* JR. * * * . <* '# *#* JML* Ji * JNL ji * >*::* * * * * Jf * ^L . ct *** Ji . . X . . ** w4 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " It will be cold, of course. I will come down shortly." The stewardess withdrew, looking askance at traveller No. 2, as she passed him. " Rough weather, stewardess," he said. " It has been rough all the week. I don't know when we are likely to have fine weather again/' complained the stewardess. " Patience, and you'll get it in good time," he responded, with a laugh. " Well, I hope so." " I have been waiting for fine weather these five years, apd I'm not tired out." " Good luck, perhaps you mean ?" said the stewardess, who was quick-witted in her way, and whose eyes were sharp enough even in the darkness to see that this male passenger by The Witch was not one of fortune's favourites that is, if a seedy attire be any test of dis- reputability in crossing from France to England. " Yes, I meant good luck, I suppose," he said. "You suppose?" repeated the stewardess. THE PASSENGERS BY " THE WITCH." 7 " One does not know always what one means," lie said, more to himself than to the buxom woman standing before him, arms akimbo, hard up for business, and with all her basins in ghastly unemployed stacks below stairs. " Has the good luck come, sir ?" asked she, curiously. " It's coming," he answered, dryly. She went away after this. She would have been glad of a longer chat with a human and rational fellow-creature, even in the wind and cold, but his manner was no more inviting than the lady's now. He was anxious to be rid of her, and to confine himself to his own train of thought, whatever that might be. When the stewardess had departed, he drew a short clay pipe from the breast-pocket of his thin overcoat, and proceeded to fill and ignite it, glancing across at his fellow-passenger as if half dis- posed to inquire if she objected to smoking, and then possibly considering that it was a super- fluous question, as he had made up his mind to smoke, and the lady could get clear of his 8 COWARD CONSCIENCE. tobacco when she wished. She had no business on deck at that unnatural hour, to begin with ; she would be better downstairs, tucked up snug- ly in one of the berths till morning. She was young and gentle and delicate, not a being who had knocked about the world and roughed it everywhere, as he had. He was roughing it now, and he knew it would do him no harm, and that it was his natural condition, for that matter, to feel cold and uncomfortable but Avhy the deuce the girl sat, rigid and thought- ful, and staring after Honfleur, which had long ago sunk away into the night, he could not conjecture. He was not a curious man that is, he had never thought he was a curious man until that hour, but he would have been glad to learn what kind of history it was, and even what sorrow or trouble it was, that had set that young woman there, as lonely a figure in the world as he. He was sure it was a sorrow or a trouble, for she was crying ; he had heard even a sob escape her, and he knew that a white handkerchief was held up to the eyes, though the face was turned THE PASSENGERS BY " THE WITCH. 9 away from him and towards the French coast, from which they had departed. Leaving school, leaving a lover, leaving home, per- haps ? going out into the world for the first time, as he had gone years ago, and, perhaps, with his old bitterness of spirit? Still there were hundreds of reasons why women should shed tears and they weep without a reason very often, too why in the name of all that's absurd and foolish should he harass himself by speculating as to the antecedents of this girl ? By Jove! he had enough antecedents of his own without being imaginative as to other people's. Let him take a turn or two along the deck, and get some little warmth into him, and some foolish thoughts out of him. He could not sit there and freeze with equanimity, as the lady seemed capable of doing. He sprang to his feet, and paced the deck with long strides, the sparks from his pipe whirling past in the darkness. He went the full length of the vessel, looked at the horses and asked a. few questions of a man in charge of them ; he had been interested 10 COWARD CONSCIENCE. in horses once, had a horse or two of his own for that matter, and he expressed it frankly, as his opinion, that it was a fool's task to ship horses in such weather from one country to another. He exchanged a word or two with the sailors, who had put on a surly mood along with their sou'-westers, and were mot particu- larly disposed to be conversational ; he discov- ered the cook making tea, in a little snuggery on the middle-deck, and fraternised with him, as with a being to be studied under such cir- cumstances, and took tea with him, for a slight consideration, out of a cracked blue- mug. Then the girl came to his mind again. Wouldn't hot tea do her good, and put some warmth into her ? Wouldn't she be grateful for this steaming, strong-flavoured, but acceptable- Bohea, or would she think it a liberty to suggest such a thing, an excuse to force himself upon her company, a cad's trick what a commercial traveller or a sneaking bagman would do, with a leer on his face at his own infernal officious- ness ? No ; he would leave that attention to THE PASSENGERS BY " THE WITCH." 11 the stewardess, whom he would be robbing of her perquisites otherwise. He was always a robber. He remembered the time God help him when his own father had called him a thief. Ever before him that awful, strongly- marked time red as blood ! He would see how his fellow-passenger was getting on, though, and he left the cook's cuddy, and went back along the deck in search of her, thinking once more, and this time in half soliloquy, " What can she want out on such a night as this? Why has she chosen this rough way of getting to English ground T' She was still in her old place ; she had not moved from her seat at the ship's side ; and there was a suspicion of rain in the air, unless it was a drift of sea spray that came cold and wet against his face. By all that was mysterious, this was a singular young woman. He passed close to her without her heeding him ; he glanced down at her, and saw that she had fallen asleep at last a woman tired out as with a long journey. He stopped at once, 12 COWARD CONSCIENCE. stooped and touched her lightly on the arm, waking her with a start. He raised his shabby felt hat, with the quick instinct of a gentleman, and said " I beg your pardon but you had fallen asleep, and the night air is dangerous." "I don't think I was asleep," said the lady softly in return, and with the true feminine in- stinct not to acknowledge it, at any rate. " Oh, yes, you were," was the blunt contra- diction given, " and you will catch cold if you stay here any longer." She glanced up at him, and rose obediently at his hint to withdraw. " I think you are right," she said, ia a low tone. The deck was not clear of stray ropes, and the ship swayed vigorously in the wind; as she went towards the lady's cabin, she tripped slightly in the gloom. Her fellow-passenger was at her side again. He had been watching her attentively. " Will you lean upon my arm for a moment? Jt is rough walking here." THE PASSENGERS BY " THE WITCH." 13 " Thank you," she replied, but she continued her progress without availing herself of his es- cort, until a lurch of the ship brought her against .him with a somewhat unceremonious bump. "You'll find it more convenient to take my arm/' he said, coolly, and at this second invita- tion she thanked him by a movement of her head, and took it. " You are not used to a sea voyage ?" he re- marked. " It is a new experience to me," was the re- ply, which came slowly, and after a moment's consideration as to the method of her answer. " Unless business is very pressing, the day- light route, as they say in the advertisements, is infinitely to be preferred," said the gentle- man. " Probably, but I am in haste. I " and then the lady stopped and said no more. It might have suggested itself to her that the stranger was leading her on, or that she was growing more communicative at all events she came to a full stop. The gentleman did 14 COWARD CONSCIENCE. not notice this, or affected not to do so. He went on with volubility, and in a manner that showed he was perfectly at his ease with her. " Or, as in my case, when a man is poor and shabby, and then the night passage is an ad- vantage. 'Needs must,' sometimes!" he added. " I have come this way to save a few shillings myself," was the frank statement in return. " I am sorry to hear it," he said, quickly, " but here's the cabin stairs ; mind how you go down them, and stick fast to the band-rail. Good night !" He did not wait for her response ; he left her quickly, and began his perambulations of the deck once more. She was soon out of his sight, but not out of his mind all the long dark, cold hours before dawn. It was very odd why this young lady should perplex him in this way ; he who had enough on his mind to dis- tract or ernploy % it, without this unnecessary supplement he who all his life had had a THE PASSENGERS BY " THE WITCH." 15 wondrous faculty for minding his own business, and troubling himself, perhaps too little even, with the business of other folk. Ah ! if he had attended to that long ago kept an eye upon the bad and bitter business of men and women who were working against him, directly and indirectly, he would not have been the seedy individual he was, or engaged on the mission which lay before him. Perhaps they were right, and he was an easy-going ne'er-do-weel without a thought for the morrow. At all events there were many to believe it was his character. But he was thinking of the morrow then that is, of the daylight which he might term to-morrow, and how the lady- passenger would look, and whether, on the Strength of their past conversation, he might venture to speak to her again. And how he should look in particular, with the sun upon him and his threadbare suit proclaiming to the world that he was very poor ay, there's the rub I She would marvel at his impudence in addressing her to-morrow; he so "tattered and torn," the wreck of the better days from which he 16 COWARD CONSCIENCE. had drifted. He wondered at his own impu- dence already, and at the courage which the darkness had given him. 17 CHAPTER II. " QUITE FRIENDS !" TT was seven in the morning when the young -*- lady came up the stairs to the deck of The Witch. There was no sun to welcome her, the sky was a dead grey, and the wind was cold and piercing enough to drive her back to the warm shelter of the cabin, had she been of a less resolute nature, or less fond of fresh air. She went across to the same seat which she had quitted some hours before at the sugges- tion of her fellow-passenger, and gazed thought- fully at the vast expanse of sea wave. Land behind her, land in advance, there was no sign of now, and she felt more alone in the world possibly, as she looked dreamily ahead, as at VOL. I. C 18 COWARD CONSCIENCE. the fortunes of her life, advancing slowly to her. There were few sailors on deck, the steam- ship was making way steadily to port, and the one passenger, with his hands in his pockets, was talking to the chief mate at a respectful distance from her. Yes, he was an odd figure in the daylight ; even Miss Hilderbrandt, unaccus- tomed to criticise the costume of those who crossed her path, was struck with him at first sight, and for some inexplicable reason was pained, having already the consciousness that it was a " gentleman born " who had addressed her last night, and a gentleman at a low ebb is one of the sorriest sights in all the world, be it the world's fault or his own. The contrast between these two passengers was the more marked as Miss Hilderbrandt came out in rich warm colours in the daylight, and was well-clad and well-furred, as befitted the inclement season, whilst the gentleman's light overcoat had once done duty as a " zephyr" at the races, and covered his full dress suit when bound for ball or opera in the old 'days when I " QUITE FRIENDS." 19 money was a drug in bis market. The coat was frayed at the cuffs now; the bottoms of bis trousers were fringed ; there was an ugly patch of grey on the drab cloth ground of his arm above the elbow, and the felt hat was of many hues besides its original brown. Still he was a clean, well-shaven man ; he had found some means to wash and brighten himself up that morning, and there was no poverty in his face at least. On the contrary, his was a face worth studying, it was so utterly irreconcile- able with his attire, so full of courage, even of pride at times, and with an unflinching look ahead still, as if there was nothing beyond to daunt him, or to keep him down. A laughing, handsome face enough some remark of the mate's or his own had lighted it up at that moment with a new expression, telling of hu- mour in him, or a keen appreciation of the humorous in others, and the grave lines about his mouth vanished on the instant. When he became aware that Miss Hilderbrandt had glanced in his direction, he raised his hat as to some one whom he knew, and the young lady C2 20 COWARD CONSCIENCE. started as if taken unawares, and then bowed slightly to his salutation. He was glad of that; he did not know why, but it put him in better spirits on the instant ; she had not cut him dead ; he had not wholly shocked her by his display of poverty. He was sorry he could not explain that feeling either that she was such a " swell ;" he had expected to find a neatly-clad lady, the texture of her dress symbolical of nothing more than eighteeu-pence the yard a business-like little woman, going to a house of business, probably on English ground instead of French. Now she puzzled him. And her face, too surely there was a strange story in it. It was the fresh young face of a girl of eighteen, and it was full of expression, even of beauty to those who like dark faces, and the light and life that are generally in them. A face full of earnest- ness and thought, and far from a weak one, her observer fancied. " That is a woman who can speak out," he muttered to himself. " I like such women/' Had his experience lain hitherto amongst " QUITE FRIENDS." 21 women who would not speak out, who kept their joys and troubles, their griefs and pleas- ures, to themselves, and so deceived those who would have been glad of their confidence ? The heartiness of his tone of soliloquy seemed to hint at this. He walked towards her, but not too hurriedly. He finished his conversation with the mate of the vessel before he approached her, prepared for a rebuff, and yet strangely resolved to seek it. He could not account for his wish to address this young lady again ; he was not a lady's man, with a bad habit of running after ladies, and seeking new acquaintances from their midst ; he was a man who felt he was in the shade, and that it was his policy to keep there. But this lady was alone, without even a book to read ; she was his one fellow-passenger, and he had the courage to address her felt even singularly impelled towards it. If she did not care to speak to him in return, no matter ; a few hours and they would be no longer parts of one little world. There came a faint impression to his mind that he might even be of service to 22 COWARD CONSCIENCE. her, that she was a stranger to the land she was approaching, and he might assist her with a little information, supposing that she encouraged him to be communicative. At all events, her "fine feathers" did not daunt him. " Good morning," he said, as he advanced. "Good morning," she replied, immediately and unaffectedly. "You are glad to escape that stuffy cabin downstairs, I perceive," he said. " I love the sea," she answered. "And yet this is a new experience to you," he said, remembering her expression of a few hours before. " So far as a sea-voyage is concerned, yes,'" she said, " but life by the sea no." " You live at Honfleur T " I came from Paris to Houfleur yesterday." " At this time of year, you would have found the voyage from Calais to Dover more con- venient." " Oh ! yes ; but I could not go that way." The quickness, the genuineness of her replies were pleasant to listen to ; she spoke to an equal " QUITE FRIENDS." 23 in rank, or she was short-sighted, and unaware of that patch on his arm. Could she see, though, that, beyond the present life of him and of the snadows wherein he stood, there shone the light of brighter days ? She was shrewd, and no mean judge of character, if she could see thus far ; a generous being, too, who was kind and conciliatory in her manner in consequence one who might have turned from him, and even suspected him, had he been dressed more in the fashion of the times. And yet possibly one who saw all this, and pitied him in conse- quence; he hoped not that. He had always hated pity ! He sat down beside her for the convenience of conversation, and she did not appear sur- prised, or edge herself away from him. If there was nothing bold in his companion's man- ner, there was nothing shy or timid. She was not embarrassed in any way ; she looked steadily at him, as if endeavouring to read his character correctly, or to judge the value of his words by the tone which he gave to them. A young woman who had mixed much in the world, he 24 COWARD CONSCIENCE. thought, and had all the self-confidence and coolness patent to ladies who have seen a great deal, and talked a great deal more. Not a miss from a boarding-school, he would have wagered a hundred pounds, had he got it but a girl who had learned her lessons in a sterner school than that, and grown all the stronger and more self-reliant in the teaching. A weak woman of her years, to begin with, would not have undertaken this journey alone, unless used to the business, and this was her first experience of a sea-voyage, she had told him. Whilst he spoke to her of Houfleur, and of France in general, as their theme of conversa- tion widened, he was at a loss to reconcile this calm, quiet lady with her who had sobbed and cried in the shadows of the ship; she was so bright and full of conversation now that last night's sorrow seemed very like a dream to him. They were " quite friends " before nine of the morning before the white cliffs of Albion shone in the light of day to them. Strange chance acquaintanceship, not readily forgotten " QUITE FRIENDS." 25 by either man or woman " surely it was to be," superstitious people would have declar- ed, judging by what lay in store for these two. They were outspoken souls, both of them, for each knew a little of the other's history, of the other's grief at heart, before they said good- bye at Littlehampton. And it all came about very naturally, too, and in this wise : " Do you know England well ?" she inquired of him. " Very well. I have walked over the greater part of it in my young and happy days, when my knapsack was light and my pocket heavy." The speaker was not six and twenty, but he talked as if he were an old man. " Do you know Birmingham?" "Tolerably well. I know Warwickshire in general better." " Birmingham is a big place, I believe f " Very busy and very smoky," he added ; "are you going there?" " Yes. That is my home." She paused before the last word escaped her. 26 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "You have a long journey before you after reaching Littlehampton," he said. "So I ana told." " Have you settled on your route ?" " Yes, it has been carefully planned for me,' r she said ; " do you know anyone in Birming- ham ?" she asked, somewhat anxiously it seemed. " Not a soul." " Ah ! well ; then you cannot give me the information I require," she said, with a little shrug of the shoulders that was the first evi- dence of any foreign habit. " I shall have to study you English for myself." "Are you not English?" her companion asked, in some surprise. "Did you think I was?" she rejoined. "Certainly. You speak English without a foreign accent." " My father is German ; my mother is an Englishwoman. Both have been very particu- lar about my English." "And you have had opportunities of prac- tising it?" "QUITE FRIENDS." 27 "A great many," she answered, very thoughtfully. The white forehead certainly contracted as she answered him. There was a disagreeable reminiscence con- nected with those opportunities, her companion was assured. But mutual confidence did not extend as far as " confessions/' on the first occasion of their meeting. The young lady had further questions to ask, however in return, perhaps, for the questions which he had put to her. " Is your home far to reach from Littlehamp- ton, may I inquire?" she said. " My what ?" he answered, with a laugh. "Your home/' she repeated. " I haven't had a home for five years," he said ; " don't know what one would be like, and am only quite sure that I never appreciated the little home I had once." ' ' I don't understand you," she said, curi- ously. " No, no, I suppose not," he replied, " and I cannot tell you my story, even were you dis- 28 COWARD CONSCIENCE. posed to be bored with it. And, after all, I am going to what some people would call home/' he added, satirically. " What do you call it ?" she said, very quickly. The end of the first act." " You respond in riddles," she said ; " are you an actor ?" " God forbid !" he replied. "It was a dramatic expression," she explain- ed. " That is why I ' asked. Pardon me if I have hurt your feelings." " Pardon me, young lady, but I have no feelings to hurt." "I don't believe that," she said, doubt- fully. " Thank you for the compliment," he replied, carelessly touching his hat ; " but there are a good half-dozen, I know, will bear me out in that assertion. You are very kind to me kind to let me talk to you, seeing what I am." "I cannot tell what you are," she said, quickly ; " I may form an idea of what you have been." " QUITE FRIENDS." 29 1 "What is that?" " A gentleman." "No ; only a gentleman's son. T/iey, to quote my mysterious plural again, -will tell you that Tom Dagnell was never a gentleman never ' behaved hisself as sich !' " She did not understand him again, and he did not respond to her inquiring eyes. He had grown light and flippant, and unlik& a gentle- man at last. She drew herself instinctively away from him or from his new manner, and there was a sudden coldness in her answers to him. " Still," he continued, " I am going to a place that is called home, and that is situated some three or four miles from the little harbour into which we presently steam." " Indeed I" "I am fortunate in not having so far to travel as yourself." " Very fortunate." " Although I would go half round the world to have the welcome home which awaits you," he said, more earnestly, and hence more naturally. 30 COWARD CONSCIENCE. He had entrenched on dangerous ground before he was aware ; he was warned of it by the scarlet blush that came quickly to her face. " How do you know what welcome I shall have, or I deserve '? You have no right to talk to me like this," she cried, indignantly. " I beg pardon," he said, very humbly, " I am rude, I did not know what I was saying. I was thinking of my own reception rather than of yours. I would not have needlessly offend- ed you. Believe me, I am at least too much of a gentleman for that." " Yes, yes ; I see now," she answered, more softly. " Think no more of it, I am a little hasty it is a bad habit of mine." ' I forgot myself/' he continued, in the same apologetic strain, " I fancied for the moment that we were quite friends." " Quite friends," she echoed, " oh, no that is not likely." She shrugged her shoulders again and smiled, almost cruelly, at him, he fancied looking down at him, and for the first time, " QUITE FRIENDS." 31 from the vantage ground of her prosperity. " Perhaps it will explain my manner, which has been a trifle eccentric," he said, still anxious to remove any bad impression which he had created, " if I allude a little more to my antece- dents. 1 am sorry to do this, but I have dis- pleased you, and I hate all mystery. It is no secret that I am going back to the house we will say home now whence 1 was driven out five years ago." The lady awoke to a new interest in him, to so great an interest in his next words that he was once more perplexed by her anxiety. " Driven away," she repeated, " by hard taskmasters, by " " By my own wilfulness, it is said in Sussex, my own sheer wickedness," he replied. " Were you expelled from home ?" she asked. "I walked out of the house one Spring morning." " Unable to assimilate your life to those who oppressed or thwarted it unable to endure it any longer?" 32 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Exactly." " How strange how awfully strange !" the young girl murmured. " I don't see " " No matter, go on." " The strange part of the story is that I am going back," he said, " and that is the incom- prehensible part of it." " To the same people ?" "The same people." " You are sorry you see your faults you are repentant for all the misery you have caused." "I would act in the same way to-morrow, could the past return to me." " You were in the right, then I am glad of that." "Yes, in the right," he added, thought- fully. " And you return ?" Yes." " Because you are poor, and they are rich ?" she asked, and there was a subtle ring of scorn in her low 'voice, amidst her pity for " QUITE FRIENDS." 33 the weakness to which he had succumbed. " I thought you would think that," he said, irritably, " it is woman's judgment quick, and unsound, and shallow as usual. No, madam I am implored to return." " By whom T " By the mother." "Ah! the mother it is always the good mother !" she cried, clasping her hands to- gether, and her eyes filling suddenly with tears. "Not always. There is a difference in mothers, out of the pages of French plays." " But you " " There, madam, that is all/' he said, inter- rupting her, " it is not much of a story, and it is soon told, you perceive. The details are not worth anyone's consideration now not even my own." " I will not distress you further," she said. ''If I have been too curious, you are to blame for arousing my woman's curiosity. Is that England ?" "Yes, the white walls qf our cocky little VOL. I. D 34 COWARD CONSCIENCE. island," he replied, in his old light tone again. " Will it be long before we reach Littlehamp- ton?" " An hour, perhaps. I never came this way before, but the land must have been some time in sight." " How we have talked not to notice it !" she said. " How I have talked !" he replied. " Men always grow garrulous with advancing years." " You have told me twice of your age," she said, meaningly. " So I have. And it's all affectation, for I am young enough, after all. You are right to reprove me." " I did not reprove you," she replied. " Now please don't talk any more. I want to think if I can trust you with a revelation, as you have trusted me. Don't look frightened !" " On my honour, I am not frightened in the least." "If you will leave me to myself now that is, until it is time to say good day to me I shall be obliged." " QUITE FRIENDS." 35 Was Miss Hilderbrandt growing flippant too, and had Mr. Dagnell's bad manners infected her ? It almost seemed so. Mr. Dagnell rose and bowed politely. " Certainly, I will leave you, if you wish it/' he said. " Thank you very much/' she answered. It was not till they had reached Littlehamp- toa railway pier that this odd pair exchanged another word together. D 5! CHAPTER III. SECRET FOR SECRET. . HHHE fast and favourite screw steamer, The *i 'Witch, had made a fair passage on the present occasion. Though the weather had not been wholly propitious, wind and tide had been in its favour the greater part of the way, and the clocks of Littlehampton were striking eleven when the journey was accomplished. There were not many to welcome the passengers to . England, or to shbW ajjy interest in their arrival ; Littlehamptou was nob in the rollicking mood patent to English watering-places in their season, March being in its " blusterous " con- dition, and visitors few and far between in consequence. Two old men, natives to the SECRET FOR SECRET. 37 place, and one shabby woman in black, stood by the dumpty wooden lighthouse, and looked at the vessel as it steered slowly down the Arim, and a little boy in a red comforter ran along the the bank and cheered vociferously, till he got entangled in his hoop and fell flatwise upon the gravel. The stir and bustle of Old England was not apparent in this sleepy spot of Sussex ground, and Miss Hilderbrandt opened her eyes ir some surprise at it. She had expected a count; T full of life and animation, even to its sea brim. Thomas Dagnell noticed that she shivered at the first glimpd?? of the new country, as at the strangeness and the coldness of it. They land- ed at the railway quay, and the stewardess came up to bid them good morning, and to re- ceive her .fee from the lady-passenger. Then there followed a few custom-house formalities, the more precise and vigorous as business was slack, and these two did not look like bold smugglers bringing in contraband by wholesale. The railway train was drawn up close to the quay, and a porter put Miss Hilderbrandt and 38 COWARD CONSCIENCE. her luggage into a third-class compartment. Mr. Dagnell observed this, too, with some sur- prise, and politely informed her that there were five minutes to wait. She turned suddenly to Mr. Dagnell and broke the spell of the long silence that had been maintained between, them. " Good morning, Mr. Dagnell," she said, ex- tending her hand to him, after a moment's hesi- tation. " I hope you will find home at last, and all well at home." " Thank you, Miss by what name shall I have the honour of remembering you ?" he asked, after shaking hands with her. " Hilderbrandt, if it is a name worth re- membering/' she answered. " I shall not forget it. And the revelation," he asked, meaningly, " which you thought you might be induced to make to me ? I hope it is one thing." "What is that?" " Your address in Birmingham." She drew herself up very tall and erect in an instant, but he did not appear to notice the SECRET FOR SECRET. 39 change in her. He was standing with one foot upon the carriage board of the train, and look- ing down thoughtfully whilst he spoke. He went on, coolly and calmly enough, " I should be glad to know where you are. I may come to Birmingham some day. You have been more of a friend to me than I have had for years." "Good morning." " But at all events you might want a friend, or the advice of a friend, for you are young and alone here. ^Yill you try to think of my ad- dress, Torn Dagnell, Broadlands, near Little- hampton V" " I should not write to you for advice tinder any circumstances," she replied. He looked up quickly, and saw at last that he had " done it " in the matter of polite atten- tion. Yes, these were the manners of the bag- man again, not of the gentleman. This was 'Arry landing at Margate Jetty, not Tom Dag- nell at Littlehampton. "Yes, yes, I am wrong," he said, hurriedly. " Forgive me, I was presuming on your cour- 40 COWARD CONSCIENCE. tesy. I hardly knew what I was saying, save that I ana sorry to say ' good-bye.' By George, that's making matters worse, is it not? I had better only say ' good morning/ Miss Hilder- brandt, and wish you a safe journey into War- wickshire." " Thank you," she replied, more graciously ; " you will find good friends at home at last." " Thank you for your prophecy." " You could not have left a home like mine, for instance, and there will be that happiness in returning which it will never be my good fortune to discover." " Miss Hilderbrandt !" " There, that is my confession for confession. I thought it might make you more content to know that there were men and women worse off in the world than yourself. You are going home I ran away from mine yesterday. Good morning." The train was moving as she spoke. She smiled as it glided from him, but there were tears in her eyes, and the small red mouth was quivering very much. For in the fulness of the SECRET FOR SECRET. 41 heart it had spoken to this strange man, whose life was not unlike her own in one respect at least. Here had been a home-wreck and a soul cut adrift. He was ending the life that she had begun ; and she was only a girl of eigh- teen, in a strange country. Still there were those in England to whom she was not entirely strange, and watchful eyes for good or for evil following her movements, had Miss Hilderbrandt or Tom Dagnell been aware of it. Mr. Hilderbrandt, of No. 487, troisieme etage, Faubourg St. Lupine, in the city of Paris, re- ceived the following telegram before night- fall : " She has readied England. She was accom- panied as far as Littlehampton by a Mr. Dagnell, of Broadlands. 1 have telegraphed to Birming- ham:' 42 CHAPTER IV. HOME. DAGNELL walked out of the station into the roadway beyond, and looked right and left, as if for a friend or a vehicle that might be waiting for him. Two flymen in attendance glanced in his direction, but did not solicit him as a fare he was so horribly shabby in the daylight. " It is as well they haven't the carriage for me the horses might have caught their deaths of cold, poor things," he said quietly to himself, as he returned to the station and gave direc- tions for his small portmanteau to be sent to Broadlands. The proper despatch of his luggage having HOME.' 43 been arranged for, our hero for this ne'er-do- weel young gentleman is all the hero of whom this story will have to boast set forth at a brisk pace in an inland direction, turning his back upon the sea and marching up-town, and past the town into the green lanes lying be- yond. Two miles of ground were quickly covered at the pace which Tom Dagnell had chosen, and he rested not nor flinched not in his progress. He was glad to get his blood into circulation for one thing ; he would be glad to get the first home-meeting over for another, now that he had made up his mind to return ; and he went swiftly on, with a set face that was more stern and resolute in its expres- sion than when Miss Hilderbrandt glanced at it on board The Witch. This seemed the face of a man who had a disagreeable task before him, or thought that he had, judging by his past knowledge of those whom he was presently to meet. It was not a face radiant and aglow with the thought of the home happiness await- ing him ; he had been unlucky in his pilgrimage, just as they had prophesied he would be, but 44 COWARD CONSCIENCE. he had not been unhappy in his lower estate, and in going back there lacked all sign of joy in him. When the house was in sight a large, old- fashioned, red brick edifice, rendered pictur- esque by the ivy climbing in profusion on its walls, and by the fair park and pasture land in the midst of which it stood the face shadowed even more, and became more stern and grave. The reminiscences were not pleas- ant that had been conjured up at the sight of the old home or the last parting there rankled as a bitter memory at the bottom of his heart. "After all, Tom," he said, in self-apostro- phe, " what have you come back for ? What is the use of it ?" He laughed in an odd, unhilarious fashion by way of response to his inquiries, and then pushed open the swing-gate, and went at the same swift pace along the carriage-drive, falter- ing not one step by the way. It was with the same quick, regular footfalls that he had left home five years ago, without looking back HOME. 45 regretfully ; he had made up his mind then, and he had made up his mind now. Here was the end of the first act, as he had told his fellow- passenger in the early morning of that day. Upon what scenes and characters, what plot and counter-plot, the curtain would rise again, he knew no more than she did and he was far less curious. Under a quaint porch of carved wood-work, he came to a halt, seized the knocker and bell, and knocked and rang in a noisy and imperious style, as if defiant of the ears and nerves of those within a bravado-like summons for admittance, that brought a stout, nubbly-faced, white-haired man, in black, in considerable haste towards him. Through the half-glass of the door, Tom Daguell saw the man advance across a marble-chequered hall, followed by a footman in livery, whom he had forestalled, and whom he sent back again with a quick wave of his hand. The door was opened, and the rugged-faced man, gasping for breath, held out both hands, even both arms, as though he- would have been glad to clasp the young- 46 COWARD CONSCIENCE. man in them, and began to choke and sob. " My dear young Master Tom," he cried, " I am so glad so very glad to see you home again. I I never thought to live to see the blessed day that this is, sir, to me ; I never, never did !" " You did not think I should come back ?" ".No 1 didn't." " See what a forgiving fellow I am, Robin," he said, laughing, as he shook hands with him, *' see how the prodigal son comes creeping home to the shelter, when the last shilling has slipped out of his pocket." "Oh! no no, you can't get over me with that talk," said the old man, shaking his head vigorously, " I know all about it I know everything." "Wise old Robin, you always did," said Tom, clapping him on the back. " There, leave off whimpering. Why should you be glad I have returned? I always gave you heaps of trouble." " Which I never minded did I ?" No, Robin." HOME. 47 " Which I never shall mind, Master Tom which and, good Lord, but you have altered a main sight when one comes to look at you nigher." " Yes, I have improved, Robin grown out of knowledge almost," he replied. " I have been thoroughly polished and refurbished by five years sojourn on the Continent." " I don't know what you've sojerred on," said the old man, with a vigorous scratch to his grey locks, " but you're not too smart for a Dagnell." " For the Dagnells who are waiting for me," he added, " the good father, mother, brother, and cousin where are they all ?" " Your mother and Master Marcus are in the big drawing-room," was the answer. " Your father and Miss Ursula are upstairs in the father's room. He does not rise as early as he used." "Given up one bad habit, then," was the dry remark. " Good or bad habit, it doesn't agree with him now," said Robin. ''He's awful changed, 48 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Master Tom/' added the old man, sinking his voice to a whisper, "and you'll hardly know him." " So altered as that," said the son, thought- fully. " Not that you need say he's changed so much for he doesn't like it. And it makes him nervous." " Nervous !" echoed Tom, with a shrug of his shoulders, " is it possible ?" " So you needn't " "All right, I understand, Robin. I am to come back with a lie in my mouth, and say, ' How well you are looking, Sir John ' ?" " You need not have put it in that way," said the other, in an aggrieved tone, " I don't think I would have put it in that way myself, at first go-off like, and after five years of keeping from us." " Never mind, Robin. Perhaps I am in the wrong I generally am," he said, " but here's for Sir John." "To the master first?" said the old man, surprised, " I thought that you " HOME. 49 "I will see my mother presently. She is well?" " Oh ! quite well, and wishes to " " Prepare me for meeting with my father, and so forth. Yes, I understand, but I will see Sir John, to begin with." But " "And I am quite prepared already," he in- terrupted. " Tell them, with my most respect- ful compliments, that I have gone straight up to him." He crossed the hall, and went at his old, quick pace up the stairs, a man still in a hurry to get through the task he had set himself when he had first started on this errand. Old Robin Fisher watched him open-mouthed. "As wilful as ever as red-hot as when he went away," he muttered, " but I hope it will come right now. It's what I've been looking for'ard to for many years." VOL. I. E 50 CHAPTER V. , SIR JOHN DAGNELL. E prodigal son had not forgotten his way about the house which he had quitted so unceremoniously some five years since. He went straight to the door of his father's apartment, and knocked upon its panels. The instant after- wards there was a clattering of brass rings upon a pole, the drawing back of a heavy curtain from the inner side, and the opening of the door, slowly and cautiously, as though the room were in a state of siege. A plain woman above the middle height, and some eight-and- twenty years of age, stood in the doorway, calm- ly surveying him, without a sign of embarrass- ment upon a pale, set face. She was short- SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 51 sighted, and wore glasses, through which she peered with keen, grey eyes at the intruder, looking hard at him, as if to read clearly the bent of mind with which he had come home. " You have returned, then ?" she said, in a low tone. " Yes, Ursula, I have returned." He extended his hand, a sign of the warmer feeling that he bore towards her as to all the rest of them, and she put a small, white, cold hand within his own, and let it lie there pas- sively. There was no cordiality of greeting in return, and it was hard, even for him, to guess whether his cousin was glad or sorry to see him home. He thought that she was sorry as he might have expected from the first she would be, but he did not tax her with the coldness of his welcome. He had offended her, too, and given vent to many harsh words on the day he went away. It was not likely that Ursula Dag- nell had forgiven him in the little heart which she had seemed to possess. She was as he had expected to find her as she had ever been, for 2 52 COWARD CONSCIENCE. that matter and he was not surprised. He had been forgetful for an instant, having spent five years with people of warmer blood, of less propriety and starch that was all. "Is Sir John ready to see me?" he asked, when he had relinquished his cousin's hand. " I will ask him." The heavy folds of the curtain dropped be- tween them, and Tom Dagnell was left outside to await his father's pleasure. There was an interval of a minute or two, during which time the son stood moodily looking at the floor, then the rings clattered and the curtain was drawn back again this time more completely to allow of his ingress. " You can come in," said Ursula, " my uncle has been expecting you all the morning." Tom stepped into the room, the curtain rings clanged and clashed behind him, and the cur- tain was once more carefully drawn across the door. It was a large room, but the atmosphere was stifling on first entrance to a man who had been breathing fresh sea air for the last twelve hours. There was a fire burning in the grate, r SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 53 but Tom Dagnell could not see it for the grand old lacquered screen behind which his father cow- ered, as if in fear, away from him. He should not see the father till he had crossed the room, and turned the angle of the screen. Ursula knew this, and touched his arm as if in caution, or in warning to her cousin. Not a word was spoken, but he guessed her meaning very correctly ; he was to be as careful of the words which escaped his lips as of the feelings of him to whom those words would be address- ed. He nodded by way of assurance that he was on his guard, and then passed round the screen and stood in the presence of a father .strangely changed and stricken down. Five years ago he had left a tall, robust, healthful man of fifty years, with fire in his eyes and colour on his cheeks. Now he came upon a man sallow and attenuated, or rather the shadow of a man flickering faintly on the threshold of death's door. Tom Dagnell recoiled at the great change, but he recovered himself very quickly. The father looked up at him grimly, and yet wist- 54 COWARD CONSCIENCE. fully, and neither extended a hand towards the other. There was a strange silent pause as if for breath, or thought, or observation, or for all three together, perhaps, and Ursula Daguell watched like a figure of fate in the background the meeting of these men. The elder was the first to speak, in the queru- lous tone of a sick man, and to the niece, not the son. " He does not say a word to me, Ursula/' he remarked. "You have forgotten, Sir John," said the hard voice of Ursula, in reply. " Ah ! yes, I had foi'gotten. Tom," he piped, in a low, weak treble it had been a deep bass voice when Tom had heard it last " I am sorry for all I said five years ago. I beg your pardon." " Thank yon, sir. I had hoped and thought you would some day/' replied the son ; then he stooped over the crushed man, and, resting his hands upon his shoulders, kissed him on the forehead as a little child might have done. He had hardly expected to forgive so completely SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 55 and so soon all the injustice of the past, but his father's downfall had taken him by surprise, and this man forgave completely when he forgave at all. " I was in the wrong for the most part," Sir John added, not in a deep-feeling manner, but as a parrot might have said it after a week or two of practice, and in a similar key. " Say no more about it, father ; the dead can rest in peace after five years," remarked the son. " Yes, yes, exactly ; but you need not talk about the dead, for all that it's not a nice sub- ject for a sick man. Sit down, and tell me how you think I'm looking." " Somewhat ill, certainly," said Tom, sitting down, thus adjured. " I suppose you wouldn't have known me at first sight r "I think I should have known you." "There, Ursula, he would have known me. I have not altered so much." " Oh ! yes, you have," said Tom, " but still I should have known you anywhere." 56 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Well, then, I can't have altered so very much." " Not to me," responded the son. " I was terribly changed some weeks ' since, but it is astonishing how I have been improving lately," said Sir John. "Ask your cousin Ursula how I have improved." " You seem a little stronger just now," said Ursula for herself. " What has been the matter with you f ' asked Tom. " Why was I not sent for at an earlier date, and when you were worse than this?" He turned to his cousin for an explanation, which she gave him clearly and plainly. " Sir John was not well enough to make his wishes known to us, until four days since," she said. " It was your wish, then, Sir John not the mother's," he muttered. "It was my wish," replied Sir John; "I wanted you home again, and they were not going to persuade me to the contrary." " They thought it was better for me to keep SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 57 away still," Tom said, lightly. " Ah ! well, they were in the right, very probably. We must not blame them for the good advice they gave you." His cousin Ursula condescended to explain once more. " We were afraid of the result of a meeting between you, my uncle being very weak, and you quickly angry and impatient. We thought you might return with the same thoughts and feelings as you quitted us " " So I have," said Tom, interrupting her at this juncture. Ursula Dagnell went on as if she had not heard him. " With the same hot words and fierce accu- sations against all of us the just and the unjust alike. He" -pointing to her uncle " was not strong enough, is not strong enough to bear a repetition of the scene that was once enacted here. It would kill him." " I don't want a scene/' muttered Sir John, " but I am not so easily killed. You exaggerate my weakness, Ursula." 58 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "I should not have returned to quarrel with you, father," said his son. " I should have pre- ferred to keep away. I had spoken my mind and gone for good, and there was an end of it. I said I would come back when you owned yourself in the wrong, and begged pardon for the injury you had done me. I have come back on those conditions, and all is peace between us." " I am glad of it. I bear no man any malice now, for the trouble he has been to me," replied Sir John. " But you don't think " " There is peace between you," said Ursula, very quickly here, " and you have owned to that, Thomas Dagnell. Never again a re- currence to the past mistakes in this house, or it will be my turn to go away from Broad- lands." Sir John shivered in his chair at this threat, and spread his thin hands before his face. " All against me," he murmured, " I haven't a friend in the world." SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 59' " You have one more than you had yesterday, Sir John," remarked his son. " Yes, yes, that is so, after all ; I rely upon you," was the reply ; " that is why I have sent for you thus suddenly. I want to talk to you in private, and on private matters of import- ance ; come close to me, please." " Not now," said Ursula, very firmly. " There is so much to say," urged the sick man, " and if I were to get as weak again as I was last month and there's no telling what might happen I I " "Not now," repeated Ursula, still more de- cisively. " This evening, then. Late at night, when I can't sleep for thinking of it, I may as well be talking of it, surely. Will you come to-night to my room, or meet me in the library T' " When and where it pleases you, sir," an- swered his son. "At any time 1 ?" " At any time." " Thank you, Tom, you were always an oblig- ing fellow, and did not mind what trouble you 60 COWARD CONSCIENCE. took/' said his father. " I will say that for you, with all your awful failings." rc You had better leave him," said his niece, tl he is not so well as when you came in." " You may think so if you please, Ursula/' said Sir John, " but I know better." Tom Dagnell surveyed his father attentively, and was of his cousin's opinion, despite the sick knight's protest. He rose from his chair and said, " I will go and see Lady Dagnell and Marcus now, with your good leave, Sir John." " You are no sooner in the room than you are anxious to get out of it/' the father grum- bled. " Anyone would think we had met an hour ago, and had nothing further to communi- cate." " I shall have plenty of opportunities to tell you my life and adventures," said Tom. " I don't want to hear about them particu- larly," said Sir John. "They will take up a deal of time, and time has become valuable to me." " Well, good evening for the present." SIR JOHN DAGNELL. 61 " I hope to be in the library in another hour," said his father. "I shall not forget." " Oh ! you haven't too good a memory," re- plied Sir John. " You asked me what had been the matter with me, but you have forgotten that I have not answered you." " I thought my cousin Ursula might spare you all painful details," said Tom Dagnell. " Thank you for nothing. The details are not painful, and they may afford you a warn- ing." Indeed !" " I got into a violent temper, and I had been so well and strong all the year before, till that damned aggravating Marcus " " Good morning, father," said Tom, hurrying away. '* Brought on a fit a cursed fit it was all hi& fault," were the last words Tom Dagnell heard amidst a clattering of curtain rings, as the drapery was pulled aside, and the door was opened by his cousin to allow him to pas through. 62 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Outside in the corridor, and with the sick- room closed and locked against him, Tom Dag- nell came to a full stop, as if to reflect for an instant upon the nature of his greeting. There was a puzzled air upon his face, as though he had encountered much that had perplexed him ; but, if there lay a mystery beyond the present hour and across his future path, he simply shrugged his shoulders at it, after the habit he had learned in France after Miss Hilderbrandt's habit. "Now for the other members of this inter- esting family," he said, satirically, as he moved away from the precincts of his father's room. 63 CHAPTER VI. THE REST OF THEM. A T the bottom of the stairs, Tom Dagnell " found Mr. Fisher, the butler, waiting for him. " Is it all right, Master Tom?" he inquired in ii husky whisper, " have you made it up with the old gentleman ?" ' We are the best of friends, Robin." " That's well ; we have got over the worst of it," said Mr. Fisher, greatly relieved. " Yes, we have," was the quiet answer back. " They're waiting for you in the drawing- room, the rest of 'em. I told my lady you had gone upstairs to your father," said the butler. " This way, sir." 64 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Get out with you, Robin ; don't you think I remember my way ?" Tom said, spinning the old butler round by the collar of his coat, " there, go and look up the best wine for luncheon you have in the cellar, and be quick about it that is your enviable province." " Oh ! the lad you are still !" exclaimed Robin Fisher. " But if you don't mind, Master Tom, just for once now, I should like to an- nounce you in that room." "Why!" " It's a grand day for me," said the old man,, with a quavering voice, " a very grand day, in- deed. I always told them you would come back the same as ever." " I'm a sorry subject to announce, Robin," replied Tom, " but, if you wish it, fire away !" Mr. Fisher did not wait for a second bidding, but toddled as well as his gouty feet would per- mit to the drawing-room door, which he opened and flung wide. " Mr. Thomas Dagnell," he shouted pompous- ly, as our hero entered and saluted the inmates of the room with a bow so low a bow that one THE REST OF THEM. 65 might have fancied there was satire in it, even in those early times of greeting after five years of separation. There were two inmates of the room into which Tom Dagnell had been thus ceremonious- ly ushered, and both rose ceremoniously also as he entered, and bowed with as grave formality as he, taking their cue possibly from him. The prodigal son advanced, however, in the same straightforward fashion as heretofore, and finished the lesson which he had set himself to learn. He extended his hand to Lady Dagnell, say- ing, " I hope I find you well, mother ?" Then he turned to his brother, and shook too warm- ly and painfully a hand slowly extended, also in his direction. "And you too, Marcus?" he added. " I am as well as I can hope to be in this world, Thomas," said his mother, languidly, as she subsided into the easy-chair from which she had arisen. " I'm pretty well, thanks/' said Marcus, with a drawl, as he opened and shut slowly the VOL. i. F 66 COWARD CONSCIENCE. fingers which his brother had too closely gripped. " Will you take a seat ?" " Thank you, Marcus," was the reply, " it will be more convenient, as I have come back again for good." " Ye-es, exactly, so you have, by Jove !" said the elder brother ; then his power of con- versation failed him, and he remained speech- less. Meanwhile Tom Dagnell looked round him and about him. It was the same garish, dis- agreeable room as ever, he thought, only blue satin damask had replaced the crimson, and everything was as new, and bright, and showy as when he had left it last. The mother was changed, and looked more lined and sallow, despite the deep tinge of artificial red upon her cheeks. Lady Dagnell was a lady well pre- served, of fifty-four or fifty-five years, with a false front and false teeth to match the false colours under which her vanities com- placently sailed. She was a tall, thin lady, elaborately costumed for morning wear, and with more jewelry weighing her down than THE REST OF THEM. 67 one is accustomed to see at that time of the day on ladies of any rank in life. A weak woman, possibly, was Lady Dagnell, but one who still strove to bear tip bravely with the fashion plates, and loved dress to desperation. Her eldest son, Marcus, was also got up with the same scrupulous regard for what was fash- ionable and becoming to his person, and thus afforded the more striking contrast to the travel-stained apparel of his younger brother. Marcus Dagnell was a young and highly- starched likeness of the father, whom we have left upstairs a tall, thin, washed-out man, caught viciously round the neck by a stiff shirt collar, which held his head in a trap and kept it rigid. Having done the honour of receiving his brother home, he subsided into silence and left the talking to his mother, but there was a faint amount of interest, or curiosity, in the dull blue eyes which remained fixed upon Tom, or Tom's shabby overcoat, with a lack-lustrous stare. " There will be numerous opportunities afforded us to speak of the future, Thomas," 68 COWARD CONSCIENCE. said his mother " of the future as regards yourself, I meau, of course." "And of the past what of that?" inquired her son. " Shall we tie a stone round its neck and sink it ?" " The past is not a dead dog, son," said Lady Dagnell, with a little shudder. "No it was a mad dog, and wanted to bite everybody," was the sou's remark ; " and dead or alive now, at least we will sink it." "I do not wish to allude to anything un- pleasant. Heaven knows," said the mother, mincingly, " I am not strong enough for altercation now. Time has tried me very much." " You are looking older, certainly," said Tom. " 1 don't mean in that way/' said Lady Dag- nell, quickly, "I may have changed a little, though you are the first to remark it, but it is the heart and brain that have suffered with me. Your father's illness has been so distressing to us all, to me especially. He has been very violent at times, and always terribly obstinate." THE REST OF THEM. 69 " Dreadfully obstinate," said Marcus, in a low tone. "We have not murmured or repined," the mother continued. " We have struggled to bear up against the heavy hand of affliction that has pressed us in the dust we are strug- gling still we shall struggle to the end." "Is^the end near?" asked Tom Dagnell, bluntly. " Heaven forbid that it should be ! Do you think so ?" asked his mother. " He thought so when he sent for me," said Tom, confidently. " He was very sad and strange all that day," Lady Dagnell replied. "Awfully queer," added Marcus, "no cheer- ing him up at all." " Did you try to cheer him ?" asked Tom, curiously. " Yes, I tried." "And failed?" " Yes, I failed." "So 1 should have imagined," said Tom. " Ha, ha I" and here he broke into his first 70 COWARD CONSCIENCE. hearty laugh, " fancy Marcus trying to cheer up the governor !" Marcus attempted a sickly smile at this, but Lady Dagnell lay back in her chair and fanned herself slowly. " You have come back at a sad time, Thomas," she said, " and your boisterous spirits jar strangely on me, at present. I am not used to boisterous spirits, I shall be soon, I hope, Marcus ?" " Yes, mamma." " You and your brother will take a stroll through the grounds before luncheon. You can tell him everything better than I can in my enervated state. You will like to see what im- provements have been made in the grounds, Thomas, since you were here last." "I should prefer seeing what improvements have been made in the larder/' her son re- sponded. " Ah ! you are hungry, perhaps ?" said Lady Dagnell. " Hungry ? I should think I was," answered her sou. "I left Honfleur on the strength of THE REST OF THEM. 71 the scanty supper that Madame Vermont got me, and there was but a poor breakfast to be secured on board ship at seven this morning. Suppose we lunch now, and see the grounds afterwards ?" " I should be seriously ill for days, if I lunched before my usual time," said Lady Dag- nell. " I must live by rule, or succumb. But if you would like " "Certainly, I do like," said Tom, jumping up and ringing the bell, " and I gave poor old Fisher the hint a little while ago. You must excuse me, mother, if I make myself at home now that I have accepted all this " he spread his hands wide as he spoke "as home, or as the something that can only stand for it." Lady Uagnell did not reply, and Mr. Fisher, with a beaming face, appeared at the door in response to the summons. " Is that luncheon ready, Fisher ?" inquired Tom. " Yes, sir, it's all ready for you in the dining- room I thought you might be ready for it, 72 COWARD CONSCIENCE. too, Master Tom, after your sea-voyage," said the butler. " That is not the proper way to address your master's son, Mr. Fisher," remarked Lady Dag- nell ; " you forget " " No, no, I don't forget anything, my lady and least of all was I likely to forget that. But he's just home, you see, and my heart's full at the sight of him again. I'll be more in my place to-morrow," he muttered. " Wait till I put you there," said Tom ; " and now lead the way, Caleb Balderstone." " Just like his old fun," said the butler, with a chuckle ; " he's beginning to call me names, too. Bald as a stone, indeed ! no, not so bad as that, Master Tom. This way, sir this way, if you please." ^_ The butler and his young master quitted the drawing-room, and Lady Dagnell looked across at the son remaining to her. " You had better go with him, Marcus ; he will only talk to Fisher too much," she mur- mured ; " he was always too friendly with Fisher." THE REST OF THEM. 73 Marcus looked with mild dismay at his watch. " By Jove, it's not one o'clock yet," he said ; " I could not eat a morsel." " What does that matter ?" asked the mother, peevishly. " It matters a considerable deal to me to be compelled to swallow down a luncheon an hour before I am ready for it," Marcus said, slowly, as he departed in quest of his brother. In the dining-room he found his younger brother had begun his luncheon, with Mr. Fisher as an admiring sentinel in the background. " I thought you were not coming, Marcus/' said Tom, looking up as he entered. " Oh, ye-es ; I couldn't leave you alone en- tirely." " Robin and I were jogging on very well to- gether what'll you have ? Here's cold roast beef, fowl and ham, and a pasty of some sort to your left." " Tha-anks ; but I think I'll wait till a more reasonable. hour. I have no appetite." " Up late last night !" 74 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Not at all." " Down late this morning ? That was always an infernal habit of yours, Marcus." "Early rising never agreed with me, and I don't suppose it ever will." " I don't suppose you'll ever try it," said Tom. " The hours I used to spend in the park whilst you were droning away in bed ! Do you remember at Swishem's Academy, too, how you caught it one day for not turning out after the bell had rung the second time? You went clean off to sleep again, and Swishem's cane on a tender spot was the next alarum. That was the only time in my life I saw you give a good jump." The prim Marcus smiled feebly for the second time ; his brother's genial manner had helped to thaw him somewhat, and he was a man not easily thawed. He had not smiled for the last six months before that day not having seen or heard anything to smile at, in his poor esti- mation of what was worth creasing his cheeks for. He had a theory as regarded smiles, and laughter too, and was especially wary of hilari- THE REST OF TI?EM. 75 ous moments. They conduced to premature wrinkles, he was certain, and his personal ap- pearance had been a matter of grave study for the last ten years of his life. He was twenty- nine years of age, and getting nervous about wrinkles. He wished he had not smiled just then, but he had been taken off his guard, being not altogether sorry to see his brother Tom again. " I think I'll drink a glass of hock with you," he said ; " it will not agree with me, but a fel- low feels like a fool sitting at a table with nothing to do but see another fellow eat. Tha-anks." This Avas to his brother, who had filled the glass at his elbow before the butler could get round to it. Marcus raised the glass to his- lips, sniffed, sipped, drank, and then focussed Mr. Fisher with an inquiring stare. " What wine is this, Fisher !" " Johannisberg, sir." " The Schloss Johanuisberg of fifty-eight,. Fisher, is it not?" Yes, sir." 76 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "We are not in the habit of drinking fifty- eight Johaunisberg at luncheon, Fisher," Marcus said, with a grave shake of the head. " No, sir, but 1 thought the best wine would suit the best day that has come to us this year," was Mr. Fisher's answer. " I don't exactly comprehend what right you had to think anything about it, Fisher," Marcus said, in the same slow drawl, " and if you had mentioned it to me " " I told him to get the best wine out of the cellar, Marcus," said Tom ; " it's my fault. I was always a silly fellow who liked the best of everything." " That alters the question of the case, of course," said Marcus. " I'm sorry I. alluded to it, but it struck me it was deuced good wine all of a sudden, and the governor keeps the vintage awfully thin for ordinary occasions. I may say in confidence, Tom, that vinegar is the word, as a general rule, for wine here. White vinegar and red." " Try another glass of this while you can get it." THE REST OF THEM. IT " Tha-auks," said Marcus, " if you don't want the whole of the bottle, I think I will trouble you for another glass. And really, if I thought it would not be a serious inconvenience to me, I would attempt a wing of that chicken, and get a lunch away from the women-folk for once." " Ay, do, then we can chat together for half- an-hour in peace, in the park." " The park's dreadfully damp before the after- noon sun gets at it." " Is the billiard-room in working order still?" " Yes, that's pretty right," was the reply,. " if Grimshaw has not left the windows open all night. Grimshaw is a perfect fool about those windows, isn't he, Fisher f " He is, sir, puffect." When the early lunch was concluded, tile- brothers adjourned to the billiard-room a well- proportioned room in the right wing of the house, and with French windows looking upon the garden. They were alone together after five years of separation, but there were no con- 78 COWARD CONSCIENCE. fidences sought or exchanged the younger brother was indifferent, or appeared to be so, to all that had happened since his departure ; the elder was phlegmatic and fond of billiards. Marcus Dagnell took his brother's coming, as he had taken his flitting, with extraordinary com- posure, but then his blood flowed slowly in his veins, and no man living had seen him at fever heat. Marcus removed his coat and hung it with great care on a peg by the door, smoothing the creases from it as he did so ; Tom slipped out of his own threadbare garment and pitched it carelessly on the raised seat by the wall. It was possible to guess somewhat of the charac- ters of the brothers by even these slight actions. " I suppose when the governor wants me in the library he'll send for me," said Tom, as he took down a cue from the frame. " I said I was at his service when he wished." " He'll send Ursula fast enough when he -wants you," said Marcus. "You may rest assured of that. Will you begin ?" THE REST OF THEM. 79 "As you please." Billiards was commenced and pursued for a while in silence, until Tom, who was getting the better of the game, gave vent, half uncon- sciously, to an air from II Barbiere, executed in a shrill whistle. Marcus raised his hand in a deprecating manner, and surveyed his brother with a pained expression of countenance. " I wish you wouldn't, Tom. Upon my honour, my head will not stand that sort of thing this morning," he remarked. " Are you not well ?" " There's a pressure here that is unpleasant," he said, laying his hand on the top of his head very carefully. "I suppose it's taking lunch too early. I was afraid I was acting rashly when you suggested chicken. I wish you hadn't." " Do you play as well as you used at this game, Marcus?" " I don't know. You play a deuced sight better, at any rate." " I have practised a great deal abroad," said Tom ; " have been at times almost a billiard- sharper, Marcus." 80 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Good Gad really." "Fifty game there goes five shillings for you. We used always to play for five shillings a game, if you remember 1" " I don't seem to remember that, Tom," said Marcus ; " it's terrifically high." " At all events, we didn't mention stakes on this occasion." " Certainly we did not mention stakes, Tom. You never said a word concerning them." "Then we will not call this a five shilling game." Marcus appeared to be slightly relieved, and urged no protest. " We must not have the old gambling spirit rife in Broadlands again," said Tom, re-chalking his cue as his brother spotted the red ball. " We must play for love, or counters, as gravely as we play decorum. Now, then." The door opened, and checked the first stroke on the green cloth. Ursula Dagnell came softly and noiselessly towards them. " What a beginning of life together, and at this time, too !" she said, sharply, almost scornfully. THE REST OP THEM. 81 " We can't sit and mope all day, Ursula," re- plied Marcus, " upon my honour." " Haven't you told your brother anything T "Not a word." " Has not aunt !" "There's plenty of time to tell him," said Marcus. " I don't see any occasion for hurry myself." " It is an agreeable task which you have left for me," she said, very bitterly, " as you leave everything in your selfishness as you always have done." " Upon my word, Ursula, you are down upon a fellow," said Marcus. " You fly into a passion at a moment's notice, or without a moment's notice, just like " " Your brother Tom," she added, as he paused for a comparison. " What is to be the first revelation, may I inquire?" asked Tom of Ursula. "I left this place a house of mystery I return to find the same miserable shadows lurking here." " Shadows ! Oh ! yes," said Ursula. They are all here still." VOL. I. G 82 COWARD CONSCIENCE. She opened the French window, and Marcus, who had a susceptible throat, hastened to put on his coat, and button it carefully over his chest. " I wonder when we shall get rid of this con- founded east wind ?" he said. " Come into the garden with me, Tom ; I will speak to you there," suggested Ursula. " Certainly. Marcus, will you join us, or ex- cuse me ?" "I would rather excuse you, please," said Marcus, beginning to practise " cannons " be- fore his brother had followed Ursula to the lawn beyond the house ; " you'll find me here, when you are disengaged." " Now, Ursula, I am ready," said Tom, as ne approached his cousin's side, " what is the news you have for me ? Why have they sent for me in this hot haste ?" "To marry me," said Ursula, very com- posedly. 83 CHAPTER VII. THE COUSINS. TT is possible that Tom Dagnell had prepared -* himself for a surprise, but it was certainly not in this direction. He went back a step or two, he changed colour, he looked into the pale plajji face of the lady confronting him, and he finally burst into a hearty laugh. " Well, it is very kind of them to settle our futures in this free and easy fashion," he said, "it is the coolest proposal of all the coolest proposals that Sir John Dagnell and his wife have ever hatched forth upon my soul, it is the height of absurdity !" There was a garden seat of light iron-work upon the lawn, and he flung himself into it to G2 84 COWARD CONSCIENCE. enjoy his laugh with greater ease ; his cousin,, automatic and grave, sat down beside him and waited patiently for his hilarity to cease. " You don't seem to see this joke as clearly as I do," said Tom. " Why, Ursula, I should have thought that you, with your shrewd com- mon sense, would have been the first to laugh at it." " I had my laugh out before you came home. You forget I have had a week to laugh in, and the jest is somewhat stale." " Yes yes but, confound it, you need not look so grimly at it all, as though the joke had turned sour with brooding on it," cried Tom. " You see the -nonsense of this new idea a& clearly as I do ?" " Just as clearly." " And even supposing that I was prepared to say to my father, 'Done, Sir John, I'll marry Cousin Ursula to oblige you/ you are not the girl to take me on those terms." " What makes you think that ?" was the strange, hard inquiry, in response. The light, laughing looks of our hero vanished THE COUSINS. 85 at this reply ; he regarded her now very earnestly. "Why should I think otherwise, knowing your high spirit, and remembering always that we have been more like enemies than friends?" " Yes, more like enemies than friends, Tom," she replied, " I am not likely . to forget it ; and there is much in the past that I am not likely to forgive." "Coming of an unforgiving race, Ursula,, for the old story goes that a Dagnell never for- gives." " I have been inclined to believe that of late days," she said, thoughtfully. " I have been inclined to doubt it," replied Tom, " for I have forgiven, and I will ask for- giveness of you for anything that rankles as an injury in your 'mind against me. There, Ursula, we will begin afresh from this day. Say so *" " You are anxious to forget everything ?" " Yes, I am. This is a new outset of life, and the past is flung overboard." 86 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " So you told Lady Dagnell/' " So I tell you," he answered, " is it a compact ?" He held his hand towards her, and she put hers within it after a moment's hesitation. " Yes, it is ; and," she added, " I am glad it is !" " That's well ; that's like the cousin Ursula who first came here to make home brighter than it was and who " "And who became quenched iu the gloom of its surroundings." "Ay that was to be expected, for but the past again. Oh ! confound the past ; see, we put away from shore, and get from it for ever." " Into deep water," was the dry rejoinder. " Into hot water, if this marriage project be as strong a conceit of paterfamilias as other little crotchets of his life have been," said Tom. " It is stronger." "Can it be possible?" " That is why I have come to warn you to THE COUSINS. 87 put you on your guard against your father and myself." "The two of you?" exclaimed Tom. "I don't see " "You will, presently. But you are not patient." " I hate beating about the bush, certainly but go on, I am all attention," said Tom. " What on earth do you mean by putting me on guard against Sir John and yourself?" "Tom," she said, in the same unmoved, matter-of-fact way with which she had begun the interview, " I have told your father that, when you are prepared to marry me, I am pre- pared to take you at your word." " Great Heaven ! you ?" " Are you not surprised and disgusted to learn that I am prepared to say yes to the honourable offer of your hand in marriage? It is a great catch for one who has become the poor relation and dependent here," she said, mockingly. " Do you mean to say that you would marry me?" 88 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Yes, I do." " Then, upon my soul, I do not comprehend you/' he blurted forth. " Who does at Broadlands ?" was the quick answer. " Who ever did, Tom, for that matter?" " You are really prepared to marry me, of all men ! Not Marcus, who might have suited you, being older, staider, calmer, and of more dis- cretion ; but me, the ne'er-do-weel, the idler, and the profligate ! ME !" he repeated in a high tone of voice. " Would it not be a fitting match ? children of two brothers man and woman who have been brought up from childhood together, and understand each other's little foibles so well ?" she said. " You are speaking with your old biting tongue and I hate satirical people," he said, querulously. " Shall I speak out ?" " Yes for God's sake, do. You were never at your best in these moods." " Perhaps not," she answered ; " but my old THE COUSINS. 89 biting tongue, as you term it, has been, at times, the only friend on which I could depend." "Well, well, poor Ursula, you wanted it in this house, proceed." " Your father wishes me to marry you ; it is the last wish of his heart, for he is going to die !" said Ursula Dagnell, very calmly. "No, no, he is getting better. He thinks so himself he says so." " He is going to die," she repeated, " you have been sent for to soothe his dying moments." " I am a strange man to choose for the task, Ursula," said Tom, gloomily. "You are the one most fitting," was the reply, " you are his son, and it is a duty you are not likely to evade, being called to it as from the brink of the grave." " I did not know it was so bad as this." " That he should die I" " Yes/' " It was certain from the first." "And they all know it and are prepared for it?" 90 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " They are all prepared." " They bear their troubles excellently well/* said Tom, "and yet they have been always with him, studying his wants, and bowing to his decrees. But why does he want me to marry you ?" " You will know presently," was the reply. " Can't you guess ?" " He will tell you. No one else." " Oh ! that's it. I am to be father confessor as well as consoler in ordinary. Where is he?" "Asleep. He must not be disturbed. He may sleep for hours, till night time even, and he may wake speechless !" "What a change in a man whose will was of iron," when 1 saw him five years since," said Tom. " Five years have wrought many changes," said Ursula, sorrowfully. "None so strange as this," said Tom, "I should not be surprised to wake up in my lodgings at Honfleur and find it all a dream." THE COUSINS. 91 " You do not see the change in yourself only in him you defied." " And who cursed me out of the house ! Poor governor, I wish he were strong enough to start afresh at it." " Horrible ! Horrible !" exclaimed Ursula. " Cannot you see God's hand in this meeting ?" "I can't say I do." " Ah ! you were always a sceptic." " I grope on darkly, and there is no hand to grasp my own and point out the way I should go," said Tom. " As weak and as despairing as ever, then ?" she asked, a little scornfully. " I never despaired. I took life and life's sorrows too lightly for that." "As you thought/' was the dry response; "but we are forgetting our marriage, after all !" " Yes, that's odd, considering it affects us so materially. When shall we begin to discuss the housekeeping to buy the furniture to settle on the manner in which a life's happiness is to- be spent together?" 92 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Whose is the biting tongue now 1" asked Ursula Dagnell, sharply. " Not mine," exclaimed Tom ; " this is pure fun." " The time is inappropriate for pure fun/ 3 said Miss Dagnell ; " pray remember the misery that is at work here, and see what you can do." " What I can do ? I am a very helpless man," said Tom. "You have a strange task before you to save yourself and me. Our marriage would be too great a mockery," she replied, '-'and if I have promised you must refuse to prom- ise." "Exactly. I can do that gracefully. Even a sick man cannot suppose for a moment that I am going to marry to oblige him." " He thinks you will wish it too." "He is strangely sanguine over impossible contingencies," said Tom ; " perhaps he has gone wholly mad, and this accounts for his send- ing for me, for asking my pardon, for thinking of this match." THE COUSINS. 95 Ursula shook her head. " You will not find your father's brain affected," she said. "So much the better," replied Tom. "But it is an odd story, and I have been lured home under false pretences to listen to it." " No, he wished to see you at the last," said Ursula, "he is sorry for all the mistakes that parted you." "He told me so this morning," said Tom r dryly, " but in what a style !" " Did you expect sentiment and romance from him?" "I can't say I did." " Then rest satisfied," she answered. " Is that possible in a man who was never satisfied T' " It is possible to try." " All right, I will make the attempt/' said Tom, " you do not know, Ursula, with what a host of good resolutions I have come back." " I shall be content with one," said Ursula in reply. 94 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Which one is that ?" " Self-restraint. Your father is dying ; he has many bitter memories of you do not add to them at the eleventh hour." " Am 1 to agree with him implicitly ?" asked our hero, with emphasis. "You are to refuse him with kindness and gentleness to temporise with him rather than excite him, to reason with him calmly on the folly and impossibility of all that he desires." " It will not be a difficult task." "It will." " I suppose there is some further mystery which you are hiding from me, Ursula." " No," she said, moving slowly away from him, " I am not mysterious. You will remem- ber my advice you will remember that I have pledged my word, feeling sure that your con- sent could never be obtained, and that you would come back to save me." " Not to enslave you, and bind you down to a sterner servitude than you have yet experi- enced." " Yes, yes," she repeated ; then she left him THE COUSINS. '95 to his reverie, a strange and silent figure in the sunlight. She had forewarned him. Was he fore-armed in consequence ? 96 CHAPTER VIII. AT THE DINNER-TABLE. T7ES, to have awakened in his old room at -*- Honfleur would have been no surprise to Tom Dagnell ; it would have been far more consistent with his surroundings than to be sitting there, in his day-dream, in his father's garden. Surely part and parcel of a dream to be at home again like this, to be conscious that he and his father had shaken hands, and that bygones were bygones for all time. A dream with much dark shadowing about, and in the mist of which strange impalpable figures were flitting full of menace and foreboding, with white arms beckoning to him, and then warn- ing him back as from a danger or a snare lying AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 97 beyond in the darkness which he could not pierce. What did it mean ? What did it por- tend ? Why this souse of forgiveness to bring- him back to JBroadlands, and then tell him that he must marry Cousin Ursula ? Of all women in the world, Cousin Ursula ! cold-hearted, high-principled, bad-tempered, prim, and angu- lar Ursula, who was three or four years older than he, and would look thirteen or fourteen presently, with those hideous glasses, and the- lines coming thick and fast upon her face as- lines upon a railway-map. Of all women in the world, the one with whom he had never agreed ; who had spent her life in preaching at him, in advising him, in telling him what was best who had meant well, and failed egregi- ously who had been the go-between and brought hard messages from papa and mamma, who had not added to the harmony of existing things in the old days before he ran away. Of all women in the world, Ursula Dagnell ! to be offered to him by those whose poor ambitious had always galled and fretted him, who would have made a good match for him in the county VOL. I. H 98 COWARD CONSCIENCE. when he was one and twenty, and have cut him off with a shilling had he thought of Ursula Dagnell, whom nobody seemed to care for then. Of all women in the world, Cousin Ursula! It was like marrying his own flesh and blood he would as soon have dreamed of marrying his sister, or his grandmother, had he been blessed with either of those feminine commodities. Of all women in the world, Ursula Dagnell ! It was the refrain to all his thoughts; it rang like a discordant peal of bells in his ears, terribly confusing him ; it was with him in his solitary musings in the great park into which he strayed ; it followed him presently upstairs to his room his old room unchanged in every particular, as though the reminiscences should strike home like bayonet thrusts when he came back for good it was for ever echoing in his brain that day. His small portmanteau had arrived from the railway-station, and he drew therefrom a rusty, black, full-dress suit, into which he put himself with great care, having a regard for AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 99 seams and the fragile texture of the cloth. They dressed for dinner at Broadlands ; they had been always very particular about dress in this establishment ; he would array himself in as sumptuous a manner as the means at his command would allow. The change of attire \vas an improvement to him after a brisk wash and clean shave; even in an old dress-suit he looked the well-born and well-bred gentleman. The little woman whom he had met on board The Witch would have failed to recognise in him the rough and ready Bohemian with whom she had conversed on shipboard. Ah ! the little dark girl with another mystery tacked to her confound all mysteries, thought he ! What was she doing now ? he wondered. Had she reached Birmingham? had she been received by friends, relatives, or acquaintances ? had she told them that she had run away? and why she had stolen off in the night from Honfleur Harbour ? What was her position now ? Was anybody going to marry her offhand? Had she been'met with a new and incomprehensible fact at her journey's end, as he had ? and had it come H 2 100 COWARD CONSCIENCE. at her like a blow ? Poor little girl, more desolate than he was who seemed to envy him and his return to home to whom no home- return was ever in her reckoning, she said who was so strong and frank and bright. If Ursula Dagnell had been anything like her now, there would have been no insuperable difficulty in reconciling one's self to one's fate. Yes, he wondered what Miss Hilderbrandt was doing, and in what way and fashion she had begun her new life. Better than his, he trusted and believed. Strange it was that two lives should have commenced afresh last night, starting from the same point on board The Witch, and diverging when on English ground so utterly and completely. Stay, let him con- sider this again : he was his own master ; he was not quite so sure ! Birmingham was not at the Antipodes. When the dinner-bell rang for the first time he was surprised to find that he had thought more of Miss Hilderbrandt than of Miss Dagnell during the last half-hour that he had drifted away, as it were, from his thoughts of the AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 101 cousin, which was a good sign, and proved that the position was not troubling his mind in any great degree. But before the dinner-bell rang a second time the mystery was upon him again, and Ursula Dagnell rose before him with her pale face and glittering glasses a phantom that was difficult to hide from. He should be glad when this interview with his father was over, and everybody understood each other thoroughly. " The Mysteries of Udolpho " were hardly in his line, or likely to flourish upon Sussex ground, he fancied. It was not a cheerful dinner at which he sat down that evening ; to the last day of his life he remembered the dulness and the blankness of it, the dreary voids in the conversation, the restraint and reserve which wrapped everybody in their icy folds, the consciousness that every- body was waiting and watching, and that a man was slowly dying in the room upstairs with a weight upon his mind. The four who sat down to dinner hardly seemed to possess one thought in. common ; had Sir John Dagnell been lying dead in the house, 102 COWARD CONSCIENCE. there could not have been a deeper gloom cast on this small community. Lady Dagnell was indisposed, it had been officially proclaimed, and, though she ate and drank well, it was as if she did it under protest, and with the inward consciousness that she was merely prolonging the misery of her existence from sheer consider- ation for the feelings of the family. Her head ached, and the less noise in the room under those circumstances the better ; the servants stole about on tiptoe, and one who clattered the plates too roughly was requested on the spot to withdraw into the servants' hall, until he knew how to behave himself properly. Marcus was almost as silent as his mother, and disposed to imagine that through the indis- cretion of an early lunch he was ailing like his mother too. He made the most of his afflic- tion ; he sat bolt upright and rigid, carved his fowl at arm's length, and with half-shut eyes, a patient, non-complaining, but much-suffering man, whose attention was strictly devoted to his dinner. Once or twice he glanced across at his brother, as if endeavouring to account for or AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 103 to grow accustomed to this new figure at the feast, but the principal words which escaped him at the meal were a few long-drawn " Tha-anks " to the servants who waited upon him, and to whom he was gravely grateful for polite attention. Tom Dagnell went with the stream, this slow, noiseless stream of placid monotony for which Broadlands was distinguished being in no niood for conversation, and feeling that the shadows were thick about him, and he was not likely to grope his way too quickly from them. Let him move on with the rest of these inhabi- tants of Sleepy Hollow. Ursula was there also, seated close to his side, as if by pre-arrangement, or an order from upstairs, and this made him smile a little as he took his place at table. The romance and mystery of it all verged so closely on burlesque that he could afford to smile, even in this shadow-land, at the cool arrangements which had been made for his whole life, without in any way consulting him. Was he to be coaxed, or frightened, into marrying his prim cousin ? And 104 COWARD CONSCIENCE. would Sir John Dagnell threaten him with the pains and penalties of disinheritance if he did not say, " I, Tom, take thee, thou sober-visaged spectre, to be my wedded wife ?" As if disin- heritance were not in his line ; as if he had not expected it, and been prepared for it, a good five years now ! A rustling of heavy silk presently denoted that Lady Dagnell had risen to her feet with the intention of retiring to the di*awing-room, and Ursula rose with her at her signal. The gentlemen stood up, the elder opened the door, closed it after the ladies, and then dawdled round to his mother's chair, into which he com- fortably ensconsced himself. " Try the port, Tom," he said ; " you'll find it good this evening. That old Fisher has been at the best wines again." " Thank you, I'll stick to the claret. I have to keep my head cool," Tom replied. " I wish I could," said Marcus ; " it was awfully unwise of me to have my lunch so early. If I go out of my usual way, I'm sure to feel poorly." AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 105 " I am afraid my coming has put you all out very much." " N-no not very much/' said Marcus, with an odd, hesitating politeness ; " we expected you you know ?" " Yes I was sent for." " Exactly." " Have they told you for what reason, Mar- cus?" said our hero, leaning across the table, and regarding his brother intently. " Ye-es, I have a faint idea we all have a faint idea of what the governor's wishes are," was the reply. " But not what mine are, I take it." "Of course not. It is simply for you to say what you think of the proposition, and to decide accordingly. It is not my affair, Tom, so I don't worry myself about it." " You might as- well have done so." Marcus Dagnell elevated his eyebrows in- surprise at this remark. " Why ?" he ventured to inquire. " Because you can stand a great deal of 106 COWARD CONSCIENCE. worry, being blessed with equanimity and a slow circulation of the blood." "Upon my honour, Tom, I fail to compre- hend you, all at once," drawled Marcus ; " if you are chaffing a fellow, I wish you would say 80." " These are days of sober, serious earnest, man, and if you had pulled yourself together, and taken an interest in my future, you might have been able to throw some light upon this wretched complication," said Tom, irritably. " I don't think so I really don't, upon my honour," was Marcus's reply ; " the governor never took me into his confidence, and I don't suppose he ever will. I can't get on comfort- ably with the governor ; he loses his temper so confoundedly that it's painful to have any- thing to do with him. It is positively, you know." " Oh, yes, I know/' said Tom, gloomily. " It's particularly odd, but the less the gover- nor sees of me the more peaceable and quiet he is." "That is odd, perhaps/' said Tom, after a AT THE DINNER-TABLE. 107 moment's consideration of the problem, " for you are a man who should agree with most folk." " That's exactly my notion. I hate bother and fuss ; it floors me if there's much of that. I'm not constituted for it." " Why didn't they knock up a match between you and Ursula ? You two would have suited each other admirably/' cried his brother. " I don't see it, Tom upon my word I don't see that." "You are both quiet and grave dummies enough, the Lord knows," said Tom, " and you could have sat one on each side of the fire, and waited patiently for doomsday." " I don't like a quiet woman myself. I pre- fer a girl with life and animation and ' go ' in her/' Marcus remarked. " The devil you do !" said Tom, astonished. " I should not have thought that." " It's a fact, I assure you. I think a dull sort of girl, all prudence, propriety, and prayer- book, an awful bore, I do indeed." " I wonder what a woman all life, and soul,. 108 COWARD CONSCIENCE. and ' go ' would think of Marcus Uagnell ?" said Tom, laughing out at last. " Women like quiet men best, there's very little doubt about that." "All sorts of women for all sorts of men," answered Tom ; " there's no rule in the matter, and it's no use issuing one from Broadlands. And looking at you critically, mon frere, and knowing that you were here, ready to hand, lamb-like and tractable, I am more puzzled than ever to account for the reason why you and Ursula did not make a match of it." " Are you really ?" said Marcus, very slowly. " You are not chaffing me ?" " Not at all. Why did they send for me ? Why bring back to the house the firebrand that was always threatening to destroy it the man who was never obedient, who was self-willed and obstinate before he was a man, and who is the least likely to marry the woman of another's choosing ?" " Ye es, ye es, I know all that, Tom. I understand perfectly, so you need not hammer away on the table with the nut-crackers any AT THE DINNER-TABLE. longer," answered Marcus, " it makes a terrible row, and I think I told you that my head was bad this evening." " You have spoken of nothing but your head," said Tom, peevishly. t( As for my marrying Ursula, the whole thing was out of the question, Tom," said Marcus. " She's a good girl, and will make an exception- ally good wife; but I couldn't marry her if theyhad wished it ever so much which I must say they didn't. I'm half married already, you know." " No, I don't know," said Tom. " What do you mean ?" " I'm engaged to be married ; I am decisively and positively booked, Tom, and there's no- backing out of the contract." " Who's the happy lady ?" asked his brother. " Miss Oliver." " Oliver 1" exclaimed Tom. " You don't mean Fanny Oliver ?" " Yes, I do." " The little girl you were spoons on six or seven years ago, and who used to tease you so- terribly, and call you Slowboy ?" 110 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " She still calls me Slowboy, Tom." " Why, there was a row about her. They were afraid you might get engaged off-hand, and but Marcus " "What's the matter? What are you staring at a fellow like that for? Is there anything over my head anywhere ?" " Sir John and my lady used to look down upon the Olivers they were not as genteel as the Dagnells, who had made money and got a knighthood out of a City banquet to a foreign ruffian with a crown on, the Olivers were low- class then, and not doing well terribly vulgai% Marcus. How is it you have conquered the family dislike ?" " Ah ! you haven't heard about the Olivers." "Not a word since poor Fanny was packed off to boarding-school, and you were sent to college. What of the Olivers ?" he asked. " They went to Birmingham, and old Oliver made a fortune out of dish-covers. You have heard of Oliver's Patent Dish-Covers, at all events 1 n AT THE DINNER-TABLE. Ill " I have been living abroad, and the fame of the dish-cover has not reached me." " Fll tell you of it another time, when I haven't such a splitting headache," said Marcus. " 1 wonder if potass-water would do me any good, or make me.sick?" " Tell me of Miss Oliver then." " I met her in town last year," said Marcus. " I went down to her father's house in Birming- ham, by invitation afterwards ; a big place, with a fine crop of pictures on the walls, too. I pro- posed, was accepted, and the wedding will come off in the autumn," said Marcus. "And what kind of young lady has Fanny Oliver bloomed into ?" Marcus laid his hand confidentially on his brother's arm, and his face gathered slowly some vestige of expression to it. " She's a perfect clipper !" he asserted. " Good. So Marcus Dagnell marries a per- fect clipper, and his brother Tom is asked to become the bridegroom-elect to a perfect saint!" cried Tom. "Yes, the philosopher was 112 COWARD CONSCIENCE. right. ' Life is a merry-go-round !' Shall we join the ladies T " With pleasure," said Marcus. "They'll be dull without us," was Tom's caustic comment here, as they went together from the dining-room. 113 CHAPTER IX. AFTER DINNER. T ADY DAGNELL and Ursula, her niece by *- marriage, had been somewhat dull in the absence of the gentlemen, although, judging by the thoughtful dinner-party, it was possible to believe that even the male presence would not have conduced to any great degree of exhilara- tion. Still the ladies were more than ordinarily dull, or more than ordinarily indifferent to each other's company. Lady Dagnell was pleased to consider that she was unwell, and hence we may not see her in her best moods on the pre- sent occasion. She was " faint and weary," and was afflicted that particular evening with a de- sire for fresh air, and for the windows to be VOL. I. I 114 COWARD CONSCIENCE. opened to their fullest extent to admit it, which, being a March wind, was a trifle too fresh and boisterous for the occasion. " If I do not have air I shall die," she was in the habit of protesting to her son Marcus, who had a horror of draughts, and was ever beset by the dread of catching cold, and Marcus had been more than once doubtful if closed windows and shut doors would not have offered some little consolation to him, even for his mother's pre- mature decease. Ursula Dagnell was not in the mood either for the keen breeze, which swayed the curtains, and blew the flames of the wax candles aside. She was cowering away from it in an angle of the room, and bending over an open volume in her hand. It was thus the gentlemen found the ladies after dinner. " Gracious me, what a dreadful draught I" said Marcus, as he entered. " Tom, you don't like this kind of breeze ?" " I don't object," replied Tom. " Four brother is not of so fragile a material that he is likely to be blown away," said Lady AFTER DINNER. 115 Dagnell, "but you can shut most of the win- dows, if you like. Leave me w this one, if you have any charity.", " Very well,' mamma ; but I can't help fancy- ing you'll catch an influenza," said Marcus, as he walked from .one window to another, and shut them with great care, after which he sat down by the scanty fire, which had been allowed to consume itself in the steel grate, and thrust both hands into his pockets. " You are not going to sleep, Marcus your brother must be entertained in some way." " I was not thinking of sleep, Lady Dagnell," replied Marcus. "I was just wondering why Biffin had not brought the tea in." ' " We have been waiting for you," said his mother. '' Ursula, may I trouble you to ring?" Ursula was close to the bell- She rang with- out looking up from the bock She did not look up, even when her cousin Tom was close to her side, and steadily regarding the parting in her light brown hair. " What is the interesting volume, Ursula ?" i2 116 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Ursula closed it at this inquiry, and put on her glasses for a longer range of vision. " I don't know," she said, calmly ; " a draw- ing-room book of some kind a picture-book I I was not interested in it." Tom Dagnell thought this curious, but he made no comment. " Who is with my father?" " The nurse. She takes my place when uncle is asleep. He will send for me the instant he is conscious." " How fond he has become of you/' Tom re- marked. "You are astonished atjiis fondness?" she inquired, "at his/confidence and trust in me?" " A little," Tom confessed. " In the old days, I don't think he showed you any particular affection." " Quite the contrary," was the deliberate reply. " But then he did not show anybody much of that commodity not even," he added, lowering his voice, " Lady Dagnell." " Did she ever show much affection for him ?" said Ursula, quickly. AFTER DINNER. 117 " I never saw any/' answered Tom, with a short laugh, " they were a queer couple is it very remarkable that they are blessed with queer children?" " Not very remarkable and yet the children take not after father or mother." " Are you sure of that ?" " I am sure of it," she repeated. "Theirs has not been a happy marriage," said Tom, in a low voice. " They have never understood how. to make home, children, or themselves happy, and yet they for 1 suppose my mother is at the bottom of this notion would teach us happiness by their unwis- dom." "You misjudge your mother," said Ursula, " she does not wish us to be married. She is not so unwise as that." "Indeed!" " She sees as clearly as you do as I do what a mistake it would be," Ursula continued. " How you would despise and hate me for being a clog on your life how I should despise and hate you for thinking me to be so !" 118 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Well, it has not corne to clogs," said Torn, smiling, " not even to old slippers, to be flung after our post-chaise." Ursula resented his lightness by a cold stare. " Had not you better talk to your mother f she said. " She has scarcely had the honour of a dozen words since your return." " They have been more than sufficient for her, I am afraid. Ah ! poor mother, I wonder why Heaven blessed her with another son ?" said Tom, as he took his cousin's hint and crossed to Lady Dagnell's side. " They are an astonishing time about that tea," murmured Marcus, now fairly half asleep, and speaking with his eyes shut. " I should not be very much surprised if something had gone wrong with the kettle. I shouldn't oh, here it is at last no, by Jove, it's only the Gamp !" A stout, middle-aged woman opened the door, and stood in the doorway. "I am wanted," said Ursula, rising at the sight of her. AFTER DINNER. 119 " No, Miss Dagnell," said the nurse, " if you please, you are not." " Is Sir John still asleep ?" asked Lady Dagriell. " He has woke up at last, my lady but he wishes to see Mr. Thomas directly." "But" began Ursula. " And, if you please, Miss Dagnell, I was to say that he would not see anyone else, and that you were to make sure he was not troubled by anyone else's intrusion whilst his son' was with him." " I will go to him at once," said Tom. " You will remember he is greatly changed, and very weak," said Ursula, solicitously. " I will not forget your warning, cousin ; I am not likely to forget it." " And that, under any circumstances/' added Lady Dagnell, by way of postscript, " violent conduct, or language, will distress him very much." " I wouldn't bully the old gentleman for five pounds," said Tom, very flippantly, at this ; " trust to my discretion, and au revoir" 120 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " He has not altered in the least," said Lady Dagnell, as the door closed behind him ; " the same careless, callous being that he ever was. Five years of adversity have not done him any good." " I do not think they have done him any harm," replied Ursula. " How can you tell, Miss Dagnell ! Why should you know better than 1 1" asked the elder woman, impetuously ; " haven't I my wits about me ? have I not studied the world, and known the world much longer than yourself? This is not the age of miracles, to turn an undutiful son like him into an obedient child." "Or a woman like Lady Uagnell into a, loving mother/' muttered Ursula to herself. Lady Dagnell, having found her tongue, now gave free vent to her complaints, and forgot how indisposed she was. She was by nature a fretful and intolerant woman, whom nothing pleased in this world. There are not many like her scattered about, perhaps, but this was one of them, and a very marked specimen in- AFTER DINNER. 121 deed. Everybody knew it at Broadlands ; the family, the servants, the tradesfolk of Little- hamptou, she almost knew it herself, . she had been told of it so often by a plain-speaking hus- band, and a niece who was also not slow to express an opinion, if it were necessary. Lady Dagnell launched forth, but no one essayed to contradict her on this occasion no one listened even. It was a long, drawn-out protest, a miserable monotone of her wrongs and indignities, her own greatness and import- ance, her virtues, and everybody else's vices, her cleverness and everybody else's dulness of per- ception ; and Miss Dagnell took refuge in her book, and Marcus in his dreams, until the tea was brought into the room. After tea, Marcus stood upon the hearthrug and suggested that the one window remaining open would be better closed, as he felt a burn- ing in his throat a remark to which his mother responded by her old cry, " I must have air ; I cannot be stifled, Marcus, this hot night to please your selfishness." "It's a mere suggestion, mamma," said 122 COWARD CONSCIENCE. Marcus ; " I was thinking more of your health than my own, upon my honour." He subsided into his chair again until he began to cough, when he rose once more and went out of the room in four long strides. The family at Broadlands saw no more of him that evening. Left to themselves, the ladies hardly made the best of their position. Lady Dagnell, tired out with her soliloquy, dozed off in her blue satin chair ; and the plain little woman with the glasses rose and passed noiselessly from her place into the seat recently vacated by the elder son, and sat before the fire, with a steady stare at the flickering red coal. Quiet and grave, stern and self-repressive as one might say Ursula Dagnell was, she was scarcely her- self that evening, and would have been a subject for much speculation in the minds of those who considered that they knew her thoroughly. Cold and imperturbable on ordinary occasions as she might be a feminine shadow of her cousin Marcus, perhaps she was not herself that night. But then it was not an ordinary AFTER DINNER. occasion there was the finger of Fate in it, pointing at her from the gap in the dark heavens, which were lowering above her head. She seemed to cower from it already ; to sit there bowed down as by a great grief, or a terrible suspense against which even her stoicism had given way completely. The wo- man sleeping by the open window would not have dreamed of that storm-stricken figure by the fire, a figure weeping silently, struggling hard to weep silently, with shaking hands pressed down upon the bosom to keep the heavy sobs down ; with lips parted, breath short and quick, and grey eyes ablaze with their own flame. A young woman in darkness of mind, and borne down by incertitude, wait- ing there in fear and trembling, as at a great crisis of her life. Presently in that big, silent house, footsteps were heard descending the stairs his footsteps. Ursula Dagnell knew their quick, impetuous tread, though they had not rung in her ears for five long years. She dashed the tears from her eyes ; put on her glasses hastily, and was 124 COWARD CONSCIENCE. sitting pale and still enough, when the door opened and he came in, looking like a ghost. Ursula drew a long breath at sight of him, but he did not heed it probably did not perceive it, in his own excitement. The mother opened her eyes as he entered, but he did not notice her. He went straight to the side of his cousin, and held out both his hands. " Ursula," he said, " I ask you to become my wife. Will you have me for your husband ?" 125 CHAPTER X. THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. TTRSULA DAGNELL half rose in her chair, ^ and then sank back again, lacking the strength to stand. All colour deserted her, and she lay there very still for a while. " Water, mother ; she has fainted !" Tom exclaimed. "No, no," murmured Ursula; "let me rest quietly, an instant, a single instant, please. I shall be well and strong soon." There ensued an interval that was painful to count by their heartbeats, until Lady Dagnell rose from her chair by the open window and moved towards the door. "I am de trop" she said, wearily. "I had better leave you together." 126 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Will you see Sir John before yon retire, mother?" inquired her son as he opened the drawing-room door for her to pass out. " I think he would be glad to speak with you." " I have not the nerve to-night," replied Lady Dagnell. " If I am better to-morrow, I will try to see him. I am not fit for anything just now ; I am really very weak." " Good night, then," answered Tom. He closed the door and went back to the side of Ursula. His cousin had had time to recover that self-command upon which she had always plumed herself; it was 1;he .grave, immobile face of old, into whicltMie peered on his, return to her. " You heard what I said, Ursula/' he com- menced anew ; " have you the courage to be- come my wife, and make a better man of me ?" "You have the courage, then, to ask me?" she rejoined. " Does it require any great amount of resolution?" " In the face of to-day's warning of my pro- THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 127 phecy of much misery in store for us of the assurance in your own heart that I was the last woman you would think of marrying," she said, in a constrained voice, "you come to me like this '?" " I come to you a changed man with my heart full and open, and the scales fallen from my eyes," said Tom. " But with no love in that heart, and with never admiration in those eyes for me. Never that, despite it all !" she cried, with more anima- tion in her wor^ls and gestures. " How long will it take to love my cousin Ursula, now that I know how true and forgiv- ing a woman she is ?" he asked, " now that I read her character aright for the first time in my life, and am ready with all my strength to do it reverence." " I am so difficult to love," she murmured, as he took a seat beside her. "I have so many faults I am growing older and uglier every day I shall be ever the millstone round your neck." " But still round my neck ! always loving 128 COWARD CONSCIENCE. and true. Is not that the position?" cried Tom. " Tell me first, what has your father said ?" she asked, curiously. " I have promised him that " " Stop. What secret there may be between you and him, and with which I may be con- nected, I do not care to learn and I am the last to ask you to divulge it," she said, hurried- ly, " but you must tell me about myself. What has he said to make you come to me like this?" " You did not expect I should come ?"' Ursula shook her head sadly. " I did not expect it," she replied. " I had misjudged you all my life so terribly, Ursula," he said ; " even my father had been mistaken in you, till his illness showed him how- good a woman you were. Why, you have tried as hard to hide the natural sweetness of your heart as others would have done to display the passing virtues they possessed. You have been always and ever my true friend." "Ay, Tom, if I have tried with all my THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 129 strength at anything, if I have offered with all my soul one honest supplication to my God, it has been in your cause, and in the hope of your return," she cried, passionately now ; " my life has been spent in hiding this from those about me, and in ever and always deceiving you, but I loved you all the while, Tom. I loved you as no other woman has loved a man, I think ! I have fought so hard to be of service to you. I would die so readily to save you from one atom's worth of trouble !" It was all out at last, this deep, passionate nature, which had been so long repressed, and clamped with iron bands about her heart, and which had eaten into her like a disease that, unable to escape the body, must perforce destroy it. The quiet, grave, undemonstrative girl having once thrown back the flood-gates, was more extravagant in her demeanour than wo- men more variable and hysterical would have been, under similar circumstances. She wept, she raved, she paced the room in her excite- ment, finally she stole into his arms as for the shelter of them against her own wild self, slip- VOL. I. K 130 COWARD CONSCIENCE. ping through them the instant afterwards, and cowering at his feet with arms folded before her face. " What can you think of me, now I have ow r ned how weak I am, and how much I have thought of you ? What can you think 1 ? Oh! my God, what do you think?" " I think of the time wasted in which we have not understood each other, Ursula," said Tom, gently ; " there, there, dry your eyes, and let us talk reasonably now. This is almost play-acting between two beings who have scoffed at anything like sentiment until to-night." " We were play-acting before, perhaps/' said Ursula. " Upon my honour, 1 think we were ; but it was always difficult in this house to let the sympathies have a fair chance." " Ah, yes," said Ursula, with a sigh. They had changed positions again, and were sitting by the open window, looking out at the dark landscape. Ursula had complained of the heat and of faintness, and had been led there by her attentive cousin. THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 131 "This has been a day of strange events, Tom," said Ursula, with a faint smile. " A day of reckoning, with the sum-total on the right side at last," he answered ; " but you have not answered my question yet, Ursula." " What question ?" she said, timidly. " Will you consider me as your future hus- band?" Again she hesitated, looking at him with a strange iutentness, that was hard to confront without flinching. Again she responded, but with all the love in her heart too evident. " If I were sure that in any way I could make you happy, Tom that in time, and even after we were married, there would grow up in you by degrees a fair affection for me, I should not be slow in giving you my answer ; but, you know, I am a Dagnell," she said, " consequently I am proud and obstinate. I should not care to be married out of pity, or to see you after- wards indifferent and cold, the victim of an impulse of which you had repented." " You warned me this afternoon you warn me again," said Tom ; " but, Ursula, I shall K 2 132 COWARD CONSCIENCE. love you very dearly. I love you now I do indeed !" " You are as hasty as ever. You have heard strange truths, and they have coloured your fancy, and set me in too bright a light. It will all die out it will all fade," she said, with her lips quivering painfully ; " the twilight, and then the night will follow, leaving that as the end of it." She pointed to the darkness without, where the wind was moaning amongst the restless leaves of the tall trees, and the sky lowering beyond, black and starless. " Have you so little trust in me ?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied, feebly. "You have done nothing to render me distrustful. I have often felt in old days that I might be your guide and counsellor, but I was conceited then, and you looked on me as a spy." " We have done with the past, Ursula there is the future lying before us. Trust me, cousin, as I know I can trust you." There was no ready answer yet, despite the new lover's earnestness. Ursula Dagnell, even THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 133 in her strong affection, was prudent and watch- ful. " You have been away five years your own master you must have seen some one to love very deeply in that time," she mur- mured. " No." "You are naturally of an affectionate dis- position, Tom," she continued, " and easily im- pressed. You would return love for love to any girl, if she let you see as clearly into her heart as I have shown you mine. You would mistake gratitude for love, at any time." " The girls I have met abroad have been pert and ugly, and have worn wooden shoes. There has not been the ghost of one with even the ghost of an idea of loving me." "Not one?" she said, still doubtfully. It seemed wholly impossible to her that the wo- men would be likely to leave Tom Dagnell alone ; it was so extremely natural that they should set their caps at him all of them ! "Not one/' he said again. "I repeat, not the ghost of one." 134 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " It is very strange, in five long years," she replied, " is it not ?" " I have been too busy ; I have been fighting too hard for a living to think of the ladies. I was never a lady's man," said Tom. " I am glad of that," she said, with a great sigh of relief. " I haven't seen a face that has given me a second thought that has hardly given me a second thought," he said, correcting himself. Women who love deeply are strangely quick to seize upon the weak points of a man's de- fence. " What face have yon almost thought twice about, then ?" asked Ursula at once. " Ah ! there was one?" " Not in all the five years till this morning," was the reply, " and that belonged to a pas- senger on board ship, who was crossing from Honfleur to Littlehampton." " Did you speak to her, then ?" " We exchanged a few words of common civility." " Was she a lady ?' THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 135 " Certainly. A lady in distress, probably, for she was leaving home in great haste." "For what reason?" " She did not give me any reason." " If she were sufficiently communicative to tell you that she was leaving home precipitate- ly, she might have imparted to you some fur- ther information," said Ursula, slowly. "Ladies grow rapidly confidential at times, when gen- tlemen are their listeners. They But I am a fool, Tom you see that clearly enough a jealous, suspecting fool, who would grow quick- ly angry over a few chance words between you and any woman now. For you have asked me to become your wife, and till I say yes or no till I have made up my mind you seem to belong to me." "And when will you have made up your mind ?" he inquired. " When shall I hear your decision V " Now." It was her turn to extend both hands to him. The eyes were brimming over with tears, through which she looked at him. He held her 136 COWARD CONSCIENCE. hands in his and waited for her answer. "I know I am not fit for you," she' said, " that I am a stranger woman than you fancy that I may even make you very miserable. But there is no happiness in life without you, and I am very selfish. Take me to your heart, Tom, and love me all that you can !" He stooped and kissed her as a pledge of their new troth they were engaged to be married from that hour ; the compact was signed and sealed in both their hearts, and Tom Dag- nell had come to Broadlands to find a wife awaiting him. So, with the dark night for a background, these two shook hands over their bargain. " Of all women in the world, Ursula Dagnell !" he had cried, in his hot, rebellious spirit, only a few hours before. 137 CHAPTER XI. A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. rTVHE hour was somewhat late to intrude upon a sick man's rest, but Tom Dagnell and his cousin went softly upstairs together to Sir John's apartment. Tom had promised that he would bring Ursula, when it had all been settled be- tween them, and that hand in hand they would convey the good news to Sir John, and ask his blessing on their betrothal. Outside the door, Ursula stopped. " We are all changing so rapidly, or setting aside our masks so completely, that I may ask you now, Tom, to be your natural self," she said. " Haven't I been ?" he inquired. \ 138 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " No, it has been play-acting, as you term it, with the younger son in a character unsuited to him." " You are an observant little woman, whom nothing seems to escape," said Tom. ' f Well, what have you seen ?" " An unreal, spasmodic, suspicious Tom Dag- nell," replied Ursula. " I have been on my guard certainly/' Tom confessed, " I have been distrustful of all of you, and consequently harsh and disagreeable." , " And as unlike your true self as winter is to summer." "Thank you for the compliment," he said, kissing her as if by right of conquest now. " See, how I punish the flatterer. Well, yes ; I have been trying hard to be nasty all day, and to say unpleasant things, to show that I had come back with no -intention of being bounced over like a new boy at a boarding-school. But it was all bounce. You shall see the old Tom Dagnell to-morrow." " As you were before the old mistakes," she said. A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. 139 ' f Yes, I will obey the word of iny superior officer. ' As you were !' " "I am very glad, Tom," she said, pressing his hand. Then they tapped gently on the panels of the door, and waited for admittance. The stout nurse was quick to respond to the summons, and admit the affianced pair into the room. Tom and Ursula, hand in hand, went over the soft carpet, and round the great lacquered screen to the side of the sick man. sitting in the red light of the fire, in the same position as our hero had beheld him at an earlier hour of that never-to-be-forgotten day. " It is arranged, then," Sir John Dagnell said, with a wistful look towards Ursula. "I have promised to be Tom's wife," was Ursula's brief answer. " I am very glad," he said. " With this load off my mind I shall be better now. - I shall get rapidly better from to-night." " I hope you will, father." " Mine is belief, not a hope. What's the use of hope," muttered Sir John, "save to en- courage fallacies ?" 140 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "And tell flattering tales, as the poet says," replied his son ; " but still, Sir John, I trust to see you well and strong again." "Ursula prays for me every night, don't you, Ursula?" "Yes." " Though it doesn't seem to have any effect/' he added. " Do you pray yourself?" asked Tom, curi- ously. " Of course. I pray hard for my old health and strength." "And for forgiveness for the past, uncle, should it be in His wise will that health and strength should not return," said Ursula, earn- estly, " you pray for that, you promised me you would." He seemed to cower from her as she rested her hands upon the chair and looked into his face. " Yes, yes," he said, " but I want to forget the past, and when you are praying about it continually, it's an infernally hard job." " Sir John, Sir John !" cried Ursula, reprov- ingly. A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. 141 "Ay, but it is," Sir John continued; "it's a perfect nuisance, however necessary it may be. And if you have forgiven me, Ursula and Tom too why, the whole affair is settled, to my thinking. But there, you haven't both come to worry rue." " Heaven forbid I" said Ursula. " You have come to say that you are happy so far as fretting about me will allow ?" asked Sir John. " I am happier than I have been in all my life," Ursula confessed. " I have brought a son back to you, and I am understood at last/' " There can be no further misunderstanding, Ursula," said Tom ; " we both know you are the most unselfish of women." Ursula shook her head in deprecation. " No, no/' she said ; " I am selfish in accept- ing you. I am terribly selfish." " Tom could not have a better wife/' remarked the father. "Yes r yes," replied Ursula, in haste, "a better, brighter, prettier, and younger woman. 1 see all that, I know all that, but there stands no 142 COWARD CONSCIENCE. ' one in the way between us, uncle, and there can never be a living soul to love him so dearly as myself, never, in all the world !" She took Tom's hand and raised it to her lips before he was aware, but there was no thrill of love in him that was responsive to her impulse. He was surprised, and saddened even ; there had not seemed a dog to love him twenty-four hours since, and now, here was a woman disposed to make an idol of him, and to be extravagant in her adoration. He had not mastered the position yet, or settled down to it it was like a dream still. Patience, he should be himself in time. " You will sit up with me to-night, Tom," said the father, "I like some one to talk to me when I wake." " Tom has come a long journey," suggested Ursula. * Not at all," said Tom ; " I am at your service, Sir John, and not tired in the least." " That old woman can go to her room," said Sir John, pointing to the nurse, " I hate the sight of her." A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. 143 " But you will go to bed as usual," suggested Ursula. " Yes, presently," he replied; " when I am tired ; but I sleep more comfortably in the big chair I feel less choking in it." " You complain of dreaming badly in it too," said Ursula. " I dream badly everywhere. It's devilish hard to be troubled by such dreams as mine, and without any sense in them." " You can laugh at them when you are awake," said his sou. "Oh, yes, I am in fine laughing trim then," replied Sir John, satirically, " after going head first down a precipice, or falling under a rail- way train, or having my throat cut by you or your mother or Marcus, sometimes, by way of a change I wake up fit to die of laughing, of course." " You slept well in your bed last night," Ursula remarked to the sick man. " About as well as I could. -You were walk- ing up and down like a ghost, all the time." " Ah, I was unsettled," said Ursula ; '* Tom 144 COWARD CONSCIENCE. was coming home, and I wondered what would happen afterwards." She smiled across at Tom, as from the safe side of the happy land to which they had steered their course, and Tom returned the smile. How quickly he should learn to love Ursula Dagnell I He was sure of it. She was the only one who had ever cared or sorrowed for him ! " I don't fancy I slept very well last night," said Sir John, " and as for dreams was not that the night I was going to be hanged ?" " It was the night before." " Well, I slept in bed that night/' said Sir John, "and there was the scaffold, and the crowd, and the hangman, and the rope round my neck, all perfect. When I was sheriff I used to see the hanging business done some- times. Ugh ! I felt the rope, Tom. I was choking with it ; and what do you think was the cause? That cursed old fat woman had let me fall asleep with my head out of bed. You know you did !" he screamed at his nurse, who suddenly rose to urge a protest. " You shifted, Sir John," she said, " before I A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. was aware of it. It was no fault of mine. I know my duty well. I am a duly certificated " " Ursula, stop her, or I shall swear," exclaim- ed the knight ; " send her out of the room, and leave me with my own flesh and blood^ and not with a hireling like that." " I am not to be reproved," said the nurse, haughtily ; " I am a duly certificated " " Yes, yes, we know you are, and we are glad of it," said Ursula, soothingly, " but Sir John is somewhat irritable to-night." " And I make allowance for it," replied the nurse ; " I always do. I have lived in the best of families the irritablest of families but I have never been called a cursed old fat woman before. He's very trying and unbearable, Miss Dagnell ; he gets worse and worse." Ursula and the weeping nurse passed into the adjoining room, and Sir John composed himself as well as he was able in his chair. " That hyena goes to-morrow," he said, " I have had enough of lierT " She appears to me a respectable, willing kind of woman," remarked Tom. VOL. I. L 146 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " That is because you know nothing about her," said the father. " She is the worst of the whole score we have had down here all duly certificated, too, and be damned to them." "Well, she is gone, and you must try to rest, father ; the night is growing late." " You want to rest yourself, you mean ?" was the reply. " No ; I can do almost without rest. An hour's sleep always pulls me round/' " You are not going to snore here for an hour, I hope," said Sir John, somewhat alarmed at this statement. " Oh ! no." " Because T would rather have Ursula here, if that's your idea. Ah !" he said, with a sigh, " I am used to Ursula she is the only one who understands my disorder who is gentle and kind " " And forgiving," added Tom. " And forgiving yes. And no fool, either, Tom." "A wise woman, I should have thought, had it not been a great mistake of hers to care for A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. 147 me," Tom remarked, as he sat down before the fire. " Yes ; that is a bit of a mistake," said the father, thoughtfully. " There's no making out a woman when there's a man in question," Tom continued ; " philosophy's out of gear, and ' it's a mad world, my masters,' altogether." " You seem to have settled it to your own satisfaction pretty well," said the querulous father. "But still she is a wise woman shrewd and far-seeing." ' ' Ay, awfully shrewd, and seeing to the very end of things," muttered Sir John, opening and shutting his fingers strangely as his hands rested on the sides of his chair, and his eyes glared at the hollow burning coals ; " she has been too much for me, God knows !" There was something in the tone of the father's voice that aroused Tom's interest, but his father had forgotten his presence, and was disposed to ramble in his speech. He was weak and variable, this man with whom there had * L2 148 COWARD CONSCIENCE. been such bitter quarrels in the hey-day of his strength and in the strong days of his injustice. Poor father, he forgave him all wrongs and misconceptions now, and was glad to be at his side again, and at the last like this ! It was Ursula's return that distracted Tom's attention, but failed to divert the knight's. " I wish he would go to his room for the night," said Ursula, in a whisper. " Try to persuade him presently." " He is hard to persuade still, I find." "At times," was the reply ; " not always. The electric bell in the wall summons the nurse." " I see," said Tom. " And now, good night, Ursula ; you are tired, I am sure." " Good night, Tom," she replied ; " I shall be glad to rest, and think of this again ; and if it is for the best." " Why, we have settled that," he said, laughing. " Life is beginning, not ending, for us," she answered, shaking her head, " we drop the curtain on the first act, that is all." Tom started at the simile it was iuappro- A WEIGHT OFF HIS MIND. 149 priate on the lips of a recluse, and it was a stagey expression at the best. They were strangely like his own words, too his own prophecy. He had told Miss Hilderbrandt on board The Witch that this was the end of the first act, and now Ursula Dagnell agreed with him. But the second act what was that to be? Was his father looking at it now with that far-away stare in his glazed eyes ? " You will bid him good night, Ursula ?" said Tom. " He would not hear me it would only dis- turb him," was the reply. " He will look like that for a while, and then drop off to sleep. You must not mind his dreams, or what he says in them, Tom." " Not I." " You are not a nervous man." " Not a bit." " If he become excited, a few drops from that phial on the mantel-piece will calm him when he wakes. Good night again," she said. " You will find your own room ready when Sir John is tired of your attendance." 150 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "Thank you. Good night, Ursula. God bless you!" "No no God bless you, Tom," she an- swered, as she went swiftly and noiselessly from the room, leaving father and son to- gether. 151 CHAPTER XII. NO REST YET. TF this were Sir John Dagnell's customary -* method of composing himself for sleep, it was somewhat of an unpleasant order of going for anyone to observe too closely. A deep turn of thought had " fixed " the knight ; turned him as it were into a statue, in whose marble face glittered two bright glaring eyes. Was it the past or the future that had the power to subdue thus completely the man who had been so irritable and harsh only a few minutes since, or was it all part and parcel of the disease which was bearing him, by slow degrees, to the world apart from this I It was singular to observe the suddenness with which Sir John Dagnell 152 COWARD CONSCIENCE. had passed away from all consciousness of his surroundings, from the knowledge of his son sitting there, of Ursula 'having re-entered, spoken of him and bidden Tom good night, from the thought of the present hour and the deep consideration even of his own afflictions that soul-absorbing thought by which he was for ever burdened in his wakeful moments. Tom Dagnell sat and watched his father closely. There was a world of thoughts to keep the son wakeful ; it had been altogether so eventful a day that his brain was heated still with contemplation of it. He had had such different ideas only twenty-four hours ago ; knowing what his father's disposition was, and what a stern and unforgiving man he had al- ways been. He had come to England doubt- ing of any peace between them even at the eleventh hour and yet it had come, and some- thing more than peace. After all, was it peace to the figure in the chair ? was it ever to come to a man whose life had been marked by much injustice, and who, that very day, had owned to the son what NO REST YET. 153 a miserable sinner he had been. Was he think- ing of it still ? was it troubling his mind ? were. the dream-figures of which he had com- plained rising up before him ? "This has been an unlucky house, Tom always a house with a black blight upon it," said Sir John, so clearly and precisely that the son leaned forward, thinking that his father had awakened. But the eyes were fixed and staring, and the face was set and corpse-like. "We have brushed the blight away for good," muttered Tom, in a low tone, so that his father might catch the answer, if he needed one, and dream on undisturbed, if sleep were heavy with him. The father did not hear him. The eyelids closed slowly over the eyes, and the breathing became more regular. There were to ensue no troubled dreams for Sir John Dagnell that night, Tom hoped, and the son might drop off presently to sleep upon his own account. The time-piece on the mantelshelf ticked on quickly and busily, and Tom Dagnell's brain cooled by degrees until there was a semblance ofuncon- 154 COWARD CONSCIENCE. sciousness upon him, a faint doubt upon his mind as to whether he were sitting in his father's room, or curled up against the paddle-box of The Witch steamer, out of the way of the wind and sea-spray, with Ursula for his fellow- passenger, not the dark young beauty of the name of Hilderbrandt. " HILDERBRANDT !" Tom came to himself with an odd plunge for- ward, like a man startled from repose by some one shouting at him. He sat up and looked towards his father, certain almost that a name had been called aloud which was not strange to him, and that Sir John had given utterance to it. The thought that had crossed him in his half-sleep could not have magnified itself to sound unless he had shouted forth the name himself, and was too stupid to remember it. His father was in the same passive condition, he had not moved during the last half hour scored against his life against all lives and he would have exhibited some sure sign of dis- tress or excitement, if he had spoken up in that NO REST YET. 155 shrill key. And yet some one must have broken the stillness of the room, for the shade over the clock was ringing like a bell, the glass vibrating as it were in unison. Perhaps that was fancy too, or a singing in his ears, thought Tom, the instant afterwards. He was full of fancies, to make amends for the hard facts of the last four and twenty hours, for he could imagine the door was opening, and the cold air stealing in from the corridor without. He knew that he had not risen to draw the curtains over the door, and that that might account for the change of temperature, but he tilted himself back in his chair, so that he could look round the lacquered screen, and make sure that he was wrong in one particular, at least. By Jove ! he was right, for the door was wide open, and the blackness of the corridor was beyond it. That was his cousin Ursula's error, and an un- common one in so careful and methodical a woman she had forgotten to close the door securely after bidding him good night. To think it was open after all, and that his percep- tive faculties were so admirably acute ! He- 156 COWARD CONSCIENCE. walked softly out of the room, and peered up and down the corridor, where an oil lamp was burning very dimly at the further end, near the great staircase which led into the hall. There was the rustling of a dress, too, as of some one going down the stairs, or else he was mistaken again. It was to his mind, at least, singularly audible at that hour of the night. He made one step along the corridor, then paused. Well, it was no business of his. The nurse had forgotten a spoon, or a bundle of firewood, perhaps, and it would not do to quit his father in order to inquire why people were flitting about the passages that night. His father might wake up at the very instant, and think himself deserted ; let those roam about the house who wished, he should know the motive in the morn- ing. He closed the door and pulled the curtains across it, free from any excitement over a com- mon-place matter for which there might be a hundred reasons, and then he paused again, with his hand upon the drapery. Carefully as he had proceeded, the rings upon the curtain- NO REST YET. 157 rod had jingled softly, and disturbed the sick man. He 'was speaking now the voice came from behind the screen, and was, without a doubt, his father's voice. " Hilderbrandt, we must have mercy. Don't you hear me won't you hear me? Hilder- brandt !" shouted Sir John Dagnell. Tom strode to his father's side. Sir John was awake and panting frightfully. His claw- like hands were clutching at his throat, until he became aware of his son's presence, when they relaxed, and dropped heavily into his lap. " Ah ! Tom." he cried, " I am very glad you are here. I have had another of those awful dreams. Isn't it hard that I can't sleep in peace isn't it cursed hard upon me?" he ex- claimed. " I should imagine that sleeping in this chair was bad for you," said Tom. ** You may imagine what you please," replied Sir John. "If I lie down my head slips out of bed and hangs over the side you heard me say so." "Yes." 158 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Still this chair is terribly uncomfortable to- night." " Shall I riug for the nurse ?" "You may as well you're not much good yourself," grumbled Sir John, "or, when you had seen me fighting and gasping, you would have woke me up at once." " Shall I give you some of the medicine that Ursula left here !" " It's no use," he answered. " It's no cure for these dreams of horror, which get worse, and worse, and worse." " This did not last long, at any rate," said Tom. " How do you know how long it lasted 1" inquired his father. " You were sleeping calmly the moment before you called out." "Did I call out ?" "Yes." " What did I say ?" he asked, curiously. " Something about mercy, or recommending some one to mercy." "Yes, it's all one infernal tune. I was on NO REST YET. 159 the jury, trying some one for murder Ursula, I think," he said. " I daresay we should have come round to the drop, as usual, if I had slept another five minutes." " You mentioned the name of Hilderbrandt in your sleep," said Tom. " Do you know any- one of that name ?" Sir John jumped as if under the influence of a galvanic battery. Of self-command he had never possessed a great deal in his best days, and he was ill and shattered now. They were keen eyes, however, which glinted under the shaggy brows when Sir John had recovered from his surprise. " What name did you say ?" he inquired. "Hilderbrandt." " I don't know anyone of that name," mut- tered Sir John. " Possibly. But you mentioned it in your sleep, unless I am very much mistaken." " You are very much mistaken," was the reply. Tom did not persist in his inquiries ; he had been surprised, but he did not desire to drag 160 COWARD CONSCIENCE. his father into argument, if argument were necessary. It was not likely that he had been mistaken again, unless he was suffering from Hilderbrandt on the brain, instead of his sire, that night. "Are you going to ring for the nurse?" asked Sir John, fretfully. "Am I to be kept out of bed, and robbed of my natural rest, all night ?" Tom touched the button of the electric bell at this protest, and presently the nurse entered the room. Sir John had forgotten the unfriend- ly terms upon which they had separated. *' I shall be glad to go to bed I can't get on without you, Mrs. Coombes," he said. " Is my valet ready to assist you ?" " He is waiting without, Sir John." "Can I " began Tom, when his father interrupted him. " No, no ; you are tired and confused, and want rest as well as I do. You have been/' he added, " extremely stupid the last hour or two, but possibly you may have a clearer head to- morrow. Good night." " Good night." NO REST YET. 161 Tom departed not unreluctantly. He was of no use as a nurse, and his father had grown tired of his company. It was one o'clock of the new day, and time was drifting on, and he had had no rest. The mystery about the house, and which might have been rustling up and down the stairs for what he knew to the con- trary, would not rest either. Broadlands was surely a haunted place to which peace of mind could never come a place of great surprises. That his father had called out Hilderbrandt he was prepared to swear, and surely he must have known some one of that name at some period of his life. The name of his fellow- passenger, too there was the remarkable coin- cidence ! Still a mere coincidence let him repair to his room and end all speculations for that time, at least. Here would be peace he had a slight suspicion his journey was telling on him now, and that repose was necessary. For that time, at least, a truce to speculation his head would be clearer in the morning, as his father had hinted it might be. It had been bothered VOL. I. M 162 COWARD CONSCIENCE. too much, or it was disposed to ache, like Marcus's. He went quickly along the corridor, and entered his own room, where a new surprise awaited him. No, his task was not finished yet, or the long day over for him. An old man, bright-eyed and vigilant, stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the empty fire-grate ; he bowed low as Tom came in. " Fisher !" said Tom, " what the deuce do you want at this hour ?" " I couldn't rest without seeing you before you went to sleep, Master Tom," was the old butler's reply. " Or let me rest either, eh?" "No, sir it didn't seem my duty to do that." 163 CHAPTER XIII. WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY. "TITELL, Robin," said Tom Dagnell very coolly, now that he had recovered from his astonishment at finding the butler sitting up for him, " if you have any business to transact with me, the sooner we knock it off the better. You are quite sure the news will not keep?" " I never said it was news," muttered Fisher. Tom closed the door, and ensconced himself in a big chair which was planted on the hearth- rug. " Take a seat, Robin and begin." Ro&n sat down facing him, but did not begin as requested. He stared at our hero in an odd M 2 164 COWARD CONSCIENCE. and perplexed manner ; he scratched his head, he unfastened his white neckerchief, and re-tied it in an enormous bow, he coughed once or twice behind his large-veined hand. " Now then, my slow old friend, what is your mission? You have a duty to perform, you know," said Tom, impatiently. " Yes, Master Tom, I have a duty to perform," replied the old man, thus adjured, " and I can't slight it, even for an hour. You won't like me- for it ; you will say it ain't my place, and I forget myself, but I am an old man who can bear anything from you. I always could." " This is a big preface, Fisher/' said Tom. " Now, then, for the duty." But Mr. Fisher had his own style of address, and was not to be hurried. "I've known you and Mr. Marcus from babies. I have looked on both of you in your cradles, and so what I say won't come as from a stranger," said Mr. Fisher. " Certainly not, but " "I thought this a happy day for all of us, when you came back to brighten the old home WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY. 165 but it mayn't be after all. I don't see it now as clearly as I did." "1 don't see anything but fog, Fisher," re- marked Tom. " Why the deuce don't you blow the steam off, and let me get to bed ?" "I'm sorry to keep you up, Master Tom. I'm. ashamed of troubling you at such an hour. I " " If you do not instantly let fly your informa- tion, warning, advice, or whatever it may be, Robin, I shall catch up your small but aggra- vating carcass and drop it on the lawn outside iny window. You will not have far to fall, and I shall be rid of you till breakfast time/' said Tom. " You are always in such a hurry," complained the butler. "It's this drefful haste of yours that makes the mischief. I remember " Tom rose and opened the window of his room. *' Upon my honour, I mean it, old boy/' said Tom. " It's an easy drop, and will not do you any harm." " You'd never be so ridiculous," Mr. Fisher 166 COWARD CONSCIENCE. remarked, taking a firm clutch of the arms of his chair nevertheless. " You're not the foolish boy now to play such tricks on me." " Good night, Robin," said our hero, advanc- ing, "you're off, unless " ." It's about Miss Ursula then," blurted out Mr. Fisher. Tom stopped at once. "I'm sorry I can't listen," he said, very gravely now". "You have a right to know what is going on in this house. Why, Master Tom, -*Hey teflf actually want to marry you to your cousin. "I am aware of it," said Tom, shutting the window and returning to his seat. "What already?" " Yes, already." , "They've told you?" " Yes, they have told me." " Just like them," said the old man, shrug- ging his shoulders ; " before you have had time to remember how you quarrelled Avith her, and how you hated her five years ago." " I never hated her, Fisher." WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY. 167 "Nobody ever did like her, and nobody ever will," said the old man, decisively. " No- body " "Hold hard, Robin," interrupted Tom, "I have said Mies Daguell must not be a subject of discussion between us. She will be my wife, and you must learn to respect her for the young master's sake." "You will never ask Miss Ursula to be your wife if you give yourself a week 'to think on it. There, I only want you to take a week to thuk on it,'' he urged. " It ain't a long time, is it. for a man to make up his mind in ?" " You were a friend to me in the past days, Robin, and I will speak as to a friend. I pro- posed to my cousin this evening, and she accepted me," said Tom. " There, shut your poor old mouth, and give over glaring at me and, if you ever liked the wilful lad who has come home again, you will like the object of his choice, for his sake." The old man put his elbows on his knees, and took his grey head between his hands. " My God ! so quick as this, and after all 168 COWARD CONSCIENCE. my care," he moaned ; " poor boy, poor boy I" " Come, come, this is foolish, Robin/' said our hero, patting him on the back. " If you knew all, you would rejoice with me." "Do you rejoice?" said the old man, looking - up curiously. "I do." " I won't say another word against her if I can help it," he added, with a quaint reserve. " But it ain't what I expected, or what you de- served. You're too good for her, Master Tom," he said ; " and you've been and thrown yourself away." " Robin, you speak too plainly." " Yes, yes," said the old man, rising, " but you will put up with it, Master Tom, for this once. I'm upset, I can't serve you now ; I can't tell you anything I wanted to ; I can't say another word you are going to marry her !" "Ay, and Robin Fisher is going to wish me joy." " If wishiu' went for anythin' in this world, there should be a mighty difference before the WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY. 169 morning," replied the old man, slowly, as he walked towards the door. " Good night," Tom called to him. " Good night to you, sir. You must not mind my troubling you in this way/' he muttered. " We will say no more about it, Robin." "It will make things worse instead of better by telling Miss Ursula that I came to warn you of the plot between her and your father/' Robin continued. " Plot is a strange word for the situation, Robin," replied Tom. "But there, I will not tell Miss Dagnell you think I am too good for her." He laughed as he spoke, but the lined face of the old man did not waver from its set expres- sion. The engagement of Tom Dagnell was no laughing matter to him. " Thankee. It is just as well," he said, as he turned the handle of the door. " I'm the oldest servant in the house ; your father was a strip- ling, younger than yourself, when I first knew him, but length of service would not save me, if she spoke against me to Sir John." 170 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "She speaks not against man or woman, .Robin. She is the most unselfish being I have ever met. If you only knew !" " I know too much, I think, sometimes," was the enigmatic reply. He was passing through the open doorway, when a strange idea, almost a suspicion, cross- ed the mind of the young man whom he was quitting. " One moment, Robin," exclaimed Tom, " do you remember how many years you have served my father I" " Close upon four and thirty, I take it," was the answer. "Along and honourable service how have you borne it all this time, I wonder!" said Tom. " I wonder, too, for he was never like another man in his sulks and passions, was he ?" said Robin. u He was always on the wrong side, and the worst side." " We will say never a word against Sir John again, Fisher," said Tom, " but of your long service with him ; just one question." WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY. 171 " A hundred if you like. Shall I come back for a few minutes ?" " I'll not trouble you to-night, thank you. All I wished to ask was, did you ever hear the name of Hilderbrandt in this house?" " Hilderbrandt ? I should think I did/' was the quick reply. " Indeed I" "Paul Hilderbrandt, you mean your father's chief clerk, foreign correspondent, and so on, at the old firm in the city. He used to spend his holidays here, and your father and he were more like brothers than master and clerk once." " Strange," muttered Tom. " Yes, it was strange ; everybody thought so." " And Hilderbrandt ? No, no, confound it, I will not ask any more questions," exclaimed Tom, " or play the spy in this house. Good night, old boy, thank you for all good intentions and bad manners, and don't forget to like your future mistress, for the young master's sake, and don't make too much of a row going along, the corridor." 172 COWARD CONSCIENCE. " Trust me. I can creep about like a cat," was Mr. Fisher's last remark, as he closed the door upon his master's son, and went away. This was the end of the first day to Tom Dagnell though it had extended into the next, and kept him wakeful. What a deal there was to think about, if he cared to disturb himself by reflection ; if he were not already too tired for thought, he might consider what odd things had happened and been suggested to him since he had left The Witch in Littlehampton Harbour ! But he would set aside thought till the morning. Sufficient for the day was the evil, or the good thereof. Pass it by, and have done with it. He was engaged to be married to his cousin Ursula, of all women in the world ! Ah! of all women the best the very best, a good woman in a tract, or righteous novel a something standing apart from the sordidness and narrow-mindedness of life, to whom it was a duty to pay reverence, as to one of Heaven's angels. And as for that doddering old Fisher, with his doubts and maunderings pass him WHAT MR. FISHER CONSIDERED HIS DUTY, 173 by too, a blot upon the surface of existing things. Tom Dagnell was very happy very sleepy still very much like the man in a dream. And why his father should rave of one Hilderbrandt, and then deny that he had ever heard the name, was past the comprehen- sion of men even more wakeful than himself. He dropped off to sleep in the midst of this jumble of half meditation, and was troubled no more. He slept too heavily to frame thoughts into dreams he left all dreams to the feverish father, in the room where the curtains were hanging before the door, as before the temple of some mystery. Tom had nothing on his mind to trouble his rest, and, though poor Tom's life had been a long series of mistakes, there was no rust eating out the heart of things, and no dark shadow of man's sin cast back along the path by which he had found his way home. BOOK II. LIKE FATE! 177 CHAPTER I. ON THE SANDS. T IFE went on smoothly and quietly at Broad- -*' lands after the first day of Tom Dagnell's arrival. A son's acquiescence had calmed a father's suspense, and there was oil on the troubled waters which had surged about Broad- lands. All was peace, one would have been disposed to assert after a cursory glance at the inmates of this establishment, and, however false or fleeting the sensation might be, there was in one heart at least, an approximation to that happiness which comes possibly but once in a life the assurance of loving and of being loved. With Ursula Dagnell, the colours were brightest ; but then hers had been a neutral- tinted existence before this glorious sunrise. VOL. I. N 178 COWARD CONSCIENCE. She had lived in the shade and had suffered, and now the light was too strong for her. She stole back at times to the gloaming of her inner self, happy in her new thoughts, and conscious of the power to emerge into day, and the day's bliss of sweet words and fond companionship when it pleased her to give the signal. Tom Dagnell was back again for good ; he had asked her to become his wife ; she had told him more than once for how long a time she had loved him even worshipped him and grieved, oh ! how bitterly ! at every cruel sign of his indifference. She had whispered of her past feigned anger with him, of her strong efforts to disguise an affection by a cloak of contradiction and opposition ; she had spoken of the old dark days without weakening his respect for her, and she had dwelt almost eloquently upon the new fair time, until she could believe at last that here was the lover at her feet. To that which had set them side by side, she did not care to allude nay, she took great pains to shun it. That was all ended with the first day of his arrival, and she would ON THE SANDS. 179 have no more of it, she said, if he were merciful. The stoiy had been told by her sick tmcle r and she had nothing to add thereto there was the whole truth, and so an end to it ! " Very well," Tom had said, " but you are an extraordinary girl, Ursula." " Extraordinary only in one way, Tom," she answered. " What is that ?" " To wait five years for you without a word or look to live on all that time and with never a thought in your hard heart for me." "In my stupid head, you mean," said Tom. " I never had a heart that was worth boasting of, either for its hardness or softness." "Ah ! you have only just discovered it." " Exactly." Ursula sighed. " Well, I must not be jealous of the days when you did not think of me," she said, " or care for me ever so little, and when I was pray- ing with all my soul for you." " Steady, Ursula ; you will make me as vain as a peacock presently." N2 180 COWARD CONSCIENCE. "I shall not mind if I make you love me half as much as I do you. And, oh ! Tom, if I fail altogether !" she cried. "In a woman's vocabulary there is no such word as ' fail,' remember." "I hope not," she said, thoughtfully, "for I want love, not gratitude, or kindness, or re- spect. Only real love !" " You have it." She shook her head. " "What you think is love," she said, " but there is but a faint semblance of it at present in my poor, stolid boy here." She dropped her head on his shoulder, and he lowered his face to hers. When she raised it again her cheeks were wet with many tears, and she ran away from him before he could ask her why she had been crying. " Yes, an extraordinary girl," he said again. " Who would have dreamed of Ursula being so impressionable, judging by grim antecedents? I don't know why, but I wish she was not quite so fond of me, or woujd talk a little less about it, or would wait till I talked about it to begin ON THE SANDS. 181 with, or would do something which she does not do, or not do something which she does do, or confound it, I am getting as muddled as Marcus. I'll go for a long walk away from this." He was partial to long walks as he had been before he went away across the low-lying sweep of sea-sands whereon he could wander for miles at low water, and muse on the future that was in. store for him, and the peaceful change that had come to him. Very peaceful, the home-storms all gone, now that the angry father was locked away from his family. But within his own heart at least, Tom could own it to himself, if to no one else, there was an inner sense of unrest, a lurking consciousness that this was not the end of it I There was something more Heaven knew what to come. His querulous mother thought ,so, and so did he the mother who was never happy, or cared to see other people at rest who was never satisfied, not even with the engage- ment of her younger son to her husband's niece. The marriage of cousins was always a mis- 182 COWARD CONSCIENCE. take, she had observed, and this was another error, of course. If her health had been strong enough, she would have urged a protest against it, but she was a mere cypher in the house, and no one studied her ! And so, this was not the end of it, she considered, and her son Tom, who did not always endorse his mother's opinion, thought so too. Perhaps the end was to be a greater happiness than this, thought Tom also, for Ursula Daguell loved him very much, and spoiled him by her evidence of affection. Some five weeks after their solemn troth- plight on a dark, dull evening in March, Tom Dagnell set out for his solitary walk. Ursula could not accompany him early in the day, and his brother Marcus, who had been lately dispos- ed to be companionable, and take long consti- tutionals with Tom for his own liver's sake, by express order of the family physician, had been a week in Birmingham, paying court to the daughter of the house of Oliver. Tom Dagnell was not sorry to be alone ; he was in the mood for his own company, and for nothing else save his own company, unless a ON THE SANDS. 183 huge mastiff, with whom he had fraternised lately, from the stable-yard, may be taken into account, and this animal trotted on by his side, as heavy and thoughtful as himself. Tom was not lon to be without a companion that morn- ing, however he had proposed an idea, but Fate had disposed of it. Down the slope that led to the sea, a thin, spare gentleman, with black beady eyes, and with a small black mous- tache and pointed beard, came hurrying after him, reached his side, took off his hat by way of salutation, and made him a low bow. " Mr. Thomas Dagnell, I believe f ' he said, with a strong foreign accent. " If I am wrong, I ask ten thousand pardons if I am right, you will excuse the liberty that I have taken in addressing you." Tom looked at the speaker, who was a stranger to him, he was sure, and said, " Quite right, I am Thomas Dagnell.'" " I rejoice that I have found you. They told me at Broadlands you had come this way to the sea. I did not waste a minute. I have been running very fast to overtake you. You 184 COWARD CONSCIENCE. will excuse my heat and excitement. I am a very anxious man a man naturally excited and easily distressed see how hot I am !" he went on, with exceeding volubility of manner, and much gesticulation. " Yes, you look warm/' said Tom, eyeing the stranger curiously, " but then you have had a sharp run after me from Broadlands. And now you have found me, what is your business ?' r " You will give me time to collect my thoughts my breath ?" " Oh ! certainly. Take as much time as you please. It is not mine to give, but you're wel- come for me." " I am greatly obliged to you," was the an- swer, with another bow. " If you will allow me to state the nature of my business, as soon as I can collect my thoughts so as to be brief and clear, and not trouble you too long, it will be another favour conferred upon a stranger in a foreign land." Tom Dagnell did not relish this effusiveness of manner, but he replied to it with a blunt " All right/' and stepped on to the sands at a ON THE SANDS. 185 slow pace, out of regard to his " winded " com- panion. The man at his side was evidently a foreigner, and foreigners, on the whole, had been kind and courteous to him in the days of his pilgrimage. He supposed there was a piti- able story to hear, and money to give away ; he could afford to give money away now, but he wished the man would regain his breath, let loose his complaint, receive his douceur, and be gone. He didn't care for his society, neither did Cabbage, his dog, who was growling in- wardly at the intrusion as at a liberty which he should be glad to resent, and on a spot which he had already marked out in his eye as eligible for seizure. There was a silence of a few minutes, and then the stranger began, and to the purpose. " My name is Hilderbrandt," he said. 186 CHAPTER II. ON GUARD. DAGNELL was surprised, very much surprised, at this announcement. " The devil it is !" escaped him before he knew what he was saying. Mr. Hilderbrandt's small black eyes were fixed with great intentness on our hero, as if to note the effect of his revelation. " The name is not unfamiliar to you, I per- ceive. I am very glad of that ; I was afraid you might have heard it for the first time this morning," said Mr. Hilderbrandt. Tom did not answer at once. He was on his guard now. He was not quite certain that it was wise to say too much. If this were the father of the lady with whom he had travelled ON GUARD. 187 from Honfleur to England, it might be politic to be courteous, for that mysterious young lady's sake. She had run away from home she was never going to return to it, and this must be one of the folk who had helped to ren- der home unbearable. What did he want on Littlehampton sands that day? " The name is familiar to me. My father, in his city days, had a clerk of that name," Tom replied. There was a pause on Mr. Hilderbrandt's part now, and the black twinkling eyes for the first time came to a standstill, instead of rolling backwards and forwards under two beetle brows, after an unpleasant habit that they had. " That is singular, for Hilderbrandt is not a common name in England," replied the gentle- man ; " but I arn not Hilderbrandt the clerk, but Hilderbrandt the father." " Hilderbrandt the father," repeated Tom. " I don't understand, but proceed." " I am the anxious, distraught, almost ma- niacal father, sir, of the lady who crossed from Honfleur to Littlehampton on the night of the 188 COWARD CONSCIENCE. fifteenth of March. You were a passenger by the same ship you are an Englishman and a gentleman I 'appeal to you to help me all you -can in my efforts to recover her." Mr. Hilderbrandt flung his arms wide and executed a jump upon the sands in his excite- ment, and the dog immediately jumped also, and with his capacious jaws within an inch of his hand. "Down, Cabbage!" shouted Tom; "excuse the animal, Mr. Hilderbrandt, but he thinks you are playing with him." Mr. Hilderbrandt became calmer and paler. " I never play with dogs. And that is a dangerous beast," he muttered, " and ought to be shot." " Do you hear that, Cabbage," said Tom, laughing, as he patted the dog's side, and Cabbage growled again as though he perfectly understood the allusion, and considered it inappropriate. " I am a nervous man," said Mr. Hilderbrandt, half apologetically,