the fatal reality nearer to him. He looked at the low chair with its covering of peacock plush, and its Turkish embroidery draped daintily across the broad back and capacious arms — a chair to live in — a sybarite's estate — and then at the satinwood book- table filled with such books as the lounger loves — Southey's "Doctor," "Burton," "Table Talk," by Coleridge, Whateley, Rogers, "The Sentimental Journey," "Rochefoucauld," "Caxtoniana," "Elia," and thrown carelessly upon one of the shelves a handkerchief of cobweb cambric, with a monogram that occupied a third of the fabric, "J.C." Her handkerchief, dropped there last night, as she arranged the books for her husband's use — putting her own favourites in his way. Lambert took up a book and opened it with a dis- mal smile, handing it to Mr. Dalbrook as he did so. It was "Wider Horizons," the volume he had been reading when the bullet struck him, and those open pages were spattered with his blood. "Put it away for God's sake, man," cried Dalbrook, horrified. "Whatever you do don't let Lady Carmichael see it." "No, sir, better not, perhaps, sir — but it's evidence, and it ought to be produced at the inquest." "Produce it if you like; but there is evidence enough to show that he was murdered on this spot." "As he sat reading, sir; the book is a great point." And then Lambert expounded the position of that lifeless form, making much of every detail, as he had done to the constable. While he was talking, the door was opened suddenly, and Juanita rushed into the room. QO THE DAY WILL COME. "Lord have mercy on us, she musn't see that," cried Lambert, pointing to the carpet. Matthew Dalbrook hurried forward to meet her, and caught her in his arms before she could reach that fatal spot. He held her there, looking at her with pitying eyes, while Theodore approached slowly, silently, agonized by the sight of her agony. The change from the joyous self-abandonment of yesterday to the rigid horror of to- day was the most appalling transformation that he had ever looked upon. Her face was of a livid pallor, her large dark eyes were distended and fixed, and all their brilliancy was quenched like a light blown out. Her blanched lips trembled as she tried to speak, and it was after several futile efforts to express her meaning that she finally succeeded in shaping a sentence distinctly. "Have they found his murderer?" "Not yet, dearest. It is far too soon to hope for that. But it is not for you to think about that, Juanita. All will be done— be sure — rest secure in the devotion of those who love you; and " with a break in his voice, "who loved him." She lifted her head quickly, with an angry light in the eyes which had been so dull till that moment. "Do you think I will leave that work to others?" she said. "It is my business. It is all that God has left me to do in this world. It is my business to see that his murderer suffers — not as I suffer — that can never be — but all that the law can do — the law which is so merci- ful to murderers now-a-days. You don't think he can get off lightly, do you, uncle? They will hang him, won't they? Hang him — hang him — hang him," she repeated, in hoarse dull syllables. "A few moments' agony after a THE DAY WILL COME. QI night of terror. So little — so little! And I have to live my desolate life. My punishment is for a lifetime." "My love, God will be good to you. He can lighten all burdens," murmured Mr. Dalbrook, gently. "He cannot lighten mine, not by the weight of a single hair. He has stretched forth His hand against me in hatred and anger, perhaps because I loved His creature better than I loved Him." "My dearest, this is madness " "I did, I did," she reiterated. "I loved my husband better than I loved my God. I would have worshipped Satan if I could have saved him by Satan's help. I loved him with all my heart, and mind, and strength, as we are taught to love God. There was not room in my heart for any other religion. He was the beginning and the end of my creed. And God saw my happy love and hated me for it. He is a jealous God. We are taught that when we are little children. He is a jealous God, and He put it into the head of some distracted creature to come to that window and shoot my husband." A violent fit of hysteria followed these wild words. Matthew Dalbrook felt that all attempts at consolation must needs be vain for some time to come. Until this tempest of grief was calmed nothing could be done. "She will have her mother here in a day or two," said Theodore. "That may bring some comfort." Juanita heard him even in the midst of her hysterical sobbing. Her hearing was abnormally keen. "No one, no one can comfort me, unless they can give me back my dead." She started up suddenly from the sofa where Mat- thew had placed her, and grasped his arm with convul- sive force. 0,2 THE DAY WILL COME. "Take me to him," she entreated, "take me to him, uncle. You were always kind to me. They won't let me go to him. It is brutal, it is infamous of them. I have a right to be there." "By-and-by, my dear girl], when you are calmer." "I will be calm this instant if you will take me to him," she said, commanding herself at once, with a tremendous effort, choking down those rising sobs, clasp- ing her convulsed throat with constraining hands, tighten- ing her tremulous lips. "See," she said, "I am quite calm now. I will not give way again. Take me to him. Let me see him — that I may be sure my happy life was not all a dream — a mad-woman's dream — as it seems to have been now, when I cannot look upon his face." Mr. Dalbrook looked at his son interrogatively. "Let her see him," said Theodore, gently. "We can- not lessen her sorrow. It must have its way. Better perhaps that she should see him, and accustom herself to her grief; better for her brain, however it may torture her heart." He saw the risk of a further calamity in his cousin's state — the fear that her mind would succumb under the burden of her sorrow. It seemed to him that there was more danger in thwarting her natural desire to look upon her beloved dead than in letting her have her way. The housekeeper had followed her young mistress to the drawing-room door, and was waiting there. She shook her head, and murmured something about Mr. Dolby's orders, but submitted to the authority of a kins- man and family solicitor, as even superior to the faculty. She led the way silently to that upper chamber where the murdered man was lying. Matthew Dalbrook put THE DAY WILL COME. ()$ his cousin's icy hand through his arm and supported her steps as they slowly followed. Theodore remained in the drawing-room, walking up and down, in deepest thought, stopping now and then in his slow pacing to and fro to contemplate that stain upon the velvet pile, and the empty chair beside it. In the room above Juanita knelt beside the bed where he who kissed her last night on the threshold of her chamber lay in his last slumber, a marble figure with calm dead face shrouded by the snowy sheet, with flowers — white waxen exotics — scattered about the bed. She lifted the sheet, and looked upon him, and kissed him with love's last despairing kiss, and then she knelt beside the bed, with her face bent in her clasped hands, calmer than she had been at any moment since she found her murdered husband lying at her feet. "It's wonderful," whispered the housekeeper to Mr. Dalbrook; "it seems to have soothed her, poor dear, to see him — and I was afraid she would have broke down worse than ever." "You must give way to her a little, Mrs. Morley. She has a powerful mind, and she must not be treated like a child. She will live through her trouble, and rise superior to it, be sure of that; terrible as it is." The door opened softly, and a woman came into the room, a woman of about five-and- forty, of middle height, slim and delicately made, with aquiline nose and fair complexion, and flaxen hair just touched with grey. She was deadly pale, but her eyes were tearless, and she came quietly to the bed, and fell on her knees by Juanita's side and hid her face as Juanita's was hidden, and the first sound that came from her lips was a long low moan 94 THE DAY WILL COME. — a sound of greater agony than Matthew Dalbrook had ever heard in his life until that moment. "Good God," he muttered to himself, as he moved to a distant window, "I had forgotten Lady Jane." It was Lady Jane, the gentle soul who had loved that poor clay with a love that had grown and strengthened with every year of his life, with a love that had won liberal response from the recipient. There had never been a cloud between them, never one moment of dis- agreement or doubt. Each had been secure in the cer- tainty of the other's affection. It had been a union such as is not often seen between mother and son; and it was ended — ended by the red hand of murder. Matthew Dalbrook left the room in silence, beckoning to the housekeeper to follow him. "Leave them together," he said. "They will be more comfort to each other than anyone else in the world can be to either of them. Keep in the way — here, in the corridor, in case of anything going wrong — fainting, or hysterics, for instance — but so long as they are tolerably calm let them be together, and undisturbed." He went back to his son, and they both left the house soon afterwards and drove off to find the Coroner and to confer with him. Later in the afternoon they saw the local policeman, whose discoveries, though he evidently thought them important, Mr. Dalbrook considered nil. He had found out that a certain village free-booter — ostensibly an agricultural labourer, nocturnally a poacher — bore a grudge against Lord Cheriton, and had sworn to be even with him sooner or later. The constable opined that, being an ignorant man, this person might have mistaken Lord Cheriton's son-in-law for Lord Cheri- ton himself. THE DAY WILL COME. 95 He had discovered, in the second place, that two vans of gipsies had encamped just outside the Chase on the night after the arrival of the bridal pair. They were, in fact, the very gipsies who had provided Aunt Sally and the French shooting gallery for the amusement of the populace, and he opined that some of these gipsies were "in it." Why they should be in it he did not take upon him- self to explain, but he declared that his experience of the tribe justified his suspicions. He was also of opinion that the murderer had come with the intent to plunder the drawing-room , which was in his own expression, "chock-full of valuables," and that, being disappointed, and furthermore detected, in that intent, he had tried to make all things safe by a casual murder. "But, man alive, Sir Godfrey was sitting in his arm- chair, absorbed in his book. There was nothing to pre- vent any intending burglar sneaking away unseen. You must find some better scent than that if you mean to track the murderer." "I hope, sir, with my experience of the district, I shall have a better chance of finding him than a stranger imported from the Metropolis," said Constable Barber, severely. "I conclude there will be a reward offered, Mr. Dalbrook?" "There will, and a large one. I must not take upon myself to name the figure. Lord Cheriton will be here to-morrow or next day, and he will, no doubt, take im- mediate steps. You may consider yourself a very lucky man, Barber, if you can solve this mystery." Matthew T Dalbrook turned from the eager face of the police-officer with a short, angry sigh. It was of the reward the man was thinking, no doubt — congratulating 9 6 THE DAY WILL COME. himself perhaps upon the good luck which had thrown such a murder in his way. And presently the man from Scotland Yard would be on the scene, keen and business- like, yet full of a sportsman's ardour, intent on discovery, as on a game in which the stakes were worth winning. Little cared either of these for the one fair life cut short, for the other young life blighted. CHAPTER VII. " I saw a Fury whetting a death- dart." Lord Cheriton liked to take his summer holiday on a sunny sea-shore where there were not many English visitors. Parame St. Malo fulfilled both these conditions. It afforded him a vast expanse of golden sands, firm beneath his foot, steeped in sunshine for the most part, on which to pace to and fro, lifting his eyes dreamily now and then to the sea-girt city, with its stony rampart, and its quaint Louis Quatorze mansions, facing the sea in the sober dignity of massive stone facade and tall windows; grey old houses, which seem too good for the age in which they find themselves, solid enough to last through long centuries, and to outlive all that yet lingers of that grandiose France in which they were built. Roof above roof rises the Breton city, steep old streets leading up to Cathedral and Municipal Palace, with the crocketed steeple for its pinnacle, shining with a pale brilliance in the summer sunlight, verdureless, and with but little colour save the reflected glory of the skies, and the jasper green of the sea in its ring of golden sand. Lord Cheriton affected Parame because though it was THE DAY WILL COME. Q7 within a summer night's journey from his own Isle of Purbeck, it was thoroughly out of the beaten track, and he was tolerably secure from those hourly encounters with his most particular friends, to which he must have sub- mitted at Baden or Spa, at Trouville or Dieppe. Parame was Parisian or nothing. The smart people all came from Paris. English smartness had its centre at Dinard, and the English who patronize Dinard will tell you there is no other paradise on earth, and that its winter climate is better than that of the Riviera, if people would only have faith. So long as the Cheritons could keep out of the way of exploring friends from Dinard, his Lordship was exempt from the amusements which to some minds make life intolerable. Lady Cheriton was distinctly social in her instincts, and looked Dinard-wards sometimes from her lotus-land with a longing eye. She would have liked to ask some nice people to luncheon; and she knew so many nice people at Dinard. She would have liked to organize ex- cursions to Mont St. Michel, or up the Ranee to Dinan. She would have liked to plunge into all manner of in- nocent gaieties; but her husband stamped out these genial yearnings. "It seems such a pity not to have people over to dinner w r hen there are such nice operettas and vaude- villes every night at the Casino," she sighed. "And if you had them over to dinner, how do you suppose they would get back?" asked her husband, sternly. "Would you wish to keep them all till next morning, and be bored with them at breakfast?" That intervening strip of sea, narrow as it was afforded unspeakable comfort to Lord Cheriton. It was an excuse for refusing to go over and take afternoon tea with The Day will co/ne. I. J 98 THE DAY WILL COME. people he was supposed to hold in his heart of hearts in the way of friendship. "You can go, Maria, if you like," he told his wife; "but I am not a good sailor, and I came here on pur- pose to be quiet." This was his Lordship's answer to every hospitable suggestion. He had come to Parame for rest; and not for gadding about, or entertainments of any kind. So the long summer days succeeded each other in a lazy monotony, and whatever gaiety there might be in the great white hotel, the English law-lord and his wife had no share in it. They occupied a suite of light, airy rooms in the west pavilion, and were served apart from the vulgar herd, after the fashion which befitted a person of Lord Cheriton's distinction. They had only their body servants, man and maid, so they were waited upon by the servants of the hotel, and they drove about the dusty, level roads between St. Servans and Dol in a hired landau, driven by a Breton coachman. Lady Cheriton was dull, but contented. She had always submitted to her hus- band's pleasure. He had been a very indulgent husband in essentials, and he had made her a peeress. Her mar- ried life had been eminently satisfactory; and she could afford to endure one summer month of monotony amidst pleasant surroundings. She dropped in at the Casino every evening, while Lord Cheriton read the papers in the seclusion of his salon — with the large French window wide open to the blue sea, and the blue moonlight — hearing the tramp of feet on the terrace, or the sea wall beyond, or now and again strains of lively music from the theatre, where the little opera company from Paris were singing Lecocq's joyous music. People used to turn round to look at Lady Cheriton THE DAY WILL COME. 99 as she walked gravely between the rows of seats to her place near the orchestra, his Lordship's valet following with an extra shawl, an opera-glass, and a footstool. He established her in her chair, and then retired discreetly to the back of the theatre to await her departure, and to escort her safely back to the hotel. He was a large, serious looking man, a French Swiss, who had lived ten years in Italy, and over fifteen years in Lord Cheriton's service, and who spoke French, Italian, German, and English indifferently. Lady Cheriton was handsome still, with a grand Spanish beauty which time had touched lightly. She was tall and dignified in carriage, though a shade stouter than she could have wished, and she dressed to perfection with sobriety of colouring and richness of material. Her life had been full of pleasantness, her only sorrow being the loss of her infant sons, which she had not taken to heart so deeply as the proud father who had pined for an heir to his newly-won honours. She had her daughter, her first-born, the child for whom her heart had first throbbed with the strange new love of maternity. She shed some natural tears for the boy-babies, and then she let Juanita fill their place in her heart, and her life again seemed complete in its sum of happiness. And now in this sleepy summer holiday — cut off from most things that she cared for — Juanita's letters had been her chief joy — those happy, innocent, girlish letters, overflowing with fond, foolish praise of the husband she loved, letters made up of nothings — of what he had said to her, and what she had said to him — and where they had taken afternoon tea — and of their morning ride, or their even- ing walk, and of those plans for the long future which they were always making, projecting their thoughts into IOO THE DAY WILL COME. the time to come, and laying out those after years as if they were a certainty. There had been no fairer morning than that which followed the night of the murder. Lord Cheriton was an early riser at all seasons, most of all in the summer, when he was generally awake from five o'clock, and had to be- guile an hour or so with one of the books on the table by his bed — a well-thumbed "Horace" or a duodecimo "Don Quixote," in ten volumes, which went everywhere with him. By seven o'clock he was dressed, and ready to begin the day; and between that hour and breakfast it was his habit to attend to the correspondence which had accumulated during the previous day. This severe rule was suspended, however, at Parame, and he gave himself up to restful vacuity, strolling up and down the sands, or walking round the walls of St. Malo, or saunter- ing into the cathedral in a casual way for an early mass, enjoying the atmosphere of the place, with its old-world flavour. On this particular morning he went no further than the sands, where he paced slowly to and fro in front of the long white terrace, hotel, and casino, heedless alike of Parisian idlesse coquetting with the crisp wavelets on the edge of the sea, and of the mounted officer yonder drilling his men upon the sandy flat towards St. Malo. He was in a mood for idleness, but with him idleness was only a synonym for deep thought. He was meditat- ing upon his only child's future, and telling himself that he had done well for her. Sir Godfrey Carmichael would be made Baron Cheriton in the days to come, when he, the first Baron, should be laid in the newly built vault in the cemetery outside Dorchester. He was not going to sever himself from his THE DAY WILL COME. IOI kindred in that last sleep, albeit they were common folk. He would lie under the Egyptian sarcophagus which he had set up in honour of his father, the crockery dealer, and his mother, the busy, anxious house-wife. The sarco- phagus was plain and unpretentious, hardly too good for the shopkeeper; yet with a certain solid dignity which was not unbefitting the law-lord, almost as massive as that mammoth cross which marks the resting-place of Henry Brougham in the fair southern land. He had chosen the monument with uttermost care, so that it might serve the double purpose. He had looked at the broad blank panel many a time, wondering how his own name would look upon it, and whether his daughter would have a laurel wreath sculptured above it. It might be that admiring friends would suggest his being laid in the Abbey, hard by those shabby disused courts where he had pleaded and sat in judgment through so many laborious years; and it might be that the suggestion would be accepted by Dean and Chapter, and that the panel on the Dorchester sarcophagus would remain blank. James Dalbrook knew that he had deserved well of posterity, and, above all, of the ruling powers. He had been staunch and unwavering in his adherence to his own party, and he knew that he had a strong claim upon any Conservative Ministry. He had sounded those in authority, and he had been assured that there would be very little difficulty in getting Sir Godfrey Carmichael a peerage by-and-by, when he, Lord Cheriton, should be no more. Sir Godfrey's family was one of the oldest in the country, and he had but to deserve well of his party, when he had got his seat, to ensure future favours. As the owner of the Cheriton and Milbrook estates, he would be a worthy candidate for one of those coronets which seem 102 THE DAY WILL COME. to be dealt round so freely by expiring Ministries, as it were a dying father dividing his treasures among his weeping children. So far as any man can think with satisfaction of the days when he shall be no more — and when this world will go on, badly, of course, but some- how, without him — Lord Cheriton thought of those far off years when Godfrey Carmichael should be owner of Cheriton Chase. The young man had shown such fine qualities of heart and mind, and, above all, had given such unobtrusive evidence of his affection for Juanita's father, that the elder man must needs give measure for measure; therefore Godfrey had been to Lord Cheriton almost as a son. The union of his humbly-born daughter with one of the oldest families in the south of England gratified the pride of the self-made man. His own pedi- gree might be of the lowliest; but his grandson would be able to look back upon a long line of ancestors, glori- fied by many a patrician alliance. Strong and stern as was the fabric of James Dalbrook's mind, he was not superior to the Englishman's foible, and he loved rank and ancient lineage. He was a Tory to the core of his heart; and it was the earnestness and thoroughness of his convictions which had given him weight with his party. Wherever he spoke, or whatever he wrote — and he had written much upon current politics in the Satur- day Review , and the higher class monthlies — bore the stamp of a Cromwellian vigour and a Cromwellian sincerity. He had never felt more at ease than upon that balmy summer morning, pacing those golden sands in quiet me- ditation — brooding over Juanita's last letter received over- night — with its girlish raptures, its girlish dreams; picturing her in the near future as happy a mother as she was a bride, with his grandson, the third Baron Cheriton of the THE DAY WILL COME. IO3 future, in her lap. He smiled at his own foolishness in thinking of that first boy-baby by the title which was but one of the possibilities of a foreshadowed sequence of events; yet he found himself repeating the words idly, to the rhythm of the wavelets that curled and sparkled near his feet — third Baron Cheriton, Godfrey Dalbrook Carmi- chael, third Baron Cheriton. The cathedral clock was striking nine as he went into the hotel. The light breakfast of coffee and rolls was laid on a small round table near the window. Lady Cheriton was sitting in a recess between the massive stone columns which supported the balcony above, read- ing yesterday's Morning Post in her soft grey cashmere peignoir, whose flowing lines gave dignity to her figure. Her dark hair, as yet untouched by time, was arranged with an elegant simplicity. The fine old lace about her throat harmonised admirably with the pale olive of her complexion. She looked up at her husband with her placid smile, and gave him her hand in affectionate greeting. "What a morning, James! One feels it a privilege to live. What a superb day it would be for Mont St. Michel?" "A thirty-mile drive in the dust! Do you really think that it is the best use to which to put a summer day? You may be sure there will be plenty of worthy people of the same opinion, and that the rock will swarm with cheap tourists, and pretty little Madame Poulard will be put to the pin of her collar to feed them all." She had seated herself at the table by this time, and was pouring out coffee with a leisurely air, smiling at her husband all the time, thinking him the greatest and wisest of men, even when he restrained her social instincts. She was never tired of looking at that massive face, with its 104 THE DAY WILL COME. clearly defined features, sharply cut jaw, and large grey eyes — dark and deep as the eyes of the earnest thinker rather than the shrewd observer. The strong projection of the lower brow indicated keen perceptions, and the power of rapid judgment; but above the perceptive organs the upper brow towered majestically, giving the promise of a mind predominant in the regions of thought and imagination — such a brow as we look upon with reverence in the portraits of Walter Scott. Intellectually the brow was equal to Scott's; morally there was something wanting. Neither benevolence nor veneration was on a par with the reasoning faculties. Tory principles with Lord Cheriton were not so much the result of an upward-looking nature as they were with Scott. This, at least, is the opinion at which a phreno- logist might have arrived after a careful contemplation of that powerful brow. Lord Cheriton sipped his coffee, and leaned back in his arm-chair, with his face to the morning sea. He sat in a lazy attitude, still thoughtful, with those pleasant thoughts which are the repose of the working man's brain. The tide was going out; the rocky islets stood high out of the water; the sands were widening, till it seemed almost as if the sea were vanishing altogether from this beautiful bay. "I suppose they will finish their honeymoon in a week or two, and move on to the Priory," said Lord Cheriton, by-and-by, revealing the subject of his reverie. "Yes, Juanita says we may go home as early as the second week in August if we like. She is to be at the Priory in time to settle down before the shooting begins. They will have visitors in September — his sisters, don't you know — the Morningsides and the Grenvilles, and THE DAY WILL COME. IC>5 children and nurses — a house full. Lady Jane ought to be there to help her to entertain." "I don't think Nita will want any help. She will be mistress of the situation, depend upon it, and would be if there were forty married sisters with their husbands and belongings. She seemed to be mistress of us all at Cheriton?" "She is so clever," sighed the mother, remembering that Cheriton House would no longer be under that girlish sovereignty. The grave looking French-Swiss valet appeared with a telegram on a salver. "Who can have sent me a petit bleu?" exclaimed Lord Cheriton, who was accustomed to receive a good many of those little blue envelopes when he was in Paris, but expected no such communications at St. Malo. Before leaving for his holiday he had impressed upon land steward and house steward that he was not to be bothered about anything. "If there is anything wanted you will communicate with Messrs. Dalbrook," he said. "They have full powers." And yet here was some worrying message — some question about a lease or an agreement, or somebody's chimney had fallen through the roof. He opened the little envelope with a vexed air, resentful of an expected annoyance. He read the message, and then sat blankly staring; read again, and rose from his seat suddenly with a cry of horror. Never in his life had he experienced such a shock; never had those iron nerves, that heart, burned hard in the furnace of this world's strife, been so tried. He stood aghast, and could only give the little paper — with its type-printed syllables — to his scared wife, while he 106 THE DAY WILL COME. stood gazing at summer sky and summer sea in a blank helplessness, realizing dimly that something had happened which must change the whole course of the future, and overthrow every plan he had ever made. "The third Baron Cheriton." Strange, but in that awful moment the words he had repeated idly on the sands half an hour ago echoed again in his ear. Alas, he felt as if that title for which he had toiled was already extinct. He saw, as in a vision, the velvet cap and golden coronet upon the coffin lid, as the first and last Lord Cheriton was carried to his grave. That prophetic vision must needs be realized within a few years. There would be no one to succeed him. Murdered! Why? By whom? What devil had been conjured out of hell to cut short that honest, stainless life? What had Godfrey Carmichael done that a murderer's hand should be raised against him? Lady Cheriton's softer nature found relief in tears before the day was done; tears and agonized pacings up and down those rooms where life had been so placid in the sunlight — agonized supplications that God would take pity upon her widowed girl. "So young, and so happy, and a widow — a widow before her nineteenth birthday," wailed the mother. Lord Cheriton's grief was of a sterner kind, and found no outlet in words. He held a brief consultation with his valet, a soldierly-looking man, who had fought under Garibaldi in Burgundy, when the guerilla captain made his brilliant endeavour to save sinking France. They looked at time-tables and calculated hours. The express to Paris would not arrive in time for the evening mail via Calais and Dover. It was Saturday. The cargo boat THE DAY WILL COME. IO7 would cross to Southampton that night, and influence would obtain accommodation for his Lordship and party on board her. The valet took a fly and drove off to the quay to find the South- Western superintendent, and secure a private cabin for his master and mistress. They would have the boat to themselves, and would be at Southampton at seven o'clock next morning, and at Cheriton before noon, even if it were necessary to engage a special engine to take them there. Lord Cheriton telegraphed to his daughter. "Your mother and I will be with you to-morrow morn- ing. Be brave for our sakes. Remember that you are all we have to live for." Another telegram to the house-steward ordered a close carriage to be in attendance at Wareham Station at ten o'clock on Sunday morning. "How quietly you bear it, James," his wife told Lord Cheriton, wonderingly, when the mode of their return had been arranged, and her maid was packing her trunks, with those soberly handsome gowns which had been the wonder of many a butterfly Parisienne. She called him by his Christian name now as in their earliest years of wedded life. It was only on ceremonious occasions, and when the eye of society was upon her that she addressed him by his title. That stern quietude of his, the fine features set and rigid, frightened her more than a loquacious grief would have done. And yet she hardly knew whether he felt the calamity too much for words; or whether he did not feel it enough. "Poor Godfrey," she sighed, "he was so good to me — all that a son could have been — murdered! My God! my God! how horrible. If it had been any other kind 108 THE DAY WILL COME. of death one might bear it — and yet that he should die at all would be too dreadful. So young, so handsome — cut off in the flower of his days! And she loved him so. She has loved him all her life. What will become of her without him?" "What will become of her?" that was the mother's moaning cry all through that dreary day. Lord Cheriton paced the sands as far as he could go from that giddy multitude in front of the sea wall — beyond the little rocky ridge by the pleasant Hotel des Bains, where the young mothers, and nurses, and children, and homely, easy-going visitors congregate — away towards Cancale, where all was loneliness. He walked up and down, meditating upon his blighted hopes. He knew now that he had loved this young man almost as well as he loved his own daughter, and that his death had shattered as fair a fabric as ever ambition built on the further side of the grave. "She will go in mourning for him all the days of my life, perhaps," he thought, "and then some day after I am in my grave she mil fall in love with an adventurer, and the estate I love and the fortune I have saved will be squandered on the Turf or thrown away at Monte Carlo." A grim smile curled his lip at a grim thought, as he paced that lonely shore beyond the jutting cliff and the villa on the point. "I am sorry I left the Bench when I did," he thought, "it would have been something to have put on the black cap and passed sentence upon that poor lad's murderer." Who was his murderer, and what the motive of the crime? Those were questions which Lord Cheriton had been asking himself with maddening iteration through that intolerable summer day. He welcomed the fading THE DAY WILL COME. IOO, sunlight of late afternoon. He could eat nothing; would not even sit down to make a pretence of dining: but waited chafing in the great stone hall of the hotel for the carriage that was to take him and his wife to the steamer. CHAPTER VIII. "The stars move still, Time runs, the clock will strike." Trains were favourable, and there was no necessity for a special engine to carry Lord Cheriton and his wife to the house of mourning. It was not yet noon when the closed landau drove in at the chief gate of the park, not that side gate in the deep, rocky lane, of which Mrs. Porter was custodian. One of the gardeners lived at the lodge, and it was he who opened the gate this Sunday morning. Lord Cheriton stopped the carriage to question him. He had heard a full account of the murder already from the station-master at Wareham. "Have they found the murderer?" he asked. "No, my Lord, I'm afraid they're not likely to — begging your Lordship's pardon for venturing an opinion." The man was an old servant, and altogether a superior person. "Were the gates locked at the usual time on Friday night?" "Yes, my Lord — the gates were locked, but that wouldn't keep out a foot-passenger. There's the turnstile in the lane." "Of course. Yes, yes. A London detective has been at work, I hear." I I O THE DAY WILL COME. "Yes, my Lord; came yesterday before two o'clock, and has been about with Barber ever since." "And have they discovered nothing?" "Nothing, my Lord — or if they have it has been kept dark." Lord Cheriton asked no further questions. The man was right. A detective from Scotland Yard was not likely to talk about any minor discoveries that he might have made. Only the one grand discovery of the guilty man would have been made known. Five minutes later the carriage drew up in front of the hall door. What a blank and melancholy look the fine old house had with all the windows darkened. It did not look so dismal as a London house with its level rows of windows and its flat facade would have looked under similar conditions; for here there was variety of mullion and moulding, bay-windows and oriel, dormer and lattice, and over all the growth of lovely creeping plants, starry clematis and passion-flower, clustering Banksia roses and waxen magnolia, an infinite beauty of form and colour. Yet the blind windows were there, with their dull, dead look and chilling suggestion of death. Lady Cheriton looked at the house for a moment or so as she got out of the carriage, and then burst into tears. It seemed to her as if she had scarcely realized the stern reality till that moment. She went straight to her daughter's boudoir, a room with an oriel window looking across the wide expanse of the park, where the turf lay openest to the sunshine, and where the deer were wont to congregate. The garden was at its narrowest point just below this window, and consisted only of a broad gravel path, and a strip of flowers at the top of a steep grass bank that sloped down THE DAY WILL COME. I I I to the ha-ha which divided garden and park. The room was full of Juanita's girlish treasures — evidences of fancies that had passed like summer clouds— accomplishments begun and abandoned — a zither in one corner — a guitar and a mandolin against the wall — an easel in front of one window — a gigantic rush work-basket lined with amber satin and crammed with all manner of silks, wools, scraps, and unfinished undertakings in another. The room re- mained just as she had left it when she went to London at the beginning of May. She had not occupied it during her honeymoon; and perhaps that was the reason she was here now in her desolation, sitting silent, statue-like, with Lady Jane by her side, on a sofa opposite the oriel. She lifted her eyelids when her mother came into the room, and looked up at her in speechless despair. She uttered no word of greeting, but sat dumbly. Lady Cheriton went over to her, and knelt by her side, and then, feebly, automatically, the widowed girl put her limp, cold hand into her mother's and hid her bloodless face upon her mother's breast. Lady Cheriton held her there with one hand while she stretched out her other hand to Lady Jane. "Dear Lady Jane, how good of you to be with her — to comfort her." "Where else should I be? — I want to be near him!" The gentle blue eyes filled with tears, the gracious head trembled a little. Then came a long shivering sigh and silence. The mother knelt beside the sofa with her child's head leaning forward upon her matronly bosom. There may have been some comfort perhaps in that contact, some recurrence of the thoughts and feelings of earlier years, when the mother could console every grief and soothe I I 2 THE DAY WILL COME. every pain. No words came to either of those mourners. What could be said in mitigation of a sorrow that seemed to offer no point of relief, no counter-balancing good. There was nothing to be done but to sit still and suffer. The silence lasted long, and then Juanita lifted her head suddenly from its heavy repose and looked fixedly in her mother's face. "My father has come back with you?" she asked. "Yes, dearest. We did not lose an hour. Had there been any quicker way of travelling we would have been here sooner." "My father will be able to find the murderer," said Juanita, scarcely hearing her mother's words, intent upon her own thought. "A great lawyer as he was; a judge, too; he must be able to trace the murderer — to bring him to justice — to take a life for a life. Oh, God!" with a shrill agonising cry, "could a thousand lives give me back one hour of that one life? Yet it will be some- thing — something — to know that his murderer has been killed — killed shamefully, in cold blood, in the broad light of day. Oh, God, thou Avenger of wrong, make his last hours bitter to him, make his last moments hopeless, let him see the gates of hell opening before him when he stands trembling with the rope round his neck." There was an intensity of hatred in this vindictive appeal, which thrilled the two listeners with an icy horror. It was like a blast from a frozen region blowing suddenly in their faces, and they shivered as they heard. Could it be the girl they knew, the loving, lovable girl, who, in those deep, harsh tones, called upon her God for venge- ance and not for mercy? "Oh, my love, my poor heart-broken love, pray to flim to have pity upon us, ask Him to teach us how to THE DAY WILL COME. tl3 bow to the rod, how to bear His chastisement. That is the lesson we have to learn," pleaded Lady Jane, tearful and submissive, even in the depth of sorrow. "Is it? My lesson is to see justice done upon the wretch who killed my husband — the malignant, the merciless devil. There was not one of those slayers of women and children in the Indian mutiny worse than the man who killed my love. What had he done — he, the kindest and best — generous, frank, pitiful to all who ever came in his way — what had lie done to provoke any man's enmity? Oh, God, when I remember how good he was, and how much brighter and better the world was for having him " She began to pace the room, as she had paced it again and again in her slow hours of agony, her hands clasped above her dishevelled head, her great dark eyes — so dove-like in their hours of love and happiness — burning with an angry light, lurid almost, in the excite- ment of her fevered brain. There had been times when Lady Jane had feared that reason must give way alto- gether amidst this wild delirium of grief. She had stayed to watch, and to console, forgetting her own broken heart, putting aside ail considerations of her own sorrow as something that might have its way afterwards, in order to comfort this passionate mourner. Comfort, even from affection such as this, was un- availing. Now and again the girl turned her burning eyes upon the mother's pale, resigned face, and for a moment a thought of that chastened, gentle grief softened her. "Dear, dear Lady Jane, God made you better than any other woman on this earth, I believe," she cried amidst her anguish. "The saints and martyrs must have The Day will come. /. 8 ii4 THE DAY WILL c ^. been like you, but I am not. I am not made like that! I cannot kiss the rod." The meeting between Juanita and her father was more painful to him than to her. She hung upon his neck in feverish excitement, imploring him to avenge her husband. "You can do it," she urged; "you who are so clever must know how to bring the murderer's guilt home to him. You will find him, will you not, father? He can- not have got out of the country yet. Think, it was only Friday. I was a happy woman upon Friday; only think of that — happy — sitting by Godfrey's side in the phaeton, driving through the sunset, and thinking how beautiful the world was and what a privilege it was to live. I had no more foreboding than the skylark had singing above our heads. And in less than an hour after mid- night my darling was dead. Oh, God, how sudden. I cannot even remember his last words. He kissed me as he left me at my bedroom door- — kissed me and said something. I cannot remember what it was; but I can hear the sound of his voice still — I shall hear it all my life." Lord Cheriton let her ramble on. He had, alas, so little to say to her, such sorry comfort to offer. Only words, mere words — which must needs sound idle and hollow in the ear of grief, frame his consolatory speeches with what eloquence he might. He could do nothing for her, since he could not give her back her dead. This wild cry for vengeance shocked him from those young lips; yet it was natural perhaps. He too would give much to see the assassin suffer; he too felt that the dock and the gallows would be too trivial a punishment for that accursed deed. He had looked upon the marble face of him who THE DAY WILL COME. I I 5 was to have been the second Baron Cheriton — looked upon it in its placid repose, and had sworn within himself to do all that ingenuity could do to avenge that cruel murder. "He could not have had an enemy," he told himself, "unless it was some wretch who hated him for being happy and beloved." He had a long talk with Mr. Luke Churton, the Lon- don detective, who had exhausted all his means without arriving at any satisfactory result. "I confess, my Lord, that I am altogether at a stand- still," said Mr. Churton, when he had related all that he had done since his arrival on the scene early on Saturday afternoon. "The utmost information I have been able to obtain leaves me without one definite idea. There is no one in the neighbourhood open to suspicion, so far as I can make out; for I am sure your lordship will agree with me that your butler's notion of a poacher resenting your treatment by the murder of your son-in-law is much too thin. One cannot accept such a notion as that for a moment," said Mr. Churton, shaking his head. "No, that is an untenable idea, no doubt." "The next suggestion is that some person was prowling about with the intention of abstracting trinkets and other valuables from the drawing-room — in an unguarded mo- ment when the room might happen to be empty — and I admit that the present fashion of covering drawing-room tables and cabinets with valuables of every description is calculated to suggest plunder; but that kind of thing would be probable enough in London rather than in the country, and nothing is more unlikely than that a prowler of that order would resort to murder. Again, the manner in which the body was found, with the open book lying I T 6 THE DAY WILL COME. close to the hand that had held it, goes far to prove that Sir Godfrey was shot as he sat reading — and at a time when a burglar could have no motive for shooting him." "Do you think it was the act of a lunatic?" "No, my Lord, for in that event the murderer would have been heard of or found before now. The gardens, park, and chase have been most thoroughly searched under my superintendence. It is not possible for a lap- dog to be hidden anywhere within this demesne. The neighbouring villages — solitary cottages^ — commons and copses — have been also submitted to a searching in- vestigation — the police all over the country are on the alert. Of course the crime is still of very recent date. Time to us seems longer than it really is." "No doubt, no doubt! I can find no other hypothesis than i. it the act was done by a madman — such a motive- less mu. ''er — a man sitting by a window reading — shot by an uni.iown hand from a garden terrace — remote from the outer world. Were we in Ireland the crime might seem common-place enough. Sir Godfrey was a landowner — and that alone is an offence against the idle and the lawless in that unhappy country — but here, in the midst of an orderly, God-fearing population " "Had Sir Godfrey no enemy, do you think, my Lord?" asked the detective, gravely. "The crime has the look of a vendetta." "There never was a young man, owner of a con- siderable estate, more universally beloved. His tenants adore him — for as a landlord he has been exceptionally indulgent." "He may have granted too much in some quarters, and too little in others." "No, no. He has been judicious in his liberality, and THE DAY WILL COME. I I J he has a capital bailiff, an old man who was a servant on this estate many years ago." "But there are other influences," said the detective, musingly. "Whenever I meet with a crime of this kind — motiveless apparently — I remember the Eastern Prince — I think he was one of those long-headed Orientals, wasn't he, my Lord, who used to ask 'Who is she?' In a thoroughly dark case I always suspect a woman behind the curtain. Sir Godfrey had been independent of all control for a good many years — and a young man of fortune, handsome, open-hearted, with only a mother to look after him — well, my Lord, you know the kind of thing that generally happens in such cases." "You mean that my son-in-law may have been in- volved in some disreputable intrigue?" "I don't say disreputable, my Lord; but I venture to suggest that there may have been some ahem — some awk- ward entanglement — with a married woman, for instance — and the husband — or another lover — may have be- longed to the criminal classes. There are men who think very little of murder when they fancy themselves ill-used by a woman. Half the midnight brawls, and nearly half the murders, in the metropolis are caused by jealousy. I know what a large factor that is in the sum-total of crime, and unless you are sure there was no entangle- ment " "I am as sure as I can be of anything outside my own existence. I don't believe that Sir Godfrey ever cared for any woman in his life except my daughter." "He might not have cared, my Lord, but he might have been drawn in," suggested Mr. Churton. "Young men are apt to be weak where women are concerned; I I 8 THE DAY WILL COME. and women know that, unfortunately, and they don't scruple to use their power ; not the best of 'em even." Young men are apt to be weak. Yes, Lord Cheriton had seen enough of the world to know that this was true. It was just possible that in that young life, which seemed white as snow to the eye of kindred and friends, there had been one dark secret, one corroding stain, temptation yielded to, promises given — never to be fulfilled. Such things have been in many lives, in most lives, perhaps, could we know all, Lord Cheriton thought, as he sat silently meditating upon the detective's suggestions. Lady Jane might know something about her son's past, perhaps, something that she might have kept locked in the beneficent maternal heart. He determined to sound her delicately at the earliest opportunity. But on being sounded Lady Jane repudiated any such possibility. No, again and again no. His youth had been spotless; no hint of an intrigue had ever reached her from any quarter. He had chosen his friends among the most honourable. young men at the University — his amuse- ments had been such as became a young Englishman of exalted position — he had never stooped to low associa- tions or even doubtful company; and from his boyhood upwards he had adored Juanita. "That love alone would have kept him right," said Lady Jane; "but I do not believe that it was in his nature to go wrong." It would seem, therefore, that the detective's suspicion was groundless. Jealousy could not have been the motive of the crime. "If any of us could be sure that we know each other I ought to accept Lady Jane's estimate of her son," thought Lord Cheriton; "but there is always the pos- THE DAY WILL COME. I I O, sibility of an unrevealed nature — one phase in a character that has escaped discovery. I am almost inclined to think the detective may have hit upon the truth. There must have been a motive for this devilish act — unless it were done by a maniac." The latter supposition seemed hardly probable. Lunacy wandering loose about the country would have betrayed itself before now. It was past five upon that summer afternoon, and Lord Cheriton, having seen his daughter and interviewed the detective, was sauntering idly about the gardens in the blank hours before dinner. That meal would be served as usual, no doubt, at eight o'clock, with all due state and ceremony. The cook and her maids were busied about its preparation even now in this tranquil hour when afternoon melts into evening, sliding so softly from day to night that only those evening hymns of the birds — and on Sundays those melancholy church bells thrilling across the woods — mark the transition. They were scrap- ing vegetables and whipping eggs while the birds were at vespers, and they were talking of the murder as they went about their work. When would they ever cease to gloat with ghoulish gusto on that deadly theme, with end- less iteration of "says he" and "says she"? Lord Cheriton left the stately garden with its quad- ruple lines of cypress and juniper, its marble balustrades, and clipped yew hedges five feet thick, its statues and alcoves. He passed through a little gate, and across a classic single arched bridge to the park, where he sauntered slowly beneath his immemorial elms, in a strange dream- like frame of mind, in which he allowed Ins senses to be beguiled by the balmy afternoon atmosphere and the golden light, until the all-pervading consciousness of a 120 THE DAY WILL COME. great grief, which had been with him all day, slipped off him for the moment, leaving only a feeling of luxurious repose, rest after labour. Cheriton Chase was exercising its wonted influence upon him. He loved the place with that deep love which is often felt by the hereditary owner, the man born on the soil, but perhaps still oftener, and to a greater degree by him who has conquered and won the land by his own hard labour of head or hand, by that despicable per- sonage, the self-made man. In all his wanderings — those luxurious reposeful journeyings of the man who has con- quered fortune — James Dalbrook's heart yearned towards these ancient avenues and yonder grey walls. House and domain had all the charm of antiquity, and yet they were in a measure his own creation. Everywhere had his hand improved and beautified; and he might say with Augustus that where he found brick he would leave marble. The dense green walls — those open-air courts and quadrangles — those obelisks of cypress and juniper had been there in the dominion of the Strangways, with here and there a mouldering stone Syrinx or a moss-grown Pan; but it was he who brought choicest marbles from Rome and Florence to adorn that stately pleasaunce; it was he who had erected yonder fountain, whose waters made a monotonous music by day and night. The marble balus- trades, the mosaic floors, the artistic enrichment of terrace and mansion had been his work. If the farms were per- fect it was he who had made them so. If his tenants were contented it was because he had shown himself a model landlord — considerate and liberal, but severely exacting, satisfied with nothing less than perfection. „ Having thus in a manner created his estate James Dalbrook loved it, as a proud, self-contained man is apt THE DAY WILL COME. 12 1 to love the work of his own hands, and now in this quiet Sunday afternoon the very atmosphere of the place soothed him, as if by a spell. A kind of sensuous contentment stole into his heart, with temporary forgetfulness of his daughter's ruined life. But this did not last long. As he drew near the drive by which strangers were allowed to cross the park by immemorial right, he remembered that he had questioned one of the lodge-keepers, but not the other. He struck across an open glade where only old hawthorn trees cast their rugged shadows on the close- cropped turf, and made for the gate opening into the land. Mrs. Porter's cottage had its usual aspect, a cottage such as any gentleman or lady of refined taste might have been pleased to inhabit, quaint, mediaeval, with heavy timbers across rough cast walls, deep-set casements, pic- turesque dormers, and thatched roof, with gable ends which were a source of rapture to every artist who visited Cheriton — a cottage embowered in loveliest creeping plants, odorous of jasmine and woodbine, and set in a garden where the standard roses and carnations were rumoured to excel those in her ladyship's own particular flower-garden. Well might a lady who had known better days rejoice in such a haven; more especially when those better days appeared to have raised her no higher than the status of a merchant-captain's wife. Very few people about Cheriton envied her lady- ship. It was considered that, if not born in the purple, she had at least brought her husband a large fortune, and had a right to taste the sweets of wealth. But there were many hard-driven wives and shabby genteel spinsters who envied Mrs. Porter her sinecure at the gate of Cheri- ton Park, and who looked grudgingly at the garden brimming with flowers and the lattices shining in the I 2 2 THE DAY WILL COME. evening sun, and through the open casements at prettily furnished rooms, rich in books and photographs, and other trivial indications of a refined taste. "It is well to be she," said the curate's wife, as she went home from the village with two mutton chops in her little fancy basket, a basket which suggested ferns, and in which she always carried a trowel, to give the look of casual botany to her housewifely errands. "I wonder whether Lord Cheriton allows her an income for doing nothing, or is it only house, and coals, and candles that she gets?" speculated the curate's wife, who lived in a brand new villa on the outskirts of Cheriton village, a villa that was shabby and dilapidated after three years' occupation, through whose thin walls all the winds of winter blew, and whose slate roof made the upper floor like a bakehouse under the summer sun. Lord Cheriton, still sauntering in gloomy meditation, came to the cottage garden outside his gates, and found Mrs. Porter standing among her roses, a tall, black figure, the very pink and pattern of respectability, with her prayer-book in one hand and a grey silk sunshade in the other. She turned at the sound of those august footsteps, and came to the little garden gate to greet her bene- factor, with a grave countenance, as befitted the circum- stances. "Good afternoon," he said briefly. "Have you just come from church?" "Yes, I have been to the children's service." "Not very interesting, I should imagine, for anybody past childhood?" "It is something to do on a Sunday afternoon, and I like to hear Mr. Kempster talk to the children." "Do you? Well, there is no accounting for tastes. THE DAY WILL COME. 123 Can you tell me anything about my son-in-law's murderer? Have you seen any suspicious characters hanging about? Did you notice any one going into the park on Friday night?" "No, I have not seen a mortal out of the common way. The gate was locked at the usual hour. Of course the gate would make no difference — it would be easy for any one to get into the park." "And no one was seen about? It is extraordinary. Have you any idea, Mrs. Porter, any theory about this horrible calamity that has come upon us?" "How should I have any theory? I am not skilled in finding out such mysteries, like the man who came from London yesterday. Has he made no discoveries?" "Not one." "Then you can't expect me to throw a light upon the subject." "You have an advantage over the London detective. You know the neighbourhood — and you know what kind of man Sir Godfrey was." "Yes, I know that. How handsome he was, how frank and pleasant looking, and how your daughter adored him. They were a beautiful couple." Her wan cheeks flushed, and her eyes kindled as she spoke, as if with a genuine enthusiasm. "They were, and they adored each other. It will break my daughter's heart. You have known trouble — about a daughter. I think you can understand what I feel for my girl." "I do — I do! Yes, I know what you must feel — what she must feel in her desolation, with all she valued gone from her for ever. But she has not to drink the cup that my girl must drink, Lord Cheriton. She has 124 THE DAY WILL COME. not fallen. She is not a thing for men to trample under foot, and women to shrink away from." "Forgive me," said Lord Cheriton, in a softened voice. "I ought not to have spoken of — Mercy." "You ought never to speak of her — to me. I sup- pose you thought the wound was so old that it might be touched with impunity, but you were wrong. That wound will never heal." "I am sure you know that I have always been deeply sorry for you — for that great affliction," said Lord Cheri- ton gently. "Sorry, yes, I suppose you were sorry. You would have been sorry if a footman had knocked down one of your Sevres vases and smashed it. One is sorry for any- thing that can't be replaced." "That is a harsh and unjust way of speaking, Mrs. Porter," said Lord Cheriton, drawing himself up suddenly with an air of wounded dignity. "You can tell me no- thing about our trouble, I see; and I am not in the mood to talk of any older grief. Good night." He lifted his hat with grave respect and walked back to the park gate, vanishing slowly from those grey eyes which followed him in eager watchfulness. "Is he really sorry?" she asked herself. "Can such a man as that be sorry for anyone, even his own flesh and blood? He has prospered; all things have gone well with him. Can he be sorry? It is a check, per- haps; a check to his ambitious hopes. It baulks him in his longing to found a family. He looks pale and worn, as if he had suffered: and at his age, after a prosperous life, -it must be hard to suffer." So mused the woman who had seen better days — THE DAY WILL COME. 125 embittered doubtless by her own decadence — embittered still more by her daughter's fall. It was nearly ten years since the daughter had eloped with a middle-aged Colonel in a cavalry regiment, a visitor at the Chase — a man of fortune and high family, with about as diabolical a reputation as a man could enjoy and yet hold Her Majesty's commission. Mercy Porter's fall had been a surprise to everybody. She was a girl of shy and reserved manners, graver and sadder than youth should be. She had been kept very close by her mother, allowed to make no friendships among the girls in the village, to have no companions of her own age. She had early shown a considerable talent for music, and her piano had been her chief pleasure and occupation. Lady Cheriton had taken a good deal of notice of her when she grew up, and she might have done well, the gossips said, when they recalled the story of her disgrace; but she chose to fall in love with a married man of infamous character, a notorious profligate, and he had but to beckon with his finger for her to go off with him. The circumstances of her going off were discussed confidentially at feminine tea-drinkings , and it was wondered that Mrs. Porter could hold her head so high, and show herself at church three times on a Sun- day, and entertain the curate and his wife to afternoon tea, considering what had happened. The curate and his wife were new arrivals com- paratively, and only knew that dismal common story from hearsay. They were both impressed by Mrs. Porter's regular attendance at the church services, and by the excellence of that cup of tea with which she was always ready to entertain them whenever they cared to drop in at her cottage between four and five o'clock. 126 THE DAY WILL COME. The inquest was opened early on the afternoon of Monday at the humble little inn near the forge, with its rustic sign, "Live and let live." Juanita gave her evidence with a stony calmness which impressed those who heard her more than the stormiest outburst of grief would have done. Her mother and her husband's mother had both implored her not to break down, to bear herself heroic- ally through this terrible ordeal, and they were both in the room to support her by their presence. Both were surprised at the firmness of her manner, the clear tones of her voice as she made her statement, telling how she had heard the shot in her dream, and how she had gone down to the drawing-room to find Sir Godfrey lying face downward on the carpet, in front of the chair where he had been sitting, his hand still upon the open book, which had fallen as he fell. "Did you think of going outside to see if anyone was lurking about?" "No, I thought of nothing but trying to save him. I did not believe that he was dead." There was a look of agony in her large wide open eyes as she said this — a piteous remembrance of the mo- ment while she still hoped — which thrilled the spectators. "What course did you take?" "I rang for the servants. They came after a time that seemed long — but I believe they came quickly." "And after they had come ?" "I remembered nothing more. They wanted me to believe that he was dead— and I would not — I could not believe — and — I remember no more till next day." "That will do, Lady Carmichael. I will not trouble you further." THE DAY WILL COME. I 27 Lady Jane and Lady Cheriton wanted to take her away after this, but she insisted upon remaining. "I wish to hear every word," she said. They submitted, and the three women, robed in densest black, sat in a little group behind the Coroner till the end of that day's inquiry. No new facts were elicited from any of the witnesses, and nothing had resulted from the elaborate search made not only throughout Lord Cheriton' s domain, but in the neighbourhood. No suspicious prowlers had been heard of. The gipsies who had contributed to the gaiety of the wedding day had been ascertained to have left the Isle of Purbeck a fortnight before the murder, and to be delighting the larger world between Portsmouth and Havant. Nothing had been discovered; no sale of re- volver or gun to any questionable purchaser at Dorchester; no indication however slight which might put a keen- witted detective upon the trail. Mr. Churton confessed himself completely at fault. The jury drove to Cheriton House to view the body, and the inquest was adjourned for a fortnight, in the ex- pectation that some discovery might be made in the interim. The funeral would take place at the usual time; there was nothing now to hinder the victim being laid in his last resting-place in the old Saxon church at Milbrook. Bills offering a reward of ^500 for any information leading to the discovery of the murderer were all over the village, and in every village and town within a radius of forty miles. The stimulus of cupidity was not wanting to sharpen the rural wit. Mr. Churton shook his head despondently when he talked over the inquest with Lord Cheriton later in the day, and owned himself "out of it" 128 THE DAY WILL COME, "I have been in many dark cases, my Lord," he said, "and I've had many hard nuts to crack, but this beats 'em all. I can't see my way to making anything of it; and unless you can furnish me with any particulars of the poor young gentleman's past life, of an enlighten- ing character, I don't see much hope of getting ahead." "You stick to your idea of the murder being an act of revenge?" "What other reason could there be for such a murder?" That question seemed unanswerable, and Lord Cheri- ton let it pass. Matthew Dalbrook and his elder son were to dine with him that evening, in order to talk quietly and calmly over the terrible event of last week, and the bearing which it must have upon his daughter's future life. Lady Cheriton and Lady Jane Carmichael had lived entirely on the upper floor, taking such poor apologies for meals as they could be induced to take in her ladyship's morning-room. That closed door at the eastern end of the corridor exercised its solemn influence upon the whole house. Those mourning women never went in or out without looking that way — and again and again through the long still days they visited that chamber of death, carrying fairest blooms of stephanotis or camellia, whitest rose-buds, waxen lilies; kneeling in silent prayer beside that white bed. During all those dismal days before the funeral Juanita lived secluded in her own room, only leaving it to go to that silent room where the white bed and the white flowers made an atmosphere of cold purity, which chilled her heart as if she too were dead. She counted the hours which remained before even this melancholy link between life and death would be broken, and when she must stretch out her hands blindly to find one whom THE DAY WILL COME. I 20, the earth would hide from her for evermore. In the brief snatches of troubled sleep that had visited her since Friday night she had awakened with her husband's name upon her lips, with outstretched hands that yearned for the touch of his, awakening slowly to consciousness of the horrible reality. In every dream that she had dreamed he had been with her, and in some of those dreams had appeared with a distinctness which involved the memory of her sorrow. Yes, she had thought him dead — yes, she had seen him stretched bleeding at her feet; but that had been dream and delusion. Reality was here, here in his strong voice, here in the warm grasp of his hand, here in the lying vision that was kinder than truth. Mr. Dalbrook and his son arrived at a quarter to eight, and were received by Lord Cheriton in the library. The drawing-room was now a locked chamber, and it would be long doubtless before any one would have the courage to occupy that room. The Dalbrooks were to stay at Cheriton till after the funeral. Matthew Dalbrook had been Sir Godfrey's solicitor, and it would be his duty to read the will. He was also one of the trustees to Juanita's marriage settlement, and the time had come — all too soon — when the terms of that settlement would have to be discussed. "How is my cousin?" asked Theodore, when he had shaken hands with Lord Cheriton. "Have you seen her since — Friday?" "Yes, I saw her on Saturday morning. She was terribly changed." "A ghastly change, is it not?" said Lord Cheriton, with a sigh. "I doubt if there is any improvement since then; but she behaved splendidly at the inquest this afternoon. We were all prepared for her breaking down. The Day will come, I. o I30 THE DAY WILL COME. God knows whether she will ever get the better of her grief, or whether she will go down to the grave a broken- hearted woman. Oh! Matt," turning to his kinsman and contemporary, "such a trial as this teaches us how Pro- vidence can laugh at our best laid plans. I thought I had made my daughter's happiness as secure as the foundations of this old house." "You did your best, James. No man can do more." Theodore was silent for the most part after his in- quiry about his cousin. He listened while the elder men talked, and gave his opinion when it was asked for, and show r ed himself a clear-headed man of business; but his depression was not the less evident. The thought of Juanita's grief — the contrast between her agony now and her jc-ousness the day she was at Dorchester — was never absent from his mind; and the talk of the two elder men, the discussion as to the extent of her pos- sessions, her power to do this and that, the house she was to live in, the estabhsnment she was to keep, jarred upon him horribly. "By the conditions of the settlement, the Priory is to be hers for her life, with everything it contains. By the conditions of Sir Godfrey's will, in the event of his leav- ing no issue, the Priory estate is to go after his widow's death to Mrs. Grenville's eldest son, or failing a son in that direction, then to Mrs. Morningside's eldest son. Should neither sister leave a son surviving at the time of Lady Ca: michael's death the estate is to be sold, and the product uvided in equal portions among the sur- viving nieces; but at the present rate at which the two ladies are filling their nurseries there is very little doubt there will be a surviving son. Mrs. Grenville was Sir Godfrey's favourite, I know, and I can understand his THE DAY WILL COME. I 3 I giving her boy the estate, and thus founding a family, rather than dividing the property between the issue of the two sisters." "I do not think anybody can find fault with his will," said Lord Cheriton. "God knows that when I saw him sign it in my room in Victoria Street, an hour after his marriage, nothing was further from my thoughts than the idea that the will would come into force within the next fifty years. It seemed almost an idle precaution for so young a man to be in such a hurry to set his house in order." "Do you think Juanita will decide to live at the Priory?" asked Mr. Dalbrook. "It would seem more natural for her to live here with her mother and me, but I fear that this house will seem for ever accursed to her. She will remember that it was her own whim to spend her honeymoon here. It will seem to her as if she had brought her husband to his death. Oh, God, when I remember how her mother and I suggested other places — how we talked to her of the Tyrol and the Dolomites, of Hungary, Norway — and with what a kind of childish infatuation she clung to her fancy for this house, it seems as if a hideous fatality guided her to her doom. It is her doom, as well as his. I do not believe she will ever be a happy woman again." "It may seem so now to us all, to herself most of all, poor girl," answered Matthew Dalbrook. "But I never saw a sorrow yet that Time could not heal, and the sorrow of a girl of nineteen leaves such a wide margin for Time's healing powers. God grant that you and I may both live to see her bright and happy again — with a second husband. There is something prosaic, I feelj 9* 132 THE DAY WILL COME. in the very sound; but there may be some touch of romance even in a second love." He did not see the painful change in his son's face while he was talking: the sudden crimson which faded slowly to a ghastly pallor. It had never occurred to Matthew Dalbrook that his son Theodore had felt any- thing more than a cousinly regard for Lord Cheriton's daughter. The funeral took place on the following Wednesday — one of those funerals about which people talk for a month, and in which grief is almost lost sight of by the majority of the mourners in a feverish excitement. The procession of carriages, very few of them unoccupied, was nearly half a mile long — the little churchyard at Milbrook could scarcely contain the mourners. The sisters' husbands were there, with hats hidden in crape, and solemn countenances; honestly sorry for their brother- in-law's death, but not uninterested in his will. All the district, within a radius of thirty miles, had been on the alert to pay this last mark of respect to a young man who had been universally liked, and whose melancholy fate had moved every heart. The will was read in the library, and Juanita ap- peared for the first time since her cousins had been at Cheriton. She came into the room w r ith her mother, and went to Matthew and his son quietly, and gave a hand to each, and answered their grave inquiries about her health without one tear or one faltering accent; and then she took her seat beside her father's chair, and waited for the reading of the will. It seemed to her as if it contained her husband's last words, addressed to her from his grave. He knew when he wrote or dictated THE DAY WILL COME. 1 33 those words that she would not hear them in his lifetime. The will left her a life-interest in everything, except twenty- thousand pounds in consols to Lady Jane, a few legacies to old servants and local charities, and a few souvenirs to college friends. Sir Godfrey had held the estate in fee simple, and could deal with it as he pleased. He expressed a hope that if his wife survived him she should continue to live at the Priory, and that the household should remain, as far as possible, unchanged, that no old horse should ever be sold, and no dogs disposed of in any way off the premises. This last request was to secure a continuance of old customs. His father had never allowed a horse that he had kept over a twelvemonth to be sold; and had never parted with a dog. His own hand shot the horse that was no longer fit for service; his own hand poisoned the dog whose life had ceased to be a blessing. When the will was finished, and it was by no means a lengthy document, Lady Jane kissed her daughter-in-law. "You will do as he wished, won't you, dearest?" she said, softly. "Live at the Priory — yes, Lady Jane, unless you will live there instead. It would be more natural for you to be mistress there. When — when — my darling made that will he must have thought of me as an old woman, likely to survive him by a few years at most, and it would seem natural to him for me to go on living in his house — to continue to live — those were his words, you know — to continue to live in the home of my married life. But all is different now, and it would be better for you to have the Priory. It has been your home so long. It is full of associations and interests for you. I can live anywhere — anywhere except in this detested house." 134 TttE DAY WILL come. She had spoken in a low voice all the time, so low as to be quite inaudible to her father and Matthew Dal- brook, who were talking confidentially upon the other side of the wide oak table. "My love, it is your house. It will be full of associa- tions for you too — the memories of his youth. It may comfort you by-and-by to live among the things he cared for. And I can be with you there now and then. You will bear with a melancholy old woman now and then," pleaded Lady Jane, with tearful tenderness. The only answer was a sob, and a clinging pressure of the hand; and then the three women quietly left the room. Their interest in the business was over. Blinds had been drawn up and Venetian shutters opened. There was a flood of sunshine on the staircase and in the corri- dors as Juanita went back to her room. The perfume of roses and the breath of summer came in at the open windows. "Oh, God, how the sun shines," she cried, in a sud- den agony of remembrance. Those odours from the garden, the blue sky, summer greenery and dazzling summer light brought back the image of her vanished happiness. Last week, less than a week ago, she had been one of the joyous creatures in that glad, gay world — joyous as the thrush whose song was thrilling upon the soft sweet air. Lady Jane's two sons-in-law had drawn near the oak table at which the lawyer was seated with his papers before him. Jessica's husband, Mr. Grenville, was sporting. His thoughts were centred in his stable, where he found an all-sufficient occupation for his intellectual powers in an endless buying, exchanging, selling, summering and winter- THE DAY WILL COME. 135 ing his stud; in the invention of improved bits, and the development of new ideas in saddlery; in the perform- ance of operations that belong rather to the professional veterinary than to the gentleman at large, and in the con- versation of his stud groom. These resources filled up all the margin that was left for a man who hunted four days a week in his own district, and who often got a fifth and even a sixth day in other countries accessible by rail. It may have been a natural result of Mr. Gren- ville's devotion to the stable that Mrs. Grenville was ab- sorbed by her nursery; or it may have been a natural bent on the lady's part. However this might be, the lady and the gentleman followed parallel lines, in which their interests never clashed. He talked of hardly any- thing but his horses; she rarely mentioned any other sub- ject than her children, or something bearing upon her children's well-being. He believed his horses to be the best in the county; she considered her babies unsurpassed in creation. Both in their line were supremely happy. Mr. Morningside, married to Sir Godfrey's younger sister, Ruth, was distinctly Parliamentary; and had no sympathies in common with such men as Hugo Grenville. To him horses were animals with four legs who dragged burdens; who were expensive to keep, and whose legs were liable to "fill" or to develop superfluous bone on the slightest provocation. His only idea of a saddle horse was a slow and stolid cob, for whose virtuous disposition and powerful bone he had paid nearly three hundred pounds, and on which he pounded round the park three or four times every morning during the Parliamentary season, an exercise of which he was about as fond as he was of Pullna water, but which had been recommended him for the 2;ood of his liver. I36 THE DAY WILL COME. Mr. Morningside had a castle in the north, too near Newcastle to be altogether beautiful, and he had a small suite upon a fifth floor in Queen Anne's Mansion. He had taken this apartment as a bachelor pied-a-terre for the Parliamentary season; and he had laid considerable emphasis upon the landowner's necessity for stern economy which had constrained him to take rooms so small as to be altogether "impossible" for his wife. Mrs. Morning- side was, however, of a different opinion. No place was impossible for her which her dear Stuart deigned to occupy. She did not mind small rooms, or a fifth story. Was there not a lift, and were there not charming people living ever so much nearer the skies? She did not mind even what she gracefully described as "pigging it," for her dear Stuart's sake. She was utterly unlike her elder sister, and she had no compunction at placing over two hundred miles between her and her nursery. "They'd wire for me if anything went wrong," she said, "and the express would take me home in a few hours." "That would depend upon what time you got the wire. The express doesn't go every quarter of an hour like a Royal Blue," replied Mr. Morningside, gloomily. He was a dry-as-dust man; one of those self-satisfied persons who are never less alone than when alone. He had married at five-and-thirty, and the comfortable habits of a priggish bachelor still clove to him after six years of married bliss. He was fond of his wife in her place, and he thought her a very charming woman at the head of his table, and receiving his guests at Morningside Castle. But it was essential to his peace that he should have many solitary hours in which to pore over Blue books and meditate upon an intended speech. He fancied him- THE DAY WILT, COME. 137 self greatly as a speaker, and he was one of those Parlia- mentary bores whose ornate periods are made mincemeat of by the reporters. He looked to a day when he would take his place with Burke and Walpole, and other giants, whose oratory had been received coldly in the dawn of their senatorial career. He gave himself up to much study of politics past and present, and was one of those well-informed bores who are only useful as a store-house of hard facts for the use of livelier speakers. When a man had to speak upon a subject of which he knew no- thing, he went to Mr. Morningside as to a Parliamentary Encyclopaedia. To sustain these stores of knowledge Mr. Morningside required much leisure for what is called heavy reading; and heavy reading is not easy in that genial family life which means incessant talk and incessant interruption. Mr. Morningside would have preferred, therefore, to keep his den on the fifth floor to himself; but his wife loved London, and he could not refuse her the privilege of occasionally sharing his nest on a level with the spires and towers of the great city. She made her presence agreeably felt by tables covered with photograph easels, Vallauris vases, stray flowers in specimen glasses, which were continually being knocked over, Japanese screens, and every known variety of chair-back; and albeit he was an essentially dutiful husband, Mr. Morningside never felt happier than when he had seen his Ruth comfortably seated in the Bournemouth express on her way to the home of her forefathers for one of those protracted visits that no one but a near relation would venture to make. He left her cheerily on such occasions, with a promise to run down to the Priory on Saturday evenings whenever it was possible to leave the helm. I38 THE DAY WILL COME. Mr. Morningside had liked his brother-in-law as well as it was in him to like any man, and had been horrified at that sudden inexplicable doom; but Sir Godfrey- being snatched off this earth in the flower of his age, Mr. Morningside thought it only natural that the young Morn- ingsides should derive some benefit, immediate or con- tingent, from their uncle's estate. It was, therefore, with some disgust that he heard that clause in the will which gave Jessica's sons the preference over all the sons of Ruth. True that failing any son of Jessica's, the estate was to lapse to the eldest surviving son of Ruth; but what earthly value was such a reversionary interest as this in the case of a lady whose nursery was like a rab- bit warren? "I congratulate you on your eldest boy's prospects, Grenville," said Mr. Morningside, sourly. "Your Tom," a boy whom he hated, "will come into a very fine thing one of these days." "Humph," muttered Grenville, "Lady Carmichael's is a good life, and I should be very sorry to see it shortened. Besides, who can tell? Before this time next year there may be a nearer claimant." "Lord have mercy upon us," exclaimed Morningside, "I never thought of that contingency." CHAPTER IX. "Poor girl! put on thy stifling "widow's weed, And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands; To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow, And the next day will be a day of sorrow." Life falls back into old grooves after calamities the most stupendous. After fires — after plagues — after earth- THE DAY WILL COME. 139 quakes — people breakfast and dine, marry and are given in marriage. A few more graves testify to the fever that has decimated a city; a ruined village here and there along the smiling southern shore, shells that were once houses, churches beneath whose shivered domes no wor- shipper dare ever kneel again, bear witness to the earth- quake; but the monotonous common-place of life goes on all the same in city and village, on hill and sea-shore. And so when Godfrey Carmichael was laid in his grave, when the police had exhausted their ingenuity in the vain endeavour to fathom the secret of his death — when the coroner had adjourned and again adjourned his inquiry, and an open verdict had been pronounced, life in Cheri- ton House resumed its old order, and the room in which the bridegroom had lain murdered at the feet of the bride was again thrown open to the sun and air, and to the sound of voices, and to the going and coming of daily life. Lady Cheriton would have had the room closed; for a year at least, she pleaded; but her husband told her that to make it a sealed chamber now would be to throw it out of use for his lifetime. "If we once let servants and people think and talk of it as a haunted room nobody will ever like to occupy it again so long as this house stands," he said. "Stories will be invented — those things shape themselves unawares in the human mind — sounds will be heard, and the whole house will become uninhabitable. 'We both love our house, Maria. Our own hands have fashioned it after our own hearts. It would be folly to put a brand upon it, and to say henceforward it shall be accursed to us. God knows I am sorry for Juanita's sorrow, sorry for my I4O THE DAY WILL COME. own loss; but I look to you to help me in keeping our home bright and pleasant for our declining days." It was the habit of her life to obey him and try to please him in all things; so she answered gently, — "Of course, dear James, it shall be as you wish. I feel sure you are right. It would be wicked to shut up that lovely room" — with a faint shudder; "but I shall never go near the west window without thinking of — our dear boy. And I'm afraid Juanita will never be able to endure the room." "Perhaps not. We can use the other rooms when she is here. She has her own house now; and I daresay it will be some time before she will care to cross this thres- hold. The house must seem fatal to her. It was her own caprice that brought him here. I'm afraid that re- collection will torture her, poor child." It was finally decided therefore that the drawing-room should be used nightly, as it had been in all the peace- ful years that were gone. The lamps with their gay shades of rose or amber made spots of coloured light amidst tables heaped with flowers. All the choicest blooms that the hothouses or the gardens could produce were brought as of old, like offerings to a pagan shrine. The numberless toys upon the tables were set out in the old orderly disorder — porcelain and enamel bon-bon boxes on one table — antique watches and gold and silver snuff- boxes on another — bronzes, intaglios, coins, medals, fili- gree scent bottles upon a third, and a background of flowers everywhere. The piano was opened, and the candles lighted ready for her ladyship, who sang Spanish ballads delightfully even yet, and who was in the habit of singing to her husband of an evening whenever they were alone. THE DAY WILL COME. I4I They were generally alone now, not being able to re- ceive visitors from the outside world at such a time. The Vicar of the parish dined at Cheriton now and then, and Matthew Dalbrook spent a night there occasionally, and talked over business matters, and the future development of a tract of land at Swanage, which formed a portion of the original Strangway estate. The widow had taken possession of her new home, the home which they two were to have lived in for half a century of loving union. They had joked about their golden wedding as they sat at lunch on the lawn that day; had laughed at the thought of how they would look in white hair and wrinkles, and then had sighed at the thought of how those they loved now would be gone be- fore that day came, and how the friends who gathered round them would be new friends, the casual acquain- tances of the passing years promoted to friendship in the place of those earlier, nearer, dearer friends whom death had taken. They had talked of their silver wedding, which seemed a happier idea; for dear Lady Jane and Juanita's mother and father might all live to see that day. They would be old, of course, older by five-and-twenty years; but not too old to be happy and beloved. The young w T ife and husband pictured the lawn on which they were sitting crowded with friends and tenants and villagers and children; and planned the feasting and the sports, which were to have a touch of originality, something out of the beaten track, which something was not easy to devise. And now she and Lady Jane were sitting in the same spot, in the sultry August evening, two desolate women; the tawny giant at their feet, his dog, the mastiff Styx, 142 THE DAY WILL COME. looking up at them now and then with great serious eyes, as if asking what had become of his master. Juanita was strangely altered since the day of her honeymoon. Her cheeks had hollowed, and the large dark eyes looked larger, and gave a haggard expression to the pallid face; but she was bearing her sorrow bravely for Lady Jane's sake, as Lady Jane had done for her sake, in the beginning of things. That gentle lady had broken down after the funeral, and Juanita had been con- strained to forget her own agony for a brief space in try- ing to comfort the bereaved mother; and so the two acted and re-acted upon each other, and it was well for them to be together. They had settled down in the old house before they had been there a week. Lady Jane put off her return to Swanage indefinitely. She could drive over now and then to supervise the gardening, and she would stay at the Priory as long as Juanita wanted her. "That would be always," said Juanita. "Ah, my love, that would not do. I don't forget all that has been written about mothers-in-law. There must be some truth in it." "Oh, but you forget. That is when there is a son and husband to quarrel about," said Juanita, with a sud- den sob. "We have no cause for jealousy. We have only our dead." Lady Jane wanted to establish her daughter-in-law in that cheerful sitting-room which had been her own, but here Juanita opposed her. "I am not going to have it — now," she said, resolutely. "It shall be your room always. No one else shall use it. I am going to have his room for my den." "My dearest, it is the dullest room in the house." THE DAY WILL COME. I 43 "It was his room, and I like it better than any other in the world." She arranged all her own books and possessions in the large room looking into the stable yard, which had been Sir Godfrey's study from the time he went to Eton. She found all his Eton books on a lower shelf of one of the book-cases, and she sat on the floor for an hour dust- ing grammars and dictionary, first Greek Reader, Latin Gradus, and all the rest of them. She found his college books, with the college arms upon them, on another shelf. She would have nothing disturbed or altered, and she was supremely indifferent to the question of incongruity. Her own book-cases from Cheriton, the dainty toy book-cases of inlaid satin wood, were squeezed into the recesses on each side of the fireplace. Her photographs of mother, father, friends, horses, and dogs, were arranged upon the carved oak mantelpiece, above the quaint little cupboards with carved doors, spoil of old Belgian churches, still full of choice cigars, the young man's store. His spurs and hunting-crops, canes, and boxing-gloves, decorated the panel between the two tall windows. His despatch box still stood upon the library table, and the dog Styx pushed the door open whenever it was left ajar and strolled into the room as by old established right. She felt herself nearer her dead husband here than anywhere else; nearer even than in the churchyard, where she and Lady Jane went every afternoon with fresh flowers for his grave. They had not laid him in the family vault, but among the graves of gentle and simple, under the sunny turf. The marble was not yet carven which was to mark out his grave amidst those humbler resting-places. Theodore Dalbrook had not seen his cousin since the 144 THE DAY WILL COME. day of the funeral. His father and his two sisters had called upon her at the Priory, and had brought back an account of the quiet dignity with which she bore herself in her melancholy position. "I did not think she had so much solid sense," said Janet, and then she and Sophia talked about the Priory as a dwelling-house, and of its inferiority to Cheriton, and speculated upon the amount of their cousin's in- come. "She has a splendid position. She will be a fine catch for some one by-and-by," said Harrington. "I hope she won't go and throw herself away upon an ad- venturer." "I hope not," said his father, "but I suppose she will marry again. That seems inevitable." "I don't see that it is inevitable," argued Theodore, almost angrily. "She was devotedly attached to her hus- band. I suppose there is now and then a woman who can remain faithful to a first love " "When the first love is alive, and not always then," put in Sophia, flippantly. "Of course she will marry again. If she wanted to remain single people would not let her, with her income." Theodore got up and walked to the window. His sister's talk often set his teeth on edge, but rarely so much as it did to-day. "You talk of her as if she were the most shallow- brained of women," he exclaimed, with his back to the family group, looking out with gloomy eyes into the old- fashioned street, the narrow circumscribed view which he had hated of late with a deadly hatred. "I don't think she is very deep," answered Sophia. "She never could appreciate Darwin. She told me once THE DAY WILL COME. 1 45 that she wondered what I could find to interest me in earth-worms." "A woman must, indeed, be shallow who feels no interest in that thrilling subject," sneered Theodore. "Upon my word, now," said his father, "Darwin's book interested me, though I'm not a scientific man. And I never see a worm wriggling off the gardener's spade without feeling that I ought to be grateful to him as a factor in the landed interest. Perhaps," continued Mr. Dalbrook, musingly, "my own practice in the conveyanc- ing line owes something of its substantial character to earth-worms. If it were not for them there might be no land to convey." The conversation drifted lightly away from Juanita and her sorrow, but her image still filled Theodore's mind, and he left the drawing-room and the frivolous talk and the clinking of teacups and teaspoons, and went out in the declining light to walk in the avenue of sycamores on the edge of the old city. He had not called upon his cousin in her new home; he shrank from the very idea of meeting her while her sorrow was still new, while her thoughts and feelings were concentrated upon that one subject, while he could only be to her as an unwelcome intruder from that out- side world she loathed, as grief loathes all but its own sad memories. Had the calamity which had desolated her life brought her any nearer to him who had loved her so long and so unselfishly? Alas, no; he told himself that if she ever loved again, it would be to a stranger that her reawaken- ing heart would open rather than to the rejected lover of the past, the man whom her memory would couple The Dav will come. I, IO I46 THE DAY WILL COME. with the husband she had lost, and whom she would com- pare disadvantageously with that chosen one. No, he told himself, there was little more chance for him in the future than there had been in the past. She liked him and trusted him, with a sisterly affection which nothing short of a miracle could warm into love. Passion does not grow out of such placid beginnings. In her very dawn of girlhood she had been in love with Godfrey: had blushed at his coming: had quarrelled with him, and wept stormy tears: had suffered all those alternations of joy and grief, pride and self-abasement, which accompany love in an impassioned nature. Theo- dore remembered her treatment of the fifth-form Etonian, of the undergraduate, remembered the passionate drama perpetually being acted in those two young lives, a drama which he had watched with aching heart; and he felt that he could never be as that first lover had been. He was associated with the commonplace of her life. She had laughed often at his dry-as-dust talk with her father — the dull discussions about leases and bills of dilapidation. A solicitor living from year's end to year's end in a country town — what a dreary person he must needs appear beside the brilliant young Patrician, full of the gladness of the life that knows neither labour nor care. He sickened at the thought of that contrast. He had served his father faithfully hitherto, and the bond between father and son had been one of strong af- fection as well as duty; but for the last year there had been growing upon him an inexpressible weariness of the house in which he was born, and the city in which he had lived the chief part of his uneventful life. He had struggled against the disgust of familiar things, telling himself that it was an unworthy feeling, and that he would THE DAY WILL COME. I 47 be a snob if he indulged it. Yet the disgust grew into absolute loathing; the monotonous days, the repetitive work, oppressed him like a nightmare. Since Juanita's marriage the burden had become more and more in- tolerable. To be so near her, yet so far. To be letting life creep away in dull drudgery which could never bring him nearer her social level; to feel that all his pursuits and associations were beneath the woman he loved, and could never arouse the faintest interest in her mind. This was almost too bitter to be borne, and he had for some time past been meditating some way of escape, some manner of release from these old fetters into the wider arena of the outer world. Such escape was not easy. He had to think of his father, that indulgent, large-minded father who had given his son a very remunerative share in his practice at an age when most young men are dependent for every suit of clothes or five pound note upon parental bounty and parental caprice. He knew that his father looked to him for an entire release from work before they were many years older; and that he would then find himself sole master of a business worth at least fifteen hundred a year. All this had come to him and would come to him easily, as the reward of conscientious and intelligent work. It was a prospect which few young men would forego with- out considerable hesitation; but Theodore hardly thought of the substantial advantages which he was so eager to sacrifice. His sole hesitation was on account of the dis- appointment which the step he contemplated would in- flict upon his father. He was not without a foreshadowing of a plan by which that disappointment might be in somewise lessened. He had kept an eye upon his brother for some time past, I48 THE DAY WILL COME. and he had discovered that the young man's fervour for the Anglican Church had begun to cool. There were all the signs of wavering in that gifted youth. At one time he devoted all his study to the writings of Cardinal New- man, Hurrel Froude, and the Tractarian Party — he lived in the atmosphere of Oxford in the forties; he talked of Cardinal Manning as the head and front of religious thought. He was on the verge of deciding for the Old Faith. Then a sudden change came over the spirit of his dream. He began to have doubts, not of the reformed faith, but of every Western creed. "Light comes from the East," he told his sisters with an oracular air. "I doubt if there is any nearer resting- place for the sole of my foot than the Temple of Buddha. I find there the larger creed for which my mind yearns — boundless vistas behind and before me. I begin to entertain painful doubts of my fitness for the Anglican Church. I might be a power, perhaps, but it would be outside those narrow bounds — like Voysey, or Stopford Brooke. The Church, with its present limitations, would not hold me." The sisters sympathized, argued, quoted Essays and Reviews, and talked of Darwin and Spencer, Huxley and Comte. Theodore listened and said nothing. He saw which way the tide was turning, and rejoiced in the change of the current. And now this sultry August afternoon, pacing up and down the green walk, he was expectant of an opportunity of discussing his brother's future with that gentleman himself, as Harrington was in the habit of taking his after- noon constitutional, book in hand, upon this very path. He appeared by-and-by, carrying an open volume of THE DAY WILL COME. I 49 Max Muller and looking at the nursemaids and peram- bulators. "What, Theo, taking your meditative cigar? You don't often give yourself a holiday before dinner." "No, but I wanted to talk to you alone, and I knew this was your beat." "Nothing gone wrong, I hope." "No, it is your future I want to discuss — if you don't mind." "My future is wrapped in a cloud of doubt," replied the younger man, dreamily. "Were the Church differently constituted — were the minds that rule in it of a larger cast, a wider grasp, a " "Harrington, how would you like the law as a pro- fession?" Theodore asked abruptly, when the other began to hesitate. "My dear fellow, it is all very well to ask me that question, when you know there is no room for me in my father's office," retorted Harrington, with a contemptuous wave of that long, lean white hand, which always reminded him of St. Francis de Sales or Savonarola; not that he had any positive knowledge of what those saintly hands were like. "Room might be made for you," said Theodore. "I should not care to accept a subordinate position — Aut Caesar " "So far as the Caesar-ship of a provincial solicitor's office can go the whole empire may be yours by-and-by, if you like — provided you put your shoulder to the wheel and pass your examinations." "Do you mean to say that you would throw up your position — and an income which would allow of your mar- rying to-morrow, if you chose — to make room for me?" I50 THE DAY WILL COME. "If I can get my father's consent, yes, decidedly." "And how do you propose to exist without a pro- fession?" "I don't propose anything of the kind. I mean to go to the Bar." "Oh, I begin to understand. A solicitor's office is not good enough for you?" "I don't say that; but I have taken a disgust — an unreasonable disgust no doubt — to that branch of the law; and I am very sick of Dorchester." "So am I," retorted Harrington, gazing vaguely at a pretty nursemaid. "We are agreed there at any rate. And you want to follow in Lord Cheriton's track, and make a great name?" "It is only one man in a thousand who succeeds as James Dalbrook has succeeded; but if I go to the Bar you may be sure I shall do my best to get on; and I shall start with a pretty good knowledge of common law." "You want to be in London — you are pining for an aesthetic centre," sighed Harrington. "I don't quite know what that is, but I should prefer London to Dorchester." "So should I — and you want me to take your place at the mill; to grind out my soul in the dull round that has sickened you." "The life has begun to pall upon me, but I think it ought to suit you," answered Theodore, thoughtfully. "You are fonder of home — and of the sisters — than I am. You get on better with them." "You have been rather grumpy lately, I admit," said Harrington. "And you have let yourself cool upon your Divinity exam. You evidently don't mean the Church?" THE DAY WILL COME. I 5 I "I have outgrown the Church. You can't put a quart of wine into a pint bottle." "And you must do something. I don't think you can do anything so good as to take my place, and become my father's right hand until he chooses to retire, and leave you the practice. You will have married by that time, perhaps, and will have sobered down — intellectually. Morally you are one of the steadiest fellows I know." "I suppose I ought to consider this what the house- agents call an unusual opportunity?" said Harrington; "but you must give me time to think it over." "Take time," answered Theodore, briefly. "I'll talk to my father in the meanwhile." Mr. Dalbrook received his elder son's communication as if it had been a blow from an enemy's hand. "Do you suppose that ass Harrington can ever take your place?" he exclaimed, whereupon Theodore took pains to explain that his brother was by no means an ass, and that he was only labouring under that burden of small affectations which weighs down a young man who has been allowed to live too much in the society of young women, sisters and sisters' friends, and to con- sider all his own utterances oracular. "He is not so fit for the Church as Brown is," said Theodore, "and he will only addle his brains if he reads any more theology. He won't be content with Paley and Butler, and the good old books which have been the turn- pike road to ordination for a century. He is all for new ideas, and the new ideas are too big for him. But if you will give him his articles, and teach him, as you taught me " "I don't think I taught you much. You seemed to get at everything by instinct." 152 THE DAY WILL COME. "Ah, you taught me my profession without knowing it; and you will teach Harrington with just as little trouble. He will shake off that husk of affectation in your office — no solicitor can be affected — and he will come out a good lawyer; while I am trying my luck in Temple cham- bers, reading, and waiting for briefs. With your help, by-and-by, I am bound to do something. I shall get a case or two upon this circuit, anyhow." "I can't think what has put this folly in your head, Theo," said his father, with a vexed air. "It is not folly, father; it is not a caprice," the young man protested, with sudden earnestness. "For God's sake don't think me ungrateful, or that I would willingly turn my back upon my duty to you. Only — young people have troubles of their own, don't you know? — and of late I have not been altogether happy. I have not prospered in my love-dream; and so I have set up a new idol, that idol so many men worship with more or less reward — Success. I want to spread my wings, and see if they will carry me on a longer flight than I have taken yet." "Well, it would be selfish of me to baulk you, even if your loss were to cripple me altogether. And it won't do that. I am strong enough to work on for a few years longer than I intended." " Oh, my dear father, I hope it won't come to that. I hope my change of plan won't shorten your years of leisure." "I am afraid that's inevitable, Theo. I can't transfer a fine practice to my son till I've made him a good lawyer — and God knows how long that will take in Har- rington's case. Judging by my present estimation of him, I should say half a century. But don't be downhearted, Theo. You shall eat your dinners. You shall qualify THE DAY WILL COME. I 53 for the Woolsack. After all I don't know how a life of leisure might suit me. It would be a change from the known to the unknown, almost as stupendous as the change from life to death." Perhaps Matthew Dalbrook had fathomed that secret woe at which Theodore had hinted darkly; in any case he took his elder son's defection more easily than might have been hoped, and bore patiently with some pre- liminary fatuity from the younger son, who accepted the gift of his articles, an allowance of two hundred pounds per annum, and the promise of a junior partnership in the near future, with the languid politeness of one who felt that he was renouncing a mitre. Everything was settled off-hand, and Theodore was to go to London at the end of September to select and furnish his modest chambers in one of those grave old courts of the Temple, and be ready to begin his new life with the beginning of term. He had not seen Juanita since the funeral, and she had been told nothing of this sudden reconstruction of his life; but he determined to see her before he left Dorchester, and he considered that he had a right, as her kinsman, to bid her good-bye. Perhaps in his heart- weariness he was inclined to exaggerate the solemnity of that leave-taking, somewhat as if he had been starting for Australia. He drove over to the Priory on a dull, grey afternoon, his last day in Dorchester. His portmanteaus were packed, and all things were ready for an early departure next morning. Sorely as he had sickened of the good old town which was his birth-place, he felt a shade of melancholy at the idea of cutting himself adrift altogether from that quiet haven; and the love of those open stretches 154 THE DAY WILL C0ME - of barren heath and those swampy meadows and grazing cattle on the way to Milbrook, was engrained in him deeper than he knew. It was a landscape which took a peculiar charm from the grey dimness of an autumnal atmosphere, and it seemed to Theodore Dalbrook that those level pastures and winding waters had never looked fairer than they looked to-day. He had written to his cousin a day before to tell her of his intended visit. It was too solemn a matter in his own mind for him to leave the finding her at home to chance. His groom took the dog-cart round to the stables, while he was ushered at once to the drawing-room where Lady Carmichael was sitting at her work-table in the bow window, with Styx stretched on a lion-skin at her feet. The silence of the house struck Theodore Dalbrook painfully as he followed the footman across the hall and along a corridor which led to the drawing-room — that death-like silence of a roomy old mansion in w r hich there are neither children nor guests, only one lonely inhabitant waited upon by solemn-visaged servants, drilled to a phenomenal quietness, and keeping all their good spirits for the remoteness of the servants' hall, shut off by double doors and long passages. Saddened by that atmosphere of gloom, he entered his cousin's presence, and stood with her small cold hand in his, looking at the face which had changed so sorely from that vivid beauty which had shone upon him in the low light of the sinking sun on that summer evening not three months ago. As he looked the memory of the bride's face came between him and the face of the widow, and for a mo- ment or two he stood speechless. The clearly-cut features were pinched and sharpened, wasted by long nights of weeping and long days of silent regret. The dark eyes THE DAY WILL COME. 155 were circled by purple shadows, and the oval cheeks were sunken and pallid. All the colour and richness of that southern beauty had vanished, as if some withering blight had passed over the face. "It was very good of you to think of me before you left Dorchester," she said, gently. She pushed forward a chair for her cousin, before she sat down; and Theodore seated himself opposite to her with the wicker work-table between them. He won- dered a little to see that satin-lined receptacle gorged with bright coloured silks, and pieces of unfinished em- broidery; for it seemed to him that there was a touch of frivolity in this light ornamental needle-work which hardly harmonized with her grief-stricken countenance. "You could not suppose that I should leave without seeing you," he said; "I should have come here weeks ago, only " "Only you wanted to give me time to grow calm, to teach myself to look my trouble straight in the face," she said, interpreting his thought. "That was very thoughtful of you. Well, the storm is over now. I am quite calm, as you see. I daresay some people think I am getting over it. That is the usual phrase, is it not? And so you are going to the Bar, Theodore. I am glad of that. You are clever enough to make a name as my father did. It will be slow work, I suppose; but it will be a field worthy of your ambition, which a solicitor's office in a market-town never would be." "I have felt the want of a wider field for a long time; and I shall feel more interest in a barrister's work. But I hope you don't think I am conceited enough to expect to get on as well as your father." "I don't know about that. I think you must know I56 THE DAY WILL COME. you are a clever man. I have been wishing to see you for a long time, Theodore, only I was like you, I wanted to give myself time to be calm. I want to talk to you about — the murderer." "Yes. Have you heard anything? Has there been any discovery?" "Nothing. The offer of a reward has resulted in nothing — not one little scrap of information. The London detective gave up the business and went back to town a week after the funeral, having obtained only negative results. The police hereabouts are creatures without an idea; and so unless something is done, unless some clever brain can solve the riddle, the wretch who killed my husband may go down to the grave unpunished." "It is hard that it should be so," said Theodore, quietly, "yet it is an almost impossible case. There is not a single indication so far to put one on the track — not one little clue." "Not for these dull-brained, mechanical discoverers, perhaps; but for you or me, Theo; for us who loved him there ought to be light. Think, what a strange murder it was. Not for gain, remember. Had it been the hand of a burglar that shot him, I could understand the difficulty of tracing that particular criminal among all the criminal classes. But this murder, which seems utterly motiveless, must have been prompted by some extraordinary motive. It was not the act of a maniac; a maniac must have left some trace of his presence in the neighbourhood. A maniac could not have so com- pletely eluded the police on the alert to hunt him down. There must have been some indication." "Put madness out of the question, Juanita, what then?" "Hatred, Theodore. That is the strongest passion in THE DAY WILL COME. 157 the human mind — a savage hatred which could not be satisfied except with the brightest life that it had the power to destroy — a relentless hatred — not against him, not against my beloved. What had he done in all his good life that any one upon this earth should hate him? But against us — against my father and mother and me — the usurpers, the owners of Cheriton Manor; against us who have thrust ourselves upon the soil which that wicked race held so long. Oh, Theodore, I have thought and thought of this, till the conviction has grown into my mind — till it has seemed like a revelation from God. It was one of that wicked family who struck this blow." "One of your predecessors — the Strangways? Is that what you mean, Nita?" "Yes, that is what I mean." "My dear Juanita, it is too wild an idea. What, after your father has owned the estate nearly a quarter of a century? Why should the enemy wait all those years — and choose such a time?" "Because there never before was such an opportunity of striking a blow that should bring ruin upon us. My father's hope of making his son-in-law his successor in the peerage was known to a good many people. It may easily have reached the ears of the Strangways." "My dear girl, the family has died off like rotten sheep. I doubt if there are any survivors of the old race." "Oh, but families are not obliterated so easily. There is always some one left. There were two sons and a daughter of the old squire's. Surely one of those must have left children." "But, Juanita, to suppose that any man could hate the purchaser of his squandered estate with a hatred 158 THE DAY WILL COME. malignant enough for murder is to imagine humanity akin to devils." "We are akin to devils," cried Juanita, excitedly. "I felt that I could rejoice as the devils rejoice at human suffering if I could see my husband's murderer tortured. Yes, if he were tied against a tree, as Indian savages tie their sacrificial victims — tied against a tree and killed by inches, with every variety of torture which a hellish in- genuity can suggest, I would say my litany, like those savages, my litany of triumph and content. Yes, Theo- dore, we have more in common with the devils than you may think." "I cannot see the possibility of murder, prompted by such an inadequate motive," said Theodore, slowly, re- membering, as he spoke, how Churton had suggested that the crime looked like a vendetta. "Inadequate! Ah, that depends, don't you see. Re- member, we have not to deal with good people. The Strangways were always an evil race. Almost every tradition that remains about their lives is a story of wrong-doing. And think how small a wound may be deadly when the blood has poison in it beforehand. And is it a small thing to see strangers in a home that has been in one's family for three centuries? Again, remember that although nothing throve on the Cheriton Estate while the Strangways held it — or at any rate not for the last hundred years of their holding — no sooner was my father in possession than the luck changed. Quarries were developed; land that had been almost worthless became valuable for building. Everything has prospered with him. And think of them outside — banished for ever, like Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Think of them with hate and envy gnawing their hearts." THE DAY WILL COME. I 59 "There would be lime for them to get over that feel- ing in four-and-twenty years. And when you talk about them, I should like to know exactly whom you mean. I assure you the general idea is that they have all died off. That is to say, all of the direct line." "It is upon that very subject I want to talk to you, Theodore. Would you like to do me a service, a very great service?" "Nothing would make me happier." "Then will you try to find out all about the Strang- ways — if they are really all gone, or if there are not some survivors, or a survivor, of the last squire's family? If you can do that much it will be something gained. We shall know better what to think. When I heard that you were going to live in London, it flashed into my mind that you would be just the right person to help me, and I knew how good you had been to me always, and that you would help. London is the place in which to make your inquiries. I have heard my father say that all broken lives — all doubtful characters — gravitate to- wards London. It is the one place where people fancy they can hide." "I will do everything in my power to realize your wish, Juanita. I shall be a solitary man with a good deal of leisure, so I ought to succeed, if success be possible." They were silent for some few minutes, Juanita being exhausted with the passionate vehemence of her speech. She took up a piece of embroidery from the basket, and began, with slow, careful stitches, upon the petal of a dog rose. "I am glad to see you engaged upon that artistic embroidery," said Theodore, presently, for the sake of saying something. l6o THE DAY WILL COME. "That means perhaps that you wonder I can care for such frivolous work as this," she said, interpreting his recent thought, when his eyes first lighted on her satin- lined basket with its rainbow-hued silks. "It seems in- consistent, I dare say; but this work has helped me to quiet my brain many a time when I have felt myself on the brink of madness. These slow regular stitches, the mechanical movement of my hand as the flowers grow gradually, stitch by stitch, through the long melancholy day, have quieted my nerves. I cannot read. Books give me no comfort, for my eyes follow the page while my mind is brooding on my own troubles. It is better to sit and think quietly, while I work. It is better to face my sorrow." "Have you been long alone?" "No. It is only three weeks since Lady Jane went back to Swanage; and she comes to see me two or three times a week. My father and mother come as often. You must not think I am deserted. Every one is very good to me." "They have need to be." Again there was a brief interval of silence, and then Juanita closed her basket, and lifted her earnest eyes to her cousin's face. "You know all about the Strangways?" she inquired. "I have heard a good deal about them from one and another. People who live in the country have long me- mories, and are fond of talking of the lords of the soil, even when the race has vanished from the land. I have heard elderly men tell their after-dinner stories about the Strangways at my father's table." "You know the family portraits at Cheriton?" "The pictures in the hall? Yes. I have wondered THE DAY WILL COME. I 6 I sometimes that your father should have kept them there — effigies of an alien race." "I hate them," exclaimed Juanita, shuddering. "I always had an uncomfortable feeling about them, a feeling of strange cold eyes looking at us in secret enmity; but now I abhor them. There is a girl's face — a cruel face —that I used rather to admire when I was a child, and sometimes dream about; and on the last night but one — of — my happy life — I looked at that picture with Godfrey, and told him my feeling about that face, and he told me the pitiful story of the girl whose portrait we were looking at. The creature had a sad life, and died in France, poor and broken-hearted. Two hours later I heard a strange step upon the terrace — while Godfrey and I were sitting in the library — a stealthy, creeping step, coming near one of the open windows, and then creeping away again. When we looked out there was no one to be seen." "And this was the night before — Sir Godfrey's death? " "Yes. I told my father about it — after — after my trouble; and when he questioned the gardeners he dis- covered that footprints had been seen by one of them on the damp gravel the morning after I heard that ghost-like step. They were strange footprints the man was sure, or he would not have noticed them — the prints of a shoe with a flat heel — not of a large foot — but they were not very distinct, and he went over them with his roller, and rolled them out, and thought no more about the fact till my father questioned him. The next day was dry and warm, as you know, and the gravel was hard next night. There were no footprints seen — after- wards." The Day will covie. I. II I 62 THE DAY WILL COME. "Did the gardener trace those marks beyond the terrace — to the avenue, for instance?" "Not he. All he did was to roll them out with his iron-roller." "They suggest one point — that the murderer may have been lurking about on the night before the crime." "I am sure of it. That footstep would not have frightened me if there had been no meaning in it. I felt as a Scotchman does when he has seen the shadow of the shroud round his friend's figure. It is a point for you to remember, Theodore; if you mean to help me." "I do mean to help you." "Good bless you for that promise," she cried, giving him her hand, "and if you want any further information about the Strangways there is some one here who may be useful. Godfrey's old bailiff, Jasper Blake, lived over ten years at Cheriton. He only left there when the Squite died, and he almost immediately entered the service of Godfrey's father. If you can stay till the evening I will send for him, and you can ask him as many questions as you like." "I will stay. There is a moon rather late in the evening, and I shall be able to get back any time before midnight. But, Juanita, as an honest man, I am bound to tell you that I believe you are following an ignis fatuus — you are influenced by prejudices and fancies, rather than by reason." THE DAY WILL COME. 1 63 CHAPTER X. "The snow Of her sweet coldness hath extinguished quite The fire that but even now began to flame." Theodore Dalbrook, a sensible, hard-headed man of business, was like a puppet in his cousin's hands. She told him to toil for her, and he deemed himself privileged to be allowed so to labour. She put him. upon that which, according to his own conviction, was an absolutely false track, and he was compelled to follow it. She bade him think with her thoughts, and he bent his mind to hers. Yes, she was right perhaps. It was a vendetta. Lord Cheriton had lived all these years hemmed round with unseen, unsuspected foes. They had not burned his ricks, or tried to burn his dwelling-house; they had not slandered him to the neighbourhood in anonymous letters; they had not poisoned his dogs or his pheasants. Such petty malevolence had been too insignificant for them. But they had waited till his fortunes had reached their apogee, till his only child had grown from bud to flower and he had wedded her to an estimable young man of patrician lineage and irreproachable character. And, just when fate was fairest the cowardly blow had been struck — a blow that blighted one young life, and darkened those two other lives sloping towards the grave, the lives of father and mother, rendered desolate because of their daughter's desolation. Mastered by that will which was his law, the will of the woman he loved, Theodore began to believe as she believed, or at least to think it just possible that there might be amongst the remnant of the Strangway race a 164 THE DAY WILL COME. man so lost and perverted, so soured by poverty, so envenomed by disgraces and mortifications, eating slowly into the angry heart, like rust into iron, that he had be- come at last the very incarnation of malignity — hating the man who had prospered while he had failed, hating the owner of his people's forfeited estate as if that owner had robbed them of it — hating with so passionate a malevolence that nothing less than murder could appease his wrath. Yes, there might be such a man. In the history of mankind there have been such crimes. They are not common in England, happily; but among the Celtic nations they are not uncommon. "My first brief," mused Theodore, with a grim smile, as he walked up and down the drawing-room while his cousin was writing a memorandum requesting the bailiff's presence. "It is more like a case entrusted to a detective than submitted to counsel's opinion; but it will serve to occupy my mind while I am eating my dinners. My poor Juanita! Will her loss seem less, I wonder, when she has discovered the hand that widowed her?" He dined with his cousin at a small round table in the spacious dining-room which had held so many cheer- ful gatherings in the years that were gone: the sisters and their husbands, and the sisters' friends; and God- frey's college friends; and those old friends of the neigh- bourhood who seemed only a little less than kindred, by reason of his having known them all his life. And now these two were sitting here alone, and the corners of the room were full of shadows. One large circular lamp suspended over the table was the only light, the carving being done in a serving-room adjoining. Juanita was too hospitable to allow the meal to be silent or gloomy. She put aside the burden of her grief THE DAY WILL COME. I 65 and talked to her cousin of his family and of his own prospects; and she seemed warmly interested in his future success. It was but a sisterly interest, he knew, frankly expressed as a sister's might have been; yet it was sweet to him nevertheless, and he talked freely of his plans and hopes. "I felt stifled in that old street," he told her. "A man must be very happy to endure life in a country town." "But you are not unhappy, Theodore?" she inter- rupted, wonderingly. "Unhappy — no, that would be too much to say, per- haps. You know how fond I am of my father. I was glad to work with him, and to feel that I was useful to him; but that feeling was not enough to reconcile me to the monotony of my days. A man who has home ties — a wife and children — may be satisfied in that narrow circle; but for a young man with his life before him it is no better than a prison." "I understand," said Juanita, eagerly. "I can fully sympathize with you. I am very glad you are ambitious, Theodore. A man is worthless who is without ambition. And now tell me what you will do when you go to Lon- don. How will you begin?" "I shall put up at the Inns of Court Hotel for a few days while I look about for a suitable set of chambers, and when I have found them and furnished them, and brought my books and belongings from Dorchester, I shall sit down and read law. I can read while I am qualifying for the Bar. I shall go on reading after I have qualified. My life will be to sit in chambers and read law books until someone brings me business. It hardly sounds like a brilliant career, does it?" 1 66 THE DAY WILL COME. "All beginnings are hard," she answered, gently. "I suppose my father went through just the same kind of drudgery when he began?" "Well, yes, he must have gone upon the same lines, I fancy. There is no royal road." "And while you are studying law and waiting for briefs, will you have time to look after my interests?" "Yes, Juanita. Your interest shall be my first thought always. If it can make you happier to discover your hus- band's murderer " "Happier! It is the only thing that can reconcile me to the burden of living." "If it is for your happiness, you need not fear that I shall ever relax in my endeavours. I may fail, — indeed, I fear I must fail, — but it shall not be for the lack of earnestness or perseverance." "I knew that you would help me," she said, fervently, holding out her hand to him across the table. Dinner was over, and they were alone, with the grapes and peaches of the Priory hothouses, which were not even second to those of Cheriton, unheeded upon the table before them. "Blake is in the house by this time, I daresay," said Juanita presently. "Would you like to see him here, and shall I stay, or would you rather talk to him alone?" "I had better take him in hand alone. It is always hard work to get straight answers out of that sort of man, and any cross current distracts him. His thoughts are always ready to go off at a tangent." "He knows all about the Squire's children. He can give you any particulars you want about them." The butler came into the room five minutes afterwards with the coffee, and announced the bailiff's arrival. THE DAY WILL COME. 1 67 Juanita rose at once, and left her cousin to receive Jasper Blake alone. He came into the room with rather a sheepish air. He was about sixty, young looking for his age, with a bald forehead, and stubbly iron grey hair, and a little bit of whisker on each sunburnt cheek. He had the horsey look still, though he had long ceased to have anything to do with horses beyond buying and selling cart-horses for the home farm, and occasionally exhibiting a prize animal in that line. He was a useful servant, and a thoroughly honest man, of the old-fashioned order. "Mr. Blake, I want you to give me some information about old friends of yours. I have a little business in hand, which indirectly concerns the Strangway family, and I want to be quite clear in my own mind as to how many are left of them, and where they are to be found." The bailiff rubbed one of his stunted whiskers medi- tatively, and shook his head. "There was never many of 'em to leave, sir," he said, grumpily, "and 1 don't believe there's any of 'em left any- wheres. There seems to have been a curse upon 'em, for the last hundred years. Nothing ever throve with them. Look at what Cheriton is now, and what it was in their time." "I didn't know it in their time, Mr. Blake." "Ah, you're not old enough; but your father knew the place. He did business for the old Squire — till things got too bad — mortgages, and accommodation bills, and overdrawn accounts at the bank, and such like, and your father w T ashed his hands of the business — a long- headed gentleman, your father. He can tell you what Cheriton was like in the Squire's time." "Why do you suppose the Strangways are all dead and gone?" 1 68 THE DAY WILL COME. "Well, sir, first and foremost it's fifteen years and more since I've heard of any of 'em, and the last I heard was about as bad as bad could be." "What was that last report?" "It was about Master Reginald — that was the eldest son, him that was colonel of a Lancer regiment, and married Lord Dangerfield's youngest daughter. I re- member the bonfires on the hills out by Studlands just as if it happened yesterday, but it's more than forty years ago, and I was a boy in the stables at fourteen shillings a week." "Reginald, the elder son, colonel of Lancers, married Lord Dangerfield's daughter — about 1840," wrote Theo- dore in a pocket-book which he held ready for taking notes. "What was it you heard about him?" he asked. "Well, sir, it was Mr. de Lacy's servant that told me. He'd been somewhere in the south with his master where there was gambling — a place where the folks make a regular trade of it. It's a wonderful climate, says Mr. de Lacy's man, and the gentry go there for their health, and very often finish by shooting themselves, and it seems Colonel Strangway was there. He'd come over from Corsica, which it seems was in the neighbourhood — where he'd left his poor wife all among brigands and savages — and he was at the tables day and night, and he had a wonderful run of luck, so that they called him the king of the place, and it was who but he? Howsoever the tide turned suddenly, and he began losing, and he lost his last sixpence, in a manner of speaking regular cleaned out, Mr. de Lacy's man said; and by-and-by there comes another gentleman, a Jewish gentleman from Paris, rolling in money, and playing for the sake of the science, and able to hold out where another man must have given THE DAY WILL COME. 169 in; and in a week or two he was the king of the place, and the Colonel was nowhere, just living on tick at the hotel, and borrowing a fiver from Mr. de Lacy or any other old acquaintance whenever he had the chance, and making as much play as he could with two or three cart wheels, where he used to play with hundred franc pieces. And so it went on, and he cut up uncommon rough when anybody happened to offend him, and there was more than one row at the hotel or in the gardens — they don't allow no rows in the gambling rooms — and just as the season was coming to an end the Colonel went off one afternoon to catch the boat for Corsica. The boat was to start after dark from Nice, and there was a lot of traffic in the port, but not as much light as there ought to have been, and the Colonel missed his footing in going from the quay to the boat, and went to the bottom like a plummet. Some people thought he made away with himself on purpose, and that the one sensible thing he did was to make it look like accident, so as not to vitiate the insurance on his life, which Lord Dangerfield had taken care of, and had paid the premiums ever since the Colonel began to go to the bad. Anyhow, he never came up again alive out of that water. His death was published in the papers: 'Accidentally drowned at Nice.' I should never have known the rights or the wrongs of it if Mr. de Lacy hadn't happened to be visiting here soon after- wards." "Did Colonel Strangway leave no children?" "Neither chick nor child." "Do you know if his widow is still living?" "No, sir. That is the last I ever heard of him or his." "What about the younger brother?" "I believe he must be dead too, though I can't give 170 THE DAY WILL COME. you chapter and verse. He never married, didn't Mr. Frederick — not to my knowledge. He went on board a man-of-war before he was fifteen, and at five-and-twenty he was a splendid officer and as fine a young man as you need wish to see; but he was too fond of the bottle. China was the ruin of him, some folks said, and he got court-martialled out there, not long after they sacked that there Summer Palace there was so much talk about; and then he contrived to pass into the mercantile marine, which was a come-down for a Strangway, and for a few years he was one of their finest officers, a regular dare- devil; could sail a ship faster and safer than any man in the sendee; used to race home with the spring pickings of tea, when tea wasn't the cheap muck it is now, and when there weren't no Suez Canal to spoil sport. But he took to his old games again, and he got broke again, broke for drunkenness and insubordination; and then he went and loafed and drank in Jersey — where, it's my belief, he died some years ago." "You have no positive information about his death?" "I can't say that I have." "There was one daughter, I think?" "Yes, there was a daughter, Miss Eva. I taught her to ride. There wasn't a finer horsewoman in Dorsetshire, but a devil of a temper — the real Strangway temper. I wasn't surprised when I heard she'd married badly; I wasn't surprised when I heard she'd run away from her husband." "Did she leave any children?" "No, not by him." "But afterwards — do you know if there were children?" "I can't say that I do. She was living in Boulogne when I last heard of her, and somebody told me after- wards that she died there." THE DAY WILL COME. 171 "That's vague. She may be living still." "I don't think that's likely. It's more than ten years —ay, it's nearer fifteen — since I heard of her death. She was not the kind of woman to hide her light under a bushel for a quarter of a century. If she were alive I feel sure we should have heard of her at Cheriton. Lord! how fond she was of the place, and how proud she was of her good looks and her old name, and how haughty and overbearing she was with every other young woman that ever came in her way." "She must have been a remarkably disagreeable young person, I take it." "Well, not altogether, sir. She had a taking way when she wasn't in her tantrums, and she was very good to the poor people about Cheriton. They doated upon her. She never quarrelled with them. It was with her father she got on worst. Those two never could hit it off. They were too much alike; and at last, when she was close upon seventeen, and a regular clipper, things got so bad that the Squire packed off the governess at an hour's warning. She was too young and silly to manage such a pupil as Miss Strangway, and it's my belief she sided with her in all her mischief, and made things worse. He turned her out of doors neck and crop, and a week afterwards he took his daughter up to London and handed her over to an English lady, who kept a finishing school somewhere abroad, at a place called Losun." "At Lausanne, I think." "Yes, that was the name. She was to stay there for a year, and then she was to have another year's school- ing in Paris to finish her; but she never got to Paris, didn't Miss Eva. She ran oft' from Lausanne with a lieutenant in a marching regiment, and her father never 172 THE DAY WILL COME. saw her face again. He had no money to give her if she had married ever so well, but he took a pride in striking her name out of his will all the same." "What was her husband's name?" "Darcy — Tom Darcy. He was an Irishman, and I've heard he treated her very badly." "Do you know how long it was after her marriage that she left him?" "I only know when I heard they were parted, and that was six or seven years after she ran away from Lau- sanne." "How long was that before the Squire's death and the sale of the estate?" "Nearly ten years, I should say." "That makes it about thirty-four years ago?" "Yes, that's about it." Theodore noted down the date in his book. He had heard all these things before now — loosely, and in a dis- jointed fashion — never having been keenly interested in the vicissitudes of the Strangways. "Who was the man who took her away from her husband?" "God knows," said Jasper. "None of us at Cheriton ever heard. We fancied he must have been a French- man, for she was heard of afterwards — a good many years afterwards — at Boulogne. Our old Vicar saw her there the year before he died — it must have been as late as sixty-four or sixty-five, I fancy — a wreck, he said. He wouldn't have recognized her if she hadn't spoken to him, and she had to tell him who she was. I heard him tell my old master all about it, one summer afternoon at the Vicarage gate, when Sir Godfrey had driven over to see him. Yes, it must have been as late as sixty-five, I believe." THE DAY WILL COME. I 73 "Five years after Lord Cheriton bought the estate?" "About that." "Do you remember the name of Miss Strangway's governess? Of course, you do, though." The bailiff rubbed his iron grey whisker with a puzzled air. "My memory's got to be like a corn-sieve of late years," he said, "but I ought to remember her name. She was at Cheriton over four years, and I only wish I had a guinea for every time I've sat behind her and Miss Strangway in the pony chaise. She was a light-hearted, good-tempered young woman, but she hadn't bone enough for her work. She wasn't up to Miss Strangway's weight. Let me see now — what was that young woman's name? — she was a good-looking girl, sandy, with a high colour and a freckled skin. I ought to remember." "Take a glass of claret, Mr. Blake, and take your time. The name will come back to you. Have you ever heard of the lady since she left Cheriton?" "Never — she wasn't likely to come back to this part of the world after having been turned out neck and crop, as she was. What was the name of the man who saw the apple fall? — Newton — that was it, Sarah Newton. Miss Strangway used to call her Sally. I remember that." "Do you know where she came from, or what her people were?" "She came from somewhere near London, and it's my opinion her father kept a shop; but she was very close about her home and her relatives." "And she was young, you say?" "Much too young for the place. She couldn't have been five-and-twenty when she left; and a girl like Miss 174 THE DAY WILL C0ME « Strangway, a motherless girl, wanted some one older and wiser to keep her in order." "Had the Squire's wife been long dead at that time?" "She died before I went to service at Cheriton. Miss Eva couldn't have been much above seven years old when she lost her mother." Theodore asked no more questions, not seeing his way to extracting any further information from the bailiff. He had been acquainted with most of these facts before, or had heard them talked about. The handsome daughter who ran away from a foreign school with a penniless subaltern — the Strangway temper, and the pitched battles between the spendthrift father and the motherless un- manageable girl — the life-long breach, and then a life of poverty and an untimely death in a strange city, only vaguely known, yet put forward as a positive and estab- lished fact. He had heard all this: but the old servant's recollections helped him to tabulate his facts — helped him, too, with the name of the governess, which might be of some use in enabling him to trace the story of the last of the Strangways. ■"If there is any ground for Juanita's theory, I think the man most likely to have done the deed would be the Colonel of Lancers, supposed to be drowned at Nice. If I were by any means to discover that the story of the drowning was a mistake, and that the Colonel is in the land of the living, I should be inclined to adopt Juanita's view of the murder." He encouraged the bailiff to take a second glass of claret, and talked over local interests with him for ten minutes or so, while his dog-cart was being brought round; and then, Mr. Blake having withdrawn, he went THE DAY WILL COME. I 75 to the drawing-room where Juanita was sitting at work by a lamp-lit table, and wished her good night. "Did you find Jasper intelligent?" she asked, eagerly. "Very intelligent." "And did you find out all you wanted from him?" "Not quite all. He told me very little that I did not know before; but there were one or two facts that may be useful. Good night, Nita, good night, and good-bye." "Not for long," she answered. "You will spend Christmas at home, of course." "Yes, I shall go home for the Christmas week, I suppose." "You will have something to tell me by that time, perhaps. "You will be on the track." "Don't be too sanguine, Nita. I will do my utter- most." "I am sure you will. Ah, you don't know how I trust you, how I lean upon you. God bless you, Theodore. You are my strong rock. I, who never had a brother, turn to you as a sister might. If you can do this thing for me — if you can avenge his cruel death " "If — what then, Juanita?" he asked, paling suddenly, and his eyes flaming. "I shall honour — esteem you — as I have never done yet, and you know I have always looked up to you, Theo- dore. God bless and prosper you. Good night." Her speech, kind as it was, fell upon his enthusiasm like ice. He was holding both her hands, almost crush- ing them unawares in his vehemence. Then his grip loosened all at once, he bent his head, gently kissed those slender hands, muttered a husky good night, and hurried from the room. I76 THE DAY WILL COME. CHAPTER XI. "The God of love — ah, benedicite! How mighty and how great a Lord is he!" A week later Theodore Dalbrook was established in chambers on the second floor of No. 2, Ferret Court, Temple. Ferret Court is one of the few places in the Temple which have not been improved and beautified out of knowledge within the last thirty years. The architect and the sanitary engineer have passed by on the other side, and have left Ferret Court to its original shabbiness. Its ceilings have not been elevated, or its windows widened, nor has the Early-English stone front replaced the shabby old brick-work. Its time has not come. The rooms are small and low, the queer old closets where generations of lawyers have kept their goods and chattels are dark and redolent of mice. The staircases are rotten, the heavy old ballusters are black with age, and the deep old window seats are set in windows of the early Georgian era. The chambers suited Theodore, first because they were cheap, and next because the sitting-room, which was at the back, commanded a good view of the river. The bedroom was a tolerable size, and there was a dressing- room just big enough to hold bath and boots. He furnished the rooms comfortably, with solid old-fashioned furniture, partly consisting of surplus articles sent from the old house in Dorchester, and partly of his own pur- chases in London. The rooms were arranged with a sober taste which was by no means inartistic, and there was just enough bright colouring in the Algerian portieres THE DAY "WILL COME. I 77 and a few handsome pieces of Oriental crockery to re- lieve the dark tones of old oak and Spanish mahogany. Altogether the chambers had the established look of a nest which was meant to last through wind and weather, a shelter in which a man expected to spend a good many years of his life. He had another reason for choosing those old rooms in Ferret Court in preference to chambers in any of those new and commodious houses in the courts that had been rebuilt of late years. It was in this house that James Dalbrook had begun his legal career; it was here, on the ground floor, that the future Lord Cheriton had waited for briefs nearly forty years ago; and it was here that fame and fortune had first visited him, a shining appari- tion, bringing brightness into the shabby old rooms, irradiating the gloomy old court with the glory of triumphant ambition, hopes suddenly realized, the con- sciousness of victory. James Dalbrook had occupied those dingy chambers fifteen years, and long after he became a great man, and he had gone from them almost reluctantly to a spacious first-floor in King's Bench Walk. He had enjoyed the reputation of a miser at that period of his life. He was never known to give a dinner to a friend; he lived in a close retirement which his enemies stigmatized as a hole-and-corner life; he was never seen at places of amusement; he never played cards, or bet upon a race. Socially he was unpopular. Theodore had taken all the preliminary steps, and had arranged to read with a well-known special pleader. He was thoroughly in earnest in his determination to succeed in this new line. He wanted to prove to his father that his abandonment of the Dorchester office was neither a caprice nor a folly. He was even more The Day will come. /. 12 I78 THE DAY WILL COIUE. in earnest in his desire to keep his promise to his cousin Juanita. Almost his first act upon arriving in London had been to go to Scotland Yard in the hope of finding the de- tective who had been sent to Cheriton, and his inquiries there were so far successful that he was able to make an appointment with Mr. Churton for the next day but one. He had talked with Churton after the adjourned in- quest, and had heard all that the professional intellect had to offer in the way of opinion at that time; but he thought it worth his while to find out if the detective's ideas had taken any new development upon subsequent reflection, and also to submit Juanita's theory to profes- sional consideration. He was not one of those amateurs who think that they are cleverer at a trade than the man who has served a long apprenticeship to it. "Have you thought anything more about the Cheriton murder since last July, Mr. Churton?" he asked; "or has your current work been too engrossing to give you time for thought?" "No, sir. I've had plenty of other cases to think about, but I'm not likely to forget such a case as that at Cheriton, a case in which I was worsted more completely than I have been in anything for the last ten years. I've thought about it a good bit, I can assure you, Mr. Dal- • brook." "And do you see any new light?" "No, sir. I stick pretty close to my original opinion. Sir Godfrey Carmichael was murdered by somebody that bore a grudge against him; and there's a woman at the bottom of it." "Why a woman? Might not a man's hatred be deadly enough to lead to murder?" THE DAY WILL COME. I 7 Q "Not unless he was egged on by a woman; or had been jilted by a woman; or was jealous of a woman; or thought he had a woman's wrongs to avenge." "Is that what your experience teaches you, Mr. Churton?" "Yes, Mr. Dalbrook, that is what my experience teaches me." "And you think it was an enemy of Sir Godfrey's who fired that shot?" "I do." "Do you think the enemy was a woman — the hand that pulled the trigger a woman's hand?" "No, I do not. A woman couldn't have been about the place without being remarked — or got clear off, as a man might." "There are the servants. Could the murderer be one of them?" "I don't think so, sir. I've taken stock of them all — stables — lodges — everywhere. I never met with such a superior set of servants. The person at the west lodge is a lady bred and born, I should say. She gave me a good deal of information about the household. I con- sider her a remarkably intelligent woman, and I know she is of my opinion as to the motive of the murder." "And yet if I tell you that Sir Godfrey had not an enemy in the world?" said Theodore, dwelling on the main point, and not particularly interested in what the highly-intelligent Mrs. Porter might have said upon the subject. "I should tell you, sir, that no man can answer for another man. There is something in the lives of most of us that we would rather keep dark." "I don't believe there was any dark spot in Sir God- 12* l8o THE DAY WILL COME. frey's life. But what if there were an enemy of Lord Cheriton's — a man who has been a judge is in a fair way to have made enemies — a foe vindictive enough to strike at him through his son-in-law, to smite him by de- stroying his daughter's happiness? She is his only child, remember, and all his hopes and ambitions centre in her." "Well, Mr. Dalbrook, if there was such a man he would be an out-and-out blackguard." "Yes, it would be a refinement of cruelty — a Satanic hate; but such a man might exist. Remember the murder of Lord Mayo — one of the wisest and most beloved of India's rulers. The wretch who killed him had never seen his face till the day of the murder. He thought himself unjustly condemned, and he killed the man who represented the Power which condemned him. Might not some wrong-headed Englishman have the same vin- dictive feeling against an English judge?" "Yes, it is possible, no doubt." "My cousin, Lady Carmichael, has another theory." Theodore explained the positions of Lord Cheriton and the race that preceded him as owners of the soil, and Juanita's suspicion of some unknown member of the Strangway family; but the detective rejected this notion as unworthy of professional consideration. "It is like a young lady to get such an idea into her head," he said. "If the estate had changed hands yester- day — well, even then I shouldn't suspect the fonner owners of wanting to murder the purchaser's son-in-law; but when you reflect that Lord Cheriton has been in peaceful pos- session of the property for more than twenty years the idea isn't worth a moment's thought. What put such a fancy into the lady's head, do you think, Mr. Dalbrook?" "Grief! She has brooded upon her loss until her THE DAY WILL COME. I 8 I sorrow has taken strange shapes. She thinks that it is her duty to help in bringing her husband's murderer to justice. She has racked her brains to discover the motive of that cruel crime. She has conjured up the image of incarnate hatred, and she calls that image by the name of Strangway. I have pledged myself to act upon this idea of hers as if it were inspiration, and the first part of my task will be to find out any surviving member of Squire Strangway's family. He only left three children, so the task ought not to be impossible." "You don't mean, sir, that you are going to act upon the young lady's theory?" "I do mean it, Mr. Churton, and I want you to help me; or at any rate to give me a lesson. How am I to begin?" He laid his facts before the detective, reading over the notes which he had elaborated from Jasper Blake's reminiscences and from his own recollection of various conversations in which the Strangways had figured. Churton listened attentively, nodded, or shook his head occasionally, and was master of every detail after that one hearing. "Jersey is not a large place. If I were following up this inquiry I should go first for the son who is supposed to have died in Jersey," he said, when he had heard all. "I should follow that line as far as it goes, and then I should hunt up the particulars of the Colonel's death, the gentleman who was drowned at Nice. If any Strangway had a hand in the business, it must have been one of those two, or the son of one of them. But I tell you plainly, Mr. Dalbrook, that I don't put any faith in that poor lady's notion — no, not that much," said the detective, snapping his fingers contemptuously. I 82 THE DAY WILL COME. "Yet it was you yourself who first mooted the idea of a vendetta." "So it was; but I didn't mean a vendetta on such grounds as that. An estate changes hands, and — after twenty years and more- — 'the original holders try to murder the son-in-law of the purchaser! That won't hold water, sir. There's not enough human passion in it. I've had to study humanity, Mr. Dalbrook. It's been a part of my profession, and perhaps I've studied human nature closer than many a philosopher who sits in his library and writes a book about it. Now, there's no human nature in that notion of Lady Carmichael's. A man may be very savage because his spendthrift father has squandered his estate, and he may feel savage with the lucky man who bought and developed that estate, and may envy him in his enjoyment of it — but he won't nurse his wrath for nearly a quarter of a century, and then give expression to his feelings all at once with a revolver. That isn't human nature." "How about the exception to every rule? Might not this be an exceptional case?" "It might, of course. There's no truer saying than that fact is stranger than fiction; but for all that, this notion of Lady Carmichael's is a young lady's notion, and it belongs to fiction and not to fact. I wouldn't waste my time upon it, if I were you, Mr. Dalbrook." "I must keep my promise, Mr. Churton. I am obliged to you for your plain speaking, and I am inclined to agree with you; but I have made a promise, and I must keep it." "Naturally, sir; and if in the course of your in- quiries I can be of any use to you, I shall be very glad to co-operate." THE DAY WILL COME. I«3 "I rely on your help. Remember there is a handsome reward to be earned by you if you can bring about the discovery of the murderer. My part in the search will count for nothing." "I understand, sir. That's a stimulus, no doubt; but I hardly wanted it. When a case baffles me as this case has done, I would work day and night, and live on bread and water for a month, to get at the rights of it. Good- day. You've got my private address, and you can wire me any-when." "You're a Sussex man, Mr. Churton, I fancy?" "Born in the village of Bramber." Theodore left Waterloo the following evening, and landed at St. Heliers on the following morning an hour or so before noon. He landed on the island as an ab- solute stranger, and with the vaguest iclea of the work that lay before him, but with the determination to lose no time in beginning that work. He sent his valise to Brett's Hotel, and he walked along the pier to the town, and inquired his way to the Police Office. He was not going in quest of information about a member of the criminal classes; but the man he was hunting had been a notorious drunkard, and it seemed to him that in a small settlement like St. Heliers such a man would have been likely to attract the attention of the police at some stage of his downward career. The first official whom Theodore interrogated had never heard of the name of Strangway in the island; but an elderly inspector appearing presently upon the scene, and listening attentively to the conversation, made a sug- gestion. "You say the gentleman was fond of drink, sir, and 184 THE DAY WILL COME. in that case he'd be likely to have his favourite public, where they'd know all about him. Now, there are not so many taverns in St. Heliers where a sea-captain, and a broken-down gentleman, would care to enjoy himself. He wouldn't go to a low place, you see; and he wouldn't fancy a swell place. It would be some house betwixt and between, where he'd be looked up to a bit — and it would be something of a sea- faring place, you may be sure. There ain't so many but what you could look in at 'em all, and ask a few questions, and get on the right track. I can give you the names of two or three of the likeliest." "I shall be much obliged," said Theodore. "I think it's a capital idea." The inspector wrote down the names of three taverns, tore the leaf out of his pocket-book, and handed it to Mr. Dalbrook. "If you don*t hear of him at one of those, I doubt if you'll hear of him anywhere on the island," he said. "Those houses are all near the pier and the quays. It won't take you long to go from one to the other. 'The Rose and Crown,' that's where the English pilots go; 'La Belle Alliance,' that's a French house with a table d'hote. They've got a very good name for their brandy, and it's a great place for broken-down gentlemen. You can get a good dinner for half-a-crown with vin ordinaire included." "I'll try the 'Belle Alliance' first," said Theodore. "It sounds likely." "Yes, I believe it's about the likeliest," replied the inspector. The "Belle Alliance" fronted the quay, and stood at the corner of a shabby old street. There was a church close by, and a dingy old churchyard. Everything sur- THE DAY WILL COME. I 85 rounding the "Belle Alliance" was shabby and faded, and its outlook on the dirty quay and the traffic of ugly waggons and uglier trucks, hogsheads and lumber of all kinds, was depressing in the extreme. But the tavern itself had an air of smartness which an English tavern would hardly have had in the same circumstances. The interior was gay with much looking- glass, and a good deal of tarnished gilding. There were artificial flowers in sham silver vases on the tables, and there was a semi-circular counter at one end of the restaurant, behind which a ponderous divinity, still youth- ful, but expansive, sat enthroned, her sleek, black hair elaborately dressed, her forehead ornamented with ac- croche-cceurs , and a cross of Jersey diamonds sparkling upon her swan-like throat, which was revealed by one of those open collars which are dear to the lower order of French women. There was a row of tables in front of the windows which looked towards the quay, and there was a long, narrow table in the middle of the room, laid for the table d'hote dejeuner; but as yet the room was empty, save for one young man and woman, of the tourist order, who were whispering and tittering over a cafe complet at one of the small tables furthest from the buffet. Theodore went straight to the front of the buffet, and saluted the lady enthroned there. "Madame speaks English, no doubt?" " Oh, yes, but a leetle. I am live long time in Jairsey, where is more English as French peoples." After this sample speech it seemed to him that he might get on better with the lady in her native tongue, so he asked her for a cup of coffee in her own language, and stood at the counter while he drank it, and talked to her of indifferent matters, she nothing loth. I 86 THE DAY WILL COME. "You have lived a long time in Jersey," he said. ""Does that mean a long time in this house?" "Except one year I have lived in this house all the time, nine years. I was only nineteen when I undertook the position of dame du comptoir. I could not have under- taken such a responsibility with a stranger, but the pro- prietor is my uncle, and he knew how to be indulgent to my youth and inexperience." "And then, a handsome face is always an attraction. You must have brought him good fortune, madame." "He is kind enough to say so. He found it difficult to dispense with my services while I was absent, though he had a person from London who had been much ad- mired at the Crystal Palace." "And you, madame. Was it a feminine caprice, the desire for change, which made you abandon your uncle during that time?" "I left him when I married," replied the lady, with a profound sigh. "I returned to him a heart-broken widow." "Pray forgive me for having recalled the memory of your grief. I am a stranger in this place, and I am here on a somewhat delicate mission. My first visit is to this house, because I knew I should find intelligence and sympathy here rather than among my own countrymen. I am fortunate in meeting with a lady who has occupied an important position at St. Heliers for so long a period. I have strong reasons for wishing to discover the history of a gentleman who came to the Island some years ago — I do not know how many — after having been unfortunate in the„ world. He was a naval man." "My poor husband was a naval man," sighed the dame du comptoir. "A pilot, no doubt," thought Theodore. THE DAY WILL COME. 1 87 Theodore's manner, which was even more nattering than his words, had made a favourable impression, and the lady was disposed to be confidential. She glanced at the clock, and was glad to see that it was only twenty minutes past twelve. There was time for a little further conversation with this handsome, well-bred Englishman, before the habitues of the '-'Belle Alliance" came trooping in for the half-past twelve o'clock table d'hote. Already the atmosphere was odorous with fried sole and ragout de in out on. "The gentleman of whom I am in quest is reported to have died on the Island,*' he continued; '"but this is very likely to have been a false report, and it is quite possible that Captain Strangway may still " "Captain Strangway," echoed the woman, with an agitated air. "Yes, I see you know all about him. You can help me to find him." "Know him!" cried the woman. "I should think I did know him, to my bitter cost. Captain Strangway was my husband." "Good Heavens!" "He was my husband. The people will be here in a few minutes. If monsieur will do me the honour to step into my sitting-room, we can talk without interruption." CHAPTER XII. ;i The comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills." The dame du comptoir beckoned a waiter, and de- legated some portion of her supreme authority to him for the next quarter of an hour. She constituted as it were I 88 THE DAY WILL COME. a Regency, and gave her subordinate command over her wine and liqueur bottles, her fine champagne , Bass and Guinness; and then she ushered Theodore Dalbrook into a very small sitting-room at the back of the counter, so small indeed that a large looking glass, a porcelain stove, two arm chairs, and one little table left hardly standing room. Theodore followed with a sense of bewilderment. He had told himself that the Island of Jersey was a world so small that he could not have much difficulty in tracing any man who had lived and died there within the last ten years; but accident had been kinder to him than he had hoped. The lady seated herself in one of the ruby velvet arm chairs, and motioned him to the other. "You have given me a shock, monsieur," she said. "My friends in the island know that my marriage was unfortunate, and they never mention my husband. He is forgotten as if he had never been. I sometimes fancy that year of my life was only a troubled dream. Even my name is unchanged. I was called Mdlle. Coralie before I married. I am called Madame Coralie now." "I am sorry to have caused you painful emotion, madame, but it is most important to me to trace the history of your husband's later years, and I deem myself very fortunate in having found you." "Is it about a property, a fortune left him, perhaps?" exclaimed Coralie, with sudden animation, her fine eyes lighting up with hope. "Alas, no. Fortune had nothing in reserve for your unlucky husband." "Unlucky, indeed, but not so unlucky as I was in giving my heart to him. I knew that he was a drunkard. THE DAV WILL COME. 1 89 I knew that he had been turned out of the navy, and out of the mercantile marine on account of that dreadful vice — but he — he was very fond of me, poor fellow, and he swore that he would never touch a glass of brandy again as long as he lived, if I would con- sent to marry him. He did turn over a new leaf for a time, and kept himself sober and steady, and would hang over that counter for a whole evening talking to me, and take nothing but black coffee. I thought I could reform him. I thought it would be a grand thing to reform a man like that, a gentleman bred and born, a man whose father had been a great landowner, and whose family name was one of the oldest in England. He was a gentleman in all his ways. He never forgot himself even when he had been drinking. He was a gentleman to the last. Such a fine-looking man too. While he was courting me and kept himself steady he got back his good looks. He looked ten years younger, and I was very proud of him the day we were married. He had taken a house for me, a nice little house on the hill near the Jesuits' College, with a pretty little garden, and I had furnished the house out of my savings. I had saved a goodish bit since I came to Jersey, for my uncle is a generous man, and my situation here is a good one. I had over two hundred pounds in hand after I paid for the furniture — these chairs were in my drawing-room — and he hadn't much more than the clothes he stood up- right in, poor fellow. But I wouldn't have minded that if he had only kept himself steady. I was prepared to keep him. He was too much of a gentleman to be able to work except in his profession, and that was gone from him for ever; so I knew it was incumbent on me to work for both, and I thought that by letting our drawing-room I90 THE DAY WILL COME. floor in the season, and by doing a little millinery all the year round — I'm a good milliner, monsieur — I thought I could manage to keep a comfortable home, without touch- ing my two hundred pounds in the Savings Bank." "You were a brave, unselfish girl to think so." "Ah, sir, we are not selfish when we love. I was very fond of him, poor fellow. I had begun with pitying him, and then he was a thoroughbred gentleman — he was vieille roche, monsieur, and I have always admired the noblesse. I am no Republican, moi. And he had such winning ways when he was sober — and he was not stupid as other men are when he was drunk — only more brilliant — la tete montee — lie'las , com vie il pe'tillait d' esprit — but it was his brain that he was burning — that was the fuel that made the light. But how is it you interest yourself in him, monsieur?" she asked, suddenly fixing him with her sharp black eyes. "You say it is not about property. You must have a motive, all the same." "I have a motive, but my interest is not personal. I am acting for some one who now owns the Strangway estate, and who wishes to know what has become of the old family." "What can it matter to any one?" asked Madame Coralie, suspiciously. "They had lost all their money — of the land that had been theirs not an acre was left. What business is it of any one's what became of them when they were driven from their birth-place? Oh, how my poor Frederick hated the race that had possessed it- self of his estate. There was nothing too bad for them. When he was excited he would rave about them awfully — a beggarly lawyer, a black-hearted scoundrel, that is what he would call Lord — Lord Sherrington, when he had been drinking." THE DAY WILL COME. I Q I Theodore's brow grew thoughtful. How strange this seemed, almost like a confirmation of Juanita's super- stitious horror of the banished race. Perhaps it was not unnatural that an unlucky spendthrift — ruined, disgraced ■ — should hate the favourite of fortune who had ousted him; but not with a hate capable of murder, murder in cold blood, the murder of a man who had never injured him even indirectly. "Your husband has been dead some years, I con- clude?" he said, presently. " Three years and a half on the tenth of last month." "And you had a troublesome time with him, I fear?" "Trouble seems a light word for what I went through. It was like living in hell — there is no other word — the hell which a madman can make of all around him. For a few weeks we went on quietly — he seemed contented, and I was very happy, thinking I had cured him. I watched him as a cat watches a mouse, for fear he should go wrong again. He never went out without me: and at home I did all that a woman can do to make much of the man she loves, studying him in everything, surround- ing him with every little luxury I could afford, cooking dainty little meals for him, petting him as if he had been an idolized child. He seemed grateful, for the first few weeks, and almost happy. Then I saw he was beginning to mope a little. He got low-spirited, and would sit over the fire and brood — it was cutting March weather— and would moan over his blighted life, and his own folly. 'If I had to begin over again,' he would say, 'ah, it would be different, Cora, it would be all different.' " "He was not unkind to you?" "No, he was never unkind, never. To the last, when he died raving mad with delirium tremens, he was always IQ2 THE DAY WILL COME. kind. It was seeing his madness and his ruin that made my trouble. He was violent sometimes, and threatened to kill me, but that was only when he didn't know me. I watched him moping for a week or so, and then one day, I was so unhappy at seeing him fret, that I thought I would do anything to cheer him. I fancied he* missed the company in this house, and the cards and dominoes, and billiards — for before we were married he used to dine at the table d'hote two or three times a week, and used to be in the cafe or in the billiard room every night." "How did he manage to live without a profession, and without ostensible means?" Madame shrugged her shoulders. "God knows. I think he used to write to his old friends — his brother officers in the navy or the merchant service — and he got a little from one and a little from another. He would borrow of any one. And there was a small legacy from his mother's sister which fell in to him soon after he came to Jersey. That was all gone before I married him. He hadn't a penny after he'd paid the marriage fees. Well, monsieur, seeing him so down-hearted I proposed that he should go down to the 'Belle Alliance' and have a game at billiards and see his old friends. 'You needn't take any money,' I said, 'my uncle will treat you hospitably.' He seemed pleased at the idea, and he promised to be home early; but just as he was leaving the house he turned back and said there was a little bill of thirty shillings he owed to a boot- maker in the street round the corner, and he didn't like to pass the man's shop without paying. Would I let him have the money? It was the first money he'd asked me for since we were married, and I hadn't the heart to say no, so I went to my little cash-box and took out three THE DAY WILL COME. 1 93 half sovereigns. I told him that the money meant a week's housekeeping. 'I give you nice little dinners, don't I, Fred?' I said, 'but you've no idea how economical I am.' He laughed and kissed me, and said he hated economy, and wished he had a fortune for my sake, and he went down the street whistling. Well, sir, perhaps you can guess what happened. He came home at three o'clock next morning: mad with drink, and then I knew he was not to be cured. I went on trying all the same, though, till the last; and I lived the life of a soul in tor- ment. I was fond of him to the last, and saw him killing himself inch by inch, and saw him die a dreadful death, one year and three days after our wedding day. He spent every penny I had in the world, and my uncle helped us when that was gone, and I came back to this house after his funeral a broken-hearted woman. All my furniture which I'd worked for was sold to pay the rent, and the doctors, and the undertaker. I just saved the furniture in this room, and that is all that is left of four hundred and seventy pounds and of my married life." "You were indeed the victim of a generous and con- fiding heart." "I was fond of him to the last, monsieur, and I for- gave him all my sufferings; but let no woman ever marry a drunkard with the hope of reforming him." "Were you quite alone in your martyrdom; had your husband no relatives left to help him on his dying bed?" "Not one. He told me he was the last of his race. He must have had distant relations, I suppose; but his elder brother was dead, and his sister." "You are sure his brother was dead?" "Yes; he fell into the water at Nice on a dark even- The Day will come. I. I 3 194 THE DAY WILL COME. ing, when he was going on board the steamer for Corsica. I have got the paper with the account of his death." "Will you show me that paper, and any other docu- ments relating to your husband's family? I know I have no right to ask such a favour; but all I can say is that I shall be very grateful if you will so far oblige me." The table d'hote was in full swing in the adjoining room, as testified by the clattering of plates and the jingle of knives and forks, and a subdued murmur as of a good many confidential conversations carried on simultaneously. "You want to see my poor Fred's private papers," said the widow, meditatively. "That's a good deal to ask; not that there are any secrets in them that can hurt anybody above ground. The Colonel is dead, and his sister. My husband was the last. But I can't understand why anybody should want to pry into a dead man's papers, unless there's property hanging to them." She looked at Theodore suspiciously, as if she could not divest herself of the idea of a fortune having turned up somehow, unexpectedly; a fortune to which her dead husband was entitled. "There is no property, I assure you. It is a question of sentiment, not of money." "You're a lawyer, I suppose?" said Coralie, still sus- piciously. She supposed that it was only lawyers who went about prying into the affairs of the dead. "I am a lawyer; but the business which brings me to Jersey is not law business." "Well j I don't see how any harm can come to me through your seeing my husband's papers. There's not many to see — a few letters from the Colonel, and two or three from a lawyer about the legacy, and a dozen or so THE DAY WILL COME. IQ5 from old friends, refusing or sending him money. You've spoken kindly to me, and I've felt that you sympathize with me, though you're a stranger — so — well — you may see his letters, though it hurts me to touch anything that belonged to him, le pauvre homme." She took a bunch of keys from her pocket, unlocked the little secretaire, and from one of the drawers produced a bundle of old letters and cuttings from newspapers, which she handed to Theodore Dalbrook, and then seated herself opposite to him, planted her elbows on the table, and watched him while he read, keenly on the alert for any revelation of his purpose which might escape him in the course of his reading. She had not altogether re- linquished that idea of an inheritance, or legacy — pro- perty of some kind — involved in this endeavour to trace a dead man's history. The explanation which Theodore had given had not convinced her. He had confessed himself a lawyer, and that was in itself enough to make her doubt him. The cuttings from old newspaper belonged to the days when Frederick Strangway had commanded a war ship, to the days when he fought in the Chinese war. Some of them recorded the honour he had won for himself at different stages of his career, and it was only natural that these should have been carefully preserved by him in all his wanderings. But there were other cuttings — the re- port of the court martial that broke him — the trial in which he stood accused of having risked the loss of his ship with all hands aboard by his dissolute habits — a shameful and a painful story. This record of his folly had been kept by that strange perversity of the human mind which makes a man secrete and treasure documents which must wring his heart and bow his head with shame every *3* I96 THE DAY WILL COME. time he looks at them. There were other extracts of a like shameful kind — reports of street rows, two cases of drunken assault in San Francisco, one of a fight in Syd- ney harbour. He had kept them all as if they had been words of praise and honour. The letters were most of them trivial — letters from brother officers of the past — "very sorry to hear of your embarrassments," "regret inability to do more than the enclosed small cheque," "the numerous claims upon my purse render it impossible for me to grant the loan re- quested," the usual variations upon the old tune in which a heavily-taxed pater familias fences with the appeal of an unlucky acquaintance. They were such letters as are left by the portmanteau full among the effects of the man for whom the world has been too hard. Theodore put aside all this correspondence after a brief glance, and there remained only four letters in the same strong, resolute hand — the hand of Reginald Strangway. The first in date was written on Army and Navy Club paper, and was addressed to Captain Strangway, R.N., H.M.S. Cobra, Hong Kong. "My dear Fred, "I have been sorry to leave your letter so long un- answered, but I am bothered about a great many things. My wife has been out of health for nearly a year. The doctors fear her chest is affected, and tell me I ought to get her away from England before the winter. As things have been going very badly with me for a long time I shall not be sorry to cut this beastly town, where the men who have made their money, God knows how, are now upon the crest of the wave, and by their reckless THE DAY WILL COME. I 97 expenditure have made it impossible for a man of small means to live in London — if he wants to live like a gentleman. Everything is twice as dear as it used to be when I was a subaltern. My wife and I are pigging in two rooms on a second floor in Jermyn Street. I live at my club, and she lives on her relatives, so that we don't often have to sit down to a lodging-house dinner of burnt soles and greasy chops; but the whole business is wretched. She has to go to parties in a four-wheel cab, and I can hardly afford the risk of a rubber. So I shall be uncom- monly glad to cut it all, and settle in some out-of-the-way place where we can live cheap, and where the climate will suit Millicent. "My first idea was Algiers, but things are still rather unsettled there, as you know. Lambton, of the Guards, has been shooting in Corsica lately, and came home with a glowing account of the climate and the cheapness of the inns, which are roughish, but clean and fairly com- fortable; so I have determined on Corsica. We shall be within a day's sail of Nice, so not utterly out of reach of civilisation, and we can live there how we like, without entertaining a mortal, or having to buy new clothes. Millicent, who is fond of novelty, is in love with the notion, and Dangerfield has behaved very well to her, promising her an extra hundred a year if we will live quietly and keep out of debt, which, considering he is as poor as Job, is not so bad. As for my creditors, they are pretty quiet since I got Aunt Belle's legacy, part of which I divided among 'em as a sop to Cerberus. They'll have to be still quieter when I'm settled in Corsica. "Of course, you heard of that wretched woman's kicking over the traces altogether at last. God knows what will become of her. I believe she had been carry- I98 THE DAY WILL COME. ing on rather badly for some time before Tom found out anything. You know what an ass he is. However, he got hold of a letter one evening — met the postman at the door and took her letters along with his own, and didn't like the look of one and opened it; and then there was an infernal row, and she just put on her bonnet and shawl, walked out of the house and called a cab and drove off. He followed in another cab, but it was a foggy night, and he lost her before she'd gone far. They were in lodgings in Essex Street, and it isn't easy for one cab to chase another on a foggy evening. She never went back to him, and he went all over London denounc- ing her, naming first one man and then another, but without any definite idea as to who the real man was. The letter was only a couple of sentences in Italian, which Tom only knew by sight — but he could see it was an appointment at a theatre, for the theatre and hour were named. She snatched the letter out of his hand while they were quarrelling, he told me, and chucked it into the fire, so he hasn't even the man's handwriting as evidence against him. It was a hand he had never seen before, he says. However, if he wants to find her no doubt he can do so, if he takes the trouble. I am sorry she should disgrace her family, and of course my wife feels the scandal uncommonly hard upon her. I can't say that I feel any pity for Tom Darcy. She had led a wretched life with him ever since he sold out, and I don't much wonder at her being deuced glad to leave him. As it's Tom business to shoot her lover, and not mine, I shan't mix myself up in the affair — and as for her, well, she has made her bed !" There was more in the letter, but the rest was of no interest to Theodore. THE DAY WILL COME. I 99 The letter was dated January 3rd, 1851. Three of the remaining letters were from Corsica, and contained nothing of any significance. A fourth was written at Monte Carlo, in answer to an appeal for money, and the date was twelve years later than the first. It was a gloomy letter, the letter of a ruined man, who had drunk the cup of disappointment to the dregs. "To ask me for help seems like a ghastly joke on your part. Whatever your troubles may be, I fancy my lookout is darker than yours. My wife and I have vegetated on that accursed island for just a dozen years —it seems like a lifetime to look back upon. We just had enough to live upon while my father was alive, for, bad as things were at Cheriton, he contrived to send me something. Now that he is gone, and the estate has been sold by the mortgagees, there is nothing left for me — and we have been living for the last two years upon the pittance my poor Milly gets from her father. What- ever your cares may be, you don't know what it is to have a sick wife whose condition requires every luxury and indulgence, and to have barelv enough for bread and cheese. If you were to see the house we live in — the tiled floors and the dilapidated furniture — and the windows that won't shut — and the shutters that won't keep to, and our two Corsican servants who look like a brace of savages, though they are good creatures in the main — you would be the last man to howl about your own troubles to me. "I have been here a month, and with my usual dia- bolical luck. I am going home to-morrow — though per- haps I should be wiser if I went up into the hills behind Monaco and put a bullet through my brains. Millicent would be no worse off, God help her; for she is entirely 200 THE DAY WILL COME. dependent on her father, and I am only an incubus — but she might think herself worse off, poor soul, so I suppose I had better go home. "What am I thinking about? I can't afford to take refuge in the suicide's haven. My life is insured in the Imperial for ^3,000, and poor old Dangerfield has been paying the premium ever since I began to go to the bad financially. It would be too hard upon him if I shot myself." This was the last letter, and it was endorsed by the brother's hand. "Reginald's last letter. I read in the Times news- paper of his being drowned at Nice ten days afterwards." Theodore made a note of the dates of these letters, and the name of the insurance office. Provided with these data it would be easy for him to verify the fact of Colonel Strangway's death, and thus bring the history of the two sons of old Squire Strangway to its dismal close in dust and darkness. And thus would be answered Juanita's strange sus- picion of the house of Strangway, answered with an un- answerable answer. Who can argue with Death? Is not that at least the end of all things — the road that leads no whither? There remained for him only the task of tracing the erring daughter to her last resting-place. This would doubtless be more difficult, as a runaway wife living under a false name, and in all probability going from place to place, was likely to have left but faint and un- certain indications of her existence. But the first part of his task had been almost too easy. He felt that he THE DAY WILL COME. 201 could take no credit for what he had done, could expect no gratitude from Juanita. He thanked Mrs. Strangway — alias Madame Coralie — for her politeness, and asked to be allowed to offer her a ten-pound note as a trifling acknowledgment of the favour she had done him. She promptly accepted this offering, and was only the more convinced that there was "property" involved in the lawyer's researches. "If there is anything to come to vie from any of his relations, I hope nobody will try to keep me out of it/' she said. "I hope his friends will remember that I gave him my last shilling, and nursed him when there wasn't many would have stayed in the room with him?" Theodore reiterated his assurance that no question of money or inheritance was involved in his mission to the Island, and then bade the Captain's widow a respectful adieu, and threaded his way through the avenue of tables to the door, and out of the garlic-charged atmosphere into the fresh autumnal air. He stayed one night in Jersey, and left at eleven o'clock the next morning on board the Fanny, and slept in his chambers in Ferret Court, after having written a long letter to Juanita with a full account of all that he had learnt from the lips of the widow, and from the letters of the dead. "I do not surrender my hope of finding the mur- derer," he wrote finally, "but you must now agree with me that I must look elsewhere than among the remnants of the Strangway race. They can prove an unanswerable alibi — the grave." He went to the office of the Imperial next morning, saw the secretary, and ascertained that the amount of the policy upon Colonel Strangway 's life had been paid 202 THE DAY WILL COME. to Lady Millicent Strangway, his widow, in April, 1863, after the directors had received indisputable evidence of his death. "I remember the case perfectly," said the secretary. "The circumstances were peculiar, and there was a sus- picion of suicide, as the man had just left Monte Carlo, and was known to have lost his last napoleon, after a most extraordinary run of luck. There was some idea of disputing the claim; but if he did make away with himself he had contrived to do it so cleverly that it would have been uncommonly difficult to prove that his death was not an accident — more particularly as Lord Dangerneld brought an action against the steamboat com- pany for wilful negligence in regard to their gangway and deficient lighting. The policy was an old one, too, and so it was decided not to litigate." "There could be no doubt as to the identity of the man who was drowned at Nice, I conclude?" "No, the question of identity was carefully gone into. Lord Dangerneld happened to be wintering at Cannes that year, and he heard of his son-in-law's death in time to go over and identify the body before it was coffined. You know how quickly burial follows death in that part of the world, and there would have been no possibility of the widow getting over from Aj actio before the funeral. We had Lord Dangerheld's declaration that the body he saw at Nice was the body of Colonel Strangway, and we paid the £3,000 on that evidence. We have never had any reason to suspect error or foul play." THE DAY WILL COME. 2C>3 CHAPTER XIII. "Thou takest not away, O Death? Thou strikest — absence perisheth, Indifference is no more; The future brightens on our sight; For on the past hath fallen a light That tempts us to adore." While Juanita clung with feverish intensity to the hope of discovering her husband's murderer Lord Cheriton seemed to be gradually resigning himself to the idea that the crime would go to swell the long list of un- discovered murders which he could recall within his own experience of life — crimes which had kept society ex- pectant and on the alert for a month, and which had stimulated the police to unwonted exertions, finally to fade into oblivion, or to be occasionally cited as an example of the mysteriousness of human history. He had offered a large reward, he had brought all his own trained intelligence to bear upon the subject; he had thought and brooded upon it by day and by night; and the result had been nil. A hand had been stretched out of the darkness to slay an unoffending young man, in whose life his daughter's happiness had been bound up. That was the whole history of the murder. A shot heard in the night, a bullet fired out of the darkness with fatal aim. Not one indication, not one suggestive fact had been discovered since the night of the murder. "It is hopeless," said Lord Cheriton, talking over the calamity with Mr. Scarsdale, the Vicar of Cheriton and 204 THE DAY WILL COME. Testwick, adjoining parishes; "the crime and the motive of the crime are alike inscrutable. If one could imagine a reason for the act it might be easier to get upon the track of the murderer; but there is no reason that I can conceive for such a deed. It has been suggested to me that Sir Godfrey might have had a secret enemy — that his life might not have been as spotless as we think " "I will answer for it that he was never guilty of a dishonourable action, that he provoked no man's hatred by any unworthy act," interrupted the Vicar warmly. He had been curate at Milbrook before he got the Cheriton living, and had lived for two years at the Priory while he prepared Godfrey Carmichael for Eton, so he claimed the right to vouch for the honour of the dead. "There never was a whiter soul in mortal clay," said the Vicar. "I am inclined to estimate his character almost as highly as you," replied Lord Cheriton, deliberately, "yet the straightest walker may make one false step — and there may have been some unfortunate entanglement at the University or in London " "I will never believe it. He may have been tempted — he may have yielded to temptation — but if he erred, be sure he atoned for his error to the uttermost of his power." "There are errors — seeming light to the steps that stumble — which cannot be atoned for." "There was no such error in his youth. I looked in his*face on his wedding day, Lord Cheriton, and it was the face of a man of unblemished life — a man who need fear no ghost out of the dead past." "Well, you are right, I believe- — and in that case the THE DAY WILL COME. 2C>5 murder is motiveless — the murder of a madman — a mad- man so profoundly artful in his lunacy as to escape every eye. By heaven, I wish we had the old way of hunting such a quarry — and that a leash of bloodhounds could have been set loose upon his track within an hour of the murder. They would have hunted him down — their instinct would have found him skulking and shivering in his lair; and we should have needed no astute detective primed with all the traditions of Scotland Yard. It would have been swift, sudden justice — blood for blood." His dark grey eyes shone with an angry light as he walked up and down the spacious floor of the library, while the Vicar stood in front of the fire, looking gravely into his clerical hat, and without any suggestion to offer. "I hope Lady Carmichael is recovering her spirits," he said feebly, after a pause. "She is not any happier than she was when her loss was a week old; but she keeps up in a wonderful way. I believe she is sustained by some wild notion that the murderer will be found — that she will live to see her husband's death avenged. I doubt if at present she has any other interest in life." "But let us hope she will be cheered by the society of her husband's people. I hear that the Morningsides and the Grenvilles are to be at the Priory in November." "Indeed! I have heard nothing about it." "I was at Swanage yesterday afternoon, and took tea with Lady Jane. She was full of praises of Lady Carmichael's goodness, and her desire that all things at the Priory might be just as they had been in Sir God- frey's lifetime. His brothers-in-law used to be invited for the shooting in November, and they were to be in- vited this year, on condition that Lady Jane would help 206 THE DAY WILL COME. to entertain them, and Lady Jane has consented gladly. So there will be a large family party at the Priory on this side of Christmas/' concluded the Vicar. "I am glad to hear it," said Lord Cheriton. "Any- thing is better for her than solitude; any occupation, if it be only revising a bill of fare, or listening to feminine twaddle, is better for her than idleness." "Yes, there will be a houseful," pursued the Vicar; "Mrs. Grenville takes her nursery with her wherever she goes." "And Mrs. Morningside is delighted to leave hers behind her." "Yes, she is one of those mothers who are always telling people what paragons of nurses Providence has provided for their darlings, or how admirably their chil- dren are being brought up by a model governess," said the Vicar, who was severe upon other people's neglect of duty. "By the bye, talking of mothers, I believe I I saw Mrs. Porter's daughter the other day while I was in town." "You believe you saw her?" "Yes, I am not certain. A face flashed past me in the street one night, and when the face was gone it came upon me that it was Mercy Porter's eyes that looked at me for an instant in the gaslight. I was in a busy thoroughfare on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge. I had been to hear Vansittart preach a mission sermon at a church near Walworth, and I was walking back to the West End. It was late on a Saturday night, and the road was full of costermongers' barrows, and the pavement was crowded with working people doing their marketing. I tried to overtake the girl whose face had startled me, but it was no use. She had melted into the THE. DAY WILL COME. 20J crowd. I went back the whole length of the street, hoping I might find her in front of one of the costers' stalls; but she must have turned into one of the numerous side streets, and it was hopeless to hunt for her there. Yet I should have been very glad to get hold of her."' "Is she much changed?" "Changed! Yes. It was only the ghost of Mercy Porter that I saw. I should not have known her but for her eyes. She had fine eyes, do you remember, and with a great deal of expression in them. I think I should be safe in swearing to Mercy Porter's eyes." "Did she look poor or ill?" "She looked both — but the illness might be only hunger. She had that wan pinched look one sees in the faces of the London poor, especially in the women's faces." "Have you told her mother?" "No, I came to the conclusion that it would be giving the poor soul useless pain to tell her anything, having so little to tell. She knew years ago that Colonel Tremaine had deserted his victim, and that the girl had dropped through. God knows where: into the abyss that swallows up handsome young women who begin their career in West End lodgings and a hired brougham. If the mother were to go in quest of her, and bring her home here, it might be only to bring shame and misery upon her declining years. The creature may have fallen too low for the possibility of reformation, and the mother's last hours might be darkened by her sin. I would do much to rescue her— but I would rather try so save her through a stranger's help than by the mother's intervention." Lord Cheriton continued his pacing to and fro, and did not appear particularly interested in the case of 208 THE DAY WILL COME. Mercy Porter. He had been much troubled by her flight from Cheriton, for the seducer was his own familar friend, and he had felt himself in somewise to blame for having brought such a man to Cheriton. He told him- self that he would not have had Tremaine inside his house had his own daughter been out of the schoolroom; and yet he had allowed the man to cross the path of the widow's only child, and to bring desolation and sorrow upon the woman whose life he had in somewise taken under his protection. "There are people whose mission it is to hunt out that kind of misery," he said, after an interval of silence. "I hope one of those good women will rescue Mercy Porter. I think you have been wise in saying nothing to the mother. She has got over her trouble, and anything she might hear about the girl would be a reopening of old wounds." "She is a wonderful woman," replied the vicar; "I never saw such grief as hers when the girl ran away; and yet within a few months she had calmed down into the placid personage she has been ever since. She is a woman of very powerful mind. I sometimes wonder that even at her age she can content herself with the mo- notonous life she leads in that cottage." "Oh, she likes the place, I believe, and the life suits her," said Lord Cheriton, carelessly. "She had seen a good deal of trouble before she came here, and this was a quiet haven for her after the storms of life. I am very sorry the daughter went wrong," he added, with a sud- den cloud upon his face. "Thai was a bitter blow; and I shall never forgive myself for having brought that scoundrel Tremaine here." "He is dead, is he not?" THE DAY WILL COME. 2O0, "Yes, he was killed in Afghanistan six years ago. He was a good soldier though he was a bad man. I dare- say he made his being ordered off to India an excuse for leaving Mercy — left her with a trifle of money perhaps, and a promise of further remittances, and then let her drift. I told my lawyer to keep his eye upon her, if possible, and to establish her in some respectable calling if ever he saw the chance of doing so; but she eluded him somehow, as you know." "Yes, you told me what you had done. It was like you to think even of so remote a claim upon your generosity." "Oh, she belonged to Cheriton. I have cultivated the patriarchal feeling as much as I can. All who live upon my land are under my protection." "Lady Cheriton has been a good friend to Mrs. Porter too." "My wife is always kind." Juanita accepted her cousin's account of what he had heard and read at St. Helliers, as the closing of his re- searches in the history of the Strangways. The sister's death in a shabby exile remained to be traced; but there was no light to be expected there; and Juanita felt that she must now submit to surrender her superstition about that evil race. It was not from them the blow had come. The murderer had to be hunted for in a wider range, and the quest would be more difficult than she had thought. She was not the less intent upon discovery be- cause of this difficulty. "I have all my life before me," she told herself, "and I have nothing to live for but to see his murderer punished." It had been Juanita's especial desire that the Morn- The Day •mill come. I. \a 2IO THE DAY WILL COME. ingsides and the Grenvilles should be invited to the Priory just as they had been in Sir Godfrey's lifetime — that all the habits of the household should be as he had willed them when his bodily presence was there among them, as he was now in the spirit, to Juanita's imagina- tion. She thought of him every hour of the day, and in all things deferred to his opinions and ideas, shaping the whole course of her life to please him who was lying in that dark resting-place where there is neither pain nor pleasure. When November came, however, and with it the troop of Grenvilles, nurses and nursery governess, and the Morningsides with valet and maid, it seemed to Juanita as if the wild companions of Comus or a con- tingent from Bedlam had invaded the sober old Priory. Those loud voices in the hall, that perpetual running up and down and talking and laughing upon the staircase; the everlasting opening and shutting of doors; the roll of carriage-wheels driving up to the door a dozen times in a day; the bustle and fuss and commotion which two cheerful families in rude health can contrive to make in a house where they feel themselves perfectly at home — all these things were agonizing to the mourner who had lived in silence and shadow from the hour of her loss until now. Happily, however, Lady Jane was there to take all the burden off those weary shoulders; and Lady Jane in the character of a grandmother was in her very fittest sphere. Between her ladyship and the housekeeper all arrangements were made, and every detail was at- tended to without inflicting the slightest trouble upon Juanita. "You shall see just as little of them all as you like, dear," said Lady Jane. "You can breakfast and lunch THE DAY WILL COME. 2 I I in your morning room, and just come down to dinner when you feel equal to being with us, and then you will see the darlings at dessert. I know they will cheer you, with their pretty little ways. Such loving pets as they are too, and so full of intelligence. Did I tell you what Johnnie said yesterday at lunch?" "Yes, dear Lady Jane, you did tell me. It was very funny," replied Juanita, with a faint smile. She could not tell that adoring grandmother that the children were a burden to her, and that those intelligent speeches and delightful mispronunciations of polysyllabic words which convulsed parents and grandparent seemed to add perceptibly to her own gloom. She pretended to be interested in Tom's letter from Eton with a modest request for a large hamper, and she made a martyr of herself by showing Susie picture-books, and explaining the pictures, or by telling Lucy her favourite Hans Andersen story, which never palled upon that young listener. "Don't you think you would like a new one?" Juanita would ask. "No, no, not a new one — the same, please. I want 'The Proud Darning Needle.'" So the adventures of "The Proud Darning Needle" had to be read or related as the case might be. Juanita took Lady Jane's advice and spent the greater part of every day in her morning-room, that room which had been Godfrey's den. It was further from the stair- case than any other sitting-room, and the clatter and the shrill voices were somewhat modified by distance. The house-party amused themselves after their hearts' desire, and worked the horses with the true metropolitan feeling that a horse is an animal designed for locomotion, and 14* 2 12 THE DAY WILL COME. that he can't have too much of it. Lady Jane was the most indulgent of deputy hostesses, and spent all break- fast time in cutting sandwiches of a particularly dainty kind for her sons-in-law, so that they might be sustained between the luxurious home breakfast at nine, and the copious luncheon with which the cart met the shooters by appointment at half-past one. When the shooters had started there were the little Grenvilles to slave for; and Lady Jane spent another half-hour in seeing them off upon their morning constitutional, Lucy on her Shetland, and Johnnie, Susie, and Godolphin on their short little legs, with groom and nurses in attendance. There were so many wraps to be adjusted, so many injunctions to be given to nurses and groom, so many little pockets to be filled with gingerbreads and queen-cakes, while Mrs. Grenville looked on, and protested against grandmamma's infraction of hygienic rules. Dr. Dobson Drooce had said they must never eat between meals. Juanita rarely appeared before afternoon tea, when she was generally installed in her own particular easy chair by the fire, fenced round by a seven-leaved Indian screen, which was big enough to include a couple of small tables and a creepie stool, before the sisters-in-law came in from their afternoon drive, or the shooters drop- ped in after their day in the woods. There were no other guests than the sisters and their husbands; and it was an understood thing that no one else should be asked, un- less it were Lord and Lady Cheriton, the Dalbrooks from Dorchester, or Mr. Scarsdale. No one could have been sweeter than the young widow was to her visitors during the hours she spent with them, listening with inexhaustible patience to Jessica Grenville's graphic account of the measles as lately THE DAY WILL COME. 2 13 "taken" by her whole brood, with all the after con- sequences of the malady, and the amount of cod-liver oil and quinine consumed by each patient; pretending to be interested in Ruth Morningside's perpetual disquisitions upon smart people and smart people's frocks; and in every way performing her duty as a hostess. And yet George Grenville was not altogether satisfied. "I'll tell you what it is, Jess," he said to his wife one night, in the luxurious privacy of the good old- fashioned bedroom, seated on the capacious sofa in front of the monumental four-poster, with elaborately-turned columns, richly-moulded cornice, and heavy damask cur- tains; the kind of bedstead for which our ancestors gave fifty guineas, and for which no modern auctioneer can obtain a bid of fifty shillings; "I'll tell you what it is, Jess," repeated Mr. Grenville, frowning at the fire, "either your brother's widow gives herself confounded airs, or there is something in the wind." "I'm afraid so, George," replied his wife, meekly. "You're afraid of what? Why the deuce can't you be coherent? Afraid of her airs " "I'm afraid there is — something in the wind," faltered the submissive lady. "I suppose it's the best thing that could happen to her, poor girl, for a nursery will be an occupation for her mind, and prevent her brooding on her loss; but this place would have been very nice for Tom all the same." "I should think it would indeed, and he ought not be swindled out of it," said Mr. Grenville, with a dis- gusted air. "I — I am surprised at your sister-in-law! I have always considered that there is a kind of indelicacy in a posthumous child. It may be a prejudice on my part, but I have always felt a sort of revulsion when I 214 THE DAY WILL COME. have heard of such creatures," and Mr. Grenville curled his lordly aquiline nose, and made a wry face at the jovial fire, blazing hospitably, heaped high with coals and wood, and roaring up towards the frosty sky. CHAPTER XIV. "Then through my brain the thought did pass, Even as a flash of lightning there, That there was something in her air, Which would not doom me to despair; And on the thought my words broke forth." Harrington Dalbrook was as keenly impressed with a sense of stupendous self-sacrifice in giving up his pro- spects in the Church as if the Primacy had only been a question of time; yet as his Divinity examination had twice ended in disappointment and a shame-faced return to the paternal roof-tree, it might be thought that, in his friend Sir Henry Baldwin's phraseology, he was very well out of it. Sir Henry was the average young man of the epoch, sharp, shallow, and with a strong belief in his own superiority to the human race in general, and naturally to a friend whose father plodded over leases and agree- ments in an old-fashioned office in a country town; but the two young men happened to have been thrown to- gether at Oxford, where Sir Henry was at Christ Church while Harrington Dalbrook was at New; and as Sir Henry's ancestral home was within six miles of Dorchester, the friendship begun at the University was continued in the county town. Sir Henry lived at a good old Georgian house called the Mount, between Dorchester and Weymouth. It was THE DAY WILL COME. 21$ a red brick house, with a centre and two wings, a Corin- thian portico of Portland stone, and a wide level lawn in front of the portico, that was brilliant with scarlet geraniums all the summer. There were no novelties in the way of gardening at the Mount, and there were never likely to be any new departures while Lady Baldwin held the reins of power. She was known in the locality as a lady of remarkable "closeness,"' a lady who pared down every department of expenditure to the very bone. The gardens and shrubberies were always in perfect order, neat, trim, weedless; but everything was reduced to the minimum of outlay; there were no new plants or shrubs, no specimen trees, no innovations or improvements; there was very little "glass," and there were only two gar- deners to do the work in grounds for which most people would have kept four or five. The dowager was never ashamed to allude to the smallness of her jointure or to bemoan her son's college debts. She had two daughters, the younger pale, sickly, and insignificant; the elder tall and large, with a beauty of the showy and highly-coloured order, brown eyes, a complexion of milk and roses, freely sprinkled with freckles, and light wavy hair, which in a young woman of meaner station might have been called red. The neighbourhood was of opinion that it was time for the elder Miss Baldwin to marry, and that she ought to marry well; but that important factor in marriage, the bridegroom, was not forthcoming. It was a ground of complaint against Sir Henry that he never brought any eligible young men to the Mount. "My mothers housekeeping would frighten them away if I did,"' answered Henry, when hard driven upon this point. "The young men of the present day like a good 2l6 THE DAY WILL COME. dinner. There isn't a third-rate club in London where the half-crown house dinner isn't better than the food we have here — better cooked and more plentiful." "Perhaps, if you helped mother a little things would be more comfortable than they are," remonstrated Laura, the younger sister, who generally took upon herself the part of Mentor. "You must know that her income isn't enough to keep up this place as it ought to be kept." "I don't know anything of the kind. I believe she is hoarding and scraping for you two girls; but she'll find by and by that she has been penny wise and pound foolish, for nobody worth having will ever propose to Juliet in such a dismal hole as this," continued the baronet, scornfully surveying the old-fashioned furniture, which had never been vivified by modern frivolities, or made more luxurious by modern inventions. "Juliet is not the beginning and end of our lives," replied Laura, sourly. "She has plenty of opportunities, if she were only capable of using them. I know her visiting costs a small fortune." "A very small one," said Juliet, "I have fewer gowns than any girl I meet, and have to give smaller tips when I am leaving. The servants are hardly civil to me when I go back to a house." "I daresay not," retorted Laura, "considering that you expect other people's maids to do more for you than your own maid would do, if you had one." Juliet sighed, and shrugged her graceful shoulders. "It is all very horrid and very sordid," she said, "and I wish I were dead." "I don't go so far as that," replied Laura, "but I wish with all my heart you were married, and that mother and I could live in peace." THE DAY WILL COME. 2 1 J All this meant that the handsome Miss Baldwin was seven- an d-twenty, and that although she had drunk the cup of praise from men and women, not one eligible man with place and fortune to offer had offered himself. Eligible men had admired and had praised and had flattered, and had ridden away, like the knight of old, and had married some other girl; a girl with money generally, an American girl sometimes. Juliet Baldwin hated the very name of Columbus. For want of some one better to flirt with, Juliet had flirted with Harrington Dalbrook. He was her junior by two years, and on his first visit to the Mount had suc- cumbed to her beauty, and to the charm of manners which somewhat exaggerated the progressive spirit of the smart world. Miss Baldwin was amused by her con- quest, though she had no idea of allowing her acquaint- ance with her brother's friend to travel beyond the strictest limits of that state of things which our neigh- bours call "flirtage." But "flirtage" now-a-days is some- what comprehensive; and with Juliet it went so far as to allow her admirer to gratify her with offerings of gloves and flowers for her ball-dresses, when she was staying with friends in Belgravia, and the young man was taking a holiday in London. It may be that the fascinations of this young lady had something to do with Harrington's failure to pass his Divinity examination, and with his subsequent renuncia- tion of the Church of England for the wider faith of the naturalist and the metaphysician. He told his family that he had got beyond Christianity as it was understood by Churchmen, and set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles. He had gone from the river to the sea, as he explained it, from the narrow banked-in river of orthodoxy to the 2 10 THE DAY WILL COME. wide ocean of the new faith — faith in humanity — faith in a universal brotherhood — faith in one's self as superior to anything else in the universe, past or present. In this enlightened attitude he had grasped at Theodore's offer, all the more eagerly, perhaps, because he had lately heard Juliet Baldwin's emphatic declaration apropos to nothing particular — that she would never marry a parson, and that the existence of a parson's wife in town or country seemed to her of all lives the most odious. Would she take more kindly to a lawyer, he asked himself with a sinking heart. Would a country practice, life in an old-fashioned house in an old-fashioned market- town, satisfy her ambition? He feared not. If he wanted that radiant creature for his wife, he must exchange country for town, Dorchester for Lincoln's Inn Fields, and a house in Chester Street, or at least Gloucester Place. She had been used to Belgravia; but she might perhaps tolerate the neighbourhood of Portman Square, the un- aristocratic sound of Baker Street, the convenience of Atlas omnibuses, until he should be able to start his brougham. Led on by this guiding star he told himself that what he had to do was to become learned in the law, parti- cularly in the science, art, and mystery of conveyancing, which branch of a family practice he believed to be at once dignified and lucrative. He had to make himself master of his profession, to make his experiments upon the inferior clay of Dorsetshire — upon farmers and small gentry — and then to persuade his father to buy him a London practice, an aristocratic London practice, such as should not call a blush to the cheek of a fashionable wife. He had met solicitors' wives who gave themselves all the airs of great ladies, and who talked as if the THE DAY WILL COME. 2IQ. Bench and the Bar were set in motion and kept going by their husbands. Such a wife would Juliet be could he be so blessed as to win her. The mild "flirtage," involving much tribute from the glover and the florist, the bookseller and the photographer, had been going on for nearly three years, and Harrington was tremendously in earnest. His sisters had encouraged him in his infatuation, thinking that it would be rather a nice thing to have a baronet as a family connection, and with a sneaking admiration for Sir Henry Baldwin's club- house manners, and slangy vocabulary, which had to be translated to them in the first instance by Harrington. They liked to be intimate with Miss Baldwin of the Mount, liked to see her smart little pony-cart waiting for an hour in front of the door in Cornhill, while the young lady prattled about her conquests, her frocks, and her parties, over the afternoon tea-table. True that she never talked about anybody but herself, except when she de- preciated a rival belle; but the background of her talk was the smart world, and that was a world of which Janet and her sister loved to hear, albeit "plain-living and high-thinking" was their motto. Sir Henry had a small hunting stud, and somewhat ungraciously allowed his elder sister an occasional mount, although, as he took care to impress upon her, he hated hunting women. For the pleasure of being in the young lady's society Harrington, who had no passion for horse- manship, became all of a sudden an ardent sportsman, borrowed his brother's cob, Peter, and was ultimately cajoled into the purchase of an elderly hunter, which was not quite quick enough for his friend Sir Henry. "You don't mean hunting in the shires, so pace is not of so much consequence to you as it is to me," said the 2 20 THE DAY WILL COME. baronet. "Mahmud will carry you beautifully in our country, and he's as quiet as a sheep." It is possible that this qualification of sheepishness was Mahmud's chief merit in Harrington's estimation. He was a black horse, and looked a good deal for the money. Sir Henry asked a hundred guineas for him, and finally took his friend's acceptance for eighty, and this transaction was the first burden of debt which Har- rington Dalbrook laid upon his shoulders after leaving the University. There had been college debts, and he had considerably exceeded a very liberal allowance, but his father had paid those debts to the last shilling; and one grave and stern remonstrance, with a few fatherly words of advice for the future, had been all that Har- rington had been called upon to endure. But he did not forget that his father had warned him against the con- sequences of any future folly. He felt rather uncomfortable when the black horse was brought to the door one hunting morning, and when his father happened to be in the front office, whence he could see the unknown animal. "Where did you get that black horse, Harrington? Is it a hire?" he asked. "No. The fact is I've bought him." "Have you really? You must be richer than I gave you credit for being if you can afford to buy yourself a hunter. He looks a well-bred one, but shows work. I hope you didn't give much for him." "No; I got him on easy terms." "Not on credit, I hope." "No; of course not. Sir Henry Baldwin sold him to me. I had saved a little out of my allowance, don't you know?" THE DAY WILL COME. 22 1 "I'm very glad to hear it. And now be off and get a good day's sport, if you can. I shall want you to stick to your desk to-morrow." Harrington took up his crop and hurried out, with a heart as heavy as lead. Never until to-day had he told his father a deliberate falsehood; but Matthew Dalbrook's searching look had frightened him out of his veracity. Only six months ago he had solemnly pledged himself to avoid debt, and he had broken his promise already, and owed eighty guineas for a beast which he could hardly hope to ride to hounds half-a-dozen times that season. He had involved himself for the beast's maintenance also, for his father's stables were full, and he had been obliged to put this new animal out at livery. He began to feel now that he had made a fool of himself; that he had been talked into buying a horse for which he had very little use. He was jogging along in a low-spirited way when Sir Henry and his sister came up behind him at a sharp trot, whereat Mahmud gave a buck-jump that almost unseated him. "The black looks a trine fresh this morning," said Sir Henry. "You'll take it out of him presently. He suits you capitally, and he's well up to your weight. I was a little bit too heavy for him. You'll find him go like old boots." Miss Baldwin, flushed with fresh air and exercise, looked more than usually brilliant. She was particularly amiable too; and when Harrington complained that he might not be able to give Mahmud enough work she offered to meet the difficulty. "Send him over to me whenever you don't want him," she said, cheerily. "I'll make him handy for you." The black gave another buck-jump, and Harrington 222 THE DAY WILL COME. felt inclined to lay him at her feet there and then. It was only the remembrance of that horrid slip of stamped paper, which had doubtless already been turned into cash by Sir Henry, which restrained him. He made up his mind to send Mahmud to Tattersall's at the end of the hunting season, to be sold without reserve. Juliet was riding a thorough-bred of which she was particularly fond, and was in very high spirits during the earlier part of the day; and in her lively society Harrington forgot the stamped paper, and graduallly got on good terms with his horse. Mahmud had, indeed, no fault but age. He knew a great deal better how to keep near the hounds than his new master, and promised to be a valuable acquisition. Harrington felt that he was distinguishing himself. "The black suits you down to the ground," shouted Sir Henry, in the middle of a run, as he bucketed past his friend upon a pulling chestnut that had no respect for anybody, but clove his way through the ruck of riders like a battering-ram. Sir Henry boasted of this animal that he never kicked a hound. "Small thanks to him," said the Master, "for he kicks everything else. Hounds are not good enough for him. He nearly smashed my leg last Monday." Harrington and Juliet did a good deal of quiet flirta- tion while the hounds were drawing a spinney rather late in the day, after a very good run and a kill. He told her all about the change in his position, and that he was to be his father's partner after a very short apprenticeship to the law. "And you will live in Dorchester all your life," said Juliet, with an involuntary disgust. THE DAY WILL COME. 22$ "Not if I can help it. I don't mean to vegetate in a dead-alive provincial town. My father has a London connection already, and all his business wants is a little new blood. I hope to start chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields before I am many years older. And if I should marry," he continued, faltering a little, "I could afford to have a house in the West End — May Fair or Belgravia, for instance." "Let it be May Fair, I beg — for your wife's sake, whoever she may be," exclaimed Juliet lightly. "A small house in Belgravia is an abomination. There is an atmosphere of invincible dreariness throughout that district which can only be redeemed by wealth and splendour. Perhaps it is because the place is on a level with Mill- bank. There is a flavour of the prison in the very air. Now, in Curzon or Hertford Street one breathes the air of the Park and Piccadilly, and one could exist in a band- box. But really now, Harrington, joking apart, is it not rather wild in a young man like you — not out of paternal leading-strings — to talk about marriage and housekeep- ing?" "One can't help thinking of the future. Besides, I am not so very young. I am four-and-twenty." Juliet laughed a short cynical laugh, which ended in a sigh. She wondered whether he knew that she was three years older. Brothers are such traitors. "I am four-and-twenty, and I feel that it is in me to succeed," concluded Harrington, with a comfortable vanity which he mistook for the self-confidence of genius. The hounds drew blank, and the riders jogged homewards presently, by lane and common, Sir Henry keeping in front with one of his particular friends, and 2 24 THE DAY WILL COME. talking horse-flesh all the way, while Juliet and Harrington followed slowly side by side in earnest conversation. He told her the history of his doubts, about which she did not care twopence — his "phases of faith and feeling," as he expressed it alliteratively. All she wanted to know was about his prospects — whether his father was as well off as he was said to be — she had heard people talk of him as a very rich man — those officious people who are always calculating other people's incomes, and descant- ing upon the little their neighbours spend, and the much that they must contrive to save. Juliet had heard a good deal of this kind of talk about Matthew Dalbrook, whose unpretentious and somewhat old-fashioned style of living gave an impression of reserved force — wealth invested and accumulating for a smarter generation. After all, perhaps, this young man, whose adoration was obvious, might not be a despicable partie. He might be pretty well off by-and-by, with a fourth, or better than a fourth, share of Matthew Dalbrook's scrapings — and he was Lord Cheriton's cousin, and therefore could hardly be called a nobody. Moved by these considerations, gravely weighed in the grave and grey November dusk, as they rode slowly between tall hedges, leafy still, but sear and red with the frost, Juliet felt inclined to let herself be engaged to her legal lover. She had been engaged to several people since she danced at her first ball. The bond did not count for very much in her mind. One could always slip out of that kind of thing, if it became inconvenient — one could manage with such tact that the man himself cried off, if one were afraid of being denounced as a jilt. Juliet and her lovers had always parted friends; and she wore more than one half-hoop of sapphires or of brilliants THE DAY WILL COME. 225 which had once played a solemn part as her engagement ring, but which had lapsed into a souvenir of friendship. She was not so foolish as to hasten matters. She wanted to see her way before her; and she opposed Harrington'" s youthful ardour with the calm savoir-faire of seven-and-twenty. She called him a foolish boy, and declared that they must cease to be friends if he insisted upon talking nonsense. She would have to accept a very urgent invitation to Lady Balgowny Brigg's Castle in Scotland, which she had been fencing with for years, if he made it difficult for them to meet. She threw him into a state of abject alarm by this stupendous threat. "I won't say a word you can take objection to," he protested, "though I can't think why you should object." "You forget that I have to study other people's ideas as well as my own," she answered gently. "I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that my mother would never speak to me again if I were engaged to you." "No doubt Lady Baldwin has higher views," the young man said meekly. "Much higher views. My poor mother belongs to the old school. She cannot forget that her grandfather was a marquis. It is foolish, but I suppose it is human nature. Don't let us talk any more about this nonsense. I like you very much as my brother's friend, and I shall go on liking you if you don't make me unhappy by talk- ing nonsense." Harrington took comfort from that one word "un- happy." It implied depths of feeling beneath that fashionable manner which held him at arm's length. o His spirits were somewhat dashed presently when Miss Baldwin looked with friendly contemptuousness at The Day will conie. I. 1 5 2 26 THE DAY WILL COME. his neat heather-mixture coat and mud-stained white cords, and said carelessly, — "It's a pity you don't belong to the Hunt. I fancy you would look rather nice in pink?" "I — I — have so lately given up the idea of the Church," he faltered. "Yes, but now you have given it up, you ought to be a member of the Hunt. Let my brother put you up at the next meeting. You are pretty sure of being elected, and then you can order your pink swallow-tail coat in time for the Hunt Ball in December." Harrington shivered. That would mean two red coats — a hunting coat and a dancing coat. But this idea of twenty pounds laid out upon coats was not the worst. Twenty years ago, when he had ridden as hard and kept as good horses as any member of the Hunt, Matthew Dalbrook had resolutely declined the honour of member- ship. He had considered that a provincial solicitor had other work than to ride to hounds twice or three times a week. He might allow himself that pleasure now and again as an occasional relaxation in a hard-working pro- fessional life; but it was not for him to spend long days tearing about the country with the men of whose lands and interests he was in some wise custodian. Theodore, who was at heart much more of a sports- man than his younger brother, had respected his father's old-fashioned prejudices, whatever line they took, and he had never allowed his name to be put up for the Hunt. He had subscribed liberally to the fund for contingent expenses, as his father and grandfather had done before him; but he had been content to forego the glory of a scarlet coat, and the privilege of the Hunt buttons. Harrington was not strong in that chief virtue of man, THE DAY WILL COME. 2 27 moral courage — the modern and loftier equivalent for that brute-courage which was the Roman's only idea of virtue. He felt that to acknowledge himself afraid to put up for election into the sacred circle of the Hunt lest he should offend his father, was to own by implication that a soli- citor was not quite upon the social level of landed gentry and retired military men, the colonels and majors who form the chief ornament of the average Hunt club. He murmured something to the effect that his father was not sporting, and wouldn't like him to waste too much time riding to hounds. "What does that matter?" exclaimed Juliet. "You needn't go out any oftener because you are a member of the Hunt. There are men who appear scarcely half-a- dozen times in a season — men who have left the neigh- bourhood, and only come down for a run now and then for old sake's sake." "I'll think it over," faltered Harrington. "Don't say anything to Sir Henry about it just yet." "As you please; but I shan't dance with you at the ball if you wear a black coat," said Juliet, giving her bridle a sharp little shake and trotting forward to join her brother. Mahmud, discomposed by that sudden start, gave a shambling elderly shy; Harrington pulled him up into a walk, and rode sulkily on, and allowed the other three riders to melt from him in the shades of evening. Yes, she was beautiful exceedingly, and it would be promotion for a country solicitor to be engaged to a girl of such high standing; but he felt that his relations with her were hedged round with difficulty. She was expensive herself, and a cause of expense in others. She had spent the brightest years of her girlhood in visiting in country 15* 2 28 THE DAY WILL COME. houses, where everything was on a grander scale than at the Mount. She had escaped from the barrenness of home to the mansions of noblemen and millionaires. She had strained all her energies towards one aim — to be popular, and to be asked to good houses. She had run the gauntlet of most of the best smoke-rooms in the three kingdoms, and had been talked about everywhere as the handsome Miss Baldwin. Yet her twenty-seventh birth- day had sounded, and she was Miss Baldwin still. Half- a-dozen times she had fancied herself upon the eve of a great success — such a marriage as would at once exalt her to the pinnacle of social distinction — and at the last moment, as it seemed, the man had changed his mind. Some malicious mother of ugly daughters, or disappointed spinster, had told the eligible suitor "things" about Miss Baldwin — harmless little deviations from the rigid lines of maidenly etiquette, and the suitor had cried off, fear- ing in his own succinct speech that he was going to be "had." At seven- and- twenty, damaged by the reputation of failure — spoken of by the initiated as "that handsome girl Maltravers so nearly married, don't you know?" — Miss Baldwin felt that all hope of a great match was over. The funeral bell of ambition had tolled. She began to grow reckless; eat her dinner and took her dry champagne with a masculine gusto; smoked as many cigarettes as a secretary of legation; read all the new French novels, and talked about them unreservedly with her partners; was keen upon racing, and loved euchre and nap. She had half made up her mind to throw herself away upon the first wealthy cotton-spinner she might meet up in the North when she allowed herself to be touched by Har- rington Dalbrook's somewhat boyish devotion, and began THE DAY WILL COME. 2 2 0, to wonder whether it might not be well for her to end her chequered career by a love match. He was good-looking, much better educated than her brother and her brother's set, and he adored her. But on the other hand he was utterly without any claims to be considered "smart," and marriage with him would mean at best bread and cheese — or would at least mean nothing better than bread and cheese until they should both be middle-aged, and she should have lost all sem- blance of a waist. She had met solicitors' wives in society who wore diamonds, and who hurried away from evening parties because they were afraid of their horses catching cold — a carefulness which to her mind implied that horses were a novelty. She had even heard of solicitors making big fortunes; but she concluded that those were excep- tional men, and she did not see in Harrington's character the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Moved by these mixed feelings she allowed her lover to dangle in a state of uncertainty, and to spend all his spare cash upon those airy nothings which a young lady of Miss Baldwin's easy temper will accept from even a casual admirer. He knew the glover whose gloves she approved, and she occasionally told him the colour of a gown in advance, so that he might give her a suitable fan; and she had, furthermore, an off-hand way of men- tioning any songs or new French novels she fancied. "How very sweet of you," she would say, when the songs or the books appeared, " but it is really too bad — I must never mention anything I want in your hearing. ,> In spite of which wise remark the volatile damsel went on mentioning things, and being surprised when her wishes were gratified. 23O THE DAY WILL COME. Miss Baldwin had met Lady Cheriton and her daughter both in town and country, and she and her people had been invited to garden parties at Cheriton Chase, but there had been no intimacy between the families. Lady Cheriton shrank with an inward terror from a young lady of such advanced opinions as those which dropped like pearls and diamonds — or like toads and adders — accord- ing to the idea of her hearers — from Miss Baldwin's lips. Rumours of the young man's infatuation had been con- veyed to the Priory by Lady Jane, and Harrington having gone to a family dinner at Milbrook was severely inter- rogated by his cousin. "I hope there is no truth in what I have heard about you, Harry," she said confidentially, when he was sitting by her in her favourite corner within the shadow of the tall screen. "I cannot answer that question until you tell me what you have heard," he replied with offended dignity. "Something that would make me very unhappy if it were true. I was told you were getting entangled with that Miss Baldwin." "I don't know why you should lay such an offensive emphasis upon the demonstrative pronoun. Miss Baldwin is beautiful and accomplished — and — I am very proud of being attached to her." "Has it gone so far as that, Harry? Are you actually engaged to her?" "I am not actually engaged — she has a right to look a good deal higher — but I hope to make her my wife as soon as I am in a position to marry. She has given me so much encouragement that I don't think she will refuse me when the right time comes." THE DAY WILL COME. 23 I "But, ray dear boy, she is always giving encourage- ment," exclaimed Juanita, anxiously. Dear little Lucy Grenville was at the piano at the other end of the room playing an infantile arrangement of "Batti, batti," with fingers of iron, while mother and grandmother hung over her enraptured, and while the rest of the family party talked their loudest, so the cousins in the nook by the fire were not afraid of being overheard. "She is the most encouraging young lady I ever heard of. She has jilted and been jilted a dozen times, I believe " "You believe," echoed Harrington, with intense in- dignation; "I wonder that a girl of your good sense — in most things — can give heed to such idle gossip." "Do you mean to say that she has not been jilted?" "Certainly not. I admit that her name has been associated with names of men in society. Silly people who write for the papers have given out things about her. She was to marry Lord Welbeck, Sir Humphrey Random — Heaven knows whom. A girl can't stay at big houses, and be admired as she has been, without all manner of reports getting about. But she is heartily sick of that kind of life, an endless web of unmeaning gaieties — that is what she herself called it. She will be very glad to settle down to a refined, quiet life — say, at the West End of London, with a victoria and brougham, and a small house, prettily furnished. One can furnish so prettily and so cheaply now-a-days," concluded Harring- ton, with his mind's eye upon certain illustrated adver- tisements he had seen of late — Jacobean dining-rooms — Sheraton drawing-rooms — for a mere song. "I have heard people say that a reformed rake makes 2 $2 THE DAY WILL COME. a good husband," said Juanita gravely, "but I have never heard that a reformed flirt makes a good wife." "It is a shame to talk like that, Juanita. Every hand- some girl is more or less a flirt. She can't help flirting. Men insist upon flirting with her." "Does your father know you mean to marry Miss Baldwin?" "No, I have never mentioned marriage to him. That will come in good time." "And do you think he will approve?" "I don't know. He is full of old-fashioned prejudices; but I don't see how he can object to my marrying into one of the county families." "Don't you think it will be more like Miss Baldwin marrying out of one of the county families? I'm afraid from what I know of her brother and of old Lady Bald- win they would both want her to marry money." "I suppose they have wanted that for the last four or five years," answered Harrington; "but it has not come off, and they must be satisfied if she chooses to marry for love." "Well, I mustn't plague you any more, Harry. I see your heart is too deeply involved. I hope Miss Baldwin is a nicer girl than I have ever thought her. Girls are sometimes prejudiced against each other." "Occasionally," said Harrington, with satirical em- phasis. Lucy finished "Batti, batti," with a final chord in the bass and a final twirl in the treble, and was pronounced by her grandmother to have achieved wonders. "Her time is a little uncertain," her mother remarked modestly; "but she has a magnificent ear. You should THE DAY WILL COME. 233 see her run to the window when there is an organ in the street." "Yes, mother," cried Johnny, "but she never stays to listen unless there is a monkey on the top." December came, and the Hunt Ball, at which more than one of Miss Baldwin's discarded or discarding ad- mirers were present. The young lady looked very hand- some in white satin and gauze, without a vestige of colour about her costume, and with her bodice cut with an audacity which is the peculiar privilege of dressmakers who live south of Oxford Street. The white gown set off Miss Baldwin's brilliant colouring, and looked well against the pink coats of her partners. Harrington's dress suit had been a thing of beauty and a joy to him when it came home from his London tailor's, folded as no human hands could ever fold it again, enshrined in layers of tissue-paper. His sisters had helped to unpack the tailor's parcel, and had ex- claimed at the extravagance of the corded-silk lapels and the satin sleeve-lining, and he had himself deemed that the archetypal coat could scarcely be more beautiful. Yet in this lurid ball-room he felt ashamed of his modest black twilled kersimere, and the insignificance of his white tie. The fox-hunters seemed to him to have it all their own way. Miss Baldwin, however, was not unkind. She danced with him oftener than with any one else, especially after supper, when she became unconscientious and forgetful as to her engagements, and when her card was found to hold twice as many names as there were dances, together with a pencil sketch of a lobster waltzing with a cham- pagne bottle, supplied by an unknown hand. 234 THE DAY WILL COME. It was a cold, clear night, and youth and imprudence were going in couples to the garden behind the ball-room for coolness between the dances, and to look at the frosty stars, which in the enthusiasm of girlhood were accepted as a novelty. Harrington and Juliet were among those who ventured into the garden, the lady wrapped in a great white fur cloak, which made her look like a hay- stack in a snow-piece. "Poor Doriscourt brought me this polar bear-skin," she said. "He shot the bear himself, at the risk of his life. I had asked him to bring me a skin when he came home." "You asked him to give you something for which he must risk his life, and yet you make a great fuss at ac- cepting Daudet's last novel from me," said Harrington, with tender reproachfulness. "Ah, but you and Doriscourt are so different," ex- claimed Juliet, rather contemptuously. "He was a great dare-devil, who would have come down hand-over-hand on a rope from the moon if there had been any way of getting up there." "What has become of him?" "Dead! He died a year ago — of drink, I'm afraid — lung-complaint complicated with del. trem. Poor fellow!" She breathed a deep sigh, with that little pensive air which in a young lady of experience is as much as to say, "He was the only man I ever loved," and then she turned the conversation and talked of the supper and the champagne, which she sweepingly condemned. Harrington hated that talk about the supper. He would have preferred talking of the stars like a school- girl, or Claude Melnotte, "wondering what star should be our home when love becomes immortal." To be told THE DAY WILL COME. 235 that the wine which now glowed in his veins and intensi- fied his passion was not worth three-and-sixpence a bottle jarred upon his finer feelings. "You are such a cynic," he said. "I think I shall never get any nearer to your real self — for I know there is a heart under that mocking vein." And then he repeated his simple story of a humble, devoted love — humble because the woman he loved was the loveliest among all womankind, and because she oc- cupied a higher plane than that on which his youth had been spent. "But you have taught me what ambition means," he said. "Only promise to be my wife and you shall see that I am in earnest — that it is in me to succeed." She had long been wavering — touched by his truth- fulness, his boyish devotion — very weary of life at the Mount, where the mother scolded and the sister sneered, where the underfed and underpaid servants were frankly disobliging, where her brother rarely saw his womankind except at meals, which periods of family life he enlivened by a good deal of strong language, grumbling at the cookery, and at the deterioration of landed property in general, and his own in particular. The rest of his home- life he spent in the billiard room or the stables, since he found the society of the saddle-room more congenial than the dreariness of the drawing-room, where his mother and sisters were not always on speaking terms. From such a house as the Mount — goodly and fair to look upon without as many other whited sepulchres — any escape would be welcome. Juliet felt that she was a great deal too good for a young man of uncertain pro- spects and humdrum surroundings; but he was very much in love, and he was good-looking, and in her own parti- 236 THE DAY WILL COME. cular phraseology she was beginning to be rather weak about him. She was so weak that she let him hold her unresisting hand as they stood side by side in the garden, and devour it with kisses. "You certainly ought to do well in the world," she said, sweetly; "for you are the most persistent person I ever knew." He looked round, saw that they were alone in the garden and clasped her in his arms, polar bear and all, and kissed the unresisting lips, as he had kissed the un- resisting hand. "My dearest," he exclaimed, "that means for life, does it not?" "You are taking everthing for granted," she said; "but I suppose it must be so. Only remember I don't want our engagement talked about till you are in a more assured position. My mother would make home a hell upon earth, if she knew." "I will do nothing rash, nothing that you do not ap- prove," replied Harrington, considerably relieved by this injunction; for although it was not Matthew Dalbrook's habit to make a pandemonium of the family circle, Harrington feared that he would strongly disapprove of such an alliance as that which his younger son had chosen for himself. He welcomed the idea of delay, hoping to be more firmly seated at the office desk before he must needs make the unpleasing avowal. "When my father finds I am valuable to him he will be more inclined to indulgence," he thought. THE DAY WILL COME. 2$"] CHAPTER XV. "For men have marble, women waxen, minds, And therefore are they formed as marble will; The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds, Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: Then call them not the authors of their ill." Inclination would have taken Theodore Dalbrook to Dorsetshire before the Christmas holidays gave him an excuse for going home; but he wrestled with that haunt- ing desire to revisit the Priory, and to be again tcte-a-tete with his cousin in the dimly-lighted room where she had talked to him of her own sorrows and of his ambitions. The memory of that last evening was the most vivid ele- ment in his life. It stood out like a spot of light against the dull grey of monotonous days, and the burden of dry-as-dust reading. But he had told her that he should not see her until Christmas time, and he was not weak enough to indulge that insane longing for the society of a woman whose heart was in the grave of her husband. November and the greater part of December stretched before him, like a long dark road which had to be trodden somehow before he came to the inn at which there would be light and comfort, cheerful voices, and friendly greet- ings. He set his face resolutely towards that dark pro- spect, and tramped along, doing the work he had to do, living the life of a hermit in those chambers in Ferret Court, which had already taken the stamp of his own character, and looked as if he had lived in them for years. He had no need to sit alone at night with his books and his lamp, for there were plenty of houses in which he would have been welcome. His name was a passport in legal circles. Old friends of James Dalbrook's were ready to welcome his kinsman to their tables, eager 238 THE DAY WILL COME. to be of service to him. He had his college friends, too, in the great city, and need not have gone companionless. But he was not in the mood for society of any kind, old or young, except the society of Blackstone, Coke, and Justinian, and divers other sages who out of the dim past shed their light upon the legal wilderness of the present. He sat by his fire and read law, and laid down his book only to smoke his meditative pipe and indulge in foolish waking dreams about that grave old house in Dorsetshire and the young widow who lived there. He had followed two of those three children of the old squire, two out of the three faces in the picture in the hall at Cheriton, to the end of their story. No man could discover any postscript to that story, which in each case was closed by a grave. There remained only one last unfinished record — the history of the runaway wife, the end whereof was open to doubt. That unlucky lady's fate had been accepted upon hearsay. It had been said that she had died at Boulogne, within a year or so after the Vicar met her there. Upon his return from Jersey, Theodore wrote to his father's oldest and most experienced clerk, begging him to hunt up the evidence of Mrs. Darcy's death, so far as it was obtainable at Cheriton or in the neighbourhood. The clerk replied as follows, after an interval of ten days: — "Dear Sir, — I have been twice to Cheriton, and have made inquiries, cautiously as you wished, with respect to the report of Mrs. Darcy's death, some fifteen years ago, and saw Mr. Dolby, the doctor, and Gaster at the general shop, who, as you are no doubt aware, is a gentleman who busies himself a good deal about other people's THE DAY WILL COME. 239 affairs, and sets himself up for being an authority upon most things. "Mr. Dolby I found very vague in his ideas. He re- membered the late vicar telling him about having met Mrs. Darcy in the market place at Boulogne, and being shocked at the change in her. He told Mr. Dolby that he did not think she was long for this world; but it was some time after when Dolby heard some one — he could not remember who it was — assert that Mrs. Darcy was dead. "Gaster had much more to say upon the subject. He pretends to be interested in all reminiscences of the Strangways, and boasts of having served Cheriton House for nearly forty years. He remembers Evelyn Strangway when she was a little girl, handsome and high-spirited. He remembered the report of her death at Boulogne getting about the village, and he remembered mentioning the fact to Lord Cheriton at the time. There was an election going on just then, and his lordship had looked in to consult him, Joseph Gaster, about certain business details: and his lordship seemed shocked to hear of the poor lady's death. 'I suppose that is the end of the family, my lord?' Gaster said, and his lordship replied, 'Yes, that is the end of the Strangways.' "Gaster believes that he must have read of the death in the newspapers; perhaps copied from the Times into a local paper; at any rate, the fact had implanted itself in his mind, and it had never occurred to him to doubt it. "I asked him if he knew what had become of the lady's husband, but here his mind is a blank. He had heard that the man was a scamp, and that was all he knew about him. "Since making these inquiries I have spent a long evening at the Literary Institute, where, as you know, 24O THE DAY WILL COME. there is a set of the Times , in volumes, extending over a period of forty years. I have looked through the deaths for three years, taking the year in which Gaster thinks he heard of Mrs. Darcy's death, as the middle year out of three, but without result. It is of course unlikely that the death would be advertised if the poor lady died friendless and in poverty in a foreign town; but I thought it my duty to make this investigation. "Awaiting your further commands, &c, &c." There was nothing conclusive in this; and Theodore felt that the history of Mrs. Darcy's later years remained to be unravelled. It was not to be supposed that the runaway wife, who, if she were yet living must be an elderly woman, could have had act or part in the murder of Sir Godfrey Carmichael; but it was not the less a part of his task to trace her story to its final chapter. Then only could he convince Juanita of the wildness of that idea which connected the catastrophe of the 29th of July with the exiled Strangways. When he could say to her, "You see that long before that fatal night the Squire's three children had vanished from this earth," she would be constrained to confess that the solution of the mystery was not to be sought here. He went over to Boulogne, saw the English chaplain, and several of the hotel-keepers. He explored the cemetery, and examined the record of the dead. He visited the police, and he made friends with the elderly editor of an old-established newspaper; but from all his questioning of various people the result was blank. No- body remembered a Mrs. Darcy, an Englishwoman of distinguished appearance but fallen fortunes, a woman long past youth and yet not old. If she had lived for any time in Boulogne she had left no trace of her exist- THE DAY WILL COME. 24 I ence; if she had died and been buried there she had left no record among the graves. Boulogne could tell him nothing. He came back to the great wilderness of London, the rallying point for all wanderers. It was there perhaps that the end of Evelyn Strangway was to be sought. He had, as it seemed to him, only one clue, the name of her governess. The governess was only seven or eight years older than the pupil, and she might have survived her pupil, and might have been in communica- tion with her till the end. Jasper Blake had told him that there was a strong attachment between Sarah Newton and the wayward girl she taught. To hunt for a governess among the thousands of portionless gentlewomen who try to live by teaching might seem more hopeless than the proverbial search for the lost needle, but Theodore did not despair. If Miss Newton had remained a spinster and had continued to exercise her vocation as a teacher she might be traced through one of those agencies which transact business be- tween governess and employer; but, on the other hand, if, as was more likely, she had long ago abandoned the profession of teacher, and had made some obscure mar- riage, she would have sunk into the vast ocean of middle- class life, in whose depths it would be almost impossible to discover her. The first thing to be done was to make a visitation of the agencies, and this task Theodore began two days after his return from Boulogne. He had methodized his life by this time, devoting a certain portion of his days to his cousin's interests, but in no wise neglecting the work he had to do for his own advancement. He had known too many instances of men who had made reading law an excuse for an idle and The Day will come. L 1 6 242 THE DAY WILL COME. desultory life, and he was resolved that his own course should be steady and persistent even to doggedness. He had been told that success at the Bar was now-a-days almost unattainable; that the men of the day who had conquered fame and were making great fortunes, were in a manner miraculous men, and that it was futile for any young man to hope to follow in their steps. The road they had trodden was barred against the new comer. Theodore listened to these pessimists, yet was not dis- couraged. He had told himself that he would emerge somehow from the obscurity of a country solicitor's prac- tice — would bring himself in some wise nearer the social level of the woman he loved, so that if in the days to come one gleam of hope should ever shine upon that love he might be able to say to her, "My place in life is the place your father held when he offered himself to your mother; my determination to conquer fortune is not less than his." He seldom passed the dingy door of the ground-floor chambers — on which the several names of three briefless ones were painted in dirty letters that had once been white — without thinking of his fortunate kinsman, without wondering what his life had been like in those darksome rooms, and in what shape fortune had first appeared to him. He had not married until he was forty. Long and lonely years had gone before that golden summertide of his life, when a young and lovely woman had given him happiness and fortune. How had he lived in those lonely years? Tradition accused him of miserly habits, of shabby raiment, of patient grinding and scraping to accumulate wealth. Theodore knew that if he had hoarded his earn- ings it had been for a worthy end. He had set himself to win a place among the lords of the soil. The land THE DAY WILL COME. 243 he loved had been to him as a mistress, and for that he had been content to live poorly and spend his nights in toil. For such miserliness Theodore had nothing but ad- miration; for he had seen how liberally the man who had scraped and hoarded was able to administer a large in- come — how generous as a master, friend, and patron the sometime miser had shown himself. He spent more than a week in visiting the numerous agencies which are employed by the great governess- class, and the result of that painstaking exploration was not altogether barren. He succeeded in finding an elderly personage at the head of an old-established Agency, who kept her books with praiseworthy regularity, and who re- membered Sarah Newton. She had had no less than four Miss Newtons on her register at different times, but there was only one Sarah Newton among them, and for this lady she had obtained a situation in the Lake country so lately as July 20, 1873 — that is to say, about eleven years before the period of Theodore's investigation. On that date Miss Newton had entered the family of a Mr. Craven — the vicar of a small parish between Amble- side and Bowness. She was living in that family four years afterwards, when Miss Palmer, the Principal in the Agency, last heard of her. "And in all probability she is living there still," said Miss Palmer. "At her time of life people are not fond of change. I remember her when she was a young woman, full of energy, and very impatient of control. I used to see her much oftener then. She seldom kept a situation over a twelve-month." "Except at Cheriton Chase. She was more than a year in that situation, I think." "Cheriton Chase! I don't remember the name. Some 16* 244 THE DAY WILL COME. one else may have got her the situation. How long ago was she there, do you suppose?" asked Miss Palmer, turning over one of her neat basil-bound registers. "It was in the year '47 she left Cheriton." "Ah, then, it was not we who got her the situation. My first entry about her is on the nth December, '48. She paid her entrance fee of one guinea on that date. It is higher than that of inferior agencies; but we take real trouble for our clients, and we make it our business to be safe upon the point of character. We are as careful about the families into which we send governesses as about the governesses we introduce into families." The next day was Sunday, and Theodore employed that day of rest in travelling by a very slow train to Bowness; where he arrived at five o'clock in the evening, to find mountain and lake hidden in densest grey, and an innkeeper who seemed neither to desire nor deserve visitors. Happily the traveller was of the age at which dinner is not a vital question, and he was hardly aware of the toughness of the steak, or the inferior quality of the codfish set before him in the desolate coffee room. He had a diamond Virgil in his pocket, and he sat by the fire reading the sixth book by the paraffin lamp till ten o'clock, and then went contentedly to a bedroom which suggested ghosts, or at least nightmare. No deadly visions troubled him, however, for the slow train had brought about a condition of abject weariness which resulted in dreamless slumber. The sun shone into his bleak bed-chamber when he awoke next morning, and the lake stretched beneath his windows, silver-shin- ing, melting dimly into the grey of the opposite shore. The mountains were sulking still, and only showed their rugged THE DAY WILL COME. 245 crests above dark rolling clouds; but the scene was an improvement upon the avenue of chimney-pots and distant glimpse of a murky Thames as seen from Ferret Court. His landlord greeted him in a more cheerful spirit upon Monday morning than he had evinced on Sunday evening when his after-dinner lethargy was rudely dis- turbed by a guest whose business-like air and small Glad- stone bag did not promise much profit; a visitor who would want a dinner off the joint, most likely, and a half- crown breakfast; a visitor whose libations would be limited to bitter beer and an occasional whisky and soda. Such a guest in a house that was beginning to hibernate was a burden rather than a boon. This morning, however, the landlord was reconciled to his solitary customer, having told his wife that after all, "little fish are sweet," and he went blithely to order the dog-cart — his own cart and own man — ostler in the season, coach- man or anything you please out of the season — to drive Mr. Dalbrook to Kettisford Vicarage, a nine-mile journey. It was a pretty, out-of-the-way nook — half hidden in a cleft of the hills — at which Theodore arrived a few minutes after noon; a little, old-fashioned, world-forgotten village, and a sprawling old grey-stone house, covered with Virginia creeper, passion-flower, and the feathery leafage of the trumpet ash; a long, low house, with heavily thatched roof, projecting over its upper case- ments; a sleepy-looking old house in a still sleepier gar- den, so remote and so sheltered that winter had forgot- ten to come there; and the great yellow roses were still blooming on the wall, fattened by the misty atmosphere of the adjacent lake, glorified by the untainted air. No- vember was half over, yet here the only signs of autumn were the grey sky, and the crimson of the Virginia creeper, 246 THE DAY WILL COME. The Vicar of Kettisford was one of those privileged persons who can speak with their enemies at the gate, assured of being backed up in their speech by a family contingent. The Vicarage seemed overflowing with young life, from the very threshold of the hall, where cricket- bats, a tricycle, a row of well-used tennis rackets, a stu- pendous array of hats, overcoats, and comforters, testified to that quiverful so esteemed in the patriarchal age. A conscientious performer was pounding at the "Harmonious Blacksmith" upon a wiry piano near at hand, having left the door wide open, with the indecent disregard of other people peculiar to juvenile performers upon all kinds of instruments. From the other side of the hall came the twanging of an equally wiry guitar, upon which girlish fingers began, and for ever re-com- menced a Spanish melody, which the performer was striving to attain by that agonizing process known among young ladies as "picking up" an air. Mark, gentle reader, what the learned and reverend Haweis has to say upon this art of playing by ear! From a remoter room came young voices and young laughter; and amidst all these sounds it was hardly sur- prising that Mr. Dalbrook had to ring three times, and to wait in front of the open hall door for at least ten minutes, before an elderly housemaid responded to his summons and ushered him into the Vicar's study, the one room in the Vicarage which was ever fit to receive a visitor. The Vicar was reading a newspaper in front of a comfortable fire. He was an elderly man, of genial and even jovial aspect, and he received Mr. Dalbrook's apolo- getic account of himself and his business with perfect good humour. THE DAY WILL COME. 247 "You want to see Miss Newton, my dear sir. I am sorry to tell you she left us nearly two years ago — heartily sorry, for Sarah Newton is a very worthy woman, and a jewel of price in a motherless family like mine," said the Vicar. "I regret that you should have come such a long way to find her when, had you written to me, I could have told you where to look for her in London." "Yes, it was a mistake to come so far without making preliminary inquiries — only, as she had not applied to her usual agent for a new situation, I concluded that she was still under your roof." "She has not gone into a new situation, Mr. Dalbrook. She was too much valued in this house to wish to change to another employment, although she might have lived more luxuriously and done less work elsewhere. She was a mother to my girls — ay, and to my boys as well — while she was with us; and she only left us when she made up her mind to live an independent life." "She has left off teaching, then, I conclude?" "Yes. She had a little bit of money left her by a bachelor uncle, safely invested in railway stock, and yield- ing about two hundred a year. This, with her own savings, made her an independent woman, and she made up her mind to realize her own ideal of a useful life — an ideal which had been developing in her mind for a good many years — a life which was to be serviceable to others, and yet pleasant to herself." "Do you mean that she joined some sisterhood?" "No, no, Mr. Dalbrook, Sarah Newton is much too fond of her own way, much too independent and fiery a spirit, to place herself in a position where other people would think for her, and where she would be obliged to obey. She told me her plan of life very frankly. 'I 248 THE DAY WILL COME. have about two hundred and sixty pounds a year,' she said; 'I can live comfortably upon half that money, if I live after a plan of my own; and I can do a great deal of good with the other half if I do it in my own way. I am elderly and plain. If I were to live amongst small gentilities I should be a nobody, and in all probability I should be considered a bore. I shall take a lodging in a poor neighbourhood , furnish my rooms with the utmost comfort, treat myself to a good piano, and collect my little library book by book from the second-hand book- sellers. I shall spend half my days in going quietly about among the poor young women of the district — I ought to know what girls are after nearly forty years' teaching and managing the species — and I shall spend half my income in doing as much good to them as I can, in my own un- orthodox way.' I knew the good that brave little soul had done in this parish, in her quiet, unpretentious fashion, and I felt no doubt she would carry out her plan." "Have you seen her since she left you?" "Yes, I went to see her last June when I had a fort- night's holiday in London. I found her in a shabby old house in Lambeth, not very far from St. Thomas's Hospital; but dingy as the house looked outside, our good Sally's apartments were the picture of comfort. I found her as happy as a bird. Her plan of life had an- swered her highest expectations. 'My friends are legion,' she said, 'but I haven't a single gentility among them.' Sally is a desperate Radical, you must know." "Will you give me her address, that I may write and ask her permission to call upon her?" "You shall have the address, but I doubt if she will feel disposed to receive you. She will count you among the gentilities." THE DAY WTLL COME. 2_L0, "I must try my chance at any rate. I want her to throw some light upon the history of one of her earliest pupils. Did you ever hear her talk of Cheriton Chase and the Strangway family?" "My dear sir, I have heard her talk of any number of places, and any number of people. I used to tell her she must be a female Methuselah to have passed through so many experiences. She was very fond of telling stories of the families in which she had lived, but though I used to listen I remember very little about them. My girls would remember better, I have no doubt. They can give you chapter and verse, I daresay; so the best thing you can do is to eat your luncheon with us, and then you can ask them as many questions as you like." Theodore accepted the offer with gratitude, and ten minutes afterwards followed the Vicar into the dining- room, where three tall, good-looking girls and two strag- gling youths were assembled, and where a fourth girl and another boy dropped in after the rest were seated. The board was spread with a plenteous but homely meal. A large dish of Irish stew smoked at one end of the table, and the remains of yesterday's roast ribs of beef appeared at the other. The girls were evidently accustomed to droppers in, and received Theodore with perfect equanimtiy. Alicia, the eldest, carved the beef with a commanding wrist, and the third daughter, Laura, administered to his appetite with pickled walnuts and mashed potatoes. The girls were all keenly interested directly he spoke of Miss Newton. They pronounced her a dear old thing, not a bit like a governess. "We all loved her," said Alicia; "and we are not the easiest girls to get on with, I can assure you. We have 250 THE DAY WILL COME. had two poor things since Sally deserted us, and we have driven them both away. And now we are enjoying an interregnum, and we hope the dear father will make it a long one." "Did you ever hear your governess talk of the Strang- ways, Miss Craven?" "What, Evelyn Strangway, of Cheriton Chase? I should think we did, indeed," cried Laura. "She had a good many prosy stories — chestnuts, we used to call them — but the Cheriton Chase stories were the most chest- nutty. It was her first situation, and she was never tired of talking about it." "Do you know if she kept up her acquaintance with Miss Strangway in after life?" asked Theodore. "I think not; at any rate, she never talked about that. She knew something about the poor girl's later life — something very bad, I think — for she would never tell us. She used to sigh and look very unhappy if the sub- ject was touched upon; and she used to warn us against runaway matches. As if any of us would be likely to run away from this dear old father?" protested Laura, leaning over the table to pat the Vicar's coat sleeve. "Why, he would let us marry chimney-sweeps rather than see us unhappy." There was a good deal more talk about Sarah Newton, her virtues and her little peculiarities, but nothing bearing upon Theodore's business, so he only stayed till luncheon was finished, and then wished the amiable Vicar and his family a friendly good-bye, offering to be of use to them in London at any time they might want some small busi- ness transacted there, and begging the Vicar to look him up at his chambers when he took his next holiday. "You may rely upon it I shall take you at your word," THE DAY WILL COME. 25 I said the parson cheerily. "You've no idea what a gay old dog I am when I am in town — the theatre every night, and a little bit of supper afterwards. I generally take one of my lads with me, though, to keep me out of mis- chief. Good-bye, and mind you don't fall in love with Sally Newton. She's old and ugly, but she's one of the most fascinating women I know." Theodore drove off in the dog-cart with all the Vicarage family at the gate waving their hands to him, as if he had been an old friend, and with four Vicarage dogs barking at him. He went back to London that night, and wrote to Miss Newton, asking leave to call upon her upon a matter relating to one of her old pupils on the following day. He should take silence to mean consent, and would be with her at four in the afternoon, if he did not receive a telegram to forbid him. He worked in his chambers all the morning, and at a little after three set out to walk to Lambeth. The address was 51, Wedgewood Street, near the Lambeth Road. It was not a long walk, and it was not a pleasant one, for a seasonable fog was gathering when Theodore left the Temple, and it thickened as he crossed West- minster Bridge, where the newly-lighted lamps made faint yellow patches in the dense brown atmosphere. Under these conditions it took him some time to find Wedgewood Street, and that particular house which had the honour of sheltering Sarah Newton. It was a very shabby old street. The shops were of the meanest order, and the houses which were not shops looked as if they were mostly let off to the struggling class of lodgers; but it was a street that had evidently seen better days, for the houses were large and substan- 252 THE DAY WILL COME. tially built, and the doorways had once been handsome and architectural — houses which had been the homes of prosperous citizens when Lambeth was out of town, and when the perfume of bean blossom and new mown hay found its way into Wedgewood Street. The ground-floor of Number 51 was occupied by a shoemaker, a shoemaker who had turned his parlour into a shop, who made to measure, but was not above executing repairs neatly. The front door being open, Theodore walked straight upstairs to the first-floor landing, where there was a neat little Doulton ware oil-lamp burning on a carved oak bracket, and where he saw Miss Newton's name painted in bold black letters upon a terra-cotta coloured door. The stairs were cleaner than they generally are in such a house, and the landing was spotless. He rang a bell, and the door was promptly opened by a lady, whom he took to be Miss Newton. She was rather below middle height, strongly built, but of a neat, compact figure. She was decidedly plain, and her iron grey hair was coarse and wiry; but she had large bright eyes which beamed with good nature and intelligence. Her black stuff gown and narrow linen collar, the knot of scarlet ribbon at her throat, and the linen cuffs turned back over perfectly-fitting sleeves, were all the pink of neatness, and suited her as no other kind of dress would have done. The trim figure, the bright eyes, and the small white hands made a favourable impression upon Theodore, in spite of the lady's homeliness of feature and complexion. "Walk in, Mr. Dalbrook," she said cheerily. "Pray come and sit by the fire, you must be chilled to the bone after coming through that horrid fog. Ah, how I hate fog. It is the scourge of the London poor, and it THE DAY WILL COME. 253 sometimes kills even the rich. And now we are only at the beginning of the evil, and there is the long winter before us." "Yes, it is very bad, no doubt; but you do not look as if the fog could do you much harm, Miss Newton." "No, it won't hurt me. I'm a hardy old plant, and I contrive to make myself comfortable at all seasons." "You do, indeed," he answered, glancing round the room. "I had no idea " "That anybody could be so comfortable in Lambeth," she said, interpreting his thoughts. "No, people think they must pay for what they call 'a good situation.' Poor pinched widows and shabby spinsters spend more than half their income on rent and taxes, and starve on the other half, in order to live in a genteel locality — some dingy little street in Pimlico perhaps, or a stucco terrace in Kensington. Here am I with two fine large rooms in a forgotten old street, which was built before the age of shoddy. I live among poor people, and am not obliged to sacrifice a sixpence for the sake of appearances. I buy everything in the cheapest market, and my neigh- bours look up to me, instead of looking down upon me, as they might if I lived among gentilities. You will say, perhaps, that I live in the midst of dirt and squalor. If I do I take care that none of it ever comes near me, and I do all that one woman's voice and one woman's pen can do to lessen the evils that I see about me." "It would be a good thing for poor neighbourhoods if there were many ladies of your mind, Miss Newton," said Theodore, basking in the glow of the fire, and looking lazily round the room, with its two well-filled bookcases, occupying the recesses on each side of the fireplace, its brackets and shelves, and hanging pockets, 2 54 THE DAY WILL COME. its large old-fashioned sofa, and substantial claw- footed table, its wicker chairs, cushioned with bright colour — its lamps and candle-sticks on shelf and bracket, ready to the hand when extra light should be wanted, its contriv- ances and handinesses of all kinds, which denoted the womanly inventiveness of the tenant. "Well, I believe it would. If only a small percentage of the lonely spinsters of England would make their abode among the poor, things would have to be mended some- how. There could not be such crying evils as there are if there were more eyes to see them, and more voices to protest against them. You like this old room of mine, I see, Mr. Dalbrook," added Sarah Newton, following his eyes as they surveyed the dark red wall against which the brackets and shelves, and books and photographs, and bits of old china stood out in bright relief. "I am full of admiration and surprise!" "It is all my own work. I h&d lived in other people's houses so long that I was charmed to have a home of my own, even in Lambeth. I was determined to spend very little money, and yet to make myself comfortable; so I just squatted in the next room for the first three months, with only a bedstead, a table, and a chair or two, while I prowled all over London to find the exact furniture I wanted. There's not an article in the room that did not take me weeks to find and to buy, and there's not an article that wasn't a tremendous bargain. But what an egotistical old prattler I am! Women who live much alone get to be dreadful prosers. I won't say another word about myself — at any rate, not till after I've made you a cup of tea after your cold walk." She had seen the mud upon his boots and guessed that he had walked from the Temple. THE DAY WILL COME. 255 "Pray do not take any trouble " "Nonsense; it is never trouble to a woman to make tea. I give a tea party twice a week. 1 hope you like tea?" "I adore it. But pray go on with your account of how you settled down here. I am warmly interested." "That's very good of you — but there's not much to tell about myself," said Miss Newton, producing some pretty old china out of an antique cupboard with glass doors, and setting out a little brass tea tray while she talked. There was a small copper kettle singing on the old- fashioned hob, and there was a covered dish of toast in the capacious fender. Miss Newton's dinners were ever of the slightest, but she was a sybarite as to her tea and toast. No cheap and powdery mixture; no "inferior Dosset" for her. She made her brew with a dainty precision which Theodore admired, while she went on talking. "Do you like the colour of the walls? Yes, I painted them. And you like that paper on the ceiling? I papered it. I am rather a dab at carpentering, too, and I put up all those shelves and brackets, and I covered the chairs, and stained the boards round that old Turkey carpet; and then, after a day's hard work, it was very pleasant to go and stroll about among the bookshops of an even- ing and pick up a volume here and there till I got all my old friends about me. I felt like Elia; only I had no Bridget to share my pleasure." She seated herself opposite to him with a wicker table in front of her, and began to pour out the tea. He wondered to find himself as much at home with her as if he had known her all his life. "It is very good of you to receive me so cordially," 256 THE DAY WILL COME. he said, presently. "I feel that I come to you as an un- authorized intruder." "Can you guess why I was willing to receive you?" she asked, looking at him intently and with a sudden gravity. "Can you guess why I didn't telegraph to for- bid your coming?" "Indeed, no, except because you are naturally kind." "My kindness had nothing to do with it. I was will- ing to see you because of your name. It is a very familiar name to me — Dalbrook, the name of the man who bought the house in which she was born. Poor soul, how she must have hated him, in her desolate after years. How she must have hated the race that ousted her from the home she loved." "You are talking of Evelyn Strangway!" "Yes, she was my first pupil, and I was very fond of her — all the fonder of her, perhaps, because she was wayward and difficult to manage: and because I was much too young and inexperienced to exercise any authority over her." "It is of her I want to talk to you, if you will allow me." "Certainly. I like talking of those old days when I was a girl. I don't suppose I was particularly happy at Cheriton Chase; but I was young, and we most of us hug the delusion that we were happy in our youth. Poor Evelyn — so often in disgrace — so. often unhappy, from the very dawn of girlhood. What reason can you have for being curious about her?" "I have a very strong reason, though I cannot explain it yet awhile. I have set myself to discover the history of that banished race." "After the angel with the naming sword stood at the gate — that is to say, after Mr. Dalbrook bought the pro- THE DAY WILL COME. 257 perty. By the by, what are you to Lord Cheriton? His son perhaps?" "No, I am only a distant cousin." "Is it on his account you are making these inquiries?" "He is not even aware that I am making them." "Indeed, and pray how did you find me out? My tea-parties are not recorded in the Society papers, I have never figured among 'Celebrities at Home.' " "I took some pains to find you," said Theodore, and then he told her of his visits to the agencies, and his journey to the Vicarage in Lakeland. "You have taken infinite trouble, and for a small re- sult. I can give you very little information about Evelyn Strangway — afterwards Mrs. Darcy." "Did you lose sight of her after you left Cheriton?" "Yes, for a long time. It was years before we met again; but she wrote to me several times from Lausanne, during the first year of her banishment; doleful letters, complaining bitterly of her father's cruelty in keeping her away from her beloved Cheriton, the horses and dogs, the life she loved. School she detested. She was clever, but she had no taste for intellectual pursuits. She soon wearied of the lake and the mountains, and the humdrum society of a small town. She wrote of herself as a galley- slave. Then came a sudden change, and she began to write about him. You don't know the way a girl writes about him; the first him she has ever thought worthy to be written about. Her tone was light enough at the be- ginning. She had met a young Irishman at a little evening party, and they had laughed together at Lausanne society. He was an officer, on furlough, full of wit and fun. I need not go into details. I saw her danger, and warned her; I reminded her that her father would never The Day will come, I, I "J 258 THE DAY WILL COME. allow her to marry a subaltern in a marching regiment, and that such a marriage would mean starvation. Her father could give her nothing; it was incumbent on her to marry well, and with her attractions she had only to wait for a good offer. It would inevitably come in due time." "She was handsome, I suppose? I know her face in the picture at Cheriton. My cousin bought all the old portraits." "She was much handsomer than the picture. That was painted when she was only fifteen, but at seventeen her beauty had developed, and she was one of the most brilliant blondes I ever saw. Well, I suppose you know how useless my advice was. She ran away with her Irish admirer, and I heard no more of her for nearly four years, when I met her one afternoon in the Strand, and she took me home to her lodging in Cecil Street, and gave me some tea. It was in October, and I stayed with her till dark, and then she insisted on seeing me off in the omnibus to Haverstock Hill, where I was then living in an artist's family. The lodgings were shabby, and she was shabbily dressed. She was as handsome as ever, but she looked worried and unhappy. Her husband had sold out of the army, and had a position as secretary to a West End club. "She told me that they would have been pretty well off but for his extravagance. He was getting four hundred a year, and they had no children. She complained that it was her fate to be allied with spendthrifts. Her father had squandered his fortune; and her husband's im- provident habits kept her in continual debt and difficulty. It grieved me to see the shabbiness of her surroundings — the squalid lodging-house parlour, without so much as a bunch of flowers or a stand of books to show that it THE DAY WILT. COME. 259 was in the occupation of a lady. There was a cigar-box on the mantelpiece, and there was a heap of newspapers on the sofa, and a pair of shabby slippers inside the fender. It was a room to make one shudder. I asked her if she was reconciled to her father, and she said no; she had heard nothing of him since her marriage. I felt very unhappy about her after we parted at Hungerford Market. I saw her standing on the pavement as the omnibus drove away, a tall, slim figure, distinguished- looking in spite of her shabby mantle and rusty black silk gown. I had promised to go and see her again, though I was very seldom at liberty at that time, and I went to Cecil Street two or three times in the course of the winter, but she was always out, and there was some- thing in the tone of her letters that made rne think she did not wish to see me again, though I believe she was fond of me ahvays, poor soul. I saw nothing more of her, and heard nothing until nearly four years afterwards, when I was spending an afternoon at Richmond with my pupils — tw r o girls of. fourteen and sixteen — and I came face to face with her in front of Thomson's Seat. She was with a tall, handsome man, whom at first I took to be her husband: but there was something in the manner of both of them that impressed me uncomfortably, and I began to fear that this was not her husband. She looked much brighter than when I saw her in Cecil Street, and she was better dressed — very plainly, but in excellent taste. She took me aside a little way while her com- panion stood and talked to the two girls. She put her arm through mine in her old caressing way, and then she said, abruptly, 'I almost wonder that you will speak to me. I thought you would cut me dead.' I looked puzzled, no doubt; so she said, 'Perhaps you don't know 200 THE DAY WILL COME. what a lost creature I am. Perhaps you have not heard/ I told her I had heard nothing about her since we parted at Hungerford Market, and then she gave a deep sigh, and said, 'Well, I am not going to deceive you. That/ with a jerk of her head towards the man who was stand- ing with his back to us, 'is not my husband, but he and I are bound together for the rest of our lives, and we are perfectly happy together. Society would scorn us and trample upon us no doubt if we gave it a chance; but we don't. We live out of the world, and we live for one another. Now, aren't you shocked with me? Don't you want to run away?' she asked, with a little laugh, which sounded as if she was very nearly crying. I told her that I was very sorry for her. I could say no more than that. 'You would be sorrier still if you could picture to yourself the miserable life I led before I left my hus- band/ she said. 'I bore it for five years, years that seemed an eternity. He cared for me no more than for the flower-girls in the street. He left me to pine in my dingy lodging, left me to be dunned and worried all day long, left me out-at-elbows, ashamed of my own shabbi- ness, while he amused himself at his club; and then he considered himself cruelly used when he found out there was another man in the world who thought me worth caring for, and when I told him I loved that man with all my heart. My leaving him was the impulse of a moment. The moment came when his brutality turned the scale, and I ran out of the house in my despair, and jumped into the first cab I could hail, and drove away to him/ pointing to the man in the distance, strolling beside my two gawky girls, 'and to happiness. I am a wicked wretch, no doubt, to be happy under such cir- cumstances, but I am, or, at any rate, as happy as any- THE DAY WILL COME. 201 body can hope to be in this world. There is always a thorn among the flowers,' she sighed, as if the thorn was a big one, I thought. 'I suppose I shall never see you again,' she said. 'When we say good-bye presently, it will be farewell for ever.' I told her that was not in- evitable. I was my own mistress, free to choose my friends. I told her that if ever she had need of a friend I would go to her. I felt that I was in some wise an- swerable for the bad turn her life had taken, for had I been a more judicious counsellor, I might have guided her better, might have prevented her coming into collision with her father. I asked her for her address, but she told me she had promised to tell nobody where she lived. 'We are living out of the world,' she said, 'we have no visitors, no friends or acquaintance.' She clasped my hands, kissed me, and hurried away to rejoin the man whose name I never learned. He lifted his hat to me and the girls, and they walked away together towards the Star and Garter, leaving us standing by Thomson's Seat, staring idly at the landscape in the summer sunlight. I felt dazed as I stood there, looking down into that lovely valley. It had been a terrible shock to me to meet her again under such circumstances." CHAPTER XVI. "Be useful where thou livest, that they may Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still. All worldly joys go less To the one joy of doing kindnesses." "What impression did the man make upon you in that brief meeting?" asked Theodore. "Did he strike you as a roue?" "No, that was the odd part of the business. He had 2 62 THE DAY WILL COME. the steady, respectable air of a bread-winner, a professional, or perhaps a commercial man. I could not tell which. There was nothing flashy or dissipated in his appearance. He looked me steadily in the face when he bowed to me at parting, and he had a frank, straightforward expression, and a grave decision of manner that was not without dignity. He was soberly dressed in a style that attracted no attention. I had no doubt that he was a gentleman." "He was handsome, you say?" "Yes, he was decidedly handsome — but I can re- member only the general character of his face, not features or details, for I saw him only twice in my life." "Ah, you saw him again?" "Once again — some years later, after her death." "She is dead, then?" cried Theodore; "that is the fact I am most anxious to learn from a reliable source of information. There was a rumour of her death years ago, but no one could give me any evidence of the fact. I went to Boulogne last week to try and trace her to her last resting-place; but I could discover neither tombstone nor record of any kind." "And yet it was at Boulogne she died. I will tell you all I know about her, if you like. It doesn't amount to much." "Pray, tell me everything you can. I am deeply grateful to you for having treated me with so much frank- ness." "It was on her account I received you. I am glad to talk to any one who is interested in her pitiful fate. There were so few to care for her. I think there is no lot more sad than that of a broken-down gentleman's daughter, born to an inheritance she is never to enjoy, brought up to think of herself as a personage, with a THE DAY WILL COME. 263 right to the world's respect, and finding herself friendless and penniless in the bloom of her womanhood, exposed to the world's contumely." Theodore's face flushed a little at this mention of his interest in the unhappy lady, for he could but feel that the interest was of a sinister kind; but he held his peace, and Miss Newton went on with her story. "It was ever so many years after that meeting in Richmond Park — I think it must have been nearly ten years — when I ran against that very man upon a windy March day in Folkestone. I had thought much and often of my poor girl in all those years, wondering how the world had used her, and whether the lover whom she trusted so implicitly had been true to her. I shuddered at the thought of what her fate might have been if he were false. I had never heard a word about her in all that time. I had seeen no report of a Divorce suit in the papers. I knew absolutely nothing of her history from the hour I parted with her by Thomson's Seat till I ran against that man in Folkestone. I am rather shy about speaking to strangers in a general way; but I was so anxious to know her fate that I stopped this man, whose very name was unknown to me, and asked him to tell me about my poor friend. He looked bewildered, as well he might, at being pounced upon in that manner. I explained that I was Evelyn Strangway's old governess, and that I was uneasy at having lost sight of her for so many years, and was very anxious to see her again. He looked troubled at my question, and he answered me gravely — 'I am sorry to say you will never do that. Your friend is dead.' I asked when she died, and where? He told me within the last month, and at Boulogne. I asked if he was with her at the last, and he said no; and then 264 THE DAY WILT, COME. he lifted his hat and muttered something about having very little time to get to the station. He was going to London by the next train it seemed, and he was evidently anxious to shake me off — but I was determined he should answer at least one more question. 'Was her husband with her when she died?' I asked. His face darkened at the question, which I suppose was a foolish one. 'Do you think it likely?' he said trying to move past me; but I had laid my hand upon his sleeve in my eagerness. 'Pray tell me that her end was not unhappy — and that she was penitent for her sins.' He looked very angry at this. 'If I stand here talking to you another minute I shall lose my train, madam,' he said, ' and I have important business in London this afternoon.' A fly came strolling by at this moment. He hailed it and jumped in, and he drove off into what Thomas Carlyle would call the Im- mensities. I never saw him again; I never knew his name, or calling, or place of abode, or anything about him. I can no more localize him than I can Goethe's Mephis- topheles. God knows how he treated my poor girl — whether he was kind or cruel; whether he was faithful to a dishonourable tie, or whether he held it as lightly as such ties have been held by the majority of men from Abraham downwards." The little woman's face flushed and her eyes filled as she gave vent to her feelings. "And this is all you know of Evelyn Strangway?" said Theodore, when she had finished. "This is all I know of her. And now tell me why you are so anxious to learn her history — you who can never have seen her face, except in the picture at Cheriton. I dressed her for that picture and sat by while it was painted." THE DAY WILL COME. 265 "I will tell you the motive of my curiosity," answered Theodore. "You have treated me so frankly that I feel I must not withhold my confidence from you. I know that I can rely upon your discretion." "I can talk, as you have just heard," said Miss Newton; "but I can be silent as the grave, when I like." "You must have read something about the murder at Cheriton last July." "I read a great deal about it. I took a morbid interest in the case, knowing the house so well in every cranny and corner. I could picture the scene as vividly as if I had seen the murdered man lying there. A most inexplicable murder, apparently motiveless." "Apparently motiveless. That fact has so preyed upon the widow's mind that she has imagined a motive. She has a strange fancy that one of the Strangways must have been the author of the crime. She has brooded over their images till her whole mind has become pos- sessed with the idea of one of that banished race, garner- ing his wrath for long years, until at last the hour came for a bloody revenge, and then striking a death-blow out of the dark — striking his fatal blow and vanishing from the sight of men, as if a phantom arm had been stretched out of the night to deal that blow. She has asked me to help her in discovering the murderer, and I am pledged to do my utmost towards that end. I am the more anxious to do so as I tremble for the consequences if she should be allowed to brood long upon this morbid fancy about the Strangways. I think, however, that with your help I have now laid that ghost. I have traced the two brothers to their graves; and I suppose we may accept the statement of the man you met at Folkestone as sufficient evidence of Mrs. Darcy's death; especially 2 66 THE DAY WILL CCrtrE. as it seems to fit in with the account of the then Vicar of Cheriton, who met her in Boulogne in the summer of '64 looking very ill and much aged." "It was in the spring of '65 I met that man at Folke- stone. I could find the exact date in my diary if you wished to be very precise about it, for it is one of my old-maidish ways to be very regular in keeping my diary. Poor Evelyn! To think that anyone should be mad enough to suspect her of being capable of murder — or Fred or Reginald. They had the Strangway temper, all three of them; and a fiery temper it was when it was roused, a temper that led to family quarrels and all sorts of unhappiness; but murder is a different kind of thing." "That is the question," said Theodore gravely. "Is there such a wide gulf between the temper that makes family quarrels, sets father against son, and brother against brother, and the temper that pulls a trigger or uses a bowie-knife? I thought they were one and the same thing in actual quality, and that the result was dependent upon circumstances." "Oh, don't talk like that please. Murder is some- thing exceptional — a hideous solecism in nature — and in this case why murder? What had Sir Godfrey Carmichael done that any member of the Strangway family should want to kill him?" "I tell you that the idea is a wild one, the morbid growth of my cousin's sorrow." "Of course it is. I am very sorry for her, poor soul. I don't suppose any woman could suffer more than she must have suffered. It is a dreadful story. And she was very fond of her husband, I daresay." "She adored him. They had been lovers almost from her childhood. There never were a more devoted bride THE DAY WILL COAIE. 267 and bridegroom. Their honeymoon was not even begin- ning to wane. They were still lovers, still in a state of sweet surprise at finding themselves husband and wife. Poor girl, I saw her the day before the murder, a brilliant creature, the very spirit of joy. I saw her the morning after, a spectre, with awful eyes and marble face — more dreadful to look upon than her murdered husband." "It is all too sad," sighed Miss Newton. "I begin to think that Cheriton is a fatal house, and that no one can be happy there. However, you can tell this poor lady that the Strangways are exonerated from any part in her misery." "I shall write to her to-night to that effect. And now, Miss Newton, let me thank you once more for your friendly frankness, and wish you good night." ''Don't be in such a hurry, Mr. Dalbrook. I like your face, and I should like to see you again some day, if you can find time to waste an hour upon an old maid in such a God-forsaken place as Wedgewood Street." "I shall think an hour so spent most delightfully employed," answered Theodore, who was quite subjugated by the charm of this little person and her surroundings. He did not remember having ever sat in a room he liked better than this first-floor front in Wedgewood Street, with its terra-cotta walls, prettily-bound books, curious oddments of old china, and comfortable curtains of creamy workhouse-sheeting, with a bold vermilion border worked by Sarah Newton's indefatigable fingers. "I should very much like to hear all about your life in this — strange neighbourhood," he said. "There is not much to tell. When my little fortune — left by my uncle, the drysalter — fell in to me I was a lonely old woman, without one surviving relative for whom 268 THE DAY WILL COME. I cared twopence. I was pretty tired of teaching French and German — God knows how many hundred times I must have gone through Ollendorff in both languages — and I've done him a good many times in Italian, par- dessus le marche. Perhaps I might have held on for a year or two longer, as I was very fond of those nice girls and boys at Kettisford Vicarage, if it hadn't been for Ollendorff. He decided me. Leila, the youngest girl, had only just begun that accursed book. She was blun- dering over 'the baker's golden candlestick' the very morning I got the lawyer's letter to tell me of my uncle's death, and the will, and the legacy. I snatched the book out of her hand, and shut it with a bang. ' Ain't I to do any more Ollendorff, Sally?' she asked. 'You may do as much as you like, my love,' I said, 'but you'll do no more with me. I'm a millionaire, or at least I feel as rich and independent as if I were a Rothschild.' Well, I lay awake all that night making plans for my life, and trying to think out how I could get the most comfort out of my little fortune, enjoy my declining years, have every- thing I wanted, and yet be of some use to my fellow- creatures; and the end of it was that I made up my mind to take a roomy lodging in a poor neighbourhood, where I should not be tempted to spend a penny upon appearances, furnish it after my own heart, and make myself happy in just my own way, without caring a straw what anybody thought about me. I knew that I was plain as well as elderly, that I could never be admired, or cut a figure in the genteel world, so I determined to renounce the gentilities altogether and to be looked up to in a little world of my own." "And you have found your plan answer " "It has answered beyond my hopes. Ever since I THE DAY WILL COME. 269 was thirty years of age and had finished with all young ideas and day-dreams, I had one particular ideal of earthly bliss, and that was the position of a country squire's wife — an energetic, active, well-meaning woman, the central figure in a rural village, having her model cottages and her allotment gardens, her infirmary, her mission-house — the good genius of her little community, a queen in miniature, and without political entanglements, or menace of foreign war. Now it could never be my lot to reign on a landed estate, to build cottages, or cut up fertile meadows for cottagers' gardens; but I thought by taking up my abode in a poor neighbourhood, and visiting in a friendly, familiar way — no tracts or preachings — among the most respectable of the inhabitants, and slowly feeling my way among the difficult subjects, I might gradually acquire an influence just as strong as that of the Lady Bountiful in a country parish, and might come to be as useful in my small way as the squire's wife with her larger means. And I have done it," added Miss Newton triumphantly. "There are rooms in this street and in other streets that are to me my model cottages. There are overworked, underfed women who look up to me as their Providence. # There are children who come and hang to my skirts as I pass along the streets. There are great hulking men who ask my advice and get me to write their letters for them. What could a squire's wife have more than that? And yet I have only a hundred and fifty pounds a year to spend upon my people." "You give them something more than money. You give them sympathy — the magnetism of your strong and generous nature." "Ah, there is something in that. Magnetism is a good word. There must be some reason why people 27O THE DAY WILL COME. attach themselves so ardently to Mr. Gladstone, don't you know, some charm in him that holds them almost in spite of themselves, and makes them think as he thinks, and veer as he veers. Yes, they swing round with him like the boats going round with the tide, and they can't help it any more than the boats can. And I think, to com- pare small things with great, there must be some touch of that magnetic power in me/ 3 concluded Miss Newton. "I am sure of it," said Theodore, "and I am sure, too, that you must be like a spot of light in this dark little world of yours." "I live among my friends. That is the point," ex- plained Miss Newton. "I don't come from Belgravia, or from a fashionable terrace in Kensington, and tell them they ought to keep their wretched rooms cleaner, and open their windows and put flower-pots on their window- sills. I live here, and they can come and see how I keep my rooms, and judge for themselves. Their landlord is my landlord; and a nice life I lead him about water, and whitewash, and drains. He is thoroughly afraid of me, I am happy to say, and generally bolts round a corner when he sees me in the street; but I am too quick for his over-fed legs. I tackle him about all his shortcomings, and he finds it easier to spend a few pounds upon his property now and then than to have me upon his heels at every turn; so now Crook's tenements have quite a reputation in Lambeth. If you were to see the old dragon you would wonder at my pluck in attacking him, I can assure you." "Your whole life is wonderful to me, Miss Newton; and I only wish there were hundreds of women in this big city living just as you live. Tell me, please, what kind of people your neighbours are." THE DAY WILL COME. 2 7 I "Oh, there are people of all kinds, some of course who are quite impracticable, for whom I can do nothing; but there are many more who are glad of my friendship, and who receive me with open arms. The single women and widows are my chief friends, and some of those I know as well as if we had been brought up and educated upon the same social level. They are workwomen of all kinds, tailoresses, shirt-makers, girls who work for military outfitters, extra hands for Court dressmakers, shop-girls at the humbler class of shops, shoe-binders, artincial-nWer- makers. I wonder whether you would like to see some of them." "I should like it very much indeed." "Then perhaps you will come to one of my tea-parties. I give two tea-parties a week all the winter, to just as many of my women friends as this room will hold. It holds about twenty very comfortably, so I make twenty- five the outside limit. We rather enjoy a little bit of a crush — and I give my invitations so that they all have such pleasure as I can give them, fairly, turn and turn about. We do not begin our evening too early, for the working hours are precious to my poor things. We take tea at eight o'clock, and we seldom separate before half- past eleven — just as if we were at a theatre. We have a little music, a little reading and recitation, and sometimes a round game at cards. When we are in a wild humour we play dumb-crambo, or even puss-in-the-corner; and we have always a great deal of talk. We sit round this fire-place in a double semi-circle, the younger ones sitting on the rug in front of us elders, and we talk, and talk, and talk — about ourselves mostly, and you can't think what good it does us. Surely God gave man speech as the 272 THE DAY WILL COME. universal safety valve. It lets off half our troubles, and half our sense of the world's injustice." "Please let me come to your very next party," said Theodore, smiling at the little woman's ardour. "That will be to-morrow evening," replied Miss Newton. "I shall have to make an excuse for your appearance, as we very seldom invite a man. You will have to read or recite something, as a reason for your being asked, don't you know." "I will not recoil even from that test. I have distin- guished myself occasionally at a Penny Reading. Am I to be tragic — or comic?" "Be both if you can. We like to laugh; but we revel in something that makes us cry desperately. If you could give us something creepy into the bargain, freeze our blood with a ghost or two, it would be all the more enjoyable." "I will satiate you with my talents; I shall feel like Pentheus when he intruded upon his mother and her crew, and shall be humbly grateful for not being torn to pieces morally, in the way of criticism. Good night, and a thousand thanks." "Wait," said Miss Newton. "I'm afraid it is much fog- gier than when you came. I have smelt the fog coming on while we have been talking. Wouldn't you like a cab?" "I should very much, but I doubt if I shall succeed in finding one." "You wouldn't, but I daresay I can get you one," replied Miss Newton, decisively. She had an unobtrusive little chatelaine at her side, and from the bunch of implements, scissors, penknife, thimble, she selected a small whistle. Then she pulled THE DAY WILL COME. 2J $ back one of the cream-white curtains, opened the window, and whistled loud and shrill into the fog. Two minutes afterwards there came a small treble voice out of the darkness. "What is it, Miss Newton?" "Who's that?" "Tommy Meadows." "All right, Tommy. Do you think you could find a hansom without getting yourself run over?" "Rather! Do you want it bringed to your door, Miss?" "If you please, Tommy." "I'm off," cried the shrill voice, and in less than ten minutes a two- wheeler rattled along the street, and drew up sharply at Tommy's treble command, with Tommy himself seated inside, enjoying the drive and the un- certainty of the driver. His spirits were still further exalted by the gift of sixpence from Theodore as he stepped into the cab , to be taken back to the Temple at a foot pace. Even that sitting-room of his, which he had taken pains to make comfortable and home-like, had a gloomy look after that bright room in Lambeth, with its terra- cotta walls and cream-coloured curtains, its gaily-bound books and vivid Vallauris vases perched in every avail- able corner. He was more interested in that quaint interior, and in the woman who had created it, than he had been in any one except that one woman who filled the chief place in all his thoughts. The Vicar of Kettisford had not over-estimated Sarah Newton's power of fascination. He was in Wedgewood Street at a few minutes before eight on the following evening. The sky above Lambeth was no longer obscured; there were wintry stars shining over that forest of chimney pots and everlasting monotony The Day will come. I. 1 8 274 THE DAY WILL C0ME - of slated roofs; and even Lambeth looked lively with its costers' barrows and bustle of eventide marketing. Theo- dore found the door open, as it had been yesterday, and he found an extra lamp upon the first floor landing, and the door of Miss Newton's room ajar, while from within came the sound of many voices, moderated to a subdued tone, but still lively. His modest knock was answered by Miss Newton herself, who was standing close to the door, ready to greet every fresh arrival. "How do you do? We are nearly all here," she said, cheerily. "I hope you have not just been dining, for with us tea means a hearty meal, and if you can't eat any- thing we shall feel as if you were Banquo's ghost. How do you do, Mrs. Kirby," to another arrival. "Baby better, I hope? Yes, that's right. How are you, Clara? and you, Rose? You've had that wretched tooth out — I can see it in your face. Such a relief, isn't it? So glad to see you, Susan Dale, and you, Maria, and you, Jenny. Why we are all here, I do believe." "Yes, Miss Newton," said a bright-looking girl by the fire-place, who had been making toast indefatigably for twenty minutes, and whose complexion had suffered ac- cordingly. "There are two-and-twenty of us, four-and- twenty, counting the gentleman and you. I think that's as many as you expected." "Yes, everybody's here. So we may as well begin tea." In most such assemblies where the intention was to benefit a humble class of guests, the proceedings would have begun with a hymn; but at Miss Newton's parties there were neither hymns nor prayers — and yet Miss Newton loved her hymn-book, and delighted in the pathos THE DAY WILL COME. 275 and the sweetness of the music with which those familiar words are interwoven; nor would she yield to anybody in her belief in the efficacy of prayer; but she had made up her mind from the beginning that her tea-parties were to be pure and simple recreation, and that any good which should come out of them was to come incidentally. The women and girls who came at her bidding were to feel they came to be entertained, came as her guests, just as, had they been duchesses, they might have gone to visit other duchesses in Park Lane or Carlton Gardens* They were not asked in order that they should be taught, or preached to, or wheedled into the praying of prayers or the singing of hymns. They went as equals to visit a friend who relished their society. And did not everybody relish the tea, which might be described as a Yorkshire tea of a humble order; not the Yorkshire tea which may mean mayonnaise and peri- gord pie, chicken and champagne — but tea as understood in the Potteries of Hull, or the humbler alleys and streets of Leeds or Bradford. Three moderate-sized tables had been put together to make one capacious board, spread with snowy damask, upon which appeared two large plum loaves, two tall towers of bread and butter, a glass bowl of marmalade, a bowl of jam, two dishes of thinly-sliced German sausage set off with sprigs of parsley — German sausage bought at the most respectable ham and beef shop in the Borough, and as trustworthy as German sausage can be; and for crowning glory of the feast a plentiful supply of shrimps, freshly boiled, savouring of the unseen sea. The hot buttered toast was frizzling on a brass footman in front of the fire ready to be handed round piping hot, as required. There were two tea-trays, one at each end of the table, and there were two bright 18* 276 THE DAY WILL COME. copper kettles, which had never been defiled by the smoke of the fire, filled with admirable tea. Miss Newton took her place at the head of the table, with Theodore on her right hand, and a pale and fragile looking young woman on her left. These two assisted the hostess in the administration of the tea-tray, handing cups and saucers, sugar-basin and cream jug; and in so doing they had frequent occasion to look at each other. Having gone there prepared to be interested, Theodore soon began to interest himself in this young woman, whom Miss Newton addressed as Marian. She was by no means beautiful now, but Theodore fancied that she had once been very handsome, and he occupied himself in reconstructing the beauty of the past from the wreck of the present. The lines of the face were classic in their regularity, but the hollow cheeks and pallid complexion told of care and toil, and the face was aged untimely by a hard and joyless life. The eyes were darkest grey, large and pathetic- looking, the eyes of a woman who had suffered much and thought much. The beauty of those eyes gave a mourn- ful charm to the pale pinched face, and the light auburn hair was still luxuriant. Theodore noted the delicate hands and taper fingers, which differed curiously from the hands which were busy around the hospitable board. He could see that this young woman was a favourite with Sarah Newton, and he told himself that she was of a race apart from the rest; but he was agreeably surprised in finding that except for the prevailing Cockney accent, and a few slight lapses in grammar and pronunciation, Miss Newton's guests were quite as refined as those ladies of Dorchester with whom it had been his privilege to as- sociate; indeed, he was not sure that he did not prefer the Cockney twang and the faulty grammar to the second- THE DAY WILL COME. 277 hand smartness and slang of the young ladies whose "Awfully jolly,'"' "Ain't it," and "Don't you know," had so often irritated his ear on tennis lawn or at afternoon tea. Here at least there was the unstudied speech of people who knew not the caprices of fashion or the latest catch word that had descended from Belgravia to Bromp- ton, and from Brompton to the provinces. There was a great deal of talk, as Miss Newton had told him there would be; and as she encouraged all her guests to talk about themselves, he gathered a good deal of interesting information about the state of the different trades and the ways and manners of various employers, most of whom seemed to be of a despotic and grasping temper. The widows talked of their children's ailments or their progress at the Board School; the girls talked a little, and with all modesty, of their sweethearts. Sarah Newton was interested in every detail of those humble lives, and seemed to remember every fact bearing upon the joys or the sorrows of her guests. It was a wonder to Theodore, to see how the care-worn faces lighted up round the cheerful table in the lamp-light. Yes, it was surely a good thing to live among these daughters of toil, and to lighten their burdens by this quick sympathy, this cheerful hospitality. Vast Pleasure Halls and People's Palaces may do much for the million; but here was one little spinster with her small income making an atmosphere of friendliness and comfort for the few, and able to get a great deal nearer to them than Philanthropy on a gigantic scale can ever get to the many. Theodore noticed that while most other tongues babbled freely, the girl called Marian sat silent, after her task of distributing the tea was over, with hands folded in her lap, listening to the voices round her, and with a soft 278 THE DAY WILL COAIE. slow smile lighting her face now and then. In repose her countenance was deeply sad, and he found himself specu- lating upon the history that had left those melancholy lines upon a face that was still young. "I am much interested in your next neighbour," he said to Miss Newton, presently, while Marian was helping another girl to clear the table. "I feel sure there must be something very sad in her experience of life, and that she has sunk from a higher level." "So do I," answered Miss Newton, "but I know very little more about her than you do, except that she is a most exquisite worker with those taper fingers of hers, and that she has worked for the same baby-linen house for the last three years, and has lived in the same second- floor back in Hercules' Buildings. I think she is as fond of me as she can be, yet she has never told me where she was born, or who her people were, or what her life has been like. Once she went so far as to tell me that it had been a very common-place life, and that her troubles had been in nowise extraordinary — except the fact of her having had a very severe attack of typhus fever, which left her a wreck. Once from some chance allusion I learnt that it was in Italy she caught the fever, and that it was badly treated by a foreign doctor; but that one fact is all she ever let slip in her talk, so carefully does she avoid every mention of the past. I need hardly tell you that I have never questioned her. I have reason to know that her life for the last three years has been spotless, an industrious, temperate, Christian life, and that she is charitable and kind to those who are poorer than herself. That is quite enough for me, and I have encouraged her to make a friend of me in every way in my power." "She is happy in having found such a friend, an in- THE DAY WILL COME. 2jg valuable friend to a woman who has sunk from happier surroundings." "Yes, I think I have been a comfort to her. She comes to me for books, and we meet nearly every day at the Free Library, and compare notes about our read- ing. My only regret is that I cannot induce her to take enough air and exercise. She spends all the time that she can spare from her needlework in reading. But I take her for a walk now and then, and I think she en- joys that. A penn'orth of the tramcar carries us to Bat- tersea Park, and we can stroll about amongst grass and trees, and in sight of the river. She is better off than most of the girls in the way of getting a little rest after toil, for that fine, delicate needlework of hers pays better than the common run of work, and she is the quickest worker I know." The tables were cleared by this time, and space had been made for that half-circle round the fire of which Miss Newton had spoken on the previous night. The younger girls brought hassocks and cushions, and seated themselves in the front rank, while their elders sat in the outer row of chairs. Theodore was now called upon to contribute his share to the entertainment, and thereupon took a book from his pocket. "You told me you and your friends were fond of creepy stories, Miss Newton," he said. "Is that really so?" "Really and truly." "And you are none of you afflicted with weak nerves — you are not afraid of being made uncomfortable by the memory of a ghastly story?" "No. I think that with most of us the cares of life 28o THE DAY WILL COME. are too real and too absorbing to leave any room in our minds for imaginary horrors. Isn't it so, now, friends?" "Lor, yes, Miss Newton," answered one of the girls, briskly: "we're all of us too busy to worry about ghosts; but I love a ghost tale for all that." A chorus of voices echoed this assertion. "Then, ladies, I shall have the honour of reading the 'Haunters and the Haunted,' by Bulwer Lytton." The very title of the story thrilled them, and the whole party, just now so noisy with eager talk and frequent laughter, sat breathless, looking at the reader with awe- stricken eyes as that wonderful story slowly unwound itself. Theodore read well, in that subdued and semi-dramatic style which is best adapted to chamber-reading. He felt what he read, and the horror of the imaginary scene was vividly before his eyes as he got deeper into the story. The reading lasted nearly two hours, but it was not one moment too long for Theodore's audience, and there was a sigh of regret when the last words of the story had been spoken. "Well," exclaimed one young lady, "I do call that a first-class tale, don't you, Miss Newton?" "You may go a long way without getting such a ghost tale as that," said another; "and don't the gentleman read beautifully, and don't he make one feel as if it was all going on in this very room? And the dog too! There, I never see such a thing! A poor dog to drop down dead, like that." "I did hope that there dog would come to life again at the end," said one damsel. By way of diversion after the story, Miss Newton opened her piano, beckoned three of the girls over to her, and played the symphony of "Blow, Gentle Gales," THE DAY WILL COME. 20 1 which old-fashioned glee the three girls sang with taste and discretion, the bass part being altered to suit a female voice. Then came some songs, all of which Miss Newton accompanied; and then at her request Theodore read again, this time selecting Holmes' "Wonderful One-Horse Shay," which caused much laughter; after which the little clock on the chimney-piece having struck eleven, he wished his hostess good-night, selected his coat and hat from among the heap of jackets and hats on a table on the landing, and went downstairs. He was still in Wedgewood Street when he heard light footsteps coming quickly behind him. It seemed to him that they were trying to overtake him, so he turned and met the owner of the feet. "I beg your pardon, sir; forgive me for following you," said a very gentle voice, which he recognised as belong- ing to the girl called Marian, "I wanted so much to speak to you — alone." "And I am glad of the opportunity of speaking to you," he answered. "I felt particularly interested in you this evening — there are some faces, you know, which in- terest us in spite of ourselves almost, and I felt that I should like to know more of you." This was so gravely said that there was no possibility of an offensive construction being given to the words. "You are very good, sir. It was your name that struck me," she answered, falteringly; "it is a Dorset- shire name, I think." "Yes, it is a Dorsetshire name, and I am a Dor- chester man." "Dorchester," she repeated slowly. "I wonder whether you know a place called Cheriton?" 282 JHE DAY WILL COME. "I know it very well, indeed. A kinsman of mine lives there. Lord Cheriton is my cousin." "I thought as much, directly I heard your name. You must know all about that dreadful murder, then — last summer?" "Yes, I know about as much of it as any one knows, and that is very little." "They have not found the murderer?" she asked, with a faint shudder. "No, nor are they ever likely to find him, I believe. But tell me why you are interested in Cheriton. Do you come from that part of the country?" "Yes." "Were you born in Cheriton village?" "I was brought up not far from there," she answered, hesitatingly. He remembered what Miss Newton had told him of her own forbearance in asking questions, and he pursued the inquiry no further. "May I see you as far as your lodgings?" he said, kindly. "It will be very little out of my way." "No thank you, Mr. Dalbrook. I am too*much ac- customed to going about alone ever to want any escort. Good night, and thank you for having answered my ques- tions." Her manner showed a disinclination to prolong the interview, and she walked away with hurried steps which carried her swiftly into the darkness. "Poor lonely soul," he said to himself. "Now, whose lost sheep is she, I wonder? She is certainly of a rank above a cottager's daughter, and with those hands of hers it is clear she has never been in domestic service. Not far from Cheriton? What may that mean? Not far THE DAY WILL COME. 283 is a vague description of locality. I must ask Lady Cheriton about her the next time I am at the Chase." CHAPTER XVII. "A mind not to be changed by place or time." Christmas at Dorchester was not a period of festivity to which Theodore Dalbrook had hitherto looked forward with ardent expectations, but in this particular December he found himself longing for that holiday season even as a schoolboy might long for release from Latin Grammar and suet pudding, and for the plenteous fare and idle days of home. He longed for the grave old town with its Roman relics and leafless avenues; longed for it, alas! not so much because his father, brother, and sisters dwelt there, as because it was within a possible drive of Milbrook Priory, and once being at Dorchester he had a fair excuse for going to see his cousin. Many and many a time in his chambers at the Temple he had felt the fever-fit so strongly upon him that he was tempted to put on his hat, rush out of those quiet courts and stony quadrangles to the bustle of the Embankment, spring into the first hansom that came within hail, and so to Waterloo, and by any train that would carry him to Ware- ham Station, and thence to the Priory, only to look upon Juanita's face for a little while, only to hold her hand in his, once at greeting and once at parting, and then back into the night and the loneliness of his life, and law books and precedents, and Justinian and Chitty, and all that is commonplace and dry-as-dust in man's existence. He had refrained from such foolishness, and now Christmas was at hand, his sisters were making the house odious with holly and laurel, the old cook was chopping 284 THE DAY WILL COME. suet for the traditional pudding which he had loathed for the last ten years, and he had a fair excuse for driv- ing along the frosty roads to visit his widowed cousin. He had a pressing invitation from Lord Cheriton to spend two or three days of his holiday time at the Chase, an invitation which he had promptly accepted; but his first visit was to Lady Carmichael. He found the house in all things unlike what it had been when last he saw it. The dear Grenvilles had been persuaded to spend their Christmas in Dorsetshire, and the Priory was full of children's voices, and the traces of children's occupation. Theodore had known Jessica Gren- ville before her marriage, yet it was not the less a shock to find himself confronted by a portly matron and a brood of children in that room where he had seen Juanita's sad face bent over her embroidery. There was no trace of Juanita in the spacious drawing-room to-day, and the fact of her absence almost unhinged him, and put him at a disadvantage in his conversation when Mrs. Grenville, who received him with gracious loquacity, and insisted upon his giving an immediate opinion upon the different degrees of family likeness to be seen in her four chil- dren there present. "These two are decided Carmichaels," she said, put- ting forward a rather flabby boy and a pudding-faced girl, "and the other two are thorough Grenvilles," in- dicating the latter and younger pair, who were seated on the floor building a Tower of Babel with a lately re- ceived present of bricks, and carrying out the idea by their own confusion of tongues. Theodore felt glad he was not a Grenville if that was the type. He murmured some vague civility about the children, while he shook hands with Lady Jane, who had THE DAY WILL COME. 285 come forward shyly to welcome him, almost obliterated by her more loquacious daughter. "Don't you think Johnnie the very image of his poor dear uncle?" asked Mrs. Grenville urgently, a question which always agonized Lady Jane, who could not see the faintest likeness between her snub-nosed and bilious-look- ing grandchild and her handsome son. Theodore was too nervous to be conscious of his own untruthfulness in replying in the affirmative. He was anxious to have done with the children, and to hear about his cousin. "I hope Juanita is not ill?" he said. "Oh, no, she is pretty well," replied Lady Jane, "but we keep her as quiet as we can, and of course the children are rather trying for her " "Nobody can say that they are noisy children," interjected the happy mother. "So she seldom leaves her own rooms till the even- ing," continued Lady Jane. "You would like to see her at once, I daresay, Mr. Dalbrook? And I know she will be pleased to see you." She rang, and told the footman to inquire if Lady Carmichael was ready to see Mr. Dalbrook, and Theodore had to occupy the interval until the footman's return with polite attentions to the four children. He asked Lucy whence she had obtained those delightful bricks, thereby eliciting the information that the bricks were not Lucy's, but Godolphin's, only he "let her play with them," as he observed magnanimously. He was gratified with the further information that the tower now in process of elevation was not a church, but the Tower of Babel; and he was then treated to the history of that remarkable building as related in Holy Writ. 286 THE DAY WILL COME. "You didn't know that, did you?" remarked Godol- phin boastfully, when he had finished his narration in a harsh bawl, being one of those coarse brats whom their parents boast of as after the pattern of the infant Hercules. The footman returned before Godolphin had wrung a confession of ignorance from the nervous visitor, and Theodore darted up to follow him out of the room. He found Juanita reclining on a low couch near the fire in a dimly-lighted room, that room which he remem- bered having entered only once before, on the occasion of an afternoon party at the Priory, when Sir Godfrey had taken him to his den to show him a newly acquired folio copy of Thomson's Seasons, with the famous Barto- lozzi mezzotints. It was a good old room, especially at this wintry season, when the dulness of the outlook was of little consequence. The firelight gleamed cheerily on the rich bindings of the books, and on the dark wood- work, and fondly touched Juanita's reclining figure and the rich folds of her dark plush tea-gown. "How good of you to come to see me so soon, Theo- dore," she said, giving him her hand. "I know you only came to Dorchester yesterday. The girls were here the day before, and told me they expected you." "You did not think I should be in the county very long without finding my way here, did you, Juanita?" "Well, no, perhaps not. I know what a true friend you are. And now tell me, have you made any further discoveries?" "One more discovery, Juanita, as I told you briefly in my last letter. I have traced the Squire's daughter to the sad close of a most unhappy life — and so ends the Strangway family as you know of their existence — that is to say, those three Strangways who had some THE DAY WILL COME. 287 right to feel themselves aggrieved by the loss of the land upon which they were born." "Tell me all you heard from IMiss Newton. Your letter was brief and vague, but as I knew I was to see you at Christmas I waited for fuller details. Tell me everything, Theodore." He obeyed her, and related the bitter, common-place story of Evelyn Strangway's life, as told him by her old governess. There were no elements of romance in the story. It was as common as the Divorce Court or the daily papers. "Poor creature! Well, there ends my theory, at least about her," said Juanita gloomily. "Her brothers were dead, and she was dead, long before that fatal night. Did they bequeath their vengeance to any one else, I wonder? Who else is there in this world who had reason to hate my father or me? And I know that no creature upon this earth could have cause to hate my husband." "In your father's calling there is always a possibility of a deadly hate, inexplicable, unknown to the subject. Remember the fate of Lord Mayo. A judge who holds the keys of life and death must make many enemies." "Yes," she sighed, "there is that to be thought of. Oh, my dearest and best, why did you ever link your life with that of a Judge's daughter? I feel as if I had lured him to his doom. I might have foreseen the danger. I ought never to have married. What right had I? Some discharged felon lay in wait for him — some relentless, Godless, hopeless wretch — whom my father had con- demned to long imprisonment — whose angry heart my father had scorched with his scathing speech. I have read some of his summings up, and they have seemed cruel, cruel, cruel — so cold, so deliberate, so like a god making light of the sins of men. Some wretch, coming 2 88 THE DAY WILL COME. maddened out of his silent cell, and seeing my husband — that white, pure life, that brave, strong youth — prosper- ous, honoured, happy — seeing what a good man's life can be — lay in wait like a tiger, to destroy that happy life. If it was not one of the Strangways who killed him, it must have been such a man." Her eyes shone, and her cheeks flushed with a feverish red. Theodore took her hand, held it in both his own, and bent to kiss the cold fingers — not with a lover's ardour, fondly as he loved; but with a calm and brotherly affection which soothed her agitated heart. He loved her well enough to be able to subjugate himself for her sake. "My dear Juanita, if you would only withdraw your thoughts from this ghastly subject! I will not ask you to forget. That may be impossible. I entreat you only to be patient, to leave the chastisement of crime to Pro- vidence, which works in the dark, works silently, in- evitably, to the end for which we can only grope in a lame and helpless fashion. Be sure the murderer will stand revealed sooner or later. That cruel murder mil not be his last crime, and in his next act of violence he may be less fortunate in escaping every human eye. Or if that act is to be the one solitary crime of his life something will happen to betray him — some oversight of his own, or some irrepressible movement of a guilty con- science will give his life to the net, as a bird flies into a trap. I beseech you, dear, let your thoughts dwell upon less painful subjects — for your own sake — for the sake — " He faltered, and left his sentence unfinished, and Juanita knew that his sisters had told him something. She knew that the one hope of her blighted life, hope which she had hardly recognised as hope yet awhile, was known to him. THE DAY WILL COME. 200, "I can never cease to think of that night, or to pray that God will avenge that crime," she said, firmly. "You think that is an unchristian prayer perhaps, but what does the Scripture say? ' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Christ came to con- firm that righteous law. Oh! it is well to be a humani- tarian — to sign petitions against capital punishment — but let your nearest and dearest be murdered, and you will be quick to recognise the justice of that old inexorable law — a life for a life. That is what / want, Theodore — the life of the man who killed my husband.'' "If I can help to bring about that end, Juanita, be- lieve me that I will not shrink from the task; but at pre- sent I must own that I am off the track, and see no likelihood of succeeding where a trained detective has failed. Could I but find a shred of evidence to put me on the trail, I would pursue that clue to the bitter end; but so far all is dark." "Yes, all is dark!" she answered, dejectedly; and then, after a pause, she said, "You are going to stay at Cheriton, I hear?" "I am to spend three days there at the turn of the year, just before I go back to London. I have chambers in Ferret-court, over the rooms in which your father spent the golden- years of his youth, the years that made him a great man. It will be very interesting to me to hear him talk over those years, if I can beguile him into talk- ing of himself, a subject which he so seldom dwells upon." "Ask him if he ever made a bitter enemy. Ask him for his experience as a Judge at Assizes — find out, if you can, whether he ever provoked the hatred of a bad vindictive man." "I will question your father, Juanita." The Day will come. I. ig 290 THE DAY WILL COME. "Do! He will not let me talk to him about the one subject that occupies my mind. He always stops me on the threshold of any inquiries. He might surely help me to find the murderer, with his highly trained intellect, with his experience of the darkest side of human nature. But he will not help me. He would talk more freely to you, no doubt." "I will sound him," answered Theodore, and then he tried to beguile her into talking of other things — her home, her surroundings. "It must be a comfort to you to have Lady Jane." "A comfort! She is all that I have of happiness — all that reminds me of Godfrey. My mother and father are very dear to me- — I hope you believe that, Theodore? — but our lives are parted now. My mother is wrapped up in her husband. Neither of them can sympathise with me as his mother can. Their loss is not the same as ours. We two are one in our grief." "And she is a buffer between you and the outer world I see. She bears the burdens that would weigh you down. Those children, for instance — no doubt they are charming, as children go; but I fancy they would worry you if you had too much of them." "They would kill me," said Juanita, smiling at him for the first time in their interview. "I am not very fond of children. It sounds unwomanly to say so, but I often find myself wishing they could be born grown up. For- tunately, Lady Jane adores them. And I am glad to have the Grenvilles at Christmas time. I want all things to be as they would have been were my dearest here. I lie here and look round this room, which was his, and think and think, and think of him till I almost fancy he is here. Idle fancy! Mocking dream! Oh! if you knew THE DAY WILL COME. 20,1 how often I dream that he is living still, and that I am still his happy wife. I dream that he has been dead — or at least that we have all believed that he was dead — but that it was a mistake. He is alive; our own for long years to come. The wild rapture of that dream wakes me, and I know that I am alone. God keep you, Theo- dore, from such a loss as mine!" "I must gain something before I can lose it," he an- swered, with a shade of bitterness. "I see myself, as the years go on, hardening into a lonely old bachelor, out- living the capacity for human affection." "That is nonsense-talk. You think so just now, per- haps. There is no one beyond your own family you care for, and you fancy yourself shut out from the romance of life — but your day will come, very suddenly, perhaps. You will see some one whom you can care for. Love will enter your life unawares, and will fill your heart and mind, and the ambition that absorbs you now will seem a small thing." "Never, Juanita. I don't mean to plague you with any trouble of mine. You have given me your friendship, and I hope to be worthy of it; but pray do not talk to me of the chances of the future. My future is bounded by the hope of getting on at the Bar. If I fail in that I fail in everything." "You will not fail. There is no reason you should not prosper in your profession as my father prospered. I often think that you are like him — more like him than you are like your own father." Their talk touched on various subjects after this — on the great events of the world, the events that make his- tory — on books and theatres, and then upon Sarah New- ton, whose plan of life interested Juanita. 19* 292 THE DAY WILL COME. He told her of the girl called Marian, and her in- quiries about Cheriton. "I wonder if you ever knew her among your villagers," he said. "I should much like to know who she is. She interests me more than I can say. There is a refinement in her manners and appearance that convinces me she must have belonged to superior people. She was never born in a labourer's cottage, or amidst a small shop- keeper's shabby surroundings. She was never taught at a National School, or broken into domestic service." "And she was once very handsome, you say?" "Yes, she must have been beautiful, before illness and trouble set their marks upon her face. She is only a wreck now, but there is beauty in the wreck." "How old do you suppose her to be?" "Eight or nine-and-twenty. It is difficult to guess a woman's age within two or three years, and this woman's face is evidently aged by trouble; but I don't think she can be thirty." "There is only one person I can think of who would in any manner answer your description," said Juanita, thoughtfully. "Who is that?" "Mercy Porter. You must have heard about Mercy Porter, the daughter of the woman at the West Lodge." "Yes, yes, I remember. She ran away with a middle- aged man — an army man— one of your father's visitors." "I was a child at the time, and of course I heard very little about it. I only knew that Mercy Porter who used to come to tea with mother, and who played the piano better than my governess, suddenly vanished out of our lives, and that T never saw her again. My mother was quite fond of her, and I remember hearing of her THE DAY WILL COME. 293 beauty, though I was too young myself to know what beauty meant. I could not think any one pretty who wore such plain frocks, and such stout useful boots as Mercy wore. Her mother certainly did nothing to set off her good looks, or to instil vanity. Years after, my mother told me how the girl disappeared one summer evening, and how Mrs. Porter came distracted to the house, and saw my father, and stormed and raved at him in her agony, saying it was his friend who had blighted her daughter's youth — his work that she had gone to her ruin. He was very patient and forbearing with her, my mother said, for he pitied her despair, and he felt that he was in some wise to blame for having brought such an unprincipled man as Colonel Tremaine to Cheriton, a man who had carried ruin into many homes. Mercy had been seen to leave Wareham Station with him by the night mail. He had a yacht at Weymouth. She wrote to her mother from London a fortnight afterwards, and Mrs. Porter brought the letter to my mother and father one morning, as they sat at breakfast. It was a heart- broken letter — the letter of a poor foolish girl who flings away her good name and her hope of Heaven, with her eyes open, and knows the cost of her sacrifice, and yet can't help making it. I was engaged to Godfrey when I first heard Mercy's story, and I felt so sorry for her, so sorry, in the midst of my happy love. What had I done to deserve happiness more than she, that life should be so bright for me and so dark for her? I did not know that my day of agony was to come." "Did you ever hear how Colonel Tremaine treated her?" "No! I believe my father wrote him a very severe letter, and called upon him to repair the wrong he had done; but I don't think he even took so much trouble as 294 THE DAY WILL COME. to answer that letter. His regiment was ordered off to India two or three years afterwards, and he was killed in Afghanistan about six years ago." "And has nothing been heard of Mercy since her flight?" "Nothing." "I wonder her mother has sat at home quietly all these years instead of making strenuous efforts to find her lost lamb," said Theodore. "Ah, that is almost exactly what Godfrey said of her. He seemed to think her heartless for taking things so quietly. She is a curious woman — self-contained, and silent. I sometimes fancy she was more angry than grieved at Mercy's fate. Mother says she turns to ice at the slightest mention of the girl's name. Don't you think love would show itself differently?" "One can never be sure about other people's senti- ments. Love has many languages." Their talk drifted to more common-place subjects. And then Theodore rose to take leave. "You must dine at the Priory before your holiday is over, Theo," said his cousin, as they shook hands. "Let me see — to morrow will be Christmas Day — will you come the day after, and bring the sisters? It is too long a drive for a winter night, so you must stay, there is plenty of room." "Are you sure we shall not bore you?" "I am sure you will cheer me. My sister-in-law is very good — but Lady Jane is the only person in this house of whom I do not get desperately tired, including myself," she added, with a sigh. "Please say you will come, and I will order your rooms." "We will come then. Good night, Juanita." THE DAY WILL COME. 295 The shadows were falling as he drove away, after re- fusing tea in the drawing-room and a further acquaintance with the wonderful children. He looked forward to that evening at the Priory with an eager expectancy that he knew to be supreme foolish- ness, and when the evening came, it brought some measure of disappointment with it. Juanita was not so well as she had been upon Christmas Eve. She was not able to dine downstairs, and the family dinner, at which the Etonian Tom, Johnnie, and Lucy were allowed to take their places in virtue of Christmas time, was a dull busi- ness for Theodore. His only pleasure was in the fact that he sat on Lady Jane's right hand, and was able to talk with her of Juanita. Even that pleasure was alloyed with keenest pain; for Lady Jane's talk was of that dead love which cast its shadow over Juanita's youth, or of that dim and dawning hope which might brighten the coming days — and neither in the love of the past nor in the love of the future had Theodore any part. Juanita was on her sofa by the drawing-room fire when he and Mr. Grenville left the dining-room, after a single glass of claret, and a brief review of the political situation. Theo- dore's sisters were established on each side of her. There was no chance for him while they were absorbing her attention, and he retired disconsolately to the group in the middle of the room, where Mrs. Grenville and Lady Jane were seated on a capacious ottoman with the chil- dren about them. Johnnie and Lucy, who had over-eaten themselves, were disposed to be quiet, the little girl leaning her fair curls and fat shining cheek against her grandmother's shoulder with an air that looked touching, but which really indicated repletion; Johnnie sprawling on the carpet 2g6 THE DAY WILL COME. at his mother's feet, and wishing he had not eaten that mince-pie, telling himself that, on the whole, he hated mince-pie, and envying his brother Tom, who had stolen off to the saddle-room to talk to the grooms. Godolphin and Mabel having dined early, were full of exuberance, waiting to be "jumped," which entertainment Theodore had to provide without intermission for nearly half-an- hour, upheaving first one and then another towards the ceiling, first a rosy bundle in ruby velvet, and then a rosy bundle in white muslin, laughing, screaming, en- raptured, to be caught in his arms, and set carefully on the ground, there to await the next turn. Theodore slaved at this recreation until his arms ached, casting a furtive glance every now and then at the corner by the fireplace where his sisters were treating Juanita to the result of their latest heavy reading. At last, to his delight, Lucy recovered from her coma- tose condition, and began to thirst for amusement. "Let's have magic music," she said, "we can all play at that, Granny and all. You know you love magic music, Granny. Who'll play the piano? Not mother, she plays so badly," added the darling, with child-like candour. "Sophy shall play for you," cried Theodore, "she's a capital hand at it." He went over to his sister. "Go and play for the children, Sophy," he said. "I've been doing my duty. Go and do yours." Sophy looked agonised, but complied; and he slipped into her vacant seat. He sat by his cousin's side for nearly an hour, while the children, mother, and grandmother played their nursery game to the sound of dance-music, now low, now loud, neatly executed by Sophy's accurate fingers. THE DAY WILL COME. 2 97 Their talk was of indifferent subjects, and the lion's share of the conversation was enjoyed by Janet; but to Theodore it was bliss to be there, by his cousin's side, within sound of her low melodious voice , within touch of her tapering hand. Just to sit there, and watch her face, and drink in the tones of her voice, was enough. He asked no more from Fate, yet awhile. He had a long talk with her in her own room next morning before he went back to Dorchester, and the talk was of that old subject which absorbed her thoughts. "Be sure you find out all you can from my father," she said at parting. Life at Cheriton Chase bore no slight impress of the tragedy that had blighted Juanita's honeymoon. There were no festivities this winter; there was no large house- party. There had been a few quiet elderly, or middle-aged visitors during the shooting season, and there had been some slaughter of those pheasants which were wont to sit, ponderous and sleepy as barn-door fowls, upon the five-barred gates, and post-and-rail fences of the Chase. But even those sober guests — old friends of husband and wife — had all departed, and the house was empty of strangers when Theodore arrived there, in time for dinner on New Year's Eve. Nothing could have suited him better than this. He wanted to be tete-a-tete with Lord Cheriton; to glean all in the way of counsel or reminiscence that might fall from those wise lips. "If there is a man living who can teach me how to get on in my profession it is James Dalbrook," he said to himself, thinking of his cousin by that name which he had so often heard his father use when talking of old days. Lady Cheriton greeted him affectionately, made him 2 go THE DAY WILL COME. sit by her in the library, where a richly-embroidered Japanese screen made a cosy corner by the fireplace, during the twenty minutes before dinner. She was a handsome woman still, with that grand-looking Spanish beauty which does not fade with youth, and she was dressed to perfection in lustreless black silk, relieved by the glitter of jet here and there, and by the soft white crape kerchief, worn a la Marie- Antoinette. There was not one thread of grey in the rich black hair, piled in massive plaits upon the prettily shaped head. Theodore contemplated her with an almost worshipping admiration. It was Juanita's face he saw in those classic lines. "I want to have a good talk with you, Theo," she said; "there is no one else to whom I can talk so freely now my poor Godfrey is gone. We sit here of an even- ing, now, you see. The drawing-room is only used when there are people in the house, and even then I feel miserable there. I cannot get his image out of my mind. Cheriton insists that the room shall be used, that it shall not be made a haunted room — and no doubt it is best so — but one cannot forget such a tragedy as that." "I hope Juanita will forget some day." "Ah, that is what I try to hope. She is so young, at the very beginning of life, and it does seem hard that all those hopes for which other women live should be over and done with for her. I wish I could believe in the power of Time to cure her. I wish I could believe that she will be able to love somebody else as she loved Godfrey. If she does, I daresay it will be some new person who has had nothing to do with her past life. I had been in and out of love before I met James Dal- brook, but the sight of him seemed like the beginning of a new life. I felt as if it had been preordained that I THE DAY WILL COME. 299 was to love him, and only him — that nothing else had been real. Yes, Theodore," with a sigh, "you may de- pend if ever she should care for anybody, it will be a new person." "Very lucky for the new person, and rather hard upon any one who happens to have loved her all his life." "Is there any one — like that?" "I think you know there is, Lady Cheriton." "Yes, yes, my dear boy, I know," she answered kindly, laying her soft hand upon his. "I won't pretend not to know. I wish, with all my heart, you could make her care for you, Theodore, a year or two hence. You would be a good and true husband to her, a kind father to Godfrey's child — that fatherless child. Oh, Theodore, is it not sad to think of the child who will never — not for one brief hour — feel the touch of a father's hand, or know the blessing of a father's love. Such a dead blank where there should be warmth and life and joy. We must wait, Theo. Who can dispose of the future? I shall be a happy woman if ever you can tell me you have won the reward of a life's devotion." " God bless you for your goodness to me," he faltered, kissing the soft white hand, so like in form and outline to Juanita's hand, only plumper and more matronly. They dined snugly, a cosy trio, in a small room hung with genuine old Cordovan leather, and adorned with Moorish crockery, a room which was called her Lady- ship's parlour, and which had been one of Lord Cheriton's birthday gifts to his wife, furnished and decorated during her absence at a German spa. When Lady Cheriton left them the two men turned their chairs towards the fire, lighted their cigars, and settled themselves for an even- ing's talk. 300 THE DAY WILL COME. The great lawyer was in one of his pleasantest moods. He gave Theodore the benefit of his experience as a stuff- gown, and did all that the advice of a wise senior can do towards putting a tyro on the right track. "You will have to bide your time," he said in con- clusion; "it is a tedious business. You must sit in your chambers and read till your chance comes. Always be there, that's the grand point. Don't be out when Fortune knocks at your door. She will come in a very insignificant shape on her earlier visits — with a shabby little two guinea brief in her hand; but don't you let that shabby little brief be carried to somebody else just because you are out of the way. I suppose you are really fond of the law." "Yes, I am very fond of my profession. It is meat and drink to me." "Then you will get on. Any man of moderate abilities is bound to succeed in any profession which he loves with a heart-whole love; and your abilities are much better than moderate." There was a little pause in the talk while Lord Cheriton threw on a fresh log and lighted a second cigar. "I have been meditating a good deal upon Sir God- frey's murder," said Theodore, "and I am perplexed by the utter darkness w r hich surrounds the murderer and his motive. No doubt you have some theory upon the subject." "No, I have no theory. There is really nothing upon which to build a theory. Churton, the detective, talked about a vendetta — suggested poacher, tenant, tramp, gipsy, any member of the dangerous classes who might happen to consider himself aggrieved by poor Godfrey. He even went so far as to make a very unpleasant sug- gestion, and urged that there might be a woman at the bottom of the business, speculated upon some youthful THE DAY WILL COME. 301 intrigue of Godfrey's. Now, from all I know of that young man, I believe his life had been blameless. He was the soul of honour. He would never have dealt cruelly with any woman." "And you, Lord Cheriton," said Theodore, hardly following the latter part of his cousin's speech in his self-absorption. His kinsman started and looked at him indignantly. "And you — in your capacity of judge, for instance — have you never made a deadly foe?" "Well, I suppose the men and women I have sen- tenced have hardly loved me: but I doubt if the worst of them ever had any strong personal feeling about me. They have taken me as a part of the machinery of the law — of no more account than the iron door of a cell or a beam of the scaffold." "Yet there have been instances of active malignity — the assassination of Lord Mayo, for instance." "Oh, the assassin in that case was an Indian, and a maniac. We live in a different latitude. Besides, it is rather too far-fetched an idea to suppose that a man would shoot my son-in-law in order to avenge himself upon me." "The shot may have been fired under a misapprehen- sion. The figure seated reading in the lamplight may have been mistaken for you." "The assassin must have been uncommonly short- sighted to make such a mistake. I won't say such a thing would be impossible, for experience has taught me that there is nothing in this life too strange to be true; but it is too unlikely a notion to dwell upon. Indeed, I think, Theodore, we must dismiss this painful business from our minds. If the mystery is ever to be cleared 302 THE DAY WILL COME. up it will be by a fluke; but even that seems to me a very remote contingency. Have you not observed that if a murderer is not caught within three months of his crime he is hardly ever caught at all? I might almost say if he is not caught within one month. Once let the scent cool and the chances are a hundred to one in his favour." "Yet Juanita has set her heart upon seeing her hus- band avenged." "Ah! that is where her Spanish blood shows itself. An Englishwoman, pure and simple, would think only of her sorrow. My poor girl hungers for revenge. Providence may favour her, perhaps, but I doubt it. The best thing that can happen to her will be to forget her first husband, fine young fellow as he was, and choose a second. It is horrible to think that the rest of her life is to be a blank. With her beauty and position she may look high. I am obliged to be ambitious for my daughter, you see, Theodore, since Heaven has not spared me a son." Theodore saw only too plainly that whatever favour his hopes might have from soft-hearted Lady Cheriton, his own kinsman, James Dalbrook, would be against him. This mattered very little to him at present, in the face of the lady's indifference. One gleam of hope from Juanita herself would have seemed more to him than all the favour of parents or kindred. It was her hand that held his fate: it was she alone who could make his life blessed. New Year's Day was fine but frosty, a sharp, clear day on which Cheriton Park looked loveliest, the trees made fairy-like by the light rime, the long stretches of turf touched with a silvery whiteness, the distant copses and boundary of pine-trees half hidden in a pale grey mist. Theodore walked across the Park with Lady Cheriton THE DAY WILL COME. 303 to the eleven o'clock service in the church at the end of Cheriton village. It was nearly a mile from the great house to the fine old fifteenth-century church, but Lady Cheriton always walked to church in decent weather, albeit her servants were conveyed there luxuriously in a capacious omnibus specially retained for their use. On the way along the silent avenue Theodore told her of his meeting with Miss Newton's protegee, and of Juanita's idea that the woman called Marian might be no other than Mercy Porter. "I certainly remember no other case of a girl about here leaving her home under disgraceful circumstances — that is to say, any girl of refinement and education," said Lady Cheriton. " There have been cases among the villagers, no doubt; but if this girl of yours is really a superior person, and really comes from Cheriton, I think Juanita is right, and that you must have stumbled upon Mercy Porter. Her mother ought to be told about it, without delay." "Will you tell her, or will you put me in the way of doing so?" "Would you like to see Mrs. Porter?" "Yes. I feel interested in her, chiefly because she may be Marian's mother. I shall have to go to work very carefully, so as not to cause her too keen a disap- pointment in the event of Juanita's guess being wrong." "I do not know that you will find her very soft-hearted where her daughter is concerned," replied Lady Cheriton, thoughtfully. "I sometimes fear that she has hardened herself against that unhappy girl. The troubles of her own early life may have hardened her, perhaps. It is not easy to bear a long series of troubles with patience and gentleness." 3O4 THE DAY WILL COME. "Do you know much of her history?" "Only that she lost her husband when she was still a young woman, and that she was left to face the world penniless with her young daughter. If my husband had not happened to hear of her circumstances Heaven knows what would have become of her. He had been intimate with her husband when he was a young man in London, and it seemed to him a duty to do what he could for her; so he pensioned off an old gardener who used to live in that pretty cottage, and he had the cottage thoroughly renovated for Mrs. Porter. She had a little furniture of a rather superior kind warehoused in London, and with this she was able to make a snug and pretty home for herself, as you will see if you call upon her after the service. You are sure to see her at church." "Was she very fond of her little girl in those days?" "I hardly know. People have different ways of show- ing affection. She was very strict with poor Mercy. She educated her at home, and never allowed her to associate with any of the village children. She kept the child entirely under her own wing, so that the poor little thing had actually no companion but her mother, a middle-aged woman, saddened by trouble. I felt very sorry for the child, and I used to have her up at the house for an afternoon now and then, just to introduce some variety into her life. When she grew up into a beautiful young woman her mother seemed to dislike these visits, and stipulated that Mercy should only come to see me when there were no visitors in the house. She did not want her head turned by any of those foolish compliments which frivolous people are so fond of paying to a girl of that age, never thinking of the mischief they may do. I told her that I thought she was over-careful, and that as THE DAY WILL COME. 305 Mercy must discover that she was handsome sooner or later, it was just as well she should gain some experience of life at once. Her instinctive self-respect would teach her how to take care of herself; and if she could be safe anywhere, she would be safe with me. Mrs. Porter is a rather obstinate person, and she took her own way. She kept Mercy as close as if she had been an Oriental slave; and yet, somehow, Colonel Tremaine contrived to make love to her, and tempted her away from her home. Perhaps if that home had been a little less dismal the girl might not have been so easily tempted." They had left the park by this time and were near- ing the church. A scanty congregation came slowly in after Lady Cheriton and her companion had taken their seats in the chancel pew. The congregation was chiefly feminine. Middle-aged women in everyday bonnets and fur-trimmed cloaks, with their shoulders up to their ears. Girls in felt hats and smart, tight-fitting jackets. A few pious villagers of advanced years, spectacled, feeble, with wrinkled faces half hidden under poke bonnets: two repre- sentative old men with long white hair and quavering voices, whose shrill treble was distinguishable above the rustic choir. Amidst this sparse congregation Theodore had no difficulty in discovering Mrs. Porter. She sat in one of the front benches on the left side of the aisle, which side was reserved for the tradespeople and humbler inhabitants of Cheriton; while the benches on the right were occupied by the county people, and some small fry who ranked with those elect of the earth — with them, but not of them — a retired banker and his wife, the village doctor, the village lawyer, and two or three female annuitants of good family. A noticeable woman, this Mrs. Porter,' anywhere. She The Day will come. I. 20 306 THE DAY WILL COME. was tall and thin, straight as a dart, with strongly marked features and white hair. Her complexion was pale and sallow, the kind of skin which is generally described as sickly. If she had ever been handsome all traces of that former beauty had disappeared. It was a hard face, without womanly charm, yet with an unmistakable air of refinement. She wore her neat little black straw bonnet and black cloth mantle like a lady, and she walked like a lady, as Theodore saw presently, when that portion of the little band of worshippers which did not remain for the celebration dribbled slowly out of church. He left Lady Cheriton kneeling in her pew, and fol- lowed Mrs. Porter out of the porch and along the village street, and thence into that rustic lane which led to the West Lodge. He had spoken to her only once in his life, on a summer morning, when he had happened to find her standing at her garden gate, and when it had been impossible for her to avoid him. He knew that she must have seen him going in and out of the park gates often enough for his appearance to be familiar to her, so he had no scruple in introducing himself. "Good morning, Mrs. Porter," he said, overtaking her in the deeply sunk lane, between those rocky banks where harts-tongue and polypodium grew so luxuriantly in summer, and where even in this wintry season the lichens and mosses spread their rich colouring over grey stone and brown earth, and above which the snow-laden boughs showed white against the blue brightness of the sky. She turned and bowed stiffly. "Good morning, sir." "You haven't forgotten me, I hope. I am Theodore Dalbrook, of Dorchester. I think you must have seen me pass your window too often to forget me easily?" THE DAY WILL COME. 307 "I am not much given to watching the people who pass in and out, sir. When his Lordship gave me the cottage he was good enough to allow me a servant to open the park gate, as he knew that I was not strong enough to bear exposure to all kinds of weather. I am free to live my own life therefore, without thinking of his Lordship's visitors/' "I am sorry to intrude myself upon your notice, Mrs. Porter, but I want to speak to you upon a very delicate subject, and I must ask your forgiveness in advance if I should touch upon an old wound." She looked at him curiously, shrinkingly even, with a latent anger in her pale eyes, eyes that had been lovely once, perhaps, but which time or tears had faded to a glassy dulness. "I have no desire to discuss old wounds with anyone," she said coldly. "My troubles at least are my own." "Not altogether your own, Mrs. Porter. The sorrow of which I am thinking involves another life — the life of one who has been dear to you." "I have nothing to do with any other life." "Not even with the life of your only child?" "Not even with the life of my only child," she answered doggedly. "She left me of her own accord, and I have done with her for ever. I stand utterly alone in this world, utterly alone," she repeated. "And if I tell you that I think and believe I have found your daughter in London — very poor — working for her living, very sad and lonely, her beauty faded, her life joyless — would you not wish to know more — would not your heart yearn towards her?" "No! I tell you I have done with her. She has passed out of my life, I stand alone." 20* 308 THE DAY WILL COME. There was a tone of finality in these words which left no room for argument. Theodore lifted his hat, and walked on. CHAPTER XVIII. "O sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm! All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, And shadowy, through the mist of passed years." Harrington Dalbrook, having in a manner given hostages to Fortune, entered upon his new career with a strength of purpose and a resolute industry which took his father by surprise. "Upon my word, Harry, I did not think there was so much grit in you," said Mr. Dalbrook. "I thought you and your sisters were too much stuffed with modern culture to be capable of old-fashioned work." "I hope, my dear father, you don't think education and intellect out of place in a lawyer?" "Far from it. We have had too many examples to the contrary, from Bacon to Brougham, from Hale to Cockburn; but I was afraid of the dilettante spirit, the talk about books which you had only half read, the smattering of subjects that need the work of a lifetime to be properly understood. I was afraid of our modern electro-plate culture — the process which throws a brilliant film of education over a foundation of ignorance. How- ever, you have surprised me, Harry. I own that I was disappointed by your want of purpose at the University; but I begin to respect you now I find you attack your work in the right spirit." "I want to get on," answered Harrington gravely, hang- ing his head a little in shame at his own reticence. From so good a father he felt it was a kind of dis- THE DAY WILL COME. 309 honour to keep a secret; but Juliet Baldwin had insisted upon secrecy, and the name of every fiancee in the early stages of an engagement is She-who-must-be-obeyed. Harrington said not a word, therefore, as to that mighty prime-mover which was urging him to dogged perseverance in a profession for which he had as yet no real inclination. He put aside Darwin and Spencer, Max Mtiller and Seeley, Schopenhauer and Hartmann, all those true or false lights which he had followed through the mazes of free thought; and he set himself to master the stern actualities of the law. He had not done well at the University; not because he was wanting in brains, but because he was wanting in concentration and dogged- ness. The prime-mover being supplied, and of a pro- digious power, Harrington brought his intellectual forces to bear upon a given point, and made a rapid advance in legal knowledge and acumen. The old cook-house- keeper complained of the coals and candles which "Master Harry" consumed during his after-midnight studies, and wondered that the household were not all burnt in their beds by reason of the young gentleman dropping off to sleep over Coke upon Littleton. The sisters complained that they had now practically no brother, since Harrington, who had a pretty tenor voice, and had hitherto been a star at afternoon teas and even- ing parties, refused to go anywhere, except to those few houses — county — where Miss Baldwin might be met. Scarcely had the New Year begun when Miss Baldwin went off upon a visit to one of the largest houses in Wiltshire, and one of the smartest, a house under the dominion of a childless widow, gifted with a large income and a sympathetic temperament, a lady who allowed her life to be influenced and directed by a family of nephews 310 THE DAY WILL COME. and nieces, and whose house was declared by the ad- vanced section of society to be "quite the most perfect house to stay in, don't you know." Miss Baldwin did not leave the neighbourhood of Dorchester and her lover without protestations of regret. The thing was a bore, a sacrifice on her part, but it must be done. She had promised dear old Lady Burden- shaw ages ago, and to Lady Burdenshaw's she must go. "You needn't worry about it," she said, with her off- hand air, lolling on the billiard-room settee in the grey winter afternoon, on the second Sunday of the year; "if you are at all keen upon being at Medlow Court while I am there, I'll make dear old Lady Burdenshaw send you an invitation." "You are very good," replied Harrington, "and I should like staying in the same house with you; but I couldn't think of visiting a lady I don't know, or of cadg- ing for an invitation." Sir Henry had asked his friend to luncheon, and now, after a somewhat Spartan meal of roast mutton and rice pudding, the lovers were alone in the billiard-room, Sir Henry having crept off to the stables. The table was kept rigorously covered on Sundays, in deference to the Dowager's Sabbatarian leanings; and there was nothing for her son to do in the billiard-room, except to walk listlessly up and down and stare at some very dingy ex- amples of the early Italian school, or to take the cues out of the rack one by one to see which of them wanted topping. "Oh, but you needn't mind. You would be capital friends with Lady B. We all call her Lady B., because a three syllable-name is too much for anybody's patience. I tell her she ought to drop a syllable. Lady Bur'shaw would do just as well. I suppose though if I were to get THE DAY WILL COME. 3 I I an invitation you could hardly be spared from — the shop," concluded Juliet, with a laugh. "Hardly. I have to stick very close to — the shop," replied Harrington, blushing a little at the word. "Re- member what I am working for — a family practice in London and a house that you need not be ashamed to inhabit. To me that means as much as the red ribbon of the Bath means to a soldier or sailor. My ambition goes no further, unless it were to a seat in Parliament later on." "You are a good earnest soul. Yes, of course, you must go into Parliament. In spite of all the riff-raff that has got into the House of late years, boys, Home Rulers, city-men, there is a faint flavour of distinction in the letters M.P. after a man's name. It helps him just a little in society to be able to talk about 'my constituents,' and to contemplate European politics from the stand- point of the town that has elected him. Yes, you must be in the House, by-and-bye, Harry." "You told me you were tired of country house visiting," said Harrington, who for the first time since his betrothal felt somewhat inclined to quarrel with his divinity. "So I am, heartily sick of it; and I shall rejoice when I have a snug little nest of my own in Clarges or Hert- ford Street. But you must admit that Medlow Court is better than this house. Behold our average Sunday! Roast mutton — rice pudding — and invincible dulness; all the servants except an under-footman gone to afternoon church, and no possibility of a cup of tea till nearly six o'clock. A cold dinner at eight, and family prayers at ten." "What kind of a Sunday do you have at Medlow?" "11 v en a- pour tons les gouts. Medlow is liberty hall. If we were even to take it into our heads to have family prayers Lady Burdenshaw would send for her 312 THE DAY WILL COME. chaplain — pluck him out of the bosom of his family — and order him to read them. She doesn't like cards on a Sunday, because of the servants; but after the clock has struck eleven we may do what we please — play poker, nap, euchre, baccarat, till daylight, if we are in the humour. The billiard and smoke rooms, and the ball-room are at one end of the house, ever so far from the servants' quarters. We can have as much fun as we like while those rustic souls are snoring." Harrington sighed ever so faintly. This picture of a fashionable interior was perfectly innocent, and his be- trothed' s way of looking at things meant nothing worse than girlish exuberance, fine animal spirits: but the sans gene of Medlow Court was hardly the kind of training he would have chosen for his future wife. And then he looked at the handsome profile, the piled-up mass of ruddy-brown hair on the top of the haughtily poised head, the perfectly fitting tailor gown, with its aristocratic sim- plicity, costing so much more than plebeian silks and satins; and he told himself that he was privileged in having won such exalted beauty to ally itself with his humble fortunes. Such a girl would shine as a duchess; and if marriageable dukes had eyes to see with, and judgment to guide their choice, that lovely auburn head would ere now have been crowned with a tiara of family diamonds instead of waiting for the poor sprigs of orange blossom which alone may adorn the brow of the solicitor's bride. "Shall we go for a stroll in the grounds?" asked Juliet, with a restless air, and an impatient shiver. "Perhaps it will be warmer out of doors than it is here. We keep such miserable fires in this house. I believe the grates were chosen with a view to burning the minimum of coal." THE DAY WILL COME. 313 "I shall be delighted." Laura was absent on a visit to Yorkshire cousins, strong-minded like herself, and with no pretensions to fashion. Lady Baldwin had retired for her afternoon siesta. On Sundays she always read herself to sleep with Taylor or South; on week-days she nodded over the morning paper. She had gone to the morning -room with the idea that Henry would take his friend to the stables, and that Juliet would require no looking after. It had never entered into her ladyship's head that her handsome daughter would look so low as the son of her solicitor. Juliet was therefore free to do what she pleased with her afternoon, and her pleasure was to walk in the chilly shrubberies, and the bare grey park, sparsely timbered, and with about as little forestal beauty as a gentleman's park can possess. She put on an old seal-skin jacket and a toque to match, which she kept in the room where her brother kept his overcoats, and which smelt of tobacco, after the manner of everything that came within Sir Henry's in- fluence. And then she led the way to a half-glass door, which opened on a grass-plot at the side of the house, and she and her lover went out. "You can smoke if you like," she said. "You know I don't mind. I'll have a cigarette with you in the shrubbery." "Dearest Juliet, I can't tell you how glad I should be if you would smoke — less," he said nervously, blush- ing at his own earnestness. "You think I smoke too many cigarettes — that they are really bad for me?" she asked carelessly. "It isn't that. I wasn't thinking about their effect on your health; but — I know you will call it old-fashioned 314 THE D AY WILL COME. nonsense — I can't bear to see the woman who is to be my wife with a cigarette between her lips." "And when I am your wife, I suppose you will cut me off from tobacco altogether." "I should never be a domestic tyrant, Juliet — but it would wound me to see my wife smoke, just as much as it wounds me now when I see you smoke half-a-dozen cigarettes in succession." "What a Philistine you are, Harry! Well, you shall not be tortured. I'll ease off the smoking if I can — but a whiff or two of an Egyptian soothes me when my nerves are overstrained. You are as bad as my mother, who thinks cigarette smoking one stage on the road to per- dition, and rather an advanced stage, too. You are very easily shocked, Harry, if an innocent little cigarette can shock you. I wonder if you are really fond of me, now the novelty of our engagement has worn off?" "I am fonder of you every day I live." "Enthusiatic boy! If that is true you may be able to stand a worse shocker than my poor little cigarette." Harrington turned pale, but he took the hand which she held out to him, and grasped it firmly. What was she going to tell him? "Harry, I want to make a financial statement. I want you to help me if you can. I am up to my eyes in debt." "In debt?" "Yes. It sounds bad, don't it? Debt and tobacco should be exclusively masculine vices. I owe money all round — not large sums — but the sum -total is large. I have had to hold my own in smart houses upon an allow- ance which some women would spend with their shoe- maker. My mother gives me a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year for everything, tips, travelling expenses, THE DAY WILL COME. 3 15 clothes, music — and I am not going to say anything un- kind about her on that score, for I don't see how she could give me more. Her own means come to something under eighteen hundred a year, and she has this place to keep up. Henry takes all the rents, and often keeps her waiting for her income, which is a first charge upon the estate. If it were not for your father, who looks after her interests as sharply as he can, she might fare much worse. Henry brings as many men as he likes here, and contributes nothing to the housekeeping." "And you owe money to milliners and people?" said Harrington, deeply distressed by his sweetheart's humilia- tion, which he felt more keenly than the lady herself. Juliet had lived among girls who talked freely of their debts and difficulties, of sops to Cerberus, and getting round an unwilling dressmaker. Harrington's lines had been set among old-fashioned countrified people, to whom debt — and especially feminine indebtedness — meant disgrace. He had come back from the University feeling like a murderer, because he had exceeded his allowance. "Milliners, dressmakers, shoemakers, hatters — and ever so many more. I am afraid I have been rather reckless — only — I thought " "I thought I should make a great match," she would have said, had she followed her idea to its close, but she checked herself abruptly, and cut off a sprig of yew with a swing of the stick she carried. "If I can help you in any way " began Har- rington. "My dear boy, there is only one way in which you can help me. Lend me any money you can spare, say fifty pounds, and I will give it you back by instalments of ten or fifteen pounds a quarter. It would be mockery 316 THE DAY WILL COME. for me to pretend I could pay you in a lump sum, now I have told you the extent of my income." Harrington's worldly wealth at that moment was some- thing under fifty pounds. His father had given him a cheque for fifty on Christmas Eve, and he had no right to expect anything more till Lady Day; while he had to think of the black horse who was steadily eating his head off at livery, and for whom nothing had been paid as yet. He could not find it in his heart to tell his affianced that he was, comparatively speaking, a pauper. He knew that his father had the reputation of wealth, a man always ready to invest in any odd parcel of land that was in the market, and who was known to possess a good many small holdings and houses in his native town and its neighbourhood. Could he tell her that her future hus- band was still in leading strings, and that the run of his teeth and fifty pounds a quarter were all he could count upon till he was out of his articles? No, he would rather perish than reveal these despicable facts; so, although he had only forty-three pounds odd in his little cash-box, he told her that he would let her have fifty pounds in a day or two. "If you could manage to bring it me to-morrow I should be very glad," said Juliet, who, once having broken the ice, talked about the loan with easy frankness. "I must have a new frock for the ball at Medlow. They are to have a ball on the first of February, the ball of the year. There will be no end of smart people. I want to send Estelle Dawson thirty-five or forty pounds, about half the amount of her last bill. It's a paltry business altogether. I know girls who owe their dressmakers hun- dreds where I owe tens. Let me have the cash to-morrow if you can, there's a dear. Miss Dawson is sure to be THE DAY WILL COME. 3 1 ? full of work for the country at this season, and she won't make my frock unless I give her a week's notice." "Of course, dear, yes, you shall have the money," Harrington answered nervously; "but your white gown at our ball looked lovely. Why shouldn't you wear that at Medlow?" "My white gown would be better described as black," retorted the young lady with marked acidity. "If I didn't hate the Dorchester people like poison I wouldn't have insulted them by wearing such a rag. I would no more appear in it at Medlow than I would cut my throat." Language so strong as this forbade argument. Har- rington concluded that there was a mystery in these things outside the limits of masculine understanding. To his eye the white satin and tulle his betrothed had worn had seemed faultless; but it may be that the glamour of first love acts like lime-light upon a soiled white garment; and no doubt Miss Baldwin's gown had seen service. He walked back to the house with her, and left her at the door just as it was growing dusk, and the servants were coming home from church. He left her with a fictitious appearance of cheerfulness, promising to go to tea on the following afternoon. He was glad of the six-mile walk to Dorchester, as it gave him solitude for deliberation. At home the keen eyes of his sisters would be upon him, and he would be pestered by inquiries as to what there had been for lunch and what Miss Baldwin wore; while the still more penetrating gaze of his father would be quick to perceive anything amiss. "Oh, Juliet, if you knew how hard you are making our engagement to me," he ejaculated mentally, as he walked, with the unconscious hurry of an agitated mind, along the frost-bound road. 3 I 8 THE DAY WILL COME. There had been a hard frost since Christmas, and hunting had been out of the question, whereby the ex- istence of Mahmud, and the bill at the livery stable seemed so much the heavier a burden. Somehow or other he must get the difference be- tween forty-three pounds and fifty, only seven pounds, a paltry sum, no doubt; but it would hardly do for him to leave himself penniless until Lady Day. He might be called on at any moment for small sums. Short of shamming illness and stopping in bed till the end of the quarter, he could not possibly escape the daily calls which every young man has upon his purse. He told himself, therefore, that he must contrive to borrow fifteen or twenty pounds. But of whom? That was the question. His first thought was naturally of his brother — but in the next moment he remembered how Theodore in his financial arrangements with his father had insisted upon cutting himself down to the very lowest possible allowance. "You will pay all my fees, Dad, and give me enough money to furnish my chambers decently, with the help of the things I am to have out of this house, and you will allow me so much," he said, naming a very modest sum, "for maintenance till I begin to get briefs. I want to feel the spur of poverty. I want to work for my bread. Of course I know I have a court of appeal here if my exchequer should run dry." Remembering this, Harrington felt that he could not, at the very beginning of things, pester his brother for a loan. The same court of appeal, the father's well-filled purse, was open to him, but he had no excuse to offer, no reason to give, for exceeding his allowance. He might sell Mahmud, if there were not two ob- stacles to that transaction. The first that nobody in the THE DAY WILL COME. 319 neighbourhood wanted to buy him, the second that he was not yet paid for, except by that bill which rose like a pale blue spectre before the young man's eyes as he was dropping off to sleep of a night, and sometimes spoiled his rest. He would have to sell Mahmud in order not to dishonour that bill; and if the horse should fetch considerably less than the price given for him, as all equine experience led his owner to fear, whence was to come the difference? That was a problem which would have to be solved somehow before the tenth of March. He would have to send the beast to TattersalFs most likely, the common experience of the hunting field having taught him that nobody ever sells a horse among his own circle. He saw himself realising something under fifty pounds as the price of the black, and having to bridge over the distance between that amount and eighty, as best he might. But March was not to-morrow, and he had first of all to provide for to-morrow; a mere trifle, but it would have to be borrowed, and the sensation of borrowing was new to Matthew Dalbrook's son. He had frittered away his ready money at the University, and he had got into debt; but he had never borrowed money of Jew or Gentile. And now the time had come when he must borrow of whomsoever he could. He took tea with his sisters in the good, homely, old- fashioned drawing-room, which was at its best in winter; the four tall, narrow windows closely curtained, a roaring fire in the wide iron grate, and a modern Japanese tea table wheeled in front of it. Five o'clock tea was of a more substantial order on Sundays than on week days, on account of the nine o'clock supper which took the place of the seven o'clock dinner, and accommodated those who cared to attend evening church. Lady Baldwin's 320 THE DAY WILL COME. Spartan luncheon had not indisposed her guest for cake and muffins, and basking in the glow of the fire Har- rington forgot his troubles, enjoyed his tea, and main- tained a very fair appearance of cheerfulness while his sisters questioned and his father put in an occasional word. "I'm afraid you are getting rather too friendly at the Mount," said Matthew Dalbrook. "I don't like Sir Henry Baldwin, and I don't think he's an advantageous friend for you." "Oh, but we're old chums," said Harrington, blush- ing a little; "we were at Oxford together, you know." "I'm afraid we both know it, Harry, and to our cost," replied his father. "You might have succeeded in your divinity exam, if it hadn't been for this fine gentleman friend of yours." "I'm not sorry I failed, father. The law suits me ever so much better than the Church." "So long as you stick to that opinion I'm satisfied. Only don't go to the Mount too often, and don't let the handsome Miss Baldwin make a fool of you." If it had not been for the coloured shades over the lamps, which were so artistic as to be useless for seeing purposes, Harrington might have been seen to turn pale. "No fear of that," Sophia exclaimed, contemptuously. "Juliet Baldwin is not likely to give a provincial solicitor any encouragement. She's a girl who expects to marry for position, and though she is just a shade passe'e she may make a good match even yet. She comes here because she likes us, but she's a thorough woman of the world, and you needn't be afraid of her running after Harry." Harrington grew as red as a peony with suppressed indignation. THE DAY WILL COME. 32 1 "Perhaps as the Baldwins are my friends you might be able to get on without talking any more about them," he said, scowling at his elder sister. "I've told you what we had for lunch, and how many servants were in the room, and what kind of gown Juliet — Miss Baldwin — was wearing. Don't you think w T e've had enough of them for to-night?" "Quite enough, Harry, quite enough," said the father. "By-the-by, did you read the Times leader on Gladstone's last manifesto? And where are the Field and the Observer? Bring me over a lamp that I can see by, Sophy, my dear. Those crimson lamp shades of yours suggest one of Orchardson's pictures, but they don't help me to read my paper." "They're the beastliest things I ever saw," said Har- rington vindictively. "I'm sorry you don't like them," said Janet. "It was Juliet Baldwin who persuaded us to buy them. She had seen some at Medlow Court, and she raved about them." Harrington went out of the room without another word. How odious his sisters had become of late; yet while he was at Oxford they had regarded him as an oracle, and he had found even sisterly appreciation pleasant. It was some time since he had attended evening service, but on this particular evening he went alone, not troubling to invite his sisters, who were subject to an in- termittent form of neuralgia which often prevented their going to church in the evening. To-night he avoided St. Peter's, in which his father had seats, and w r ent to the more remote church of Fordington , where he had a pew all to himself on this frosty winter night, except for one well-behaved worshipper in the person of his father's old and confidential clerk, James Hayfield, a constant The Day will come. I. 2 1 $2 2 THE DAY WILL COME. church-goer, who was punctual at every evening service, whatever the weather. Harrington had expected to see him there. Hayfield sat modestly aloof at the further end of the pew, but when the service was over the young man took some pains to follow close upon the heels of the grey-haired clerk, with shoulders bent by long years of desk- work, and respectable dark-blue Chesterfield over- coat with velvet collar. "How do you do, Hayfield? Isn't this rather a sharp night for you to venture out in?" said Harrington, as they left the church porch. "I'm a toughish customer, I thank you, Mr. Harrington. It would take severer weather than this to keep me away from the evening service. I'm very fond of the evening service. A fine sermon, sir, a fine, awakening sermon." "Magnificent, capital," exclaimed Harrington, who hadn't heard two consecutive sentences, and whose mind had been engaged upon arithmetical problems of the most unpleasant kind. "It is uncommonly cold though," he added, shivering. "I'll walk round your way. It will be a little longer for me." "You're very good, Mr. Harrington, very good in- deed," said the old clerk, evidently touched by this un- usual condescension. Never till to-night had his master's son offered to walk home from church with him. The old man's gratitude was more than Harrington could stand. He could not take credit for kindly con- descension, when he knew himself intent upon his own selfish ends. "I'm afraid I'm not altogether disinterested in seek- ing your company to-night, Hayfield," he blurted out. "The fact is, I want to ask a favour of you." THE DAY WILL COME. $2$ "You may take it as granted, Mr. Harrington," an- swered the clerk cheerily, "provided the granting of it lies within my power." "Oh, it's not a tremendous affair — in point of fact it's only a small money matter. I'm exceeding my allow- ance a little this quarter, but I intend to pull up next quarter; and it will be a great convenience to me in the meantime if you'll lend me ten or fifteen pounds." It was out at last. He had no idea until he uttered the words how mean a creature the utterance of them would make him seem to himself. There are people who go through life borrowing, and who do it with the easiest grace, seeming to confer rather than to ask a favour. But perhaps even with these gifted ones the first plunge was painful. "Fifteen or twenty, if you like, sir," replied Hayfield. "I've got a few pounds in an old stocking, and any little sum like that is freely at your service. I know your father's son won't break his word or forget that an old servant's savings are his only bulwark against age and decay." "My dear Hayfield, of course I shall repay you next quarter, without fail." "Thank you, Mr. Harrington, I feel sure you will. And if at the same time I may venture a word, as an old man to a young one, in all friendliness and respect, I would ask you to beware of horses. I heard some one let drop the other evening in the billiard-room at the 'Antelope,' where I occasionally play a fifty, I heard it said, promiscuously, that Sir Henry Baldwin is a better hand at selling a horse than you are at buying one." "That's bosh, Hayfield, and people in a God-forsaken town like Dorchester will always talk bosh — especially in 324 THE DAY WILL COME. a public billiard-room. The horse is a good horse, and I shall come home upon him when I send him up to Tattersall's after the hunting." "I only hope he won't come home upon you, sir. You'd better not put a high reserve upon him if you don't want to see him again. I used to be considered a pretty good judge of a horse in my time. I never was an equestrian, but one sees more of a horse from the pavement than when one is on his back." Harrington felt that he must bear with this twaddle for the sake of the twenty pounds which would enable him to lend Juliet a round fifty, and would thereby enable Juliet to go to Medlow Court and flirt with unknown men, and forget him upon whom her impecuniosity was inflicting such humiliation. After all love is only another name for suffering. Mr. Hayfield lived in West-Walk terrace, where he had a neat first floor in a stucco villa, semi-detached, and built at a period when villas strove to be architectural without attaining beauty. The first floor consisted of a front sitting-room, looking out upon the alley of sycamores and the green beyond, and a back bedroom, looking over gardens and houses, towards the church-tower in the heart of the town. Provided with a latch-key, Mr. Hayfield admitted his master's son to the inner mysteries of the villa, where a lady with a very reedy voice was singing "Far away," in the front parlour, while a family conversation which almost drowned her melody was going on in the back parlour. Mr. Hayfield' s bedroom candlestick and matches were ready for him on a Swiss bracket near his door, and his lamp was ready on a table in his sitting-room, where every object was disposed with a studied precision THE DAY WILL COME. 325 which marked at once the confirmed bachelor and the model lodger. "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Christian Year," "Whittaker's Almanack," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," were placed with mathematical regularity upon the walnut loo table, surrounding a centrepiece of wax flowers in an alabaster vase under a glass shade. A smaller table of the nature described as Pembroke was placed nearer the fire, and on this appeared Mr. Hay- field's supper tray, set forth with a plate of cold roast beef, a glass saucer of Oriental pickle, cheese, and ac- companiments, flanked by an Imperial pint of Guinness". A small fire burned brightly in the grate, whose dimen- sions had been reduced by a careful adjustment of fire bricks. "Sit down, my dear Mr. Harrington, you'll find that chair very comfortable. I'll go and get out the money. My cash box is in the next room. Can I tempt you to join me in a plate of cold ribs? There's plenty more where that came from. Mrs. Potter has a fine wing rib every Sunday, from year's end to year's end. I generally take my dinner with her and her family, but I sup alone. A little society goes a long way with a man of my age. I like my Lloyd and my News of the World after supper." He went into his bedroom, which was approached by folding doors, and came back again in two minutes with a couple of crisp notes, the savings of half a year, sav- ings which meant a good deal of self-denial in a man who in his own words wished to live like a gentleman. The old clerk prided himself upon his good broadcloth, clean linen, and respectable lodgings; and it was felt in the town that so respectable a servant enhanced even the respectability of Dalbrook & Son. Harrington took the bank-notes with many thanks, 326 THE DAY WILL COME. and insisted upon writing a note of hand — albeit the old clerk reminded him that Sunday was a dies non — at the desk where Hayfield wrote his letters and did any copying work he cared to do after office hours. He stayed while the old man ate his temperate meal, but would not be persuaded to share it. Indeed, his lips felt hot and dry, and it seemed to him as if he should never want to eat again; but he gladly accepted a tumbler of the refreshing Guinness' upon the repeated assurance that there was plenty more where that came from. There was a rapid thaw on the following morning, so Harrington rode the black over to the Mount in the twilight after office hours, a liberty which that high-bred animal resented by taking fright at every doubtful object in the long leafless avenue beyond the Roman Amphitheatre. Trifles which would have been light as air to him, jogging homeward in company after a long day's hunting, assumed awful and ghostly aspects under the combined influences of solitude and want of work. The twilight ride to the Mount was in fact a series of hairbreadth escapes, and it would have needed a stronger stimulant than the Dowager's wishy-washy tea to restore Mr. Dal- brook's physical balance, if his mental balance had not been so thoroughly unhinged as to make him half uncon- scious of physical discomfort. "You look awfully seedy," said Juliet, as she poured out tea from a pot that had been standing nearly half an hour. The Dowager had retired to her own den, where she occupied a great portion of her life in writing prosy letters to her relatives and connections of all degrees; but as she never sent them anything else, this was her only way of maintaining the glow of family feeling. THE DAY WILL COME. $ 2 7 "The black nearly pulled my fingers off," replied Harrington. "I never knew him so fresh." "You should have taken it out of him on the downs," answered Juliet, rather contemptuously. "The grass is all right after the thaw. Have you brought me what you so kindly promised?" He took a sealed envelope out of his breast-pocket and handed it to her. "Is this the fifty? How quite too good of you," she cried, pocketing it hastily. "You don't know what a difficulty you have got me out of; but I'm afraid I may have inconvenienced you." This was evidently an after-thought. "'Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire/ " quoted Harrington, with a sentimental air. "How sweet!" exclaimed Juliet, really touched by his affection; yet she would rather he had told her that fifty pounds was a sum of no consequence, and that so small a loan involved no inconvenience for him. "I'm afraid his father can hardly be as rich as people think," she said to herself, while Harrington relaxed his strained muscles before the fire. "How I wish you were not going to Medlow," he said presently. "So do I; but I can't possibly get out of it, and then it's a blessed escape to get away from here." "Do you really dislike your home?" asked her lover, wondering at this hitherto unknown characteristic in a young woman. "I loathe it, and so does my sister, though she pre- tends to be domestic and religious and all that kind of thing. Lady Baldwin is an impossible person, and our 328 THE DAY WILL COME. housekeeping would disgrace the Union. If I had not had the entree of plenty of good houses, and been in request, I should have been found hanging in one of the attics years ago." This candour gave Harrington an uncomfortably chilly feeling, as if a damp cold wind had blown over him, and then he told himself that it would be his privilege to initiate this dear girl in the tranquil delights of a happy home, which, while modest in its pretensions, should yet be smart enough to satisfy her superior tastes and aspirations. "When do you go?" he asked, preparing to take leave. "To-morrow. Your kindness has made everything easy to me." "Come back as soon as you can, love;" and then there was some lingering foolishness permissible between engaged lovers, and the beautiful Miss Baldwin's head reposed for two or three minutes upon the articled clerk's shoulder, while he looked into her eyes and told her that they were stars to light him on to fame and fortune. "I hope they'll show you a short cut," she said. He left her cheered by the thought that she was very fond of him; and so she was, but he was not the first, second, third, or fourth young man of whom she had been fond, nor was it a new thing to her to be told that her eyes were guiding stars. END OF VOL. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 2616. THE DAY WILL COME BY M. E. BRADDON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. THE DAY WILL COME A NOVEL M. E. BRADDON, AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. COPYRIGHT EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1889. THE DAY WILL COME. CHAPTER I. "All the creatures Made for Heaven's honours, have their ends, and good ones, All but the cozening crocodiles, false women." February had begun, the frost and snow had dis- appeared. There were soft breathings of spring in the breezes that blew over the broad grassy downs beyond the Roman encampment, and the sportsmen of the neigh- bourhood were rejoicing in open weather and lengthening daylight; but Juliet Baldwin was still at Medlow Court, and the heart of Harrington Dalbrook was heavy as he set out in the pleasant morning for some distant meet; and it was heavier as he rode home in the evening, after a day's sport which had shown him only too distinctly that the black horse was not so young as he had been. He hugged himself with the delusion that those indica- tions of advancing years which were but too obvious to- wards the close of a trying day across a heavy country, would vanish after a week's rest, and that the horse would show no signs of staleness at TattersalPs, where he must inevitably be sold before the end of the month, his owner seeing no other way of meeting the bill that O THE DAY WILL COME. had been given in exchange for a beast whose name should have been not Mahmud, but White Elephant. Harrington's sole motive for buying a hunter — or, rather, his sole excuse for being trapped into the purchase — was the expectation of being able to ride to hounds in Miss Baldwin's company. She had said to him "You ought to hunt," and he had straightway hunted, just as, if she had told him to balloon, he would have ballooned. And now Juliet Baldwin was following the hounds in an- other county while he was in Dorsetshire plodding along dreary roads to inaccessible meets at places which would seem to have been chosen with a special study of every- body's inconvenience. The whole business was fraught with bitterness. He had never loved hunting for its own sake — had never possessed the single-mindedness of the genuine sportsman, who cares not for weather or country, or companionship, or hunger or thirst, so long as there is a fox at the beginning of the day and blood at the end. Juliet was out with the hounds three days a week. She wrote rapturous accounts of forty minutes here, and an hour there; and every run which she described was apparently the quickest thing that had ever been known in that country. She let her lover know en passant that she had been greatly admired, and that her horseman- ship had been talked about. Her letters were very af- fectionate, but they testified also to a self-love that amounted to adoration. Her frocks, her horses — pro- vided, as the young ravens are fed, by a kindly Pro- vidence in the shape of casual acquaintance — her breaks at billiards, her waltzing, were all dilated upon with a charming frankness. "It seems rather foolish to write all this egotistical twaddle," she apologised, "but you complain if I send THE DAY WILL COME. 7 you a short letter, and there is literally nothing to tell here — at least nothing about any one you know, or that would have the faintest interest for you — so I am obliged to scribble about my frocks and my little social triumphs." This was kindly meant, no doubt, but it stung him to be reminded that his friends were not her friends, that Belgravia is not further from Islington than her people were from his people. In one of her letters she wrote casually: — "Why don't you put Mahmud into a horse-box and come over for a day with these hounds. It would be capital fun. There is a dear little rustic inn where you and your horse can put up — and Lady B. would ask you to dinner as a matter of course. I daresay your highly- respectable hair will stand on end at some of our ways — but that won't matter. I am sure you would enjoy an evening or two at Medlow. Think about it, like a dear boy." Harrington did think about it — indeed, from the first reading of his lady-love's unceremonious invitation he thought of nothing else. After much puzzling over time- tables he found that trains — those particular trains which condescend, with an asterisk, to carry horses — could be matched so as to convey the black horse to the immediate vicinity of Medlow Court in something under a day, and this being so he telegraphed his intention of putting up at the "Medlow Arms" on the following night, taking pains to add "Shall arrive at five p.m.," so as to secure the promised invitation to dinner. He had been so chary of spending money since his loan to Juliet that he had still a few pounds in hand, enough as he thought to pay travelling expenses and hotel bills. His heart was almost light as he packed his hunting-gear and dress suit, albeit 8 THE DAY WILL COME. March 10 was written in fiery characters across a spectral bill which haunted him wherever he went. It was still early in February he told himself. Some stroke of luck might happen to him. Some rich young fool at Medlow Court might take a fancy to Mahmud and want to buy him. He had heard of men who wanted to buy horses, although it had been his fate to meet only the men who were eager to sell. After no less than three changes of trains he arrived at the Toppleton Road Station — for Medlow and Topple- ton— about half-past four, weary, but 'full of hope. He was to see her again — after three weeks' severance. He was going at her own express desire. It was her tact and cleverness that had made the visit easy for him. Had he not Lady Burdenshaw's invitation in his pocket, in a fine open-hearted hand, sprawling over three sides of large note-paper: — "Dear Mr. Dalbrook, — I hear you are coming over for a day or two with our hounds, and I hope you will contrive to dine with us every evening while you are in the neighbourhood. Your father and Sir Phillimore were old friends. Dinner at eight. "Sincerely yours, "Sarah Burdenshaw." Sir Phillimore had been in the family vault nearly fifteen years. The malicious averred that he had sought that dismal shelter as a refuge and a relief from the life which Lady Burdenshaw imposed upon him — open house, big shoots, hunting breakfasts, fancy balls, and private theatricals in the country; and in London perpetual parties or perpetual gadding about. THE DAY WILL COME. 0, Sir Phillimore's grandfather had come up from Aber- deen, a raw boy without a penny, and had found out something about the manufacture of iron which had eventually made him a millionaire. Sir Phillimore's for- tune had reconciled the beautiful Sally Tempest to a marriage with a man who was her senior by a quarter of a century, and the only license she had allowed her- self had been her indulgence in boundless extravagance, and a laxity of manner which had somewhat shocked society in the sober fifties and sixties, though it left her moral character unimpeached. In the eighties nobody wondered or exclaimed at Lady Burdenshaw's freedom of speech and manner, or at the manners she encouraged in her guests. In the eighties Sarah Burdenshaw was generally described as "good fun." Harrington found the dear little rustic inn very pictu- resque externally, but small and stuffy within, and the bed- room into which he was ushered was chiefly occupied by a large old-fashioned, four-post bedstead, with chintz hangings that smelt of mildewed lavender — indeed, the pervading odour of the "Medlow Arms" was mildew. He dressed as well as he could under considerable disadvantages; and a rumbling old landau, which had the local odour, conveyed him to Medlow Court much quicker than he could have supposed possible from his casual survey of the horse. It was ten minutes to eight when he entered Lady Burdenshaw's drawing-room. It was a very large room, prettily furnished in a care- less style, as if by a person whose heart was not set upon furniture. There were plenty of low luxurious chairs, covered with a rather gaudy chintz, and befrilled with IO THE DAY WILL COME. lace and muslin, and there were flowers in abundance; but of human life the room was empty. Harrington hardly knew whether he was relieved or discomposed at finding himself alone. He had leisure in which to pace the room two or three times, to arrange his tie and inspect his dress suit before one of the long glasses, and then to feel offended at Juliet's coldness. She knew that he was to be there. She might surely have contrived to be in the drawing-room ten minutes before the dinner hour. Half a dozen people straggled in, a not too tidy-look- ing matron in ruby velvet, a sharp-featured girl in black lace, and some men who looked sporting or military. One of these talked to him. "I think you must be Mr. Dalbrook," he said, after they had discussed the weather and the state of the roads. "You are quite right — but how did you guess?" "Miss Baldwin told me you were coming, and I don't think there's any one else expected to-night. Do you know your hostess?" "I am waiting for that privilege." "Ah! that explains your punctuality. Nobody is ever punctual at Medlow. Eight o'clock means half-past, and sometimes a quarter to nine. Lady Burdenshaw has reached her sixtieth year without having arrived at a comprehension of the nature of time, as an inelastic thing which will not stretch to suit feminine convenience. She still believes in the elasticity of an hour, and rushes off to her room to dress when she ought to be sitting down to dinner. Her girl friends follow her example, and seldom leave the billiard-room or the tea-room till dear Lady B. leads the way." THE DAY WILL COME. I 1 A whole bevy of ladies entered the room rather noisily at this moment, and among them appeared Juliet, magnificent in a red gown, which set off the milky white- ness of her shoulders. "Rather a daring combination with red hair," re- marked the young lady in black, who was sitting on a narrow causeuse with a large man, whose white moustache and padded chest suggested a cavalry regiment. "You may call the lady a harmony in red," said the gentleman. Harrington scowled upon these prattlers, and then crossed the room to greet his love. Yes, it was a daring combination, the scarlet gown with the ruddy tints in her auburn hair: but the audacity was justified by success. She looked a magnificent creature, dazzling as Yashti in her Eastern splendour, invincible as Dalilah. Who could resist her? She gave her hand to Harrington, and seemed pleased to see him, but in the next moment he saw her looking beyond him towards the end of the room. He turned, involuntarily following the direction of her eyes, and saw the man who had talked to him, and who was now evi- dently watching them. He was a middle-aged man, hand- some, tall, and upstanding, and with an air which Harring- ton considered decidedly patrician. "Who is that man by the piano?" he asked. "Major Swanwick, Lord Beaulieu's younger brother." "Ah, I thought he was a swell," said Harrington, in- nocently. "He was very civil to me just now. You might have been in the drawing-room a little earlier, Juliet. You must have known that I was longing to see you." "My dear boy, we were playing skittle-pool till five 12 THE DAY WILL COME. minutes to eight. I had no idea you were in the house. Ah, here comes Lady B." A fat, fair, flaxen-haired lady in a sky-blue tea-gown embroidered with silver palm-leaves came rolling into the room, murmuring apologies for having kept people waiting for their dinner. "I know you must all be delightfully ravenous," she said; "and that's ever so much better than feeling that dinner has come too soon after lunch." Juliet introduced her friend, who was most graciously received. "How is your father?" asked Lady Burdenshaw. "It is ages since I saw him — more than twenty years I be- lieve. Sir Phillimore bought some land in your county, and Mr. Dalbrook acted for him in the matter, and he still receives the rents. And so you are going out with the hounds to-morrow? They meet quite near — not more than seven or eight miles from your inn. Juliet will show you the way across country. She's always in the first flight; but if you want to know her particular talent you should see her play pool. I can assure you she makes all the men sit up." Harrington scarcely followed the lady's meaning. There was no time for explanations, as the butler, who had been waiting for her Ladyship's appearance, now announced dinner, and Harrington had the bliss of going to the dining-room Avith Juliet Baldwin on his arm. He felt as if he were in the Moslem's enchanted fields as he sat by her side at the brilliant table, with its almost over- powering perfume of hot-house flowers, which were grouped in great masses of bloom among the old silver and the many-coloured Venetian glass. Yes, it was a Moham- medan paradise, and this was the houri, this lovely creature THE DAY WILL COME. I 3 with the milky shoulders rising out of soft folds of scarlet crape. "How long are you going to stay here, Juliet ?" he asked, as the houri unfolded her napkin. She gave a little laugh before she answered the question. "Compare this room and table with our dining-room at the Mount — you can compare the dinner with my mother's dinners after you have eaten it — and ask your- self if any reasonable creature would be in a hurry to leave this Canaan for that wilderness. I'm afraid I shall stop as long as ever dear old Lady B. asks me; and she is always pressing me to extend my visit." "I don't think dinner can be much of attraction in your mind, Juliet," said Harrington. "Of course not — girls don't care what they eat/' replied Juliet, sipping her clear soup, and most fully ap- preciating the flavour. "But there are so many advantages •at Medlow. There is the hunting, for instance, which is much better than any I can get at home, where I have positively no horse that I can call my own. Here I can always rely upon a good mount." "Has Lady Burdenshaw a large stable?" "Oh, she keeps a good many horses; but most of hers are only fit for leather. There are men who come here with strings of hunters, and have always a young one that they like me to handle for them." "Juliet, you will get your neck broken," cried Harring- ton, pale with horror, and staring vacantly at the fish that was being offered to him. "There is no fear of that while I ride young horses, the danger is an old one. My father taught me to ride, and as he was one of the best cross-country riders in 14 THE DAY WILL COME. Dorset I am not likely to make a mistake. You had better try that sole Normande; it is one of the Medlow specialities." "Juliet, I hate the idea of your staying in this house — or in any house where there is a crowd of fast men. I hate the idea of your riding men's horses — of your be- ing under an obligation to a stranger " "Don't I tell you that the obligation is all the other way. A young hunter is a more saleable article when he has carried a lady. 'Will suit a bold horsewoman in a stiff country.' That sort of thing is worth a great deal in a catalogue, and the men whose horses I ride are not strangers." "At the most they are casual acquaintances." "Call them that if you like. Why should not one profit by one's acquaintances?" "There is one of your benefactors looking at you at this moment, and looking as if he objected to my talking to you." "How dare you talk about my benefactors? Do you suppose I had you invited to Medlow in order that you might insult me?" This little dialogue was conducted in subdued tones, but with a good deal of acrimony upon either side. Harrington was bursting with jealousy. The house, the men, the very atmosphere awakened distrust. He detested those men for their square shoulders and soldierly bearing, for the suggestion of cavalry or household brigade which seemed to him to pervade the masculine portion of the assembly. He had always hated military men. Their chief mission in life seemed to be to make civilians look insignificant. Miss Baldwin ate the next entree in stony silence, THE DAY WILL COME. I 5 and it was not till he had abjectly apologised for his offensive speech that her lover was again taken into favour. She relented at last, however, and favoured him with a good deal of information about the house party which made such a brilliant show at Lady Burden- shaw's luxurious board. The men were for the most part military — the greater number bachelors, or at any rate unencumbered with wives. Two had been divorced, one was a widower, another was separated in the friendliest way from a wife who found she could live in better style unfettered by matrimonial supervision. Major Swanwick was one of the two who had profited by Sir James Hannen's jurisdiction. "His wife was Lady Flora Thurles, one of the Tan- tallans. All the Tantallan girls went wrong, don't you know. It was in the blood." "You and he seem to be great friends," said Harring- ton, still suspicious. "Oh, we have met very often; he is quite an old chum of mine. He is a good old thing." Seeing that the good old thing looked as if he were well under forty, Harrington was not altogether reassured, even by this comfortable tone. He watched his betrothed and the Major all through the long evening in the billiard- room, where pool was again the chief amusement of a very noisy party, of which Juliet and Major Swanwick seemed to him the ringleaders and master spirits. It was with difficulty that he, the affianced, got speech with his betrothed. There were just a few minutes, while the old family tankards were being carried round with mulled claret and other cunning drinks, in which Juliet vouchsafed to I 6 THE DAY WILL COME. give her attention to her lover, he having in a manner cornered her into a draped recess at the end of the room, where he held her prisoner while he bade her good night. "I shall see you at the meet to-morrow," he said. "I won't promise to be at the meet, but I shall find you and the hounds in plenty of time. I know every inch of this country." "Whose horse are you going to ride to-morrow?" "A fine upstanding chestnut; I'm sure you'll admire him?" "Yes, yes, but whose?" "Whose?" echoed Juliet, as if she scarcely understood the word. "Oh," with a sudden flash of intelligence; "you mean whose property is he? As if that mattered! He belongs to Major Swanwick." "Good night!" said Harrington, and he went off to take leave of Lady Burdenshaw, who was sitting in the capacious ingle nook, with a circle of men about her telling her anecdotes in Parisian French, and from whom every now and then there burst peals of jovial laughter. "At my age one understands everything, and one may hear everything," said her Ladyship. Harrington went back to the "Medlow Arms" more depressed than he had felt during any period of his courtship. Instinct had warned him of the dangers that must lurk in such a house as Medlow Court for such a girl as Juliet Baldwin; but neither instinct nor imagina- tion had prepared him for the horrible reality. To see the woman who was to be his wife smoking cigarettes, playing shilling pool, and bandying doubtful jokes with men who had obviously the very poorest opinion of the opposite sex, was an agony which he had never thought to suffer; and for the first time since his engagement he' THE DAY WILL COME. I 7 asked himself whether it would not have been better to have trusted his future happiness to the most insipid and colourless of the girls with whom he played tennis than to this magnificent specimen of emancipated smartness. The image of Juliet sprawling over the billiard-table, with her eyes on fire and her shoulders half out of her gown as she took a difficult "life," pursued him like a bacchana- lian nightmare all through his troubled snatches of sleep. The stony straw mattrass and lumpy feather bed would not have been conducive to slumber under the happiest circumstances, but for a mind disturbed by care they were a bed of torture. He rose at seven, unrefreshed, heavy-hearted, detesting chanticleer, cloudy skies, and all the old-fashioned fuss about a hunting morning, and wishing himself in his comfortable room in the good old house in Cornhill, where he had ample space and all things needful to a luxurious toilet. He got himself dressed somehow. He was in the saddle at nine o'clock, after a breakfast for which he had no appetite. It was a long, dreary ride to the little roadside inn at which the hounds met, and Harrington being parti- cularly punctual, had to jog along companionless till the last mile, when Major Swanwick and another man from Medlow overtook him and regaled him with their talk for the rest of the way. "I think I know that black horse," said the Major, who looked provokingly well in his red coat, chimney pot, and cream-coloured tops, thereby making Harrington ashamed of his neat dark gray coat, Bedford cords, and bowler hat. "Wasn't he in Baldwin's stud nine years ago?" "I bought him of Sir Henry Baldwin." "Thought so. Good hand at selling a horse, Baldwin! The Day will come, II, 2 I 8 THE DAY WILL COME. However, I suppose there's some work in the black horse yet." "I hope so, for I mean to hunt him to the end of the season," answered Harrington, ignoring that awful necessity of selling before the end of the month. Hope glowed faintly in his breast as he saw the Major's keen eye going over his mount, as if studying the condition of every limb and every muscle. "Wears well," he said, after this deliberate survey, "but I'm afraid you'll find him like the wonderful one- horse shay. He'll go to pieces all at once. Did Baldwin tell you his age?" "He said something about rising eight — but I didn't inquire very particularly, as I know the horse is a good one." "And it was a good one of Baldwin to talk about rising eight. He would have been within the mark if he had said rising eighteen. I've bought a horse of Sir Henry myself, and," — after a brief pause — "I've sold him one." "And I daresay that made you even," said Harring- ton, with acidity. He would have liked to call the Major out for his insolence, and almost regretted that he was a Briton, and not a Frenchman and a professed duellist. "Faith, I don't think he had altogether the best of me — for when he rode that hunter of mine he was like the little old woman in the nursery rhyme, of whom it was said that she should have music wherever she went. He had music, and to spare." And so with jovial laughter they rode up to the open space in front of the "Red Cow," where the hounds were grouped about a duck pond, while the master chatted with his friends. THE DAY WILL COME. I 9 It was an hour later before Juliet appeared, cropping up suddenly on a windy common, with three other girls and two men, while the hounds were drawing the furze. "You see I could make a pretty good guess where to find you," she said to Harrington. "How well the black looks! You have been saving him up, I suppose?" "No, I've hunted as often as I could. I had no other distraction during your absence." "How sweet of you to say that — with all the gaieties of Dorchester to allure you! Hark! they've found, and we shall be off in a minute. Yes, there he goes ! " point- ing with her whip to the spot where the fox had flashed across the short level sward, vanishing next moment in the withered heather. "Now you'll see what this horse can do, and you can tell me what you think of him when we meet at dinner." There was the usual minute or so of flutter and ex- pectation, and then the business-like calm — an almost awful calm — every man settling down to his work, intent upon himself, steering carefully for a good place. Harrington was a nervous rider, and if fortune helped him to get a good place he rarely kept it. To-day he was more than usually nervous, fancying that Juliet's eye was upon him, which it wasn't, and, indeed, could not have been, unless it had been situated in the back of her head, since she was already ever so far in front. In time, however, he, too, contrived to settle down, and the black horse took the business into his own hands, and kept his rider fairly close to the hounds. For the first twenty minutes there was a good deal of jumping, but of a mildish order, and Harrington felt that he was distinguishing himself, inasmuch as he was able to stick to his horse, though not always to his saddle. 20 THE DAY WILL COME. They lost their first fox, after a very fair run, and they waited about for nearly two hours before they started a second, which they did eventually in a scrubby copse on the skirts of a great stretch of ploughed land. The plough took a good deal out of Mahmud, and after the plough came a series of small fields, with some stiffish fences, which had to be taken by any man who wanted to keep with the hounds. Here Juliet was in her glory, for the chestnut on which she was mounted was a fine fencer, and she knew how to handle him, or, per- haps it may be said, how to let him alone. Mahmud had been almost as fine a fencer as the fiery young chestnut, and he was a horse of a great heart, always ready to attempt more than he could do. The livery stable people had told Harrington that if his legs were only as good as his heart he would be one of the best hunters in the county. And now, with some quaver- ing of spirit on his own part, Harrington trusted that heart would stand instead of legs, and get him and the black over the fences somehow. Just at this crucial point in the run Juliet was in front of him, and Major Swan- wick was pressing him behind. He was near the hounds, and altogether in a place of honour, could he but keep it, and to keep it he felt was worth a struggle. He got over or through the first fence somehow; not gloriously, but without too much loss of time; and gal- loped gaily towards the second, which looked a stiffer and more complicated affair. Juliet's horse went over like a bird, and Juliet sat him like a butterfly, no more discomposed by the shock than if she had been some winged insect that had lighted on his haunches. Mahmud followed close, excited by the horse in front of him, and rose to his work gallantly; but this time it was timber THE DAY WILL COME. 2 1 and not quick-set that had to be cleared, and that stiff rail was just too much for the old hunter's legs. He blundered, hit himself with the sharp edge of the rail, and fell heavily forward, sending his rider flying into the next field, and sinking in a struggling mass into the ditch. Major Swanwick dismounted in an instant, scrambled over the hedge, and ran to help Harrington up. "Are you hurt?" "Not much," answered the fallen man, staggering to his feet, hatless, and with a dazed look. "I'm afraid my horse is done for, though, poor old chap." In that moment his only thought was of the beast he had been fond of, which had been to him as a friend, albeit often an unmanageable one. He had no thought just then of the money value of that doubled-up mass lying in the ditch. Mahmud had finished his course. His forearm was broken, and the most merciful thing was to make a swift end of him with a bullet from a gun which one of the whips fetched from the nearest farmhouse. His owner stood by him and waited for the end, while Juliet and the rest of the hunt galloped away out of sight. When the shot had been fired the black horse was left to be carted off to the kennels, and Harrington turned to walk slowly and sorrowfully to the farmhouse, where he was promised a trap to convey him to the "Medlow Arms." Then and then only did he discover that he had dis- located his shoulder, and was suffering acute agony, and then and then only did he remember the acceptance which he had given for the black horse. Where now were the fifty pounds which he had reckoned upon getting for the animal at Tattersall's, trust- ing to Providence, or old Hayfield, to make up the 2 2 THE DAY WILL COME. balance of thirty. He saw himself now with that horrible acceptance falling due and no assets. He got back to the rustic inn, with great suffering, and laid himself down upon the stony-hearted four-poster instead of dressing to go and dine at Medlow. The village surgeon came and attended to his shoulder, a painful business, though not unskilfully done; and then he was told he must keep himself as quiet as possible for a few days, and must not think of travelling till the inflammation was reduced. It was his right shoulder on which he had fallen, and he was utterly helpless. The handy young man of the "Medlow Arms" had to valet him and assist him to eat the tough mutton chop which was served to him in lieu of all the delicacies of Med- low Court. A messenger came from that hospitable mansion at ten o'clock with a little note from Juliet. "Why did you not turn up at dinner time? Major Swanwick said you were all right. I waited till I saw you get up, safe and sound. So sorry for poor old Mahmud. Come to breakfast to-morrow and tell us all about it. We killed in a quarter of an hour. — Yours, Juliet." Harrington sent his best regards to Miss Baldwin and his apologies to Lady Burdenshaw, and begged to inform them that he had dislocated his shoulder, and was un- able to write. He had a miserable night — sleepless and in pain — haunted by the ghost of Mahmud, whose miserable end afflicted him sorely, and troubled by the perplexities of his financial position. Should he tell his father the whole truth? Alas, it seemed only yesterday that he had told his father the whole truth about his college debts; and THE DAY WILL COME. 23 though truthfulness is a great virtue, a second burst of candour coming on the heels of the first might be too much for Mr. Dalbrook's patience. Should he borrow the money from Juanita? No, too humiliating. He had always felt a restraining pride in all his intercourse with his grand relations at Cheriton Chase. They were of his own blood; but they were above him in social status, and he was sensitively alive to the difference in position. Could be apply to his brother? Again the answer was in the negative. He doubted whether Theodore possessed eighty guineas in the world. And so he went on revolving the same considerations through his fevered brain all through the long winter night. There were moments of exasperation and semi- delirium, when he thought he would go over to Medlow Court as soon as he was able to move, and appeal to the beneficence of Lady Burdenshaw for the temporary accommodation of a cheque for eighty guineas. And thus the night wore on till the morning sounds of the inn brought the sense of stern reality across his feverish dreams; and then, amidst the crowing of cocks, and the bumping of pails, and tramping of horses in the stable yard, he contrived to fall asleep, after having failed in that endeavour all through the quiet of the night. It was about half-past eleven, and the handy-man had helped him to make a decent toilet and to establish himself upon a sofa that was a little harder than the bed, when a pony-carriage drove up to the door, and the chamber-maid came in with an awe-stricken face to an- nounce Lady Burdenshaw and another lady, and would he please to see them, as they wanted to come upstairs. The room was tidy, and he was dressed as well as a 24 THE °AY WILL COME. helpless man could be, so he said yes, they might come up, which was almost unnecessary, as they were already on the stairs, and were in the room a minute afterwards. Juliet expressed herself deeply concerned at her lover's misfortune, though she did not attempt to conceal from him that she considered his riding in fault. Lady Burden- shaw was more sympathetic, and was horrified at the discomfort of his surroundings. "You cannot possibly endure that cruel-looking sofa till your shoulder is well," she said, "and such a small room, too, poor fellow; and a horrid low ceiling; and the house smells damp. I wonder if we could venture to move him to the Court, Ju?" Ju was of opinion that such a proceeding would be to the last degree dangerous. "The only chance for his shoulder is to keep quiet," she said. Unfortunately, the surgeon had said the same thing, and there could be no doubt about it. "Perhaps you could send him a sofa?" suggested Juliet. "Of course I could; and I can send him soups and jellies and things — but that isn't like having him at Med- low, where he could have a large airy room, and where you and I could take it in turns to amuse him." "Dear Lady Burdenshaw, you are too good to an al- most stranger," murmured Harrington, moved to the verge of tears by her geniality. "Stranger! fiddlesticks. Don't I know your cousin, Lord Cheriton; and has not your father done business for me? Besides, I like young men, when they're modest and pleasant, as you are. Indeed I sometimes like them when they're impertinent. I like young faces and young voices about me. I like to be amused, and to see people THE DAY WILL COME. 2$ happy. I can't endure the idea of your lying for ever so many days and nights in this dog-kennel, when you came to Medlow to enjoy yourself." "It mustn't be many days and nights. I must get home somehow by the end of the week, if I post all the way." "Oh, you needn't post. When you are able to be moved, my carriage shall take you to the station; and I'll get the railroad people to take an invalid carriage through to Dorchester for you." "Indeed, you must not be impatient, Harry," said Juliet. "I shall come to see you every day, except on the hunting days, and even then I can walk over in the evening if Lady B. will let me." "Of course I shall let you. All my sympathies are with lovers, and when you are married I shall give Mr. Dalbrook as much of my business as I possibly can ven- ture to take away from those dear old fossils at Salisbury, who have been the family lawyers for the best part of a century." Juliet had confided her engagement to Lady B. at the beginning of her visit, and she and Lady B. had talked over the young man's chances of doing well in the world, and the wisdom or the foolishness of such an alliance. Lady B. had seen a good deal of smart young men and women, and she had discovered that the smart young men were very keen in the furtherance of their own interests, and that the smart young women had considerable dif- ficulty in getting themselves permanently established in the smart world by smart marriages. Some were beauti- ful, and many were admired; but they had to wait for eligible suitors, and one false step in the early stages of their career would sometimes blight their chances of sue- 26 THE DAY WILL COME. cess. Juliet had taken many false steps, and had got herself a good deal talked about, and Lady Burdenshaw felt that her chance of making an advantageous match had been lessening year by year until it had come to be almost nil. "If this young fellow is sensible and good-looking, and has a little money, I really think, Ju, you ought to marry him," concluded Lady B., talking the matter over with her protegee before she had seen Harrington. She fancied that Juliet had cooled somewhat in her feelings towards her youthful lover within the last week or ten days. It might be, Lady B. thought, that she began to perceive that he was too young, that the difference in their ages, which was not much, and the difference in their worldly experience, which was enormous, unfitted them to be happy together. "No doubt the young man is a pis aller," reflected Lady Burdenshaw, after Harrington's appearance at Med- low, "but he is a very good-looking fellow, and by no means bad — as a pis aller. Of course, he is too young for Juliet, and much too fresh and innocent to under- stand her; but if he knew more he wouldn't be so eager to marry her — so she ought to be satisfied." Lady Burdenshaw sent a delightful sofa, and a lot of books, flowers, pillows, foot-rests, and other luxuries in one of her own waggons, within an hour of her return to Medlow, and Harrington's comfort was considerably in- creased by her kindness. Still the thought of that wretched acceptance was like a thorn in every cushion, a scorpion under every pillow, a wasp in every flower. Nor was he altogether at ease about Juliet. He thought that he had detected a constraint in her manner, a shiftiness in her THE DAY WILL COME. 2 "J eyes. It had wounded him that she had so promptly- opposed his being conveyed to Medlow. It might be that she was influenced only by concern for his safety; yet it would have been natural for his betrothed to wish to have him under the same roof with her, where she might tend and comfort him in his helplessness. Pain and anguish were wringing his brow, and she who should have been his ministering angel was content to limit her ministration to half-an-hour of somewhat disjointed conversation, and to the polite attention of bringing him the morning papers, when everybody at Medlow had looked at them. Lady Burdenshaw had very kindly taken upon herself to write to Matthew Dalbrook, explaining his son's pro- longed absence, and making light of his accident as a matter only involving a few days' rest. The few days had gone on till the fourth day after his fall, and in spite of all that Lady Burdenshaw had done to ameliorate his captivity the hours of the day and the night seemed to grow longer and longer, till he began to think of Silvio Pellico and the man in the iron mask. Juliet's visits were very short, and she was obviously absent-minded and bored even during that scanty half- hour which she gave to her betrothed. 'T'm afraid you are like Colonel Enderby's wife," he said, "and that the sight of sickness or suffering is more than you can bear." "Who was Colonel Enderby's wife?" "Don't you know? She is the heroine of a very clever novel — an original, strange — and I fear not un- natural character." "Don't remember her," answered Juliet, carelessly. "I don't read many English novels. They are too slow for me." 28 THE DAY WILL COME. On the hunting day he missed even that brief visit, and was expectant of her coming all the evening, as she had promised to make up for the day's absence. But the night was wet, and she told him next day that she did not like to take out Lady Burdenshaw's horse and man in such weather. "The stable people would have resented it, and I am obliged to stand well with the stable," she said. He thought she had a troubled look that day. It seemed to him that it cost her an effort to keep her at- tention upon any subject, and she lapsed into silence every now and then, looking dreamily out of the window to the thatched roofs and ploughed fields in the distance. "I'm afraid you have something on your mind," he said. "What nonsense! What put such an idea into your head?" "You are so thoughtful, and so much more silent than usual." "There is so little to talk about in a sick room. If I were to tell you about our doings at Medlow I should only bore you." "Not at all. I should be very pleased to hear how you amuse yourself. Is Major Swanwick still there?" "Yes; he is still there." He saw that her cheeks crimsoned as she answered his question, and he wondered whether she really had any penchant for the Major, or whether she suspected his jealous apprehensions upon that subject. She got up to go before he could question her further. "I shall be late for luncheon," she said, "and Lady B. hates any of us to be absent!" "I thought there was no such thing as punctuality at Medlow." THE DAY WILL COME. 2 0. "Oh, we are pretty punctual at luncheon. It's the hungry hour, and we are all ravenous. Good-bye." et Au revoir. You will come to-morrow, love; and come earlier, I hope." "Pas possible. I shall be out with the hounds." "Another blank day for me. But don't disappoint me in the evening, whatever the weather may be." She was gone, leaving him doubtful of her fidelity, though far from suspecting the extent of her falsehood. He endured the long, dull day as best he might, and improved his mind by skimming all the books which Lady Burdenshaw had sent him, which were really the cream of Mudie's last supply — travels, memoirs, gossip, magazines — books chosen with a view to the masculine mind, which was supposed to be indifferent to fiction. Evening came at last. His lamp was lighted, his fire swept and garnished. The hunting party would be jogging homeward in the wintry darkness, he thought. There were three hours to wait before half-past nine, which was the earliest time at which he could expect his beloved. It was a little after the half hour, when his heart began to beat faster at the sound of carriage wheels. This time she was not going to disappoint him. He listened for her step upon the stair — the firm, quick tread he knew so well; but it was another step which he heard, a slower and heavier tread, with much rustling of silken draperies. It must be Lady Burdenshaw come to chaperon her. It was Lady Burdenshaw, but alone. She came in and drew near his sofa with a serious countenance. "Great God!" he cried, starting up from his reclining position; "is anything the matter? An accident in the hunting field! Is she hurt?" 30 THE DAY WILL COME. "No, my poor fellow. She's not hurt. It would take a great deal to hurt her. She's too hard. But she has done her best to hurt you." "What do you mean?" "She has gone off with that audacious scamp." "Major Swanwick?" "Yes. Did you suspect anything?" "I thought there was an understanding between them." "They went off together early this morning; walked five miles to the station, leaving their luggage to be looked after by the Major's servant, who had received his in- structions and who got everything packed and off by the one o'clock train for London. I got this telegram late in the afternoon from Salisbury." She handed him a telegram, which he read slowly, word by word, and then he slowly folded it and restored it to his visitor, in heart-stricken silence. The telegram was in these words: — "To Lady Burdenshaw, Medlow Court, — Major Swanwick and I were married at two o'clock, before the Registrar. We start for Monte Carlo to-night. Please break it to Harrington, and forgive me for going away without telling you. We thought it better to avoid fuss. — Yours lovingly, "Juliet Swanwick." "God help this infatuated girl," said Lady Burden- shaw. "She has married a scoundrel who is up to his eyebrows in debt. He behaved brutally to his first wife, and he is not very likely to treat this one any better. I'm very sorry I ever had them in my house together. He was an old flame, and he had lost her more than one THE DAY WILL COME. 3 I good match by his equivocal attentions. As for you, my dear young fellow, I congratulate you upon a very lucky escape." Harrington put his hand before his eyes to hide the tears of mortification and wounded love. Yet, even while the sense of disappointment was keenest, he had a feel- ing that Lady Burdenshaw was right, and that he had escaped a lifelong martyrdom. How could he, with his limited means, have ever satisfied a woman who lived only for pleasure and excitement, dress and dissipation? Juliet had been very frank with him during their brief courtship, and he had seen enough of her character to know that this splendid creature was not of the stuff that makes a good wife for a professional man with his struggles all before him. He was sorry, he was angry, he was wounded to the quick; but in the midst of it all he felt that there was a burden lifted off his mind and off his life — that he could breathe more freely, that he was no longer overweighted in the race. Lady Burdenshaw stopped with him for an hour, and told him a good many small facts to his charmer's dis- credit, although he begged her more than once to desist. It was her only idea of comforting him, and it may be that her efforts were not misdirected. He was surprised on the following afternoon by a visit from his father, who was not satisfied with Lady Burdenshaw's report of his condition. Touched by this evidence of paternal affection the young man took heart of grace and made a full confession — first of his engage- ment, and next of his pecuniary obligations — the accept- ance so soon to fall due, the twenty pounds borrowed from Hayfield. "I can pay that very easily out of my allowance," he 2,2 THE DAY WILL COME. said, "I only tell you about it to show what a mean hound I was becoming." "You were very hard driven, my poor boy. You had been unlucky enough to fall in love with an unprincipled woman. You may thank Providence for having escaped a life of misery. Such an alliance as that would have wrecked your future. I would rather you married a housemaid with a good character than such a woman as Juliet Baldwin. However, there are plenty of nice girls in your own sphere, thank God, and plenty of pretty girls with unblemished character and antecedents." Harrington went back to Dorchester with his father next day, and the acceptance was promptly honoured when it was presented at the house in Cornhill. Sir Henry had discounted it at the local bank almost immediately after it passed into his possession, and the bank had regarded the document as good value for their money, Matthew Dalbrook being very unlikely to allow his son's signature to be dishonoured. THE DAY WILL COME. $$ CHAPTER II. "All the spring-time of his love Is already gone and past." Theodore went back to wintry London before the year was a week old. He settled himself by his lonely fireside, in the silence of his old-fashioned rooms. All he had of the beauty of his world was a glimpse of the river athwart the heavy grey mists of a London morning, or the lamps on the embankment shining like a string of jewels in the evening dusk. There were days of sullen, hopeless fog, when even these things were hidden from him, and when it was hard work to keep that stealthy, penetrating greyness and damp cold out of his rooms. He had brought a fox-terrier from Dorchester on his return from his holiday, an old favourite that had seen the best days of her youth, and was better able to put up with a sedentary life, varied only by an occasional run, than a younger animal would have been. This faithful friend, an animated little beast even at this mature stage of her existence, lightened the burden of his loneliness, were it only by leaping on to his knees twenty times in five minutes, and only desisting therefrom upon most serious remonstrance. It was pleasant to him to have something that loved him, even this irrepressible Miss Nipper, with her sidelong grin of affectionate greeting, and her unconquerable suspicion of rats behind the wainscot. He felt less like Dr. Faustus on that famous Easter morning, when the emptiness of life and learning The Day will co?ne, II. 3 34 THE DAY WILL COME. came home to the lonely student with such desolating in- tensity, when even a devil was welcome who could offer escape from that dull burden of existence. He had come back from his brief holiday dejected and disheartened. It seemed to him that she who was his lode-star was more remote from him than she had ever been — more and more remote — vanishing into a distant world where it was vain for him to follow. He had failed in the task that she had imposed upon him. He was no nearer the solution of that dark mystery which troubled her life than he had been when he first promised to help her. How poor and impotent a creature he must appear in her eyes. His only discoveries had been negative. All that his keen, trained intellect, sharpened by seven years of legal experience, had been able to do was to prove the unsoundness of her own theory. He had started no theory upon his part. No flash of genius had illumined the obscurity which surrounded Godfrey Carmichael's death. He went on with his plodding work, resolutely bent upon doing the utmost that patient labour can do to en- sure success. Even if it were all vain and futile — that hope of winning favour in her eyes — the mere possibility of standing better with her, of showing her that he was of the stuff which goes to the making of distinguished men — even this was worth working for. "She may have great offers by-and-by," he told him- self, recalling what Lord Cheriton had said about his daughter's chances. "With her beauty and her expecta- tions, to say nothing of her present means, she is sure of distinguished admirers; but at the worst she cannot look down upon a man who is on the road to success in her father's profession." THE DAY WILL COME. 35 This ever-present consideration, joined to his love of his calling, sweetened all that was dry and dull in the initial stages of a barrister's career. While other men of his age were spending their evenings at the Gaiety Theatre, seeing the same burlesque and laughing at the same jokes night after night, as appetite grew with what it fed on, Theodore was content to sit in chambers and read law. It was not that he was wanting in apprecia- tion of the drama. There was no man in London better able to enjoy the dignity of Hamlet at the Lyceum, or the rollicking fun of the Gaiety Bluebeard. He was no pedantic piece of clay, proud of the dulness that calls itself virtue. He was only an earnest worker, bent upon a given result, and able to put aside every hindrance upon the road that he was travelling. "They that run in a race run all, but one obtaineth the prize," he said to himself, recalling a sentence in an epistle that he had learned years ago at his mother's knee, words that always brought back the cold brightness of early spring, and a period of extra church services, long sermons in the lamp-lit church, and the voices of strange preachers, a time of daffodils and fish dinners, and much talk of High and Low Church. He had never faltered in his religious convictions; yet in the days of his youth that Lenten season in a country town, that recur- rent sound of church bells in the chilly March twilight, had weighed heavy upon his soul. Almost the only recreation which he allowed himself in this winter season was an occasional attendance at Miss Newton's tea-parties. He had secured acceptance for himself at these entertainments on the strength of his reading, and he was now established as a Shakspearian reader; Miss Newton having taken it into her head that 3* 36 THE DAY WILL COME. Shakspeare is of all great poets the easiest understood by the people, and having ordered him to read Shak- speare until she should tell him to desist. "I know what they like and what they dislike," she said. "They'll not conceal their feelings from me when we talk you over after you've gone. As soon as ever I find them getting tired I'll let you know." He began with Macbeth, a story which caught them at the very first page. The witches took their breath away; and when he came to the murder scene they were all sitting round him with their hair seemingly on end. He closed his first reading with that awful knocking at the gate; that one supreme stage effect which has never yet been paralleled by mortal dramatist. There were some of the girls who tumbled off their chairs and grovelled on the floor in their excitement. There were others who wanted to know the fate of Macbeth and his wife on the instant. "I do hope they were both hung, like the Mannings," said a meek widow. "Oh, but he wasn't so much to blame, Mrs. Kirby. That wicked woman drove him to it." "So did Mrs. Manning," argued a Bermondsey lady, "but they hung Manning all the same when they caught him. I was a child when it happened, but I remember hearing about them. He was took in Jersey, and she wore a black satin gownd." "Oh, don't talk about your Mannings, Mrs. Hodge," cried one of the girls indignantly. "They were low, vulgar people. These were a King and Queen in a palace. It's all different. It lifts one up out of one's own life only to hear about them. You may read about murders in the newspapers till your eyes begin to swim, THE DAY WILL COME, 37 but you won't feel like that. I don't know when I've felt so sorry for anybody as I feel for King Macbeth." Marian sat silent, and refrained from all part in the chorus of criticism, but she moved to the piano presently and began to play a Scotch air — a grand old march — slow, solemn music that was almost too much for the nerves of the more excitable among Miss Newton's party. She glided from one melody to another, and she played those wild Scottish airs with such thrilling power that they seemed to sustain and intensify the uncanny effect of the tragic reading. Theodore went over to the piano and stood beside her as she played. "I knew you were a musician," he said, "though I never heard you touch the keys till to-night." "How did you know?" "My cousin Juanita told me. She remembered your playing in her mother's room when she was a child." The woman called Marian lifted her eyes to him with a look of patient reproach, as if she said, "You are cruel to hit any one so helpless as I am," and then, playing all the time, she answered coldly, — "I do not know what you are talking about." "Don't you! Oh, but indeed I think you do, and I should be very glad to be of use to you if you would let me, for the sake of those old days. I don't think it is possible I can be mistaken, though you may have your own reason for refusing to confide in me." He was certain now in his own mind that this was Mercy Porter and no other. That fine touch upon the piano implied sustained and careful cultivation. She did not play like a girl who had learnt music as an after- thought. 38 THE DAY WILL COME. He left the house when she did, and walked part of the way to Hercules Buildings with her, but did not offer to go out of his way to see her home, being very sure she would refuse. "I wish you would trust me," he said gently, as they walked side by side, without looking at each other. "Be- lieve me that every one at Cheriton is sorry for you. If you were to go back to the neighbourhood you would have everybody's sympathy. There would be no one to cast a stone." "I am very sorry I ever mentioned Cheriton to you, Mr. Dalbrook," she said impatiently. "It was a foolish impulse that made me talk. You insist upon making guesses. You try to force a confession from me. It is hardly generous." "My interest in you must be my excuse." "You can do me no good by that kind of interest. I shall never see Dorsetshire again — so what can it matter who I was when I lived in that part of the world. There are hundreds of women in London as lonely as I am — hundreds — perhaps thousands — who have broken every link with their past. My life suits me well enough, and I am contented. I shall never try to change it." "That is a pity. You are young enough to make a good wife to an honest man, to help in creating a happy home." "Am I? I feel a century old; and I have done with every thought of love or marriage. When I woke to con- sciousness after that dreadful fever, awoke from darkness and oblivion like that of the grave, I entered upon a new life. I came out of that sickness like one who had passed through hell. Passion and hope and youth, and good looks, had been burnt out of me in a fiery furnace. It THE DAY WILL COME. 39 was a wonder to myself that my body was alive. It was no wonder to me that my heart was dead. From that time I have lived very much as I am living now — after a brief time of struggle and starvation — and the life suits me fairly well. I shall never seek to better it." "That is hard, Marian." He called her by her Christian name, frankly, in almost paternal friendliness, not knowing any other name by which to call her. He was with Miss Newton earlier than usual on the occasion of her next tea-drinking, so early as to be be- fore anybody else, and he talked to his hostess about Marian — Marian Gray, Miss Newton called her — confiding to her his conviction that this young woman was no other than Mrs. Porter's missing daughter. He told her of his interview with Mrs. Porter, and of the mother's angry re- pudiation of her child. "I can but think that her hardness was assumed," he said, "and that the ice would melt at a touch if the mother and daughter could be brought together. I should like to try the experiment." "It is hardly wise to try experiments with human hearts," said Miss Newton. "Marian is contented and at peace, if not happy. To force her back upon a mother who might be hard and bitter to her — do you think that would be true kindness?" "What if the mother's heart has been yearning for her lost lamb in all these years, and by bringing her back I might make two lives happy." "Let the mother come to the child. Let her who has something to forgive be the one to make the ad- vance. It is so hard for the sinner to go back. She must be helped back. If the mother were a woman with 40 THE DAY WILL COME. a motherly heart she would have been searching for her lost child in all those years instead of wrapping herself up in her sorrow at home." "I own I have thought that." "Of course you have. You can't think otherwise as a sensible man. I have no patience with such a mother. As for Marian, I think she may get on very well as she is. I am fond of her, and I believe she is fond of me. She earns from twelve to fourteen shillings a week. She pays five shillings for her room, and she lives upon eight- pence a day. I needn't tell you that the teapot is her piece de resistance. Her most substantial meal on some days consists of a couple of scones from the Scotch baker's, or a penny loaf and a hard boiled egg; but when I go to see her she gives me an admirable cup of tea, and positively delicious bread and butter. Her room is the very pink and pattern of neatness. All the instincts of a lady show themselves in that poor little two-pair back. She has curtained the iron bedstead and the window with white dimity, which is always clean and fresh, for she washes and irons it with her own hands. She generally contrives to have a bunch of flowers upon her work-table, and hard as she works, her room is always free from litter. She has about half-a-dozen books of her own upon the mantelshelf, her Bible, Milton, Shak- speare, Charles Lamb's Essays, Goldsmith's Poems, and the "Idyls of the King" — well-worn volumes, which have been her companions for years. She borrows other books from the Free Library, and her mind is always being cultivated. I really believe she is happy. She is one of those rare individuals who can afford to live alone. Do not disturb her lightly." "You are right perhaps. The mother struck me as THE DAY WILL COME. 4 I by no means a pleasant character, always supposing that Mrs. Porter is her mother, of which I myself have very little doubt." Theodore made no further effort to bring mother and daughter together, but he met Marian from time to time at Miss Newton's tea parties, and acquaintance ripened into friendship. Her refinement and her musical talent sustained his interest in her. He talked to her of books sometimes when they happened to be sitting side by side at the tea-table, and he was surprised at the extent of her reading. She confessed when he questioned her that she was in the habit of stealing two or three hours from the night for her books. "I find that I can do with a few hours' sleep," she said, "if I lie down happy in my mind after being ab- sorbed in a delightful book. My books are my life. They give me the whole universe for my world, though I have to live in one room, and to follow a very monotonous calling." He admired the refinement of that purely intellectual nature, but he admired still more that admirable tact which regulated her intercourse with Miss Newton's homelier friends. Never by word or tone or half-involuntary glance did Marian betray any consciousness of superiority to the uncultivated herd. She shared their interests, she sym- pathized with their vexations, she neither smiled nor shuddered at Cockney twang or missing aspirate. Winter brightened into spring, with all its varieties of good and evil; east winds rushing round street corners, and cutting into the pedestrian like a knife; west winds enfolding him like a balmy caress, and bringing the per- fume of violets, the vivid yellow of daffodils into the wilderness of brick and stone; rainy days, grey, mono- 42 THE DAY WILL COME. tonous, dismal, hanging on the soul like a curtain of gloom and hopelessness. These made up the sum of Theodore's outer life. Within he had his books, his ambition, and his faithful love. He told himself that it was a hopeless love; but there are many things which a man tells him- self, and tries to believe, and yet does not believe. The very human longing for blessedness is too strong for human wisdom. Where there is love, there is always hope. He had grown accustomed to his life in chambers; and albeit he was much attached to his father, and was amiably tolerant of his brother and sisters, he could but feel that this solitary existence better suited his temper than residence in a family circle. At Dorchester it had been very difficult for him to be alone. Out of business hours his sisters considered that they had a claim upon him, a right to waste his life in the most trivial amuse- ments and engagements. If he withdrew himself from their society, and that of their numerous dearest friends, they accused him of grumpiness, and thought themselves ill-treated. He had chafed against the waste of life, the utter futility of those engagements which prevented his keeping level with the intellectual growth of the age. He felt that his youth was slipping from under him, leaving him stationary, when every pulse of his being beat im- patiently for progress. And now it was pleasant to him to be his own master, free to make the best possible use of his days. He found a few friends in London whose society suited him, and only a few. Among these the man of whom he saw most was Cuthbert Ramsay, a young Scotchman, who had been his chief companion at Cam- bridge, who had studied medicine for three years in Leipsic and Paris with Ludwig and Pasteur, and who was now at St. Thomas'. The two young men ran up against THE DAY WILL COME. 43 each other in that main artery of London life, the Strand, in the January twilight, and renewed the friendly intimacy of that bygone time when Ramsay had been at Trinity and Dalbrook at Trinity Hall. They dined together at a restaurant on the evening of that first meeting, and after dinner Theodore took his friend to his chambers, where the two sat late into the night talking over college re- miniscences of hall and river. Cuthbert Ramsay had been one of the most remark- able undergraduates of those days, notable alike for mental and physical gifts which lifted him out of the ruck. He was six feet two — with the form of an athlete and as handsome a face as was ever seen within the gates of Trinity — and these advantages of person, which would have been noteworthy in any man, were the more remark- able in him, because of his utter indifference to them, or, perhaps, it maybe said, complete unconsciousness of them. He knew that he was a big man, because his tailor told him as much; but he had never taken into consideration the question as to whether he was or was not a hand- some man; indeed, except when he had his hair cut, an operation which he always submitted to unwillingly and of dire necessity, it is doubtful if he ever looked into a glass long enough to know what manner of man he was; certainly not at his morning toilet, when he moved rest- lessly about the room hairbrushes in hand, belabouring his handsome head, and exercising his extraordinary me- mory by the repetition of some scientific formula acquired during the previous night's reading. His own estimate of his appearance was comprised in the idea that he was "very Scotch." That milky white- ness of complexion, touched with just enough ruddy colour to give life to the face, those brilliant blue eyes, the straight 44 THE DAY WILL COME. nose, clear-cut nostrils, firm lips and firmer chin, the high broad brow, and crisp auburn hair, constituted to his mind nothing more than his brevet of nationality. "No one would ever take me for anything but a Scotchman," he would say lightly, if any acquaintance ventured to hint at his good looks. "There's no mistake about me. Albion is written on my brow." From his childhood upwards he had cared only for large things — intent upon investigation and discovery from the time he could crawl — asking the most searching ques- tions of mother and of nurse — prying into those abstract mysteries which perplex philosophers before he could speak plain. The thirst for knowledge had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength. His hardy boyhood had been spent for the most part in the windy streets of Aberdeen, marching with swinging stride along that granite pavement, his shabby red gown napping in the north-easter; faring anyhow, as indifferent to what he ate as he was to what he wore, ahead of his fellows in all things intellectual, and abreast with the best athletes of his year in the sports they valued, a king among men, and of such a happy disposition that nothing in life came amiss to him, and what would have been hardship to another seemed sport to him. Some one, a wealthy member of his extensive family, found out that this Cuthbert was no common youth, and that with a little encouragement he might do honour to the clan. This distant kinsman, one of the heads of the great house of Ramsay, sent him to Cambridge, where he entered as a scholar of his college, and at the end of a year gained a University scholarship, which made him independent. This hardy youth from the city of Bon Accord was able to live upon so little — could not for the THE DAY WILL COME. 45 life of him have been extravagant, having none of that mollesse, or soft self-indulgence, which is at the root of most men's squanderings. He was nine-and-twenty years of age, and he had never worn a gardenia, and had only had one suit of dress clothes since he grew to man's estate. Needless to say that albeit he went out very sel- dom that suit was now somewhat shabby; but Cuthbert's superb appearance neutralized the shabbiness, and he looked the finest man in any assembly. His parents were in their graves before he left the University. He had no ties. He was free as Adam would have been if Eve had never been created. There was no one near or dear to him to feel proud of his honours, though his name was high in the list of Wranglers, and he had taken a first class in science. And now, after that interval of serious scientific work in Leipsic and Paris, he was plodding at St. Thomas' with a view to a London decree, and thus the two hard-working young men — very intimate in the old days when Cuthbert's rooms in the Bishop's Hostel were conveniently adjacent to Theodore's ground floor in Trinity Hall — were thrown together again upon their life- journey, and were honestly glad to renew the old friendship. Ramsay was delighted with his friend's chambers. "I was afraid there was nothing so good as this left in the Temple," he said, rapturously contemplating the blackened old wainscot and the low ceiling with its heavy cross-beam. "I thought smartness and brand-new stone had superseded all that was historical and interesting within the precincts of the Lamb. But these rooms of yours have the true smack. Why, I really believe now, Dalbrook, you must have rats behind that wainscot?" "Perhaps I had, till Miss Nipper came to keep me company," answered Theodore, patting the terrier, whose 46 THE DAY WILL COME. neat little head and intelligent ears were lifted at the sound of her name. "And Nipper has made them emigrate to the next house, no doubt?" "I'm glad you like my rooms, Cuthbert." "Like them! I envy you the ownership more than I can say. If anything can make me sorry that I am not a lawyer it would be the fact that I can't live in the Temple. We doctors have no distinctive abode, nothing associated with the past." "Perhaps that is because medicine is essentially a progressive science." "Is it? Sometimes I begin to doubt if it has made any progress since Galen — or Albertus Magnus. I will admit that there was progress of some kind up to his time." "This house has an interest for me that it would have for no one else," said Theodore, presently, while his friend filled his briar- wood. "My kinsman, Lord Cheriton, occupied the rooms underneath these for about a dozen years; and it is a fancy of mine to keep his image be- fore me as I sit here alone with my books. It reminds me of what a man can do in the profession which so many of my friends declare to be hopeless." "No one knows anything about it, Theodore. If you went into statistics you would find that the chances of success in the learned professions are pretty nearly equal. So many men will get on, and so many will fail, at every trade, in every calling. The faculty of success lies in the man himself. I always thought you were the kind of man to do well in whatever line you hit upon. A calm, clever brain and a resolute will are the first factors in the sum of life. And so Lord Cheriton lived in this THE DAY WILL COME. 47 house, did he? I have heard people talk of him as a very distinguished man, as well as a very lucky one. By the bye, it was in his house that strange murder occurred last year." "Yes, it was in his house, and it was his daughter's husband who was murdered." "Tell me the story, Theodore," said Ramsay, leaning back his handsome head, and half closing his eyes, with the air of a man who liked hearing about murders. "I read the account in the papers at the time, but I've very nearly forgotten all about it." Theodore complied, and gave his friend the history of the case, and the failure of every attempt to find the murderer. "And there has been nothing discovered since last summer?" "Nothing!" "That is rather hard upon Lord Cheriton — bearing in mind your detective's suggestion of a vendetta. The vendetta would not be likely to close with the death of Sir Godfrey Carmichael. Hatred would demand further victims — Lord Cheriton himself perhaps — or this lovely young widow — but there could hardly be such a vindic- tive feeling without a strong cause. Enmity so deadly must have had a beginning in a profound sense of wrong." " I have studied the case from that point of view, but can discover no cause for such malignity. I have almost given up all hope of unravelling the mystery." "And your kinsman is to live under the sword of Damocles for the rest of his life? Upon my soul I pity him. I can imagine nothing in Ireland worse than the murder of Sir Godfrey Carmichael — a man seated peace- fully in his own drawing-room; and a high-principled, 48 THE DAY WILL COME. amiable young man, you tell me, who never was known to wrong his fellow man." Theodore Dalbrook did not spend his Easter holidays in Dorsetshire. He had heard from his sisters that Juanita was staying at Swanage with Lady Jane Carmicheal. He was unwilling to intrude upon her there, and he had no- thing to communicate upon the subject which was at present his only claim upon her interest. Under these circumstances he was easily persuaded to spend his vaca- tion in a ten days' trip to Holland with Cuthbert Ramsay, who was keenly interested in the result of some experi- ments which had lately been made at Leyden; and thus it happened that Theodore let some time go by without seeing any member of his family except his father, who came to London occasionally upon business, and whom his son was delighted to entertain and make much of in his chambers or at his club, the serviceable Constitu- tional. Towards the end of April he read an announcement in the papers which had touched him almost to tears. "On the 23rd inst., at Milbrook Priory, the widow of Sir Godfrey Carmichael, of a posthumous son." He was thankful for her sake that this new interest had been given to her days — that a new and fair horizon was open to her in this young life, with all its possibilities of love and gladness. It might be that the coming of this child would change the current of her thoughts, that the stern desire for retribution would grow less keen, that the agonizing sense of loss would be softened almost to forgetfulness. He remembered those lovely lines of the poet philosopher's THE DAY WILL COME. 4Q "A child, more than all other gifts, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." This child came, he hoped, freighted with healing and comfort, came like the glad spring-time itself, like Adonis or Persephone, with his arms full of flowers. He wrote to his cousin, in tenderest congratulation, a letter breathing a generous affection, without one selfish thought lurking between the lines. Her answer came after nearly a month's delay, but, although tardy, it was most delightful to him. Juanita asked him to be Godfather to her boy; and he could easily imagine that this was the highest honour she could offer him. "In London half the young men I used to meet took a pride in avowing their unbelief," she wrote, "but I know that you are not ashamed to ' acknowledge your faith in Christ and His Church. I shall feel secure that what you promise for my child will be fulfilled, so far as it is in your power to bring about its fulfilment. I know that if you stand beside the font and take those vows in His name you will not remember that ceremony as an empty form, a mere concession to usage and respectability. Those promises will appeal to you for my fatherless child in the days to come. They will make you his friend and protector." He accepted the trust with greater gladness than he had felt about anything that had happened to him for a long time; and on a balmy morning in the last week of May he found himself standing by the font of the old Saxon church at Milbrook where he had heard the solemn words of the Burial Service read above Sir Godfrey Car- michael's coffin less than a year before. He took upon himself the custody of the infant's conscience in all good The Day will come. II. a 5