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 THE WHOLE TRUTH
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. CHADWICK 
 
 He that trusts in a lie shall perish in the truth." 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 739 & 741 BROADWAY, New York
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1887, 
 By O. M. DUNHAM. 
 
 Pr.w of W. L. Mmhon & Co., 
 Rahway, N . J.
 
 TO 
 A. A. HAYES, JR., 
 
 WHO HAS ALWAYS BROUGHT ME 
 GOOD LUCK. 
 
 2061854
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " The fruit of dreamy hoping, is waking blank despair." 
 
 IT was a raw windy day in that disappoint- 
 ing season known to mortals as spring. 
 Cold, gray waves, flecked with foam, came sul- 
 lenly plashing against a shore edged with half- 
 melted snow. Some ferryboats, their smoke 
 beaten downward by the driving rain, steamed 
 across the Bay as if in haste for shelter ; a 
 deeply-loaded coasting schooner came flying 
 toward the Narrows with an anxious look of 
 wishing herself in out of the storm ; and only 
 one strong boat, with a pilot's number on her 
 reefed mainsail, beat in against the wind with 
 a business-like air, as if there were a pleasure 
 in the battle against wind, tide, storm, and fate, 
 whichever won in the end. 
 
 Some such ideas as these crossed the mind 
 of Jane Harding, as she stood at a window,
 
 10 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 watching the storm. She had not been bold to 
 oppose and conquer in her own life, but her 
 admiration for all daring and heroic qualities 
 was so great, that she imagined herself to 
 possess them, and now took some pleasure in 
 comparing herself to the brave pilot-boat, or, 
 better still, to a stately steamer, which came 
 steadily onward in the teeth of the gale, with- 
 out any of the tacks and swerving by which even 
 the pilot bowed to the powers of the air. For 
 of all dreams of her youth, girlhood, and wo- 
 manhood, this was the chief to yield to none, 
 to rule all around her, conquering and reigning 
 by force of the charm, character, and intellec- 
 tual powers which she believed herself to 
 possess in fullest measure, but which she as 
 yet had no opportunity to exercise. In fact, 
 her life, instead of having been shaped by any 
 will or impulse of her own, had been molded 
 for her, in a way scarcely corroborating her 
 estimate of herself, and now that freedom had 
 at last come to her, she was somewhat at a loss 
 how to use it. 
 
 The only child of an uncongenial marriage, 
 Jane's youth had been one of disappointment
 
 TffE WHOLE TRUTH, n 
 
 and bitter brooding, even from an age when 
 few children suspect the existence of sorrow. 
 Trouble had begun over her very name ; her 
 father, a talented, weak man, who had married 
 for money a narrow and unintellectual woman 
 some years his senior, finding his poetic sugges- 
 tions at variance with the determined will 
 against which both father and child were to 
 beat themselves in vain. Mrs. Harding had 
 promptly chosen the name of Jane, from no 
 special preference, but as an expression of the 
 instinct of opposition, the abiding purpose 
 never to yield. 
 
 She was a woman who enforced compliance 
 in the most trifling things, by the sure and 
 simple method of making herself so unutterably 
 disagreeable that, for very peace sake, all the 
 world gave way before her. If she found her- 
 self in the wrong, as often happened, nothing 
 was easier than to place herself in the right, by 
 declaring in the next breath that she " had 
 never said any thing of the kind,^' thus cutting 
 the ground from under her antagonists' feet, 
 and leaving them, breathless, helpless, and 
 doubtful of their own opinion. In such an
 
 12 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 atmosphere Jane had grown, deprived of the best 
 privileges of childhood: the belief that all 
 grown people were good, the ignorance of ill- 
 will and evil speech. Mrs. Harding's love for 
 her only child took the form of an unreasoning 
 jealousy of her husband's influence ; his, that of 
 a tender, minute, but somewhat malicious solic- 
 itude, and between the exactions of both, the 
 child had soon learned to steer her way with 
 the dextrous tact of the weak anxious, for her 
 own sake, to offend neither. 
 
 Husband and wife agreed, for a wonder, in 
 wishing their clever child to be highly educa- 
 ted, but, of course, differed radically as to the 
 means to that end. As the holder of the purse, 
 Mrs. Harding had the choice of the govern- 
 esses and masters who were to direct Jane's stud- 
 ies, but her advantage ended here. She was a 
 self-absorbed woman, busy over her household 
 and business affairs, her own dress and Jane's, 
 and the thousand-and-one pre-occupations of a 
 malade imagi^aire. Mr. Harding was an idle 
 man, having given up at his marriage all the 
 baseless dream-fabrics of his ambition, and 
 now his days were free to devote to his daugh-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 13 
 
 ter, establishing his influence over her and 
 becoming first in her heart. As she grew, she 
 developed tastes and traits which delighted him, 
 as off-shoots of his own best powers, with the 
 addition of a force of character which gave him 
 brilliant hopes for her future ; eagerly he 
 encouraged her intellectual progress, eagerly 
 inculcated an ambition akin to his own. The 
 dream of a future in which she was to shine 
 and to triumph, an epitome of all women who 
 had ruled men's hearts by divine right of the 
 perfection of their womanhood, was dwelt upon, 
 without a suspicion of the little leaven of his 
 own weakness which was to deny and nullify 
 all their aspirations. 
 
 Sometimes, it is true, Mr. Harding was a 
 little doubtful on the point of the physical 
 beauty necessary to this programme, observ- 
 ing Jane's utter lack of the rosy, rounded 
 charm of childhood but he was artist enough 
 to recognize, in the angularity of tall and 
 ungainly girlhood, promise of th,e stately and 
 nobly proportioned woman. 
 
 So Jane grew, between the checks, snubs 
 and relentless criticism which made up Mrs.
 
 14 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Harding's idea of judicious training, and the 
 flattering fondness of her father; intellect 
 trained and matured, manners perfected, heart, 
 soul, principle, ignored and neglected. And on 
 her eighteenth birthday, with a dreadful sud- 
 denness, Mr. Harding was taken away. 
 
 There had been the usual dissensions in the 
 unhappy household : Mr. Harding urging that 
 Jane was now qualified to appear in society 
 and begin her career of conquest. Mrs. Hard- 
 ing disliked society, thought Jane would lose 
 nothing by waiting, in short, could not bring 
 herself to yield to a wish of her husband. 
 And one night, after a discussion more acri- 
 monious than usual, Mr. Harding fell dead in 
 his dressing-room. 
 
 Jane's grief was terrible, and in its loneliness, 
 Mrs. Harding's mild lamentations seeming to 
 her the tokens of an equal sorrow, her heart 
 turned to her mother, as it had never done 
 before, uniting them for a time by a tender 
 tie. 
 
 They went abroad ; traveling a great deal, 
 seeking no society, making no friends, isolating 
 themselves from their kind, yet becoming, year
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 15 
 
 by year, less and less to each other ; exactions 
 on one side and a somewhat ostentatious sub- 
 mission on the other, having taken the place 
 of the softened feelings, which, in the first 
 days of their grief, seemed to promise happiness 
 to both. 
 
 Mrs. Harding's health was supposed to have 
 failed, and she had grown peevish, exacting, 
 imperious, unreasonable and violent, by quick 
 gradations ; until one day, when five years had 
 somewhat dulled Jane's grief, and she felt the 
 d.esire to carry out long-cherished plans, the 
 girl, now a woman, awoke to the knowledge 
 that she was the slave of a nature which she 
 had been used to consider inferior to her own. 
 And chafe as she might, enslaved she remained, 
 bound to her mother's side, not by the chain 
 of filial affection, nor even of duty, but because 
 she was penniless. Mrs. Harding was liberal 
 with money's worth, bestowing dress, jewels 
 and luxuries upon her daughter with a lavish 
 hand but of actual money she dealt out 
 infinitesimal sums, of which she demanded a 
 strict account. 
 
 And now began a life which was torture to
 
 1 6 THE WHOLE TRUTH. " 
 
 such a nature as Jane's. Ambitious, vain, 
 craving society, gayety, conquest, she was 
 doomed to a wandering existence in search of 
 " quiet," and " bracing air " ; to winters in 
 lonely Swiss pensions, in the society of a few 
 very poor old maids or widows, and elderly 
 poverty-stricken men ; to summers in retired 
 sea-side places in Wales, or in the dignified 
 seclusion of lodgings at some English or Ger- 
 man Bath. In such a life one makes few 
 friends, and the advances made to the widow 
 with her grave, discontented daughter, were 
 avoided or repulsed, until they were practically 
 alone in the world. Jane wore an air of out- 
 ward submission, carefully tutoring her coun- 
 tenance that it might show no traces of sullen- 
 ness. Inwardly she rebelled furiously, cursing 
 her fate, and longing, yearning, agonizing, for 
 the life she had worked to fit herself for, and 
 which, even now, she would not acknowledge to 
 be out of her reach. She read and dreamed her 
 days away, keeping up with the world with a 
 fierce eagerness, by means of newspapers, books 
 and reviews ; as if she felt that an instant's 
 indifference, the least ignorance of what was
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 17 
 
 going on, would be tantamount to the giving 
 up of all hope. 
 
 Rarely, very rarely, she touched the edge of 
 her goddess's garment in an accidental meet- 
 ing with some man or woman of the world, 
 who would talk to her on equal terms, wonder- 
 ing at the spirit and eagerness which awoke in 
 the eyes of this reserved girl. But usually she 
 lived silently with her own bitter thoughts, 
 eating her heart out with longings. Just to be 
 as other girls were ; to have a home and friends, 
 to " come out," to wear ball-dresses, and dance, 
 and flirt ; and then to excel, to outshine, to 
 exceed, by holding the power which other 
 women won only for a day. 
 
 But, alas ! in these dreams her life was wast- 
 ing, her youth was going from her, while the 
 future was as far off as ever. It was always 
 "next year"; next year Mrs. Harding would 
 take her home and introduce her, or would take 
 a house in London and have her presented. 
 And meantime, she was no longer a girl, for 
 whom these things were possible she was 
 twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine she 
 was growing old. She looked in the glass to
 
 1 8 . THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 verify the terrible fact, but good hours, fine air, 
 and simple food had kept in check the " going 
 off " process. Her cheeks had a soft curve and 
 a glow of health her eyes a deeper, if less 
 sparkling, brightness. 
 
 But in her struggle she could call no philoso- 
 phy, whether Christian or heathen, to her aid. 
 She endured doggedly, feeding her hopes with 
 dreams, as of old, and for the dreams' sake 
 keeping her face serene and unlined, her voice 
 and manner true to the standard she had set 
 up for herself. But deeper training of mind 
 and heart she had none ; she had read widely, 
 in order to be able to converse she was culti- 
 vated and well-informed but it was a reading 
 and a culture which left heart and soul starved 
 into stupor or silence. Other dreams, of the 
 romantic sort, such as visit most girls, had 
 come to her now and then, adorning some very 
 commonplace mortals with the attributes of 
 heroes, but she had been so closely watched 
 and so isolated that they were the merest 
 shadows. And deep under all, of a firmer sub- 
 stance than the rest, was an ideal of some one 
 whose love should ennoble ; whose favor aggran-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 19 
 
 dize ; which unfulfilled, she purposed to in- 
 habit her airy castles alone. 
 
 Mrs. Harding had been dead a year, and the 
 phase of softened feeling which had followed 
 her death, had now given way to Jane's 
 habitual bitterness. She had spent this year 
 in outward quiet ; tasting the pleasure of free- 
 dom, sipping at the cup from which she pres- 
 ently meant to drink full and eager draughts. 
 She scarcely knew yet what she should do with 
 this new life enjoy its liberty of action to the 
 full, she supposed ; but always that bitter sense 
 of youth and opportunities lost came to mar 
 the prospect. She should travel, of course, but 
 she had already traveled so much that there 
 was no exciting novelty in this idea, except the 
 pleasurable thought of being bound by no con- 
 siderations of time or economy, able to spend 
 and choose according to her own lavish and 
 luxurious fancy. But all this was spoiled for 
 Jane by an uneasy consciousness that she was 
 thirty years old, and unmarried ! Just one of 
 the indistinguishable crowd of maiden ladies 
 who roam about the continent, some richer, 
 some poorer, none with a claim to distinction
 
 20 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 of any kind. Jane's observant eyes had not 
 failed to note the difference in the experiences 
 of a single woman and one who could write 
 herself down Mrs. Anyone. And though her 
 heart had been untouched, it was one of her 
 bitterest complaints that she had never been 
 afforded the opportunity of marrying. 
 
 Jane had occupied herself in these quiet 
 days, very diligently, with the fortune her 
 mother had left her, having soon intimated to 
 her lawyer a wish to " understand every thing." 
 Mr. Sandman, who had never had his own way 
 in Mrs. Harding's lifetime, but was hopeful of 
 it now, treated the wish as a mere whim, cer- 
 tain to wear itself out, until he found that the 
 girl whom he had considered docile, if some- 
 what sulky, was a strong-willed woman, who, 
 now that she had at last come into possession 
 of her " own way " as well as her money, meant 
 to have and enjoy both to the utmost. A 
 thorough examination of her affairs, which had 
 shown Jane that she was rich beyond her most 
 extravagant need, concluded, she dismissed him 
 with gracious firmness, and left him in a state of 
 delusive security for a period of six months.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 21 
 
 At the end of this time she had sent for him, 
 appointing time and place in a way which irri- 
 tated him by its decision, and briefly informed 
 him that she wished all her real estate sold 
 all other investments, stocks, bonds, and what 
 not, transferred ; the whole sum of her fortune 
 invested in unregistered U. S. bonds, and that 
 at once. 
 
 Mr. Sandman was aghast ! He remonstrated 
 feelingly, he reasoned, he begged and im- 
 plored ; she would reduce her income one-half 
 it was folly, madness, crime. In vain ; his 
 frantic representations were met by Jane with 
 an air of serene indifference, and served only to 
 put him into a state bordering upon distrac- 
 tion ; at which moment Jane gently said : 
 
 " I have made up my mind, Mr. Sandman, 
 and I should be very sorry to be obliged to em- 
 ploy another lawyer ; " at which Mr. Sandman 
 had subsided. 
 
 The ensuing six months had been spent in 
 carrying out Jane's commands to the letter; 
 and whatever had been the impulse which had 
 led her to adopt this course, she held to it un- 
 swervingly, and on this gusty April day she sat
 
 22 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 at her window the possessor of an ample for- 
 tune so invested that she could take it from the 
 safety vaults where it now lay, and carry it in a 
 hand-bag, if it so pleased her, to the ends of 
 the earth.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Where lies the land to which yon ship will go ? " 
 
 IRRESOLUTION; inertia, an odd sort of 
 1 dissatisfied content, had kept Jane Hard- 
 ing for the past eight months in the quiet 
 boarding-house whose windows overlooked the 
 Bay. She was within easy distance of the city, 
 yet almost within sound of the sea and within 
 the reach of its pungent salt breezes. All 
 things that move on the surface of the waters 
 delighted her, and she had them day by day 
 under her eyes. 
 
 Her fellow-boarders had respected what they 
 imagined to be the reticence of her grief, and 
 she had been left much alone in her pretty, 
 cheerful rooms, with her books and music. 
 
 Altogether every thing had suited her very 
 well until to-day, when restlessness had taken 
 possession of her, goading her to movement, 
 and reminding her with a fresh thrill of delight 
 that she was free to come and go as she would.
 
 24 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " I will go abroad," she thought, looking at 
 an incoming steamer sliding swiftly through 
 the gray water. " There I need not sacrifice 
 to conventionality any longer. I can go to the 
 opera as much as I like, or even lighten my 
 mourning. Ah ! if I were only not plain 
 Jane Harding what a position I might make 
 for myself now ! If only some man had been 
 good enough to bestow his name upon me and 
 then conveniently withdraw himself if I were 
 Mrs. Harding instead of miss ! Never mind, 
 there is much to be got out of life yet, though 
 not all I want. I will go and seek my new 
 world in the old." 
 
 One of Jane's standing grievances here re- 
 curred to her. " Why," she thought, " was I not 
 taken into the world thrown with such men 
 as could have compelled my admiration and 
 respect. Men of intellect and heart. But now 
 it is too late : my day for that sort of thing has 
 gone by; I am no longer young or attractive 
 enough to draw to me such a man as I could 
 love, and indeed I fancy I have quite outgrown 
 the capacity of loving. No ; my life must be 
 self-sufficing. On no lover's arm shall I ever
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 25 
 
 lean or ever cross the hills into that new 
 world." 
 
 All of which plainly shows that Jane had not 
 yet learned the_/?/z mot of a woman's heart. 
 
 She shook off with an effort the depression 
 which was gaining upon her, and rising with a 
 resolute expression, rang her bell : which was 
 answered promptly, as the bells of peremptory 
 people usually are. 
 
 " My bonnet and cloak, Annie," said Miss 
 Harding, to the neat maid, who received the 
 brief -orders with a look of wonder. " And 
 send for a carriage. Then you may begin to 
 pack my dresses carefully. Put every thing I 
 wear in two trunks. We sail for England 
 on Saturday." 
 
 Annie was in tears when she reappeared with 
 the heavy crape paraphernalia in which Miss 
 Harding was accustomed to enshroud herself, 
 but she quickly reconciled herself to the 
 thought of traveling in the comfort and luxury 
 with which her mistress was accustomed to 
 surround herself, and she set about her task 
 with alacrity. . 
 
 In these days the preliminaries of a trip to
 
 20 THE WHOLE TRUTH 
 
 Europe are not very formidable. A brief visit 
 to her bankers, one equally brief to the office 
 of a steamship company, and then Miss 
 Harding drove to Mr. Sandman's office, 
 where she spent a longer time than seemed 
 needful, in announcing her sudden decision* 
 in convincing Mr. Sandman that there was 
 no- possibility of changing her decision, 
 and in soothing the feelings wounded by her 
 independence of action. For, though Jane 
 Harding cared little at this time to win 
 friends for herself, she had no idea of making 
 unnecessary enemies. Mr. Sandman's doubts, 
 remonstrances and expostulations having been 
 put aside with as little shock to his self-esteem 
 as was compatible with entire disregard of his 
 advice, he at last accompanied Jane to a cer- 
 tain Safe Deposit Company, from whose vaults 
 they carried away various boxes of tin and 
 other materials. And this final portion of her 
 preparations having been attended to on the 
 morning of the second Saturday in April, 
 Jane found herself, in the afternoon, sailing 
 down the Bay on the same steamer which 
 she had watched, five days before, battling
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 27 
 
 her way into port in the teeth of wind and 
 tide. 
 
 It was a beautiful spring day; the land they 
 were leaving was most fair, the ocean, stretch- 
 ing wide before them, sparkled and smiled in 
 the sunshine ; the crisp, rushing wind helped 
 them on their way, and Jane's heart leaped 
 up with exultation as they sunk the land and 
 drove steadily eastward. Her plans were 
 vague even now she had no idea of how she 
 should shape her future life, but it was a 
 beginning of action for the first time in her 
 life she was doing as she would, exulting and 
 uncontrolled. That night the delight of 
 motion and freedom, the mighty forward rush 
 of the splendid vessel, and her independence 
 sufficed her. But by the next day she began, 
 as her habit was, to observe the men and 
 women around her, theorizing, criticising, con- 
 jecturing about them. It was an old-time 
 amusement of the days when Mrs. Harding 
 had forbidden her making "promiscuous 
 acquaintances," and she smiled to herself as she 
 remembered that now she was free to accept 
 any attention offered her, to make such advance
 
 28 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 as her fancy prompted, to those who seemed 
 congenial. Even now, however, she felt the 
 strength of the cultivated reserve which had 
 almost become second nature. She hesitated, 
 reflected, decided that the moment had not 
 yet come to break through it, and Jane's sea- 
 voyage passed, as was usual for her, in un- 
 broken isolation. The captain paid her a few 
 duty courtesies, but when he found that the 
 quiet dark girl in mourning did not care for 
 games, declined introductions, was absolutely 
 well, and amply provided with books, left her 
 to herself with a grim wish that all women were 
 as easily pleased and as self-reliant ; and Jane 
 resumed her quiet reading of human nature in 
 and out of novels. 
 
 A certain pretty and pleasant-voiced widow, 
 to whom all the gentlemen were very attentive, 
 was the chief disturber of Jane's enjoyment in 
 these meditations. She envied her the unre. 
 served ease of her manners, the confidence 
 with which she appealed to those about her. 
 It was perfectly natural and proper for her to 
 be traveling alone she had received the free- 
 dom of society "Whereas I," thought Jane,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 29 
 
 "am too young to be knocking about the 
 world alone, and too old to take a chaperone. 
 Oh dear ! I do think a widow is the most envi- 
 able of human beings ! " And so returned to 
 her usual morbid musings on her unsatisfactory 
 lot in life. 
 
 It was a warm, cloudless day, the sea rather 
 quiet; Jane, with her book, was cozily ensconced 
 in a cliaise-longue somewhat apart from her 
 fellow-passengers. Mrs. Merriam, leaning on 
 the arm of a handsome Irishman, one of her 
 special squires, was doing a constitutional after 
 the fashion of ladies at sea, staggering daintily 
 about in her high-heeled boots, clutching at 
 her escort's arm in prettily-feigned alarm at 
 each regularly recurring lurch of the vessel, 
 and pausing now and then to rest after these 
 exciting experiences in sheltered corners where 
 she could raise her soft eyes to her companion's 
 face without having to screw them up from the 
 sharp wind. Mrs. Merriam perhaps did not 
 know that Major Limber was one of the latest 
 and luckiest players in the smoking-room of an 
 evening, and that his interminable games were 
 never dry ones ; perhaps she did not care. At
 
 30 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 all events, his good looks, good manners, and 
 wish to make himself agreeable, had tempted 
 her to carry on a pronounced sea-flirtation 
 with him, without, at the same time, neglect- 
 ing any of her other admirers. Jane had often 
 admired the dexterity with which the merry 
 widow handled her scratch team, mere com- 
 pagnons de voyage as they were, flattering, coax- 
 ing and gently persuading them into the way 
 she willed them to go, and yet keeping the 
 whip-hand of one and all ; and she -was now 
 speculating with some amusement on the pos- 
 sible character of the late Mr. Merriam, and 
 whether for the sake of being a widow, it were 
 worth while to endure the misery of losing a 
 man one loved, or to have endured many other 
 miseries before being delivered from the pres- 
 ence of a man one didn't love. While still 
 undecided upon this point, the steamer sud- 
 denly bethought herself to plunge her bow deep 
 into a great green wave, at the same time kick- 
 ing her frantically-revolving screw out of water, 
 and producing a combination of erratic motions 
 which gave Mrs. Merriam golden opportuni- 
 ties. She shrieked, clung to Major Limber,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 3 1 
 
 and stumbling, sliding, and exclaiming, reached 
 a chair by the side of a gloomy and neglected 
 admirer just as Jane, cynically surveying the 
 scene, and forgetting her own equilibrium, slid, 
 chair and all, directly to the widow's feet, 
 where the final heave of the ship deposited her 
 on the deck, helpless in her mummy-like 
 swathings. 
 
 Mrs. Merriam was eagerly cordial, full of 
 pretty words of sympathy, but too helpless to 
 do more than stretch out a dainty white hand 
 and offer a jeweled vinaigrette. Major Limber 
 it was, who, with eager helpfulness, lifted Jane 
 to her feet, replaced her chair, and after her 
 brief thanks to Mrs. Merriam, led her carefully 
 to it, and restored her scattered belongings. 
 The incident evidently appeared to Major 
 Limber a good opportunity, for he lingered by 
 her, politely indeed, but somewhat persistently 
 endeavoring to start a conversation, with 
 such success as might fall to the lot of a 
 traveler in a strange country of which he did 
 not know the language. 
 
 To have been ignominously tumbled out of 
 her chair upon the deck of a steamer and
 
 32 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 picked up like a child by the first comer, was 
 so intensely mortifying to a dignified woman 
 like Jane, that she was for the moment almost 
 speechless. Her deep-set gray eyes burned 
 under their black brows, with what appeared 
 to Major Limber like indignation ; her replies 
 to his cheerful and discursive remarks were 
 brief and curt. Even Major Limber, under 
 these circumstances, could but bow himself 
 away, and rejoin the merry widow, unconscious 
 of having aroused in Jane's heart the bitter 
 thought that she had indeed out-grown all the 
 powers of attraction of which she had dreamed 
 herself possessed. 
 
 An absolutely opposite conclusion forced 
 upon Jane by her next encounter with Major 
 Limber, failed to take the sting from this 
 reflection. 
 
 It was late afternoon, dinner was over, the 
 scent of the green earth they were approaching 
 was in the air. " To-morrow," said every one, 
 "we shall be in the Mersey." 
 
 Jane, to whom it was a twice and thrice-told 
 tale, was yet eager and excited, and sent Annie 
 below for her glass that she might catch the
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 33 
 
 first star-like glimmer of Fastnet light in the 
 darkening sky. Annie was timid of venturing 
 on the slanting deck, and stood in the door of 
 the companionway, while Jane, with her easy, 
 practiced step, came forward to take what she 
 had brought. Major Limber stood a few steps 
 below, intently studying the bulletin of the 
 days' run. He heard Jane's gentle word of 
 thanks, Annie's " Yes, miss are we nearly in, 
 miss?" and turning, bestowed on Jane's bright 
 face, flushed by the wind and animated by one 
 of her rare smiles, a stare of unqualified admira- 
 tion which that inconsistent lady was pleased 
 to consider impertinent to the last degree. 
 Illogical Jane, who, four days before, had felt, 
 with bitter chagrin, that she was too old to be 
 admired, now resented, with equal bitterness, 
 the offered homage, and gave Major Limber a 
 withering glance which affected him the less, 
 in that it was by no means the first time in his 
 career that he encountered it.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " The gulled shore to a most dangerous sea." 
 
 
 
 A FEW weeks in the soft, suave atmosphere 
 of an English spring, restored Jane's 
 serenity, replacing the haste and unrest which 
 the American climate seems to foster, by an 
 easy-going calmness and sense of well-being. 
 She had traveled by a lingering, round-about 
 way from Liverpool to Ross, and down the 
 Wye, and so to Gloucester, not following any 
 ordained tourist route, but turning aside, and 
 ranging hither and thither in the pleasant 
 spring days ; following out old plans of the 
 time when she had not been free, when she had 
 heard of this and that which she longed to see, 
 but had been forced to forego and content 
 herself with the slow itinerary which suited 
 Mrs. Harding's health and economical ideas. 
 Now, forswearing guide-books, driven by every 
 wind of impulse, by a line in a poem or an
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 35 
 
 allusion in a novel, she passed the months of 
 May and June with a pleasure which made her 
 feel young again. 
 
 On the moors, where the Bronte sisters 
 lived and suffered, the first faint blush of the 
 blossoming heather told that spring was come ; 
 in the midland valleys the ways were white 
 with the May, and in every wooded place was a 
 fragrant carpet spread, purple and golden, 
 wherever violet and primrose could plant their 
 tiny seeds. Jane explored many a delicious 
 nook in her lingering, leisurely progress toward 
 London ; her erratic course and long delays 
 protecting her from the usual continual meet- 
 ing with one's late fellow-passengers, which is 
 a drawback or a pleasure according as one 
 regards it. To Jane, it would have been an 
 unmitigated bore. Of course, she met travel- 
 ing compatriots, as well as wandering English 
 people, but no one whom she had ever before 
 seen. Her ruffled plumes had been somewhat 
 smoothed by the discovery that she was not 
 absolutely without attraction to the male eye ; 
 and the thought that she was still young and 
 handsome enough to need a duenna was very
 
 36 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 pleasant to her. To overhear a haughty En- 
 glish beauty who had favored her with a pro- 
 longed stare, turn away to say : " What a 
 striking looking woman ! " had brought a glow 
 of delight to her heart altogether dispropor- 
 tionate to the trifling nature of the remark. 
 She bought more gowns and prettier ones, in 
 London, in consequence of this speech, " wear- 
 ing her rue with a difference " now that she 
 began to believe in possible notice and admira- 
 tion, and very well knowing how much good 
 looks gained from tasteful and appropriate 
 dress. The fascination of shops is not so irre- 
 sistible when one is in deep mourning, and 
 London, in the season, was not what Jane 
 cared for just now ; so the first of July found 
 her at Alum Bay, contentedly riding a hired 
 horse about the roads and over the downs. 
 The wild seclusion delighted her at first, then 
 she tired of it and moved to Cowes, where the 
 bustle of fashionable life in which she had no 
 part, disgusted her still more. She crossed to 
 the mainland, tried Hastings, Eastbourne, 
 Brighton ; hated them, one and all, and finally, 
 having half decided to go to a French sea-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 37 
 
 place for the bathing, found herself, at the end 
 of July, in Dover, awaiting a favorable day to 
 cross. Miss Harding was by no means timid 
 of the rough seas ; no prudential considerations 
 as to sickness, or her complexion, delayed her; 
 but her rooms at the Lord Warden were com- 
 fortable, the day was wet and gusty above 
 all, she was free to change her mind, and she 
 decided against crossing. The second day was 
 perfect, but she was in no hurry, so she went 
 for a walk, pleasantly vacillating as to her 
 plans. She wanted a dog. Mrs. Harding had 
 never allowed her to have one, and England 
 was the best place to buy a dog. She thought 
 she should like to own a fine horse, for she 
 loved riding, and wished to choose a bathing- 
 place where the surrounding country should be 
 attractive ; and again, surely England was the 
 best place to buy a horse. 
 
 In this frame of mind, pacing along the 
 Marine Parade, she noticed a tiny house nest- 
 ling between cliff and road, daintily neat, its 
 windows brilliant with flowers, and a placard 
 of " lodgings " in blue on a white ground. A 
 pretty, fresh-colored maid was feeding a bird
 
 38 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 in the bow-window of the parlor floor. With 
 the delight of a child in acting, unchecked, 
 upon her impulses, Jane turned in at the gate, 
 rang, and asked to see the rooms. She was 
 met by the landlady, a small, meek woman, 
 who, after a start of recognition and surprise, 
 became humbly apologetic. 
 
 " Oh ! is it you, madam ? " she began ; " but 
 no ! I beg your pardon I mistook you for a 
 lady who visited a lodger of mine ; but I see it 
 is not the same." 
 
 Jane felt interested ; she graciously excused, 
 and examined the rooms with lenient eyes ; 
 they were simple, neat and dainty, the terms 
 were low, the landlady civil. Ten minutes 
 later Jane, having engaged them for a week, 
 emerged from the gate and went briskly back to 
 the hotel. 
 
 There she found Annie in tears and full of 
 grievances. " Not another day would she 
 spend in this abominable country. Why 
 had she ever left America, where even 
 poor girls were treated with respect and 
 no nasty officer-men hanging about to be 
 so forward ? " And so on, at great length,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 39 
 
 until Jane gathered from her incoherent 
 plainings that some one " not worthy the 
 name of gentleman in any respect " must 
 have kissed her in the corridor ; and noth- 
 ing her mistress could say would avail to 
 appease her. Tired out at length, and indis- 
 posed, through previous similar experiences, to 
 be very sympathetic, Miss Harding agreed with 
 her that she had better return home at once. 
 Annie, affronted, demanded immediate release, 
 and Jane, with irritated promptness, had tele- 
 graphed for a berth, and put Annie into the 
 train with a ticket for Liverpool and three 
 months' extra wages, before she took possession 
 of the new lodgings next day. 
 
 Irritated by the contretemps, and annoyed 
 at having to move without a maid, Jane, hav- 
 ing hastily unpacked a few trifles, set forth to 
 try and walk off her angry mood. Before long 
 the fresh air, the pleasant sights and sounds of 
 the merry little place had driven away her ill- 
 humor, and returning radiant and rosy from a 
 brisk walk on the cliff, she turned her steps 
 to the pier, toward which she saw the packet 
 coming swiftly across the glass-green waves.
 
 40 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Human nature, standing secure on shore, can 
 not help a malicious delight in seeing fellow- 
 creatures wearing the hues and tokens of sea- 
 sickness, staggering unsteadily down or up on 
 insecure gang-planks. Jane was not the only 
 one who watched the melancholy procession 
 of limp women and men trying to look as if 
 they had not suffered ; the belles and beaux of 
 the place crowded the pier, pacing up and do\vn 
 in groups of three or four after the excitement 
 of the arrival had subsided. Jane saw the last 
 passenger ashore, and still lingered, not walk- 
 ing, but watching the sailors and porters, busy 
 with the freight ; all action had a charm for 
 her, even when it was merely the exertion of 
 rough physical force. It was almost twilight 
 before she tired of watching the bustle of un- 
 loading, the hauling about of big boxes and 
 bales, the huge horses which tramped to and fro 
 drawing heavy trollies on a miniature track ; 
 the ship-people busy about a thousand and one 
 things on the packet's deck. Two gentlemen, 
 the last on the pier, walking slowly, arm-in-arm, 
 looked intently at Miss Harding when she at 
 last turned to go ; one with admiring interest,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 41 
 
 the other, whose face seemed familiar, with a 
 bold glance of approval and a remark in un- 
 modulated tones : 
 " By Jove, what a handsome girl ! " 
 Jane, who valued signs of admiration as tes. 
 tifying that she was not so old after all, was 
 nevertheless somewhat ruffled by this imperti- 
 nence, flushing quite perceptibly, in that wan- 
 ing light of a summer evening which in En- 
 gland is never quite darkness. But as she walked 
 rapidly homeward she forgot the annoyance in 
 the gratification, and thought, with some pleas- 
 ure, that she ought to have a chaperone. 
 
 "It will be a bore," she thought. "I hate a 
 paid companion ; they are both toadies and 
 treacherous. It seems a pity, now, that I had 
 not ' cultivated ' Mrs. Merriam though I did 
 not like her and placed myself under her wing. 
 But I should not be as free, and I fancied I 
 looked old enough. I am afraid I shall have to 
 find some congenial matron or widow almost 
 an impossibility. How I wish I were a widow 
 myself. It must be some one rich enough not 
 to need me beyond a certain point, and yet 
 easy-going enough to yield to my whims. Oh !
 
 42 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 how I shall hate it ! I dare say it was one of 
 those very men who made love to Annie. I 
 don't feel to need protection from them, but I 
 suppose I do. Decidedly " here Jane glanced 
 over her shoulder and perceived that the taller 
 of her admirers was following her " Decidedly, 
 I must have a duenna, since I am not a 
 widow ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Oh ! what a goodly outside falsehood hath." 
 
 THE disagreeable necessity of acquiring 
 what Becky Sharp would have called a 
 sheep-dog, forced itself upon Jane's notice very 
 often within the next few days, and each time 
 she shook it off with a growing distaste. One 
 rainy morning she sat thinking on it, with a 
 sense of dismay, less and less in love with the 
 prospect of having a human clog hampering 
 her footsteps, like a hobbled horse with a short 
 chain, when her landlady's knock was heard at 
 the door. Now the tribe of landladies in gene- 
 ral was abhorrent to Jane, but this was such an 
 inoffensive little woman, meek, pleasant-voiced 
 and almost refined, that she had permitted in 
 her an unusual degree of intimacy. On this 
 occasion Mrs. Steele, having received the orders 
 for dinner which were the ostensible cause 
 of her visit, lingered in a manner which so ob- 
 viously invited conversation that Jane laid
 
 44 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 aside her book and asked a few indifferent 
 questions. This was sufficient. Mrs. Steele 
 quickly gratified Jane's anxiety as to her health* 
 her success in letting lodgings, how dear coals 
 were, and how difficult it was to find reliable 
 lodgers, and then plunged into the subject of 
 which her mind was evidently full. 
 
 " I beg pardon, ma'am, miss, I mean," she 
 began, " but perhaps you'll recollec' me takin' 
 you for some one I knew the day you come 
 here lookin* for rooms, until I see you better, 
 and see you was a much older lady." 
 
 Mrs. Steele, having thus wounded Jane's 
 susceptibilities as successfully as if she had 
 been well-informed as to her sore points, paused 
 for some sign of interest. 
 
 " I do remember something of the sort," said 
 Jane, carelessly. 
 
 " Pore young thing ! I should wish it had 
 'ave been, for I often wisht I knew what become 
 of her. 'Twas a sad story." 
 
 " Pray tell it to me, Mrs. Steele," said Jane, 
 reflecting that it was too wet a day for a walk, 
 and that she was likely to have some dull hours. 
 "You must often see strange things. Little
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 45 
 
 bits of romance, I dare say, come under your 
 notice very often." 
 
 "You may say so, ma'am miss," an- 
 swered the gratified Mrs. Steele. " This was 
 quite a year ago quite a year, because I remem- 
 ber, I'd been a-havin' great trouble with the 
 chimney-pot to this chimney, and the pore 
 young man suffered awful with the smoke. He 
 come here between the Fourth and the Fifth 
 after Trinity, and I knew in a minute he were in 
 trouble with his family ; as handsome and ele- 
 gant a young man as ever you see, with such 
 beautiful brown eyes, and long lashes like a 
 girl's, and the whitest hands ! But very ill when 
 he come, pale and languid like, and with some- 
 thin' a-preyin' on his mind. He'd sit in that 
 bow, where you're sittin' now, ma'am, hours to- 
 gether, and doin' nothing but turn over some 
 letters, and sigh. His servant, as was as decent 
 a body, for a man-servant, as need be, would 
 try and coax him to go out, and tempt him in 
 the eatin' line, but all was as if 'twas no use 
 nor not meant to be. So at last he took to his 
 bed, and was days there before he would let 
 Phillips that was his name go for a doctor.
 
 46 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I heard him persuadin' him. Mr. Grandison, 
 sez ee Grandison was his name, ' It's a dooty 
 you owes, sir, to yourself and also to others.' 
 But Mr. Grandison wouldn't hear to it. Then 
 Phillips, he wanted to send for some of the 
 fambly, but he wouldn't listen to that neither. 
 ' My fambly,' he says, ' turned me off ; they 
 robbed me of her, and now they shall lose me 
 too.' Well, not to be too tiresome, miss," went 
 on Mrs. Steele, drawing a long breath, " Mr. 
 Grandison got worse and worse. A doctor was 
 called and at last he says, ' If Mr. Grandison has 
 any friends,' he says, 'send for them.' Phillips 
 shook his head and said he misdoubted they 
 wouldn't come, but he wrote, however ; and 
 surely no one ever come, for Mr. Phillips says to 
 me says he, ' I knowed they wouldn't, Mrs. 
 Steele.' My heart ached for him, miss, and him 
 lyin' there so low and so handsome. Well, at 
 last, we give up hope, Phillips and me ; he was 
 conscious, but so weak and low; and one day I 
 was sittin" with him, and Phillips a-havin' of some 
 dinner, the faithful creature, as had scarcely eat 
 or slept, when there was a knock at the 
 door, and that Eliza, which is as stupid now
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 47 
 
 as the day she was born, opened it, and before 
 I could hush her over the banisters, the door 
 opened and in walked a lady as like you, 
 ma'am, as if born your sister only much 
 younger. She ran to him and kneeled down by 
 the bed and cried out, and he stretched his 
 poor, weak hand to her and said, ' My darling 
 so you've come at last!' I rushed down to 
 Phillips, for I was that frightened, and hardly 
 knew whether an agitation would kill him. 
 Phillips went up the stairs, two at a time, and 
 me after him, but all was well. He was 
 holdin' 'er 'and, and she kissin' him on the 
 cheek and cryin' very soft. 
 
 " Phillips shut the door, but the lady didn't 
 stay long, and he put her in a cab, and stayed 
 with his master from that until the end. For 
 he sank very fast after that, though he seemed 
 peaceful and happy, but there was no savin' 
 him, and before sunrise he was gone. 
 
 " The lady come again, next morning, alone, 
 same as before, and in a hurry, and when 
 Phillips told her his master was dead, her grief 
 was awful. I made sure they had been mar- 
 ried in secret, but when I taxed Phillips with
 
 40 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 it, he laughed, and says ' No, 'twas his own 
 sister, as had been forbid to come and see him 
 on account of some bitter quarrel in the fam- 
 ily, and had found him out by chance as they 
 was passing through Dover.' And if you can 
 believe me, ma'am, though they was in the 
 place, and knew of the death through her, not 
 one of them came to follow him to the grave, 
 which Phillips and I was the only mourners. 
 And such little things as he had, he left by his 
 will to Phillips, his ' servant and only faithful 
 friend,' as it said. Mr. Phillips told me a good 
 deal about him after a sad tale it was, them 
 high families is so bitter, and the young man 
 not to blame ; which I'm sure he never was, 
 for he'd the face of an angel. I've a picture 
 of him Mr. Phillips gave me I'll show it to 
 you." 
 
 Mrs. Steele left the room ; Jane, who had 
 listened with increasing interest to the sad 
 little story, was surprised to find tears in her 
 eyes, but had carefully wiped them away 
 before the landlady returned, carrying with 
 her two photographs in pretentious and 
 hideous velvet frames, and a well-worn news-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 49 
 
 paper marked in blue pencil. Jane looked at 
 the pictures with strange eagerness. What 
 were this man's looks to her ? Yet she felt 
 curiously anxious that he should prove to be 
 really a gentleman the landlady's commen- 
 dations not carrying much weight, as the taste 
 which inspired them was probably incorrect. 
 But the face which looked at her from the 
 photograph fitted itself line by line to her 
 fastidious ideal. The slight difference in the 
 pose of the two pictures served to bring out 
 different and characteristic beauties : in one, 
 the fine brow and thoughtful eyes drew atten- 
 tion from the mouth and chin, whose lines, 
 sensitive and exceedingly sweet, were fully 
 revealed in the other. It was the face of a 
 man of refinement, gentle instincts and much 
 tenderness, with that sort of strength of char- 
 acter which is perilously near to obstinacy. 
 The very boldness of the hand in which, under 
 each picture was written the name of " E. St. 
 George Grandison," revealed the lurking weak- 
 ness of a nature at once headlong, headstrong 
 and loving. 
 
 Jane, with whom Mrs. Steele, after a few
 
 50 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 words of regretful praise, left the photographs 
 while she went about her household affairs, 
 studied the face intently, fancying she read all 
 these meanings in the depths of the dark eyes 
 and the curves of the handsome mouth. 
 "Just the man," she thought to herself, " to 
 make a rash marriage, quarrel with his family, 
 and die broken-hearted and separated from 
 both." She took up the paper and absently 
 read the marked paragraph, which announced 
 the death of " Eustace St. George Grandison, 
 only son of Everard Temple St. George Grand- 
 ison, of Danesfort, Yorkshire, and Temple 
 Grandison, Sussex, Esq.," who had died at 21 
 Marine Parade, Dover, August 20, 1879, in t ne 
 twenty-seventh year of his age. The mystic 
 letters R. I. P., which concluded the notice, 
 made her aware that he or his family had been 
 Catholics. Further search, pursued in a very 
 abstracted manner, resulted in the discovery of 
 another paragraph, not marked, alluding to the 
 recent death of an estimable young gentleman 
 of a distinguished family, under peculiarly sad 
 circumstances, and while estranged from his 
 family. "We are permitted to state," went
 
 THE IV HOLE TRUTH. 51 
 
 on this notice, " that in the circumstances of 
 this estrangement, now of some two years' 
 standing, nothing in the least discreditable 
 attaches to the late gentleman or his eminent 
 family." 
 
 Rather a curious sort of a quarrel, thought 
 Jane, in which no blame attaches to either 
 side. She glanced over the rest of the paper, 
 a mere local chronicle, absently noting the 
 date ; then folded it, yawned, looked out at the 
 wet walks and heavy sky, and deciding that the 
 day could be no worse, and showed no signs 
 of being better, she equipped herself for a 
 rainy walk. Jane always thought more readily 
 a-foot, and whatever were her reflections 
 during this walk, she came in fresh, animated 
 and excited, announcing to Mrs. Steele, whom 
 she met in the passage, her determination to 
 remain another week in her lodgings. The 
 dull day, and the dreary wash of the gray sea 
 on the beach, seemed powerless to affect her 
 spirits ; she was busy, interested, even gay, all 
 the evening, pausing now and then for a glance 
 at the pictures which Mrs. Steele, touched and 
 pleased at her interest, had left in her posses-
 
 52 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 sion. The week was a pleasant one to Mrs. 
 Steele, no less than to Jane ; never had the 
 worthy little woman had so kind, considerate 
 and generous a lodger. Many a pleasant little 
 twilight talk did they have, in the course of 
 which the story of Mrs. Steele's whole life was 
 unfolded, in reply to Jane's sympathetic ques- 
 tions, together with a mass of miscellaneous 
 information anent the long procession of 
 lodgers who had preceded Jane, among which 
 were necessarily some items concerning the 
 dead Mr. Grandison. Mrs. Steele, won by the 
 flattery to her powers of narration implied in 
 such absorbing interest in her tale, willingly 
 repeated every slightest incident relating to 
 the young man's short stay in his last earthly 
 lodging ; so that at the end of the week Jane 
 found herself in possession of facts sufficient 
 for the erection of a very pretty and tolerably 
 correct theory of the poor fellow's character 
 and habits. So much did Jane's interest in 
 him whose intensity puzzled Jane herself for 
 a time please soft-hearted Mrs. Steele, that 
 she at last begged her lodger to accept one of 
 the treasured photographs of Mr. Grandison,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 53 
 
 as the only adequate expression of her devo- 
 tion. Jane, when the suggestion was made, 
 was startled to find herself blushing like a girl, 
 and accepting it with as much agitation as 
 might have been caused, had poor Grandison 
 offered the gift in person. She was very grave 
 and thoughtful for some hours after this ; her 
 usual brisk walk seemed for a time to change 
 the current of her thoughts. But she relapsed 
 into gravity again in the evening, slept but 
 little that night, awoke early next day her 
 last day in Dover, and the first morning hours 
 were spent, silently, in the bow-window, her 
 eyes fixed intently on the sullen-looking water, 
 thinking so intently that her face became 
 almost gray and old. It was almost noon 
 when she came out of this reverie. She was to 
 leave by the next day's boat, and had many 
 preparations to make. A look of relief and 
 resolve came into her face as she put on her 
 bonnet with its vast crape veil, contemplating 
 herself attentively in the glass. 
 
 " I will do it," she said aloud. " It is a 
 harmless deception, and affects no one but 
 myself,"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "Here do I choose, and thrive I, as I may." 
 
 JANE'S morning walk was not, as usual, 
 along the chalk cliffs and in search of 
 pretty country nooks, but to the chief shop- 
 ping-street of Dover. Here she entered a news- 
 paper office, where she asked for a number of 
 the paper which must have been previously 
 ordered, for it was promptly produced. Thence 
 she found the way to a linen-draper's, where, 
 having invested in several pairs of black gloves, 
 she bought some yards of a. special kind of 
 mourning ruching, which consists of a sort of 
 puff of crimped double tarletan. Various 
 other little arrangements were made for her 
 journey during this walk a deck cabin taken 
 on the packet, and a fly ordered to convey 
 her boxes. 
 
 The rest of the day was devoted to her pack- 
 ing, which she .found rather tiresome without a
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 55 
 
 maid, and at the very last, just before bedtime, 
 Jane sat down and inserted in the front of her 
 crape bonnet a narrow strip of the crimped tar- 
 letan, the effect of which, when she tried on 
 the bonnet, she found both becoming and satis- 
 factory. 
 
 Mrs. Steele was really sorry when the morrow 
 came, and the fly bore Jane and her boxes to 
 the boat, which she presently saw dipping and 
 plunging through the short channel seas ; but 
 then it was certain that Miss Harding had 
 never taken so much trouble to be agreeable in 
 her life before, and it would have been hard 
 had she not succeeded. 
 
 Jane's ticket had been bought for Paris, but 
 on leaving the boat at Calais, she passed from 
 the Custom-House into the street, and call- 
 ing a cab, was driven with her luggage to a 
 hotel. 
 
 In leaving Dover and for a great part of the 
 crossing, Jane had kept her veil down closely 
 about her face and over her bonnet ; but now, 
 upon alighting at the hotel, it was thrown back, 
 revealing her face and fair hair half encircled by 
 the white puffing, and causing madame la pro-
 
 56 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 prietaire, looking out at the small glazed win- 
 dows of the Bureau, to say to herself : " Bien- 
 voila une belle veuve anglaise, allons a sa ren, 
 centre." And sallying forth with bows and 
 smiles, she herself conducted " madame," with 
 a most engaging cordiality, to the apartment 
 which the latter bespoke, expressing in remark- 
 ably pure and fluent French, a wish to repose 
 after her trip. 
 
 Jane's usual self-possession had not deserted 
 her, but there was a repressed excitement in 
 her manner which outward events did not seem 
 to justify. When she had ordered a simple 
 dinner and said that she did not wish her lug- 
 gage brought up, as she should stay but one 
 night, intending to take an evening train to 
 Paris next day, she was left alone, and in the 
 course of half an hour, this appearance of agita- 
 tion had given way to an air of quiet resolve. 
 And an hour later, when, with her dinner 
 appeared an obsequious waiter, who begged that 
 madame would favor them by placing her 
 name on the visitors' book, it was with no sign 
 of hesitation that Jane took the pen, dipped 
 and proffered by the courteous Frenchman,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 57 
 
 and wrote, in a bold, legible hand " Mrs. E. St. 
 George Grandison, London." 
 
 When the waiter, with more bows, accu- 
 rately adjusted to the value of the piece of 
 money placed upon the book for his acceptance, 
 had gone, she found herself blushing, cold, and 
 trembling violently, as one who had faced 
 some crisis. 
 
 But absolute truth had not been a goddess 
 much served in the Harding household, and it 
 was only a sense of adventure and novelty, 
 with some faint thought of her temerity, which 
 had quickened Jane's healthy pulses. She sat 
 a moment thoughtful, then, rising, repeated to 
 herself: "It is merely a harmless deception," 
 and dismissing all further misgivings, entered 
 into her new role of widow, with zest and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The first occupation of her evening was to 
 destroy every note and letter, few as they 
 were ; every scrap of paper or other memorial 
 which could in any way connect her with the 
 person once known as Jane Harding. This 
 done without much trouble, for a few brief 
 business notes from Mr. Sandman and some
 
 58 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 milliners' and jewelers' documents made up 
 the whole of her correspondence, she printed, 
 in a neat hand, several card-board labels with 
 the address " Mrs. E. St. George Grandison, 
 Hotel Louis-le-Grand, 2 Rue Louis-le-Grand, 
 Paris," choosing an hotel at which she had 
 never staid nor visited, but which she knew by 
 repute as quiet and comfortable. These she 
 caused to be affixed to her four trunks, hitherto 
 distinguished only by three broad red stripes 
 after the fashion of continental trunks by a 
 porter as obsequious as the waiter had been. 
 This done, she went to bed, and slept the sleep 
 which perfect digestion and plenty of money 
 generally insure, without reference to more 
 sentimental and intangible influences. 
 
 In all her travels Jane had never spent many 
 hours in Calais, so, the next day being fine, 
 she proceeded to " do " the few sights the 
 castle, the " plage," and a church or two, end- 
 ing, in the approved way, by a tour among the 
 shops. 
 
 Jane's money had not been long enough at 
 her own command for her to be soon weary of 
 the delights of spending, and it must be
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 59 
 
 owned that she gained less genuine enjoyment 
 among the sights of Calais, than she did in the 
 shops, where she bought a vast number of 
 brushes, mirrors and other trifles in ivory, all 
 of which she ordered to be adorned with the 
 letters " J. St. G. G." 
 
 The midsummer weeks which Jane now 
 spent, not unpleasantly, in Paris, were de- 
 voted to the replenishing of her wardrobe 
 with all the dainty imaginings which the 
 genius of a French man-milliner could de- 
 vise to mitigate the severity of widow's 
 mourning; to the acquirement of the thousand 
 and one trifles which a woman never knows 
 she needs until she sees them in the shops, 
 when they are immediately realized to be indis- 
 pensable ; and, finally, to engaging a maid. 
 
 It was hardly the time of year to be com- 
 pletely successful in the latter quest ; but in 
 these days every thing seemed to come at 
 Jane's wish. A young English bride had died 
 at one of the watering-places, and her maid, an 
 experienced person, accustomed to travel, and 
 highly recommended, passing through Paris on 
 her way home, fell under Madame Berthon's
 
 60 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 notice, who was eagerly aiding la charmante 
 Madame Grandison in ker search. Jane was a 
 little shy of English people, being not at all 
 sure but that she might encounter some one 
 who knew all about the poor young fellow 
 whose names she had appropriated ; but after 
 an interview with the invaluable Pritchett, she 
 was so well satisfied with the maid's manner 
 and appearance that she decided to write to 
 the Duchess of Saintsbury (mother of the 
 poor little bride) for the further information 
 which Pritchett desired her to have. The note, 
 almost the first Jane had had occasion to write, 
 since, in Napoleonic style, by the grace of her 
 own good pleasure, she had become Mrs. 
 Grandison, was soon written. In the others, 
 mere business communications, she had had no 
 occasion to use her Christian name, but now, 
 having written "yours faithfully," she held her 
 pen suspended and reflected on this question 
 of her signature. Jane Grandison. She liked 
 the old-fashioned, dignified sound. She had no 
 fancy for the romantic names which bless the 
 girls of the present day ; in Gladys, Gwendo- 
 len, or Juliet, lay no temptation for her to dis-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 6 1 
 
 card her own. Should she also retain her own 
 cognomen as a middle name, or would this 
 invite inquiry and lead to discovery ? She 
 wrote a signature in several forms : Jane 
 Grandison, Jane Harding, Jane Harding 
 Grandison, Jane St. George Grandison, on a 
 stray bit of paper, without being entirely 
 satisfied with either. Then, suddenly remem- 
 bering that a Scotch great-aunt, long since 
 dead, for whom she might have been named, 
 had called the name Jane, while writing it 
 Jean, she felt that this was a difference great 
 enough to gratify her wish for an entire change 
 of identity, without exposing her to the risks 
 and perils of choosing and accustoming her- 
 self to an altogether new appellation. A 
 knock was heard at the door, she hastily 
 pushed the bit of paper with the experimental 
 signatures under the blotter in the table- 
 drawer, and called " Entrez," while signing her 
 note "yours faithfully, Jean St. George 
 Grandison." The Duchess of Saintsbury's 
 reply was most satisfactory. Pritchett was 
 engaged, and entered upon her duties immedi- 
 ately, being much pleased with her new serv-
 
 62 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ice for Jane was a pleasant-tempered mis- 
 tress and not a little edified by the evidences 
 of devotion to her late husband, which Jane 
 betrayed, without ever speaking of him. Like 
 most of her class, Pritchett's idea of an 
 absorbing grief was one which kept the memo- 
 rials of a loss constantly before one., and her 
 mind could not grasp the madness of sorrow in 
 which the young husband of her late mistress 
 longed to rid himself of every thing which could 
 remind him of his lost darling. She was greatly 
 pleased, for reasons of her own, when Jane 
 bought a beautiful gray thoroughbred mare 
 which had been Lady Hermione's, at the same 
 time employing Girth, an old fellow-servant, 
 for a groom. But she contrasted her late 
 master's way of mourning disadvantageously 
 with Jane's, as evinced by her constant use of , 
 a gentleman's dressing-case, with a crest and 
 the letters " E. St. G. G." ; her wearing a watch 
 with the same inscription, and the presence 
 on her dressing-table of a silver photograph 
 frame, with securely locked doors bearing the 
 same mark in raised gold letters, and contain- 
 ing, as she once had the opportunity of assur-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 63 
 
 ing herself, the portrait of a handsome man 
 who signed himself Eustace St. George 
 Grandison. 
 
 With all her experience, Pritchett was in- 
 capable of such a flight of fancy as to dream 
 that the dressing case had been bought, sec- 
 ond-hand, at Dover, the watch in Paris both 
 marked, at a little shop in the Rue Taitbout, 
 with the initials and a crest which was found 
 in the " Landed Gentry," along with other 
 valuable information, opposite the name of 
 Everard Temple St. George Grandison.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Stay the very riping of the time." 
 
 IT now becomes necessary to decide by 
 which name the chief personage of this 
 history shall be known in the ensuing pages. 
 The ci-devant Jane Harding, now self-styled 
 " Mrs. E. St. George Grandison " is not to be 
 denied the right, common to every woman, of 
 doing precisely as she pleases, though she 
 thereby places her historian in a strait betwixt 
 truth, courtesy and convenience. Every one 
 knows, however, how difficult it is to follow, 
 in history or fiction, the fortunes of any per- 
 sonage, doomed, either by exalted station or 
 by considerations of expediency connected 
 with the majesty of the law, to a more or less 
 frequent change of name. Every conscien- 
 tious reader has weltered in a slough of per- 
 plexity, in the endeavor to recognize that 
 " Henry, surnamed Bolingbroke, Duke of
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 65 
 
 Hereford, son to John of Gaunt, afterward 
 King Henry IV." or to trace that fascinating 
 person of indifferent morals, Barry Lyndon, 
 through a career involving the use of so many 
 aliases. Few have been the minds sufficiently 
 perspicacious to know, in the Duke of 
 Omnium of the " Prime Minister" the impetu- 
 ous " Planty Pall " of " Can You Forgive Her " 
 and " Phineas Finn," or to meet as an old friend 
 that Prince de- Moncontour whom we had 
 loved as the Vicomte de Florae, in the pages 
 of the " Newcomes." 
 
 Taking these things into consideration, an en- 
 deavor will be made to reconcile truth, 
 courtesy, and convenience, a task not so diffi- 
 cult in this nineteenth, as in previous cen- 
 turies, while our language remained in a less 
 flexible state. A compromise will be effected, 
 whereby the lady in question, being called 
 " Jean," will be flattered, the reader's con- 
 venience consulted by the actual identity of 
 name, and the writer's conscience soothed by 
 the same device which does away with the 
 hopeless entanglements caused by speaking of 
 Miss Harding or Mrs. Grandison, according as
 
 66 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 the lady is encountered in public or in private 
 life. 
 
 These preliminaries disposed of, the events 
 of the fourteen months succeeding Jean's brief 
 midsummer visit to Paris, may be at once 
 related. 
 
 It was not in Jean's nature, having once 
 decided upon a plan of action, to spoil it by 
 precipitancy, though, as has been seen, she 
 could act promptly and decisively on occasion. 
 Having learned the lesson of patience very 
 effectually in her early life, she was now pre- 
 pared, after the one great step, to let things go 
 their own gait, ripening her purposes as nature 
 ripens fruit, by imperceptible degrees. She 
 had very well defined ideas of what she 
 meant to do ; but first, she wished to see her 
 way absolutely clear before her, to feel herself 
 so at home in her new role, that she could 
 make no mistakes in it ; she had, therefore, 
 determined to spend the time in comparative 
 retirement, until two full years should have 
 elapsed from the date of Mr. Grandison's 
 death. By that time, she assumed, it would 
 be perfectly correct for her to cast off her
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 67 
 
 crape, and appear in that style of dress known 
 as " half-mourning," which affords the most 
 unlimited opportunities for striking and be- 
 coming toilets. 
 
 Jean knew very well what pleasant ac- 
 quaintances, what valuable friendships, are 
 to be formed in that easy-going delightful life 
 of Hotel and Pension, of Bad and Spa, of win- 
 ter cities and summer "plages." She knew 
 too, how the best English people, who at 
 home would scarcely open their exclusive 
 doors to the pleadings of the most persuasive 
 letter of introduction, are, on the Continent, 
 singularly vulnerable ; accepting people, as it 
 were, at their face value ; and once the out- 
 works carried, Jean knew that there is no 
 friend so faithful, through thick and thin, as 
 an English friend. Then, too, she soon con- 
 firmed what she had believed before, that a 
 handsome wealthy widow of thirty-three or 
 four, was sought, flattered, courted and 
 caressed, where a single woman, unattached, 
 of the same circumstances, would be voted 
 " dowdy," " odd " or " pushing," and quickly 
 relegated to the position of a wall-flower.
 
 68 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Not wishing to enter at once upon the war- 
 fare of society, Jean gave up her plans for the 
 sea-shore, and gratified her artistic tastes and 
 an old dream, by setting herself, about the 
 end of September, in a tiny apartment at Bar- 
 bizon, near which quarters were found for her 
 horse, and groom, and dog, a great white deer- 
 hound, which she had, after all, bought in 
 Paris. 
 
 Much as she would have liked it, all the pro- 
 prieties forbade her dining at the table d'Jiote 
 at Sirons, among the enviable and jolly crew 
 of artists who frequented that fascinating hos- 
 telry. But there was nothing to prevent her 
 visiting the inn, to inspect the salle with its 
 walls paneled with paintings of every size and 
 style. In the quaint old room, with its high 
 chimney-piece across one corner, whereon are 
 laid the letters of expected and expectant 
 guests, men living and dead, famous and 
 unknown, have left their sign-manual. From 
 the wainscot upward, the walls are covered with 
 pictures and sketches of more or less merit and 
 finish, tacked on hap-hazard and close together, 
 forming the quaintest paneling; the ceiling
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 69 
 
 decorations are of a different style, and the 
 only admiration they evoke is bestowed upon 
 the ingenuity which succeeded in fixing them 
 there. Along the walls of the outer hall are 
 adornments less permanent, liable indeed, to 
 removal at the hands of a white-washer, in the 
 shape of spirited sketches, caricatures, jcux 
 d' esprit, executed with pencil, a bit of burned 
 stick, or the ingenious adaptation of a few drops 
 of coffee and a crack in the plaster. All these 
 works of art Jean pleased herself by examining 
 often ; she had soon been taken into friendship 
 by madame, and by Anastasie, who, though 
 always in a hurry, could stay her little dog- 
 trot long enough to communicate to Jean all 
 the gossip of the place. Ravode, the dirty, 
 black Caniche, who lay constantly at the 
 glazed door of the salle, knew her step as she 
 turned into the rough paved court ; he and his 
 confreres, no dirtier perhaps than he, but, 
 being white, more ostentatiously so, had long 
 ceased active hostilities toward the deer-hound, 
 and only greeted Bor with hushed, lazy growls. 
 For reasons known to herself, Jean preferred 
 to gather her information as to the distin-
 
 70 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 guished company there assembled, from hear- 
 say, rather than from observation. She took fur- 
 tive peeps now and then at a certain tall artist 
 with a crooked nose, whose portrait madame 
 wished her to recognize in a mild smudge behind 
 the door; at two young American girls, one of 
 whom Anastasie characterized as " gamine, mais 
 bien gentille," the other as, " une ange ! mad- 
 ame ! " at " the inseparables," as two young 
 men a tall and handsome, and a small, ugly 
 one, were called. But she was careful to 
 encounter them only in passing, to make as 
 yet no advances to any one, and to leave " la 
 veuve Anglaise," with her horse and her dog, 
 as yet a vague and shadowy personality. 
 And yet, how she envied them ! 
 
 October had come; the off and on people, 
 the French poseurs in astonishing feathered 
 hats, with their tight-laced, high-heeled fami- 
 lies, all the va-et-vient of English and Ameri- 
 can curiosity-seekers and artistic pilgrims, had 
 gone. Only a sort of family party of artists, 
 of several nationalities, remained; and these 
 might be encountered perching upon ingen- 
 iously uncomfortable stools, or more securely
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 71 
 
 upon stones, working away diligently at some 
 choice point of view. But it was already 
 chilly enough for even these enthusiastic young 
 men and women to sacrifice their sense of the 
 picturesque and appropriate for the sake of 
 warmth : Cardigans, wristers and mufflers 
 became a sort of uniform, with red hands and 
 cold feet, which necessitated a good deal of 
 strong language and stamping about, interfer- 
 ing materially with sketching. 
 
 Now, too, the evenings closed in early ; the 
 merry artist-folk passing in groups and coup- 
 les under Jean's window were lighted on 
 their way to dinner by dim, twinkling lights 
 in queer primitive lanterns, looted here and 
 there in the country round ; rickety brass 
 affairs, mended with oiled paper, which might 
 have lighted Watteau's ladies to their chairs, 
 or iron " lanthorns " full of holes, with a thin bit 
 of bone in place of glass. Their gay voices 
 came up to Jean's ears as she sat solitary, and 
 emphasized her isolation. 
 
 The two young Americans who were osten- 
 sibly chaperoned by a heedless spinster with 
 gray curls and glasses passed three times a
 
 72 THE IV HOLE TRUTH, 
 
 day, laughing, singing, (whisper it) larking, 
 along the narrow street, with its echoing high 
 walls. How Jean envied them their youth, 
 their art, their freedom ! But then, Jean was 
 morbid, and envied almost every one. 
 
 One night when they had gone by on their 
 way to dinner, in an unusually hilarious mood, 
 Jean could not resist the temptation to follow ; 
 an errand to Sirons was readily invented ; she 
 flung on her long cloak, called Bor, and stepped 
 out into the cold purple twilight. A strange 
 impulse came over her as she stood in the long 
 street, with its blank walls and closed doors. 
 Instead of going toward the inn, she turned 
 into a side path, and in a few minutes reached 
 the forest. There it was dark, only the lighter 
 trunks of the close-crowding trees glimmered 
 faintly on either hand ; she went down a grassy 
 ride, where her feet disturbed the fallen leaves 
 and the wind caught and whirled them. Bor, 
 flitting before her, was only an uncertain shape 
 in the gloom, and among the trees over her 
 head was uttered that soughing sound which 
 is the inland answer to the voice of the sea. A 
 strange mood, made up of regret and despair
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 73 
 
 and longing, took possession of her. She 
 flung herself on the ground, among the roots 
 of a great tree, and broke into bitter sobbing 
 without knowing why for had she not assured 
 herself only that day that the way was now 
 open before her to attain all she wished. The 
 dog came and licked her cheek, standing beside 
 her with inarticulate coaxing and comfort ; and 
 Jean, with whom such outbursts were rare, 
 presently controlled herself, and, rising, turned 
 her face resolutely toward the inn. Dinner 
 was over by this time, but the young people 
 were lingering still. As Jean passed the open 
 door of the salle a fresh pang of envy con- 
 tracted her heart. The dusky room glowed 
 with firelight ; some one was kneeling at the 
 hearth, tending the roasting apples, which hung 
 by strings from the high chimney-piece and 
 twirled slowly before the blaze. Some one else 
 was picking out a merry air at the shabby piano, 
 while two or three fresh voices sang, 
 
 " Come lasses and lads, 
 Get leave of your dads ! " 
 
 At the table the two young girls were still 
 sitting, the elder taking ostentatious dainty
 
 74 THE WHOLE TRUTH, 
 
 whiffs of a cigarette; the younger, her face 
 hidden in her hands, resisting the teasing per- 
 suasions of a light-haired young man who 
 assured her they were " all friends and would 
 never tell." 
 
 Ravode's warning growl as Jean entered the 
 outer room, drew all eyes to the door, and 
 there was a little startled pause as she flitted 
 by in her black cloak, with her white face and 
 wild eyes. 
 
 " It is a Banshee ! And which of ye, now, 
 does she belong to ? " she heard a voice say, 
 whose nationality there was no mistaking. 
 
 " It is a warning ! " added a second voice, 
 very solemnly. " Ah ! young ladies, if your 
 mothers could see you now ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but 
 the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the 
 hurt." 
 
 BUT Jean had not come' to Barbizon to 
 indulge in heroics under the trees in the 
 rain, nor to play Banshee to a party of young 
 heedless creatures, whose merriment caused 
 her an envious pang. She had a well-defined 
 purpose in view, to which she held with the 
 tenacity of her impulsive, obstinate nature, 
 approaching it indirectly and sidelong, as it 
 were. In her long wandering walks and idle 
 moments spent at Sirons, she had picked up, 
 partly through madame's talk and Anastasie's 
 hints, partly by a sort of lady-like eavesdrop- 
 ping which she thoroughly justified, a good 
 deal of information about different artists in 
 and about Barbizon. Nor was she altogether 
 unconscious of having attracted the attention 
 of the artistic eye, as, either on foot, or mounted
 
 7 & THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 on the beautiful gray mare, but always accom- 
 panied by the great white hound, she had 
 crossed their paths here and there in the forest. 
 The strong dramatic instinct which kept her 
 continually posing to her own consciousness, 
 was gratified by every glance thus bestowed 
 upon her, and she felt a special pride in the 
 success with which she appeared serenely to 
 ignore all the admiring notice which afforded 
 her such pleasure. It was not as her real self 
 that she wished to be admired. The role she 
 'had chosen, the somewhat romantic personality 
 of the widow, isolated, aloof, but doubtless 
 charming, was that to which she wished to 
 attract approving eyes. 
 
 In her own mind, Jean had, by this time, 
 almost decided that one of two or three men 
 then at Barbizon should paint her portrait, but 
 the taste for intrigue had so grown upon her 
 that she was now almost incapable of proceeding 
 in a straightforward manner, and waited, with 
 a spider-like patience, for any chance opportu- 
 nity to help her formulate her decision. Mean- 
 time, she was delightedly aware of being ob- 
 served and commented on ; knew, with almost
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 77 
 
 childish delight, that she was called the " belle 
 veuve Anglaise," and had been no little influ- 
 enced by the knowledge that of the three 
 artists among whom her choice lay, two had 
 expressed an enthusiastic wish to paint her. 
 That the third had made no such desire evident 
 in words, was perhaps the strong silent argu- 
 ment in his favor. 
 
 One day, having ridden far and fast, Jean 
 turned into one of the broad grassy rides of 
 the forest, not far from Chailly, and allowed 
 Loki to fall into a walk. 
 
 Bor, with his tongue hanging out, ranged up 
 beside her, and leaning from her saddle to tease 
 him with touches of her whip, her thick, fair 
 hair broke from its fastenings, streaming over 
 her shoulders, and the soft felt-hat in which 
 she defied conventionality, fell to the ground. 
 Laziry good-tempered, for long hours of inter- 
 course with animals and with nature agreed 
 with the best of her being, she laughed, slid 
 from her saddle without complaint, to pick it 
 up, and then, with the rein over her arm, wan- 
 dered idly along, looking for a friendly stone 
 from which to remount, kicking the dry leaves
 
 78 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 about to bring out their pungent odor, alto- 
 gether contented and purposeless. Thus saun- 
 tering she turned a corner, and came suddenly 
 upon a young man, in a sheltered nook, so busily 
 sketching that the rustle of her own and her 
 horse's feet did not disturb him. But when 
 Bor ran to him and sniffed curiously about his 
 feet, he looked up from his work in some won- 
 der at seeing the " English widow " approach- 
 ing in a state so different from her usual trim 
 elegance. Jean recalled her dog, apologizing 
 for his forwardness. 
 
 " An unnecessary friendliness for strangers 
 is one of his worst faults," she said, with a 
 smile which did not forbid a reply. The young 
 man, who was, in fact, that third one who had 
 expressed no wish to paint her, looked at her 
 with genuine pleasure, her voice was so pleas- 
 ant, her eyes and smile so cordial, without 
 forwardness, her figure, in the long habit, so 
 graceful and stately. 
 
 " He is a noble fellow," he said, patting 
 the dog's head. " I am sure he has few faults." 
 
 Jean was in a gracious mood. She in- 
 quired the way to the " Mare aux Fees,"
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 79 
 
 which she knew as well as any guide in the 
 forest. She listened to suggestions of places 
 as romantic and more accessible ; an old 
 abbaye, buried among the trees, and another 
 nook an oval hollow, full of heather, over- 
 looked by a miniature precipice without 
 revealing her familiarity with all. 
 
 She courteously managed to look at his 
 sketch, commenting on it with reserve, but in 
 a manner which proved her thorough under- 
 standing. A long, desultory conversation on 
 art and kindred things ensued, during which 
 the dog, after various impatient coaxing noises, 
 sat down and pushed his head into her hand, 
 and Loki, whom she had left loose at a little 
 distance, approaching her with the cat-like 
 step of the thoroughbred, rested her head 
 remonstratingly against Jean's shoulder. She 
 rose reluctantly, having within the last ten 
 minutes fully made up her mind that this, 
 and no other, should be the artist of her por- 
 trait. A second young man had appeared 
 from the ride during their talk ; a short, ugly 
 young man, with a straggling yellow beard, 
 who watched Jean intently from under the
 
 8o THE WHOLE TRUTH, 
 
 brim of a somewhat dilapidated slouch-hat. 
 His whole attire, indeed, was shabby, with 
 threads and shreds at various seams and edges, 
 and he presented altogether a great contrast to 
 his companion, whose " get-up " was in the 
 extreme of artistic dandyism. To Jean's credit 
 be it recorded, however, that neither his dress, 
 nor the fact of his being strikingly handsome, 
 had influenced her, but the sketch on his easel, 
 in which she had recognized truth, power, and 
 an imagination well held in hand. 
 
 He had risen and stood, hat in hand, before 
 Jean, who, also bare-headed, was asking per- 
 mission to visit his studio. The artist ex- 
 pressed himself flattered ; an appointment was 
 made for next day, a painty card, " Mr. Ian 
 Forbes," with a hastily scrawled address, was 
 transferred to Jean's pocket, and with a gra- 
 cious bow which included the silent man in 
 the slouched-hat, she called her dog and dis- 
 appeared on foot in the long vista of the 
 wood, the two white animals glimmering 
 in its shadow long after her dark figure was 
 lost to sight. 
 
 Whatever the silent man may have thought,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 81 
 
 he uttered no opinion, nor did he, as Forbes 
 laughingly suggested, " drop in " at the hour 
 of Jean's call next day. When Forbes beat 
 up his quarters on the succeeding afternoon at 
 dusk, he found him still tongue-tied and 
 thoughtful, but, seeing that his normal state 
 was one in which it was hard for any one 
 else to put in a word edge-wise, and that 
 Forbes now had news to impart, he was, on 
 the whole, not inclined to find fault with his 
 mood. 
 
 " I say, Kooystra," he began, slapping him- 
 self violently upon the chest. " Wake up, and 
 look at me ! I've got an order, d'ye hear me ? 
 A portrait." 
 
 " The English widow ? " inquired Kooystra, 
 indifferently. 
 
 " Mrs. Grandison yes," assented Forbes. 
 " She's fine fine ! That curiously dark skin, 
 with such fair hair and such deep-set gray 
 eyes, her eyes are wonderful, eh? And a 
 figure like a like a " 
 
 " Caryatid," suggested Kooystra. 
 
 " Thanks ; you have a talent for similes. I 
 shall paint her," went on Forbes, fidgeting
 
 82 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 with a tube of cadmium. " I shall paint her I 
 haven't exactly decided how." 
 
 " That sort of woman generally decides for 
 you," said Kooystra, stretching out his feet 
 and yawning. 
 
 " You don't seem interested," said Forbes, 
 with a shade of offense, giving the tube an 
 unintentionally hard squeeze. " I'll go con- 
 found this thing, now I'm covered with paint 
 I'll go and talk with some one else. Don't 
 you admire her? Don't you think I'm in 
 luck to get such an order? " 
 
 Kooystra recovered himself from a yawn 
 which brought the tears to his eyes, and for 
 answer, pointed to a small canvas propped up on 
 a chair by the window, where the last rays of 
 day combined with the light of an oil street- 
 lamp dimly to reveal it. 
 
 Forbes followed the pointing finger obe- 
 diently, and stood still, after a brief exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 Paul Kooystra's silences generally betokened 
 a painting fit, and to-day he had worked all 
 day, eagerly, feverishly, and Forbes saw the 
 result; a bold, striking sketch of Jean, bare-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 83 
 
 headed, a thick lock of fair hair loosened and 
 streaming, the mare's eager, startled head close 
 to her shoulder, and in the eyes, both brute 
 and human, the same wild, fierce, seeking look. 
 
 " Hum ! " said Forbes ; "you've upset all my 
 ideas of her. It's a magnificent sketch but 
 but she's not like that, you know." 
 
 Kooystra laughed. 
 
 " No," he said ; "she didn't look like it yes- 
 terday. But it's in her I saw it." 
 
 " Saw it you humbugging, mystical German 
 you've dreamt yourself into a sort of rhap- 
 sody," said Forbes. " You've made a hand- 
 some, conventional woman look like a perfect 
 Valkyr." 
 
 " That's it that's it ! " cried' Kooystra, 
 eagerly, passing at once from his silent mood 
 to one of exceeding loquacity. "Just stop 
 and reflect, my friend, that I am no more of a 
 German than you born in America of Scotch 
 and English parents are an Irishman, though I 
 grant you all the salient characteristics of one. 
 Why, you wrong-headed, impulsive, susceptible, 
 belligerent, pseudo-Celt, I'm a Hollander, born 
 and bred. And furthermore, it is you, and not
 
 84 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I, who have an order for a picture. And yet, 
 I only have looked beneath the surface. I 
 alone understand this woman." 
 
 " Bah !" said Forbes; "you modern Flying 
 Dutchman ; you don't pretend that you saw all 
 that in the little while she was talking to me 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 " By no means ! " said Kooystra, with a grin. 
 " I only saw fine capabilities of tragic expres- 
 sion in a singularly striking face. I thought 
 what a Briinhilde she would make, and I drew 
 her as I fancied she could look. I'm glad you 
 saw what I meant. Come along and get some 
 dinner, I'm confoundedly hungry." 
 
 Forbes, in turn, was thoughtful for awhile as 
 they passed through the single -street toward 
 Sirons; but the atmosphere of the salle, the 
 light, and warmth, and congenial company, 
 quickly ended this. The two pretty girls made 
 place for him between them at the fire, where 
 the vin ordinaire was warming inside the fender. 
 Kooystra made a mock speech announcing his 
 good-fortune, and, as Forbes was a favorite, he 
 was congratulated, petted and made much of, 
 in a way to turn the steadiest head.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 85 
 
 " What a splendid subject ! " said one, for all 
 knew ' la belle Anglaise ' by sight. " She's a 
 stately woman, splendidly made." 
 
 "Isn't she? isn't she?" cried Forbes, ex- 
 cited, delighted, a little tete-monte, and no 
 wonder. " Really, a perfect woman, nobly 
 planned, physically speaking. She ought to 
 be painted as some Northern goddess, Wotan's 
 wife or an ^Esir." 
 
 " So, your test of beauty is pounds avoirdu- 
 pois? " said Kooystra, mockingly. " Like the 
 Italians, who say ' Com' e grassa com' e bella' 
 when they see a fat woman. You humbug, 
 that Scandinavian goddess is my idea." 
 
 " Kooystra's ideas are so much like Gratiano's 
 reasons," said Forbes ; " he has to claim what- 
 ever resembles them in other people's." 
 
 Kooystra flushed slightly. 
 
 " We'll excuse you, to-night," he said, rising 
 and going toward the piano, " because you're 
 naturally excited over your first order." 
 
 He thumped out a few dissonant chords, 
 then burst out in a big baritone voice, with the 
 chorus known as the Tannhaiiser March, " Hail ! 
 Happy Pair,"
 
 86 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 With much laughter the others took up the 
 strain, and thereafter, dinner proceeded musi- 
 cally, Verdi's flowing phrases adapting them- 
 selves to a demand for more wine, Marguerite 
 woefully imploring the salt, or Lohengrin offer- 
 ing the bread. 
 
 During dessert, Forbes was observed to have a 
 good deal to say to the elder of the two girl- 
 painters, and, as a result, Kooystra found him- 
 self called into consultation with Miss Ran- 
 dolph, detained beyond his wont, and finally 
 walking home with the two girls and their 
 chaperone, in animated discussion of plans for 
 an excursion to Larchon, projected long before. 
 
 What time Forbes, escaping unobserved, was 
 running toward Koostra's rooms, from which he 
 presently emerged, half hidden behind a clumsy 
 canvas, as stealthily as any object 30x50 would 
 allow, to his own studio ; trusting to Kooystra's 
 well-known laziness and unmethodical habits, 
 not to miss his picture before noon next day.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " To some kind of men, their graces serve them but as 
 enemies." 
 
 THE following morning, Jean, accompanied 
 as before by the sedate Pritchett, called 
 again at Forbes' rough-and-ready studio for 
 further consideration of what was feasible in 
 regard to the sittings fcfr her portrait. As she 
 had expected, the young artist's arrangements 
 were made for a winter in Paris, which was just 
 what she wanted, though she preferred to make 
 it appear a matter of indifference. 
 
 " Having no ties," she said, with a pensive 
 smile, " I make no plans. I can be as quiet 
 in Paris as elsewhere, and there are certain 
 aspects of life there which have much charm 
 for me." 
 
 Still, there was a hesitation in Forbes' 
 manner quite different from the frank cordiality 
 of the day before, and Jean, noticing it, feared 
 she had been too abrupt.
 
 88 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " Pray be frank with me, Mr. Forbes," she 
 said. " I am afraid my tone may have been 
 too business-like, in asking what, I assure you, 
 I consider a great favor, and if so, I beg you to 
 pardon me. Is there any thing" she hesitated. 
 " Would you like to reconsider the value you 
 have placed upon your work ? I thought it 
 far too modest." 
 
 Forbes flushed and stammered, 
 
 "No. Oh ! no! " he cried. " Do not imagine 
 any such thing! You must think me insa- 
 tiable ! To have the very sitter I should have 
 chosen from among a thousand come to me, 
 and ask to be painted at my own price ! What 
 more could I ask ? Only " 
 
 "Ah! "said Jean. "I knew there was an 
 1 only ' ; now tell it to me, candidly." 
 
 " I will," answered Forbes. " I want you to 
 look at this," and he led her to Kooystra's 
 sketch, which he had placed carefully in the 
 best light. 
 
 Jean looked, and stood silent. Her eyes dila- 
 ted, and her face unconsciously assumed the 
 expression of the sketch. A sudden sense 
 that she had something to conceal, came over
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 89 
 
 her, the first time she had known such a feeling, 
 and for a moment she was bewildered. 
 
 " Can any one have seen me that night in 
 the wood? "she thought anxiously; " or did I 
 look like that as I passed the door of the 
 salle ? " 
 
 Forbes, a little nervous himself, did not 
 notice her agitation, which she presently con- 
 trolled and concealed. 
 
 " This sketch," he began, hesitatingly, " is 
 by a friend of mine young Kooystra, whom 
 you perhaps saw the day I met you near 
 Chailly. You who know so well about art 
 you must appreciate it you must under- 
 stand that I that he in short he has so much 
 more talent is so much more worthy to paint 
 your portrait than I." 
 
 " Why," said Jean, much relieved, " this 
 is the very Quixotism of friendship, Mr. Forbes. 
 I admire it I assure you." She paused and 
 thought intently for a moment. " Now," she 
 resumed, "pray do not be offended with me 
 if I still insist upon your painting my portrait. 
 I mean no disparagement to your friend, for I 
 see his sketch is very fine finer, I am sure,"
 
 90 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 with a teasing smile, "than any thing you 
 can do." 
 
 They both laughed, and their embarrassment 
 vanished. 
 
 " Though I scarcely recognize myself in it," 
 Jean went on, " I admire it exceedingly, and 
 I wish, if he will allow me, to give him a com- 
 mission also. But you must forgive me if I 
 still hold you to our bargain and insist upon 
 being painted by a compatriot." 
 
 " A compatriot ! " said Forbes, surprised. " I 
 thought you were " 
 
 " English yes, most people do," answered 
 Jean. " My Mr. Grandison was an English- 
 man, but I am American." 
 
 Forbes could not but yield to a wish so 
 flattering, and his scruples were lessened by 
 the promptness with which Jean followed up 
 her proposition to give Kooystra a commis- 
 sion. 
 
 " I shall go to his studio at once," she said, 
 " if you will direct me." 
 
 " He is an odd sort of fellow," said Forbes, 
 hesitating as he remembered the many uncer- 
 tainties of Kooystra's disposition. " Perhaps
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 9 1 
 
 I might speak to him first, or had better go 
 with you." 
 
 " No ! " said Jean, with decision. " I prefer to 
 confront his eccentricity alone and without 
 warning. Trust me, Mr. Forbes I shall make 
 no more mistakes." 
 
 Jean's just confidence in her powers of per- 
 suasion carried her swiftly toward Kooystra's 
 lodgings. Pritchett was dismissed as she 
 passed her own door, and before Forbes could 
 have recovered from the perturbation caused by 
 her visit, Kooystra, who, with a gloomy brow, 
 sat contemplating a blank canvas,- was surprised 
 by her entrance : calm, gracious, yet distant. 
 
 " Mr. Forbes, who is about to paint my pic- 
 ture, gave me your address, Mr. Kooystra," 
 she began, conscious that he must first of all 
 understand that no defection from his friend 
 was hinted at. 
 
 Kooystra, on his part, welcomed her unde- 
 monstratively ; he was courteous, but reserved ; 
 he made no apologies for the few slight 
 sketches which he showed her ; and his eyes, 
 which were Chinese in shape and palest blue 
 in color, regarded her with a keen and consid-
 
 92 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ering scrutiny which would have been offen- 
 sive in any one but an artist, whose privilege 
 it is to stare. 
 
 Jean gave a well-measured amount of con- 
 sideration to the sketches, but it was evident 
 that they went for nothing in her decision ; 
 her purpose had been already formed. 
 
 " Mr. Forbes encourages me to hope, Mr. 
 Kooystra," she said, " that you will be able to 
 find time to paint something for me." 
 
 " Mr. Forbes is my very kind friend," said 
 Kooystra, gravely, but with much inward 
 mirth at the idea of his being pressed for time. 
 
 " Can, and will you, then, undertake some- 
 thing for me ? " went on Jean, in a matter-of- 
 course tone. " My portrait, for instance ? " 
 
 " I thought Forbes was to paint your por- 
 trait ? " said Kooystra, abruptly, and instantly 
 on the defensive. 
 
 " Indeed, he is," answered Jean. " We have 
 just laid our plans for the winter. But the 
 picture you would paint of me would be 
 totally different from his." 
 
 " It certainly would," said Kooystra, per- 
 mitting himself a smile, to which Jean was too
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 93 
 
 wise to respond. " I see he has been talking 
 to you of me. Forbes is a good fellow, but 
 rather headlong." 
 
 " Pray let me have the credit of the first 
 idea," said Jean, with a slight blush and a look 
 sufficiently pleading, but not too insistent. 
 " I had intended this before I spoke to Mr. 
 Forbes." 
 
 " I can not see why," persisted Kooystra. 
 
 " If I have a fancy to see myself in many dif- 
 ferent aspects, may I not gratify it ? " 
 
 Then, as Kooystra still looked obstinate: 
 
 " I am a rich woman, Mr. Kooystra," she 
 went on, with a sad smile and a wistful tone in 
 her voice which robbed the speech of any 
 suspicion of bad taste. "I have no interests, 
 and no ties ; and I am somewhat vain. May I 
 not have two pictures of myself, if I like and 
 it amuses me to sit for them." 
 
 The frank confession of vanity had nearly 
 carried the day with Kooystra, but his mood 
 was perverse. 
 
 " I don't dispute your right, madame," he 
 said. " I only criticise your choice. " I can 
 not make up my mind to enter into competi-
 
 94 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 tion with my friend. Inevitable jealousy 
 would arise as to your preference." 
 
 Jean saw hope in this approach to a pleas- 
 antry. She had persevered where many 
 women would have been rebuffed, and she 
 now stood silent, looking civilly persistent, 
 while Kooystra looked as civilly obstinate. 
 
 "This is not very flattering, Mr. Kooystra," 
 said Jean, at last. " Your sketch was far more 
 so." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Kooystra, " that, then, is where 
 the sketch went." 
 
 " I must appeal to Mr. Forbes to help me 
 persuade you," went on Jean, with petulant 
 disappointment. "Really, I have never en- 
 countered any one so immovable." 
 
 " Indeed," said Kooystra, his face relaxing 
 at last into a smile. " I am conscious of 
 appearing very rude. I must now try and 
 convince you that I do not wish to offend." 
 
 All that was repellent vanished, and was 
 replaced by a geniality and winning charm of 
 manner which caused his personal disadvan- 
 tages to be wholly overlooked. 
 
 Jean, unlike most of her sex, was wise
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 95 
 
 enough to drop the subject; she responded 
 quickly to the change. Their voices took the 
 tone of old friends talking of what most 
 charmed them ; their eyes were lit up with 
 animation and interest. Jean now passed a 
 delightful half-hour, at the end of which she 
 parted cordially from Kooystra, without hav- 
 ing advanced by one hair's-breadth toward her 
 purpose.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
 And flashes into false and true, 
 And mingles all, without a plan." 
 
 IN the course of the following week, how- 
 ever, something, or nothing, having influ- 
 enced the whimsical young fellow, Kooystra, 
 rather in spite of the persuasions which were 
 apt to fix him in his opposition, consented to 
 paint a picture of Jean on his own conditions. 
 Which meant, being interpreted, that he 
 should be allowed to choose his own time and 
 style, that no one was to criticise or advise, or 
 even to see the picture, which, when finished, 
 was to be absolutely his own property, to 
 exhibit or not to exhibit, to sell or retain, as 
 he chose. All these extraordinary stipulations 
 were insisted upon in the perverse, yet win- 
 ning, manner, which carried off such exactions- 
 as would have been scarcely permissible in a 
 prince of art.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 97 
 
 " Really, Kooystra," said Forbes, after the 
 twentieth discussion on the subject, " you 
 are incomprehensible." 
 
 " That's a damaging admission," said Kooys- 
 tra, with his eyes fixed upon the bowl of the 
 pipe he held in his mouth, and was trying to 
 light. "/ would never acknowledge that I 
 found any one incomprehensible." 
 
 " Well but " persisted Forbes, going over 
 his arguments for the hundredth time. " Here 
 is a handsome, attractive woman, asks you in 
 the most flattering manner " 
 
 " Come, Forbes," broke in Paul, " I've heard 
 all this dozens of times before. You and Mrs. 
 Grandison have gained your point." 
 
 " No we have not," interjected Forbes. 
 
 "Well, as much as you ever will gain. And 
 now, why can't you be satisfied ? " 
 
 " Because," said Forbes, pettishly. " I don't 
 think such lunatics as you ought to be at 
 large. I don't care how absurd a man's actions 
 are, if he can only give a good reason for them. 
 And that you won't do." 
 
 Kooystra laughed uproariously over this 
 astounding proposition, whereupon Forbes
 
 9 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 turned sulky and pretended to be absorbed in 
 a book ; and there was silence in heaven for 
 the space of ten minutes. 
 
 Then Kooystra spoke, in the tone of one 
 finishing some previous remark. 
 
 "There are some women, you know, in 
 whom one feels instant and absolute confi- 
 dence. Little Miss Wyndham, for instance. 
 I'd trust her with my life or my soul." 
 
 " She'd take a devilish deal better care of it 
 than you do," said Forbes, dryly. 
 
 " Well," continued Kooystra, without notic- 
 ing this irrelevant speech. " Mrs. Grandison is 
 not one of those women." 
 
 The delightful, lazy weeks at Barbizon wore 
 away. Jean returned to Paris about the I5th 
 of November, and established herself in a cozy 
 apartment at the Hotel Louis-le-Grand, quickly 
 gathering round her every feminine daintiness 
 of decoration, and beginning to lead a life of 
 rather ostentatious retirement, softened by 
 some musical and artistic pleasures. 
 
 The arrangements for her sittings to Forbes 
 were quickly made, and the sittings began 
 goon after his return to town, but Kooystra
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 99 
 
 was, as usual, rather impracticable. In the 
 first place, he didn't want her to go to his 
 studio at all ; he simply wanted to have the 
 freedom of her salon see her often and as he 
 pleased, be tame cat about the house see her 
 alone and among her friends. 
 
 " But, Mr. Kooystra," said Jean, laugliing 
 outright over these modest demands, " I have 
 no friends, and I can not begin to make a col- 
 lection of them by giving two wild young 
 artists the run of my salon." 
 
 "Well, then, would she be sure and let him 
 know whenever she went to the opera ? " Yes, 
 that Jean would do with pleasure. 
 
 Then Forbes, to whom the conventional 
 arrangement of Mrs. Grandison's driving to his 
 studio in her brougham, accompanied by her 
 respectable maid was perfectly acceptable, 
 made some modest suggestions. 
 
 He knew a young American lady, an art- 
 student in fact here the designing fellow had 
 the grace to blush and Kooystra grinned 
 maliciously. " A Miss Wyndham, a charming 
 girl, and if she might be permitted to make 
 Mrs. Grandison's acquaintance, then he and
 
 100 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 she and Kooystra might sometimes call on 
 Mrs. Grandison of an evening, and so Kooys- 
 tra might see Mrs. Grandison among her 
 friends. 
 
 " Ay," said Kooystra ; " now that's a prom- 
 ising and disinterested suggestion." 
 
 Forbes blushed : Jean assented rather eagerly, 
 and the plan was forthwith carried out. 
 
 Miss Wyndham proved to be the younger 
 and prettier of the two girls whom Jean had 
 seen at Barbizon ; she was fresh-natured and 
 enthusiastic, fell in love with Jean at once, as 
 girls are prone to do with charming older 
 women ; and thenceforward, the eccentric pro- 
 cess of " sitting " to Kooystra was carried out 
 somewhat on this wise : 
 
 Miss Wyndham, her merry chaperone and 
 the two artists, would arrive in the evening 
 at the pretty salon which Jean had made 
 pleasant by every device of shaded lamp and 
 soft hanging, picture-hung walls, and book- 
 strewn tables. Some of Kooystra's best 
 sketches were there, which, for a wonder, he 
 had permitted her to buy a piano, heaped 
 with partitions, and " Opere scelte," and a few
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 101 
 
 flowers, in shallow bowls. The great white dog 
 lay on the rug before a heaped-up wood fire 
 evidently not built after French principles, 
 and Jane herself, who in her ambitious dreams 
 had not overestimated her power to charm as 
 a hostess, rising, in her long black robes, to 
 welcome them. Kooystra, often moody and 
 variable in society where it was to his interest 
 to shine, was at his best in this little circle, 
 suggestive and facile in his talk, leading their 
 minds as he wished ; but when the discussion 
 had become general, and all were earnest, 
 eager, interested, he fell silent, watching Jean 
 with an intensity of scrutiny. Forbes, trans- 
 parent young fellow, whose heart was in his 
 eyes when he looked at Miss Wyndham 
 used to wonder what those strange looks might 
 mean, but it never occurred to him to specu- 
 late upon what might be hidden under the 
 serene and contented expression of Jean's 
 high-bred, intelligent face. Nothing in Kooys- 
 tra's choice of topics surprised him, for he was 
 accustomed to hear that young man discourse 
 as the spirit moved him upon all subjects from 
 Theosophy to Political Economy, with inter-
 
 102 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ludes of Speculative Theology, Spiritualism 
 and ^Esthetics ; but he might have noticed a 
 tendency toward the mysterious, the weird, 
 fantastic and horrible, an endeavor to rouse 
 feelings of supernatural terror or awe, or the 
 pleasurable counterfeits of these genuine emo- 
 tions which have taken their place in modern 
 society, and are the rather agreeable concomi- 
 tants of the tales of Hoffman, De Quincey and 
 Poe. 
 
 His own picture of Jean was progressing 
 satisfactorily, in the most commonplace man- 
 ner. She was an ideal sitter, patient, inter- 
 ested, lavish of time, and possessed of that 
 rarest gift, the result of absolute health and 
 nerves at leisure from themselves, the power 
 of immobility. He knew that she bestowed 
 some brief hours in Kooystra's studio also, 
 but asked no questions o'f either one. What 
 went on there amused and puzzled Jean her- 
 self, who also asked no questions. She went 
 in her every day attire, the severely simple 
 black dress, which hung so gracefully. Kooys- 
 tra was a charming host, receiving her with 
 cordiality, showing. her every courteous atten-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH 103 
 
 tion, talking in his pleasantest tones on every 
 attractive subject. 
 
 Occasionally he would ask her to place her 
 hand in this or that position, to turn her head 
 this way or that, and for a moment would gaze 
 with frowning intentness, then dismissing the 
 subject with a sort of grunt, would begin to 
 talk of art, to unveil with a frankness and 
 spontaneity unusual with him his ideals, re- 
 vealing the springs of his convictions, his ardor, 
 his dreams. 
 
 Jean's programme for the future included a 
 plan of universal fascination and sway over the 
 minds of the other sex, and this, in her opin- 
 ion, was to be best accomplished by being " all 
 things to all men." Gifted with tact and much 
 dramatic power, she would have found this 
 versatility easy, even had she not possessed 
 one of those natures, frequent among women, 
 which without a suspicion of pretense, fall so 
 readily into sympathy and accord with the 
 moods and ideas of those with whom they are 
 in contact, as to make them for the moment 
 practically their own. 
 
 Kooystra's most intimate associates jarred
 
 104 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 upon him at times, questioning him when he 
 felt most reserved, demanding plans and pur- 
 poses when he was most inclined to drift with 
 the stream of circumstances. Jean, who never 
 petted him nor purred over him as other 
 women did, who asked no questions, and 
 demanded no results, but who responded to 
 the mood of the moment, and was thoughtful 
 or merry as he seemed to will, soothed him 
 inexpressibly. 
 
 " Here," he thought to himself, " is one per- 
 son who understands me." Which Jean would 
 never have taken the trouble to do, being 
 entirely absorbed in the effect she herself was 
 producing ; but the belief had the usual result. 
 
 And at the end of two months, Jean, who 
 watched with intelligent interest every stroke 
 of Forbes' brush, absolutely did not know 
 whether Kooystra was painting a picture of 
 her, or not. 
 
 Meantime, a very pleasant intimacy grew up 
 between Jean and the young girl-student, 
 Sylvia Wyndham. 
 
 Sylvia was an American, aristocrat to the 
 finger-tips, comme il y en a pas mal in that dem-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 105 
 
 ocratic country. Her mother was sprung from 
 one of the French families, which in the last 
 years of the eighteenth century, leavened the 
 society of certain towns in New Jersey; her 
 father came of an English stock planted in 
 "the colonies" when these comprised but a 
 little strip along the Atlantic seaboard from 
 Old Plymouth to the Carolinas. 
 
 Sylvia's eager mind had fed itself upon all 
 that was best in books, but her artistic crav- 
 ings had been starved in the famine-stricken 
 precincts of a small inland town. Her long- 
 ings for artistic expression, she had satisfied as 
 best she might, passing through all the stages 
 of sdi-disant "Art-work," from faint pencil- 
 sketches on shiny board and " spatter-work," 
 to the pasting of glazed figures on the inside 
 of gold-fish globes and the adornment of drain- 
 pipes with "conventionalized " daubs in oil. 
 
 But something there was in Sylvia's nature, 
 a scorn of small pretense, a stern directness of 
 judgment, a recoil from all that was petty or 
 untrue, from which it followed, as the night 
 the day, that her ideals remained pure and 
 unperverted. Thus she triumphed over all
 
 io6 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 that was belittling in her surroundings, keeping 
 in her heart an altar ready, whereon she might, 
 without irreverence, kindle a sacred fire. 
 
 When, happily while Sylvia was still young, 
 by the death of a distant relative, a large for- 
 tune fell in to Mrs. Wyndham, her hopes and 
 dreams of study abroad were fulfilled. Mrs. 
 Wyndham had taken her at once to France, 
 but imperative business having recalled her, 
 she had been unwilling to deprive Sylvia of a 
 day's steeping in the artistic atmosphere, and 
 had left her, carefully chaperoned and com- 
 panioned, to continue her work at Barbizon 
 and in Paris. 
 
 Sylvia had been seized with an enthusiasm 
 of admiration for Jean, and Jean herself found 
 an altogether fresh pleasure in the society of 
 the very first one of her own sex whom she 
 had ever known well, and whose eager, ingenu- 
 ous, yet cultivated mind, made her companion- 
 able at every point.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Tis not your work, but Love's the Master Love ; a 
 more ideal artist he, than all." 
 
 IT is November. A keen north-east wind 
 hurries long drifts of gray cloud across a 
 gray sky ; the trees sigh, stretching forth stiff 
 arms and wavering fingers as if to stay the 
 flight of their last wrinkled leaves. At the 
 forest's edge stands a stately woman, bare- 
 headed, pale, in somber garb ; a white hound 
 fawns upon her her right hand holds the 
 reins, while her left is on the neck of a great 
 gray horse, whose startled head is close to hers, 
 whose streaming mane mingles with a loose 
 lock of her fair hair, and whose wild eyes 
 reflect her fierce, boding glance. 
 
 This is what the eager crowds, elbowing one 
 another in the long galleries of the Palais d' 
 Industrie, saw hanging before them in a dull 
 gold frame, and signed " Paulus Kooystra." 
 
 The general public, which is always attracted
 
 io8 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 by size, gazed and conjectured; uninstructed 
 by the catalogue they pronounced it " bien 
 beau mais un peu sombre," " une vivandiere," 
 " la Reine Atosse," or " Bradamante, d' Ariost," 
 according to their degrees of culture and 
 imagination. 
 
 The fortunate possessors of a catalogue in 
 which it was set down as a " dame en amazone " 
 were variously affected, but perhaps the general 
 opinion was voiced by a man in a blowse, who 
 said, " Dame ce n' est pas ma femme que je 
 ferai peindre comme a." 
 
 Certain Philistines, attracted to it for similar 
 reasons, thought it a fine, large picture, but not 
 bright-colored enough, and besides, what did it 
 mean? 
 
 The dilettanti admired, and spoke vaguely 
 of " feeling," "poetry," and " insight," and one 
 fortunate young person of that ilk, lately 
 steeped in Wagnerism and legendary lore, hit 
 upon an idea, and went about murmuring: 
 " C'est un saga tout un saga " which be- 
 came forthwith the party-word. 
 
 The artists were more precise and less 
 unanimous : talking learnedly of handling,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 109 
 
 technique and breadth but on the whole 
 approved. Some few men and women, artists 
 with souls above the technicalities and the 
 jealousies of their art, amateurs unbiased by 
 cliques and uninfluenced by picture-dealers, 
 recognized the true merit of Kooystra's picture, 
 and saw more than mere promise in its daring. 
 
 Forbes' portrait of Jean had been hung in 
 another room, and had made a strong impres- 
 sion. 
 
 This woman who was almost beautiful; whose 
 simple black gown revealed a throat and arms 
 which were superb ; who was neither putting on 
 a glove, nor holding a book, nor toying with a 
 flower but who sat in an old leather chair with 
 her exquisite hands lying idle in her lap like 
 a certain " Argia, goddess of Laziness " a 
 mythological personage invented by one of the 
 Kingsleys this picture appealed to every eye ; 
 to layman as to critic to the one by its inher- 
 ent charm ; to the other as a splendid achieve- 
 ment, almost a masterpiece. The same fortu- 
 nate young person who had dubbed Kooystra's 
 picture a " Saga," one day discovered a strange 
 resemblance in the faces of the " Dame en
 
 HO THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Amazone, and the "Portrait de Madame G ." 
 
 The news spread ; there was much comparison, 
 much running to and fro, and a sort of cult of 
 the two paintings became fashionable, which 
 entailed much talk about Madame G., the un- 
 known " veuve Anglaise " a state of things 
 which Jean had, perhaps, shrewdly foreseen. At 
 this moment, had Jean chosen to appear, even 
 without introductions, taking the tide at the 
 flood, her success would have been assured. 
 Every one talked of her. Kooystra kept him- 
 self as invisible as one of the "little people," 
 but Forbes was overwhelmed with questions. 
 He was most discreet, speaking guardedly of 
 Mme. G. in terms of the deepest respect, and 
 it was only on much persuasion from an old 
 and valued friend of his own, that he consented 
 to ask permission to present Colonel Yorke to 
 Jean. 
 
 " She is most reserved," he said, to that 
 gentleman. " Not at all the sort of person to 
 pick up acquaintances anywhere and every- 
 where." 
 
 " You flatter me and yourself," said his 
 friend with a laugh. " But I wish to meet
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. ill 
 
 ' Mme. G /not from idle curiosity, but from 
 
 a genuine interest with which her face inspires 
 me." 
 
 " I'll try my luck for you" repeated Forbes, 
 but when he called at the Hotel Louis-le. 
 Grand to fulfill his promise, Jean was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 " To say the Truth, 
 True and not true. " 
 
 WHATEVER impulse, whatever fitful 
 mood of infirm purpose, had prompted 
 Jean to leave Paris at the very moment when 
 the social success she craved seemed within her 
 grasp, at least it was no hesitancy, no lack of 
 ease in playing the part she had chosen. Her 
 first slight embarrassments had been those of 
 an actress not yet thoroughly conversant with 
 her role. But as, on the stage, with each repe- 
 tition new possibilities, new aspects of the 
 character are developed, until the impersona- 
 tion has become something like a well-fitting 
 glove, which, while receiving the impress of 
 every characteristic curve and hollow, imposes 
 its own fixed shape upon the hand within ; so 
 Jean, having now been " Mrs. Grandison " to all 
 about her for some ten months, had so 
 thoroughly fitted herself into that personage,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 113 
 
 that her very thoughts were but complacent 
 spectators of the finish of her assumption of 
 the part. 
 
 The vivid imagination which had enlivened 
 many a dreary hour of her colorless girlhood, 
 was combined in her with strong dramatic in- 
 stincts, which had hitherto found no expres- 
 sion, except in dreams. She had often wished 
 to be an actress in her girlish reveries she was 
 always posing to an imaginary audience in roles 
 of more or less grandeur, but all of equal fasci- 
 nation ; in her isolated and unnoticed youth 
 picturing an imaginary self such as she wished 
 to appear. And now, with her own delighted 
 consciousness and all the rest of the world as 
 spectators, she was playing a part which was 
 better than her dreams. 
 
 The question of right and wrong never oc- 
 curred to her. As a deception it differed in no- 
 wise to her mind, from the illusion effected by 
 an actress on her more limited public ; her con- 
 science had not taken cognizance of it as a fault, 
 so simply and naturally had it seemed to come 
 about, of so little consequence to any one but 
 herself did it all appear. The only step which
 
 H4 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 had cost her the least agitation had been that 
 first announcing herself by an unfamiliar name 
 at the hotel at Calais. Since then all had gone 
 on with the most wonderful smoothness ; she 
 found herself in what she considered and in 
 this Jean was not alone the most enviable 
 position in the world, that of a young, rich 
 widow. She had already succeeded in making 
 herself somewhat interesting to the public and 
 she became each day more and more inter- 
 ested in herself. 
 
 It had seemed at first as if this might be the 
 opportunity she looked for, the moment when 
 the doors of the magic circle calling itself 
 society were a-jar for her; but she had re- 
 flected that the introductions of a couple of 
 young artists could be of little service to her, 
 and something else had come into her mind at 
 the same time, as not being precisely as she 
 wished it. Continually dwelling on herself 
 and her assumed character, it had occurred to 
 her that a woman in her ostensible position 
 would be likely to have some, at least, of her 
 property in a more tangible and recognizable 
 form than the convenient and portable bonds
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 115 
 
 which up to this moment she had been carry- 
 ing about. They had served their turn ; and 
 she smiled to herself as she thought to what 
 an unexpected use they had been put, in thus 
 enabling her to make a change of name and 
 identity, as she had done, at a day's notice, 
 with no trouble about pecuniary matters. 
 
 Though Jean was capable of an immense 
 amount of shrewd and long-headed calculation, 
 she was yet swayed to an extraordinary extent 
 by her impulses, and upon this one she had 
 acted with her wonted quickness. A hasty 
 line to each of the three persons on whose 
 interest in her she counted or whose friend- 
 ship she valued, namely, Sylvia, Forbes and 
 Kooystra, a brief announcement to the invalu- 
 able Pritchett, about business calling her to 
 England ; a business interview with Madame la 
 proprietaire, and Jean was off. Her neat little 
 brougham was placed at Sylvia's orders, 
 Pritchett and Loki, the mare, were left to 
 luxurious idleness, and even Jean's inseparable 
 companion, the great white dog, was not per- 
 mitted to accompany her. 
 
 Thus modestly unattended, Jean betook
 
 Il6 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 herself to a pension in London, where she 
 had retained a room by telegraph, a sort of 
 " family boarding-house " of the best class, 
 much affected by Americans, which had been 
 recommended to her by a charming little lady 
 of that nationality whom she had met in the 
 train the previous autumn between Paris and 
 Amiens. 
 
 There were about thirty boarders, including 
 the inevitable snuffy and depressed widow, 
 and an aged spinster, whose appearance 
 placed her so far beyond the " allotted space " 
 that when she stated that she did not wish a 
 cap for a " young girl of nineteen, neither did 
 she wish a cap for an old woman of ninety," 
 the beholder could only conclude that she was 
 on the debatable ground between the latter 
 age and a hundred. There was all the variety 
 of the American traveling public, from the 
 eager and vivacious young girls declaiming 
 against the restraints of English civilization, 
 and equally interested in millinery and antiqui- 
 ties; the merry matron coming abroad to 
 "educate the children," leaving "papa" to 
 form a base of supplies at home ; and the
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 117 
 
 "old hands" taking a run for the summer on 
 a marvelously small sum ; to specimens of 
 that class who cause the profoundest wonder 
 as to why a discriminating Providence permit- 
 ted them to come at all. Middle-aged, illiter- 
 ate people, these last, not rich, spending pain- 
 ful savings in away which affords them a mini- 
 mum of pleasure ; dull of apprehension 
 absolutely unable to grasp the meaning of 
 what they see, yet plodding bravely through 
 their allotted months of traveling, swayed 
 here and there by any one's advice, voluble 
 only on the hideous discomfort of bedrooms 
 without running water ; and returning at last 
 to their native land with a mass of ill-digested 
 recollections of incomprehensible things, and 
 finding in the carved carrots and beets with 
 which the steamship steward decked his dishes 
 " the prettiest things we've seen yet." 
 
 In this enumeration, however, others must 
 not be forgotten : the really intelligent and 
 refined people of good position and moderate 
 means, the very people Jean, in her wisdom, 
 had counted upon meeting in such a place. 
 Her first appearance among them, in her miti-
 
 Il8 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 gated mourning, was hardly noticed, so quietly 
 was it effected ; but it was not long before the 
 charm exerted over both sexes by the reserve 
 and indifference of an attractive woman, made 
 itself felt. Jean made no advances but others 
 did ; she did not court notice, but others 
 courted her, and presently, had she chosen, she 
 could have been the " intimate friend," of half 
 the people in the house. 
 
 The first two weeks of her stay had been 
 chiefly occupied in patient study of advertise- 
 ments such as the following : 
 
 A Maisonette in St., containing seven bedrooms, 
 
 bath room, dining, and drawing-rooms, with good base- 
 ment. To be sold. Giddy & Turner. Pall Mall, L., W. 
 
 A Bijou Residence in South Belgravia. Dining and 
 drawing-rooms ; three bedrooms ; fitted bath and usual 
 offices. 
 
 Havant. To be sold. Gentleman's Residence. Three 
 reception, ten bed, and dressing-rooms, two stalls, good 
 garden and paddock of two acres. 
 
 Isle of Wight. A lovely place to be sold or let. 
 Furnished. High ; bracing ; matchless views ; shady 
 garden, meadows, fowl, and cow-houses ; lodge : three 
 sitting, and six bedrooms ; bath. Good bathing and 
 yachting.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 119 
 
 . Kent. Easy reach of town. Charming country resi- 
 dence, surrounded by pretty, park-like grounds. Lodge, 
 stabling. Farmery. Four spacious reception and billiard 
 rooms. Every convenience for a moderate establishment. 
 Rent only ,225, or the estate of 50 acres will be sold. 
 
 Hard upon this came excursions in cabs to 
 the regions described, made very quietly and 
 alone. The third week was taken up by nego- 
 tiations, as brief and quietly conducted as pos- 
 sible, for a certain small house in Hay Hill 
 Street, the convenient situation and outward 
 aspect of which had pleased her, and which she 
 purchased without much question as to price. 
 
 There had been a few short country trips 
 also, and the same week saw her the possessor 
 of a little place in Somerset, which she had 
 bought in the same business-like way : not 
 haggling over terms, nor yet showing herself so 
 indifferent as to the value she was to receive 
 for her money, as to excite remark. 
 
 When all this was done, and then only did 
 Jean become at all accessible, gradually allow- 
 ing the tentative civilities of her table-neigh- 
 bors to bear fruit in pleasant conversation, 
 lingering a little longer after meals, and at last
 
 120 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 at Miss Masters' entreaty, overcoming her 
 reluctance to spend her evenings in the drawing- 
 room. Then too, in a moment of expansion, 
 did Jean explain to Miss Masters, that, to her 
 distress, she found her little house in Hay Hill 
 in such disrepair, that on her tenant's account 
 she positively must do something to it. As 
 this would necessitate a much longer stay in 
 London than she had intended, she should 
 send for her carriage and her maid she was so 
 disappointed she had meant to have been 
 " aux eaux," by this time. All this being duly 
 repeated, as Jean expected, the assiduities of 
 the favored few were redoubled, and a tall, 
 handsome Irishman who did not look above 
 thirty, in spite of a certain puffiness of the lids 
 of his too liquid eyes, made many efforts to 
 add himself to the number. 
 
 But Major Limber had not found favor in 
 Jean's eyes ; little as she had been in the world 
 she was yet of it, in every fiber, and she felt 
 that no man of Major Limber's kind, of the 
 clubs, of the world, of experiences and of dash- 
 ing tastes, would deliberately choose the milk- 
 and-water existence of a boarding-house with-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 12 1 
 
 out ulterior motive. She promptly set him 
 down in the category of fortune-hunters, feeling 
 unreasonable bitterness toward him. Jean 
 herself not needing money, " meaning no 
 harm," by all her schemes and plans, acting, in 
 her own view, merely in a new kind of " Corn- 
 media dell' Arte," whose complications had the 
 charm of being as unexpected as life itself, was 
 wholly unconscious that he could have a right 
 to characterize her as an intrigante. Major 
 Octavius Limber, however, was far from wear- 
 ing the outward signs of his true character. 
 The only son of an Irish squire, from whom 
 he had inherited, besides the barren acres of 
 Knocktopher, only some expensive tastes, and 
 a useful unscrupulousness as to the means of 
 gratifying them he was handsome and distin- 
 guished, with good manners slightly tarnished 
 and the wit and aplomb of the true Irishman. 
 He was far too astute to offend by too open a 
 pursuit of wealth, veiling his approaches under 
 a true Irish susceptibility as regards pretty girls 
 and posing as the devoted admirer of all such 
 under Miss Masters' roof. 
 
 Jean had not been prejudiced by any fresh
 
 122 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 assiduities contingent upon the arrival of her 
 carriage. Major Limber's civilities had been 
 persistently offered to her good looks from 
 the first, and with a fine strategy, he rather 
 drew back as the indisputable evidences of her 
 wealth appeared ; but she was conscious that he 
 had never wavered for a moment in his pur- 
 pose. When he talked with a diplomatic frank- 
 ness of his " little place" at Knocktopher, and 
 of the "unpaid rents " which necessitated the 
 economy of living at a boarding-house, she was 
 conscious, though the words were addressed to 
 pretty Miss This, or charming Miss That, for 
 whose ears they were really intended. Clever 
 as he was, and well masked as were his efforts 
 to force his friendship upon her, Jean remained 
 coldly polite, re-enforcing her prejudice by the 
 strong conviction which had come to her, that 
 Major Limber and the man whose attentions on 
 board ship had so offended her ; Major Limber 
 and the officer whose bold glances at Dover 
 had decided her change of name, were one and 
 the same.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "The most enduring wounds we receive in life, are 
 those we suffer in our vanity." 
 
 THE pleasant task of "doing over" the lit- 
 tle house in Hay Hill, with all its delights 
 of deciding upon papers, and tints, and patterns 
 in stained glass, could not be stretched over 
 the whole summer, and Jean saw little to gain 
 by a further sojourn at Miss Masters. The 
 stream of new people passing through had de- 
 teriorated in quality and Major Limber stilj 
 remained. She had carefully avoided all con- 
 tact with her new tenants, leaving them to sup- 
 pose her alterations the long-promised " re- 
 pairs" of their former landlord, and when the 
 Randolphs, the only people whom she had ad- 
 mitted to any thing like intimacy, left for a 
 tour of the Cathedral towns, jshe felt herself 
 somewhat lonely. At first Jean had not been 
 altogether pleased to recognize in Miss Ran- 
 dolph the elder of the two girl-students at Bar-
 
 124 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 bizon, but both mother and daughter proving 
 companionable, and acquainted in good circles, 
 she had allowed herself to be won by their 
 adroit and delicate flatteries. Sadie Randolph's 
 enthusiasm for art had lasted just long enough 
 for the duration of a " spree," had served, as 
 she said, to "put in the time" in a manner 
 both cheap and unexceptionable, while Mrs. 
 Randolph was obliged to be elsewhere. But 
 no devotion to art as art had existed, to 
 tempt her to forego the pleasant lazy life of 
 American Colonies in Winter-cities for the 
 sake of earnest study with Sylvia. Neither 
 had her interest in the latter been sufficient for 
 the keeping-up of a correspondence ; she had 
 remained in ignorance of all but the first nego- 
 tiations for Jean's portrait, and though she had 
 half recognized in Jean the "belle veuve" of 
 the gray horse and white dog at Barbizon, her 
 shrewd far-seeing tact led her to drop the sub- 
 ject very quickly upon finding in Jean a disin- 
 clination to dwell upon it. Nor did she ever 
 betray the tacit confidence thus reposed in her, a 
 " carriage-acquaintance " of infinite good nature 
 and a tendency to lend any of her belongings,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 125 
 
 being too valuable a possession in London, to 
 be jeopardized by any indiscretion. 
 
 The pleasant companions of her daily drives 
 once gone, Jean saw no temptation to linger in 
 town through a dusty season in whose gayeties 
 she took no part. 
 
 " Pritchett," she said, one day, awaking out 
 of a reverie with one of her sudden decisions, a 
 plan springing full-fledged from her brain, like 
 Minerva from Jove's forehead : 
 
 " I have a little house in Somersetshire, 
 which the tenants have just given up. I have 
 a great mind to go there for the rest of the 
 summer, or until I am ready to go home. I 
 don't mean " she thought to herself " to be 
 always talking, like Major Limber, about a 
 place no one has ever seen." 
 
 "Indeed, madam," answered Pritchett, "I 
 do think some quiet country air would do you 
 good." 
 
 She was really attached to Jean, whose 
 unexacting disposition and quiet serenity of 
 speech and manner won all who were about 
 her or in her service. 
 
 " Yes, I think I will do it," went on Jean.
 
 126 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " Perhaps Miss Wyndham will come to me 
 for a month or two. Pritchett, you may 
 engage some people for me. A cook and two 
 maids will be enough, the house is very small. 
 No, three maids, as I don't wish to have a man 
 in the house. But I shall buy some more 
 horses, so Girth had better get two men for the 
 stable ; there is a gardener there, but I wish all 
 the rest to go down from London." 
 
 The plan thus concisely stated, was carried 
 out to the letter. The house, small, as Jean 
 had said, but a charming old small house : a 
 little straggling in plan, with dormers and 
 lattices thick with creepers and climbing roses, 
 and a velvet lawn, level with door and window- 
 sills, had been bought, fully furnished with 
 the simple comforts of country gentility. All 
 sorts of modern plenishings in the way of 
 American chairs, striped awnings, Indian mat- 
 tings for indifferent use as dado or door- 
 curtain, to spread under foot or hang over- 
 head ; hammocks, vases, china jugs, rush tables 
 and sofas, Chinese lanterns, dainty silverware 
 and " high-art " table-linen, afforded Jean 
 another week of delight in the purchasing, and
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 127 
 
 were sent down to complete the charm of the 
 tiny home'at Manycotes. 
 
 Sylvia was written to, and promised her 
 presence in September and October, and Mrs. 
 Randolph so shaped her tour as to be able to 
 accept Jean's invitation for two weeks in July, 
 promising herself much satisfaction in writing 
 home full accounts of her visit in an English 
 country house, though Jean apologized for the 
 dullness into which she was luring them. " No 
 one will have come home so early," she said. 
 " You will meet no one but the curate before 
 the twelfth of August." 
 
 Cunning Jean, who, in her several trips to 
 Manycotes had become acquainted with said 
 curate, just installed, and as new to the place as 
 herself, therefore not likely to know or reveal the 
 fact that she had never lived there before ; 
 she was also well-assured that in July her other 
 neighbors would really be away, and her lack 
 of acquaintances among them not noticed by 
 her guests. 
 
 There remained two or three weeks before 
 the coming of these last, in which to get the 
 house in daintiest order, and to put to good
 
 128 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 use the remarkable facility Jean possessed, of 
 informing herself as to every thifig round 
 about her, without asking a question ; picking 
 up information here and there as unostenta- 
 tiously as a white wasp captures flies, and 
 assimilating it in equal retirement. During 
 this time too, something occurred, of which 
 Jean learned only the salient facts, but which 
 turned to her advantage, while she remained 
 absolutely unconscious of its bearing upon her 
 affairs. A feud, at once fierce and irrecon- 
 cilable, was established between Pritchett and 
 the servants she had chosen for her mistress' 
 household, and whom she considered insuffi- 
 ciently mindful of that mistress' interests. 
 Girth, who had been courting Pritchett ever 
 since their co-service began, had a shrewd 
 eye to her savings, and remained devotedly 
 attached to her, while the two stable lads, 
 dazzled by the bright eyes of the maids and 
 the solid charms of Mrs. Cook joined their 
 faction. Between the two camps there was no 
 communication. Girth and Pritchett, after the 
 manner of lovers in other grades of life, were 
 all in all to each other, seeking no other
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 129 
 
 society, and hence the indirect benefit to Jean. 
 For the kitchen faction, naturally inquiring, 
 and with a perfectly laudable curiosity, soon 
 learned, from the country gossip, that their 
 mistress had acquired the property not six 
 weeks before, by purchase, instead of holding 
 it, as Pritchett had assumed, under her hus- 
 band's will. And this fact, which it was evi- 
 dently to Jean's interest that her permanent 
 servants should not know, remained uncommu- 
 nicated, through Girth and Pritchett holding 
 themselves severely aloof from kitchen gossip. 
 The quiet we^ks at Manycotes afforded little 
 incident, and no new materials for the plot 
 of Jean's comedy of contemporary life. The 
 mise-en- scene was perfect, the performers lady- 
 like and graceful and nothing happened ; a 
 state of affairs out of which not only some 
 contemporary playwrights, but a good many 
 favorite novelists, would be enabled to evolve a 
 vast deal of very pretty writing. 
 
 The Randolphs arrived. Jean herself met 
 them at the station, ready to take pretty 
 Sadie into her dainty phaeton, while honoring 
 Mrs. Randolph with sole possession of the
 
 13 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 victoria. " It is a modest little establishment," 
 wrote Jean, " and affords no 'coach of state,' 
 so I shall meet you myself." 
 
 And Jean's disgust may be imagined when 
 she saw, descending from the railway carriage 
 and offering a courteous arm to Mrs. Randolph, 
 Major Limber himself. 
 
 This bold move on the major's part was 
 due partly to a wish to convince himself of 
 the reality of Jean's proprietary charms, and 
 the consequent advisability of continuing the 
 chase, partly to the Irish audacity and good 
 self-opinion which led him to* believe she 
 really could not resist him when she found him 
 in thorough earnest. From this latter dream, 
 he was destined to a rude awakening. 
 
 Jean's surprise at seeing him was not allowed 
 to appear; no irritation showed itself in her 
 face or in the placidity of her manner. It was 
 Mrs. Randolph who nervously apologized for 
 his presence, hopelessly bungling a speech over 
 which she had been brooding for hours in 
 the train, while Sadie was laughing over the 
 major's dull, witty guide-book dissertations ; 
 and managing to convey the idea that she had
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 131 
 
 helplessly begged him to take care of them, 
 instead of the veiled disclaimer of responsi- 
 bility which she had intended ; and that she was 
 quite too deeply indebted to him for words. 
 
 " Indeed, Mrs. Randolph," said the hand- 
 some major, secretly delighted at having his 
 purpose thus masked, "you are quite too good 
 to me. I've some people at Bath, and running 
 down to see them, could do no less than es- 
 cort these fair strangers to their journey's end, 
 when it was so little out of my way." 
 
 He turned a most fascinating smile upon 
 Jean, shrewdly calculating on her knowing how 
 very far he had come out of his way to Bath, 
 for her sake ; but he had not calculated on a 
 readiness and audacity equal to his own. 
 Jean met the smile with placid blankness, and 
 said, in suave and unmoved tones: 
 
 " How very kind of Major Limber ! And 
 now, Major Limber, if you will get into the 
 carriage with Mrs. Randolph, I shall be happy 
 to take you home to lunch with us, and shall 
 then take pleasure in sending you to meet the 
 up express at five, by which I know you can 
 reach Bath in time for dinner."
 
 132 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 And thus, with bitterness and gnashing of 
 teeth, as well as with an uncomfortable and 
 profitless call upon his purse for of course he 
 hadn't a soul at Bath ended Major Limber's 
 scheme of a visit at Manycotes.
 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " There is, even for the most confirmed hypochondriac, 
 a magic in the word Rome ! Artists, poets, sovereigns, 
 statesmen and saints, ' young men and maidens,' all 
 have found, or can find, their happiness there." 
 
 THIS story, not being a novel of the guide- 
 book or descriptive order, though it has 
 already wandered to many places on the sur- 
 face of this good old globe, and is destined to 
 wander yet a little more, is not the place to 
 enlarge upon the above text, except in apply- 
 ing it in certain particular cases. Moreover, as 
 it is peculiarly a text not to be " understanded 
 of the vulgar," (read those who have not been 
 to Rome), it would be much writing to lit- 
 tle result ; while, after all, the conclusion of 
 the whole matter may be summed up in 
 the words, true though few, of the proverb 
 which says " Chi Roma non vede, Roma non 
 crede." Drawn, then, by motives as various 
 as their characters, the middle of December
 
 134 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 found in Rome not only Forbes and Kooys- 
 tra, but Sylvia Wyndham and her mother, 
 Jean and Major Limber. With the two 
 young men it was a long-cherished plan, de- 
 pendent upon the state of the exchequer, 
 and now to be carried out on the strictest 
 principles of economy ; so, instead of gravi- 
 tating to the Via Margutta or Gregoriana, 
 they had found quarters at an imperceptible 
 price, in a queer nook near the Tiber. To 
 Sylvia it was the fulfillment of a dream. To 
 winter in Rome with her darling mother, in 
 an artistic atmosphere, the companion of 
 artists, and with some modest claim more 
 modest than necessary to be called an artist 
 herself Sylvia felt herself blessed indeed. 
 
 To Major Limber, Rome, like most other 
 places, was a hunting-ground to which he 
 returned each year, after the fashion of all 
 sportsmen, with new hopes effacing the mem- 
 ory of old failure. 
 
 As for Jean, who on a sudden found herself 
 free, rich, popular, and possessed of that new 
 treasure a friend she was in a curiously con- 
 tented state. Whatever ambitious plans were
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 135 
 
 in her mind, whatever purpose of a return to 
 her own country with the prestige of foreign 
 social success, she was satisfied for the moment 
 to leave them looming vaguely on the horizon 
 of her present, leading a dozy, dreamy sort of 
 existence, in which she was nearer happiness 
 than she had ever been. The two months 
 Sylvia had spent with her at Manycotes had 
 really been the happiest days she had ever 
 known. For the first time in her life she had 
 been intimately associated with a cultivated 
 woman of intellectual powers as good as her 
 own ; who, with her, could discuss, criticise, 
 appreciate and enjoy on equal terms. Her 
 eight years of seniority were felt only as an 
 advantage, adding a sort of deference and 
 trust to Sylvia's affection. No one can be 
 insensible to the flattery of being looked up 
 to ; and for Jean, to whom admiration was alto- 
 gether new, it was the sweetest, most intoxi- 
 cating incense. 
 
 Little, then, was needed, besides the pros- 
 pect of Sylvia's presence, to tempt her to 
 Rome ; she loved the place ; even in those old 
 days of slavery she had felt its charm, and
 
 136 THE WHOL TRUTH. 
 
 she fancied she should like its foreign soci- 
 ety, entrance into which, in her new position 
 should not be difficult. . So Sylvia, lately 
 arrived at the Hotel dell* Universe in the Via 
 Porta Pinciana, received a line from Jean 
 which she handed to her mother with a look 
 of delight : 
 
 " I have written for rooms at your hotel," 
 wrote Jean, "though I fancy I shall by and by 
 prefer a little apartment ; but I wish to be 
 near you for some weeks at least. Manycotes 
 was too lonely without you, and I was obliged 
 to fly to Paris much sooner than the exigen- 
 cies of my wardrobe really compelled. I am 
 bringing Loki with me, for I count upon long 
 rides on the Campagna with you. And I also 
 bring two carriages, but no horses, for I mean 
 to hire at first, and afterward to try and buy a 
 pair of the little black Roman horses which I 
 remember so well. Dear Bor comes of course, 
 and Pritchett and Girth, whom you already 
 know, so we shall be quite a Manycotes colony 
 in Rome. I look forward with much pleasure 
 to meeting your mother. You know it is a 
 well known fact that each generation deterior- 
 ates a little, from mother to daughter so if 
 you are so charming, what must Madame la
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 137 
 
 Mere be ? Pray remember me to Mr. Forbes 
 and Mr. Kooystra, if you see them. I doubt 
 not we shall renew with much zest our discus- 
 sions upon ' fate, free-will and foreknowl- 
 edge,' and ' Shakespeare and the musical 
 glasses.' I am so eager to follow my letter I 
 can not spare the time to make it longer. 
 Present my compliments and regards to Mrs. 
 Wyndham, and believe me ever your attached 
 friend, JEAN ST. GEORGE GRANDISON." 
 
 "Isn't it a charming letter? doesn't she 
 write charmingly?" cried enthusiastic Sylvia. 
 
 "Ostentatious? a little isn't it?" asked 
 Mrs. Wyndham, handing it back to her daugh- 
 ter. " So much about the horses and serv- 
 ants and all that." 
 
 " Oh ! mother ! if you knew her, you would 
 never think of such a thing ; it is only that 
 she knows I am interested in every one and 
 every thing at Manycotes. I knew all the 
 horses by their names. If you could but see 
 it ! It is the simplest house but so perfect. 
 No man-servant even, only maids and every 
 thing so daintily simple. She is so used to 
 having those things all her life, she never thinks 
 of parading them, but it is natural for her to
 
 138 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 have them. She is so devoted to Loki and 
 Bor, and I'm sure I love Bor as if he were my 
 own brother ! " 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham laughed. 
 
 " Well, my little daughter," she said, " I have 
 great confidence in your discretion." 
 
 And so Jean, arriving, was received with a 
 warm welcome not only by Sylvia, but by Mrs. 
 Wyndham, who felt her confidence in her daugh- 
 ter's judgment justified, at sight of the refined, 
 stately woman, with a winning sadness in her 
 handsome face. The first weeks of her stay, 
 however, were perhaps not precisely what she 
 could have wished ; she was glad to be with 
 Sylvia, she was glad to be at Rome, but some- 
 thing still was lacking to her absolute content. 
 With an appearance which grew more attractive 
 with every day's increasing belief in herself a 
 great help to good looks when it does .not 
 betray itself in a fatuous consciousness; with 
 wealth and a name which seemed to entitle her 
 to a place and position in the only world she 
 cared for, Jean did not find herself lancte as 
 quickly as she had hoped. 
 
 Sylvia had many friends in Rome, and was
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 139 
 
 much liked ; too popular indeed, for the pros- 
 perity of her studies. Jean found the girl less 
 engrossed with her than ever before, and 
 though she and her mother were kind and cor- 
 dial, Mrs. Wyndham's liking growing warmer 
 every day, such passing introductions as they 
 were able to give her led to nothing more. 
 The little brougham or the victoria with the 
 quickly purchased Roman horses were as much 
 Sylvia's as hers for Jean was generous with 
 those she loved, though too wise to court pop- 
 ularity by extending these favors to the 
 casual acquaintances of the table d'hote. 
 But in spite of Sylvia's undiminished affection, 
 Jean was much alone, a good deal discouraged, 
 and beginning to think she had perhaps better 
 pose as a would-be convert, and by throwing her- 
 self into the arms of the clerical party gain en- 
 trance into a certain section of Roman society. 
 It was one of the glorious, golden-sunny days 
 not absolutely characteristic of a Roman winter 
 for the enthusiastic traveler, recalling past 
 joys, is too apt to forget that there, as else- 
 where, " some rain must fall, some days must 
 be dark and dreary ; " it was, however, one of
 
 140 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 those days, incomparable when they do come, 
 and Sylvia, having " stolen an afternoon," as 
 she declared, from her other engagements, was 
 riding with Jean across the grassy stretch of the 
 Campagna. Jean's groom, dismounted from his 
 clever little English bay in Sylvia's favor, 
 pounded after them on one of the Roman 
 horses with ill-concealed disgust ; but the gray 
 and bay mares were as contented as their 
 riders, pacing soberly side by side with much 
 interchange of nose-touchings and equine con- 
 fidences, while Jean and Sylvia chatted idly and 
 happily above their heads. 
 
 " How idle I have been ! " Sylvia was saying, 
 in a voice by no means repentant. " I am such 
 a cheat too, after writing mamma so much 
 about the 'atmosphere of art,' and after all, 
 it turns out to be an atmosphere of music and 
 dancing. I am more frivolous than I was at 
 eighteen." 
 
 " Yes," said Jean, with a smile, " I hoped a 
 great deal from some of the sketches you made 
 at Manycotes. You know I can not go to 
 America without something of yours to keep 
 you in my mind."
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 141 
 
 The glance of trustful affection they ex- 
 changed told how little this was needed. 
 
 " I am too happy to be industrious, I be- 
 lieve," with a little laugh of irrepressible de- 
 light. " To be in Rome -with you, and dear 
 mamma it seems too good to be true, and it 
 demoralizes me." 
 
 "You think then," said Jean, " that it is true, 
 as we were reading one day at Manycotes 
 
 " ' The heart must bleed before it feels, 
 The pool be troubled before it heals.' 
 
 Do you really think no enduring achievement 
 possible as the outcome of an untroubled, 
 happy life ? " 
 
 " That is M. Kooystra's belief, not mine " 
 a sudden thoughtfulness shadowing her bright 
 face. " He is very odd, I think. He is so 
 young and seems so gay, and yet he has done 
 so wonderfully much in his art he has really 
 one of the greatest talents I have ever encoun- 
 tered. I am always sorry to hear him speak so 
 bitterly." 
 
 " Perhaps it is only true of some," said Jean, 
 rather sadly. " But I do not like to think so. 
 My own life has not been happy, and I have
 
 142 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 achieved nothing ; trouble has only imbittered 
 me and deadened every faculty. I am sure I 
 might have been a good woman if I had had a 
 happy youth like yours." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Grandison ! " cried Sylvia fondly, 
 stretching out her hand to her ; " I don't see how 
 you could have been better! I am sure I could 
 not have loved you so much if you had been. 
 You would have been priggish and goody- 
 goody, and all sorts of horrid things ! " 
 
 " At all events," said Jean, returning her 
 clasp with a tender smile, " I mean to believe 
 that for you it will be different. That you may 
 achieve great things, and yet be happy, too. 
 That the fair goddess, Fortune, may fall deep in 
 love with thee, as Forbes said to you on your 
 birthday. Sylvia, if unanimity of good wishes 
 will serve, you should prosper." 
 
 Sylvia blushed a little, turning away her head, 
 and answered : 
 
 "Oh! I mean to be diligent. I must not 
 disappoint so many who love me. To-night is 
 the ball and after the ball no more frivolity ! 
 I must work. But to-day " turning her glow- 
 ing face to Jean " I feel so overwhelmingly
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 143 
 
 happy I can't tell what it means. I am sure 
 something good is going to happen to me. Let 
 us gallop." 
 
 Jean laughed and shook her rein ; the horses, 
 too long restrained, sprang forward, rushing 
 eagerly across the grassy slopes. The shep- 
 herds in their goat-skin garments with their 
 great, gaunt, wolf-like dogs, looked up from 
 among their startled sheep and muttered 
 " Pazze Inglese," as the splendid horses dashed 
 past, and Dance, the groom, inly echoed the 
 impolite phrase, as his awkward brute came on 
 his knees across a small ditch which the others 
 scarcely noticed in their stride. 
 
 They had come out by the Porta Pia and had 
 ridden far along the Via Nomentana, but re- 
 membering the ball to which. Sylvia was going, 
 they turned homeward at about the hour when 
 the Roman world was beginning to drive out in 
 wheeled vehicles of various degrees of splen- 
 dor. 
 
 Riding on the grass by the side of the road, 
 they were now high above it, now level with it, 
 and Sylvia was recognized and greeted from 
 many carriages whose occupants bestowed
 
 144 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 upon Jean, at her best in hat and habit, curious 
 and admiring glances. 
 
 The hills were growing purple instead of 
 blue, and they presently urged their horses to 
 a sharp trot, that twilight might not overtake 
 them on the Campagna. The tide of vehicles 
 was turning, too, and they wished to reach the 
 gate before them. 
 
 Some one else came riding toward them 
 from the city, indifferent, as it seemed, to 
 gathering darkness, to miasma of to other 
 dangers ; some one, who, meeting and passing 
 them at a hand-gallop and without recognition, 
 nevertheless caused Sylvia to rein in her horse, 
 her cheeks flushing and her voice thrilling as 
 she cried : 
 
 " Oh ! Was not that ? no, it can't be ; he 
 is not here," while she looked eagerly after 
 the retreating rider. 
 
 Jean, surprised, had halted too, and had a 
 fleeting vision of a powerful horse flinging out 
 his iron-shod heels in vigorous strides, and of 
 a fine and stately figure, sitting easily and 
 well. But they now put their horses in mo- 
 tion again, Sylvia vouchsafing no explana-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 145 
 
 tion beyond the unsatisfactory remark: "I 
 fancied it was an old friend of mamma's and 
 mine but I must be mistaken," while her 
 heart was throbbing fast with hopeful antici- 
 pation. 
 
 Jean's brougham met them at the Porta 
 Pia, where they dismounted and drove rapidly 
 homeward in silence, Jean no doubt a little 
 curious, and Sylvia in a happy dream. Mrs. 
 Wyndham lay on a sofa when they entered, 
 and Sylvia's bright face fell as she saw how 
 pale and suffering she looked. 
 
 "Mother!" she cried, with a sudden, un- 
 reasoning dread, " are you not well ? What is 
 it? Not the fever?" 
 
 "Nothing, my child, but one of my old 
 attacks," said Mrs. Wyndham, speaking with 
 difficulty. " More painful than dangerous, 
 only I can not go out, and I am so sorry to 
 deprive you of your ball to-night. Is there 
 no one with whom you could go? The Went- 
 worths, or " 
 
 " Oh, mother ! I can't leave you," cried 
 Sylvia, adding, with a sudden remembrance of 
 some strong reason she had for wishing to go,
 
 146 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " At least, I would like to go so much, but not 
 if you are ill." 
 
 " My sweet child," said Mrs. Wyndham, 
 drawing the bright face down to kiss it fondly. 
 " You must go by all means. I never saw you 
 look so pretty, Sylvia. I wish you to go. 
 Think of some one." 
 
 " So that the public may be convinced that 
 your goose is really a swan ; eh, mamma, 
 dear?" laughed Sylvia, blushing over the 
 motherly compliment. " The Wentworths 
 are four already," she went on, deliberat- 
 ing. " But, mamma, as it is a public ball, a 
 charity ball, perhaps Mrs. Grandison would 
 take your ticket and go with me, if you do not 
 mind." 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham thought rapidly and earnestly 
 for a moment. To trust her child to Jean on 
 such an occasion was to indorse most strongly 
 a woman who was in reality an absolute 
 stranger to her, but in addition to her own 
 increasing liking for Jean, was her confidence 
 in Sylvia's instincts, and the certainty she felt 
 that her daughter's friendship for Jean would 
 not have survived the test of the long visit to
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 147 
 
 Manycotes had Mrs. Grandison proved in the 
 least degree unworthy of it. 
 
 "Yes," she said, after a short pause, for this 
 considering had been rapidly done. " Go and 
 ask Mrs. Grandison. Say I shall be much 
 indebted if she will take you." 
 
 Can it be doubted that Jean received this 
 message with pride and pleasure? "It has 
 come ! " she thought. " I am sought, and 
 valued the way to attain is open to me. I 
 shall no longer be ignored and of no import- 
 ance." 
 
 But outwardly she was rather indifferent, 
 parrying Sylvia's eager entreaties with an 
 amused smile. 
 
 " My dear little girl," she said, " I would 
 like to be of service to you, but I have been so 
 long out of the way of these things." This 
 statement, at least, was strictly true. 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Grandison ! " cried Sylvia. " Do 
 not, pray do not disappoint me! I have set 
 my heart on going to this ball with the hand- 
 somest woman in Rome." * 
 
 " Little goose ! " said Jean, coloring with 
 pleasure, while Sylvia interjected ruefully,
 
 148 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 11 There ! I told mamma her swan was a 
 goose." 
 
 "Don't think to win me by flattery," went 
 on Jean, pretending to be perverse and say 
 nay, after the fashion of Juliet. " However, I 
 will not be so cruel after all my protestations, 
 as to refuse the first thing you have ever asked 
 me. I suppose," she added, meditatively, 
 " that the gown in which Forbes painted me 
 would do." 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Grandison ! you are always per- 
 fectly dressed. Then I may say to mamma 
 that you will go ? She will be so pleased." 
 
 And, after a caress like a butterfly's touch, 
 Sylvia danced away, radiant, little thinking 
 that she left the outwardly calm Jean in an 
 almost equal flutter of agitated anticipation of 
 what was actually her first ball.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " False face must hide what the false heart doth know." 
 
 NOW, as it is only in novels, and those of a 
 somewhat antiquated pattern, that the 
 lovely but unknown heroine, appearing unher- 
 alded in a ball-room, finds herself at once the 
 " cynosure of all eyes," besieged for dances, 
 mobbed by admirers and exalted in a single' 
 evening to the place of belle of the season it 
 may readily be believed that all of Jean's 
 somewhat sanguine anticipations were not, on 
 this occasion, realized. This, her first ball, 
 however, did play a sufficiently important part 
 in her life, and the honorable secrecy to be 
 observed toward the reader who does not care 
 to have the pages of his book labeled for him, 
 will molt no feather, if the leading events of 
 the night are here set down. 
 
 That Jean would look well was a foregone 
 conclusion. Excitement was life to her, and 
 she knew very well that the " gown in which
 
 150 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Forbes had painted her " was the most becom- 
 ing she could put on. Sylvia's perverse pretti- 
 ness, however, had deserted her ; some anxiety, 
 openly expressed, for her mother's health 
 some secret misgiving lest, after all, that pass- 
 ing glimpse should have deceived her and all 
 she hoped of the ball should not be fulfilled, 
 robbed her cheek of its bloom, and in spite of 
 a charming white gown en style Watteau, 
 Sylvia did not look her best. 
 
 Ian Forbes, who was far beyond caring 
 whether Sylvia looked well or ill, seeing that, 
 under all circumstances, she was to him the 
 sweetest creature the sun shone on, was eagerly 
 watching for her, and his surprise and pleasure 
 were great at seeing Jean for whom he had a 
 genuine affection with her. Kooystra, who 
 was considered so " odd " that nothing he 
 chose to do excited remark, devoted himself 
 to Jean in so marked a manner as almost 
 to make up for the absence of those eager 
 suitors and awed admirers whom Jean, in 
 her visions, had seen bowing before her. His 
 constant presence gave her, at least, a pleasant 
 sense of being cared for, and his comment, wise
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 151 
 
 and witty, his chronique scandaleuse, made up 
 the best part of what was almost a lonely 
 evening. A few fashionable women inquired 
 who the woman with the magnificent riviere 
 might be, for Jean's diamonds not having had 
 the ill-luck to be worn with crape, had emerged 
 from their seclusion, like their owner from 
 hers, with enhanced brilliancy. One or two of 
 Forbes' friends, more observant than others, 
 presently made the discovery that the stately 
 woman in black with whom he was talking 
 was the original of his " Portrait de Mme. G.," 
 and an animated discussion of this attracted 
 the attention of a lady and gentleman, who, 
 standing in a window recess near the group, 
 had abandoned their conversational attempts 
 either for want of fuel or from the ease of inti- 
 macy. That the latter was the case was evi- 
 dent from the glance they exchanged as the 
 bit of gossipy conjecture reached their ears, 
 and the lady said rather eagerly : 
 
 " Oh ! I was so very pleased with that pic- 
 ture ! I should like greatly to see the origi- 
 nal." 
 
 Her companion, a tall man, whose face had
 
 I5 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 lit up with quite unusual animation, answered 
 with equal interest : 
 
 " Mrs. Grandison ! Yes, I am almost sure I 
 should recognize her. Shall we cross the 
 floor, duchess ? I think I can point her out 
 to you." 
 
 The duchess, who was a small, pale, dowdy 
 woman, with a singularly pleasant and intel- 
 lectual face, took his offered arm, echoing as 
 they moved away : 
 
 " Grandison ! do you say ? Ah ! then I 
 believe I take some little interest in her, more 
 than mere curiosity. Hermione's maid lives 
 with her, and she also bought her horse, Loki." 
 
 The duchess rarely mentioned her dead 
 daughter, but this was an old and dear friend. 
 
 " I wonder what Grandison it is ? " he said, 
 musingly. " Do you happen to know ? " 
 
 " Let me see," said the duchess. " I think 
 I remember Saint something yes, her card 
 was Mrs. E. St. George Grandison." 
 
 "Then," said her companion, "I also am 
 directly interested, for I believe I knew her 
 husband." 
 
 Somewhat later in the evening, Jean,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 153 
 
 amused, contented, enjoying herself in spite 
 of not having made the sensation she had 
 dreamed of with Kooystra beside her doing 
 his best to interest her saw Sylvia approach- 
 ing, with Ian Forbes beside her, and leaning 
 upon the arm of another beau cavalier. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Grandison," said Sylvia, stop- 
 ping before her. " Mr. Forbes and I are quar- 
 reling for the privilege of presenting to you 
 our old friend, Colonel Yorke, and it is only by 
 an appeal to the place aux dames principle that 
 I have been able to secure my right." 
 
 " And while they fall out," said Col. Yorke, 
 bowing low, " I reap the advantage." 
 
 " Like a neutral nation in time of war," said 
 Jean, with a smile. 
 
 " What a bad omen for my peace of 
 mind," answered Colonel Yorke. "Are no 
 more auspicious comparisons to be found for 
 the meeting of friendly powers ?" 
 
 " How tiresome similes are ! " said Sylvia, half 
 pettishly. " Pray leave off fencing, before a 
 battle begins in earnest, and be friends at once 
 for my sake." 
 
 " Very well," said Jean, extending her hand,
 
 154 THE WHOLE TRUTH, 
 
 " since you leave us the option of being ene- 
 mies for our own sakes." 
 
 " As for me," said Kooystra, suddenly, " I 
 absolutely decline to play casus belli any 
 longer." 
 
 " Dear me," said Sylvia, " no one was think- 
 ing of you." 
 
 " That's precisely it," retorted Kooystra. 
 " I object to being forgotten, as the original 
 cause of a war always is." 
 
 There was a general laugh, and the young 
 people moved away, leaving Colonel Yorke at 
 Jean's side, where he contentedly remained 
 until some suspicion of the time of night 
 roused her chaperonic instincts. Kooystra, 
 hovering in Jean's vicinity with a curious, 
 uneasy persistency, undertook to search for 
 Sylvia, but it was quite half-an-hour before 
 that elusive young lady appeared, leaning on 
 the arm of a tall man who made Jean a pro- 
 found and empresse bow. 
 
 It was Major Limber. 
 
 Jean, no longer in her own house, felt at 
 liberty to behave toward him as she felt, and 
 replied by a scarcely perceptible inclination of
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH, 155 
 
 the head, and Sylvia, to whom he had repre- 
 sented his previous acquaintance with her 
 chaperone in the bright colors of a rather san- 
 guine memory, felt a shock of surprise. Major 
 Limber himself, furious, felt again all the in- 
 tense mortification of the day at Manycotes : 
 the luncheon barely accorded to him at the 
 dictate of hospitality, the promptness with 
 which the carriage came round, that he should 
 by no chance miss the train, the evident satis- 
 faction with which his departure had been 
 accelerated. In his role of fortune-hunter, not 
 so very lately adopted, Major Limber had met 
 with many rebuffs ; he was not so very thin- 
 skinned ; but the scarcely veiled contempt of 
 Jean's manner galled him inexpressibly. He 
 had quickly given up his designs upon her, but 
 to find her in Rome, ready and quite able to 
 combat his latest schemes, was too infuriating. 
 " I am so glad," said Sylvia, slipping her 
 hand affectionately into Jean's as they drove 
 rapidly homeward through the narrow, echoing 
 streets, " that you like Colonel Yorke ! "
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth." 
 
 THE next morning the excellent Pritchett 
 received through a former fellow-servant, 
 a request to wait upon the Duchess of Saints- 
 bury, and having obtained Jean's permission, 
 presented herself to that lady, whose apart- 
 ments were in the same hotel, at the appointed 
 hour. The duchess, a quiet, self-contained 
 woman, showed little of the emotion she 
 chokingly felt in seeing one so intimately 
 associated with her dead daughter. 
 
 " I hope you like your place, Pritchett," she 
 said, after some brief inquiries as to health. 
 
 "Thank your grace," said Pritchett, "I am 
 most comfortable." 
 
 "You like Mrs. Grandison?" 
 
 " My mistress is most kind." 
 
 The duchess hesitated. It was against all 
 her habits and traditions to question a servant,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 157 
 
 yet she saw no other road to what she wished 
 to know ; so, after some hesitating choice of 
 the most diplomatic words in which to frame 
 her inquiries, she hurried out the most infelic- 
 itous. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Grandison ah a nice person, 
 Pritchett a lady, I mean. Some one whom I 
 could know? "she said, and then blushed at 
 the snobbishness of the speech. 
 
 "Indeed yes, your grace," answered Pritch- 
 ett eagerly, her tongue loosed at once by 
 the duchess' embarrassment. " My mistress is 
 quite one of the nicest ladies I ever lived with. 
 The only thing I can say against her is she 
 shuts herself up too much." 
 
 "Ah!" said the duchess, relieved. "She is 
 not much in society, perhaps." 
 
 " It's her own choice," said the faithful 
 Pritchett, eagerly. " Every one wishes and 
 begs her to go out and she knows none 
 but the very nicest people," with unconscious 
 exaggeration. " But she seemed very unwilling 
 to leave off her mourning and give up her quiet 
 way of life. 'Twas only to please Miss Wynd- 
 ham, as coaxed her very hard, that she went
 
 158 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 to the ball last night. Did your grace happen 
 to see her there ? " 
 
 " Miss Wyndham, I suppose, was that pretty- 
 ladylike girl in white? Yes I saw them 
 your mistress is very handsome." 
 
 " She has beautiful gowns, and very 'ansome 
 diamonds," said Pritchett, with professional 
 enthusiasm. " Did your grace 'appen to re- 
 mark the jewels? " 
 
 " I did notice a necklace of very fine stones," 
 said the duchess indifferently, though she had 
 nothing among her family jewels half so fine. 
 "Mrs. Grandison must be very rich." 
 
 " I couldn't say, madam, how rich," said the 
 cautious Pritchett, " because she lives so very 
 quiet and doesn't entertain. At Manycotes 
 she had only maids in the 'ouse ; but she 'as 
 beautiful carriages and horses, and a great 
 many more diamonds than she could possibly 
 wear at once, besides other jewels and horna- 
 ments, and every thing 'andsome about her," 
 concluded Pritchett, unconsciously plagiarizing. 
 
 "Manycotes? What is that?" asked the 
 duchess. 
 
 "That's my mistress' place in Somerset.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 159 
 
 Tis very small, but kept beautiful. And her 
 little town-house in Hay Hill, which is let. I 
 was through it myself when my mistress was 
 having it done up, and it is perfect." 
 
 " But you say she has very few visitors," said 
 the duchess. 
 
 "Very few indeed, your grace. Last winter, 
 which we spent it in Paris, while Mr. Forbes 
 and the Dutch gentleman as I can't remember 
 his name were painting 'er portraits, she saw 
 no one but Miss Wyndham and the two gentle- 
 men, and them never alone. Miss Wyndham 
 was always there." 
 
 "Ah!" said the duchess. "I like Mrs. 
 Grandison's appearance very much, and I am 
 pleased to hear you are with such a nice per- 
 son. Thank you, Pritchett, and that will do." 
 
 Thus dismissed, Pritchett courtesied and 
 retired, having satisfied the duchess' curiosity 
 and given an account of her mistress which 
 was strictly true, very misleading, and which 
 conveyed the precise impressipn which Jean 
 desired to produce. 
 
 The immediate consequence of the interview 
 was that Jean, in one of her rare appearances in
 
 160 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 the salon, was waylaid by the duchess, who in- 
 troduced herself in a most flattering manner 
 and made minute inquiries whether she were 
 pleased with Loki and Pritchett. 
 
 "Was your husband one of the Kentish 
 Grandisons or the Yorkshire family, Mrs. 
 Grandison ? " she presently inquired, with that 
 air of amiably taking an interest in you which 
 is supposed to be flattering. Jean, whose fears 
 had long since gone out to meet this question, 
 was able to answer with sufficient calmness. 
 
 " They are Yorkshire people," she said. 
 " Grandison of Temple Grandison and Danes- 
 fort." 
 
 " Ah," said the duchess. " Pretty places I 
 believe. I know the other Grandisons, the 
 Kentish ones. There is a distant connection I 
 think." 
 
 Jean felt a thrill of relief, but feeling the 
 necessity of stemming the tide of questions, 
 took a bold step. 
 
 " I do not know Mr. Grandison's family," 
 she said, in a voice which trembled slightly. 
 The call upon her courage and self-control gave 
 a certain haughtiness to her manner, which the
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 161 
 
 duchess interpreted not at all to her disad- 
 vantage, as the sign of some resentment which 
 Jean had a perfect right to entertain, and so, 
 not to appear intrusive, quitted the subject, and 
 presently left her with a gracious intimation 
 that she did not intend to let their acquaintance 
 drop. 
 
 More remote consequences made themselves 
 manifest from day to day. A handsome widow, 
 who wore superb diamonds and had the pret- 
 tiest turn-out in Rome, and who, moreover, was 
 often seen in familiar converse with an indis- 
 putable duchess, must be a person to know. 
 The embassy of her native land returned her 
 call with much empressement, the embassy of 
 the duchess' country contrived to meet her, 
 and adopted her, "on her late husband's 
 account." The " best " people sought, in all 
 legitimate ways, to become acquainted with 
 her, and but few weeks went by before Jean 
 found herself " in the swim " and entirely with- 
 out fears of harm from the iron pots among 
 which she was gayly bobbing down-stream. 
 
 The magic influence of the Duchess of 
 Saintsbury's friendship did not end here,
 
 1 62 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 though the duchess herself went southward 
 at the New Year. But before she left she had 
 learned that Jean meant to return to America 
 and to establish herself for always in her native 
 land ; also that Jean did not know any of the 
 duchess' many American friends. 
 
 " I have been so long a wanderer," said Jean, 
 in her soft, regretful tones. " My poor mother 
 was such an invalid and led a secluded life even 
 when we were at home. My girlhood was all 
 passed abroad. There is nothing to draw me 
 back no ties, no attraction. But I can not 
 cease to feel myself an American and it seems 
 to me a duty not to expatriate myself and for- 
 feit my birthright." 
 
 These admirable sentiments pleased the 
 duchess greatly, and Colonel Yorke, who was 
 of the conversation, bestowed on Jean one of 
 the approving smiles which he was in the habit 
 of giving Sylvia, but which afterward struck 
 him as rather a puerile offering for this stately 
 woman of the world. Jean was not too much 
 absorbed by the duchess to fail to observe how 
 handsome he looked when he smiled, but she 
 could spare little time for this reflection from
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 163 
 
 the graver issues in hand. For the duchess, a 
 woman of strong convictions and very patriotic 
 herself, was much pleased with this somewhat 
 unusual manifestation of Americanism, which 
 won her much more than any attempt Jean 
 could have made to identify herself with her 
 husband's country; and she was now offering 
 to Jean letters of introduction to two of the 
 friends who had entertained her so kindly in 
 America, and who kept her so constantly re- 
 minded of their continuing affection that she 
 could not doubt the welcome they would 
 extend to any friend of hers. Sweet Sylvia 
 Wyndham, taking to herself much credit for 
 Jean's auspicious first appearance, was de- 
 lighted with her subsequent success. Mrs. 
 Wyndham had been glad to cede her duties as 
 chaperone, and they went out a great deal 
 together, yet for some reason they were not 
 as intimate as they had been. It could not 
 be said that any coolness existed between them ; 
 there was no jealousy in Sylvia's sweet nature, 
 of the unvarying beauty which so constantly 
 outshone the young girl's fitful prettiness ; and 
 Jean loved to see her gay, admired, surrounded.
 
 1 64 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Still, though their days were spent much alike, 
 in that busy idleness of the Roman pleasure- 
 seeker, a distance had grown between. Jean, 
 in Kooystra's company, or with Colonel 
 Yorke's thoughtful comments, had fallen into 
 the spirit of the place, studying lovingly the 
 art which Sylvia seemed to have forgotten. amid 
 the assiduities of Major Limber and Ian Forbes* 
 hopeless faithfulness ; and Sylvia's conscience, 
 pricking her for her neglect, drove her willfully 
 in the wrong direction.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " It has been said, that men love with their eyes, women 
 with their ears." 
 
 AN Americanized Englishman does, as a 
 rule, one of two things. He retains his 
 prejudices and his insularity, enlarging the 
 latter to correspond with the size of the great 
 country he has adopted : or he becomes more 
 aggressively American than the Americans, 
 affiliating himself to the wild Western type, 
 grafting the accent of the cowboy upon his 
 native drawl, and delighting in that picturesque, 
 if startling, use of language which constitutes 
 " American slang." 
 
 Keppel Yorke, before naturalizing himself in 
 America, was already too cosmopolitan to fall 
 into either of these classes. He had long 
 ceased to be conspicuously Brit'ish, retaining 
 nothing of his birthright save the inflections of 
 a singularly pleasant voice ; and the tastes of a 
 litterateur and man of the world, which had
 
 1 66 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 demanded a wider horizon and greater pecuni- 
 ary resources, had not lost their sway during 
 necessary sojourns on ranches and in the un- 
 cultured neighborhood of silver mines. They 
 had survived the chances and changes of an 
 adventurous and wandering life, which had left 
 him such an unusual number of illusions of 
 youth, as, upon reflection, surprised even him- 
 self. He was continually believing in women 
 up to a certain point, and as continually being 
 disappointed ; but disappointment had so far 
 failed to shake that belief in himself which is 
 at the bottom of human happiness. In person 
 he was that delight of lady-novelists, an ugly 
 handsome man ; not noticeably taller than other 
 men, yet appearing to advantage among them 
 and beside a stately woman like Jean. His 
 dark hair was slightly gray and furtively re- 
 treating from a fine brow ; his eyes, brown and 
 rather close together, were gentle and pene- 
 trating, and a thick brownish-red beard kept 
 the secret of whatever weakness mouth and 
 chin might have revealed. 
 
 To a pessimist like Jean, who, to the belief 
 Kooystra had once expressed that no one is
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 167 
 
 happy after forty, added her private conviction 
 that few are happy before, it was an era to meet 
 a man like Colonel Yorke, who had lived a 
 full life for these fatal forty years and more 
 and who yet looked upon the world, if not as 
 the best of all possible worlds, at least as a very 
 tolerable abiding-place, and as making satisfac- 
 tory progress toward perfection. It was a 
 change from Kooystra's fitful alternations of 
 irresponsible high spirits and moods of callow 
 cynicism, from Forbes' growing despondency, 
 and from Sylvia's buoyant spirits, which Jean 
 felt to be the mere evanescent characteristic of 
 her youth. 
 
 And yet it could not be said that Jean and 
 Colonel Yorke had become friends. At the 
 end of three months they were still upon the 
 footing of mere acquaintance, though they met 
 often and were cordially inclined toward each 
 other. Mrs. Wyndham had been Colonel 
 Yorke's first friend in America, her small, simple 
 home had welcomed him with unpretentious 
 hospitality. Sylvia had made much of him, 
 after the fashion of an enthusiastic girl thrown 
 for the first time with a clever and cultivated
 
 1 68 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 man older than herself. And now, meeting 
 these kind friends of the old days, in Rome, 
 he felt himself at home with them, and privi- 
 leged to come and go as he pleased. 
 
 But whether it were that Sylvia, in her newly- 
 widened experience, had found others as 
 attractive as Colonel Yorke had once seemed, 
 or that the increasing number of her admirers 
 had crowdedhim out of his place in her favor 
 their frank friendship appeared at an end. 
 He came and went as he had done in the 
 American home, but Sylvia no longer confided 
 to him her dreams and hopes, nor appealed for 
 the advice which it is sweetest flattery to see 
 followed. 
 
 As for Jean, she had not yet sufficiently 
 overcome her long habits of reserve and diffi- 
 dence, well dissembled but still powerful, to 
 make advances toward intimacy with any one 
 of more pretention than the boyish artists with 
 whom much companionship had placed her 
 entirely at her ease. 
 
 So Colonel Yorke's visits seemed entirely 
 to belong to Mrs. Wyndham, as his most assid- 
 uous attention certainly did, while both Jean
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 169 
 
 and Sylvia played the part of attentive, appre- 
 ciative, but rather unresponsive listeners, on 
 whom the enunciation of Colonel Yorke's well- 
 expressed ideas produced little visible effect. 
 It may be questioned, however, whether the 
 small and backward plant of Jean's patriotism 
 had not expanded and blossomed in the brac- 
 ing air of Colonel Yorke's enthusiasm for 
 America. 
 
 As for Sylvia, the possession of an intimate 
 friend in Jean might have accounted for much 
 of the distance which now -divided her from 
 Colonel Yorke, had it not been for the daily 
 increasing reserve she displayed toward Jean. 
 Mrs. Wyndham regretted this estrangement, 
 for her liking for Jean was quietly sincere. 
 Jean felt it keenly, puzzling her memory for 
 the word or act which might have wounded her, 
 and watching wistfully for the opportunity of 
 being again at one .with this her first friend. 
 
 Sylvia, suffering also from their unexplained 
 coolness, knew that in some dark corner of her 
 heart the reason was waiting to be questioned, 
 and willfully ignored its presence. 
 
 One glorious March day they had driven
 
 170 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 together to a meet of the fox-hounds at Sette 
 Celli ; they had seen the fox arrive on a gray 
 pony, his bright eyes peering at them through 
 the chinks in his wicker basket ; had seen the 
 amiable brigand in pointed hat and long, green- 
 lined cloak who handled both pony and bas- 
 ket, ride away to enlarge the fox at a dis- 
 tance ; had seen the hounds laid on, after 
 due " law " had been allowed, the riders take 
 the field ; and at last had started homeward by 
 an adventurous round-about way across the 
 Campagna, which brought them out on the Via 
 Appia just beyond the Metella tomb. Along 
 this road they were bowling swiftly away from 
 Rome ; the little black horses, driven without 
 bits, in the Roman fashion, the reins being 
 attached to a brass bar across their noses step- 
 ping as swiftly, with the light victoria at their 
 heels, as if they had just left their stable. 
 
 Jean and Sylvia rode in silence, the elder 
 woman furtively watching the girl's face, who 
 sat gazing pensively across the great, green 
 undulating plain over which their road led. 
 The cheek turned toward Jean \vas a little 
 pale, the mouth had a wistful droop, and some-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. I? I 
 
 thing in the glimpse of lid and eyelash sug- 
 gested eyes full of unshed tears. 
 
 " It has been a happy winter," said Jean, at 
 last, turning her eyes upon the freshening 
 green, the new thick-springing flowers, and all 
 the signs of spring. 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia, turning to Jean with a 
 smile as uncertain as the shadow of a cloud 
 flying far across the purple hills. " Or, no ! I 
 hardly know which. In some ways it has been 
 most delightful in so many ways most disap- 
 pointing." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Jean, rather sadly, " it is 
 because I have learned to expect nothing from 
 life, that I have enjoyed these months so 
 much. Good-fortune has smiled upon me for 
 the first time. I have never been so happy 
 before. I came, only thinking to wear out 
 another dull winter, like all that have gone 
 before, making it less forlorn by being near 
 you and your mother." This was not strictly 
 true, but Jean believed it for the moment. " I 
 fancied you would be too much engrossed to 
 be much with me. I little hoped for such a 
 winter as I have spent."
 
 172 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " Have I not often told you," said Sylvia, 
 fondly, " you were never meant to shut your- 
 self up. The life of such a woman as you are is 
 owed to society ; you have no right to rob it." 
 
 " Little flatterer," said Jean, "what would 
 my winter have been without you ? And now, 
 my Sylvia, I hear you sigh you speak of dis- 
 appointment. How it grieves me ! Tell me, 
 Sylvia, what can I what may I do ? " 
 
 Sylvia's eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, faltering. " If it depended 
 on you, dear Mrs. Grandison, I should be hap- 
 pier than I deserve. It is my own fault- 
 partly no ! altogether. Oh ! why have I 
 wasted my winter ! " she cried, with what 
 seemed distress. " I meant to live for my art 
 alone ! And here, for a little gayety, a little 
 pleasure, and dancing, I have deserted it ! Oh ! 
 it is my own fault ! " 
 
 "Art is a gentle mistress," said Jean gravely, 
 looking earnestly at her. " Neglect does not 
 estrange her. But this is not all, dear Sylvia ; 
 there is something else, tell me." 
 
 Her voice was infinitely soft and persuasive ; 
 Sylvia's eyes met hers in eloquent, mute con-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 173 
 
 fession, and were quickly turned away, as if, 
 even without words, they might tell too much. 
 
 " Dear child," said Jean, with a tightening 
 of the chords of her own throat ; then hastily 
 glanced about to see if she might say more ; 
 but they had turned and were rapidly ap- 
 proaching the city gates. San Paolo fuori le 
 Murawas in sight ; some carriages and a horse- 
 man were coming toward them, and it was 
 with a complete change of tone and manner 
 that Jean went on : 
 
 " Relieve my mind on one point, Sylvia tell 
 me oh ! assure me that it is not Major Lim- 
 ber." 
 
 She spoke lightly, but in her heart she felt 
 afraid ; she dreaded to think what strides he 
 might have made in these weeks when she had 
 been comparatively little with Sylvia. But 
 Sylvia's tone was as light as her own, though 
 her voice trembled. 
 
 "Accept my solemn assurances, to the best 
 of my knowledge and belief, it is not Major 
 Limber! " 
 
 They both laughed, Jean with a wonderful 
 sense of relief ; and in a moment Sylvia added,
 
 174 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 telling one of those gratuitous, unaccountable 
 untruths which spring to the lips of the truest 
 woman at such times : " It is no one here." 
 
 " You take a weight from my heart," replied 
 Jean. " Here comes Colonel Yorke ; how well 
 he rides ! " 
 
 Sylvia was conquering a laugh which was 
 half a sob, and did not answer at once, but she 
 turned her face with its accustomed smile to 
 Colonel Yorke and talked gayly to him as he 
 rode beside the carriage until it entered the 
 narrow and tortuous streets which lead from 
 the Porta San Sebastiano to the Corso. 
 
 " The child is in love," Jean was thinking 
 to herself, entirely disregarding the last state- 
 ment, of which, as a woman, she was quite 
 able to estimate the value. " And if not with 
 Major Limber, I wonder with whom. Forbes 
 it can not be; he is too openly her slave to 
 leave room for doubts and fears. Can it be 
 that incomprehensible boy, Kooystra ? He is 
 ugly, but attractive in his way, and so odd he 
 might conceal a genuine passion under that 
 insouciant manner. And so proud her money 
 would keep him silent."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow, 
 As seek to quench the fire of love with words." 
 
 JEAN pondered long on this point, and 
 became more and more convinced of the 
 correctness of her conjecture. Nothing else 
 seemed at all probable, and like every one 
 with a preconceived conviction, each little 
 incident seemed to her confirmation strong. 
 That Kooystra was more silent and thoughtful 
 than his wont, that he spent every available 
 hour with Jean " I am not the rose," she 
 thought, " but I have been near the rose," 
 that he lavished upon her the attentions it 
 seemed natural to suppose he would offer 
 Sylvia; nothing, in Jean's eyes, but went to 
 prove her hypothesis. 
 
 Some days after, Kooystra spent a rainy 
 afternoon in Jean's salon, where the two young 
 men made themselves much at home, coming 
 and going as they chose, idling about over
 
 176 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 books or music, and talking or not, as they felt 
 inclined. Paul was in an unusually sunshiny 
 mood, content, apparently, with himself and 
 his fortunes, and even, for a wonder, with 
 the good-fortune of others, and Jean, having 
 gently scolded him for his idleness, without 
 disturbing his equanimity, felt that the moment 
 was propitious. 
 
 " Do you know," she began, " I do not think 
 you have treated us hospitably, you and Mr. 
 Forbes." 
 
 " No ! " cried Kooystra. "What a reproach ! 
 How distressed I am that you should have it 
 to say of us ! But it is all Forbes' fault ; he is 
 a hermit. My palace and baronial halls are a 
 sus pies. I hereby invite you to reign over 
 them. But Forbes ! how can I reinstate him 
 in your good graces ? " 
 
 "Why," said Jean, only perfunctorily smil- 
 ing,"for she took every thing au serieux, and her 
 comprehension was apt to lag far behind even 
 the halting jokes which Sylvia and Kooystra 
 seemed to find so delicious. " We are told that 
 you have a characteristic Roman studio some- 
 where in a very picturesque part of the town."
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 177 
 
 " Piazza. Sta Maria del Pianto," suggested 
 Kooystra. 
 
 " Yet Sylvia and I," went on Jean, " who 
 came to Rome dreaming of studios, have never 
 been asked to see it." 
 
 " Well, if a dirty attic with a tile floor is a 
 characteristic Roman studio," said Kooystra, 
 with a laugh, "we certainly have one, and 
 you and Miss Wyndham will be as welcome 
 there as winter sunshine an expression 
 which I consider vastly superior to ' flowers 
 in May.' It has never occurred to us that it 
 was worth showing to any one. But I sup- 
 pose," he went on saucily, looking Sylvia, who 
 at this moment entered the room, full in the 
 face, " I suppose you have the usual woman's 
 craving for ' Bohemianism ' and ' unconven- 
 tionality.' I am convinced Miss Wyndham 
 here, only became an artist in hopes of spend- 
 ing every evening at the Caffe' Greco and 
 smoking a short black pipe." 
 
 " In fact," said Sylvia calmly, "I cherished a 
 hope of becoming a sort of M. Kooystra in 
 petticoats, until I found you deteriorate so, 
 on close acquaintance ! " Jean looked astonish-
 
 1 78 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ment. These two young people in their chaff- 
 ing mood were incomprehensible to her, but 
 Kooystra turned to her, and with a total 
 change of tone extended an invitation to spend 
 an evening of the following week at the world- 
 famous studio of MM. Forbes and Kooystra 
 which Jean accepted with the proviso that 
 Major Limber should not be asked. 
 
 " Major Limber, indeed ! " said Kooystra. " I 
 hope I am not so lost to all sense of the fitness 
 of things." 
 
 There was a little more banter and then 
 Kooystra left, putting his head in at the door 
 to inquire whether the supper was to be a 
 characteristic one, too, in which case it must 
 consist of Chianti, salsiccia&a&formaggio, eaten 
 in an atmosphere of smoke thick enough to cut 
 with a knife. 
 
 In due time the invitations came, daintily 
 sketched on leaves of the vellum in which 
 Roman books are bound : quaint emanations 
 of Kooystra's whimsical fancy, each varied to 
 suit the tastes of the recipient. Jean was seen 
 between her dog and her horse. Sylvia's sweet 
 face looked out from amid clouds of smoke
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 179 
 
 on which appeared shadowy visions of artists' 
 life in Rome. Sylvia herself, cigarette in 
 mouth, hob-nobbing with impossibly beautiful 
 and brigandish artists at the Greco, or sketch- 
 ing ideal peasants, or presiding over the Spring 
 Festa of the artists, in a bewitching costume 
 of Folly. 
 
 It was such a jest as is only possible between 
 friends who thoroughly understand each other, 
 but to Jean, with her utter lack of humor, the 
 daring and the audacity of the thing seemed 
 only possible on one hypothesis. Her theory, 
 pretty firmly fixed by this time, was strength- 
 ened, on the legal principle of " cy-pres," by 
 Mrs. Wyndham's invitation. She could not 
 understand the feeling with which this mother- 
 less boy regarded the sweet-natured, tender 
 woman, who seemed to him the embodiment 
 of motherhood. Her own experience had not 
 prepared her for such loving recognition of a 
 type, and she fancied it was only as Sylvia's 
 mother that he had drawn her, in a sort of apo- 
 theosis of mother love. 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham had had a happy youth, and 
 the sorrows of later years had not made her
 
 t8o THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 forget that she had ever been young, but had 
 given her the conviction that young people 
 should be happy at all costs. This conviction 
 she brought to bear on Sylvia's life, thinking 
 no sacrifice too great or too small to sweeten 
 and beautify it. To use Sylvia's own words, 
 she preferred her mother to any other chap- 
 erone, because she never told her it was time 
 to go home. A sense of this tenderness, this 
 impulse of love and protection drew every 
 creature toward the pale lady on her couch, 
 and as,to Sylvia, no day was complete without 
 a few minutes in the vast peace of St. Peter's, 
 so Forbes, Kooystra, and even Colonel Yorke 
 sought Mrs. Wyndham's presence as a sort of 
 refuge against the cares which infest the day, 
 and Jean felt, without realizing it, the soften- 
 ing influence of her character. 
 
 On Wednesday evening, at nine o'clock, 
 Jean and Sylvia found themselves in the 
 brougham, rolling rapidly through the narrow, 
 echoing streets toward the Piazza Sta Maria 
 del Pianto. Their hosts met them at the door 
 of the Cortile, and escorted them up the long 
 flights of stone stairs, which were unusually
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 181 
 
 clean, and were lighted, by their care and con- 
 trivance, with paper lanterns on every flight. 
 
 "And now," said Kooystra, with a mis- 
 chievous look, as they at last reached, after a 
 weary climb, a green door over which the 
 names of the two young men were scrawled, 
 " Now for a characteristic Roman studio." 
 
 They entered, and were obliged to acknowl- 
 edge that the large room with its wide north 
 window, was at the top of the house, and had a 
 tiled floor; beyond this there was little coinci- 
 dence with Kooystra's description. There was 
 a deep fireplace in which sticks of wood placed 
 on end blazed merrily, and the room was filled 
 with the soft light of the pretty fluted candles 
 peculiar to Rome, which Forbes had insisted 
 upon substituting for the antique lamps upon 
 which Kooystra had set his heart. Ropes of 
 smilax wreathed the sketches on the walls, and 
 a picture on Forbes' easel, a woman's head, 
 dark, noble and severe, but all these evidences 
 of industry were on one side of the studio. 
 On Kooystra's side was only the Valkyr-like 
 portrait of Jean, unframed and unadorned. 
 
 Jean and Sylvia laid aside their wraps, look-
 
 1 82 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ing about them with eyes eager to be pleased, 
 and the young men hung about them, their 
 hearts stirred with the strange, sweet thrill 
 no man can help but feel who sees for the first 
 time the woman he loves, not at her fireside, 
 but his own. Colonel Yorke, watching the 
 "young people" from the vantage ground of 
 his forty years, envying them their youth and 
 promise and freshness of feeling, thought, with 
 a sigh, that were he but a few years younger 
 he should be puzzled which to woo : Sylvia, 
 with her changeful charm of coloring and 
 expression, or Jean, of the gracious and stately 
 beauty and serene reserve. But neither senti- 
 ment nor music were to be trie food of love 
 this evening. Kooystra was in his maddest 
 mood ; he followed with mischievous mocking 
 comment as Sylvia moved about the room, in 
 the way women have where they feel at ease : 
 touching, examining, admiring this and that, 
 and rendering forever sacred to one at least, 
 the commonplace properties of his 'daily life. 
 She had circled about and politely tried to 
 ignore a table somewhat ostentatiously set 
 forth with every requisite of porcelain, glass,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 183 
 
 and silver, until, with a shriek of delighted 
 laughter, she suddenly discovered the nature 
 of the feast. 
 
 This consisted of hard-boiled eggs and slices 
 of " salsiccia " cunningly fashioned, as Roman 
 workmen know how, from giallo and breccia 
 and variously colored marbles, spoils of ruined 
 Rome ; of heaped up grapes whose purple 
 translucence had been gathered where ame- 
 thysts grow, and shaped into the pretty paper- 
 weights Italian travelers remember; and fur- 
 ther, of roses and smilax, windflowers and vio- 
 lets, and nothing more. 
 
 "The characteristic supper !" cried Sylvia 
 " How delicious! No wonder the poor fellows 
 are so thin." 
 
 Even Jean, who lacked that sense of the 
 ridiculous, which, next to true religion and a 
 good digestion, is the best shield against the 
 ills of life, could not but join in the merriment 
 which followed this discovery. 
 
 "How nice it is to be entertained !" said 
 Sylvia, sinking into an easy chair before the 
 fire. " Go on, gentlemen j amuse us. We 
 have been hostesses so much it is a treat
 
 184 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 to feel that some one else is responsible 
 now." 
 
 "Kooystra," said Forbes, "thought his duty 
 was done when he had provided something to 
 eat and drink " 
 
 " Forbes, having only thought it necessary 
 to supply this table," interrupted Kooystra, 
 pointing to the marble viands. 
 
 " He secretly expected you to entertain 
 us," concluded Forbes. 
 
 "You may look at us," said Sylvia archly. 
 " Beyond that I decline to contribute to the 
 evening's programme." 
 
 " M. Kooystra will sing to us," said Jean. 
 
 " And Colonel Yorke will tell us a ghost- 
 story," added Kooystra. 
 
 " I have always believed Colonel Yorke to 
 be a man of dark experiences," said Sylvia 
 gravely, while Jean gave her a glance of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 This programme was joyously carried out. 
 There were songs and a wild tale of adventure 
 from Colonel Yorke, supplemented by some 
 weird ghost-stories of Kooystra's. But first 
 there was a dainty little supper, such as For-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 185 
 
 firio might have spread for Madeline ; the rose- 
 decked wine flasks which stood all a-row on 
 the piano and the high chimney-shelf, were 
 opened, and perhaps Chianti and Lacrima 
 and Monte Pulciano, added a little to the 
 spirit of song and story, and to the sparkle of 
 the jesting talk. 
 
 To Jean it was incomprehensible, yet infec- 
 tious, this mad, merry and most innocent non- 
 sense, which kept her less flexible wits in a 
 state of bewilderment over the swift repartee 
 of the young people. She felt more at her 
 ease with Colonel Yorke, though he, too, had a 
 " merry devil " in his dark eyes ; and their 
 acquaintance prospered that evening as it had 
 not done before. 
 
 It grew late and Jean bethought herself of 
 her duties as chaperone ; she rose to go, but 
 Sylvia lingered talking to Colonel Yorke, and 
 willing to wait her pleasure, Jean moved about 
 the room in quiet impatience. On the ledge 
 of a small, quaint cabinet in which Kooystra 
 bestowed his paints, lay a tiny box of Japa- 
 nese metal work. Jean took it up, absently 
 turning it over, examining the exquisitely
 
 1 86 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 fine inlaying, and searching for its secret 
 spring. 
 
 " That," said Forbes, approaching them from 
 the fire, "is Kooystra's fetish, Mrs. Grandi- 
 son. He carries his life about in that little 
 box, so that when he says to a woman, ' I 
 would lay down my life for you,' it may be no 
 empty boast." 
 
 A shade of annoyance crossed Kooystra's 
 face. 
 
 "You mistake," he said, in his usual tone, if 
 any thing could be called usual in one so varia- 
 ble. " I have only in case the fates bestow 
 upon me a scolding wife provided a way of 
 escape." 
 
 " A flight from the ills we know to those we 
 know not, eh, Kooystra?" said Colonel Yorke, 
 turning toward them. 
 
 " A coward's courage, in fact," said Sylvia, 
 not in the least knowing what they were talk- 
 ing of, but rushing in at random in defense of 
 her sex. " Why do men think a ' scolding wife ' 
 is sufficient excuse for any thing they may do ? 
 You never hear women excusing suicide or dis- 
 sipation on the plea of a scolding husband."
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 187 
 
 " We can call a man who ill-treats his wife a 
 brute, Miss VVyndham, but we must not apply 
 any adjective harsher than scolding to a 
 woman who ill-treats her husband," said 
 Kooystra, quizzically. 
 
 " Well, my idea is, it needn't be ail so one- 
 sided," said Forbes. " I don't believe the man 
 is always to blame in an unhappy marriage 
 though I own women are vastly better than 
 we are." 
 
 " Thanks for the admission," said Sylvia, 
 mockingly ; " and so, because we are so much 
 better, we are to do all the forgiving and 
 peace-making for both." 
 
 " Marriage is, or should be, a contract bind- 
 ing two people to forbearance for each other," 
 quoted Colonel Yorke, thoughtfully. 
 
 " There," said Sylvia, with a grateful glance, 
 " Colonel Yorke always puts in words what 
 I can only think." 
 
 " Whereas, practically," said Kooystra, " mar- 
 riage generally turns out to be a contract bind- 
 ing two people to aggravate each other to the 
 verge of endurance and beyond." 
 
 " Well," said Forbes, philosophically, his feel-
 
 1 88 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ings soothed by a lengthened and stealthy 
 contemplation of Sylvia's lovely, eager face, 
 " We are wasting our words talking of what 
 none of us know any thing about, except, of 
 course, Mrs. Grandison." 
 
 Kooystra, whose eyes, as often happened, 
 were fixed upon Jean, saw a swift change pass 
 over her serene face a startled, hunted look, 
 strangely like that of the portrait near which 
 she stood ; a strong effort kept the smile on her 
 quivering lips, and she spoke in an odd, strained 
 voice. 
 
 " It is a question never to be solved by dis- 
 cussion," she said, laying down the tiny box 
 which she had been absently holding. " And 
 indeed it is too late to begin any discussions 
 now. Sylvia, we must go." 
 
 She was trembling in every limb ; and while 
 Sylvia put on her wraps, she turned away from 
 the light and approached the cabinet, again 
 taking up the bit of inlaid metal, and saying in 
 a low tone to Kooystra : 
 
 " I scarcely understand ; tell me, M. Kooys- 
 tra, what is in this box ? " 
 
 Kooystra smiled, and taking it from her,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 189 
 
 touched the spring, and revealed a tiny, tear- 
 shaped phial containing a few drops of some 
 colorless liquid. 
 
 "It is as Forbes told. you," he said. "My 
 life is there. That is hydrocyanic acid ; instant 
 death when life shall be no longer worth 
 living." 
 
 His tone was curiously bitter and a sigh 
 half escaped him. Jean looked at him earnestly. 
 
 " How wrong, how foolish ! " she said, feel- 
 ing a great anxiety for this pleasant, fantastic, 
 unstable fellow, of whose strange moods she 
 had some experience. " Pray forget such ideas, 
 and, M. Kooystra " she added, urged by some 
 strong impulse of friendliness "give it to me, 
 I beg." She held out her hand, looking 
 gravely and earnestly at him. Kooystra met 
 her glance eagerly. His eyes searched hers. 
 Had Jean had more of a certain kind of woman- 
 liness she must have known the meaning of 
 that look; but she only felt that her influence 
 or her will had swayed him, as he placed the 
 box in her hand, and led her silently to her 
 carriage. 
 
 Forbes, returned from watching the retreat-
 
 19 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ing wheels of his fair, lit a contemplative pipe 
 with a coal from the fire, while Kooystra, who 
 had many womanish ways, moved softly about, 
 putting this and that away, and turning Forbes' 
 sketches to the wall. Before his own picture 
 of Jean he paused, fixing on it a questioning, 
 moody gaze. 
 
 " Forbes," he said presently, " you remem- 
 ber I told you she could look like that ? Well, 
 I have seen the look to-night." 
 
 " What a gratifying proof of your perspicac- 
 ity, old fellow ! " said Forbes lazily. 
 
 Kooystra turned abruptly toward him. 
 
 " I wish I had never seen her," he burst out. 
 " I wish my hand had withered before I had 
 painted her ! She has bewitched me, and yet 
 she ignores me. Tell me, Forbes, how can 
 such an infatuation exist, sapping my manhood, 
 my ambition, and all for a woman who has 
 never even tried to attract me. A woman," he 
 added more slowly, " whom I don't believe in. 
 She is afraid of something she has some- 
 thing to conceal or she could never look as 
 she looked to-night." 
 
 "And yet you gave her your life, as you
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 191 
 
 call it, just now," said Forbes, stopping to 
 poke at his pipe with his knife-blade. " Bah ! 
 Kooystra, you're bilious, or you've had too 
 much Chianti. I'll own you're an unusually 
 bad case. I'll even acknowledge you're ' des- 
 perately in love,' if the phraseology suits you 
 better ; but all this nonsense about her ruin- 
 ing your life, just comes from the liver. You 
 were born to be great, and great you will be. 
 7 believe in you, if no one else does, and I 
 believe in Mrs. Grandison too, very cordially 
 but she's not worth the sacrifice of such a life 
 as yours; few women are." 
 
 " Mental reservation in favor of one," mut- 
 tered Kooystra. 
 
 "And I'm not sure but it's my duty," went 
 on Forbes severely, " to thrash you for using 
 disrespectful language of her, if I didn't know 
 it's mere dyspepsia. Come, smoke a pipe and 
 have a good night's rest. If you don't change 
 your mind I dare say you can persuade her 
 to have you ; and then, perhaps, you'll live 
 happy ever after." 
 
 Kooystra gave a short laugh. " Thank you, 
 Forbes," he said; "you're a good fellow, I
 
 192 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 know you think me more than half mad some- 
 times. You should be glad I've put tempta- 
 tion out of my way at last. If that damned 
 little box were under my hand to-night, I don't 
 know but that I should have the courage or 
 the cowardice to use it."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " Oh ! while you live, tell truth and shame the devil." 
 
 JEAN and Sylvia drove silently homeward 
 together, neither one altogether content, 
 both brooding over what they thought the 
 injustices of life. It was Jean's habitual mood, 
 but for Sylvia it was something new ; the vast 
 moonlit spaces where the fountains flashed, 
 the narrow ways between dark high houses into 
 which they rolled, oppressed her with a sense 
 of helplessness ; for the first time she felt the 
 agony of wild, useless revolt against the inev- 
 itable. 
 
 Jean, still holding the tiny box in her clasp, 
 was thinking, with a return of her accustomed 
 bitterness, how no one was free from care ; 
 even their gay young host madly merry as 
 Kooystra showed himself had place in his 
 nature for the strange despair into which she 
 once more felt herself falling. For Jean's un-
 
 194 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 easy vanity was not content with what she had 
 gained ; her moody sensitiveness could not 
 believe in the reality of the friendships offered 
 her. Already she felt a scorn of the admi- 
 ration and power she had now in right of her 
 beauty, her money, her position ; she craved 
 something more intimate: a response to the 
 best part of herself the highest in that com- 
 plex nature which she never tired of studying. 
 And even this girl beside her, she thought, 
 has her own griefs and she put out her hand 
 in the darkness to clasp Sylvia's. 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Grandison," sighed the girl, " do 
 you think every one is unhappy, every one in 
 the whole world ? " 
 
 Jean could scarcely answer, so deep a pity 
 came over her for the girl to whom life had 
 been so bright, that at the first shadow over 
 her path she fancied she was entering the 
 blackness of darkness forever. 
 
 " Dear Sylvia," she said at last, " I think 
 sometimes young people are more unhappy, 
 suffer more from their griefs than older ones, 
 they are so eager, so hopeful. Every disap- 
 pointment is such a shock. My youth was an
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 195 
 
 unhappy one. I try to hope my middle life may 
 be happier." 
 
 "Ah ! " said Sylvia. " If it is so and yet 
 I have seen old people sad too it is because 
 they have ceased to hope, and have taught 
 themselves to expect nothing of life but ma- 
 terial comforts and intellectual pleasures." 
 
 " That seems to me rather a comfortable 
 programme," said Jean, with a somewhat rueful 
 smile. " I look for little yet I enjoy life very 
 much, now." 
 
 " Oh ! but to give up all thought of any thing 
 higher ! " cried Sylvia. " To narrow one's 
 demands to such bounds, to lose ambition 
 purpose love." 
 
 " My child, you are too young to give these 
 up as lost so soon." 
 
 " I know, I know," said Sylvia, speaking 
 fast and low. " I am humiliated ; it makes me 
 miserable to find myself so dominated by any 
 thing intangible. A fancy a feeling " her 
 voice died away in a sob. " Oh ! I had thought 
 better things of myself ; the worst is, to have 
 given my heart unsought." 
 
 Jean was silent, only clasping fondly the
 
 196 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 little cold hand in her warm strong one, for 
 words seemed meaningless and useless. 
 
 " Understand me," said Sylvia presently, in 
 a firmer voice. " It is only my luckless fancy 
 
 I am ashamed of, not the one I he is the 
 
 best, the worthiest." 
 
 Can this be Kooystra, thought Jean, with 
 dismay ; for fond as she was of the young fellow, 
 she could not think him worthy of this passion 
 of love and pain, and she trembled for the 
 awakening from such a dream. 
 
 " If I knew, but I don't ask to know," she 
 said, "perhaps I could help you ; but in any 
 case the best thing is to live your own life, 
 with your art and your purpose, as if this had 
 never come into it. It is the only way to 
 lessen the sting. I don't say you will forget, 
 some women never can." (This was a kind of 
 paulo-post-futuro wisdom on Jean's part.) 
 " But perhaps all may come right for you." 
 
 "Ah! no," answered Sylvia. "I don't 
 look for that. I mean to conquer it, but I can 
 never feel that I have done wrong. I am 
 proud in one way to have loved, ever so hope- 
 lessly, a man like "
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. ' 197 
 
 A name hovered on her lips, and Jean 
 listened with strained attention, but the car- 
 riage turned sharply, clattering and thundering 
 under the archway of the hotel. A sleepy " por- 
 tier " flung open the door, the footman drew 
 out the fur rug, and Sylvia's secret was left 
 untold. 
 
 There was a handful of letters for each, and 
 Sylvia took hers to Jean's room to read, but 
 the impulse of confidence had passed ; things 
 looked differently in the fire and candle-light 
 of Jean's cozy salon. They read their letters in 
 silence. One note of Sylvia's she handed over 
 to Jean's perusal ; it was from Major Limber a 
 clever note of a cordial, not to say gushing 
 style, earnestly urging some plan which for a 
 few days would throw him much in Sylvia's 
 company. 
 
 " I had no idea you and Major Limber were 
 so intimate," said Jean, rather coldly, as she 
 handed back the note. 
 
 "Oh! intimate!" said Sylvia; "the man 
 is well enough, clever, amusing, superficial, 
 a good dancer. I don't feel specially drawn 
 to him."
 
 198 - THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Jean, left alone, reflected long, sitting over 
 her fire, which she fed absently, taking a sort 
 of mechanical pleasure in placing the logs 
 and coaxing them into flame. Clever, superfi- 
 cial, amusing. Ah ! yes. And Sylvia was in 
 just the mood when a clever man with a show 
 of devotion might gain what the winner's hand 
 put by. Jean had before been hardly con- 
 scious of the depth of her dislike to the man, 
 but now it all came back upon her in a rush 
 of recollected bitterness: the fall on board 
 ship, the man who had stared at her on the 
 Folkestone pier, the unwelcome attentions in 
 London, the visit forced upon her at Many- 
 cotes ; trifles all, but with some natures such 
 trifles dwell forever in the memory to sting and 
 imbitter. To do Jean justice, she now knew 
 the man for what he really was : an adventurer, 
 unprincipled, base ; and no woman, with such 
 knowledge, could see a girl like Sylvia fall, 
 unwarned, into his power. 
 
 She rose, at last, putting by these thoughts 
 with an effort, and as she unfastened the lace 
 at her throat, there fell from among the flowers 
 on her bosom Kooystra's fetish, the tiny box
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 199 
 
 with its death-dealing contents. " Poor fel- 
 low ! " she thought ; " so he is unhappy, too. 
 Well, at least, I shall have done one good 
 deed in my day." And she locked it away 
 in her jewel-case, smiling over the boy's ex- 
 travagance of feeling and of words. She had 
 a cordial affection for Kooystra, such as 
 women of thirty-five are apt to feel for 
 younger men who admire them, and whom 
 they are fond of calling " boys," but all her 
 fondness failed to discern the charm requisite 
 to make him the object of Sylvia's hapless 
 fancy. 
 
 The next day Sylvia, restored apparently 
 to her wonted spirits, certainly to more than 
 her usual good looks, drove out with Jean in 
 the afternoon. Their long tournfe ended, as 
 always, on the Pincio, where was the usual 
 crowd of carriages circling in their narrow 
 bounds, the same beauties, the same languid 
 dandies, the same tourists, the same band, 
 and very much the same sunset, with the great 
 purple dome hanging between them and the 
 western sky. They drew up at the edge of 
 the terrace, bowing this way and that, to
 
 200 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 friends on foot or in the carriages near. Sylvia, 
 half turned away, did not see Major Limber 
 leaning against a stone post, from which he 
 detached himself as he saw them stop; he 
 moved toward them slowly, waiting only for 
 Sylvia's glance of recognition. Jean's eyes 
 met his ; for an instant she looked him steadily 
 in the face, and raising her hand to the foot- 
 man who stood at attention by the front 
 wheel, her lips formed the words " drive on." 
 The man sprang to his place ; the carriage 
 started with a scurry of hoofs and a clatter of 
 pole-chains, and Major Limber was left plam te 
 la, his hand half raised to his hat. It was an 
 affront, cool, deliberate and pointed, and Jean 
 felt with a little quickening of her pulses, as 
 they rolled away, Sylvia all unconscious beside 
 her, that she had taken the initiative in hos- 
 tilities. 
 
 Major Limber carried it off rather gallantly, 
 lifting his hat to the receding carriage and 
 walking across the road as if with his first in- 
 tention, and disappearing under the ilex trees 
 to conceal the rage and fury in his face. Many 
 other rebuffs, in the course of a tolerably im-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 20 1 
 
 pudent life had fallen off Major Limber's hide 
 like water from the proverbial duck's back, but 
 this one was too public, unprovoked, unbear- 
 able. Jean's heart beat faster for a few min- 
 utes as they drove round and round. She had 
 acted upon an impulse, as she so often did, and 
 she now felt that she had perhaps been im- 
 politic. The man had hitherto been only 
 passively disagreeable and repugnant to her, 
 now he must become an active enemy, or the 
 look in his eyes as they met hers greatly belied 
 him. But months of security in her false posi- 
 tion had given her a feeling of confidence in it 
 and herself. She had forgotten her prudent 
 resolutions of never making an enemy when it 
 was possible to make a friend, and in her 
 fancied immunity she had gratified a spite 
 which some time ago she would have severely 
 suppressed. A slight feeling of uneasiness 
 came over her, which grew and strengthened 
 until she almost lost control of herself. She 
 had meant to dine out, but her nerves took 
 such possession of her that she sent a regret, 
 and sat alone, brooding, regretting, unhappy, 
 with the great dog pushing his head into her
 
 202 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 hand and looking into her face with wistful 
 eyes. 
 
 There was a knock, and Colonel Yorke's card 
 was brought to her. He had never called on 
 her before, and she roused herself to receive 
 him with cordiality and what spirit she might. 
 
 " Fortune befriends me, Mrs. Grandison," 
 said Colonel Yorke. " I feel myself under the 
 protection of the fickle goddess in being so 
 lucky as to find you at home." 
 
 " She extends her favors to me," said Jean, 
 graciously. " I had meant to dine out, but 
 sent a regret, and I believe," she added, with a 
 frank laugh, " I was regretting that until your 
 card came." 
 
 This was a promising beginning. Jean for- 
 got her intention of having a fit of despair ; 
 Colonel Yorke's presence was like some potent 
 cordial to her, inspiriting her until she ap- 
 peared in her very best aspect, as a charming, 
 conversable, clever woman of the world. 
 
 Colonel Yorke, who had hitherto admired 
 her from a semi-artistic point of view, delight- 
 ing in her stately grace of movement, outcome 
 of her perfect physical development, in her
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 203 
 
 noble contours, and her oddly attractive color- 
 ing, the glow of her dark cheek, the brilliancy 
 of her deep-set eyes, the sheen of her fair hair, 
 now suddenly awoke to a perception of the fact 
 that all this was not the sum of her charms. 
 As for Jean, her reflections on the vanity of 
 human wishes now seemed to her the merest 
 dyspeptic fatuity. Life had become worth 
 living; her destiny a glorious one; all the 
 mistakes of her life were forgotten, and all in 
 the short space of a two hours' call. 
 
 Colonel Yorke broke a short silence which 
 had followed the relinquishing of some topic, 
 speaking in a lower tone, his eyes fixed on the 
 fire. " I knew your husband, Mrs. Grandison." 
 
 Jean's heart gave one great thump, and the 
 room danced and wavered before her eyes. 
 
 " I have never spoken of him before," went 
 on Colonel Yorke, " because there are so many 
 Grandisons, I was never quite sure, even with 
 the name before me, until I saw his photo- 
 graph in Miss Wyndham's hand one day." 
 
 Jean remembered, and bitterly regretted 
 that she had allowed Sylvia to make a sketch 
 of poor Eustace Grandison's handsome head.
 
 204 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 11 We were old friends boyhood's friends," 
 went on Colonel Yorke, without observing her 
 silence, " but I had lost sight of him for some 
 years previous to his death. We were both 
 wanderers, and going each our different ways, 
 our correspondence dropped. Men seldom 
 hold fast to each other by that link which wo- 
 men forge so well. I never knew his family " 
 
 Jean drew a long breath of relief. 
 
 " And so it happened that I never knew of 
 his marriage until I met you nor have I ever 
 known any particulars of his death. He was a 
 noble fellow." 
 
 Jean's throat contracted with a sharp spasm ; 
 speech was for a moment impossible to her, 
 but her face was half-hidden by her great fan 
 of peacock plumes, and she presently controlled 
 her voice by a mighty effort. 
 
 " I do not know Mr. Grandison's family 
 either," she said, rather huskily, then paused 
 from sheer inability to go on. 
 
 " Ah ! they were an odd lot, I remember," 
 said Colonel Yorke, easily. " Poor Eustace 
 could never hit it off with any of them except 
 his sister Rose."
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 205 
 
 "He died at Dover," went on Jean, more 
 steadily, though in a very low voice. 
 
 "Of fever?" said Colonel Yorke. "Where 
 did he pick it up?" 
 
 " I never 'knew," said Jean, desperately. 
 "Colonel Yorke, you must forgive me if I 
 can not tell you much. It is too painful 
 there was so much to try me the distress was 
 so great." 
 
 Her voice died away, silenced by the sound 
 of her speech. For the first time she had had 
 to put the lie she was living into words. All 
 that had gone before had been easy circum- 
 stances had played into her hands at every 
 turn until this one moment of unforeseen trial. 
 
 And up to this moment, she had imagined 
 for herself some way of escape, some place for 
 repentance, but now it seemed as if the walls 
 closed round her, as in the old weird story ; by 
 what she had so definitely spoken, she must 
 abide, there was no loop-hole left. 
 
 Colonel Yorke saw that she was deeply 
 moved, and he rose to leave her ; Jean con- 
 trolled herself, and stretching out her hand, 
 said with a sort of splendid audacity :
 
 206 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "I can not speak to you to-night; but 
 indeed, Colonel Yorke, I am glad to meet an 
 old friend of Eustace, and I should be proud if 
 I might retain your friendship for his sake." 
 
 " It is yours, dear Mrs. Grandison," said 
 Colonel Yorke, " truly and unreservedly yours, 
 for your own sake as well as his." 
 
 And Jean, in the midst of all her trouble, 
 felt a strange, tender warmth at her heart. 
 
 When he was gone, her composure deserted 
 her. Some such crisis she had expected ; 
 some encounter with one who had known 
 Eustace Grandison in the flesh, had hovered 
 as a vague possibility on the horizon of her 
 fancy ; some questioning she had been pre- 
 pared for ; yet when it came it had seemed as 
 sudden, as unwelcome, as death. 
 
 " And yet," she reflected, looking back upon 
 the conversation. " No amount of preparation 
 could have gotten me out of it any better." 
 
 A faint sort of a misgiving, which had, how- 
 ever, nothing of the nature of remorse, crossed 
 her mind, suggesting that as a matter of policy, 
 it would have been better to have invented a 
 name, rather than to have entangled herself
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 207 
 
 with the posthumous history of a real person. 
 But beyond this, no regrets, no stirrings of 
 conscience disturbed her ; she only felt a thrill 
 of excitement over this first test of her powers 
 of dissimulation ; a sort of elation over the 
 readiness with which she had escaped from a 
 puzzling dilemma, and, as she grew cooler, an 
 uneasy prompting to escape from the neigh- 
 borhood of one so directly interested in her as 
 Colonel Yorke. One of her moods of uncon- 
 trollable nervousness came upon her ; she felt 
 as if she must fly from his presence, must have 
 time to school and strengthen herself; above 
 all, that she must be gone from countries 
 where she was liable at every turn to meet 
 Eustace Grandison's friends. 
 
 She would sail for America in May ; she 
 would leave Rome at once ; she was too anx- 
 ious, too agitated ; she felt she should betray 
 herself if she met Colonel Yorke again. And 
 she felt blindly irritated against the one who 
 had surprised her, weak, unready, vulnerable, 
 as if the fault lay with him for having known 
 the stranger whose name she had chosen to 
 wear.
 
 208 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 In short, Jean yielded as usual to a causeless 
 panic, and after a sleepless night she rose, 
 haggard and unnerved, to make hasty prepara- 
 tions for departure. Girth and Pritchett 
 received their orders while she ate her late 
 breakfast. Mrs. Wyndham and Sylvia, as her 
 nearest and dearest, were told regretfully and 
 affectionately, that she was forced to leave at 
 once on important business. Promises, regrets, 
 hopes to meet again, were renewed and ex- 
 changed ; and before they had recovered from 
 their astonishment, on the next day but one, 
 Jean had left Rome.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 " To whom a conscience never wakes." 
 
 P^YLVIA'S dismay was great; she had 
 O counted on another month of Jean's 
 society in her beloved Rome ; and Sylvia was 
 now not alone in her interest and regret. 
 
 This abrupt departure had not been effected 
 without comment, as had been the case when 
 Jane Harding had left her native land, or 
 when the reserved and unknown widow had so 
 suddenly quitted Paris. The handsome, popu- 
 lar Mrs. Grandison was too much of a person- 
 age in Roman society. Every one knew her ; 
 many envied her ; most people liked and ad- 
 mired her ; and, having attained very nearly the 
 position she coveted in the world's eye, it was 
 the natural consequence that those who com- 
 posed that world should talk about her. And, 
 accordingly, from all the salons of the for- 
 eign colony there went up such a clatter of
 
 210 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 tongues, such a tattling and gossiping as 
 would have furnished Pope with a new chapter 
 on the characters of women and of men. 
 Some staunch friends Jean had, in the Wynd- 
 hams, Forbes and Kooystra, and the good- 
 natured interest expressed by the Duchess of 
 Saintsbury, now returned from Southern Italy, 
 stood her in good stead. But people must 
 comment on the suddenness of her departure ; 
 there were stories of unpaid debts, and at last 
 a whisper began to be heard : Mrs. Grandison 
 was not what she seemed ; was not rich ; was 
 not Mrs. Grandison in short, was neither more 
 nor less than an adventuress and an impostor. 
 
 Some such rumor as this reached Sylvia's 
 ears one day at a reception to which she had 
 unwillingly gone; for with Jean, and Colonel 
 Yorke, who had gone to Constantinople a few 
 days after Jean's departure she seemed to 
 have lost heart and spirit. She was pale, lan- 
 guid and depressed, and was contributing little 
 to the gayety of the group of ladies among 
 whom she sat ; intellectual topics failed grad- 
 ually to interest them, and they finally turned 
 to the unfailing resource of gossip.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 21 1 
 
 " So the distinguished Mrs. Grandison turns 
 out to be a clever adventuress, Mrs. Atherton," 
 said one lady, caressing the knot of her bonnet- 
 strings with a well-gloved hand. 
 
 " Not merely clever, but so successful, my 
 dear," returned Mrs. Atherton. " Think how 
 she has duped us all, with her carriages and 
 her diamonds paste, I dare say." 
 
 " But the horses were real, I am sure," put 
 in a demure little bride, with a malicious 
 twinkle in her eyes. 
 
 " Much more substantial than Mrs. Grandi- 
 son s pretensions," said Mrs. Atherton, loftily 
 ignoring her many drives behind those " real 
 horses." 
 
 " What ! " cried Sylvia, suddenly roused. 
 " Who dares to hint such things about Mrs. 
 Grandison ? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ather- 
 ton, but I am so astonished. I have heard 
 nothing of all this. I beg you to give it full 
 and emphatic contradiction. Mrs. Grandison 
 an impostor ! People must be mad ! " 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Atherton, somewhat 
 stiffly. " You are very young, and it is very 
 pretty of you to take up the cause of a per-
 
 212 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 son you have been so much with but we 
 know." 
 
 " And so do I know," cried Sylvia, indig- 
 nantly. " And much better, I am sure, than 
 you can, for I have staid with her for months 
 in her English home. She is my mother's 
 friend as well as my own, and I can not hear 
 such things said of her. What can people be 
 thinking of! Major Limber," she cried, ap- 
 pealing to that gentleman as he passed. 
 " Pray re-enforce me ; you, I am sure, will not 
 allow such things to be said. You knew Mrs. 
 Grandison in England, I have heard you say." 
 
 " I knew the lady yes," said Major Limber 
 suavely, but with an ugly look in his eyes. " I 
 met her in a pension in London, where she 
 came without much pomp and circumstance." 
 
 " But you have been to Manycotes," per- 
 sisted Sylvia. 
 
 "Pardon me, Miss Wyndham, if I can not 
 indorse the lady as heartily as you wish. I 
 really know nothing about her beyond such 
 representations as she herself has made." 
 
 The ladies exchanged significant smiles, and 
 poor Sylvia found herself breathless, trembling,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 213 
 
 and utterly unable to answer Mrs. Atherton's 
 bland, '* Dear child, you must be careful how 
 you take up the cause of a person who may not 
 be all she should be." 
 
 She turned hastily away to conceal the in- 
 dignant tears which blinded her, Major Lim- 
 ber moving aside to let her pass ; he felt he 
 had risked somewhat, in speaking of Mrs. 
 Grandison as he had done, but he had been ac- 
 customed to a world in which friends could 
 listen with equanimity to any thing which did 
 not affect themselves, listening unmoved to 
 slurs and sneers, and turning to meet the 
 traduced one with smiling protestations of 
 changeless affection. He fancied he would 
 have some apologies to make, that it might 
 take him some time to re-establish himself in 
 the high place he felt so confident of holding, 
 in her good graces ; but he was wholly unpre- 
 pared for the passionate vehemence with which 
 she took up Mrs. Grandison's cause. He kept 
 his place at her side as she pushed her way 
 through the crowded room, addressing some 
 slight observations to her in his customary 
 tone of confidential flattery.
 
 214 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "Major Limber!" she cried, turning upon 
 him a glance of bitter contempt, too blindly 
 furious to consider the unwisdom of her words. 
 " Never speak to me again ! Treacherous ! 
 Unmanly! You are all Mrs. Grandison said 
 and more! " 
 
 "Ah! madam!" muttered Limber to him- 
 self, as the folds of the portiere closed after 
 Sylvia's retreating figure. " So I owe you this 
 too ! I have lost Sylvia and by God, you 
 shall pay me for it ! " 
 
 Sylvia, trembling and unnerved, hurried 
 away from the door, brushing past the man- 
 servant who offered to call a cab, and forget- 
 ting that she was on foot and alone, crossed 
 the Piazza, di Spagna and began to climb the 
 steps toward the Trinita de' Monti, her eyes 
 still full of tears. In her excitement she 
 did not see Forbes and Kooystra, who were 
 descending them, until Kooystra, seeing a 
 look of despair on lan's face, and not being 
 dazed by Sylvia's presence into utter inability 
 to act, good-naturedly stopped her by a 
 word. 
 
 " Do you come from Lady Fenimore's, Miss
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 215 
 
 Wyndham?" he asked. " We were hoping to 
 meet you there." 
 
 Sylvia stopped, too agitated for any cere- 
 monious greeting. 
 
 "Oh ! do not go there ! " she cried, " I shall 
 never go there again. They are saying such 
 things about dear Mrs. Grandison." 
 
 Kooystra cast a curious, quick look at 
 Forbes. 
 
 " It is all that horrid Major Limber," went 
 on Sylvia. " I know he has started these 
 stories about her being her not being her 
 going away in debt. They dared to call 
 her an adventuress." burst out poor Sylvia, 
 clinching her hands with a " kill Claudio " 
 expression. " I know he has done it all. Oh ! 
 if I were only a man ! " 
 
 "By heavens, I should like to fight him ! " 
 cried Forbes. 
 
 "Duels are not de notrc sihle" said the 
 cooler Kooystra, " but I should thoroughly 
 enjoy horse-whipping him, and I dare say I 
 shall some day. But, in the meantime, let us 
 consider what is best to be done. It is not 
 best to stay away from Lady Fenimore's' on
 
 2l6 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 account of this gossip. Where Mrs. Grandi- 
 son's enemies are, there her friends should be, 
 too. Forbes, walk home with Miss Wyndham 
 and then follow me to Lady Fenimore's. I 
 shall be there an hour at least." 
 
 As luck would have it, Kooystra, making his 
 way toward his hostess through a crowded 
 salon, was forced into close quarters with 
 Major Limber just in time to hear that worthy 
 repeat his slander to a fresh listener. " Have 
 you heard the news about the soi-disant Mrs. 
 Grandison ? " et caetera. 
 
 " I shall demand proof of that news, Major 
 Limber," broke in Kooystra, turning to face 
 him, " if your rancor outweighs your pru- 
 dence, and you persist in belying Mrs. Grandi- 
 son. But not here," he added, the direct gaze 
 of his piercing blue eyes seeming to check 
 Major Limber on the verge of an impetuous 
 outburst. "Whatever explanations or apolo- 
 gies you may wish to offer, I shall be ready to 
 receive elsewhere." 
 
 There was a little frightened stir among the 
 ladies ; this sounded very war-like, and Lady 
 Fenimore came sailing toward them with out-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 217 
 
 stretched hands and wide, flying draperies. 
 Major Limber had but a second for reflection. 
 He had no proofs ; he was not a coward, but 
 he did not care to engage in an altercation 
 with any friend of Sylvia's. Rome was pleas- 
 ant to him, and he did not care to leave it in 
 such an explosive way ; and, above all, here was 
 a chance to put some one else in the wrong. 
 So he summoned some sort of a smile, and 
 said, with an air of frank bonhomie: 
 
 " My dear Kooystra, I have no proofs, and as 
 for explanations, I make mine now frankly. I 
 was merely repeating an odd bit of gossip, 
 picked up at a cafe, without the least malevo- 
 lence, and I withdraw it with pleasure, since 
 you say it is not so." 
 
 He looked to see Kooystra disconcerted, but 
 the cold blue eyes were still fixed upon him 
 with that strange power, his own sank under 
 them, and somehow it was he who felt embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 " Take care that you repeat no more such 
 gossip ! " said Kooystra, sternly, and turned 
 upon his heel to address Lady Fenimore. 
 
 " Oh ! M. Kooystra," said that great lady,
 
 218 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 reproachfully, " I thought I could trust 
 you." 
 
 " So all my friends think, Lady Fenimore," 
 he answered, quietly, " especially Mrs. Grandi- 
 son. And it is by way of deserving that trust 
 that I do not propose to permit Major Lim- 
 ber's tongue such latitude as he gives it, at 
 least in speaking of my friends. You must 
 pardon my giving him his lesson here. I 
 should not stop to consider my whereabouts if 
 I heard him maligning you" 
 
 Lady Fenimore could not object to this. 
 Besides, Major Limber was going, actually 
 slinking away as if he felt himself beaten, 
 and Kooystra was at her side, among her 
 guests, exerting the peculiar charm of man- 
 ner and voice which made this strange, 
 ugly little man sometimes irresistible. Lady 
 Fenimore forgave him, and before he left 
 found, to her great surprise, that she had 
 given him a promise not to receive Limber 
 again. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sylvia and Forbes, the former 
 still shedding indignant tears, had turned to 
 the left at the top of the Spanish steps, and
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 2ig 
 
 followed the Trinita del' Monti to a gate of the 
 Pincian Gardens, close by the Academy of 
 France. It is a retired corner of the gardens, 
 and here Sylvia sank down on the nearest 
 bench and wept unrestrainedly. Ian Forbes 
 experienced a curious conflict of feeling. He 
 struggled against his man's horror of tears 
 which strongly prompted him to run away 
 because this weeping girl was the woman he 
 loved, and he shared in great measure the 
 indignation which swayed her. So he stood 
 before her, agitated, undecided, his heart melt- 
 ing within him with affection and tenderness, 
 while a confusion of contradictory sentiments 
 checked their expression. At one moment he 
 almost laughed aloud as the random, irritated 
 thought crossed his mind " I'm sure Mrs. 
 Grandison never cries," and in the revulsion 
 from this harsh judgment he sat down beside 
 Sylvia and gently took her hand. 
 
 " I can not bear it ! " sobbed Sylvia. " Per- 
 fidious, treacherous women ! How I despise 
 them ! And you you were her friend, too, or 
 appeared to be. Why don't you say some- 
 thing? "
 
 220 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 This was undeserved, but Ian did not resent 
 it. He had lost his head a little, and softer 
 sentiments were uppermost. 
 
 " Dear Miss Wyndham ! " he said, " I am 
 as truly her friend as I am yours, and you 
 know I will do any thing you tell me for I 
 love you ! " 
 
 Sylvia started to her feet. In the tumult of 
 her feelings slie had hardly realized the full 
 significance of lan's unluckily timed avowal, 
 but the sound of the words awakened her to a 
 realization of fact that a t$te-a-tete in a retired 
 part of the Pincio was by no means " the thing." 
 
 She began to walk hurriedly homeward, 
 uttering as she went incoherent phrases which 
 plainly told she could not detach her thoughts 
 long enough from Jean's affairs to appreciate 
 what Forbes had said. 
 
 Poor Ian listened very patiently to the 
 words which showed him how small a place he 
 held in her thoughts, and only when he parted 
 from her at the outer door of the court-yard, 
 said timidly : 
 
 " Some day will you tell me if there is no 
 hope for me at all ? "
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 221 
 
 Sylvia came out of her maze with a start of 
 dismay. 
 
 " Mr. Forbes," she cried. " Oh ! forgive 
 me ! " 
 
 But lan's endurance was at an end ; he had 
 turned hastily away and was walking headlong 
 toward the Porta del Popolo. 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham had driven out, Jean was 
 gone, and Sylvia, entering the empty salon, 
 was fain to fling herself down before a little, 
 merry, light-hearted fire, bustling up the chim- 
 ney in a great hurry, and to think herself out 
 of her bewildered distress as best she might 
 by herself. She was in that state of nervous 
 tension which made her mother's probable 
 return from her drive, years off; helpless anger 
 against Jean's detractors spurred her on to any 
 impulsive act, while a great rush of softening 
 compunction came over her as she remembered 
 the careless and off-hand way in which she had 
 received poor lan's declaration. She felt she 
 must do something, not much matter what ; so 
 she straightway did as foolish a thing as could 
 enter into the mind of woman to conceive. 
 She had just self-possessior. enough not to
 
 222 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 write Jean a full and particular account of 
 the scene at Lady Fenimore's, but she felt 
 she owed some apology to Ian, so she hastily 
 wrote, sealed, and sent the following note : 
 
 "Mv DEAR MR. FORBES, 
 
 " Pray, pray forgive me for what I said 
 or rather for what I did not say to you this 
 morning. My mind was so full of dear Mrs. 
 Grandison that I forgot the commonest court- 
 esy ; but you must know I could not bear to 
 wound you. I can't tell you how deeply I feel 
 your kindness indeed I am incapable of tell- 
 ing any one any thing to-night, and must beg 
 you not to come and see me for a few days. 
 By and by, when I am capable of connected 
 thought, I will write you more coherently. 
 Just now I can only apologize for behaving so 
 rudely, so badly. I was so wrought up I did 
 not know what I was about, but you will not 
 misunderstand me, I know. Pray come and 
 see me soon. You are my only consolation in 
 this dreadful affair, for I know you feel with 
 me in every way. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "SYLVIA WYNDHAM. 
 
 " Rome, Friday." 
 
 Having thus perpetrated one of those incon-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 223 
 
 ceivably foolish actions of which the wisest 
 women are sometimes guilty, Sylvia went to 
 bed relieved of all anxieties unconnected with 
 Jean, and wholly unconscious of having given 
 Ian Forbes the least reason to count upon her 
 accepting him. As for Forbes, he leaves it to 
 the unbiased reader whether the above letter 
 is not good warrant for him to consider him- 
 self tacitly accepted, a mere maidenly coyness 
 postponing more definite acknowledgments 
 to some future day.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " The very substance of the ambitious 
 Is but the shadow of a dream ." 
 
 T EAN, following her will-o'-the-wisp, social 
 J success, westward, recovered very quickly 
 from the foolish panic which had caused her to 
 leave Rome. Her spirit calmed by the pleas- 
 ures of Parisian shopping, and the providing 
 of a dream-like collection of gowns and con- 
 fections, she wondered at her fears, recognizing 
 and regretting the weakness of her nature, 
 which allowed her to be swayed by such un- 
 reasoning moods. After all, however, these 
 abrupt entrances and exits suited her dramatic 
 vein ; they served to make her noteworthy 
 she was far from imagining in what way and 
 she took a sort of pride in them. She wrote 
 lovingly to Sylvia, cordially to Kooystra, Forbes 
 and one or two more, and by the middle of 
 May, at which time her passage was taken for 
 America, she had recovered the belief in her-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 225 
 
 self and the pleasure in her role which her 
 Roman winter had fostered. 
 
 Jean Grandison, self-approving, self-assured, 
 was a very different traveling companion from 
 Jane Harding, shrinking, imbittered and sensi- 
 tive. She was soon on good terms with the 
 most desirable of her shipmates, and not at all 
 inclined to be reserved, as regarded her pur- 
 poses and prospects. 
 
 When Mrs. Prescott found that this charm- 
 ing widow meant to buy or build a house at 
 Newport " for a pied-a-terre in my native land 
 after so many years of exile," she thawed a 
 little from her Bostonian triple armor of reserve, 
 and mentally resolving to find out who Jean 
 " was " before she became Mrs. Grandison 
 revealed the fact of her own summer residence 
 there, and by the time they landed, had so 
 far forgotten wha.t was due to herself, as to 
 express a hope of seeing Mrs. Grandison 
 (spinster identity still unknown) at Sea-Spray. 
 Other fellow-travelers less distinguished for 
 blue blood or Newport cottages were equally 
 cordial, and Jean felt that she reached her 
 native land with a fairly promising number of
 
 226 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 eminently desirable acquaintances. Thus 
 when, early in June, she appeared, with her 
 usual unostentatious simplicity at a quiet but 
 " swell " boarding-house in Newport, she no 
 longer felt herself a stranger in a strange land, 
 but a properly accredited visitor, with no small 
 claim upon her entertainers. Her expectations 
 were fulfilled ; the Duchess of Saintsbury's 
 kindly note having been dispatched to Mrs. 
 Du-Moncel-Brown, that indisputably great 
 woman, arbiter of the said and done at New- 
 port, hastened to welcome her. And when 
 Jean, modestly calling upon her in a cab, had 
 made her little speech about a pied-h-terre, 
 Mrs. Du-Moncel-Brown took her up enthusiasti- 
 cally, driving her from agent to agent in her 
 own landau until Jean's search for a cottage 
 should be concluded to the satisfaction of her 
 fastidious fancy. 
 
 Nor was this pure philanthropy ; the re- 
 ward of being able to talk of Jean as " a charm- 
 ing woman with such cordial letters to me from 
 the dear duchess, ' was full and immediate. 
 Not Jean alone was gilded by the reflected 
 glory of an introduction from the Duchess of
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 22? 
 
 Saintsbury. The golden haze also hung shim- 
 mering about Mrs. Du-Moncel-Brown as the 
 addressee of the letter. 
 
 Curious and worthy of study are the various 
 attitudes of the American mind in regard to 
 titles. Young ladies of the most pronounced 
 democratic principles are heard inveighing 
 against the toadyism with which the steps of 
 a certain marquis or baron have been attended ; 
 how the " marquis' eyes, the baron's smile " 
 have been loudly sung by less discreet fair 
 ones, and until a circumstantial recital of how 
 they declined the great man's acquaintance, the 
 cynical hearer suspects that marquis and baron 
 must somehow have failed to recognize their 
 especial charm. The cynical hearer is apt to 
 be confirmed in this suspicion, when, on the 
 appearance of an unassuming gentleman, who, 
 really believing in the republicanism professed 
 by us as a people, has laid aside his title in 
 favor of a simple " Mr.," the pretty scornful 
 lips are heard occupying themselves with a 
 recital of his place and privileges, while the 
 delicious monosyllable " prince " comes trip- 
 pingly from their tongues. Then there are
 
 228 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 the men who parade their indifference and 
 contempt for rank to the very men they are 
 courting, and while they affect to be unable to 
 remember " that d d nonsense of Lord 
 this and Duke that," retain for years a vivid 
 recollection of their intimacy with " that good 
 fellow So-and-so ; he's a duke, you know ; but 
 I didn't mind that." 
 
 Not to be too monotonous, our Republic 
 fosters another class, less numerous and more 
 exclusive, descendants of the " real old fami- 
 lies ; " north, south, east, and can we say west ? 
 in whom family pride has been cherished, like 
 some rare exotic, for nearly two hundred years. 
 These do not hesitate to say they love a lord ; 
 they feel themselves of the same fine porcelain 
 clay of humanity. 
 
 "Our institutions are all very well," they say, 
 " but j0#and / know, my dear Mrs. Blueblood, 
 that there can be no real equality between us 
 and common persons of no family." 
 
 But even here grows and flourishes the "fine 
 fleur" of humanity, the gentleman in the true, 
 not in the petrified, sense of the word ; here 
 develop to uttermost perfection, men and
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 229 
 
 women who, long-descended or self-made, are 
 of the best blood of all the ages, and to them 
 may safely be left the credit and the future of 
 our land. 
 
 When all these things reached the ears of 
 Mrs. Prescott, Jean's Boston friend of the 
 Servia, it seemed clearly her duty not to wait 
 upon Jean's modesty, but promptly to call upon 
 her at her boarding place. Here, too, Jean 
 was presently re-enforced by the arrival of Mrs. 
 Randolph and her daughter, whilome guests at 
 Manycotes, and unconscious cause of Major 
 Limber's first discomfiture. Casually meeting 
 them, she was cordially embraced and claimed 
 as an old friend. To this even her caution 
 acceded, foreseeing the value of an ally who 
 could speak with knowledge of her English 
 home, to which she had as yet barely alluded. 
 Sadie Randolph was not quite " in the swim," 
 as she phrased it, but she was pretty, and pre- 
 sentable ; she knew a, good many "nice" 
 people, and when Mrs. Du-Moncel-Brovvn and 
 Mrs. Prescott found that she could talk enthusi- 
 astically of her visit to Jean's " place " in 
 Somersetshire, they accepted her at her face-
 
 230 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 value. Jean's usual good luck in the matter 
 of real estate did not fail her here. A fifty 
 thousand dollar "cottage," fallen vacant by the 
 death of the owner, seemed so cozy, modest 
 and suitable, so much " the thing " in every 
 way, that it was quickly bought ; its de- 
 ficiencies, imperceptible to any eye but Jean's, 
 hastily supplied ; the name of " Many-cotes- 
 in-America," placed upon the gate, and 
 Jean found herself once more a house-holder. 
 Before very long too, she found her ideas of 
 household arrangement becoming the ideals 
 of her enthusiastic new friends. Sadie 
 Randolph, invited to remain at the new Many- 
 cotes while her mother took a further flight, 
 was too quick in her perceptions not to fulfill 
 Jean's unexpressed expectations. Every dainty 
 device of Jean's luxury-loving brain, every 
 reminiscence of the "old country " Manycotes, 
 was industriously exploit^ by that right- 
 minded young lady, and always at precisely the 
 proper time. On a damp, foggy day, a wood- 
 fire having been lit to enliven the belated lunch- 
 eon which Mrs. Du-Moncel-Brown was sharing 
 with them it would be :
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 231 
 
 "Oh, dear Mrs. Grandison that lovely fire, 
 with a footman and that fascinating brass 
 kettle, just like lovely Manycotes ! How I 
 hope it will storm to-morrow, then we can have 
 a fire at breakfast. But where, oh ! where, is 
 the delicious little silver gridiron we used to 
 toest our bacon on at Manycotes?" 
 
 And so on, ad libitum ; from all which it may 
 be perceived that Miss Sadie Randolph, though 
 not intellectually Jean's equal, nor the congenial 
 companion Sylvia had been, was a shrewd 
 young woman who knew how to make herself 
 valued where she would be, and had a single 
 eye to her own interests, as seen through the 
 medium of a friend's glory.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that 
 we are loved, loved for ourselves ; say rather, loved in 
 spite of ourselves." 
 
 THUS Jean's social success in her own 
 country was assured at once, without 
 encountering any of the impediments which 
 had daunted her at the outset of her career. 
 The stars in their courses had fought for her, 
 and she began to have that comfortable sense 
 of deserving all the good which could befall 
 her, which is the portion of those who demand 
 most from life. Jean's creed did not stop at 
 the belief that the world owed her a living ; 
 she also firmly held that it owed her admira- 
 tion, flattery, imitation ; and now that these 
 demands were in some degree responded to, 
 she began to wear that smiling face which is 
 so readily reflected. Jean had bitterly con- 
 demned her mother for causing her to spend the 
 best years of her life in a friendless exile. In
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 233 
 
 the springtime of life, when friendships germi- 
 nate as well as plants, she had been shut away 
 from her kind like any cloistered nun. Now, 
 at thirty-five, this was changed ; friendly faces 
 greeted her at every turn ; she was courted, 
 flattered, and caressed in the very land with 
 which were associated the memories of her 
 sensitive girlhood, the bitterness of utter iso- 
 lation, the shipwrecked feeling of passing 
 through crowds without seeing a single familiar 
 face. 
 
 Now, when Loki was led along the avenue, 
 mincing coquettishly on her dainty, shell-like 
 hoofs, every voice said, " There goes Mrs. 
 Grandison's mare ;" and every head was turned 
 to look at Jean as she followed, in her hat and 
 habit, leaning back in the low victoria, with its 
 incomparable team : for among the foreign cus- 
 toms which Jean affected was that of mount- 
 ing her horse outside of the town. 
 
 But her nature had been too long given over 
 to the seven devils of self-torment to exist 
 without a grievance. In the full tide of her 
 quickly-won success, Jean began to consider 
 with herself that these visitors, these guests
 
 234 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 and hosts, and assiduous flatterers and imita- 
 tors, were mere acquaintances, interested and 
 self-seeking, as she cynically acknowledged 
 herself to be. She craved the security of real 
 friendship and honest affection. She thought 
 almost with tears, of Sylvia's sweet sincerity, 
 of Kooystra's oddly expressed, uncertain, yet 
 unmistakable attachment. 
 
 At just this time, when her heart was stretch- 
 ing out yearning hands toward the few people 
 who had crept into it, almost against her will, 
 Colonel Yorke arrived in Newport. 
 
 Keppel Yorke, having sailed from a Medi- 
 terranean port directly for America, found the 
 atmosphere of the country he had made his 
 own with such enthusiasm, curiously unconge- 
 nial. He was one of the men whom good-for- 
 tune permits to be busy or idle at will, and his 
 first impulse had been to remedy his creeping 
 discontent by the common-sense prescription 
 of hard work. He had thrown himself with 
 avidity into the details of his affairs, rushing 
 from Texan pasture lands to Colorado mines 
 and California wheat-fields. But he was ill 
 at ease ; his thoughts, usually like well-drilled
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 235 
 
 soldiers, very much at his command, kept turn- 
 ing aside into pleasant but unprofitable ways. 
 The odor of wood smoke, a cool breeze as he 
 passed from sunshine into shadow, sent them 
 on an airy voyage to Rome, and the little salon 
 where he had spent so many hours with Jean 
 and Sylvia. Was it Sylvia's girlish charm or 
 Jean's matured beauty which exercised over 
 him a spell so powerful ? He was loth to 
 acknowledge himself under any woman's influ- 
 ence. In reviewing the by no means virgin 
 pages of his past, he encountered many epi- 
 sodes, when he had fancied himself, or per- 
 haps had been, desperately in love. It had 
 been, however, a brief madness, readily recov- 
 ered from, and in no way akin -to the impulse 
 with which his whole nature now turned to 
 Jean. Yes, it was Jean. In her serene and 
 rather inexpressive presence he felt that 
 responsive quality which we are fain to desig- 
 nate by clumsy circumlocutions, but which the 
 Italians characterize by saying, "she is simpat- 
 ica" Comprehension, companionship, response, 
 restfulness,. fulfillment, all these seemed to come 
 to him with Jean's gracious presence, the
 
 236 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 sound of her voice the touch of her hand. 
 This, at least, is what Colonel Yorke said to 
 himself, when, having read Jean's name in the 
 Newport notes of some newspaper, having fol- 
 lowed unquestioned the impulse which sent 
 him on a journey of some thousands of miles 
 toward her abode he at last found himself 
 face to face with her in the drawing-room of 
 the new Manycotes. 
 
 As for Jean, all the training of years of out- 
 ward self-repression, the long habit of master- 
 ing emotion under an exterior of cold indif- 
 ference, were scarcely sufficient to conceal the 
 sudden, mad joy which told Jean her unsus- 
 pected secret. Love, late, but more intense 
 for the delay, had come to her at last. 
 
 Mammas who had looked with an approving 
 eye upon Colonel Yorke's qualifications for 
 the post of son-in-law ; daughters who had 
 gracefully acquiesced in their mother's wish to 
 install him in that position, were obliged to 
 relinquish, not without sighs, their hopes, 
 when they saw with what fixed purpose and 
 disdain of all subterfuge Colonel Yorke de- 
 voted himself, as the phrase goes, to Mrs.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 237 
 
 Grandison. He had lived too long, lightly to 
 spare " the time that is lost in wooing " by 
 younger men, and soon gave up the pretext of 
 seeking Jean for any thing but Jean herself, if 
 haply he might win her. 
 
 It was Jean's first wooing, and it was long 
 before she realized his meaning. For the first 
 time in her life, she felt herself unworthy a 
 newborn humility revealed her to herself at 
 her true value. And the joy which trans- 
 figured all her being was unmarred by any 
 touch of the coquette's pride of power gained 
 through man's senses over his soul. 
 
 They had been talking idly, with long, 
 delicious silences, such as lovers, acknowledged 
 or unacknowledged, delight in. 
 
 " Coward ! " said Colonel Yorke, starting to 
 his feet and bending over her. " That I should 
 have hesitated, so long. I have feared my fate 
 too much. Jean, I must risk all now, loss or 
 gain, because I must know if you love me as 
 I do you." 
 
 And Jean, never having discovered the use 
 or value of a " woman's no," met truth with 
 truth, and answered simply: " Indeed I do."
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " Dare to be true ; nothing is worth a lie." 
 
 SOME far-off gipsy ancestress Jean must 
 have had, whose wild blood stirring in 
 her veins, drove her out of doors in all her 
 hours of excitement, whether of joy or pain. 
 It was late before she was alone, and could 
 yield to this craving, but when she was at last 
 free, she wrapped herself in a shadowy cloak, 
 and calling Bor, stepped out of the low win- 
 dow on the dusky lawn. 
 
 A great golden moon, the hunter's moon, 
 for it was October, hung low in the heavens, 
 slowly rising over a long dim line of distant 
 coast. . On a far-off point 
 
 " The light-house, like a sullen star, 
 Twinkled to many a dozing tar, 
 Rude cradled on the mast." 
 
 Between and far below, lay the sea, softly 
 breathing, serene, unvexed, and treacherous. 
 " And this was in the world for me, and I
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 239 
 
 knew it not ! Oh ! that I had lived worthy of 
 it ! " thought Jean. 
 
 All her faults, follies and mistakes rose up 
 accusingly before her, but for the time being 
 the mad rush of her joy swept them out of 
 sight ; for this one night she was supremely, 
 gloriously happy. She longed to saddle Loki, 
 to creep out, not by her front gate, but here, 
 along the cliff ; to ride far and fast along the 
 moonlit beaches ; and had she been Jane 
 Harding still, she would have done it. 
 
 But something now withheld her ; she felt 
 the* pressure of a sweet bondage restraining 
 her ; her will was swayed by another's ; her 
 deeds, words, thoughts were owed to him, a 
 debt gladly paid. So she lingered but a little 
 while in the wonderful golden calm : Bor 
 pacing grave and glad beside her, till the 
 tumult of her heart was calmed enough for her 
 to think of sleep and of her looks on the 
 morrow. 
 
 But the serpent for Jean's paradise was not 
 long in appearing, presenting himself the 
 very next day, with a prettily forked red 
 tongue, and, indeed, waking Jean from happy
 
 240 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 slumbers with a small venomous hiss. For to 
 Jean, waking early to brood upon her joy, 
 came the sudden recollection of her false name, 
 her false position, her false self ; the vast sum 
 of falsehood she was about to bestow on the 
 man she loved, in return for his honest devo- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, indeed, she must escape and be alone. 
 She sprang from her bed and rang furiously ; 
 it was very early, but Jean's household were 
 used to caprices, and Loki was saddled and 
 stood at the door, the graceful head on the 
 long, pliant neck turning eagerly, as she 
 neighed a welcome to her mistress almost 
 as soon as Jean could get into her habit. 
 
 In the company of this dumb, loving friend, 
 and in the sweet morning air, all Jean's 
 thoughts were calmed; she rode slowly on 
 beside the receding surf, thinking earnestly 
 and intently over her position. The senti- 
 mental side of it, she was able to dismiss more 
 quickly than she had feared. The truth and 
 faith of her heart were Yorke's, she reflected, 
 and she felt no prompting to endanger her 
 place in his regard by the confession of her
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH, 241 
 
 double-dealing. As for the practical side of it, 
 she considered attentively its every possible 
 aspect. Her money was now all safely in- 
 vested ; the deed of each piece of property 
 bore the name of Jean St. George Grandison ; 
 .no investigation which he was likely to make 
 into her affairs would give any hint of the 
 truth. No human being existed likely to 
 betray or even suspect her. Since her return 
 to America she had encountered no one of the 
 few formal acquaintances of former days, nor 
 had she even heard whether Mr. Sandman 
 were dead or alive. Had she done so, how- 
 ever, what reason had any one of them to 
 doubt her statement that in the years which 
 had elapsed since she last left America she had 
 been married and widowed, as she was now 
 about to be married again. This last thought 
 swept away all lingering doubts ; into abstract 
 questions of truth and falsehood it was not 
 Jean's nature to enter, and dismissing now 
 every misgiving, she turned Loki's head home- 
 ward with a glad heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " There is some soul of greatness in things evil." 
 
 SYLVIA was coming. This was the rose- 
 leaf on Jean's overflowing cup, for now 
 that she loved, her heart was wider and warmer 
 for all those whom she called her friends. She 
 repeated the news often to Colonel Yorke, 
 who smiled over her childlike pleasure, while 
 sharing it in his way ; and when at last Sylvia 
 came, Jean's heart felt what was, perhaps, its 
 first generous pang, at seeing the young girl so 
 wan, silent and distraite. 
 
 " My little one ! " she said tenderly, " you are 
 so pale, you have been working too hard." 
 
 " I have been trying your prescription," said 
 Sylvia, with a smile as sad as tears. " I have 
 faithfully tried to forget myself in my work. I 
 am improving you shall see. You must let 
 me paint you, for I never saw you so beauti- 
 ful."
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 243 
 
 Jean's cheeks flushed with a conscious color. 
 
 " You shall, dearie but you shall not work 
 too hard over it. This glorious pure air will do 
 you good, and Colonel Yorke and I " 
 
 " Is Colonel Yorke here?" interrupted Syl- 
 via, not noticing the significant association of 
 the names ; and Jean was about to announce 
 to her the joyful secret which shone in her 
 every glance, but something in the girl's tone 
 gave her pause. She moved away, turning to 
 conceal her face, and said in an indifferent 
 voice : 
 
 "Yes, he is still here, but I believe he is 
 going soon." 
 
 There was a moment of eloquent silence ; 
 suspicion, dismay, certainty, swept through 
 Jean's mind ; she mastered herself presently 
 and spoke caressingly, standing behind Sylvia's 
 chair, and drawing the fair head fondly against 
 her bosom. 
 
 " You have never told me his name, Sylvia," 
 she said. " May I guess ? " 
 
 " Why should I not tell you ? " said Sylvia, 
 in a broken voice. " It can be no shame to love 
 to have loved such a man as Colonel Yorke,"
 
 244 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Her voice died away in a whisper and Jean's 
 heart gave two or three such throbs she felt 
 as if Sylvia must have heard them. 
 
 " God bless you, my child," she said, after a 
 second's pause. " Lie down now, and rest." 
 
 She kissed Sylvia's cold cheek, and left her 
 to woo very uncertain slumbers. 
 
 While Sylvia slept, Jean acted, with feverish 
 impulsiveness. She wrote and dispatched a 
 hasty line to Colonel Yorke, bidding him come 
 to her at once, and waited, in silent conflict 
 with herself strong and weak by turns, doubt- 
 ing herself, hating herself and living through, 
 altogether, some of the bitterest moments of 
 her life. 
 
 "Colonel Yorke," she said abruptly, as he 
 entered, forcing herself to set the seal of action 
 on her resolution. " I can not marry you." 
 
 " What ! " cried Colonel Yorke, in a voice 
 which shook her to her heart's core. He 
 looked fixedly at her, and added more calmly : 
 " What have I done ? " 
 
 " You " said Jean, very low. " You have 
 done nothing to offend me. " You are only too 
 good for me. And so," she went on with a mere
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 245 
 
 caricature of a smile " So I have sent for you 
 to tell you that I can not and will not marry 
 you, because some one far more worthy of you 
 than I can ever be 
 
 " My God ! Jean, do you know what you are 
 saying?" broke in Colonel Yorke violently. 
 
 " Yes," said Jean, her self-possession coming 
 back to face the difficulty she now realized. 
 " I have reflected and I beg you to hear me. 
 Did I care less for you, as a friend did I 
 esteem you less highly, I should perhaps have 
 let things go on as they are." She faltered a 
 moment here, but not again. Some heathen 
 notion of expiation, together with a lightning 
 flash of fear, playing about the difficulties of 
 her false position, had perhaps suggested cer- 
 tainly urged her on, to this way of escape from 
 telling Colonel Yorke the whole truth. 
 
 " I accepted you on impulse, as I often act. 
 I appreciate, I esteem, I admire you ; but I 
 have learned that some one more worthy of 
 you, young, beautiful, all you could wish, loves 
 you too." (This last word escaped her una- 
 wares.) " And I feel you would be happier 
 freed from me. You have not considered
 
 246 THE WHOLE J^RCTH. 
 
 enough, perhaps. I am not young, not pliant 
 and yielding my character is cast in a sharp 
 mold. It would be better for you to choose 
 some one more lovable, whom you could shape 
 to your will she loves you so." 
 
 Colonel Yorke listened in silence to this 
 piece of feminine logic, generosity, consistency 
 and foolishness, dismay gradually giving place 
 to surprise, relief and somewhat sarcastic amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " I understand," he said, when she stopped. 
 " You have discovered that some pretty school 
 girl I don't ask who does me the honor to 
 fancy herself in love with me." 
 
 Jean started, realizing how nearly she had 
 betrayed another woman's most sacred secret. 
 "And you are anxious to sacrifice my real 
 happiness to your very mistaken notion of 
 what that happiness ought to be. Well, Jean," 
 he rose and stood before her, " I forbid you to 
 sacrifice yourself and me to such a Quixotic 
 whimsey. I love you, Jean, I am as much 
 one with you now as though we had been 
 married twenty years. It is useless to try 
 and hand me over to some other woman
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 247 
 
 absolutely useless to try and convince me that 
 she loves me better than you do." 
 
 He took her hand, bending over her and 
 looking at her with a proud glance of con- 
 scious mastery. Jean hesitated, trembled, 
 yielded, not with that old, resentful submis- 
 sion, fighting against all that crossed her will, 
 but with a delicious sense of rest, losing her 
 wish to resist, in a conviction that resist- 
 ance was useless. And not until Colonel 
 Yorke had gone did she realize that she had a 
 mauvais quart cTheure before her, in which she 
 must tell Sylvia the truth Sylvia, whose sad 
 little secret she had so nearly told. 
 
 " But I never will tell," she thought, " cost 
 me what lies it may." 
 
 And then, with that resolution to face the 
 worst at once, 4 so strange in a nature so weak 
 as Jean's, she sought Sylvia in her room. 
 
 The girl had risen and dressed for dinner. 
 Like Tennyson's " Rose " in that exquisitely 
 vague and perfectly satisfying description of 
 woman's dress, she was " gowned in pure white 
 which fitted to the shape." 
 
 She was pale but less broken than before,
 
 248 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 and a subtle change had come over face and 
 manner, which startled Jean with a fear that 
 she suspected. 
 
 " Sylvia," she began, rushing at her task, as 
 she had done with Colonel Yorke. " Dear 
 Sylvia, I have professed to love you so much. 
 I do love you so sincerely, I wonder what you 
 will say to me ? Treacherous false to you 
 though indeed I did not mean it. If I had 
 only known ! How shall I ever tell you, 
 Sylvia? I am engaged to Colonel Yorke." 
 
 She stopped, clasping convulsively the cold 
 brass rail of the bed by which she stood. 
 Sylvia may have started or grown impercep- 
 tibly pale, but she answered in a steady 
 voice : 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Grandison, please do not distress 
 yourself. It can make no difference to me, for 
 I am engaged to Mr. Forbes." 
 
 "What ! " cried Jean, unconsciously illustrat- 
 ing the poverty of our language in vocative 
 phrases, and then, with one rapid, backward 
 glance, breathed a hearty mental thanksgiving 
 for her failure. "Thank heaven! I didn't tell 
 him who I meant. I didn't tell her how I
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 249 
 
 tried to give him up to her. I needn't give him 
 up now, it is all right." 
 
 While Sylvia, unconscious of this swift flight 
 of thoughts through Jean's mind, was saying 
 in her quiet, sweet voice, " Yes, dear friend, 
 you were neither false nor treacherous. You 
 have never been any thing but goodness itself 
 to me. And no one knows better than I the 
 worth of what you have won. I don't know 
 how I happened to tell you of my unlucky 
 fancy. But I do not regret it ; you are too 
 noble for petty jealousy, and I would rather 
 you should know. And now," she added, after 
 a pause, " will you not congratulate me ? For, in- 
 deed, Mr. Forbes is the kindest, the truest 
 
 Twilight had fallen, and there was only the 
 reflection from the steely plain of sea without, 
 and the dying flicker of a fire within. Jean 
 clasped Sylvia in her arms, her heart aching 
 with a terrible stress of feeling, love, pity 
 and relief intermingling ; and after all, it was 
 Sylvia who soothed her tears away, kissing 
 and caressing her, and saying in her old gay 
 voice : " Come, let us go to our dinner. I am 
 very hungry. And is not Colonel Yorke come? 
 I think I hear his voice in the hall."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " The misty verge of truth." 
 
 THE apartment which Jean had occupied at 
 the Hotel Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, con- 
 sisted of five good-sized rooms, and to these 
 had been added, at Jean's request, a little 
 bachelor apartment of " deux pieces" which 
 adjoined it. The tiny salon of this second 
 suite had so sunny and pleasant an outlook 
 that she had chosen to make a morning room 
 of it, establishing there all her little feminine 
 properties, writing materials, dispatch-boxes 
 and pet books, and making it the favorite 
 haunt of her solitary hours. On Mrs. Grandi- 
 son's departure, however, Madame Berthon 
 had re-assigned it to its original use, and thus, 
 in the winter of 1883, Major Limber, being 
 once more on his southern way in quest of a 
 Colchis whose latitude and longitude were for- 
 ever uncertain, became the occupant of these 
 very bachelor quarters.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 251 
 
 Though Major Limber's mental cuticle was 
 somewhat of the thickest, it could not be said 
 that he had forgotten the little episode at 
 Rome, or any of his previous rebuffs at Jean's 
 hands. They rankled still, but his purpose 
 of getting even with Jean was only in abey- 
 ance, while all his aspirations turned toward an 
 especially bright and particular star of an 
 heiress ; a wandering star, whose somewhat 
 erratic course from place to place he felt him- 
 self obliged to follow. It was oddly character- 
 istic of the man that he felt no ill-will toward 
 Kooystra for his active hostility. Rather ad- 
 miring him, in fact, for his spirited defense 
 of Jean, while her less overt slights had cut 
 more deeply, and his feelings toward her 
 retained their pristine bitterness and malevo- 
 lence. 
 
 A very slight thing served to re-awaken this 
 rancor. Writing a note one day at a small 
 table in his window, he felt hastily and impa- 
 tiently in its single drawer for the blotter; 
 finally, pulling out a half-sheet of paper which 
 lay crumpled with it at the back of the 
 drawer. This scrap lay unnoticed until his
 
 252 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 own letter was sealed, when, mechanically 
 smoothing it out before laying it in his blot- 
 ting-book, his eyes were caught by a name 
 repeatedly written upon it, in varying combi- 
 nations. 
 
 "Jane Harding, Jane Grandison, Jane Hard- 
 ing Grandison, Jane St. George Grandison," 
 and at last the signature : 
 
 "Jean St. George Grandison," which he had 
 happened more than once to see written in 
 that graceful, shapely English hand which 
 reveals so little of the writer's personality. 
 It was not the unexpected recognition how- 
 ever which caused his sudden start and vio- 
 lent ejaculation, but the conviction which 
 came to him in a flash, that the idle story 
 set afloat by him in the very wantonness of 
 malice might be true. 
 
 Too evidently these hasty scrawls were exper- 
 iments in a change of name : whether to a 
 cognomen legally assumed in the ordinary 
 way by marriage, or as he had hinted, as- 
 sumed of malice prepense, and for purposes of 
 deception the scrap of paper could not tell 
 him. But his wish was so eager to father
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 253 
 
 the thought that he had little difficulty in 
 believing in the accuracy of his random shot, 
 still less in resolving to follow up this clew 
 to its utmost possibilities for Jean's discom- 
 fiture. But with all his unscrupulous tenacity 
 of purpose Major Limber was in no hurry. 
 He was satisfied to have the mills of the gods 
 grind slowly, and forgetting the possibility of 
 ever becoming grist to these mills himself, 
 he looked upon them as convenient instru- 
 ments providentially provided to reduce his 
 enemies to powder, while he presided com- 
 placently at the hopper. What were his ene- 
 mies' views as to the purposes of the gods, 
 he did not stop to consider, sharing that for- 
 tunate habit of thought, whereby most people 
 are enabled to believe in a just punishment 
 for other people and a well-merited reward 
 for one's self. Just now there was metal more 
 attractive in that southern land toward which 
 he was traveling, full of hopes of final 
 achievement in the shape of an advanta- 
 geous marriage with a fresh-caught and pre- 
 ternaturally silly American girl. So, content- 
 ing himself with a cursory search for. more
 
 254 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 traces of Jean he secured his one bit of evi- 
 dence very carefully in an inner fold of his 
 pocket-book and took his way southward with 
 a pleasant consciousness of power in reserve. 
 In the pleasant winter cities where he had 
 meant to carry on a triumphant campaign, 
 Major Limber was presently aware of a subtle 
 breath of antagonism, an influence which baffled 
 him at every turn. The Duchess of Saintsbury 
 had begun it with one of her brief uncompro- 
 mising remarks. Lady Fenimore had cut him 
 publicly in full sight of the people to whom he 
 had boasted of her intimacy, and at one sweep 
 all the introductions to titled people which 
 had been the sop to his heiress's Cerberus- 
 mother, became impossible. 
 
 The duchess' words were too explicit to leave 
 him in ignorance of their meaning. " No one," 
 she said, " could safely receive a person who 
 spread scandalous reports about his hosts." 
 And recognizing the futility of such a fight 
 against fate, Major Limber, with rage in his 
 heart, gave up the game. At Nice, whither he 
 tent his steps, in company with some conge- 
 nial souls, his anger for awhile was forgotten in
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 255 
 
 the tide of somewhat unusual success at Monte 
 Carlo and various Cercles, from which he 
 carried away consolation enough, in the shape 
 of certain notes and checks, to render the 
 immediate future rather bright. Here too, Jie 
 made carefully guarded inquiries among the 
 few who were too easy-going or too ill-informed 
 to cut him, only to find that none of Jean's 
 acquaintances, however great the degree of 
 intimacy they claimed, were able to tell him 
 who she had been before they knew her as 
 Mrs. Grandison. A vagueness hung over her 
 previous history which encouraged his suspi- 
 cions, and the news of her marriage to Colonel 
 Yorke roused to bitterest activity his pur- 
 poses of revenge. 
 
 At each fresh proof that his enemy was 
 flourishing "like a green bay-tree," Major 
 Limber, being unacquainted with the denun- 
 ciatory merits of the Psalms, contented himself 
 with strong language of a secular kind, and 
 with putting his detective powers seriously to 
 work for Jean's discomfiture.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 
 
 " No falsehood can endure." 
 
 "T) ETURNING to London in the merry 
 1 V month of May, with his purse so well 
 furnished as to absolve him, for the moment, 
 from the disagreeable necessity of pleasing 
 other people, Major Limber had the pleasure 
 of finding that other merry person, Mrs. Mer- 
 riam, established there in pretty lodgings, and 
 great content. These two allies suited one 
 another perfectly, and had long ago agreed 
 that had one or the other been less impecu- 
 nious, a marriage between them would have 
 been the happiest thing for both. As much love 
 as he was capable of feeling for any one Major 
 Limber bestowed on the vivacious little widow, 
 who charmed his senses, inflamed his ambition 
 and encouraged all his tastes without any un- 
 due requirements on the score of strict morality 
 As much affection as her shallow heart could
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 2$"J 
 
 hold Mrs. Merrian had given to the handsome, 
 unscrupulous vau-rien, whose Irish ardor and 
 perfectly selfish fondness fully satisfied her 
 unexacting nature. But beyond an offensive 
 and defensive alliance of a superficial kind, 
 neither one was sufficiently disinterested or 
 sufficiently carried away by passion to go, and 
 they had remained for several years with much 
 satisfaction in their somewhat ambiguous posi- 
 tion of " great allies, and firm friends." 
 
 One warm day in May, Major Limber and 
 his well-met companion were making their way 
 through the brilliant mob which thronged, 
 the rooms of Burlington House: she, happy 
 in the contented consciousness of a becom- 
 ing bonnet ; he, taking an Irishman's genu- 
 ine pleasure in escorting a pretty and well- 
 dressed woman in a conspicuous manner 
 through a not unobserving crowd. 
 
 " There is a portrait here I want to show 
 you, done by a man I know," said Major Lim- 
 ber, unable to overcome, even in Kooystra's 
 case, his propensity for claiming acquaintance 
 with celebrities. " Nothing was so much 
 talkad of at the Salon, year before last,
 
 258 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Kooystra might have gotten a good price for 
 it and taken any place he pleased. But he's 
 odd, poor fellow, infatuated about the woman, 
 and positively refuses either to sell the picture 
 or to paint any thing else." 
 
 "How affecting !" said Mrs. Merriam, with 
 her little artificial laugh. " Pray, does the 
 original persist in being hard-hearted? Must 
 he content himself with her counterfeit pre- 
 sentment? " 
 
 " The original has just married another man 
 a rich man, though she has plenty of money 
 herself." 
 
 " Horrid thing ! " said Mrs. Merriam. " Why 
 didn't she leave him for some one who 
 really needed him. But stop ! " she went on, 
 seizing his arm, " there's a face I know. Yes 
 exaggerated but it must be ! Why, Major 
 Limber, there's a picture of that haughty piece 
 who crossed with us in the Servia. Harding 
 was her name. It may be a fancy picture, but 
 she sat for it." 
 
 Major Limber looked up and unrestrained 
 by her presence uttered an oath under his 
 breath,
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 259 
 
 " By G , it's the very woman. That's 
 Kooystra's picture of Mrs. Grandison ! Lyssa ! 
 I must talk to you ! Let's get out of this." 
 
 Mrs. Merriam was too wise a woman to 
 oppose a man in such mad earnest, and they 
 were quickly in a hansom, flying along the 
 Knightsbridge road toward Kensington Gore, 
 where Mrs. Merriam had set up her somewhat 
 heathenish household gods. Major Limber 
 could not wait, but poured out a hasty history 
 of the two past winters, setting down, it may 
 be, a good deal in malice toward others, 
 but certainly extenuating nothing in his 
 own conduct, which he left to Mrs. Merri- 
 am's sympathetic comprehension. The scrap 
 of paper, however, was too precious to be 
 taken from its hiding-place until they were 
 seated in her drawing-room, when he displayed 
 it with more diffidence about its value than 
 he had felt in first finding it. 
 
 " This proves they are the same woman,*' 
 Lyssa said, thoughtfully. She had listened 
 with burning cheeks and the fullest sympathy 
 to the recital of his wrongs. " But it does not 
 prove that she has no right te the name of
 
 260 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Grandison, though, like you, I strongly sus- 
 pect her. Let me think. We crossed in April, 
 1880. When was she at this hotel? Surely, 
 you looked at the register?" 
 
 " I did," answered Limber. "The first entry 
 was in August, 1880. You see I have it all 
 written down. But I failed to find the name 
 Harding, though I searched back a couple 
 of years. But it never occurred to me to 
 associate her with the girl on the steamer, 
 though I clearly remember her now. It is 
 unmistakable ; it must be the same woman." 
 
 " // is" said Lyssa, positively. " But be- 
 tween April and August, 1880, I am afraid she 
 might have had plenty of time to be married 
 and-widowed. Did you happen to learn whether 
 she went there a widow ? " 
 
 " Yes ; in the deepest crape." 
 
 " And, you know, sometimes those foreign 
 register have a column of antecedents ; did 
 you by chance see where she came from ? " 
 
 Major Limber turned the piece of paper and 
 pointed. 
 
 " Le 1 6 Aout 1880, Mme. E. St. George Gran- 
 dison, de Loifdres. Arrivee de Calais a qua-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 261 
 
 tre heures et demie. Appartement F. au pre- 
 mier." 
 
 " That is right ! my best pupil," said Lyssa, 
 approvingly, stretching out to him 
 
 " A hand 
 
 White, delicate, dimpled, warm, languid and bland." 
 
 "But Calais!" thoughtfully. "Then she 
 came from Dover ? " 
 
 '" Ha ! by Jove," cried Major Limber, drop- 
 ping her hand and rising in great excitement. 
 " That reminds me of something ! I was at 
 Dover, with Carnegie, July of that same year, 
 and I now remember seeing Miss Harding," 
 with a sneer "or Mrs. Grandison, whichever 
 she was, on the pier, in mourning," hjs added 
 reflectively ; " but she had on a hat and no long 
 veil. Do widows wear hats ? " 
 
 Mrs Merriam laughed. 
 
 "If it suits them, you simpleton; and if 
 they are becoming. She was in mourning on 
 the steamer, and she was Miss Harding. So 
 that tells nothing. But July are you sure ? 
 Of course, she might have been married after 
 she landed in April and have lost her husband 
 between that and August. Grandison is a good
 
 262 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 name. If such a person ever existed he can 
 scarcely have died and left no trace of him- 
 self." 
 
 " If the name should be in ' Landed Gentry,' " 
 suggested Major Limber, " or his death in an old 
 file of the Times or I might make some inqui- 
 ries round about her place in Somerset." 
 
 " You must give me time to think," said 
 Lyssa with wide, shining eyes fixed on him, 
 but which did not see him. " I have an idea, I 
 think, by which we may turn this thing to our 
 mutual advantage. For whatever else she is, 
 this woman seems to be really rich. But first 
 we must get to the bottom of the affair ; you 
 must learn if such a person ever existed as 
 Eustace St. George Grandison, and when he 
 died. Go," she added, starting up with spark- 
 ling eyes, " find out all you can, and come 
 back quickly. Indeed, Octavius, if what we 
 suspect turn out true, you and I can make a 
 grand stroke." 
 
 " You know, whatever we can do together I 
 will do with my whole soul," he said eagerly. 
 
 " Go go ! " she cried, pushing him from her. 
 11 This is no time for sentiment, but if we sue-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 263 
 
 ceed, great shall be your reward. I always 
 hated the woman," she added dryly. 
 
 On Major Limber's next coming he brought 
 with him a copy of a notice in the Times of 
 August 2Oth, 1879. 
 
 "At 21 Marine Parade, Dover of fever, 
 Eustace St. George Grandison, only son of 
 Everard Temple St. George Grandison, of 
 Danesfort, Yorkshire, and Temple-Grandison, 
 County of Sussex, Esquire, in the 2/th year 
 of his age. R. I. P." 
 
 " Dover," said Mrs. Merriam, in a consider- 
 ing tone, " and you saw her there. It all 
 hangs together so far. Danesfort and- Temple- 
 Grandison. Why, this says nothing about 
 Manycotes, but you say you were there. 
 Could it have been a hired house ? " 
 
 " No, for she used to speak of it as her own 
 at Miss Masters', where I first met her. It 
 had been let, and the lease had just fallen in." 
 
 " That was in 1881, the year her pictures were 
 first exhibited," said Lyssa. "Well, it might 
 have come to Mr. Grandison from his mother. 
 Did you learn who she was?" 
 
 " A Miss Ormond, of County Waterford."
 
 264 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " I think," said Mrs. Merriam, slowly ; " that 
 it will be quite worth your while to make a 
 little trip to Manycotes." 
 
 Which Major Limber accordingly did, with 
 little result, but much satisfaction to him- 
 self, his duties consisting in making love to 
 a pretty housemaid, who, having been one of 
 the disaffected, under Pritchett's displeasure, 
 was very ready to chatter about her late 
 mistress. Beyond the fact that Manycotes 
 had been bought by Jean from a bankrupt 
 stock-broker, and that previous to her com- 
 ing no one in the country side had heard 
 the name of Grandison, Major Limber went 
 away as wise as he came. 
 
 Mrs. Merriam was disappointed and annoyed. 
 Whatever revelations she had hoped for from 
 current county-gossip, having failed her, she 
 began to fear that Jean's marriage had been 
 genuine, and she showed her vexation so 
 plainly as to surprise Major Limber. He was 
 scarcely prepared to have her resent his 
 wrongs in so vehement fashion, and came, of 
 course, to the conclusion most flattering to 
 his vanity. But Mrs. Merriam was not alto-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 265 
 
 gether so disinterested as it pleased him to 
 fancy. She had convinced herself of certain 
 advantages to accrue to her when she had 
 gained a hold over a woman in what she 
 imagined Jean's position to be, and to gain 
 this power she was ready to go any length. 
 
 " It is very annoying," she said, petulantly. 
 " I am so thoroughly convinced myself that 
 there is something wrong about the woman, 
 but I can't threaten her with exposure unless I 
 have proof of something to expose." 
 
 She impatiently crumpled and ran over the 
 documents in the case: the half-sheet with the 
 signatures ; Major Limber's notes from the 
 hotel register, from the Landed Gentry, and 
 from the Times. The last she re-read with 
 an air of perplexity. 
 
 "Eustace St. George Grandison, R. I. P. 
 What on earth does that mean?" 
 
 " Requiescat in pace ; he or his family must 
 be Catholics," replied Major Limber, whose 
 hereditary faith sat lightly upon him. 
 
 "August i6th, 1879, in the 2/th year of his 
 age," she read, musingly. " Much too young 
 for her she's thirty-seven if she's a day.
 
 266 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 What! 1879!" and Lyssa sprang to her fet 
 with sudden energy. "Why, she called her- 
 self Harding in 1880, when this man had been 
 dead a year ! I told you so. She is an 
 impostor, and we shall expose her, or receive 
 a reward for our silence." 
 
 But Major Limber was too dispirited by 
 recent failures to share her elation. " It was 
 probably a secret marriage," he said, in a 
 resigned tone. " He was just the sort of fel- 
 low to do it. And that may have caused the 
 quarrel with his family." 
 
 "Quarrel!" cried Lyssa briskly. " I didn't 
 know of any quarrel. But a secret marriage is 
 discreditable enough, especially if it is not 
 announced until after the husband is dead and 
 can't explain. And his people are much more 
 likely to have quarreled with him for not mar- 
 rying her. Come, this is worth a trip to 
 Dover and this time I shall go myself." 
 
 Accordingly, Mrs. Merriam went to Dover 
 and spent a not unagreeable week at 21 Marine 
 Parade, where she had no difficulty in wiling 
 from Mrs. Steele, not only the complete history 
 of Eustace Grandison's illness and death, but
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 267 
 
 an account of her subsequent lodger, Miss 
 Harding, to whom " money was as dross, ma'am, 
 if you'll believe me," and who had been so re- 
 markably interested in all that concerned de- 
 ceased, that Mrs. Steele in the fullness of her 
 heart had given her his photograph. The curi- 
 ous circumstance of his " sister's " visit, and 
 her strong resemblance to " Miss Harding," 
 threw Mrs. Merriam for a moment into the 
 depths of despair, from which she was rescued 
 by Major Limber's assurance that there was a 
 sister. Her hand undoubtedly strengthened 
 by these newly acquired facts, Mrs. Merriam 
 next invited Major Limber to accompany her 
 upon a visit to Temple-Grandison, a show-place 
 in Sussex, where they had the good-fortune to 
 hear a full account of the quarrel, originating 
 in Eustace's secession from the church of his 
 fathers, and also to see, at a considerable dis- 
 tance, " Rose Aileen Ormond, only daughter 
 and sole heiress of Everard Temple, etc.," and 
 to recognize for themselves in the slight, sad, 
 dark-featured girl, sufficient resemblance to 
 Jean's mature beauty to form a foundation for 
 Mrs. Steele's romantic conjectures.
 
 268 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Another brief excursion, not trying to old 
 sailors like these, across the channel to Calais, 
 revealed the fact that the lady who had quitted 
 Marine Parade on the morning of August i6th, 
 1880, as Jane Harding, had arrived in Calais 
 some two hours later as " Mrs. E. St. George 
 Grandison," and had so inscribed herself on the 
 register of the hotel. 
 
 And with this piece of evidence Mrs. Mer- 
 riam declared herself content. " It is not abso- 
 lutely conclusive." she said " but we may 
 find out something more in America ; and at 
 all events I am now satisfied that there is some- 
 thing queer about it, whether secret marriage 
 or no marriage at all ; and with what we may 
 be able to pick up here and there, I feel sure 
 we shall give Mrs. Yorke is that her present 
 name? something of a fright."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " For truth is stronger than a lie, 
 And righteousness than wrong." 
 
 MEANWHILE, the first summer of Jean's 
 married life had passed in idyllic fashion ; 
 her social ambitions for the moment forgotten, 
 her morbid self-contemplation put aside, she 
 was for a time supremely, perfectly happy. 
 
 What Colonel Yorke had so boldly asserted 
 of himself, Jean on her part felt to be literally 
 true, namely : that he was " the other half of 
 her soul." 
 
 She loved with utter, unreserved devotion, 
 the pent-up passion and tenderness of her 
 repressed girlhood lavishing itself on the 
 choice of her womanhood. 
 
 Jean was not of the women who can love 
 blindly, closing her eyes to faults and follies ; 
 and she rejoiced in each day's conviction of 
 Keppel Yorke's worth, each day's added proof
 
 270 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 that his love was of the noble sort which 
 blesses him that gives and her that takes. 
 
 For this, then, this complete, intense and full 
 existence, this happiness which seemed so 
 natural and so wonderful, Jean felt that she 
 had been born. It is a very common feeling, 
 most people accepting happiness and pros- 
 perity as their due, and falling out with fate as 
 if life's little contrarieties and great sorrows 
 had fallen to their lot quite by mistake. 
 
 Jean now felt that she had attained ; that 
 henceforth, all things being as she had planned 
 them from her youth, no further change was to 
 come, and all she had to do was to enjoy life. 
 Under this impression it was easy for her to 
 make her husband happy, responding to all his 
 demands with the best that was in her. 
 
 And Yorke was happy as happy as any 
 man is likely to be after he is forty years old. 
 No deeper, truer, fonder love was ever given 
 to woman than he now, in the maturity of his 
 manhood, bestowed on Jean ; but the days of 
 dreams come true were over for him, and in all 
 his happiness there was an undertone of disap- 
 pointment.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 271 
 
 And now, from out her very happiness, came 
 the first shock to Jean's utter self-satisfaction ; 
 now, for the first time in her life, she began to 
 think; for the morbid breedings, in which she 
 stood alone, with a world of imagined enemies 
 arrayed against her, were not worthy the name of 
 thought. Now an added insight, justice, reason, 
 mingled for the first time with her reflections ; 
 her husband's character, which she studied with 
 loving scrutiny as it unfolded itself before her, 
 taught her new standards, awoke in her new 
 ideals. It can hardly be said that her conscience 
 awoke in her rather that she slowly began to 
 acquire a conscience ; feeling first an uneasy 
 consciousness of her secret a growing regret, 
 a wild desire to be freed from it. She began 
 to weigh her conduct in the light of her hus- 
 band's upright judgment, to see the " harmless 
 deception " as he would see it ; she trembled 
 lest he should learn that she had deceived 
 him, yet longed unspeakably for courage to 
 tell him all. And so began to torment her- 
 self with fancied changes in his manner, cold- 
 ness and distrust replacing the first fervor 
 of his devotion ; dawning suspicion in the
 
 272 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 eyes which studied her with such loving in- 
 tentness. 
 
 Himself absolutely straightforward, and of a 
 nature singularly direct and serene, Colonel 
 Yorke was perfectly unsuspicious. That the 
 woman he loved could do wrong was incon- 
 ceivable to him ; that Jean, in living with 
 whom he each day found some new trait to 
 love, who grew, day by day, more responsive, 
 sweeter, dearer, more entirely his own that 
 she should have deceived him in the lightest 
 thing was as incredible and monstrous as to 
 suspect her of mere vulgar infidelity. Yet, 
 deep down in his consciousness, was a tiny 
 pin-prick of unacknowledged disappointment. 
 When they had been first engaged he had 
 expected her to allude, of her own motion, to 
 the man who had been not only her husband, 
 but his friend. But she had never spoken of 
 him, and Yorke had waited, fancying, when 
 they were married, the confidence would come. 
 They were married, still she was silent, and 
 still he possessed his soul in patience through 
 those first days of married life when so many 
 reserves are cast aside, so many still exist ;
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 273 
 
 where there is a shyness born of newness, 
 combating the instinct to reveal the inner- 
 most core of the heart. 
 
 " By and by," he thought, " when we are 
 more truly one, she will know that I have no 
 jealousy in my heart, and the confidence will 
 come." 
 
 No faintest trace of his disappointment ap- 
 peared in his face, nor did Jean reveal, even 
 to his eyes, the gnawing anxiety which began 
 to possess her, remaining outwardly serene as 
 always. 
 
 But what She was successful in concealing 
 from her husband's loving watchfulness, other 
 eyes discovered. In Kooystra's presence, 
 Jean relaxed the well-kept guard over her 
 features, and the shadow which had fallen 
 upon her was plain to the young man, who 
 watched her with dog-like devotion. The 
 comparison is perhaps inapt ; it may be 
 questioned whether dogs ever find them- 
 selves precisely in Kooystra's position, of 
 loving ardently some one of whom they 
 disapprove, their love seeming generally to be 
 blindly given, without much reference to the
 
 274 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 worth of the object. In the relation between 
 dog and man it seems probable that " Brutus " 
 (man) is ever "Caesar's angel," and yet, who 
 can say whether Brutus is not loved in spite of 
 his faults, and not in ignorance of them. 
 Speculation is idle as to what goes on in the 
 doggish minds which look out at us with such 
 wistful, kindly glances ; but with some dogs 
 the conviction is irresistible that here is a kind 
 soul, of deeper knowledge and insight, of truer 
 and sounder philosophy than ours, loving us 
 in spite of our meanness and falsity and fickle- 
 ness, and taking comfort in the thought that 
 we shall, in some future four-footed existence, 
 be given time and opportunity to become as 
 loyal, as loving and faithful as they. 
 
 Kooystra's attachment, then, was dog-like, 
 at least in its constancy, and though he felt 
 himself a cur for doubting her yet the doubts 
 would recur. He was unmanned, idle, broken, 
 doing no work, letting one miserable day drift 
 after the other, only longing to be near Jean. 
 
 An unuttered attachment may be permitted 
 to exist, where one declared must be banished, 
 so he could see Jean often, torturing himself in
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 275 
 
 her presence, first by her happiness, and then 
 by the shadow of sorrow which he saw creep- 
 ing over her face. In her presence, despising 
 himself for his idleness and promising himself 
 to amend in her absence, feverishly anxious 
 to be with her again, and falling, inert, into his 
 old habit of bitter dreaming. 
 
 The summer had gone by, and only in Octo- 
 ber had Colonel and Mrs. Yorke returned to 
 the Newport Manycotes ; the first breath of 
 winter had come before they yielded to the 
 necessity of providing for themselves a city 
 home. It was the middle of November, when 
 Yorke, parting from Jean for the first time 
 since their marriage, left her alone at Many- 
 cotes. Jean wrote immediately to beg a visit 
 from Sylvia, but Sylvia could not now be long 
 away from Mrs. Wyndham, whose health was 
 rapidly failing, and could only promise a stay 
 of a single night, followed by a flying visit 
 from Forbes when he came to escort her home 
 on the following day. On the morning of the 
 day on which Sylvia was expected, the follow- 
 ing letter was placed in Jean's hand :
 
 276 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 NOV. I2TH, 1 8 . 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. YORKE: This letter will 
 scarcely have reached you when I too shall be 
 with you, but still it must be written, for I am 
 so unhappy, and it is so much easier to write 
 than to speak. It seems strange, wrong, incon- 
 ceivable, that I should turn to you but you 
 know my secret my mother is so ill, I dare 
 not add a featherweight to her burthen. You 
 are the one whom, next to my mother, I love 
 and honor to whom my heart turns in joy 
 and sorrow. My love for you did not change 
 when the man I cared for chose you. You are 
 too noble, dear friend, for jealousy. You have 
 proved yourself above every thing petty and 
 ignoble. And indeed, there is nothing for you 
 to fear. No hint of disloyalty enters into the 
 feeling I now have for your husband. That I 
 did\ov& him you know, but believe me I have 
 conquered myself too truly for you to distrust 
 me. That is not my trouble now. I have 
 taken your advice. I have turned again to my 
 art, " the tender mistress," as you once told me, 
 whom neglect does not estrange. I have 
 won back my first ardor, my right hand has 
 regained its cunning, I am happy when I work. 
 But I am not free. The sense of bondage 
 grows upon me. I can not tell how I drifted 
 into my engagement it was a mad folly. No !
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 277 
 
 what a nonsensical phrase to apply to any thing 
 so indifferent, so commonplace. I wrote a fool- 
 ish letter which was misunderstood. I was 
 unhappy and Ian loved me very dearly ; such 
 love is sweet to a sore heart. I could not bear 
 to grieve him by telling him he had misinter- 
 preted my letter, and I found myself commit- 
 ted before I realized it. You will scorn me for 
 my weakness, but few women are so nobly 
 planned as you ; so securely placed above all 
 deceit and falsity. Do not despise me help 
 me tell me what shall I do? Ian is so good, 
 it breaks my heart to pain him, yet is it not 
 wrong, untrue, unfair, to marry a man whom I 
 do not love with my whole heart, even though 
 that heart is swept clear of the least remem- 
 brance of another whom you know worthy of 
 all love ? Dear Mrs. Yorke, dear friend, we 
 shall have but a few hours together ; counsel 
 me, tell me what to do. 
 
 Your loving, troubled 
 SYLVIA. 
 
 Jean dropped the letter with a bitter sigh ; 
 her heart ached for Sylvia's trouble, but she 
 felt more keenly the unconscious reproach in 
 the girl's sad little appeal. What were Sylvia's 
 simple griefs, the- light deceit her pure con-
 
 2 78 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 science magnified to a sin, compared with the 
 lie she was living? She noble, she worthy ! 
 Jean felt herself crushed by the sudden reve- 
 lation of how unworthy, how base she really 
 was. Truth had never seemed so desirable, 
 falsehood so detestable as now, when in read- 
 ing Sylvia's estimate of her, she felt how fatally 
 she lacked every noble quality the girl loved 
 her for. It was the sharpest reproach, the 
 keenest thing how would Sylvia regard her 
 if she knew, and how oh ! much worse, how 
 would her husband look upon the " harmless 
 deception " ; she started up and paced the room 
 in a sort of frenzy ; flung the window wide, 
 but the rushing wind and damp air suffocated 
 her, and she turned to escape, as always, out 
 of doors, when Sylvia entered. " Sylvia ! " 
 she cried, clasping the girl's cold hands. 
 " Tell him the truth now here. However 
 hard it may be, do not deceive him any longer, 
 for my sake, for your own for any sake, tell 
 him the truth."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 " What is truth ? A staff rejected." 
 
 THE small practicalities of every-day life 
 which so constantly intrude to mar heroics 
 were not wanting now. For after Sylvia, 
 spurred on by Jean's passionate apostrophe to 
 the only thing she felt was right, had, in the 
 kindest words, told Forbes her story, after a 
 trying interview which left her unnerved and 
 sore with pity but free she awoke to the 
 awkward fact that she had lost her escort. 
 Sylvia had not Jean's self-reliant strain ; a life 
 of much petting and observance had made her 
 very dependent, and it was with a sort of serio- 
 comic dismay that she contemplated the long 
 railway journey now to be taken alone. For 
 Forbes, though too generous for reproaches or 
 bitter feeling, was as nearly heart-broken as is 
 possible for a young man of this nineteenth 
 Christian century, and, unable for the moment
 
 28o THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 to keep up appearances, he had uttered a 
 choked and dismal farewell and rushed away 
 by the first boat. 
 
 " Never mind," said Jean, in reply to Sylvia's 
 distressed appeal. " Paul Kooystra is going 
 to town to-morrow ; your mother will not 
 object to your going with him? If you think 
 she will I can send my maid." 
 
 But Sylvia was perfectly satisfied with the 
 idea of Kooystra's companionship, and Jean, 
 having made a statement entirely unwarranted 
 by the facts, in the full conviction that her will 
 was Kooystra's law, now sent him a hasty 
 warning " to make it so." 
 
 " I have undertaken for you, that you will 
 escort Miss Wyndham to town to-morrow 
 morning, but pray let her think that you had 
 meant to go, otherwise I fear she will refuse to 
 trouble you." 
 
 Kooystra read, with a sigh for two lost days 
 of the sea, but never dreamed of disobeying, 
 and Jean was once more alone with her 
 thoughts, her happiness or unhappiness, which- 
 ever it was, and her dreams of Yorke's return. 
 
 Her enthusiasm for truth had somewhat
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 281 
 
 abated ; the little germ of conscience had put 
 forth but a feeble sprout ; there had been 
 nothing very encouraging in the suffering she 
 had seen inflicted and endured by Sylvia, and 
 she had fallen back into the comfortable belief 
 that things were best as they were. Endless 
 complications might arise were she to under- 
 take what she now called an explanation. 
 Much as she loved Yorke, she was obliged to 
 confess she did not altogether understand 
 him ; she could not judge how he would 
 receive it ; he had odd ideas of truth and 
 honor. They were perfectly happy as they 
 were ; why disturb their lives by a revelation 
 which nothing but her voluntary act could 
 bring about ? She had not been curious about 
 his past life a fact upon which she rather 
 plumed herself, and though she held the usual 
 creed, that " it was different with a woman," 
 yet hers was such an innocent secret ! That 
 her husband might not receive her account 
 with implicit faith; might suspect weightier 
 reasons than she could give for her deception, 
 was another argument for silence in a matter 
 to which she believed no one held the clew.
 
 282 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 The only person in her old life sufficiently 
 interested in her affairs, namely, Mr. Sandman, 
 had made no effort to trace her ; no one else 
 knew enough of her past to be even passively 
 dangerous, and active enemies she fancied 
 she had none. So Jean once more lulled her- 
 self into fancied security, enjoying her hus- 
 band's constant loving letters, riding and walk- 
 ing, content and at ease, in the company of 
 Loki and Bor ; and if now there was some- 
 thing lacking in her life which could only 
 be supplied by one presence, dwelling in antici- 
 pation on the delight of reunion. 
 
 By one of the coincidences upon which 
 critics of fiction are so severe, but which in real 
 life are constantly recurrent, Mr. Sandman had 
 about this time concluded a delightful European 
 holiday by the pleasantest autumn voyage 
 which had ever fallen to his lot. Ship, 
 weather and company had all been perfection, 
 and he had endeavored to repay the attentions 
 of an especially charming widow by exerting 
 all his powers of anecdote and reminiscence for 
 her benefit. It was scarcely by chance, since it 
 was the uppermost thought in Mrs. Merriam's
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 283 
 
 mind that the name of Harding \vas men- 
 tioned between them ; but it was marvelous 
 good luck for that clever little lady, that he 
 possessed knowledge which enabled her to com- 
 plete and verify her various data, while appear- 
 ing merely to be interested in an indifferent 
 way in a curious case. She learned enough of 
 Jane Harding's early life, of her mother's death, 
 of the years spent in America under Mr. Sand- 
 man's eye, to settle definitely by a brief com- 
 parison with certain chronological notes which 
 Major Limber had made of Grandison's career, 
 that the only date at which Jane and Eustace 
 could have met, namely, in 1869, was such as to 
 have made a genuine marriage with him impos- 
 sible or disgraceful on account of his extreme 
 youth. Which of the two Mrs. Merriam did not 
 greatly care. Even the little incident of the 
 maid Annie's abrupt return to America, leav- 
 ing Jean at Folkestone, which Mr. Sandman 
 told as the sequel of an odd affair of mysteri- 
 ous disappearance, came to Lyssa's mind with 
 tremendous significance. And not to leave her 
 work in any way incomplete, Mrs. Merriam on 
 another day Major Limber effacing himself
 
 284 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 for the voyage in pursuing a far different vein 
 of talk, got out of the reticent lawyer his opin- 
 ion that a woman marrying under a false name, 
 though really married, was in a precarious 
 position, since "the man could get out of it if 
 he wanted to." This was enough. Lyssa felt 
 herself strong for battle, and the ship arriving 
 at the end of the second week in November, it 
 followed that the night-boat, which took Kooys- 
 tra back to Newport after his sudden trip with 
 Sylvia, conveyed also Mrs. Merriam and Major 
 Limber, prepared to open their campaign. 
 
 One brief glance of recognition passed be- 
 tween Kooystra and Limber, involuntary on 
 Paul's part, but followed up promptly by the 
 Major, who approached him as he stood in the 
 lee of the smoke-stack to say, in a tone from 
 which he could scarcely banish his exulta- 
 tion: 
 
 " M. Kooystra, you challenged me once in 
 a certain matter to produce my proofs. Those 
 proofs I now hold, and I assure you I propose 
 to use them without scruple and without 
 mercy." 
 
 Kooystra looked him over with cool inso-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 285 
 
 lence, and made no reply ; Limber, who was 
 under orders to be peaceable, having said his 
 somewhat indiscreet say, turned on his heel and 
 left him. There was but one thing to which 
 he could allude, and Kooystra recalled with 
 vivid distinctness the scene at Lady Fenimore's, 
 the gossip, the esclandre, Jean's disappearance 
 and his own miserable doubts. His love 
 awoke, armed at all points to defend her 
 against others, vulnerable only to the thrust of 
 his own distrust, the keen pang of feeling that 
 all was not true and clear as crystal about Jean 
 Yorke, the woman for whom, unsuspected, un- 
 rewarded, unacknowledged, he was wasting and 
 wrecking his life. He paced the deck all night, 
 but no calmness of resolve followed the tumult 
 of thought, and it was with a feeling of desper- 
 ate daring that he used his privelege of ami de 
 la maison, to call at Manycotes in the early 
 morning of his return, and warn her of he 
 knew not what. 
 
 Jean was smiling, content and happy; she 
 was in her habit, just in from a glorious gallop 
 along the hard, wet sands, her cheeks flushed, 
 her eyes glowing; Yorke's letter, announcing
 
 286 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 his return on the next day but one, held in 
 caressing fingers, while she talked gayly and 
 affectionately to Paul. Sylvia was scarcely 
 alluded to ; every thing disagreeable was 
 ignored ; they seemed in such an atmosphere 
 of peace and serenity Kooystra could not 
 bring himself to believe in any danger. Lim- 
 ber was a notorious liar ; it must have been a 
 mere blackmailing threat ; but why addressed 
 to him ? Why warn Jean, and of what ?" Yet 
 something seemed to impel him to try. 
 
 " Have you any reason," he said, at last, 
 abruptly yet with effort, " can you pardon 
 me, Mrs. Yorke. What I am going to say is 
 so odd, you will think me impertinent to the 
 last degree. But have you any reason to fear 
 Major Limber?" 
 
 There was a mere instant's silence, while a 
 sickening terror contracted Jean's heart; for 
 just a breath's space she wore the wild, hunted 
 look of the Valkyr picture, and before she 
 spoke Kooystra was conscious of a whim- 
 sically irrelevant pleasure in having read her 
 aright. "I knew she could look it," flashed 
 through his mind. And then Jean was her-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 287 
 
 self again, lifting untroubled eyes to his, 
 and answering, with a wondering smile : 
 
 " I ? No. I scarcely know Major Limber. 
 What could I possibly have to fear from 
 him?"
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 ' Each lip must learn the taste of truth." 
 
 F Kooystra, on quitting Jean, found himself 
 dismayed and unnerved, it was far other- 
 wise with Jean. After that brief instant of 
 panic, in which her secret stirred within her 
 like some living thing, and a terrible possibility 
 had risen up to confront her, self-possession, 
 self-confidence and an easy incredulity had 
 come back to her. She reviewed the situation 
 quietly, estimating this or that element in her 
 favor or to her detriment at its full worth. 
 She recalled Major Limber's conduct upon 
 every occasion when he had crossed her path, 
 and while she acknowledged him as venomous 
 as any serpent, she fancied, from her belief as 
 to his habits and aims, that his poison was 
 innocuous, his fangs readily drawn. " Proofs, 
 he can have none," she thought, " and what- 
 ever he may suspect, and choose to assert, the 
 word of a man of his standing will weigh but
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 289 
 
 little against mine. Mrs. Keppel Yorke can 
 afford to ignore the insinuations of a Major 
 Limber." 
 
 And so, while Kooystra sat, puzzled and 
 disheartened, his doubts half confirmed, search- 
 ing the face in .the-portrait for the secret the 
 face of flesh had so nearly revealed, Jean 
 was making a careful toilette, promising her- 
 self a pleasant afternoon over a new novel, 
 and dwelling now and then on the thought of 
 her husband's return on the morrow as the 
 rose-leaf on her brimming cup of happiness. 
 It was with complete cheerfulness that at four 
 o'clock, the lamps having been lit and the fire 
 replenished, Jean, seated in the cheery glow, 
 received the card of a visitor whose vehicle 
 had just drawn up under the carriage-porch in 
 the dusk. 
 
 " Mrs. Merriam," she read. " I don't know 
 any Mrs. Merriam. One of the inhabitants, I 
 suppose, come about a subscription. I will 
 come, Grant," she concluded. " Or stay," she 
 added, glancing around her with a sudden 
 sense of bien-etre in her surroundings, "show 
 the lady in here, and bring tea,"
 
 2 90 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Mrs. Merriam and the tea made an almost 
 simultaneous appearance, for these details were 
 well-ordered at Manycotes. The lady was 
 well dressed ; beside the laces and frills and 
 jewels of Jean's rather elaborate dinner-dress, 
 she was ostentatiously simple ; yet Jean, as she 
 poured out the tea and uttered such common- 
 places as she could conjure up to address to a 
 stranger, thought to herself " she is not des 
 notres." 
 
 Mrs. Merriam, on her part, looked at Jean 
 attentively, estimating her force of character, 
 conjecturing her possible conduct. She had a 
 private purpose to serve, a private grudge to 
 gratify, of which Major Limber knew nothing 
 a weapon too keen of edge to be trusted in 
 his clumsy hands. 
 
 " I shall not detain you very long, Mrs. 
 
 Ah Mrs. Yorke," began Lyssa ; "you know 
 my friend Major Limber, I believe ? " 
 
 " I have not that honor," said Jean frigidly, 
 and instantly upon her guard. 
 
 " No ? " said Mrs. Merriam. " Major Limber 
 knows you, however, and remembers you very 
 well. You have given him excellent cause, on
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 291 
 
 several occasions, to remember you, and he has 
 a very clear idea of your identity." 
 
 The faintest perceptible stress was laid upon 
 this last word, but if it had any effect upon 
 Jean, the flicker of the fire and the flattering 
 light of the lamps concealed it. 
 
 "Yes," went on Lyssa, in her soft throaty 
 voice, " Major Limber knows you very well. 
 He remembers, what you may have forgotten, 
 crossing the ocean with you in the steamer 
 Servia in 1880, when you were still Miss 
 Harding. He knows that in July of the same 
 year you lodged at Mrs. Steele's, 21 Marine 
 Parade, Dover still under the name of Miss 
 Harding. He knows that on the same day on 
 which you left Dover, you registered at an 
 hotel in Calais, in the name of a man who had 
 been dead a year. He knows that in August, 
 1880, you were at the hotel Louis-le-Grand in 
 Paris, where he found this" and she unfolded 
 the worn bit of paper on which Jean recognized 
 her own experimental signatures. " He knows 
 that only in 1881 were the houses bought which 
 you represented as a legacy from the man 
 whose name you took, and to whose family
 
 292 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 you are unknown. He knows, in short, a very 
 great deal which your husband if Colonel 
 Yorke is your husband, you having married him 
 under a false name does not know, but which 
 he would, no doubt, learn with much interest." 
 
 The length of this carefully prepared speech, 
 which Jean had forborne to interrupt, had 
 given her time to collect herself. Her courage, 
 which before the phantom foes of her own 
 brain had so often betrayed her, was cool and 
 ready in the presence of a flesh-and-blood 
 accuser. 
 
 " My good woman," she said, choosing in- 
 stinctively the tone most calculated to gall and 
 exasperate. " Suppose Major Limber does 
 know all these things which I do not doubt, 
 since you tell me so why should you proclaim 
 it in so threatening a tone? Even if Major 
 Limber knew every detail of my first marriage, 
 I fail to see what interest his relation of the 
 facts could have for my husband, Colonel 
 Yorke, save that of a twice-told tale." 
 
 It was a bold stroke, and for a second Lyssa 
 Merriam sat dazed with the possibility of a 
 secret marriage having really taken place and
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 293 
 
 been confessed to Colonel Yorke. Without 
 Mr. Sandman's information, this might have 
 influenced her ; but as it was, she cast one 
 swift backward glance over her array of dates 
 and circumstances and slowly shook her pretty 
 head. 
 
 " Suppose there had been a secret marriage, 
 my dear Mrs. Yorke," she said calmly, " which 
 you and I know there was not even that is a 
 thing which can not be done without a certain 
 shadow of well, blame, falling upon the woman, 
 especially when the woman is much older than 
 the man. With men it is different. Their 
 future is unaffected by the youthful follies of 
 their past they are said to have 'behaved 
 badly ' to such and such a woman but some 
 other woman likes and marries them all the 
 same. And that is why I have come to you 
 with my knowledge of your secret. A man's 
 secret, unless it is a criminal one, is of little 
 value, and the letters I have here, which con- 
 tain the history of my brief engagement to 
 Colonel Yorke, are worth little more than the 
 paper upon which they are written, whereas 
 this other half sheet of paper "
 
 294 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 A sparkle of malevolence came into Lyssa's 
 eyes ; now for the first time she saw a treacher- 
 ous whiteness invade Jean's cheek. 
 
 "With you it is different," she went on 
 quickly; " whether you made a secret marriage, 
 or whether, which is most likely, you have never 
 been married at all, is of little practical conse- 
 quence. The only question is, what are you 
 willing to do to insure silence on my part, 
 and on Major Limber's." 
 
 Lyssa rose, all her jetted garments tinkling 
 and flashing in the firelight. " I do not wish to 
 press you, Mrs. Yorke, there is plenty of time 
 to decide. I shall take no steps for a few 
 days and in the meantime we shall, I am sure, 
 be very good friends. I shall have the pleas- 
 ure of seeing you to-morrow." 
 
 Mechanically Jean put out her hand to the 
 bell which summoned a servant to open Mrs. 
 Merriam's carriage door; mechanically went to 
 her dinner-table and observed its forms ; like 
 an automaton returned to the library and sank 
 into her lounging chair with her novel open in 
 her hand. Silent, motionless, absorbed, she 
 sat, the hours going by with the swiftness lent
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 295 
 
 them by a chiming clock with musical quarters. 
 The fire put out little mocking tongues of 
 flame at her which seemed to sear her brain ; 
 no, her brain itself seemed all aflame thought 
 was impossible to her every faculty seemed 
 merged in the over-mastering desire for air. 
 She flung the window wide, rang violently, and 
 said to the sedate man-servant who met her as 
 she rushed past him on the stairs: 
 "Tell them to saddle Loki."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " He that trusts in a lie shall perish in the truth." 
 
 THE night was windless and overcast; 
 there was a moon, and so the air was 
 full of a strange gray light, in spite of the 
 dark cloud-rack which hurried onward on 
 some fierce blast far up the sky ; and beside 
 the soft, velvety lapping of the black water on 
 the rocks below the cliff, the hoarse distant 
 murmur of the groundswell came faintly to an 
 attentive ear. 
 
 Jean paused as she came down the stairway, 
 turning back for some small object which she 
 slipped into her bosom, then passed quietly 
 out to where Loki stood, gleaming ghost-like 
 under the dark carriage porch, with Bor at her 
 stirrup. 
 
 Long indifference to the opinion of her serv- 
 ants had taught them at least outward indif- 
 ference too, and it was with an unmoved face 
 that Girth, at ten o'clock of a November
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 297 
 
 night, adjusted his mistress' stirrup, laid care- 
 ful feeling fingers on Loki's bit and headstall, 
 and asked in his usual tone : 
 
 " Shall you require me, madam ? " 
 It was with a feeling of sincere relief that 
 he received her brief negative and led his 
 saddled horse back to the stables, while Loki, 
 with two tremendous bounds, fled whitely out 
 of the gate and away. 
 
 Now, with the still air, fanned into move- 
 ment by her speed, rushing by her cheek, 
 Jean's brain awoke ; now she began to think ; 
 now a wild terror possessed her, from which, 
 gallop as she might, there was no escape. 
 While she had fancied her secret her own, to 
 tell or to keep, she had been able to control 
 herself, to reason herself into deceitful calm 
 even to contemplate the revealing of it as a 
 commonplace, and more or less probable thing. 
 While Lyssa faced her, a palpable foe, she had 
 been able to hold her own ; but now, alone, 
 and in the night, her strange, unbalanced 
 nature betrayed her. Every threat, every 
 thought of harm, every wildest imagining of 
 evil to come, took shape, and rose up clamor-
 
 298 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 ing before her. She saw herself despised by 
 the man she loved when once he shotild learn 
 the extent of the deceit she had practiced 
 upon him. Could Yorke, frank and loyal, ever 
 forgive, not the mere concealment toward 
 himself, but the whole hateful scheme, the lie 
 she had lived, the false seeming to which she 
 had lent herself so gratuitously? Jean's one 
 moment of weakness, could Lyssa have known 
 it, was due, not to the mere fact of Yorke's 
 engagement, the history of which she had 
 long known, but to the sudden knowledge 
 that Lyssa had been the heroine of his early 
 dreams. 
 
 Could Sylvia, whose tender conscience had 
 so suffered over a slight concealment, could 
 she help but scorn the woman who had 
 imposed upon her from the first ? 
 
 Kooystra, Forbes, Mrs. Wyndham all the 
 people whose respect and affection she valued, 
 pale, scornful faces of them all, rose up before 
 her on the night, and she uttered low, choking 
 cries as she rode. 
 
 But all this was as nothing to the thought 
 of Yorke, not estranged, but undeceived )
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 299 
 
 enlightened ; finding, in place of the woman 
 he had counted his soul's mate, a mere hol- 
 low simulacrum of a woman, false, perjured, 
 untrue, not even, perhaps, his wife. And the 
 doubt which Lyssa, well knowing its falsity, 
 had so cleverly and boldly insinuated, now 
 added its small pipe to all the other fiendish 
 voices which were shrieking their maddening 
 suggestions in her ears. For Jean, in her 
 Sintram moods, there was no saintly exorcism 
 ready. In this, her extremity, she had no 
 sanctuary, no hope, no help, to which to turn. 
 That saddest negation of all faith, the indif- 
 ferentism which goes to church occasionally 
 because other people do; which has many 
 pleasant thoughts, wholly unconnected with 
 worship, to fill up contentedly the two hours 
 vouchsafed to custom ; which criticises the 
 singing and the dresses ; and which looks for, 
 nor comprehends, no deeper meaning, no real 
 thing under the outward show, was all Jean 
 had of religion. No " honest doubt " had per-' 
 plexed her, for she had simply not thought at 
 all upon the subject ; and now, at the sharpest 
 strait of her life, she only realized what it is to
 
 3 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 be without God in the world, by the awful void 
 and immensity of formless horror into which 
 she looked, seeking vainly a way of escape. 
 Could she have believed in aught or naught, 
 had she had firm conviction even of the " first 
 dark day of nothingness " which some can 
 persuade themselves lies the other side of 
 death's silences ; had not doubts and fears 
 risen thick and grisly along that path when it 
 opened before her, Jean's struggle might have 
 been sooner over. All the devils in hell were 
 with her, she thought, in that mad ride ; led, 
 as it seemed to her, by one more horrible than 
 the rest, who whispered over and over and 
 over, "Tell the truth." And Jean, who had 
 not learned that it is not devils alone who 
 come in various disguise, fled from this dark- 
 visaged angel, whose pleadings might have 
 saved her even now, as she might from the 
 most hideous and devilish of the crew. 
 
 The night was waning. Loki, ridden be- 
 yond even her glorious strength, stumbled 
 now, and clambered wearily up dark hillsides 
 among the stones; the wind moaned, but not 
 among trees, and the surf was running mad
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 301 
 
 riot on the rocks. What subtle taint of mad- 
 ness lurked in Jean's blood had done its work ; 
 the mind which had made the worst of every 
 thing now faced what seemed irremediable; 
 the will which had so often turned from the 
 direct way, chose once more. Jean's hand 
 sought something in her bosom, carried some 
 tiny thing to her lips; she swayed once or 
 twice in her saddle ere she fell, and wearied 
 Loki, turning, touched her cheeks with gentle 
 sniffs of inquiry, as she lay silent, and stood 
 over her, motionless as she. ' 
 
 It was Kooystra who at last found her, far 
 on in the day, as he rode wildly along a rough 
 road between bare stony fields, high and deso- 
 late spaces, swept by winds that blew from 
 bay and ocean. A long howl and a distant 
 neigh which his horse answered attracted 
 his attention ; Loki's stable-companion went 
 lightly over the walls, crying upon her as he 
 leaped ; and so Kooystra found Jean, the rein 
 still clasped in her stiffened hand, gentle Loki 
 standing patiently over her and Bor crouched 
 moaning at her side. Something glittering
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 and very small, lay where it had fallen from 
 her hand, and this Kooystra, recognizing as 
 the box he had given her, took up silently 
 and hid.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " Tarry a little, there is something more." 
 
 ALWAYS something more. Lives end, 
 with which the light of other lives goes 
 out. Lives end, which to the souls which once 
 informed them, seemed endlessly full of power 
 to do and to achieve. Lives end, which it is 
 said, the whole world misses and mourns. And 
 yet there remains a whole world full of people, 
 of whom many stories may be told. 
 
 And so poor Jean, having learned the beauty 
 and value of truth only at the last, left lives 
 behind her to live themselves out : each after 
 their own fashion and meaning. A certain 
 pair of schemers, whose subtilty had somewhat 
 overreached itself, now bitterly regretted not 
 naming their price, which would have seemed 
 so little to Jean ; instead of uttering vague 
 threats which had driven her to her death. 
 And it was not in malevolence, but simply " in 
 justice to themselves," that they now informed
 
 304 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Colonel Yorke " while he still cared enough 
 about her," as Lyssa said, to wish to protect her 
 memory, of certain facts in their possession, for 
 silence as to which, he was willing to make 
 them a generous gift. 
 
 Before they went Kooystra heard from 
 Major Limber's lips that which added one 
 pang more to his abiding sorrow ; namely, that 
 his picture had given them the clew to Jean's 
 identity. To this, and to the thought that 
 from his hand, however innocently, had come 
 the means of ending Jean's life, was due a 
 brooding melancholy, a useless, purposeless 
 life ; and except that we are told on the best 
 authority, that " men h ave died and worm's 
 have eaten them, but not for love" we migjit 
 reasonably attribute to that cause this wasted 
 life and early death. 
 
 Ian Forbes, perhaps, was made of sterner 
 stuff; something more elastic composed the 
 organ he called "heart," which presently be. 
 gan to beat again, rebounding, rubber-like, at 
 the behest of a pretty and tolerably young girl, 
 curiously expert in adapting herse If to her sur 
 roundings, and who presently surrendered the
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 305 
 
 name and style of Miss Sadie Randolph for 
 that of the artist's wife, Mrs. Ian Forbes. 
 
 It was a great relief to Sylvia, who had car- 
 ried lan's somewhat demonstrative suffering 
 on her tender conscience longer than needful, 
 and who, happy and successful in her art, was 
 grown graver and even sweeter than of old. 
 
 One day, several years having gone by, Kep- 
 pel Yorke, taking courage to look over some of 
 Jean's papers, found in an envelope, dated No- 
 vember 1 5th, 1883, and addressed to himself, 
 that last letter she had received from Sylvia. 
 
 It revealed many things to him. The iden- 
 tity of the woman for whom Jean had wished 
 to sacrifice herself; the best of Jean's strange, 
 wild, perverted nature ; a certain hidden cor- 
 ner of his heart in which, half-suspected, Sylvia 
 had always nestled ; and, after much hesitation 
 and many misgivings, a way to the pleasant 
 lingering place where he might yet find love, 
 content, peace. But, as the whole truth is 
 seldom known to any one mortal, it could not 
 tell him the real story of the woman who had 
 so erred, groping blindly, without guide, 
 among the perplexities of this life. 
 THE END.
 
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