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 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MRS. A. vTrTrnr X'-^
 
 MRS. A. NTCHOLA? 
 
 EGBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT
 
 PiOBEET OKD'S ATONEMENT 
 
 a fioftci 
 
 BY 
 
 EOSA NOUCHETTE CAREY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'Nellie's memories,' ' Barbara heathcote's trial," 
 
 ' NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS,' ETC. 
 
 POPULAR EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 RICH A ED BENTLF.Y k SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET 
 
 ^ublisljcrs in ©rJinari' to lijrr fEajcstg tfjc ©urru 
 
 1892
 
 44(5 
 
 TO 
 
 MY BROTHERS 
 
 64420^^*
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The King's Head . 
 
 II. Robert Ord states his Opinion , 
 
 III. Eglistone Abbey . 
 
 IV. Meg 
 
 V. "I SHALL NEA'ER BE HATrY AGAIN, MeG " 
 
 VI. KiRKBY Vicarage . 
 VII. Miss Maturix is sent tu Coventry 
 A'lII. Belle stays away again from Service 
 IX. Nettie Underwood 
 X. Roth A 
 XL Bryn 
 XII. Nettie's Conspiracy 
 
 XIII. Nettie's Tea-Party 
 
 XIV. The Vicar goes to Bryn . 
 XV. The Blackscar Herald . 
 
 XVI. TRE.4.TS principally of Tears 
 XVII. Mrs. Ord hears Arty his Prayers 
 XVIII. Why Mrs. Ord goes without her New Dress 
 XIX. The Vicar's Atonement 
 XX. Gar's Shadow 
 XXI. Tyler and Tyler . 
 XXII. The Little Sister 
 XXIII. Down on the Sands 
 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 24 
 
 37 
 
 46 
 
 56 
 
 66 
 
 77 
 
 88 
 
 97 
 
 107 
 
 119 
 
 132 
 
 143 
 
 157 
 
 173 
 
 187 
 
 198 
 
 211 
 
 224 
 
 237 
 
 248 
 
 258
 
 vm 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXIV. Burnley-upon-Sea 
 XXV. A Storm in a Teaciti' . 
 XXVI. In THE Dark . 
 XXVII. "Don't go, Garton ; I want y 
 XXVIII. A Love Idyll . 
 XXIX. Betwixt and Between 
 XXX. A Woman's EE.isoN :— "I lov 
 
 Him " 
 XXXI. In hoc spero . 
 XXXII. " Good-Bye, Gar " 
 
 XXXIII. Robert Ord's Repentance 
 
 XXXIV. Under the Rod 
 XXXV. An Errand of Mercy . 
 
 XXXVI. A Message from the Sea 
 
 XXXVII. On the Dark Mountains 
 
 iXXVIII. The Children's Home . 
 
 XXXIX. TheBrokenClau.se . 
 
 XL. Fn^E Years Afterwap.ds 
 
 XLI. Won at Last 
 
 XLII. Conclusion 
 
 ou 
 
 lilM 
 
 because I LOVE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 275 
 291 
 300 
 311 
 321 
 325 
 
 335 
 345 
 358 
 366 
 377 
 388 
 398 
 410 
 422 
 434 
 442 
 453 
 463
 
 EOBEKT OKFS ATONEMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE king's head. 
 
 " The sultry summer day is done, 
 The western hills have hid the sun, 
 But mountain peak and village spire 
 Retain reflection of his fire. 
 Old Barnard's towers are purple still. 
 To those that gaze from Toller's hill ; 
 Distant and high, the tower of Bowes 
 Like steel upon the anvil glows, 
 And Stainemore's ridge, behind that lay 
 Rich with the spoils of parting day. 
 In crimson and in gold array'd." 
 
 Scott's Rukely. 
 " I used him for a friend. 
 Before I ever knew him for a friend. 
 'Twas better, 'twas worse also, afterwards 
 We came so close, we saw our ditl'erences 
 Too intimately." 
 
 Aurora Leigh. 
 
 "Barnard Castle." 
 
 "All right for Barnard Castle. Any luggage, sir?" was the 
 cfvil inquiry addressed to the solitary occupant of a second-class 
 compartment who was leisurely folding his paper and shaking oft' 
 a liberal allowance of dust as he did so. " Any luggage in the 
 van, sir?" 
 
 A shake of the head was the somewhat curt rejoinder as the 
 gentleman gave The Leeds Mercury a final fold, and shouldering 
 his shabby black bag stepped on the platform, looking about him 
 with the air of a man who was treading new ground, and who 
 seemed to deduce a certain amount of pleasure from that fact, 
 judging from the curious glances he cast around him as he threaded 
 the little knot of passengers and porters who blocked uj) the narrow 
 doorway. 
 
 Out into the broad sunny road beyond, where there was a cloud 
 
 1
 
 2 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 of gray dust and a cheeping and twittering of brown sparrows, and 
 where one homely country equipage was lumbering along by the 
 side of a farmer's red-wheeled gig and a donkey-cart. 
 
 "King's Arms'?" persuasively suggested the conductor, a dark 
 saturnine man with a straw in his mouth. " King's Arms % — take 
 you up there in three minutes, sir; best beds and best accom- 
 modation in the whole of Barnard Castle." 
 
 "Which are your other inns?" asked the stranger, as three 
 unmistakable commercial gentlemen pushed past him to secure the 
 best places, and two more clambered up to the top to the tune of 
 jingling seals and chains. "This seems to be a quiet place, but I 
 suppose there is competition even at Barnard Castle." 
 
 " Law bless you, yes, sir !" replied the man rubbing his head, 
 " especially in the season. Why, let me see, there's the Com- 
 mercial, the Eose and Crown, the Hangel, the Turk's Head, and 
 the Bay Horse, but there's nobody but will say the King's Head 
 will beat 'em hollow. Come, we're filling up, jump in, sir," but 
 the offer was declined. An old blind woman with a bundle, a 
 basket of vegetables, and some sunflowers tied up in a blue-spotted 
 handkerchief, had followed the commercial gentlemen, and after 
 her came two servant-girls out for a holiday ; the interior looked 
 hot and fusty, and the best outside places were taken. 
 
 " I have no fancy for old women and onions," muttered the 
 stranger. Then louder, " Don't wait for me, my man, I shall walk 
 on." And so saying he strode off at a pace which would have 
 suited few men on a hot June day, especially as the sun was almost 
 vertical, and poiu"ed down its rays on the long shadowless road 
 with a steady glare that made the heaped-up dust feel like heated 
 blankets to the feet. 
 
 He had soon left the road behind him and was halfway up the 
 long straggling street that leads to the market-place, a drowsy 
 grass-grown old place, where the old-fashioned inns blioked sleepily 
 at each other across the wide empty street, where a few antique 
 shops displayed fewer and still more antique wares, where the green 
 weeds grew up between the stones, and the stones were rutty and 
 uneven from age and not from traffic ; where for six days of the 
 week there was an almost sabbath-like stillness, and only a sem- 
 blance of life on market-days ; where the grating of wheels was the 
 exception and not the rule, and the children trundled hoops and 
 upset their little go-carts fearless of horses' hoofs; and where a 
 few factory lads and lasses were wont to congregate on a summer's 
 evening, — a place which, in its simny drowsiness, reminded Robert 
 Ord of some quaint old Continental town he had once seen many 
 years ago.
 
 THE KINGS HEAD. 3 
 
 The host of the King's Arms was indidgiug in a siesta under 
 the shade of his own iwrtico, perhaps seduced thereto by the 
 general sleepiness of things animate and inanimate. Some fantail 
 pigeons were strutting about in the dust almost at his feet. He 
 woke up rather startled at being suddenly addressed, and seemed 
 bent on vindicating himself. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; I believe — that is — I think I was 
 asleep." 
 
 " A very sensible proceeding on such a hot morning," assented 
 the stranger politely. "I am sorry to have disturbed you. I 
 only asked if you were the proprietor of the King's Arms?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; Samuel Morison, at your service. Here comes our 
 bus with some of our commercial gentlemen ; perhaps you will 
 walk in, sir, it is piping hot outside. Do you wish for a private 
 room, sir?" 
 
 "I should like a place where I could speak to you alone for a 
 few minutes," was the somewhat impatient reply. " Look here, 
 Mr, Morison, my name is Ord. Now you know my business with 
 you and the King's Arms, and that I have a question or two to 
 put to you that I shall want answered without delay." 
 
 " Mr. Ord ; certainly, sir, a dozen if you wish. I had no idea, 
 none whatever, to whom I had the honour of speaking. Come in 
 pray, sir." And so saying he led the way througli a long dark old 
 hall, with a far-off glimpse of a cool stone yard, where a gray-haired 
 ostler was rubbing down a horse, up a narrow and still darker 
 staircase into a small room looking over the market-place, with a 
 sweet stuffy smell in it — the scent of fresh roses and dried lavender 
 together. 
 
 There was some needlework neatly folded on the table, which 
 made Mr. Ord hesitate and look inquiringly at his conductor. 
 
 " This room is engaged, is it not 1" 
 • " Yes, sir, but Miss Matvurin won't mind — and I have no other 
 room unoccupied at present ; she's lying down now with a sick 
 headache, the chambermaid told us, and so it is quite at your 
 service." 
 
 "Who is Miss Maturin ?" was on Mr. Ord's lips, but he 
 checked himself on remembering that it was no business of his, 
 and, declining refreshments somewliat shortly, took possession of 
 the wide old-fashioned window-seat, and throwing down his black 
 bag turned round to his host and begged him also to be seated. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Morison, I want to know how it came about that 
 my aunt — Mrs. Ord, that is — died at your house." 
 
 "Mrs. Ord, sir?" 
 
 " You see I know all about it, hRd news travels fast ; I was
 
 4 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 quite aware of what happened before I started. I got Mr. Tracy's 
 two letters together — by the bye, I never thought of asking if he 
 be here." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; leastways he was here this morning, but he's gone 
 on to Deepdale with a party, and we don't expect them back till 
 latish ; but perhaps you will prefer to speak to Miss Maturin." 
 
 " Who in the world is this Miss Maturin V broke out from 
 Mr. Ord, this time impatiently enough. " I cannot understand 
 what Miss Maturin has to do with my business." 
 
 The landlord coughed. 
 
 " Why, Miss Maturin is the young woman — the young lady, I 
 should say — who served as companion to the deceased lady. 
 She's lived with her nigh upon four years I've heard tell, and 
 some of us do say that hers has not been a bed of roses ; leastways 
 there must have been a power of thorns in it too, judging from 
 the "poor lady's ways and words with her. But still for all that 
 she's taking on and pining that way after her that it makes one 
 quite sorry to see her, poor young creature." And the compas- 
 sionate landlord wiped his eyes with the feeling of a man who had 
 daughters of his own. 
 
 "I suppose she is friendless and has lost a comfortable home ; 
 but I think we are wandering a little from the subject, Mr. 
 Morison. I am rather anxious to know what brought my aunt 
 to the King's Arms, Barnard Castle, of all places." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and I brought in Miss Maturin's name because I 
 thought she might give you more information than I could ; not 
 but what I will willingly tell you all I know about the poor lady." 
 
 " Well, sir, the first time I ever set eyes on her was last July, 
 when she and Miss Maturin arrived late one evening. They were 
 on their way from the Cumberland Lakes, and there was some 
 break-down or stoppage on the line. It is not the first time, sir, 
 by a great many that folk come for one night and end by staying 
 some days ; and to make a long story short, your aunt, Mrs. Ord, 
 sir, took a fancy to the place, as she told me in that free pleasant 
 way of hers that she had sometimes, and she and Miss Maturin 
 and her maid and their bag and baggage were with us I should say 
 nigh upon five weeks." 
 
 " Hum, capricious as usual," muttered Mr. Ord, under his 
 breath. " Well, Mr. Morison, I don't suppose you often have 
 such a good customer as my aunt ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, the King's Arms has had better and it has had 
 worse in its days, though I say it that shouldn't ; not but what the 
 poor lady dealt fairly enough with us, and it is not for the likes of 
 us to judge them that have gone before. But not to detain you,
 
 THE KING'S HEAD. 6 
 
 sir, about three weeks ago comes a letter from Miss Maturin, 
 post-mark Clifton, engaging rooms for Mrs. Ord and herself, with 
 just a word at the end saying that she hoped the house was quiet, 
 for her lady was a sad invalid. It seems that she had been oflf 
 and on ailing all the winter, and when the fine weather came she 
 was sort of restless and kept moving from place to place, which 
 the doctors told Miss Maturin was a symptom of the disease. 
 Nothing would do but she must have her old rooms at the King's 
 Arms, and see a little more of her favourite place, and not all they 
 could say or do to dissuade her had the least effect. And as I 
 said before, to make a long story short, she just came in one fine 
 summer's evening, as I was sitting behind the bar with a com- 
 mercial gentleman of my acquaintance." 
 
 " Did she look very ill ? " asked his listener, with the first sign 
 of interest he had shown yet. 
 
 " Mr. Ord, sir, there was death in her face," said the landlord 
 solemnly. " She had that look of breaking up that isn't to be 
 misunderstood in any case, least of all in a lady of her age. Some 
 of us who were following her minded how she clutched at Miss 
 Maturin's arm to steady herself from falling ; but all the same she 
 said in a cheery sort of a voice, ']\Ii\ Morison,' she said, 'I hope 
 you have given me my old rooms, for I am going to disappoint my 
 doctors, and get well here as fast as I can,' and those were the last 
 words I ever heard her say." 
 
 A brief sigh from Mr. Ord was his sole comment. He had 
 put his elbow on the window-sill now, and was looking down into 
 the market-place. Perhaps the landlord's discourse wearied him, 
 but he offered no interruption. Mr. Morison cleared his throat, 
 for he was getting a little husky, and proceeded — evidently his 
 story was after his own heart, and he thought he was telling it 
 well : 
 
 " Man disposes, sir, but the Almighty has the making up of it 
 all in the end ; and the best of us makes a sad mess of the little 
 we do. Well, when we had got the poor lady upstairs, Miss 
 Maturin and the maid helped her to bed, which some of us knew 
 she would never leave again ; not Miss Maturin though, for she 
 told our chambermaid that she really thought Mrs. Ord had taken 
 a turn for the better, she was so sprightly like ; but when the 
 morning came she was too weak to rise, and the next day and the 
 next, and so it went on. 
 
 " Well, it might have been a week or it miglit be more, I 
 was down in the Castle garden which belongs to the King's 
 Arms, and is so called because it is laid out partly in the ruins, 
 which is one of the sights of Barnard Castle, that strangers come
 
 6 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 to see — I was down iu the Castle garden, I say, getting in our 
 peas, when who should I see but Miss Maturin coming down the 
 centre walk, and looking as white as her gown. And when she 
 gets up to me she says : 
 
 " ' Mr. Morison, will you send one of your people with this 
 to the station immediately 1 Mrs. Ord is much worse, and I am 
 afraid she is dying. You must not lose a minute — not one minute, 
 please, for,' says she, clasping her hands, ' there's wrong may be 
 done that will be past undoing.' You may not believe me, sir, but 
 what with the sunshine, her white dress, and the scared look on 
 her face, I was sort of dazed ; you might have knocked me over 
 with a feather. For the life of me I could not think what man I 
 had to send, through it not being the full season, and our single- 
 handed waiter being laid up with lumbago, and the boots having 
 gone up to the station already with a commercial's luggage ; and 
 all the time I was considering, she stood twirling the paper round 
 in her long fingers in a way that made me giddy. 
 
 " ' I think if it's a telegram I had better take it myself. Miss 
 Matiu-in,' I said at last. 
 
 "And then she began thanking me and telling me how it was 
 to the lawyer, who lived in London, and how he would have to 
 travel jierhaps all night. 
 
 " ' I pray God he may be iu time,' she finished ; and I 
 noticed how she sort of wrung her hands as she spoke." 
 
 " And was he in time 1 " asked Robert Ord in a voice that 
 startled the worthy landlord, it was so quick and intense iu its 
 eagerness. 
 
 " Why no, sir ; leastways she never roused to full conscious- 
 ness again. They did all they could. Mr. Tracy waited on and 
 on, but it was no manner of use. They used to give out that she 
 was reviving sometimes, and Miss Maturin would come fiying 
 down the garden for Mr. Tracy, and take him up to the poor lady ; 
 but as soon as ever they spoke to her she was back again in the 
 stupor, and so it went on to the last." 
 
 " Has Mr. Tracy been here ever since 1 " 
 
 " Oh no, sir ; he went up to London directly afterwards, and 
 only retiu-ned in time for the funeral. I think he had some idea 
 of finding you here." 
 
 " True ; but I was away from home, and received his letters 
 too late. Thank you very much, Mr. Morison, for all you have 
 told me. I will not trouble you with any more questions. I can 
 wait for any further particulars till Mr. Tracy returns." The 
 landlord rose at the hint. " And you do not wish to see Miss 
 Maturin, sir 1 "
 
 THE KING'S HEAD. 7 
 
 "I have no objection if she wishes it; perhaps I may be of 
 some use to her. She is placed in very unfortunate circumstances. 
 Any lady would feel such a position keenly, especially as I am 
 afraid from what you tell me that she is without friends." 
 
 " Not a creatm-e belonging to her in the world, sir." 
 
 " And she is young, you say ? " 
 
 "About one-and-twenty, sir." 
 
 " Hum, hardly old enough to take care of herself Well, Mr. 
 Morison, I think I shall be glad of those refreshments you offered 
 me before." 
 
 "You shall have them at once, sir. I will just give the 
 chambermaid a message for Miss Maturiu ; and maybe she will 
 come and speak to you herself." 
 
 Robert Ord nodded, and the door closed on his host. He gave 
 a genuine sigh of relief when he was left alone, and walked once 
 or twice across the room with the air of one who had shaken off a 
 burden. But his freedom was of short diuation, for the door 
 again opened, and a respectable-looking young woman entered. 
 
 " Miss Maturin desires her compliments, sir, and thanks you 
 for your kind message. But she is very sorry to say that she 
 cannot possibly see you till the evening, as she is suffering from a 
 bad sick headache." 
 
 " I have no wish to disturb Miss Maturin, I assure you," 
 replied Mr. Ord drily, as though he were slightly annoyed. " I 
 only offered my services, hearing from the landlord that the lady 
 was without friends in a strange place." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; Miss Maturin imderstood that, and she is extremely 
 obliged to you ; she desired me also to say that she hopes you will 
 make use of your aunt's sitting-room, as the inn is very full, and it 
 is quite at your disijosal." 
 
 " Thank you ; I may take advantage of her kindness for a few 
 hours," he replied a little less stiffly, but half disposed to refuse the 
 thoughtful offer ; it was curious how this continual mention of his 
 aimt's companion ruffled him. " I wish people would not drag in 
 other people's affairs in the middle of one's private business," he 
 said, fuming to himself as soon as he was left alone. " What in 
 the world is Miss Maturin to me, or I to Miss Maturin 1 That's 
 the worst of talking to a garrulous landlord. I declare I am quite 
 sick of the name." 
 
 The coldness and hauteiu: of his manners had not been lost on 
 the chambermaid, who was as quick to observe as the rest of her 
 class ; for in retailing the short interview afterwards to Miss 
 Matvuin, she described Robert Ord as the i3roudest as well as the 
 handsomest gentleman she had ever set eyes on — a double ex-
 
 8 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 aggeration, seeing that there were many men handsomer and 
 prouder even than he. But he was a good-looking man enough, 
 possessing those elements of manly beauty which are sufficiently 
 attractive to the feminine eye. He was tall, and well though 
 rather slenderly built, and his face was decidedly prepossessing, 
 though a physiognomist might have found fault with his mouth — • 
 the lips were too thin, and closed over each other so firmly as to 
 give an expression almost of hardness to his otherwise pleasant 
 features. One seemed to feel in looking at him that his firmness 
 was a fault, tliat he coidd be a loving friend but a bitter enemy, 
 and no one's enemy more than his own. And yet there was some- 
 thing about the man that must, in either character, win your 
 respect. He was so honest and so terribly in earnest. Women 
 always liked Robert Ord, though they feared him a little ; and 
 good men valued his opinions. But perhaps the best criterion of 
 all, little children loved and clung to him, and even dumb animals 
 followed him about, and with unerring instinct seemed to know he 
 was their friend. 
 
 He was sorely in need of refreshments by the time they arrived, 
 and did ample justice to the excellent fare set before him, but as 
 soon as his repast was over, he strolled to the window-seat again, 
 more in the hope of enjoying a little fresh air than of seeing any 
 special objects of interest. 
 
 "I always thought Blackscar the dreariest place imaginable," 
 he said half-aloud, as he leant his elbows on the sill and looked 
 over the sunny market-place, " but one has the sea there, with its 
 perpetual changes, but this Barnard Castle looks as though it has 
 gone to sleep for a score of years and has not begun to wake up 
 yet. A nice little nest for an idle man perhaps — nay, even as the 
 landlord of the King's Arms, existence might be endurable here — 
 but not to a restless Ord, unless it be Austin." And here he 
 broke off, as though too indolent this hot summer's afternoon to 
 carry on any consecutive train of thought, and stared instead at an 
 enormous placard opposite him, containing the astounding informa- 
 tion that on that very evening might be seen one of the most 
 remarkable wonders of the world — the Blue and Hairless Horse, 
 at the ridiculous sum of one penny, children half-price. 
 
 " I suppose he has fallen into some lime-pit by accident and 
 then got painted, but, all the same, those louts of lads will go and 
 believe in him, so much for the innocent credulity of the Barnard 
 Castlers;" and then he leant out farther, as a little equipage 
 rattled over the stones and stopped at a neighbouring tin-shop ; it 
 was rather an odd-looking turn-out — a low carriage drawn by a pair 
 of fat sleepy mules, with a huge tawny St. Bernard dog keeping
 
 THE KING'S HEAD. 9 
 
 them company. There was a jingle of little bells about it too. 
 A lady in a large straw hat was driving a tall gentleman ; there 
 was quite a small crowd round them, and the tin -man looked 
 obsequious. Robert Ord found out afterwards that it was the 
 owner of Rokeby. After that came a cream-coloured performing 
 pony, led by a foreigner and escorted by small boys \ they dis- 
 appeared down a dark entry however, and the small boys dispersed 
 with a general whoop of disappointment to reassemble jDresently in 
 hot pursuit of a Punch and Judy show ; the place was quiet enougli 
 after that ; the pigeons strutted again in the simshine, and only a 
 solitary factory girl, with the usual shawl over her head, passed 
 listlessly along. 
 
 " I think I've had enough of this," said Robert Ord, suddenly 
 rousing himself. " It is cooler now ; I will go and have a peep at 
 the Castle gardens, and perhaps at the Castle itself ; it is better to 
 ventilate one's thoughts when they are as heavy as mine." 
 
 And being a mau of energy, Robert Ord was as good or better 
 than his word, for he not only saw the ruined Castle, with its 
 hermit's chamber, and the cell where through the slit in the wall 
 the unhappy prisoner could view the enchanting landscape with its 
 noble river below, but he perambulated the town itself, and after 
 having counted the inns and alehouses in the High Street, which 
 reached the shady side of twenty, and explored the factory quarters, 
 with its bridges and grimy river, he returned to the King's Arms, 
 and having made friends with the apoplectic-looking waiter, was 
 conducted by him across a stone yard and through a side gate into 
 the far-famed Castle garden. 
 
 " Mr. Morison is very proud of his garden, sir," the waiter had 
 assured him ; and as he strolled on after thanking him, he was 
 fain to acknowledge that Mr. Morison had something of which he 
 might justly be proud. 
 
 Beautiful old-fashioned gardens they were, lying within the 
 ruins, homely enough, but brimful of sunshine and sweet-smelling 
 old-fashioned flowers, none the less lovely that they bloomed in 
 the same plot of ground with apple-trees, cabbages, and gooseberry 
 bushes. 
 
 He had never seen such a profusion of flowers anywhere ; they 
 might be counted by hundreds ; there was a perfect blaze of colour 
 in the sunshine, and great brown bees were humming about them 
 and filling their honey-bags as though rejoicing in the bounteous 
 harvest. 
 
 Flowers, flowers everywhere ; great clumps of golden-hearted 
 lilies, looking, as they are, the white queens of the garden, and 
 behind them, like ranks of sentinels, tall dazzling hollyhocks \
 
 10 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 roses, delicious creamy tea-roses, and rich crimson ones, some of 
 them deeply, darkly purple ; pale pinky roses hanging in clusters 
 like tinted cups, blush and white roses — there was no end to them 
 anywhere ; they festooned the walls in company with the fruit 
 trees and throve in every border, bushes of them bloomed on the 
 ruined walls themselves, or made inroads on the gravel paths. 
 
 There were great orange beds of eschscholtzias, and lupins, 
 blue, rose, and yellow, climbing convolvuli and marigolds of all 
 sorts, double daisies and stocks, and trails of rich dark nasturtiums, 
 with homely sweet-peas running to seed ; flowers that brought back 
 the garden of one's childhood, when a bush of southern-wood Avas 
 one's delight, and monkshood, sweet-william, and yellow-eyed 
 pansies were the rarest flowers in the world. 
 
 Robert Ord dearly loved old associations, and flowers were his 
 especial delight, and as he strolled down the wide gravel-paths and 
 under the sunny walls he felt brighter than he had done for many 
 a day ; for Robert Ord was a disappointed man, he had missed his 
 share of this world's good things somehow, and the world had in 
 consequence turned rather a cold shoulder on him. The star of 
 the Ords was not just now in the ascendant ; people had begun 
 to say of them that they were poor and proud, and might have 
 managed better if they had only bent those obstinate wills of 
 theirs a little and learned to be humble. But it was a lesson no 
 Ord had ever yet learned, and so they had gone on their ways chew- 
 ing the bitter cud of experience with a sorry face or a cheerfid one 
 according to their several natures ; and a little hardness had crept 
 into Robert's heart, the good things of this world had been pro- 
 mised him and then had been suddenly withdrawn, and he had 
 grown sore with longing for them ; but none the less did he feel 
 some stirrings of hope witlun him that brighter days might be in 
 store for him and his. He had felt it as he alighted from his hurried 
 journey and stepped into the dust and sunshine, and he felt it still 
 more as he walked between the gay coloured bushes, and looked 
 across at the blue-black ruins of Barnard Castle with a j^iie of 
 amethyst and scarlet clouds behind them. 
 
 He had stopped for a moment to lean on the little gate that 
 connects the upper and lower gardens, when the slow rustle of a 
 dress attracted his attention ; and looking up he saw a lady coming 
 round the angle of the wall, evidently towards him. She did not 
 see him till he had opened the gate for her to pass ; then she 
 bowed slightly with a quiet well-bred air, but without raising her 
 eyes. He had just time to notice that she was tall, very young, 
 and dressed in rather deep mourning, before a sudden and most 
 unaccountable impidse made him lift his hat and say :
 
 THE KING'S HEAD. 11 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but am I not addressing Miss Maturing" 
 
 She was passing him as he spoke ; perhaps the abruptness of 
 the question startled her, for she hesitated, seemed painfully con- 
 fused, and at last stammered out in the lowest voice he had ever 
 heard : 
 
 " Yes ; I am Miss Maturiu. I suppose — that is — I believe I 
 am speaking to Mr. Ord." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " I thought so ; I was sorry I could not meet you as you wished, 
 in the earlier part of the day. I only came out now to see if the 
 air would do my head good ;" she spoke quickly, with a flurry and 
 indistinctness in her words, which made them nearly inaudible ; 
 and the nervous trembling of her hands spoke volumes. 
 
 "She is very young, and is afraid of me," thought he ; and he 
 answered her in his pleasantest tones, as though to reassure her. 
 
 " Yes, there is nothing so painful and depressing as a bad sick 
 headache. I have had several in my time, and know how trying 
 they are to bear. This cool evening air will do you good. Miss 
 Maturin ; now as we have met one another so opportunely we may 
 as well have our little interview out here in this lovely old garden, 
 it will be ten times better tlian that stuffy little room upstairs, 
 and I have so many questions to ask about my poor aunt." 
 
 "Have you? Yes, we will stop out here if you like," she 
 returned, looking round her in a helpless sort of way, that made 
 Mr. Ord think she was meditating an escape. He could not help 
 scrutinising her narrowly as she stood there under the low apple 
 trees — a tall slim creatm'e, in her black dress, with a lace kerchief 
 tied over her brown liair, and a face so young and so surprisingly 
 pale that it moved him to pity in spite of himself. He had just 
 made up his mind that she was not at all good-looking, and that 
 ^e was very unhappy, when she looked up at him with a pak of 
 soft troubled eyes and said : 
 
 " \i you have questions to ask, of coiu-se I will stay and 
 answer them ; but I thought, perhaps, you would wait for Mr. 
 Tracy." 
 
 " Mr. Tracy cannot tell me all I want. Miss Matm'in. Forgive 
 me if I am too cruel in keeping you when you are evidently in 
 need of quiet ; but my time is short. A few hours is all I can 
 spare from my business, and my talk with Mr. Tracy must be of a 
 far different character." 
 
 " Yes, I know," she answered with a little shiver, and turning 
 paler than ever, "it must be all so sad for you. Ah, why have 
 you come so late % We did what we coidd, Mr. Ord ; indeed we 
 did, but it was all too late."
 
 12 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I could not come before," he returned, anxious to defend 
 himself, and wondering at her exceeding agitation. "I was 
 travelling for our firm, and Mr. Tracy's letter never reached me ; 
 and as ill luck would have it neither of my brothers could come 
 either, for Garten had hurt his foot, and Austin could find no one 
 to take his duty. Then the funeral took place yesterday. Was 
 the will opened then. Miss Maturin % " 
 
 " Yes," pressing her lips together. 
 
 " Who was present 1 " 
 
 " Only Mr. Tracy, Mr. Compton the clerg}-man, and myself ; 
 the other executor could not come." 
 
 " Who is the other executor 1 " he asked anxiously ; but she 
 interrupted him, almost in distress. 
 
 "It is Mr. Morrell or Murrell — I don't know which; but 
 please don't ask me anymore about that, Mr. Tracy will tell you;" 
 and putting her hand to her head, " I am so confused — oh, so 
 dreadfully confused with it all." 
 
 "Tell me something about my aunt's illness," he said kindly, 
 and putting aside his evident desire to know more ; for Robert 
 Ord was very tender over weakness, and very chivalrous and 
 coiu-teous to all womenkind, and this shy, timid girl excited his 
 compassion. His soothing tone seemed to give her confidence, for 
 she brightened up a little ; and by means of frequent questioning 
 and an encouraging word or two he was soon put into possession 
 of all the facts connected with his aunt's long mental illness— an 
 illness aggravated by restlessness, and resulting in the break-up of 
 all her vital powers. 
 
 " It seems so dreadful for her to have died at an inn, with only 
 hirelings round her," finished Miss Matm-in ; " if her old friend Mr. 
 Tracy had not been near her, I should have said it was almost 
 too sad." 
 
 " I should think you must have been an old friend yourself by 
 this time, Miss Matmiu; you have been three or four years with her." 
 
 " Nearly four. I know I tried to do my duty to her. I wish 
 now that I had not tried quite so hard ; no, you will not under- 
 stand me, Mr. Ord, but she seemed so lonely, poor thing, and so 
 bitter with some secret trouble, that one could not help pitying 
 her, and trying to make her life a little less unbearable to herself 
 and others. I did not mean to say that, God knows ; she was my 
 only friend, and I miss her" — and Miss Maturin wiped away a 
 few quiet tears in a way that touched the young man to the heart. 
 
 "Are you so wholly without friends then?" he asked gently. 
 
 " I have not any one belonging to me in the world," was the 
 sad answer.
 
 THE KING'S HEAD. 13 
 
 " Pardon me ; not a sister, not a brother'?" 
 
 " No ; I was an only child." 
 
 "Tell me some more about yourself; that is, if you do not 
 mind," he said, with quite an elder brotherly feeling towards this 
 young girl, thrown so suddenly and so unprotected on the world ; 
 " not that we Ords have much interest ; but I know some good 
 women who would go very far out of their way to assist one 
 of their own sex." 
 
 She smiled gratefully at that ; and then, as though his kind- 
 ness had won her Irom her timidity, she told him in a few simple 
 words, all the more pathetic that they were so few and simple, the 
 particulars of her poor little story. 
 
 She told him how she had been the only child of an Indian 
 officer, who had died while on his voyage home on sick leave, and 
 how in two or three short years her mother had followed him, 
 leaving her a lonely child, only ten years old ; how they had left a 
 little sum of money for her maintenance and education ; and when 
 that was exhausted, she had become a pupil-teacher in the same 
 school where she had been educated, from which drudgery Mrs. Ord 
 had rescued her. 
 
 " I was only seventeen then," concluded Miss Maturin, " but I 
 was doing the work of two people. When I look back I do not 
 know which was worse, that school life or the years that came after. 
 I don't think " — clasping her hands with a movement that seemed 
 habitual to her — " I don't think I ever had a friend in the world 
 except the music-mistress, Mrs. Carruthers, and she was good to 
 me. I see now that Mrs. Ord liked me, and meant to be kind ; 
 but how could I have guessed it — how could I — how could I ? " 
 
 The nervous flurry of manner had returned, and as she spoke 
 these last words she looked so white that Robert Ord at once pro- 
 posed they should return to the inn. 
 
 " I will see you again to-morrow," he said, holding out his 
 hand with a friendly look as they parted in the hall. " I shall 
 not leave very early in the morning after all, and I shall expect 
 you to tell me what I can do to help you." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you gratefully for all your kindness," she 
 answered ; but either she did not or would not see his hand. 
 
 Robert Ord watched her gliding up the staircase like a black 
 shadow, and then he turned the handle of his door with a brief 
 sigh and went in.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 
 
 ' ' false my friend 1 
 False, false, a random charge, a blame undue ; 
 Wrest not fair reasoning to a crooked end : 
 False, false, as you are true ! " Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Robert Ord had expected to find the little room as empty as 
 when he left it ; he was greatly surprised therefore to see a gray- 
 haired gentleman with a florid face busily writing at the centre table; 
 in the dim light he had some difficiilty in recognising him till he 
 pushed back his chair and came forward with outstretched hand. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Tracy ; you have taken me quite by sur- 
 prise. I had no idea that you had returned." 
 
 " My dear sir, a thousand apologies for keeping you so long 
 waiting; here I have been all day with a party at Deepdale — ■ 
 ought to have known better at my age — time is money to a busi- 
 ness man. Never expected you for a moment — why did not you 
 telegraph 1 " 
 
 " True, so I might," returned Robert Ord. 
 
 " Might ! I should think so. ' If he means to come he'll 
 send a telegram,' thought I ; ' and if not, I shall be off to London 
 to-morrow.' What were you doing at Glasgow 1 " 
 
 " Something wrong with our machinery, and they sent on my 
 letter instead of opening it — that's Gar all over — and so, of com-se, 
 there was no way of being present yesterday." 
 
 " I supposed business had kept you ; couldn't the parson come 
 either 1 " 
 
 "Who — Austin 1 No, just at the last minute he couldn't find 
 any one to take his duty. I believe there was a wedding and a 
 funeral on for that day." 
 
 " Humph ! just as well, perhaps, as things have turned out," 
 returned the lawyer, taking out his snuff"- box and tapping it 
 nervously. " Of course we were obliged to open the will."
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 15 
 
 " So Miss Matiirin informed me." 
 
 " What ! have you seen Miss Maturin % " asked Mr. Tracy in 
 a tone of unfeigned astonishment. " I thought she told me that 
 nothing would induce her to see you. Well, women are queer 
 creatures to manage — they tell you one thing and do the other. 
 So she told you about the will, eh % " 
 
 "No, indeed ; she referred me to you." 
 
 "I am sorry for it ; I thought she was going to save me an 
 awkward piece of business," said Mr. Tracy, ruffling up his gray 
 hair in a way peculiar to himself — it was coarse hair, and made a 
 grating sort of sound. " Crump took down all the particulars of 
 the will — she was our oldest client — I never understood why she 
 sent for my partner instead of myself, but I understand it now ; 
 rather a hard customer she was to manage — confoundedly hard, I 
 should say ; " and he rapped his snuff-box thoughtfully on the table 
 before he took a pinch. " Pray, Mr. Ord, if it be not asking too 
 downright a question, was yom- aunt on such very bad terms with 
 you and the rest of your family % " 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you asking that question, Mr. Tracy ; it 
 sounds ominous. She was on the worst possible terms with us 
 all, sir." 
 
 " Humph ! thought so," taking another pinch. " Couldn't 
 comprehend it otherwise — had always heard she had educated 
 and made so much of her three nephews — brought them up, in 
 fact, as though they were her own sons." 
 
 "So she did till the last four years. But, look here, Mr. 
 Tracy, doesn't it strike you that we are beating about the bush a good 
 deal % - It does not require much penetration to see that you have no 
 very good news to give me. What is the good of all this preamble ? 
 Of course my aunt has left all her money to a charitable institution." 
 
 He spoke quietly, but there was an anxious, almost an eager 
 look about his face ; he had told himself coming along that he had 
 little or no hope, and that whatever disappointment might await 
 him he would bear it like a man ; but he knew now that hope 
 had been strong within him, that he had coveted that money as 
 earnestly as he knew how to covet anything — all the more that it 
 had once been within his lawful grasp before misunderstandings 
 had arisen, and the Ord pride had estranged them ; and now his 
 heart was growing heavy and sore within him, for Mr. Tracy's 
 jovial fjice looked graver and longer than he had ever seen it. 
 
 " I suppose she has endowed some orphanage or hospital, or 
 left funds for building another church ; she was largely given to 
 such good works," he continued, trying to speak lightly, but fail- 
 ing utterly.
 
 16 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I wish to heaven Miss Maturin had told you herself," said 
 the lawyer, rubbing his hands fretfully. 
 
 " My good sir, what has Miss Maturin to do with the 
 subject ? " 
 
 " Unfortunately, Mr. Ord, she has everything to do with it. 
 Your aunt has left her the whole of her property." Robert Ord 
 started from his seat, with an exclamation rather strong than 
 polite. 
 
 "Now do be calm, ray dear sir — pray be calm;" and the 
 lawyer took three pinches in succession as he watched him nerv- 
 ously. " I can't tell you how heartily grieved I am for your dis- 
 appointment, but pray be calm." 
 
 " The whole of her property, Mr. Tracy ! — impossible." 
 
 " Every penny, I give you my word ; every stick and straw, 
 except a large donation to the fishermen and a munificent bequest 
 to the Convalescent Hospital. Of course there are minor legacies 
 to servants and executors, and she has not forgotten two or three 
 old jjensioners ; but the bulk of her property, in houses and funded 
 property, with Bryn and all its furniture, plate, etc., amounting 
 to about five thousand a year, goes solely and entirely to Miss 
 Maturin." 
 
 "Miss Maturin — good heavens! Miss Matiu-in!" And 
 Robert Ord's expression was not pleasant to see. 
 
 " Mr. Tracy, on my word of honour as a gentleman, I will 
 never believe my aunt intended to do us this deadly wrong." 
 
 " Tush, my dear sir. I have the exact copy of the will before 
 me now ; you may read it for yourself in black and white," and 
 he pushed the papers towards Robert Ord. " Look it over ; you 
 will find the instrument correct and valid enough. Crump knew 
 what he was about when he drew up that document — and a 
 rascally document it is," muttered the lawyer, as he turned 
 towards the window. He was a good-natured man, softer-hearted 
 than many of his class, and the sight of the young man's pale face 
 moved him to pity. " He has played his cards as badly as a man 
 could play them," he said to himself; "those Ords are all alike — 
 they never know what is good for them ; there's not one of the 
 three could manage a cantankerous old woman ; but all the more, 
 it is a grievous pity this fine young man should be the loser. 
 Humph ! I should like to know the rights of it." And he was 
 still turning the matter over in his mind when Robert Ord threw 
 the paper from him with a gesture of anger and disgust. 
 
 " Mr. Tracy, I shall dispute that will. As sure as I am stand- 
 ing here I shall do it." 
 
 " On what grounds, Mr. Ord ? "
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 17 
 
 " On the grounds of insanity — imbecility, if you like. My 
 aunt was not in her sane mind when she dictated that will." 
 
 " Fudge, my dear sir." 
 
 "Mr. Tracy!" 
 
 " Come, come, this is going too far; do let us be reasonable. 
 Of course I agree with you that it is a confounded shame — that, 
 morally speaking, the young woman has no more right to the 
 money than I have, and a more unjust \\i\\ was never executed ; 
 but when you talk of disputing the validity of the document you 
 are simply fljdng in the face of reason." 
 
 " Never mind, I will go to law ; I will have the thing properly 
 sifted. What right had she to disinherit her lawful nephews with- 
 out cause, for the sake of a designing stranger ? " 
 
 " Mr. Ord, my good sir " 
 
 "It is no use dissuading me, Mr. Tracy. I have made up my 
 mind. I will talk the matter over with Austin, and he will agree 
 with me." 
 
 " I think better of the parson than that." 
 
 " What ! you think he will not fight the thing out with me ? 
 You are mistaken." 
 
 " No, no, Mr. Ord ; I think better of him and of you than that. 
 Go to law, indeed ! Why, you have not a leg to stand upon." 
 
 " How so 1, " asked Robert Ord. His excitement was cooling 
 a little before the lawyer's phlegm. 
 
 " Why, in the first place, the costs would ruin you ; and, in 
 the next place, you would gain nothing. Ask any lawyer, he 
 would tell you the same. Granted that it is a most unjust will ; 
 but, after all, I suppose the deceased lady had a right to do what 
 she liked with her own." 
 
 "I deny that my aunt was in her reasonable senses when she 
 dictated that document." 
 
 " Will you undertake to prove that, Mr. Ord 1 Nn, no, let 
 us. glance at the main facts of the case. Here is a lady with — 
 
 with " Here the lawyer hesitated for a word. " Well, let 
 
 us say a decidedly unpleasant temper, variable and capricious as the 
 winds, and full of all sorts of jealous fancies. Well, this lady brings 
 up her nephews, treats them in a way like her own sons, and finally 
 adopts one and makes him her heir. By and by misunderstand- 
 ings arise ; there's coolness, first with one and then with another of 
 the brothers— all on account of this touchy temper and the Ord pride 
 — no insanity, mind you, ever having been known in the family ; 
 presently there's ill blood between her and the heir, and she there 
 and then refuses to have any more to do with him — that's some 
 years ago— they don't meet again ; and when the will is opened, 
 
 2
 
 18 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 he finds she has only left hina her forgiveness and a blessing. Isn't 
 that the long and the short of it, Mr. Ord ? " 
 
 " I believe you have stated it pretty correctly." 
 
 " Well, how can you make out your case for presuming the 
 deceased was of unsoimd mind 1 Crump will tell you she was 
 never clearer and better than when she dictated the points of that 
 will, looked as hale and hearty as though she would live till eighty — 
 was terribly irascible with him to be sure, and rapped on the table 
 with her gold-headed cane every time he ventured on a remon- 
 strance. Never had such an interview in his life; it quite aged him." 
 
 "You really think I cannot contest the wilH" asked Robert 
 Ord hopelessly. 
 
 " My dear sir, it would be the maddest thing you ever did in 
 your life, even to attempt such a thing. Ton my word your avmt 
 was a most unaccountable creature though — here she led that poor 
 girl a sad life of it, every one says so, and then goes and leaves 
 her all her money as though to make up for it." 
 
 " Poor girl indeed ! Who ever would have thought my aunt 
 could have been so duped, and she such an acute woman, too ? " 
 
 "What do you mean by that, may I ask ?" 
 
 " Now, Mr. Tracy, is it possible that you can be so simple as 
 not to see there must have been some undue influence at work 1 
 I could not have believed that any one so young and so seemingly 
 simple could have been so designing." 
 
 " There, she said you would say so — she said you would take 
 it like this ; " and the lawyer rubbed up his hair with vexation till 
 it stood on end all round like a gray halo. " I can well under- 
 stand you feel inclined to play at fisticuffs with the world in 
 general for having used you so badly, but when it comes to speak- 
 ing ill of that poor young woman because she has innocently 
 defrauded you of your aunt's property, I must say, Mr. Ord, I 
 hardly expected it of you." 
 
 " I suppose she has talked you over, sir," sneered Robert Ord. 
 "Ah, I can see it all now. No wonder she dreaded to meet me; 
 no wonder she could not look me in the face and answer my ques- 
 tions ; fool that I was, to be gulled by all that seeming simplicity." 
 
 " Mr. Ord, you are cruelly misjudging that poor girl." 
 
 "Of course, Mr. Tracy, if you are going to take up cudgels in 
 her defence, I have no more to say ; but I should have thought a 
 lawyipr the last man to be deceived by fair specious words. Miss 
 Maturin is nothing to me, but I should have certainly liked a 
 dilTerent sort of neighbour at Bryn ; it is rather too close to the 
 Vicarage to be pleasant." 
 
 " Upon my word I inty tliat young creature coming into the
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 19 
 
 midst of you," returned the lawyer warmly ; " that was a cruel 
 provision of the will obliging her to live at Bryn. When we read 
 it out to her she turned as white as that table-cloth." ' What ! 
 shall I have to face them day after day and week after week V 
 she said, tiu-ning to me. ' Mr. Tracy, it is too dreadful, I cannot 
 do it. I shall feel as though I have robbed them of their money. I 
 have no right to it, none at all ; and they are all so poor, you tell me.'" 
 
 " We are much obliged to Miss Matmin for her commiseration," 
 returned Robert Ord haughtilj^, stung by the concluding words. 
 
 " My dear sir, do let me proceed ; it is my duty to remove 
 this suspicion if I can. We had some trouble to make her under- 
 stand that she was sole legatee ; she kept interrupting us by telling 
 us that she was sure Mrs. Ord had repented of her injustice, and 
 that she had meant to make another will in favoiu: of her nephew 
 Robert ; and at last she got so urgent that we were obliged to ask 
 her reasons for what she said." 
 
 "Wein" asked Mr. Ord eagerly, as the lawyer paused. 
 
 " Well, it seems about a week before her death Mrs. Ord let 
 fall some words about the final disposition of her property which 
 excited Miss Maturin's suspicion, and she begged her to tell her 
 more, but she would not. She only asked her jestingly how she 
 would feel if she woke up one morning and found herself a rich 
 woman ; and when she said that, it came upon her all of a sudden 
 that some injustice was going to be done, and then and there she 
 begged and prayed Mrs. Ord not to leave her any money, or not 
 more than would keep her from dnidgery all her life ; and she 
 implored her by all she held sacred not to leave the world bearmg 
 a grudge against any one, and least of all her own flesh and blood. 
 I don't know what more she said, but she told us that Mrs. Ord 
 seemed much shaken by her words, and not a little touclied. Slie 
 patted her kindly on the head — she was kneeling by her at the 
 time — and promised she would think over it ; and she was not to 
 fear for herself, for she would see that she was remembered ; and 
 later on in the night, just as she was dropping off to sleep, Mrs. 
 Ord woke her and said she was a good girl, and that she might 
 send for Mr. Tracy if she liked, for she had made up her mind 
 now, for she knew she had committed a great mistake, and she 
 would see that everything was put right." 
 
 " Go on," murinm-ed Mr. Ord hoarsely, as soon as Mr. Tracy 
 leant forward to refresh himself with another pinch. 
 
 "All right, my dear sir; I thought you would be interested. 
 Well, when the morning came there was a change for the worse — 
 a sort of lethargy or stupor seemed creejiing over her — and when 
 the doctor came it was his ojjiuiuu that she was not far from her
 
 20 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 end. Then it was that Miss Maturin sent for me, stating that she 
 had reasons for believing that the poor lady wished to alter her 
 will. She was rather incoherent in her expressions. I was a 
 stranger to her, you see ; but I gathered from her excitement that 
 there was some great interest at stake. Well, I did what I could ; 
 and, what with Mrs. Ord being our oldest client and having large 
 dealings with our firm, and my not having much work on hand, 
 and being rather disposed to loiter in a strange place, I just stayed 
 on a day or two hoping for a lucid interval, but none came. She 
 would revive a minute or two, and then the death-like stupor 
 would return, and so it was all of no use." 
 
 " She never rallied V 
 
 " Not for more than a few minutes at a time. Miss Maturin 
 used to fetch me up to her room, but it was fighting against fate ; 
 and so we found when we came to open the will and saw how 
 things were left. Good heavens !" continued the lawyer still 
 more vehemently, " I thought Miss Maturin would have been 
 beside herself when I read it. She would hardly listen to us 
 when we congratulated her. She hated money, she said, and this 
 great millstone should not be hung about her neck. She was 
 for delivering up the whole to you ; and when we proved to her 
 that that was impossible, she insisted on a fair division. But you 
 see for yoiu-self, Mr. Ord, how such an arrangement is guarded 
 against in a special clause of the will, and how the executors are 
 bound over to see that the property, without division, is for the sole 
 use of Rotha Maturin and her heirs for ever." 
 
 " A monstrous injustice ! Mr. Crump ought to have refused 
 to have drawn up such a will." 
 
 "Why? She would only have employed the nearest lawyer; 
 and Crump saw no good in offending a rich client. She might 
 have had a harder customer to deal with in me. I am rather 
 given to plain speaking in such matters. I have known the Ords 
 off and on for a score of years, and I would not have seen them so 
 cruelly wronged if I could have helped it." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Tracy ; I am sure of your sympathy." 
 
 " Why, you may be sure of that, my dear sir, and welcome ; 
 and if there be anything I can do for you at any time — short of 
 contesting the will — I will gladly do it. One thing I must 
 confess, that I am rather curious to know what led to this final 
 breach, if it be not trenching too much on private matters." 
 
 " My aunt never enlightened you, then V 
 
 " No, she got to be rather close with me dming the last few 
 years of her life. I suppose, as I just hinted, I was too plain- 
 spoken for her. I know the i^arsou put his foot in it by marrying
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 21 
 
 a young lady without any fortune ; that was just after Mrs. Ord 
 had endowed the church, and so he never got his new Vicarage." 
 
 " There, that was just one of my aunt's inconsistencies ; she 
 was lavish of her money, always giving it away in large sums, 
 which impoverished her property, and then she insisted on oiu' 
 marrying rich wives to repair the breaches, as it were. Who ever 
 heard of such despotism 1 Austin was the first to rebel, and so it 
 was all up with him." 
 
 "But the parson was never the prime favourite, Mr. Robert?" 
 
 " No, he was too downright and outspoken. She could not 
 bear his sermons, as she called them. Did you ever see his wife, 
 Mr. Tracy V 
 
 " To be sure I have, when I called at the Vicarage one day ; 
 a pretty bright-coloured girl, very pleasant spoken, and every inch 
 a gentlewoman." 
 
 " Oh, that's many years ago ; she looks worn now, and no won- 
 der, with four boys and a small income to manage. You were asking 
 me just now how I fell into disgrace. Well, that was all her faidt." 
 - "Mrs. Austin's fault f 
 
 " Yes ; the vicaress, as we call her. Her mother, Mrs. Clinton, 
 died, and she and Austin, not being poor enough already, must 
 needs have her sister to live with them." 
 
 " Humph ! I begin to see light." 
 
 "To be sm-e you do. Of coiu-se we fuU in love with each 
 other, and, as she is ten times prettier than her sister, that's only 
 natural. I think you might travel half the world over before you 
 find two such women anywhere." 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt, Mr. Robert, but all the same it was a 
 crazy move of yours." 
 
 " Of course it was suicidal, but I was almost as blind as men 
 in my position usually are. I daresay if I had foreseen everything 
 L should have acted just the same. I could not have helped 
 myself; but I certainly had no idea at the time that my aunt 
 had already chosen a wife for me. You have heard of Mr. 
 Ramsay of Stretton, the great ironmaster. He was worth, I 
 should be afraid to say how many thousands, and he had an only 
 daughter. This young lady was destined by my aunt to be the 
 future mistress of Bryn. And if my affections had not been already 
 engaged, she would not have chosen ill for me, for Emma Ramsay 
 was a sweet-looking creature, and most amiable and accomplished ; 
 but as I had already proposed to Miss Clinton, I was not specially 
 thankful when this paragon was ofiered for my accejitance. I 
 suspect her father rather wished the match, as well as my aunt. 
 Well, I believe you know my aunt's peculiarities, and I will leave
 
 22 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 to your imagination the scene that followed when I told her that 
 Miss Clinton and I were engaged. You spoke just now of the 
 Ord pride in not very complimentary terms, if I remember rightly; 
 it was well up then, I assure you, and there were bitter words 
 spoken on both sides — not quite pleasant to remember now. It 
 ended in my refusing to give up Miss Clinton, or to take Miss 
 Ramsay on any terms, and that night I shook off the dust of Bryn 
 with no very enviable feelings." 
 
 "Did Mrs. Ord disinherit you theni" 
 
 " Virtually, I suppose she did, for she vowed that if I married 
 Miss Clinton I should never touch a penny of her money. Of 
 course Austin tried to patch up the matter and make peace between 
 us, but that only widened the breach, for she told him it was all 
 his own and his wife's faidt — they had tried to get up the match 
 to spite her, and that she never wished to see an Ord face again." 
 
 " Poor lady ! that was when she came up to London. I thought 
 she looked ten years older when I saw her." 
 
 " Yes, she shut up Bryn at once, and before any of us knew 
 what she was about she had taken a house in London. Austin 
 wanted me to go after her, but I declined ; Garton went, but they 
 never had got on well together, and she would not have anything to 
 say to him. He came back looking rather the worse for London 
 air, I can tell you." 
 
 " And you never attempted a personal reconciliation, Mr. Ord V 
 
 " No, indeed ! What was the good of bringing flint and steel 
 together ? I tried writing once, but the answer I received did not 
 encourage me to proceed with the correspondence. She would only 
 make peace on her own terms, and as that involved my giving up 
 Miss Chnton, of course I would not listen to them ; and so it went 
 on from bad to worse. But I don't think we any of us quite 
 thought that she would carry her animosity beyond death." And 
 Robert Ord's face darkened as he remembered that bitter will. 
 
 " How is it she never got on with your brother Garton %" 
 
 "Oh, that is easily accounted for. Garton never would put 
 up with her queer speeches. He was always letting her see that 
 he despised her vagaries, and saying some blunt thing or other 
 tliat hurt her feelings. Gar always was under a cloud, as it were. 
 She had not any patience with his wish to be a clergyman— one 
 was quite enough in any family, she said ; and so there was never 
 any sympathy between them. It was a pity, because Garton would 
 have suited her best in the end. Good heavens, what a miserable 
 world it is for general crookedness and misunderstandings ! " 
 
 " I daresay you feel it so now. It is very hard for an idle man, 
 brought up in luxury, to have to put his hand suddenly to the plough."
 
 ROBERT ORD STATES HIS OPINION. 23 
 
 " Yes, a managing clerk's place at two hundred a year is not a 
 very lively prospect after four years' work, especially when one 
 has to partially keep one's brother." 
 
 " You see no chance of maintaining a wife just now, I am afraid ?" 
 
 " No, indeed ! it is that tliat makes me feel so badly about it 
 all," and Robert Ord's voice took a hard bitter tone. "It is hard 
 lines for us. We have been engaged four years, and shall probably 
 remain so for four more. No hope of a rise jus.t now — when 
 there are two sons coming into the business — unless by a lucky 
 chance. It is wearing us both out, I believe ; for of course a man 
 cannot bear such a lieap of troubles quite patiently. Well, ]Mr. 
 Tracy, I think I have bothered you enough with our family history. 
 We are sitting in total darkness ; shall we ring for lights and a cup 
 of coffee ?" 
 
 " With all my heart, my dear sir," returned Mr. Tracy, pulling 
 the beU. "Thank you, thank you for all yoiu- confidence. I 
 confess I was curious to learn the rights of this painful case, and 
 in return I trust that I have removed your unhappy suspicion of 
 poor Miss Maturin." 
 
 Mr. Ord remained silent. 
 
 " Come, sir ; acknowledge that you have been ratlier too hard 
 upon lier." 
 
 " I don't think a man can be expected to be otherwise than 
 hard when he sees all the good things of this world snatched 
 suddenly away from him." 
 
 " Of course not, of course not ; but I do hope, Mr. Ord, tliat 
 you will make things a little less unbearable for her wlien she 
 comes among you." 
 
 "I hope always to remember that she is a lady," returned 
 Robert Ord in his most high and mighty manner. 
 
 " There, that's an Ord all over. Why, bless my soul, however 
 (To you manage to get on in the world at all, Mr. Robert 1 There, 
 forgive an old man's pertinacity, for the girl interests me somehow. 
 Do not let her see that you harbour this unjust suspicion of her. 
 Mark my words, my dear sir, it will just break her down." 
 
 " I am afraid she must put up with a general coolness. I am 
 very sorry, Mr. Tracy, as slie is a pet 2->rotegee of yours, but I 
 cannot help it. I cannot feel that my aunt woidd have left her 
 all that money if she had not been toadying fn- it more or less. 
 She may be quite innocent, as you say, but a man is bound to have 
 his own opinion, and I have mine. There, let us change the 
 subject ; my head aches so confoundedly that I think I will go out 
 for a stroll to get a little fresh air."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EGLISTONE ABBEY. 
 
 Wliat prospects, from his watch-tower high 
 Gleam gradual on the warder's eye ! — 
 Far sweeping to the east, he sees 
 Down his deep woods the course of Tees, 
 And tracks his wanderings by the steam 
 Of summer vapours from the stream. 
 
 • • • • a 
 
 Then in broad lustre shall be shown 
 
 That mighty trench of living stone, 
 
 And each huge trunk that from the side, 
 
 Reclines him o'er the darksome tide. 
 
 Where Tees, full many a fathom low, 
 
 Wears with his rage no common foe ; 
 
 For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here, 
 
 Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career, 
 
 Condemned to mine a channell'd way 
 
 O'er solid sheets of marble gray." Scott's llokcby. 
 
 Robert Ord was in no very placable mood the next morning ; his 
 long solitary walk in the darkness had been followed by a wakeful 
 miserable night ; anxious thoughts had stared him in the face and 
 kept him company, and he had failed to combat them with his 
 usual courage. Bitter feelings such as he had never experienced 
 before filled his veins with fever and stirred him to impotent 
 anger ; courage and hope were at their lowest ebb. And when he 
 had succeeded in obtaining momentary oblivion, it was dearly 
 purchased at the expense of harassing nightmares. 
 
 He arose with the morning light jaded and unrefreshed, to find 
 a new source of annoyance awaiting him. 
 
 " Things always go by contraries in this world, at least they 
 do with me," he observed, as he and Mr. Tracy sat down to break- 
 fast together in the coffee-room. " There's a pleasant sort of letter 
 for a man to receive just as he is longing to shake off the dust of 
 a place from him." 
 
 "What's the matter now? Hum, letters of advice to Dar-
 
 EGLISTONE ABBEY. 25 
 
 lington. Darlington'? Why, that's not much of a distance. Only 
 a matter of sixteen miles from here — is it %" 
 
 " I should not mind if it were sixty," was the grumbling answer. 
 "It is not the distance to which I object ; but just now I am not 
 exactly in the humour to have a few idle hours on my hands." 
 
 " Why not deliver the letters at once then, and take an early 
 train to Blackscar or Thornborough'?" 
 
 " Impossible. You see I have to confer with oiu: junior part- 
 ner, Mr. Clayton. Well, he was in Lancashire last night. He 
 cannot be in Darlington, I should judge, till about nine this 
 evening." 
 
 " Humph, I begin to understand ; and it is not the sort of 
 place where you would care to spend a solitary day." 
 
 " Well, not exactly ; Mr. Broughton thinks it probable that 
 Mr. Clayton may bring us up news which may oblige me to return 
 to Glasgow at a moment's notice. Anyhow my orders are stringent. 
 We shall telegraph from Darlington and await their reply. Of 
 course I shall pass the night there." 
 
 "And you will have your day to yom-self. I wish I could 
 keep you company, but I must be off by the eleven o'clock train." 
 
 "To London r' 
 
 Mr. Tracy nodded. 
 
 " Are you going to leave jowx protegee behind you, sir 1" The 
 sarcastic tone suited Robert Ord ill. Mr. Tracy rubbed up his 
 hair as he heard it. 
 
 " If you mean by my protegee Miss Maturin, she will follow 
 me to London in a day or two. I don't mind telling you that I 
 have invited her to take up her residence for a Uttle while in 
 Manchester Square." 
 
 "At your house, Mr. Tracy?" and Robert Ord knitted his 
 brow in sm'prise. 
 * " Yes, at my house, sir ; have you any objection, Mr. Ord % 
 I don't think she will qiute contaminate my wife and daughters." 
 
 " Probably not," was the ciu-t answer. But Robert Ord 
 winced a little nevertheless at the lawyer's irony. 
 
 " She has to hunt out a friend of hers in London. That's her 
 present purpose, I believe. For, as you may be aware, sir, a young 
 creature can't live quite alone, and she wishes this Mrs. Carruthers 
 to come and live with her. You may not do the poor young 
 woman justice yourself, Mr. Robert, but I think even you must 
 confess that she has a pretty clear notion of what is fitting in her 
 position." To which piece of intelligence Robert Ord vouchsafed 
 no manner of answer. 
 
 The conversation languished after this. Mr. Tracy took up
 
 26 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 his paper and was soon absorbed in the leading article, and Robert 
 Ord, after wandering listlessly from the table to the windows, and 
 observing that there were sullen-looking clouds about, and that he 
 would as soon be suffocated as take a walk on such a sultry morn- 
 ing, took up his hat and went out, after bidding him good-bye rather 
 stiffly. 
 
 The day was before him. But though in his hard-working life 
 holidays had been scarce witli him, and idleness a thing unknown, 
 he made no sort of plan for himself ; he had taken a distaste to the 
 whole place ; he was in no mood to be charmed by natural beauty 
 — natiu-e in her sweetest aspect would have failed to soothe him. 
 But as his restlessness goaded him to some sort of action, he went 
 out, not caring whither he went. 
 
 He had gone down by the river the previous evening, and he 
 remembered a little weir whibh had pleased him with its cool 
 splash and endless movement. Perhaps farther on he might find 
 shade and repose. And so he crossed the bridge again, and leaving 
 the factories behind him, struck into a little footway across the 
 green fields, which seemed to track the course of the river. But 
 as he walked, tlie dense thundery air added to his oppression, and 
 served to increase his brooding sadness. Two or three anglers 
 looked up from their pleasant work in surprise at the tall handsome 
 man striding so quickly under the trees, looking neither to the right 
 nor the left. Business was alien to them just now, the humming 
 gnats and great leaping trouts were more in unison with their 
 holiday mood. Robert Ord glanced at them half in envy and half 
 in contempt, and marvelled how the world had dealt with them 
 that they could stand so happily on those smooth white boulders, 
 looking down into the deep sunny pools for the silvery plash, 
 which was just now the object of their thoughts. 
 
 One of them was a poor artisan, with a disabled arm — a thin 
 sickly-looking man ; he was humming a Methodist hymn-tune as 
 he mended his rod — a sturdy white dog was barking savagely at 
 his own shadow in the water at his feet. Robert Ord noticed that 
 his elbows were ragged, and by a queer transition of mood tossed 
 him a silver coin. The man took it up languidly and thanked 
 him in a subdued sort of way. 
 
 " There's a storm coming up, maister ; there's a taint of thunder 
 in the air," he said in a rough Yorkshire dialect, and then he 
 went on with his tune. Robert Ord stood and envied him before 
 he turned away. What a bad bitter mood was on him ! As the 
 old lawyer quaintly expressed it, he was just in the humour to 
 play at fisticuffs with the world at large. 
 
 A great blow had just been dealt him, and he was by no means
 
 EG LI STONE ABBEY. 27 
 
 a man disposed at any time to turn the other cheek to his enemy ; 
 all such smitings were odious to him, and he was much given to 
 show a very muscular sort of Christianity on such occasions. Mr. 
 Tracy's generous defence of Miss Maturiii had secretly exasperated 
 him, and he had had some difficulty the previous night in concealing 
 the fact that the whole tenor of the conversation had been insup- 
 portable to him. In his own mind he called him a fool for his 
 credulity, and mocked at the old-fiishioned chivalry that prompted 
 him to go down into the lists. And being very slow at all times 
 to yield up a preconceived idea, however erroneous, he was not likely 
 to be won over even by the lawyer's eloquence, and least of all by 
 his generous hospitality. 
 
 He chose to believe that Miss Maturin had gained influence 
 over his aunt for her own purposes, and nothing short of a miracle 
 would be ever likely to alter his opinion, and of course, so judging, 
 he was not disposed to hold out the sceptre of his favour to so 
 hardened a sinner because she had eloquent eyes and a soft voice. 
 
 No, that was not probable, and as he walked along he strength- 
 ened himself in his indignation all the more that the smart of his 
 injiu-ies was fresh upon him. She had coveted that money ; all 
 those rich belongings had seemed desirable to her poverty. Very 
 young women could be designing sometimes, and scheme for their 
 own benefit. Doubtless she had so schemed; doubtless during 
 those four years she had so ingratiated herself into her protectress' 
 favour with her smooth subtle ways, that it was no wonder that 
 she had forgotten her own flesh and blood, seeing that her own 
 flesh and blood had so sinned against her. Her hands were not 
 clean, so he told himself — not clean, that is, with an honest white- 
 ness, and as he suff"ered no degrees of comparison in his mind, he 
 soon grew to believe that they were of absolute blackness, that her 
 degeit was odious, and that any forgiveness on his part would be 
 a reprehensible act of weakness. 
 
 It never occurred to him that he might be drawing a wrong 
 conclusion, that it was possible that even his opinion might be 
 mistaken, and that he was unjustly condemning the innocent. 
 
 There are few gems without a flaw, comparatively few, that is 
 to say, and so it is with human nature. The time came when 
 Robert Ord owned that he was more sinning than sinned against ; 
 when the scales of his own self-sufficiency fell from his eyes ; when 
 he saw clearly and judged righteously ; when he owned that his 
 pride and his uncharitableness had wrought his troubles and marred 
 so long the beauty of his life ; that he had himself to thank, and 
 no other ; and when, in the subdued wisdom of his riper years, he 
 confessed "that it was good for him that he had been afflicted,"
 
 28 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 and that he had gained his knowledge through the bitterness ol 
 experience. 
 
 He had reached the Abbey Bridge by this time ; about three- 
 quarters of a mile beyond lay Kokeby, as he well knew, but he felt 
 no sort of desire to see it. Already he had passed " Eglistone's 
 gray ruins " unnoticed, and now he stood leaning his elbows on the 
 stone battlements of the bridge, and looking moodily down into 
 the bubbling river with eyes that saw nothing. 
 
 And yet the scene that lay before him was fair enough for a 
 poet's dream : behind him was Eglistone, or, as the guide-books 
 have it, Athelstone or Egglestone Abbey, built on the angle formed 
 by the little dell called Thorsgill with the Tees. 
 
 In this Abbey Sir Walter Scott laid the closing scene of his 
 Rohehy. 
 
 From the Abbey Bridge one looks down the magnificent valley 
 of the Tees, with its richly-wooded banks ; the river itself flowing 
 in a deep trench of solid rock, chiefly limestone and marble ; and 
 from where Robert Ord stood the view was exquisitely beautiful, 
 the whole course of the river was broken up by huge boulders of 
 snowy whiteness, over which the water bubbled and frothed in the 
 sunshine with an endless fret. 
 
 By and by the noonday glare disturbed him, and he left the 
 bridge and climbed down amongst the underwood to the very edge' 
 of the water ; the smell of the cool dark vegetation refreshed him, 
 and then he seated himself astride a low bough that hung over the 
 water. He had set himself a task : he was looking things in the 
 face, as he called it — reviewing his past, present, and future, all 
 the time that he was dropping the loose pebbles into the current 
 and watching the tiny eddies in which they disappeared. The 
 shiver of leaves and the wet splash of large drops on his face 
 recalled him from this dreamy introspection, and the low growling 
 of suppressed thunder warned him that a storm was impending. 
 The air was close to sufi'ocation, and the clouds looked electric. 
 He always keenly enjoyed a storm, and as he scrambled up the 
 banks it came into his head that he would seek shelter in the 
 Abbey ruins that towered a little way above him ; it would be 
 better than having to exchange civilities with the toll-gate keeper 
 on the bridge. 
 
 The drops were coming down faster now, with an ominous 
 pattering and splutter, and he was obliged to hasten his steps ; but 
 as he ran up the green slopes and was about to vault over the low 
 palings, he saw to his chagrin that some one else, a female, had 
 taken shelter in the same refuge. 
 
 For a moment he had half a mind to retrace his steps, and was
 
 EGLISTONE ABBEY. 29 
 
 turniug round for the purpose, but ou second thoughts he restrained 
 his impulse. The rain was coming down now with a steady down- 
 pour that would have drenched him to the skin, and he saw that 
 the person, or lady, whichever it might be, was standing vainly 
 trying to shelter herself under a broken buttress : mere humanity 
 prompted him to go to her assistance ; Robert Ord was a gentleman 
 both by instinct and education ; in another minute he was beside 
 her. 
 
 " You will get very wet if you stand under the ruined window," 
 he said courteously, as though to a perfect stranger, but at his 
 fii'st word she turned round and looked at him. 
 
 It was Miss Matiurin. 
 
 She had evidently seen him coming up from the road, for his 
 sudden appearance did not seem to surprise her. She looked up 
 at him half timidly, half wistfully, as though she hoped that he 
 would greet her ; she even made a movement as though she would 
 put out her hand to him, but something of sternness in his face 
 forbade this. 
 
 "You here, of all places in the world, Miss Maturin !" And 
 now it was impossible for her to mistake the surprised displeasure 
 of his voice. 
 
 "Yes, I was down on the river -bank, and the rain overtook 
 me," she faltered. 
 
 " You have chosen a very poor refuge then," he returned ; 
 "there is a better shelter over there," and he pointed to a low 
 range of out- buildings that skirted the Abbey. 
 
 But she hesitated a moment. 
 
 " Pray do not lose time or we shall have the storm upon us," 
 he continued impatiently. " You do not mind the wet grass, I 
 suppose." 
 
 She shook her head, and mutely pointed to her diipping di-ess, 
 whfch was clinging round her in lank folds, and in another moment 
 he had hurried her across the wide green, and they were standing 
 together under the doorway of a ruined dwelling-house. 
 
 " What a desolate place," he muttered, as he relieved her of 
 her wet cloak, and bade her shake out her dress, after which he 
 proceeded to eject a coal-black heifer, evidently an occupant of the 
 tenement. Several horned heads appeared from time to time, and 
 seemed greatly astonished at being refused admittance. 
 
 " They have turned it into a cattle-shed, I suppose," he con- 
 tinued, looking round at the crumbling walls and grateless fireplace 
 of their imdesirable refuge ; and then, without waiting a reply, he 
 picked his way among the mouldering bricks, and leant against the 
 empty framework of the window.
 
 30 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 It was not an exhilarating scene, and one can forgive Robert 
 Ord if, in his present mood, he looked at it with lowering brows 
 and wished himself a hundred miles away. 
 
 The whole place was misty with driving rain, the sky sullen 
 and lurid ; every now and then there was the glare and dazzle of 
 sudden lightning, the tree-tops looked gray and indistinct, the river 
 ran molten, the cattle herded together under the projecting eaves, 
 lowing their discontent with their sweet breath full on Robert Ord's 
 face. Across the green space rose the gray old ruins ; some birds 
 had taken refuge in the great bare east window, and twittered and 
 trimmed their wet plumage. Loose stones and mortar crackled 
 down the yawning chimney where Miss Maturin stood shaking out 
 the folds of her dress and looking wistfully at him. 
 
 She had on a little straw hat, and she had tied it in gipsy 
 fashion over her face, with a broad black ribbon ; her face was 
 paler, if possible, and there was a red swollen look about her eyes 
 as though she had been weeping. He thought her even plainer 
 than he had yesterday ; but he could not deny that her expression 
 was very sweet. 
 
 She eyed him timidly for a few minutes before she could 
 summon up courage for her simple question. 
 
 " Do you think we shall have to wait long, Mr. Ord 1 I mean 
 is the rain nearly over?" 
 
 " Over 1. Well, no. I am afraid there is no chance of our leav- 
 ing here for another three-quarters of an hour or so," he returned, 
 moving his arm for a moment from the dripping window-sill. 
 
 " Three-quarters of an hour !" she exclaimed, in a tone of such 
 genuine dismay that he smiled grimly in spite of his own discom- 
 fiture. 
 
 " I am sorry that you are so uncomfortable ; but the fact is we 
 cannot help ourselves." 
 
 " Mr. Tracy told me that he thought it would not rain, or I 
 would never have ventured so far," she continued, as though dis- 
 tressed at the awkwardness of her position. 
 
 "Mr. Tracy was a bad prophet, then," he replied coldly; and 
 then he turned himself again as though to study the prospect. He 
 had nothing to say to her ; between them there was a gulf which 
 he had determined nothing should induce him to bridge over. If 
 they were to remain there an hour he would only address a curt 
 observation or two. She had come between him and his lawfid 
 rights, and he was not likely to forget that for a moment ; and, as 
 he remembered his wrongs, the frown gathered darkly to his brow. 
 No wonder her heart sank within her as she watched him. 
 
 " I was right, and he hates me," she said to herself mournfully;
 
 EGLI STONE ABBEY. 31 
 
 " aud he was so gentle with me yesterday before he knew all ;" and 
 then, with the courage of sudden impulse which comes sometimes 
 to the weakest and tlie most timid women, she determined that at 
 all cost she must speak to him. She had had a final interview 
 with Mr. Tracy that morning, and had gathered much in spite of 
 the lawyer's guarded speech. She knew that Robert Ord had been 
 bitterly disappointed, that there had been hard words said, aud 
 harder things thought than were ever likely to come to her know- 
 ledge. And as she looked at the rigid lines of the handsome face 
 before her, and remembered the few icy words with which he had 
 addressed her, she felt that her task would not be a pleasant one ; 
 but none the less did she resolve that she would ask his forgiveness 
 for being the innocent cause of his wrong. " I must meet him 
 again and again, as I must meet all of them," she thought. " Oh ! 
 if I coidd only soften him, if but one of them woidd look kindly on 
 me and be my friend, I thinli I could bear it better," and then in 
 her impiUse she moved a little closer to him. 
 
 "Mr. Ord, I must speak to you," she began ; but as he timied 
 round slie stopped, scared by the very sternness of his face. 
 
 " I am quite at your service," he returned ; but not looking at 
 her nevertheless. 
 
 " Yes, I know ; but then there are some things so hard in the 
 telhng." 
 
 " Some things Well — yes." 
 
 " But none so hard as this. Do you know, Mr. Ord, when you 
 spoke to me last night I was almost dumb before you." 
 
 " I remember it well, Miss Maturin." 
 
 " You questioned me then, but I could not answer you : I felt 
 almost desperate when I thought of all that there was to tell. Mr. 
 Ord, shall I ever be able to tell you how grieved I am for what has 
 happened'?" 
 
 -Then the blackest frown that had ever been seen on Robert 
 Ord's brow gathered tliere again. She had dared to speak on that 
 subject to him — to him ! 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Ord!" 
 
 "Well, what now V he asked haughtily. 
 
 "Because I can see it in yom* face, because I can feel it here," 
 putting her hand on her heart ; " because I know, as well as though 
 I had heard them, all the hitter things you have said and felt. Do 
 you think I blame you % Not I. You have been cruelly wronged, 
 you and all of them; but your suffering is nothing compared to mine." 
 
 She spoke passionately, but without any idea of defending her- 
 self ; for tlic anger of his look stung her beyond endurance. Her 
 spuit was fairly roused now.
 
 32 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " You know that if it had been in my power this thing should 
 never have happened to you." 
 
 Then he remained absolutely silent. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Ord, this is too cruel, when you know how wretched, 
 how utterly wretched, all this terrible money has made me." And 
 then she broke down, and for a moment wept before him as though 
 she were heart-broken. " Do you not think that if I could undo it 
 I would ? God knows that it is not my fault that all this trouble 
 and wrong have come upon you." 
 
 " I accuse you of nothing. Miss Maturin." 
 
 " No ; but your silence does ; it accuses me terribly. Do you 
 think I was to blame in anything 1 that I might have sent for you 
 before?" 
 
 " No, I do not think that." 
 
 " Then in what have I failed 1" she continued, her face growing 
 paler ; for it was impossible to mistake his manner. But again he 
 hesitated. 
 
 He was wishing himself most earnestly away by this time. No 
 appearance of innocence on her part could alter his opinion, so he 
 told himself; but something of the hard bitter humoiu- was oozing 
 away. In reality he was gentle at heart, and he could not bear to 
 treat her churlishly. She might be what he thought her, but he 
 could not bring himself to tell her his suspicions. Not at least, 
 unless she should drive him to it ; but his silence was betraying 
 
 him. 
 
 "Miss Matiu-in," he said, not unkindly, "this is a very un- 
 fortunate subject you have chosen ; pray let us change it." 
 
 But she shook her head. 
 
 " Not till you have answered my question, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " I must decline to answer it." 
 
 " What ! you decline to tell me wherein I have deserved blame ; 
 is that generous, is that fairf 
 
 " You forget. I accuse you of nothing. The time for all such 
 accusation is past. Let us consider the matter at an end. ^ I may 
 hold my own opinion, but I do not care to allude to it again." 
 
 " Allude to whatr' she returned, looking bewildered. " What 
 is at an end 1 Do you not see how hard all this is for me 1 You 
 will not speak to me because I am the innocent cause of aU this 
 trouble." 
 
 " Pardon me, I do not regard you as the innocent cause. Miss 
 Maturin. There, it is your own fault. I would have spared you 
 this. You are compeUing the truth from me." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I know." 
 
 Thus di-iven in a corner, lie continued steadily :
 
 EGLISTONE ABBEY. 33 
 
 " I cannot regard you as innocent. In my own mind I think 
 there must have been undue influence at work, or my aunt Avould 
 never have left you all her money. Ah, you shrink from me. 
 Why did you make me tell you this ?" 
 
 "You believe this — you believe this of me, Mr. Ord f 
 
 " I have thought so, and I think so still ; but I am grieved 
 that you oblige me to speak so plainly. I do not wish to be 
 churlish to a lady. I think that you were young and friendless 
 and needed help, and the position was one of great temptation. 
 We were strangers to you, and under a cloud ; you were hardly 
 aware of the moral wrong you were doing ; you might only have 
 coveted a small portion of my aunt's wealth. I can quite believe 
 you are sorry now for what has happened, but how can such sorrow 
 avail us?" 
 
 "You believe this of me?" she repeated in the same tone, but 
 he never forgot tlie look with which she said it ; it haunted him 
 long afterwards — there was no anger, but the incredulous sorrow 
 in her eyes moved even him to compassion. 
 
 " Miss Maturin, do let us say no more." 
 
 " There is nothing more to be said," she answered wearily, 
 and her hands dropped to her side as she spoke. " I must bear 
 it, I suppose. I cannot defend myself, for you would not believe 
 my word ; you have not believed all that Mr. Tracy has told you, 
 of how I have worked and watched for you." Nothing coidd 
 exceed the hopelessness with which she said this. 
 
 "I am sorry all this has occurred." 
 
 Then for a moment the colour came into her pale face. 
 
 "Are you sorry, Mr. Ord? Well, that is something. No, I 
 will not let this imputation crush me ; I will not, I will not. I 
 don't think you quite know what you have done, being a stranger, 
 but I forgive you ; you have almost broken my heart, but you have 
 given me an object in life." 
 
 "How so. Miss Matm-in?" 
 
 " Ah ! you do not know me ; I am a poor creature, but I can 
 be very patient. I will not call Heaven to witness my innocence, 
 for you would not believe my words ; but I will never rest, I will 
 never cease from striving day after day, and year after year, till I 
 remove this suspicion. Mr. Ord, it will be my one, my only 
 thought." 
 
 "You heap coals of fire on my head," he returned, but the 
 sarcasm somehow failed him. 
 
 Once more she looked at him with that mild reproach in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Yes, the time will come when you will own that you have 
 
 3
 
 34 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 wronged me • it may be years hence, but I know it will come, when 
 you will surely own it." 
 
 " Be assured that I shall not delay coming to you if any such 
 taking back of words be necessary." 
 
 " No, I know you will not ; I can see that you are true, though 
 you are so terribly hard;" and then she moved away from him, 
 and he saw a look in her face as though she was heart-broken. 
 
 " I hope I am having a very pleasant day, on the whole," 
 thought Robert Ord bitterly, as he walked up and down among 
 the brick-heaps : he had done his work — she had forced him to do 
 it ; but the result did not satisfy him. What good was it to him 
 that he had convicted her of her sin if she would not own that she 
 liad so sinned % He had grappled with her, and she had glided 
 fi'om liim with a look of reproach which haunted him against his 
 will ; do what he would, he could not banish a certain feeling of 
 remorse as he thought of it. He had accused her of virtual dis- 
 honQ,sty, or at least of obtaining an undue influence over his aunt, 
 and she had not defended herself by so much as one word. Surely 
 he had been gentle enough with her. He had been betrayed into 
 anger once or twice, and had then repented and refrained himself. 
 With all his wrath he had not said anything specially bitter, 
 though the sternness of his look or tone might have rebuked her. 
 But of what avail was all this mildness and refraining, since she 
 would insist on assuming the airs of heart-broken innocence ? It 
 made him feel as though his magnanimity had been thrown away ; 
 and yet a few hours ago he had sworn that on no account could he 
 bring himself to forgive her. 
 
 These were not pleasant thouglits, as he stumbled over the 
 brick-heaps, among the mouldering passages. How he loathed the 
 whole place with an impatient loathing that recurred to him in 
 future days ! He could always recall that scene, it was so vivid 
 in his memory — that desolate dwelling, with the strips of plaster 
 clinging to the damp mouldering walls ; the gaping window- 
 frame, the broad green level, and gray ruins misty with driving 
 rain ; the dull thud of horned heads striking impatiently against 
 the doorway; and always motionless, always the central figure 
 in that picture, the tall figure in the clinging black draperies : he 
 could see the curve of the long neck, the small head bent slightly 
 forward, the fluttering of the thin hands ; could almost hear the 
 monotonous tones of the low murmuring voice, "Yes, the time 
 will come when you will own that you have wronged me." When 
 and how did that time come to Robert Ord % 
 
 The rain was ceasing now ; he had just become aware of the 
 fact, and wondering how he was to break the silence and open
 
 EGLI STONE ABBEY. 35 
 
 his lips to speak to her, when she relieved him of his embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 "The rain is over now, I believe," she said, turning round to 
 him. There was not a trace of coloiu" in her face, but her calmness 
 was wonderful : all the tremor, the nervous agitation that had so 
 disturbed him yesterday, had left her ; she looked like one who had 
 unexpectedly received a deadly blow, but who was rallying from it. 
 Her perfect self-possession astonished him. 
 
 " The storm has not turned its back upon us yet," he returned, 
 trying to speak with equal sangfroid, "but, if you are willing, we 
 will take advantage of this lull;" to which she briefly assented, 
 and in another minute they were walking side by side along the 
 high road and under the dripping trees, greatly to his surprise, 
 for he had expected her to decline his escort ; but he did not 
 know her. 
 
 There was another awkward silence, which neither attempted 
 to break, and then he took courage and relieved himself of a 
 perplexity. 
 
 " Miss Maturin, after what has passed there can hardly be very 
 cordial feelings between us, as it is impossible for me to consider 
 myself otherwise than injured ; but still, as I said before, you may 
 not have anticipated all these consequences. I do not wish to 
 judge you harshly. I feel sorry that you compelled me to speak." 
 
 A dim smile flitted across her face, more mournful than any 
 tears. 
 
 " Do you mean there can be peace between us ? I certainly 
 do not wish it otherwise, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " Neither do I," he returned hastily. " What is done, is done. 
 I have no wish to make your position wholly unbearable. I sup- 
 pose we can always exchange the civilities of strangers V 
 • " I have no intention whatever of avoiding you, Mr. Ord." 
 
 "You could not if you wished." he returned, piqued by her 
 perfect indifference. " Bryn and Kirkby Vicarage are too close 
 together." 
 
 "Yes, I know," slie answered, with a sliiver. "Do you think 
 I forget Avhat lies before me % If you will let me come amongst 
 you, I will come ; if not, I will bide my time. I do not mean to 
 shun any of you. Why should I % I have done nothing of which 
 to be ashamed — all such shunning will be on your side." 
 
 " I cannot answer for it that we shall be very cordial. Miss 
 Maturin." 
 
 " Of course not. Do you think I expect it % Of course you 
 will make my life bitter amongst you. But then I do not mean 
 to blame you. You are very unjust. You do not know how to
 
 36 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 be merciful. But I can wait my time." And after that he had 
 nothing to say. 
 
 It was a strange dreary walk, and one which they were not 
 likely to forget. It was a relief when they had left the river 
 behind them, and were treading the well-worn pavement of the 
 High Street ; and still more a relief when they had reached the 
 portico of the King's Arms. 
 
 And then they parted. 
 
 "I suppose I may not offer you my hand, Miss Maturin?" he 
 said, with some slight feeling of compunction, as she turned her 
 white wistful face to him. 
 
 "No, Mr. Ord, you may not; you must never offer it to me 
 again till you have taken back all you have said — till you have 
 cleared me from this terrible imputation." And then, when she 
 had said this, she left him and went in.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MEG. 
 
 " Oh, what makes woman lovely? Virtue, faith, 
 And gentleness in suffering. An endurance 
 Through scorn or trial : these call l>eauty forth, 
 Give it the stamp celestial, and admit it 
 To sisterhood with angels ! " Brent. 
 
 In a well-known suburb of London — a suburb so widely known 
 that its very name will bring a flood of reminiscences to many of 
 us — there is a retired and pleasant thoroughfare called Chatham 
 Place. 
 
 The glory of Hackney is departed. The traces of past grandeur 
 are fast fading away from its sunny old streets. The monster 
 tide of fashion that has set in during late years has swept family 
 after family westward. The wealthy citizens who lived in these 
 great brick mansions, dwelling not figuratively but in reality under 
 their fig-trees, pleasant old jjlaces set in the midst of shady gardens, 
 have long ago migrated, each man according to his several degrees 
 of consequence and ambition — some to the sun-baked pavements 
 of West-End squares and streets ; a few to the humbler precincts 
 of. Russell Square ; while others, less ambitious, and pining for 
 green fields and country lanes, have sought out dwelling-places for 
 themselves at Hampstead or Highgate, never dreaming that those 
 fields would soon lie low, and those leafy lanes be trodden under 
 foot, under the ever -advancing needs of increasing population. 
 Alas ! for those brick-and-mortar paradises ; those long winding 
 streets, modernised and uninteresting, where not so many years 
 ago the children loitered in the narrow lanes to gather hawthorn 
 and sweetbrier roses, or dabbled knee -deep in fields of golden 
 buttercups ; where the blackbirds and the thrushes used to sing 
 in the early mornings, and in summer the aLr was full of the sweet- 
 ness of new-mown hay. Now one walks as a stranger through the 
 old spots, remembering as in a dream some favourite clump of 
 trees or well-worn stile where a glittering gin-palace now flanks
 
 38 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 the path, or a labyrinth of intersecting roads branch into endless 
 lines and divisions of undeviating and hopeless uniformity. 
 
 But though such glory as it once possessed is departed from 
 Hackney, there is still a pleasant air of repose and quiet about its 
 old familiar streets. Here and there some of tlie old families still 
 linger, clinging fondly to bygone associations, and despising the 
 tyrannies of fashion. The whole place is a little oppressive and 
 heavy in its respectability. There is monotony in its aspect — one 
 day resembles another — but one feels a dim sort of tenderness for 
 it nevertheless : one is haunted by a -desire to linger long in the 
 shady churchyard, where the old church-tower and the church are 
 so strangely dissevered, and where one walks down the flagged 
 path under the trees, with the dead lying on either hand, and the 
 children plucking daisies out of the rank grass, or playing on the 
 gray discoloured gravestones. 
 
 Branching oft' from the churchyard, and passing under the 
 railway bridge, one finds oneself in Chatham Place. Here quiet 
 would become dreariness save for the hum of voices proceeding at 
 set hours from the great schoolhouse. It is impossible to connect 
 life and activity with Chatham Place. The houses are dull and 
 obscure, standing back in long narrow gardens, with great gates 
 that swing solemnly backward and forward. The windows are 
 long and narrow, and scarcely require the adjuncts of wire blinds. ' 
 But they look pleasantly on a long strip of triangular green, where 
 a few sheep and cows are always browsing, and beyond which lies 
 Homerton Terrace. There are few trees, but plenty of dust and 
 sunshine. There is no deafening traffic to jar one's nerves. All 
 the knockers are bright as gold, and the one stone step is con- 
 spicuous for its whiteness. Few footsteps crunch in the long 
 gravel-path. Here again respectability and monotony go hand in 
 hand. 
 
 In one of these houses, many years before the events we have 
 recorded took place, lived Mrs. Carruthers, Ptotha Maturin's friend 
 — or Meg Browning, as she was then. 
 
 Meg, as she was always called — for never in all her days had 
 any one been known to call her by her baptismal name of Margaret 
 — Meg lived with her father and niother in one of these shady old 
 houses in Chatham Place. 
 
 Meg's father was a clerk in some mercantile house — a hard- 
 working industrious man, going forth to his business in the early 
 morning and never retiu-ning till late at night. And her mother 
 had failing sight and delicate health. Never was any youth less 
 gay and exciting than Meg's, but never was any richer in dutiful 
 unselfish happiness.
 
 MEG. 39 
 
 Meg helped her father. She treasured and made much of her 
 one talent — rising early and taking rest late, that she might bring 
 it to fruition. By ancl by came the reward to her industry, when 
 she gave music lessons in the same school where she had learned as 
 a gu-1. But Meg did more than this : besides her daily drudgery 
 at Miss Binks', and her trudgings backwards and forwards across 
 the churchyard, she had her household duties to transact. She had 
 her simple cookeries, and fine ironings, and plaitings of her mother's 
 caps, and hemming of her mother's snowy handkerchiefs. She had 
 shu-t-fronts to stitch, and to unpick and rectify her mother's knit- 
 ting, always ragged with dropped stitches. She had to read the 
 paper, or make conversation when her father came home tired at 
 night; sometimes to play cribbage with one or the other, or to 
 take a hand at whist when her father chose to play dummy. 
 
 Then on Sunday morning she would go across the chm-chyard 
 hanging on her father's arm. She would sit with him under the 
 sunny west window in the old pew, and look out his places iu the 
 Psalm-book — they sang Tait and Brady then. She must remem- 
 ber all the heads of the sermon for her mother's benefit, and retaU 
 them in the hot drowsy afternoon, when her father was having his 
 after-dinner nap. And in the evening she read long pages to them 
 both out of Blab's Sermons and Harvey's Meditations, with some- 
 times a spell of Doddridge's Rise and Progress. In the twilight 
 she would play to them the old-fashioned tunes they loved — 
 Luther's grand old hymn, " How cheerful along the gay mead," 
 with a spice of the Old Hundredth ; while the parents would sit 
 hand in hand, listening with tears in their eyes : the father joining 
 in now and then with odd trills and roulades of the old style. 
 
 Then for pleasures : did they not go once or twice in the 
 summer to the grand London parks, and listen to the band in 
 Kensington Gardens, and feed the ducks in St. James', or go over 
 to Battersea, or take the steamer to Greenwich ? And in the 
 winter did not JMeg's father take her twice to hear Shakespeare's 
 plays, Hamlet and Henry V., regaling her all the way there and 
 back with glorious tales of Mrs. Siddons and the Kembles 1 — dis- 
 sipations which made her lie a whole half-hour longer in bed the 
 next morning. 
 
 Meg had no young friends, but she never missed them ; she 
 had an odd stui'dy character of her own— individuality that would 
 have marked her in a crowd. She had very little in common with 
 girls of her own age. She worked while they played ; she was old- 
 fashioned, reserved, a trifle repellent — and then she was no beauty. 
 
 To tell the truth, one coidd not conceive a woman more un- 
 attractive. She had just the sort of face and figiu^e about which
 
 40 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 there could be no doubt. Positive ugliness is difficult to redeem. 
 Meg's defects were lamentable. A husband would be the last 
 thing one could prophesy for her. And, to tell the truth, Meg 
 was so sensible as to know her shortcomings. In her own person 
 she never dreamt of love. 
 
 Meg had a tall bony figm-e ; she had broad high shoulders and 
 angularities innumerable, added to which she was short-sighted and 
 stooped ; she had a strong Scotch face, hard-featured and freckled, 
 with high cheek-bones, with large light eyes rather grave than 
 mirthful, and flaxen hair without glint or gloss, which she combed 
 up regardless of ornament into a knot behind. 
 
 Meg knew her plainness, and wore sad-coloured gowns, like a 
 Quakeress. Her mother bought her sometimes knots of ribbons 
 and pinned them on with her own hands ; but they hardly looked 
 well against her complexion. Meg's colours were all muddled and 
 ran into each other, faint thick reds and browns ; her forehead was 
 sallow ; and, worst of all, in speech her voice was rather too deep 
 and unmusical, somewhat masculine in fact. 
 
 Meg's one beauty was her passionate love of music. Those 
 strong large hands of hers could draw sweetest tones from the 
 cracked old piano, purchased second-hand on Meg's one-and-twen- 
 tieth birthday, to replace a spinnet nearly dumb with age. As she 
 played, a grave solemn light would shine in her eyes, her voice 
 woidd give out rich deep notes ; there was something grand about 
 Meg then. " Oh, Day of Wrath ! oh. Day of Mourning !"— Meg 
 would sing the " Dies Irce " in a way that would have thrilled 
 you to hear her. 
 
 When Meg was almost seven-and-twenty her father died. He 
 had worked as man and boy for more than fifty years, and had 
 laid by a few thrifty savings for his widow; besides which, a 
 maternal aunt had left a few hundreds to Meg. With a little 
 prudence they might still continue to live in the old way ; nay 
 more, Meg was able to relinquish a few of her labours, and to 
 minister more fully to her mother's needs, who had become totally 
 blind. Meg played oftener now for her own pleasure, and picked 
 up stitches with a vigorous hand as she listened patiently to the 
 long list of ailments which constituted her mother's chief topic of 
 conversation, interlarded with stories of her dearly remembered 
 youth. 
 
 Meg used to look up and nod by way of parenthesis. She was 
 never a great talker, even in her most confidential moments ; but 
 her face would be a marvel of content. She would glance out at 
 the long narrow garden with its cabbages and sunflowers, where 
 some fine linen would generally be bleaching on the lawn, and then
 
 MEG. 41 
 
 back at the horsehair chair, at her mother's placid wrinkled face, 
 with its gray haii" and snowy closely-crimped cap, at the drab silk 
 shawl and net kerchief, and great strip of yellowish soiled knitting, 
 and the pins which moved so feebly in and out. " Another stitch 
 dropped, mother; it will be Jacob's ladder soon," she would say, 
 with a little laugh ; and she would run off row after row with her 
 nimble fingers, humming a low soft tune as she did so. She 
 thought her mother's conversation the most delightful in the world ; 
 the old lady's prose never seemed to weary her. She would listen 
 to a story she had heard a dozen times over, with never-varying 
 interest ; her nods would be brisk and regular, and she would 
 even look disappointed when a brief nap interrupted the narrative 
 in the most graphic part. 
 
 Perhaps there is a serpent in every paradise ; even the humble 
 household in Chatham Place was not to be exempt from its 
 tempter in human shape. 
 
 Meg was nine-and-twenty when she met Jack Carruthers for 
 the first time — handsome Jack Carruthers, as his fellow -clerks 
 called him. It was at a birthday party at one of her pupil's 
 houses, and Meg was to go and play for them while they danced 
 — at least, that is how she interpreted the invitation. One may 
 be sure Jack thought little about the tall angular woman in black, 
 who played polkas and schottisches, bringing rare music out of 
 rather a wooden instrument. When she was not wanted, Meg 
 hunched her shoulders, and peered curiously at some engravings 
 at a side table. No one noticed or spoke to her. Jack quizzed 
 her a little as he flirted with handsome Susan Smithers. After 
 supper, when she sang some Scotch songs to them in that deep rich 
 voice of hers, he condescended to ask who that woman was ; and 
 was told in sneering whispers by a friend of his that she was 
 "the daughter of old Dick Browning. One of oiu: fellows. Jack, 
 and a precious old skinflint — so I've heard. Worked hard all his 
 life. Plenty of money. Must have saved no end of tin. Made 
 his daughter drudge, though, as a music teacher. Plays well, 
 doesn't she % Not much of a beauty to look at, though. Daughter 
 has some cool hundreds of her own, I'm told. Lives with an old 
 blind mother in Chatham Place. Eh ? what % want an introduc- 
 tion % That's right, my boy ; wide awake, as usual. Think I'll 
 try and cut you out myself; only it would not be friendly. 
 Mind you pay me the money you owe me on your wedding- 
 day ; " and so on, with many claps on the shoulders. 
 
 Jack makes a gi'imace and haw-haws a little, but finally walks 
 up as bold as brass, and begs to thank Miss Browning for her 
 charming music. Jack adores music, and so on. Meg reddens
 
 42 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 rather ; perhaps she is not accustoraed to be addressed. She 
 drops her eye-glasses nervously. She says very little, but stam- 
 mers a great deal. She looks up at him shyly once or twice, 
 and thinks she has never seen so personable a man. Jack is 
 very handsome, certainly ; he has a fine brown complexion and 
 bold black eyes, and his whiskers curl most delightfully ; perhaps 
 his lips are thick, and his face rather coarse, but to Meg he 
 seemed a stalwart Adonis. Something in her frame seemed to 
 beat most strangely, as he stood by her chair, pulling his whiskers 
 and speaking qiuck determined sentences ; he made her sing some 
 more Scotcli songs, and chanted a sonorous bass by way of chorus. 
 And when she rose to go, his friend and he walked with her all 
 the way home to Chatham Place, Jock carrying her music-roll. 
 
 Where there is a will there is a way. How it fell out Meg never 
 knew ; but, before many weeks had elapsed. Jack Carruthers had 
 made good his footing in the little house at Chatham Place, and 
 was well received by both mother and daughter. At first he 
 brought his friend, but afterwards he came alone. By and by Meg 
 would stand regularly at the window of an evening, watching until 
 she saw him striding from under the dark railway bridge. When 
 he reached the row of posts she would turn from the window with 
 a blush on her sallow face, and pick up her mother's stitches 
 nervously, with her heart beating so loudly that she could hardly 
 breathe. 
 
 Jack would bring her new music and flowers, little bunches of 
 narcissus and jonquils, or fragrant clove-pinks, which he would buy 
 in the city for a few pence. Sometimes, as he sat on the top of 
 the omnibus, he would employ himself in picking off the dead 
 leaves. Meg thought them the most beautiful bouquets in the 
 world, and would redden more than ever as she put them in water. 
 She would sit quite silent in her great happiness, while Jack 
 played with her ball of darning cotton, and discoursed on politics 
 in his bluff quick way. By and by he would ask her to play or 
 sing, and then nothing could exceed her bliss. 
 
 They say love can beautify even a plain woman. Meg became 
 almost brave in her attire ; her hands got white and soft by magic, 
 and her hair grew smooth and almost glossy ; she still wore her 
 sad-coloured gowns, but she brightened them up with knots of 
 pink ribbons — a faint drowsy pink being the only colour that 
 blended with her faded tints — and girded herself with wonderful 
 aprons worked in floss silks. Jack used to note these changes 
 with a satirical eye as he stood in the dark corner by the piano. 
 He was sure of the cool hundreds now. Sometimes he would 
 sigh or swear softly to himself as he walked home across the
 
 MEG. 43 
 
 churchyard, and through Clapton Square, and past the five 
 houses, and so on, on his way to Stamford Hill, where he lived — 
 " things must be at a pretty pass indeed with Jack Carruthers 
 when he took it into his head to marry Meg Browning." 
 
 Things were at a pretty pass indeed ! 
 
 I do not know in what language Jack couched that villainous 
 proposal of his. He was a tolerably hardened rejjrobate — most 
 likely he did it coolly enough. Meg's head drooped over her 
 hands, and great tears splashed on the keys — Jack could almost 
 hear them ; the deep passionate nature which lay beneath all her 
 reserve and shyness awoke to life at his first words with a sud- 
 denness that frightened herself. Oh, the power of love in such 
 women — the pure unselfish worship, the profound adoration, the 
 blindness, the credulity ! Meg, raining tears of unalloyed happi- 
 ness, placed her hand in Jack's, and felt as though Heaven had no 
 more to offer her. 
 
 Jack was an ardent wooer : he was all impatience — perhaps his 
 creditors were pressing. Meg was nearly thirty now ; even her 
 mother agreed that there was no reason for them to wait. 
 
 The little household in Chatham Place was to go on much as 
 usuah Jack was to be received there as an inmate — Meg could not 
 leave her mother. Jack entreated her, almost with tears in his 
 eyes, not to go to any needless expense on his account : Meg was 
 for refurnishing ; the shabby horsehair chairs and sofa were insup- 
 portable to her now. With tender reluctance she renounced her 
 ambitious projects and contented herself with a little painting and 
 papering and a gay-coloured chintz. 
 
 Poor Meg ! she wove one blissful dream after another as she 
 sewed those chair - covers ; the great sprawling lilies and roses 
 were not brighter or more preposterous than some of those 
 dreams. 
 
 The wedding was a very humble one. Meg had few friends, 
 and Jack had potent reasons why he would ask none of his ; so 
 one sunny May morning Meg, dressed in her new gray silk, took 
 Jack's arm and walked with him under the dark railway arch, and 
 between the long rows of grassy hillocks, where the children looked 
 up from their daisy-wreaths, to the old parish church, and there 
 signed her name for the first time as Meg Carruthers. 
 
 Meg's passionate happiness did not last long ; before many 
 weeks were over she was a broken-hearted woman. 
 
 Meg knew she was the dupe of a heartless profligate ; slie knew 
 that he had married her to save himself from a debtor's prison, 
 that he loathed his bondage, and coidd not conceal his scorn of 
 the woman who had linked her fate with his ; but she had more
 
 44 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 than this to bear. Jack, gross in his vices, came home night aftei 
 night to the aflfrighted women with curses on his lips, and speaking 
 in the thick voice of the drunkard, terrifying those pure souls 
 immeasurably, and filling Meg's cup of woe to the brim. 
 
 Alas, what she sufiered ! Scorned, despised, and often hardly 
 used, she yet clave, as only a woman can, to the reprobate she 
 called husband : when he cursed she held her peace ; in his rare 
 moments of sullen half-contemptuous amity she played and sang to 
 him, striving to win him a little from his indifference ; many a 
 rude blow she averted by hiding her head in his breast, or, if he 
 flung her from thence, she would crush down the sobs that almost 
 strangled her, and look up in his face and try to smile with the 
 black bruise from his grip still smarting on her poor arm. 
 
 She denied him nothing ; every penny of her little hoard was 
 wrung from her, and when all was gone, she made no complaint, 
 but took up her old drudgery again, and went out in the sleet 
 and snow morning after morning that her mother might want for 
 nothing. 
 
 Oh, what he made her endure for her mother's sake ! Meg's 
 filial love was a passion. Day after day she saw the tears roll 
 down the wrinkled cheeks from those sightless eyes, as she left 
 her beside her lonely hearth. No more picking up of stitches and 
 sweet endless gossips in the sunshine. One by one Meg saw her 
 mother's little comforts disappear, saw how gradually but surely 
 the miseries of their daily life preyed on her tender heart. 
 
 "Meg, I shall never hold your baby in my arms," she would 
 say, as her daughter led her upstairs of a night and undressed her 
 like a child, "but I pray God that it may be a girl." And Meg 
 felt that her words would come true, for two days after she closed 
 those blind eyes, and kissed them in the coffin, she lay down on 
 her bed of pain, and knew that the baby that never nestled in her 
 breast was dead also. 
 
 There is not much to tell after this. Meg was never a demon- 
 strative woman in her happiness, and she was not confidential in 
 her misery. She was a strong-minded woman — she bore her 
 troubles in a strong-minded way, making small ado and shedding 
 few tears ; she never reproached her husband for her mother's and 
 baby's death, though in an indirect way he was the cause of both ; 
 there was nothing melodramatic about Meg ; in their most terrible 
 scenes the woman kept silence. 
 
 Jack got everything he could ; then he went into debt, the 
 furniture was seized — not a stick or straw was left in the old 
 house in Chatham Place. Meg, tearless still, locked the door 
 with her own hands and asked her husband whither they should go.
 
 MEG. 45 
 
 One cannot repeat his answer, but Meg knew then that her 
 husband had resolved to rid himself of a hated incunabrance. 
 A year and a half, only eighteen months ago, she had passed under 
 that dark archway, a bride leaning on lier lover's arm ; now she 
 stood looking again towards the archway, knowing that she was 
 worse than widowed. 
 
 " I have never reproached you, Jack, and I never will ; but I 
 did not think you would leave me," was her sole answer, as she 
 looked at the bloated handsome face, still so cruelly handsome to 
 her ; perhaps, reprobate as he was, that tender forgiveness abashed 
 him, for he hung his head. 
 
 " I don't think we were made to pull together, Madge," he 
 said rather huskily. "It is not yoiu- fault — you are a good 
 woman, I know, and I have been your curse ; but, anyhow, you 
 won't see the face of Jack Carruthers again." 
 
 And Meg believed him. 
 
 She went to her desolate lodgings that night, just in sight of 
 the old house ; she could not wear mourning, but no widow 
 ever lamented as she did over the grave of her lost love. There 
 was something grand in her exceeding silence ; from morning to 
 night she worked imcomplainingly at her old drudgery, sitting by 
 her lonely fire through the long evening, with only grievous 
 thoughts for company ; and every night and morning she prayed for 
 Jack as only the loving and heavy-laden can pray. 
 
 How many such prayers shall be written in letters of gold by the 
 Recording Angel ! How many and how great the sum of them !
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 "l SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN, MEG." 
 
 " A little by his act perhaps, yet more 
 By something in me, surely not my ■will, 
 I did not die. But slowly, as one in swoon, 
 To whom life creeps back in the form of death. 
 With a sense of separation, a blind pain 
 Of blank obstruction, and a roar i' the ears 
 Of visionary chariots which retreat 
 As earth grows clearer . . . slowly, by degrees, 
 I woke, rose up . . . Where was I ? — in the world ; 
 For uses therefore I must count worth while. " 
 
 Aurora Leigh. 
 
 It was a drowsy hot afternoon, and the small patch of green, which 
 was generally an object of rejoicing to the inhabitants of Chatham 
 Place, an oasis in their desert, was all burnt and barren, offering 
 but poor pastm-age to a few forlorn-looking sheep that had long 
 ago discontinued cropping the dry herbage, and were now herded 
 together for shade. Sunshine and dust were the order of the day ; 
 the pavements were bleached and glaring, the trees distilled gray 
 dust on the passenger's head, the roads were ruled into tiny furrows 
 of the same, the paint on the doors was blistered and jDeeled in 
 long brown flakes, and the bright knockers were like molten lead. 
 The very windows gaped wide open, as though striving for more 
 air ; wire blinds were withdrawn ; and there was a flutter of white 
 curtains. Sometimes through the half-open doors one caught a 
 glimpse of green leaves ; here and there a canary piped loudly in 
 its gilded cage ; some brown sparrows twittered on the hot ledges. 
 The children had betaken themselves to the shelter of the railway 
 arches, and were hooting amongst them like so many owls ; the 
 chiming of many voices from the National School rose and fell in 
 one drowsy hum ; there was pent-up animal life there — a discon- 
 tented hive of busy workers longing for the sunshine, sturdy 
 urchins yearning to join their vagrant companions among the dark 
 railway arches, restless fingers counting marbles to the tune of the
 
 "/ SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN, MEG." Al 
 
 multiplication-table ; oiitside, a sky intensely blue, plenty of yellow 
 sunshine, but the glare and glitter almost oppressive. 
 
 Meg, sitting in her little back parlour, all shade and coolness, 
 could hear the droning ; the mixed indistinguishable hum in the 
 clear summer air soothed and lulled her ; those crescendoes and 
 falls of shrill young voices softened by distance had a music of 
 their own. Meg used to listen to it as she plodded through her 
 darning. She could picture the great bare rooms with the rows of 
 rosy faces and sunburnt white heads ; she used to nod and smile 
 at the little ones as they came trooping past her windows ; some 
 of them would drop a shy curtsey. The solitary woman, in spite 
 of her grimness, had ways with her that could touch children. In 
 the chm'chyard she would stop and speak to them ; once she found 
 a boy who had strayed all the way from Bethnal Green with a 
 baby sister. Meg found them both asleep on her mother's grave, 
 with a tattered handkerchief full of chickweed and dandelion be- 
 side them. Meg took them all the way home, carrying them in 
 her arms by tm-n ; the youngest child cried at parting with her. 
 
 Those summer days were very lonely with Meg ; it was holi- 
 day time now at Miss Binks', and the large preparatory school 
 where she gave lessons ; her two or three jjrivate pupils had 
 betaken themselves to the seaside, and Meg patched and mended, 
 turned her old gowns, and thought weary thoughts through the 
 long hot hours ; in the evening she took slow aimless walks over 
 the downs — there were downs then — coming back jaded and 
 unrefreshed in the twilight to her patching again. She had no 
 piano now, and the few books her pupils lent her were soon ex- 
 hausted ; her only pleasure was to water her geraniums and feed 
 her linnet. When this was over she knew that nothing more 
 would occur to break the monotony of these endless days. No 
 wonder that before a week was over she would have given any- 
 thing to resume her old drudgery; the hot walks through the 
 churchyard, the long hours in a close schoolroom, the din, the 
 ceaseless headache, the thankless labour, all appeared enviable by 
 the sHe of this enforced idleness. Sometimes she felt as though 
 she must give it all up, as though she could not bear the solitude 
 a day longer ; she must go into the world, learn nursing, visit the 
 hospitals, do anything or everything, so that she might be brought 
 face to face with her kind, and be of use to some one ; she was 
 wearing her heart out only just to gain her daily bread, and what 
 would that avail her, seeing that her bread was only bitter to her 1 
 
 To be of use, to be necessary to some one, not to be loved, that 
 was all her thought now. Meg had awakened from that pitiful 
 di-eam of hers, self-degraded, perhaps a little hardened, but with a
 
 48 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 fearful thirst and misery of love aroused within her that nothing 
 could allay ; like many another fond worshipper, she had fallen 
 down before a stock and a stone ; nay, worse, she had suffered 
 such usage that any other woman woidd have found it hard to 
 forgive ; she knew there were bruises that she would carry about 
 with her to her dying day, and yet she had only clung to the hand 
 that inflicted them. If he had come back to her would she not 
 forgive him % — ay, unto seventy times seven. But he would never 
 come back. 
 
 Poor Meg ! she was resolving aU sorts of weary fancies in her 
 mind on this afternoon ; while she was piecing the old faded 
 mantle that must last her through the summer, she was chiding 
 herself for her cowardice. Why are some women so slow to plan 
 or rather carry out any self-conceived line of action for themselves 1 
 had her secluded life checked all spirit of enterprise 1 why should 
 she be so afraid to risk her little all and venture on an untrodden 
 path ? What if she should fail ? — she was the only sufferer. Her 
 solitude, the harass of these cruel and incessant memories, were 
 killing her by inches ; she was a woman of iron nerve, but this 
 was beyond even her endurance, and yet she shrank from taking 
 the first step into the new Ufe. 
 
 If only some one would help her ! And then the pieces of silk 
 fell apart in her hands as a low tap at her door startled her from 
 her reverie. Visitors were so rare with Mrs. Can-uthers that she 
 scarcely raised her head as she uttered the mechanical "Come in," 
 It was only her landlady or the maid vsdth her tea equipage, she 
 thought ; it was therefore no slight sm-prise to her when the door 
 was pushed briskly open, and a taU slight girl in mourning came 
 forward with outstretched hands. 
 
 " Meg, my dear old Meg ! " 
 
 " Rotha ! G-ood heavens ! " And then they embraced each 
 other after the fashion of women ; Eotha, with a little flurry of 
 demonstration that seemed habitual to her, clinging to her friend 
 with quick earnest kisses in an almost childish way. 
 
 " Are you glad to see me, Meg % " 
 
 " Not more glad than surprised." But Meg, in spite of her 
 characteristic abruptness, looked more than her words. There was 
 a pleasant light of welcome in her eyes as she cleared the litter of 
 work from the one arm-chair, and brought out the little round 
 footstool. She did not sit down and talk to her, as most women 
 would, but after her first greeting moved quietly about the room, 
 letting down the blind and arranging the table, bestirring herself 
 for her comfort in her quick short-sighted way ; the hard muscles 
 of her face relaxing visibly as she untied Botha's bonnet and shook
 
 •'/ SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN, MEGP 49 
 
 out the dust from her mantle. Those large strong hands were 
 very gentle in their touch, as Rotha well knew ; they had an 
 odd knack with them that made you comfortable in spite of your- 
 self. Rotha knew Mrs. Carruthers' ways by this time ; she 
 was well aware that she must bide her time for talking. Her 
 dusty walk had wearied her, she looked even paler than usual. 
 The room was deliciously cool and shady. She lay back con- 
 tentedly in her arm-chair, while Meg squared her high shoidders 
 and peered into corners. It was five o'clock. The little tea-table 
 must be spread and garnished. There were mysterious whispers ; 
 the red -armed maid -of- all -work appeared and disappeared con- 
 tinually. All at once there was a delicious fragrance of mignon- 
 ette and hot bread together ; tiny curls of blue smoke wreathed 
 the httle black teapot. Meg would not talk to her visitor, but 
 she was compounding a cup of tea for her, such as her soul loved, 
 and Rotha, who knew her quaint ways, and was wearied past 
 weariness, sat meekly sipping it, taking in everything with quick 
 womanly instinct — the dull room, Meg's worn face and shabby 
 dress, the wedding-ring hanging so loosely on the thin wasted 
 finger, everything down to the faded patches that were being 
 turned and pieced. That quiet observation was telling her more 
 than hours of talk. " She's dying of ennui and dullness, and 
 feeding on her own thoughts," said Rotha to herself. " Why 
 should we not be the happier for each other's company 1 Things 
 will not be quite so hopeless if I can infuse a little sunshine into her 
 life;" and then she leant forward with a little colour and eagerness. 
 
 " Ah, there is the netting. I suppose I may talk now % " for 
 Mrs. Carruthers had brought forth a long strip of netting, yellow 
 with age, and was weaving her shuttle to and fro as though her 
 life depended on it. Meg nodded as she pulled and knotted vigor- 
 ously, but made no other answer. 
 
 " I am glad I may talk now," she repeated \ "I have been 
 watching you for such a long time. Do you know your face has 
 been telling me tales % " 
 
 Mrs. Carruthers shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, but it has ; you are so changed, my poor Meg. You 
 look so thin and worn ; and there are positively gray strealjs in 
 your hair. You were not gray when I saw you last, dear Meg." 
 
 Again that mournful shake of the head. 
 
 " And then you are so silent ; you will not talk to me now. 
 I am treading on forbidden ground, I suppose. Do you think 
 that I do not know what your life has been 1 " 
 
 " Oh, Rotha ) hush ! " and Meg's voice was almost grating in 
 its harshness.
 
 50 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " No, I shall not * hush ! ' — you are always trying to silence 
 me. You would not write to me, and now you will not speak. 
 I know he has left you, that you are deserted and broken-hearted ; 
 but I never knew how broken-hearted till I saw yoiu- face, Meg." 
 
 " Eotha, if you have any pity for me " 
 
 " Pity ! I wonder if any one ever felt such pity as I have 1 
 When I heard your child was dead I thought and almost hoped 
 that you might die too. I so trusted and prayed that your baby 
 might comfort you." 
 
 A quick catch of the breath, a quivering of those harsh muscles, 
 and Meg covered her face with her hands. 
 
 " If you only knew how I longed to come to you ! You have 
 been so good to me. Do you think I shall ever forget those old 
 days ? No one ever understood and loved you as I did. Try and 
 speak to me, dear." 
 
 Meg raised her head from her hands. She so rarely wept that 
 her face was quite burnt and blistered with her tears. Nothing 
 but the mention of her child ever caused them to flow : ill usage 
 she could bear, contempt, drudging labour ; but the thought of the 
 little coffined body — flesh of her flesh — which her eyes had never 
 looked upon and her arms had never cradled, touched the spring 
 of her womanhood. 
 
 " Rotha, I cannot bear it ; you must not speak to me of my 
 child." 
 
 " Why not, dear Meg ? " 
 
 " Why not ? Do you not know they took him away and 
 buried him ? They never brought him to me and laid him in my 
 arms ; no, not for one moment ; though he was beautiful as the 
 day — that was his father's doing." 
 
 " He did it for the best." 
 
 " Perhaps so. They tell me that I was delirious. My mother 
 had only been dead a few days then. It was all trouble and 
 misery together. But I did so pray that my chUd might win me 
 his love, Rotha." 
 
 " It was not worth the winning, my poor Meg." 
 
 " Not to others, perhaps ; but to me it was everything. You 
 should not have said that, Rotha. Though he were black beyond 
 all blackness, he is my husband." 
 
 " There, I have made you angry." 
 
 " I should think any wife might be angry at such a speech ; 
 but you are only a child, Rotha. I don't expect Jack will ever 
 come back to mc. Why should he, unless he be in trouble % But 
 somehow I feel I shall see him again." 
 
 I trust not, for your own sake. No, you must not be 
 
 u '
 
 "/ SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGALN, MEG." 51 
 
 vexed with me — it is the houest truth, only I did not mean it to 
 escape me." 
 
 "Ah, there again; you have never loved, or you would not 
 say such things. Child, I cannot die till I have seen him again." 
 
 "Meg!" 
 
 " How frightened you look ! I am not mad ; indeed, I am 
 speaking in sober earnestness. But now you know why it is best for 
 me to keep silence. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, Rotha." 
 
 "Its own bitterness 1 Well, yes." 
 
 " You know me best, but you cannot understand my feeling. 
 You think me daft for hinting at such things. When you have 
 lived a little longer you will know that still waters run deepest." 
 
 " I always knew you were very deep and still, Meg ; but — 
 but " 
 
 " But you did not expect that I could love quite so fervently — 
 that is what you were going to say. Well, I am not offended. 
 What has a grim woman such as I am to do with such things 1 
 Why did I ever love'? But he made me. Oh, Jack! Jack!" 
 And Meg rocked herself to and fro in infinite distress. 
 
 " Ah, I must hush you now." 
 
 " YeSj you must hush me ; I deserve it. I am forgetting my- 
 self But it is all yom- ftxult. Why did you come and speak to 
 me of my trouble 1 You harass and excite me ; you know I never 
 talk of such things. You have stirred me up dangerously to-night, 
 Rotha." 
 
 " If I have, I must calm you. Don't shake your head, Meg, 
 and think it beyond my power. I shall throw no oil on the 
 troubled waters ; instead of that there must be a mingling of salt 
 tears— a general brackishness. Since I have seen you I have been 
 in the deep waters myself." 
 
 " Do you mean you have been in trouble 1" 
 
 '"Trouble'? Well, yes, I suppose so. I have sounded and 
 found it forty fathoms ; there is no anchoring anywhere." 
 
 Meg gave a faint smile. 
 
 " There, I knew I coidd qmet you. You always had a flincy 
 for my quaint similes. How many years is it since we last met?" 
 
 "Three, is it nof?" 
 
 " Three, or thirty — I forget which. I don't like mentioning 
 my troubles in the same breath with yours — it seems too much 
 like weighing iron and feathers together ; but I don't think I 
 would willingly live those years over again." 
 
 "Probably not." 
 
 " No, indeed ; there were days and months wlien I thought of 
 Miss Biuks' as though it were paradise itself. You used to pity
 
 52 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 me and tell me that I was always tired. Oh, Meg, how I used to 
 long even for the headaches and cramped fingers again!" 
 
 " Poor child ! you look utterly worn out now." 
 
 " Worn % I should think so ; they have crushed all my youth 
 out of me between them ; and yet it will not quite die, poor thing. 
 Sometimes I feel so old. There, take up your netting again ; I 
 have a long story to tell you, and I mean to tell it in my old 
 place." And Roth a brought her footstool and laid her head 
 against Meg's shabby gown. 
 
 How she talked ; how she poured it all out as one woman will 
 to another ; with what utter abandon, relief, and passion of words ! 
 No stammering, no painful suppression of pent-up pain, no fear of 
 being misunderstood here. She made Meg see it all as though 
 she had been present. That interview in the Castle garden, 
 with the sunset and the apple-trees and the ruins, the almost guilty 
 terror with which she met Robert Ord, and the miserable cowardice 
 that kept her tongue-tied in his presence, and the crumbling walls 
 of Eglistone Abbey ; how graphically she described it all ! No 
 wonder Meg's netting fell from her hands, and that she scarcely 
 stirred or breathed in her profound interest. 
 
 "My poor child!" That was all she said when Rotha had 
 finished, but the tones conveyed a world of pity, and once again^ 
 very tenderly, "My poor child !" 
 
 " You may very well call me that." And then there was a 
 long silence between them ; only Meg gently stroked the hand that 
 lay so listlessly on her lap. It was not a pretty hand, not specially 
 small or well shaped, but very thin and white, and, as Meg touched 
 it, it felt to her in its soft helplessness like the hand of a sick child. 
 
 "I shall never be happy again, Meg." 
 
 "No, you must not say that." 
 
 " Why must I not say it *? I could have borne anything but 
 that ; but his accusation has crushed all the spirit out of me." 
 
 " It was very hard, certainly." 
 
 " Was it not terribly hard, and so cruel I But I must not think 
 of that now." 
 
 " I must say that I think you acted very nobly." 
 
 "Oh Meg!" 
 
 " Yes, nobly. I always thought that you were so proud, Rotha, 
 and yet you could bear yourself as though you were not angry with 
 the man." 
 
 " No more I was. I quite wonder at myself now for my want 
 of anger ; but then his wi'ongs were so great, he looked so wan and 
 sad with all his harshness, that, though I was utterly wretched, I 
 could not find it in my heart to speak bitterly."
 
 "/ SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN, MEG." 53 
 
 " Of course I think that you were right, but yet " 
 
 "Well, Megl" 
 
 " I hardly hke to finish my sentence ; it sounds unsympathetic 
 after what you have told me ; hut it does strike me that you are 
 just a little morbid about it all." 
 
 " Now you are going to be imkind." 
 
 "No, you must not say that — you must not think for a 
 moment that I do not pity you. I am sure it is all miserably 
 hard. Your position for the present must be cruel. But, Rotha, 
 don't make it quite unbearable by taking too morbid a view of it 
 — that was always your danger." 
 
 " But not in this instance," she interposed eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, in this instance. Surely it is no fault of yours that the 
 man cannot get his rights." 
 
 " No, certainly not." 
 
 " Neither are you to blame for being the innocent cause of his 
 suspicion. It is true he has it in his power to injure you and 
 make you miserable, and yet it seems to me as though you could 
 avoid such misery." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "By accepting it as your cross. You have already by your 
 Christian forgiveness robbed your pain of its chief sting. I would 
 have you bear yourself now as though you were indeed guiltless." 
 
 "And do I not so bear myself?" she returned, somewhat 
 proudly. 
 
 " No, you are failing utterly. You are letting the pain and 
 misery of it all wear you to the heart ; there is a look on your 
 face, Rotha, that I cannot bear to see. I say again that you are 
 taking too morbid a view of it all." 
 
 " I cannot help it if you fail to understand my feelings." 
 
 ^' I know them well, Rotha." 
 
 " No, you do not, or you would not accuse me of being morbid, 
 Meg. I told you that I wondered at myself for my forbearance ; 
 but I shall always feel as though I have wronged Robert Ord." 
 
 "And why him only — why not the others?" 
 
 " Tlie others of course. But do you not see he was her favourite, 
 the child of her adoption, whom she loved and forgave at the last. 
 Meg, you may call me over-scrupulous, unreasonable, anything you 
 like ; but I know, and she knows that the money is his." 
 
 " Absurd ! it is yours by will. Have you not told me so 
 yourself?" 
 
 " Of course I am mistress of Bryn ; but that does not alter my 
 words. Meg, Mrs. Ord was going to destroy that will." 
 
 " Yes, I know."
 
 54 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Every time she roused from that dreadful stupor she was 
 trying to collect her faculties for the effort. She used to look at 
 me so piteously, as though to ask me to help her ; but it was all no 
 use : before she could say a word to us she was floating away again." 
 
 "True, but was that your fault, Rotha?" 
 
 " Just before she died she beckoned me to her ; I could see her 
 hands groping over her chest as though she wanted to write. She 
 made me put my ear quite close to her lips, and as clearly as I 
 hear you now, I heard her say, ' Rotha, mind it is all for Robert ;' 
 and then the death-rattle stopped her. Meg, she was thinking of 
 him then." 
 
 " I daresay, poor woman ! It was very sad." 
 
 " Yes, but saddest for him. I have heard so much of him, of 
 them all — not from his aunt, she never mentioned them, but from 
 Mr. Tracy and the maid. They are all very good, but so poor and 
 proud, and full of strange crotchets. They say that Robert Ord 
 has been engaged for years, and now that they can never marry. 
 How they must hate me, the very sound of my name ! and yet 
 you tell me that I am morbid." 
 
 " I say so still. I cannot take back my words." 
 
 " Perhaps not. You were always an obstinate woman." 
 
 " My dear, no ; but simply straightforward and matter of fact, 
 thank God, or how should I have got through my own troubles % 
 You are too gentle and imaginative, Rotha. You are a brave 
 creature, you have plenty of endurance, but you are so unselfish 
 and scrupulous that you will wear yoiu-self out." 
 
 " Scruples are not specially heinous sins, Meg." 
 
 "Are they not? I don't know. It seems to me that all this 
 business is not in your hands at all ; that this wealth has come to 
 you by a direct interposition of Providence — whether for good or 
 ill the future and your own conduct must decide ; but one thing I 
 am sure of, that, being yours, you will have to give an account of 
 your stewardship." 
 
 Rotha dropped her head. 
 
 " My darling, I do feel as though I am very hard on you." 
 
 " No, not hard ; but you are always so dreadfully sensible." 
 
 " I wish I were ; I wish I were half as brave and forgiving as 
 you, Rotha, Do you really mean that you wiU have the courage 
 to face all those Ords now he has set them against you ? " 
 
 " Of course if they will open their doors to me I shall go 
 amongst them ; but there is not much fear of that." 
 
 " They will not ask you to the Vicarage." 
 
 "Then assuredly we shall not meet, for they will never come 
 to Bryn. Oh dear ! oh dear ! I wonder how the same village can
 
 "/ SHALL NEVER BE HAPPY AGALN, MEG." 55 
 
 hold us. I suppose once a week we shall all own we are miserable 
 sinners together." 
 
 " You mean you will meet at church 1 " 
 
 "Well, I suppose so. I wonder if the Vicar will consider it 
 his special mission to convert so hardened a reprobate. Meg, I 
 declare I am so sick at heart I would as soon joke about it as not." 
 
 "I would rather have your woebegoue look than that." 
 
 " You shall have both. I have not forgotten all my dry 
 humoiu" in spite of my misery. Anyhow, we shall have time to 
 get tired of each other, for no one else will come to us. I wonder 
 if I shall dare to visit the cottages ; perhaps I shall if you will 
 mount guard at the door." 
 
 " Are you joking 1 " 
 
 " No, indeed ; I was in sober earnest." 
 
 " I thought you spoke as though I should be with you." 
 
 " Yes, of com-se ; but still I am not joking. One thing I can 
 certainly assure you — that I shall never go to Bryu without you." 
 
 " Rotha, you cannot be serious 1 " 
 
 "And why not? Do you suppose that I can live by myself? 
 I should have thought Chatham Place and Miss Binks would have 
 taught you propriety by this time." 
 
 " My dear, you must not allow yourself to be influenced by 
 merely generous feeling. You think I am poor and lonely, and 
 that is why you think of it." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; and because I am rather fond of you in spite of 
 your queer ways." 
 
 "As you would be fond of any other broken-down creature 
 whom you could benefit. I know your goodness of old, Rotha." 
 
 " Goodness, eh 1 Now, you are going to make me angry. I 
 have given you three reasons why I want you, but I have still 
 anoflier remaining." 
 
 " And what is that 1 " 
 
 " That you are my only friend, and what I cannot demand as 
 a right I must ask as a favoiu-." 
 
 "And do you really want me — really, Rotha?" The harsh 
 face was wonderfidly softened now. 
 
 " Yes, really and truly. Can anything be more natural 1 I 
 have known you half my life. When I was a lonely schoolgirl, 
 and a still more lonely teacher, you were kind to me. It will give 
 you more interest in life to know you are useful to some one. If 
 we shall not be happy, at least we can make each other less 
 miserable. Meg, will you come 1 " 
 
 " Yes, I will. God bless you, Rotha ! " And the warm hand 
 clasp set the seal to her Tvords.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 KIRKBY VICARAGE, 
 
 " It was a village built in a green rent 
 Between two cliffs that skirt the dangerous bay." 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 '• For contemplation he, and valour form'd ; 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive face ; 
 He for God only, she for God in him." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 Somewhere in the north of England there is a small seaport town 
 called Blackscar. On the whole it is not a prepossessing place. 
 Its chief attractions are its fine bay and extensive sands, but the 
 town itself is tasteless, not being yet seasoned with the salt of 
 fashion. It consists mainly of two long streets, running as nearly 
 as possible parallel with each other — the wide old-fashioned High 
 Street, and the other looking seaward, embi-acing the small har- 
 bourage, always full of fishing-smacks and such small gear, and the 
 handsome sea-wall running directly on to Kirkby, a small suburb of 
 Blackscar, which looked as though it led to the end of everything. 
 
 Kirkby is nothing more nor less than a village, and its most 
 enthusiastic admirer can find little to say in its praise. The first 
 impression generally left on the visitor is a sense of meagreness 
 and desolation. One looks over a narrow row of kitchen-gardens 
 and grass hillocks to the grand sweep of sands beyond. There to 
 the left is the low range of rabbit-warrens belonging to Bryn, and 
 beyond a small slip of land stretching out into the sea like a one- 
 pronged fork, called Welburn. At low tide one can discern the 
 black shining edges of some dangerous-looking rocks, which tell 
 a tale of their own. Shipwrecks are plentifid at Kirkby and 
 Welburn, as their inhabitants know to their cost. 
 
 Kirkby itself is not conspicuous for beauty of architecture, 
 except as concerns its church. It lias its grammar-school, its rows 
 of low bay-windowed lodging-houses, but those fronting the sea 
 are principally cottages, to which the kitchen-gardens appertain.
 
 KIRK BY VICARAGE. 67 
 
 Walking along the sandy road from Blackscar, and passing the 
 schoolhouse, one sees first a patch of whitewashed or yellow walls, 
 with blinks of diamond-paned lattices, then a brown narrow house, 
 with a window on each side of the door and a scanty plot of 
 ground in front ; next a low gray house with old-fashioned bay- 
 windows, and at tlie bend of the road, before the fence shuts off 
 stubbly -looking land and distant furnaces, a substantial stone 
 building, with its pleasant windows looking seaward, and this is 
 Bryn. 
 
 Bryn, from its many windows, looks straight down the Kirkby 
 street and full at the gray old Vicarage, with Robert Ord's house 
 adjoining it. The three gardens run parallel together, though 
 they do not positively join. From the back they look over 
 the purple range of the Leatham Hills. There is a certain weird 
 look in that view by night. The church stands out finely with 
 its old lich-gate. The graves are sparse and scattered. From the 
 chm'ch porch one can catch a glimpse of the dark sea-line ; some- 
 times there is the fret of endless splashing ; the sand comes 
 swirUng up the long road. At night the blue blackness of the sky 
 is illumined by the Imid fires from the distant furnaces. One 
 comes out of the warm lighted church into the darkness, into the 
 salt cool air under the star-lit heavens, to the silent sleeping 
 village ; and the distant lights from the town. 
 
 The Vicarage itself had a pleasant homely look ; in reality it 
 was once two houses. One rarely understood at first the multi- 
 plicity of small rooms and passages. There were enough and to 
 spare : every one seemed to have his or her sitting-room, christened 
 after its owner. There was the Vicar's study, and the mother's 
 room ; Garton's den, which the boys shared ; and the little outer 
 study, in reality the Vicar's also, where they did their lessons. 
 The -dining-room was a mere passage-room, and was only used at 
 meal-times. There was a continual cloth spread — a perpetual 
 clatter of knives and forks. Upstairs was the gathering-place of 
 tlie whole family, especially of an evening, and this was Belle's 
 room — drawing-room being a title abhorred at the Vicarage. 
 
 The mother's room was suited for tete-a-tetes, for quiet droppings- 
 in of two or three ; a place for the Vicar to sit before the fire, with 
 his long coat tucked over his knees, and read his letters. It had 
 a great crimson couch appropriated by invalids. Here sick bodies 
 and sick hearts were nursed by the mother herself Every one 
 loved the room ; it was always so full of sunshine and sweet wel- 
 comes. The great window opened wide on the pleasant lawn, with 
 its beds of scarlet geraniums and roses. Two great ducks waddled 
 and straddled all day among the flower-beds, in company with a
 
 58 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 white kitten and Jock and Jasper, the Vicar's two dogs. Here 
 the mother sat in her low chair, with her work-baskets, repairing 
 dilapidated garments, and minding her youngest born ; but, dear as 
 the room was, the family reunions were always, by mutual consent, 
 held in Belle's room. 
 
 There, there was more space and less cosiness ; then its 
 windows were so delightful, the front bay looking over the sands 
 and the rabbit-warren, and the back, with its view of the Leatham 
 Hills, though one could not see the chiu-ch itself. 
 
 Here there was everything for the needs and requirements of 
 a family. A sweet-toned piano and a harmonium, a large round 
 table, plenty of easy- chairs, writing-desks, and drawing-boards, 
 and much wholesome litter ; everything a little shabby, perhaps ; 
 the chintz, a pretty Chinese blue, pieced and faded; but, as Guy 
 somewhat vaguely expressed it, " a lump of comfort." 
 
 Robert Ord, walking along the sea-wall and looking across at 
 the sunset, has a pretty tolerable picture of it, and the party sure 
 to be assembled in it at this hour. For it is just after tea, and 
 before the bell rings out for the evening service ; the day's work 
 is over, and the Vicar and his boys are sure not to be far apart. 
 
 Yes ; sure enough there is the Vicar in his usual place before 
 the fireless grate, haranguing his boys and his women-folk to his 
 heart's content, and possibly to theirs too, to judge from their 
 faces. 
 
 The Rev. Austin Ord and his wife are a goodly pair. Perhaps 
 the Vicar is a little ponderous — not that he need pray just yet to 
 be delivered from the burden of his flesh — but he is a large grand- 
 looking man, with everything large about him. 
 
 Not that he is specially well favoured — Robert is the only hand- 
 some Ord amongst them ; but he has a face that is pleasant to 
 look upon. The mouth may be a little querulous or obstinate ; 
 but the forehead is so massive, and the large gray eyes open so 
 widely and honestly, and yet so keenly ; there is such strength and 
 such goodwill in his expression ; there is something so boyish too 
 in the crisp curly hair, that never can be straightened, and which 
 one sees reproduced on the cm'ly heads of his growing lads. 
 
 The time has gone past for calling Mary Ord beautiful : cares 
 and the harass of daily life have sharpened the round cheek, and 
 taken away its bloom ; the cheek is very thin now, the Vicar 
 thinks sometimes, with a sigh ; but still she has never been fairer 
 in his eyes, and in truth there is still much comeliness left. 
 
 The mother, or Mother Mary, as her brothers-in-law persist in 
 calling her, was just one of those soft-looking women whom it was 
 impossible not to love. She was not very young, but as yet no
 
 KIRK BY VICARAGE. 59 
 
 gray had touched her pretty wavy hair. She had just the same 
 wide-open gray eyes as her husband, only perhaps they opened 
 more softly than his, and her laugh had the same happy clear ring 
 in it. She was one of those mothers whose arms and laps are 
 never quite empty. Her great boys liked to rest there still some- 
 times. Mother's shoulder always rested theii- aching heads ; to 
 them it was their natural pillow. Garton, in spite of his three- 
 and-twenty years, liked to crouch at her footstool in company with 
 Jock and Jasper, and it was Arty's favourite place. No one could 
 have been with her an hour and not have opened his or her heart 
 to her. It was not that she was so clever, but that her sympathy 
 was always ready. 
 
 Belle, who had double her attractions, was not half so lovable ; 
 not that she ever failed in gentleness, but she was always so pre- 
 occupied. It was rather sad at times to watch the younger sister. 
 There was a grave anxious expression about her face that marred 
 its beauty. At such times she wovdd look like a faded queen. 
 Mary Ord was often tired, painfully overwrought, perhaps a trifle 
 querulous, but there was no such look in her face, though mind 
 and body were often sorely overtaxed ; and only she and her hus- 
 band knew with what difficidty they made ends meet and provided 
 for their growing boys. No anxiety ever seemed to rob her for 
 long of her sweet content. She was one of those women who take 
 a man for better and for worse, and who, when the worst comes, 
 make no ado, but work on cheerfidly as long as strength lasts. 
 
 Belle was equally courageous, but she failed in the cheerfulness. 
 She was quiet, but it was not the quiet of repose ; perhaps her 
 long engagement was trying her ; perhaps Eobert Ord, in spite of 
 his fondness, was not a very patient lover. Some men are apt to 
 be a little peremptory and domineering with the woman they love. 
 In spite of their mutual affection they were not perfectly suited to 
 each other. 
 
 Unfortunately, Belle was of a shy reserved natiu-e. She was 
 not one to talk much of her own feelings at any time. Eobert, 
 who was quick and ardent, felt himself sometimes almost repulsed 
 by her silence. At such times he woidd reproach her in no mea- 
 sured words. But I don't think she ever fully answered him. He 
 would come round presently, touched by the gentleness and sorrow 
 in her face, and try and atone for his anger, and she would not 
 reject such atonement ; but, as she sat with her hand in liis, she 
 would be longing to tell him that he was dearer to her than any- 
 thing in the world — that, if needs be, she could die for him, but 
 that she could not open her lips to answer his reproaches. Those 
 who did not know Belle Clinton called her cold ; but they were
 
 60 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 wrong. There was no coldness about her ; she would have worked 
 her fingers to the bone for Mary and her boys. When they were 
 ill she nursed them night and day. But not even to her sister 
 could she fully open her heart. She would sit at her side for hours, 
 working silently, or letting her chat about her boys and parish ; 
 but when the conversation turned to her own affairs, either evading 
 her questions or answering them with grave reserve, till Mary was 
 obliged to quit the subject. 
 
 The Vicar used to quiz Belle rather mercilessly for this failing 
 of hers. In his heart he thought her rather tame and spiritless. His 
 own wife had a brisk tongue of her own, and was much given to state 
 her opinions on all subjects rather freely; but I think he loved such 
 briskness. Belle's reticence was rather a fault in his eyes. In his 
 opinion she was too much given to occupy her own corner, though 
 it must be owned that she was seldom quite alone in it. Belle's 
 special nook was by the window that looked over the Kirkby sands : 
 here she could see down the village street. She knew the exact 
 time that Robert would come from his daily work at Thorn- 
 borough, and would be at the window watching for him as he went 
 into his own gate. He and Garton would sit down every evening 
 to their solitary meal. By and by, when the Vicarage folk were 
 gathering round their more social board, the brothers would come 
 in — Robert having freed himself from the dust and smoke of the 
 day — and take their special places — Robert by Belle, and Garton 
 under his sister-in-law's wing ; but they would rarely join in the 
 meal itself Austin had too many mouths to feed already, Robert 
 always said. He would let both Austin and Mary know sometimes 
 how it galled his pride to see his future wife dependent on their 
 hands. He used to tell Belle so over and over again. It did not 
 make her position more comfortable. Belle was working quietly 
 in her corner now, while the Vicar was holding out on the subject 
 of church decorations, Mary and the boys making their comments. 
 The lads always joined freely in their parents' conversation, some- 
 times interrupting — after the manner of boys — 
 
 " I say, father," exclaimed Guy, the eldest, a big broad- 
 shouldered lad, with his father's curly head caricatured to a nicety, 
 " Garton will turn rusty if you say anything to him about it." 
 For by a sort of tacit understanding the boys never called Garton 
 uncle, though they were profoimdly respectfid to Robert, and, 
 strange to say, their parents never disapproved of this freemasonry. 
 " They can't help seeing that he's half a boy himself," as the Vicar 
 said, who was rather more indulgent to his younger brother than 
 Robert was ever likely to be. 
 
 "Garton will not like your interfering, Austin," observed
 
 KIRK BY VICARAGE. 61 
 
 Mary ; " the decorations are quite in his iDroviuce." And then 
 she took mental measurements, to judge from the way in which 
 she was eyeing a piece of black serge. 
 
 " Gar should choose a more efficient staff of workers, then," 
 retorted the Vicar; "his designs are very good — rather elaborate, 
 perhaps — but then he's such a capital hand himself : all I complain 
 about is, that there is no such thing as satisfying the womenkind 
 — they are always taking offence : if you appoint one to wreathe 
 the font she is sure to turn sulky because she is not chosen to do 
 the chancel. Why, there was quite a mutiny last harvest festival 
 amongst the Misses Travers, and all because Miss Knowles had 
 the pulpit and lectern, and they only the reading-desk. It is no 
 good Garton having the management if they are to come and 
 bother me for weeks beforehand." 
 
 " But there can be no talk about a harvest festival for months 
 to come, Austin : why, this is only the end of June." And Mary 
 put down her black serge with a sigh which the Misses Travers' 
 wrongs had certainly not evoked. 
 
 "Can't you make that do?" interrupted the Vicar, with some 
 appearance of interest. 
 
 " No, it will want another breadth. Ai-ty grows so. I wish 
 I could afford a suit for him. He does look so shabby at church 
 on Sunday morning." 
 
 " I never see anything but his clean collar," replied the Vicar, 
 leaning forward to pat the head of a very small boy cm'led up on 
 his mother's footstool. " Never mind ; Arty must wait, that's all. 
 No, of course there's no question of another festival till the harvest 
 is in, you silly woman. What put it in my head was, I was walking 
 down towards Leatham with Farmer Dykes, and he was showing 
 me his crops. ' I hope I shall have some sheaves, as usual, this 
 autumn,' I observed ; and he promised me I should have some 
 oats and barley, as well as wheat, and then I remembered that you 
 always get them from another man." 
 
 " Never mind ; we shall only have a double supply," returned 
 Mary. She was rather absent, for a wonder : her mind was still 
 running on the serge. " I can't help wishing I could have done 
 witliout that new dress, Austin ; but my old one was too shabby, 
 I am afraid." 
 
 " I don't know how you could have avoided putting on mourn- 
 ing for my aunt, Mary, if that is what you mean." The Vicar's 
 voice was a little displeased. 
 
 " My dear Austin, what an idea ! I should have worn my old 
 black gown, of course ; but I daresay you are right, and new 
 mourning is more respectful. There, I will not say any more
 
 62 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 about it. Arty must go shabby this summer, poor little fellow !" 
 and Mary put away the serge resolutely, and consoled herself with 
 kissing the yellow glossy curls. 
 
 " I do wonder," she continued presently, looking up at her hus- 
 band cheerfully, " what has prevented Robert from writing to us ?" 
 
 "Writing? — nonsense ! Belle has a letter, I believe." 
 
 " Yes, just a line to say why he was detained. But he must 
 know how anxious we aU are." 
 
 " No news is good news, mother," observed Guy. 
 
 "I don't know," she repeated doubtfully; "it does seem to 
 me that if he had any good news to impart he would not have kept 
 us in such suspense — it is not like him." 
 
 " No, it is not," returned the Vicar slowly. 
 
 " If it were Garton, he would delight in keeping us all in the 
 dark, and startling us by a sudden burst of good news when we 
 had ceased to expect it. But Robert is different — and then he 
 has BeUe to consider." And she looked across significantly at her 
 sister ; but Belle did not raise her head. 
 
 " There's Garton himself ! Talk of the — et cetera, you know," 
 began Guy, laughing ; but his father shook his head warningly. 
 He never preached long sermons to his boys, but he was quick in 
 rebuking them. In a minute there was a rush of all four lads to 
 the window, Arty scrambling up on the window-seat in the greatest 
 hurry of all. 
 
 The two younger boys were great contrasts to each other. 
 Rupert was a long loose-limbed fellow, rather plain in face, and 
 somewhat freckled ; Lam-ence, or, as he was generally called, Laurie, 
 was a slight fair boy, very tall and slender, and carrying himself 
 with a slow sleepy grace of movement which won for him the 
 name of Lazy Laurie. All three boys sang in the choir, but 
 Laurie's voice was the sweetest of all. 
 
 " Halloa, Garton, where's the Shadow?" shouted saucy Guy, 
 as he leant over his brother's head. A tall dark young man, in a 
 flapping wideawake and a long and rather singularly-cut coat, looked 
 up as he swung back the little brown gate, and nodded to the boys. 
 
 " AU right ; I am coming in directly. Robert's up at Blackscar." 
 
 "You don't mean it !" 
 
 BeUe put down her work and listened breathlessly. The inter- 
 jection came from the Vicar. 
 
 " Yes, he is : he has a little business detaining him, but he 
 asked me to come on and let you know he was here." 
 
 " There's the chm-ch bell. Gar !" 
 
 " So there is. Never mind. I must come up a moment. I 
 want to speak to Mother Mary."
 
 KIRK BY VICARAGE. 63 
 
 Two of the boys ran down to open the door directly, with 
 Arty trotting after them, sure of a ride upstairs again on his 
 uncle's shoulder ; and tnie enough there he was a minute after- 
 wards, his small face completely hoodwinked by Garton's wide- 
 awake, and shouting lustily. 
 
 Most people would have considered Garton Ord a plain man — 
 at least, not exactly a handsome one ; but his individuality would 
 have distinguished him among a thousand ; and yet it was a 
 singular face too, almost an ascetic one, with its brown UTegular 
 features, and dark closely-cropped hair. When at rest there was 
 something a little stern and sad about it ; but then it was seldom 
 in repose. With every change of thought or feeling the irregular 
 features worked powerfully. Never was there such a face for 
 betraying emotion of any kind. At any sally from the boys there 
 would be a display of white teeth ; the muscles would relax, there 
 would be wonderful puckers and lines ; and at the least jDrovocation 
 the strong frame rocked to and fro with suppressed merriment. 
 
 Never was there such restlessness, such continued movement, 
 in any man — never such quick transition from one extreme to 
 another. People could not make out Garton Ord, the boyish 
 ascetic baffled them ; there was too great a mingling of the ridicu- 
 lous and the sublime in his nature ; no one seemed quite to under- 
 stand which predominated, any more than they could understand 
 the cause of his variable temperament. Robert called him weak, 
 and vowed that he wanted ballast. But Austin, more accustomed 
 to read human nature, was wont to speak highly of his purity and 
 singleness of aim ; and no one regretted more than he when a 
 stubborn fit of illness prevented Garton from obtaining his degree. 
 He had always set his heart on securing him as his cm-ate, and he 
 was consequently grievously disappointed when his brother failed 
 to pass. 
 
 "It is just like my bad luck, Austin," he groaned, when the 
 Vicar came in to comfort him; "but I don't thiuk I should take 
 it to heart so much if it were not for Robert." 
 
 " Robert is just as sorry as I am. Gar." 
 
 "Yes, but not for the same reasons. He is thinking about 
 how he is to give me bread-and-butter, I suppose. He will have 
 it that if I had read more I should not have failed in obtaining 
 my degree." 
 
 " I think with him that you do not read enough." 
 
 " But I suppose that you will allow that I could not help my 
 illness?" 
 
 "No, indeed — that was very unfortunate." 
 
 " Everything is unfortunate ; but if Robert means to make
 
 64 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 himself disagreeable because I have failed, I may just as well get 
 quit of the whole business." 
 
 "I thought you had set yom- heart on entering the Church ■" 
 and then, as he noticed Garton's face work in an agitated manner, 
 he put his hand kindly on his shoulder. 
 
 "Well, never mind; don't be downhearted. Gar. I don't 
 think you are to blame in this instance. You know Robert's 
 special grievance is that you waste half your time with boys. 
 Perhaps it would be as well to check that a little ; a curate can't 
 have half a dozen village lads perpetually at his heels." 
 
 " Do you mean to class Guy and Laurie among village lads ?" 
 demanded his brother sulkily. 
 
 " Well, no ; I had some one else in my mind just then. Well, 
 we will not talk any more about that. The lad's a nice lad, 
 though you are taking him out of his proper place. What Robert 
 and I have to consider now is how we are to contrive to give you 
 another chance." 
 
 " I suppose it is no good applying to Aunt Charlotte again ?" 
 
 " No, I wiU not have that. We must wait a little, and see 
 how things turn out. I suppose by a little contrivance we might 
 manage it, — that is, if Robert gets a rise. But it is rather hard 
 tliat you should be a drag on him, poor fellow ! " 
 
 " I think I had better give it up, Austin." 
 
 " No, no ; not till we have thought over it a little. In the 
 meantime you can do the part of a lay curate and help me with 
 the boys, and we will read together when I have time." And 
 then the Vicar took up his felt hat and went out. 
 
 And so Garton was eating his brother's bread and grumbling 
 terribly over it ; but he did what he could in return. He taught 
 the Vicar's boys, and was his right hand in the parish. He was 
 sacristan and leader of the choir, and sometimes bell-ringer too ; 
 he turned those thews and sinews of his to account. Often at five 
 o'clock in the morning he was digging in the Vicar's garden, or in 
 their own adjoining ; though he was not always punctual in his 
 readings with his brother, he was always in his place at the two 
 daily services. People used to marvel to see the brown ascetic 
 face always in the choir-stall. Ten minutes after he would be 
 striding away to the schoolhouse, still in his cassock, with a troop 
 of boys after him, laughing as heartily as any. 
 
 "Well, Garton, what is it you want with mel" asked Mrs. 
 Ord, when Arty had been rescued from his perilous position and 
 deposited on her lap. 
 
 " Oh, it is only a lot of surplices I want you and Belle to 
 mend ; can't stop to explain now ; facts speak for themselves."
 
 KIRK BY VICARAGE. G5 
 
 And he pointed breathlessly to Laiu'ie, whose arms were closely 
 packed with rather dingy-looking linen. 
 
 " All those for me, Garton ?" and Mary looked rather alarmed. 
 
 " Yes ; one or two are slit down, and some of the sleeves must 
 be curtailed in length ; and Syraond's is too long for him, and — 
 and " 
 
 " Oh, go away," returned Mrs. Ord good-humouredly, packing 
 him off; "you can leave them on the table till you have time to 
 explain. How long did Robert say that he would be ?" 
 
 " Half an hour or so \ couldn't get a word out of him. It is 
 
 my opinion he looks rather " And then Garton stopped, and 
 
 looked hesitatingly at Belle. 
 
 " Rather what ? No ; she is not listening, Gar." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know; let us wait and hear what he has to 
 say for himself Come along, boys ;" and he was out of the room 
 in a moment. 
 
 "What did Garton mean by his unfinished sentence, Mary?" 
 asked Belle, when they were left alone. 
 
 " I don't know ; you heard as much as I did. I am afraid he 
 thinks that Robert has not very good news to communicate." 
 
 " I never expected any very good news." 
 
 " No ; nor I." 
 
 " But still I am afraid Robert does. And after all, Mary, she 
 may have left him a little." 
 
 "Oh, a little would be something." 
 
 " Of course it would. They want Garton to make up for the 
 time he has lost during his illness. As far as that goes, I tliink 
 his reading with Austin is a failure." 
 
 " I don't think Austin will ever make much of liim." 
 
 " Robert says he is too much a Jack-of-all-trades in the village. 
 He has too much and too little to do ; in his opinion he wants to 
 be regularly coached, as he calls it, — he is so lax and desultory. 
 But I don't think he ought to look to Robert or to Austin eitlier 
 for any further help." 
 
 " Austin is too rash and generous, considering he has four boys 
 of his own," replied Mary, who in her secret mind was still hankering 
 after the serge frock for Arty ; " and yet I think we must all allow 
 that it would be a pity for Garton to waste his college education. 
 Austin is so sure that his heart is quite set upon entering the Church." 
 
 "_ Yes ; if we could only depend on his healtli and application. 
 But if Robert could have his way, I am sure he would be in a 
 situation at Thornborough by this time." 
 
 "Oh, we all know Robert's opinion," returned Maiy, rather 
 hastily ; and then the conversation dropped. 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MISS MATURIN IS SENT TO COVENTRY. 
 
 " But wTien the heart is full of din, 
 
 And doubt beside the portals waits, 
 They can but listen at the gates 
 And hear the household jar within." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 " Over proud of course, 
 Even so ! But not so stupid . . blind . . that I, 
 Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the world 
 Has set to meditate mistaken work. 
 My dreary face against a dim blank wall, 
 Throughout man's natural lifetime could pretend 
 Or wish." Aurora Leigh. 
 
 In siDite of Garten's prophesied half- hour Robert Orel did not 
 make his appearance until the elder branches of the family were 
 gathered round the supper-table. Belle, who had stayed away 
 from the evening service in the secret hope of securing a quiet talk 
 with him before the others came in, was much chagrined at the 
 failure of her little scheme, but as usual she kept her disappoint- 
 ment to herself. But the Vicar was not quite so reticent. 
 
 " I cannot thhik what possesses Robert to absent himself like 
 this !" he said, rather irritably, as he cut the thick slices of bread 
 with no very sparing hand. " He is certainly treating us rather 
 badly." And then they heard the door-bell ring, and a moment 
 after Robert Ord was amongst them. He went the round of 
 greetings in his ordinary manner. Nevertheless the Vicar and 
 his wife exchanged meaning glances as he took his seat silently at 
 the table. The Ord look — as IMary called it — was strong on him 
 this evening, and already they augured no good news from his face. 
 Belle, as she made room for him, could not conceal her anxiety. 
 
 " How tired you look, Robert ! Are you sure you are not ill V 
 she asked in a low voice — not willing, however, that her question 
 should be overheard. But Robert was in no mood for such soft 
 questioning.
 
 MISS MA TURIN IS SENT TO COVENTRY. 67 
 
 " Tired 1 Well, I suppose I am ; but I do not see how the 
 failure of one night's rest is to make me ill." Then Belle knew 
 that things were not going well with him. 
 
 " I think you might have written and explained matters a 
 little," began the Vicar in a slightly aggrieved tone. "You 
 might have understood that it was impossible for us not to feel 
 anxious." 
 
 " I should certainly have written if I had had any good tidings 
 to communicate." 
 
 " Ah ! that was just what Mary said. Some of us were flatter- 
 ing ourselves that no news was good news ; but she would have 
 nothing to say to such lying prophets." 
 
 " Mary was perfectly right." 
 
 Then the Vicar remained silent. 
 
 " I thought you would understand how it was, Austin." 
 
 " Well, perhaps I did ; but one cannot help being like Pan- 
 dora's box, and having a little bit of hope at the bottom." 
 
 " Ah, that was just my case." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," began the Vicar again after a pause, 
 and letting his knife fall heavily from his hand, — " do you mean to 
 say that she has willed away all that property f 
 
 " Every penny." 
 
 " That she has left you literally nothing 1 " 
 
 " Nothing at all, Austin." 
 
 " Good heavens ! What injustice ! Not to any of us — not 
 even to Garton'?" 
 
 " Certainly not to Garton. I was not aware that you expected 
 a reversal in your own favour." 
 
 " To tell you the truth, Robert, I have got quite as much as I 
 expected. I knew her better than any of you. Perhaps, as I said 
 befoi'e, I had a lurking hope that it might be found that she had 
 remembered one of us at the last ; but I was never so sanguine as 
 you were." 
 
 " I always told myself that I had no hope at all." 
 
 " Oh, but you had — one could see it in your face. You were 
 too much excited ; you looked a different man that morning wlien 
 you started. I took myself to task afterwards that I had not given 
 you a word of warning." 
 
 " I do not think I needed the warning, Austin." 
 
 '■ But I should have given it to you all the same ; and I feel 
 now as though some such word of consolation is due from mc, but 
 for the life of me I hardly know how to say it." 
 
 " I think you may reserve it, as we are all fellow-sufferers." 
 
 " Yes, but then the cases differ. IMy injuries are the same,
 
 68 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 certainly ; but then I did not permit myself to hope. I knew that 
 there would be no absolving of such an oflPence as I had committed ; 
 but with you it was otherwise." 
 
 "I siippose I may be considered the chief mourner?" But 
 the Vicar was too much in earnest to comprehend the bitter joke. 
 
 " Oh, as to that, there was not much love lost on either side ; 
 but I must say that I think you have been shamefully used, 
 Robert." Then Mary got up and came round to her husband. 
 
 " Mary thinks that you deserve equal pity," observed Robert, 
 on whom this little by-play was not lost. 
 
 " No, she cannot think that." 
 
 " Oil, but I do, Austin ! I think you made quite as great a 
 sacrifice for me as ever Robert did for Belle. And there is some- 
 thing else that I think " 
 
 "What is that, dear '2" 
 
 "I think you are both so good and noble that all this loss 
 mil be made up to you. I am not a bit afraid of poverty for you, 
 Austin ; and were you ten times poorer I would not change my 
 opinion, that I am the happiest woman in the world." No wonder 
 that the Vicar felt himself comforted. 
 
 " You forget, Mary, that Belle is not equally fortunate," said 
 Robert, still more bitterly. " Remember she has not the comfort 
 of feeling that she is bearing poverty for my sake." 
 
 " Ah ! I see what you mean." 
 
 "I think Austin is lucky in having such a wife ; in my opinion 
 he is scarcely to be pitied at all." 
 
 " That is just what I think," interrupted the Vicar, with a 
 proud look at his Mary. 
 
 " Of course he has been injiured ; but then it is the duty of his 
 cloth to forgive all such injury. He has certainly many mouths 
 to feed, but as yet there has been no difficulty in feeding them." 
 
 " Mary and I know better than that," replied Austin. " But 
 you are right, Robert ; somehow, in one's needs, one always finds 
 ' the stone rolled away' at the right moment." 
 
 "Yes, and then you have the happiness of doing the day's 
 work together. I think you will allow that oiu- case is somewhat 
 
 different." 
 
 " Belle is not a bit afraid of poverty either, take my word for 
 it," exclaimed Mrs. Ord. Then Belle looked up and made a sign 
 for her sister to be silent. 
 
 " I am not going to try her courage just yet, Mary. We have 
 been engaged for more than four years now ; and, as far as I can 
 see, we shall have four more to wait." 
 
 " Oh, I hope not."
 
 MISS MA TURIN IS SENT TO COVENTRY. 69 
 
 " "What is to prevent it 1 Sometimes I think we shall never 
 be married." Then Mary saw that Belle gave a long shiver. 
 
 " I declare that I am getting quite desperate ; Austin knows 
 that I am. And to think that only a designing girl stands between 
 me and my happiness ! " And Robert Ord's face darkened as he 
 remembered that interview in Eglistone Abbey. 
 
 " My dear Robert, I do not understand you. I thought all the 
 money had gone to some hospital or other ?" 
 
 " No ; I have kept back that part to the last. Don't go away, 
 Garton ; the story is too good to be lost. I think you ought all 
 to know what sort of a neighbour we are going to have at Bryn." 
 And then, as they pressed round him, he told them of his talk with 
 Llr. Tracy. 
 
 "A designing woman, indeed!" exclaimed Mary, who was 
 rather given to be a little rash in her judgment. 
 
 " What do you think of that, Austin V asked Garton. He had 
 never ceased for one moment to rock himself slowly during the 
 conversation, and as he asked the question his teeth quite gleamed 
 from under his slight moustache. But the Vicar made no answer. 
 
 "Did you accuse her to her faceT' asked Belle, whose indig- 
 nation was stronger even than Mary's. 
 
 " Well, not at first." And then he went on to tell them about 
 the thunderstorm and the strange meeting in the ruined abbey, and 
 how the accusation had been drawu from him ; and after that 
 Mary again gave it as her opinion that Miss Maturin must be a 
 very designing person. 
 
 " No wonder she was afraid when she met you in the Castle 
 garden, Robert." 
 
 " Yes, and to think that I was fool enough to pity her ; and 
 then there was that want of anger on her part that was enough to 
 excite any man's susi^icion." 
 
 " She would certainly have defended herself if she had been 
 innocent — do you not think so, Austin V But the Vicar was again 
 silent ; he had left his chair and was walking up and down the 
 room with heavy footsteps ; it seemed as thougli he hardly dared 
 trust himself to speak. 
 
 " Yes, of course she would, Robert. I cannot think how you 
 could have been so forbeariug." 
 
 " Well, I do not know myself, Mary. There was something 
 about her that, in spite of her sin, almost disarmed anger; she 
 looked so wretchedly unhappy." 
 
 " I am glad of it ; she wiU find that her ill-gotten riches will 
 only bring misery to her after all. I declare I can hardly believe 
 in sucli dui)licity and double-dealing."
 
 70 ROBERT ORirS ATONEMENT. 
 
 "My dear !" The rebuke came from her husband. 
 
 " Let me speak, Austin. I don't wonder at all now that 
 Robert should have felt it so bitterly ; it makes it almost unbear- 
 able for him and Belle." 
 
 " What has Belle got to do with it % It is all the same to her 
 whether the money goes to a hospital or to Miss Maturin." 
 
 " No, not quite, Austin." 
 
 " Isn't it, Belle % Well, I should have thought so." And then 
 the Vicar resumed his walk. 
 
 " And what makes it worse for us all is that she is coming to 
 Bryn." And Mary, who had been rather chilled by her husband's 
 last words, roused herself again to renewed anger. " I cannot 
 imagine how she can have the boldness to show her face among us." 
 
 " That is just my feeling," argued BeUe. 
 
 " She will be visiting the cottages, and imtting down her name 
 in the list of charities. Those sort of people always do." 
 
 " Very probably, my dear." 
 
 "And she will waylay you and pretend to be interested in the 
 schools, and play at being Lady Bountiful ; and perhaps even she 
 will come to you for advice, Austin !" And Mrs. Ord opened her 
 eyes very widely. 
 
 " Perhaps she will, Mary j and then certainly I shall give it 
 her. I think I can promise you that it will be sound wholesome 
 advice." 
 
 "Oh, Austin, you are not joking ?" 
 
 "No, indeed ; I was never more serious in my life." 
 
 " Austin has some crotchet in his head. I should not be 
 surprised if he is going to prove to us that we are all wrong in our 
 judgment." 
 
 "Well, I must say that I do think you are all a little too hard 
 on Miss Maturin." 
 
 " There ! — I told you so," returned Garton triumphantly. 
 
 " No, no, Gar ; don't misunderstand me. Robert looks quite 
 troubled enough without that. I am not at all disposed to be too 
 charitable in my estimate of this young lady. I think it is quite 
 possible that Robert's opinion may be right." 
 
 " Of com'se it is right." 
 
 "Yes, it is quite possible; he is generally tolerably correct in 
 his surmises about people ; but it is not fair to condemn wholly on 
 circumstantial evidence. I do not think you need treat her as 
 though she were quite a Pariah, Mary." 
 
 "Now, Austin!" 
 
 " Robert may be mistaken, you know." 
 
 "Oh, I don't think that at all likely. ' 
 
 T. "
 
 MISS MA TURIN IS SENT TO COVENTRY. 71 
 
 "Well, I do not know. Mr. Tracy is as shrewd au observer 
 jf human nature as Robert, and you see he defended her." 
 
 "Mr. Tracy is au old fool, who is talked over by any soft- 
 spoken woman who likes to take the trouble," interrupted Robert 
 wrathfuUy. 
 
 "Well, he may be, but still he is a clever lawyer, and he was 
 loath to cast the first stone, you see. I say again that we ought 
 not to condemn her entirely on circumstantial evidence." 
 
 "I shall hold my own opinion, Austin." 
 
 " Well, so shall I, and you see I am disposed to agree with you; 
 but here is Mary talking as though she cannot say her prayers in 
 the same church with her." 
 
 "That is because she takes my view of the subject." 
 
 " I do not believe any of us differ from you, Robert; but I can't 
 say I am much struck by either yom- or Mary's Christian feeling." 
 
 " Please don't get up in the pulpit, Austin." 
 
 " Oh, but I must ;" and the Vicar made himself look very big 
 as he spoke. " I think both Mary and you deserve a sermon, and 
 I am going to deliver one." Then Mary looked up in his face with 
 soft appealing eyes. 
 
 " I daresay you are right, Robert, and that Miss Matiu-in did 
 obtain an undesirable influence over Aunt Charlotte during those 
 four years ; but then I do not think that we ought to shut our eyes 
 to her youth and temptation. In her case, perhaps, we might have 
 done likewise." 
 
 "Well, I do not see that." 
 
 " Nay, Robert ; it was a position of awful temptation for any 
 girl, especially if she were poor and homeless." 
 
 " That is what I told her. Remember I was the first to excuse 
 her. I was not half so hard upon her as she deserved." 
 
 " No, you were tolerably merciful ; it is only women who use 
 nothing but superlatives in their anger Don't shake your liead, 
 Mary ; I am ashamed of you." 
 
 "Never mind what he says, Mary." 
 
 " You are not a bit fit to be a clergyman's wife. Robert is 
 quite fiery enough without your stirring him to fresh anger ; and 
 it seems to me that, as long as we are deprived of it, it cannot 
 matter to us who has Aunt Charlotte's money." 
 "Austin, how can you be so absurd 1" 
 
 "Absurd, am 1 1 Never mind, Robert, there is method in my 
 madness. I assure you that it does not make the sliglitest differ- 
 ence to me who has the property, providing the hands tliat hold it 
 are clean." 
 
 " I am glad you have added tliat proviso."
 
 72 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Yes, indeed — that is of the greatest moment to mo. Think 
 of the influence over the parish." 
 
 " Oh, I am not thinking about that." 
 
 " But I am, and that is wliy Mary made me tremble. Think 
 how terrible it would be to have a person of that sort up at Bryn. 
 I do not look at it quite with Mary's eyes, but nevertheless I think 
 my position will be an awkward one." 
 
 " That's your own look-out, Austin. I know what I should do 
 in your case." 
 
 " So do I. You would have me follow her advice and send 
 Miss Maturin to Coventry." 
 
 "Austin, I do think you are very naughty." 
 
 "Was not that what you wished me to do, Mary? There will 
 be no possibility of crossing over to the other side, unfortunately, 
 unless we land ourselves among the cabbages ; but I will promise 
 to draw down my felt hat over my eyes whenever I see Miss Maturin 
 approaching ; but I must be sure first that it is Miss Maturin." 
 
 "Austin, you ought not to joke, for Robert's sake." 
 
 " I don't think there's much joking left in me to-night, but 
 then you will keep interrupting my sermon. What I really meant 
 was that I wish to reserve my opinion ; in anything so grave as 
 this I must certainly judge for myself" 
 
 " Well, that is reasonable." 
 
 " I think we are all too interested to be quite unbiassed in our 
 judgment. Mary and Belle will of course follow Robert blindly. 
 Women are always like sheep jumping through a gap in a hedge — 
 one takes the first leap and then the others follow. I don't know 
 quite what Garton thinks." 
 
 " I have not the vestige of a doubt. Of course we all condemn 
 Miss Maturin." 
 
 " Ah, then indeed she will go to Coventry. I think I see a 
 flaw here and there in your arguments, and Mary especially is not 
 charitable , but I do not mean to compromise myself : six months 
 hence you shall have my verdict." 
 
 " Guilty or Not Guilty, I wonder 1" 
 
 " Oh, that is impossible for me to say ; at present it is decidedly 
 Not Proven. There, I have finished my sermon. I think you can 
 find out the text for yourselves." 
 
 " The best part about it is its brevity," observed Robert drily, 
 as he rose. " Come, Belle, I want to say a word to you before I 
 go. Good-night, Austin." 
 
 The Vicar looked at the timepiece. 
 
 " Why, it is getting very late, I declare. Garton, you had 
 better be off too, as you have to be up so early in the morning. "
 
 MISS MA TURIN IS SENT TO CO VENTR V. 73 
 
 " And, Robert, don't keep Belle up," said Mary, as the door 
 closed upon the three, and she and her husband were left alone. 
 Mary, as usual, had her work in her hands, but the Vicar sat doing 
 nothing. 
 
 " Have you any letters to write to-night, Austin 1 " 
 
 " Yes, several ; but I do not feel as though I could write them 
 now, Mary. I do feel all this terribly." 
 
 " I am sure you do." 
 
 " I did not want Eobert to know how sorry I was for him. 
 Did you ever see a man so changed in a few days 1" 
 
 " He looks very haggard, certainly." 
 
 " For the matter of that, so does Belle. I am beginning to 
 think that this engagement will do neither of them any good. 
 Belle's beauty is not a bit what it was, and she is losing flesh 
 visibly." 
 
 " I think Robert tries her a little." 
 
 " I am sure he does. He is not the man to bear all this wait- 
 ing patiently. Upon my word I can see very little hope for them 
 both." 
 
 "Don't you think he might ask for an increase of salary, 
 Austin V 
 
 " No, I am certain that would not answer. It will not make i 
 their case better for us all to sit down and bemoan ourselves in 
 sackcloth and ashes, but I almost feel as though it would be com- j 
 fortable." 
 
 Then Mary put down her work and came a little closer. 
 
 " Austin, I can see hoAV grieved you are." 
 
 " I am horribly grieved, Mary. I do not say that I expected 
 otherwise, but still it is such a cruel thing for him." 
 
 " Oh, I can't give him all my pity." 
 
 " Nay, there you are vrrong. It is so many years since I lost 
 Aunt Charlotte's good graces that I have almost forgotten my 
 special grievance. I was never such a favourite as he was, re- 
 member." 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " I will not deny that I have my private disappointment. Of 
 course, if Robert had had Bryu Ave should all have been in a better 
 position. Belle would have been off our hands, and Garton also, 
 and there's no knowing what he would have done for the boys." 
 
 " No, indeed ; Robert is always so generous." 
 
 "But it is no good thinking of that. To tell you the truth, 
 Mary, I am half afraid to look into this year's expenses ; Garton's 
 illness and then Laurie's have used up all my surplus money." 
 
 " You ought not to have paid Garton's doctor's bill."
 
 74 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " What could I do ■? I could not leave it on Robert's shoulders, 
 Affairs seem so complicated just now. I wanted to tell you this 
 evening that you might have bought that frock for Arty, but upon 
 my word I could not reconcile it with my conscience." 
 
 " Oh, Austin, how could you think of such a thing 1" 
 
 " But I did. I did so hate to see you look so disappointed, 
 Mary, and to hear you begrudging that common stuS" gown ot 
 yours. I wonder who deserves to wear a silk one more than you 
 do?" 
 
 " Silk for me 1 No, thank you. I am happier in my old stuff 
 one, though I am not fit to be a clergyman's wife;" and Mary 
 smiled playfully in his face. 
 
 "Oh, but I was not serious, you know." 
 
 " I was half afraid you were. I certainly did feel very angry." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 "Yes, of course I did ; and Belle got quite white with anger." 
 
 " I do not think Belle's anger was so fierce as mine, though; 
 wlieu I walked up and down it was because I dared not trust my- 
 self to speak. If I had spoken I should have terrified you, and 
 yet Robert thinks I am cool." 
 
 " I am afraid he does." 
 
 " Let him think so ; it is no good heaping fuel on a furnace. 1 
 think my wrath would have matched his. And then it occurred 
 to me that we were all condemning Miss Maturin merely on his 
 evidence." 
 
 "And then you scolded me." 
 
 "You were the sheep that was foremost in leaping, Mary. 
 Robert's gap was a tolerably wide one. My dear, I must positively 
 see this young woman and judge for myself before I can accept 
 his opinion." 
 
 " Oh, of course, Austin. Well, perhaps I was a little hasty." 
 
 " We are all prejudiced against Miss Maturin ; we must there- 
 fore be careful to form our estimate all the more slowly. As the 
 Vicar of this parish, I shall not be able to avoid coming into very 
 close contact with so influential a member of my congregation." 
 
 " But, Austin, she may be a Baptist." 
 
 " I never thought of that." 
 
 "Or a Unitarian." 
 
 " Oh, I hope not." 
 
 " Or a Plymouth sister, or something of that sort." 
 
 " Very well, Mary, then you will not have quite so much 
 trouble with your prayers on Sunday ; but of course I shall be very 
 strenuous in my efforts to bring her over to the Church." 
 
 Then ]\Irs. Ord had nothing to say.
 
 MISS MATURIN IS SENT TO COVENTRY. 75 
 
 " I suppose, if you really become convinced that Robert is right, 
 we need have nothing at all to do with her?" she began again 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Robert did not say so. After all, Mary, he is more forbearing 
 than you." 
 
 "No, but seriouslj', Austin." 
 
 " Seriously, then, we shall not be able to avoid it, I am afraid ; 
 but at least I can promise you this — that we will do as little as 
 we can." And after that the Vicar betook himself to his study, 
 and Mary went up to her sister. 
 
 It was her motherly custom to see all her sons tucked up 
 safely in their beds before she retired to her own, and, however 
 weary she might be, she never omitted this duty. Often a restless 
 sleeper stirred at the light kiss and whis])ered blessing. When 
 Belle first came to the Vicarage Mrs. Ord included her in her 
 rounds as a matter of course, but it must be confessed that Belle 
 derived no special delectation from her sister's visits. She was 
 unsociable by nature, and at such times she preferred the solace of 
 her own thoughts. 
 
 Mary found her sitting by the open window with her head on 
 her hand. 
 
 " What ! up and dressed still, Belle % Have you any idea how 
 late it is?" 
 
 " Yes ; I expect it is very late." 
 
 " Ah, that is just what makes you so thin. Do you know 
 Austin has been making some uncomplimentary remarks about 
 your looks to-night % I wonder what he would say now if he saw 
 you?" 
 
 "Austin is never complimentary to me, Mary." 
 
 " Now, Belle, that is too bad." 
 
 " No, indeed he is not ; he is always drawing comparisons 
 between us. Of course a man must think well of his own wife. 
 But sometimes I wish he would leave me alone altogether." 
 
 "You would not say so if you knew how sorry he was for you 
 both to-night. I have hardly ever seen him more grieved about 
 anything." 
 
 " I don't think he was particularly kind to Robert." 
 
 "You mean that he did not talk to him much. But that was 
 because he would not trust himself to speak. You know Austin 
 is sometimes afraid to say all he thinks." 
 
 " But, all the same, he need not hurt Robert witli that half- 
 joking manner of his. I don't believe he understands it." 
 
 " Oh, Belle, that is only his way." 
 
 " It is not a pleasant way, Mary; it makes hira seem as though
 
 76 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 he did not feel for people in their trouble. Robert always says it 
 shuts him up so ; he has gone away quite hurt to-night." 
 
 "Then it is very foolish of Eobert. Never mind; Austin 
 means to have a talk with him to-morrow. The fact is, Belle, he 
 thinks we are all a little premature in our judgment about Miss 
 Maturin." 
 
 " Oh ! if he has talked you over, Mary, I have nothing more 
 to say." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by talking me over, but I am 
 not going to get vexed with you, Belle. I can see that you are 
 dreadfully unhappy." Then Belle tm-ned her head away without 
 speaking. 
 
 " Robert has no right to make you so wretched. If he goes on 
 much longer in this way, I shall speak to him myself" 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! you must not think of such a thing." 
 
 "But I shall. Here Austin says you are losing flesh visibly. 
 Every one notices how pale and thin you are getting." 
 
 " I wish every one would mind their own business." 
 
 " Oh, BeUe ! " 
 
 " I do, indeed. How can I help his making me wretched 1 ' I 
 cannot alter his nature." 
 
 " There, you have found it out at last." 
 
 " I don't see what there was to find. Of course he is miser- 
 able, poor fellow ; and of course his misery makes him impatient. 
 Any one but Austin would see what he suflers." 
 
 "I don't envy you the fii'st three months that Miss Maturin 
 is at Bryn." 
 
 "I don't envy myself, Mary. But at least I can understand 
 and share his feelings. He said to-night that he knew where to 
 come for sympathy." Then Belle got up and made some little 
 demonstration as though she would prepare herself for her couch ; 
 on seeing which, Mrs. Ord kissed aod bade her good-night. But 
 as she tucked up Arty, she told herself that she had not done 
 much to comfort her sister. But, in truth. Belle was not one that 
 could be easily comforted.
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 DELLE STAYS AWAY AGAIN FROM SERVICR. 
 
 " And now be patient with me ; do not think 
 I'm speaking from a false humility. 
 The truth is, I am gi'own so proud with grief, 
 And He has said so often through His nights 
 And through His mornings, ' Weep a little still. ' 
 
 I gave you love ? 
 I think I did not give you anything ; 
 I was but yours only. . . ." Aurora Lei(jh. 
 
 Belle liad got up from her chair, and liad made some Httle 
 demonstration of preparing herself for the night. She had moved 
 across the room and wound up her watch in a decided sort of way, 
 and her sister had understood her and taken the hint ; but when 
 the door had closed upon Mrs. Ord, all Belle's briskness of move- 
 ment had ceased, and she had dropped down again into the seat 
 by the window, propping her cheek upon her hand, and staring 
 moodily across the dark road to the darker sea-line beyond. Mary 
 had complained to her of the lateness of the hour, and she had 
 accepted the fact without questioning ; but, in truth, she was so 
 utterly wretched that the lateness was of small moment to her. 
 She was much given at all times to trim her midnight lamp in 
 solitude, and in consequence sleep had become rather a rare visitant 
 to her, beguiling her only by fits and starts. She never complained 
 to any one of her wakefulness; she bore it quietly, as she did 
 most other ills that befell her. Lately the shadow of a fresh 
 trouble had oppressed her, and was making her nights dreary ; in 
 spite of her efforts she had not been able to shake it off, but it 
 never occurred to her to seek relief by imparting her fears. And 
 so her burden had grown heavier day by day, and the strain on 
 her harassed nerves had been aggravated by want of Bleep and 
 mental distress. 
 
 Nor was it a mere shadowy foreboding of evil that was robbing 
 her cheek of its bloom and depriving her of flesh. The thing.
 
 78 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 whatever it might be, was assuming tangible shape and reality. 
 In the daytime she would rate herself for her cowardice, and would 
 succeed in regarding it as purely imaginary, as altogether baseless 
 and puerile. But at night she had no such relief; she would 
 cower away from it with a real terror and a real belief that made 
 her nights dreadful to her. Then it almost seemed to her as 
 though she must make her sister her confidante. But when the 
 morning came she shrank from the avowal of her weakness ; all 
 the more that she saw that in spite of her sister's solicitude she 
 noticed nothing. 
 
 But to-night her oppression was such that she could make no 
 pretence of sleeping. Mary had been kind, and had striven to say 
 a word of comfort, looking upon her affliction as one that words 
 might have some power to alleviate, and she had repulsed her with 
 a decision that had somewhat of abruptness in it. But how could 
 Mary know that she was too sore for such words 1 
 
 Even her interview with her lover had brought her no consola- 
 tion ; it had been brief and unsatisfactory. 
 
 " Well, Belle," he had said directly they were left alone, and 
 putting his two hands on her shoulders, "I shall have to come to 
 you for sympathy. I wonder what you will say to comfort me 1 " 
 And then she had looked up at him rather pitifully, and had made 
 no sort of answer. 
 
 " Things have come to a sorry pass with us," he went on. 
 "It is all very well for Austin to joke, but I look upon our game 
 as a lost one." Then again that long shiver had passed over her 
 frame, thrilling her like ice, but no words of comfort had occurred 
 to her. 
 
 "Austin did not mean to be unsympathetic," she ventured at 
 last. 
 
 " No, I know he did not, nor Mary either, but it is very gall- 
 ing to a man in my position." And then he had gone on to say 
 a few things decidedly bitter about his brother, and Belle had not 
 dared to contradict him ; and after that he had spoken a sentence 
 or two as though he had felt himself assured of her sympathy. 
 
 " I wish I did know how to comfort you, Robert," she said, 
 and her tone had been very soft and pleasant to him ; " but it 
 seems beyond my power." 
 
 " Yes, it is beyond yom- power, Belle ; I don't think any one 
 on earth can make my position endurable to me now." Then he 
 had taken down his hands from her shoulders, and had bidden her 
 good-night. 
 
 It was this last speech of his that had tormented her ; she 
 was revolving it now as she looked out at the sea-bound horizon ;
 
 BELLE STA YS A WA V AGAIN FROM SERVICE. 79 
 
 she had borne a great deal for hi.s sake : the four years of her 
 engagement had not been, on the whole, happy years-^she had 
 had her secret burdens, her sorrows, and her regrets \ but, had 
 they been doubled, she could never have brought herself to have 
 told him that her position was unendurable, and yet it was owing 
 to her that such was the case with him. It was not that he was 
 unkind, for even then he had said a lover-like word or two that 
 at another time must have given her comfort ; but he was proving 
 to her as plainly as words coidd prove it that she was failing in 
 yielding him happiness. If it were so — if his position were indeed 
 unendurable, and the thraldom of this hopeless engagement were 
 fretting him, might it not be her duty, seeing that she loved him 
 better than herself, to set him at liberty \ at least, might she not 
 clearly make him understand that she was so willing % 
 
 True, he might be angry with her, and refuse to take her at 
 her word ; indeed, she rather suspected that such would be the 
 case. But would it not be as well to brave his anger, so that she 
 did her duty % She did not suppose that he would misunderstand 
 her; undemonstrative and silent as she was, she had given him 
 plain proofs that she loved him, though even he had no idea of tlie 
 extent of her powers of loving. Already she yielded him loyal 
 obedience in all things that concerned herself and him ; for his sake 
 she had renounced a project she had secretly cherished for securing 
 her own independence, and, at his expressed wish, consented reluc- 
 tantly to be a burthen on her brother-in-law. 
 
 Nor was this the only instance in which she had moulded her 
 will to his ; and so Robert had no conception of the coiu^age and 
 strength which lay beneath her quiet manners. It was not that 
 he intended to domineer, but he grew so accustomed to her yielding 
 that he forgot at last to question her opinion : had he been able 
 to marry her during the first months of their engagement he would 
 have made her a model husband, but his was a natiu-e that grew 
 harsh with opposition ; no wonder, as Mr. Ord said, that he tried 
 her a little. 
 
 But, after all, there was nothing abject in Belle's submission — 
 no placing the neck in the dust, after the fashion of some women ; 
 it was rather the yielding of a strong proud will to a stronger and 
 a prouder one, and that out of pure love. There were times wlicn 
 Belle could almost have prayed to have loved Robert Ord less, that 
 his troubles should not have so darkened her life to the exclusion 
 of her own, but she never told him so. 
 
 Well, it was no good looking back : she would give him this 
 one chance, and risk his anger, though it was the only thing on 
 eartli she dreaded ; she would tell him, if he would give her the 
 
 ft^
 
 80 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 opportunity for such speech, that he had better give up this losing 
 game of his, that she knew that they would never be married — 
 that it would be far wiser foi- him to teach himself to look upon 
 her as his friend ; and at this point she laid her head down on the 
 window-sill in the darkness, and cried till her arms and hair were 
 wet with her tears, till from very weariness she could cry no more. 
 But not for that was her resolve shaken. 
 
 One thing she deliberated upon long as she dragged herself to 
 her bed, feeling conscious at last of her cramped aching limbs — 
 should she tell him of tlie haunting fear that had lately beset her 
 and robbed her cup of its small portion of sweetness % She turned 
 this over long in her mind, but at last she resolved that she would 
 not tell him. Unselfish herself, she was keenly alive to the gener- 
 osity of Robert's real nature ; such telling, she thought, would 
 undo at once all the purpose of her words, and so, with the asceticism 
 which was in reality as much a part of hers as of Garton's natiu-e, 
 she replaced her moral hair-shirt. It would be discovered some 
 day, she knew, and then he would thank her for her reticence. 
 Like many another fond enthusiast, it never struck her that Robert 
 might perhaps hold a different opinion. 
 
 Her first waking thoughts were very sad \ she was physically 
 exhausted, too, from her lengthened vigil. For a few minutes she 
 hesitated whether she might abstain from appearing at the family 
 meal, but she had never excused herself yet on plea of illness, dis- 
 liking all fuss and softness, and she would not spare herself now. 
 Once or twice her strength failed her in the process of dressing, 
 but she made head at last against her weakness, and was in her 
 place by the time the Vicar had returned from service. 
 
 She had a little difficulty in eluding Mary's inquiries as to her 
 rest last night, and was very short with Arty when he told her she 
 had black spectacles round her eyes ; but after breakfast she went 
 out to her district, and got through her duties in a mechanical sort 
 of way, and came home at dinner-time feeling as though her feet 
 were weighted with lead, and with no voice ; but nevertheless she 
 was down at the school all the afternoon. She was always veiy 
 zealous in performing her duties, and took a great deal of her 
 sister's work on her shoulders : but, in spite of her patience and 
 gentleness with them, the poor people liked Mary's cheerful face 
 best. 
 
 But all the time she was looking at the girls' long seams, or 
 setting them their tasks, she was thinking how she could best con- 
 trive to see Robert alone ; she must stay away from the evening 
 service again, she thought ; at such times Robert would often be 
 busy gardening. Mary sometimes stayed away too, to finish her
 
 BELLE STAYS A WA V AGAIN FROM SERVICE. 81 
 
 work or mind Arty ; she could easily tell her sister that she wanted 
 a word alone with him. Robert always managed these things in 
 an ofi-hand manner ; she had seen him turn all the boys out of the 
 room if he had anything particular to say to her ; perhaps she 
 might not find it difficult after all. Eobert would probably be 
 busy gardening, and she coidd go out and speak to him. Anyhow, 
 she was determined that she would not let him go till she had so 
 spoken to him. 
 
 As they sat down to tea she did manage to say a word to him, 
 but he noticed that her voice trembled. 
 
 "You have been tiling yom-self at the school again," he said 
 rebukingly ; and she had hastened to assure him that such was 
 not the case. 
 
 "At any rate you are right to stay at home. I think Mary 
 and you have quite enough to do without attending all Austin's 
 services." By which it may be seen that the Vicar's innovations 
 were not altogether pleasing to his brother. 
 
 " I am thinking of making Belle my assistant organist again," 
 observed Austin, who had overheard the heretical speech ; " Lam- 
 bert is going away on sick leave." 
 
 " I shall be very glad to help you, Austin," retm-ned Belle 
 pleasantly ; "I managed it very well before." 
 
 "Yes, but you will not be able to play the truant for two 
 evenings then, remember." And then Belle knew that the Vicar 
 was aware of her little shortcomings. 
 
 Mary was still hard at work upon Arty's old suit, and she 
 looked up rather imploringly as Belle went to fetch her hat. Belle 
 noticed the look in a moment. 
 
 " I am sorry that I cannot stay to help you this evening, Mary ; 
 but I am going out with Robert." 
 
 "With Robert! Why, you have been out all day!" And 
 Mrs. Ord's tone was slightly aggrieved. 
 
 " Yes, but only in the district and at the school. I have been 
 working with the girls all the afternoon." 
 
 " I had ten times rather you had helped me with all this work. 
 I don't see how I am to finish it by Sunday. It is quite dreadful 
 to see how I stay away from church now." 
 
 " Never mind ; Austin will not scold you : he reserves his 
 rebukes for me." 
 
 " I suppose he thinks that it will never do to encom-age Robert 
 in his dislike to week-day services." 
 
 "Do I encourage him, Mary?" 
 
 " Of course not. How you take me up, Belle !" and Mrs. Ord 
 looked for once decidedly ruffled. " T think I should have asked 
 
 (5
 
 82 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 you anyhow to have remained at home to-night ; but, if you are 
 going out with Robert, of course it does not matter." But Belle, 
 as she went out, looked as though it mattered very much indeed. ' 
 
 She found Robert walking up and down the Vicarage lawn, 
 rather impatient at her delay, 
 
 "I thought you had changed your mind, and were not coming," 
 he said, when she had got up to him. 
 
 " Oh, that was not likely." 
 
 "Nothing would be more likely with some women. What 
 kept you'?" 
 
 " Mary ; she was in a fuss over the sm-plices, and wanted me 
 to help her. I am afraid she has a headache coming on ; nothing 
 else ever seems to put her out." 
 
 " I don't think I feel much in the humoiu- for a walk after all. 
 Belle. I was up at five digging with Garton, and I am as stiff 
 as possible this evening." 
 
 " If you are tired we will certainly not go." 
 
 " You are sure you do not mind remaining in the garden ?" 
 
 " Why should I mind it, Robert r' 
 
 Then she put her hand on his arm and walked slowly on. 
 
 "Austin went with me to Thornborough this morning," he ■ 
 began, for Belle had relaj^sed into silence. " It was his day at the 
 Cottage Hospital. We had a long talk together." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He was very kind." 
 
 " I am glad of it, Robert." 
 
 " He reserves all that joking manner of his for public. I don't 
 think we ever understood each other so well as we did this morning. 
 I am sure I ought to feel very much obliged to him for his Idudness." 
 
 "I told you that he meant to be kind." 
 
 " Yes, but his manners mislead one so. Of course I held my 
 own opinion, and of course he twitted me with my obstinacy ; but 
 I can see what he thinks about it." 
 
 " Do you mean about Miss Maturin %" 
 . " Yes ; he has just as strong a prejudice against her as any of 
 us, only he does not mean us to see it. Austin ought to have 
 been a lawyer, he is so chary of committing himself" 
 
 " Please don't let us talk about Miss Matmin to-night, Robert." 
 
 " What ! you are getting tired of the subject already % Oh, 
 by the bye, you wanted to talk to me about something. Belle." 
 
 "Yes, I did want to speak to you;" and then for a moment 
 her voice literally failed her. 
 
 "Well, let me hear it," he replied impatiently. "I hate 
 mysteries. I suppose you and Mary have been putting your heads
 
 BELLE STA YS A WA V AGAIN FROM SERVICE. 83 
 
 together over all this business, and have come to some impossible 
 result." 
 
 " Mary has nothing at all to do with it." 
 
 "Well, that is right. I would rather have yoiu- own words 
 and your own ideas than a hundred women's." And in spite of 
 her soreness the little compliment soothed her. 
 
 " I never care somehow for Mary to talk to me about our 
 difficulties ; but I know that both she and Austin look upon our 
 engagement as pretty nearly hopeless." 
 
 " That is oiu- affair, Belle." 
 
 " Yes, it is our affair ; but it is very hard, nevertheless, to 
 have other people always discussing it. One is never left alone in 
 this world. They say it is well to belong to a large family ; but 
 I think it has its trials." 
 
 "Well, I don't know; few people are so unsociable as you, 
 Belle ;" and then he smiled at her as though her reticence were a 
 beauty in his eyes. There was something specially soft in his man- 
 ner to her this evening ; no wonder she found it difficult to go on. 
 
 "One gets to believe what is constantly affirmed," she continued 
 after a pause. " Mary and Austin too are continually letting fall 
 some word which shows what they think about it ; and, Robert, 
 you said yourself yesterday that the chances were all against us." 
 
 " Of course they are against us." 
 
 " Yes, and then you went on to say that your position was 
 unendurable." 
 
 " I do not think I quite made use of that term, Belle." 
 
 " Yes, you did : you said that it was quite beyond my power 
 to comfort you ; and then you added that no one on earth could 
 make your position endurable." 
 
 " What makes you remember my words so correctly ?" he asked ; 
 but he had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself. 
 
 " They were not words that I could well forget, Robert ; I 
 know I tried, but they would keep recurring to me. I was awake 
 all night thinking about them — and — and some other things." 
 
 "That was very childish of you. No wonder Arty said you 
 had black spectacles on ;" — a speech which the Vicar had duly 
 reported, as he did most speeches of his youngest-born — "j'ou 
 might have known that I was not accountable for my words last 
 night." 
 
 "I quite understand that, Robert." 
 
 " Then I think it was very childish of you. AVhat were the 
 other things % Come, I mean to hear them all." 
 
 Poor Belle ! He was certainly making her task a hard one. 
 ' I don't think you were particularly consolatory yourself last 
 
 (<
 
 84 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 night : if you are going to reproach, me in this way, it is only fail 
 that I should tell you that," he observed, while she was considering 
 how she could best bring it out ; but to this she made no response. 
 
 " Come, Belle, you are making me believe it is something very 
 important." 
 
 " And so it is — very, very important, Robert. I think it is 
 of the utmost consequence that you should not waste your life as 
 you are wasting it — that you should not remain any longer in a 
 position that you feel to be unendurable." 
 
 " Now, Belle, I did not think it was in your nature to 
 knag " 
 
 "Robert 1" 
 
 " Well, is it not knagging to be for ever repeating one word 
 over and over again % I woidd sooner do my penance and have it 
 well over — if you will only let me know what penance I have to 
 perform." 
 
 Then she took her hand from his arm and walked on in silence ; 
 but as he was about to replace it he saw that she was very pale, 
 and that her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " Why, Belle ! What is it % You are not angry with me in 
 earnest 1" And then, as he saw that she scarcely knew how to 
 support herself, he made her pass through the open window into 
 the mother's room, which was always deserted at this time, and 
 put her in the Vicar's big arm-chair. " Belle," he said, taking 
 her hand as he stood before her, " I insist on knowing what all 
 this is about!" And as she brushed her tears away, "I see I 
 must be careful of my words in future ; but I never knew you to 
 be ftmciful before. I certainly do not wish to rob you of your 
 night's rest again." 
 
 "Oh, Robert ! it was not only that." 
 
 " Well, what was it, then ? I was always glad that you were 
 one of the quiet sort, Belle ; but I am not so siu:e just now that 
 it is a virtue." 
 
 " I did not mean to be so foolish." 
 
 " Oh, you need not mind about your crying, if that is what 
 you mean. I voU not be hard upon you for that ; but I wish you 
 would not try my patience." 
 
 " No, I will not. Robert, you must forgive me ; but I am not 
 quite myself to-night. I want you to understand that I love you 
 well enough to give you up, if it be for your happiness." 
 
 Then he looked at her, too much astonished to speak. 
 
 " Indeed I mean it. I have been thinking all night over what 
 I had to say to you, and I have made up my mind that it was my 
 duty to speak. Of com'se it is very difficidt — of course you will
 
 BELLE ST A YS A WA V AGALN FROM SERVICE. 85 
 
 misunderstand me ; but still I feel bound to tell you that, if you 
 wish it, I will set you free." 
 
 "But why should you set me free^" And his tone was very 
 loud and angry as he asked her the question. 
 
 " Because, as I said before, you are wasting yoiu* life and wear- 
 ing your heart out with this hopeless engagement. Every one owns 
 it is hopeless — Mary and Austin. Why, you said yourself last 
 night that we should never be married." 
 
 " Did I say a word about giving you up "2" 
 
 " No, of course not ; but still it is my duty to give you the 
 opportunity. Long engagements do not matter to women. Some 
 would wait ten or fifteen years for the man they love ; but I think 
 it is otherwise with men. I cannot bear the thought that I should 
 spoil your life, Robert — that all your best years should be spent in 
 this tedious waiting. If you were free and unfettered you would 
 go away from here, and perhaps make a fortune for yourself" 
 
 " Have I ever coveted a fortune except for yoiu: sake, 
 Belle?" 
 
 " No ; but I cannot forget that I have robbed you of one. I 
 am just as much to blame in that as Miss Maturin, though we are 
 so bitter against her." 
 
 "Pshaw!" 
 
 "Yes, indeed I am. All last night I was accusing myself and 
 calling myself your curse. I do not think it will ever be in my 
 power to make you quite happy, Robert. In spite of my love 
 Mary is always telling me that I fail in cheerfulness." 
 
 " I wish you were more like Mary," 
 
 " Of course I know she is superior to me in everything." 
 
 " Oh, it is not that. I used to think that she was not to be 
 compared with you, but I am not so sure of my opinion now. At 
 any rate I cannot fency Mary telling Austin what you have told 
 me." 
 
 " Oh, Robert, you must not say that !" 
 
 " No, indeed ! Fancy her separating herself from Austin in 
 his trouble, and offering to set him free. Why, the thing would 
 be impossible. I do not think it ever came into her head to imagine 
 that he could do without her. I declare I am beginning to envy 
 Austin such a wife." 
 
 " Robert, I jlon't think you ought to be so angry with me." 
 
 " Well, perhaps not. I ought not to have expected that you 
 would have put up with me so long. Mary has often told me she 
 wonders at your patience. I am very trying, I know ; but still I 
 did not think that you would come and ofter to set me free like 
 this."
 
 86 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " It is because I love you better than myself," she returned in 
 a choked voice ; but he hardly heard her in his wrath. 
 
 " And to say it so quietly, too. But then you had a whole 
 night in which to plan your speech." And then, as she looked up 
 at him with her face full of reproachful misery, he checked himself; 
 for, as we have before said, Eobert Ord was in spite of his faults 
 really gentle at heart. 
 
 "Why, Bella," he said, putting his arm round her, "whatever 
 is the matter with you to-night 1 You are not a bit like my own 
 Bella." And as he said this he compelled her, as it were, to support 
 herself against him, and indeed she was in sore need of such sup- 
 port by this time. 
 
 "I do not know myself," she returned, now speaking througli 
 her tears. " I have been trying all day and all night to force myself 
 to say all this, but I cannot bear your being so angry with me." 
 
 " Then I will promise not to be so angry again ; but you must 
 never repeat your offence ; " and his tone was a little triumphant, 
 as though the sense of his power over her were sweet to him. " Of 
 course I shall never give you up. I wonder what you would have 
 done without me, Bella, if I had taken you at your word V 
 
 " I never thought of myself at all in it. What seemed to me' 
 of most consequence was that your life should not be wasted." 
 
 " And so you were willing to be sacrificed. I always said that 
 you were too ready to make yourself a martyr. Some women carry 
 u about with them a flavour of the stake and the faggots. I don't 
 think men are quite so lamb-like." 
 
 " But, Robert, I thought you knew I would do anything for 
 your sake." 
 
 " I have had such a notion, certainly. But, aU the same, I 
 should dislike to see you tie yourself to the stake. I am quite sure 
 you would crumble into ashes with becoming fortitude, but I would 
 never be the consenting party to such a sacrifice." 
 
 " I can't think how you can care for such a poor thing as I am, 
 Bertie." 
 
 " Well, it is strange, certainly ; but do not think I am going to 
 make any lover-like speeches to-night. You don't deserve them. 
 I wonder if every evening when I come home oppressed and out of 
 spirits you will offer to set me free 1" 
 
 " I will never offer it again." But as she said this, and pressed 
 closer to him, feeling how dear he was to her, it suddenly came 
 into her mind that she had not been thoroughly honest with him 
 — that at any rate she had kept a part back. Last night she had 
 worried herself to death, doubting whether she should tell him of 
 her trouble- and had come at last to the conclusion that she was
 
 BELLE ST A YS A WA Y AGAIN FROM SERVICE. 87 
 
 weak and nervous, and that possibly there was no foundation for 
 her fears. He would only laugh at them, as she did herself some- 
 times ; but now, as the thought recurred to her, she felt as though 
 she were hardly honest. 
 
 " I shall never offer it again," she repeated. " Your anger has 
 been too dreadful to me. But, all the same, it may come to pass 
 that you may wish you had accepted it." 
 
 "I shall never wish that," he returned decidedly. "I would 
 rather wait ten years for you than six months for another woman." 
 And as he said this, and she felt the strength and vigour of his 
 arm, the shadow of the nameless evil passed from her, and she felt 
 for the time almost happy.
 
 CHAPTER TX. 
 
 NETTIE UNDERWOOD 
 
 "Women, so amiable iu themr^lves, are never so amiable as wlieii tbey 
 are useful ; and as for beauty, though men may fall iu love with girls at play, 
 there is nothing to make them stand to their love like seeing them at work." 
 — Abbett. 
 
 At this time there was a young lady dwelling in the j^arish of 
 Kirkby who went by the name of Nettie Underwood, although, if 
 the truth be told, there was a certain entry in the baptismal register 
 of St. Barnabas, the old parish church of Blackscar, to the effect 
 that one Eliza Ann Underwood was duly christened on a particular, 
 day one November, about a quarter of a centiu-y before the date of 
 our present story. 
 
 There is no law to prevent people from exchanging a hideous 
 name for one less lacerating. But many are slow to achieve such 
 successes ; therefore when Eliza Ann Underwood, on leaving board- 
 ing-school, turned her back upon the register of St. Barnabas, and, 
 eschewing the bondage of fashion, had her cards printed as plain 
 Nettie Underwood, it was thought by some to be too daring an 
 experiment, and she lost three female friends on the spot. 
 
 But Nettie Underwood, being a young person of great courage, 
 did not waste much time in mom^ning over one such small defeat. 
 The loss of three bosom comimnions would certainly have harassed 
 most girls, but it did not disturb Nettie's equanimity for a moment. 
 She was always performing unexpected actions, and shocking the 
 nerves of the female population of Blackscar and Kirkby. She had 
 already obtained a reputation for doing extraordinary things, though 
 no one exactly knew what they were ; such reputations are very 
 easily acquired, and scarcely need much trouble to keep up. But 
 whether appreciated or not, the Nettie Underwoods of society 
 furnish a sweetness of gossip which makes them invaluable in a 
 small place such as Kirkby, where every one knows his or her 
 neighbour's business better than their own. 
 
 But in spite of one or two failings, a dreadful love of gossip.
 
 NETTIE UNDERWOOD. 89 
 
 and a knack of doing odd things at odd times, Nettie was a good 
 little girl. She thought a great deal of herself, as most small 
 persons do, and some people were far too ready to take her at her 
 own estimate. But indeed Dame Nature had endowed her with 
 not a few of her good gifts, though she had coimterbalanced them 
 with an equal number of defects. Thus, though she had pink 
 cheeks, a saucy little nez retrousse, and a pair of bright eyes, these 
 beauties were marred to a certain extent by a wide mouth, and a 
 square solidity of figiue which no French dressmaker, however 
 great an artiste she might be, could ever fashion into any degree 
 of elegance. 
 
 Nettie lived with her aiuit, also Ehza Ann Underwood, spinster, 
 in a little low-windowed house fronting the church, and hardly a 
 stone's throw from the schools just round the corner. The house, 
 which was very small but pleasant-looking, adjoined a still smaller 
 shop, where they sold carvings, hymn-books, and other ecclesiastical 
 matters, together with stonemasonry. The sexton kept this shop. 
 From the upper bow-window, which was Nettie's drawing-room, 
 the view was over the lich-gate and the churchyard. No wonder, 
 as the old lady was much given to remark, they were always re- 
 minded of their end. 
 
 Miss Underwood the elder was rather a masculine-looking lady. 
 She wore a brown front, had a moustache, and more than an indi- 
 cation of beard, and talked in a loud deep voice. She was the 
 sort of woman who would grasp one's hand until one was obliged 
 to cry out with pain, who was veiy loud and decided at all mater- 
 nity and clothing meetings, and learned in respect of school tea- 
 drinkings — a big hearty woman, who called very young men by 
 their Christian names, and patted them on tlie shoulder, and whom 
 strangers feared to contradict, but wlio was perfectly lamb-like and 
 docile to her own niece. 
 
 People wondered how Aunt Eliza could be domineered over by 
 a chit like Nettie, but presently the truth leaked out. The little 
 bow-windowed house in reality belonged to Miss Underwood the 
 younger, and not only that but a good substantial six hundred a 
 year besides, received in half-yearly dividends. Miss Underwood 
 was only a pensioner on her niece's bounty, and wore handsome 
 silk dresses on sufferance. Nettie could do odd things with im- 
 punity now, and not one of her three-and-twcnty intimate friends 
 would have deserted her. All the scandal of Kirkby and Blackscar 
 was talked round Nettie's cosy little tea-table, which was the 
 rallying-place for all the spinsters of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Nettie was not without her ambition. She woidd have agreed 
 with Ca3sar that it was better " to be first in a villaa'c than second
 
 90 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 in Rome;" aud as Biyn was without its representative, she was 
 in some degree the leading lady in the parish. Mrs. BhT,ke, the 
 widow of Colonel Blake, was jiar excellence the lady of the place — 
 the Vicar's wife excluded. But she was of a retiring nature, and 
 disposed to plead bad health and many troubles as excuses for so 
 retiring. Then there was Miss Brookes, who was first cousin to a 
 baronet, and who led the van of all the spinsterhood of Kirkby. 
 She was an irascible sort of person, with a high Roman nose, and 
 her irascibility was such that it was not always easy for Nettie to 
 rout her on every occasion. It is very nice certainly to be first 
 cousin to a baronet, and there is something to be said in favoiu- of 
 a Roman nose ; but Nettie's energy and good nature were better 
 for everyday use, even though her name was plebeian and her nez 
 retrousse. 
 
 The Vicar was often heard to declare, with much inward groan- 
 ings of spirit, that the female, or rather the unmarried portion of 
 his congregation were wont to give him most trouble. On the 
 last harvest festival he had been much exercised in spirit. The 
 Misses Travers had been thorns in his side, and thorns of forty 
 years' growth are apt to be prickly. In his masculine ignorance 
 he had chosen the most skilful hands for the nicest work, and 
 what aspiring spinster will bear that ? Miss Brookes' feebleness 
 and irascibility had caused her to be put aside altogether, and Mrs. 
 Blake's good works had been wholly vicarious, but nevertheless 
 the Vicar had had much soreness mixed up with his harvest 
 thanksgiving, and even Mrs. Blake's prickly pears and hothouse 
 grapes had given him no pleasure. 
 
 But whomsoever he blamed, he certainly exonerated Nettie 
 Underwood ; in spite of her follies and aff'ectations the little girl 
 was somewhat of a favomite with our Vicar. If he had had the 
 management, the prettiest pieces of work should have fallen to her 
 share ; but Garten and Belle were not always so gracious. Pie 
 always bore most good-humoured ly with her chattering, though, 
 when he had had enough of it, he would silence her •with a word. 
 Through his instrumentality she had become almost domesticated 
 in the Vicarage, where she was perpetually " buzzing in and out," 
 as Mary called it. 
 
 When Nettie had nothing better to do, she would drop in for 
 a moment and stop for hours. Mary, who did not altogether 
 share her husband's partiality, and who secretly felt these morning 
 visits unnecessary inflictions on her time and patience, was wont 
 to remonstrate gently with her better half. 
 
 " Austin, I wish you would not encourage Nettie in such idle- 
 ness," she would say when her nerves had been severely tried by a
 
 NETTIE UNDERWOOD. 91 
 
 whole morning of dawdling and gossip. " She used to be ratlier 
 nice, but since you have taken so much notice of her she is getting 
 perfectly spoiled." 
 
 " Well, I don't. know," the Vicar would answer slowly. "After 
 all, Mary, Nettie is a good httle girl" 
 
 " So she may be, but that is no reason why the Vicarage should 
 be a refuge for all the good little girls of the parish ; we might as 
 well have Lydia Beckworth, or Miss Brand, or Kitty Merton con- 
 tinually nuining in and out, as far as that goes ; they are all good 
 little girls enough, and Lydia particularly would be of some use 
 to me." 
 
 "There is no reason why you should not have Miss Beckworth 
 if you wish it, my dear ;" but the Vicar made a wry face, for Lydia 
 Beckworth was one of his special thorns. " I certainly have no 
 wish to dictate on the choice of your friends." 
 
 "That means that you do not admire poor Lydia. Well, 
 neither do I, but I have always found her very good-natiu-ed ; she 
 would not see me, for instance, with all this pile of mending beside 
 me and never offer to do a stitch, as Nettie has been doing all this 
 morning." 
 
 " Perhaps she had forgotten her thimble," suggested the Vicar 
 charitably ; he was well used to these thrusts at his favoiu:ite. 
 " Of course that is always her excuse, but it is my private opinion 
 that she could not darn a sock if she tried." Then the Vicar 
 smiled as he took his paper and went out on the lawn. He was 
 well aware of Nettie's misdemeanours and little failings ; he used 
 to store them up in his memory and tell her of them in his own 
 way. Nettie would tingle down to her fingers' ends at some well- 
 merited rebuke, uttered half in pleasantry ; at such times her 
 feelings for the Vicar were not unmixed with awe, but in general 
 they were the best of friends. 
 
 Nettie's visits had been more than usually trying to Mrs. Ord 
 of late. She was in constant dread that Nettie would question 
 her about the new owner of Bryii. " If she gets hold of all this 
 business about Miss Matmin she may make it terribly unpleasant 
 for us all," she said once to her husband. 
 
 " Don't let her get hold of it," was his only answer. 
 
 "Oh, but, Austin, we shall not be able to help it; you don't 
 half know how curious Nettie is ; she will ask questions and worm 
 everything out. *It is all very well for you to keep her at a dis- 
 tance, she is in wholesome dread of you as her sjiiritual pastor and 
 master, but it will not be quite so easy for us." 
 
 " Very well, then, I will give Garton a hint to keep his tongue 
 quiet."
 
 92 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "And then she will come to me." 
 
 " I hope you will refuse to answer her questions, Mary. Nettie 
 is a good little girl, but of coiu-se she has her weak points, and 
 love of gossip is one of them ; it does not matter to me personally 
 how much is known or not known, but I think we owe it to Eobert 
 to be cautious." 
 
 " Yes, and Robert is always so hard upon Nettie." 
 
 "That is because she is such a chatterbox. Well, we must 
 all do the best we can ; but of course the truth will leak out by 
 degrees. People will soon find out that we have no friendly rela- 
 tions with Bryn." 
 
 ""We are certainly in a most painful position," sighed Mary, 
 who had felt herself much oppressed during the last few days at 
 the prospect of her new neighbour ; " it is doubly trying for us, 
 because the clergyman's family is always expected to show kindness 
 to strangers." 
 
 " The clergyman — but not his family, my dear, if the stranger 
 prove a doubtful one ; and then for every cup of cold water there 
 will be Robert's wrath to face. Yes, we are not in an enviable 
 position ; the difficidty is to decide between such conflicting duties, 
 and to be sure we are judging and not misjiidging — if one were 
 not so prejudiced to begin with. Heigho ! it is a contradictory 
 sort of world." And then Belle entered the room, and the con- 
 versation dropped. 
 
 Mary's prediction about Nettie's curiosity and love of gossip 
 was soon to be verified. The very next morning, as the Vicar and 
 his brother were doing some hard digging among the strawberry 
 beds, they heard the well-known click of the lock proceeding from 
 the green door in the wall. 
 
 "Here's Nettie Underwood again," exclaimed Garton, as he 
 rested his foot on the spade a moment, " I declare that girl lives 
 here ; she bores Mary terribly." 
 
 " Mary cannot understand why idle people are suffered to live 
 at all," observed the Vicar, with grim humour, as Nettie came up 
 to them rustling in her crisp muslins and looking wonderfully fresh 
 and bright; it was Garton's standing joke that Nettie always 
 crackled as she walked. She was fond of starched cambrics and 
 muslins, and was very great in rufiles and frills. In this she 
 differed from Belle, who loved all soft and clinging materials. 
 Nettie decked her little person with bright -coloured ribbons, a 
 bow here and a bow there ; she wore toy aprons, and little high- 
 heeled, shoes that creaked with newness. Garton in his satire 
 sometimes called her the "Dresden Shepherdess," though he 
 generally added, under his breath, that she was rather too
 
 NETTIE UNDERWOOD. 93 
 
 Dutch -built for Arcadia and would require a substantial 
 crook. 
 
 " Mi-s. Ord is always finding fault with my idleness," returned 
 N'ettie, pouting, as the Vicar threw aside another shovelful of 
 earth. " I don't think it is any merit for peojjle who like work 
 to be industrious. I am sure you are handling that spade with as 
 much delight as I should a croquet-mallet." 
 
 "Perhaps so, Miss Nettie; but I do not think Mary is cj^uite 
 so fond of mending as I am of digging." 
 
 "Don't you think she is, Mr. Ordi" veiy incredulously. 
 
 " Well, I don't know ; you ought to be a better judge than 
 I am. I observe she frowns dreadfully when she sews on 
 buttons." 
 
 "Why are buttons always coming oif, I wonder?" asked 
 Nettie innocently. 
 
 " To give occupation to idle young ladies, I suppose. By the 
 bye, Miss Nettie, I hope you have your thimble with you this 
 morning." 
 
 " I — I have left it at home," returned Nettie, much discom- 
 posed at this unexpected attack. 
 
 "Left it at home ! Dear me ! Thimbles are not very heavy 
 to carry, are they % and Mary wants you to help her this morning. 
 Never mind, I daresay Belle's will fit you." 
 
 " I don't think I shall have time to sit with Mrs. Ord this 
 morning. Aunt Eliza wants me." And, as Nettie uttered this fib, 
 she glanced uneasily at Mary's work-basket in the distance. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ; then I suppose yom* visit is to Garton and me % 
 Gar, you imcivil fellow, why don't you say something entertaining 
 to pur visitor?" 
 
 " Of course I shall go in to Mrs. Ord directly ; I am going 
 now," And Nettie tm-ned very red as she detected the slight 
 vein of irony in the Vicar's speech. " I only came up for a 
 moment to see if she and you had heard the news ; but as you are 
 so busy " — and so disagreeable, she was going to add — " I will not 
 interrupt you." And so saying, she rustled off, rather piqued by 
 the coolness of her reception. 
 
 " So ho, my little lady ! that is why you have come ; and 
 Mary is right, as usual," muttered the Vicar ; and his lip curled 
 with an amused sjxiile as he fell to his work with an energy that 
 surprised his brother. 
 
 " There, I have finished my bit of ground, Garton," lie said, 
 looking admiringly at the result of his labours ; " and my arms 
 ai'o pretty still" ]>y tliis time, I can tell you. Don't forget we liave 
 a funeral at a r|ua.rter to twelve, and tlicre is no one to toll tlie
 
 94 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 bell. Now I must go in ; for Nettie is up to mischief, and I must 
 settle her, and then I have some letters to write." 
 
 Nettie's tongue was in full swing as he approached the window, 
 and Mary's face looked sorely perplexed. She seemed quite 
 relieved at the sight of her husband. 
 
 " Austin, do come here a moment," for the Vicar was feigning 
 to pass the window ; " is it not strange, Nettie has heard all 
 about Bryn?" 
 
 " Well, I don't see anything strange about that, Mary. I 
 suppose Hannah Farebrothers will tell everybody that she is 
 expecting a new mistress. She was brimful of it to me ten days 
 ago, and so was Peter. I think they were rather disappointed at 
 my want of interest." 
 
 "Do you mean that you were not really interested, Mr. Ord'?" 
 exclaimed Nettie. She had forgotten her pique already in her 
 eagerness. "Why, it seems such a wonderful event to us all at 
 Kirkby." 
 
 "Little things please little minds, Miss Nettie." 
 
 " Yes, but this is not a little thing ; the owner of Bryn will 
 take a leading influence in the parish." 
 
 "Mary suggested that she might be a Plymouth Sister," 
 observed the Vicar slyly. 
 
 " A Plymouth Sister 1 " returned Nettie, opening her eyes 
 rather widely. " Oh, that must have been Mrs. Ord's nonsense. 
 Of course she must be a Church woman." 
 
 "I don't see any 'of course,' Miss Nettie." 
 
 " But the Plymouth Sisters have everything in common, have 
 they not — wear each other's gowns, and say their prayers in white- 
 washed rooms ? No, T don't think the owner of Bryn is likely to 
 be that." 
 
 " You see that was only a theory of Mary's. Mary is rather 
 clever at such things. You have a theory yourself about work, 
 have you not?" 
 
 " Hannah Farebrothers told me," interposed Nettie hurriedly, 
 " that the young lady had come quite unexpectedly into this fortune. 
 The story was quite a romantic one. She had been a governess 
 and then a companion, and all at once she woke up one morning 
 and found herself an heiress." 
 
 " That is very romantic indeed. T never knew that you were 
 such friends with Mrs. Farebrothers." 
 
 " One of our servants knows her — and — and Harriet is a great 
 talker " And Nettie broke off at this point, rather con- 
 fused. 
 
 " Most servants are talkers," returned the Vicar quietly ; " I
 
 NETTIE UNDERWOOD. 95 
 
 suppose she found a good listener. Ah, well ! Hannah Fare- 
 brothers is a sad gossip, as Miss Maturin will find to her cost." 
 
 "Isn't Miss Maturin a strange name? — Rotha Maturin — it 
 sounds nice somehow. I suppose you will leave yoiu" card within 
 the week, Mrs. Ordl" 
 
 " I ? I don't know. I have not made up my mind," stam- 
 mered Mary ; but her husband came to her assistance. 
 
 " What do you mean to do, Miss Nettie % That is more to the 
 purpose." 
 
 " Of course I shall wait till the Vicar's wife sets us the 
 example," returned Nettie sententiously. '" Aunt Eliza says the 
 clergyman's family always call first." 
 
 " Mary, did you hear that % I hope you will make a memo- 
 randum of Aunt Eliza's advice. Miss Underwood ought to under- 
 stand the proper etiquette in such cases. The clergyman's family 
 always call first." 
 
 "Did you not know that before?" asked Nettie, very much 
 puzzled. 
 
 " My dear Miss Nettie, you cannot expect us to be all Aunt 
 Elizas. What can a poor country parson know about fashion and 
 etiquette % I suppose Mary ought to send a round-robin through 
 the parish, stating the exact day on which she leaves her card. If 
 so, I had better have a form printed at once." 
 
 "Mr. Ord, I do believe you are laughing at me." 
 
 " Laughing'? Not at all ! It is quite pleasant to hear a little 
 gossip, for a change. One does not often have the opi)ortunity of 
 hearing a good racy servant's tale. Mary has a prejudice against 
 them — that is another of her theories. Have you tried on Belle's 
 thimble yet, Miss Nettie?" 
 
 *" I see clearly that you are trying to tease me," said Nettie, 
 looking very much injured. " I don't see why I am to be scolded 
 and laughed at because I choose to be idle, and because I have 
 brought you a piece of news, and I did so want to know if it were 
 true," she continued piteously. 
 
 "Which? the idleness or the news?" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Ord, it is no good trying to get anything out of 
 you. " 
 
 "Try Mary, then." 
 
 " No ; she will not answer me either. I only wanted to know 
 if it were true tlfat Miss Maturin had been a companion, and 
 whether you meant to forget bygones, and call upnu her as you 
 would on any ordinary newcomer ; because, of course, it was not 
 
 her fiudt, poor thing ! as Mrs. Farebrothers says " And here 
 
 Nettie sto])ped, confused under the Vicar's eye.
 
 9G ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " What did Haunah Farebrothers say was not her fault ?" he 
 demanded quickly. 
 
 " Tliat the property came to her, and not to Mr. Robert ; and 
 she was hoping that he would not bear malice, and — and " 
 
 " Really, Mrs. Farebrothers seems a very interfering woman," 
 said the Vicar, now really displeased. " I shall take care to inform 
 Miss Matmin what sort of person she has in her service. She was 
 not so presuming in my aunt's time, but I suppose she has been 
 too long her own mistress. Well, as Hannah Farebrothers' tales 
 never had any interest for me, I may as well betake myself to my 
 letters ; it is only idle people who can afford to gossip." 
 
 Then Nettie got up and shook out her ruffles, looking very 
 much as though she had got the worst of it, and said some mean- 
 ingless little word or two to Mary about Aunt Eliza expecting her. 
 
 "What! are you going too?" said the Vicar, holding out his 
 hand with a relenting smile. " Well, good-bye ; give my kind 
 regards to Miss Underwood, and tell her I shall hope to meet her 
 this afternoon at the district meeting. We are always very glad 
 to see you at the Vicarage, Miss Nettie ; but next time you come 
 I hope you will not forget your thimble."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ROTHA. 
 
 ' ' I will not shut me from my kiml, 
 And, lest I stiffen into stone, 
 I will not eat my heart alone, 
 Nor feed with sighs a passing wind : 
 
 " I'll rather take what fruit may be 
 Of sorrow under human skies : 
 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise. 
 Whatever wisdom sleep with thee." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 RoTHA Maturin spent some three weeks under the lawyer's 
 hospitable roof, and both she and her kind entertainers were 
 unfeignedly sorry when the visit came to an end. 
 
 Mr. Tracy had become sincerely attached to his young protegee ; 
 his good opinion of her had increased rather than otherwise, and he 
 never ceased to lament Robert Ord's unfortunate prejudice against 
 her. His hearty sympathy did much to re-establish Rotha in her 
 own self-esteem. She began to look upon her misfortune from a 
 less morbid point of view; something of the old courage and spirit 
 returned to her, and though she was still painfully subdued, and 
 the languor of an unnatural oppression was still heavy on her, there 
 was a quiet vigour and self-reliance discernible now in her actions 
 which strangers were not slow to appreciate. 
 
 On the whole those weeks had done much for her ; the very 
 atmosphere of the house in Manchester Square was restful and 
 pleasant to the sorely tried girl. Mr. Tracy's quaint old-fashioned 
 politeness — a httle out of date perhaps, but perfectly kind-hearted 
 — the good-natured chatter of his homely wife, and the prim ways 
 of his two daughters with their old-maidish notions of the fitness 
 of things, and "their kind womanly hearts at the bottom, the end- 
 less gossips over trifles and shreds of events, the little tea-parties 
 with the never-failing rubber of whist to follow, all the ins and 
 outs of a quiet old-fashioned household, interested Rotlia Maturin, 
 and soothed her at the same time. 
 
 7
 
 98 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Sore from her lifelong experience of a cold and unsympathetic 
 world, and yearning, as only a woman can yearn, fjr the pure sweet 
 atmosphere of home, for symijathy, for contact with congenial 
 natures, for the bare crust of mere human kindness, no wonder if 
 Mrs. Tracy's motherliness and the harmless garrulity of her gentle 
 fussy daughters were pleasant to the lonely girl. In a few days 
 she had roused out of the dangerous apathy that had been creeping 
 over her ever since that unfortunate interview in Eglistone Abbey ; 
 in very gratitude she strove to interest herself in their pursuits, in 
 Mrs. Tracy's silk patchwork, and Miss Harriet's missionary basket, 
 prolific of woollen jugs and gaudy striped cuffs, and even in Miss 
 Louisa's innocent penchant for the consumptive young curate who 
 stammered. She listened patiently while Miss Louisa, with many 
 faded blushes, expounded a receipt for black-currant jelly which 
 would cure any incipient pulmonary complaint. She won golden 
 opinions from the placid women ; her patchwork was a marvel of 
 neatness, her silk stars and diamonds miracles of needlework, and 
 her woollen jugs the tastiest in the basket ; and though she did 
 not actually assist in the concoction of the black-cuiTant jelly, she 
 was careful to taste it, and won Miss Louisa's heart for ever by her 
 judicious praises of the useful introduction of cayenne pepper, which 
 was secretly to work such results. And in all this there was no 
 unnecessary and weak pandering to the fancies and whims of 
 strangers ; it was only the readiness of a simple affectionate nature 
 to adapt itself to the pleasure of others. It was not that Rotha 
 Maturin cared to knit woollen jugs or snip old pieces of brocade 
 into grotesque shapes ; it was simply that she wished to please the 
 kind Samaritans who had taken her under their roof. She was glad 
 that they considered her such a capital partner at whist, and though 
 she secretly disliked the game, she was never too busy or too tired 
 to take a hand ; and then she was so quick to replenish the silver 
 snuff-box, whose contents travelled so endlessly down Mr. Tracy's 
 nankeen waistcoat. Rotha used to marvel at first at the brown 
 stream that effected lodgments in every crease and fold ; by and 
 by she got used to it — as she did to Mrs. Tracy's frilled caps, and 
 to Miss Harriet's false front and velvet baud ; it was a little odd, 
 but then they were old-fashioned jieople. 
 
 Yes, those weeks had done much for Rotha Maturin ; it was a 
 new thing for the poor pupil -teacher and the still more lonely 
 companion to be treated as though she were a person of some con- 
 sideration ; in her humility she had forgotten the prestige which 
 the world attaches to an heiress : when her opinions were listened 
 to and treated witli deference she felt abashed and almost ashamed : 
 she could not understand it at all.
 
 ROTH A. 99 
 
 Rotha shed tears when she parted from her kind friends and 
 took her place beside Mrs. Carruthers in the railway carriage. To 
 her this was a dark day's journey. As she leant back upon the 
 cushions and closed her eyes a feeling almost amounting to agony 
 took possession of her as she thought how the fierce speed was 
 already lessening the distance between her and that hated home ; 
 she felt almost like a criminal whose reprieve was drawing to an 
 end, and who had not yet attained to the sullen indifference which 
 is to blunt his fear. What a nightmare of oppression was on her 
 — a blank of suspense and unreality ! She could have envied Mrs. 
 Carruthers looking out on the prospect with siich thorough appre- 
 ciation of its beauties ; the green fields and flying hedges and rolls 
 of brown uplands were nothing to her now; sometimes they passed 
 sweeps of pasture-land scarlet with poppies, and Meg would wonder 
 and exclaim. The whole country was gay with these flaming 
 weeds ; they blazed on hill-tops, or dipped into knolls and valleys; 
 now they stood flaunting by tlie roadside like beggars in gay- 
 coloured rags, and now they hung out from the stony rocks in 
 scores and hundreds, like tattered banners streaming with blood ; 
 now and then there was a glory and a waste of colour when the 
 yellow sunshine flooded some distant height. Meg held her breath 
 and checked herself when she saw Botha's tired face ; she was 
 almost vexed with herself that the fresh air and beautiful scenery 
 gave her such pleasure. Rotha strove to rouse herself into some- 
 thing like interest when she saw this. But, in spite of her own 
 and Meg's efi"orts, it was a long weary jom-ney, and it was almost 
 a relief when they reached Blackscar at last. 
 
 Mr. Tracy had made every possible arrangement for his young 
 friend's comfort ; and the old factotum and house-servant, Peter, 
 had orders to meet his new mistress at the station and escort her 
 to her future home. Mrs. Ord's carriage and horses had followed 
 her to London, and had been sold after her death \ for Rotha was 
 determined that no idle pomp and ceremony should be hers. She 
 and Mr. Tracy had already regulated the extent of the modest 
 household. The old servants, Hannah and Peter Farebrothers, 
 were to be kept on, and a couple of young maids imder them — so 
 much was absolutely necessary. But when Rlr. Tracy proposed a 
 phaeton or pony-carriage, he was almost surprised at the haste and 
 decision with which his proposal was negatived. It was in vain 
 that he assm-ed* her over and over again that such a convenience 
 was thought nothing in the country ; that it was indispensable, 
 respectable, and only becoming her station. Miss Maturin shook 
 her head ; she would never ride or drive when she coidd walk. She 
 could not help it if people looked down on her and called her
 
 100 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 stingy. She must learn to live without her neighbours' good 
 opinion, she supposed. And her lips trembled and set themselves 
 as she said this. 
 
 "But, my dear, how will you manage to spend your money?" 
 Mr. Tracy had persisted, "with no house-rent, and handsome 
 annuities secured to the servants % Recollect, you owe it to your 
 benefactress to make a good use of the wealth left you. I would 
 rather see you squander it than hoard it up like this." 
 
 " Indeed I do not intend to hoard it up in the way you mean, 
 dear Mr. Tracy," she answered, smiling a little, but very sadly. 
 " I am going to live well and comfortably, and to want for no- 
 thing ; but you must not ask me to spend one farthing that is not 
 absolutely necessary." 
 
 " But why, my dear % " asked the old lawyer, now thoroughly 
 bewildered by what he chose to consider an obstinate whim, and 
 yet somewhat shaken by her seriousness. 
 
 " Because I am keeping it all for him. No, my dear old friend, 
 you must not be angry with me. Of course I know how I am 
 fettered by that unjust will. I ought to know something about 
 wills now, I have made my own. I may never have the ojipor- 
 tunity — of course I never shall — of giving it to him in my life- 
 time. But I am not very strong. Young people die sometimes. 
 He may have it all sooner than he thinks. Oh, Mr. Tracy, how 1 
 wish he might ! how I wish he might ! " 
 
 " And a very wicked wish, my dear. As though your Maker 
 did not know what was best for you and him too. That comes of 
 having a lot of morbid fancies in your head, and not listening to 
 the opinions of those who are older and wiser than yourself. It 
 was bad enough your making that will ; and very weak of me to 
 give in to such folly when there was plenty of time. Only, of 
 course, there was nothing to say against it ; but when it comes to 
 your wishing yourself dead because an ill-tempered yoimg man 
 chooses to think a lot of lies against you — there — there, we won't 
 talk any more about it." And Mr. Tracy pushed away his snuff- 
 box and rubbed his head irritably. 
 
 Rotha gave one of her soft little laughs as she saw him. 
 
 "And I need not have the carriage?" 
 
 " Of course not. If you choose to be miserly." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind being called that at all. Other people 
 may think me stingy. I suppose Mrs. Farebrothers will. I can- 
 not tell everybody that I am keeping it for him. But the thought 
 that I am — that I am only a steward of her money for him will 
 keep me brave and patient. I know it will, Mr. Tracy. And in 
 God's good time all this miserable mistake will be rectified."
 
 ROTH A. 101 
 
 " There ; go along with you," finished Mr. Tracy testily. " I 
 am glad you are no daughter of mine." And the lawyer helped 
 himself to a liberal pinch of his favourite mixture. " And that 
 fool of a fellow can't see what a woman he is persecuting ! " he 
 muttered, as Rotha walked away. " And she has made me 
 promise to keep her counsel, too. A steward of his money, 
 indeed ! A conceited young stone-flint. My daughter % No ! 
 no ! She is far too near the angels. Now I have it why she 
 wears those black stuff gowns, and would not look at the silk one 
 my wife chose for her. If there is one thing I hate it is senti- 
 mental rubbish." And here Islx. Tracy shut up his snuff-box with 
 a click that woke up his wife from her afternoon nap. 
 
 Rotha had one or two more conversations with her guardian, 
 as she persisted in calling him — she was very ignorant on the 
 subject of executors and trustees — but they always ended in this 
 manner. She got plenty of scolding and grumbling, but not a few 
 valuable hints. Among other things he advised her to make the 
 vicar her confidant in all matters relating to parish matters and 
 charities. 
 
 "He is a good sensible man, and not much stuck-up, though 
 he is an Ord, and you may rely safely on his judgment. They 
 say he is a rare one for making the women work, though. What's 
 that you are saying % Not come to Bryn % Why, of course he'll 
 come to Bryn. What's the use of a parson if he can't shirk his 
 feelings when they interfere with his duty ? " 
 
 "But if his brother poison his mind against me?" put in 
 Rotha timidly. 
 
 " Why, he'll come all the same. Isn't it a parson's duty to 
 leok after his flock % What's the good of wearing a long coat, and 
 being down on his knees half the day, as they say he is, with his 
 open church and his daily services, and all that nonsense, if he 
 does not know his duty better than that % If he doesn't come he 
 ought; and I hope you'U send for him. I sui)pose you have 
 got a sold to be saved as weU as the rest of the women ; though 
 such as yours must be safe, I should think. Poison his mind ! 
 Nonsense ! Isn't this a free country % Why, we should be 
 ashamed to convict a criminal on circumstantial evidence, not to 
 speak of an unoffending young woman." And Mr. Tracy frowned 
 angrily as he dismissed the subject with a wrathfid wave of the 
 hand. 
 
 " And you think I must not ask Mrs. Farebrothers to do all 
 the cooking % " asked Rotha, returning to the principal subject of 
 her thoughts. 
 
 " Why, Hannah is not so young as she was, nor Peter either.
 
 102 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 They've had a hard life of it. One cannot ask old servants to 
 slave at their age. Better have the two young women and finish 
 with it. It will make yoiir mind easier, and do better in the 
 long-ruu." 
 
 " But two people don't want four servants, Mr. Tracy.'' 
 
 " Two people want twenty sometimes. It is no use asking 
 my advice and then flying in the face of it. But young people 
 will have their own opinions." 
 
 " And you really think I must not ask Mrs. Farebrothers to 
 do more ? " 
 
 " That depends on the toughness of your conscience," replied 
 the lawyer grimly. And Rotha, seeing the contest would be a 
 stuljborn one, and rather mistrusting her own inexperience, gave 
 In somewhat hastily to her friend's judgment ; and so one point 
 was gained. 
 
 It was Mr. Tracy's thouglit that Peter should be at the 
 station. If Rotha could have had her wish, she would have 
 slipped into her new home after dark, like a thief; but ]\'Ir. Tracy 
 had determined otherwise. And as the train steamed into the 
 station there was the gray-haired old servant peering anxiously at 
 every well-dressed lady who alighted, in the hope of recognising 
 his unknown mistress. His countenance fell a little when Rotha 
 quietly accosted him ; the two do wdily -dressed women standing 
 by their boxes had not once attracted Peter's notice, whose ideas 
 of mistresses were chiefly founded on Mrs. Ord's satins and sables. 
 The tall thin girl in black might have passed for her own maid, 
 only a lady's-maid would have been smarter. The quiet tone of 
 authority, however, left him no room for doubt. 
 
 " Peter, wiU you help Mrs. Carruthers to count the boxes ? 
 She is at the luggage-van. I suppose you have a cab for us out- 
 side % Thank you. I will wait here till you have seen to the 
 luggage." And, as the bewildered servant obeyed his orders, she 
 leant wearily against a truck till Mrs. Carruthers summoned her. 
 
 Blackscar and Kirkby were looking their best that evening. 
 Such season as appertained even to Blackscar was rapidly filling 
 the scanty measure of lodging-liouses and hotels. The old-fashioned 
 shops were dressed more gaily than usual, the jewellers especially. 
 The carvers of jet might have hanged themselves by hundreds on 
 the long pendants and chains of ciu"ious workmanship that de- 
 corated their shop-fronts. The endless festoons filled the lookers- 
 on with incipient feelings of strangrdation. Nobs and blocks of 
 funereal-looking jet resolved themselves everywhere into earrings 
 and other instruments of torture. To judge from their mul- 
 tiplicity, every female in Blackscar might have been condemned
 
 ROTH A. 103 
 
 by some fury of feshion to carry black weights protrudiug from 
 the lobes of their ears in the shape of rings, startling-looking 
 butterflies and daisies, pinnacles and oblongs, cruciform mon- 
 strosities, and other relics of barbarism. 
 
 The haberdashers were not nearly so prolific of goods : a meagre 
 supply of blue draperies festooned the windows of the principal 
 depot of fashion, to be relieved on the morrow by a still more 
 scanty supply of green ; every day of the week had its appropriate 
 colom-, its faint pinks, and its dingy browns. The shell-shops 
 looked brighter, and drove a brisk trade with the young members 
 of the community ; but then Blackscar was a little out of date. 
 
 Still, it was looking its best this evening. There was i^lenty 
 of sunshine. Some church-bells were pealing. The air was blow- 
 ing freshly from the sea. An itinerant band of music had struck 
 up. Knots of gaily-dressed people lingered on the sea-wall or at 
 breezy corners. Now and then, down some side street, Eotha 
 could catch a glimpse of yellow sands — of a sea intensely blue ; 
 now and then there was a sudden sense of salt freshness, ftiint sea- 
 weedy smells, a slow ripple, and a pause, and then the low musical 
 rush of a breaking wave — some restless pulse of Kotha's heart beat 
 more quickly when she heard that. Down past the Grammar 
 School and the rows of low bow -windowed houses; past the 
 church, with its lich-gate, with the Leatham Hills, and the flicker- 
 ing fires smoking Imidly in the distance ; behind it, down past the 
 schoolhouse and the sexton's ; and there were the grass hillocks 
 and the long sandy sweep, the whole grand cm-ve of the bay, with 
 Welbui'n lying westward. 
 
 Rotha uttered a little cry of jileasm-e at that sight. How still 
 aod calm it all looked ! What blue distances, what masses of 
 black uncovered rocks ; how lurid those tongues of murky flame 
 looked from those distant fiu-naces, and how softly the purple line 
 of hills cut against the sunset sky. They had passed a few white- 
 washed cottages and a gi-ay-lookiug house or two. By and by 
 they came to a bridge over a disused little railroad, and nearly 
 opposite, another gray house, a little larger and more substantial 
 than the others ; beyond this were some stubble-fields, a suspicion 
 of distant factories, a tract of barren land, intersecting railroads, 
 sandy hillocks in profusion, with a range of rabbit-warrens below. 
 
 Rotha kne\^ this was Bryn almost before they stopped. As 
 she walked across the strip of green lawn she was almost relieved 
 at the want of pretentiousness about the whole place. 
 
 Bryn was an old-fashioned two-storied house, built of greystone, 
 which gave it a weather-beaten aspect. Just now its many cracks 
 and stains were hidden under a wealth of greenery and climbing
 
 104 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 roses, which festooned the bay-windows and crept in luxuriant 
 confusion over the stone porch ; long trails of Virginia creeper 
 covered up the gray baldness and made old age beautiful. 
 
 The front door stood open. Rotha had just time to catch a 
 glimpse of a long dusky hall, with a wide shallow staircase, and 
 glass doors opening on to a pleasant lawn, before a woman with a 
 shrewd sensible face came from behind some swing doors with 
 two comely-looking country lasses behind her. 
 
 " Now Prudence, now Emma, here's the new mistress. Come, 
 look alive, girls ! Where's your manners % I am sure. Miss 
 Maturin, we all bid you welcome kindly to your new home," con- 
 tinued Mrs. Farebrothers, as she dropped one hurried curtsey after 
 another, in dire perplexity as to which the new mistress really was. 
 She was fixing on Mrs. Carruthers in her mind when Miss Maturin 
 quietly stepped forward. 
 
 " This is my friend Mrs. Canaithers, Hannah, who is to come 
 and live with me. I am Miss Maturin. I am sure you mean to 
 welcome us very kindly. I have heard so much of you and of 
 Peter," continued the yoimg girl, holding out her hand to each ; 
 "you have been such faithful servants and friends to my bene- 
 factress — I have heard her so often talk of you both — that I feel 
 as though I know you already." And then, as Hannah held her 
 aprou to her eyes, she turned round with a kind word and a smile 
 to the two shy damsels behind. 
 
 " I'll never think tliat silks and satins make a lady again," 
 said Peter, when he sat down beside the hearth that evening, when 
 all the bustle of the arrival was over. " I was thinking to myself 
 at the station how that young-looking creatm-e in the black stuff 
 gown can't be our Miss Maturin — why, our Betsy was a sight 
 smarter than her ! — when she up and spoke to me. ' Peter,' says 
 she, quite clip-like, and like a Londoner, — -' Peter,' says she, 'just 
 look after them boxes while I stay here.' Why, you might have 
 knocked me all of a heap all the time the porter was loading his 
 truck. I kept saying, ' That young woman in the black gown our 
 Miss Maturin % ' over and over again, like a blockhead as I was ; 
 but law ! when she put those long fingers of hers in my hand, with 
 never a ring on them — did you mind that Hannah 1 — and spoke so 
 prettily, not a bit pert or proud for all her grand fortune, I just 
 said to myself, ' That there yomig woman is the right sort after 
 all.' " 
 
 "Yes, she is the right sort," returned Mrs. Farebrothers, 
 thoughtfully regarding a tin she was polishing, and which was 
 already bright enough to reflect her hard -featured Scotch face. 
 " I am not for denying that, Peter; but all this evening I can't.
 
 ROTH A. 105 
 
 get it out of my uiiud that the poor lassie has a sore heart of it. 
 Her eyes have too sorrowful a look in them to be quite natui'al to 
 such a young creature. It made me dour to look at her." 
 
 " The other one is a widow, I've heard say," suggested Peter. 
 
 "A widow or not, she's no beauty to look at," returned Mrs. 
 Farebrothers, with whom Meg's homely face and ways had foimd 
 no favour. " If Miss Maturin wanted a dragon to keep her, she 
 needn't have gone farther and fared worse. She is a "Welshwoman 
 by her looks, if ever I have seen one. Well, as I was saying, 
 Peter, I am sm-e there is something lying heavy on that young 
 creatm-e. When I had given her the keys, and said something 
 suitable of course, I was for showing them the house directly. 
 She wanted to put it off a bit ; but Mrs. Carruthers said, very 
 sensible, ' Better get it over ; you will feel more settled like,' says 
 she. And so after that she made no more ado. Well, the rooms 
 are good rooms and handsome ones. But law ! what was the use 
 of Prue and me beeswaxing and polishing and fretting ourselves 
 for the last three weeks % She only just looked round them in a 
 tired sort of way, as much as to say, ' I've seen you all before ; 
 and I don't want to look at you again.' The Welshwoman kept 
 nudging her : ' What a pretty room, Rotha,' she kept saying. 
 ' What nice feather-beds, Mrs. Farebrothers. Look here, my 
 dear, what a view from your dressing-room window.' But, bless 
 you, she wouldn't take the hint. But when I threw open the 
 missis' wardrobe, and showed her that pile of yellow lace, and the 
 plate and jewel case, 'Don't show me all that, Hannah,' she says 
 very quick and sharp, and with a kind of shudder, ' I don't like 
 to see it. So this is where she slept, poor thing;' and she went 
 up to the bed and patted the pillow in such a pitiful way. ' I 
 think she would have liked to have laid her poor head again there, 
 Meg,' she said so soft and sad. Well, I didn't like to hear her 
 go on like that ; so I said without thinking, ' Yes, this was her 
 favom-ite room, poor lady. That one next to it was Mr. Piobert's. 
 Yes, she was that fond of him that she could not bear him to be 
 far from her.' Bless your heart, I could have bitten my tongue 
 out before I'd have made sucli a speech. She seems to be a poor 
 sickly-looking body at the best. But she just went that sort of 
 colom- like waxwork. 'So that was his room'?' she said, with 
 such a sigh. ' See, it was just within her own ; she always treated 
 him as though he were her own son. You are very right, Hannah, 
 to have left it just as it was,' slie went on. ' It must never be 
 touched — never. Some day, when he comes to see it, or to hear 
 of it, it will please him to think we have left his old room just as 
 it was.' And as she closed the door gently I could see her eyes
 
 1 06 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONE ME NT. 
 
 were full of tears. Was it not odd, Peter, and they such strangers 
 to each other?" 
 
 " Odd 1 Not a bit. We shall see stranger things than that 
 before we've done, missis. What's more natural than that a young 
 woman, kindhearted, with not a bit of pride about her, should take 
 on and pity the poor fellow 1 Of course it would be against nature 
 not to be pleased with her fine fortune. But, all the same, she 
 won't forget them that's lost it." And Peter administered a brisk 
 kick to the coals with an energy that made his wife jump. 
 
 " Miss Nettie says that there is some ill-blood in Mr. Robert's 
 mind about her. She couldn't get a word out of the parson nor 
 his wife neither. I don't think they ought to make things difficult 
 for her because the old missis chose to leave her her money. Every 
 one knows how badly Mr. Robert behaved ; ' but the stubborn neck 
 shall have a fall,' as Solomon says." 
 
 But how much farther Hannah would have got in her quotation 
 was not evident, as at that moment the upstairs bell rung.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 BUY NT. 
 
 " 1 know that this was Life, — the track 
 Whereou with equal feet we fared ; 
 Aud then, as uow, the day prepared 
 The daily burden for the back." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 " All day within the dreamy house, 
 
 The doors upon their hiuges creak'd ; 
 The blue fly sung in the pane ; the mouse 
 
 Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, 
 Or from the crevice peer'd about. 
 Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors. 
 Old footsteps trod the uj^per floors, 
 Old voices calle<l lier from without. 
 She only said, ' My life is dreary, 
 
 He Cometh not,' she said ; 
 She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead ! ' " Tennyson. 
 
 Mps. Farebrothers' homely account had not been exaggerated. 
 Meg had been deeply pained for the good woman's di.sappointmeut 
 when she saw the weary indifference with which Rotha viewed her 
 new possessions ; her simple praises and hints had all been thrown 
 away. Rotha could sec nothing but the shadowy Nemesis of her 
 fate lurking in the corners of the rooms. The jingling of the 
 household keys filled her with a sharp ])ain and dread. While 
 Hannah opened the presses of sweet-smelling linen, or pointed out 
 the three-cornered cupboard, where the best purple and gold china 
 was kept, or showed her stores of delicate preserves, Rotha's 
 thoughts were far away in the darkened inn-chamber. Again she 
 was wiping the death-sweat from the wrinkled brow. She coidd 
 feel the touch of the clammy fingers clutching hers so desperately, 
 yet powerless to kco their hold. She could see the livid lips 
 parting slowly as L.3 words dropped from them one by one, 
 " Robert, remember it is all for Robert." Good heavens ! Who 
 was she that she should be enriched with another man's goods ?
 
 108 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Mechanically she followed the other two from room to room. 
 It might have been that she was dazed fr()m her long journey ; it 
 was strange how dream-like and misty were her first impressions 
 of her new home \ but in a vague unreal way she saw it all. 
 
 She noticed that the passages were dark and narrow, and fuU 
 of curious sweet smells ; she found out afterwards from the great 
 jars of dried rose-leaves that flanked every doorway and blocked 
 up the staircase. Aud she remembered how the oaken carving of 
 the balustrades attracted her notice, and how broad, and low, and 
 slippery the staircase was. In a dim sort of way she recalled too 
 that the dining-room was low and dark, and had heavy brown 
 wainscoting ; that there were marble pillars in the long drawing- 
 room, and a great Chinese cabinet ; and that there was a close 
 damp odour about the room, as though it had never been used. 
 By and by they had come to a little room full of evening sunshine, 
 with glass doors opening on the lawn, with a low couch, and book- 
 cases, and a tea-table spread with all manner of good things. 
 And Meg had said, " How bright and pleasant ! This must be 
 your room, Rotha." There were tall white lilies peeping in at the 
 window, and there was a great spray of red roses overhead. The 
 church-bells were still ringing out. Rotha stood looking at the 
 smooth green lawn, with some carrier-pigeons strutting across it. 
 " Now, we will go upstairs, and Miss Maturin can rest and refresh 
 herself," she heard Hannah say, and she had turned herself round _ 
 to follow them. 
 
 They had gone into Mrs. Carruthers' room first, a trifle faded 
 and old-fashioned, but very comfortable, quite a nest of luxury to 
 Meg. The humble creature could have sat down and cried with 
 gratitude at the pleasant lines at last vouchsafed to her. But the 
 strange fixed look on Rotha's face forbade all such demonstration. 
 Rotha was glad that her friend should be made happier by all this 
 comfort. She was glad, too, with a sort of relief, that her own 
 room looked seaward, and was full of soft green colour. She felt 
 unconsciously that even such trifles might influence her moods 
 more healthfidly, but nothing had really roused her till Hannah 
 had opened her late mistress' wardrobe to show the hidden treasiu:es 
 — in the shape of jewels and lace, and then there had been a sharp 
 sound in Rotha's voice, never heard before, as though the action 
 disj^leased hei', and after that they had shown her his room. 
 
 Meg was very sorry when she saw Rotha's face at that moment. 
 She understood in a moment the quick revulsion, the heart-sickness, 
 the sudden failure of courage : when Mrs. Farebrothers had left 
 them at last and gone down, she sought Rotha in her own apart- 
 ment and found it empty. She had gone at once Avith unerring
 
 BRYN. 109 
 
 instinct into Mrs. Ord's chamber. She knew she should find her 
 there. Rotha turned round when she saw her and held out her 
 hand, and the two women passed over the threshold of Robert 
 Ord's chamber and into the chamber beyond with bated breath, as 
 though they were in the presence of the dead. 
 
 It was only an ordinary room, fitted up for a young man's 
 accommodation, with a door leading into his aunt's dressing-room. 
 Most of the rooms opened one into another. When he had been a 
 boy this door had been kept open that she might pass in and out 
 to him more freely. But of late years this mode of entrance had 
 been closed up. Rotha noted all those particulars. The other 
 boys had slept across the passages, anywhere ; but this one, the 
 favom-ite, had always kept his boyish room, where she had first 
 placed him when he was a delicate child, that she might minister 
 to him more entirely. Rotha remembered she had heard all this 
 from Mrs. Ord's maid. 
 
 There was a little inner sanctum, which had evidently been a 
 playroom once, and had been furbished up in late years into a kind 
 of rough study. Every article of fm-nitiu-e, every picture on the 
 wall, belonged to the boy or the man. There was the bow and 
 arrows side by side with the case of pistols and the formidable 
 gun. A fully-rigged boat under a glass shade shared the top of 
 the bookcase in company with a rusty toy sword and a couple of 
 foils, besides boxing-gloves and a life-preserver. The very books 
 in the well-stored bookcase told the same progressive tale. For, 
 while the top shelf boasted of such volumes as Robinson Crusoe, 
 the Arabian Nights, and the Last of the Mohicans, with a 
 sprinkling of battered old school-books, the lower shelves held 
 handsomely-bound volumes of Sir Walter Scott, Ruskin, Carlyle, 
 and other standard authors. Rotha wondered a little that their 
 owner had left them to such useless repose ; but when she had 
 opened one or two her wonder subsided. In every one there was 
 the same clear bold handwriting — " Robert Baldwin Ord, from his 
 loving Aunt Charlotte." Somehow that little token of Robert's 
 pride and resentment seemed to send a chill through her heart. 
 
 She dropped the books with a sigh and turned to the pictiu-es. 
 Over the mantelpiece was a wi'ctched daub, representing a curly- 
 headed child in a velvet frock tearing some red poppies and a few 
 cabbage roses to .pieces. Rotha puzzled a little over the unnatur- 
 ally red cheeks and staring blue eyes till she saw R, 0. in the 
 corner. Some itinerant artist had painted the picture, but it hati 
 been thought a striking likeness at the time, and judged worthy 
 of the massive gold frame. On the other side there were crude 
 water-colour sketches done by some boyish hand — a mastiffs
 
 110 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 head in crayons, with " Keeper " written in faded ink under it. 
 The others were prints of a sporting character. 
 
 Slowly and softly, as one manipulates the relics of the dead, 
 Rotha looked and lingered, and touched softly the several objects 
 that attracted her notice : the ebony inkstand with the faded 
 violet ink at the bottom, the well-used blotting-case, and the 
 carved book-rest ; there was the empty bird-cage which had suc- 
 cessively held a sickly generation of linnets, sparrows, and finches ; 
 a mouse-trap and a box fitted up for dormice still littered the 
 window-seat ; a number of the Quarterly lay on tlie cushion of a 
 great easy-chair as though just flung down. " None of us were 
 allowed to touch a thing in the young master's room," Mrs. Fare- 
 brothers had said as she dusted down the table with her apron, 
 and Rotha stood and marvelled at the strange inconsistency of a 
 love that could retain every relic of his boyhood, and yet had never 
 once flinched from its stern purpose till it was too late. 
 
 After a while Meg had drawn her gently away, and it was an 
 evidence of the strong but silent sympathy that existed between 
 these two that, although no word had been spoken, Rotha was 
 conscious that she was understood, and was grateful for Meg's ' 
 forbearance. 
 
 She made no opposition, therefore, when Mrs. Carruthers pro- 
 posed that they should go downstairs. She went back to the 
 sunset and the lilies. The pigeons fluttered up to her as she took 
 the low seat by the window and tried to do justice to the various 
 dainties that were pressed on her notice, but it was a miserable 
 pretence and failure. 
 
 What a quiet meal it was ! neither spoke much, but now and 
 then Rotha dropped some restless word or two. The red evening 
 light fell full on Meg's rugged face and figure; the large light 
 eyes looked solemn and plaintive beyond their wont ; to the elder 
 woman it seemed as though the quiet breadths of sky were meet 
 emblems of the long interval of rest that stretched before her. 
 Active suffering had subsided into passive with Meg; the long 
 habits of submission and a certain sturdy endurance went far to 
 reconcile her to the inevitable. It was not that she ever forgot 
 the fact that there was any actual negation of pain, but it was as 
 though she were some wrecked vessel that had been towed safely 
 into still waters where the cruel storms would cease to bufiet her 
 maimed sides, and where there was no fear that she should be 
 torn roughly from her anchorage, where, for a little while at least, 
 she might be left to float idly and at peace. 
 
 Meg could have chanted the "Nimc Dimittis" as she sat there. 
 Afterwards, as she unpacked Rotha's things and put away her
 
 BRYN. Ill 
 
 own poor little store of clothes and books, she broke into fragments 
 of it ; Prue could hear the grave deep voice chanting brief snatches 
 as she put away the things in the sweet-smelling drawers : all sorts 
 of lavender bags and sprigs of rosemary were strewn there. " The 
 green pastures and the still waters " — she was thankful for them 
 all. Here she thought she would dwell safely, doing daily duty 
 and praying loving prayers for her stray sheep — her poor prodigal : 
 she always thought of Jack as she read the story of the Prodigal 
 Son ; he was afar off even now feeding on tlie husks \ not till he 
 was a-hungered, till the measm-e of his degradation was filled up, 
 and want and misery impelled that feeble repentance, shovdd she 
 ever see him again. But she always knew that she would see him. 
 
 She had never spoken to any one of this belief of hers till that 
 strange conversation she had had with Rotha in Chatham Place, 
 but such was her natural reticence that not even to her did she 
 again refer to it ; she shrank from averring it in open words even 
 to herself. It was an article of her woman's creed, tacitly acknow- 
 ledged and religiously held. She guarded that simple faith of hers 
 as jealously as though she feared it would not bear the test of 
 human experience. Credo — I believe : how many a woman, dis- 
 daining the hard clear light of reason, holds to some such shred 
 of self-made evidence, clinging to it with instinctive trust, seeing 
 God's image in the bleared and miserable wreck of manhood she 
 calls husband : mothers hoping against hope, and leaning all their 
 purer faith on some spendthrift of a man — sisters weeping angel 
 tears over some fallen brother, shuddering away from the sin, yet 
 loving the sinner. 
 
 Meg never questioned how this thing could be — never asked 
 hefself what should bring her guilty husband to her side again ; 
 she only knew that one day he would come : that thought was 
 always uppermost ; in her waking and her sleeping dreams she 
 always saw him coming, sometimes by land, sometimes by sea, but 
 always the same, always ragged, weather-beaten — a wreck of him- 
 self. Latterly these dreams had become more frequent ; she knew 
 now when she closed her eyes that she would be sure to see him : 
 he was always in beggar's guise, sometimes so changed that even 
 her loving eyes could not recognise him. Now and then he would 
 draw near and hold out his arms to her, and then some unseen 
 power would kee]) her rooted to the place, and he would go away 
 covering uj) his face with his hands. Once, when the vision had 
 been terribly real, the thought had come to her to follow him. 
 Meg never thought of that dream without a shudder : she had 
 followed him down long endless roads, each one longer and darker 
 than the last ; sometimes she had nearly overtaken him, when a
 
 112 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 sudden turning hid him from her sight. She tried to cry out to 
 him, to utter his name, but her tongue was powerless, her step 
 grew heavier and more lagging — she would lose him altogether 
 now, but presently she found out that she had a child in her arms, 
 and that this was impeding her progress. With the subtle reason- 
 ing of a dream she thought that if she could only lay the child 
 down by the roadside he must really turn round ; but when she 
 tried to free herself it only clung the closer ; she could feel the 
 little cold hands creeping over her breast and round her neck. 
 Those baby hands held her fast with their mysterious hold, and 
 then all at once she knew he was behind her with his face still 
 covered up in his mantle, and, with the child on her bosom, she 
 was trying to draw it away. The cloak felt to her like black 
 velvet, and then it hardened in her touch and broke into splinters 
 as though it were wood ; but still she tore and grappled with it, 
 when all at once it rent asunder and there was the grinning face 
 of a skeleton behind it. 
 
 Meg had woke from that dream with a loud cry, but she 
 never told any one of her terror. For a few days she went about 
 almost silently, and something of strained pallor in her looks ; her 
 faith had received a shock. What if he were already dead and 
 this was her warning ! But after a time her strong good sense 
 returned to her, and though she still trembled at times with the 
 remembrance of the ghastly vision, she soon grew to believe that 
 it was only an exaggeration of her excited fancy, and to strengthen 
 herself still more in the thought that she should see him again. 
 
 It was strange how this expectation deepened ; day by day it 
 harassed her daily walks ; she would start and change colour if a 
 beggar suddenly accosted her ; often she would turn round to look 
 at some maudlin shrinking wi-etch that would follow them whining 
 for alms. Rotha would hurry on or speak sharply; but Meg 
 always dropped a furtive coin, with a " God bless you," into the 
 shaking hand. Once, when a gipsy beggar with bold eyes stopped 
 their path with an impudent request for money, and Rotha would 
 have dragged her on quickly in the dusk, she had gone a little way 
 and then had made an excuse and left her. When she found him 
 again there was a thin haggard-looking woman sitting beside him 
 on the roadside with a baby at her breast. The fellow eyed Meg 
 in sullen surprise when he saw her come back and drop a silver 
 piece in his hand. Meg asked to look at the child, and drew the 
 ragged shawl aside with her own hand ; the man was brutal and 
 sodden with gin, but the woman was a sickly- looking patient 
 creature. 
 
 "The parish has buried four," she said in a subdued voice
 
 BRVN. 113 
 
 that had the pathos of himger aud ill-usage iu it, " aud I reckon 
 they'll have this one too." Meg burst into tears as she 2>ut back 
 the fluttering rag over the baby's pinched face. There was an 
 ugly-looking wound in its foot which the mother had tried to bind 
 up with a strip of coarse stuff. " The master was in one of his 
 tantiauns last night," she whispered, as Meg knelt down to inspect 
 it. "I had the child in my arms and couldn't ward his blow off." 
 Then the man got up and slunk off in search of fresh alms. 
 
 Meg tore up her own handkerchief and bound up the child's 
 foot with tender skill, and then put some silver hurriedly into the 
 woman's hand. " You mustn't let him hurt it again," she said ; 
 " when it's dead you'll be so sorry — so very sorry." And as the 
 woman rocked herself, crying, but very softly, lest he should hear 
 her, Meg bade " God bless her, God bless her ! " and went 
 hurriedly away. 
 
 Rotha saw the tear-stains on her cheeks when she came up ; 
 she was waiting at the gate for her — not over-pleased at her 
 defection. " I don't think it well to encourage beggars," she said, 
 somewhat sternly, in answer to Meg's excuse; "and that man 
 was such a repulsive villainous -looking fellow, and quite drunk 
 besides." 
 
 "Yes, I know," Mrs. Carruthers had answered. "But oh, 
 Rotha !" — and Meg hung her head — " he was so like Jack." And 
 then Rotha had put her arms round her and kissed her. 
 
 Meg was thinking about Jack now, as she arranged Rotha's 
 things. There was a great china bowl full of carnations standing 
 on a little round table beside her —dusky-red carnations and frag- 
 rant clove pinks. Meg never could bear the smell of those flowers 
 now : they brought back so vividly those days in Chatham Place 
 when Jack was courting her ; when she stood of an evening look- 
 ing at the dark railway arch till he came striding through the posts 
 and down past the triangular green, with the drowsy sheep huddled 
 together. He used to bring her bunches of roses and carnations — 
 nay, often she would put a few of them in her dress, in the vain 
 hope tliat their rich crimson might become her. Jack always said 
 they did, but that was one of his lies. Meg's simple chants died 
 away on her lips now, and she made haste to finish her business. 
 She was glad when Prue came in and carried them away. When 
 all was done she went downstairs and played softly to herself in 
 the twilight. Rotha was out or about somewhere, and Meg knew 
 better than to follow her. As the grand old hymn-tunes floated 
 through the empty room, the bitter-sweet memories faded. 
 "Angels ever bright and fair;" "Let the bright Seraphim." 
 Meg's courage grew steadfast and strong now, " Up above the 
 
 8
 
 114 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 thoughts that know not anguish." Meg conld almost see the 
 radiance on her jxarents' dead faces as she wove in the rliythm 
 with the notes, and sang them softly in the darkness : — ■ 
 
 " Uj) above the thoughts that know not anguish, 
 Tender care ; sweet love for us below, 
 Noble pity free from anxious terror, 
 Larger love without a touch of woe." 
 
 Rotha could hear her singing as she came through the long 
 garden. Meg's voice, so noble in its earnestness, always sent 
 thrills through her ; she could have envied her the power of such 
 utterance, it would have healed half her restlessness to have sat 
 down and sung like that. 
 
 Rotha had been terribly restless when Meg had left her to 
 unpack. She had grown weary of the sunset and lilies, and had 
 wandered aimlessly to and fro. Prue and Emma had come upon 
 her gliding through the rooms with her black dress and pale face ; 
 to escape their notice she had betaken herself to the garden. 
 
 It was a pretty sunny garden, and well kept, and for a little 
 while Rotha found it pleasant ; but after a time even this seemed 
 too confined, there was a restless opijression on her. By and by , 
 she would grow used to her position. She thought now she would 
 go down by the seashore a little, and let the soft breezes blow 
 away her pain. There was a green door opening into the lane ; as 
 she came out she could see other green doors a little lower down, 
 and it came across her that one of those must belong to the 
 Vicarage. 
 
 The only way to the sands was over the little bridge that was 
 directly opposite Bryn. Rotha was afraid Meg might see her as 
 she hurried across, and, in order to avoid her notice and because 
 she would be perfectly alone, she directed her steps to the ridge of 
 low grassy hillocks that formed the warren. Here she found 
 herself in complete solitude ; as far as she could see were green 
 luidulations, or hills and valleys of soft yellow sand, spread in a 
 connecting chain ; a railway ran through the lower side of the 
 warren. The ground was rugged and weedy there, but from the 
 sandhills themselves the views were enchanting. Long reaches of 
 sand everywhere, Welbirrn running out to sea like a long narrow 
 fork, and then the grand blue sweep of Blackscar Bay. 
 
 The tide was coming in ; there was a delicious cool lapping of 
 waves. As they covered the rocks the line of foam circled and 
 broke with an endless slow surging. . The sunset was over now, 
 tlie sands looked gray and silent, all sorts of silvery pale lights 
 stirred across the purple shadow of the water, one or two stars 
 trembled out of a long cloud, the air was buoyant with salt spray,
 
 BRYN. 115 
 
 Lights sprang out one by one from the distant town ; the great 
 building on tlie saud, which Rotha found out afterwards was the 
 Convalescent Hospital, grew brilUant in a moment; they were 
 lighting the lamps on the sea-wall too. All sorts of creeping 
 shadows came over the barren sands. The air was chilly now. 
 Rotha shivered and stood up, and then gave a weary little sigh as 
 she went stumbling up and down in the warren, now climbing 
 up some yielding sand -wall, and now sinking ankle -deep in a 
 treacherous bank. She was fairly tii-ed when she had reached 
 the little bridge, but her restlessness had worked itself off a 
 little. 
 
 She stopped for a moment at the gate, and then the fancy 
 seized her that she would stroll round and look at the chiu-ch ; she 
 could see it was lighted up still. She felt very forlorn wandering 
 round her new home ; but anything was better than those twilight 
 rooms, she thought. She was glad to feel that she was getting so 
 tired : no worn-out child would sleep sounder than she would now. 
 The choir had been practising in the church. As she went in at 
 the lich-gate two or three village lads came out ; one had his sur- 
 plice on his arm, and, as she stood aside to let them pass, a tall 
 man came striding out from the porch. He had a loose wide- 
 awake, very broad in the brim ; even in the dark Rotha noticed 
 the brown irregular face and the gleaming teeth. The boy with 
 the surplice on his arm seemed waiting for him, for they went on 
 together. Both looked hard at her as they went by. 
 
 The organist was still playing ; all the lights had been extin- 
 guished but one ; there was a sweet perfume of lilies as Rotha 
 timidly pushed open the swing doors. One or two gentlemen were 
 in* the organ-loft. Rotha could hear their voices speaking in a 
 subdued way as she crept behind a pillar. What a strange new 
 experience it seemed to her ! — almost like a dream : the empty 
 church, the roll and swell of the organ, now pealing through the 
 aisles and now dying away, the dim light, the sweet scent, the 
 blurred outline of painted windows, the shadows liu-king among 
 the slender arches. The void and ache of lier own heart suddenly 
 stilled into peace. Rotha never knew how it was that she was 
 kneeling there wdth the tears sti'eaming through her fingers ; she 
 knew. of no conscious jDrayer that rose to her lips; but something 
 of the hard bitter strain was lifted off her, the misery and un- 
 reality seemed lightened. 
 
 When the organ ceased she looked up for the first time, and 
 then rose luu'ricdly to her feet. They Avere coming down tlie aisle 
 now. Rotlia crept still further into the sliade of her ]iill;n-, but 
 they were talking still in under tones and did not see her. One
 
 1 1 6 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 was a large man, with curly hair and wide open gray eyes, and the 
 other — Rotha trembled strangely as he passed — the other was 
 Robert Ord. 
 
 The organist had come out now, humming to himself; in 
 another moment the last light would be extinguished. She could 
 hear them talking in the porch still ; her courage was fast failing 
 her, but there was no help for it. Both looked round in surprise 
 as she came towards them. The elder gentleman, whom she knew 
 to be the clergyman, held open the door and looked kindly at her 
 as she passed. It might have been impulse or mere desperation, 
 but at that moment she moved her eyes and looked full at Robert 
 Ord with a grave slow inchnation of the head; she never saw 
 whether he returned the salutation or not. Her heart was 
 throbbing almost to suffocation as she descended the steps. As 
 she passed out of the churchyard she knew they were following 
 her ; she had an odd sort of feeling, as she turned in at her own 
 gateway, that they were still watching her through the darkness. 
 The lights were shining at the Vicarage as she passed. Through 
 the open windows she could hear boys' voices ; a deeper voice kept 
 chiming in with a laugh. A woman's shadow moved to and fro 
 across an upper window. Two dusky figures turned in at the gate.- 
 Rotha looked up at the starlit sky ; as she went down the gravel- 
 path she could hear Meg singing as she walked up and down trying 
 to calm herself. 
 
 When she went in the lamp had been lighted, a couch stood 
 invitingly near, the curtains were undrawn, and the crisp evening 
 air stole through the open window. Meg gave a welcoming smile 
 as she closed the piano. 
 
 "Where have you been, Rotha? Why, my poor child, how 
 white and weary you look ! " she said as she came forward. 
 
 " White and weary, indeed ! " Rotha gave one of her wistful 
 smiles as she looked up in Meg's face. " Sit down by me, Meg. 
 How bright and homelike it all looks. I have been very weak 
 and wicked, while you have been singing like an angel ; but it did. 
 me good — that, and the music in chiu'ch." 
 
 "In church, Rotha 1" 
 
 " Yes, I have been in church, and on the shore, and every- 
 where ; but I think I liked the music best. As I came out in the 
 porch I saw him, and he saw me. What a handsome man he is, 
 Meg ! if only he were not so ungentle." 
 
 " Whom do you mean % " asked Meg anxiously, for there was a 
 strange shining in Rotha's eyes. 
 
 " Who % why, Robert Ord, to be sure — my Nemesis, as I call 
 him. I think I have seen them all now, only no one knew me
 
 BRVN. 117 
 
 but he. Meg, wasn't it strange, almost beautiful, after what has 
 passed, that we should meet first there?" 
 
 "Do you mean that you met in the church, dear?" 
 
 " Yes, and then in the porch. I turned round and looked at 
 him. I felt I had a riglit to be acknowledged there. I suppose 
 you will chide me for being fanciful, but somehow I took it as a 
 good omen. It seems to me as though it must come right now." 
 
 " I quite understand you, dear." 
 
 " Do you, Meg V 
 
 " Yes, fully and entirely." And then Rotha, with the same 
 strange shining in her eyes, had bidden her good-night and gone 
 up to bed. 
 
 "Who was that young lady in black who gave you so marked 
 a recognition?" asked the Vicar curiously, when he had locked the 
 door and overtaken his brother in the churchyard. 
 
 "Oh, you noticed that, Austin, did you?" 
 
 " Yes ; I was holding open the door for her. I thought she 
 seemed nervous ; she passed me so hurriedly. Why, Robert ! " 
 suddenly struck by something peculiar in his brother's tone, " you 
 don't mean to say that that was " 
 
 " Our neighbour at Bryn ? Indeed I do, Austin. There she 
 is before us — just turning round by the schoolhouse. You can 
 see her like a black shadow in the distance." 
 
 " Good heavens ! and that was Miss Maturin ? " ejaculated the 
 Vicar ; but his brother remained silent. 
 
 " To think of her coming to church the first evening," he 
 began again, after a long pause, dimng which they had been walk- 
 ing on briskly. " Why, she coidd only have arrived at Kirkby 
 this afternoon." 
 
 " I don't know where you got your information, Austin," 
 observed the other drily. 
 
 " Why, I should certainly have heard it from Peter Fare- 
 brothers if she had come yesterday. I met him down in Blackscar 
 last evening, but he never said one word about Miss Maturin being 
 expected." 
 
 " Peter is not quite such a talker as his wife, I suppose. 
 Well, Austin, what do you think of her now you have seen her ? 
 She is no beautyj- eh 1" 
 
 " I could not possibly tell in such a moment. She apijeared 
 to be in great trouble, and had evidently been crying. As far as 
 I could see in the dim light she looked very young. I was so 
 surprised when she turned round and bowed to yoi; in tlmt 
 marked manner." 
 
 "Wasn't it cool and self-possessed ? That is just what I so
 
 1 1 8 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 dislike in those sort of women. They have such an astonishing 
 amount of assurance." And Robert, who was in no very good 
 mood, thought of that walk from Eglistone Abbey when Rotha 
 had quietly declared her intention of not shunning him. 
 
 " Yes ; and it was so strange, too, her coming to chm-ch the 
 first evening of her arrival," returned the Vicar, who had been 
 much struck by this coincidence. " Are you coming in again to 
 us this evening, Robert % " 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I have not said good-night to Belle. 
 Perhaps I will come in for a moment." 
 
 The Vicar paused with his hand on the gate. 
 
 " Better not say a word about it to-night. Mary has had a 
 worrying day, and Belle does not seem very well. It will not 
 make them sleep sounder to tell them we've seen Miss Maturin." 
 
 " That is as you think best," returned Robert, rather shortly. 
 He had no particular wish for any gossip with Mary, but it did 
 strike him as rather hard that he should not say a word or two 
 about it to Belle. It did not mend matters that Belle had a sick 
 headache, and could not come to the supper-table. He bade them all 
 a gloomy good-night on hearing that, and went back to his desolate 
 house. It looked very desolate to-night. As he turned in at the 
 gate he looked across at Bryn. There were lights moving in the 
 upper windows ; there was quite a stream of radiance on the little 
 bridge. "So it has come at last!" he muttered. "I wish I 
 could have spoken to Belle to-night. How oddly the girl looked 
 at me, and how pale she was ! Austin was right. She looked 
 younger than usual, or else it was the gaslight. Well, all I hope 
 is that I am not beginning to hate her." 
 
 What made Robert Ord pause in his prayers that night — "for- 
 give us our trespasses 1 " Long after the lights were out at Bryn 
 and the Vicarage people asleep Robert Ord tossed wearily on his 
 bed with the broken clause weaving in and out of his thoughts : 
 " forgive us our trespasses."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 nettle's conspiracy. 
 
 " There was a little stubborn dame 
 Whom no authority could tame, 
 Restive by long indulgence grown, 
 No will she minded but her own." 
 
 WiLKIE 
 
 " Aee you going to church this evening, Rotha 1 " 
 
 "Yes, Meg?' 
 
 "Very well; I will accompany you." And without any 
 further word Mrs. Carruthers quickly arrayed herself in her 
 bonnet and shawl and followed Rotha through the green door in 
 the lane. 
 
 The day had been a strange one to both the women. It was 
 the first day in their new life together. Rotha had come down to 
 breakfast that morning, looking indeed grave and preoccupied, but 
 with a certain quiet determination which had grown out of her 
 la'st night's struggles. Meg, who was watching her, was secretly 
 relieved to see her take the head of the table, instead of relinquish- 
 ing it to her, as she had once threatened to do. After breakfast 
 she had liad a long housewifely conversation with Hannah Fare- 
 brothers, and had then asked Mrs. Carruthers to go over tlie house 
 again with her. As they went from one room to another Rotha 
 quietly pointed out one or two improvements that might be effected 
 in the arrangements, and asked her opinion. Meg noticed she 
 avoided the passage that led to Mrs. Ord's room till tlie last, when 
 she had led the way to it hurriedly, saying that Mr. Tracy had 
 wished her to go over the inventory of the plate and linen, and 
 that she supposed that an unpleasant business had better be got 
 over at once. 
 
 The stores of shining things, the hordes of velvet and satin 
 and delicate old cobweb lace, were like revelations out of another 
 world to simple Meg, who had never seen anything finer than her 
 mother's collar of real Valenciennes. The fairy godmother in
 
 120 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Cinderella might have conjured up those dainty little heaps of 
 Mechlin and point lace. There was a warm subtle fragrance of 
 attar of roses hidden among those heaps. Rotha's slender fingers 
 counted, adjusted, and readjusted all in perfect order. "Yes, 
 that is very beautiful, I suppose ; but I am no judge. There are 
 the collarettes, Hannah ; put them back carefully into the collar- 
 box. I have finished the list now." And the young girl put 
 back her hair wearily from her brow as though she had finished 
 some troublesome business. Meg could hardly credit such sublime 
 indifference. 
 
 They had spent the afternoon on the shore together, and after 
 tea the bells had rung out, and Rotha had announced her intention 
 of going to the service. Meg would not have gainsaid her for the 
 world ; but she felt terribly anxious. " What a brave spirit she 
 must have ! " she thought, as she moved down the pew to be 
 nearer to her. Rotha looked across at her with an odd little 
 smile, as though she read her thought. Most of the small con- 
 gregation were already in the church. The churchwarden, a 
 white-headed old man with square shoulders, lumbered across the 
 aisle and offered her a hymn-book. The tall young man with the 
 brown puckered face went swinging across the chancel with stray 
 surplices on his arm ; and the boy who had waited for him the 
 i:)revious evening came out of the vestry-door and looked hard at 
 Rotha as he passed. Just before service commenced two ladies 
 came in and took their places near her. 
 
 Rotha looked at them a little curiously ; they were evidently 
 sisters, and very quietly dressed. The elder lady was rather 
 matronly, and had a sweet motherly face ; and the younger one 
 was very beautiful, but just a little worn and faded-looking. Rotha 
 found herself watching them from time to time with unwonted 
 interest ; directly they liad entered the clergyman took his place 
 in the reading-desk. Rotha recognised him at once as the same 
 who had held open the door for her last night. He read the ser- 
 vice in a clear sonorous voice. Now and then there were odd 
 Ijreaks in it as of caught breaths, which gave it a momentary 
 liesitation. Rotha noticed this peculiarity in a moment ; to her 
 there was sometliing persuasive, almost pathetic in those low 
 tender breaks. Afterwards, when he preached, she luiderstood the 
 suppressed power and tenderness of the man. Austin Ord often 
 liesitated in his delivery ; his language was simple and often 
 homely ; but now and then the force and evidence of the truth 
 within him found outlet in a flood and torrent of words. 
 Then he was eloquent ; then his power made itself felt ; then he 
 stirred men's hearts, appealing to each separate individuality.
 
 NETTIE'S CONSPIRACY. 121 
 
 winning them less by the power of argument than by the gentle 
 ness of love. 
 
 "Our parson always seems to be preaching to himself," was 
 the observation of a poor parishioner once ; and the homely speech 
 goes far to explain the general tenor of the Vicar's sermons. 
 They were more persuasive than aggressive. The thunders of the 
 law were seldom touched upon except in some case of notorious 
 backsliding, and then the Vicar would be simply terrible. Austin 
 seldom alluded to the pit of perdition ; the brimstone and fire of 
 the Dissenters were an offence to him. He rarely informed his 
 flock that they were miserable sinners except when he read the 
 Confession ; he left every one to apply to himself " the worm, and 
 no man " of the Psalmist. Instead of that he was always telling 
 his people that he loved and pitied them ; he spoke to them as 
 though he knew so well that they must be oppressed with their 
 own knowledge of their sin, as though he must help them to bear 
 the sorrow of their own pitiable failures, as though the one thing 
 to be dreaded was their lack of courage. " Never lose heart," he 
 woidd say Sunday after Sunday. " A scrupulous sadness cannot 
 Iielp any one ; we may be very sorry for what is past and yet not 
 lose our manhood over it. We have all been spendthrifts, have all 
 v/asted our substance ; let us at least gather up the fragments 
 that remain." 
 
 Rotha liked his voice, it gave her a comforting assurance of 
 pleasant vigour and strength. The tall young man, whom Rotha 
 fully recognised as another Ord, read the Lessons ; she was sure in 
 her own mind that he was the youngest brother, Garton ; but, all 
 the .same, he puzzled her. She could not make him out at all. 
 She thought of the gleaming teeth last night and the laughter 
 tlirough the Vicarage windows ; she could not reconcile last night's 
 merriment with tlie stern ascetic face and dark closely -cropped 
 liair. As he went swinging backwards and forwards through the 
 chancel with his head thrown well back, and his grand-looking 
 shoulders squaring themselves, he reminded her of some young 
 Knight-Templar or monkish soldier of the cross. There was a 
 martial stride with him ; as he sang he kept up a singular swaying 
 of the body — an impetuous yet restrained movement ; a swarthy 
 colour overspread* his face. By and by, as she came out, he 
 passed her, crunching the gravel with firm footsteps, a boy hang- 
 ing on either arm, and a whole troop at his rear. Mrs. Carruthers 
 asked, "Who was that strange young man in the ugly wideawake?" 
 but Rotha was thinking of the Vicar's voice and of Belle Clinton's 
 beautiful face, and so she got no answer. 
 
 Those evening services were the only breaks in Rotha's solitary
 
 122 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 days. One, two, and then three weeks had passed over, but still 
 no friendly footstep invaded the privacy of Bryn — no greeting came 
 to the ears of the two recluses. 
 
 For a little while Rotha hoped against hope ; she thought the 
 Vicar must call ; but as the days passed on and he made no sign, 
 she quietly abandoned all such hopes and began to look her position 
 in the face, and for fear her courage should fail before the blank 
 prospect of her monotonous life, she set herself daily tasks, she 
 took up a slow grinding of regular employment and duties which 
 were to fill up every hour of the day. An idle moment was an 
 abomination to her— she fought her restlessness stoutly. Meg was 
 almost stunned by her prodigious energy. 
 
 When her light household duties were discharged, she devoted 
 herself to a severe course of self-improvement. She studied music 
 under Meg's tuition ; she even began German. One day she sent 
 in from Blackscar a bale of flannel and some remnants of coarse 
 woollen stuff, and, with Mrs. Carruthers' help, began to cut it into 
 an infinite number of garments. She made Prue and Emma help ; 
 her basket of ready-made linen would have done credit to Dorcas ; 
 to see her stitching in the midst of her maids would have astonished 
 the most industrious matron. While she worked she made Meg 
 read to her. Rigid in her self-discipline, she was inflexible and 
 hard in her choice of books. She and Meg did a vast amount of 
 politics and theology. Carlyle and Ruskin were their lightest 
 specimens of literature. 
 
 During their hours of recreation they worked in the garden or 
 went down to the shore ; now and then they did an afternoon's 
 shopping in Blackscar. As they passed down Kirkby village 
 Rotha used to look longingly into the open cottage-doors : she 
 would have given anything to enter. She was craving for parish 
 work, for intercourse with her fellow-creatures, for something that 
 would take her out of herself Such a monotonous existence 
 might do for Meg. Mrs. Carruthers never wished for society, or 
 found their days dull ; she had her piano and her books, and her 
 daily thoughts for Rotha's comfort ; but even she would have liked 
 to have ministered to their poorer neighboiu:s. As they passed 
 the schoolhouse she would stop and listen to the children's singing 
 till Rotha woidd pidl her impatiently on. 
 
 Rotha never dared to enter one of the cottages ; she used to 
 look wistfully at the women as they stood in the doorway with 
 children clinging to their skirts. One evening during a severe 
 thunderstorm she had begged for a moment's shelter in a cottage, 
 and the request had been most civilly granted. 
 
 Rotha sat by the fire and played with the baby, and told the
 
 NETTIE'S CONSPIRACY. 123 
 
 elder children a story. The mother, who seemed a decent kind- 
 hearted creature, spoke very respectfully to Miss Maturin and 
 looked pityingly at her black dress. 
 
 "You are the lady from Bryn, are you not V she asked when 
 the story had come to an end. 
 
 Rotha nodded, and at that moment the door was briskly 
 unlatched, and a lady in a gray cloak appeared on the threshold. 
 Rotha turned crimson, for she knew it was Mrs. Ord. 
 
 "Good evening, Nancy; and how are the children?" she 
 began, in a cheerful voice, and then as she came forward she 
 caught sight of Rotha, and stood transfixed. "I have only 
 brought the ticket for little Johnnie," she continued, quickly 
 recovering herself. " Oh ! there you are, Johnnie. No, my boy, 
 no, I can't sit down ; I am going on to the church now." And 
 before Nancy could interpose a word she had closed the latch and 
 was gone. 
 
 " Goodness sake's alive ! and to think of her coming and going 
 in such a moment as that," cried Nancy, looking downright vexed. 
 " It is always Miss Belle that is in such a hurry, but never the 
 Vicar's lady. Ah, they're pleasant folk at the Vicarage, and no 
 mistake. Do you often go there, Miss Maturin ?" She knew her 
 name even. 
 
 " No, I have never been there," returned Rotha simply, but 
 the instant she said it she felt she had lost ground. The woman 
 was too civil to pursue her inquiry, but she was evidently 
 taken aback. To have been at Kii-kby three weeks and not to 
 have called at the Vicarage was a tiling that perplexed honest 
 Nancy. Rotha saw the doubt and dim suspicion in the woman's 
 face ; she attempted to carry on the conversation, but she was 
 evidently distrustful of her visitor. Rotha took advantage of a 
 neighbour's entrance to put an end to tlie awkwardness. As she 
 bade good-bye to the children, one little lad detained her to ask a 
 question about the story. Rotha was just outside the door, speak- 
 ing to the boy, when she unfortunately caught a sentence or two 
 not intended for her ear. 
 
 " And what do you think, Mrs. Price, the Vicar's lady never 
 gave so much as a 'good evening.' 'I have just brought the 
 ticket for Johnnie,' she says, and ' Nancy, I can't sit down,' and 
 then she shut the door quite quick and sharp, and then I put that 
 there question. Wasn't it strange now f 
 
 " Why, neighbour, I don't know," replied the other voice, 
 evidently belonging to Mrs. Price. " Folks will talk : there's 
 Master Farebrothers always hinting there's ill blood between the 
 Vicarage and the big house. Maybe there is, and maybe there
 
 124 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 isn't, but all that I say is that such as her can't be no good if 
 the Vicar's lady won't so much as move to her." 
 
 " Move to her, indeed ; why " But- here Rotha heard no 
 
 more, for she dropped the boy's hand hurriedly and moved away. 
 This was what they were doing for her — making her the talk of 
 the village. Rotha did not know much about being sent to 
 Coventry, but it did strike her that she was to be pointed at and 
 set apart as though she had some plague-spot on her. She might 
 remain within her own walls or walk through the village ; it was 
 all the same since Kirkby, in the person of its lawfid representative, 
 had virtually excommunicated her. 
 
 Despite of her efforts to bear up bravely, her hopes were 
 waning fast. As she left the cottage a feeling akin to despair 
 seized her. Of what avail were her endurance and her patience 
 since only four walls were to be the witnesses of her daily struggles ? 
 How was she to grapple with her enemies or live down this blot on 
 her good name since they refused to meet her in fair fight % She 
 would have preferred the stormiest encounter and the sternest of 
 rebukes to this cold barrier of distance and silence. They were ' 
 doing her no harm : they were only letting her alone — simply 
 ignoring her; but no course that they could have pursued, no 
 openly -betrayed displeasure, no cutting mark of contempt or 
 dislike, could have wounded her half so much. As she went home 
 in the dusk through the wet sandy roads a heart-breaking sense of 
 failure and utter hopelessness possessed her. Meg was singing a 
 Latin chant as she entered — " In Te Domini Speravi." The stars 
 were shining out, there was a gleam of yellow lamplight. Rotha 
 sat down on the wet doorstep, under a clump of white lilies, and 
 covered her face with her hands and cried like a child. 
 
 Meanwhile the Vicar's conscience was ill at ease ; he was in 
 the position of a man whose practice was at variance with his 
 teaching, an element of discord was disturbing his daily peace, 
 conflicting duties harassed him \ as he had once exclaimed, in his 
 dry way, " His soul was weary of his life because of this daughter 
 of Heth ;" but not even in his soul-weariness could he refrain from 
 avowing himself a coward. 
 
 It was all very well for him to scoff at procrastination ; how 
 often had he told his people that it was a weakness beneath a 
 reasonable man ? " Never put off till to-morrow what ought to 
 be done to-day" had been his favourite maxim. "Delay only 
 complicates matters and doubles a difficulty." "Now" is the 
 wise man's axiom, and " presently " the fool's motto — all very 
 good words doubtless. And now he was himself deferring a plain 
 duty day by day, putting it awav from him, striving to forget it
 
 NETTIE'S CONSPIRACY. 125 
 
 with the by aud by of the most arrant coward. No wouder the 
 Vicar's conscience was ill at ease, and that his cup had lost much 
 of its sweetness. Aud now his words had come true, for he was 
 doubling his own difficulty. The longer he delayed, the more he 
 disliked the whole business. A peacemaker by uatm-e and i:)ro- 
 fession, he was loath to stir up strife and ill-feeling with any man 
 or woman, aud in his secret heart he believed that such must be 
 the issue of any visit on his part. lu his large-hearted tolerance 
 he had refused to give entire credence to his brother's suspicions. 
 He had declined to criminate or to let others crimiuate without 
 satisfying proof. He had rebuked Robert for his rancour. He 
 had not refrained from accusing Mary of a want of charity. But 
 all the time he was aware that Robert's words were prejudicing 
 him against Miss Maturin. He had gone over them day after day 
 aud night after night till not a shadow of doubt remained iu his 
 own mind. Yes, the temptation was so evident. There was such 
 facihty and scope for any feminine manoeuvres. Putting himself 
 iu her place, aud looking from her point of view, he could even 
 believe it hard for her to do otherwise. All people were not 
 gifted with the same delicate perception of honour, the same 
 stainless integrity. It was an error and weakness of youth, uot 
 the deep scheming of age. And yet youth could scheme too. She 
 was poor and covetous, and covetousuess was a deadly sin. But 
 all the more he considered it his duty not to be hard on her. She 
 had looked longingly on what was not her own, aud had sought 
 after it, and worked for it. Hundreds had done the same, and no 
 one thought worse of them. But all the more he felt as though 
 he rnust keep his womankind from such an one. 
 
 After all the Vicar was not free from the Ord feeling, only there 
 was this difference in the brothers, that while Robert hugged and 
 cherished his pride, Austin wrestled against it as a fierce enemy, 
 aud mourned over it as a heavy sin. No one knew better than he 
 how often it had got the better of him and warped his judgment ; 
 how many of his failures, known only to him and his God, were 
 attributable to this hereditary failing. Conscious of his own short- 
 comings, he could bear with the faults aud follies of others. He 
 knew why his heart was so unnaturally hardened against this girl, 
 why he could not "iiold her blameless. He was reseutiug his family 
 wrongs, his injuries iu his brother's person, the Ord poverty so 
 grimly mated with the Ord pride. Do what he would, he knew 
 he had not really brought himself to forgive her. The mere men- 
 tion of her name was abhorrent to him. How was he to go to her 
 on his pastoral errand, to calmly sift evidence, aud discriminate 
 and judge ; to reprove temperately and gravely if needs be, as he
 
 126 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 had reproved greater sinners than she was ever likely to bel 
 Would he not be rather tempted by his very sternness to break the 
 bruised reed, and to repel rather than to allui'e her 1 
 
 Our Vicar was perplexing himself sadly over these difficulties 
 during these weeks that he held himself aloof from his new 
 parishioner. But while he was summoning up his com^age for 
 a final eflbrt, the Gordiau knot was cut for him in a most unex- 
 pected way. Nettie Underwood, no uninterested observer of the 
 Vicarage movements, had determined to give her parish priest a 
 lesson. 
 
 During the first two or three weeks after Miss Maturin's arrival 
 Nettie had kept herself tolerably quiet, only dropping out hints 
 now and then as to whether cards had been left at Bryn, hints 
 which had always been coolly quenched by the Vicar. But when 
 a month had passed over, and the Vicarage party made no mention 
 of their wealthy neighbour, Nettie's curiosity and indignation 
 exceeded all bounds. She accused the Vicar and Mary too of 
 want of chai'ity. A very tolerant little person herself, she began 
 to take up cudgels openly in Miss Matmin's defence, and announced, 
 her intention very speedily of befriending the stranger who had 
 come into their coast. 
 
 Perhaps this was the more provoking in Nettie, as this line of 
 conduct was dictated solely by curiosity and a sheer love of opposi- 
 tion. Nettie was not personally prepossessed with Miss Maturin. 
 She had seen her at chiu-ch once or twice, and had spoken of her 
 contemptuously as a poor sickly-looking body, and had been much 
 oft'ended at her dowdiness. Had she been any one but the owner 
 of Bryn, she would have held her up pitilessly to the sarcasm of 
 her three -and -twenty bosom friends. But the mystery that 
 enshrouded Bryn, the strange recluse lives of the two women, the 
 silence of the Vicarage concerning them, and the whispers which 
 daily became bolder and more exaggerated in the village, fired 
 Nettie's giddy little head, and filled it with all sorts of impractic- 
 able schemes and fancies. 
 
 Nettie was of course aware that Eobert Ord had been disin- 
 herited by his aunt. Kirkby and even Blackscar were generally 
 cognisant of the main facts of the quarrel which had ended so 
 disastrously for the three brothei'S. Already there had been many 
 shrewd surmises in the village, that Miss Maturin would be looked 
 upon pretty coldly by the Ords. They had but slightly guessed 
 the truth, however. Such a suspicion as was darkening Robert 
 Ord's mind was never likely to come to their knowledge. Nothing 
 was more probable than tliat a coolness should at first ensue 
 between Bryn and the Vicarage. And however much such a state
 
 NETTIE'S CONSPIRACY. 127 
 
 of things was to be deplored in the parish, it was only human 
 nature all over. People were talking the matter over pretty freely 
 by this time. There were speculations afloat about how long the 
 Vicar was likely to hold aloof from his new parishioner. " It was 
 a pity for him to fight his brother's battles," they said. " Every 
 one knew how Robert had brought the trouble on himself by his 
 unyielding spirit. They would wait a little longer to see if the 
 Vicar and his wife meant to do their duty ; if not, it was certainly 
 fitting that others should set them an example of Christian charity." 
 
 Robert Ord'had Httle idea how his daily movements were being 
 canvassed and censured. It must be confessed that, in spite of his 
 handsome face and prepossessing manners, he was scarcely such a 
 favourite with his contemporaries as his brothers. The lordly airs 
 and proud bearing that might have become the owner of Bryn 
 were sadly out of character in the managing clerk who lived in a 
 shabby house on two hundi-ed a year. People called him exclusive 
 and unsocial ; and Belle was scarcely more of a general favom-itc. 
 Amongst his bitterest detractors was Nettie Underwood, who had 
 taken an honest dislike to him from his having ridiculed certain 
 of her airs and graces. Nettie, who accepted no reproofs except 
 from the Vicar, was at no pains to hide her antagonism, and a most 
 amusing feud was carried on between them. 
 
 When Nettie prepared to enter the lists in Miss Matmin's 
 defence, she chose to believe the whole blame of the coolness lay 
 at Robert Ord's door. The Vicar was influenced by his brother ; 
 neither he nor Mrs. Ord cared to anger him by taking notice of 
 their neigldjour. What if she, Nettie Underwood, should put an 
 end* to this unhappy state of things, and by a bold move contrive 
 such a meeting for all parties as should restore matters to a better 
 footing % 
 
 True, it was rather a risk. Nettie was not quite sm-e that 
 such a course would be succes.sful. The Vicar might not approve 
 of such scheming, or Mrs. Ord might be annoyed. Nettie thought 
 and thought over the matter till her small head ached, and she 
 was in quite a fever of excitement before she could bring her tactics 
 to perfection, and make up her mind that the game was worth 
 playing. 
 
 Nettie Undei-l\'Ood was by nature a schemer ; to plan and to 
 manoeuvre Avere the pleasantest excitements of her daily life. Every 
 one knew what odd out-of-the-way things Nettie was always doing. 
 She had curious systems, even in her charities. Her almsgiving 
 was always conveyed anonymously. Peojile never knew their 
 benefactress till weeks afterwards, when Nettie's mysterious hints 
 betrayed her. Aunt Ehza was her pet fiction. She caused it to
 
 128 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 be popularly supposed that she could do nothing without her aunt's 
 permission. Applicants to Miss Underwood the younger were 
 always referred to Miss Underwood the elder. That worthy lady 
 was often perplexed by the constant appeals made to her in public. 
 " I know nothing about it ; you must go to my niece," she would 
 say helplessly. Nettie's harum-scarum ways were a sore grief and 
 worry to poor Aunt Eliza. 
 
 As in duty bound, Nettie confided to her aunt her little plan 
 for breaking the ice between Bryn and the Vicarage. And as the 
 more she thought about it the more feasible the whole scheme 
 appeared, she grew quite eloquent over her subject ; and though 
 Miss Underwood shook her head very doubtfully, she was soon 
 coaxed and talked into a state of negative quiescence. " You leave 
 it all to me, auntie. I tell you I've arranged everything. We 
 will have Miss Maturin and her dragon, Mrs. Carruthers, to tea, 
 and ask the Vicarage party to meet them, Mr. Robert and all." 
 And Nettie clapped her hands in mischievous delight at the thought 
 of her daring scheme. 
 
 " Shall you tell the Vicar, my dear, that Miss Maturin is 
 coming?" asked Miss Underwood anxiously. 
 
 " Gracious, aunt !" returned the girl, opening her eyes. "How 
 can you ask such an absurd question 1 Why, there would be no 
 good in asking them at all in that case. No, no ; you leave it to 
 nie. I will go down to Bryn to-morrow and make a ceremonious 
 call, and when I am quite sure of Miss Maturin I will go over to 
 the Vicarage." 
 
 " But suppose the Vicar should be displeased at your officious- 
 ness, Nettie 1" remonstrated Miss Underwood. "Remember you 
 are only a young person, my dear. You see, we don't know the 
 rights of the case. Mr. Ord may have some very good reason for 
 not hurrying on an intimacy. If, as you say, the ice must be 
 broken by a third party, wouldn't it be better for Mrs. Blake or 
 Miss Brookes, as the leading ladies in this parish, to undertake the 
 business? I hear Mrs. Blake is most anxious to call at Bryn." 
 
 " The Underwoods are every bit as good as the Blakes, Aunt 
 Eliza," said Nettie, tossing her head, " though she is the widow 
 of the colonel, and goodness knows what besides. And as for 
 Miss Brookes and her Roman nose, and her broad hemstitched 
 handkerchiefs with cotton lace on them, I have no patience with 
 her and her airs ; and all because she's first cousin to a baronet, 
 who beat his wife and died from drinking. I haven't a Roman 
 nose, thank heaven ! nor had a gouty old colonel for a husband ; 
 but if I don't hold my own against two such women, my name's 
 not Nettie Underwood. And as for your trying to dissuade me
 
 NETTIE'S CONSPIRACY. 129 
 
 from a clear Christian duty, and one for wliich the Vicar will 
 thank me — why," iinished Nettie, losing breath and connectedness 
 together — " why, I didn't think it of you." 
 
 "Well, well, my dear, don't go and put yoiu'self out." 
 
 " But I am putting myself out, and one ought to put oneself 
 out to do one's duty. You are like the Levite, aimt, ' who passed 
 by on the other side.' I hope I've not read my Bible for nothing, 
 Aunt Eliza — and such a beautiful cojDy of it too as you have given 
 me ! And when I see the clergyman of a parish neglecting his 
 duty, and making his family neglect it too, and when I see an 
 innocent girl slighted and put upon just because an ill-tempered 
 old lady chooses to leave her her money, I think it's time for the 
 members of that parish to testify their displeasure ; and I won't 
 sleep another night upon it. I will just go over tliis instant to 
 Bryn." And Nettie rose decidedly, having reasoned herself into a 
 belief that her scheme had not a single flaw in it. 
 
 The visitors' bell at Bryn had grown quite rusty with disuse. 
 As its hollow clang soiinded througli the house Rotha and Mrs. 
 Carruthers started. Rotha was the first to recover herself. " I 
 suppose it is the Vicar come at last," she said, with a little colour 
 and dignity. But her hands trembled as she shook the threads 
 from her dress. Both were therefore disappointed when the door 
 opened, and a little lady, with bright eyes and coloiu", and dressed 
 in fresh crisp muslins entered the room. 
 
 " I see you don't know who I am," said Nettie winniugly, as 
 she held out her hand with the utmost frankness. " I am Nettie 
 Underwood, who lives in the little corner house, next door to the 
 sexton's, and opposite the lich-gate. Aunt Eliza would have come 
 with me, but she is cutting out for the clothing club ; and as we 
 are neighbours, and that sort of thing, I thought I might just come 
 over without ceremony." 
 
 Nettie had introduced herself witli perfect ease, and with a 
 fluency tliat ratlier astonished Rotha. It was something pleasant, 
 after their long seclusion, to have this briglit chatty little creature 
 owning herself for their neighbour and making friendly overtures. 
 Rotha a little relaxed from her gravity as she strove to answer 
 Nettie's numerojis questions ; during the next half-hour she felt as 
 though she were being put through her catechism, only the answers 
 were far more diflicult. " What is your name, N. or M. ?" Rotha 
 found herself dreamily answering " that it was a fine day ; that 
 she liked Kirkby ; that the rabbit-warren was delightful, and Bryn 
 a most pleasant house ; that no one had called upon her, and that 
 she was not disappointed, having never expected otherwise ; that 
 the sermon on Sunday was a very good one ; and tliat, above all 
 
 9
 
 130 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 things, she admired the Vicar's preaching. And at this part of tlie 
 coQversatiou she turned round and began hui'riedly to question 
 Nettie as to whether there were much distress in the parish. 
 Nettie tried to bring the conversation back to the Vicar's family, 
 but Miss Maturiu became suddenly reserved ; lier artful question- 
 ing was of no avail. Kotha listened, but seemed absent and 
 preoccupied. She had resumed her work, too, most industriously. 
 Nettie fancied that she was much interested in the few details 
 that she dropped for her benefit concerning them, but she made 
 no observation, and seemed rather relieved than otherwise when 
 Nettie turned the subject by abruptly introducing the object of 
 her visit. " Aunt Eliza and she had set their hearts on making 
 her acquaintance. Yorkshire people were never ceremonious. 
 And would she and Mrs, Carruthers just come over to-morrow, 
 in a quiet homely way ? — they were only plain folk," and so on. 
 
 Miss Maturin coloured and hesitated ; she would have given 
 worlds to refuse the invitation. On the whole, she was rather 
 disposed to like Nettie Underwood : she thought her a most win- 
 ning little person — she was so original and piquante, and then her 
 good-natured frankness was so taking. She was quite prepared 
 therefore to reciprocate her advances in a general way, but Rotha 
 was rather shy and reserved • even taking tea with Nettie and her 
 aunt seemed a formidable thing after the quiet life they had been 
 leading. 
 
 " Supposing other guests — the Vicarage people, perhaps — may 
 be there ?" She hinted as much as she stammered out a civil refusal. 
 
 " Oh, of course, quite by oiu-selves : Aunt Eliza cannot bear 
 parties," was Nettie's evasive answer. By and by, when she had 
 gained her point, and had left Rotha much fluttered at the prospect 
 of this sudden gaiety, she felt rather ashamed of her little fiction. 
 
 " I shall have to tell her it was an after-thought," said wicked 
 Nettie to herself as she knocked at the door of the Vicarage. 
 " 'In for a penny, in for a pound.' I hope fibs are not very sinful. 
 We are told that we mustn't do evil that good may come. One 
 can't do everything that is in Aunt Eliza's Bible. I suppose it is 
 a fib not to call myself Eliza Ann. I wish there were some punish- 
 ment invented for every person who gave an ugly name to a child. 
 Eliza Ann, indeed !" And then Nettie dressed her face in smiles 
 as she walked into IMrs. Ord's presence. 
 
 Nettie did not find the second part of her business so diflicult 
 as the first. Nettie Underwood's little tea-parties were no novelty 
 to the Vicarage folks ; many pleasant evenings had been spent in 
 the little house next door to the sexton's, and in truth Aiuit Eliza 
 was somewhat of a favom'ite at the Vicarage.
 
 NETTIE'S CONST /RACY. 131 
 
 " Yes, they woiild come," Mrs. Ord answered graciously. 
 " She could answer for Austin and Gartou, and even Belle made 
 no objection ; and, if Belle came, of course Robert would accom- 
 pany her ; yes, to-morrow would suit them very well, as the boys 
 were all going to a friend's to spend the evening." 
 
 Nettie did not stay long when she had got her answer : slie 
 was afraid the Vicar might come in and gainsay his wife's words. 
 To tell the truth, she was a little nervous. She had played her 
 cards well, the cause was a good one— she was more than ever 
 convinced of that ; she was rather inclined to look upon herself in 
 the light of a heroine ; there was a pleasant spice of novelty and 
 excitement about the whole affair. But still the idea of the Vicar 
 coming in just now made her a little nervous. 
 
 Her spirits rose perceptibly when she found herself in her own 
 little drawing-room. 
 
 "Well, my dear?" inquired Aunt Eliza, rather anxiously. 
 
 " Well, aunt, they are all coming to-morrow, and so we must 
 make the best of it. It is a pity you did not come with me to 
 Miss Maturin's, for I am sm-e you would have been charmed : she 
 is just one of your and Mrs. Blake's sort — goody-good, and that 
 sort of thing, you know. She and the dragon — what a hideous 
 woman that Mrs. Carruthers is ! and Miss Matmin's no beauty — 
 were cobbling a lot of old serge and flannel ; there was a clothes- 
 basketful, and they had Macaulay's Essays open on the table — isn't 
 she an estimable young woman, aunt 1 — and they both looked as 
 dowdy and dreary as a couple of Quakeresses. I had to talk hard 
 to keep my spirits up all the time." 
 
 "And she's no beauty, you sayl" inquired Miss Underwood, 
 who, in spite of her beard and her loud manly voice, had a great 
 fondness for good looks. 
 
 " A beauty 1 Good gracious, no, aunt ! She has smooth hair 
 and a nice figure and white hands, I believe, and people would call 
 her ladylike ; but she has the palest face I ever saw — quite sickly- 
 looking, and any one could see she has been a companion. There's 
 no style about her, and she was so quiet and inanimate." And 
 here Nettie groaned, and threw herself down on the sofa with a 
 querulous pctitioif to Aunt Eliza to go and see after the tea.
 
 CHAPTER XTII. 
 Nettie's tea-party. 
 
 -'Thy heart can feel, but will not move ; 
 Thy soul, though soft, will never shal<e." 
 
 Lord Byron 
 
 That niglit Nettie slept the sleep of the just, aud woke in a bustle. 
 
 Straws will show which way the wind is. Long before break- 
 fast was over in the small corner house by the sexton's, the entire 
 household, consisting of Aunt Eliza, two feminine domestics, and a 
 very fat spaniel who went by the name of Lumber, were made 
 fully aware that the young mistress was not perfectly easy in her 
 mind, and that something rather out of the common was to happen 
 to them this evening. Nettie — -who would not have owned for 
 worlds that she was nervous, but who felt nevertheless like some 
 miniature Guy Fawkes, who had entered into a conspiracy to blow 
 up somebody, which would end probably in her being blown up 
 herself — Nettie was in a fuss and bustle from morning to night. 
 
 Rather an indolent housekeeper, and in fact ruling vicariously, 
 Aunt Eliza being both head and hands, Nettie on this occasion 
 floundered helplessly in buttery and china cupboard, whisking 
 things into their wi'ong receptacles, and rustling in her voluminous 
 skirts into all sorts of improbable places. She nearly drove Sarah, 
 a stout Lancashire wench, frantic by standing over her to watch 
 the compounding of certain sponge-cakes and fancy biscuits ordered 
 for her guests' delectation. She got a pestle and mortar and set 
 to work herself, rolling up her sleeves above her white elbows and 
 enveloping herself in a floiu-y apron. Sarah would have gladly 
 dispensed with her help ; she beat up the eggs into a thin froth,, 
 her pounded sugar was lumpy, she could not keep her hands off a 
 certain stewpan where peaches were simmering ; when extra heat 
 was required she would keep opening the oven-doors in her interest 
 to look after the spiced bread. Half an hour after that she was 
 harassing Aunt Eliza and Catherine in the china cupboard. Slie 
 broke one of her favom-ite violet-and-gold cups ; that calmed her
 
 NETTIE'S TEA-PARTY. 133 
 
 for a little while, aud then she went off to her flower-vases, but 
 even these did not satisfy her. A little basket of bright-colom-ed 
 leaves that she had arranged for the centre of the table turned out 
 a failure. Fussy work is seldom successful work, as Nettie was 
 finding to her cost. 
 
 As for Aunt Eliza, she could hardly call her soid her own. 
 Nettie's tea-parties were always trials of patience to that much- 
 enduring woman. Her niece's orders were so apt to be contradict- 
 ory. But to-day her powers of endm-ance were severely tested : 
 she had to loop and unloop the curtains a dozen times for Nettie's 
 inspection ; her arrangement of chairs and table was declared too 
 stiff and then too negligent ; the card-basket was first to be pro- 
 duced and then hidden in obscurity ; books and engravings were 
 declared stereotype and formal, and peremptorily interdicted, and 
 yet the drawing-room table was finally strewn with them. Aunt 
 Eliza sat down on the sofa and fanned herself with the feather- 
 broom and duster by turns while her niece talked and argued the 
 matter. 
 
 Long before the proper time arrived Nettie coaxed her aimt 
 to go up and dress. Miss Underwood, in her innocence, was for 
 putting on a certain well-preserved black silk which she called her 
 second best company dress, and was judged good enough for all 
 home occasions. To her sore perplexity Nettie turned up her nose 
 at this respectable garment, and insisted on a violet cheue, which 
 she had lately and mysteriously presented to her aunt wrapped in 
 a* soft white lace shawl. Now, to poor Aunt Eliza's manifest 
 discomfiture, both shawl and dress were to be worn. 
 
 " But, my dear, my best silk dress for visiting, and just because 
 the Vicar and his wife and this young lady are coming ! Suppos- 
 ing I get it spotted at tea-time 1 Catherine is so careless, and " 
 
 "Now, Aunt Eliza," said positive Nettie, "what is the good 
 of your talking as though you had only one gown in the world \ 
 When it is shabby you shall have another— that's all. And mind 
 you pin your collar straight, and don't rumple your cap-strings. 
 You know you can make yourself look nice if you like." And 
 Nettie, who in Ijer secret heart believed that Aunt Eliza was a very 
 handsome woman in spite of her brown front, patted her aunt 
 coaxingly with her little fiit hands, and finally turned her out of 
 the room. 
 
 When Miss Underwood returned in her robes of majesty, with 
 her best and glossiest front, and with a certain pleasant conscious- 
 ness of a French silk which stood alone with richness, she was a 
 little disapjioiuted to find her niece had donned a simple everyday 
 dress. Nettie sometimes aftected simplicity and childishness-
 
 134 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Perhaps she knew the bkie ribbons matched her eyes, and that the 
 white dress set off those pink cheeks of hers. She was in quite a 
 flutter of spirits by this time. 
 
 " Now, Aunt Eliza," she began, as she flitted round her relation, 
 settling her brooch and putting in all the crooked pin-points — 
 Aunt Eliza's pins were always crooked — " I will tell you what I 
 have been thinking about. Mrs. Ord and Belle are sure to come 
 first ; they always do. Now, I don't want to spoil the fun by going 
 out to receive Miss Maturin, and to send a servant after her will be 
 so formal. So, Aunt Eliza, when you hear the bell, you must just 
 go to the top of the stairs, and so break the ice a little." 
 
 "Wouldn't Catherine do better, my dearf ventured Miss 
 Underwood, who felt instinctively that she and her dress ought to 
 be in the sofa-corner, for even Aunt Eliza could be dignified some- 
 times. 
 
 "Now, aunt, how can you be so silly," returned Netty 
 crossly, " when I have just said a servant would be so formal % I 
 thought this was going to be your evening. I'm sure I said as 
 much to Miss Maturin. I laid a stress on your wanting to make 
 acquaintance with her, I know ; and now, when I've contrived a 
 little pleasure for you, and you looking so beautiful, too, in your 
 new dress," continued artful Nettie, "you are going to be disagree- 
 able and spoil it all." 
 
 Aunt Eliza was a big woman, but she was not proof against 
 such flattery. She gave Nettie one of her loud kisses as she sat 
 fondling Lumber rather sulkily, and jiromised to do her best by 
 their visitor. 
 
 Nettie was ri2;ht in one of her surmises. Mrs. Ord and Belle 
 did arrive first ; Mary came in, looking very bright and cheerful, 
 with her work in her hand, but Belle looked unusually ill. Both 
 established themselves very cosily at Miss Underwood's work-table. 
 Marymade a laughing apologyabout the size and quantity of her work. 
 
 " Fancy work only makes me restless," she said, in answer to 
 a satirical observation of Nettie's. " I always think it waste of 
 time, only fit for fine ladies or for the Nettie Underwoods of 
 society," she finished slyly. " Belle does a little sometimes ; she 
 likes all the ornamental parts — the braiding, etc. I sometimes 
 make believe that darning is my fancy work : I have to do such 
 quantities of it." 
 
 "Why did you not bring your darning to-night, Mrs. Ord^" 
 said Nettie, who was not more than half pleased at such specimens 
 of industry in her own drawing-room. And then the Vicar came 
 in and began to play with his wife's reels of cotton as he talked 
 to Nettie.
 
 NETTIE'S TEA-PARTY. 135 
 
 " Garton will be here directly," he observed presently ; "he is 
 only waiting for Robert." 
 
 "Mr. Robert is coming, then !" exclaimed Nettie joyfully, who 
 had been rather uncertain till this moment whether lier adversary 
 had decided to lower his weapons on this occasion. 
 
 " Oh yes ! he is coming," returned the Vicar, as he glanced 
 with an amused smile at Belle. And Nettie, wlio was rather 
 quick at such things, took it into her wise little head that there 
 had been some words on tlie subject ; and she was sure of it when 
 Robert entered a few minutes afterwards with his brother. 
 
 Robert was in one of his difficult moods ; he had been very 
 wrathful when he had heard of Nettie's tea-party, and with Belle 
 for accepting the invitation. He did not like Nettie Underwood, 
 as she well knew ; he thought her a forward presuming little 
 person ; but, when Belle was for staying at home and letting Mary 
 go without her, he was just as displeased. Why should she be 
 moiling at home alone % People were always accusing her of reserve 
 and exclusiveness. He wished her to mix more with other girls, 
 and rub off some of her shyness. Go ! Of course he would go. 
 Wasn't it his privilege to escort her everywhere % Poor Belle 
 could not tell him that such unwilling gallantry was valueless in 
 her eyes ; but she made up her mind that her evening would be 
 spoilt, and spoilt it was. 
 
 Robert knew he had been disagreeable and contrary, and when 
 he entered the little drawing-room he was in that stage of penitence 
 which is rather aggressively sulky. He thought Belle must know 
 he felt sorry ; but as there was no evidence of such sorrow in liis 
 face, Belle did not know it, and felt that he grudged her her little 
 pleasures. She had been rather inclined to think the tea-party 
 would be rather amusing, but if Robert were going to be stiff and 
 silent he would spoil every one's jDleasure. Poor Belle ! she need 
 not have troubled herself, for it was not ordained that Robert 
 should be the wet blanket of the evening. Nettie changed colour 
 when tlie ominous bell was heard. She talked fiist and nervously 
 to Garton when Aunt Eliza rose to leave the room. After all, 
 Aiuit Eliza's task was the easier. 
 
 Miss Underwood was accustomed to look at everything from 
 her niece's point of view. She remembered Nettie's disparaging 
 words regarding their visitor, and was tlierefore agreeably dis- 
 appointed and not a little surprised at the favourable impression 
 made on her own mind by the young stranger. 
 
 Miss Maturin turned round with a winning smile as tlie elder 
 lady advanced ; her little overtures of help were acknowledged by 
 the young girl in a very sweet low voice. Miss Underwood stood
 
 136 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 by admiringly as Rotha smoothed the coil of dark brown hair, 
 which showed the small head to such advantage ; she thought the 
 clinging black dress set off the tall slender figure to perfection, and 
 could not understand Nettie's accusation of dowdiness. They were 
 quite friendly by the time they came downstairs. Miss Underwood's 
 voice travelling before them as usual. 
 
 "You never told us you had a visitor, Nettie," said Mary, 
 putting down her work with an air of mild siurprise. The Vicar 
 stopped in the midst of a ludicrous anecdote that he was narrating, 
 and shot a sharp suspicious glance at the door. 
 
 "No, I — I " It was an after-thought, she was going to 
 
 add, but she was spared the additional fib by the entrance of Miss 
 Maturin. There had been quite a buzz of voices round Mary's 
 little work-table, but at this unlooked-for apparition a dead silence 
 fell on the whole party. Nettie's quick nervous voice broke upon 
 it quite abruptly as she went through the necessary introductions. 
 
 " How dreadfully late you are. Miss Maturin ! I hoped you 
 would not have been so ceremonious — we are all friends here. Mrs. 
 Ord, Miss Clinton, Miss Matm-in, the Vicar, Mr. Robert I think 
 you know already" — and so on. Oonsidering all things, Nettie 
 did it pretty well. 
 
 Rotha bowed gravely as she acknowledged each introduction, 
 and then for a moment her dark eyes glanced reproachfully at her 
 young hostess. " You told me that you would be quite alone. Miss 
 Underwood ? " she said in a low voice, but which was perfectly • 
 audible to every one in the room. In spite of its gentleness it 
 testified to some displeasure. 
 
 Nettie coloured and hesitated ; she was sure her little scheme 
 was discovered now— it would never do to tell any more fibs about 
 it. "After-thoughts and surprises are sometimes pleasant," she 
 said rather saucily. " We Yorlishire folk are rather famed for our 
 hospitality. We are often given to entertain angels unaware." 
 Nettie knew that the Vicar was apt to rebuke her for irreverent 
 quotation, and she rather hoped he would do so now — anything 
 would be better than that stift' .silence. But the Vicar was deter- 
 mined to hold his peace till a more fitting opportunity. 
 
 " Oh Nettie ! " said Mary, much shocked ; and then she too 
 relapsed into dumbness. Rotha flushed up crimson as she glanced 
 round the circle once or twice rather pleadingly. She was vexed 
 and indignant for them as well as herself. She saw what a trap 
 had been set for them all, and felt humiliated in her own eyes. 
 She turned a little away from Nettie .after that flippant answer of 
 hers, and addressed herself to Miss Underwood. 
 
 It was no use endeavouring to secure harmonious relations at
 
 NETTIE'S TEA-PARTY. 137 
 
 present — they must fit into their places by and by. Nettie was 
 inclined to take the whole matter rather coolly now. Miss Maturiu's 
 dignity made her cross ; every one felt awkward and annoyed, and 
 tried to get rid of this feeling by talking as fast as possible \ the 
 circle broke up into twos — a discord of duets jarred everywhere, 
 Garton fenced himself up in a corner with Lumber and tried to 
 teach him tricks. Kobert came over to Belle's side and talked 
 sulkily in her ear. Rotha, dropping out of the conversation now 
 carried on between Mrs. Carruthers and Miss Underwood, heard 
 fragments and snatches of the whole. 
 
 " Trust ! — paid for ! Look at him, Bob ; how well he balances 
 my shilling ! Miss Nettie, your dog is a paragon of talent. Come, 
 Lumber, sit up again." 
 
 " I don't think the new curate will do at all, my dear : that 
 stammer seems inveterate, and is very disagreeable ; the old people 
 complain sadly of him." 
 
 " What a pity ! And he seems such a good earnest young 
 man, Austin." 
 
 "Yes, it is lamentable how all good earnest young men with 
 impediments in their speech think themselves especially fitted for 
 the Church. In my opinion even the slightly-halt and maimed 
 ought to be debarred from the service of the sanctuary ; incom- 
 pleteness or imperfection there ought not to be tolerated. George 
 Greenhithe is a fine fellow, but to my mind he has mistaken his 
 vocation." 
 
 • " We can't get the mothers to work, my dear," came in Miss 
 Underwood's deep bass ; " some of them have never been taught 
 even to put in a patch." 
 
 " You might have classes for the elder women," returned Mrs. 
 Carruthers timidly. 
 
 " Yes, and waste all our firing and gas. Bless you ! we can't 
 get the mothers to attend. Some are laundresses or charwomen ; 
 they go out at seven in the morning, and never get home till eight 
 in the evening. ' How am I to mend my children's clothes now ? ' 
 said one only the other day ; ' why, it's eight or sometimes nine 
 before I get back, and by the time I've cleared up the place a little, 
 and washed out a few things, and got my master's supper, I'm just 
 clean ready to drop.' And so they are. What those poor creatures 
 have to go through, some of them ! And that's why good ready- 
 made linen, that they can buy cheaply with a few pence, is such a 
 help to them. We are making striped shirts for the men now." 
 
 " Oh ! do let me help Miss Underwood," exclaimed Rotha 
 eagerly. " Mrs. Carruthers and I do a great deal of that sort of 
 work."
 
 138 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "Aunt Eliza, ain't we ever going to have tea?" broke in 
 Nettie's fretful voice at this juncture; and Aunt Eliza dropped 
 her knitting-needles in some confusion as she started up in obedience 
 to her niece's summons. 
 
 There then ensued another awkward pause. "Will you take 
 my aunt downstairs, Mr. Ord ? " said Nettie decidedly ; " and, Mr. 
 Robert, please give your arm to Miss Maturin. The rest of us 
 can pair ourselves." And she laughed over her shoidder as she 
 took possession of Mrs. Ord. But Mary had not her pleasant 
 smile ready for her. 
 
 Belle looked after her lover anxiously as she saw him cross 
 the room on his unwelcome errand ; it made him still more angry 
 to see how simply and naturally Rotha accepted his attention — 
 somehow she was always compelling him to admire her dignity. 
 
 But, in spite of Rotha's ease and Nettie's talkativeness, it was 
 not a sociable meal. Full justice was not done to the dainty pro- 
 visions ; Aunt Eliza's excellent Souchong had lost its flavour ; every 
 one missed the Vicar's merry speeches and droll jokes : Austin was 
 very grave — a sure sign that he was displeased ; he talked parochial . 
 matters with Miss Underwood, quite ignoring his favourite Nettie. 
 Garton sat between Belle and Mary, and kept up a low-toned con- 
 versation with them. Mary tried to include Mrs. Carruthers once 
 or twice, but Meg was shy, and gave blunt abrupt answers. The 
 jarring elements were not to be reconciled. 
 
 Robert talked across the table to them at intervals ; now and 
 then he addressed some stereotyped remark to his next-door neigh- 
 bour : " He hoped she had enjoyed her visit to London % " " No," 
 she answered frankly, "she had been in no mood for enjoyment, 
 but they had made her very comfortable. She had liked Mr. 
 Tracy's wife and daughters very much." 
 
 " Rather old-fashioned," Robert surmised, with a slight sneer. 
 
 " Oh, old-fashioned, of course. But she liked such old-world 
 ways ; it was rather refreshing after so many foolish novelties." 
 
 Robert tried to be politely interested, but the failure was 
 evident. Rotha bent over her plate in relieved silence till the 
 next remark was forthcoming. 
 
 " Did she like Kirkby 1 " Rotha gave a quick startled flush, 
 and then an odd sort of courage came to her. 
 
 " I like Kirkby sands and sea, Mr. Ord," she answered quietly, 
 " better than I like Kirkby welcome." And at that moment, by a 
 strange coincidence, her eyes met the Vicar's. Somehow that look 
 of honest reproach struck the ground from the Vicar's feet. He 
 was glad that the sudden ringing out of the church-bell gave him 
 an excuse for withdrawing.
 
 NETTIE'S TEA-PARTY. 139 
 
 " Why, you are uot going to the service, Mr. Ord?" cried 
 Kettie in genuine dismay, as she saw him rise. " It is Mr. Green- 
 hithe's week. Besides, it is too cruel to break up oiu evening like 
 this." 
 
 " I will look in again after church and fetch Mary," was the 
 uncompromising answer ; and Nettie's heart sank most unpleasantly 
 as she marshalled her little party upstairs. Gartoii had his 
 sacristan's duty to perform, and accomimnied his brother. Nettie 
 did not like to confess that she had failed, but she felt terribly 
 cross. She left her remaining guests to do what they would, while 
 she seated herself at the piano and ran off a valse, which jarred 
 sadly with the bells. Nettie always played valses when she was 
 out of temper. Aunt Eliza smoothed her silk dress nervously, and 
 left off talking to Mrs. Carruthers when she heard the flom-ish of 
 the keys. Kobert hummed the tunes softly as he turned over the 
 big scrap-book and album on the centre table. Mary and Belle 
 were snugly at their work again. Rotha, lacing and interlacing 
 her long fingers on her lap, suddenly took heart of grace and ap- 
 proached them. 
 
 " Do let me help you," she said rather hurriedly, and taking 
 up some work of Mrs. Ord's that lay on the table. "I do so like 
 braiding, and I am so tired of doing nothing. May I take tliis 
 pinafore and tiy % " And she looked so pleadingly at Mrs. Ord 
 that Mary could not refuse her. "Thank you; then I will take 
 this to begin on. No, do not disturb yourself," as Mary made room 
 for her on the sofa, " I shall see better by the centre lamp ; " and 
 she carried off her work and began to sew contentedly. 
 
 . Robert looked across at her now and then as he turned over 
 the big folio : the lamplight streamed full on her — on her brown 
 hair and long eyelashes and pale face. It was an interesting face, 
 after all, he thought, only too long and thin, but the mouth was 
 very sweet. Those covert glances made him both moody and con- 
 fused. What was there about this girl, so seemingly gentle, he 
 thought, that turned him to gall and bitterness % Do what he 
 would, he could not make her look conscious or ashamed ; there 
 she sat, a stranger and alien amongst them, knowing and owning 
 herself as such, and quietly acquiescing in such knowledge. The 
 very dignity of li^cr meekness tried him sorely ; no blame could be 
 attached to the modest reserve in which she had chosen to entrench 
 herself Hy])ocritical or real, he felt instinctively that the impres- 
 sion made upon his brother's mind must be a favourable one, and 
 his brow grew blacker at the thought. How was he to prevent 
 himself from hating her % Aunt Eliza's voice struck in most oppor- 
 tunely now.
 
 140 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Nettie, my dear, Mrs. Carruthers is good euough to say that 
 she will sing to ns." 
 
 Nettie's waltzing fingers broke over the keys with a final 
 flourish and quaver. " What ! Do you sing, Mrs. Carruthers ? 
 How delightful!" 
 
 " Yes, but only sacred music," answered Meg gravely ; and the 
 clear brown light came into her eyes. " Of late years I have cared 
 for little else." 
 
 The Vicar's wife looked up with an ap^oroving smile. 
 
 " I think we all enjoy sacred music better than anything," said 
 Mary, looking very much like her husband as she spoke. Meg's 
 stoop and eye-glasses were forgotten now : a thrill of suppressed 
 excitement passed through the circle as the grand deep voice filled 
 the little room. Belle put down her work, and her eyes filled with 
 tears, and even Kobert looked moved and surprised. The Vicai-, 
 coming in, took his place at his wife's side noiselessly ; only Rotha 
 sat and worked on, seemingly unimpressed. 
 
 " Do not leave ofi"; pray — pray give us something more," cried 
 Nettie, delighted. 
 
 Meg received their praises as simply as they were given. She 
 sang everything they asked her without stint or limitation. When 
 Garton became urgent with her to repeat a favourite passage, she 
 complied with perfect good-humour and precision. There was quite 
 a circle roimd the piano presently : even Belle joined it. The Vicar 
 drummed with his fingers delightedly as he listened ; now and then 
 he left off to watch Rotha sitting so patiently aloof 
 
 The chiming of the church-clock interrupted them all. 
 
 "It is very late. I must go now," said Rotha, as she came 
 up again to the little work-table. " I wish I could have finished 
 the braiding for you, Mrs. Ord." Mary thanked her rather form- 
 ally. " Good-night," continued Rotha, quite ignoring the eulogism 
 passed on the beauty of her work. Then the Vicar rose and held 
 out his hand. 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Maturin. To-morrow I shall do myself 
 the honoiu: of calling at Bryn ; that is, if you are not otherwise 
 engaged." 
 
 Rotha gave him one of her queer wistfid looks, and then 
 something seemed to rise up and choke her, and she turned away. 
 
 " Shall you be at home'?" he continued, watching her keenly. 
 
 " I shall always be at home to my clergyman, I hope," was the 
 low-toned answer. Perhaps it came to our Vicar in the light of a 
 reproach, for he drew back instantly. 
 
 Rotha included all her other adieux in one grave comprehensive 
 bow, and only Garton followed his brother's example and shook
 
 NETTIE'S TEA-PARTY. 141 
 
 hands. She hardly spoke at all till she wished Nettie good-bye, 
 and then there was no resentment in her smile and shake of the hand. 
 
 " It has been a horrid evening, I am afraid," said Nettie, with 
 a dismal shrug of her shoulders. 
 
 " No, you must not say that. You meant it kindly, I am sure. 
 But it was very unfortunate. You must never ask me again with 
 them — never ! " cried the girl, with a sudden pang in her voice 
 that struck Nettie. " I don't think they wish it. It is very 
 strange, but no one seems to care to know me." They were 
 standing outside the door in the moonlight when Rotha said this. 
 The sadness of the words sobered Nettie instantly. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, Miss Maturin, they do. I care to know you, 
 and Aunt Eliza too ; avery one will when they have once broken 
 the ice. In a small place like this there are always difficulties. 
 People get into cliques and sets, and no one knows at fii'st who 
 belongs to which. It is so confusing." 
 
 " I fancy Meg and I will make our own clique," answered 
 Rotha, smiling very sadly. 
 
 " Oh ! that's stuff and nonsense," returned Nettie, with a droll 
 little laugh. " Why there's Mrs. Blake dying to get you into her 
 set, and that's the tip-top of Kirkby society — la creme de la creme, 
 you know, only it's rather heavy. I like my set the best. You 
 should come to one of my ' tea-kettle gossips,' as I call them when 
 I have the pick of my twenty-three friends. I don't think you 
 woidd go away with such a grave face as you have to-night." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Underwood ! I did my best ; I did, indeed," began 
 
 Rotha, pleading. " But I was so taken by surprise, and " 
 
 . "Oh, you mean about them !" retm'ned Nettie, nodding in the 
 direction of the drawing-room window. "Yes, yes, I understand. Of 
 course they were very stiff and disagreeable — Mr. Robert especially. 
 But you take my advice," she continued, linking her arm good- 
 humouredly in Rotha's as they walked down the Mttlc footpath 
 together. "Just let him have his ill-humour out. He's pre- 
 judiced — that's what he is. He can't bear to see any one enjoying 
 the goods that he thinks ought to belong to himself. Bless you, 
 I know all about it ! And so he's gone and put everything in a 
 wrong light, and made them all stiff and uncomfortable together. 
 Of course they won't thaw all at once. It's very unfortunate, as 
 you say," continued Nettie, with breathless candoui-, " all the 
 more that I have put my foot into it. But if there's one thing I 
 hate it is meanness, and it is dreadfully mean." 
 
 " Miss Nettie, I am waiting to say good-night," said a voice 
 behind them, and there was the Vicar striding down the path. 
 
 Rotha released herself from Nettie's arm in some confusion.
 
 142 ROBERT ORD\S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Had he heard — was it possible that he could have heard the last 
 speech % Nettie was wondering the same as she put out a pettish 
 hand to him. 
 
 "What, are you going already'? It is impossible to be in two 
 places at once. You might have waited till I came back," and 
 Nettie's voice was full of outraged dignity. 
 
 " I left a message with your aunt," he replied coolly. " Mary 
 and Belle are upstairs still. I am hurrying home to write an 
 important letter. Miss Maturiii, you are without an escort ; we 
 are going the same way. I will walk with you to your door." 
 
 " No, indeed, Mr. Ord," returned Rotha hastily. " I have 
 Mrs. Carruthers with me." But the Vicar was determined. Nettie 
 bade them good-bye with some confusion and then pouted, because 
 the Vicar only lifted his hat to her as he went out. As she stood 
 leaning against the little gate and watched the three long shadows 
 in the moonlight she thought of Rotha's sad words — "It is very 
 strange, but no one cares to know me." Perhaps Mr. Ord had 
 repented of his coldness by this time, and had taken this oppor- 
 tunity of making friends. He often had odd ways of doing things, 
 Nettie thought. But for once Nettie Underwood's surmises were 
 wrong ; for all the way the Vicar only spoke to Mrs. Carruthers 
 about chm-ch music ; and when they parted at the door Rotha 
 had not once opened her lips, except to say good-night. 
 
 " Are you very tired, dearest V asked Mrs. Carruthers, as she 
 lingered on the threshold of Rotha's room when they had retired 
 for the night. 
 
 " No," said Rotha very quietly, as she gave her cheek passively 
 to her friend. "I am so glad that you have had such a pleasant 
 evening, and that they admired your singing so much, Meg." And 
 then she closed the door, still smiling, and Mrs. Carruthers went away. 
 
 The smile was still on her face when she reached the dressing- 
 table. But stretching out her hand to the glass for some purpose 
 or other, she suddenly saw with surprise that she was quite white 
 to her lips, and tried to sit down before the gathering faintness 
 should overpower her. " I am glad she is gone. I am glad she 
 did not see me like this," she said feebly, as she struggled with 
 the languor that oppressed her. " I suppose the strain was too 
 great, or I made myself out braver than I was." 
 
 Braver than she was % Ah, One alone knew where the frail 
 girlish heart found all its strength and power of patience ! Long 
 after the Vicarage people were asleep, and Meg was calling on 
 Jack's name in her dreams, Rotha was praying her nightly prayer 
 over and over again with streaming eyes — " Lead me in a plain 
 path, God, because of my enemies ! "
 
 o 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN, 
 
 " Upon her face there was the tint of grief, 
 The settled shadow of an inward strife, 
 And an unquiet drooping of the eye. 
 As if its lid were charged with unshed tears." — Byrom. 
 
 " Duke. What's her history ? 
 
 Viola. A blank, my lord. " — Shakspeake. 
 
 The Vicar was in no very enviable frame of mind the following 
 afternoon as he went up the sandy road towards Bryn. It was 
 bad enough to be inwardly conscious of failure, and to know that 
 his practice had not exactly tallied with his precepts. But that he 
 should have been taught this lesson by a chit like Nettie was 
 humiliating, to say the least of it. On his return home the pre- 
 vious evening he had said very little to his wife about Miss 
 Maturin, but had expressed himself as being very wrathfid with 
 Nettie. 
 
 " I hope you will be very severe with her, Austin," ]\Iary had 
 rem'arked. " I consider that she has put an affront upon us all, 
 and especially on Robert." 
 
 " I am beginning to doubt my abiUty to fight all Robert's 
 battles," returned the Vicar, with a sigh. " But you need not be 
 afraid of my leniency with Nettie ; if I do rebuke her, it will be 
 in no very measured terms, I assure you. But I hardly know 
 whether it will not be wiser to leave her alone altogether." 
 
 " I think she ought to be lectured for her meddling," Mary 
 had answered, and then the subject had dropped. After that she 
 liad tried to say a word or two that might induce Austin to speak 
 of their next-door^neighbour, but hor hints were disregarded ; the 
 Vicar could not be persuaded to open his lips on the events of 
 the evening. 
 
 As he crossed the bridge and rang at the bell he had not yet 
 made up his mind what plan he should pursue during the coming 
 interview ; on the whole he thought it would be better to let
 
 144 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 circumstances guide him. If Mrs. Carruthers were there he would 
 confine himself to mere commonplaces, and watch Miss Maturin 
 closely as he talked. But if she were alone, well ! he hardly knew 
 what he should do — he almost thought perfect frankness would be 
 the best. He little thought that Miss Maturin had taken the 
 matter into her own hands, that she had chosen to be alone, and 
 had sent Mrs. Carruthers into Blackscar on some pretext, that she 
 might be free from all interruption. 
 
 The Vicar had wondered in which room he would be received. 
 He rather thought there would be some little state in the mode of 
 his reception. But here he was wrong. The drawing-room door 
 indeed stood open ; he could see the marble pillars, and the black- 
 and-gold Chinese cabinet, and the long slants of sunlight through 
 the French windows, as he passed, but he was not invited to enter. 
 The rosy-cheeked maidservant ushered him instead into a sunny 
 little room which he remembered to have been his aunt's breakfast- 
 parlour, where Miss Maturin was alone. 
 
 She laid aside her work to receive him, but took it up again 
 immediately. Some women feel less nervous when they have their 
 needle in their hands. Eotha Maturin was one of these : she must 
 always be turning those restless fingers of hers to account. As the 
 Vicar sat down he could not fail to note the pleasantness of the 
 surroundings, the little refined womanly touches which make a 
 room so characteristic of its owner : the freshly-filled flower-vases, 
 the few well-chosen books, the basket heaped up with useful work, 
 a half-finished illumination beautifully designed ; outside the liHes, 
 and the lawn with its beds of creamy tea-roses and geraniums ; a 
 pair of doves cooed from some hidden recess, and a small black 
 kitten was chasing the fantail pigeons. 
 
 " You see I have kept my promise," said the Vicar, turning to 
 Rotha with a scrutinising smile. As he spoke he noticed the 
 smoothness of her hair and the swift movements of her thin white 
 hands ; there was a womanly propriety about her whole person that 
 pleased him better than mere beauty, her very gravity seemed fit- 
 ting to him. 
 
 " I have expected you for a long time," she replied ; " perhaps 
 it was my ignorance, but I thought a clergyman always visited all 
 the members of his congregation." She spoke quite simply and 
 without any intention of reproach, but the Vicar looked slightly 
 perturbed. 
 
 " It is rather difiicult in these free churches for a clergyman to 
 know all his parishioners," he returned hesitatingly. " I have 
 given ofi"ence more than once from this cause. One lady left my 
 church because I had never been near her. I found out afterwards
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 145 
 
 that she had been a coustaut attendant for more than six mouths. 
 These mistakes will occur, but I am only mentioning this casually. 
 Of course I have been aware for some time that you are a member 
 of my congregation." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Ord, and I have fully understood why you have 
 deviated from your ordinary rule witli regard to me." 
 
 " Indeed, Miss Maturin." 
 
 " Of course I felt how difficult it must be for you to come 
 here." 
 
 "Do you mean on my aunt's account?" And the Vicar 
 looked at her very keenly as he asked this question. But Rotha 
 raised her eyes to his without flinching. 
 
 " No, Mr. Ord ; I do not mean that. I do not think that 
 you would shrink from coming to Bryn from a sense of painful 
 associations. Men are braver than women in everything. I 
 think, nay I am sure, that you have avoided it from a far different 
 reason." 
 
 She was coming to the point now ; how pale she was, and her 
 voice was beginning to tremble ; but in his heart the Vicar thought 
 she had the better courage of the two. He hardly knew what to 
 make of such valour. 
 
 " Of course I knew why you have refrained from coming to 
 see me," she continued, and her voice was very sad. Then the 
 Vicar drew his chair a little closer. 
 
 "Miss Maturin, do you mind speaking out a little more 
 plainly?" he said. "We are trenching on a painful subject, I can 
 see. Half measures are always imsatisfactory. Would it not be 
 better that there shoidd be full confidence between us?" 
 
 *" I think it would, Mr. Ord." 
 
 "Well, do you mind telling me in plain words why you tliink 
 I have refrained from coming to Bryn %" 
 
 Then for a moment a feeling very like shame dyed her face 
 with crimson. Tliere was something very painful in her blush, 
 and he could not foil to see it. For a moment it undid the favour- 
 able impression tliat her manner and words had hitlicrto made on 
 him, and perhaps the consciousness that it would do so drove the 
 hateful colour still more hotly to her face. 
 
 "I mean, of course, if you do not iniiid," he said, rather more 
 coldly. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Ord, how can I help mmding % But still, I will tell 
 you if you wish it. Of course it is on your biother's account that 
 you have hitherto avoided me." 
 
 " On my brother's ? Do you mean on Robert's account?" 
 
 " Yes, undoubtedly." 
 
 10
 
 146 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Then it was the Vicar's turn to liesitate. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Orel %" There was a touch of sharpness in her tone 
 elicited by pain. 
 
 "You are right, of course," he replied in a very low voice. 
 " But still I am far from acknowledging that I have done my duty, 
 I ought to have come and told you the truth if needs be." 
 
 " When I fii'st saw you I made up my mind that you would 
 certainly do so." 
 
 " Yes, and my delay has done you harm ; I can see that 
 plainly." 
 
 " Oh, as to that, of course I am the talk of the village. How 
 can people help suspecting things when they see even their pastor 
 holds aloof? When you failed to come I knew then what hard 
 things he had been saying about me, and how you had all judged 
 and condemned me in your hearts. Is it not so % " she continued, 
 looking at him full as keenly as he had at her. 
 
 "No, Miss Maturin, you are wrong there." 
 
 " Wrong in thinking that you have condemned me ? " 
 
 " Yes ; whatever the others may have done, I have refused 
 entire credence to my brother's words till I could come and judge 
 for myself" 
 
 " That was kind of you, Mr. Ord, and I thank you for it most 
 heartily. I did not like to think that a clergyman could be so 
 unjust." 
 
 "You must remember that appearances are sadly against you," 
 he replied, a little piqued by this implied rebuke on his brother. 
 " It is very difficult to say all that one feels to a stranger, but you 
 must pardon me if I add that my brother is a man of strong dis- 
 cernment." 
 
 "And of strong prejudices too," she returned, with a faint 
 smile. "I cannot fancy him soon parting with an idea that he 
 has once formed. If I were not afraid of troubling you, Mr. Ord, 
 I would ask you to listen to my defence. It would be such a 
 relief if I miglit go over it once again." 
 
 " Do so, by all means," was the reply. And as the Vicar 
 composed himself to listen, the wonderful softness of her voice and 
 bearing filled him again with a feeling akin to admiration. If she 
 shoidd indeed be innocent of this grievous sin of covetousness, how 
 nobly and well would she have borne herself under the bitterness 
 of their accusation ! He thought then that she would be a woman 
 of no common stamp, of whom any one miglit be jjroud — worthy 
 to bear comparison with Belle or even his own Mary ; but, all the 
 same, lie felt as though he could not hold her guiltless. 
 
 So Rotha Maturin told the story of her life, and she told it
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 147 
 
 well. She used few words, she made no attemjit to work upon 
 his feelings — a simple statement of focts, ungarnished, almost bare, 
 was all she offered. When she had finished, she sat with her 
 hands folded and her head just a little drooping, waiting for his 
 reply. The quietness of her manner might have been taken for 
 indifference, but the Vicar did not misunderstand it. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Ordl" she said at last, as he still sat silent, re- 
 volving her last words. Then he got up and walked about the 
 room with his face still turned from her. 
 
 He almost wished now that she had not told him her story : 
 it made him so full of pity for her. What an unloved hard- 
 working youth ! Was it any wonder that amid such temptations 
 the longing for what was not hers should cleave to her % Would 
 Robert's or his hands have been cleaner if they had been placed in 
 the same circumstances % Good man as he was, he almost shrank 
 from asking himself the question. 
 
 "Neither do I condemn thee." The words came to him again 
 and again as he paced the room. Should the servant be less 
 merciful than the Master 1 Was it for him to cast the first stone 
 at this erring child because he and his were so sorely injured % 
 The hardness of his prejudice was dying out as far as he was con- 
 cerned ; he could tell himself with a clear conscience that he had 
 forgiven her. But woidd he be fulfilling his duty % Ought he not 
 to refrain from his pity imtil she had been led to acknowledge her 
 fault % The world might gloss it over and exonerate it, but until 
 she had owned that she had "coveted and desired other men's 
 goods " he ought not to threw open his hearth and home to her ; 
 unj;il she had confessed her sin the forgiveness must be qualified. 
 
 Poor Rotha ! She did not need any words to tell her of her 
 condemnation. She sat watching the Vicar with diy hot eyes as 
 he walked heavily to and fro. Her little story had failed then % 
 Why was her word to be always doubted % For a moment, as she 
 sat apart, she thought she would fling all her hated possessions 
 away, and go out of Bryn empty-handed and with head erect ; 
 they must believe her then, she thought. But a few minutes' 
 reflection showed her the folly of this impvdse. Where was her 
 endurance % Would it not be cowardly to fly from her troubles % 
 Was she sure tht^t such a reckless step would clear her in their 
 eyes % Woidd it not be nobler to live it down % Ay, and she 
 would do it, too. " God defends the innocent," she said, with an 
 inward sob, and then the Vicar came to her side and took her 
 hand. 
 
 "My child," he said in a low tender voice, "you do not know 
 how earnestly I desire to be your friend." And as she lifted up
 
 148 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 her sad eyes to him in some surprise, " Yes, indeed ; and no less 
 your friend because I cannot hold you perfectly guiltless in this 
 thing." 
 
 She tried to answer him, but she could not ; her head dropped 
 lower and lower. " Oh, my God ! do not try me above what I 
 am able to bear," came from her inmost heart, but her lips were 
 firmly closed. 
 
 " Do not mistake us," he continued, still more earnestly, " we 
 shall not be hard on you. My brother is prejudiced, but even he 
 spoke most feelingly of your youth and temptation. You are not 
 the first who has been gravely tried and has fallen." 
 
 The drooping head was raised a little. 
 
 " The shock of our disappointment is broken now," he went 
 on. " You need not fear that we shall grudge you your possessions. 
 All we ask you is to acknowledge that you have wronged us, by 
 word if not by deed, and to show some sorrow for the wrong." 
 
 The head was raised higher — higher ; the firm lips unclosed. 
 
 " Mr. Ord ! Would you have me perjure myself ?" 
 
 " My poor child ! Why ask me such a question V 
 
 " Woixld it not be perjuring myself if I took a lie on my lips 1 
 How can I tell you I have done this thing when I am innocent 1 
 Why will you all persist in believing what is false 1" 
 
 " My dear Miss Maturin !" 
 
 " Mr. Old," she said passionately, " we are both traversing a 
 circle, but we shall never meet, for you are on one side and I 
 another. Can I make you see with my eyes when my very white- 
 ness is blackness to you 1 Why do you ask me to defend myself 
 when you know — you know you will not believe my word?" 
 
 " I would believe you if you would only be candid with me in 
 this matter." 
 
 Then she rose, drawing up her slender figure to its full height, 
 so that he was obliged to rise also. 
 
 "Do you wish to dismiss me, Miss Maturin ?" 
 
 " No, Mr. Ord ; I am not quite so ungracious as that. But 
 I owe it to my own dignity not to talk any longer on this 
 matter." 
 
 " Do you know you are grieving me terribly ?" he went on. 
 
 "I am sorry for that, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " I did so desire to be your friend, but now you are setting 
 yourself so deliberately apart from us ; how can I help you if you 
 will not be persuaded in this thing?" 
 
 "You cannot help me," she returned hurriedly. "No one 
 can help me who does not believe my word. Don't look so sad, 
 ]\Ir. Ord. T can feel how kind and good you are in spite of all
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 149 
 
 this miserable misunderstauding. It will not be your doing if I 
 am talked about and slandered by the whole villoge." 
 
 " I hope nothing of tliat kind will happen," he returned ; and 
 then Rotha briefly told him the remarks she had overheard. 
 
 "That will never do," he exclaimed, much concerned; "Mary 
 must call on you at once. I think it would not be wise, under the 
 circumstances, for you to come to the Vicarage — at least for the 
 present ; but no time must be lost in letting people know that 
 Mrs. Ord has called." 
 
 Rotha hesitated for a moment, and then a great yearning for 
 kindness and sympathy seized her. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you may send her. Do not leave me all alone 
 here," she pleaded ; and now her eyes brimmed over with tears. 
 " You and Mrs. Ord shall say what you like to me, and I will 
 try and bear it if you will only let me hear sometimes a kind 
 voice from the outer world. Meg is always so sad, and it is so 
 dreary here." 
 
 The pathetic voice, the childishness of the ap[)eal, which came 
 nevertheless from a woman's wrung heart, were too much for our 
 Vicar, and he stretched out his kind hand to her. 
 
 "I will come, my child — I will come, and Mary too, never 
 fear ; and perhaps in a little while you will not be afraid to confide 
 in us. Have you anything else to sayT' he continued, for she 
 seemed as tliough she were al)Out to speak. 
 
 " Yes ; I was going to ask you if you would find me some 
 work. You don't know what it is for two women to sit here all 
 alone and eat their hearts ovA. Give me something to do for those 
 who are more wretched than I — any work — I would not refuse 
 the meanest ofiice — indeed I would not, Mr. Ord." 
 
 As she raised her face, flushed with its earnestness, he thought 
 what a good face it was, and for an instant the doubt crossed him, 
 had he — had they all been mistaken % 
 
 " You will not refuse me because of my unworthiness % " she 
 continued, misinterpreting his silence. 
 
 " Refuse you, poor child ! Who am I, after all, that I should 
 judge of your worthiness or unworthiness 1 I was only considering 
 the difficulties attendant on your proposition. Perhaps, for the 
 present, I will not! put you on our regular staff of workers ; but 
 there is an old blind woman who would be most thankful if any 
 one would read her a chapter daily ; and there is a poor girl dying 
 of consumption, who has a drunken mother — it is a very sad case 
 indeed. I do not know whether you would care to undertake such 
 a painful duty 1 " 
 
 " Try me," was Rotha's answer. And then, with sweet
 
 150 ROBERT OIWS ATONEMENT. 
 
 liumility, " If there be any work that Mrs. Ord or you wish done, 
 and that you think the other ladies will not like, I hope you will 
 reserve it for me." 
 
 "Very well — then that is a bargain," he replied cheerfully, 
 not caring to show how much he was touched. " I shall come up 
 and see you again about these cases, and perhaps I had better 
 take you to poor Annie myself j one can never tell what sort of 
 reception a lady is likely to meet with from that wretched woman. 
 I have taken you at your word. Miss Maturin ; the task is no 
 easy one, I assure you." 
 
 " I am not afraid," returned Rotha simply. 
 
 " Perhaps Mrs. Carruthers might be induced to help us with 
 our school and clothing-club ? I am afraid I am very covetous, 
 but I must turn that magnificent voice of hers to account. I wish 
 it were possible to make her choir-master." 
 
 " That reminds me that I have another favour to ask, Mr. 
 Ord. You see," with a faint smile, "your kindness is making me 
 bold. Do. not, please, be angry with Miss Underwood ; I am sure 
 she meant it kindly last night." 
 
 The Vicar's face grew dark. " It was very dubious kindness 
 then, Miss Maturin. I am greatly disposed to be very severe on 
 the subject with Miss Nettie." 
 
 " Yes, but you will not 1 " she pleaded earnestly. " I know 
 how wrong it was to you all — how very, very wrong, but I am 
 sure she meant good to us all ; miserable as I was, I could not 
 help feeling that, and I did so hope you would forgive her." 
 
 "Well, well, we shall see about it," returned the Vicar, but 
 his smile was a little forced, and then he bade her good-bye. It 
 might have been the force of old habit, but he went through the 
 glass door out on the lawn, and so to the green door in the wall. 
 As he let himself out he glanced back, and saw Rotha standing 
 among the lilies and watching him. 
 
 It was noticed by every one at the Vicarage that the Vicar 
 was not himself that day : he was grave and preoccupied, and 
 scarcely spoke to Robert when he came in to spend the evening. 
 When the boys had gone to bed, and he and Mary were alone, he 
 briefly related his interview with Miss Maturin, and begged her 
 to lose no time in calling at Bryn. 
 
 " I don't think we are justified in letting a young girl be the 
 talk of the place," he continued. " Graves will be getting hold 
 of it, and we dou't want to be slashed by his virulent tongue. I 
 know he would do anything to spite me and Robert." Now 
 Graves was the editor of the Blackscar and Kirkhy Herald, 
 a shoemaker by trade, and a Radical and Dissenter, and was
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 151 
 
 much given to snarl at the heels of the so-called High Cluirch 
 party. 
 
 Austin's innovations, few and simple as they were, had given 
 great offence to the Rector of Blackscar, a worthy gentleman of 
 the old school, who clung to the black gown and the " high 
 pulpit " as though they were the symbols of his party. A sur- 
 pliced choir had recently been started at Blackscar, much to the 
 tribulation of the elder members of his congregation, and it was a 
 fine thing to see the Rector gallantly bringing up the procession 
 on a choir festival in his short, well-worn, corded silk gown. The 
 Rector had been rather averse to the surplices for some time, and 
 had united his groans with the elder members, who thought fustian 
 jackets and clean collars would have been more in accordance with 
 the views of St. Paul ; but the groans had been overborne by the 
 younger portion of the congregation. A "bee" was organised by 
 some enterprising young ladies ; the surplices were duly sewn and 
 stitched, and a large parcel deposited at the Rectory on the Satur- 
 day night. Next morning the rosy-faced country lads walked 
 sheepishly to tlicir places, the beheld of all beholders, looking for 
 all the world like a flock of white geese, as one irascible old lady 
 in the greengrocery trade suggested. " Or like the cherubim and 
 seraphim, continually," as was remarked by one mother, whose 
 red-headed lad was the black sheep of the whole choir from his 
 habit of eating sour apples during the sermon. 
 
 The surplices had carried the day, but the Rector's soul was 
 sad within him. He had always been a little high with the 
 iieighbom-ing clergy, especially with the Rev. Austin Ord, whose 
 dally services had been a great offence in his eyes, but he had now 
 become almost tyrannical ; latterly he had taken up Ebenezer 
 Graves, the editor of the Blackscar Herald. Ebenezer made shoes 
 for his Reverence, and for Mrs. Price and the young ladies, and 
 the Rector often came to his shop, ostensibly for boots, but in 
 reality for a gossip. Mrs. Graves, who managed her husband's 
 business, a thin bilious -looking woman with a nasal drawl, was 
 also in high favour at the Rectory. 
 
 "A very worthy man; very worthy peoj^le, my dear," the 
 Rector would say. " Pity they are Dissenters. Writes very good 
 articles does Ebenezer, quite native talent. I tliink Blackscar 
 ought to be proud of him : it is no use Ord snubbing him and 
 putting him down on every occasion ; the man can't help having 
 a fluent pen, I suppose." 
 
 " Ebenezer hates Mr. Ord," put in one of the younger 
 daughters. " I believe it is because he told him that he ought 
 to look alter his business better and make his own shoes. Fancy
 
 152 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 tlie author of the ' Bullfinch's Elegy ' and ' The Lamb's Com- 
 plaint ' making shoes ! " 
 
 " Yes, and he said ' The Lamb's Complaint ' ought to be that 
 it was generally too much done," put in another daughter. 
 
 " And he declared the ' Bullfinch's Elegy ' reminded him of 
 treacle and brown sugar," whereby it might be seen that Austin 
 was apt to be a little funny at the expense of the poet shoemaker. 
 At home he was rather more i^lainspoken ; he called Ebenezer 
 Graves a canting rascal, and was very indignant when Mary 
 wanted to buy Laurie some boots there, pleading that they were 
 cheaper than at any other shop in Blackscar. Therefore the 
 Vicar's fear with regard to themselves and Miss Maturin was not 
 without foundation. Letters had often appeared in the BlacJcscar 
 Herald containing mysterious hints and surmises by an unknown 
 correspondent very damaging to some inhabitant of Blackscar ; 
 little private family matters had even been divulged in this 
 manner. Once or twice an injured person had been inclined to 
 sue Ebenezer for libel, but the hints had been so obscure, and the 
 whole couched in such mysterious language, that there was nothing 
 of which one could take hold. " They should try a good horse- 
 whipping," Carton had said once. " What is the use if they can- 
 not prove the article is his ? " returned the Vicar ; " he would 
 only have you up for assault and battery. There's no getting at 
 the rascal. I remonstrated with him once in very strong language 
 about one of my parishioners being annoyed by just such a letter. 
 ' Why do you allow such a libellous thing to be printed in your 
 paper 1 ' I said to him when he had denied all knowledge of the 
 writer. ' Why not 1 ' was his only answer ; ' it is a very good 
 letter. People think the Corresiwndence Corner the most amus- 
 ing in the whole paper. The man who wrote that article knew 
 what he was about. I don't see a thing's libellous because the 
 cap ha^jpeus to fit one of your congregation. Bless you ! some of 
 these things are just make-ups, and mean nothing at all.' 'I am 
 positive that there is meaning in this,' I replied. ' My friend 
 feels himself much injured. You ought to induce your corre- 
 spondent to retract the invidious paragraph and write an apology.' 
 ' I don't think he'll do that,' he said, quite coolly. I declare I 
 came out of the place in a perfect rage." 
 
 Therefore, when the Vicar mentioned Ebenezer's name on this 
 occasion, Mary looked grave, and said at once that she would call. 
 " I don't think you feel so badly about her now you have been to 
 Bryn," she said, arguing rather shrewdly from her woman's 
 judgment. 
 
 "I don't know what to think about her, Mary," returned the
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 153 
 
 Vicar, rather sadly. " I am only sure of one thing, that the whole 
 affair is making me quite miserable. I cannot help tliinking all 
 day that we are letting ourselves be blinded by Robert's prc\judice 
 and mere circumstantial evidence. And yet, what can we do? 
 Not Proven is not equivalent to Not Guilty. And I tell you what, 
 Mary — faulty or not liiulty, covetous or not, she is the sweetest- 
 spoken woman I have met for a long time." 
 
 "Oh Austin!" 
 
 " Yes indeed, dear ; and you must go and speak kindly to her. 
 Whatever Robert may choose to do, it is not for us to refuse the 
 cold water of charity. Perhaps by patience and gentleness we may 
 win her from her reserve." 
 
 " I don't think I shall sleep all night for thinking of what I am 
 to say to her," said Mrs. Ord ruefully. 
 
 " Come, Mary, that is not brave. Don't think about it at all ; 
 that is the best way." And with that homely counsel Mrs. Ord 
 was fain to be content. 
 
 Procrastination was not one of Mrs. Ord's sins. She had decided 
 to go on the morrow, and punctually at the appointed hour she set 
 off to perform her difficult duty. 
 
 Miss Maturin had evidently expected her visit, for Mary found 
 her alone as on the previous day. 
 
 " My husband has prepared you for my visit, I hope ? " she 
 said, when they had shaken hands and had sat down. But this 
 time Miss Maturin had not taken up her work. 
 
 " Oh yes ; he told me to expect you. I think, luider the 
 circumstances, it was very good of him to send you." 
 
 " Oh no ; you must not say that." 
 
 " Oh, but it was ! It was goodness itself. And it was kind 
 of you too to come." 
 
 " Of course I should do as he wished." But Mary, when she 
 had said this, felt as though her words had implied some rci^roach. 
 
 " But nevertheless it was very kind, Mrs. Ord. I don't know 
 whether you will care to hear it from my lips, but I think I never 
 knew any one so good as your husband." 
 
 " I was afraid you might think him hard." 
 
 " Hard % oh no ! Of course it hurt me to have him saying 
 such things of me* and refusing to believe my words, but through 
 it all his gentleness touched me to the heart." 
 
 " Austin is always gentle," replied Mary, and her eyes looked 
 very softly at Rotha. It was not in a jvife's nature to hear such 
 sweet praises of her husband unmoved. 
 
 " Yes ; I saw that in his face. As far back as that first evening 
 when he put open the chiu-ch-door for me I longed for liim to bo
 
 154 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 ray friend. Do you know, when he was pleading with me yester- 
 day, I ahiiost wished that I had done this thing — that I might 
 confess it, I was so sure of his sympathy and forgiveness." 
 
 " Why did you not % " was on Mrs. Ord's lips, but she prudently 
 refrained herself. She was very much startled then when Rotha 
 answered her unspoken thought. 
 
 " You see I could not say what was not true, Mrs. Ord." 
 
 " No, of course not," returned Mary hastily, and then there 
 was an awkward pause. 
 
 " I was so afraid that you might think us unnecessarily hard," 
 she went on, anxious to sound this singular girl more deeply. " In 
 your position I think I should be tempted to defend myself more 
 boldly." 
 
 " If you were in my position," replied Rotha gently, " you 
 would know how hard it is for a lonely stranger to do otherwise 
 than I have done. When the first shock of it all came upon me 
 I was at once paralysed ; then I was for giving it all up and going 
 away, but Meg proved to me that I was wrong." 
 
 " Do you mean Mrs. Carruthers 1" asked Mary, much interested. 
 
 "Yes; she showed me how morbid and cowardly I was, and 
 how God would take account of my stewardship ; and she told me 
 that if I carried my cross well, it would in the end carry me ; and 
 it is none the less a cross because it is laid upon me by a fellow- 
 creature." 
 
 "Mrs. Carruthers must be a very good woman," retiu-ued 
 Mary. She was inwardly wondering whether Meg believed in her 
 friend's innocence. 
 
 " Yes, she is one of a thousand ; " and then, with a sudden 
 impidse, she told Mrs. Ord a little of Meg's strange history. Mary 
 listened with unfeigned sympathy : it was a safe topic, and led their 
 thoughts into a less painful channel ; and the allotted half-hoiu- 
 had long ago passed before she had bethought herself of taking leave. 
 
 " Be sure you tell Mrs. Carruthers that I hope she will come 
 to the school," she said, as she rose from her chair. "I shall be 
 most thankful for her help." 
 
 " Not more thankful than Meg will be," returned Rotha, " she 
 is so fond of children." 
 
 " And Austin will see you about those cases to-morrow. We 
 are so glad to get any one who will read to poor Annie. He told 
 me to say again that you were to send for him if you were in any 
 special need." 
 
 " Thank you. He is very kind. Am I — am I to see you 
 again, Mrs. Ord 1 " And she looked wistfully into Mary's pleasant 
 face ; there was something so lovable and trusting in it.
 
 THE VICAR GOES TO BRYN. 156 
 
 Mrs. Orel hesitated. 
 
 " Never mind ; of course you must ask your husband. I shall 
 quite understand if you do not come." And there was such sweet- 
 ness and sadness in her tone that Mrs. Ord's heart quite ached for 
 her, and she bade her good-bye so kindly that the poor girl 
 coloured with pleasure. 
 
 " Well, Mary," said the Vicar, as she came into the study and 
 leant over him silently, "was the task a very difficult one"?" 
 
 " No, not very," returned Mary absently, as her fingers strayed 
 among his curls. " But, Austin, I do feel very unhappy." 
 
 " Unhappy, my darling !" And the Vicar put back his head 
 that he might see her face. " Why, nothing has happened surely % " 
 
 " No, not happened ; but, Austin, I do feel as though we may 
 be wrong about tliis. When I sat and talked to her I almost 
 thought that Robert could not be right." 
 
 The Vicar drew a long breath. 
 
 "There was something so thoroughly true about her face; she 
 does not look as though she knew how to deceive ; and it would 
 be deceit if she kept telling us that she never wanted the money. 
 Oh, Austin ! suppose we are wronging her all this while 1" 
 
 " I am afraid the same doubt has occurred to me," he said in 
 a grave voice. " Once or twice yesterday I had some unpleasant 
 twinges. It is certainly very dreadful to think that we may have 
 been accusing an innocent girl wrongly, but appearances were so 
 much against her ; and then I never knew Robert to suspect a 
 person unjustly before." 
 
 . " It will be a comfort to think the blame will be his and not 
 ours," returned Mary. 
 
 " Why, that would be a poor comfort, and of which I should 
 decline to avail myself. No, no, my dear ! We must not shelter 
 our mistakes under other people's. ' Every one for himself,' in a 
 wider sense, ' and God for us all.' I don't know how it is, Mary, 
 that you have infected me with your fears — I suppose by giving 
 colour and expression to my own thoughts ; but I feel as though 
 this were a thing rather to pray over than talk about." And such 
 an anxious line came across the Vicar's forehead that Mary stooped 
 and kissed it aw^. » 
 
 " Dear Austin ! she was so full of your goodness to her." 
 "Was she, Mary?" Then, in a half-whisper full of feeling, 
 "Dear Lord! Should I not be good to one of the stray lambs 
 Thou earnest in Thy bosom % " Then, in his natural voice, " Look 
 there, Mary," and he pointed to a little picture of the Good Sliop- 
 herd that hung over his writing-table. " Look how that foolish 
 lamb has got entangled in that thicket, and how sorely the briers
 
 156 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 and thorns must be wounding him ; and now look how the Shep- 
 herd heli^s him. He has gone down upon his knees, and with his 
 own hands is putting aside one cruel bramble after another, calling 
 to him fondly all the time. One sees the foolish little' face raised 
 to bleat its answer. By and by he will carry it on his shoulders 
 rejoicing. That is just how He deals with all His erring ones." 
 
 " Well % " whispered Mary — she was kneeling by him now. 
 
 " People think I am not bitter enough in my invectives against 
 sin, because I am so ready to put aside the briers. But these men 
 are more like hirelings. It has come into our hearts to distrust 
 this poor child ; nay, more, to be angry with her. We accuse her 
 of coveting our money and diverting it into a wrong channel — is it 
 not so ? " 
 
 '^Yes, Austin." 
 
 " And we have been very bitter about it, and said all manner 
 of harsh things, all the while knowing that we ought to be heap- 
 ing coals of fire on her head. I am far from saying still that 1 
 hold her guiltless, but, all the same, last night and to-day I have 
 felt very sad." 
 
 " It is not our fault," wliispered Mary. 
 
 " No, dear, it has not been our fault in the first instance ; but 
 I ought to have gone to her before. People are beginning to say 
 things to her injury, and it may be very bad for her and for us too." 
 
 " But, Austin, what are we to do *? " 
 
 " Well, Mary, we must wait and pray ; that is all we can do 
 for the present. I forgive her from my heart, but for Robert's 
 sake I cannot have her at the Vicarage. Why, he and BeUe would 
 be up in arms ! You can go and see her now and then, just to 
 stop people's tongues ; and be sure you let Mrs. Blake know you 
 have been to Bryn. They will get to understand in tune that we 
 have no wish to be intimate." 
 
 " And if slie be not really what we think her ? " asked Mary, 
 returning to the principal subject of her thoughts. 
 
 "v " Well, God defends the innocent — we are too liable to forget 
 that — and in His good time He will enable her to prove it to us. 
 Any way, my course is clear. I must get an influence over her 
 and induce her to repose confidence in me. I am putting her to a 
 severe test now by the work I have given her. The way in which 
 she performs that will be a great argument in lier favour. In old 
 times, Mary, an accused person had to walk blindfold over nine 
 ploughshares of burning iron." 
 
 " I think she walked over one last night," replied Mary, rather 
 soberly. And then, as the Vicar looked meaningly at his watch, 
 she gathered up her things and went away.
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 THE BLACKSCAR HERALD. 
 
 " Now, hear me ; there be troubles in this world 
 That no man can escape, and there is one 
 That lieth hard and heavy on my soul, 
 Concerning that which is to come : 
 
 I say 
 As a man that knows what earthly troubles mean 
 I will not bear this one — I cannot bear 
 This one : I cannot bear the weight of you. 
 
 "My heart is sore for her 
 How long, How long ? " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 For six long weeks Rotlia Matimii had enjoyed a seclusion as 
 deep and almost as monotonous as Mariana in her moated grange ; 
 and as the days had lengthened into weeks, a sort of patient 
 heart -sickness, which amounted well-nigh to hopelessness, had 
 crept over her, making her weary of her life. 
 
 But all at once the whole aspect of things had changed ; from 
 the moment Nettie Underwood had wrought out her daring 
 scheme, and brought Rotha and her detractors face to face, a 
 faint suspicion of brighter days began to dawn slowly over Bryn. 
 
 There were signs of life about the place now ; the rusty bell 
 began to have its proper share of work, and the servants ceased to 
 start at its wiry clanging ; other footsteps besides Rotha's and 
 Meg's crunched on the trim garden -paths between the lilies. 
 Rotha's days were no longer purposeless, nor her task self-imposed > 
 as she went to and fro on her errands of mercy, her slow move- 
 ments became brisk; Meg would come upon her in the village, 
 walking fast with her head erect, and her browni hair ripjiled with 
 the sea-breezes ; sometimes there would be a soft colour in her face 
 — she would nod and smile quite brightly as Meg looked across at 
 her from the schoolhouse. One day Garton Ord had met her 
 before tlie smile had qitite died out, and had walked with her
 
 158 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 the whole length of the village street, and right before the Vicar- 
 age window, where Belle was sitting at her work. He touched 
 his hat rather mischievously as he passed ; Belle took no notice 
 of it then or afterwards — Garton was always doing odd things. 
 Since their evening at Miss Underwood's he had always a pleasant 
 word for Rotha when they met, but he had never gone so far as to 
 retrace his steps and walk with her. Rotha tried gently to shake 
 him off, but it was no use ; she looked up at him shyly once or 
 twice as he went striding down the road beside her in his shabby 
 coat, with his flapping wideawake, and his great brown hands 
 gesticulating fiercely. 
 
 " How often has my brother been to Bryn % I think this feud 
 is all nonsense ; " he went on, " Let bygones be bygones ; it struck 
 me the other night that we were all riding full tilt against windmills 
 — and in the dark too." 
 
 " The Vicar has been to see me twice ; he came the last time 
 about poor Annie, and to fetch Mrs. Carruthers to the school. 
 How long have you arrived at this conviction, Mr. Ord — about 
 the windmills, I mean % I thought you were all going to break 
 my heart between you." 
 
 Garton looked round at her with a kind smile as she said 
 this — he was a tender-hearted fellow ; lately he had had a feeling 
 that it was just possible that Robert had been wrong — he had 
 seen little things now and then which had brought this feeling 
 home to him ; he had watched her pretty narrowly that evening 
 while he was teaching Lumber tricks in the corner, and her quiet 
 dignity and patience had made a great impression on him. From 
 his seat in the choir-stall he could see her plainly, evening after 
 evening, sitting behind her pillar; often when the little congrega 
 tion had broken up he had left her still kneeling, with her face 
 hidden in her hands. Garton would not tell how or when his con- 
 viction had become certainty — in the home-circle he never uttered 
 her name ; but now, as Rotha spoke, he faced round upon her 
 impetuously. 
 
 " Never mind about the windmills. I suppose we shall always 
 look in the glass darkly as long as w^e are here ; things must clear 
 themselves up by degrees. I think we have all treated you very 
 badly. Miss Maturin, and I, for one, am heartily sorry for it ; but 
 there, you needn't go and tell my brother that I said so." 
 
 "I am not likely to have the opportunity, thank you, Mr. 
 Ord. I suppose you do not know how much good you have done 
 me, so you must forgive me being silly over it ; " and Rotha dried 
 her eyes and smiled at him gratefully — she was flushing happily, 
 her cheeks had a pretty pink colour in them — her hair was blowing
 
 THE BLACKSCAR HERALD. 159 
 
 softly over her temples. At the gate she stopped aud gave him 
 her gloved hand. 
 
 " I suppose you will be at church as usual this evening ? " he 
 asked absently. He was wondering why Belle and Nettie had 
 called her so plain. Rotha took her hand away, with a little 
 laugh. 
 
 " Oh yes, we always go ; I am getting quite used to my 
 corner. There is Mrs. Carruthers waiting for me. Good-bye, Mr. 
 Ord," and then she left him still standing there. Meg thought 
 she saw tears in her eyes as Rotha ran past her indoors. All that 
 afternoon she could hear her moving about her room and humming 
 to herself in sweet little snatches. 
 
 " Was that Mr. Garton Ord who was standing with you at 
 the gateV Meg had asked her as they sat at dinner. Rotha 
 looked up with a little fun and defiance in her eye. 
 
 " Yes, it was he. We walked from the school and right over 
 the bridge, aud he has made me so happy, for he doesn't — he 
 doesn't believe all that odious slander. Oh, Meg, he was so kind 
 about it!" 
 
 "Kind about it, was he ?" answered Meg. " Well, I thought 
 I knew tliat ugly felt hat of his ; he is the most singidar young 
 man I ever met. I am glad one of the Ords has come to his 
 proper senses at last, but I wish it was the Vicar ; " and Rotha 
 echoed the wish with a sigh. 
 
 Bryn had no lack of callers now. Nettie Undeiivood and 
 Aunt Eliza were constant visitors, and the day after Mrs. Ord's 
 visit Mrs. Blake had called, and had been very kind and concilia- 
 tory. Nettie, who came in afterwards and found Rotha rather 
 dispirited by the interview, was of the opinion that all would have 
 gone well if only Miss Brookes had not chosen the same day for a 
 visit of ceremony to Bryn. 
 
 Every one at all conversant with Kirkby society knew of 
 course that Mrs. Blake and Miss Brookes were the leading ladies of 
 the place — la creme de la creme, as Nettie phrased it. Not to 
 know Mrs. Blake or Miss Brookes — and voluntarily to acknowledge 
 the fact— was to be lowered for once and for ever in the eyes of 
 the feminine portion of the Kirkby community. In all things 
 relating to fashioa and etiquette their opinion was simply infallible. 
 Any stranger coming to settle in the neighbourhood found it 
 utterly impossible to steer through the shoals and quicksands 
 which engirt all such small societies without abandoning him or 
 herself to the able pilotage of one or the other lady. Nettie, in 
 spite of her envious sneers, never ventured to condemn a bonnet 
 •that Mrs. Blake had approved. The one dressmaker at Kirkby
 
 160 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 was almost abject when Miss Brookes fouud fault with a trimming, 
 and threatened to withdraw her custom — and yet Miss Brookes 
 was long in paying her bill, and always omitted the odd shillings 
 and pence. But then if you want cream you must pay for it, as 
 Nettie often remarked. 
 
 As is not uncommon in such cases, these ladies were very dear 
 friends, and — to borrow another of Nettie's expressions — they 
 generally hunted in couples. The great difference between them 
 was, that whereas Mrs. Blake's cream was very good cream indeed 
 — in respect of its richness and sweetness — Miss Brookes' was 
 slightly iced, and was touched with a slight flavour of frigidity, 
 which rather congealed an unwary stranger. 
 
 Mrs. Blake was a little fair-haired woman, with quiet retiring 
 manners and a soft caressing voice. In spite of her furs and 
 velvets, her handsome house and big footman, there was nothing 
 very formidable about her. She did not inspire one with a tithe 
 of the awe which Miss Brookes always created in the mind of a 
 stranger. Whether it was her Roman nose or the Indian shawls 
 which she always wore in such massive drapery — not unlike a 
 Roman toga — the unbending lines of her tall stiff figure, or the 
 resolute loudness of he-r voice, she certainly was a most imposing 
 woman. Nettie, who always suffered a martyrdom in her pre- 
 sence, was of opinion that many people would have been com- 
 municative, and as a matter of course more sociable, if " my cousin 
 Sir Peregrine and my brother-in-law the bishop had not been 
 dragged in at every available pause ; " but then every one knows 
 that this was only wicked envy on Nettie's part. 
 
 Rotha would have got on very well indeed with Mrs. Blake if 
 Miss Brookes had not been announced a minute afterwards ; as it 
 was, she was painfully fluttered and confused. Nettie had not 
 come in as she expected, and Mrs. Carruthers was unfortunately 
 out. She had given a very warm welcome to her first visitor, 
 whom she knew perfectly well by sight, and had already been 
 addressed once or twice as "my dear" in return; but at the first 
 sight of the Indian shawl and Roman nose her shyness returned 
 on her tenfold. 
 
 Antagonistic feelings are generally reciprocated. Rotha knew 
 that curiosity and not neighbourly kindness had brought Miss 
 Brookes to Bryn. 
 
 Mrs. Blake was hoping that Rotha liked her new home — it 
 must have been rather trying for her under the circumstances — 
 and so on, in a gentle reassuring voice. Rotha thanked her. 
 Yes ; she liked it better than she ever thought she would. 
 
 "Ah, but you must be quite settled in it by this time," inter-
 
 THE BLACKSCAR HERALD. 161 
 
 posed Miss Brookes. " You forget, my dear Mrs. Blake, that Miss 
 Maturin is far from being a new comer. You have been here 
 two months, have you not, Miss Maturin?" 
 
 " Oh no ; not quite so long as that," returned Rotha quietly. 
 
 "Oh, I thought it was longer. I was asking Mrs. Ord 
 yesterday whether you had returned her visit. I am sure I forgot 
 what she said in answer." 
 
 " Mrs. Ord only called on me yesterday," replied Rotha, trying 
 to bear Miss Brookes' hard glance with composm-e. 
 
 "You know she told us that, Delia," observed ]\Irs. Blake 
 reproachfully. 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure," responded Miss Brookes in her 
 loudest voice ; " and that is why we are here to-day. Miss Maturin. 
 It would never have done to have anticipated the Vicar's lady, you 
 know ; in a place like this one is bound to be particular. I can- 
 not say that the Ords have shown very good taste in their mode 
 of proceeding. It is what my cousin Sir Peregrine would have 
 called bad style altogether ; but, all the same. Miss Maturin, we 
 must stand by one's vicar." 
 
 "Of course!" murmured poor Rotha. Miss Brookes' steel- 
 coloured eyes had never once been removed from her face yet. 
 
 "No one thinks that the Ords have done the right thing," 
 murmured the lady decidedly ; " but, there, they have been 
 severely tried, poor things — that ill-tempered brother of theirs 
 especially. The heart knows its own bitterness. Miss Maturin." 
 
 Rotha was thinking just then that her inward bitterness at 
 that time was very great. 
 
 " Of course you feel sore yourself," she went on in a would-be 
 sympathising voice. "Any one would in your place; but you're 
 young, and don't know the world just yet. Mrs. Blake and I 
 were talking about it last night over oiu- pi(|uet, and we arc quite 
 of oiiinioii tliat the best thing for all parties would be to take 
 no notice of past coolness, but just return the call as early as 
 possible." 
 
 "Return the call!" exclaimed Rotha, utterly bewildered; and 
 then a moment afterwards she turned as red as fire. 
 
 " Yes, the call at the Vicarage, my dear. Mrs. Blake and I 
 think it cannot be made too soon. It is still quite early. Why 
 should you not accompany us now? I have a business errand tliis 
 afternoon with the Vicar." 
 
 " Oh no ! Indeed I cannot. I — I am engaged. ]\Tiss 
 
 Underwood is coming to me " and here Rotha broke down 
 
 utterly. 
 
 " I don't think Miss Underwood ought to stand in your way," 
 
 11 "^
 
 162 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 returned Miss Brookes coldly. " She would be the first, I am 
 sure — iu spite of her frivolity — to estimate the importance of 
 losing no time. This coolness is influencing the parish." 
 
 " My dear Delia, that will do," interposed Mrs. Blake's soft 
 voice, "you are quite overwhelming Miss Matmin. You forget 
 she is a comparative stranger, and perhaps cannot understand her 
 own position. Miss Brookes means well, my dear; we want to 
 help you over this awkwardness, if you will allow us." 
 
 " You are very kind," responded Rotha gratefully. Mrs. 
 Blake looked pleased. Botha's shrinking and modest manners 
 rather prepossessed her iu her favour. 
 
 " I hope you will accept our kindness, then," she continued, 
 with a pleasant smile ; "we have wasted much time already over 
 these troublesome quibbles of etiquette. I do not mean to be 
 formal any longer ; two or three friends are coming to me to- 
 morrow evening. Miss Maturin, and I shall be most happy to 
 introduce you to them, if you will allow me. I will send the 
 carriage round for you at seven o'clock." 
 
 " Oh, pray, do not — I mean — that is — I do thank you ex- 
 tremely, but I must not accept your kind invitation." 
 
 " Not accept Mrs. Blake's invitation 1 You cannot be serious, 
 Miss Maturin." 
 
 " No, no ; I cannot," returned Rotha, turning her shoulder on 
 her tormentor, and addressing the elder lady. " I know how good 
 it is of you to ask me, and how kindly you mean it ; but it is 
 impossible. I cannot explain myself, but indeed it is impossible 
 for me to go into society just now." 
 
 " Go into society, my dear Miss Maturin ! What a singular 
 expression ! There is no cause for such romantic seclusion, is 
 there 1" and Miss Brookes regarded the black dress critically 
 through her eye-glass. 
 
 " I know I am expressing myself very badly," returned Rotha, 
 with a little dignity ; " but you cannot tell what it costs me to 
 refuse Mrs. Blake's kindness." 
 
 " Then I hope you will think better of it, my dear," replied 
 Mrs. Blake, but her tone was not quite so cordial. " Nettie told 
 us that you were at her tea-party the other night, and I have only 
 the Vicar and his wife and two other ladies coming. I trust you 
 will not think us obtrusive," she continued, hesitating slightly, 
 "when I say that I think it would be better rather to conciliate 
 than to shun those with whom we have a coolness, but whom not- 
 withstanding society compels us to recognise." 
 
 It was a very long speech for the gentle little widow, and 
 directly she had finished it she rose with an apologetic air.
 
 THE BLACK SCAR HERALD. 163 
 
 "We must not press the poiut, Delia," she said quietly, as 
 Miss Brookes seemed about to annotate her remark. " I am sure 
 that Miss Maturin understands that we have only spoken for her 
 good ; we must leave her to think over it now. ]\Iay I send the 
 carriage for you to-morrow, my dearl" She finished with a little 
 lady-like obstinacy which showed that even soft-spoken Mrs. Blake 
 liked her own way. 
 
 "No, thank you, dear Mrs. Blake," retiu-ned Rotha firmly. 
 " I know it seems ungracious of me to reject your kindness ; but I 
 have made up my mind to refuse all invitations for the present, 
 and if you knew everything I am sure you would say I am right ; " 
 and after that there was nothing more to say. 
 
 " Now you have gone and done it," was Nettie's first words, 
 when Rotha, with much soreness of spirit, had made her acquainted 
 with the result of the interview ; " and if you were Simeon Stylites 
 himself, or what's his name on the top of the pillar, you couldn't 
 be more shut out from Kirkby society, my dear Rotha." 
 
 It was " my dear Rotha " now, for the two girls now called 
 each other by their Christian names. " No, you will find I am 
 right, and you will have to do without cream for the rest of your 
 life." But whether Nettie was right or wrong Rotha led a very 
 active life now ; the Vicar found her plenty of work, and expressed 
 himself as well pleased with the mode in which she discharged it. 
 Ruskin and Carlyle were quite discarded, and Butler's Analogy 
 accumulated dust on its covers. Rotha was always out now ; in 
 the evenings, as Meg and she worked, they had all sorts of pleas- 
 ing.or unpleasing experiences to narrate, anecdotes of Meg's scholars, 
 or the last bit of gossip at the clothing club ; painful incidents 
 connected with the wretched home where Rotha's protegee, poor 
 Annie, lay dying ; long histories of the several patients in the 
 Convalescent Hospital, where she was now a constant visitor. Very 
 often Nettie and Aunt Eliza dropped in with their work also, and 
 then there was plenty of talk. Nettie would chatter volubly till 
 Aunt Eliza would point to the clock warningly ; sometimes Meg 
 would play and sing to them, or they would read the last new 
 novel aloud. Rotha would forget all about her troubles then, and 
 laugh her low musical laugh, to Nettie's great delight. She could 
 hardly believe sometimes tliat it was the same grave sad-looking 
 girl of whom she had spoken so slightinglj^ 
 
 Rotha's work suited her admirably — she had a way of meeting 
 difliculties which hardly belonged to her age ; she was wise as well 
 :is patient, and made light of the many disagreeable incidents to 
 which district visitors are continually liable, added to which she 
 had an innate dignity which effectually protected her from any-
 
 164 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 thing like impertinence. Poor Annie almost -worshipped her ; the 
 dim eyes of the dying girl learned to brighten at her approach. 
 From the first day Rotha surrounded her with all sorts of tender 
 ministries ; her little offices were all the more touching, that 
 they were performed so simply and unconsciously ; the reading and 
 talk almost always came last. Rotha knew how the besotted 
 creatui-e she called mother neglected her; she never forgot the 
 squalid sight when she first entered the stifling garret. Now, day 
 after day, little comforts and luxuries found their way to the 
 invalid. The Vicar, when he called and found them together, was 
 not slow to appreciate the change ; all traces of dirt and squalor 
 had disappeared : there was clean linen on the pallet-bed, fresh 
 flowers and fruit on the little table, one or two simple pictures on 
 the sloping whitewashed walls. 
 
 The improvement was still more apparent in poor Annie her- 
 self ; the pale shrunken face looked as though it had been freshened 
 with pure water, the rough unkempt hair was combed back and 
 confined with a ribbon, and the black fevered lips had cool drinks 
 ready for their relief Not till the little room was all swept and 
 garnished would Rotha give her the sweet holy lessons that were 
 to make her nights less wearisome. When Rotha looked up from 
 her Bible that day at the Vicar's entrance she saw a look on his 
 face that set her heart beating with happiness. " Well, Annie," 
 he said, taking the thin work-roughened hand in his, "it is a hard 
 troublesome business climbing the dark mountains, is it not % But 
 you see God gives you flecks of sunshine by the way ; the friut 
 and flowers must be like texts to you in the night." And his eyes 
 dwelt musingly on a crimson rose and one single white lily reposing 
 side by side in the cracked earthenware jar. 
 
 Annie wiped the tears from her eyes. " Oh, sir, if you would 
 only tell me how to thank Miss Maturin — the things she has done 
 for me ! — I never knew a lady like her." 
 
 "Hush, Annie, you know I like to do them." 
 
 " You must give her a text in return sometimes, Annie. I 
 will leave one with you for to-day — ' Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
 the least of these ye did unto me ; ' " and as he said this there 
 had been that look on his face, its warmth lasted Rotha all day. 
 Rotha's other charge, old Sally, was quite a character in her way ; 
 the hours that Rotha spent in her cottage were always productive 
 of mutual pleasm'C. There was a quaintness and originality about 
 the old woman that Rotha heartily enjoyed. 
 
 Sally was a Londoner by birth, and was very proud of having 
 been born within the sound of Bow bells. She had lived all her 
 life in a northern manufacturing town, and yet she still mentioned
 
 THE BLACK SCAR HERALD. 165 
 
 Wliitechapel and Shadwell with regret. In conversation she always 
 spoke of "them Northerners" with a bitterness of accent, as 
 though fate had compelled her to pitch her tent among a horde of 
 savages. Rotha fii-st won her heart by buying her a woollen shawl 
 that had been knitted in Chatham Place. 
 
 " It is so fine and fleecy, you see," she said, fumbling over the 
 web with her wrinkled fingers. "Ah, London is the place for 
 people to get their money's worth. Them Northerners make 
 everything by steam, and charge according." 
 
 She was rather fantastic too in the matter of her blindness. 
 It was nine-and-twenty years, she would assure Rotha, since she 
 last saw the light of day last Michaelmas, and no offence to the 
 Almighty, who sends cataracts and hailstones and all the plagues 
 of Egypt for His own wise pirrposes, and saw fit to make her a 
 stiff-necked and useless hulk all her days ; and thereupon she would 
 shake her head and lament her infii-mity with a gentle obstinacy of 
 sorrow which no amount of spoken or written consolation could 
 soothe. 
 
 "Why, Sally, how old are youf asked Rotha one day, when 
 the old woman's lamentations had interrupted the course of their 
 reading. 
 
 "Well, if I live till Easter, ma'am, which tlie Lord forbid, I 
 shall be eighty-three." 
 
 "Eighty-three ! Then you are past the fourscore years of the 
 Psalmist, Sally. Well, it is only to be patient a little longer — a 
 very, very little bit longer it may be." 
 
 •"Yes, I suppose I'll have to be dark till kingdom come," 
 returned Sally disconsolately. " It is a long tunnel to be in nine- 
 and-twenty years ; but it is not that that worries me ; lately it 
 has been coming in my head that it ain't the pleasantest sort of 
 thing to have to grope one's way into heaven — it will be kind of 
 hard. Miss Matvmn, to be standing out so long in the cold, feeling 
 about for the door, when others are going in as spry and smart as 
 possible." 
 
 " But, Sally, my dear woman, you are making a mistake — there 
 will be no blindness there." 
 
 " No, not wheii you are once inside ; but, law bless you, I've 
 thought it all over, and what a might^A dazzle it will be, to be 
 sure." 
 
 " ' Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty,' " murmured 
 Rotha, wishful to turn the old woman's whimsical thoughts to 
 account. 
 
 Sally caught her breath for a moment. " Ay, that's grand, 
 that is. Do you mind, Miss Maturin, reading to me one day about
 
 166 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 the New Jerusalem a'coming down, and all about the palms and 
 the gates of pearls ■?" 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember it very well, Sally, and we had a long 
 talk about it afterwards." 
 
 "Well, I've been thinking it over. I do a power of thinking 
 sometimes of a night, when my old bones won't let me sleep for 
 aching, and I've thought about it till I've been pretty nigh crazed, 
 I can tell you ; and it does seem to me that I'd rather see a green 
 field, with the wind blowing over it, and the buttercups and daisies 
 all in a smirks of nods, than I'd see them shining streets of gold ; 
 it seems all a dazzle together — there now." 
 
 Sally's " there now " sounded argumentative, but Rotha was 
 just then trying to control her risible muscles, and was in no mood 
 to continue the subject ; but, as she closed the book and put back 
 her chair, she quietly remarked that our earthly and obscure light 
 would there be purified and strengthened. "We shall be as the 
 angels, you see, Sally." 
 
 " Ah ! and the angels don't want shades, you mean. I don't 
 care so as the scales will drop somehow from my eyes ; but twenty- 
 nine years is a long pilgrimage in the dark, and all the wrong 
 turnings taken too. Well, if you must be going, thank you kindly," 
 and SaUy got up and dropped her best curtsey as Rotha went out 
 of the door. 
 
 So Rotha was beginning to find that though cream was with- 
 held from her, she had still a keen relish for such skimmed milk 
 as came in her way ; she had returned Mrs. Blake's call, and had 
 fomid Nettie's words correct. Miss Brookes had been there as 
 usual and had been simply terrible, and, in spite of IMrs. Blake's 
 sweetness, Rotha was made to feel that she had put herself out of 
 the pale of all Christian fellowship by refusing her friend's mediation. 
 
 "We had such a j^leasant evening," Miss Brookes observed 
 casually, " and the Vicar was most agreeable — he expressed himself 
 as deeply regretting the cause that kept you away." 
 
 " And what cause did you assign, Miss Brookes V asked Rotha, 
 somewhat proudly. 
 
 " Of course, my dear, I told him the truth ; he certainly had 
 the candour to acknowledge that he had been very slow in making 
 the first advances ; but he agreed with me that it was a great pity 
 that such advances were not more warmly received." 
 
 " My dear Delia, I never understood Mr. Ord to say as much 
 as that." 
 
 " No, not in exact words, my dear Mrs. Blake, but he most 
 certainly imyjlied it. I asked him if it were not a great pity that 
 Miss Maturin were not there, and he distinctly assented."
 
 THE BLACK SCAR HERALD. 167 
 
 "You must have misunderstood him," returned Rotha, very 
 quietly. She was not a bit afraid of Miss Brookes to-day — she 
 went on with the subject slie had been discussing with Mrs. Blake 
 with the utmost composure. When Miss Brookes contradicted and 
 found faidt with her, she held to her opinions with smiling tenacity ; 
 her leave-taking might have been a piece of consummate acting ; 
 she managed so admirably dming the whole visit, and it was a 
 somewhat prolonged one, that she had not given either lady an 
 opportunity to patronise her. 
 
 But, in truth, she was beginning to show herself competent to 
 fight her own battles ; and, indeed, her com^age was very great ; 
 and there is no knowing how soon she would have gained an 
 advantage by her own prowess but for an untoward incident that 
 shortly afterwards occurred. 
 
 It happened in this wise. 
 
 The Vicar was sitting in his wife's room one evening before tea 
 — it had been his habit lately — little family matters had been 
 harassing both wife and husband during the last few weeks, and 
 the Vicar would come into the mother's room for a leisure half- 
 hour or so and discuss them freely, without fear of comment from 
 the boys or Belle ; and, indeed. Belle had grown so sadly un- 
 sociable of late that it was almost a relief to be without her 
 constant presence. 
 
 The Vicar was both tired and harassed tliis evening, and Mary 
 had in consequence given him up her own chair, and was making 
 his fatigue a pretext for all sort of soft manipulations and womanly 
 fuss, though in reality she was the more tired of the two. These 
 half-hours were very precious to her, and she looked rather dis- 
 appointed therefore when she saw Robert come up the gravel-path 
 and enter the open window. 
 
 * " Here is Robert ; how early he is. I suppose he has come to 
 tea," she said, with a spice of regret in her voice ; for Robert's 
 visits lately had been rather depressing than otherwi.-^e. 
 
 Robert did not look as though he had heard her remark ; he 
 gave her a brief nod by way of good evening as he entered, and 
 then unfolding a newspaper that he had in his hand, placed it 
 before his brother without a word, and then walked slowly away to 
 the window. 
 
 The Vicar looked rather surprised, but took up the article 
 without remark ; but Mary, who was struck dumb by the mystery 
 of the proceedifiig, was quietly reading it over her husband's 
 shoulder. Robert looked round at them once, and then began to 
 whistle. 
 
 " What does it mean 1" she exclaimed. " Oh, Austin, what a
 
 168 R OBER T ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 dreadful shame ! " The Vicar lifted his hand with an injunction 
 to silence ) he was reading it over slowly and ponderously, almost 
 spelling the words, as Mary thought in her impatience. Robert 
 had resumed his whistling before he put it away from him, with a 
 look of grief that went to his wife's heart. 
 
 "Well, Austin, what do you think of Ebenezer now^" The 
 Vicar stretched out his strong right arm with a sufficiently eloquent 
 gesture. 
 
 Robert nodded with grim approval. " Horse -whipping, eh? 
 Well, he deserves it richly, the rascal ! How dare he use his 
 scurrilous pen at our expense, and just now too, when we cannot 
 give him the lie !" The Vicar shook his head sadly. 
 
 "I always feared this; I was always afraid of it," he said in 
 a deeply-pained voice. "Poor unhappy girl, she has fallen into 
 the hands of Philistines indeed." And he began to pace the room 
 with the utmost agitation. Robert, as he watched him, grew a 
 little mystified. 
 
 It was a copy of the Blackscar Herald that he had put before 
 his brother, and it was dated two days ago ; the offending article 
 had met his eye in looking over the correspondence corner, where 
 choice little bits of fashionable scandal were often served up hot, 
 and peppered to suit certain palates among the weaker sex. 
 
 The Vicar recognised the slander and venom of Ebenezer 
 Graves' pen in a moment, in spite of the sobriquet he had chosen 
 to assume. 
 
 "That truth is stranger tlian fiction," it began, "is a some- 
 what worn-out and hackneyed phrase ; but all the more we are 
 tempted to make use of it in discussing certain curious circumstances 
 wliich have recently come to our knowledge, and which, in point 
 of interest, certainly reduce the Hon. Miss Blank's aff'air, which 
 we have lately been noticing, to a very second-rate place indeed ; 
 all the more that these circumstances are connected intimately 
 with certain well-known and highly-respected residents of our little 
 watering-place. 
 
 " The fiicts — for that they are facts we have ample means of 
 proving — are these, and we may suggest in passing that they 
 would form capital material for any three -volume sensational 
 novel : A certain clergyman intimately connected with the so- 
 called High Church movement, but which, by the bye, we would 
 gladly stigmatise by another name, has made himself somewhat 
 singular by holding aloof from an influential parishioner who has 
 recently come as a stranger into our neighbourhood. Now, without 
 stirring up any vexed question about the house-to-house visitation, 
 of which this reverend gentleman is a somewhat loud advocate, it
 
 THE BLACK SCAR HERALD. 169 
 
 does seem rather worthy of note that a person of such wealth and 
 influence should be suffered to take up her residence in a strange 
 parish ; to be utterly ignored — we might almost say insulted — by 
 the Vicar of that parish ; but the cause has recently leaked out. 
 There is a sad secret at the bottom. 
 
 " The new comer is looked upon not only as an interloper, but 
 as a usurper ; Blackscar and Kirkby are not unacquainted with 
 the facts of a certain unhappy family quarrel, in which an eccentric 
 lady disinherited all her rightful heirs in favour of a young 
 dependent. 
 
 " It has been whispered lately — indeed we have heard it from 
 more than one som'ce — that things have not been quite shipshape 
 and above-board, and that the family of the aforesaid reverend 
 gentleman have very good cause for holding themselves aloof 
 Old ladies in their rightful senses do not endow penniless depend- 
 ents with all their property. The family complain, and very 
 justly, that they were not permitted to hold any communication 
 with the deceased lady, that their letters were returned unopened, 
 and that they were kept too long in ignorance of her final illness. 
 The facts speak for themselves, and we are compelled in justice to 
 avow that the family have shown great magnanimity in keeping 
 so long silent on the subject. We can only, in conclusion, hope 
 that report as usual has slightly exaggerated the matter ; and that, 
 at all events, the breach which threatens a scandal in the parish 
 will be healed by some compromise — coals of fire not being fashion- 
 able in the nineteenth ceutmy." 
 
 " The fellow ought to have his impertinence rammed down his 
 throat," began Robert, when his brother had taken two or three 
 turns across the room without speaking : then the Vicar had again 
 stretched out that sinewy right hand of his. 
 
 *"0h, Austin, what will she do?" exclaimed Mary, with the 
 tears in her eyes — the whole thing seemed so terrible ; then the 
 Vicar fiiced solemnly round on her. 
 
 "What did I always tell you, Mary? Didn't I say that 
 fellow Graves would be up to mischief? Granted he is a foul 
 tongued villain, whom have we to blame but om-selves?" 
 
 " Ourselves, Austin ?" 
 
 " Yes, ourselves. Have we not put it into that man's power 
 to injure her % have we not caused her to be talked about % What 
 can be more injm'ious than for a young woman's actions to be 
 canvassed as her^ have been canvassed 1 Of course people will 
 believe the worst of her. I am almost ashamed to tliiiik now 
 what a paltry part we have been acting " 
 
 Robert frowned.
 
 170 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I confess I do not understand you." 
 
 " Perhaps not. That is because you will not be convinced. 
 In your heart you are just as bitter as ever against Miss Maturin. 
 You have chosen to lay this sin to her charge, and you would have 
 her expiate it to the last dregs. But I tell you plainly, once for 
 all, that such is not my opinion." 
 
 "Do you mean that you have acquitted her?" asked his 
 brother, with a sneer. 
 
 The Vicar hesitated. 
 
 " Acquitted her ? Well, no ; perhaps I can hardly say that. 
 Sometimes I have been tempted lately to believe her innocent ; 
 and then again the whole thing sounds so plausible when I am 
 away from her. I cannot think how the doubt has arisen. It is 
 a miserable affair altogether." 
 
 " Do you think we shall make it any better by talking about it V 
 
 " Humph, that depends how we discuss it. Look here, 
 Robert, I have told you that I differ with you in opinion, and yet 
 that I am not quite prejiared to hold Miss Maturin innocent ; but, 
 all the same, I have made up my mind what I shall do." 
 
 " And what is that, if I dare ask %" 
 
 " I shall have her here." 
 
 " Here ! in this house % Have you lost your senses, Austin ?" 
 
 " No, Robert, I am in sober earnest ;" and the Vicar made 
 himself very big as he stood on the rug. " The fact is I am sick 
 of these half-measures. We must do one thing or the other. I 
 have said over and over again that I decline to criminate this poor 
 girl on mere circumstantial evidence, and yet all the while I am 
 allowing myself to treat her as though she were guilty." 
 
 " But what if this be the truth ?" and Robert laid his hand 
 musingly on the paper. 
 
 " It is not the truth," almost shouted the Vicar. " It is a 
 base fabrication of lies. Have we ever accused her in our sober 
 senses of keeping back our letters % When we were most hard 
 against her did we not acknowledge that there were extenuating 
 circumstances in her favour % Supposing that she were guilty, are 
 we to condemn her without mercy because an unjust will has 
 rendered all restitution impossible? Do I not see clearly how 
 severely she is expiating her faidt? No, I have made up my 
 mind ; she may have done wrong — though, for my part, I begin to 
 doubt it — but we have no right to inflict so frightfid a penalty." 
 
 "It is only what she deserves," muttered Robert sullenly. 
 
 "Perhaps so; but for Heaven's sake don't let us be eternally 
 climbing into the judgment seat. We are too interested to be 
 fair judges. I have tried to adopt a medium course, but this
 
 THE BLACKSCAR HERALD. 171 
 
 fellow Graves has made all such medium policy unavailable. By 
 this time the scandal will be half over Blackscar — it will not be 
 enough for Mary and me to call at Bryn. We must disarm sus- 
 picion by making her welcome here. Mary, I am sure you agree 
 with me." 
 
 " I don't know how it will answer, Austin," retiu^ned his wife, 
 with a doubtful glance at Kobert's face, which was just now 
 looking very dark. 
 
 " My dear, it must answer," replied the Vicar decidedly. 
 " liobert will have the good sense to see that I must act con- 
 scientiously in my own house. I am very sorry that I can no 
 longer espouse his quarrel, but a clergyman is more fettered in 
 these matters than a layman." 
 
 "You need not trouble to apologise to me, Austin," returned 
 Eobert, biting his lip, and his brow was very black indeed. " I 
 should be sorry to interfere with any one's conscience. Of course, 
 Mary, you will understand that Austin is virtually forbidding me 
 his house ; for he can scarcely expect me to meet Miss Matmin 
 here on terms of intimacy." 
 
 " Intimacy % No ; but I suppose you can treat anybody who 
 visits here with civility," retorted the Vicar, who was becoming 
 slightly warm in his turn. 
 
 "Allow me to say that I am the best judge of that myself," 
 returned Robert haughtily. " I hope you will explain all this to 
 Belle, Mary ; it will siu-ely make her dependent position more 
 tolerable to know what sort of companion Austin is selecting for 
 her." 
 
 " Mary wiU do no such thing. While Belle is under my roof 
 she must certainly meet those with whom my wife and I see fit to 
 associate ; and I think it would be wiser of you, Robert, and more 
 in accoi'dance with charity, not to incense her any further against 
 Miss Maturin ; she endorses all your opinions." 
 
 "Belle and I quite miderstand our own ailairs, Austin." 
 
 "My dear Bob, why need you be so touchy 1" and here the 
 Vicar laid his hand on his brother's shoulder. " Mary and I have 
 both enough to bear without having to fight you and Belle, 
 separately and collectively. Take my advice ; just think over the 
 matter coolly and dispassionately, and leave Belle for once to 
 me." 
 
 " On the c(jntrary, Austin, I am going up to her now. Belle 
 has no relish for any more of ]\iary's lectures ; Mary misunderstands 
 her so." 
 
 " Poor girl, I wonder who does imderstand her — she herself 
 least of all. I wish you would spare her feelings a little more than
 
 172 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 you do, Robert. I suppose you are going now to make her happier 
 by telling her I have forbidden you the house." 
 
 " That is exactly what I am going to do." 
 
 " Pshaw ! what nonsense." 
 
 " Austin, don't let him go," exclaimed Mary ; " Belle is far 
 from well to-day, and I will not have her agitated. There," as 
 Robert went out, shutting the door after him, " now we shall 
 have a miserable evening." 
 
 " Well, Mary, and how was I to prevent it 1 Never mind, let 
 him go and do his worst — a wilful man must have his way. He 
 is in one of his perverse moods, and Belle must manage him as best 
 she can. I am not going to take the trouble to reason with him 
 when he is like this. Heigho ! what a trying world it is. Leave 
 them alone upstairs, and give the children their tea. I am going 
 out now." 
 
 " Not without your tea, surely, dear Austin, and you are so 
 dead tired." 
 
 " Nothing to what I shall be when I come home," and the 
 Vicar nodded with quiet good-humom- as he took up his hat and 
 went out
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TIIEATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 
 
 ' The small, fair face within the darks of hair 
 I used to liken, when I saw her first, 
 To a point of niooulit water down a well : 
 The low brow, the frank space hetvveen the eyes, 
 Which always had the brown pathetic look 
 Of a dumb creature who had been beaten once 
 And never since was easy with the world. 
 Ah, ah — now I remember perfectly 
 These eyes, to-day, — however large they seemed, 
 As if some patient, passionate despair 
 Like a coal dYOY>t — and forgot our tapestry, 
 Which slowly burns a widening circle out, 
 Had burnt them larger, larger." Aurora Leigh. 
 
 " He would have saved me utterly, it seemed. 
 He stood and looked so. " J hid. 
 
 Mrs. Ord obeyed her husband's orders with a heavy heart ; she 
 knew that the Vicar valued his cup of tea above everything ; that 
 he placed it, indeed, among the good things of this life which he 
 would be very unwilling to forego ; neither was he always careful 
 to moderate his desires in this respect. She had known him to 
 discuss six cups of this fragrant beverage with the utmost cheerful- 
 ness and with unabated relish, and to consider himself aggrieved 
 if withheld from the seventh ; and yet now he had gone out faint 
 and tired, utterly refusing all such refreshment, and leaving her in 
 ignorance of his movement. 
 
 Upstairs all was sufficiently quiet — neither Belle nor Robert 
 made their appearance. As Mrs. Ord dispensed the few homely 
 viands to the hungry lads, she was straining her ears painfully to 
 detect the faintest sound ; it was no good pretending at last to 
 disguise her anxid:y. She drank a cup of tea standing, and then 
 charging the boys to keep quiet until Gar ton should come in, she 
 made some excuse and hurried away. 
 
 Scarcely twenty minutes had elapsed since Robert had left
 
 174 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 tliem, closing the door somewhat loudly ; but Mary became aware 
 (as she entered tlie drawing-room) that he had made good use of 
 his time notwithstanding. Belle's face always had a strange 
 capacity for looking miserable on the shortest possible notice, but 
 to Mary's knowledge it had never looked so utterly woebegone as 
 on this occasion. 
 
 "Mary," she said, almost before her sister was within the 
 room, and her voice sounded quite sharp with misery — " Mary, 
 come here. Is this true, that Austin has forbidden Robert the 
 house % " 
 
 "No, Belle, it is not true." 
 
 " Ah ! but, all the same, he is making it impossible for him to 
 come here. It is just as though he were shutting the door against 
 him with his own hand. Mary, I don't want to say anything 
 specially unkind about Austin, but if he carry out what he threatens 
 we can no longer be friends." 
 
 " You and I, do you mean % " 
 
 " No, I am talking about Austin ; but of course you take his 
 part, so it will amount to the same thing. Mary," she continued 
 excitedly, as her sister put on an unusually severe look, " you must 
 tell him — you must tell Austin — from me that if he do this thing 
 he will not only injure Robert, but he will drive me from under 
 the shelter of his roof." 
 
 " That is what she keeps saying," ooserved Robert ; who, to 
 do him justice, was already beginning to repent of his hasty ex- 
 pressions of wrath. He had never seen Belle so fairly roused 
 before, except once ; and, to tell the truth, the sight did not please 
 liim. 
 
 " This is your work, I suppose," retorted Mary, turning upon 
 him still more severely. " I do not know whether it be part of 
 your plan to set Belle against Austin, but I shall certainly take 
 my husband's side. I wonder you are not ashamed to act so 
 treacherous a part in your brother's house. Things have come 
 indeed to a cruel pass when, after all his kindness, Belle can 
 refuse to live with him;" and Mary looked very stern as she 
 thought of her own and her husband's wrongs. 
 
 " I don't think Belle ought to be blamed because my brother 
 makes her position intolerable to her," returned Robert indignantly. 
 " A bare crust and freedom would be better than such a state of 
 servitude. How is she to go on living here when I am not allowed 
 to come to the house?" 
 
 " Robert, I must say that I think you ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself" 
 
 " Thank you, Mary."
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 175 
 
 " How can you make Belle believe such a falsehood as that ! 
 just because Austin's duty as a clergyman will not allow him any 
 longer to stand by and see this poor girl oppressed. Keep away 
 from the house, if you will ; but it will be your own pride that is 
 shutting you out. As for Belle, if she choose to set herself against 
 the man who has been such a brother to her all these years, and 
 who coiUd ill afford to share his bread with her, she is not the 
 girl I thought her." 
 
 " I cannot help it, Mary," returned Belle, who was beginning 
 to show symptoms of strong hysterical excitement. "It is no use 
 your turning round and saying hard things against Robert, because 
 he has his faults like other men." 
 
 "Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed Mrs. Ord. 
 
 But Belle again interrupted her — " He has declared to me that 
 nothing will induce him to meet Miss Ma'urin here ; and I can- 
 not say that I think he is wrong. Austin ought never to have 
 thought such a thing possible ; and if he do not come here, where 
 am I to see him % We might as well give each other up if we are 
 to be separated." 
 
 "Now, Belle, I thought you promised that you would never 
 say such a thing again," began Robert reproachfully ; but Mary's 
 sternness again interposed. 
 
 " If Belle's love for you, Robert, is to lead her to do wrong, I 
 cannot say that I, for one, should be grieved at such a separation. 
 I don't see — I never have seen — that her engagement has brought 
 her any happiness. The fact is," she continued finnly, "you do 
 not study her enough. When she wants soothing, you excite her ; 
 you try her patience with yom- ill-humours. When she is at her 
 brightest, you depress her ; and yet you have no sympathy with 
 her little moods. In spite of your goodness, Robert, there is some- 
 thing selfish in your love ; and whether Belle is angry or not, I 
 will tell you the truth." 
 
 " You hear what is Mary's opinion of me, Belle f 
 
 " Then, again, if you had any generosity you would not seek to 
 stir up strife between her and Austin. Do you think Austin will 
 ever let her quit his roof till you have given her shelter under 
 yours ? You talk about her dependent position as though women 
 with brothers and lovers are ever independent, while all the time 
 your pride is making ■ her bread so bitter to her, she can hardly 
 endure to swallow it." 
 
 " Mary, I declrtre I will not listen to any more of this. Austin 
 and Belle may settle it between them as they will ; but I vow I 
 
 will not enter the Vicarage walls again until — until " But 
 
 v/hatever vow Robert was imprudently taking upon himself in his
 
 176 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 anger was to remain a mystery for ever, for at that moment Belle 
 astonished them both by going, for the first time in her life, into a 
 downright fit of hysterics. 
 
 It was a very silly affair altogether; but it was the wisest 
 thing that Belle ever did, for it brought Robert to his senses in a 
 moment, when Mary's wrathful eloquence could prevail nothing. 
 
 Granted that the scene was most humiliating and distressing, 
 still the whole thing was a novelty to Robert, and could not fail to 
 impress him with the heinousness and cruelty of his own conduct. 
 That Belle, grave, quiet, sensible Belle, should be one minute in 
 fits of mad laughter and the next convulsed with sobs; that she 
 should be clenching and unclenching her little hands in a way that 
 would be ludicrous if it were not so terrible ; that she should turn 
 so persistently from him and bury her pale face in the sofa-cushions 
 when he tried to take her in his arms, with all manner of endearing 
 speeches, — were things frightful to contemplate. Mary, who was but 
 little less alarmed, pushed him away witliout the least compunction. 
 
 "You should never treat hysterics like that, Robert," she 
 observed, with a little feminine contempt ; " leave her to me, if 
 you please. Belle, if you are not quiet directly I shall send for 
 Austin !" And then she applied one remedy after another, with 
 hands that would tremble in spite of her best efforts. 
 
 But Robert, who was very determined, was not to be pushed 
 away for more than a moment. The poor fellow was cunning 
 enough to detect the trembling. He took the sal volatile into his 
 own hands, and turned that strong will of his to great account. 
 Notwithstanding his provocations, Mary was constrained to admire 
 him. 
 
 Belle had the grace to be thoroughly ashamed of herself when 
 the fit of weakness was over. She sat up among the sofa-cushions 
 very sad and silent, leaning her aching head on her hand, but 
 saying very little about her illness. Her fair hair had come im- 
 loosened in the struggle, and lay damp and soft on her forehead, 
 and as Mary stooped to smooth it back she was struck with the 
 painful delicacy of her sister's look. Robert noticed it too, and for 
 the first time a chill feeling almost of fear crossed him. 
 
 " Belle, dear, you are quite sure you are better now?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Oh yes, much better," and Belle closed her eyes wearily. 
 
 "Well, you have given us a terrible fright, but it is over now. 
 You must not think any more of what I said," he continued 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 " How do you mean V she asked faintly ; " what am I not to 
 remember i"
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 177 
 
 "Well, all my ill temper against Austin. When a man is 
 provoked he often says more than he means ; you should not have 
 been so ready to take me at my word, you silly child." 
 
 Belle's hand closed suddenly round his wrist. 
 
 "Do you mean that you will come here after all, Robert^" 
 
 " Of course I shall come here. How can I help it when you 
 are taking it to heart like this % I did not think you had so much 
 feeling, Belle," he continued mischievously, but Belle was too much 
 in earnest to perceive the tender raillery. 
 
 " But Miss Maturiu will be at the Vicarage sometimes," she 
 continued, and Robert was quick to detect the pain in her voice. 
 
 " Never mind, Belle, I suppose I must bear it ; after all, she 
 has done mischief enough already without setting us foiu- by the 
 ears. I only hope Mary is ashamed of her crossness." Mrs. Ord 
 shook her head smilingly, but she dealt him a comfortable little 
 pat on the shoulder, and Robert put back his handsome head, and 
 laughed at her, and so peace was declared. 
 
 And after that Mary and Belle made it up between them. 
 Mary got on her knees before her sister, and said all sorts of com- 
 forting little things, and coaxed and scolded her in a breath, and 
 Belle lay and looked at her with her great beautiful eyes, and said 
 little, and they were all very foolish and very happy. 
 
 Meanwhile the Vicar, forgetful of his inner man, had taken up 
 his worn felt hat and sallied out faint and tired ; his errand was 
 an important one. The Vicar was no ascetic. In spite of his 
 goodness he was not one lightly to forego any of his creature 
 comforts, and the renunciation of his cup of tea had gone hardly 
 with him. As he halted a moment on tlie door-mat he told him- 
 self that it was a triumph of mind over matter ; but the latter 
 would take its revenge in an aching liead on the morrow. As he 
 walked down the garden-path it was a pity Robert could not see 
 him, be looked so big. At the little gate he met Garton, to whom 
 he told his errand at once ; he was going to Ebenezer Graves. 
 
 Garton stared when he heard that. I would not advise you 
 to have anything more to do with him, Austin," he observed, and 
 thereupon the Vicar received a piece of intelligence that filled him 
 with amazement. Robert had oidy just returned from a most 
 exciting interview with the recreant editor of the Blackscar Herald. 
 
 " Do you mean that Robert has really been pitching into this 
 fellow Graves ?" ejaculated the Vicar in an excess of astonishment. 
 
 " Pitching intft him ; I believe you," returned Garton, rubbing 
 his hands in great enjoyment, and rocking to and fro against the 
 little gate. " I never saw a man so cowed and crestfallen in my 
 life. Robert made me go with him in case he should be tempted 
 
 12
 
 178 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 to do violence to the fellow ; Bob had got his spirit up, I can tell 
 yon." 
 
 "But why did he not tell me he had been to the man ?" re- 
 torted the Vicar in sore perplexity. " Here he has left me abruptly, 
 will not listen to a word of reason, and talks about turning himself 
 out of my house, and all the time the foolish fellow had not the 
 courage to confess that he had taken up cudgels himself in Miss 
 Maturin's defence — Eobert, too, of all men." 
 
 " Oh, that is just Bob's way ; he is so terribly hard, you know. 
 He would go and do the right thing just for the sake of doing it, 
 and make himself so disagreeable all the time that there's no bear- 
 ing with him. I suppose you said or did something to offend him." 
 "I told him I should have Miss Maturin at the Vicarage." 
 " Ah, that was quite enough, no doubt ; he would turn round 
 and tell you that you had shut the door in his face. Poor old 
 Bob, he will never bring himself to forgive her." 
 
 " But, Gar, why should he enter the list at all on the girl's 
 behalf? He had much better have left the business to me." 
 
 " So I told him when he explained the matter to me ; but he 
 chose to be obstinate over it. ' Austin has enough work of his 
 own to do,' he said. 'Ebenezer gives him plenty of kicks and 
 side flings already. No, no ; you'll see how I'll manage • the 
 scoundrel.' And, true enough, he did give it him; the rascal 
 quite shook in his shoes." 
 
 " Yes, but how could Robert refute the attack, believing in it 
 all the time, as he does'?" asked the Vicar perplexedly. 
 
 " Oh, as to that, I could see he was very careful not to com- 
 promise himself Ebenezer could not nail him to a single point. 
 
 " ' How dare you bring all these slanderous charges against a 
 lady"?' he repeated over and over again. Graves had his wife in 
 at last as a sort of protection. ' You will bear witness, Jemima, 
 that he attacked me first,' he said, almost whimpering ; ' and you 
 have no right to bully me, Mr. Ord. How was I to know that 
 our correspondent had said anything damaging to the lady % Re- 
 ports of that kind are often erroneous.' 
 
 " ' Very well, Mr. Graves, you may take your own choice,' said 
 Robert, quite quietly. ' You may either make your correspondent 
 retract the article with an apology next week, or I will have you 
 up for libel. My brother and I are quite determined to put a stop 
 to this sort of persecution ; so unless you want your paper to be 
 ruined you had better get rid of this bad habit of yours of inventing 
 scandalous stories about people. Do you understand me, Mr. 
 Graves'?' 
 
 " ' I will see what I can do,' muttered the fellow, quite sullenly,
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 179 
 
 and Robert came away. I dou't know how he managed it, but he 
 actually got through the whole affair without compromising himself. 
 Bob is awfully clever." 
 
 " He is awfully good too, if he would but let people find it 
 out for themselves," returned the Vicar; "and here I have been 
 accusing him of want of generosity ; I suppose it was my blunt 
 assertion put him out. Well, I will finish my work. Go in foi 
 the lads. Gar;" and the Vicar unlatched the gate and walked 
 thoughtfully down the road. This unlooked-for generosity on 
 Robert's part was making his cause a little difficult, but he was not 
 one to be easily moved from his purpose, and so he went on to Bryi]. 
 
 He had planned his visit none too early, and had a shrewd 
 suspicion of how he would find matters. Mrs. Carruthers, as she 
 met him in the hall on her way to church, looked grave enough to 
 verify these suspicions. 
 
 "I am so glad you are come, Mr. Ord," she said, warmly wel- 
 coming him. " I can't think what is the matter with Miss 
 Maturin to-day ; she has scarcely spoken or eaten for hours, and 
 she will not answer a single inquiiy as to whether she be ill. 
 I was almost unwilling to go to church to-night, but I thought she 
 would rather be alone. Will you go to her % " she added. The 
 Vicar nodded. Mrs. Carruthers pushed open the door of the 
 little sitting-room, and Mr. Ord entered unannounced. As usual 
 the room was filled with evening sunshine ; it slanted full on the 
 pretty tea-table, from whence they had just risen ; but Rotha still 
 sat in her place with her empty plate before her. When the 
 Vicar first saw her she had her two arms on the table ; her shoidders 
 had a weary stoop in them, and her face was hidden in her hands. 
 The sound of the opening door evidently startled her ; when she 
 saw who it was she rose at once to her feet and remained standing. 
 *"I suppose you knew that I should come to you," he said 
 gently, as he took the unoffbred hand and pressed it in his. 
 
 Then she shook her head. " No, Mr. Ord, I never expected 
 to see you here again;" and as she turned from him he saw that 
 the newspaper lay half-hidden under her plate. 
 
 " You thought I should not come to you in your trouble % " he 
 repeated reproachfully ; *' you were wrong, you see. I hope you 
 do not think I am less your friend because you are just now so 
 sorely in need of one." 
 
 Her only answer was to turn hurriedly from him and burst 
 into tears ; coverilig her face with her hands, and pressing him to 
 leave her, she wept as though her heart were broken. Only once 
 before had Rotha so wept. Good Christian as he was, his thoughts 
 were very bitter against Ebenezer as he heard her sobs.
 
 180 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " My dear Miss Maturin, hush ! poor child, poor child ! it has 
 gone very heavily with you, I fear." 
 
 Gone very heavily with her ! Could he guess, as she sat 
 hiding her face from him in her misery, the utter hopelessness that 
 had crept over her during the last few hours — the crushing press- 
 ure — the outraged pride — the whole helplessness of a woman 
 knowing her own innocence, yet powerless to defend it. A few 
 months ago the cruelty of the thing would have gone hardly with 
 her — but now — now, when a little promise of brighter days had 
 come, it was unbearable. 
 
 She had taught herself to regard the man who was near her as 
 her friend— as one tolerant enough to help her in spite of her sup- 
 posed sin. She had spoken of his goodness as though it had been 
 a joy to her ; her work had been very pleasant under his eyes : as 
 she had gone about it she had told herself that one day he would 
 do her justice and believe in her ; she remembered Garton's honest 
 bluntness of avowal, and then her bliss had been very great. But 
 now of what avail were all these things since Blackscar and Kirkby 
 would believe in her guilt ? Would it be possible any longer that 
 they should defend her 1 
 
 No, he could not be her friend ; but for all that she must tell 
 him what it had come into her heart to do. Just now his sym- 
 pathy was keeping him silent. By and by he would ask her some 
 question that would make it easy for her to tell him that she had 
 made up her mind to go away ; for her burden was too heavy for 
 her. 
 
 " Miss Matiu-in," he said at length, " can you not understand 
 that this is very bitter to me as well as to you "? " And as she 
 shook her head mournfully, " Indeed it is ; when I read that paper 
 I felt cut to the heart — it seemed to me so wantonly cruel." 
 
 She turned her face to him at that. " Mr. Ord, it has been 
 my deathblow." 
 
 " Hush ! you must not say that." 
 
 "Ah! but it has," and here she struggled ineffectually with 
 her emotion ; "it has been the deathblow to all my hopes. You 
 will never know now how I have planned and worked, and all I 
 meant to do. Everything would have come right, I know, if they 
 had let me stay here a little longer." 
 
 " Stay here ! at Bryn, do you mean '?" 
 
 " Yes, it is my own, is it not 1 No one has the right to drive 
 me away, have they 1 And I was beginning to love it so in spite 
 of all ; if I could only have stopped on here and worked as I was 
 working I am sure people would have grown to believe in me. I 
 have so prayed to be allowed to live it down."
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 181 
 
 " You will live it down if you will only be brave over this." 
 
 " I shall not try," she replied, turning very white. " In the 
 heat of the day my strength has failed. I am going away from 
 here, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " I rather dreaded to hear you say so," was the answer ; " but 
 perhaps it is only natural. How long do you intend to remain 
 away V 
 
 Rotha looked up at him rather puzzled. " If I go away, of 
 course I shall never return," she replied simply. " I am very 
 sorry, for Meg's sake ; poor Meg, she was just beginning to feel 
 happy here. It is hard for her to go back to her old drudgery ; 
 but there is no help for it." 
 
 " Do you mean, Miss Maturin, that you seriously contemplate 
 leaving Kirkby — utterly and entirely, I meauf 
 
 " What can I do T' she answered bitterly ; and there was a 
 passionate ring in her voice no one had ever heard before. " How 
 can I live on here when the very poor about my gate will look 
 upon me as little better than a thief 1 Can I go about the streets 
 protesting my innocence when people are pointing their fingers at 
 me as one who has defrauded the injured of their rights % Will 
 they believe me if I cry shame on them for the baseness of their 
 falsehood % Mr. Ord, you know — you must know, that it is not 
 possible for me to do otherwise than I am doing." 
 
 " Nevertheless I intend that you shall not leave us." 
 
 " Who is to prevent me, Mr. Ord V 
 
 " Who is to prevent you % Why I, if it lies in my power — 
 common sense — your own conscience — the dictates of prudence and 
 generosity — nay more, your very self-respect." 
 
 " They will be all as nothing in this case. Do you think I 
 should sacrifice Meg if it were possible to remain — that I should 
 renounce all hope and plans for the futm-e % JMr. Ord, your argu- 
 ment will not shake me ; I am determined to bear all this no 
 longer," 
 
 He gave her a pitying look before he resumed his speech ; he 
 could see now how wrung and galled her spirit was within her. 
 A difiicult piece of work lay before him, but its toughness did not 
 daunt him ; he was not the less patient with her now that trouble 
 was making her reckless. 
 
 " You know, of course, that the conditions of the will oblige 
 you to live at Eryn % " he continued after a pause ; " pardon me if 
 I remind you of what you know already — the clause is a binding 
 one, I believe." 
 
 " I have no intention to set it aside," she returned, with a little 
 scorn. " I know in leaving Bryn that I shall leave it a beggar,
 
 182 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 but anything will be better than these gilded chains ; poverty can- 
 not degrade me, though at first it will be hard to bear. We must 
 go back to our teaching, Meg and I. Poor M'eg, it is very sad for 
 her, certainly." 
 
 "I should think it sadder for you." 
 
 " No, I am younger, and in spite of my sorrow I am not quite 
 so hopeless. I shall go away from here, and in a few years perhaps 
 I shall forget my troubles. When I next come," she added, with 
 a bitter smile, " your Convalescent Home will have got its new 
 wing, and the Almshouses will have been built." 
 
 "You mean that, in case of your refusal to live at Bryn, the 
 money is to revert to the original purpose — at least to the pur- 
 pose my aunt proposed to herself after she had disinherited her 
 lawful heir." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Ord ; the Almsliouses were much in her thoughts. 
 I cannot think what induced her to give them up, unless indeed it 
 were natural caprice." 
 
 "Very likely," returned the Vicar quietly. "Well; so it is 
 your intention. Miss Maturin, to let the property go out of your 
 hands and to resiune your old drudgery of teaching, — in short, to 
 use your own expression, to leave Bryn a beggar?" 
 
 "That is my intention, certainly." 
 
 " Have you any idea that by doing so you will at all alter the 
 present state of feelings towards you % " 
 
 " No," she faltered ; " I have no hope at all of that kind." 
 
 " Perhaps you are not aware that it may rather injure you than 
 otherwise ; some people are so unjust that they may hold it rather 
 a corroboration of their suspicions than otherwise." 
 
 He touched her there — he saw her wince. " I cannot help it," 
 she answered despau'ingly. " I have tried what I can do to remove 
 it, but it is all no use ; people must think of me as they will — it 
 will be all over some day." 
 
 " Yes, if we be not weary of well-doing ; have you forgotten 
 thatr' 
 
 " I have forgotten everything, I think," she answered in a tired 
 voice, putting back her hair from her face — such a worn young face 
 it looked. " Mr. Ord, when I think of Meg — poor Meg — I hate 
 myself for being such a coward ; but the sin is with them who are 
 driving me to desperation." 
 
 " That is true in one sense, but we may not rid ourselves of 
 the responsibility of our own actions \ if you carry out this inten- 
 tion, you will cause suffering to many." 
 
 "You mean that poor Annie will miss me. I am afraid she 
 will, but it will be only for a little time ; what hm'ts me most is
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 183 
 
 that the hospital will claim all the money, and I have been saving 
 it all so carefully for him." 
 
 For him — the words had escaped her almost unconsciously. 
 As soon as she had spoken them she shrunk back in uncontrollable 
 confusion, and covered her face with her hands. " Oh, Mr. Ord," 
 she exclaimed, " what have I said ! I never meant any of you to 
 know this." 
 
 He had scarcely understood her meaning at first, but now a 
 certain quick brightness came into his eyes as he leant forward — 
 he almost held his breath in the intensity of his surprise and 
 suspense. 
 
 " Do you mean that you are saving it for Robert % Don't be 
 afraid to trust me," he continued pleadingly ; " you hardly know 
 how important this all is — on my honour, as a gentleman and a 
 clergyman, I will not betray yom* confidence." 
 
 She looked at him a little comforted. 
 
 " You will not even teU yom- wife V 
 
 " No, no ; this shall be solely a matter between you and me — 
 your words shall be as though tliey had not been spoken. Did I 
 understand you to say that you- had been keeping the money for 
 himr' 
 
 " Yes," she returned, still hesitating ; " aU of it that I could 
 honestly spare from my necessities. Meg and I are used to live 
 simply, you know ; there is no sacrifice in the case — none. I 
 know that I cannot make restitution in my lifetime, but, all the 
 same, it makes me happier to think that it is all being saved up 
 for him." 
 
 " But, my dear Miss Maturin, you are much younger than 
 Robert. Women on an average live longer than men." 
 
 " Yes, happy women do, no doubt. I should be sony to 
 believe that in my case ; but at least his children will have the 
 benefit. The idea surprises you, perliaps," she continued, with a 
 faint smile ; "it did Mr. Tracy ; but it was the only thing that 
 gave me any comfort. It may be possible for some peoj^le to 
 enjoy themselves at the expense of others, but this is not my 
 nature." 
 
 " I most thoroughly believe you : in giving up your property, 
 therefore, you are making this noble intention of yours, with 
 regard to my brother, nuU and void. Never mind, the Convales- 
 cent Hospital will reap the benefit." 
 
 "Oh ! " she^said reproachfully. "Why do you remind me of 
 that 1 Are you going to make it as impossible for me to go as it 
 is to remain?" 
 
 "I hope, indeed, that I shall succeed in making it impossible."
 
 184 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " But wliy — why be so cruel % " 
 
 " Because Kirkby, and Kirkby Vicarage especially, cannot 
 afford to part with you, Miss Maturin — because they shall not 
 part with you until they have acknowledged themselves to be in 
 the wrong. Do not misunderstand me, and think I am saying 
 this on account of what you have told me about my brother. In 
 my own mind I think Robert will never derive any good from 
 your money, or any one else's. No ; I say this solely because I 
 believe in you, and tliink you are an injured woman." 
 
 Before he had finished speaking she had risen to her feet, and 
 was confronting him. 
 
 " Mr. Ord, say that again," she panted. 
 
 " What am I to say again % " he asked, taking her two hands, 
 and still holding her before him. As he looked at her something 
 like a mist passed before his own eyes. 
 
 "What you said just now — that you believed in me," she 
 replied, hardly able to get out the words in her agitation, and 
 trembling all over. 
 
 " Very well ; I will repeat my words. I said that I believe 
 in you, and I do. I believe that we have wronged you utterly 
 and bitterly, and that you have never done this thing of which 
 we accused you." 
 
 " Thank God ! " was all she said ; but, oh, the sparkling 
 brightness of her face, and then a little astonishment mingled 
 with her joy ! 
 
 " Well," he said, smiling, " are you disposed to forgive me % 
 I confess I hardly like to ask your pardon." 
 
 Then, in her sweet humihty, she put that by. 
 
 " But, ]Mr. Ord, I cannot understand it. Surely you did not 
 come here this evening to tell me this % " and her eyes dwelt for a 
 moment on the offending Herald. 
 
 '' You mean that you cannot understand my sudden conver- 
 sion. Well, I will tell you the truth. Just before I came here 
 my brother asked if I were prepared to acquit you, and I told him 
 ' No.' At the time I certainly meant what I said." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " I knew how I should find you. When I came into your 
 presence just now, and saw you bowed down with grief — my 
 doubts were still heavy on my mind — they were there ; but, to 
 be candid with you, they were certainly lessened." 
 
 " How so % " she asked timidly. 
 
 "Well, I had overcome my prejudice. Perhaps I should be 
 right in saying that I Avas no longer disposed to be hardened 
 against you. I had been proving you lately. I could not recon-
 
 TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF TEARS. 185 
 
 cile the fact that came before my eyes with Robert's suspicions, 
 and every day I found it more difficult to doubt Annie's patient 
 nurse and comforter. Do you understand me f 
 
 " Yes," she returned humbly ; " but I am afraid I was only 
 working for your praise then." 
 
 " It may be so ; but it struck me you were laborious and self- 
 denying. I knew you to be patient. When you talked to me, in 
 your grief, about going away — and giving up everything — it was 
 impossible not to believe you were in earnest. It is true I hinted 
 that others might attribute such conduct to far different motives ; 
 but, in my own mind, then I began to see you were innocent." 
 
 "Is that all r' 
 
 " No ; it is not all. I supposed you managed to convince me 
 by your own words. There, will that do % " he added, smiling. 
 
 Somehow he found it difficult to explain to her how his doubts 
 really had been set at rest. How could he tell her that it had 
 been those few unconscious words of hers that had carried con- 
 viction straight to his mind % 
 
 " I am saving it all so carefully for him." Could he ever for- 
 get the tenderly mournful intonation of her voice as she said that, 
 and the shrinking confession that had followed her words % " I 
 never meant any of you to know this," she said to him in her 
 distress ; and then, when he had drawn her on with his promise 
 of secrecy, what did he hear 1— that she was living simply, only 
 supplying her necessities in fact, that an abundance should be 
 laid up for him, for the man who had wronged her, and for liis 
 children after him — and this was the woman whose pure generous 
 heart they were crushing to the dust. He wished now that he 
 had not given her his word — that it were possible that others 
 might share his knowledge — it would make his defence of her so 
 much less difficult ; but when he hinted at this wish she reminded 
 him of his promise with a decision against which there was no 
 ai^peal. 
 
 " I could not stay here and look any of them in the face," she 
 said in a frightened voice, when he suggested it. At that he 
 smiled a little. 
 
 "You are thinking better of your intended exodus then, Miss 
 Maturin — you are not leaving Brjm now % " 
 
 "Of course I am not leaving it," she returned with energy. 
 " When you said you would prevent me, how could I know what 
 means you would take ? Do you think I would ever go away from 
 Kirkby now that I have a friend here who believes in me 1 " She 
 might have added " two friends " when she thought of Garten, 
 but a little consciousness kept her silent.
 
 186 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Ah, so my argument has been successful, after all 1 By the 
 bye, Miss Maturin, I have, something to tell you, only all this has 
 put it out of my head till now — do you know who has been taking 
 up the cudgels in your defence 1 " and he glanced meaningly at the 
 obnoxious paper. 
 
 She shook her head. " How can I know 1 " 
 
 " Well, I will tell you ; it was Robert. Garton told me all 
 about it, and I was very nearly as surprised as you are. Robert 
 seems to have done his work well ; Garton says the fellow fau'ly 
 shook in his shoes. He has consented to write some sort of 
 apology. I hardly know whether he will go so far as to retract 
 entirely ; so you see things are not quite so hopeless as you made 
 them out half an hour ago." 
 
 " No, indeed ; but oh, Mr. Ord, how good of your brother, 
 when all the time he believes — at least, he suspects — this of me ; 
 and I was going to wrong him so by going away." 
 
 " Ah ! true ; that would have argued badly for his prospects," 
 returned the Vicar, with a twinkle in his eye, as he thought of 
 Rotha's full-groAvn heir ; but Rotha was too much occupied with 
 her own thoughts. 
 
 " I always said he was just in spite of his hardness," she said 
 at last. " Thank you, Mr. Ord ; I am glad you have told me, it 
 will make it easier for me to bear things in the future. It does 
 not seem to me that I shall mind what people think now." 
 
 " But, all the same, I am afraid that your troubles are not yet 
 over. I hope you have not forgotten Mrs. Blake and Miss 
 Brookes." 
 
 " Ah, Miss Brookes is the worst — I am terribly afraid of that 
 woman. No, I have not forgotten them ; but I feel even as 
 though I have a panacea for all ills." 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 '* That you believe in me," she said touchingly ; and somehow 
 the Vicar had no answer ready. 
 
 " I was going to ask you if you would do me a favour," he 
 said presently, in his usual manner. " I want your assistance in 
 a little matter that I have to settle in the village. Do you think 
 you are too tired to come with me 1 " 
 
 " Too tired ! oh no," she returned, with alacrity ; but he 
 hesitated a little when he saw her face. 
 
 " Are you sure you are not 1 WeE, perhaps it will be better 
 to have it over. Put on your bonnet then while I stroll out in 
 the garden for a breath of air."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MRS. OED HEARS ARTY HIS PRAYERS. 
 
 " I know lier ! the worst thought she has 
 Is whiter even tlian lier pretty haud ! 
 She must prove true ; for, brother, where two fight 
 The stronger wins, and truth and love are strength." — Tennyson. 
 
 RoTHA had acceded to the Vicar's request with ahtcrity. She was 
 far too happy to feel any surprise at it being preferred — she was 
 not even curious on the subject. She bathed her swollen eyes, 
 and was very careful about the adjustment of her bonnet-strings ; 
 she even cauglit herself smiling at the ratlicr forlorn-looking image 
 in the glass. 
 
 " I wonder what people will say to my red eyes," she thought. 
 "I declare I look as pale as a ghost;" and a vision of Belle's 
 beautiful face rose before her as she ran downstairs. Prue looked 
 up in surprise when her mistress passed her; the light footstep 
 scarcely touched the ground, she thought. The Vicar was standing 
 in the doorway leading into the lane. 
 
 " You have not been long," he said, with an approving smile, 
 and then they walked down the road together. 
 
 Rotha felt as though she could hardly keep her feet in order ; 
 she felt extremely happy, and yet in an odd sort of dream too. 
 Her tears had made her weak ; she felt a little dazed, — that he 
 should believe in her ! She wished all Kirkby could have seen her 
 walking beside him, her friend ; she gave him wistful glances now 
 and then, inexpressively touching. Someliow that brief walk was 
 stereotyped in her memory for ever. Years after she could see 
 it all : the sunset sky all gilded with amctliyst and crimson, the 
 west a perfect flood of yellow glory ; just below tlie horizon the 
 clear blue outline of the Leatham hills ; in the foreground the 
 church, with its weather-worn lich-gate ; a stone cross, with a 
 wreath of withered immortelles ; some children swinging on a 
 rusty chain. Down the white sandy road comes the Vicar, slow 
 and ponderous. What a grand-looking man, Rotha thinks, as she
 
 188 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 looks up at him. He has crisp curly hair, with open gray eyes and 
 massive shoulders. His footsteps go thud, thud, beside Rotha'.s 
 springy ones. He carries his felt hat in his hand as they come near 
 the chui'ch. They can hear music through the open door — "Oh, 
 Paradise! oh. Paradise !" Ptotha's pulse gives a little thrill as she 
 hears it. "Where loyal hearts and true, stand ever in tlie light." 
 
 "Amen!" she whispered. 
 
 The Vicar had gone over to speak to the verger. He came 
 back presently, and they retrace their steps. "All rapture, 
 through and through ; " he is humming it from where they left 
 off. The clouds are all crimson and gold now ; the air has a soft 
 crispness in it. 
 
 " Where are we going % " asks Rotha, a little bewildered. 
 
 They had been walking up and down just to listen to the 
 hymn, and now he has unlocked another door in the wall. 
 
 " ' Open, Sesame.' Do you not like wandering in a strange 
 garden of an evening. Miss Matm'in ^ It always reminds me of a 
 German Mahrchen. Do you admire my fuchsias % " 
 
 They are walking down a gravel-path ; two ducks come wad- 
 dling over the grass to Rotha's feet ; a little white kitten, up in 
 an apple tree, grins at her like a gargoyle as they pass. There 
 are beds of scarlet geraniums and mignonette ; a westeria trails 
 clusters of gray grapes over a low bow-window ; a passion-flower 
 climbs over the porch. A sleepy voice sounds querulously from 
 the upper regions. 
 
 " Where am 1 1 Why do you bring me here 1 " cries Rotha in 
 an uncertain voice. 
 
 She is more in a dream than ever ; the Vicar puts her hand 
 on his arm with a smile. 
 
 " I will tell you by and by," he answers, stopping to gather 
 a great creamy rose, and slipping it between her fingers. " At 
 present we have to go upstairs. Don't be frightened, it will be 
 over soon ; " and he draws her across the threshold. 
 
 Rotha gives herself up for lost now— they are stumbling up a 
 dark staircase ; more roses like the one she has in her hand came 
 peeping through a little lattice-window all festooned with greenery. 
 Tlie sleepy voice they heard in the upper regions has descended, 
 and is blowing through a tin trumpet. 
 
 " Be quiet, Arty, you rogue; come and make friends with this 
 lady." And Rotha bends down to an invisible curly head. 
 
 " Mother, the lady has kissed my ciu:ls," shouts Arty, turning 
 short round into an open door ; " she has, indeed, and I won't let 
 Uncle Robert cut them off. Will you play ' Gefoozalem,' Uncle 
 Robert ? "
 
 MRS. ORD HEARS ARTY HIS PRA VERS. 189 
 
 " What lady ? Hush ! " says his mother, "you are disturbing 
 your aunt. Why, Austin!" and tlien JMary rises in confusion. In 
 the sudden stillness Rotha can hear tlie ripple of the water behind 
 the sand-hills. Coming out of the light and glory, the room seems 
 full of dusk corners — a black dress comes out of one; a tall dark 
 man bows to her from a distance; there is a mass of white drapery 
 glimmering somewhere. Rotha is conscious that she is crushing 
 her rose between her fingers — the carpet is strewn with pale creamy 
 leaves — one flutters on to Arty's curls; the Vicar has her hand 
 still firmly on his arm; she feels she is white to the lips. 
 
 " Mary, I have brought Miss Maturin to see you ; make her 
 very welcome, my dear ; " and, as he delivers himself of his little 
 speech, he lifts his boy in his arms and smothers him with kisses, 
 and Mary takes Rotha's hand. 
 
 The Vicar has retreated to the rug, and is eyeing the white 
 drapery rather doubtfully. "Why, Belle, child, are you ilU" he 
 asks kindly. 
 
 " Hush ! Austin," says Mary again, and she drops Rotha's 
 hand and comes up to the sofa a little anxiously. " Yes, Belle has 
 been ill, but she is better now," and she whispers something into 
 her sister's ear ; but Belle colours and looks at Robert. 
 
 " Will you not sit down, Miss Maturin 1 I think we can find 
 you a chair." A tall figure passes between her and the light — 
 the waves are rippling up louder than ever now — they seem siu-g- 
 ing over the sand-hills. 
 
 " Thank you," says Rotha. There is only a bare flower-stalk 
 between her fingers now; the blue convolvuli on the carpets seem 
 twining into knots and festoons. " Are there such things as blue 
 convolvtdir' thinks Rotha, with a little wonder. There is a 
 curious lump in her throat; her temples are throbbing with sharp 
 paiii, and her eyes are aching and swollen. 
 
 Robert had brought her a chair- — and now he has gone off 
 somewhere. She can hear him whistling softly at a far-off window; 
 he has taken no notice of Mary's whisper, and Belle stiJl colours 
 and hesitates. 
 
 " It will be too late in another minute," says Mary, with a 
 patient sigh ; and then Belle gets up and crosses the room — a cold 
 liand holds Rotha's for a moment, and the Vicar, with a pleased 
 smile, presses his boy to him. 
 
 " What lots of kisses you are giving me to-night, fatlier," says 
 Arty, a little rueffilly. 
 
 " There are two more to give to your Aunt Belle," says Austin, 
 with a laugh, as he releases him ; and Arty blows an ode to freedom 
 through his tin trumpet.
 
 190 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Do you think the walls of Jericho will soon blow down % Yon 
 are Jericho, Aunt Belle, and I am going to walk seven times round 
 you. Where are the palm trees. Uncle Bob?" 
 
 "Hush, Arty, that is not a proper game," said his mother, 
 quite shocked. " Austin, will you ring the bell, please % It is time 
 for Arty to go to bed; Deb will hear him say his prayers to-night." 
 
 " Am I to pray for the lady too % " says Arty, nibbing his curls 
 sleepily. As he blows a last refrain he is a little unsteady — his 
 head nods drowsily on Deb's shoulder. 
 
 "Do you know I have had no tea to-night, Mary," says the 
 Vicar, rather solemnly. " Why should Deb hear him say his 
 prayers'? he will only gabble them. Let Miss Maturin go upstairs 
 and take off her bonnet, my dear, and then we will have some tea 
 together in your room." 
 
 " Oh, Austin, I am so sorry I did not think of it before," she 
 says remorsefully. As she goes out of the room she is a little 
 mystified — why should not Deb hear Arty his prayers ? Austin 
 has never before objected to that godly handmaiden. She makes 
 a little excuse to Rotha as they go up the dark stairs. " Mother's 
 rooms are always untidy," she observes, as she picks up a broken 
 drum and a whole file of soldiers off the floor ; the soldiers are 
 oscillating on their zigzag parade; as Mary picks them up they 
 drop ofi" by twos and threes. 
 
 " Let me help you," says Rotha, with a little laugh — and in 
 another moment she is down on the carpet ; in the dim light she 
 can see faint patches and stains everywhere — some marbles crunch 
 under her feet and roll under the bed. By and by Arty comes in 
 with bare rosy feet and startles them. 
 
 "Miss Maturin, I am quite ashamed. Arty, come here and 
 say your prayers." 
 
 "Why should I not play at my Jericho game, mother?" says 
 Arty, as he huddles up his feet in his mother's dress. " Deb's 
 cross, and I wouldn't have said my prayers to her." 
 
 " Shut yoiu- eyes, Arty ; do you think the child-Christ will be 
 beside your bed to-night if you talk like that 1 " says Mary's cooing 
 voice. 
 
 A hushed feeling comes over Rotha as she sits down by the 
 open window. By and by, when Deb is making the tea, and Arty 
 is prattling after his prayers, she begins to have a dim conscious- 
 ness why the Vicar has sent her upstairs. 
 
 " I think my room has the best view in the house," says Mrs. 
 Ord cheerfully, as she tucks away her son under her arm. Arty 
 is going in for a cuddle to-night. " I often sit up here of an even- 
 ing when I am net at church."
 
 MRS. ORD HEARS ARTY HIS PRA VERS. 191 
 
 "Yes, it is very beautiful," returns Rotlia. Somehow her hot 
 eyes will keep filling with tears as she looks over the dark sea and 
 at the distant lights. The mother and boy opposite seemed framed 
 with a dim halo — it is all so peaceful and still ; a young moon 
 trembles on the verge of the sea, and one or two stars show like 
 sparks of gold against a long cloud. There are two figures moving 
 up and down among the sand-hills ; a woman's cloak flutters far out 
 at the margin of the waves — the lights come flickering up upon the 
 sea-wall. " There is Meg taking her solitary stroll," thinks Rotha; 
 and then Mrs. Ord's voice breaks in a little plaintively: 
 
 " Yes, when one looks at a scene like that, one is ashamed of 
 being discontented." 
 
 "Are you ever discontented'?" asked Rotha curiously. Mary 
 laughed, and then dimpled consciously in the twilight, and then 
 laughed again. 
 
 "I wish Austin had heard you ask that. Do you know I was 
 small enough to feel ashamed when he told me to bring you up- 
 stairs. I was afraid you would think everything so poor and 
 shabby, and Arty's toys did look so bad," finished Mary. She 
 scolded herself afterwards for her confession, but she was a woman 
 who missed sadly the beauty and fitness of things. She always 
 said that one of the joys of heaven to her would be that there 
 would be nothing worn out or broken there; "and breakages are 
 so trying to the temper," she would add naively. 
 
 Rotha looked round the room when Mrs. Ord gave vent to this 
 womanish speech; and then she told Mary plainly that "she 
 thought it the most delicious old room she had ever seen ; she liked 
 the motherly arrangements — Ai'ty's high chair, and the big chintz 
 couch, and the round table with its litter of boxes and puzzles." 
 
 " Yes, but you cannot think how faded all the cm-tains are," 
 returned Mrs. Ord disconsolately ; " and I have darned them till 
 I don't think they will bear another wash ; I have had them 
 
 fifteen years. And as to the carpet Well, with great boys 
 
 how can you expect carpets to wear properly?" 
 
 " Carpets won't last for ever," returned Rotha sententiously. 
 She had a dim idea that tlie Vicar had not sent them upstairs to 
 talk about carjDets, but it was very nice all the same. " I think 
 this is a dear room," she continued, with a little burst, " and I 
 would not mind a bit about its shabbiness," and then Arty was 
 sent away, and the two women became more confidential. 
 
 " I suppose t«a is ready now," Mary had observed, suddenly 
 rising ; then Rotha had put her hand on her dress very timidly to 
 detain her. 
 
 " Please do not go just yet, Mrs. Ord, I want you to know how
 
 192 ROBERT ORDS ATONEMENT. 
 
 good your husband has been to me." Then Mary sat down again 
 directly. 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it," she returned, with a little effort. 
 She too had felt, as she held forth on carpets, that her eloquence 
 had been a failure ; but, ignorant as she was of the result of her 
 husband's mission, it was hardly possible for her to become ani- 
 mated on any other subject. " I am very glad he has been good 
 to you. I think there is no one like Austin for helping when one 
 is in trouble," finished Mary, with innocent tautology. She was 
 always ready to expatiate for any length of time on the cardinal 
 virtues of her husband. 
 
 " No one like him. Well, no. I suppose a drowning wretch 
 believes in the goodness of the man who saves him. When I think 
 of your husband, there seems no limit to my gratitude. Do you 
 know what he has done for me, Mrs. Ord?" 
 
 " No, my dear, will you tell me ?" 
 
 " I will, if I can get the words out ; but when I think of his 
 nobleness, my heart seems ready to burst. If I had not been a 
 woman I think I should have fallen at his feet when he told me 
 he believed in me." 
 
 "Did Austin tell you that?" 
 
 " He told me that, Mrs. Ord. I was standing up on my feet, 
 and he took my two hands, and I could see there were tears in his 
 eyes. ' I told you that I did believe you, and I do,' he said, and 
 his voice seemed almost divine to me. ' I think we have wronged 
 you utterly and entirely, and that you have not done this thing of 
 which we accused you ;' and then it was that I could have fallen 
 at his feet in my joy ; but I only said, ' Thank God !' " 
 
 "You did right," retiu-ned Mary seriously; "but now do you 
 mind telling me a little more of what passed between you and 
 Austin % I want to know what it was that induced him to change 
 his opinion so quickly." 
 
 " You shall hear everything," returned Rotha, and she related 
 the conversation that had taken place between her and the Vicar. 
 Mary listened breathlessly as Rotha spoke of the bitter fit of reck- 
 lessness that had come over her, and of the course she had been 
 prompted to take in her despair. She wiped her eyes once or twice 
 as Rotha spoke of that dreary exodus ; but all at once there was a 
 flaw and gap in the narrative. Austin's words were repeated where 
 there seemed no solidity of foundation for them ; the speech that 
 had wrought the Vicar's conversion had no place in Rotha's 
 record. Mary felt the discrepancy, and said so. 
 
 " It was something that I said by mistake, dear Mrs. Ord, that 
 I never meant any one to hear ; it is quite between him and me.
 
 MRS. ORD HEARS ARTY HIS PR A VERS. 193 
 
 you know," she continued, hesitating. " One sometimes says things 
 to one's clergyman." 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " Not that I had ever meant to tell him," she went on quickly, 
 with the truth that seemed inherent in her ; " it was quite a mis- 
 take—quite, though I cannot be sorry for it now. When I said it 
 I had no idea how it would influence him." 
 "Was it then that he said those words'?" 
 " Yes, then, or almost directly afterwards. When I think of 
 it I am puzzled to comprehend how it all happened ; it was such a 
 simple thing that I said, and it seemed such a clear duty, I can 
 hardly understand now why he magnified it." 
 
 " And it is quite between you and him ; no one else must 
 know it?" 
 
 " No; no one. Dear Mrs. Ord, you are not angry with me 1" 
 " Why should I be angry with you 1 You could not have a 
 better confidant than Austin ; you are quite safe there. I am only 
 sorry — that is, it seems a pity — that people should not know what 
 cleared you in his eyes." 
 
 " It does not seem to me a pity at all. For the matter of that, 
 what have people to do with him or me either?" 
 
 " I think we should always be desirous to prove our own in- 
 nocence," returned Mary gently, as though rebuking Rotha's pride. 
 " Ah ! and have I not been 1 Dear Mrs. Ord, you must not be 
 vexed with me ; but, indeed, I cannot let any one know this ;" and 
 Rotha crimsoned up to the roots of her hair in the twilight as she 
 thought of her impulsive words. " It would put me in a false 
 position, and make me so terribly conscious ; and, after all, people 
 might misunderstand me, and look upon it in quite a different light 
 to what he does." 
 
 . "Very well, then, we will say no more about it," returned 
 Mary, but she felt a little natural regret as she said so, being only 
 a woman, and curious, as most of her sex are ; in reality, she was 
 dying to know those few words that had wrought Austin's conver- 
 sion. " Of course I am of my husband's opinion," she continued, 
 with a soft laugh, and then she stooped down in the darkness and 
 kissed Rotha. 
 
 But for the kiss Rotha would have been slow to understand 
 her words ; even now she hesitated. " What does that mean 1 " 
 she asked ; "does it mean that you too believe in me V 
 
 " Of course L believe in you, if Austin does. Austin cannot 
 be wrong," returned the weak woman. She was perfectly abject 
 on this subject. To her her husband was something short of a 
 demi-god ; lier faith in his goodness and cleverness was so simi)ly 
 
 13
 
 194 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 transparent that lier brothers-in-law would laugh at her fond 
 credulity. "Mary will never go in for the rights of women," 
 Garton would say. " When Austin holds up his little finger she 
 dare not say she has a soul of her own." 
 
 Mary did not mind their laughing one bit — the clauses in the 
 marriage service were always terribly real things to her. She 
 loved and honoured and obeyed the big homely priest with an 
 excess and perfectness of reverence that was almost touching. It 
 was not enough that she gave him her beauty and youth, and a 
 daily and hourly self-sacrifice ; it was not enough that she made 
 home sunshine for him and his boys ; but she adopted his opinions 
 in a way that would have incurred the scorn of any strong-minded 
 woman of sound judgment. AVhen Austin was for daily services, 
 and had announced the fact in the family circle, Mary was full of 
 enthusiasm on the subject, though the day before she had privately 
 informed Belle that she thought them terrible interruptions to 
 work. She would tie on her bonnet with the utmost cheerfulness 
 and trudge off with her boys beside her if she were ever so tired 
 and busy. The face that was dearer to the Vicar now than in its 
 young beauty would always beam on him brightly from morning 
 till night. No wonder, when the Vicar read that lesson out 
 of Proverbs about the woman "whose price is above rubies," that 
 his voice would tremble, and he should think of that other woman 
 " whose clothing was not of silk and purple," for whose sake he 
 had given up a goodly inheritance, but who, he thanked God, 
 was his jjatieut helpmeet and his joy for ever. 
 
 Meanwhile the Vicar was doing his own special work down- 
 stairs ; he had got rid of the two women by a pretext that had 
 been sufiiciently transparent to the one, though Mary's tender con- 
 science had remained sore for some time after his reproof as to 
 Arty's prayers : since the daily services Deb had often had occasion 
 to hear them ; her grievance over that and the carpet had quite 
 ruffled her spirits for the time being. 
 
 But the Vicar had chuckled to himself as he closed the door 
 after them. It was a favourite theory with him that nature had 
 intended him for a diplomatist, and that in consequence Govern- 
 ment had lost a good deal in his being ordained a priest ; but as 
 the Vicar's notions of diplomacy mainly consisted in maintaining 
 his own opinions and having his own way, and making every one 
 else like his way too, it was the most clumsy conceit possible. The 
 fact was, he could not employ ,/?nesse at all — he hardly understood the 
 word ; he would take a raging bull by the horns, or would go among 
 any number of the same noisy cattle as likely as not, with his 
 colours pinned ostentatiously in front, and would not be one whit
 
 MRS. ORD HEARS ARTY HIS PRA VERS. 195 
 
 claimted by their bellowing ; but in truth he was too honest for a 
 diplomatist, he hated shams too inveterately, and was too ready 
 to maintain that black was not white to insure him much political 
 success. In the pulpit he was like a lamb, but an argument on 
 some subjects — say Messrs. Bright and Mill, the Fenians, or Dis- 
 establishment — and he would be transformed into a roaring lion, 
 and the Vicar's roar could be a very loud one indeed. 
 
 He had a notion that he would employ a little finesse on the 
 present occasion, and so he walked up to his brother. 
 
 " Well, Robert, I have done a tolerable bit of work tins even- 
 ing. In my opinion things are pretty much now as they ought 
 to be." 
 
 " That means you have got your own way, I suppose ?" 
 retm-ned Robert, who was in no very enviable mood, and whose 
 words were in consequence rather brusque than pleasant. 
 
 " Exactly," agreed his brother, with perfect good humour. 
 
 " And lost no time about it either," observed Robert shortly. 
 
 " Oh, as to that, I hate procrastination. When a thing's to be 
 done it ought to be done quickly," retm-ned the Vicar, feeling 
 rather guilty as he uttered this truism, and wishing that he had 
 put it in practice two months ago. He did not like to look back 
 on the slow torture of those days and weeks. 
 
 " I have no doubt Miss Maturin is extremely obliged to you, 
 Austin." 
 
 " Well, as to that, she is rather grateful certainly, poor thing. 
 By the bye, Robert, I hope you have thought better of your 
 threat, and that your evenings at the Vicarage are not yet 
 numbered." 
 
 It was very clumsy of the Vicar ; he might have known that 
 a man of Robert's calibre could not bear that sort of good- 
 humoured bullymg — he would not have stood it for a moment. 
 In fact he was growing decidedly cross — stiffening up for a breeze 
 certainly — only Belle, who was lying very quiet, slipped a stealthy 
 hand in his, and a very soft persuasive little hand it was, if she 
 had only known it. 
 
 " I think I should have kept my word but for Belle," he 
 replied, a little less sulkily. 
 
 "Oh, Belle was the mediator, was she?" 
 
 " I don't think you would have admired her style of media- 
 tion," observed Robert, with grim humour. " Of coiu-se when a 
 woman gets up a scene, and makes a fuss in real earnest, she can 
 turn any man round her finger ; " and Robert, as he said this, 
 looked as though he rather enjoyed his subjugation. Tiie Vicar 
 was greatly amused ; it was a new thing to hear that Belle could
 
 196 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 turn Robert round her little finger — he felt rather inclined to 
 pursue the subject ; but Belle looked so anxious and so uncomfort- 
 able that he went off on another track instantly. 
 
 " Well, now that matter is settled, I want to speak to you 
 about something else. Why did you not tell me you had been to 
 that fellow Graves? I had it all second-hand from Garton." 
 
 Robert bit his lip and looked a little annoyed. 
 
 " I did not see any good in telling you, Austin." 
 
 "Why not? I should have gone to the man myself if it had 
 not been for Garton. Gar gave me an account of the whole affair 
 verbatim." 
 
 Robert was silent. He particularly disliked being reminded 
 of his good deeds. He was a man who would have followed 
 literally the Divine exhortation " not to let his left hand know 
 what his right hand doeth." He had not a grain of sympathy with 
 the Pharisee of the present day ; he would have hidden such 
 things, if needs be, from the wife of his bosom ; and, in truth, his 
 acts of kindness were by no means rare. Women, in general, 
 understood this reticence. He never shirked a duty, however 
 difficult, if he had taught himself that it was a duty ; but, all the 
 time, he would make himself so disagreeable over it that, as 
 Garton said, there was no bearing with him. He was quite on 
 the qui vive to be disagreeable now. 
 
 " I must say that I think it was very noble of you." 
 
 " Pshaw ! what nonsense, Austin." 
 
 " Very noble, indeed, considering the light in which you regard 
 the whole affair. I don't think anything has pleased me so much 
 for a long time. Belle has a right to be proud of you to-night." 
 
 Again Robert pished and pshawed. 
 
 " What a fuss you make about nothing," he observed brusquely; 
 but, in spite of himself, he could not fail to be touched by his 
 brother's honest praises. 
 
 " I think we shall get an apology out of him," he said pre- 
 sently ; and his voice had lost its gruffness. 
 
 "He will not retract entirely, then?" 
 
 " Oh, as to that, I don't think we ought to expect it. I, for 
 cue, should hardly wish that," he added, with the truthfulness 
 which seemed as inherent in him as it was in Rotha. There was 
 a certain obstinacy of truth about both that would always come to 
 the surface, even though it were to their own injury. " You see 
 I could not conscientiously press for it." 
 
 " That is why it would have been better to have left it to me ; 
 not but what I should have found it quite as difficult as you did 
 a few hours ago. Now of course it is different."
 
 MRS. ORD HEARS ARTY BIS PRA VERS. 197 
 
 "How is it different?" 
 
 "Well, then I had my doubts in common with you; now I 
 am satisfied that we have all of us been wrong." 
 
 " You believe in her innocence !" 
 
 "I would stake my life on it. My dear Eobert, you have 
 never made a greater mistake than you have committed there." 
 
 Eobert looked at his brother and then walked away without 
 saying a word ; but, as he got to the door, he felt as though he 
 had received a blow. He was a good man. He had done a 
 generous thing that day, and he had done it well according to his 
 light ; but his brother's words were as gall and bitterness to him ; 
 and yet, at the same time, so strange are the workings of the 
 human heart, the first faint doubt came to chill and harass him. 
 Was it possible that they were all right and he wrong? Was 
 not the suspicion bred merely of his own envy 1 But he stifled the 
 feeling instantly ; right or wrong — innocent or guilty — he knew 
 he hated her, and he hated himself no less for his meanness of 
 anger. He had got to the door when he remembered Belle, and 
 came back to say good-night to her. 
 
 " My dear Bob, don't go away like this." 
 
 '• We shall do no good by any further talking, Austin." 
 
 " There I am quite of your opinion. I suppose we must agi-ee 
 to differ a little longer." 
 
 " I shall certainly take the liberty to differ." 
 
 " Well, so shall I ; but we need not quarrel over it. Life is 
 too short for quarrels ; give me yoiu" hand, dear old boy," and as 
 Robert gave it to him and felt Austin's cordial grasp, the evil 
 spirit seemed to pass out from him, and the old brotherly love took 
 its place. 
 
 ^ " Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a 
 city" — the words kept haunting him as he turned the key in his 
 door and went into his solitary ill -lighted room. He said them 
 aloud once to get rid of them ; but by and by, when he went up to 
 his cheerless bedchamber, others seemed to rei^lace them in his 
 brain. They had chanted them last Sunday, he remembered, 
 "How good and pleasant it is, brethren, to dwell together in 
 unity." 
 
 " I don't believe there's such another good fellow as Austin in the 
 whole world," lie said, as he laid his head on his pillow. " I wonder 
 what makes me^uch a bear to him?" and then, as he fell into a 
 doze, he woke up with a start, for the sweet low refrain seemed 
 floating close to his pillow — " Behold how good and pleasant it is, 
 brethren, to dwell together in unity."
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 WHY MliS. OED GOES WITHOUT HER NEW DKESS. 
 
 " What thou bidd'st 
 Unargued I obey ; so God ordains ; 
 God is thy law ; thou mine : to know no more 
 Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 Two things happened that night, and both were fraught with con- 
 sequences — Robert Ord had a terrible dream, and the Vicar pro- 
 posed another tea-party. 
 
 Robert dreamt that he was in a place between two seas, and 
 that the waves came lapping up slowly to his feet ; and that the 
 place was all barren and desolate, and full of shivering night-winds, 
 while now and then a strange solemn music seemed to come from 
 the stars and ciu'dle his blood. And a voice said, " Look and 
 see;" and a whole chorus of whispering voices answered, "Look 
 and see." And he thought that he was standing on a bank of 
 gold and silver shells, and they were all breaking and crunching 
 under his feet, so that there seemed no foothold for him. But as 
 he stumbled among the shining heaps he saw a white dress floating 
 down a narrow channel between two mountains ; and as it passed 
 him he could see it was Belle, lying with her hands crossed on her 
 bosom and her dead face turned up to the stars. 
 
 He thought that in his horror he plunged into the current and 
 tried to catch her by her golden hair. He could feel distinctly the 
 icy waters closing round his ankles and creeping above his knees ; 
 and then it seemed darker and colder, and the stars went out, and 
 a great hollow moaning of wind filled the cavern of the mountains, 
 which seemed peopled with dark gibbering shapes ; and one of the 
 shapes said — " Dord can paint the Inferno better than he can paint 
 Paradise — he is of the earth earthy. The man is not born yet 
 who caa paint the seven palaces of the Infinite." And another 
 shape said, " Are mysteries in the hands of madmen 1 The earth 
 is peopled with madmen ; there is one yonder trying to catch a
 
 MRS. 0/WS NEW DRESS. 199 
 
 freed soul by the dripping of golden hair." And they all said, 
 " Look and see." And a sound of mocking laugliter filled the air. 
 And the water came bubbling into his teeth, and he set them liard, 
 and said — 
 
 " This is the intermediate state, and I am the only living 
 man, and yonder is my dead love ; but all the sliadows of the 
 shadowy laud itself shall not prevent my laying my head on her 
 breast." 
 
 And as he spoke his hands seemed full of damp straggling hair, 
 and it seemed to get about his face and neck, and choke him with 
 its wet coils ; but he put it by, and stooped over her, and tried to 
 kiss her lips, and started away with a cry, for from the dead face 
 there were Rotha Maturin's living eyes looking reproachfully at 
 him with an awful smile in them. 
 
 And the cry woke him, and he saw it was the gray light of 
 morning, and got up and looked over the sand-liills to the dim 
 seaward line of froth and spray, and at the dim white roads, and 
 at the yellow flare of a distant lamp ; and then he struck a light 
 and tried to read, but he could not get rid of tiie ghastly vision ; 
 so when the day had fairly broken he dressed himself and went 
 out, and walked away into the country for miles, and brought back 
 ferns and wood-flowers, dripping with dew, and sent them to Belle, 
 who lay and looked at them all that day. 
 
 Meanwhile the Vicar had proposed another tea-party ; and if a 
 thunderbolt had descended to her very feet Mrs. Ord could not 
 have looked more astonished. 
 
 " When did we give om- last tea-party, Mary ?" he said to her 
 that night, when she had returned from her usual pilgrimage to 
 Belle and the boys. Mary had her candle in her hand, and she 
 looked a little surprised as she prepared to extinguisli it. 
 
 " I think it was about three weeks ago, Austin." 
 
 "Ah, that is short notice, certainly, but I don't see how we 
 can help ourselves. Well, we must give another, that is all." And 
 then it was that Mrs. Ord had sat down with that annihilate 1 look 
 upon her face. 
 
 Now tea-parties were much thought about in Kirkby and 
 Blackscar ; they were, in fact, the only dissipation in which the 
 inhabitants of the place greatly indulged ; dinners were not much 
 in vogue — they were voted extravagant and a bore — and only the 
 very gay portiogi of the community gave dances ; a few of the 
 parvenus, or here and there a naturalised stranger, would send out 
 cards of invitation for a dinner a la Eusse ; and there would be 
 cold soup and warm champagne, and lukewarm coflee to follow, 
 handed round by hired greengrocers in disguise ; but the attempt
 
 200 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 was rather coldly looked upoa — the parvenus were called preten- 
 tious, and the naturalised stranger rather snubbed in consequence. 
 Mrs. Blake had certainly given several of a very superior descrip- 
 tion in the colonel's time, but since his death it had been under- 
 stood that she had retired from the world as far as dinner-parties 
 were concerned ; and Miss Brookes' poverty and single blessedness 
 accounted for her singular animadversions on the same subject. 
 People were not slow to understand that the leading ladies of the 
 place set their faces against them, and so it came to pass that tea 
 and muffins was the only form of refreshment that could be genteelly 
 oflered to one's guests. As a matter of course every one, from the 
 greatest to the least, gave tea-parties; Kirkby, especially, fairly 
 steamed with them; in the season — which, by the way, lasted 
 from September to May — there was a perfect rouud of these festive 
 gatherings. But this was not all _, there was as much fashion and 
 etiquette in the Kirkby tea-parties as in any Belgravian assembly ; 
 it was quite amusing for a stranger to go the round of a season 
 and note the diversity of these entertainments. 
 
 There was Mrs. Stephen Knowles' kettledrums. Mrs. Knowles 
 was one of the natiu-alised strangers who would not be convinced 
 that dinners a la Russe were devices of the Evil One to entrap 
 unwary sinners to the much drinking of lukewarm champagne. 
 Mrs. Stephen Knowles was a little woman, but she waged a big 
 war — she would dine late, and she would put dahlias and nuts and 
 oranges in the place of vegetables, and the dingy greengrocer in 
 the white cotton gloves always cut up the joint at the side-table. 
 But after a time it did not do. Mrs. Stephen Knowles soon found 
 that peojDle did not respond readily to her invitations ; there were 
 gaps at her table — her choicest guests deserted her at the last 
 minute ; and so it came about that she and her husband dined in 
 solitary grandeur, and Mrs. Knowles gave kettledrums, and the 
 greengrocer in the white cotton gloves handed about greasy muffins 
 at an early hour in the afternoon. 
 
 Then there were the Lancashire teas at the Traverses' ; the 
 Traverses were Lancashire people, and always promoted eating and 
 drinking on a heavy style ; people always lunched very early when 
 they came to the Traverses', that they might do justice to the 
 salmon and the cold game. The diversity of bread-stuff used to 
 create envy in the bosoms of more than one Kirkby housekeeper ; 
 people did not mind the hot bread and cakes — every one made 
 cakes — but tlie fruit tarts were felt to be an eyesore ; somebody 
 had heard Miss Brookes say that fruit tarts were vulgar. Mrs. 
 Travers used to lament loudly that no one did justice to her 
 daughter's pastry except the Vicar, who always partook of thp
 
 MRS. ORD'S NEW DRESS. 201 
 
 neglected dish and frequently asked for more ; but then the Vicar 
 always would do as he liked. 
 
 Next to the Traverses came Nettie's "tea-kettle gossips," which 
 were chiefly conspicuous for sweetmeats and scandal. Very snug 
 little entertainments these, and very much in request ; and then 
 there were Miss Brookes' evenings, to which people went once or 
 twice in the winter, as a sort of duty — for about the same reason 
 that induce other and more fashionable people to go to Court. 
 
 Peoijle did not enjoy these evenings, but they always went as 
 a matter of course. Miss Brookes never regaled her guests with 
 anything but the thinnest bread-and-butter and the plainest seed- 
 cake. She thought eating and drinking vulgar, and said so openly 
 at the Traverses' when she sent up lier plate for more game, and 
 there was not much conversation either ; the whist-table was the 
 prevailing feature of the evening. Directly tea was over there 
 was a general stir and shaking of silk and satin skirts — the genteel 
 and frosty atmosphere thawed a little — the young people were set 
 down to Pope Joan in one corner, wliile the elders shuflled and cut 
 for partners, and played long whist for love with the utmost per- 
 severance till the entrance of Miss Brookes' little maid with sand- 
 wiches and ginger wine warned them it was time to disperse. 
 
 But the tea-parties that were most greatly loved were those 
 given at Mrs. Blake's and the Vicarage ; for a long time there was 
 great indecision as to which should have the palm, but latterly 
 people had decided in favoiu- of the Vicarage. The parties at Oak- 
 mead, Mrs. Blake's house, were very nice — there could be only one 
 opinion as to that ; it was very nice, for instance, to sit in a room 
 with ruby velvet curtains, with a blazing fire, and an extravagant 
 number of wax candles — Mrs. Stephen Knowles had once counted 
 four-and-twenty. And it was very pleasant to drink one's tea out 
 of real Dresden china ; the tea-table at Oakmead was the prettiest 
 sight possible ; Mrs. Blake always presided over it herself in the 
 good old-fashioned way, and the coachman and footman handed 
 round the tea and cofl'ee, and the gentlemen helped them. There 
 was nothing stift", in spite of the grandeur : there were plenty of 
 nice things, and people were expected to do justice to them. Some- 
 times cards would follow, but oftener there were games that should 
 include the young people, who never felt in the way at Mrs. Blake's. 
 When the Vicar was there it was understood that music was to be 
 the order of ti>e gvening, and the young ones sang duets and glees, 
 in their fresh young voices, under their hostess' gentle patronage. 
 Sometimes she would prepare little surprises for them of hothouse 
 fruit in the conservatory. There were all sorts of cosy nooks and 
 coiners about the long drawing-rdom. that made the young people
 
 202 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 very sociable. One or two very happy little understandings had 
 grown out of these evenings, which gave rise to a report that Mrs. 
 Blake was a match-maker. 
 
 But notwithstanding all these attractions the Vicarage carried 
 off the palm : there was a hearty genial atmosphere there that 
 people recognised and appreciated ; and then the Vicar was the 
 perfection of a host. 
 
 Every one who came felt that he or she was separately and 
 individually welcome, and that their comfort and entertainment 
 were matters of importance in the eyes of the Vicar and his wife : 
 no one was left out in the cold for a moment : shy new comers 
 were entertained in corners by Mrs. Ord, and challenged and 
 l)rought into notice by the Vicar ; young persons with a pet talent 
 felt themselves of importance, and were ready to clear their throats 
 or take off their gloves at the shortest notice ; silent people were 
 jjaired off with talkative people. No one was neglected ; and, 
 though cards were strictly forbidden, certainly no one found the 
 time heavy on their hands. And then everything was so well 
 ordered. Mary had the knack of making her rooms cosy — she 
 liked plenty of light, though there were no wax candles. She and 
 Belle were always busy days before concocting all manner of simple 
 and inexpensive delicacies. Belle would dress the table with 
 flowers and lights and evergreens. She had wonderfully skilful 
 fingers, and would go quietly in and out, ordering things, while 
 her sister sat talking among her guests ; Garton was very useful 
 too in keeping the boys in order, and Robert, though he was 
 generally quiet, looked very distinguished as he went about 
 among the ladies saying civil things, and holding his head very 
 high. 
 
 A tea-party at the Vicarage was therefore considered the most 
 important event of the season, the only regret being that they 
 were so few and far between. But both the Vicar and his wife 
 had decided that they were expensive luxuries. Mary, with all 
 her economy and management, found it very hard to make ends 
 meet ; even candles and muffins cost something — the family would 
 go without some trifling comforts for days after one of these simple 
 feasts. She was beginning to be a little ashamed too of her one 
 well-preserved silk dress. The Vicar had bought • her a pretty 
 cheap musUn, and in a fit of generosity she had made it over to 
 Belle, alleging as an excuse, when Austin reproached her, that 
 Belle had a lover, and was ten times worse off" for dress than she. 
 Belle had made up the dress herself, and had worn it to Robert's 
 great delight, and he had bought her some ribbons to match. 
 Belle had looked lovely, but the Vicar shook his head, and had
 
 MNS. CRD'S NEW DRESS. 203 
 
 been heard to mutter that there was more to be had of the same 
 pattern; and now if they had another tea-party he would carry 
 out this terrible threat. 
 
 Mrs. Ord was thinking of this when she sat with the extin- 
 guished look on her face. 
 
 "And, Mary, of course, I shall get you that dress." 
 
 " Oh, Austin, what nonsense ! " 
 
 " What ! is it not pretty enough % I declare I thought the 
 pattern was lovely ; you and Belle ought always to wear blue." 
 
 " The idea of comjjaring me to Belle — an old married woman 
 like me." 
 
 " An old married fiddlestick " But here we will not repeat 
 
 all the Vicar said ; there are some men so blind as to admire their 
 own wives even after fifteen years, and the praises were just as 
 sweet to Mary as when she first heard them ; she would blush as 
 brightly over them as ever she did then. 
 
 " But my dove-coloured silk is as good as ever," she pleaded. 
 Oh Mary, Mary, how could you come out with such a fib, with 
 the grease-spots in the front breadth that Mrs. Blake's maid with 
 all her efibrts could not remove % " At least — that is, it is quite 
 presentable." 
 
 " I don't know that, my dear. I thought Belle said something 
 about its being scanty, and you have worn it twice over every- 
 where. People must have new dresses sometimes," persisted the 
 Vicar, knowing all the time that his best coat was getting sadly 
 frayed at the edges and decidedly shiny at the elbows. 
 
 " But if we cannot afi'ord it, love," reminded his wife gently — 
 she knew all about the frayed edges, and would have gone in rags 
 cheerfully if only Austin were well dressed. She had turned over 
 the coat only the day before yesterday and noticed the shiniuess, 
 and then he wanted those shirts so sadly. " I will have the dress 
 in the spring if I want it, Austin," she continued. '' Besides, I 
 cannot wear blue just now." 
 
 " There was one with violet," he returned decide(ll> ; " it was 
 almost prettier than the blue, and jjerhaps you would not like to 
 be the same as Belle. I shall go to Alison's to-morrow and order 
 it," finished the Vicar, who was apt to be a little dictatorial on 
 the subject of his wife's dress. Tlien Mary sighed, for she knew 
 that her rash generosity had availed notliing. 
 
 " But, Austin, is it absolutely necessary that we should give 
 another tea-party V she asked, after a pause ; for it just occiured 
 to her that she had as yet said no word as to her husband's 
 astounding proposition. But the Vicar, who had been waiting for 
 some such word, answered her, with considerable briskness :
 
 204 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 " Well, yes, Mary ; I think I may say that it is absolutely 
 necessary — at least, it appears so to me." 
 
 " But, Austin " 
 
 " Well, my dear 1" 
 
 " People will wonder so." 
 
 " Never mind that." 
 
 "And then I am so sure that we cannot afford it. How are 
 the boys to have their new boots % and there is winter coming, 
 and that heavy coal-bill not settled yet." Then, at the mention of 
 the coal-bill, the Vicar did look somewhat grave. 
 
 "My dear wife, I am very sorry to worry you." 
 
 "Oh Austin !" with a deprecating blush. 
 
 " But I don't see how I can help myself If you only knew how 
 uncomfortably sore my conscience is about all this business. I have 
 thought it over, and it seems so right that we should do this thing, 
 even though we should have to pinch a little afterwards, Mary." 
 
 Mary assented rather doubtfully. 
 
 " Besides, I don't see that we need make it such an extravagant 
 affair. Come, dear ; don't you think you and Belle could contrive 
 to entertain our friends at a very trifling expense ?" 
 
 "Perhaps we might, if only " and then Mary stammered 
 
 and hesitated, and finally added, under her breath, "if only he 
 would dispense with the dress." 
 
 She could have bitten her tongue before she had said the 
 words, when she saw the grieved look on his face, and heard the 
 tone in which he said, "Oh Mary, Mary!" She had her arms 
 round his neck in a moment, so great was her penitence. 
 
 " Husband, I never meant to hurt you by refusing your gift." 
 
 "Nay, Mary, it is not that — why, what nonsense, love;" but 
 for a moment he seemed to find it difficult to explain himself. " I 
 suppose my pride needs this humbling ; but to think I cannot lay 
 out a few poor shillings on my wife's di-ess !" She heard him catch 
 his breath quickly, and then he went on in his usual voice : " Do 
 you think I don't see how the boys want their boots % I was lying 
 awake for hom-s last night thinking of them and the coal -bill, 
 Mary. Well, dearest, I was a poor man when you married me, 
 but I never thought that the time would come when I could not 
 afford my wife a gown." 
 
 Mary kept her arms still round his neck, but without a word. 
 She was a woman who had the rare gift of knowing when to speak 
 and when to be silent ; these moments of depression were very 
 unusual with the Vicar, whose sweet temper and almost childlike 
 faith enabled him to rise above daily trials which would have 
 crushed or subdued weaker men. He used to say that he was a
 
 MRS. ORD'S NEW DRESS. 205 
 
 poor priest who could not bear poverty uncomplainingly. One of 
 his quaint sayings was that poverty was handed down with 
 Apostolic succession, and that the poorer the priest the more was 
 he in accordance with the primitive custom of the early Church, 
 "whose ministers worked with their hands." "Grand hands," he 
 would say, " that could sew the rough canvas of a tent, lay lightly 
 on the sick with healing touch and dispense the bread of life. 
 Now, when the poor wretches crowd about us for alms, and we 
 can truly say, 'silver and gold have we none,' no halting cripple 
 springs into renewed life and vigour at our touch ; and yet such 
 as we have — our daily life, our strength, tlie labour of our brains, 
 the fervour of om- prayers, the purity and weakness of our efforts, 
 the patient endurance of our infirmities, * such as we have we give 
 unto you.' " 
 
 It was a charity sermon for the Convalescent Home, and he 
 had ended his discourse with some such words as these. Many of 
 the patients had heard him ; and some remember to this day the 
 long wistful look of tenderness that accompanied his words, and 
 how he stretched out his hands over them as though to evoke the 
 Healer. Nor was it the sick only who shared his sympathy — he 
 was one who had learnt by experience the black woes of poverty, 
 and who owned that Christ's poor ought to be ranked among the 
 " noble army of martyrs." 
 
 "We think too much of the stake and the faggot, and the 
 cleansing-fire, and the white robes washed in blood," he said once, 
 " and all the while Christ's poor — the little ones and the old, and 
 the women — the women, Mary — are all out in the cold — stumbling 
 on in the darkness ; from dreary morning to hopeless night, 
 working and toiling, not for comforts, but that they may keep 
 their wretched body and still more wretched soul together, and no 
 one* tells them that they are martyrs." And when he had spoken 
 like this, he would push away his cup or plate, and go down to 
 the school, and gather all the little ones around him and tell them 
 of the Child who lay one winter's night in a manger, and who, 
 when a man, wrought out His Divine ministries, and lived and 
 died the World's Wonder, having nowhere to lay His head." 
 
 Mary had often been strengthened by her husband's teaching ; 
 but now and then he would tell her, still in tlie quaint phraseology 
 which was at times habitual to him, that his "manna-pot was 
 empty and all its sweetness gone ;" and she would understand that 
 things had gone ''heavily with him, and that for the time her 
 Samson was shorn of his strength. " The Philistines are upon me 
 to-day, Mary," he would say, when the evidences of his poverty 
 were unusually crushing. " I must leave off writing sermons
 
 206 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 just now, and let you and the boys preach to me." And lie would 
 come in and sit silently in her room, or let the boys coax him to 
 join in their games, till the bitter mood was over, and he could 
 assure her, with the sweet brave smile which always made her lip 
 tremble, that her "Richard was himself again." 
 
 She drew her hand now across his forehead, with a touch as 
 though she wotdd smooth out the deep wrinkles, but she knew 
 better than to speak to him — this woman, who was so wise and 
 tender in her love. Another time she would talk to him cheerfully, 
 and tell him, as she had told him many times, that she wore her 
 old stuff gown as proudly for his sake as she would have worn 
 silks and jewels if he had given them her, and another time he 
 would believe her ; but just now she knew his heart was wounded 
 past its usual patience at the thought that he must deny this 
 trifling gift to the woman he loved ; and yet that he would deny 
 himself and her she had not a doubt. So she only stood beside 
 him quietly smoothing out the furrows with her soft hands. 
 
 " Very well, Mary," he said at last, and speaking as though he 
 were very tired, " it shall be as you wish. We will make as little 
 fuss as possible over this tea-party, and you shall do without the 
 dress." And Mary's thanks were as gratefully spoken as though 
 he had endowed her with some costly gift. 
 
 For the next few days Kirkby was in a state of unusual excite- 
 ment, which the news of a second tea-party at the Vicarage was 
 not at all calculated to allay. On the receipt of the invitation 
 Mrs. Stephen Knowles had jDut on her bonnet and stepped across 
 to her dear friend Mrs. Travers, where, in spite of the earliness 
 of the hour, a choice clique, composed of the Misses O'Brien, 
 the Montague Thompsons, and Nettie Underwood were already 
 assembled, all discussing the two absorbing topics of the day— the 
 extraordinary letter in the BlacJcscar Herald, and the little less 
 extraordinary invitation to the Vicarage. 
 
 The first of these topics had already been discussed, the chief 
 speaker being Miss Matilda O'Brien, an elderly young lady, of the 
 class Albert Smith has immortalised as the " Prancers," and whose 
 remarks were always more or less acid. Miss O'Brien had been 
 holding forth on this occasion till her temper had become decidedly 
 acerbated, chiefly owing to Nettie throwing in a contumacious 
 " Fudge," after the manner of the renowned Mr. Burchell, some- 
 times elongated into the feminine and somewhat striking interjec- 
 tion, " Fiddle-de-dee." 
 
 "Fiddle-de-dee, Mattie," repeated Nettie rather loudly, at this 
 juncture; "you may say what you like, but I am not going to 
 believe all that trash."
 
 MRS. ORB'S NEW DRESS. 207 
 
 "I do hope you are wrong, Mat," suggested her sister humbly. 
 Kitty O'Brien was a poor sickly cripple, very young and weak, 
 and was generally understood to be snubbed by her elder sister. 
 
 " It is no good giving your opinion, Kitty," returned Miss 
 Mattie sharply, " every one knows you always differ from me on 
 principle. I say again, it is a very strange proceeding of the 
 Vicar's, asking all the leading ladies of his congregation to meet 
 so soon again at his house. Mark my words, girls, we shall hear 
 the rights of the matter that evening." 
 
 "Do you really think so, Miss Mattie?" asked Mrs. Stephen 
 Knowles eagerly, untying her bonnet-strings, with the notion evi- 
 dently that they were like ideas, and were all the better for being 
 loosened. I\Irs. Knowles' bonnet-strings were always more or less 
 in a state of crumple. 
 
 " Think it, Mrs. Knowles % I am sure of it ; it is no good, 
 Nettie, saying fudge and nonsense. Of coiu'se the Vicar would 
 not leave an influential parishioner unvisited if it were not for 
 some wise purpose, and he has asked us to tea just as a sort of 
 pretence to get us all together and warn us against having any- 
 thing to do with Bryn and Miss Maturin ; and I for one must say 
 that I never liked the look of her. Those pale down -looking 
 women never have much good in them." 
 
 "Oh, and you begged and prayed me to take you to Bryn !" 
 exclaimed Nettie. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mattie." 
 And Nettie, who had remained staunch to her new friend in spite 
 of the animadversions of her clique, gi-ew so very scornful and 
 personal in her remarks that by general consent the subject was 
 abruptly changed, to be resumed on the earliest opportunity. In- 
 deed it would not be too much to say that during the few days 
 that still intervened before the evening in question the one half of 
 the -female population of Kirkby was for ever putting on its bonnet 
 to call on the other half with any morsel or cnimb of gossip that 
 could be gleaned on the subject. 
 
 Of course many curious facts leaked out. Two figures, one 
 very much resembling Garton Ord, who in his cassock and round 
 hat looked not unlike one of the wooden Shenis in Noah's Ark, 
 had been seen in the twilight walking in the direction of Bryn ; 
 but as the Miss Travers who vouched for the truth of the incident 
 was shortsighted, and was sui^posed, indeed, to be blind of one 
 eye, no one attached much importance to her story ; but a greater 
 excitement ensued when her sister Amy declared that from the 
 top window of their house she had seen Miss Maturin distinctly 
 walking in the rabbit-warren with the Vicar. 
 
 " Depend upon it^ my dear, he was giving her ghostly counsel
 
 208 ROBERT ORLTS ATONEMENT. 
 
 and advice," said Mattie O'Brien in a tone that made every one 
 jnmp — it was so suggestive. Kitty looked up with her sharp 
 bright eyes, but said nothing. 
 
 In point of fact the lame girl knew more about it than they 
 supposed. In her halting way she knew a good deal of the move- 
 ments of other people. Walking down the sea-wall she had met 
 the party coming up from the sands. The Vicar had his four boys 
 with him ; and Miss Maturin held Arty by the hand. She might 
 have added that Rotha had rosy cheeks, and was laughing merrily; 
 but of late Kitty had never added her yea and nay to the village 
 gossip. Perhaps she had found it useless to differ from her sister ; 
 or perhaps she had grown indifferent to the trivialities of her daily 
 life ; or it might be that the sharp bright eyes had learnt to look 
 higher — since Kitty had known the sad truth that her halting 
 footsteps would soon cease altogether, and that she must lay aside 
 her crutches soon at the entrance of the dark valley. 
 
 Kitty and the Vicar were great friends, and he nodded brightly 
 enough to her when they met that evening. 
 
 " Father says that Kitty O'Brien will soon sit at the ' Gate 
 Beautiful,' " said Arty, in a tone loud enough to reach the lame girl. 
 
 "Hush! Arty; oh, Arty, hush!" cried Rotha, as she looked 
 wistfully after the little shrunken figure. 
 
 Kitty gave a brisk little nod all to herself when they had gone 
 out of sight, but there were tears in her eyes too. 
 
 " ' They shall mount up with wings like eagles :' ah, that is what 
 he said last Sunday ; and then when he spoke of the ' Gate Beau- 
 tiful' he looked at me. "Well, the sooner it is over the better. 
 It is just the dip and the first touch of the cold water that is so 
 bad ; but I shall ask him to keep near me and hold my hand. I 
 daresay it is only a childish fancy — Mat would laugh at it — but I 
 think I could die more easily if he would hold my hand." 
 
 Long before some very sad events that changed the aspect of 
 this story took place, poor little Kitty O'Brien had her wish. 
 
 " When it grows dark still hold my hand and say the ' Lighten 
 our darkness ' out loud, please," she said to him ; and the Vicar, 
 who understood the feeble childishness of the petition, assented, 
 and held the little hand in his as the dying girl went out through 
 the cold and darkness and into the light beyond. Somehow, after 
 that, he always used that collect for light by other death-beds. 
 
 And the short-sighted Miss Travers had been right, after all. 
 Garton Ord had met Rotha at the lich-gate one evening after 
 service, and had walked with her to her own door, and this time 
 Rotha had not been shy with him. 
 
 " I wish I had been at the Vicarage the other evening," he
 
 MRS. ORD'S NEW DRESS. 209 
 
 had begun, in his usual abrupt fashion — Robert always found fault 
 with his abruptness — "I think it was a capital idea, Austin bring- 
 ing you in like that, without fuss or ceremony. It must have 
 made you feel at home directly." 
 
 "I won't say that," returned Rotha, smiling, "but it made me 
 very happy." 
 
 Somehow, since that evening that they had talked about wind- 
 mills, she had felt very grateful and friendly to the poor fellow, 
 who seemed in everybody's way, and who yet had no place of his 
 own. She seemed to understand by a sort of dim instinct that he 
 was not one whom the world had surrounded by a visible halo of 
 success, but she liked him very much in spite of that ; and had 
 he not been the first to own her innocence % 
 
 "It was so honest of him to tell me that he diflered from his 
 In'other," she thought, when she recalled the conversation ; and so 
 lier heart was very soft to him. 
 
 " There is no need for me to teU you how good yoiu- brother 
 is," she continued after that expression as to haj^piness ; " I only 
 wish I did not feel so overwhelmingly grateful." 
 
 " I don't believe there's such another fellow as Austin," burst 
 out honest Gar enthusiastically, and unconsciously echoing Robert's 
 words. 
 
 " No, indeed ; but then you are all so good." 
 
 " All 1— not Robert, I suppose %" 
 
 "Why not Robert*?" asked Rotha innocently, repeating the 
 name ; " I hope you don't think I exclude him because he is still 
 a little hard to me. His hardness is certainly a misfortune, but 
 then think how I have wronged him." 
 
 "Wronged him, my dear Miss Maturing" and Garton faced 
 round on her in the dark road with the utmost astonishment. 
 
 •"Innocently, of course," she returned, colouring deeply; "and 
 his unfortunate prejudice has undoubtedly caused me great un- 
 happiness ; but I don't mean to fret about it any more. I am 
 sure it will all come right." 
 
 " I wish there were more like you," returned Garton, striking 
 his hands together, and squaring his shoidders. " I woidd give 
 something for a little of your charity. Miss Maturin. Robert tries 
 my temper more than any one." 
 
 "That is because you do not understand each other," she 
 answered in a quiet old-fasliioned Vt^ay, as though she were older 
 than the young urui before her, who was trying to time his im- 
 petuous strides to her even footsteps ; " of course I don't know 
 mucli, but, from the little I have seen, I should think you must be 
 like flint and steel to eacli other." 
 
 14
 
 210 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Robert must be the steel, then, ha ! ha ! " haughed Garton. 
 " I wish he could hear you say that. Polished and cool, that's 
 just what he is. Miss Maturin, you are a keen observer." 
 
 " I hope you don't think me impertinent," said Rotha, as she 
 echoed the laugh — Garton's boyish "ha! ha!" was so very infec- 
 tious. She could see the brown face and the white teeth gleaming 
 in the dim light. Up in the sky the stars were coming out by 
 twos and threes. How many nights ago was it since she sat 
 looking at the reflections of the stars in the waters, and hearing 
 Arty say his prayers — how many? What did it matter — what 
 did anything matter since she was so very, very happy ?
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE vicar's atonement. 
 
 " Page. — ]\Iadam, there is a lady in your hall 
 
 Who begs to be admitted to your prt-sence. 
 
 Lady. — Is it one of our iuvited friends ? 
 
 Page. —No ; far unlike to them. A stranger. 
 
 Lady. — How looks her countenance ? 
 
 Page. — So queenly, so commanding, and so noble, 
 
 I shrunk at first in awe ; but when she smiled 
 Methought I could have compass'd sea and land. 
 To do her bidding." 
 
 Baillie, 
 
 While Kirkby thought and spoke of little else but the tea-party 
 at the Vicarage, Rotha looked forward to the eventful evening with 
 mingled feelings of pleasure and pain : on the whole the pain pre- 
 dominated. There were times when an absolute dread took 
 possession of her, when she thought of the ordeal that awaited 
 her. There was nothing for it but to turn her attention resolutely 
 to other things, and to do her daily work so thoroughly and heartily 
 as to leave no time for cowardly reflections. 
 
 Rotha despised half measures. She was very intolerant of 
 herself and other people in such matters. She was aware that she 
 drove her chariot-wheels heavily just now, but she drove on for 
 all that. On the night before the party she went to bed quaking 
 in every limb, and cried herself to sleep, as a means of keeping up 
 her courage ; and in the morning she woke up with a firm belief 
 that she was pre-ordained to martyrdom. She carried this con- 
 viction in her face to the breakfast-table. 
 
 Some hours after, when she had stitched a collar of a surplice 
 upside down, and had tried to translate a piece of crabbed German, 
 and had not made sense out of a single sentence, she came down 
 ready dressed for "the evening, and asked Meg, with a lurking 
 smUe, whether she would do. 
 
 Meg, who was very short-sighted, put up her eye-glasses and 
 looked her over — to use idyllic; language, much as " careful robins
 
 212 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 eye the delver's toil " — and then dropped them again with a dis- 
 satisfied look. Rotha looked wofuUy pale, and wore her old 
 black silk. 
 
 " Not a flower — not a trinket," grumbled Meg. 
 
 Rotha stood up very slim and straight under the reproof. 
 " Not the vestige of an ornament," went on Mrs. Carruthers dis- 
 contentedly. 
 
 "Criminals ought not to be decked out with ornaments when 
 they are brought before the bar," returned Rotha gravely; "it is 
 true victims were garlanded for sacrifice under the old dispensation, 
 but not tlie new dispensation victim of the Old Bailey." 
 
 " My dear, what a ghastly joke " — and Meg dropped her eye- 
 glasses and then picked them up with a frightened air — Rotha was 
 decidedly odd to-day. " You forget this is to be the evening of 
 your triumph." 
 
 " Meg, do you recollect the story of Haman ?" 
 
 Mrs. Carruthers shook her head — her wits were wool-ijatherinsr 
 to-night. Rotha laughed good-hum ouredly as she smoothed Meg's 
 sandy hair and tucked in a loose end. Meg wore her hair in thin 
 ropes and braids, and in truth its colour was not unlike tow. 
 
 " For shame, Meg, do you ever read your Bible — I mean the 
 story of Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite ?" 
 
 " My dear Rotha, are you sure you are well?" 
 
 " You mean I am rather odd ; don't be afraid to mention the 
 word. If you are nervous, never mind Haman for the present, 
 though I confess my thoughts are still running on Mordecai the 
 Jew. My mention of the Old Bailey ofi"ended you ; I know nothing 
 at all about the Old Bailey, but, all the same, I did feel such a 
 criminal as I dressed myself." 
 
 "Rotha, if you would but be sensible." 
 
 " Impossible, Meg ; just think of the twelve jurymen — ^jury- 
 women, I mean — who are to sit on my case presently, and the grim 
 leading counsel at their head ; it does not matter a bit just now 
 that the judge — my judge — has acquitted me, he'U have to take 
 his notes all the same ; and you ask me after that to take pride in 
 dressing myself." 
 
 " I think, if I were you, I should wear the symbol of my inno- 
 cence," remarked Meg obscurely. The speech was somewhat 
 metaphorical, and had reference to a certain white dress which was 
 laid out mysteriously in Rotha's room ; it had been ordered for this 
 evening, but at the last moment she had chosen to indulge this 
 grim fancy. 
 
 " Presently — by and by," replied Rotha, who understood the 
 metaphor perfectly ; " not while waiting for the verdict though.
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 213 
 
 Wouldn't the twelve jmymen — jurywomen, I mean — be astonished 
 if I were suddenly to pop up during tea and say, ' Not guilty, my 
 Lord,' and the other learned gentleman knows if? How the Vicar 
 and the leading counsel would stare !" — and Eotha, who had 
 worked herself gradually into this rash humour, and was as tired 
 as heart could wish, laughed over this wretched little farce of hers 
 till Meg scolded and reasoned her into gravity. 
 
 She was as grave and inanimate as the seven sleepers when she 
 entered the Vicarage drawing-room. She had stipulated some days 
 ago that she was to be the first visitor, so only the family were 
 assembled. 
 
 It was odd that the Vicar should also notice her dearth of 
 ornament. Rotha's appearance must have been rather striking in its 
 simplicity. She had put back her hair from her fiice too — always 
 a hazardous experiment with thin faces : before she had been five 
 minutes in the room he had taken out a handful of ferns and late 
 scarlet geranium and had desired Mary to pin them in her dress. 
 
 " Flowers for girls, and jewels for married women, and both for 
 the mistress of Bryn," remarked the Vicar oracularly, from his 
 favourite platform the rug ; and, despite his whimsical smile, Rotha 
 read a rebuke in his eyes — whether from that or the flowers she 
 had no lack of colour now ; she understood that he also would have 
 had her dressed as though for a triumph. 
 
 Robert, who was holding some silk for Belle, looked up at his 
 brother's speech, and what he saw greatly surprised him ; yes, it 
 was true — she had no ornament, not even a ring, nothing but a 
 silver brooch, which she might have picked up anywhere for a few 
 shillings. Was this artifice — was she studying effect? No, he 
 could not but acknowledge to himself that this might possibly be 
 an evidence of good taste. What would have been his feelings if 
 she had come there decked with the Ord jewels ? 
 
 How well he remembered them ! He could go over the whole 
 list in his mind now. How often, as a boy, he had stood by Aunt 
 Charlotte's dressing-table, turning out the casket with rough boyish 
 hand, half- disdaining and half- admiring the glittering baubles. 
 What wonderful emerald and diamond rings she had worn on her 
 fingers ; and there was the pearl necklace, which she used to tell 
 him should be his wife's on her wedding-day, " providing I approve 
 of her, Robbie dear," she would add, " and I hope she will have a 
 pretty white neck to set off" the pearls." And then she would go 
 on to tell liim that she would lend her her favourite set of rubies 
 on the day when she went to Court, " for a lady ought always to pay 
 that homage to her Sovereign," and, added Aunt Charlotte, " I shall 
 see that your wife is not remiss in her duty as an Englishwoman."
 
 2 1 4 ROBER T ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 "If I have a wife, and she goes to Court," remarked Master 
 Bob stoutly, " I hope she won't wear those dirty yellow lace flounces 
 that you did. Aunt Charlotte, and I think those red stones hideous." 
 
 " That's because you are such a very, very little boy," answered 
 his aunt ; but she had looked rather affronted, nevertheless ; what 
 a sad scapegrace he had been, to be sure. He recollected very 
 well her coming into his room one night with those same red stones 
 shining in her gray hair, half hidden under the rare old lace, and 
 she wore more on her throat and arms. He must have been iU, 
 he thought, and feverish, for he called her a hag and Medusa, and 
 pushed her away, screaming that he could see the red tongues of 
 the snakes in her hair, and she had pulled them out, crying that 
 she was a miserable old woman, and that her boy did not know her 
 — that her Robbie, her darling, was dying. He was stabbing 
 himself with these memories, and growing very stern over them, 
 when a singular interruption occurred. Belle left off winding the 
 silk in some displeasure. Mary had asked her and Rotha Maturin 
 to go downstairs and arrange the flowers for the tea-table — a finisli- 
 ing task that Belle had always been accustomed to do alone. 
 
 Belle could hardly believe her ears, but Rotha rose at once — 
 as usual her quick instinct comprehended the little ruse. She 
 gave the Vicar a pleased look as he opened the door for her ; and 
 Belle, with a bad grace, had to follow. 
 
 So far as sociability was concerned, the plan did not answer at 
 all. Rotha soon discovered that Belle was one who liked a mono- 
 poly even of labour, so she soon gave up her arrangement of vases 
 and dishes, and watched Belle's nimble fingers instead. 
 
 And she found out three things. 
 
 She noticed first that, though Belle had never looked more 
 beautiful than on this evening, there was a strange wanness and 
 shadow over her beauty which was quite indescribable ; secondly, 
 that as she moved about she kept her hand to her side, as though 
 in habitual pain — she did it very quietly, as though to avoid notice, 
 but the movement spoke vohmies ; thirdly, putting two and two 
 together — the wanness and the pain — she took it into her head 
 that what seemed sullenness was in reality repressed suffering ; and 
 so she arrived at the conclusion that, in spite of her evenness and 
 repellent manners. Belle Clinton was at heart a loving woman. 
 
 And she noticed something else ; she had detected two or three 
 times a sad wistfuluess in Belle's large dark eyes whenever she 
 fixed them on her lover's face ; and as she went downstairs she said 
 this singular thing to herself — " Belle Clinton's love for Robert Ord 
 is a suffering, and she knows it ; there is no happiness in her face ;" 
 and then, " Robert Ord is a very noble lover, he has given freely
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 215 
 
 everything lie held most precious, except liis heart ; and he thinks 
 he has given that, but he is wronsr." 
 
 There are strange surprises in life — quick revelations. A 
 stranger will at times grasp a mystery of years ; sudden flashes 
 reveal a chasm. This girl, who liad never loved, never tasted 
 the sweet -bitter experience of womanhood, who had led such a 
 strangely repressed existence, realised in a moment the twofold 
 suffering of Belle Clinton's life. 
 
 And, being a keen observer, she read tlie mystery two ways, 
 but it was but a sudden lightning flash that made the rift in the 
 clouds. By and by, as the clouds broke, she read it all clearly 
 enough. 
 
 It was dreary work standing by and doing nothing. Belle 
 was unusually taciturn ; her position thoroughly displeased her. 
 She was angry with Mary and Austin for making her a party to 
 the ruse ; she answered only in monosyllables to Rotha's admiring 
 ejaculations. Girls seldom found Belle Clinton communicative. 
 Rotha offered once to relieve her of a heavy vase. "Do let me 
 carry it ; it is easy to see you have a pain in your side," she said. 
 
 " Oil, that is nothing ; I'm used to it," was the indifferent 
 reply, but the observation evidently annoyed her. 
 
 " Pain is not a pleasant companion," returned Rotlia cheerfully; 
 " you are not very strong, Mrs. Ord says. She tells me that you 
 work too much." 
 
 " Oh, Mary is always croaking. Don't you think it better to 
 wear out than rust out. Miss Maturin I " 
 
 " When a hfe depends upon us, I think it is best to do neither," 
 observed Rotha simply. She would speak the truth that was in 
 her, even to this singular girl. Belle looked up in astonishment 
 at the earnest tone. " It seems to me that people are often work- 
 ing when they had better be playing, and so they miss the salt 
 and the sunshine of life. It is not every one who has learnt to 
 play properly." 
 
 Belle did not answer, but Rotha fancied she heard a sigli, and 
 then Garton and the four boys came in, and Rotha's brief penance 
 was over. 
 
 Rotha was a great boy-lover, and she had long desired to make 
 acquaintance with the curly-headed denizens of the Vicarage. She 
 had been much struck by Guy's handsome face, and even loose- 
 limbed Rufus had come in for a share of her admiration ; l)ut 
 Laurie had takcR her fancy most ; she had singled him out fremi 
 the rest of the choir before she knew who he was, and had spoken 
 of him to Meg as " the little king ; " the sobriquet had been sug- 
 gested by the boy's sleepy grace of movement, and a certain proud
 
 216 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 carnage of the head as he walked up to his place in the choir 
 stalls. 
 
 The boys know Rotha pretty well by this time. They were 
 very sociable well-mannered lads, Guy especially, and so in five 
 minutes they were all quite at their ease, and " the little king " 
 was retailing an anecdote with great gusto. 
 
 " Who is that dark-complexioned boy who is so often with you 
 of an evening 1 " asked Rotha, when Laurie had, with much absence 
 of mind, left his anecdote to be finished by his elder brothers. 
 Garton and the boys exchanged glances at Rotha's question, and 
 Garton laughed guiltily. 
 
 " Do you like boys, Miss Maturin % " asked Garton as he admin- 
 istered a warning shake to Guy. 
 
 "Indeed I do," retm'ned Rotha warmly; "but the boy I am 
 asking about does not seem to me to be a gentleman's son — he is 
 a bright-eyed intelligent lad, in a rough coat like a sailor's." 
 
 " That's Garton's Shadow," called out Guy, closing with his 
 uncle in rather a summary manner — "we've nicknamed him Gar's 
 Shadow, for short. He is a regular David, is that fellow. Come 
 on now, if you want to argue," he continued, doubling up his fist 
 in a tempting manner ; but Garton manacled him in a moment. 
 
 " Peace, my son ! we must have no sparring in a lady's pre- 
 sence. Miss Maturin, if these lads will be quiet, I will answer 
 your question. The boy's name is Reuben Armstrong, and he is 
 the best and the most unhappy boy in the parish. Now, Rufus, 
 we don't want any of your remarks." 
 
 " Garton is afraid we're going to peach. Don't be nervous, 
 my dear boy," remarked Guy soothingly, and Rufus grumbled 
 out : 
 
 " Oh, we're nobody ; don't take any notice of us. We haven't 
 got a drunken father who beats us and throws us out of window 
 — oh no ! " And a sudden chorus of " Oh noes," uttered ironically 
 by the other boys, brought Aunt Belle on the tapis, with a stern 
 admonition to be quiet. 
 
 " Boys, do behave yourselves. Garton, you don't keep them a 
 bit in order ; what will Miss Maturin think % " 
 
 Miss Maturin evidently thought it good fun enough. For the 
 time being she had forgotten all about the twelve jurywomen, who 
 were unshawling at that moment in Mrs. Ord's room. Arty was 
 on her lap examining the workings of her watch. " And, do you 
 know, it was a silver watch like Garton's," Guy informed his father 
 afterwards ; and " the little king's " fair head was very close to 
 her shoulder, and so she looked very happy. Garton, lounging 
 against the mantelpiece in his shabby coat, caught himself wonder-
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 217 
 
 ing again why the women thought Rotha Maturin so pLain. 
 " They couldn't have seen that pretty dimple when she laughs," 
 he said to himself. "I like her face ever so much better than 
 Belle's — Belle never laughs." 
 
 Belle moved away again when she had made her protest. The 
 lads' merriment generally wearied her. 
 
 "Don't put yourself out, Aunt Belle," Guy had remarked 
 patronisingly ; " Rufus and I will keep him in order. Is there 
 any other information that you want respecting ' the Shadow,' 
 Miss Maturin % " 
 
 "He is rather a substantial shadow," laughed Rotha. "He 
 is a broad-shouldered, thick-set lad enough. No, Guy, I won't 
 ask any more questions, as it seems a sore subject." 
 
 " The boys are jealous," interposed Garton. 
 
 Another scornful chorus, culminating in "Oh yes " and " are 
 we 1 " which reaches Mother Mary's ear, and causes her to say that 
 the boys are enjoying themselves somewhere, and would Austin go 
 and look after them. 
 
 "By and by," remarks the Vicar. "Mrs. Blake and Miss 
 Brookes are not yet arrived, and the moment for the coup cl'oeil 
 has not yet come." 
 
 " Uncle Gar saved Reuben's life," observed Laurie, absently 
 deserting his brother's side and going over to the enemy. " Reu- 
 ben was out among the rocks, and got out of his depth, and cramp 
 came on ; and Uncle Gar jumped in in his long coat, just as he is, 
 and brought him out." 
 
 " That's enough — shut up, Laurie ; " but Laurie chose to prose 
 on in his gentle way. 
 
 " It was awfully deep ; and the water got into Uncle Gar's 
 clothes ; and he could hardly drag Reuben, he was so heavy. 
 Aunt Belle saw it all from the shore ; didn't you. Aunt Belle 1 " 
 
 " Yes, Laurie," returned Belle, with a shiver, " and I never 
 expected to see either of them again." 
 
 " Yes ; and she said Reuben looked like death when Uncle 
 Gar carried him in ; and we've called him ' the Shadow ' ever since, 
 haven't we, Rufus 1 " 
 
 " Laurie, if you say another word I will double your Latin 
 Delectus to-morrow." 
 
 " No, no — he has told it so prettily," pleaded Rotha, looking 
 up respectfully to the hero of Laurie's tale. " What a brave thing! 
 No wonder the boy is fond of you, when you have saved his life." 
 
 " He has no one else to love," replied Garton, with a sudden 
 reddening over his sunbm'nt face at Rotha's praise ; and then the 
 Vicar came in.
 
 218 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 He looked rather amused at the little group. 
 
 "Arty, you rogue, you are up to mischief, as usual. Come, 
 Miss Maturin, you and Belle have done your work well, and I am 
 going to take you upstairs." 
 
 Eotha rose without a word. It was a positive fact she shut 
 her eyes wlien the Vicar opened the drawing-room door, though she 
 opened them again directly. She said afterwards that it was the 
 longest room she had ever walked up in her life ; and that she was 
 sure that for the moment the twelve or thirteen ladies were quad- 
 rupled in her eyes. Meg told her, when they talked the little 
 scene over, that when she entered the room she looked so white 
 that she was afraid she was going to faint, but that her bearing 
 was grand almost to haughtiness. 
 
 " You have no idea of the majestic way you bowed to Miss 
 Brookes, and you looked so tall — oh, ever so much taller, Rotha." 
 
 Rotha had no conception of the way she looked. All manner 
 of introductions were going on ; there was a general stir and move- 
 ment. The Misses Travers were rustling their new blue dresses 
 in quite a deafening manner; Mrs. Stephen Knowles' garnet- 
 coloured satin came into most unbecoming juxtaposition witli Miss 
 O'Brien's canary silk. In the midst of the turmoil Nettie rushed 
 forward and kissed her, and tore a yard and a half of her muslin 
 flounce in making room for Aunt Eliza. In the little sympathising 
 hubbub that ensued Rotha found herself in a seat by Mrs. Ord, 
 with the Vicar whispering something into her ear. 
 
 "You are a brave woman," said the voice, "and our little 
 coup d'oeil is over." 
 
 Rotha drew a long breath, as though she had come out of 
 some deep water, and then she was herself again. 
 
 She could look round quietly now. She was quite fenced in 
 by her friends. The Vicar still kept his position at the back of 
 her chair, and Aunt Eliza was on the other side. Nettie, as she 
 pinned up her dilapidated flounce, talked across to her with studied 
 cheerfidness. 
 
 " Somebody else besides Nettie Underwood likes surprises," she 
 said, with a meaning look at the Vicar. 
 
 The Vicar laughed, and glanced merrily over the discomfited 
 heads of ladies, whispering among themselves, and glancing askance 
 at the unexpected guest ; but IMiss Brookes disdained whispers. 
 
 " Some people like anything theatrical," she observed in rather 
 a loud key. 
 
 " Mnry, I believe Miss Brookes is dying for her tea. Robert, 
 my dear fellow, make yourself useful among the ladies — there are 
 no gentlemen to-night, you know. Miss Maturin, allow me to 
 
 ^,
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 219 
 
 take you down." It was really very cunning of the Vicar, as his 
 wife told him afterwards, for Miss Brookes was bent on making 
 herself disagreeable. 
 
 Rotha felt quite at her ease sitting between the Vicar and 
 Garton, with Amit Eliza's kind flice opposite. It was perfectly 
 evident now to all the ladies that the obnoxious Miss Maturiu was 
 the Vicar's most favoured guest of the evening. Had he not 
 caused her to take precedence of Mrs. Colonel Blake, a privilege 
 never before accorded to any unmarried ladyl and had he not 
 placed her in the seat of honour at his right hand % and did not 
 Garton Ord stretch out a long arm everyvrhere to secure if possible 
 a Benjamin's mess of such good things as the table furnished? 
 Certainly, if the Vicar had wished to create a sensation by this 
 novel surprise which he had prepared for them, most clearly he 
 need not be disappointed, for a more crestfallen and disconsolate 
 set of women could not be seen anywhere ; nevertheless, as the 
 Vicar looked at Miss Brookes, he was not quite at ease in his mind. 
 
 He had told himself that this tea-party would achieve a perfect 
 success, and that there would be no need for him to say a single 
 word ; he would contrive it so that the fact of their reconciliation 
 with Rotha Maturin should be patent to all eyes. He had hoped 
 so at least, for his own and Rotha's sake, seeing that the saying of 
 such words could not be pleasant ; but what if Miss Brookes should 
 compel him to abandon this silence % The thought made him a 
 little anxious in spite of himself 
 
 Mary, at her end of the table, was not a whit happier in her 
 mind ; before five minutes were over she was quite sure that Miss 
 Brookes was bent upon making herself most thoroughly disagree- 
 able. From the moment the Vicar had entered with Miss Maturin 
 on his arm, that good lady had arrived at an alarming state of 
 rigidity ; so extremely angular had she become that her lace 
 shawl could not retain its position at all, but kept slipping from 
 her shoidders, and had to be held on by the elbows in a most 
 graceless fashion. In vain had Mrs. Ord tried to engage her in 
 conversation ; Miss Brookes' steely glances would rove to the other 
 end of the table, where Rotha sat looking very quiet and happy 
 under the Vicar's wing. 
 
 " Hem," coughed Miss Brookes, rather more loudly than was 
 consistent with a baronet's first cousin ; Mary in an agony tele- 
 graphed signals of distress to Robert, who either could not or 
 would not understand them. 
 
 " Hem," again coughed Miss Brookes, and this time Rotha did 
 unfortunately look up, and was nailed at once by one of the steely 
 glances.
 
 220 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "Did you speak to me'?" asked Rotha timidly, aud changing 
 colour. She did not much like raising her voice, even now, before 
 the twelve jurywomen ; a dim suspicion came across her that the 
 deep waters were not passed yet. 
 
 "I was trying to attract your attention certainly," returned 
 Miss Brookes, coolly dropping her eye-glass, and once more trying 
 to arrange her shawl round her shoulders. " One needs a speaking- 
 trumpet across such a long table. I was only going to observe 
 that you have very soon changed yoiu- mind." 
 
 " Miss Maturin is not a Quaker," remarked the Vicar, promptly 
 coming to the rescue. " I thought ladies were always allowed to 
 change their mind." 
 
 "Not without good reason. Vicar," returned Miss Brookes 
 sharply. She always addressed the Vicar somewhat familiarly, 
 and just now she resented his interference. "Young people will 
 have whims and fancies sometimes, but it is possible to carry them 
 too far, as in this instance." 
 
 "In what instance? Suppose we change the subject. Miss 
 Brookes." 
 
 " Miss Brookes means when I refused Mrs. Blake's invitation," 
 returned Rotha, colouring deeply. "I am very sorry to appear 
 so rude." 
 
 "Appearances are deceitful sometimes," moralised the Vicar. 
 He did not like the course the conversation had taken, but it was 
 too late to check it. 
 
 " Appearances were certainly not in Miss Maturin's favour in 
 this instance," remarked Miss Brookes, with a scornful laugh that 
 chilled Rotha. " My dear, when you used that singidar expression 
 to Mrs. Colonel Blake the other day — you remember the expres- 
 sion, Catharine, that Miss Maturin used — that you could not go 
 into society, we hardly expected to meet you here this evening." 
 
 " I daresay not. Miss Brookes." 
 
 " No, indeed ; and it was just after Nettie Underwood's tea- 
 party, too, that Mrs. Colonel Blake asked you." 
 
 " Yes, I was so very, very sorry to have to refuse," began poor 
 Rotha, " but — but " — but the Vicar again came to her relief. " But 
 circumstances over which she had no control prevented her from 
 availing herself of the pleasure, et cetera, et cetera. Never mind 
 excuses. Miss Maturin, they are mischievous things ; if Mrs. Blake 
 will give me the favour of five minutes' conversation after tea, I'll 
 undertake to set you right with her, and the next time she asks us 
 both to Fairmeads we will go. I'll promise her that." 
 
 The shawl had slipped down again, and Miss Brookes gave her 
 head a disi:)leased toss. The Vicar had tackled her successfully
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 221 
 
 this time ; but that she was meditating an assault in a fresh place 
 was evident ; and the Vicar groaned inwardly as he passed up his 
 cup to be replenished 
 
 No ; there was no help for it, he must perform his penance 
 thoroughly ; so he made a foce at Arty, who had found his way to 
 Miss Maturin's lap, and in another moment he was on his feet. 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, — I ought to say ladies, as the gentle- 
 men are limited this evening to my brothers and my four worshipful 
 sons, — I know it is not the fashion to christen a Kirkby tea-party — 
 except, perhaps, a select few — such as Mrs. Stephen Knowles, 
 for example, who is fashionable, and gives kettledrums, and Miss 
 Nettie Underwood, who has delightful tea-kettle gossips ; but still 
 it is not an ordinary custom. Now, if I were inclined to christen 
 this particular tea-party, do you know what I should call it?" 
 
 A pause, a subdued rustling among the younger jurywomen, 
 and then Arty shouts out, " Call it the ' Old Ladies' Feast,' father," 
 and is promptly suppressed by Garton — so promptly, indeed, that 
 he chokes, and has to be patted on the back. The Vicar waits a 
 minute till Mary's maternal alarms for her youngest-born subside, 
 and then he begins afresh — he is warming to his work. Rotha 
 looks up at him anxiously. 
 
 " No, Arty, my boy, I would not call it the ' Old Ladies' Feast,' 
 because there are no old ladies here. When you have lived a little 
 longer, Arty, you will know that ladies never grow old. If I were 
 to christen my tea-party, I should give it a better name than that 
 — I should call it 'The Vicar's Atonement.'" 
 
 Great excitement in the jury-box — Miss Brookes dropped her 
 shawl for the ninth time, and looks across at Robert, who is 
 frowning at his plate ; Belle is playing with the trinkets of her 
 watch-chain; Rotha leans back in her chair, so that Garten's 
 broad shoulders may shield her from notice — she has not a vestige 
 of colour ; perhaps Garton understands the movement, for he keeps 
 his arms still on the table. As for the Vicar, he has what Guy 
 called "his grand preaching look" on his face, and is waxing very 
 big — he had made up his mind to the work, and is quite warm now. 
 
 "Yes, I should call it 'The Vicar's Atonement.' Why, you 
 dear people, you have no idea what a culprit I have felt for this 
 last week. Isn't it next Sunday that I shall have to preach my 
 sermon on charity ? Sunday next, isn't it. Gar % Well, I'll not 
 shirk it ; it is not my way to shirk anything, and I lio])C you will 
 all listen to me m«st attentively. But remember this, that I shall 
 be preaching every word to myself, as well as to you. If I did 
 not think that, I should just take the thirteentli chapter of 
 Corinthians and read it all througli without auuther word."
 
 222 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 '-'• Oh, Mr. Ord !" interrupted one young jury woman bashfully 
 —Amy Travers by name— a silly young thing of nine-and-twenty. 
 " Who was that who spoke % Yes, indeed, Miss Travers ; and 
 I daresay the consciences of a great many amongst us will not be 
 quite free on that occasion. I daresay there has been plenty of 
 silly things said in many drawing-rooms this week. About that 
 wretched letter in the Blackscar Herald, for example ; I daresay 
 you've said a few things yom'self, Miss Amy, that you would not 
 have cared for Miss Matmin and me to have heard — eh, ladies'?" 
 (Unmistakable confusion in the jury-box; the leading counsel 
 frowns more darkly over his plate, and Miss Brookes watches 
 him.) The Vicar has his eye on both, but he does not look once 
 at Rotha, shrinking under cover of Garton's broad shoulder, but 
 Garton still keeps his arm on the table. 
 
 " Bless you, we know all about it," continues the Vicar, " and 
 that makes me feel so guilty. Mary there will tell you how sore 
 I have been. I feel it was such a shabby thing of us allowing this 
 coolness to spring up just because poor old Aunt Charlotte chose 
 to treat Robert so badly ; but as Miss Maturin has forgiven us, I 
 need say nothing more about that, except to express our grief for 
 the sad mischief to which our coolness has led ; that, I confess, 
 has given me great uneasiness." 
 
 "Who wrote the letter, Vicar f The question was in Miss 
 Brookes' sharp voice. 
 
 " My dear Miss Brookes, I have no desire to know the writer, 
 but Graves has to bear the odium, of course. I daresay you ladies 
 have agreed by this time that it was a most infamous letter — and 
 you were right. I can tell you Robert made short work of the 
 whole business " (oh, cunning, cunning Vicar !). " The fellow 
 shook in his shoes, Garton tells me ; so I hope next week there 
 will be some sort of apology." 
 
 At the mention of Robert's name, the jurymen to a man — or 
 rather to a woman — come over, except Miss Brookes, who still 
 slips her shawl and looks at Robert. Robert sees her looking at 
 him, fights a bitter battle with his pride, and half succeeds ; his 
 brow clears a little, and he looks up pale and resolute. 
 
 " Oh, Robert Ord," thinks Rotha, " there is something noble 
 about you in spite of all ;" for he looks straight at the Vicar, and 
 says : 
 
 "There will certainly be an apology, Austin ; I insisted on it." 
 
 Mis.s Brookes draws on her shawl well now, and hugs herself 
 well up in it : she is vanquished. 
 
 The Vicar nods pleasantly at his brother, and goes on : 
 
 " So you know now, dear ladies, why I call this ' The Vicai-'s
 
 THE VICAR'S ATONEMENT. 223 
 
 Atonement.' I want to atone for my want of charity to this poor 
 child;" and he lays his hand lightly on Rotha's, keeping it there 
 in his fatherly way; "and I want you all to help me to make up 
 to her for all the pain and annoyance to which she has been sub- 
 jected during her brief sojourn amongst us, and to promise her that 
 she shall be better treated for the future." And then he releases 
 Rotha's hand and sits down. 
 
 In truth he has done his work well. 
 
 Diu-ing the lull that follows the Vicar's words you might hear 
 a pin drop. Garton has moved his arm at last, and is rubbing it 
 gently as though it is cramped. Rotha has raised her eyes to the 
 Vicar with a look that only he can understand, for it speaks of 
 undying gratitude. There is a brief silence, but when they all 
 rise from the table Mrs. Blake — gentlest of women — comes round 
 to Rotha and kisses her ; and after that it is only a repetition of 
 the Vicar's queer illustration of sheep jumping through a gap in 
 the hedge. 
 
 Yes, the verdict was " Not Guilty, my Lord." Rotha might 
 have worn her white dress after all, but nobody coidd think the 
 black one imbecoming now the sweet pale face is sufi'used with 
 blushes of happiness. Even Belle roused a little out of her apathy 
 to wonder if it were possible that Robert — her Robert — could be 
 wrong. 
 
 To Rotha the rest of the evening was simply a triumph, swelled 
 by Meg's glorious singing. When it was over she walked home 
 with Gartou in the starlight, saying little snatches of the " Te 
 Deum " to herself. 
 
 " What did you mean by the story of ' Haman,' Rotha 1" asked 
 Meg, in her slow ponderous way, as they were about to retire 
 for the night. She had been puzzling over it several times that 
 evening. 
 
 Rotha had the gi-ace to look a little ashamed of herself, and 
 then she burst out l^-ughing. 
 
 " Oh, Meg ! the idea of remembering my silly speech." 
 
 " But you looked as though you meant it, Rotha." 
 
 Rotha grew rather grave. 
 
 " Well, perhaps I did ; but, all the same, I don't want to 
 explain myself, it seems so ungrateful after all this hapj)incss ; it 
 is the one thorn in the handful of roses — the death's-head at the 
 Egyptian feast ; and, after all, Haman the son of Hammedatha 
 the Agagite was a terrible heathen to say such a thing." 
 
 "What thing r' 
 
 But Rotha would not tell lier.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 gar's shadow. 
 
 " Murmur not ! whatever ill 
 Cometh, am I not thy friend 
 (In false times the firmer still) 
 Without changing, without end ? 
 Ah ! if one true friend be thine 
 Dare not to repine !" Barry Cornwall, 
 
 And so a little sunshine had come into Rotha's life. 
 
 And the stigma and stain of a grievous suspicion was removed. 
 
 " Not Guilty, my Lord." 
 
 " Not Proven," still echoed one dissentient voice ; for, alas ! 
 the baseless fancy which Envy had engendered in Robert Ord's 
 brain still lurked there in dusky corners, and came to light in 
 slow brooding moments of pain ; only with this difference — that 
 he dare no longer avow his suspicion openly. 
 
 And why? 
 
 He had grown to be ashamed of it. 
 
 Nay, more ; since the night of the Vicar's declaration a little 
 doubt had crept in ; he still maintained to himself that he was 
 right, but he had begun to argue on the matter. Argument pre- 
 supposes doubt, assurance needs no reasoning. Robert began to 
 assert his right to this ill-founded dislike, but his pride ceased to 
 uphold him ; it was the first evidence of weakness. 
 
 The conflict had begun in earnest now ; henceforth there would 
 be no peace for Robert Ord. The better part of his nature was at 
 fault, his inner integrity was disturbed ; the man was bred for 
 nobler uses than to expend all this waste of passionate resentment 
 against one poor woman, whose only fault was in being the un- 
 willing instrument of a most unworthy revenge. 
 
 Sometimes in the dead of night he would start up and ask 
 himself, could he be wrong; was it all a mistake — a morbid 
 fancy 1 He had heard that dwelling on a single thought creates 
 monomania; had his brain become diseased with brooding over
 
 GAR'S SHADOIV. 225 
 
 his wrongs 1 Latterly he had had stings of conscience, little 
 quivering goads of remorse, which had moved him to generous 
 impulses ; but he always grew harder afterwards. Ever since his 
 championship in the case of Ebenezer Graves his antagonism had 
 become even more intense; all the more that in their outward 
 relations he could find no fault with her. Rotha's instinct detected 
 all this ; in her quaint way she had spoken of it as " the one 
 tliorn in the handful of roses ; " but she never would allow even 
 to herself how much power it had to wound. She could afford to 
 wait now, she said, and it was in her nature to be patient ; and 
 certainly she showed wonderful tact and discrimination. 
 
 Since the night of her triumph, as Meg called it, she had been 
 a daily visitor to the Vicarage — the Vicar and his wife wished it — 
 and already a very strong friendship had sprung up between her 
 and Mrs. Ord. Mary, who had no friend but her husband, felt a 
 great comfort in this little interchange of womanly feeling ; Belle 
 had long ceased to be her confidante, and there were many things 
 with which she preferred not to trouble Austin ; and Rotha was a 
 useful and sympathising listener, and had such old-fashioned 
 simple ways. 
 
 So Rotha came every morning to the "mother's room." But 
 for helping Mary she would have been very idle just now. Poor 
 Annie's suffering life was ended, and Rotha had many spare hours 
 in consequence. The Vicar, when she had applied to him for 
 work, had flatly refused to employ her. "You have worked 
 enough for two women already," he said, very wisely ; " you must 
 learn to play a little now. Your visits to old Sally and the Con- 
 valescent Hospital will employ you quite sufficiently;" and Rotha, 
 though she chose to argue the matter, felt he was right. And, 
 after all, there was no fear of her being idle : the Vicar always 
 found her with her tliimble on in Mary's room. " I wish Nettie 
 Underwood could see you," he would say sometimes, when he 
 came in of a morning and found Rotha stitching away with a heap 
 of white drapery in her lap. Rotha would look up and smile ; 
 these visits of the Vicar were the most sunshiny parts of the day. 
 He had begim to treat her to the same gentle raillery with which 
 he treated Mary and Belle. How the girl's cheeks used to flush 
 over those innocent jokes — what a tender earnest vein of feeling 
 ran under all the raillery — what a great loving heart, she thought. 
 Her eyes would glisten for hours after one of these sallies. " I 
 am so happy that' I am almost afraid of my own happiness," she 
 would say to Mary sometimes. Mrs. Ord would be touched by 
 the simj^le expression of feeling ; the child-like element of Rotha's 
 nature came very plainly to the surface just now. I think 
 
 15
 
 226 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 Mary, being a very simple woman herself, liked her all the better 
 for it. 
 
 Rotha was devoted to Mary, but it would not be too much to 
 say that she half-worshipped the Vicar. She told Mary once that 
 she thought he was faultless, and Mary quite agreed with her — 
 they both thoroughly believed the little fiction. They would sit 
 and plot for hours against his peace, as the Vicar quickly dis- 
 covered : Mary, who had never had a secret from her husband, 
 quaked daily over some scheme of Rotha's devising ; they would 
 sit smiling in his face all the time they were stitching those beauti- 
 ful linen shirts and cambric handkerchiefs, whereof the stuff had 
 been surreptitiously conveyed into the house. Unfortunately for 
 them, the Vicar knew fine linen and cambric when he saw them, 
 though he chose at times to disguise his knowledge. He chose to 
 shut his eyes now. 
 
 " You women are always working," he would say sometimes. 
 " I hope you are not running up too long a bill at Alison's, Mary." 
 And then he would take up the linen softly, as though its touch 
 were pleasant to him. He was a man to whom no purple and fine 
 linen would have come amiss. Mary would quake more than ever 
 when she saw him do this. 
 
 But if the Vicar's eyes were opened, he had no mind to protest 
 just now, and so for a little while Rotha had her way. 
 
 Shirt -making is very pleasant work to those who like it. 
 Rotha soon came every morning, and stayed for hours in Mary's 
 room, but Belle seldom joined them ; as a rule, she preferred 
 taking her portion of work upstairs ; she always complained there 
 was no light in the "mother's room," but somehow Belle did very 
 little of any work just now. Rotha was not the only one who 
 noticed her flagging strength. 
 
 Sometimes Garton or one of the lads would drop in. Rotha 
 was a great favourite with all the "five boys," as Mary called 
 them ; but for that she would have had small opportunity for see- 
 ing them, for it began to be an understood thing that she never 
 came of an evening without a special invitation from the Vicar, 
 and out of consideration for Robert these invitations were very 
 rare. 
 
 But sometimes he would ask her, and then Rotha would come 
 at once. It was not a part of her plan to avoid Robert Ord ; 
 Robert was always very civil when they met ; if visitors were 
 present, outsiders to the Vicarage, he would make a point of 
 accosting her with studied politeness, but otherwise he would keep 
 much to himself. 
 
 The only singularity about their intercourse was that he never
 
 GAR'S SHADOW. 227 
 
 shook hands with her since the day that they had parted at the 
 King's Head, Barnard Castle ; he never once offered his hand ; 
 there seemed to be a tacit understanding that no hand-clasp should 
 pass between them till the day that Robert Ord should come to 
 her and acknowledge that he had done her this wTong. 
 
 That day was far enough off now, Rotha thought sometimes : 
 as she watched him and saw the sweet gravity of his ways with 
 Belle — he was more lover -like than usual just now — she could 
 hardly suppress a patient sigli. " It is so dreadful to be so 
 disUked," thought poor Rotha. At such times she would feel sad 
 in spite of her happiness, but nothing could exceed her gentleness 
 with him and Belle — poor Belle, who was growing more wayward 
 than ever with her increased suflTering. 
 
 But she had a stanch friend in Garton, and soon afterwards 
 she was able to render him a great service. 
 
 Since Laurie's account of his daring exploit, which Belle had 
 corroborated, he had risen greatly in her estimation. Women are 
 not slow to appreciate natiu-al prowess ; she began to look upon 
 Garton rather in the light of a hero, and was disposed to think in 
 consequence that he was somewhat unfairly treated, and that if 
 every one had his dues Garton Ord would be occupying a very 
 different sphere ; but she saw, or thought that she saw, that 
 Robert and even the Vicar held another opinion. Mary, too, 
 when Rotha spoke on the subject, would always shake her head 
 and say Garton wanted ballast. 
 
 "He is nearly three-and-twenty, and he does not even earn 
 bread and cheese for himself," Mary would add j and then Rotha 
 would be silent. 
 
 " Do they expect him to dig for it 1 " she sometimes said to 
 herself indignantly. "How can a man learn half a dozen trades 
 at once 'i I understood he was to be a clergyman." She thought 
 Garton very hard worked indeed, though she would have been 
 puzzled to specify the exact nature of his employment. From her 
 window at Bryn she could see him working in his own or the 
 Vicar's garden as though his livelihood depended on it. Slic was 
 always meeting him in the village or on the shore surrounded by 
 boys, and never without a ponderous volume under his arm. 
 When she went into church there he was striding up and down 
 the aisles in his long cassock, or swinging round odd corners to 
 look after stray choir-boys. When service was over he would 
 stand bareheaded by the lich-gate, keeping order and marshalling 
 the unruly lads ; ten minutes later she would see him througli 
 the schoolhouse - window, leading the singing or drilling raw 
 recruits into practice — and doing it all too in a brisk, energetic,
 
 228 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 cheerful way that was very pleasant to see. Rotha could not 
 understand that remark about ballast at all ; so she was very kiiul 
 to the young man when they met, and in a simple transparent way 
 patronised and made much of him. 
 
 And one night she made acquaintance with Gar's Shadow. 
 
 It happened in this wise. 
 
 Rotha had been down to the Convalescent Hospital after 
 service one evening, to see a patient who had met with a severe 
 accident ; she had been unexpectedly detained, and it was quite 
 late by the time she had finished her errand. 
 
 It was a wild night, and as Rotha left the safe shelter of the 
 building she could hardly keep her footing ; it was very dark, and 
 the wind howled and rushed at her round corners like a mad thing 
 — -bonneting and buffeting her at every turn ; the sea seemed lashing 
 itself sullenly to make a night of it. Little eddies of sand swirled 
 roimd Rotha, stinging her face and neck like crowds of sharp 
 midges ; the lights on the sea-wall wavered before her, and a damp 
 mist of rain seemed to wet her to the skin. " If I could only get 
 round the next corner," thought Rotha, fighting for her breath 
 manfully, " I should be all right." The next minute she was taken 
 off her feet, and drifted right on to a dark object, over which she 
 stumbled, and only saved herself from falling by being brought up 
 against an opposite wall. 
 
 "Oh dear! I hope I have not hurt anybody," said Rotha 
 breathlessly ; for the object had moved slightly, and in the dark- 
 ness was looming gradually into the figure of a boy, — of a boy lying, 
 or rather crouching, in a doorway, with his head hidden in his hands. 
 
 The boy lifted up his head, and seemed to listen through the 
 whirlwind, as Rotha panted out the inquiry. 
 
 "It is a dreadful night," she continued, shivering. "Don't 
 you think it rather foolish to be sitting on a wet door-step in 
 such a gale as this?" 
 
 " I would as lief be here as anywhere," muttered the boy dis- 
 consolately, and then they turned their faces to the wall. " It 
 always tears round this corner like this," he observed indifferently, 
 " sometimes I have been half blinded by the sand — -there are drifts 
 of it to-night." 
 
 Rotha wiped her eyes ruefully ; they were smarting by this 
 time. Down below there was a faint flickering of street lamps, 
 and some little pools shining under them. Something in the boy's 
 attitude or voice seemed to strike her, and she stooped over and 
 touched his shoulder. 
 
 " My poor boy, and you are so wet ! But I cannot see your 
 face. Is it Reuben Armstrong'?"
 
 GAR'S SHADOW. 229 
 
 He started up as though ashamed of the recognition. 
 
 " Yes, I am Reuben ; but don't tell him — don't let him know, 
 I mean, that you saw me like this." 
 
 " Of whom axe you speaking, Reuben 1" 
 
 " Of Mr. Garton. He would be so sorry ; it would vex him, 
 I know, to hear father has turned me out again on such a night." 
 
 "Turned you out of doors, do you mean^" exclaimed Rotha, 
 horrified. The wind was whistling so loudly she was obliged 
 almost to shout her words. 
 
 The boy nodded, and then drew himself up against the wall in 
 a patient sort of way, as though he were used to it. Rotha fancied 
 his voice sounded as though he had been crying, but it was impos- 
 sible to see anything clearly. Poor Reuben ! She was as wet and 
 tired as she could be ; but she could not leave him like this, 
 
 "But, Reuben, this is dreadful. I never heard anything so 
 shocking in my life. Let me knock at the door and persuade your 
 father to let you in." In such an emergency it seemed to her the 
 only thing she could do, but the boy's frightened voice stayed her. 
 
 "It is no use — it is no use, indeed," he continued; "he has 
 been having too much down at the Green Dragon, and he is sm'e 
 to turn his hand against mother or me when that's the case. 
 I don't care so that it is not mother. I think I had as lief be 
 here as inside to-night." But Reuben could not keep his teeth 
 from chattering as he spoke. 
 
 "But why not go down to Mr. Garton"?" persisted Rotha; 
 "surely he or the Vicar would give you shelter for the night 1" 
 
 " They have done it often enough already," returned the l)oy 
 sadly ; " but I cannot bear to put them out so. Mr. Garton has 
 often gone without his own dinner when father has locked up the 
 food from us. I think I should have starved once but for him " — 
 and" now Rotha could see the tears glistening in his eyes — " he 
 took me into his own bed one night when father had kicked me 
 out into the street. But I would not let him know for the world 
 to-night." 
 
 " But why not "{ You will die of cold by the morning," pleaded 
 Rotha. But she was spared further speech by the stealthy opening 
 of the door behind them. Through the crack Rotha could see a 
 thin haggard-looking woman trying to shield a rushlight from the 
 draught of air. In another moment a gust of wind extinguished it. 
 
 "Is that you, mother?" whispered Reuben, putting his face to 
 the crack. 
 
 " Whist, lad ! Oh, Rube, Rube, he is rumbling out curses to 
 himself now on his bed." 
 
 " Has he struck you, mother "? You speak faint like."
 
 230 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "Nay, nought to speak of; it's thee I'm thinking of, lad; 
 thou'lt starve of cold out yonder. Slip through into tlie kitchen, 
 and I'll make thee up a bed on settle." 
 
 "Mother, I dursn't." 
 
 " Come, lad, and I'll give thee summat to eat ; thou art pined 
 with hunger — thy stomach must be quite pinched like. Come, 
 Rube !" 
 
 "No, no, I dursn't; he would kill me!" — and Rotha could 
 hear he was sobbing bitterly now — " he said he would break every 
 bone in my body. Shut the door, mother, and say good-night ; it 
 is not so very cold out here." 
 
 But Rotha came close. 
 
 " He says right. Shut the door, Mrs. Armstrong. He shall 
 go home with me. Come, Reuben, I am getting wet through," 
 and she put out a soft hand iu the darkness and drew the boy on. 
 "There, good-night, and God help you, you poor woman." 
 
 Reuben tried to thank her as they battled through the storm, 
 but she woiild not let him speak. 
 
 " I could not leave the poor Shadow on the door-step," she 
 thought to herself. She was quite in a pleasant glow and bustle 
 when she arrived at Bryn, and would not let Meg be anxious 
 at her wet appearance for a minute. "Just stir up the fii-e, and 
 teU Prue to mull some wine directly," she said, as she ran off to 
 change her dripping garments. In five minutes she reappearetl 
 with all sorts of comforts for Reuben. The boy's dejection cleared 
 a little as he felt himself invigorated by the warmth and cheerful- 
 ness. When he had done justice to the good supper provided for 
 hiin Rotha took him up to his room. " To-morrow, when you are 
 rested, we must have a long talk together," she said, as she left him. 
 
 She sat over her fire a long time that night, and scarcely looked 
 up when Meg bade her good-night. 
 
 " I think I see my way clear," she said aloud, as she shook 
 herself from her musing. " They say man's importunities are 
 God's opportunities ; and one of these days I shall have to give an 
 account of my stewardship. I never felt glad that I was rich 
 before this." 
 
 Rotha had her talk with Reuben the next morning ; and, in 
 spite of the boy's reluctance to implicate his wretched parent, she 
 managed to glean suflicient facts to assure her that the poor lad 
 was habitually ill used ; for Armstrong was, at the best of times, 
 a hard churlish sort of man ; but iu his drunken fits he was so 
 savage that his wife and boy often suffered severely from his 
 violence. His elder sons had run away to sea when mere boys, 
 unable to endure his intolerable temper. And, but for his poor
 
 GAR'S SHADOW. 231 
 
 broken-down mother and Mr. Garton, Keubcu confessed he would 
 long ago have followed their example. 
 
 "It is Mr. Garton keeps me most," finished Reuben. "It is 
 no good my staying any longer with mother, it only makes things 
 worse. She will interfere and take my part when he threatens 
 me. I don't think he would touch her but for that ; and it does 
 make my blood boil to see him lay his heavy hand on her." 
 
 " But why does Mr. Garton keep you from running away, 
 Reuben?" asked Rotha, rather cmiously. 
 The boy coloured and looked down. 
 
 " He does not keep me," he said at length, hesitating, " I 
 keep myself. I don't feel as though I can leave him when he 
 wants me so." 
 
 " Wants you so !" repeated Rotha in a little surprise. 
 " Yes," returned the boy in a low voice, " but I should nut 
 like him to hear me say it; but I know he has a hard life, and 
 that people don't understand him. He tells me sometimes that 
 he would feel so lonely without me. I have always been so much 
 with him since he saved my life. You know all about that, don't 
 you?" he continued, raising his eyes to Rotha. Her kindness was 
 fast thawing his reserve. 
 
 "Yes, I know all about it," returned Rotha musingly; and 
 at that minute Garton entered the room. He had been down to 
 the cottage to see Reuben, and had heard from the boy's mother 
 what had happened. 
 
 Rotha shook hands with him rather shyly, but he had no eyes 
 for any one but his favourite. 
 
 "Oh, Rube, Rube !" he said, as the boy sprang to meet him ; 
 and Rotha could see there were tears in his eyes. " To think of 
 your being turned out on such a night as that, and never to come 
 to me in your trouble ! But for Miss Maturin's kindness, what 
 would have become of you ?" 
 
 " I did not want you to know anything about it," pleaded the 
 boy. 
 
 " He was afraid of disturbing your brother," added Rotha ; but 
 Garton only shook his head sorrowfully, and said again, " Oh, 
 Rube, Rube!" 
 
 Rotha never liked him so well as when he stood there, with 
 his arm round the boy's neck, and the muscles of his strong face 
 working with agitation. 
 
 She went out of the room softly by and by, thinking they 
 would like to be alone ; when she came back Reuben had evidently 
 been crying. 
 
 "Reuben says he will be late for school. Miss Maturiii ; he is
 
 232 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT 
 
 only waiting to say good-bye to you, and thank you for your 
 kindness." 
 
 Rotha made believe not to notice the red eyes. She shook 
 the boy's hand heartily, and said, " But I shall expect you back 
 to dinner, Reuben, remember that ; we have not finished our talk 
 yet. Mr. Ord, if you are in no hurry, I should like to say a word 
 to you." 
 
 Garton muttered something about the boy's lessons, but sat 
 down again nevertheless ; he looked tired and dispirited, and 
 opened the conversation very gloomily. 
 
 " Isn't it a shame to ill-use a boy like that, Miss Maturin ? 1 
 feel sometimes, when I go down to the cottage, I can hardly keep 
 my hands off such a brute. I tell Austin the fellow must be 
 bound over to keep the peace." 
 
 "Something must be done for the lad at once," returned 
 Rotha with decision ; " I could not sleep another night and feel 
 that such a thing was likely to happen agaii;." 
 
 " If I could only have the power to shelter him," groaned 
 Garton, rocking himself to and fro, "but I am no good to any one. 
 I often wonder if Rube and I were born imder an unlucky star, 
 for there seems no place for us anywhere." 
 
 " I wish I could help you," returned Rotha timidly ; " I think 
 I can, as regards the boy. I don't see the use of money, unless it 
 be to do other people good ; I was thinking last night that if you 
 and Mr. Ord agreed, I would remove Reuben entirely from his 
 wretched home and put him at some good school. Of course I 
 will only act in the matter entirely by your advice." 
 
 Rotlia spoke very diffidently, as though she were asking instead 
 of conferring a favoru*. Garton looked at her for a moment as 
 though he could scarcely believe his own ears. 
 
 " Do you mean it V he gasped at length. 
 
 " Yes, but I think we ought to consult the Vicar ; there is 
 the Grammar School, and if he goes to that we might board him 
 in some nice family. I suppose his father would not object." 
 
 Garten's answer was conclusive. 
 
 " Let us go to Austin at once," he said, picking up his felt hat 
 and twisting it out of all shape in his sinewy hand. " Miss 
 Maturin, you are an angel;" and Rotha laughed and reddened as 
 she ran off to put on her bonnet. 
 
 The Vicar was in his study writing his sermon, but he put 
 away his papers very good-humouredly when he saw them. 
 
 "Why have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?" he 
 said to Garton, rather reproachfully ; " the boys have been waiting 
 for you an hour."
 
 GAR'S SH A DO IV. 233 
 
 " They must wait a little longer," replied Gar carelessly, as he 
 rested himself on the Vicar's little writing-table. " Miss Matimu 
 and I want to consult you about something." 
 
 And Rotha opened her little business. She was rather bashful 
 at first ; she thought it must look odd, her taking such notice of 
 Garton's protege, but her pity gave her courage. 
 
 "Do you not think it a good plaul" she finished; "the 
 Grammar School will cost very little, and Mr. Garton says he 
 knows of a nice respectable family who would be too glad to 
 board him." 
 
 " If Robert were not such a misanthrope, we might take him 
 in oiu-selves," grumbled Garton. 
 
 The Vicar gave him a quick disapproving glance. 
 
 " Oh no, that woidd not do ; it would not be fair to Robert to 
 ask it; you are rather too Quixotic in your friendship, Gar. 
 Well, you want my sanction to the scheme, do you?" he added, 
 turning to Rotha. 
 
 " Yes, if you will give it," she retm-ned, feeling rather damped. 
 Reuben was right, and not even the faultless Vicar thoroughly 
 appreciated his younger brother. Rotha, who was veiy enthusiastic, 
 did not think him in the least Quixotic. She took the term quite 
 as a reproach. " Well, the plan is a good plan," continued the 
 Vicar, " and I can see no objection to it. Garton has been a little 
 foolish about the boy, as Robert and I have often told him ; he 
 has given him a smattering of learning, and placed him in a false 
 l)Osition. A thoroughly good education will remedy this evil ; and 
 if, as you say, we can remove the poor boy from his father's influence, 
 it will be the making of him, no doubt ; the lad's a good lad, I 
 believe, though Garton has done his best to spoil him." 
 
 " Have you finished yom- sermon, Austin V' asked Gar sulkily. 
 "I'know my fondness for the buy is little short of high treason." 
 
 " No, Gar, no ; it is a very venial offence, after all ; but I 
 don't wonder my boys get jealous. There's Guy, now, would do 
 anything for his uncle," he continued, turning to Miss Maturiu, 
 " and he's always threatening to pummel Reuben. I believe 
 Garton's influence over boys is almost magical ; it is a good thing 
 he is not likely to afford such an expensive luxury as a wife." 
 
 Garton rocked himself and laughed ; but Rotha asked why 
 very innocently. 
 
 " Because, unless she were as inveterate a boy lover as himself, 
 she would be wretched. How would you like to see your husband. 
 Miss Maturin, always going a1)out with a troop of village lads 
 tramping at his heels, or clumping with hobnailed boots over yoiir 
 best carpets 1 No, Gar's cut out for an old bachelor. If he had
 
 234 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 lived a few centuries ago, he would have been a monk ; wouldn't 
 you, Gar ?" 
 
 "I think they had the best of it," assented Garton; but 
 Rotha, who had rather coloured over the Vicar's speech, turned the 
 conversation to Reuben ; and Garton, becoming very matter-of-fact 
 all of a sudden, it was arranged that he and the Vicar should go 
 down at once to Joe Armstrong's and settle the matter. 
 
 Reuben came back to dinner, and was strictly charged by 
 Rotha to retm'n to Bryn the moment afternoon school was over. 
 The Vicar had fovmd no difficulty in arranging things. Joe 
 Armstrong was soon made ashamed of his last night's violence ; he 
 was a selfish worthless coward, and was glad to be rid of such 
 an incumbrance as Reuben ; perhaps the boy's steady patience 
 aggravated him. 
 
 "The lad's nought to me," he kept saying, "a lazy good- 
 for-nothing chap, who won't work, and cares for nought but book- 
 learning and psalm-singing ; the gentlefolks have turned his head 
 already, and the best they can do is to finish their job." 
 
 " Miss Maturin undertakes to give the boy a good education, 
 and to article him to some useful trade," exclaimed the Vicar, 
 " and she will be responsible till then for his charge and main- 
 tenance, only stipulating that you renounce all control over him." 
 
 " The lad's nought to me," returned the man sullenly, " a 
 young artful viper;" but the Vicar cut short the list of vitupera- 
 tion. On the threshold he lingered a moment to exchange a few 
 kindly words with the poor mother. " You have a sad cough, Mrs. 
 Armstrong," he said; "is that why we never see you at church?" 
 
 She shook her head, and motioned with her lips to her husband. 
 
 " Joe, is this true, that you keep your wife from coming to 
 church ?" demanded the Vicar sternly. 
 
 The man rose with an oath and took the pipe from his lips. 
 " What's it to you, parson, if I do % — a canting, hypocritical, pack 
 of rubbish." 
 
 " It is a great deal to me, Joe Armstrong," retorted the Vicar ; 
 " and I do not choose to see one of my flock absent Sunday after 
 Sunday. What, do you not know there are six days on which to 
 work — that you live, and make your wife live, like a heathen ; 
 nay, worse than a heathen — an infidel V 
 
 " Oh, if parson's going to jaw, we had better have that door 
 shut, missus. I don't want folk to think we patronise street preach- 
 ing." The woman looked distressed at her husband's insolence. 
 
 "Don't mind him, your Reverence," she whispered; "he ain't 
 slept it off yet. Oh, Joe, Joe, how can you go for to outrage his 
 Reverenced"
 
 GAR'S SHADOW. 235 
 
 " You shut up, missus," was the rough rejoiuder, " and leave 
 me to mind my own business. If parson don't like my words, he 
 needn't listen to 'em. I want no cluttering round here. I ain't 
 a going to be converted, I can tell you." 
 
 The Vicar turned his mild eyes on him ; there was something 
 very solemn in their light. 
 
 " Perhaps not, Joe Armstrong, but remember there's a hell for 
 you, and such as you, for whom the Saviour has died in vain ;" 
 and then, as the man slunk away, awed in spite of himself, he took 
 the woman's rough hardened hand in his. 
 
 " Good-bye, Harriet, my wife shall bring you up some stuff for 
 your cough. One of these days I hope you will learn to fear God, 
 in spite of your husband ; you must try and come to church some- 
 times when he will let you, for it is the only place, the only place 
 on earth, Harriet, where the weary are at rest." 
 
 Garton made Rotlia shudder when he related this interview ; 
 in this one day they had made a great start towards intimacy. 
 Garton had taken her to the Grammar School, and had introduced 
 her to Mr. Dentry, the head-master, and after that they had gone 
 round to the house where Garton intended that Reuben should live. 
 
 Rotha commended his choice afterwards ; she thought he had 
 shown a vast amount of common sense in the whole business. 
 Mrs. Summerson was a widow, with small means, very gentle, and 
 prepossessing in appearance and manners, and had boys of her own 
 who went to the Grammar School, and were members of the choir ; 
 and Reuben was already good friends with them. 
 
 Rotha, who had led to the subject very delicately, soon found 
 that she was conferring a benefit, and that Mrs. Summerson woidd 
 gladly board the boy. The only diiBculty lay in coming to terms ; 
 neither of the three understood business in the least, and Rotha 
 was disposed to be too hberal, so tlicy were obliged to have recourse 
 to the Vicar again, who settled the matter in five minutes. 
 
 It was quite dark when they got back to Bryn, and Reuben 
 was there before them. Garton had been invited to tea in honour 
 of the occasion, and by Rotha's orders Meg had prepared quite a 
 festive little feast. 
 
 On their way home Garton suggested that they should break 
 the thing gently to the boy. " I never saw any one so sensitive," 
 he remarked, and to this Rotha agreed. 
 
 " I think yoji had better do it yourself," she said. " I am 
 such a stranger to him." She had had fits of shyness aU day, and 
 one was strong on her just now. 
 
 But she afterwards asked Garton wherein the preparation 
 consisted, for du-ectly he caught sight of his favomite he forgot
 
 236 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 all his wise precautions ; he just put his hands on the boy'a 
 shoulders and said : 
 
 " Reuben, this young lady has adopted you ; she is going to 
 take you away from your wretched home and put you at a good 
 school, where you can learn like a man. Hold up your head, and 
 thank her, boy ; and, Rube, Rube, God bless you ! — but I am so 
 happy." 
 
 It might have been the sudden break in Garten's voice, but 
 Reuben showed no intention of holding up his head ; on the 
 contrary, it drooped lower and lower; while Garton, recovering 
 himself, expatiated on the bright future that lay before them, till 
 at last the boy raised his eyes, full of intense joy and gratitude, 
 to his young benefactress, and then, overwhelmed by his conflicting 
 feeling, threw himself on the breast of the best friend his desolate 
 childhood had ever known, and burst into a passion of tears.
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 
 
 "Her sweet humour 
 That was as easy, as calm, as peaceful, 
 AH her affections, like the dews on roses, 
 Fair as the flowers themselves, as sweet and gentle." 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 " As free her alms — as diligent her cures ; 
 As loud her praises, and as warm her prayers. 
 Yet was she not profuse ; but fear'd to waste, 
 And wisely managed that the stock might last ; 
 That all might be supplied, and she not grieve, 
 When crowds appear'd, she had not to relieve. 
 Which to prevent, she still increased her store, 
 Laid up and spared, that she might give the more." 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 The fogs and mists of November had set in now. Others, besides 
 Belle, shivered at the strong north wind that rattled at the old- 
 fashioned window-frames at the Vicarage, or whistled so shrilly 
 round the chimney-stacks. The boys no longer ran races on the 
 shore or climbed the sand-hills of the rabbit-warren. There was 
 a s'ombre line of seaweed now, over which the surf bubbled and 
 frothed ; the sea and sky vied with each other in grayness ; the 
 breakers, as they rolled sullenly in, brought shivers of broken rafts 
 and splinters of wood. People shuddered at the tell-tale frag- 
 ments ; rumours of wrecks were heard everywhere. One night, 
 over at Welburn, the signal-gim was fired, and rockets were sent 
 off; a schooner had put in too close to land, and had gone to pieces 
 on the low black rocks that lay bedded in the froth and slime. 
 Next day the poor people went down in shoals to grope in the 
 surf for floating firewood and washes of grimy coal. 
 
 Belle used to "watch the line of little carts coming up from the 
 shore ; sturdy brown-faced women, with browner babies in their 
 arms, walking with plodding step beside their donkey's head. 
 Belle had seen these same women working in the harvest- field
 
 238 ROBERT ORB'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 among the reapers. Next spring they would be turning the hot 
 swathes of hay underneath a bimiing sun. How she envied these 
 strong-limbed daughters of labour ; this girl, whose iron will was 
 ever battling so fiercely with her failing strength ! As she sat and 
 watched them, her face would be full of a dumb misery ; how long 
 should she be able to hide from them or from herself her conviction 
 that things were not well with her % 
 
 For a little time she strove, but with partial success. Mary's 
 affectionate eyes could not be blinded to the fact that her sister 
 seemed more ailing than usual. She had taken cold ; the bitter 
 weather tried her ; the season was more than usually inclement, 
 she thought. Rotha, to whom she confided her anxieties, said that 
 in her opinion it was more debility than anything ; she noticed that 
 Belle's sickly appetite rebelled at the plain fare of the Vicarage 
 table. " She does not eat enough to keep up her strength," she 
 concluded ; " I remember I once heard Mrs. Ord say that bark 
 and port wine were a specific in such cases. She always said it 
 was a good old-fashioned remedy." 
 
 Mary sighed. She could not tell Rotha that wine was a 
 forbidden luxury at the Vicarage, and that it was not in her power 
 to provide the delicacies that would tempt Belle's capricious palate. 
 She changed the subject as soon as possible ; but the heaviness of 
 her heart was plainly legible in her face. Rotha, who had learnt 
 to read her tolerably well by this time, was quite willing that the 
 subject should be changed. She had made up her mind what she 
 would do. By and by Mary was taken into her confidence, and 
 from that time they plotted and carried out their little schemes 
 together. 
 
 Belle was to be coaxed to eat, that was the first thing. Every 
 day choice poultry or game made its appearance on the Vicarage 
 table. Mary would avow it openly at first as a present from Bryn, 
 and the Vicar would thank Rotha for it when they met ; but after 
 a time this recognition of her gifts were, by mutual consent, tacitly 
 unacknowledged. Belle seemed to enjoy it more when left in 
 ignorance of the giver. Every now and then Rotha would send 
 over hothouse fruits and all manner of soups, jellies, and dainty 
 creams. It was reward enough for her to hear that Belle had done 
 justice to them. Mary would come with a happy face to say how 
 Belle had enjoyed such and such a thing ; " and the port wine was 
 really strengthening her," she added — for one day, when the Vicar 
 was out, Mary and Rotha cleared out the lumber from the disused 
 cellar, and the choicest contents of one of the bins at Bryn found 
 their way on the Vicarage shelves. Mary threw her dusty arms 
 round Rotha when they had finished that little job. Garton, who
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 239 
 
 bad been packing up the bottles for them — rare old bottles, defiled 
 with cobwebs and sawdust — called out to them mischievously that 
 Austin was coming. Rotha shut the door hastily, and they all 
 stood listening in the darkness, till Mary thought of the black-hole 
 at Calcutta and grew nervous. They were all whitewashed and 
 covered with sawdust when they came out. How Eotha laughed ! 
 
 The Vicar said nothing when Mary filled Belle's glass at dinner. 
 He had seen certain cut-glass goblets stained with that same ruby 
 fluid ; he knew exactly from what bin Rotha had taken it. No 
 wine like that, he thought, to put new life into a languid frame. 
 He rather marvelled at the indifference with which Belle drank it. 
 
 Belle took it, as she took all Botha's gifts, with indifference 
 amounting to dislike ; if she dared she would have refused them. 
 Robert, when he heard of them, strove hard to conceal his displea- 
 sure. Belle guessed at this feeling on her lover's part, and it made 
 Rotha's kindness intolerable to her. Rotha was over bold once. 
 
 One afternoon, when Belle had a headache, and was lying shiver- 
 ing on the couch, Mary had brought down an old rug to cover her 
 sister, and Belle had drawn it discontentedly over her, complaining 
 of its roughness ; and, as Rotha looked at her, she thought how 
 strangely out of keeping the dingy covering was with the fair face 
 that rested so fretfully against it. When she went home that 
 night Meg was surprised to hear her rummaging in the big ward- 
 robe in Mrs. Ord's room. Next afternoon, when Belle lay down, 
 she found herself in a nest of costly Cashmere shawls, with a sweet 
 spicy smell lingering in their soft borders ; surprise kept her silent, 
 and then she averted her flushed face with a word of thanks. She 
 lay warm and hidden all the afternoon ; but the next day the 
 shawls were sent back with a pencilled line of excuse in Mary's 
 hand, and the old worn rug was in its place again. 
 
 •Rotha felt herself repulsed, and no wonder ; but she solaced 
 herself with Mary's delighted gratitude. She was diverting her 
 bounty into another channel now. 
 
 What friends those two women had become ! Mary was too 
 genuinely humble to -nithstand Rotha's generosity very long. It 
 began to be an understood thing between them that Rotha was no 
 longer to be deprived of the happiness of sharing her good things 
 with those she loved. She would thank Mary with touching 
 fervour for giving her such happiness, but both agreed that it 
 must be kept from the Vicar, at least for the present. How they 
 did scheme to deceive him ! Rotha was the braver by far ; but 
 Mary, whose conscience was for ever accusing her, blundered sadly. 
 The Vicar laughed in his sleeve at her clumsiness. 
 
 What a day that was at Thornborough when tlicy went to
 
 240 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 buy flannels. Mary, who had never transacted such an extensive 
 marketing in her life, would not hear of buying flannels anywhere 
 else — they must go to the good old-fashioned drapery establishment 
 of Tyler and Tyler. How the man who served them must have 
 smiled at the eager woman ! Mary's hands trembled as they 
 fingered bale after bale of flannel ; the sweet face was all flushed 
 and smiling under the shabby bonnet ; Rotha's dimples were soon 
 in full play. 
 
 " While we are here you had better help me choose my new 
 silk dress," Rotha said to her; "and then there is the carpet and 
 curtains for your bedroom ; you know you have promised we are 
 to look at them to-day." 
 
 " Yes, but how are we to put the carpet down without his 
 noticing it^' returned Mary helplessly. She was still fingering 
 the gray flannel with a love of delight ; she could get shirts for 
 Robert and Garton out of all that quantity. Did Rotha guess 
 that, when she ordered all these extra yards, poor Garton's ward- 
 robe was so sadly dilapidated 1 She was still thinking of the shirts 
 when slie followed Rotha dreamily into the next department. She 
 was still absent when Rotha asked her opinion — the shimmer of 
 the silks dazzled her ; she held on to a silvery gray much as she 
 had done to the flannel. 
 
 " Gray won't suit me at all," said Rotha impatiently, "I am 
 too pale; I like that rich prune best, and look how that lovely 
 changing blue would suit Belle." 
 
 Mary looked as she was bid — she assented to everything ; her 
 hands wandered over the shining heaps, but she was a little confused. 
 She did not in the least guess why Rotha got her so quickly out of 
 the silk department, or why she was left alone to stare so long at 
 a green mossy carpet. Her thoughts would keep wandering to the 
 white and gray flannels, and the blue serge for Arty's suit. In her 
 own mind she was opening a certain brown paper parcel. Should 
 she cut the string, or would her fingers untie it ? Out they came 
 —four pairs of strong boyish boots. She could almost smell the 
 new leather. How they woidd stamp up to their seats in the choir- 
 stalls, Guy especially. Guy had been so ashamed of his old boots ; 
 and then there was something else. 
 
 " Well, have you fixed upon that carpet," interrupted Rotha, 
 coming suddenly behind her, " green is such a good wearing colour, 
 and those curtains will match so nicely?" 
 
 Mary started almost as though she had in reality dropped the 
 boots ; the green moss might have been in its native dell for her. 
 "I think it lovely, but far, fiir too good for the piu-pose ; this is 
 Kidderminster, a felt would do nicely," she said in a little flutter.
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 241 
 
 " We will have it !" Rotha liad auswercd decideclly. " There, 
 I think we liave done ; let everything be sent to Bryu as sooii as 
 possible." 
 
 She was a little pompous as she gave her orders ; but for her 
 stuff dress and close plain bonnet she might have been a young 
 princess. She took Mary's arm and walked out of the shop very 
 slim and straight ; Mary looked quite au ordinary woman beside 
 her. It was just this about Rotha — this certain nameless grace — - 
 that had abashed Robert Ord once or twice. 
 
 She burst out laughing when they were iu the street. 
 
 " Ought people to pay for their purchases before they are sent 
 home'?" she asked. "I thought the man stared a little when I 
 offered to write out that cheque. How droll it seems writing 
 cheques. I wanted to laugh dreadfully all the time. I think I 
 shall always deal at Tyler and Tyler's, it is so pleasant to have the 
 two masters bowing you out of the shop in that way." 
 
 " They don't often have such liberal customers," replied 
 Mary. 
 
 She was in the open air, but she stiU felt a little dizzy. Tyler 
 and Tyler's dark warehouse always appeared to her after this like 
 Aladdin's Palace, Rotha might have been a benevolent geni con- 
 jiu-ing up shining heaps of marvellous silks and stuffs. How the 
 carpets had unrolled themselves at her bidding ! There was no 
 such thing as gray flannel in the Arabian Nights, but Mary's 
 thoughts still clung about the dun-coloured bale ; she had some 
 difficulty in rousing herself. 
 
 " I don't know what we shall do about the carpet," she said 
 in a voice between crying and laughing. " Rotha, I feel as though 
 I shall never dare to wisli for anything more ; you seem to guess 
 my very thouglits, just like a fairy godmother." 
 
 ." Never mind about the carpet, we must wait our opportunity, 
 I suppose ; and I won't be a fairy godmother, because they gener- 
 ally turn cross in the end. You must come over to Bryu and 
 cut up all that flannel, and then I will ask Nettie and Aunt Eliza; 
 and Meg and Prue and I will help you, and we'll have a regular 
 ' bee,' and Mr. Garton shall come and read to us." 
 
 And so Rotha chatted on ; she had still hold of Mary's arm — 
 they were wading through the wet slushy street. The sky was 
 grayer than ever, and a thick atmosphere of fog and smoke seemed 
 to swallow up the dingy buildings. People tm-ned round to look 
 at Rotha's happy fiace ; some one brushing past her hastily, stood 
 still in astonishment. 
 
 Rotha flushed up suddenly when she saw Robert's look. They 
 were lighting up the gas now. As he stood under one of the lamps 
 
 16
 
 242 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Robert's liaudsome face looked more haggard and thoughtful than 
 she had ever seen it. 
 
 " You here, at this hour, Miss Maturin ! I thought I must have 
 been mistaken until I saw Jlary." Mary gave a nervous laugh. 
 
 "We do not often honoiu- Thornborough with our presence, do 
 we, Robert?" 
 
 " Mrs. Ord and I have been shopping," put in Rotha. " I dare- 
 say you saw us come out of Tyler and Tyler's just now ; Mrs. Ord 
 has been helping me choose a new silk dress." Rotha spoke up 
 steadily, but she still looked a little confused. This expedition to 
 Thornborough was to have been a little secret ; Robert was the 
 last person whom the two women would have selected for their 
 confidant. 
 
 " It is rather late in the afternoon for shopping ; you could 
 hardly distinguish between the different shades, I should think," 
 shrugging his shoulders slightly. 
 
 " I wanted to judge of them by candlelight," returned Rotha 
 demurely. " We must not keep Mrs. Ord standing in this fog any 
 longer; we are going to the station now." She dropped a little 
 curtsey as she drew Mary's arm again through hers — the dimples 
 were rebellious now ; she did not dare to lift up her eyes. 
 
 " Women are all alike," muttered Robert cynically, as he pulled 
 up the collar of his coat and strode down a side street, where a 
 flaming gaslight or two made darkness visible. " A new dress 
 transports them into the seventh heaven ; how happy she looked, 
 to be sure ! " He was almost inclined to resent Rotha's happiness 
 as personal, and to think very poorly of her in consequence ; but 
 he could not forget it. Once or twice, as he went hither and 
 thither in the deepening gloom, or shut himself up in his lonely 
 counting-house, he found himself recalling a bright girlish face, in 
 a close plain bonnet, with brown hair lying softly over the temples, 
 and sweet unsteady lips, ready every moment to break into laughter. 
 " How rosy and well she looks ! It couldn't have been all that dress 
 made her so happy. She holds herself as straight as a young fir 
 tree. I suppose, if I admired tall women, I should admire her ;" 
 and then Robert stirred the gaseous coals till they fell into a blaze, 
 and wondered what it was in Rotha's face that allured and yet 
 repelled him ; and then he remembered how he saw her fu'st, 
 standing in her black gown under the low apple trees, with a lace 
 kerchief tied over her brown hair. Rotha was a little subdued 
 after that encounter ; Robert always seemed to have the power to 
 chill her somewhat. Mary, on the contrary, chirped all the way 
 home like a cricket ; she bm'st into her husband's study in quite 
 an excited way.
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 243 
 
 " There's a parcel come for you," said the Vicar, who was very 
 busy — too busy to notice her absence, Mary thought. "Where have 
 you been so long, my dear?" 
 
 "Rotha had some things to get in Thornborough," said Mary, 
 getting behind his chair. " If you are busy, Austin, I will not 
 disturb you by talking. Rotha wiU be in to tea by and by." She 
 gave his shoulder a triumphant little pat as she passed him ; she 
 knew well what the parcel contained. If only they had not creased 
 it. She ran upstairs hke a young girl. Austin leant back in his 
 chair, and smiled as he heard her. " What plot are they hatching 
 now?" he muttered to himself as he went on with his "loaves and 
 fishes." It struck them both as very odd he should preach that 
 sermon the following Sunday. Mrs. Ord went up to her room, and 
 then she locked the door. She did not dare trust herself to open 
 the parcel tiU she had done that ; how carefully she imfolded it 
 from its wrapper, and shook it out ! There it was, cut out of finest 
 cloth, soft and glossy as satin. Superfine — it must have been ultra- 
 superfine. How grand her Austin woidd look in it; no frayed 
 edges, no shinings of the elbows now. She took out the old coat 
 and laid it aside tenderly to be repaired, and then she hung up the 
 new one in its place. She was a simple woman, hardly wise enough 
 for this generation perhaps ; but, as she shook out the glossy folds, 
 she suddenly wrapped her face in it and cried for very joy. 
 
 It must have been about a week after that Rotha noticed 
 one morning that the Vicar was not quite himself Mary, too, 
 seemed unusually worried, though she tried to evade Rotha's 
 inquiries. 
 
 Rotha, who was as persevering as she was keen, set herself to 
 discover the reason of this sudden gloom, and she succeeded so well 
 that Mrs. Ord, though with evident reluctance, admitted that her 
 husBand was in temporary embarrassment, and that he had had 
 some almost sleepless nights in consequence. 
 
 When Rotha had discovered this she was determined to know 
 more, and by and l)y, by a little quiet perseverance, she managed 
 to elicit the facts of the case. 
 
 The Vicar had ordered in a large supply of coals for the winter's 
 consumption, but, by some inconceivable oversight, a blunder on his 
 or Garton's part, it was just discovered that they already owed a 
 bill dating from the Christmas before. The Vicar, who was very 
 careful to pay his bills quarterly, was in the utmost consternation, 
 and had told Mr. Browning, the coal-mercliant, that he had no 
 means of paying such a large sum in full, but that he must meet 
 it by instalments. The result had been a great deal of unpleasant- 
 ness. Mr. Browning had said a great many uncivil things, and
 
 244 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Robert had been much ashamed of the whole transaction. Shice 
 then the Vicar's pillow had been set with thorns, and, though he 
 had striven hard to bear himself with his wonted patience, the 
 effort had been manifestly too hard for him. 
 
 " No wonder he looks ill," finished Mrs. Ord, " for I am sure 
 he had no sleep last night or the night before ; and, though he 
 bears all Robert's aggravation like a lamb, I can see how it frets 
 him. Sometimes, when I go into the study without his hearing 
 me, I find him sitting with his head in his hand, doing nothing ; 
 and though it is Thursday, and he has to preach twice next Sunday, 
 he has not touched one of his sermons." 
 
 " What does Mr. Robert say %" inquired Rotha sternly. 
 
 Mrs. Ord's pitiful eyes and the thought of the Vicar's misery 
 were too much for her compassionate nature. She had come this 
 morning full of another surprise she had planned for Mary. Mary 
 would not care a bit about the gray dress now. 
 
 She put her question rather anxiously. 
 
 "Robert always says that Austin is so careless about his papers," 
 returned Mrs. Ord ; " that he tears them up too quickly, or throws 
 them in the waste-paper basket, and that he must have torn up 
 Browning's bill, and the bill delivered that came afterwards ; but 
 that's such nonsense. What's the use of Robert telling him that 
 when the thing's done 1 If Austin is a little quick in his move- 
 ments, he makes fewer mistakes than most men." 
 
 Rotha smiled a little ; when would IMary Ord believe that her 
 husband had been to blame ! 
 
 In spite of the Vicar's faultlessness she was inclined to think 
 that he might be a little too quick sometimes. 
 
 "I do feel as though it were so mean of me to be telling you 
 this," continued Mrs. Ord. 
 
 Then Rotha looked up rather troubled. 
 
 "I hope you do not repent yoiu- confidence'?" she said 
 gravely. 
 
 " Repent it ! No, not in that way. You don't know what a 
 comfort it is to tell you all my worries ; but, all the same, I feel 
 as though it were mean of me." 
 
 " And you will let me do this thing for you \ " pleaded Rotha 
 almost in a whisper. 
 
 "What? pay all that money?" retm-ned Mrs. Ord, quite 
 shocked, with vehemence. " Rotha, pi-omise me that you will not 
 frighten me by proposing such a thing again," and Mrs. Ord looked 
 almost desperate. Then, as a matter of course, Rotha got on her 
 knees beside her friend ; it seemed impossible to her that this 
 business shoidd be transacted at arm's length.
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 245 
 
 " Mrs. Onl, T thought you had begun to love me," she said in 
 a hurt voice. 
 
 Then Mary, who was very soft-hearted, took the girl in her 
 arms and said all manner of nice affectionate things ; but Rotha 
 did not look satisfied. 
 
 " If you loved me you would not refuse me such a little thing 
 as that," she kept saying. 
 
 " If it were only a little thing, Rotha !" 
 
 "Well, is it not to me'? Have I not heaps and heaps of 
 money lying unused in the bank 1 and is not Mr. Tracy always 
 worrying me about investments 1 Why shouldn't I choose my own 
 investments, I should like to know"?" and Rotha grew a little 
 pompous over her words ; she thought she had put it rather 
 neatly. 
 
 "But, if I cannot take it, dear?" said Mary, gently stroking 
 back the hair from Rotha's hot face. 
 
 " Why should you not take it % Would you not take it from 
 Belle, if she offered it ? What have I done that I should be treated 
 so differently from her 1" 
 
 " Belle is my own sister," returned Mrs. Ord, hardly able to 
 refrain from a smile over Rotha's petulance. 
 
 " Well, and am I not your friend % your slave of the lamp, if 
 you will % and does it not make me happier than a queen to share 
 my good things with those I lovel Mrs. Ord, I did not think 
 you could have been so proud with me !" 
 
 Then Mrs. Ord stroked her hair, sorely troubled. 
 
 " I don't think it is pride," she said at last ; " if it were, I 
 should get over it, for Austin's sake. Oh, Rotha!" she said, 
 suddenly breaking out into unwonted agitation, "it goes to my 
 lieart to refuse you. But why will you persist in heaping all these 
 coal's of fire on our heads V 
 
 "I suppose because I love you so," murmured Rotha, speaking 
 rather inaudibly. Every moment her heart was more set on this 
 thing. Mary's objections had no chance against her eloquence; when 
 reasoning failed she tried coaxing. No woman knew how to coax 
 better than Rotha. It ended at last by Mrs. Ord having a good 
 cry on her shoidder, and saying a great many incoherent things ; 
 and then Rotha tied on her bonnet in a great bustle, and, after 
 promising to be back in an inconceivably short time, gave Mrs. 
 Ord another reassuring kiss and set off. 
 
 It does not taf^e long to transact a little business like that. 
 Rotha had paid a visit to the Blackscar Bank, and had received 
 the money with her own hands, and was back long before Mary 
 had believed it possible. After that there was another little talk,
 
 246 ROBERT ORD\S ATONEMENT. 
 
 and then Deb was called, and, with many hints as to precaution 
 and safety, the precious money was confided to her care, and she 
 was strictly charged to bring back the receipted bills to her mistress. 
 Everything would have gone on weU if only Arty had not clamoured 
 for a walk. Mary, who never refused the little fellow anything, 
 could see nothing unreasonable in such a request, so Master Arty 
 was put in full walking trim, and the two sallied forth together, 
 whde Eotha and Mary sat down to their interrupted work. 
 
 Now it so happened that the Vicar was walking slowly down 
 the Kirkby road when he felt himself suddenly clasped by the 
 knee, and there was Arty, looking very red-cheeked and blowsy, 
 with his white comforter dangling behind, and his straw hat set 
 rakishly over one ear, and a filial grin of delight on his face. 
 
 " I've caught you, father," panted Arty. " All, ha ! and Deb's 
 ever such a way behind." 
 
 " Have Deb and you been having a walk % " observed the 
 Vicar, taking his little son's hand as they retraced their steps. 
 "What have you done to your trumpet, Arty? it is squeezed out 
 of all shape." 
 
 "Deb says the music is all dead, father," returned Arty mourn- 
 fully ; "I used it as a hammer at the coal-house. We haven't 
 been a nice walk at all, father ; we have been up a lane all coals, 
 and into a nasty yard, and a little man just like my Jack-in-the- 
 box talked to Deb for ever so long." 
 
 "Oh, Master Arthur!" said Deb, who had overheard the 
 last words. 
 
 " Has your mistress been sending you to Browning's again ?" 
 interrupted the Vicar in some surprise ; but Arty's chattering was 
 not to be silenced. 
 
 " Yes, father ; and the dirty little man like Jack-in-the-box 
 looked so pleased, and patted my head ; he had such dirty fingers. 
 I heard him ask Deb to give his compliments to you — are com- 
 pliments good to eat, father 1" 
 
 " Hush, Arty ; be quiet a moment, my little man. Is that 
 what he has sent to your mistress in return ?" he continued, hold- 
 ing out his hand for the rather formidable -looking envelope. 
 " Poor Mary," he thought ; "she has been trying to get him to 
 agree to a compromise," and he sighed the dull heavy sigh that 
 Mary had heard so often. 
 
 "Yes, sir; that's the receipt," answered Deb. "Master 
 Arthur and I had to wait ever so long because Mr. Browning 
 hadn't the proper stamp. He said he was very sorry to have to 
 put this pressure on you, sir, only things were so bad this winter. 
 You will find the receipt all right, sir," she continued, as her
 
 TYLER AND TYLER. 247 
 
 master looked first at her and then at the paper as though 
 stupefied ; and at that he tore it open. Yes — there it was ; a 
 genuine receipt, stamp and all For a moment he was utterly 
 bewildered, and then the truth flashed on him. 
 
 "Was any one with your mistress just now when she sent 
 you V he asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Miss Maturin." 
 
 But Arty broke in again breathlessly : 
 
 " Yes, and mamma had red eyes, and Deb said she had been 
 crying — didn't you, Debl" 
 
 " Now, Master Arthur, what a chatterbox you do get, to be 
 sure," returned Deb, turning scarlet. " I'm sure yoiu- ma looked 
 quite cheered-like when she gave me the money. Look how you 
 are twisting your comforter. Master Arthur ; you're all of a 
 strangle," and Deb confusedly busied herself in putting him tidy. 
 
 The Vicar, who had listened to them both in a sort of maze, 
 put his hand on the boy's head fondly and turned back with him 
 to the house. 
 
 " Never mind about the receipt, Deb ; I will give it to your 
 mistress myself," he said, as he let himself in with his latch-key. 
 But he did not go straight to his wife's presence ; instead of that 
 he went to his study and closed the door. 
 
 We need not follow him there. What if his inborn enemy is 
 strong within him, and he has to fight a battle with his pride % 
 Is he less an Ord or more than mortal because he is enrolled 
 among the ranks of them who serve % What if his gratitude is 
 for the moment blotted out — and the thought is bitter within him 
 that he must take these things again and again from this girl's 
 hand — are his needs the less? Leave him alone. Presently he 
 will take out his paper, and, like Hezekiah, spread it before the 
 Lord, and then will he aver that with tlie good man these words 
 are true — 
 
 " He shall deliver thee out of six troubles ; yea, in seven there 
 shall no evil befall thee.'"
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 
 
 ' Yet in herself she flwelleth not, 
 Although no home were half so fair ; 
 No simplest duty is forgot ; 
 Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
 That doth not in her sunshine share." 
 
 Lowell 
 
 " Fair ladies ! you drop manna in the way of starved people.'" 
 
 Shakspears. 
 
 RoTHA was humming over her work ; it was a habit of hers 
 when anytliing particularly pleased her. Mary compared it one 
 day to the low twitter of a little bird ; but the Vicar, who had 
 overheard her, and was not quite so poetical, would have it that 
 it was something between a very loud purr and a whole hive of 
 honey-bees. ' 
 
 " Do you always purr when you are pleased V he asked once ; 
 but Rotha never could break herself off the habit. It was louder 
 than ever this morning. 
 
 She had told Mrs. Ord all about the gray dress, and they had 
 made a pilgrimage up to her room, whither Rotha had had it 
 surreptitiously conveyed. 
 
 " And you chose this when I was looking at the carpet 1" 
 repeated Mary for the third time. 
 
 " Yes ; and I was longing so to get that lovely blue for your 
 sister, but I dare not^ — after-^you know what I mean," finished 
 Rotha hurriedly. 
 
 Of course Mrs. Ord knew what she meant ; she could not 
 forget, nor Rotha either, how the soft nest of Cashmere shawls had 
 been disturbed. 
 
 " It would be a pity to go to such expense, and then for her 
 not to wear it," she said gravely. She had exhausted a whole 
 string of superlatives over the dress — its wonderful sheen and 
 richness, and the splendour of its trimmings.
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 249 
 
 " I have never had such a dross as that since I was married,' 
 she said as they went downstairs again. " I remember how my 
 poor mother decided that I must have two good silk gowns in my 
 wedding outfit. No wonder Austin tliinks the dove-coloured one 
 rather old-fashioned ; do you know it has been turned twice?" 
 
 "I never noticed it was shabby," returned Rotlia; "but then 
 you look so nice in everything. I am so glad Miss Evans has 
 finished it so soon. You will be able to wear it at Mrs. Blake's 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " I ought to save it for yoiu' party, Rotha," said Mary, with a 
 smile. 
 
 Somehow the beautiful dress failed to awake the enthusiasm 
 that her husband's coat had done. She was thinking of that and 
 the coal-bill all the time she was fingering the real lace edging. 
 But Rotha would not hear of any postponement. She was to 
 wear it first at Oakmead, and then at Miss Brookes', and Bryn 
 should come third on the list. For Rotha was being rather 
 universally feted just now; Kirkby and Blackscar vied with each 
 other in doing homage to the young heiress. People were full of 
 compunction at tliis time, and wondered at their own blindness. 
 
 The news of the Vicar's speech had spread far and wide. Rotha 
 was almost overwhelmed by the number of pressing invitations. 
 The winter season had just begun, and prodigious feats were under- 
 taken in the shape of tea-parties. Mrs. Stephen Knowles and Mrs. 
 Travers had excelled themselves, and Nettie Underwood and the 
 Ollivers rapidly followed suit. The Vicar and his wife had been 
 present on all these occasions ; and Rotha had overheard certain 
 remarks on Mrs. Ord's dove-coloured gown which had made her 
 feel very hot and angry. 
 
 .It had been decided by Rotha's friends that there must be a 
 retiu^n party given at Brjm. Mary had imdertaken the manage- 
 ment of the whole affair, and Rotha had already sent out the 
 invitations. The gray dress was intended partly for this occasion, 
 when Rotha played her part of hostess to perfection, and the party 
 was the greatest success of the season. 
 
 But neither Belle Clinton nor Robert Ord was among the 
 guests ; but people did not wonder at that — they knew Belle Clin- 
 ton was too ill. 
 
 They had drifted on to the subject of the party now, but Mary 
 was rather absent, and wondered why Deb had not made her 
 appearance. " It is only a very little way, and she has been gone 
 nearly an hour," she said presently, breaking in upon Rotlia's 
 hunmiing, and then the Vicar came in. 
 
 Rotha did not know why, but her heart began to beat rather
 
 250 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 quickly when she saw him. He looked very pale, paler than she 
 had ever seen him, a thing always very noticeable in a florid man. 
 But it was not the paleness that disturbed her ; she knew the 
 sleepless nights would account for that ; it was a certain expres- 
 sion in his face which she had never remarked before — a likeness 
 to Robert. She had never noticed the marked similarity between 
 the two brothers until now. It brought to her mind suddenly 
 something that Mary once said, "that Austin had never been a 
 favourite with his aunt on account of his quick temper ; but that 
 was the family complaint," Mary had added, laughing. 
 
 Could she have been right % Was it possible that the Vicar, as 
 a young man, had had his share of the family inheritance — pride 
 and a domineering temper ? Garton was fiery, she knew; she had 
 noticed how, at a sueer from Robert, the blood would rush over his 
 face, and he would bite his lip to keep down the angry word ; but 
 she had never seen the Vicar moved from his gentleness. Now, as 
 he sat opposite to her, there was a weariness and sternness of look 
 about him that she failed to comprehend. How did she know that 
 he had fought a battle with himself and had conquered % His eyes 
 looked very gently at her for all that. 
 
 "Always at work," he said, stretching out his hand to her 
 across the table. " I suppose I am not to know for whom all that 
 beautiful stitching is intended." 
 
 " Not just yet," returned Rotha, blushing; and then he took a 
 paper from his breast-pocket and pushed it across to Mary. " Here 
 is your receipt, my dear ; I think you will find it right," he ob- 
 served, very quietly. Rotha looked up at Mary's exclamation ; the 
 two women exchanged guilty glances full of dismay. What did it 
 mean — could he have met Deb 1 Mary, who had undertaken to 
 break the whole matter to her husband that night, felt very con- 
 fused by Rotha's presence, and was rather at her wit's end for an 
 answer. 
 
 " I met Deb, and she said you would find it right," continued 
 the Vicar calmly ; he was regarding the women's agitation witli 
 the utmost sangfroid ; he saw that Rotha had risen as though to 
 leave the room, and had then sat down again. " What pluck she 
 has; she is determined to brave it out," he thought. He was quite 
 pitiless to Mary, who was fumbling over the papers, and making 
 believe to treat it as a matter of course. " Don't you think you 
 ought to look if it be quite correct V he persisted. " It was a large 
 sum of money to entrust to a servant." 
 
 " Oh, Deb has been with us so many years," returned Mary 
 hurriedly ; " where — where did you meet her, Austin ?" She was 
 not in the least prepared for such an emergency. If only Rotha
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 251 
 
 were not present, she thought she could have been quite eloquent; 
 but Rotha had sat down again, and the eloquence was not forth- 
 coming ; the bale of gray flannel was upon her conscience, and then 
 there was that carpet rolled up at Bryn. Mary almost wished for 
 the moment that she had never seen the inside of Tyler and Tyler's. 
 But, though the Vicar knew all about it, he was not disposed to 
 help her; perhaps he meant to punish her a little first for her 
 secrecy. He answered her question in the gravest possible way. 
 
 " I met Deb near tlie Grammar School. By the bye, how does 
 your young ^jrotege get on. Miss Maturiu 1 Ai'ty was with lier ; 
 the young gentleman does not seem to have enjoyed his walk at all; 
 he would have it that a sort of Jack-in-the-box with dirty hands 
 had patted him on the head in Mr. Browning's ofiice. Is your 
 receipt all right, my dear'?" 
 
 " Oh yes, Austin," answered Mary, rather pettishly — that is to 
 say, pettishly for her. 
 
 She began to understand that she was to be tormented for her 
 sins ; how she longed to make a clean breast of it all ! Austin's 
 questions were hke pins and needles, but, all the same, the eloquence 
 would not be forthcoming. 
 
 "What's the matter, Mary? Surely I may ask a question 
 about Browning's bill?" and now a little twinkle did come into 
 the Vicar's eyes, but he looked grave enough the next minute. 
 "How long have you made Miss Maturin your banker, my dear?" 
 
 Then Rotha started and changed colour again ; she began to 
 wish now that she had left the room. Was he really angry ? He 
 had never once looked at her. 
 
 Then Mary broke down altogether, and her eyes were very 
 piteous indeed. 
 
 . " Oh, Austin, I could not help it ; she would do it," she ex- 
 claimed. She was deserting her friend very treacherously, but the 
 Vicar would not let her finish. 
 
 " Answer for yourself, Mary ; am I right in supposing that you 
 drew this money from Miss Maturin?" But Mary v/ould not 
 answer calmly. 
 
 " I couldn't help it, Austin; I could not indeed; she would 
 make me tell her what was troubling me. I think she noticed 
 how worried you looked, dear, and then there was nothing for it 
 but that she would pay the whole bill. I did not like taking it at 
 all, Austin; but, jndeed, I could not refuse her." 
 
 "That is because you are so soft-hearted, Marj'. It never 
 occurred to you, I suppose, that you might tell your husband before 
 you took upon yourself to pay his bills'?" 
 
 " Yes, it did," returned Mary, who was nearly broken-hearted
 
 252 ROBERT ORD\S ATONEMENT. 
 
 at this unexpected reproach ; she really believed that Austin was 
 angry with her for her want of confidence. " I wanted to tell you 
 directly, dear ; but she was so afraid you would refuse to take it." 
 
 Now all this was very dreadful to Rotha, and this time she 
 looked at the door so earnestly that the Vicar interpreted her 
 thoughts at once. 
 
 " No; don't go, Miss Maturin. I have something to say to you 
 both." 
 
 "If you will only hear me first," pleaded Mary. 
 
 " But I will not ; I mean to punish you for your silence. Who 
 ever would have believed you could have been such a little traitor ! " 
 But there was a sorrowful vein running through the Vicar's jest 
 that robbed the words of their sweetness. Rotha was almost sure 
 now that she had pained him ; tears sprang to her eyes at the 
 mere thought. 
 
 " I will not ask you again, as I did just now, for whom you are 
 putting in all those delicate stitches," he said, laying his hand 
 again on her work. " It may be that I am not so blind as I 
 appear. Shall I tell you a few things that have come under my 
 notice V 
 
 "No, no; please do not," she pleaded, lifting her eyes to him 
 for the first time, but his look soon sent her to her work again. She 
 knew now why naughty children never could stand the Vicar's eyes. 
 
 " Last Sunday the boys showed me their new boots, and Laurie, 
 who was very communicative, told me that he and his brother had 
 gray fiannel shirts, the same as Bob Travers', that we admired so, 
 Mary. There was a hint also of a new suit for Arty." 
 
 Mary gave a little gasp of surprise, but Rotha worked on 
 harder than ever ; her cheeks were flaming. 
 
 " But that is not all. The other evening, in the twilight, I 
 took out my old coat for Mary to repair — she is a neat hand at 
 liinding — but when I got to the light I found that my old coat was 
 transformed into a new one. I was slightly surprised, I confess, 
 but I hung it up again, feeling that some benevolent fairy had been 
 at work — the same fairy, I supposed, who had put the wadded 
 dressing-gown across my arm-chair, and who, I found, had visited 
 Arty with big brown parcels containing toys, sweetmeats, and other 
 heterogeneous articles dear to childhood. Arty is not one to keep 
 a secret, mind you ; he does not take after his mother in that," 
 darting a look at poor Mary. Oh, if only Rotha could hold up her 
 liead ! "And then Arty is such a listener. I had no idea before 
 that there was so much truth in the proverb, that ' Little pitchers 
 have great ears ;' but he's a tremendous fellow at listening. Some- 
 times he comes to me and tells me his dreams ; though, by the bye,
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 253 
 
 lie will have it they are true. He had a wonderful dream the 
 other uight of a grand new carpet, like the softest moss, which he 
 declared was for mammie's room, and curtains with real flowers 
 running over them ; but that was nothing to the funny dream 
 when he saw Uncle Gar and Mammie and Miss Maturin all 
 covered with whitewash, with their arms full of cobwebs and 
 bottles. And the worst of it all is the rogue evidently believed it 
 to be true." 
 
 " ' I call Miss Maturin " Santa Glaus," father,' he said once, 
 ' because she rains sugar-plums on my pillow. Last night I woke 
 up and found a big drum — and' — what is the matter, Mary?" 
 For Mary, that mildest and softest of criminals, had crept up to 
 his side quite abashed. 
 
 "Oh, Austin! how could you — how could youl" was all 
 she said. Then the Vicar took down the little hand from his 
 shoulder and drew her towards him. 
 
 "Nay, Mary, I should rather say, how could youl" he 
 demanded still gravely. 
 
 Then Roth a, whose cheeks had hung out every possible sign 
 of distress over the Vicar's speech, coidd bear it no longer. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Ord, I cannot believe that you are really angry 
 with me!" she exclaimed; "but if you woidd listen to me a 
 moment." And as she spoke she came a little nearer to him and 
 looked appealingly in his face. 
 
 "Well," he said, turning towards her, "it seems I must put 
 both of you on your defence. Mary's silence has pleaded guilty, 
 am I to say the same of you ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you like," she answered gently ; " I shall not deny 
 your charges. I suppose Arty's dreams were all true." 
 
 " Well ! " he reiterated for the second time, and then again that 
 appealing look came into her eyes ; she looked like a child scarcely 
 penitent, yet longing to be forgiven. 
 
 " If I have offended you," she began again, and then paused — 
 " if I have offended you, I am very sorry. But no, I will not 
 believe that I have ; it was all so beautifid, and we were so 
 happy, that everything cannot be spoiled for us like that." 
 
 " No, indeed," ejaculated Mary. Slie began to understand 
 dimly the workings of her husband's mind ; but Kotha again inter- 
 rupted her. 
 
 " Mr. Ord, supposing you had a sister," and then she stopped, 
 — "a little sister, and she had all the good things of this world 
 given to her, and you were left out in the cold ; and supposing " 
 — hesitating again — " all these good things had come to her by a 
 dreadful mistake, which, when she thought of it — which she did
 
 254 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 continually — always made her feel very unhappy ; " and here for a 
 moment Rotha's voice grew troubled. 
 
 " Well, my child ?" said the Vicar encouragingly. 
 
 And she went on. "And suppose, in her unhappiness — the 
 little sister's, I mean — God put a thought into her heart, which 
 took away all her pain, and made her feel quite warm and com- 
 forted, and supposing," coming a little nearer, and touching him 
 softly on the arm, " she — this little sister, I mean — came to you " 
 — "Came to me!" repeated the Vicar, as she hesitated again. 
 " Yes ; and, speaking in her reverence and love, told you of tliis 
 beautiful thought that grew in her heart day by day, and prayed 
 you not to despise her little gifts because they made her so very, 
 very happy; and supposing that the little sister" — coming still 
 closer, and clasping her hands together — " begged you, out of your 
 great tender heart, never to hurt her again as you have hurt her 
 just now, but, if she has made a mistake, put it all down to her 
 ignorance ; but to be sure that she will never offend so again." 
 And as she bent her face over the kind hand that was stretched 
 out to her she felt a light touch on her hair that calmed and 
 hushed her in a moment. 
 
 " God bless the little sister," finished the Vicar solemnly. 
 " Ay, and she shall be blessed ; child, I will not have you cry like 
 that ; it is you who have been breaking my heart all this time 
 with your love and gifts." 
 
 He talked to them presently when Rotha was a little calmer, 
 and, drawing his wife very tenderly to his side, he told them both 
 the bitter battle he had fought with his pride, and how his heart 
 had been very soft towards them all the time Mary had believed 
 he had been reproaching her with want of confidence. 
 
 " My own Mary, do you think I have not blessed the little 
 sister over and over again for making your dear face grow so much 
 brighter day by day 1 " 
 
 " You see your name will stick to you, Rotha," he said presently, 
 calling her for the first time by her Christian name. " Whatever 
 you may be to Mary, to me you will always be ' the little sister ; ' 
 I hope that you like your new title ?" 
 
 "My 'little sister' brought gifts," returned Rotha meaningly, 
 but blushing a little over her words. 
 
 " And so may this little sister, but not too often ; she may 
 carry them now and then to her great big brother out in the cold, 
 though it is not nearly so cold as she supposes it to be," and he 
 looked fondly at the dear woman whose love had shed such sun- 
 shine over his life. " There are others far more cold and dreary 
 than we are, Mary."
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 255 
 
 " Ah ! true, there is poor Belle," said the happier sister. 
 " Yes, poor Belle," echoed Rotha, and the Vicar added rather 
 sadly, "Yes, and poor Robert." 
 
 And after that Rotha went home. 
 
 These were golden days with Rotha. " The little sister," as 
 the Vicar often called her, was never for many hours absent from 
 the Vicarage ; she and Mary were still hard at theu* work, and 
 there seemed at present no end to tlieir labour. Garton or the 
 Vicar would come and read to them sometimes, but Belle per- 
 severed in her unsociable habits. 
 
 "I do wish you would come and sit with us downstairs," 
 Rotha said one day when she and Belle were together for a 
 minute ; " it feels almost as though I were separating you from 
 your sister " — which was partly true, as her constant presence 
 had afforded Belle an excuse for her taciturnity. 
 
 "AVhy should I come?" BeUe had answered. "I don't think 
 that either you or Mary can want me." She was in a sick siUlen 
 humour this afternoon ; but Rotha, who saw she was suffering, was 
 very patient to her. 
 
 " I am quite sure that we both want you. Miss Clinton," but 
 Belle did not answer ; poor soul, she was growing more warped and 
 diseased day by day. 
 
 "Why can we not be friends T' continued Rotha yearningly; 
 " yom: sister loves me and the Vicar also — you are the only one in 
 the house who has not a kind word for me ; dear Miss Clinton, 
 it does seem almost too hard sometimes." Then Belle turned upon 
 her proudly ; she could not bear even a word of reproach from this 
 girl, and yet she knew it to be true. 
 
 "What do you expect?" she said harshly; "am I so happy 
 that' I can forget the past? Why do you taunt me with my 
 coldness V 
 
 "I taunt you, Miss Clinton?" 
 
 " Yes, you and Mary too. What is my own sister to me now 
 when you have come between us ? Once I coidd tell Mary nearly 
 everything and be sure of her sympathy ; but now even she and 
 Austin are changed to me." 
 
 " Is this my doing, Miss Clinton ?" 
 
 "Is it not?" was the unjust answer. "Look at Robert; is 
 he the same man when you are by ? I tell you this — you are 
 blighting my life and his, and yet you come to me and ask me to 
 be friends." 
 
 "I do," returned Rotha ; "in spite of your hard words I ask 
 it still. Am I to blame for your lover's bitter injustice ? You are
 
 256 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 not yoiu'self this afteruoou, or you would uot speak like this." 
 She did uot truly realise the truth of her words till she saw Belle's 
 colour change to ashy white as she tried to answer her. In 
 another moment the generous-hearted girl was by her side. 
 
 " You are faint — you are in pain," she said. " No, you must 
 not speak ; lean on me a moment. Good Heavens, to think of 
 any one endming this pain, and hiding it from every one ! " 
 
 Belle clutched her sleeve nervously. 
 
 " Mary — don't tell Mary," she whispered through her white 
 lips. " I will do anything you like, but don't tell Mary." 
 
 She was quite passive now. When Rotha placed her on the 
 couch and covered her up, she let her bring her wine and chafe her 
 cold hands almost as though she were grateful for it. And cer- 
 tainly no sisterly hands could have more gently put back the damp 
 hair from her brow ; as she did so, tears no eflbrts could repress 
 gathered to her eyes. 
 
 The paiuful spasm was over, and then Belle looked wonder- 
 ingly at her. 
 
 " Ai'e you crying for me or for yourself?" she said, more gently 
 than she had yet spoken. 
 
 " For you," answered Rotha, dashing the tears away half- 
 ashamed. " I cannot bear to see you suffer so ; it makes me wish 
 that I could take yoiu" place for a little while." 
 
 " You are a strange girl after all my hard speeches — thank 
 you," and Belle closed her eyes wearily. 
 
 " May I stay with you % " asked Rotha wistfully. " I can see 
 the pain is better, but still I do not like to leave you." And Belle, 
 who seemed sinking into slumber, signified her assent. 
 
 She woke towards evening, and found Rotha still watching 
 her. 
 
 " Have you been here all this time % " she asked curiously. 
 
 Rotha nodded. 
 
 " Your sister came up, and I told her you had not been well. 
 I made light of it, as you wished, and she has gone out now. 
 She told me to bring you a cup of tea when you woke." And 
 Rotha, who had been stirring the fire into a cheerful blaze, busied 
 herself over a small tea-equipage in a brisk cosy manner that was 
 very pleasant. 
 
 Belle said nothing as she drank the tea ; she looked very pale 
 and weary still ; but every now and then her dark eyes looked 
 across at Rotha rather wistfully. 
 
 Rotha caught one of these glances and asked if she wanted 
 anything. 
 
 '' No, nothing — only I wish you woidd not be so kind ; it
 
 THE LITTLE SISTER. 257 
 
 makes me feel your words are true, and that I have been too hard 
 to you." 
 
 " No ; I will not let you say that." 
 
 " I think you were right, and I was not quite myself. I think 
 I get half-crazed sometimes with misery. I ought not to have 
 reproached you with Robert's bitter speeches." 
 
 " But if you believed themr' said Rotha timidly. 
 
 " Well, sometimes I tliink I do. One can't help one's thoughts, 
 and it is not like him to be so prejudiced ; and then again there 
 are times when I half fancy he is wrong. I think the doubt and 
 straggle make me seem so hard to you ; often and often I do not 
 know what to think." 
 
 " Don't think about it at all ; " then with a touching inflection 
 of voice, " only let me love you and do something for you." 
 
 "It seems so dreadful," she continued, after a pause, "to see 
 you so unhappy, and to know that but for me he would have the 
 right to shield and protect you. You said just now that I have 
 blighted both your lives, and, God knows, I feel you are right." 
 
 "I ought not to have said that," retm-ned Belle remorsefully; 
 but Rotha, still with the same touching sadness, answered her : 
 
 "Why should you not say it^ I think I can bear your re- 
 proaches better than your silence. I do not feel that I shall ever be 
 afraid of you again. Yes, I have spoiled your life ; dislike to me 
 is changing his nature-'^do you think I cannot see that % I am 
 made the minister of this unholy revenge, apd, in spite of my 
 happiness, I shall bear the bitterness of it to my dying day." 
 
 How mournful the voice ; how sadly the mild eyes looked out 
 at the faint streaks of the wintry sunset, at the unchanging gray- 
 ness of the sea, at the bleak barrenness of the waste of sands ! 
 How the thin soft hands grasped each other in a set patience like 
 an act of prayer ! Belle, lying back on her couch, watched her — 
 sorely troubled. Her own thoughts were a mystery to lier, but 
 from that time her conviction of Rotha's innocence grew to be a 
 certainty. 
 
 " Only let me love you ! "—the words came back to her as she 
 lay that night tossing on her sleepless pillow. " Only let me love 
 you" — how meekly she had said it ! Could she of all people afford 
 to throw away such love'? 
 
 There was silence between them for some time, and then Belle, 
 looking very sick^ind sorrowful, stretched out her hands to Rotha. 
 
 " Can you forgive me my hardness % " she said, almost in a 
 whisper, and Rotha's only answer was to stoop down and kiss her 
 brow. 
 
 17
 
 <i 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 
 
 " Slie has an eye that can speak 
 Though her tongue were silent." 
 
 Aaron Hill. 
 
 Sometimes when hard need has pressed me 
 
 To bow down where I despise, 
 I have read stern words of counsel 
 
 In those sad rejiroachful eyes." 
 
 Adelaidk Anne Proctor. 
 
 Meanwhile the shirt-making progressed most satisfactorily ; but, 
 alas, Belle was not among the workers. 
 
 Ever since the day of her hysterical attack a gradual, and at 
 first scarcely perceptible change had coma over her ; the strange 
 wanness and shadow that Rotha had noticed became more marked ; 
 day by day she grew thinner and paler ; the pain in the side was 
 almost constant now. Rotha sometimes met her on the stairs 
 labouring as though for breath. Now and then Mary started and 
 changed coloiu' at the sound of her sister's hard dry cough. She 
 and the Vicar were growling seriously uneasy ; but still Belle, rigid 
 in her waywardness, woidd have it that nothing ailed her. 
 
 " I am only so tired — so very tu'ed," she would say when 
 Mary with tears in her eyes implored her to spare herself. " I think 
 I took cold that night at church. I shall have to give up evening 
 service this bitter weather, that is all." 
 
 Poor Belle ! Evening service was not the only thing she gave 
 up. One by one her duties were laid aside ; Rotha had her district 
 now ; she never went among her poor people. 
 
 " When the spring comes I must take up my work again," she 
 said to Rotha. But she never told her that the day before she had 
 tried to creep to the nearest cottage and had failed. 
 
 She was more alone than ever now. Working made the pain 
 in her side worse, and after a time she found it impossible to con- 
 ceal her sufferings. She would lie for hours on the little square
 
 DO WN ON THE SANDS. 259 
 
 couch in the drawing-room, looking out vacantly at the blue tops 
 of the Leatham hills ; but she never cared for Mary or Rotha to 
 keep her company. The morbid reserve that seemed inherent in 
 her nature grew upon her with indulgence. She never seemed to 
 talk much to any one but Robert. 
 
 "It only makes me cough," she said fretfully, when Maiy's 
 affectionate reproaches were unusually urgent. " I am so tired, and 
 I want to be quiet and get rested for the evening." 
 
 "But you are always tired, Belle !" Mary would reply. "It 
 seems to me you are more tired every day. I wish Robert could 
 see you now; he would not think that Austin and I were making 
 a fuss about nothing." 
 
 Belle shivered slightly at the mention of Robert. 
 
 By what superhuman exertions she continued to blind him was 
 known best to herself He was the only one who was ignorant of 
 the real state of the case. Mary, with all her efforts, failed to 
 enlighten him. 
 
 " Belle has never been strong," he would say, " and this cold 
 she has caught hangs about her and keeps her weak ;" and he would 
 go about his daily work quite cheerfully. " She will be better 
 when this damp raw weather is over," he woidd think as he went 
 to and fro through the slushy streets. He always believed Belle's 
 version of herself. 
 
 " She was better," she would assiu-e him, " much better, only 
 she was so tired, and her cough was still troublesome." He knew 
 nothing about those long mornings and afternoons on the couch. ^ 
 She had always a bright colour of an evening. No matter how 
 ill she had been that day, she would creep down from her room to 
 meet him, looking lovelier than ever. 
 
 " Mary tells me you have been worse to-day," he would say 
 sometimes, looking at her anxiously ; but she always contrived to 
 evade his inquiries. As she sat talking to him he would wonder at 
 the brilliancy of her beauty. How was he to know that her eyes 
 were bright with repressed fever, and that it was only his presence 
 that stimulated her to such exertion % How was he to know % 
 She was never pale or silent with him. 
 
 She was always so ready with her excuses too. " Where is 
 your opal ring'?" he asked her once, rather reproachfully, and she 
 had returned him an evasive answer ; she never told him the ring 
 had dropped so repeatedly from her wasted hand that she feared to 
 lose it. Soon after she borrowed a certain old-fashioned keeper 
 that Mary wore on her little finger ; the next day the opals shone 
 in their accustomed i:)lace. 
 
 With her strong will she was blinding herself and liim ; she
 
 260 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 would go upstairs to her own room when her lover had said good- 
 night, carefully clo.sing the door behind her ; but if any one had 
 seen her holding on with her frail strength to the balustrade and 
 coughing at every step ! The Vicarage walls were unhappily thick. 
 Belle never spoke of the slow torture of those long wakeful nights, 
 of the restlessness and burning fever that consumed her, and so no 
 one knew why nature took its revenge in added prostration in the 
 morning. Mary declared that anxiety about her sister was aging 
 her. One day she came down half crying to the Vicar to avow her 
 belief that Belle was using rouge to deceive her lover. Rotha, who 
 was doing some copying work in the study, quite started at the 
 idea. 
 
 " She was as white as that cloth, quite ghastly ten minutes 
 ago," reiterated Maiy; "and I gave her some sal volatile, but 
 when Robert came in just now she begged me quite in a flurry to 
 go down to him, and when she came into the room a few minutes 
 afterwards her cheeks had a fixed red in them, quite a spot of 
 colour, just as though they were painted. You know yourself, 
 Austin, Belle never had a high colour." 
 
 " No, Mary, you were the blooming one," returned the Vicar 
 lightly. " Do you remember when I used to compare you to a 
 pink apple - blossom ?" and then as she persisted in her uneasy 
 suspicion he grew serious, and muttered something about " hectic" 
 and " fever." By and by he told Mary that he was determined to 
 speak very firmly to Belle, and insist on her seeing a doctor, 
 , Rotha was obliged to leave early that evening, but the next 
 morning she learnt from Mrs. Ord that the Vicar's firmness had 
 been unavailing. Belle seemed to have a rooted antipathy to the 
 very idea. "Austin had been very stern," Mary added, "and 
 Belle had been hysterical." Next day the doctor had come to the 
 house by the Vicar's express orders, and Belle had locked herself 
 up in her room, and had refused to see him, and the Vicar was 
 very angry. 
 
 Robert was angry too. He thought it very childish of Belle ; 
 but he added in the same breath that in his opinion Mary and 
 Austin were teasing her unnecessarily. " If she were really ill she 
 would be only too glad to see a doctor," he said. " Why not leave 
 her alone a little % It is tliis dreary weather that tries her. I 
 really thought she looked much better last evening till Austin up- 
 set lier ; he had no right to issue his commands like that." 
 
 Mary, as she heard hiin, could have wrung her hands over his 
 blindness and her sister's obstinacy. In her eyes it was httle short 
 of suicidal ; but Rotha, though she would not have hinted at it for 
 worlds, had a dim suspicion of the real state of the case. She was
 
 DO WN ON THE SANDS. 261 
 
 sure that Belle's refusal to see a doctor of her brother-in-law's pro- 
 viding was based upon far different motives, and that she knew 
 more about herself than any one guessed. 
 
 One raw November day she had come upon Belle within a 
 stone's throw of the Blackscar Infirmary, and Belle had a little 
 white parcel in her hand very much resembling a bottle of medi- 
 cine. Rotha had not seemed to notice, however ; but shortly 
 after she had questioned one of the niurses whom she knew, and 
 had learnt that Miss Clinton often visited the Infirmary, and that 
 to her knowledge she was more than once closeted a long time with 
 Mr. Greenock, the house-surgeon, so that it was very probable she 
 was on the list of out-patients. 
 
 Rotha would have given worlds to have shared this knowledge 
 with her friends, but on reflection she dared not ; her quick intuition 
 had instantly divined that there was a twofold motive for this 
 secrecy. Doubtless, in the fii'st instance. Belle's unselfish gener- 
 osity had induced her to take this step, fearing that her brother-in- 
 law would incur serious expense by her constant ill health ; the 
 other motive, too, it was not difficidt to guess. 
 
 Rotha was sure that Belle was uneasy about herself; at times 
 there had been a haggardness and despondency about her for which 
 there woidd seem no adequate reason. Rotha noticed she never 
 spoke of the future. There seemed no buoyancy of hope in her 
 life when Robert talked of the summer and of the pleasant holiday 
 he hoped to have, and how he meant to take her and Mary for a 
 week to ramble among the glens of Biu-nley-upon-Sea. Burnley- 
 upon-Sea, where the cows walked over the sands at evening, and 
 the long green woods stretched dimly down to the shore. Belle 
 would turn away her head to hide the tears in her eyes ; she would 
 choke something down as she tried to return a cheerful answer. 
 
 " Do sing something lively," she woidd say of an evening when 
 Mrs. Carruthers sat down to play one of her glorious symphonies ; 
 a terrible weariness would be on her when Meg sung some of her 
 old favourites — "Eve's Lament" or "Angels ever bright and 
 fair" — but no one coidd get Meg to lay aside her sacred music now. 
 Rotha would take her place sometimes and sing old-fashioned 
 ballads in her fresh young voice ; it came somewhat flatly after 
 Meg's grand music, to be siu-e. " It is rather like hearing the 
 twittering of birds after service," the Vicar would say in his droll 
 way, but I think ihey all loved the girl's voice. Belle would ask 
 faintly for "Auld Robin Gray" or "My Mother bids me bind my 
 hair;" the last she was never tired of hearing. "Those are not 
 very gay songs, Bella darling," Robert woidd say with a smile ; he 
 rather preferred Meg's selections. Rotha would go back to the
 
 262 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 music-stool again and again ; she knew why Meg's anthems jarred 
 on the sick nerves. What if no chord of Belle's nature thrilled in 
 unison with their sublime lessons of faith and resignation, still 
 clinging as she was with a breaking heart to the objects of her 
 earthly love % 
 
 "Will any one sing?" It grew a habit with her to say this, 
 and so it came to pass that Rotha no longer needed the Vicar's 
 invitation ; and even Robert looked to her presence of an evening 
 as a necessary ingredient to Belle's pleasm-e — Belle, who, since the 
 day of their reconciliation, had never again repelled her advances, 
 
 Rotha was able to watch her very closely therefore, and this 
 was the result of her watching. She was convinced that up to a 
 certain point Belle knew the truth about herself, and that she was 
 bent on concealing her knowledge for some purpose of her own. 
 Rotha shuddered at the thought of those dreary pilgrimages to the 
 Infirmary ; she used to wonder how Belle got there. Mr. Greenock 
 had the reputation of being a very clever man, but, as he said him- 
 self, he was no alarmist. It was just possible, therefore, he might 
 confirm Belle in her blindness, and that she might scarcely know 
 the extent of her danger. But if this were not so, and BeEe really 
 understood the grave natiu-e of her symptoms, she might possibly 
 be deriving great benefit from the proper remedies, which the 
 surgeon's skill would be sure to devise. 
 
 To betray this secret of Belle's seemed to Rotha perfectly use- 
 less. She knew her quite well enough by this time to be sure that 
 such interference on her part would never be forgiven. Not that 
 such a motive alone would have influenced her; but she knew 
 that if she told Mrs. Ord, Mary would at once inform the Vicar and 
 Robert. Every one would be up in arms ; Mr. Greenock would be 
 consulted ; the real nature of the mysterious malady would cer- 
 tainly be known ; but the result would be such a fit of angry 
 obstinacy on Belle's part that it would be doubtful where the 
 mischief would end. No, no ; she must let things take their course 
 a little longer ; if matters grew worse, she might take upon herself 
 to speak. 
 
 Rotha's intention was good, but it was the reasoning of inex- 
 perience. She was ignorant of the nature of Belle's disease \ it never 
 occurred to her that contact with the sharp northern breezes was 
 as injurious to her physical frame as the secret strain on her spirits 
 was to her mental frame. It might be that the doctor's skill 
 would be brought to bear in vain on the overwrought mind and 
 body, reacting on each other so lamentably. If Rotha had spoken 
 out, doubtless the result would have been exactly as she prophesied, 
 and there would have been much bitter work to go through with
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 263 
 
 Belle, but it would have answered better in the end ; a great deal 
 of precious time would not have been lost, and Robert Ord would 
 have been spared the heavy remorse that was to embitter his life 
 for so long. 
 
 But, if Rotha made this mistake, she was nobly to atone for it ; 
 her secret imeasiness and a few words that Mrs. Ord had dropped 
 in her trouble led her to form all sorts of impracticable and gener- 
 ous projects for Belle's relief; tiU at last, one of these appearing 
 rather more tangible and worthy of trial than the others, it was 
 determined to put it to the proof without delay. 
 
 " If things are allowed to go on like this," Mrs. Ord had said 
 to her, "I shall not have a sister long; Belle will go into a 
 decline." 
 
 And it was during the long sorrowful conversation that followed 
 these words that Rotha proposed that change of scene and a 
 milder climate should be tried for Belle. 
 
 " If I can only get your brother-in-law's consent," finished 
 Rotha, " the thing can be done without delay. She will not 
 listen to such a plan from us, I know, but a word from him will 
 do it." 
 
 " Yes ; if he will only say tlie word," sighed Mary. 
 
 " He will if you put it before him properly ; could not the 
 Vicar speak to him, dear Mrs. Ord 1 He might tell him that we 
 would go wherever he thought best — the Isle of Wight, or Devon- 
 shire, or even the south of France, and if you liked Laurie might 
 go with us too ;" for just now Mary chose to believe that Laurie 
 was delicate. 
 
 " Oh, Rotha, how good you are !" said the mother gratefully ; 
 and then there was an instant's silence, dm-ing which Mary tiu-ned 
 over the project in her mind; in her eyes it seemed without a 
 single flaw. 
 
 "But I shaU never dare to speak to Robert," she said, shaking 
 her head mournfully. " I have no influence over him now. The 
 time was when he would listen to a word from ' Mother Mary,' as 
 he called me ; that was when Belle and he were first engaged, and 
 I used to think him the dearest fellow in the world ; but now — 
 oh, Rotha, I never saw a man so altered ;" and Mary looked so 
 sad and so unlike herself that Rotha hastened to console her. 
 
 "Never mind about speaking to him," she said; "perhaps it 
 woidd be better for me to do the whole thing myself ; a stranger 
 can sometimes put a thing more strongly, and I think he is too 
 just to let his personal dislike interfere with Belle's good." 
 
 "But supposing he does not consider it for her goodT' inter- 
 rupted Mary ; she was very despondent about the whole affair.
 
 264 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " He is as blind now as a man in liis proper senses can be, and he 
 is just as likely to throw cold water on your generous offer as not. 
 Talk of pride — the proudest Ord that ever lived could not hold a 
 candle to him." 
 
 " Never mind, I will try," returned Rotha bravely ; she was 
 very frightened at the thought of the task she had undertaken, 
 but she would not hear of cold water for a moment. " I suppose 
 I would as soon take a bull by the horns," she finished, with an 
 attempt at a smile; "but I mean to carry it through." 
 
 Rotha spoke of her plan very quietly in discussing it with 
 Mrs. Ord, but it was the greatest sacrifice she had made in 
 her life. Kirkby was just now especially dear to her, and the 
 thought of leaving it, perhaps for months, was very bitter ; it was 
 simply banishment from all she loved, and that was not all, — the 
 charge she contemplated was in itself somewhat overwhelming; 
 how was she to nurse a person of Belle's unhappy disposition % and 
 yet she would be responsible for such nursing. Belle was at all 
 times difficult to manage, and Rotha had very honest doubts as to 
 her own powers of management. 
 
 "Perhaps, when we are alone together, she might be more 
 sociable and allow me to do things for her," she said to herself 
 as she pondered over these difiiculties; "but anyhow I am the 
 only one who can go with her. I wish I were more fit for such a 
 responsibility." 
 
 Poor generous -hearted Rotha — but it was just these things 
 which tested tie girl's nobleness — the basis of her whole nature 
 was self-sacrifice. 
 
 The woman who, if she had had the power, would most certainly 
 have had the magnanimity to beggar herself for her enemies would 
 assm-edly not scruple at any personal self-denial that might benefit 
 her friends. To see a duty clearly and to try and perform it was 
 a natural sequence with Rotha. It was this singleness of aim, 
 this great-heartedness — if there be such a word — that first won the 
 Vicar's respect for her. He told Mary one day that she was at 
 once the weakest and the strongest woman he had ever seen. 
 
 It had come into her heart to return good for evil in her deal- 
 ings with Robert Ord, and no amount of Ul usage upon his part 
 could move her from her purpose. Robert Ord's pride literally 
 shrank from the scorching of her coals of fire ; her gentleness was 
 pitiless cruelty to him. It was this recognition of her strength for 
 good that brought out all his latent obstinacy. It grew to be a 
 neck-and-neck race between them; but as the stars of heaven 
 fought against Sisera, so circumstances fought against Robert Ord 
 and forced hiin to succumb at last to a woman's hand — when big
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 265 
 
 will was divided against itself, and the man sat down in his weak- 
 ness and gloried in it. 
 
 Eotha said nothing about her regrets to Mary. A little shrink- 
 ing consciousness kept her silent on that point ; but she put the 
 whole scheme in such a bright light that Mrs. Ord was quite 
 cheered. The only ditficulty was in the impossibility of Rotha 
 ever finding an opportunity for a private talk with Robert. He 
 never came to the Vicarage till tea was over, and then he went 
 straight into the drawing-room, where they were all assembled. 
 Rotha coidd neither seek him at his own house nor ask him to 
 Bryn. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know how we are to manage it," said Mrs. 
 Ord helplessly, "unless you are to waylay him in the passage;" 
 but Rotha had a better plan than that. She knew he came home 
 from Thornborough on Saturday at an early hour in the afternoon, 
 and she resolved to go and meet him. 
 
 " I think the sea-wall would be a better place of rendezvous 
 than the draughty passage," she said, trying to look very brave ; 
 but she felt rather like a mouse trying on a lion's skin — it was. such 
 a gigantic purpose, and then the skin was such a tough one. 
 
 How she liated the very thought of Saturday ; but she was 
 not going to flinch for all that. Every time Belle coughed she 
 felt convinced her plan was a wise one. 
 
 "She wants sunshine and change of air," she thought. "It 
 is so dreadfully bleak up here." 
 
 At the appointed hour she was pacing up and down the sea- 
 wall like a sentinel on duty, and looking not very unlike a mouse 
 — with plenty of soft fur outside and many inward shivers within. 
 She had a fresh shiver every time she saw a tall man in the dis- 
 tance, and then she chafed and grew hot because he was late. 
 She knew that he always came home by the way of the sea-wall. 
 She had kept a strict look-out, but yet she feared she had missed 
 him. No ; there he was, in his brown overcoat, looking straight 
 before him, as he always did, as though he were challenging some 
 distant object. 
 
 Of course he stopped to accost her, and of course Rotha stopped 
 too ; the time had gone by when he would pass her with a slight 
 bow ; since then there had been much surface intercourse between 
 them, and Robert was always extremely civil — he was very civil 
 now, exceedingly s*). 
 
 " It is rather a cold afternoon for a walk," he remarked, with 
 a smile. Rotha, when she was more than usually provoked, 
 always said Robert had a special smile for her. When asked to 
 describe it, she would turn round and demand " if you had seen
 
 266 ROBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 an icicle trying to thaw — and failing?" she would add when par- 
 ticularly severe. This frosty smile was a matter of course, but 
 that he should add that she looked pale and tired was rather sur- 
 prising — it almost took her breath away. 
 
 "I suppose I am somewhat tired," she returned hurriedly; "I 
 have been waiting for you such a long time." It was his turn now 
 to look astonished. 
 
 "Waiting for me! Is anything the matter?" as a sudden 
 thought turned him chill. 
 
 " Anything the matter — no, not more than usual. It is only 
 a slight favour that I am going to ask you. Do you mind return- 
 ing by the sands, there are so many people about here ?" She 
 spoke in a quick nervous manner, as she often did to him, but her 
 movement left him no choice. When a lady tells a gentleman 
 that there are so many people about, he may be sure she has some- 
 thing very important for his private ear ; and therefore, much as 
 he disliked having business with Miss Matmin, he could do no less 
 than assist her civiUy down the sandy bank and wait for her to 
 explain herself; he could not well remonstrate in words, whatever 
 he might do in manner. 
 
 " Don't you find this soft sand very unpleasant ?" he remarked 
 in a voice that told Rotha very plainly that he did. He had pro- 
 mised BeUe an afternoon's reading, and he had brought a book by 
 her favourite author, and this lengthened detour by the sea did 
 not please him at all ; but Rotha pointed to a crisp line lying 
 apparently right out to sea. " The sand is qmte hard and firm 
 out there, and the tide is going out. I never walk in these sandy 
 ruts if I can help it," and she began to walk very quickly and 
 decidedly towards a range of salt-water pools with rugged step- 
 ping stones thrown in here and there. Robert Ord, as he followed 
 her, felt compelled to admire the agility with which she sprang 
 over the slippery rocks. "Now we are on terra firma, and I can 
 talk," she said as they gained the slip of sand. They were on a 
 long island now ; the waves came lapping in with a little splash 
 and gurgle ; a gray line of sea closed in everywhere ; the sky over- 
 head had a faint red light in it. In the west a great crimson sun 
 hung like a ball of fire ; a rough wind swept over the surface of 
 the sluggish pools ; black drifts of seaweed lay everywhere. Rotha, 
 walking very swiftly, turned her face to him and began : 
 
 " I daresay you think it very strange of me to waylay you like 
 this ; I never can do things as other people do, however much I 
 try." Then Robert essayed another frosty smile — a gentleman 
 cannot always say the truth to a lady ; nevertheless, he thought it 
 very strange indeed.
 
 DO WN ON THE SANDS. 267 
 
 " I had no other opportunity of speakhig to you alone, and 
 every day is so important, and then one cannot ask such a favour 
 as that in a moment." 
 
 " I thought you said it was a slight one," he retorted. He 
 could not resist the pleasure of taking up her words, though he 
 knew it made her nervous — it made her nervous now. 
 
 "I suppose it is a great one, after all," she returned very 
 hvunbly ; " for I am going to ask you to entrust something very 
 precious to me, Mr. Ord — we are all growing so very anxious 
 about Belle." 
 
 Now, if he had not flurried her so, Rotha would hardly have 
 constructed her sentence in that way ; one cannot pick and choose 
 one's words in a flurry. Of course he took umbrage at her calling 
 Miss Clinton Belle, and still more at her using the pronoun " we." 
 " She seems determined to make herself one of the family," was 
 his inward comment. " I wonder if she thinks we are all as blind 
 as he is ;" which enigmatical thought must be unriddled by and by. 
 
 "About Belle!" he repeated, elongating every letter till it 
 seemed a separate syllable, "anxious about B-e-1-l-e !" 
 
 Rotha, who felt she had compromised herself in some way, 
 went on hurriedly, " Is it possible, Mr. Ord, that you do not see 
 how really ill she is % I know she tries to conceal her sufferings 
 from you, but indeed you must not allow yourself to be so blinded." 
 Her tone was very earnest, almost solemn, but Robert interrupted 
 her angrily : 
 
 " Blinded ! That is just what Mary says; how one woman will 
 use another woman's words ! If you listen to all Mary's exaggera- 
 tions you will have enough to do, Miss Matiu'ln. I suppose she 
 has asked you to come and tell me this ; but I warn you that I 
 am tfot easily frightened." 
 
 "I can see that you consider it a liberty," retm-ned Rotha iu 
 a low voice. " You are always so ready to misunderstand me. 
 Mrs. Ord has not sent me ; I have come of my own accord, be- 
 cause I thought that a stranger " — laying an emphasis on the word 
 — "might more easily open your eyes." 
 
 " You mean cure my blindness ?" returned Robert sarcastically. 
 
 " Yes ; if you prefer that term," and then she hesitated for a 
 moment, as though at a loss how to proceed. " You are making 
 my task a very difficult one for me, but I expected that. I knew 
 you would resent my interference ; but I have begim to love Miss 
 Clinton very dearly, and I have grown to be so very, very sorry 
 for her that I could no longer keep silence." 
 
 " Belle ought to be very much obliged," began Robert in the 
 same sarcastic tone ; but Rotha stopped him.
 
 268 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Belle understands me now. She will know I mean kindly. 
 Mr. Ord, please do me this favour. Try to forget that it is I who 
 am speaking to you, and listen to me, if it be only for her sake. 
 I do fear — I begin to fear greatly, that she is more iU than you 
 believe her to be." 
 
 " There I differ from you," he returned decidedly. " Miss 
 Maturin, I put it to yoxu: good sense ; if Belle were as ill as you 
 make out, would she refuse to see a doctor ?" 
 
 Rotha paused. What would he say if he knew that Belle was 
 an out-patient of the Blackscar Infirmary ? 
 
 " I don't think your criterion is a good one," she replied at 
 last. " Miss Clinton is one who would endure a martyrdom rather 
 than own her sufferings. I have heard of certain animals who 
 always hide away from their kind when they are wounded. I 
 think Miss Clinton would do the same." 
 
 " She is not a woman who complains if her finger aches," 
 returned Robert sharply. Rotha sighed at his evident in- 
 credulity. 
 
 " No ; she never complains. You are right there. It is only 
 we who have watched her know that she has sleepless nights ; that 
 she eats next to nothing ; that the pain in her side is at times 
 intolerable ; and that she can get no rest by night and day, 
 from her harassing cough. Mr. Ord, you say you are not easily 
 frightened ; I think you would be if you saw how ghastly she 
 looks sometimes." 
 
 " Mary has contrived to frighten you, that is certain," he 
 returned somewhat impatiently. " Poor Belle ! I don't think 
 she woidd thank you for exaggerating all her little symptoms to 
 me, Miss Maturin. I am sure you mean it kindly ; but you do 
 not know Belle as well as I do. She has never been strong." 
 
 "Never, Mr. Ord!" 
 
 " No, not for many years, I suppose circumstances have some- 
 what tried her ; but she never lost her spirits so completely till 
 this summer. To add to her depression she has a bad feverish 
 cold. I think that is about the long and short of it." 
 
 Rotha shook her head. 
 
 "You have not accounted for the pain in her side, Mr. 
 Ord." 
 
 " She has had that for years," he returned eagerly. " It is 
 only rather worse lately. You talk of her sleepless nights and 
 loss of appetite ; Belle never was a good sleeper, she is nervous 
 too, and her close confinement to the house these few last weeks 
 has destroyed her appetite. Her malady is a bad feverish cold, 
 you may depend upon it."
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 269 
 
 "Cannot you induce her to see a doctor?" pleaded Rotha. 
 Like Mary, she could have wrung her hands over his blindness. 
 
 " By and by," was the somewhat evasive answer. 
 
 Then, in despair, Rotha tried upon another tack. 
 
 "I think Blackscar does not suit her," she said presently; 
 "these northern winds are so piercing." And Rotha gave a little 
 shiver. 
 
 " That is because you are not acclimatised," was the response. 
 " Belle has lived here more than half her life. She likes a bracing 
 atmosphere ; I have often heard her say so." 
 
 " People do not know what is best for them," said Rotha 
 quickly. "One may get uneasy even about a feverish cold. I 
 will not beat about the bush any more, Mr. Ord, for it seems that 
 we can never agree. I am not very old, and I do not understand 
 nursing ; but, nevertheless, I am going to ask you to trust Miss 
 Clinton to me for a little while." 
 
 "To you!" he repeated in a tone of displeased astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes ; to me. I -wanted Mrs. Ord to tell you all about our 
 plans, and she would not \ she thought I ought to speak to you 
 myself. We would go anywhere you wished, Mr. Ord — to Ventnor 
 or Torquay, or to the south of France ; it does not matter where, 
 so that you will let her go. I promise you I would care for her ; 
 I would indeed, as though she were my own sister." 
 
 " This is a very extraordinary proposal," muttered Robert, and 
 then he walked on in displeased silence. Would she never under- 
 stand that he loathed her gifts and her kindness % He knew all 
 about Tyler and Tyler's now. She was going to surfeit them with 
 her patronage — them, the Ords ! It would not be too much to 
 say that the coal-bill literally suffocated him ; and now she wanted 
 to extend her patronage to him and Belle. Belle's ill health was 
 to make his life a bm-then to him ; she would take her to the south 
 of France, anywhere — to Madeira, perhaps, or Meutone. What 
 was money and time to her % 
 
 "WelH" said Rotha wearily. She had only been a short 
 half-hoiu- with him, but her face was utterly changed, the freshness 
 and dimples all faded — she looked, as she felt, sick at heart ; they 
 had passed the chain of pools now and were toiling up the sandy 
 ruts by the rabbit-warren. "WelH" she reiterated, and then he 
 forced himself ta speak. 
 
 " I cannot say that I quite approve of your plan," he returned 
 coldly; "but, all tlie same, I feel I ought to thank you." 
 
 " Why do you nut approve of it V she inquired ; then again he 
 was silent.
 
 270 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Is it because you are afraid to trust Miss Clinton to my care 
 — that you are unwilling to part with her ? Mr. Ord, I did not 
 think you could be so selfish." 
 
 That stung him in a moment. 
 
 " You have no right to say that," he returned angrily. " I am 
 not thinking of myself. Miss Clinton may go if she please." 
 
 " Do you think she will go against your wishes 1" 
 
 " You must take your chance of that," he replied coldly ; " I 
 shall certainly not argue against my conscience. I do not believe 
 Miss Clinton to be as ill as you and Mary make out. I suppose 
 I have my own opinion, and my opinion is that her disease is partly 
 mental. I don't think a prolonged absence from those she loves 
 best, and the society of strangers " — again a stress on the word — 
 " will conduce materially to her well-being ; but I have no objection 
 to her trying it." 
 
 "You have every objection, you mean," exclaimed Rotha 
 indignantly ; she could not quite keep her temper — never had he 
 been so provoking. " Wliy do you not say at once that none of 
 your belongings shall ever be entrusted to my, care 1 Why not speak 
 out plainly and tell me this V 
 
 " Because I cannot be so churlish to a lady. Miss Maturin, 
 why will you always force me to say unpleasant things? You 
 know that nothing will induce me to accept a favour at your hands; 
 but, as you choose to accuse me of selfishness, I shall certainly not 
 stand in Belle's light ; she may go with you if she like." 
 
 "Do you think she will go without a word from you? One 
 word will do it, remember ; she trusts me now. Mr. Ord, you 
 have made me so angry that I do not know how to entreat you ; 
 yet for Belle's sake I would entreat you, if I could, to say that 
 word." 
 
 " You may spare yoiu- entreaties," he replied, still more coldly ; 
 "for I shall certainly not persuade her. How do I know whether 
 such a course will be for her good 1 Miss Maturin, I cannot help 
 it if you and Mary will misunderstand my motives." 
 
 " I understand you," she repeated sadly. " I feel as though I 
 have known you for a hundred years, and that in all those hundred 
 years you had never said a kind word to me, as you never will — 
 as I feel you never will." 
 
 "Another home truth," he rephed bitterly. Her reproach 
 seemed to sting him with sudden pain ; his brow grew darker as 
 they went toiling up among the sand-hills of the warren ; now and 
 then Rotha stumbled wearily over the grassy ruts. 
 
 " How tired I am !" she said suddenly, with a tremble of the 
 lip like a child ; " but then you always tire me so."
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 271 
 
 " I am sorry to hear it," he replied coldly. " Pray allow me 
 to offer you my arm," and he extended it as he spoke, but he was 
 not prepared for the fire that flashed from her eyes. 
 
 " I would rather walk till I dropped — till I died," she returned, 
 " than take your arm." 
 
 Her face was crimson with shame when she had said it ; she 
 was hot and cold all over ; that she shoidd be betrayed into passion 
 with him, that she should have spoken to one of them in that way ! 
 Oh, if she could only throw her arms roimd Mary's neck and confess 
 her sin; she was so miserable, so very miserable. Robert had 
 made her no answer ; he had dropped his arm and was walking a 
 little way apart. What woidd she have said if she had known 
 that he Uked her all the better for the speech 1 It was as though 
 an angry dove had suddenly flown into his face and startled him. 
 It was her unchanging gentleness that had always goaded him so ; 
 it made him feel so desperately in the wrong. Yes ; he was sure 
 he liked her the better for her petulance. When he next spoke his 
 voice was quite gentle. 
 
 " I think you have had your say," he returned, with a smile 
 that was not at all frosty; "supposing, as you are tired, that we 
 go home, it is getting quite dark now." 
 
 Then Rotha tm-ned her hot face to him very humbly. 
 
 " I think I should ask you to forgive me, if there were any 
 hope of your doing so," she said, with the sweet dignity that 
 belonged to her. 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive," he returned quietly ; " I like 
 you all the better for your speech ; I deserved it for provoking you. 
 You and I never can get on together. Miss Maturin ; we are always 
 making each other sore ; but I had no right to be so savage with 
 you just now." 
 
 He wanted to hear her speak again, but she only gave him an 
 odd wistful look full of yearning pain. Why was it that, with all 
 her happiness, she longed so intensely for this man to be her friend ? 
 And he — did he really hate her as much as he thought he did ? Was 
 this bitter antagonism, this strife of words, bred only out of his 
 hatred and his pride 1 
 
 He wanted her to speak again, and yet he carped at her every 
 word ; in one short half-hour he had run the gaimtlet of his passion; 
 he was even more fiercely weary than she. 
 
 " I will mentk)n your plan to Belle when I get home," he said, 
 trying to rouse her from her apathy. 
 
 Her white face and weary bearing seemed to reproach him more 
 every moment ; that cursed temper of his — why could he not keep 
 his sarcastic tongue within bounds 1 That very patronage tliat
 
 272 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 irritated liim so was meant kindly. She looked so footsore and 
 tired that if he dared he would have offered his arm again. Once 
 he did put out his hand to save her from a deep rut, but she shook 
 off his touch almost unconsciously. 
 
 " Perhaps Belle had better give her answer herself," he con- 
 tinued still more gently, as he noticed the movement. 
 
 "No," answered Rotha, looking hopelessly across the long dim 
 waste that lay before her ; " there is no need for any talk between 
 her and me. I have promised Mrs. Ord to come up this evening, 
 and then you can tell me yom'self." The plan had lost all its 
 interest to her now. 
 
 There was very little more talk between them, and at the gates 
 of Bryn they parted. Rotha told Meg she was tired to death, and 
 shortly afterwards went up to her own room, and Robert went to 
 the Vicarage and sat down beside Belle, but he did not at once 
 open his book. 
 
 " I have something to tell you first," he said, and then and 
 there he told her of Rotha's plan. 
 
 "How kind — how very kind !" murmiu-ed Belle, and a faint 
 colom- came to her faded cheek — a touch of the old lovely colour ; 
 this new tlioughtfulness on Rotha's part filled her with astonish- 
 ment and gratitude. As Robert talked, a feeling of hopefulness 
 crept into her heart — might it really be that the disease could be 
 arrested 1 She had heard of wonderful cures at Mentone ; it was 
 a long way certainly, but if he wished it. Rotha was right when 
 she told Robert Ord that one word from him would do it. 
 
 Robert had repeated Rotha's words very correctly, and no one 
 could have found faidt with his manner, although it might have 
 been slightly deficient in warmth. He put before Belle all the 
 advantages and disadvantages of the scheme as he saw them him- 
 self ; this thing was practicable and worthy of consideration, but 
 another would not do for a moment. 
 
 "Now, I must leave you to decide for yourself," he said ; and 
 Belle, waking up from a rose-coloured dream, missed a certain 
 enthusiasm in his voice. 
 
 "But what do you wish, Robert?" she asked, looking full at 
 him. " Of course I shall not go Avithout your consent." 
 
 " You have my consent, certainly," he returned, but his manner 
 was decidedly cold. 
 
 " And your approval, I suppose 1 I mean that you wish me 
 to go." 
 
 " Nay, Belle, that is putting it too strongly, my dear. Of 
 course I cannot be enthusiastic at the thought of our being sepa- 
 rated perhaps for months, but if you think it will bo of benefit to
 
 DOWN ON THE SANDS. 273 
 
 yoiir health, I am very willing for you to try it, and doubtless Miss 
 Maturin will take good care of you ; but it is a long way." 
 
 His voice was very affectionate, but Belle understood him in a 
 moment. 
 
 "He does not care about accepting such a favour from her," she 
 thought; "but she is kind, very kind. You are right," she said 
 aloud, " it is a long way ; and — no, no — I cannot go !" Her eyes 
 grew feverish, and for a moment she held his hand convulsively 
 between her own. 
 
 "But, Belle !" he remonstrated. 
 
 "No, no; I have decided. I can see you do not wish it in 
 your heart. I never meant to go away from you — never, Bertie. 
 Don't let us talk of it any more, dear ; now read to me a little 
 because my head aches so." 
 
 He coiild not refuse her, and so he opened the book; but, as he 
 read, the sentences were meaningless to him. Do what he would, 
 he could not feel easy with himself. She had told him that one 
 word from him would do it, and he knew what she meant; but he 
 also knew that no such word had been spoken. All the time he 
 had been conscious that his manner betrayed him, and that his 
 words lacked enthusiasm. What if the time shoidd come when not 
 one word, but a hundred, would hardly suffice to get her from his 
 side \ What if he must loose her clinging arms with his own 
 hands and pray her, for her dear love, to leave him ? 
 
 What are the shadows that darken Robert Ord's face as he sits 
 reading by the firelights They are not caused by the story he 
 reads, pathetic as it is. No — he is down on the shore again. 
 There are the gray salt pools stretching into watery chains, with 
 their tangle of slimy seaweed. Far out to sea the black rocks lie 
 lUihidden and bedded in slime. Faint creeping shadows haunt the 
 sand-hills ; their green tops look rugged and bare ; a rough wind 
 rushes to meet them as they plough their way through the coarse 
 vegetation. A slim tall figure by his side goes swiftly on. What 
 does he hear 1 
 
 " I would rather walk till I dropped — till I died — than take 
 your arm." 
 
 Were those the words she used % How her eyes flashed with 
 brown fbre ! He could see her tremble as she said it. 
 
 "Robert, how tired your voice sounds to-night!" says Belle 
 tenderly. 
 
 Yes, he is tired ; there is a terrible ache at bis heart, which 
 he cannot understand. By and by, when Belle speaks again to him, 
 he closes his book and sits beside her moodily. What's this weight 
 that has suddenly fallen upon him 1 
 
 18
 
 274 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "I feel as though I have known you for a hundred j^ears, and 
 that in all those hundred j'ears you have never spoken a kind word 
 to me." 
 
 With what pitiless sweetness the voice breaks in upon him ! 
 Oh, darkening shadows of the coming years, how does Robert Ord 
 read them ? Listen to a word of his said as he sat alone in a 
 strange homestead in a foreign city : 
 
 " Oh, fool, fool that I have been ! Do men gather grapes of 
 thistles ? She is right ; I have * sown the wind, to reap the whirl- 
 wind,' and have richly deserved my harvest."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 BTJRNLEY-UPON-SEA. 
 
 " The two walk till the purple dieth 
 
 And short dry grass under foot is brown ; 
 But one little streak at a distance lieth 
 Green, like a ribbon — to prank the down. 
 
 " Over the grass we stepped unto it, 
 
 And God knoweth how blithe we were ! 
 Never a voice to bid us escliew it : 
 
 Hey the green ribbon that showed so fair. 
 
 " Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sung to us, 
 Light was our talk as of faery bells — 
 Faery wedding bells, faintly rung to us, 
 Down in their fortunate parallels. 
 
 " Hand in hand, while the sun peered over, 
 
 We lapped the grass on tliat youngling spring ; 
 Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover, 
 And said, 'let us follow it westering.' " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 RoTHA never spoke to any one about her conversation with Robert 
 OH. 
 
 " I have tried my best, but of course I have foiled," was all the 
 explanation she ventured to Mrs. Ord ; but the hurt coloiu' had 
 risen to her face, and she looked so troubled that Mary, with great 
 delicacy, forbore to question her. 
 
 Something jarred sadly just now in Rotha's sweet nature ; since 
 that afternoon on the sands — nearly a week — she had never volun- 
 tarily mentioned Robert's name. It was apparent even to others 
 that she shunned him ; she could not bear to acknowledge even to 
 herself that he had wounded her past her usual patience, and in 
 her heart she trfed to forgive him, but it had been very hard. It 
 was thei-efore a strong proof of her magnanimity and the tenacity 
 of lier will that she was set more than ever on doing him good in 
 spite of himself, and such was the fixity of her jnu-pose that the 
 man, with all his pride and obstinacy, had no chance against her.
 
 276 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Experience was teaching her some useful lessons, however. He 
 would accept no favour at her hands — that was what he had told 
 her ; well, and was she not to blame 1 She had been too blunt 
 hitherto in her offers of help ; a little subtlety of stratagem might 
 be advisable in raising such a heavy weight. It might not be 
 possible to be both lever and fulcrum at one and the same time, 
 but at least might it not be within her power to set other agents 
 at work 1 Eotha's girlish wits were hard at work again, and it 
 was not long before the opportunity she sought presented itself. 
 
 Just about this time Rotha received another invitation to Mrs. 
 Stephen Knowles', to one of her far-famed dinners d, la Russe; and 
 Mrs. Stephen Knowles, whose soul delighted to honour the young 
 heiress, intended to gather an assembly of the choicest spirits that 
 Blackscar and its neighboiuhood could afford, and it was to be a 
 very grand affair indeed. 
 
 Rotha, who was much oppressed by the magnitude of the pro- 
 ceedings, being, in spite of her little pomposities, the humblest 
 ■ creature possible, was in great trepidation, and said a great many 
 naughty things to Mrs. Ord about Kirkby and Blackscar, and Mrs. 
 Stephen Knowles in particular, killing the fatted calf in her behalf ; 
 at which Mrs. Ord laughed and scolded in a breath. 
 
 " If the fatted calf has been killed, it must be eaten," Mrs. Ord 
 affirmed with emphasis, and therefore Rotha must have a new 
 dress ; for Mary was always lectm-ing her friend on the duty of 
 keeping up an appearance suitable to her station, and Rotha, who 
 knew that Mary only acted as the Vicar's mouthpiece, and who 
 remembered his rebuke as to the lack of ornament on the night of 
 the tea-party, had consented to lay aside much of her enforced 
 simplicity. 
 
 On this occasion a pink dress was the result of Mary's eloquence 
 — actually a pink dress. But even then Rotha had refused to 
 deck her pretty white neck and arms with the Ord jewels. " I 
 shall wear flowers," was her sole answer to her friend's rebuke. " I 
 feel already something like the ugly duckling transformed into the 
 swan in this gaudy djess ; I don't believe I am Rotha Maturin at 
 all. I am almost glad, after all, that you and the Vicar will not be 
 there to see me." But Rotha, as she uttered this little bit of girlish 
 silliness, was glad that she looked so young and fair in the pink 
 dress, and went off quite happily when Meg and Mary had admired 
 her to their heart's content ; and it was certain that no one at Mrs. 
 Stephen Knowles' missed the lack of jewels. 
 
 Most of the guests were strangers to Rotha. The only name 
 she recognised, with the exception of one or two of her Blackscar 
 neighbours, was ]\Ir. Ramsay of Strettou.
 
 B URNLE V- UPON- SEA . 211 
 
 Rotha knew all about Mr. Ramsay of Stretton. The wealthy 
 ironmaster was a man of great repute in the neighbourhood ; but 
 it was not the thought of his vast capital that filled her with such 
 interest. She knew it was Emma Ramsay who had been Belle's 
 unsuccessful rival, and how Robert Ord had refused to barter his 
 love for any fabulous number of thousands. "Noble fellow!" 
 thought Rotha, with a sudden warm impulse ; but nevertheless she 
 felt a little surprise when she saw Emma. There was no accounting 
 for tastes certainly, and perhaps at that time Belle Clinton had 
 been very beautiful, and not at all faded ; but she thought Emma 
 the brightest-looking girl she had ever seen. 
 
 Yes, Emma Ramsay was there — Lady Tregarthen she was 
 now ; for the ironmaster, disappointed in his first choice of a son- 
 in-law, had married his sole remaining child to a young Welsh 
 baronet, Sir Edgar Tregarthen, a young man, very sturdy as to 
 pedigree and very small of person, but a well-meaning young fellow 
 on the main. 
 
 Rotha fraternised with Lady Tregarthen after dinner, Emma 
 was a very pretty little matron now, thoroughly content with her- 
 self, and disposed to think her Edgar the very impersonification of 
 all that a man ought to be. She took a fancy to Rotha, and made 
 her promise to come over to Stretton, where she was now staying 
 with her father, and Mr. Ramsay afterwards endorsed his daughter's 
 invitation. Rotha liked them both very much indeed ; but she 
 liked the father best. She admired the ironmaster's strong hard- 
 featured face ; his manners were a little uncultivated perhaps, but 
 there was a downright sterling honesty about the man that capti- 
 vated Rotha. He had sat beside her at dinner, and then, and 
 afterwards, he had been much disposed to talk about the Ords ; he 
 seemed especially interested in what she told him about Robert 
 Ord. 
 
 " He is a good fellow — I believe a thoroughly good fellow," he 
 said, returning to the subject, when he had brought his cup of tea 
 to the sofa, where Lady Tregarthen and she sat chatting; "but 
 he is a man who will stand in his own light all his life, foolish 
 fellow. He might have been driving in his own carriage by this 
 time if he had consented to listen to any one's advice but his own." 
 Lady Tregarthen, who had been talking volubly up to this moment, 
 looked up at her father a little reproachfully as he said this, and, 
 whether intentionally or not, rose to join her husband, who was at 
 that minute talking to his hostess ; but Mr. Ramsay did not seem 
 to notice his daughter's slight hauteur, he only slipped into the 
 vacant seat beside Rotha and went on with the same subject. 
 
 "He was handsome enough then to have married any one,"
 
 278 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 he continued, as though pursuing a train of thought — "a fine 
 manly fellow, every inch of him ; half the girls were in love with 
 him, I believe. And then he had such brains ; they would have 
 been a capital to any other man. He was just fit to be the head 
 
 of a large concern, as he would have been if he and Emma 
 
 By the bye, Miss Maturin, did you tell me he was managing clerk 
 to Broughton and Clayton T' 
 
 "Yes, Broughton and Clayton of Thornborough," replied Rotha. 
 " It is a miserable prospect for him and Miss Clinton; for I believe 
 he only has a salary of a little over two hundred a year, and they 
 have been engaged for nearly five years already." And Rotha 
 sighed as she thought of Robert Ord's haggard looks and Belle's 
 faded beauty. 
 
 Mr. Ramsay gave a grunt of displeasure. 
 
 " Serve him right. What business had he to be so headstrong, 
 and turn his aunt against him, as he did ? She was a termagant, 
 I grant you, but he was her match. Good heavens, Robert Ord 
 a managing clerk at Broughton and Clayton's — a trumpery concern 
 like that ! And Broughton has two sons coming into the business, 
 I hear. That was another of his obstinate tricks, taking a situa- 
 tion in that way instead of waiting for his friends to help him." 
 
 " It is not easy to help Mr. Ord," began Rotha sorrowfully ; 
 but at that moment Mrs. Stephen Knowles had come up and 
 scolded Mr. Ramsay for his monopoly of Miss Maturin. And after 
 that there Avas no opportunity of renewing the conversation ; but 
 at parting ]\Ir. Ramsay shook hands with her very cordially, and 
 begged her to come and see his daughter at Stretton. 
 
 " It is only a drive of six or seven miles if you take the Leatham 
 road ; and you are obliged to air yoiu: horses, you know. By the 
 bye, is poor old Sphinx alive still — the bay mare, I mean?" 
 
 " Mrs. Ord's carriage and horses were disposed of after her 
 death. If I come to Stretton it will be by train, Mr. Ramsay," 
 returned Rotha quietly. 
 
 " Well, come any way, so that you come," was the good-natured 
 rejoinder; but Rotha saw that he was a little surprised never- 
 theless. 
 
 That night, as she sat alone over her fire reviewing the events 
 of the evening, she thought much of her conversation with Mr. 
 Ramsay, and of the strange interest he had evinced in Robert Ord. 
 
 " He has a powerful influence, if he could only be induced to 
 exert it in his favour," she said to herself; and there and then she 
 determined to go over to Stretton and plead Robert Ord's cause 
 with the man whose daughter he had refused to marry. 
 
 " Sir Edgar Tregarthen is a much better match than Robert
 
 B URNLE V- UP ON- SEA . 279 
 
 Ord," thought Rotha, who scarcely knew how the ironmaster had 
 coveted Robert Ord's brains. " I daresay he was a little sore 
 about it at first ; but by this time he must have forgiven him — 
 he looks so good-natured, and so does Lady Tregarthen." And 
 she thought for a moment that she woidd make Lady Tregarthen 
 her confidante. 
 
 Rotha slept upon her resolve, and a few days afterwards she 
 went over to Stretton. 
 
 Mr. Ramsay and his daughter received her warmly, and she 
 had a very pleasant visit. 
 
 "I have listened to all you have told me," Mr. Ramsay said 
 to her at parting, " and I i:»romise you that I will think over it. 
 It is easy to see you are on his side — all women are — but I tell 
 you this, that if it had not been for his confounded obstinacy he 
 might have been in my dead boy's place by this time : he was so 
 like poor Bob, too ; but there, it is no use fretting over spilt milk. 
 He has treated me very badly, but a man will have the choosing 
 of his own wife after all." 
 
 " And you will think over it," repeated Rotha timidly. 
 
 " Yes, I will," he retm-ned decidedly ; "I promise you as much 
 as that. But I am not the man to do things in a hurry, any more 
 than I do them by halves ; it is against my principles. I must 
 turn the thing well over in my mind first." 
 
 He considered a moment, and then went on : 
 
 "What sort of berth do you think will suit Robert Ord — 
 another place as manager in a larger concern, say at five hundi'ed 
 a year 1 Carter's not dead yet, but he might be superannuated ; 
 or the same post, with a still larger salary, in the house of a con- 
 nection of ours — Fullagrave and Barton's, who have a large branch 
 house in America. Fidlagrave writes us that they are in great 
 want of a man who is honest, and long-headed as w^ell; his Yankee 
 manager has turned out a failure." 
 
 " I think he woidd rather stay in England, for ]\Iiss Clinton's 
 sake," returned Rotha thoughtfully. 
 
 " Humph ! that comes of being tied to a sickly girl. In that 
 case we cannot do so much for him ; Carter may object to being 
 superannuated. Well, I'll think the matter over. I suppose, 
 though you are a woman, you can keep a quiet tongue in your head, 
 eh?" turning on her with good-humom'ed brusqueness. Rotha 
 laughingly assured him tliat she could. 
 
 "Well, well, you look dependable; and he is not to know who 
 has done him this good turn — very right, very proper, I understand. 
 Now, good-bye, if you must go. I'll undertake that Emma shall 
 not forget you," and the worthy ironmaster shook hands with
 
 280 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 her till her wrist was nearly dislocated. She was too happy to 
 heed the pain, however; all the way home she assured herself that 
 her mission was successful, and that, after all. Belle would get 
 better, and would be married perhaps in the early spring. 
 
 Rotha was thinking about her visit to Stretton and about all 
 manner of pleasant things one day when she was in an odd mood 
 for dreaming. 
 
 Rotha was sitting on the root of a tree in one of the glens of 
 Burnley -upon -Sea — the wild glen, as it was called; she and 
 Garton and Reuben were doing an afternoon's gipsying on their 
 own account, very much to the astonishment and scandal of Black- 
 scar and Kirkby, if they had known it, and somewhat to Mrs. 
 Carruthers' surprise. 
 
 Rotha was very simple for her age in some things, in spite of her 
 wise old-fashioned ways, and Garton was just as ridiculously inex- 
 perienced. Meg often called them a couple of children ; and, as far as 
 jfreshness and originality of idea and a certain chivalry of thought 
 were concerned, they were imdoubtedly an excellent match. 
 
 For they were both fond of ridiculing the world's fashions, 
 and they both retained an implicit belief in the goodness of human 
 nature, which was almost pathetic to older and wiser people. 
 
 Garton's creed was, that man was made in the image of God, 
 and that therefore there must be a certain amount of goodness in 
 every man, if you only knew where to find it. Rotha held the 
 same creed, with a private reservation of her own ; for she thought 
 the Divine Image must be entirely blotted out in such men as Joe 
 Armstrong and Jack Carruthers. 
 
 She told Garton horrible anecdotes of this latter hete noir. 
 I believe she regarded him as a sort of fiend incarnate. She drew 
 such touching pictures of Meg's love and gentleness that Garton 
 ever afterwards regarded that imgainly woman with the utmost 
 reverence. Both the yoimg people always treated her as though a 
 visible halo surrounded her pale sand-coloured hair. Reuben, who 
 was at a tender age of boyhood, and of course believed in all 
 heroines, from Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, down to Grace 
 Darling and Florence Nightingale, was rather disappointed that a 
 heroine like Mrs. Carruthers should be short-sighted and use 
 eye-glasses. 
 
 Rotha was Reuben Armstrong's heroine, and she knew it. The 
 boy, though he still remained faithful to his old allegiance, con- 
 trived to combine with it a great deal of honest devotion to Rotha ; 
 in his half-holidays he was often up at the house of his young 
 benefactress with Garton, who had begun to go in and out of Bryn 
 very much as his inclination prompted him. Rotha, it is true.
 
 B URNLE V- UPON- SEA. 281 
 
 never invited them in so many words, but she would welcome them 
 very kindly. She used to brighten up at these unexpected visits ; 
 it gave her a curious feeling of pleasure to see Gartou Ord making 
 himself at home in that house. 
 
 Garton often made Rotha his confidante. The poor fellow 
 would blunder out all his troubles to her in these morning visits 
 to Bryn. He would come up with a message from Mary and stop 
 for hours. Meg was not always present during these interviews. 
 Poor Garton never knew what real womanly sympathy meant till 
 he knew Rotha. Mary was always very kind and sisterly with 
 him ; but there had been a flavour about her kindliness which 
 seemed to hint perpetually at that want of ballast on his part. 
 Garton always took her advice very dutifully ; to do him justice, 
 he was well aware of his shortcomings, but he liked Rotha's sym- 
 pathy best. 
 
 Rotha was always ready to listen ; she took him under her 
 simple patronage in a way that would have astonished tlie Vicar 
 if he had known it. Garton told her about all that sad illness of 
 his that had preceded his examination, and how he had failed to 
 pass in consequence ; he told her, too, with a touch of compunction 
 in his voice, how his brothers had been sti-aining every nerve to 
 procure the means of giving him another chance, and how little 
 hope there seemed to be of their meeting the necessary expenses. 
 
 " I ought to have gone up to the last examination," he said to 
 her one day; " but I am afraid I should have wanted an awful lot 
 of coaching. Austin does the best for me that he can under the 
 circumstances, Init he has his boys and the parish ; he is too hard- 
 worked as it is." 
 
 " What will you do 1 " Rotha asked him on that occasion, with 
 much symi^athy ; and Garton had told her that he was fast losing 
 all hope of ever entering the Church, and that matters were now 
 becoming serious. Aiistin's income, he was sure, was barely suffi- 
 cient for his own family, burdened as he was with the maintenance 
 of his sister-in-law, and he felt that he coidd no longer live at 
 Robert's expense ; it was therefore a mooted question whether he 
 should accept a stool in the office of Mr. Slithers, the attorney at 
 Thornborough, with a small but increasing salary, or whether he 
 should emigrate to New Zealand. 
 
 Rotha did not like the idea of New Zealand at all, and said so 
 frankly, but shft saw that Garton himself rather inclined to the 
 latter proposition, which had been Robert's idea. 
 
 " A stool in that close dark office for seven or eight hours a 
 day — how long do attorneys' clerks work, I wonder ? — would kill 
 me," he said impetuously. "I suppose I am us fond of good
 
 282 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 things as other men, but I would rather live on dry bread, with 
 plenty of fresh air and freedom, than fare as Dives did, and be 
 cooped up in Mr. Slithers' ofBce ; why, it would kill me ! " And as 
 he squared his shoulders and threw out his strong chest there had 
 been a look upon his face which had compelled her to believe him. 
 
 Oh, how Rotha sighed as she thought of that surplus sum 
 lying idle at the bank, which caused such an endless correspond- 
 ence between her and Mr. Tracy ! Mr. Tracy was always worrying 
 her to have it invested in some Consolidated Ironworks Company, 
 which was just now offering large profits to the shareholders; but 
 Rotha begged him not to hm-ry about it, as she thought she had 
 heard of a better investment than the Consolidated Ironworks 
 Company, about which she would inform him presently. I don't 
 know whether she called it " the Ord Fund," but some of it cer- 
 tainly went in the coal-bill, and in that cheque at Tyler and 
 Tyler's. 
 
 Rotha could not see her way clearly to help Carton at all. An 
 unmarried young lady, however rich and sympathising she may be, 
 cannot offer to pay the college expenses of a penniless young man. 
 Rotha could not very weU offer her jnu'se to Carton, neither could 
 she plead his cause with the Vicar as she did in Reuben's case ; 
 but, all the same, she was very sorry for him. 
 
 Carton and Reuben were going over to Burnley-upon-Sea, and 
 they asked Rotha to join them. It was the beginning of Decem- 
 ber now, and it was their intention to spy out the fatness of the 
 Burnley Avoods with regard to mistletoe and scarlet berries, that 
 they might make a descent on tliese spoils at a future time, before 
 the young rustics laid ruthless hands on them. Rotha, who had 
 often heard of Burnley but had never seen it, agreed without a 
 moment's hesitation. Something was said as to Guy and Rufus 
 joining the party, but at the last moment it was found that the 
 Vicar had carried them off. Rotha had often been out with the 
 boys before, either with the Vicar or with Carton. Cuy and 
 Rufus, and now Reuben, had been anxious to show her all their 
 favourite haimts. She and Mrs. Carruthers often joined their 
 shore-parties ; but to-day ]\Ieg had been tired, and Rotha proposed 
 leaving her behind. If Mrs. Carruthers had her doubts of the 
 propriety of the proceeding, she did not give utterance to them. 
 She was rather too simple-minded for a chaperone; and then 
 Rotha looked so happy. She wore a red cloak ; they wore red 
 cloaks then — " Colleen Bawn," they called them — fussy little cloaks 
 done up with rosettes, and a new gipsy hat besides ; and then she 
 would carry the luncheon-basket, which she had provided in case 
 they should get hungry.
 
 B URNLE Y- UPON- SEA . 283 
 
 " I am sorry Gny is not coming," she said, as she nodded a good- 
 bye to Meg, "for I have put in some of his favourite cheese-cakes." 
 
 She chatted away gaily to Reuben as they walked to the 
 station. Mattie O'Brien met them coming along ; she looked full 
 at Rotha, at the scarlet cloak and the gipsy hat and the fresh 
 girlish face under it — for Rotha was proving that even a pale 
 complexion can look fresh sometimes — and afterwards she looked 
 at Garton. 
 
 " What was Miss Mattie staring at ? " asked Rotha merrily, . 
 when she had passed. 
 
 Garton looked at her with a little blending of fun and admira- 
 tion in his eyes. 
 
 " I suppose she was comparing you to a robin redbreast in her 
 own mind, Miss Maturin ; what do you call those cloaks, ' Colleen 
 Bawn "? I am glad you have left off those close Quaker bonnets ; 
 they make you look like a female Methuselah." 
 
 "Did Methuselah ever walk with Shem?" asked Rotha 
 roguishly. " How I confuse the ages of those old antediluvians — 
 those giants of long days ! " She had told Garton once how much 
 he resembled the wooden Shems of her childhood, when Noah's ark 
 had been her one Sunday game ; " though what there was particu- 
 larly pious in playing with diminutive elephants and tigers and 
 Brobdingnagian cocks and hens," she continued on that occasion, 
 " passes my comprehension ; it only served to confuse my young 
 mind with the relative sizes of things ; for a long time I believed 
 an ichneumon to be far larger than a hippopotamus." 
 
 " What a droll child you must have been ! " Garton replied. 
 He didn't mind a bit being compared to Shem when he strolled 
 down to the schoolliouse in his cassock, not half so much as Rotha 
 did. when he quizzed her little black bonnet. 
 
 " I never thought you noticed ladies or their dress," she said, 
 with a little natural pique. 
 
 " No more I do generally ; but I like a cosy and comfortable 
 thing like that," pointing to the red cloak, and Rotha felt glad her 
 Colleen Bawn was admired. 
 
 Rotha was much pleased with Burnley-upon-Sea ; she thought 
 it a little gem among watering-places. They had a turn on the 
 pier, and Garton told her how the cows walked over the sands at 
 evening, and they looked at the blue sea, all flecked with sunshine 
 to-day, and the \yhite cliffs, and the deep green ravine, over which 
 they presently walked on their way to the beaut ifid gardens which 
 are laid out in the glen. 
 
 "The glen is jiartly cultivated, you see," said Garton as Rotha 
 wondered and admired to her heart's content. " In the season the
 
 284 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 bands play, and people sit about on the grass with their work and 
 books, or go down to tlie spring to drink chalybeate water ; it is a 
 perfect paradise for nurses and children." 
 
 Rotha thought it must be a perfect paradise for other people 
 too in the summer ; even now, in its wintry aspect, with its leafless 
 trees, it looked very pleasant. She would stop at the gardener's 
 ground to inspect the flowers ; she filled her luncheon-basket with 
 hothouse flowers on her way home. By the gardener's house is a 
 turnstile or gate which leads to the wild ravine or glen ; here is 
 - nature's cultivation, aided but little by the hand of man ; a long 
 Avalk winds through the glen for nearly a mile ; benches and 
 rustic seats are placed at intervals for the weary pleasure-seekers. 
 The walk ascends slightly, and then bends downwards ; on either 
 hand are nut-copses and blackberry-thickets, dear to boy and girl- 
 hood ; everywhere ferns and bracken spread their gigantic fronds ; 
 down below a tiny rivulet or stream splashes a hidden way among 
 the trees. Rotha longs to see it in summer ; the winding walks 
 and steep descent are slippery with fallen leaves and miry clay ; in 
 the drier parts they crisp the brown bracken stalks under their 
 feet ; the dead leaves lie in rotting heaps everywhere, but it has 
 a wintry beauty of its own nevertheless. By and by Rotha grows 
 tired ; they have been scrambling up and down the steep sides of 
 the glen, wading ankle-deep in leaf- mould — the sweet decajdng 
 smell is everywhere ; now and then the black earth gets slippery, 
 and Garton's strong arm is in great request ; sometimes he has to 
 put back the sharp brambles for the red cloak to escape unscathed ; 
 now and then a low hanging bough obstructs their progress. 
 Rotha, who is very fleet and sure-footed, laughs at every difficulty. 
 The birds fly out from the thicket at the sound of Garton's answer- 
 ^ing laugh. Reuben whistles like a blackbird himself as he trudges 
 after them with the luncheon-basket. They find out a dry sunny 
 nook presently, looking down into the dell, and Garton praises the 
 cheesecakes, and they are very happy. 
 
 A pair of children truly, to listen to their talk ; Garton makes 
 believe that some water Reuben has just fetched for them is from 
 a well-known wishing-well of fairy repute, and each one has been 
 challenged to propound his or her wishes. 
 
 Reuben states his, nothing loath ; his ambition is eminently 
 boyish, and refuses to soar high ; he thinks to be top of the upper 
 fifth and to be elected a member of the football club must be 
 little short of heaven — he does not say so exactly, but you can 
 divine it in the brightness of his eyes. 
 
 " Happy Rube," says Rotha. She gets a little thoughtfid at 
 this juncture, and refuses to say exactly what she wishes.
 
 B URNLE ] '- UPON- SEA . 285 
 
 (( 
 
 ■ I don't think there is much left for yoit to desire, Miss 
 Maturin," says Garton, with the least possible approach to a sigh ; 
 "you can afford to set the fairies at defiance. It is only such 
 unlucky beggars as I who ought to long for the old wishing-wells 
 back again. I remember when I was a boy I used to believe in 
 them — we Northernei-s are rather great at superstition, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 " You have not told us your wish yet," said Rotha timidly. 
 Garton, who had been pelting Reuben with dead leaves all the 
 time he had been talking, stretched himself lazily and looked up 
 at the blue sky. 
 
 " What is the good of wishing anything ? " he said, very 
 disconsolately. " Haven't I often told you that I was born 
 under an unlucky star 1 It is to be hoped there is a place for 
 me above, for I seem to be in every one's way down here." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Garton ! " says Rotha, much shocked. Reuben, 
 evidently accustomed to such like expressions from his friend, goes 
 on pelting him ; Garton puckers up his forehead, rocks himself, 
 and finally brightens up. 
 
 " I will tell you what I should like. If I were to choose my 
 place in the world, I would live all my life at Kirkby, and I would 
 be Austin's curate." 
 
 " You would be your brother's curate ! " exclaimed Rotha 
 She was astonished, and perhaps a little disappointed, though she 
 hardly knew why. She could not understand a young man being 
 so moderate in his ambition ; Garton's simple unworldliness was 
 almost a fault in her eyes. She thought he ought to desire to be 
 a rector, or at least a vicar. Who ever heard of wishing to be a 
 curate 1 Mary was right. She was afraid he wanted baUast. 
 
 • " Yes, I should like to be with Austin," h': returned in answer 
 to her exclamation ; " he and I would pull on very well together. 
 I should want more than he could give me, though. I confess I 
 should like to live on more than bread and cheese all my life." 
 
 " I expect very little would content you," observed Rotha, 
 wishful to draw him out. 
 
 "Well, I don't know. I should not consider myself, for 
 instance, 'passing rich on forty pounds a year.' No, no; poverty 
 is a cross-grained jade, and I should Like to shake hands with her 
 and part for ever. A man with a healthy appetite may live on 
 broad and cheesje, but a little meat is good for him sometimes for 
 all that," and Garton rocked himself, and looked so wise that 
 Rotlia stared at him. 
 
 " Bread and cheese'?" she repeated. "What nonsense you arc 
 talking!"
 
 286 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I don't think you know the taste of bread and cheese as well 
 as I do," returned Garten solemnly; "and when you do take it, 
 it is not with the rind on. Bless you ! we often build up our 
 castles together, don't we, Eube % Rube is to live with me, Miss 
 Maturin, and if I can manage it, little Johnnie Forbe.s, the lame 
 boy, besides. And we are to have a cottage just a stone's throw 
 from the church, with a garden all round it, and a bow-window to 
 my study, looking towards the sea ; and Rube is to have beehives 
 and poultry, and I'm to have a big telescope and a dog ; and we 
 are to bribe Deb to come and keep house for us. When Rube 
 builds the castle, he always puts in ' and plenty of marmalade for 
 breakfast.' " 
 
 " For shame, Mr. Garton ! " says Reuben, with a very red 
 face ; but it is a very favourite castle, and he chuckles over it 
 nevertheless. Rotha looks at them both a little wistfully. What 
 a pity, she thinks, that so simple an ambition cannot be gratified. 
 She goes off in a dream presently, but Reuben wakes her up. 
 
 " You might have had the cottage over and over again by 
 this time," says the boy reproachfully, but his eyes are full of 
 mischief. Garton bursts out laughing ; Rotha looks at them for 
 an explanation. 
 
 " The bow-window wouldn't look on the sea, though," says 
 Rube provokingly, dodging behind a tree to escape Garton's 
 missile ; " but it is quite within a stone's throw of the church ; 
 and you know what Mr. Robert and the Vicar said." 
 
 " Does he mean Nettie Underwood's house % " exclaimed Rotha 
 in surprise, and then again Garton burst out laughing. He was a 
 little vague in his explanation, but Rotha afterwards discovered 
 that Reuben's joke was not without some foundation. Not many 
 months ago Nettie Underwood had laid rather violent siege to the 
 young sacristan — waylaying him on his way to and from the church, 
 and otherwise making his life a burthen to him. 
 
 Garton had always been indifferent to Nettie, but now she 
 decidedly bored him. He turned sulky, and would not have 
 anything to say to her when she came to the Vicarage, bristling 
 with gay-coloured ribbons, and armed at aU points for conquest. 
 As far as he was concerned, Nettie might take her pink cheeks 
 and bright eyes elsewhere ; he told Robert so when that young 
 gentleman counselled him to a more prudent course. " What 
 should I do with a girl like that, who chatters from morning till 
 night, and has three-and-tweuty bosom friends % " said poor Garton, 
 shrugging his shoulders. Nettie's little vanities and follies pro- 
 voked and perplexed him. " If I marry at all, my wife shall be a 
 lady," he continued, with a dignity never seen before in Garton
 
 BURNLEY-UPON-SEA. 287 
 
 Ord, "and not a girl who is ashamed of her own Christian name, 
 and who laughs and talks so loud in the chm-ch-porch that the 
 chiu-chwarden had to reprove her ; and that's what she and Miss 
 O'Brien did last Sunday, Robert." 
 
 "Nonsense!" retui-ned Robert sharply; "your wife a lady, 
 indeed. You may think yourself lucky if you ever get one at all. 
 Gar. After all, beggars ought not to be choosers; and a good 
 little girl like that, with six hundred a year of her own, will not 
 go long without having jilenty of admirers." 
 
 "Let her have them," answered Garton stoically. " If I am 
 a beggar, I won't sell my beggar's right of freedom for six hundred 
 a year — not if I have to take Nettie Underwood with it." And 
 he made this resolve so very potent to the young lady herself that 
 Nettie took the hint and ceased her blandishments ; but whether 
 Garton's plain face had really captivated her fancy or not, she 
 certainly turned a little sore on the subject, and was imderstood to 
 be very cutting and distant to the young manhood of Kirkby and 
 Blackscar in consequence. Since then she had been distinctly 
 heard to declare to about fifteen or sixteen of her most intimate 
 friends that it was her intention to live and die Nettie Underwood 
 imless she could meet with a gray-liaired widower of about forty- 
 five years of age, of independent means, with a soul for poetry, and 
 who would not object to Aunt Eliza. 
 
 Rotha had not understood Reuben's joke in the least, but she 
 did not forget it ; she was a little silent over the simrring-match 
 that followed the lad's mischief By and by, when they propose 
 walking to the head of the glen, she pleads a little fatigue still, 
 and begs them to leave her. " It is so warm and sheltered here, 
 and this old trunk makes such a comfortable arm-chair," she says 
 in *the childish way that Garton already finds so irresistible. 
 Somehow, he leaves her very unwillingly; the sunny motes flit 
 before her eyes as she watches them disappear between the slender 
 tree-boles — Garton has his arm round the boy's neck as usual. 
 "What a young David for such a Jonathan !" thinks Rotha, and 
 she falls into a dream again. She is thinking of all the foolish 
 things they have been telling her — the bow- windowed study, the 
 big telescope, the garden, and the beehives. 
 
 Rotha is nearly two-and-twenty now, but she has never really 
 been in love ; she has led a life too much repressed, too prema- 
 turely old for that. 
 
 In the fairy stories the prince comes to the rescue of the 
 princess shut up in her brazen tower, guarded by all manner of 
 hideous dragons. What delicious old stories those are ! — older and 
 bigger children read them again and again. One can fancy the
 
 288 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 stripling wielding his enchanted sword till the noxious reptiles lie 
 dead at his feet : the little jDrincess peeps through the keyhole. 
 What a golden-haired blue-eyed hero he is, she thinks. Presently, 
 when the brazen doors roll back on their well-oiled hinges, she 
 will run into his arms all smiles and tears. There is no shyness 
 or nonsense of that sort in fairy tales. The princess follows the 
 prince through the world if he holds up his finger to beckon her. 
 " Will you marry me 1" he says, taking off his cap with the ostrich 
 feathers, or his golden helmet, whichever it is. " Yes, that indeed 
 I will," returns the princess, "I am so tired of spinning;" and 
 then he gives her his hand. Ah ! there is the white palfrey, 
 ready saddled and bridled, and now they are ofi"; the wicked fairy 
 godmother shakes her crutch after them, but she has no power 
 now. Poof, away, true love for ever ! Of course they marry and 
 live happily ever after, in the good old-fashioned way. 
 
 Nobody comes to the poor little princess at Miss Binks', as 
 she sits in the back parlour hearing the younger children strum 
 their eternal scales and exercises. Little fragments of dreams mix 
 with the cracked chords, the wintry fire burns blackly, the room is 
 full of shadows. C minor, C major ; you must not put the pedal 
 down ; keep your wrist a little more elevated. Miss Carson, please. 
 
 Rotha is back in her dream again. Through the dim arcades 
 of her fancy comes the prince — always the prince. Sometimes he 
 is on horseback, sometimes on foot. He has blue eyes and yellow 
 hair; he is tall and black-bearded. Sometimes he has a brown 
 moustache, like the stranger who was at church yesterday. He 
 comes up to her and holds out his hand ; he tells her a different 
 story every time. He is a wandering artist, a German student, a 
 nobleman in disguise. He has servants and carriages and horses ; 
 or he has a cottage covered with perennial roses. Of course it is 
 the same refrain. They are conjugating the same old verb to- 
 gether : " I love, thou lovest, he loves." 
 
 " I can't see to play any more," says Miss Carson, yawning 
 drearily, and Molly brings in the caudles. 
 
 Molly has her dreams too as she blackleads her kitchen stove. 
 The young ladies at Miss Binks' confide to Molly that they are 
 in love with the slim-waisted young drawing-master, who has flaxen 
 hair and pink eyes, and is supposed to be in a consumption. One 
 of them. Miss Roper, thinks she will never get over it. 
 
 " Lor-a-mussy, Miss Belinda ! " says Molly, smearing the black- 
 lead from her face, " when you are older you will know the diff'er- 
 ence between a white-headed little stick like that and a man. 
 You should see my Jem." 
 
 " Do you remember little Em'ly's idea of a gentleman's dress
 
 B URNLE V- UPON- SEA. 289 
 
 in David Co2:>2JerJield ? 'The sky-blue coat with the diamond 
 buttons, the nankeen trousers, the red velvet waistcoat, and the 
 cocked hat,' and David Copperfield's youthful fear that the cocked 
 hat would hardly be considered appropriate ! " 
 
 Molly's prince had a wide mouth and a tiu-n-up nose and sleek 
 shining hair. On Sunday, when he came courting, he wore a 
 plush waistcoat and a blue neckerchief with white spots as big as 
 half-crowns. How Molly gloried in that neckerchief ! It is im- 
 possible to say whether she or the pupil-governess, Miss Maturin, 
 despised the slim-waisted drawing-master the most. 
 
 Rotha had her dreams too in the dreary London house where 
 she lived so long. As she read more they grew brighter and more 
 alluring. She would extemporise all sorts of marvellous stories for 
 herself as she sat gazing at the red-hot coals, when Mrs. Ord was 
 having her nap in the t^¥ilight. 
 
 The fire burns very brightly ; Eotha's cheeks glow with the heat 
 as she shapes out an ideal futiu'e for herself. Does she see the 
 woods of Burnley -upon -Sea, I wonder? Does she see herself 
 sitting in her red cloak on the mossy tree trunk ? Who is this 
 coming through the dim vistas between the leafless trees ? If a 
 prince, a sorry one indeed : a tall figure, broad shoiddered and 
 deep chested ; a prince, in a sliabby coat, who has seldom worn 
 gloves in his life, with a brown strong-featured face, with dark 
 closely-cropped hair, with white gleaming teeth. A prince who 
 swings his arms and laughs loudly ; "a prince who looks like a 
 boyish ascetic — half monkish, half kingly." 
 
 " You look like a picture. Miss Maturin," says Garton Ord as 
 he comes up behind her. " What a pity I am not an artist. 
 Rube will have it you only want the wolf to look like a grown-up 
 Red Riding Hood ; those saplings behind you make a sort of frame." 
 
 " It is getting cold now," says Rotha. " I thought you were 
 never coming." Her cheeks have a pretty colour in them as she 
 rises sedately. 
 
 Down they go through the deepening twilight. The woods 
 are all gray now. 
 
 " We shall be late for the train," says Garton, looking at his 
 silver watch. " I am afraid we shall have to run for it." 
 
 He holds out his hand to Rotha — that is what the prince 
 always does in the fairy tale, you know. Rotha hesitates a 
 moment before she takes it. I suppose it must have looked rather 
 absurd — a tall gentleman and a tall lady running hand-in-haud. 
 
 " Oh, I am out of breath," says Rotha presently. 
 
 " Never mind, there are the lights of the station," pleaded 
 Garton, "just one efiort more." 
 
 19
 
 290 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Have you had a pleasant day % " asks Meg as she comes out 
 to meet them. 
 
 "Yes, very pleasant," answered Rotha, with a shy look at 
 Garton ; " but we nearly lost our train, though." 
 
 "Miss Maturin has been studying the picturesque all day. It 
 is a pity we never met a soul," says Garton mischievously. 
 
 " How do you know that I had not plenty of company when 
 you left mel" retiu-ns 'Rotha, with a smile. "Either I fell asleep 
 and dreamt a little while, or else the woods of Bm-nley-upon-Sea 
 are haunted." 
 
 "You looked rather as though you had been dreaming," says 
 stui^id Gar
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A STORM IN A TEACUP. 
 
 " M. — They make this thought too plain, 
 
 They wound me — Oh, they cut me to the heart ! 
 When have I said to any one of them, 
 I am a blind and desolate man ? 
 
 F. — Never, my brother — no 
 
 You never have ! 
 M. — What could she think of me 
 
 If I forgot myself so far ? or what 
 
 Could she reply ? " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Neither Garton nor Rotha was likely to forget that day in the 
 Buruley Woods ; very serious consequences wiU sometimes result 
 from comparatively simple causes, and " Be sure your sin will find 
 you out " is an adage that will hold good to the end of time, be 
 the sin ever so venial. 
 
 Rotha had no idea that her pleasant ramble afforded food for a 
 dozen gossiping tongues. Blackscar had got hold of the whole 
 affair from beginning to end, and was making the most of it, after 
 its usual amiable fashion ; and, quite in contradistinction to that 
 wholesome proverb that "Rolling stones gather no moss," the 
 Burnley story grew and flourished to a fabulous extent. 
 
 Miss Mattie O'Brien had met the little party on their way to 
 the station ; quite by chance Miss Mattie mentioned this fact to a 
 choice committee of ladies at that time sitting in the Travers' 
 drawing-room, and Rotha's red cloak and gipsy hat were dis- 
 cussed with a zest and enjoyment of which the other sex can form 
 no adequate idea.^ It was rather singular, therefore, that Miss 
 O'Brien should repeat the same story at Mrs. Stephen Knowles' 
 and at Nettie Underwood's ; the most inveterate story-teller is apt 
 to grow weary of repetition — memory becomes treacherous, a little 
 judicious touching up here and there becomes absolutely necessary 
 and heightens the interest. Mysteiy is always acceptable ; a word
 
 292 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 will sometimes imply so much. The last person who heard this 
 titbit of scandal was a deaf lady, Mrs. Effingham, the widow of a 
 half-pay officer. The whole story was shouted through her ear- 
 trumpet, and she ever afterwards firmly believed that Garton Ord 
 and Rotha were engaged. 
 
 Some of these reports reached Robert Ord's ears. Young Jack 
 Effingham often went by the same train to Thornborough. One 
 day he formally congratulated Robert on his brother's brilliant 
 prospects ; Robert was fii'st incredulous, and treated the whole 
 thing as a joke — probably a hoax on Jack's part, and then he 
 waxed wroth. Belle told him she had heard the same thing from 
 Mrs. Effingham and Amy Travers ; she could not understand what 
 had given rise to such a report, neither could Robert ; but, all the 
 same, he determined to give his young brother a hint. 
 
 Robert never took any pains to disguise his contempt for 
 Garton. Garton's thriftless waj^s and want of success were very 
 sore points with him ; he could not understand a sturdy young 
 fellow, with such thews and sinews as Garton's, being content to 
 eat another man's bread. He had no patience with what he chose 
 to consider his morbid views ; he had many angry arguments with 
 Austin on the subject. The Vicar, who was keenly alive to the 
 young man's faults, was yet very tender over this intense longing 
 of his to enter the Church, and was always inculcating patience on 
 Robert. 
 
 " I know it is very hard for you to have this burden," he said 
 once ; " but we must be careful not to press him too closely. I 
 fear indeed that he must resign all hope of entering the Church ; 
 it is more application than ability that is lacking ; but what a 
 faithful i^riest he would have made ! Let us give him a little time 
 to get over the disappointment, and then you can speak to him 
 about Mr. Slithers ; but I think, after all, the New Zealand 
 scheme would suit him best." 
 
 The Vicar had made the foregoing speech at the time that he 
 was so sorely pressed about the coal-bill, and since then Robert 
 had spoken very seriously to Garton about the emigration plan, 
 which Garton had taken in very bad part ; and there had been 
 some ill blood between the brothers in consequence. Garton had 
 promised to think over it, however, which he did every hour of the 
 day, but as yet he had arrived at no determination ; and Robert 
 was just getting impatient again when Jack Effingham's imfortu- 
 nate speech, and the absurd reports that were at present rife in 
 Blackscar, made him more than ever desirous of Garton's obtaining 
 some usefid post at a distance. To do Robert justice, he took a 
 very unprejudiced view of the matter, and was far more inclined to
 
 A STORM IN A TEACUP. 293 
 
 blame Garton than Rotha. " Gar has no right to be always up at 
 Bryu," he said to himself as he left his office one evening ; "of 
 coiu'se people will talk about it. It is all thoughtlessness, for he 
 can't be such a fool as to think she would have him. Besides, I 
 don't believe Gar cares for her a rap ; why couldn't he have mar- 
 ried Nettie and settled down like a sensible man 1 Why, I am 
 sure the girl was half in love with him ; women have droll tastes 
 sometimes. I'll speak to him to-night ; he has no right to allow 
 Miss Maturin to be talked about like this. In spite of his stupid- 
 ity Gar is a gentleman, and I can touch his pride there ;" and 
 Robert buttoned up his coat and looked very resolute as he jumped 
 into the Blackscar train. 
 
 About an hour after this the brothers were sitting over their 
 comfortless meal in a nondescript sort of apartment upstairs which 
 went by the name of the study. 
 
 The dining-room, where Garton ate his solitary dinners, was a 
 dismal room on the gi"ound-floor, as damp and almost as cheerful 
 as a vault. Belle never entered it without coughing ; the damp 
 came through the walls in dark unsightly patches — the few articles 
 of fui'nitiu-e were more for use than ornament. The carpet woidd 
 have blushed over its patches if it had any colour left ; traces of 
 Garton's muddy boots left indelible marks here and there ; no fire 
 ever biu"nt in the rusty grate. While Garton ate his dinner he 
 would open the door that led into the kitchen for warmth and com- 
 pany. The kitchen was the only bright place in the house — a 
 long low room, with a beam across, from which an occasional side 
 of bacon or a York ham dangled in company with strings of onions 
 and bunches of sweet herbs. The small latticed windows were 
 lace'd across with vine-leaves, and the door opened on to the lawn. 
 Garton liked to dangle his long legs from the spotless table and 
 talk to old Sarah as she shelled peas or sliced beans by the hearth. 
 Sometimes on a cold winter's day he would eat his dinner there 
 by preference. Sarah and he were gi'eat friends ; she spent hom-s, 
 with her iron-rimmed spectacles on, darning his dilapidated socks. 
 But for her care and providence he would often have had a scanty 
 meal ; he would deny himself proper food sometimes to leave the 
 joint presentable for Robert. Garton had a healthy appetite, and 
 used to make up with bread and cheese. Sarah always baked a 
 pie-crust cake, or* some such simple delicacy, on these occasions. 
 When the old woman fell ill Garton's attentions were almost filial. 
 In the winter she suffered much from rheumatism ; Garton wordd 
 black his and Robert's boots, or fetch water from the pump, and 
 do many a menial office to relieve the faithfid old servant. Per- 
 haps the highest praise that Garton Ord ever won was spoken by
 
 294 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 olci Sarah. " He mayn't be clever, your reverence," she said once 
 in her droll way, " and nought but a blind fool 'ud call him hand- 
 some, but when it comes to our taking oiu- places at the Supper 
 up above it is the young master, God bless him, that will be 
 called to the upper chamber." And the Vicar, who heard these 
 words, drew his hand before his eyes and said, " God grant it, 
 Sarah." 
 
 The study, as it was called, was a tolerably comfortable apart- 
 ment immediately over the dining-room ; and, in spite of its shab- 
 biness, had a cosy well-used air about it. 
 
 The hangings were faded, it was true, but there was plenty of 
 light ; the old brown-stained book-shelves fairly groaned with books. 
 Robert was a great reader, and would go without a meal to purchase 
 a book ; the old arm-chairs were capital places for a lounge. In 
 winter the kettle sang merrily on the old-fashioued black hob, and 
 a bright fire was necessary for the making of toast. Garton, who 
 was housekeeper, butler, and gardener in one, always made exten- 
 sive preparations for his brother's comfort. In the evening he 
 would begin his proceedings by clearing the table for the tea-tray 
 — a very simple process, which consisted of pitching a dozen books 
 into a corner with a well-directed aim; this having tested his 
 muscles, he hustled the black cat ofi" Robert's particular chair, and, 
 turning up his coat-sleeves, proceeded to make toast. Amongst 
 his other accomplishments, Garton considered himself great at 
 making tea. It was the drollest sight in the world to see him 
 presiding over the tea-tray with the gravity of a judge ; it always 
 excited Mrs. Ord's risibiUty, He would peer into the teapot a 
 dozen times, with the fragrant steam curling round his nostrils, 
 while he tenderly stiiTcd up the brown liquid ; he would describe 
 all sorts of mysterious circles with the teapot as he filled the cup 
 — " to be shaken before taken " was a standing joke in the family ; 
 he never talked at such moments, but his forehead would be a mass 
 of wrinkles. He had a knack of carving a bare bone of mutton, 
 too, and of making a little go a long way. Robert knew nothing 
 about the bread-aud-cheese dinners, but he often praised old Sarah's 
 economy, and wondered at Garton's appetite : the pile of toast 
 would disappear in a twinkling ; Robert would look up from his 
 book with a joke at his brother's expense. Garton shared all his 
 choicest morsels with old Cinders, the black cat. Cinders would 
 sit for hours on the arm of his chair, purring softly if he touched 
 her. Garton would drink his last cup of tea without milk that 
 Cinders might have her saucerful. 
 
 Robert rarely made more than one or two remarks during the 
 course of tea ; he liked his book better than Garton's conversation ;
 
 A STORM IN A TEACUP. 295 
 
 they seldom agreed on the same jjoint, and wrangling is apt to be 
 tiresome. On this occasion, however, Robert seemed inclined to 
 depart from his usual ride ; for, as he passed Ins cup to be refilled, 
 he asked Garton, with some appearance of interest, what he had 
 been doing all day. 
 
 Garton, who was peering into the depths of the teapot, oscil- 
 lated it gently from side to side before he answered. 
 
 " Doing ? oh, much as usual ; it was Wednesday morning, and 
 we had Litany, and a funeral ; and I dug up the new onion-bed 
 before dinner, and cut up some more fii'ewood ; and afterwards 
 Rube and I went up to Bryn and took the ladies down to the shore. 
 It was such a glorious afternoon. I have only just got back ; they 
 asked Rube to stay to tea." Garton might have added, with per- 
 fect truth, that he had been much aggrieved that the invitation 
 had not been extended to him. But Rotha, who had been a little 
 shy with him ever since the day in the Burnley Woods, had 
 prudently refrained from such asking, as Mrs. Carruthers would be 
 away. 
 
 This was the opportunity that Robert wanted ; he had decided 
 to give his brother this hint, and he had determined also on two 
 things — he woidd speak very plainly to Garton, so that there should 
 be no misunderstanding of his meaning ; and he would take care 
 to preserve his good temper, that Garton should have no excuse for 
 any suUenness. He commenced the conversation therefore very 
 good-humouredly. 
 
 " Gar, my dear fellow, I hope you will not take it amiss, but 
 I want to say a word or two to you on that subject." Garton, 
 who was giving Cinders her tea, looked up rather surprised. 
 
 '"About Rube, do you mean?" 
 
 *' No, about Miss Maturiu, and I hope you will not mind my 
 siDeaking very plainly; but you have no idea how people are 
 talking." 
 
 "Why shouldn't people talkf returned Gar stupidly. He 
 had not the faintest suspicion of his brother's meaning. Robert 
 looked disposed to be annoyed for a moment, but he repressed his 
 impatience and went on : 
 
 " No man — no gentleman, I mean — is justified in allowing a 
 woman to be talked about as people are talking about Miss Maturin. 
 Do you know what Jack Eflingham had the impudence to say the 
 other day r' 
 
 "Not I; Jack is impudent enough for anything," returned 
 Gar indifferently. 
 
 " Jack is a keen observer, and a man of the world in spite of 
 .his youth ; which is more than I can say of you," returned Robert,
 
 296 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 exasperated by Gartou's unconsciousness ; " and of course, when he 
 congratulated me on my brother's brilliant prospects in life, and 
 Mrs. Effingham and Amy Travers said much the same sort of thing 
 to Belle, they must have had some ground for their speech." 
 
 "What did Jack mean?" asked Garton, now thoroughly be- 
 wildered ; but he grew a little hot nevertheless. Robert was driving 
 at something certainly. 
 
 "Why, he only i-epeated what other people are saying — his 
 mother and Amy Travers, for example — that you and Miss Maturm 
 are on the eve of an engagement." 
 
 What made Garton turn so suddenly pale? Did the arrow 
 shoot home ? 
 
 " Oh, Bob, they never said that surely !" 
 
 " Indeed they did, Gar. I can vouch for it that Jack believed 
 it too; he was quite crestfallen when I pooh-poohed it. I had 
 some difficulty in persuading him that such an idea had never 
 entered your head." 
 
 " How dare people tell such Hes ?" interrupted Garton warmly. 
 
 " They think they are speaking the truth. Don't get hot about 
 it, my dear boy, but let us think how we are to put a stop to the 
 scandal. I don't mind telling you the whole thing touches my 
 pride very closely ; that one of the Ords should be accused of 
 fortune-hunting ; that a beggar — forgive my speaking plainly, Gar 
 — should be courting an heiress, and she Miss Maturin ! No ; it 
 cannot be borne for a moment. Don't you see for yourself now 
 how wrong you have been 1" 
 
 The unusual paleness still overspread Garten's face ; it was 
 easy to see the imexpected accusation sorely troubled and bewil- 
 dered him ; but at his brother's last words he raised his head 
 indignantly. 
 
 " Wrong ! I am always wrong, but I don't exactly know how. 
 Come, out with it, Bob. I can see you think I have been to 
 blame." 
 
 " You have assuredly been to blame, Garton." 
 
 " What ! You dare to insinuate that this has been the reason 
 of my visits to Bryn?" And Gar's dark eyes flashed with a look 
 never seen in them before. Robert liked this display of pride in 
 his young brother ; it showed some degree of manliness. His next 
 words were spoken most kindly. 
 
 " Hush ! sit down. Gar — what is the use of losing your temper ? 
 Of course I don't accuse you of such meanness — are you not an 
 Ord r 
 
 " If you had meant it " returned Gar more calmly, as he 
 
 reseated himself.
 
 A STORM IN A TEACUP. 297 
 
 "Well, what theni" interrupted Robert, with a laugh; for 
 Garton did not seem inclined to finish his sentence. 
 
 "Oh, nothing; but I wouldn't have broken bread with you 
 after such an insult— that is all. I may be a beggar— thank you 
 for reminding me of the fact — but I am not an unprincipled 
 one. I was always under the impression that I was a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " So you are, Gar, every inch of one," returned Robert, anxious 
 to soothe his brother's hurt pride ; he never respected Garton more 
 than during this little ebullition of natural resentment. It was 
 not Robert's words, but some strong undercurrent of feeling that 
 made Garton so sore. 
 
 " If I blame you," went on Robert, " it is for want of thought 
 and due consideration of what is owing to a woman ; you are so 
 unlike other men, and have led so strange a life, that I hardly 
 know how to make you see this ; but I can only repeat that you 
 have quite forgotten yom- position with regard to Miss Maturin. 
 May I speak more plainly 1" 
 
 " I think you are sufBciently plain, Robert." 
 
 " All the same, I cannot allow you to misunderstand my mean- 
 ing. Gar. I am eight years older than you, and have eight more 
 years' experience — that ought to go for something ; and I tell you 
 this, that no one but an accepted lover ought to be doing what 
 you are doing." 
 
 " Does friendship go for nothing, then 1 I think you forget 
 that Miss Maturin and I have been friends from the first. Austin 
 and Mary know that I visit at Bryn ; they have never found fault 
 with me." 
 
 ""Neither should I if you were prudent in respect to those 
 visits. I don't think either Austin or Mary knows how often you 
 are at Bryu — of those daily visits, daily walks, and long exciu-sions. 
 Do you think Blackscar and Kirkby don't draw the only natural 
 conclusion from all this '? Of course people's tongues are loud on 
 the subject. Jack had a good foundation for beheving that you 
 and Miss Maturin were engaged." 
 
 A hot flush passed across Garton's swarthy face ; there was a 
 tight pain at his heart that nearly suffocated him. Were all these 
 pleasant visits, tliese delightful rambles, to be given up? His 
 voice was changed'and husky when he next spoke. Robert thought 
 his manner very strange. 
 
 " I am afraid you are right. Bob ; I have been very thought- 
 less." He kept his face averted from his brother, and went on, 
 " I forgot that people are fond of meddling in our business. I 
 thought an Ord would be above such a suspicion, but I see they
 
 298 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 have misjudged me. I think Miss Maturiu would be grieved if 
 she knew of what I was accused." 
 
 " Every one would not consider you a fortune-hunter," returned 
 Robert in a tone so meaning that Garton stared at him in surprise. 
 " They might think — I am only supposing a case, you know — but 
 they might think, Miss Maturin being young and not so bad looking 
 — at least it would be a more natural conclusion — that — that you, 
 in fact, had fallen in love with her." And Robert, who had strong 
 suspicions during the last few minutes that his brother was not 
 quite so indifferent as he had at first imagined, looked steadily at 
 Garton ; but Garton met his eyes almost fiercely. 
 
 "Well, what then?" he replied, clenching his hand rather 
 unnecessarily. 
 
 " Only — only that you would escape with a scorching, that is 
 all. Don't go into a passion. Gar ; I am only guessing at other 
 people's thoughts." 
 
 " Or retailing your own — which % " replied Garton in the same 
 fiery tone. " Look here, Robert ; you mean weU, I believe. You 
 think you are pulling me out of the fire, eh % and you want to do 
 me a good turn. But you are not doing it in the pleasantest sort 
 of way. You are insinuating that I am a fool, and that I have 
 been a fool aU along. So I have, but an innocent one. I have 
 thought it no wrong to indulge a harmless friendship — only a 
 friendship, Robert. Miss Maturin has been very good to me " — 
 his voice trembled a moment — " and it is my nature to be grateful 
 for kindness. If the world chooses to misunderstand it, it is more 
 of a fool than I." 
 
 " My dear fellow, no one but you can aff'ord to set its opinion 
 at naught. Depend upon it, ' in the multitude of counsellors there 
 is wisdom ;' one cannot dispense with its rules." 
 
 " I have never meant to dispense with them, Robert. If I did 
 not follow your advice now I know what I know, I should be more 
 of a knave than a fool. In future you will not have need to com- 
 plain of my frequent visits to Brjni." 
 
 Robert looked pleased. He really had his brother's welfare at 
 heart. 
 
 "That's right, old feUow, you have taken my advice very 
 sensibly, and it is first-rate of you." But Garton did not respond 
 very cordially. 
 
 "Yes, it is all right. I suppose I ought to thank you for 
 making me so uncomfortable, but I will tell you the honest truth. 
 I would snap my fingers at Blackscar and its old women's tales 
 if it were not for the fear that it might do her harm, and that per- 
 haps in time she might get to believe it. No, I couldn't stand
 
 A STORM IN A TEACUP. 299 
 
 that. Besides, there is the danger of scorching, you know." And 
 Garton laughed a hard bitter Laugh, that had more pain than merri- 
 ment in its sound, and which made Robert look at him again ; and 
 then he got up and put his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Gar, old fellow, I have not quite finished my advice." 
 
 "Haven't you. Bob?" 
 
 " No, the hardest part remains ; don't think me cruel, lad. I 
 only speak for your good. But do think once again of the emigra- 
 tion business." 
 
 " I knew that was coming, Robert." His face was paler than 
 ever, and he set his teeth hard. 
 
 *' Gar, dear boy, I swear I only mean it for your good ; yoii 
 are wasting — rusting here. Better go away." 
 
 "Why'?" asked Garton moodily; but Robert drew his arm 
 round his neck as though they were boys again ; and then he 
 stooped doMTi to the dark cropped head and whispered something 
 very low in his ear. 
 
 What made Garton suddenly look up and wring his brother's 
 hand? 
 
 " Too late ! God bless you, Robert. Yes, I will go anywhere 
 — anywhere; but she shall never know why— never, never!"
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN THE DAEK. 
 
 " No backward path ; ah, no returning, 
 No second crossing that ripples flow : 
 ' Come to me now, for the west is burning ; 
 Come, ere it darliens : ah, no ! ah, no ! ' 
 
 " Then cries of pain, and arms outstretching — ■ 
 The beck grows wider, and swift and deep — 
 Passionate words as of one beseeching — 
 
 The loud beck drowns them : we walk and weep. 
 
 " Farther — farther : I see it — I know it — 
 My eyes brim over, it melts away : 
 Only my heart to my heart sliall show it. 
 As I walk desolate day by day. " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Robert rather congratulated himself on having done a good stroke 
 of business that night ; he had struck when the iron was hot. He 
 drew a long breath of relief when his brother had left the room. 
 
 "I have brought him to his senses about the emigration plan. 
 Thank heaven, that bit of troublesome business is over for good 
 and all," he ejaculated devoutly. " Poor old Gar !" he continued, 
 with a pang of natural sympathy ; " who would have imagined that 
 he would have been so bitten V 
 
 And he thought with some degree of bitterness of the hand 
 that had dealt this fresh blow. His heart was full of pity as he 
 heard Garton's restless footsteps overhead. He lay and listened to 
 them far into the night ; a touch of compunction haunted him as 
 those weary footsteps passed to and fro. He was glad to remember 
 now that his words had been wise and temperate ; considering all 
 things, he had rebuked Garton's thoughtlessness very mildly ; the 
 poor fellow's hot denials and reproaches, his indignant refutations, 
 his irate defence, had been far from displeasing to the elder brother, 
 
 " I did not think he had so much in him," he said to himself 
 over and over again.
 
 IN THE DARK. 301 
 
 Eobert's sympathy was very real ; but he had no conception 
 of the fierce misery that was making the night a long torment to 
 Garten. The incessant movement, the long restless strides, the 
 hasty stumbles in the darkness, when the candle had guttered to 
 its feeble end, were so many proofs of the intolerable feelings of 
 the young man, who took no heed of the cold and darkness — grop- 
 ing from end to end of the narrow room in a blind helpless way. 
 
 Sometimes he stood, with folded arms, looking blankly through 
 the darkness, or rocking himself in his old accustomed manner. A 
 little glimmer of light from a street lamp cut into the darkness 
 and showed him like a swaying gray shadow on the wall. A dull 
 surging broke the silence. Under the lamp there was a stretch of 
 white shining road ; a barrier of darkness seemed to close it in. 
 As he stood and looked out at it a dull hopeless gloom seemed to 
 settle rotmd his heart and rob him of all courage. 
 
 He wondered now how it had come about. Robert's shrewd- 
 ness had brought this sudden revelation of his own feelings home 
 to him. He was racking his memory to discover when it was 
 that he first loved her ; but his mind was too confused, his pain 
 too real, to follow out any given clue of reasoning. He had called 
 his love friendship, and imder this disguise had tasted of her 
 sympathy and found it very sweet. He had blundered out all 
 his troubles to her with an eagerness that should have revealed 
 his own feelings. No other woman had ever seemed so sweet and 
 gracious to him. And now all this pleasantness of intercoiu-se 
 must be broken up. She was the light of his eyes and the desire 
 of his heart — ah, he knew this now. The one woman whom he 
 could and would have dared to love, despite his beggary, but who 
 was never to know — never, never — that he had so dared to love her. 
 
 He wondered with a sort of terror how he should bid her 
 good-bye. ■ A sudden anguish filled him as he thought of her youth 
 an*d graciousness. What a simple kindly friendship had existed 
 between them ! On his side he had always been veiy loyal, but 
 with a sturdy independence of opinion which she had found amus- 
 ing. What nonsense he had talked to her, and how patient she 
 had always been with him ! She had never been weary of his 
 discontent and moodiness. Her eyes would shine with a tender 
 pity as he blurted out his grievances. She always seemed pleased 
 to see him, no matter how troublesome he had been. She would 
 meet him half a dozen times a day with the same shy bright 
 smile ; a kind hand would be put out frankly to him. Sometimes 
 she would iudulg'e in a little joke at his expense, but the joke never 
 hurt him. 
 
 He thought of that day in the Burnley Woods, and the wonder
 
 302 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 with which she had regarded his simple castle-building. She had 
 been a little disappointed with his lack of ambition, he thought, 
 and no marvel. How paltry it all looked now — the little cottage 
 with the bow-window, Reuben, Johnnie Forbes, the lame boy, with 
 Deb to keep house. Ah, what a different castle he would build 
 now ! A dull misery of longing took possession of him as he 
 cherished the bitter-sweet fancy — a little room all sunshine, gleam- 
 ing white lilies outside, a tall slim girl with a plaintive face, with 
 sweet frank eyes, 
 
 "Oh, my God !" cried the poor fellow in his anguish. "And 
 I must never tell her that I shall love her to my dying day." 
 
 It was the hour of his weakness. By and by a certain strength 
 of acquiescence came to him — he struggled no longer ; in a word, 
 he accepted his fate. 
 
 One by one he put away his hopes from him. One by one he 
 looked the bitter conditions in the face ; his love was hopeless — 
 unrequited ; he must give that up — he must renounce all hopes of 
 entering the Church. He had given his word that he would go 
 anywhere ; he would keep his promise. There shoidd be no delay, 
 no looking back, no undue dallying with regret. The stern asceti- 
 cism of Garten's nature came to his assistance here. As soon as 
 possible he would leave Blackscar and England. The sacrifice 
 might be a cruel one, inasmuch as it involved all he held most 
 dear, but at least it should be complete. 
 
 He did not tell himself that he should not dare to trust him- 
 self often in Rotha's presence, but, all the same, he knew that such 
 was the case. A few bitter drops, of which even his manhood was 
 not ashamed, were wrung from his eyes when he thought of his 
 boy-friend Reuben, who would fret after him sorely. The thought 
 was a bitter one, but he put it away from him as soon as possible. 
 
 " He has a friend in her — he belongs to her now," he repeated, 
 with a vague pleasure in this mutual property, and a fresh dimness 
 crossed his eyes as he thought how Reuben would never allow her 
 to forget him. 
 
 There was much painful work in store for him. It was nearly 
 morning now, and he was terribly jaded, almost worn out ; but 
 with that unselfishness which was part of his nature he resisted 
 the temptation to seek his bed, but lay down for an hoiu" in his 
 clothes that he might not over- sleep himself, and so that old 
 Sarah, who was very ailing, might find the fire lighted as usual. 
 
 He went through his self-imposed tasks as sturdily as ever. 
 He smiled bitterly once or twice as he blacked his own and his 
 brother's boots. "What would she say if she saw me do this?" 
 he thought, with an odd mixture of pride and pain. " Fancy a
 
 IN THE DARK. 303 
 
 hewer of wood and a drawer of water daring to love the mistress 
 of Bryn !" He looked up and nodded to his brother as he came 
 whistling through the courtyard with his arms full of faggots. 
 The whistle was very sweet and shrill, but Carton's eyes had 
 purple rings round them, and the dark face was as pale as a girl's, 
 
 "Good morning, Robert," he said, with an attempt at cheerful- 
 ness. "Sarah has the rheumatism very badly this morning; I 
 hope you are not in a hm-ry for breakfast." 
 
 " Pretty fair ; I suppose I shall catch the usual train," returned 
 Robert carelessly. " Sally would do very well if you did not 
 spoil her so. I'll be bound you were up at six chopping that 
 wood ; and I don't think we, either of us, had too much sleep last 
 night. I might have had a dozen men overhead, to judge by the 
 tramping." 
 
 " Did I disturb you 1. I am sorry," answered Gar. " I always 
 walk a mUe or two if I am restless. If you are waiting for break- 
 fast I may as well put on my coat, for I want to speak to you." 
 He broke into whistling again as he followed his brother upstairs. 
 
 " What a fine fellow he is, after all," thought Robert. He was 
 full of pity at the sight of the dark rings — Garten's pale face and 
 puckered forehead haunted him through the day ; once or twice 
 he had twinges of remorse. How he had undervalued him ! A 
 hundred instances of the poor boy's goodness of heart rushed to 
 his mind ; he had nursed him in that long illness of his ; and he 
 remembered how Garton lay for hours parched with thirst rather 
 than wake him, when he knew he was overtired ; he had broken 
 down under the strain of that watching, and then Garton had 
 nursed him in his turn ; he recalled Garten's clumsy attempts, 
 his odd mistakes, the patient way in which he set himself to 
 retrieve his queer blunders. Those strong brown hands had been 
 as _gentle as a woman's. It made Robert's heart very soft to 
 remember these things ; it struck him all at once how he would 
 miss Garton, and how empty his daily life would be without him. 
 He looked up when Garton's whistle ceased. 
 
 "Did you say you wanted to speak to me. Gar?" 
 
 "Yes, but begin your breakfast, please, or you will lose your 
 train. Of course, I want to speak to you, I did not waste much 
 time in sleep last night, as it happens, so I went over everything 
 in my own mind ; and I want you to know that, as far as I am 
 concerned, it is all settled." 
 
 "What is settled?" 
 
 " That I wilf go to New Zealand — Timbuctoo — wherever it 
 is ; and the sooner the better. I will go for my outfit to-morrow 
 if you like."
 
 304 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " It won't be much of an outfit, I am afraid," retm-ned Robert 
 ruefully, " but I have a few jiouuds at your disjiosal, to which you 
 are heartily welcome. And you have really made up yoiu: mind, 
 Garl" 
 
 "Yes, Bob." 
 
 " My dear boy, you are doing very right, and I honour you for 
 it, old fellow ; you are just the sort of man to get on over there. 
 I should not wonder if you come back with no end of money." 
 
 " I don't much think I shall come back, Robert." 
 
 " No, not for some years — eight or ten, perhaps. It's a bit 
 of a wrench, Gar — I know that; but anything is better than 
 this rusting life down here. It will make a man of you — it will, 
 indeed." 
 
 A faint smile came to Garton's lips. Robert was kind, very 
 kind ; but how could he know — how could any one know — that 
 death would rather have been preferable to him than this lifelong 
 separation from those he loved % Come back ! He would never 
 come back. Reuben might come out to him by and by; but 
 Blackscar, and Kirkby, and Bryn he should never see again ! A 
 profound sadness seized on the unfortunate young man as these 
 thoughts occurred to him. Robert cleared his throat once or twice 
 as he looked at him. 
 
 " You must not lose heart over it, Gar." 
 
 " I don't see that it matters what I lose ; it will be aU the 
 same a hundred years hence. I suppose you and Austin will write 
 sometimes ; I shall tell Miss Maturin " — a new strange falter over 
 the word — " to send Reuben out to me. I forget if you said it 
 was to be New Zealand, Robert ?" 
 
 " Well, Mathias has offered you a free passage there ; so, unless 
 you prefer Canada or Melbourne " 
 
 "All places are the same to me," interrupted Garton indiffer- 
 ently — " out of England, I mean. Oh yes, of course. New Zealand 
 will be the best. What made Mathias offer me a free passage, I 
 wonder % Have I ever heard of him before % I forget all about 
 it." 
 
 " I was of great service to Mathias once. It does not matter, 
 so I need not refresh your memory," retm'ned Robert hurriedly. 
 It was his way to ignore any good deed he had done. " A man is 
 always grateful to the person who ha^Dpens to help him, but few 
 men make so much fuss over it. He heard me talking about this 
 emigration business, and then he offered me that free passage for 
 you." 
 
 " I thought you were too proud to accept such a favour, Robert?" 
 
 " One must swallow one's pride sometimes — I am learning that.
 
 IN THE DARK. 305 
 
 And then I have done Mathias more than one good tnrn. It was 
 a great many years ago, when we were young fellows. In short, 
 he owes me money." 
 
 " Ah ! that is a very different affair." 
 
 " Anyhow, it would not do to lose such a chance ; and then 
 Mathias has an influential friend or two over there, to whom he 
 will give you letters of introduction. Tlie whole thing speaks for 
 itself — it does indeed." 
 
 " I am quite of your opinion, Eobert, that it will be the best 
 possible thing for me to do — under the circumstances, I mean." 
 
 "I am so glad you agree with me, Gar." 
 
 " Of course I felt you were right, Austin and you, from the 
 first ; but now it is doubly my duty. Whatever happens, remem- 
 ber you have nothing with which to reproach yourself." 
 
 "I hope not," returned Robert, somewhat bewildered at the 
 solemnity of this address. Garton's face was haggard with want 
 of sleep, and his eyes were dim, with no lustre in them ; and then 
 there was that sternness of repressed feeling in his voice. Was he 
 cruel in thus driving him away % But when he thought of the 
 allm-ements of Bryn his heart hardened itself. 
 
 " There is nothing like putting a good face on a thing, Gar, 
 and keeping up your courage," he began in a cheery tone; but 
 Garton again solemnly interrupted him. 
 
 " You will tell Austin what I say. I don't care to go into the 
 matter again with any one — least of all with him." And Garton's 
 lip trembled as he thought how he had hoped to work under that 
 kindly rule. " The decision was for me, and I have made it ; and 
 there is no one to blame, but only circumstances. As far as I am 
 concerned, as I said before, I am ready to get my outfit to-morrow. 
 Shall I go up with you to Thornborough to-day and do it^' 
 
 " Gently, gently, my dear fellow ; we have not spoken to Austin 
 or Mathias. There is plenty of time, plenty. You need not get 
 into a fever about it." He was more bewildered than ever by the 
 young man's sternness and vehemence. 
 
 " Things have gone worse with him than I imagined," he said, 
 as he put a stop to the conversation by rising from the table. 
 
 Garton eyed him wistfidly as he vent out. 
 
 " I suppose he will miss me when he finds things are not quite 
 so comfortable," said the poor boy sadly as he took down his 
 cassock from the peg. 
 
 Old Widow Larkins was cleaning the church when he went in. 
 He nearly stumbled over her pail as he went swinging down the 
 aisle. He had plenty of work to do there that day. There were 
 a village wedding and two funerals, and later on a baptism. Some 
 
 20
 
 30G ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 strangers to tlie place commented afterwards on the strange dark 
 young man who seemed to do everything for everybody. When 
 the people had all gone away he locked the door on the inside 
 and went up and knelt down alone before the flower-decked altar. 
 He was only a young man, very faulty and not over wise, not 
 much more than the hewer of wood and the drawer of water to 
 which he had likened himself. But, as he knelt there, Garton 
 Ord prayed the noblest prayer but one that ever was prayed — " Oh 
 Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me!" And he prayed it 
 thrice with a patient sigh, as though his heart were broken. Was 
 his manhood less strong when he invoked another and a higher 
 Strength % Surely such men as Garton Ord are the little ones 
 of the Kingdom? 
 
 Rotha could not luiderstand what had become of her friend. 
 She had not seen him for three whole days, and she was as restless 
 and uneasy as a woman could be. He had gone down to the shore 
 with her and the boys on the afternoon in question, and she had 
 brought in Reuben and Guy to tea, not extending the invitation 
 to Guy's uncle as Mrs. Carruthers would be out. She had noticed, 
 or fancied slie noticed, a shade of disappointment on Garten's face 
 at the omission, and he had lingered more than a moment at the 
 gate, as though unwilling to break up the little party. Was he 
 hurt ? Did he think her stiff and inhospitable % There had been 
 a look of reproach in his eyes as he had turned away, as though 
 she had been guilty of some breach of friendship. This had been 
 on the Monday evening, and the next day she had a cold and did 
 not care to stir from the fireside. As it happened, none of the 
 Vicarage party made their appearance, not even Guy or Laurie, her 
 most frequent visitors. Garton, too, kept himself completely aloof; 
 Meg saw him at church in the evening, but, being short-sighted, 
 could give Rotha no information of his looks ; and he had only 
 bowed to Meg from a distance instead of coming forward as usual 
 to shake hands. 
 
 Rotha thought this very queer, but she did not say so. The 
 evening was a dull one, and she went to bed early and dreamt all 
 night that she and Garton had a quarrel. The next day it was no 
 better. Rotha's cold was still troublesome, and the weather was 
 unusually inclement. Rotha, who was an unwilling prisoner, grew 
 slightly ruffled in spirits towards evening. To add to her discom- 
 fort Mary came in on her way to church, and was very sympathis- 
 ing on the subject of Rotha's cold, and slightly mysterious on every 
 other subject. Rotha, with unusual querulousness, wanted to kno\v 
 what they were all doing with themselves.
 
 IN THE DARK. 307 
 
 " I feel as though I have been dead and biuied these two days," 
 said the girl, with a little fretfuluess. She wanted Mary to give 
 up church and stay and talk to her. 
 
 " Doing good is better than saying your prayers, don't you think 
 sol" said Rotha, with a droll inflection of voice. She liked to 
 shock Mrs. Ord sometimes. Mary was always so good and serious. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, no," said the earnest woman. " We must do 
 one without leaving the other undone. And then when one is so 
 worried " 
 
 "Are you worried?" cried Rotha affectionately. "Is that the 
 reason why you have all left me to myself so long ? I did not think 
 you would have treated me so badly unless something were the 
 matter." 
 
 " But, my dear " 
 
 " Of course something is the matter. Don't you tell me all 
 yom' worries % When persons have something on their minds they 
 had better always talk it out," said Rotha, with a little decision. 
 " Saying one's prayers is all very well, of course ; but a friend's 
 help and sympathy are not to be slighted." 
 
 " I never slight yours. Oh, my dear, what a dreadful notion ! 
 One may be worried on other people's account," finished Mary, with 
 a sigh. She had sighed several times very distinctly. "And, 
 after all, talking will not do any good in this case." 
 
 " I have no wish to interfere in other peojjle's business," said 
 Rotha stifily. "You have always treated me so as one of the 
 family, that I have grown to consider myself as one of you — that 
 is all." Rotha was more than ruffled, she was positively aggrieved 
 now ; the tears stood in her eyes. She was certain now that some- 
 thing was the matter — something probably in which Robert or 
 Garton was concerned, and which she (the little sister) was not to 
 know. She drew herself back from ]\Irs. Ord's caressing arm with 
 a little dignity. 
 
 " The bell is stopping now. Don't you think you had better 
 go?" she said presently. She had her face averted when Mary 
 stooped and kissed her. She took all her friend's affectionate 
 exhortations as to her cold with perfect coolness. "You are 
 feverish — a bad cold always makes one feverish," said Mary, with 
 a placid sigh. " You must take care of yourself, and we shall see 
 you about in a few days." Rotha shed a few tears when she was 
 left alone. A positive sense of injury took possession of her. She 
 had only been a prisoner two days, and already something had 
 taken place at the Vicarage which she was not to know, and then 
 it was so strange of Garton. She determined nothing sliould keep 
 her indoors on the morrow, but when she awoke the next morning
 
 308 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 she was forced to reconsider her resolution. A damp drizzle of 
 mist and rain threw a metaphorical wet blanket over everything, 
 her cold was still obstinate, and it would be little short of madness 
 to stir from the fireside. 
 
 Rotha thought it the longest morning she had ever spent in 
 her life. Mrs. Carruthers was induced to agree with her too. 
 Rotha was a trifle contrary ; she would not open her lips or be 
 interested in anything. Meg was quite relieved when it was time 
 to go down to the schools. When she had gone, Rotha drew her 
 chair to the fiie and was miserable to her heart's content. The 
 whole world was against her, and the weather too. What was 
 this thing they were keeping from her % Rotha had not long to 
 ask herself that question, for just then, to her surprise, the door- 
 bell rang and Reuben Armstrong came in. 
 
 It was not a half-holiday, but he had come up to Bryn with a 
 message. As he gave it — standing cap in hand, as though in haste 
 to be gone — she noticed the boy's eyes were red and swollen, and 
 his face was flushed with crying. 
 
 "Why, Rube," she said reproachfully, "you have not got into 
 any trouble with Mr. Dentry, surely?" 
 
 Reuben shook his head and looked rather indignant at the 
 supposition. 
 
 "Your father has not been near you?" But again the boy 
 shook his head. 
 
 "What is the matter, then?" she continued impatiently. 
 " Rube, you must tell me ; you look as though you have made 
 yourself ill with crying." 
 
 Reuben's eyes brimmed- over. 
 
 " Don't you know % Haven't they told you ?" he began eagerly. 
 
 " No one has told me anything," retui'ned Rotha, with a touch 
 of the old soreness ; " there is some mystery — I am quite aware 
 of that j but no one has thought it worth while to tell me anything." 
 
 " And you don't know that they are sending him away ?" 
 
 "Sending whom — do you mean Mr. Garton?" Something 
 sharp seemed to shoot through Rotha's heart then. She caught 
 her breath once or twice. " Why don't you speak out plainly, 
 Reuben ? I think you are under some mistake. If this were 
 true, don't you think they would have told me themselves?" said 
 the girl, with a little natural impatience. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Garton told them not. Oh, Miss Maturin, he 
 is so imhappy ; he could hardly speak to me last night when he 
 told me about it. I think, I do think, they will break his heart 
 between them." 
 
 " Reuben, you are very wrong," said Rotha rebukingly ; her
 
 IN THE DARK. 309 
 
 face was very pale, and she si^oke hurriedly. " My dear boy, I 
 don't think you know what you are saying. Why should they 
 send him away?" 
 
 " Of course, it is his own doing ; he is too noble to eat another 
 man's bread — don't I know that 1 — but, all the same, they have 
 driven him to it. He is never to be a clergyman — never ; and he 
 is going away to the very end of the world." 
 
 "Oh, Rube, God forbid!" and a hot flush of pain came to 
 Rotha's cheek. " We must not let him go. Rube, You are right ; 
 it will break his heart. Why did you not come to me last night 
 and tell me this?" 
 
 "I thought you knew," returned Reuben mournfully. "It 
 is no use ; they will not let you do anything. Miss Maturin — it is 
 all as good as settled. One of Mr. Robert's friends is to give him 
 a free passage to New Zealand, and he is going to Thornborough 
 to-morrow to get his outfit." 
 
 " Without telling me !" exclaimed Rotha. She was indignant, 
 even in the midst of her trouble, but Reuben was too miserable to 
 heed her. 
 
 " It is all Mr, Robert's doing — every bit ; he will try to pre- 
 vent my going out to him, I suppose, but I will go if I work my 
 way for it ; in a few years I shall be a man." He cheered up for a 
 moment at the thought, and then in an instant broke down again. 
 " He saved my life," said the boy. " I can't bear to see him go 
 away. Oh, what shall I do 1 what shall I do ?" And Reuben laid 
 his head down on the table in a perfect agony of crying. 
 
 Rotha could not have cried for worlds : her eyes were hot and 
 dry, and her throat ached ; her pain almost bewildered her. He 
 was going away — her friend and companion, clumsy honest Gar. 
 No more pleasant morning visits ; no loitering on the shore ; no 
 more* happy excursions to Burnley and Leatham Woods ; no linger- 
 ings under the lich-gate to look at the stars ; no tall form striding 
 up and down the dim aisles ; the dark face missing from the choir- 
 stall, Rotha thinks stonily of these things; through it all she 
 hears Reuben sobbing Avith a sort of impatience, " What shall I 
 do? what shall I do?" 
 
 Rotha goes up to liim and gives the lad a little shake. 
 
 " Reuben, leave off crying. Can you give a message from me 
 to Mr. Garton?" 
 
 The boy nods his head. Rotha's hand is very cold, and it 
 lies like lead on hig* shoulder. A dim hope creeps into his heart ; 
 perhaps, after all, she may do something. 
 
 Rotha clears her voice ; it is scarcely so sweet as usual, but it 
 is wonderfully steady.
 
 310 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I shall be at church this evening, Rube. When the service 
 is over, tell Mr. Garton that I shall be waiting in the porch to 
 speak to him. Whether it be wet or fine, remember, I shall 
 be there." 
 
 "Is that aU?" 
 
 " Yes, that is all. The little sister may have lost her power, 
 but she will try what she can do, for all that. You are a good 
 boy, Reuben — a faithful friend ; you deserve his love. There, go. 
 I shall rely on you, Rube, mind you don't fail me." And then, 
 somewhat to Reuben's surprise, she bends down and touches the 
 boy's forehead with her lips.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 " don't go, garton ; i want you." 
 
 ' ' ' Silence ! ' he exclaimed, 
 A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad — - 
 A man's distraction must not cheat his soul 
 To take advantage of it. Yet 'tis hard. 
 Farewell. . . . 
 
 But Hove you.' ..." 
 
 Atorora Leigh. 
 
 RoTHA ]iad quite made up her mind what to do. 
 
 As soon as Reuben had gone she went to the window and 
 took a calm sm-vey of the weather outside. The prosj^ect was 
 not very j^romising. The damp drizzle had ceased, but a gray 
 sea-fog was creeping over the sands. A raw mistiness pervaded 
 everything; it was scarcely an evening for an invalid to stir 
 abroad. Nevertheless Rotha felt no doubt of the prudence of her 
 imdertaking. 
 
 She communicated her intention to Mrs. Carruthers with ad- 
 mirable sangfroid. She only shrugged her shoulders with pretty 
 petulance at that excellent woman's dismay. Meg's remonstrances 
 fell- on deaf ears. 
 
 " When one has a duty to perform, one must fulfil it at all 
 risks," she repeated, with a little dignity. She nodded at Meg with 
 wide-open anxious eyes. Two bright spots of colour were in her 
 cheeks. There was repressed impatience in her every movement. 
 She scarcely listened when Meg pleaded a sick headache as an 
 excuse for not accompanying her. 
 
 " You had better go to bed early," Rotha said to her. " You 
 ought to speak to some doctor about these headaches." She was 
 not indifferent to her friend's sufferings ; she was simply self- 
 absorbed. She soft in a fever of excitement wliile Meg sipped her 
 tea; an intolerable mixture of pain and pity filled her heart to 
 overflowing. " What is the good of making friends if one must 
 lose them ?" she thought.
 
 312 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Meg, on her part, was sorely bewildered by the girl's impatience 
 and wilfulness. A dim suspicion of the cause kept her in sympa- 
 thising silence. She sat with throbbing head while Rotha roamed 
 hither and thither in her gray dress. " It must come to her, as it 
 must come to all of us," she thought, and a pitiful feeling came 
 over her as she remembered her own miserable past, a longing to 
 take the girl in her arms and shelter her from all possible trouble 
 and disappointment. She was a little indignant at the way things 
 had gone. " She has seen no one else, and she does not know her 
 own heart," thought Meg sadly. The young man's peculiarities 
 repelled and annoyed her. In common with many other people she 
 was inclined to undervalue Garton Ord. 
 
 Meg, in her wise experience, thought that she saw how Rotha's 
 possible future was shaping itself, and was rather inclined to be 
 angry at the sorry result. She thought Rotha, with her sweetness 
 and cleverness, might marry any one. The young people's pretence 
 at friendship did not blind her in the least. " They will go on 
 talking and laughing till they find they are necessary to each other, 
 and then one or other of them will wake up." She did not know 
 that the waking had already come to poor Garton, and that he was 
 finding it very bitter. She was thinking rather of Rotha's rest- 
 lessness these three days, of her unusual pettishness and caprice. 
 Rotha's wide-open eyes, shining with impatience, her glowing 
 cheeks, and hot hands were so many signs to the watchful woman 
 of the reality and truth of her surmises. 
 
 Rotha, on hei side, knew nothing of her friend's suspicions. 
 She was a little chagrined at her scant sympathy, that was all. 
 She went up and kissed her, almost penitently, before she left the 
 house. 
 
 " You must go to bed before I return," she said, with some re- 
 morse. " I would rather have the headache than the heartache," 
 she thought as she struggled through the damp fog. 
 
 She went to her usual seat behind the pillar and knelt down 
 for a long time. It could hardly be said that she prayed, for her 
 prayer was in some such fashion as follows, for she said over and 
 over again, only in different words : — 
 
 " If Garton Ord refuse to take my advice, what shall I do 1 
 and if he refuse to accept my help, what shall I do ? And then he 
 is my friend, my very own friend, and I cannot let him go away;" 
 and once, "God forbid!" very energetically. I do not know 
 whether Rotha added an "Amen" to these clauses, but it certainly 
 struck her with some degree of shame that there had not been 
 much reverence in her petitions. She sat and looked towards the 
 chancel very humbly at this point of her reflections.
 
 "DON'T GO, CARTON; I WANT YOU." 313 
 
 " I ought not to have been here to-night," she said, with a 
 sigh at her own shortcomings ; " I am as bad as those who bought 
 merchandise or sold doves." And as these sakitary thoughts pre- 
 vailed, she chose the longest hymn she could find in her book and 
 read it three times over without taking in a word of its sense. 
 And why 1 Merely because a tall dark figure had brushed past her 
 as it went down the aisle to the vestry, and she had looked up and 
 seen Garton Ord's face, looking sad and pale and worn, as she had 
 never seen it before. 
 
 And after that it was all no use. 
 
 Rotha stood up in her place or knelt ; she listened attentively ; 
 she sang with her usual heartiness, but the strain on her mind was 
 terrible. She could not keep her attention from wandering ; chill 
 doubts haunted her; she was afraid of herself and him. Was she 
 right in seeking a confidence which had been withheld from her ? 
 And then the remembrance of the poor boy's worn face drove all 
 hesitation from her mind, and after that she had a strange fancy. 
 
 They were singing that beautiful hymn, " Thy will be done." 
 Rotha was singing it too with tears in her eyes. She was looking 
 at the altar and the lilies ; the dim white globes seemed blossom- 
 ing from the frescoes ; the tall painted windows were fidl of bliurred 
 outline and shadow. Reuben was crying quietly behind his book. 
 
 " If Thou slialt call me to resigu 
 Wliat most I prize — it ue'er was mine." 
 
 Was it fancy, or did Garton suddenly look towards the dark 
 corner where Rotha was singing % But when she turned her head 
 again he was standing with his face to the lilies, and his lips 
 pressed tightly together as though in pain. 
 
 Rotha heard a sigh behind her, which she knew came from 
 Maiy. She was quite aware that Mrs. Ord had come in late and 
 was sitting a little to her left ; but, when service was over, she did 
 not once turn her head. She sat in her place steadily, while Mary 
 stood up and fidgeted with her wraps. By and by she had an 
 instinct that her friend was waiting for her in the porch, but she 
 took no heed. Mrs. Ord was not quite easy in her mind as she 
 went down the churchyard alone. She remembered Rotha's 
 petulance and soreness of the previous evening, and was a little 
 exercised in her mind in consequence. 
 
 Rotha sat still and waited, not very patiently it must be 
 owned. She saw vjrartou go into the cliancel with the wrappers 
 for the altar, and a moment afterwards Reuben followed him. He 
 was giving him her message. She could see him start and tui-n 
 quickly to the boy. He seemed hesitating, but it was full three
 
 314 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 minutes before Reuben was dismissed with an assenting word. 
 Reuben came down and stood beside Rotha for a little while in 
 her dark corner. 
 
 " Wasn't it a beautiful hymn V he whispered. " He was angry 
 with me because I couldn't sing it. He sang every bit, down to 
 the last verse, and then he broke down himself." 
 
 " We ought not to think of our own worries in church," said 
 Rotha dogmatically. She was a little pale and cold sitting in that 
 dark corner. Her conscience misgave her as she thought of the 
 strange merchandise she had brought in that evening. The sellers 
 of doves were nothing to her. She was every bit as bad as Reuben. 
 Reuben answered her very prettily. 
 
 " If we don't bring our burdens, how are we to lay them down ? 
 That is what the Vicar says. How can I help being sorry for 
 him, loving him so dearly as I do, and seeing him so unhappy 1 
 Oh, Miss Maturin, he looks so bad, almost as though he were going 
 to be ill." 
 
 "There, that will do," said Rotha. She pushed the boy from 
 her with hot feverish hands, though she was so cold. 
 
 Something shining fell on Reuben's sleeve at that moment. 
 
 " You must hurry home. Mrs. Summerson does not like you 
 to be late," she said as she rose hastily. Her gown blew about 
 her feet as she went out into the porch. The sea -fog had cleared 
 off, and one or two stars trembled above the blackness. The wind 
 was blowing the sand up among the graves. The white crosses 
 and tombstones gleamed in the dim haze. Rotha coughed and 
 drew her cloak round her as she drew back into the church, nearly 
 stumbling over some one as she did so. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Gar ton, with a nervous laugh ; " I 
 thought you heard me, but I suppose the wind was too boisterous." 
 
 Rotha scarcely answered as he put open the door for her. The 
 little surprise had agitated her. She went on, leaving Garton to 
 follow. She scarcely took any notice when the young man came 
 up with her, panting and breathless ; in reality a new sort of shy- 
 ness kept her lips closed, 
 
 " I had to lock up the church," he said. " Had you forgotten 
 that when you walked so fast % I hardly thought I should have 
 overtaken you before you reached Bryn." 
 
 " I forgot about the keys," returned Rotha apologetically ; 
 " one cannot help hurrying in such a wind." 
 
 " It was not fit for you to have come to church," he rephed 
 decidedly. " Mary has told us what a cold you have. You were 
 coughing dreadfully through the service." 
 
 " It was nothing," returned Rotha indifferently. The mention
 
 ''DON'T GO, CARTON; I WANT YOU." 315 
 
 of her cold reminded her of the old soreness. He knew of her 
 indisposition then, and had never cared to inquire after her. "When 
 it pleased him he could come three or four times in the coiu'se of 
 one day, but now this sad trouble of -his was tiu^ning even him 
 against her. She held herself aloof as this thought crossed her ; 
 her voice went out to him rather tremulously in the darkness. 
 
 " I thought you had forgotten me. You have all been too 
 busy these three days to think much of any one but yourselves," 
 exclaimed the girl in a hm"t voice. " Mrs. Ord came to me and 
 was dreadfully mysterious. I suppose I was foolish to mind it. 
 Of course I have no right to be considered." 
 
 " You have every right, you mean. Miss Maturin. Why 
 should you say such a thing?" Garton spoke vehemently, but his 
 tone was hardly as steady as usual. 
 
 " I suppose Mrs. Ord was told not to confide in me," continued 
 Rotha plaintively. " When Reuben came in this afternoon he 
 biu-st out crying, and told me everything. I Kked Reuben's red 
 eyes better than Mrs. Ord's mystery." 
 
 " I told Mary to say nothing about it," continued Gar. " I 
 wished — that is, I thought it better " 
 
 But Rotha broke in upon his stammering. 
 
 " You though^" it better that I should not know. Why did you 
 not give Reuben your orders too 1 Mary and the Vicar tell the little 
 sister everything. Perhaps you would rather not come in to-niglit, 
 Mr. Garton 1 Meg is not very well. I suppose you meant to have 
 come and wished me good-bye before you sailed V 
 
 Rotha quickened her steps, with secret exasperation and im- 
 patience. Her voice trembled as she delivered herself of this cut- 
 ting speech. Tears sprang to her eyes in the darkness. 
 
 " May I not come in 1 Why are you so angry with me to- 
 ni^ghtl" asked Garton humbly. The poor fellow knew nothing 
 about women ; he could not understand the girl's soreness and hurt 
 feelings. He followed her up the gravel-path with his head droop- 
 ing; he was utterly dejected and miserable. Rotha gave a little 
 stamp with her foot as she choked back her tears. Her cheeks 
 were burning again. 
 
 " He does not care for me ; nobody cares for me," she thought. 
 
 She went straight into the parlour and laid aside her liat. She 
 refused Garton's help rather impatiently when he wanted to relieve 
 her of her damp cloak. She hated herself for her pettishness all 
 the time, but she could not help it. 
 
 As for Garton, he had betaken himself to the fireside after his 
 repulse. He held on to the mantelpiece tightly as he looked down 
 into the red gleaming coals, his head resting on his arm. He did
 
 316 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 not alter his attitude nor move when Rotha swept past him rather 
 impetuously in her gray dress, though he started slightly on hear- 
 ing himself addressed. 
 
 "Will you not sit down?" she said, still more impatiently, as 
 though goaded on by his dejection. " Three days ago I don't think 
 you needed to be invited to take a seat." 
 
 He lifted his head from the mantelpiece at this. 
 
 " Why do you say such things to me ?" he said, almost fiercely; 
 then, dropping his voice, very sadly, " You must not ; I cannot 
 bear it." 
 
 Rotha was electrified by the sudden change of manner. Her 
 colour rose, and she said more gently : 
 
 " I am afraid I was cross. I did not mean to be, but one can- 
 not help being vexed by such seeming vmkindness." 
 
 " What unkindness % I don't understand you. Do you mean 
 that any of us have treated you badly?" he demanded, so vehe- 
 mently that Rotha was frightened. " Pshaw ! what a fool I am, 
 as though Robert's persecution were not enough to turn you against 
 us." 
 
 " I did not mean that," returned Rotha, quite shocked. " Hush ! 
 what nonsense. Haven't I forgiven him ? Do I not forgive him 
 every day of my life % Mr, Garton, you ought to know me better 
 than that." 
 
 "Well, what then?" replied Garton gloomily. " Do we know 
 any one % Are we sure even of ourselves % If you mean that I 
 have acted unkindly in keeping all this miserable business a few 
 hours from you, and in making Mary hold her tongue about it, you 
 have a very poor idea of my motives in doing so." 
 
 " I confess I was hurt. I thought we were such friends," re- 
 tvu-ned Rotha in a voice that was perilously sweet. Had she any 
 idea how she was torturing him ? He had drawn his chair to the 
 fire, and was bending over it with his hands propped heavily against 
 his knees ; his forehead was puckered up with pain. As he spoke 
 he scarcely raised his eyes above the gray hem of her dress. Was 
 there a glamour before his sight % As she sat there in the radius 
 of the fire-light an inefiable majesty seemed to surround the yoimg 
 girl. Her youth and sweetness abashed him. He had always 
 seen beauties in her which no one else had seen, and now a sick- 
 ness and impotence of longing seized upon him when he remem- 
 bered that all this beauty and grace was not for him. 
 
 As he sat there with his moody glance bent on the fire, he knew 
 every trick of her countenance, every fold of her dress and wave of 
 her hau". In the long dreary years that were to follow, how he 
 would remember this evening, when he listened to her innocent
 
 ''DON'T GO, GARTONj I WANT YOU." 317 
 
 reproaches with the wind soughing among the garden trees, and the 
 diill lapping of the distant waves on the shore ! 
 
 "I thought we were snch friends," repeated Rotha softly. 
 "Why did you not come and tell me this yourself? Did you not 
 know how sorry I should be for you V 
 
 " Yes, I knew," returned the poor fellow, with a groan. He 
 could have put out his hands and prayed her to refrain from tortur- 
 ing him so. What good was it to him for her to recall their 
 innocent friendship, who had loved her and would dare to love her 
 to his latest breath ? He looked upon her with sad deprecating 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes, we have been friends ; but we shall be so no longer. 
 What happy days Rube and I have had here ; and then that time 
 in the Bui"nley woods ! Well, it's all over now — over and gone, as 
 the children say. I shall leave Reuben as my legacy to you. I 
 wonder if you will thank me." 
 
 " Don't," cried Rotha, stung into sudden pain. " Mr. Garton, 
 I hardly know you to-night ; you are so unlike yourself, so sad and 
 stern. I am almost afraid of you." 
 
 " Afraid of me V Garton gave her one of his sudden brilliant 
 smiles for answer, but it soon died away. Another of those frank 
 innocent glances woiUd unman him, he felt. He must guard him- 
 self; he must be very careful. In another half-hoiu: it would be 
 time for him to take his leave ; he breathed more freely when he 
 remembered this. 
 
 " Reuben will fret sadly after me," he continued, with a sigh ; 
 " the lad is terribly constant. I believe the foolish fellow will 
 break his heart over it." 
 
 " He will be right," returned Rotha; " I mean" — colouring up 
 — " you have been such a good friend to him. Mr. Garton, will 
 you tell me once for all why you are going V 
 
 '"Why?" repeated Garton, somewhat embarrassed; he had 
 roused from his apathy now, and was looking at her in some con- 
 fusion. " I suppose because Robert cannot afford to send me to 
 college, or to maintain me any longer in idleness." 
 
 "Yes, I know; but is that your only reason?" added Rotha 
 impatiently. 
 
 She was watching the young man with keen wide-open eyes ; 
 the evidence of his confusion was clear enough to her. Poor Gar, 
 he was clumsy enough to betray himself at any moment ; and then 
 the girl was the cooler of the two. He was more embarrassed than 
 ever as he answered her. 
 
 " It was the reason why the New Zealand scheme was first 
 started," he stammered. "I have told you aU that over and over
 
 318 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 again. I knew it was right that I should go, but I could never 
 make up my mind ; and lately Robert has been i^ressing me." 
 
 "Mr. Garton, do you remember that text about the plough and 
 the looking back?" 
 
 " Yes, I do," he returned, with an emphasis that startled her, 
 " and, God helping, I mean to act upon it." 
 
 This was not what Rotha meant. 
 
 " I don't know in what way you are contriving to twist my 
 meaning," she said, rather bewildered. " I meant, of course, is it 
 right for you to renounce the desire and fixed purpose of your life 
 to be ordained V 
 
 What made Garton suddenly pass his hand before his eyes % 
 
 " I would rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God." 
 How often he had chanted those words in the daily services, and 
 what fulness of meaning had they not borne to him ! Had he not 
 desired with pm-e hands to serve in the sanctuary ? Very slowly 
 and reverently he answered her, " Yes, it is right." 
 
 " But why ?" persisted Rotha. 
 
 " Because it has been plainly shown me that my work and 
 place are elsewhere. I have hoped against hope. I have waited 
 till I am heart-sick. Miss Maturin, do not let us talk any more 
 about this." 
 
 " But I must talk about it. How am I to help you and keep 
 silence % Mr. Garton, if this be your only reason you need never 
 go to New Zealand; I will make it all right with the Vicar." 
 
 "You, Miss Maturin!" 
 
 " Yes, I. Do you think that I am not to be allowed to earn 
 my title of friend; you forget I am 'the little sister.' Mary — 
 Mrs. Ord, I mean — calls me her Aladdin's lamp, and her For- 
 tunatus' cap, and all sorts of pleasant titles. We were talking 
 about wishing-wells in Bui'nley woods the other day, Mr. Garton. 
 I will not promise to conjure up the little cottage with the bow- 
 window, and the telescope, and big dog ; but I think I can manage 
 about the college." 
 
 "You! what do you mean?" demanded Garton huskily. A 
 dark flush rose to his face ; his hands worked nervously. Was she 
 
 going to help him; was she Ah ! but it was hard, terribly 
 
 hard. 
 
 " It does not matter what I mean," returned Rotha, with a low 
 musical laugh, but she coloured too as she spoke. " The Vicar and 
 I will settle it all between us. Do you remember how we man- 
 aged about Riibe % Mr. Robert need not know." 
 
 "Do you mean that you propose to pay my college expenses, 
 and that you are going up to the Vicarage to tell Austin sol"
 
 ''DON'T GO, GARTONj I WANT YOU." 319 
 
 " There is no reason to put it in such plain words," faltered 
 Rotha ; " and, after all, you are to know nothing about it — the 
 Vicar and I will settle it. You are not too proud to take such a 
 little thing from me f she continued winningly, as she stretched 
 out her hand to him — the little soft thin hand whose touch he 
 knew so well. The poor boy trembled all over as he took it. 
 
 "You will not refuse such a little thing to your friend?" she 
 continued pleadingly. Then he shook his head. 
 
 " I could refuse you nothing, Miss Maturin. Do you think I 
 could be proud with you ? It is not that. No ; don't stop me, 
 you know I must go away." 
 
 "But why?" she persisted, pitiless in her sweetness, and her 
 eyes looked so softly at him. 
 
 Garton burst into something hke a groan, and then he threw 
 her hand away from him with a violence that hiurt her. 
 
 " You ask me that, — you — you — when you must know how 
 people are talking ! Do you think I can stay here," he continued 
 passionately, "and be accused of such things, when perhaps it 
 may end in your believing them?" 
 
 "What things? Who is talking? — about you and me, do you 
 mean ?" A dim perception of his meaning began to dawn on her. 
 " Look how you have hurt me," she said piteously, in the childish 
 way that was so irresistible to him ; "are you angry with me 
 because people choose to say foolish things of us?" 
 
 "But if you come to beheve them," he repeated hoarsely. 
 "Forgive me, Rotha; I am half mad to-night. I would rather 
 die than harm a hair of your head. If I am a beggar," cried poor 
 Gar, " I am a gentleman, and noblesse oblige." 
 
 " Sit down and tell me what you mean, and why you call me 
 Rotha to-night, Mr. Garton?" She laid her hand on his sleeve 
 with a soft persistence that compelled him to yield to her. Rotha 
 was very pale now, but she was the calmer of the two. To tell 
 the truth, she forgot herself at the sight of his excessive agitation, 
 which puzzled and frightened her at the same time. " What are 
 people saying about us, and why do you so assure me that you are 
 a gentleman?" 
 
 "I beg yoiu" pardon," said Garton vehemently; "if I have 
 offended you, it is for the fii'st time. No man can bid good-bye to 
 the woman he loves and measure his words ; if I say ' good-bye, 
 and God bless you, Rotha,' you need not be angry with me, you 
 will only be Rotha in my prayers." 
 
 The woman he* loved — he — Garton — her Garton. Rotha was 
 deadly white now, and then she turned crimson to her finger-ends ; 
 but he could not see her face, it was so averted from him ; at his
 
 320 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 next words it drooped lower and lower. Had she dreamed this ? 
 Could it indeed be true % What was the meaning of that strange 
 new happiness that set her heart beating so wildly? Not for 
 worlds — not for worlds could she have spoken then. 
 
 " Forgive me," said Gar — he had risen again to his feet, and 
 was regarding her mournfully — "you know now why I stayed 
 away, I ought not to have come here to-night, and you have 
 tried me so, beyond my strength even. They thought I was a 
 fortune-hunter, and that I dared to aspire to an heiress. They 
 little knew me. If we never meet again after to-night — and we 
 never shall with my consent — look up in my face and tell me, 
 Rotha, that you never suspected me of such meanness." 
 
 She looked up quickly to the honest face above her, and then 
 drooped her head lower than ever. 
 
 " Never — never !" she faltered ; " how dare they say so ?" 
 
 "What does it matter?" he continued, cheered by her manifest 
 sympathy ; " what does anything matter so that you think well of 
 me? I can go more happily now." 
 
 "Why should you go?" faltered Rotha. How pale her face 
 was ! 
 
 " Hush, you must not tempt me ; how can you, knowing what 
 you know now ? Of coiirse I must go away ; how can I bear to 
 live on here, and see you every day, and know," and his voice 
 trembled, " and know you are not for me ?" He paused, and then 
 went on, " You must not be sorry now I have told you this. I 
 could not help it. I could not indeed. God bless you, dear, for 
 your noble thought, as I shall bid God bless you in my prayers 
 when I am far away." 
 
 The little hand trembled out to him again from the folds of 
 the gray dress; there were tears in the bright kind eyes; the 
 sweet face was covered with blushes. 
 
 " Don't go, Garton ; I want you." And then in a voice of 
 intense feeling, " I was a poor gii'l, without a friend but Meg in 
 the world, till all these good things came to me ; but what are they 
 worth — what is anything worth — unless I may share them with 
 those I love?" 
 
 Could he mistake those brave tender words ? The strong man 
 trembled like a child when he heard them. 
 
 " Rotha, do you mean me ?" he whispered ; and Rotha, looking 
 up with a smile and a blush said, " Yes."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A LOVE IDYLL. 
 
 " Moon of the summer night ! 
 Far down yon western steep 
 Sink, sink in silver light ! 
 She sleeps, my lady sleejis ! 
 Sleeps ! 
 
 " Dreams of the summer night 
 Tell her her lover keeps 
 Watch while in slumbers light ! 
 She sleeps, my lady sleeps ! 
 
 Sleeps ! " Longfellow. 
 
 And after that neither of them knew exactly wliat had happened. 
 The prince had come to Rotha — the prince in the shabby coat ; 
 but this time it was the princess who had held out her little han(l 
 to him. 
 
 " Don't go, Garton ; I want you." 
 
 "Do you know what you have said, Rotha?" asked Garton; 
 "do you understand what your words imply?" 
 
 " Oh, hush ! yes, I know," returned Rotha hurriedly. 
 
 She sat in her place a little shy and frightened. She cast odd 
 wistfid looks at Garton, who was standing beside her with a face 
 transfigured with joy. The poor fellow would have liked to have 
 knelt down and kissed the hem of her garment for very reverence 
 and gratitude ; he would have burst into some fond worshipping 
 phrase if he had known how ; but Rotha understood him. She 
 thought his silence very eloquent; the chiming of a church-bell 
 jarred on them like a discord, startling Rotha by the lateness of 
 the hour, 
 
 " How late it is ! You must go now," said the girl softly. 
 
 She took away her hand with a little decision. She looked up 
 at him with bright impatient eyes as though bidding him to 
 leave her. 
 
 " If I go now I may come again to-morrow, may I not 1" said 
 
 21
 
 322 ROBERT ORD'S A TONE ME NT. 
 
 Garton, lingering. " I shall wake up and think it is only a dream, 
 I know. Are you sure that you really meant if?" persisted the 
 foolish fellow. "What am I to tell my brothers, Rotha? Of 
 course Robert must know if I am not to go away." 
 
 " Tell them what you will," returned Rotha, blushing ; " I 
 suppose they will understand that you were unhappy, and that I 
 would not let you go." She grew rather hot over her lover's 
 incredulity. " Of course I meant it when I said I wanted you," 
 she said, a little tremulously ; she was dazed, and his impatience 
 bewildered her. 
 
 " Come, Garton, you must go now." 
 
 She put out a soft hand again, and half led, half drew the excited 
 young man to the door. She let him out herself into the wind 
 and storm. It might have rained showers of roses on them both. 
 A shy good-night followed him through the darkness. Garton, 
 turning round in the garden-path, saw her still standing, with 
 flowing dress and hair, on the doorstep, with the silver lamp in her 
 hand. The radiant figure haunted him all night long. 
 
 Rotha went up to Meg when she had let out Garton. Meg 
 was not asleep when she entered. The elder woman knew at once 
 by the girl's kisses and silence that something had happened. She 
 drew her into her arms without a word, and let her cry softly to 
 herself. Rotha shed a few tears of wonder, and happiness, and 
 excitement on Meg's shoulder. The strain and flurry of the last 
 few hours had worn her out. This natural outlet to her pent-up 
 feelings soothed and relieved her. By and by she sat up and told 
 her friend all. 
 
 Meg was not much surprised ; she lay and listened with a 
 throbbing head to the shy recital. How strange and yet how 
 familiar it all sounded ! A hot quiver of pain darted through 
 Meg's temples as slie thought how she had known it all. Meg 
 lost herself once in the midst of the girl's eager talk ; the pine logs 
 fell asunder, sending out a shower of sparkling fragments. A 
 cricket came out and chirped upon the hearth ; the room was full 
 of a clear ruddy light. Meg is back again in the shabby parlour 
 of Chatham Place. There she is, a tall ungainly figure, with faded 
 pinks in her belt. She is playing on the cracked old piano ; the 
 cool evening air comes through the wire blinds ; the room is filled 
 with warm spicy smells ; there is a bowl of dull red carnations. 
 "Encore, encore !" cries somebody from a distance. " Play that 
 again, Maggie," says a sweet old voice. A wrinkled hand beats time 
 softly. " Ay, do Madge, it is my favourite." A tall figure blocks 
 up the light. Handsome Jack Carruthers is standing behind her ; 
 ft dark intent face leans down to hers. Are those her tears splash- 
 
 I
 
 A LOVE TDYLL. 323 
 
 ing on the ivory keys % "Ay Jack, for better, for worse ; nay, for 
 worse, worse only." Meg wakes up with a start aud shiver, and 
 a dull shadow seems cree2:)ing over the room. 
 
 " Do you love him % Are you sure you are happy ? He is 
 very good, but not good enough for my darling," says Meg, when 
 Rotha had finished. 
 
 " Good ! I wish I were half as good as he is," thought Rotha, 
 when she went up to her room. She was a little disappointed at 
 Mrs. Carruthers' reception of her news. Meg had said very little, 
 but she had kissed Rotha and wept over her. 
 
 "It is too late to ask my advice now," Meg had said very 
 solemnly, " and perhaps, after all, I should not have cared to give 
 it. You have accepted Garton Ord's love, and I pray that he may 
 be worthy of my darling's choice, but I would have her be very 
 sirre of herself aud of him too." 
 
 Rotha had gone upstairs with these words ringing in her ears. 
 In spite of her happiness they had a little sobered her. It was 
 clear that Meg had been thinking of her own imhappy choice. To 
 her such a subject must always be more or less invested with gloom. 
 Nevertheless the words had been said, and Rotha had felt herself 
 somewhat sobered by them. 
 
 " Do you love him % Are you sure you are happy ?" Meg had 
 asked her anxiously, and then she had averred it as her conviction 
 that he was hardly worthy of her friend's love. Doubtless it was 
 rather chilling to the girl's enthusiasm ; she sat down a little 
 troubled as she pondered over Meg's words. 
 
 "Was she surel" Of course she was. Rotha repelled the 
 doubt indignantly. Was he not the best, the noblest, the dearest ? 
 Her breast heaved, her eyes filled with tears, as a hundred recol- 
 lections of the young man's goodness crossed her mind. Rotha 
 was right when she felt that she loved him dearly. Nevertheless 
 Meg was right too. Mrs. Carruthers had grasped the truth instinct- 
 ively when she told herself that Rotha's affection for Garton Ord 
 was more a sentiment than a passion, and that the imagination had 
 as much to do with it as the heart. 
 
 Propinquity has much to do with such cases. One remembers 
 the quaint old name that Shakspeare has given to the pansy — 
 " and maidens call it Love in Idlenesse." How many a girl and 
 boy fancy has grown out of summer's wanderin.(;:s aud the dolce far 
 niente of holiday-time — youth, spring-time, and love joining hand 
 in hand ! In aftCF years things are difi"erent. Damon is not for 
 ever piping to his Chloe • a little honey may refresh the eyes, but 
 too much sweetness may cloy a man's palate for all that. Adam, 
 as lie delves in the sweat of his brow, is not always thinking of his
 
 324 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 future Eve. One who has lately gone from us, and who gave his 
 all of earthly love to one woman, as child and girl and wedded 
 wife, once said, " Love is the business, but not the sole business of 
 a man's life." 
 
 Rotha had always had a pleasant liking for Garton ; his society 
 had become a sort of necessity to her. Those three days of his 
 absence had seemed a break in her life ; he had fallen out of her 
 daily existence, and Rotha had been restless. Garton was away 
 from her, unhappy and miserable, and all the sweetness had gone 
 out of everything in consequence. 
 
 And after that it had all come so suddenly on her, "and maidens 
 called it Love in Idlenesse," or, as Meg would have said, love in 
 pity or out of pity. When Rotha questioned her heart in the 
 presence of Garton its answer appeared conclusive. She put out 
 her hand to him with a great throb of pity and love, with genuine 
 blushes, with a little burst of honest frankness. She would make 
 him happy; it must all come right, she thought. Poor Gar's 
 passionate protestations awoke responsive thrills. 
 
 Rotha was in a great measure blind to Garton's failings. The 
 faults that provoked others were to her but the errors of circum- 
 stance. In some degree he was glorified in her eyes. The stern 
 or ascetic side of Garton's nature, which Mrs. Carruthers found so 
 grievous, was simply admirable to the young girl, who would have 
 gone through fire and water for those she loved. She looked at 
 Garton through the glamour of her own imagination. She invested 
 him with a hundred imaginary attributes. Garton, with all his 
 clumsy honestness and his tender heart, would have fallen far short 
 of this standard, for no one knew his own faults better than Gar. 
 
 As she thought about it now, Meg's doubts ceased to harass 
 her. " He will owe everything to me. I shall make up to him 
 for all his disappointments and his wasted life," she said to herself 
 " I need not fear that he does not love me for myself now. How 
 noble of him to go away without asking for anything, and now he 
 will have it all — have it all." 
 
 When Burnley Woods are green with summer sap, when the 
 red leaves of autumn flame deep in windy hollows, or when the 
 winter snows lie crisp and untrodden in the bosky dells, how will 
 Rotha remember that she has promised to be Garton Ord's wife ■?
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 " En avaiit — en avaut ! not doubting, nor fearing, 
 
 Though clouds gather round thee, obscuring the sun. 
 Yet turn not away from the duties before thee. 
 
 Give each thy whole strength as they come ' one by one. ' 
 
 " Steadfast and strong, though the j^ath should be lonely — 
 Never look back though thy heart seem to yearu 
 To linger awhile with the beautiful day-dreams 
 
 That come with their brightness to tempt us to turn. 
 
 " Sweet the reward when the labour is ended. 
 
 To feel that each day thou hast faithfully striven ; 
 It may be that soon the great Master will call thee 
 To render account for the life He has given. " 
 
 Helen Marion Burnside. 
 
 As for Garton, he went home through the wind and rain as though 
 he were treading on air. He came back once and put his lips to 
 the stone where the silver lamp had been gleaming. He murmured 
 a thousand blessings as he looked up at the curtained window, 
 where the firelight was stUl playing on the blind. He imagined her 
 still sitting there in her gray di'ess, with downcast eyes, thinking 
 of him. He would have lingered there, Heaven knows how long, 
 in the rain and darkness, keeping watch and ward over that hal- 
 lowed threshold, but for Rotha's little Skye terrier Fidgets, who 
 flew barking at him roimd a corner. He quitted the dim garden- 
 walks with reluctance. Rotha woidd have wondered if she had 
 seen him pacing up and down underneath the soaking evergreens. 
 Garton woiild have paced on there quite happily for hours, entirely 
 oblivious of his outer man, but for Fidgets' annoying attentions. 
 The dog positively refused to recognise his friend. He growled at 
 Garton's wet overcoat, till Garton gave up the contest and retired. 
 He performed a few more acts of worship, however, in the front 
 of the house, leaning on the gate which Rotha and he had so often 
 entered. Was Rotha or he the happier now 1 " Oh, God bless her 
 for all her dear love and goodness to me !" cried Gar, lifting his
 
 326 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 hat in his youthful chivalry. How many more delirious things he 
 would have said and done are doubtful, but Fidgets found him out 
 again and came grumbling through an aperture in the wall. Jock 
 and Jasper from the Vicarage joined in the duet inside, and all the 
 village dogs took up the chorus, while Garton, baffled by the canine 
 music, took himself and his raptures to the searwall, till he felt 
 sober enough to go back to Robert. 
 
 The study looked very cosy when Garton entered. The fire 
 was blazing, the lamp freshly trimmed, and the Vicar sat in the 
 arm-chair which Garton usually occupied opposite to Robert, with 
 Cinders comfortably curled up on his knee. Garton could hear 
 their voices as he climbed up the dark staircase. The cheerful 
 light almost dazzled him coming in from the gloom outside. 
 
 Robert broke off directly at Garton's entrance. His face looked 
 flushed and excited, his eyes sparkling, his whole appearance and 
 manner changed. The Vicar also looked beaming. The two con- 
 fronted him with some curiosity. Garton, with his radiant face, 
 his wet coat and muddy boots, presented a strange appearance to 
 his two brothers. Austin put his hand on his wet shoulder rather 
 anxiously, and Robert exclaimed in surprise : 
 
 " Why, where have you been. Gar % It is nearly eleven o'clock; 
 and, my dear fellow, just look at your boots." 
 
 " Yes, I know," returned Garton, not looking at them, however, 
 and shaking himself like a water-spaniel. " I have been with a 
 friend a part of the evening, and since then I have been taking a 
 walk by myself on the sea-wall." 
 
 He did not add that his friend had been Rotha, and if Robert 
 had any susjjicion as to the cause of his radiant looks he did not 
 say so. 
 
 Austin was the next to speak. 
 
 " Making the most of your liberty, eh % Now I'll be bound 
 your friend was Rube Armstrong, and that you were both making 
 a night of it up at Bryn. Here have Robert and I been wearing 
 out our patience waiting for you. Mary has sent in once to know 
 when I was coming, but I would not go till Robert had told you 
 the news." 
 
 " What news % It ought to be pleasant to judge by Bob's face," 
 replied Gar dreamily. He wondered with a sort of pride if they 
 could guess how little their news could affect him. It was some- 
 thing to see Robert look happy, however. "Is Belle better?" he 
 asked, with a consciousness that this news must be about her. 
 
 " Better. No, I cannot say that she is," replied the Vicar, 
 becoming a little grave at the question. "Mary will have it that 
 she gets gradually worse."
 
 BE T WIXT A ND BE T WEEN. 327 
 
 '• Oh, Mary is always croaking," interrupted Robert hastily. 
 
 " It is natural that she should be anxious about her only sister," 
 returned the Vicar mildly. " I cannot bear to see her worry her- 
 self so ; it is making her quite thin. You know you were getting 
 anxious yourself, Robert." 
 
 " Yes, but this will make all the difference ; it will put a stop 
 to the unsettled state of things ; and then the change of climate, 
 you know." 
 
 "You think, then, of arranging it before May?" inquired the 
 Vicar significantly. 
 
 Robert nodded and then looked at Garten. 
 
 " We have not told him your news yet. Look here, Gar ; we 
 are talking in hieroglyphics, old fellow. What should you say if 
 you had not to go to New Zealand after all V 
 
 Gar stared at him stupidly. Not to go 1 Of course he was 
 not going now; but how did they know? Robert took up his 
 brother's parable rather impatiently. 
 
 " That is not the way to begin, Austin. Gar will never vmder- 
 stand us like that. Listen to me. Gar. You recollect Aunt Char- 
 lotte's oldest friend, Mr. Ramsay of Strettonf 
 
 "Remember him? Of course I do. Emma Ramsay was a 
 pretty girl, too," he added mischievously for his brother's benefit, 
 and, for a wonder, Robert did not resent the joke. 
 
 " Well, she is Emma Tregarthen now — Lady Tregarthen, I 
 should say ; and is prettier than she ever was, only rather stout. 
 Well, what should you say, Garton, at Mr. Ramsay sending for me 
 early this morning in quite a friendly way and telling me that he 
 had accidentally heard that I was managing clerk at Broughton 
 and Clayton's, and not getting on so well as I ought in the world, 
 and then making me the most brilliant offer you ever imagined?" 
 
 . " I should say he was a jolly old fellow and no end of a brick," 
 cried Garton rapturously. " Is he going to take you into the 
 works at Stretton ? Bravo, Bob ! The star of the Ords is rising 
 now," and, boyish as ever, he clapped his brother gaily on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " No nonsense. Gar ; you have not heard me out. He can't 
 take me in at Stretton, though I see he wants me, because Carter 
 refuses to be superannuated, and very sensible too of Carter. By 
 the bye, he told me, Austin, that he had always hoped to see me 
 at the head of that concern, in poor Bob Ramsay's place, but of 
 course the fates ^vould not have it," moralised Robert, looking very 
 handsome and sentimental, as behoves a man who had had to choose 
 between two beautiful girls. 
 
 " That w^as when he hoped you would be his son in-law," re
 
 328 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 tvu-ued the Vicar, smiling. "It is getting late, my dear fellow, 
 and you are leaving Garton a long time in the dark." 
 
 " Not in the dark now," answered Gar, with a happy laugh, but 
 of course his brother misunderstood him. 
 
 "What do you guess?" asked Eobert in surprise. "I was 
 utterly taken aback when Mr. Ramsay told me that, knowing how 
 my abilities were thrown away, he had taken the liberty to recom- 
 mend me to the house of Fullagrave and Barton, old correspondents 
 of his, who had applied to him for a well-qualified English manager." 
 
 " An American house ! " exclaimed Garton, opening his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, I should have preferred England, if only for Belle's sake. 
 Of course I know she will be willing to accompany me," he con- 
 tinued, with a smile ; " still it is hard parting her and Mary. It 
 is all arranged ; Mr. Ramsay has the power to arm me with full 
 credentials. I have given Broughton and Clayton three months' 
 notice. My salary is to be six or seven hundred a year, and I 
 trust, before two months are out, Belle will be weU enough to marry 
 me. Mr. Ramsay says there can be no objection to my taking a 
 wife out, as we are to have a house rent free on the premises. So 
 Belle will be quite a rich woman," finished Robert ; but his voice 
 was a little husky as he thought how late, how very late, all these 
 good things had come to them. More than once the fear had 
 crossed his mind that evening that Belle was hardly fit for the new 
 duties she was to take on herself. 
 
 "Have you told her?" asked Gar excitedly. "My dear Bob, 
 I heartily congratulate you." He was a little absent now and then ; 
 he wondered when a break in his brother's talk would allow him 
 to bring out his news. It was glorious to think that Belle and 
 Robert were at last to be married, and there could be but one 
 ojjinion at Robert's good fortune ; but he must be forgiven a little 
 natural egotism if he wished that Robert would not be quite so 
 prohx. 
 
 " No, I have not told Belle yet ; Mary begged me to say 
 nothing to-night. Garton, you don't look half surprised enough, 
 and you don't ask me why you are not to go to New Zealand." 
 
 "No," returned Garton, trying to suppress his impatience; "I 
 forgot all about that part of it, Robert." 
 
 " Well, I am coming to it now. Mr. Ramsay did not send for 
 nie this morning only to tell me this news, but because he thought 
 I should be a likely person to assist him in a sudden difficulty ; he 
 has no sons, as you know, and his staff, though efficient, is some- 
 what small, and he wants a trustworthy person with a fair amount 
 of brains to discharge rather a delicate commission for him." 
 
 "Well!" ejaculated Garton. Robert was decidedly prosy in
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 329 
 
 his happiness ; these particulars were not at all interesting to 
 Garton ; he began to think of Rotha standing out in the dark with 
 a silver lamp in her hand ; he could hear the sweet good-night echo- 
 ing among the trees ; he shifted his place and moved restlessly, 
 somewhat to Austin's amusement, as Robert went on with his 
 explanations. 
 
 " You see he is rather in a fix just now, as the Yankees say ; 
 he has just heard from very reliable sources that the Vera Cruz 
 mines in South America are not yielding profits to the shareholders ; 
 that, in fact, there are rumours of immense losses. Mr. Ramsay is 
 not one of the directors, but he has dabbled very largely in shares ; 
 and the person he has appointed to watch his interests over there 
 has not quite come up to the mark. Some of the most influential 
 shareholders have been selling out, a panic has been the result, and 
 the directors want to hush it up ; in fact, Mr. Ramsay cannot 
 satisfy himself whether there be serious cause for alarm or not ; — • 
 do you follow mel" 
 
 " Of course I do," returned Garton impatiently ; he could not 
 understand what Robert was driving at, or why these lengthy par- 
 ticulars should be interesting to him. The Vicar, who was watch- 
 ing him, exchanged a droll smile with Robert. 
 
 " It does not strike you as particularly interesting, does it % 
 Well, it will soon ; don't be in a hurry. Gar ; it is coming presently. 
 Well, Mr. Ramsay would go over himself, but he is not as young 
 as he was, and he dreads the voyage ; but he asked me if I knew 
 of any one tolerably trusty who would go over there, and who 
 would watch the whole thing for him and keej) his eyes and ears 
 open. The process, as Mr. Ramsay explained it, is very simple. 
 His principal business would be to seek out a certain retired 
 Spanish merchant, of whom Mr. Ramsay has lost sight for many 
 years ; tliis Don Gomez would give you — I mean the person in 
 question — every reliable information that was to be had. You see 
 it is very simple. The only thing is, there's not a moment to be 
 lost; Mr, Ramsay wants immediate action." 
 
 It was evident Garton was getting very restive ; he understood 
 now at what Robert was aiming ; he would have to bring out his 
 news in a very different way than he intended ; this long business 
 talk was intolerable. 
 
 "Well, Gar," continued Robert good-humouredly, "I suppose 
 you know what I am after now % Mr. Ramsay offered very hand- 
 some terms, and J owed him a good turn for what he had done for 
 me. Of course I told him that my brother would be the person. 
 Aren't you glad it is South America and not New Zealand, Gar?" 
 
 "You told him I would go!" bm'st out Gar. " How dare
 
 330 ROBERT OR ITS ATONEMENT. 
 
 you 1 — I beg your pardon — what right had you to say such a thing 
 •wjthout my leave, Kobert V 
 
 " Tut ! hid, don't lose your temper. Austin, just look at him. 
 Do you think I would have answered for you if I had not been 
 sure of your consent 1 Have you not been breaking your heart 
 days enough over the New Zealand scheme ] and didn't you tell 
 me that you would go anywhere, to Timbuctoo if I liked 1" 
 
 " Circumstances alter cases," returned Garton ; his muscles 
 were quivering, his whole frame seemed strung up to the contest, 
 he looked every inch an Ord. " I hope you have not given your 
 word, Robert ; for I do not mean to go to New Zealand or South 
 America either." 
 
 " Hear him," returned Robert in calm exasperation ; " did you 
 ever see any one so provoking in your life, Austin 1" 
 
 " I thought you would have been overjoyed. Gar," said the 
 Vicar reprovingly. " Robert thought he was doing the best for 
 you ; he knew how you hated the thought of leaving England. 
 The whole thing would not occupy you more than five or six 
 months ; it would simply be a pleasant change, and Mr. Ramsay 
 held out the hope to Robert that if you pleased him in the way 
 you discharged yoiu- commission he would take you into his works 
 at Stretton." 
 
 "And," put in Robert, with an uneasy glance at Garton, "I 
 would not have given my word to Mr. Ramsay if I had had a 
 doubt of your approval ; but there was not a moment to be lost — 
 not a moment, Garton. He wants you to start by the Phoenix next 
 Wednesday." 
 
 "And what did you say, Robert?" asked Garton, trying to keep 
 himself still. 
 
 " I told him you would go," returned Robert steadily. " Why, 
 Gar, what's the matter with you?" 
 
 " Oh, good heavens ! give me patience," cried poor Gar. 
 " Robert, you were wrong, very wrong, to pledge your word to 
 Mr. Ramsay. How am I to go now 1 Indeed I cannot. Miss 
 Maturin and I are engaged !" 
 
 A dead silence followed Garton's hasty words. If a thunder- 
 bolt had fallen between the three they could scarcely have appeared 
 more astonished ; the Vicar especially could hardly believe his 
 ears. 
 
 " Engaged ! You and Rotha ! " he gasped out ; but Robert 
 interrupted him. 
 
 " Do you intend to tell us that you have had the meanness to 
 projose to her?" he almost thundered. But perhaps it is not 
 well to repeat the words of a man wlien he is angry ; forbearance
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 331 
 
 aiid a tolerant estimate of other men's motives were not among 
 Robert Ord's virtues. The Vicar too was at first scarcely less 
 displeased. Neither could rid himself of the impression that 
 Garton had taken an ungenerous advantage of the young heiress. 
 
 " Go on," said Garton, with a little scorn ; " I shall not defend 
 myself" 
 
 He folded his arms and listened with pale face and fiery eyes 
 to Robert's brief cutting speeches. The Vicar looked distm-bed, 
 as well he might, at the high words that raged between the 
 brothers. Oh, the Oid temper ! Garton had his share of it, with- 
 out doubt. 
 
 " Hush ! that will do, Robert," said Austin in an authoritative 
 manner. 
 
 His great calm voice seemed to have an instantaneous efiect on 
 the excited young men. He put his hand on Robert's shoulder as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " I don't think we ought to be so hard on him, Bobus," using 
 unconsciously the name that belonged to their boyhood. " Let us 
 rather hear what the lad has to say for himself." 
 
 "He ought to have gone away like a man without saying any- 
 thing," returned Robert bitterly ; " he told me he woidd." 
 
 " I never said that I would go away without bidding her good- 
 bye," replied the other vehemently. " Woidd you have me slink 
 off like a thief or a coward? Was it my fault that I loved her," 
 burst out Gar, " when every one in my place must have done the 
 samel" 
 
 " No, no," broke in the compassionate Vicar. He began to 
 estimate the force of Garton's temptation. He held out his hand 
 to the poor boy kindly. 
 
 " We've been too hard on you. Gar. Tell us how it all happened, 
 lad." 
 
 That touch of real sympathy beat down all Garton's stubborn- 
 ness in a moment. His eyes glistened. The sullen look passed 
 out of his face. 
 
 " I will tell you, Austin," he said eagerly ; " but I will have 
 nothing to do with any of his questions. If Robert chooses to 
 insult me, he may take the consequences. I never went near Bryn 
 at all till she sent for me." 
 
 " Sent for you !" echoed the Vicar in surprise. 
 
 Robert looked up then with gloomy eyes, but said nothing. 
 
 "Yes; she s^nt me a message by Rube. She had heard all 
 about my going away, and wanted to prevent it ; you, who know 
 so much about her generosity, Austin, can guess what she ofi'ered 
 me. Slie was pressing it on me as innocently as though she were
 
 332 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 my sister, and I got up and flung her hand away. I don't think 
 I qxute knew what I was about, Austin, and then it all came out." 
 
 " Hush ! don't say any more. Yes, I understand." He turned 
 his back on Gartou, and began to walk up and down the room as 
 though somewhat agitated; understand — of course he did — he 
 could see it all clearly. The frank offer of assistance and the 
 abrupt refusal, the girl's innocent reproaches and the poor fellow's 
 sudden burst of angiush ; he could fancy the sternness with which 
 Garton flung away the little hand and rose to depart. Perhaps 
 she saw his look of despair, and 
 
 " Yes, yes, I see how it was," muttered the Vicar. He turned 
 back and put his hands on Garton's shoulders, and looked up in 
 the young man's face with kind wistful eyes. 
 
 " Do you think you are worthy of her. Gar % Oh, Gar, you 
 are both so young for your age ; are you sure that you know your 
 own minds '2" 
 
 Garton was silent a moment, and an expression almost of sad- 
 ness crossed his face. " I shall try my best, Austin, you may 
 depend on that ; but how can I ever hope to come up to her V 
 
 The Vicar smiled a little sadly ; he seemed about to speak and 
 then checked himself. 
 
 "You were going to say something, Austin?" 
 
 " Yes, but I was afraid I might hurt you ; the fact is the world 
 will judge you somewhat harshly in this, Garton ; it will say, and 
 justly too I think, that a man has no right to owe everything to 
 his wife." 
 
 " That is what I say," muttered Robert. Garton looked from 
 one to the other rather doubtfully. 
 
 " Perhaps it might not do in some cases," he said at last, very 
 slowly. " Of course I should prefer it otherwise — any man would ; 
 but I shall not be such a fool as to let my pride stand in the way. 
 I think it would be cowardly after what she said," and the dark 
 face worked, and softened as he remembered Rotha's words — " I 
 was but a poor girl, Garton, without a friend but Meg in the world, 
 till all these good things came to me ; but what are they worth — 
 what is anything worth — unless I may share them with those I 
 love?" She had said this to him in her sweet humility; would he 
 ever forget those words? He knew what she meant; with womanly 
 generosity she was stripping herself of all adventitious distinctions ; 
 her wealth was to be apart from herself, a mere adjunct of circum- 
 stances. In these few words she would have him know that in 
 her sight they were more than equals. 
 
 Rotha's unworldly nature was likely to be a great comfort to 
 Garton ; it gave him strength now to repel his brother's forcible
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 333 
 
 argument; it was not well in some cases, perhaps, but to be 
 daunted by such a bugbear as this would be unmanly, he told 
 himself; but Austin's words were, nevertheless, very grievous to 
 him. 
 
 He stood with a clouded face while Austin louked at his watch 
 and exclaimed abruptly at the lateness of the hour. 
 
 " If you are going in next door I shall come with you," he said 
 with some decision, when the Vicar seemed preparing for departure. 
 Austin sighed wearily, but offered no objection to the lad's im- 
 patience ; the conversation would keep, he thought, till to-morrow, 
 lout Garton was evidently not of his opinion. Robert watched 
 them out with gloomy eyes ; he sighed bitterly once or twice when 
 he was left alone. 
 
 "Who would have thought the boy would have had such good 
 taste f he said, half aloud, as he dragged his cliair nearer to the 
 fire and stirred the decaying embers together. " Pshaw ! if she 
 be what they make out, how could such a woman care for him ?" he 
 continued disdainfully. He struck the logs heavily with his boots 
 — a shower of bright sparks flew hither and thither. " Gar has 
 no pride," he muttered, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring 
 at the flame. " If I had loved her ever so, I would have gone 
 away without saying one word to her, if she looked at me for ever 
 with her soft pitiful eyes ; eyes — I never saw any woman's like 
 them, they talk to you almost like a dumb animal's;" he shaded 
 his with his hand and looked steadily into the lurid cavern before 
 him. What face was that that seemed to start up suddenly before 
 him % Not Belle's, certainly ; there is no halo of pale golden hair, 
 no gray eyes brimful of unspoken fondness. This is a sweet tired 
 face, with brown hair blowing softly over the temples, the lips 
 quiver sadly, the eyes are full of passionate brown fire. " I would 
 ratlaer walk till I dropped — till I died— before I touched your arm;" 
 he wonders with a groan when these bitter words will cease to 
 haunt him. Well, Garton has a strong arm, and she will lean on 
 that — on that — a strange smile wreathes his pale lips as he follows 
 out this thought — ■'■'■ Oh, Robert, Robert Ord, the time vrill soon 
 come when you will wish that you had never been born than that 
 you should see such a sight as that." 
 
 One can imagine what sort of kind brotherly counsel the Vicar 
 gave when the study door had closed on him and Garton, and how 
 he forgot his weariness, and patiently listened to the young man's 
 eager outpourings Garton got more than a glimpse of the great 
 loving heart then ; he listened with tender reverence when Austin 
 touched gently on his failings and pointed out the path of duty 
 that lay before him.
 
 334 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " You must go away, that you may be worthy of her," he said, 
 not heeding how Garton winced at his words. " You must work 
 bravely for her and yourself too before you can enjoy yoiu- reward. 
 When you come back you will be in a far different position, Garton, 
 from what you now occupy. Then you will have earned something 
 towards your college expenses; your career will be open to you, and 
 the good things will not come into empty hands as they do now." 
 
 " Enough, I will go," said the young man ; he held out his 
 hand to his brother, and the Vicar was almost startled at his pale- 
 ness. " I hope you will not have reason to repent of your advice, 
 Austin," he added with a wistful smile, touching in its sadness ; 
 " but it shall never be said that I shirked my duty." 
 
 He went back into the next house and walked up straight to 
 Robert, who was still sitting, brooding over the embers, with his 
 elbows on his knees. 
 
 "Well," said Robert, not looking up at him, however, "you 
 and Austin have found plenty to talk about." 
 
 " You are right," returned Garton sadly. All the brightness 
 had gone out of his face; he looked weary and dull. " Robert, you 
 meant it for the best, and I will not say any longer that you were 
 wrong. I will go by the Phoenix on Wednesday." Robert looked 
 up quickly, and then in a moment all his suUenness melted, and 
 his whole heart yearned over his brother. 
 
 " God bless you, lad, you have lifted a weight off my mind. I 
 did give my word ; and. Gar, I really thought I was doing it for 
 yoiu" good." 
 
 " Don't let's say another word about it, Bob. I've got to do 
 it, and that's all." 
 
 " Yes ; but I must say something. Look here, dear boy, I did 
 not mean half of all those hard things I have been saying." 
 
 "Did you not, Robert f 
 
 " No, of coui'se not ; but I felt for the moment as though you 
 had disgraced us all." 
 
 " I shall never do anything to disgrace you," retvirned Garton 
 quietly. " How can I when she cares for me ? I am glad you 
 have told me this, Bobus. It makes it easier for me to go away. 
 If I never come back" — his voice faltered — " you will try to think 
 the best of me, will you not, dear old Bobus ?" And before his 
 brother could answer he dashed his hand across his eyes and 
 hurriedly left the room. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 A woman's reason : '• I LOVE HIM BECAUSE I LOVE HIM." 
 
 " Dear soul, not so ! 
 
 That time doth keep for \xs some happy years, 
 That God hath portion'd out our smiles and tears, 
 Thou knovvest and I kuow. 
 
 " Therefore I bear 
 
 This winter-tide as bravely as I may, 
 Patiently waiting for the bright spring day, 
 That cometh with thee, Dear." 
 
 Arnold. 
 
 The bright beams of a December sun awoke Rotha the next morn- 
 ing, and a pleasant conviction that things were not quite as they 
 were yesterday, and that something very wonderful had befallen 
 her, was the first sensation that stole upon her. 
 
 How different everything was from yesterday ! 
 
 Then she had wakened to a sense of weariness and discomfort, a 
 cold sea-fog had enveloped everything ; Meg had come shivering 
 into her room, bringing a gust of raw dampness with her. But 
 to-day, when Rotha opened her eyes, all was glitter and light : a 
 fre§h wind swept over the lawn, stirring the shining rainpools ; the 
 drops were still glistening on the evergreens, a robin chirped busily 
 in the ivy. Out beyond in the morning sun lay the chain of low 
 grass hillocks, long stretches of yellow sands, and then the blue 
 curve of the bay — Welburn sloping in the distance like a breadth 
 of dun-coloured cloud. Everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, 
 were salt-ponds, trails of black seaweed, purple rocks uncovered in 
 the sun, and masses of hummocky sand. Rotha looked almost as 
 bright as the morning itself as she sat opposite Meg at the sunny 
 breakfast-table ; upstairs Prue and Catherine were singing over 
 their work ; the jpeu windows and clanging doors bore witness to 
 the fresh sea-breezes. Hannah Farebrothers, in her snowy sun- 
 bonnet, was pulling cabbages in the kitchen-garden. Peter came 
 ill at the green door on the lawn with Jock and Jasper barldng at
 
 336 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 his heels ; Fidgets flew down tlie lawn, his every hair bristhng, to 
 repel the intruders ; and Garten's black cat, Cinders, who was 
 taking a constitutional on her neighbour's wall, stepped gingerly 
 among the broken bottles, looking down at them all in sooty 
 disdain. 
 
 " What a beautiful day ! Oh, how happy I am ! " thought 
 Rotha as, breakfest over, she stood by the open glass door feeding 
 the robins ; she broke off" to wave a smiling good-bye to Meg, who 
 went down the garden with her music-books under her arm. 
 
 " I am going to the organ first, and then to the school," Meg 
 had said to her. Rotha looked after her with curious wistful eyes. 
 " How strange it must feel to have lived one's life and to have been 
 disappointed with it ! " thought the girl sadly. " Meg cares only 
 for her children and her music ; she has no world of her own at 
 all ; she only lives in other people's lives— in mine and in little 
 Stacy Maurice's, for example. I fancy, by the way she talks about 
 her, that Stacy is her favourite. She spends her whole life in doing 
 good and praying for that good-for-nothing husband of hers ; and 
 yet, I suppose, when she married him she expected to be happy as 
 I am," moralised Rotha, with the unconscious superiority of one 
 who feels that her own life will be so different. 
 
 She was rather absent when Hannah came in with a budget of 
 domestic news. She gave all sorts of contradictory orders to the 
 astonished woman, and then laughed and scolded herself in a breath. 
 While Hannah talked about the miller and the price of flour, and 
 the reasons why the last batch of bread had been so slack-baked, 
 and how Prue's grandmother would find them in new-laid eggs all 
 the year round at a cheaper rate than Gammer Stokes would, 
 Rotha was wondering when Garton would be round, and how he 
 would look, and what she would say to him, and whether he had 
 told the Vicar — which latter point was speedily settled for her by 
 the entrance of the Vicar himself. 
 
 Rotha had not expected him, and his visit took her quite by 
 surprise, and for once in her life she felt decidedly nervous ; she 
 coloured and stood quite still by the window till he came up to her. 
 
 " Well, Rothar' he said. He waited till Mrs. Farebrothers had 
 curtsied and withdrew, and then he held out his two hands to the 
 girl almost fondly. How pretty she looked as she stood there 
 before him with downcast eyes, with her dark lashes sweeping her 
 cheek ! The gray dress and soft blue ribbons seemed to lend her 
 colour. 
 
 "Is it really so, my child T' he said earnestly. "Have you 
 quite made up your mind 1" And Rotha's happy blush was suffi- 
 cient answer.
 
 A WOMAN'S REASON. 337 
 
 What a long talk they had walking up and down the sunny old 
 garden ! How wisely, and with what gentleness he talked to her ! 
 Rotha lost her shyness now as she listened to him. 
 
 He told her in grave uncompromising words how the world 
 would look upon her choice. " If she wished to marry Garton," 
 he said, " and had made up her mind that it was for her happiness, 
 it was not for them to interfere. But he would have her consider 
 the thing in all its bearings, and not gloss over its difficulties." 
 
 He touched very tenderly too on Garton's failings, taking care 
 to do justice to his nobler qualities. " He is very humble-minded 
 — singularly so," tlie Vicar added, "and his faith is almost child- 
 like. He will love you dearly, Rotha," he continued ; " it is in 
 his natiu-e to be feithful." And then he hinted more than once at 
 that want of ballast which was Garton's most serious defect. 
 
 " Gar is such a lovable fellow, and is so full of grand impulses," 
 he said regretfully ; " but, Rotha, I am half afraid that you are 
 cleverer than he ; a woman ought not to be cleverer than her 
 husband." 
 
 " Goodness is better than cleverness," returned Rotha, blushing. 
 She clave with a faith that was almost touching to her belief in 
 Garton's goodness, and then she added naively, " I do not like to 
 be called clever." 
 
 " Goodness is not everything," returned the Vicar gravely. 
 " In marrying, a woman ought to be able to look up to her husband 
 — to lean on him, so to speak. Do you think you could depend 
 on Garton % that you could go to him for advice in all your diffi- 
 culties and troubles? Be assured, tlie happiest woman in the 
 world needs such help daily. And then if he could not give it, 
 think, Rotha, how grievous it would be to be disappointed in him 
 after all." 
 
 ^" I shall not be disappointed. He is sure to be good to me," 
 replied the girl innocently. "I suppose, as he is not much older, 
 that we shall help each other ; and then we can always come to 
 you for advice, as I do now," she added timidly. 
 
 "When you have a husband you will go to him. Mary tells 
 me everything." He smiled a little over the girl's refreshing 
 naivete, though it made him rather grave inwardly. He was 
 afraid, as Mrs. Carruthers was, that Rotha was a little misled by 
 her imagination in her estimate of Garton's character. 
 
 Rotha in reality was a good deal puzzled by the Vicar's ques- 
 tions ; his solemnjty disturbed her. The sun was shining ; the 
 birds were twittering around her. She was happy ; the world 
 was beau ti I'll!. 
 
 "Oh, why will everybody be so grave about it? Was no one
 
 338 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 ever engaged before 1" thought Rotha indignantly. "What does 
 it matter, if he be not clever, if I love him?" She put on a pro- 
 voking little face as she turned to the Vicar. " I shall tell Garton 
 that I shall always come to you for advice," she said, nodding at 
 him. She had taken her handkerchief in her old way and had 
 tied it gipsy-like over her brown hair. Her eyes were full of shy 
 happiness. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, smiling; " if it must be so, it must be, I 
 suppose. If I were Gar, I would not have you with such a proviso." 
 He patted her hand thoughtfully, and then relapsed into gravity. 
 
 " Yes, it was a good thing," he said, " for both their sakes, 
 that Garton was going away ; it would test the reality of their 
 affection for each other, and woidd make a man of Gar by teaching 
 him to depend on his own resources ; he woidd come back worthier 
 of her than he was now." 
 
 Rotha looked up in some alarm at this. 
 
 " Going away — Garton going away ! " she said. And just then 
 the Vicar espied Garton himself coming through the trees to meet 
 them. 
 
 Another time Rotha would have been rather bashful at thus 
 meeting her lover for the first time under the Vicar's eye ; but 
 consternation at this sudden piece of news overbore this feeling, 
 and as Garton came up to them — rather sheepishly, it must be con- 
 fessed, at the sight of his brother — she put out her hand to him 
 with a little impatience at his delay. 
 
 "What is this?" she said, rather peremptorily. "What does 
 it all mean ? The Vicar says you are going away." She looked up 
 at him with wide-open eyes fidl of distress, with a fall of the lip 
 like a child's ; she actually believed that Garton was going to 
 New Zealand, after all. 
 
 Garton took the little hand tenderly ; he looked from one to the 
 other rather doubtfully. The Vicar was grieved to see how worn and 
 haggard Garton's face still was : strong agitation, sleeplessness, and 
 the alternation from despair to sudden joy, and now the reluctance 
 with which he viewed his enforced absence for so many months, 
 made sad ravages in the young man's appearance ; the radiant look 
 of last night had almost disappeared. 
 
 " What have you told her, Austin ? " he said, addressing his 
 brother. " Robert has detained me, Rotha ; I meant to have told 
 you myself." He held her hand in a grip that was almost painful. 
 
 " Don't — you are hm'ting me ; you are always hurting me, 
 Garton," said tlie girl in a droll voice. 
 
 After the Vicar had left them she showed the red murk to 
 Garton, who looked grave over it.
 
 A WOMAN'S REASON. 339 
 
 " My great hands are enough to crush those little fingers," he 
 said, stroking them remorsefully. "What a little hand you have, 
 Rotha — such a small thin hand !" 
 
 " Never mind, it is not a i:)retty one," returned Rotha hastily, 
 drawing it away. " Garton, am I to understand that you are going 
 to New Zealand, after all % " 
 
 " To New Zealand ! " laughed Gar. " No ; not unless you 
 have a fancy for going there too. I can't say that I have any 
 desix-e just now to pitch my tent among wigwams." 
 
 "Are there wigwams in New Zealand? How funny!" ex- 
 claimed Rotha. " I thought by the Vicar's laughing that I must 
 be wrong, after all; but he certainly said that you were going 
 away; and when — and where 1" demanded Rotha, somewhat 
 puzzled. 
 
 "Rotha, dear, I will tell you. Yes, I am going away," he 
 returned in a troubled voice. He began to exj^lain to her as well 
 as he could how it had all come about, but at the first mention of 
 Robert's name she stopped him. 
 
 " Robert thinks it necessary ! What right has he to interfere 
 between you and me 1 K he hates me, is that any reason why he 
 should send you away 1 " she exclaimed indignantly. 
 
 " Hush, dear ; no one sends me away. I am going because it 
 is right for me to go," returned Gar, with a touch of sturdy inde- 
 pendence. " Sweet heart " — the young man used the word in its 
 Saxon sense, which rendered it infinitely touching — " sweet heart, 
 do you think I should be worthy of you if I shirked my duty'?" 
 
 "No," returned Rotha in a choked voice; "if you wish to 
 leave me, you must do so, I suppose." 
 
 " If I wish to leave you 1 Oh, Rotha, how can you say such 
 things," bm-st out the poor fellow, " when you know I worship 
 the ground you walk on V How eloquent he could be— this great 
 clumsy Garton ! "Don't make it too hard for me," pleaded Gar; 
 "it is bad enough to have to go away without leaving you sorry 
 and caring for it." 
 
 "Would you have me not care? How cold it is out here !" 
 shivered the girl. Her kerchief had become untied and her brown 
 hair blew softly over her neck ; the pretty colom" had faded out of 
 her cheeks ; she looked pale and wistful. 
 
 " Perhaps we had better go in. I thought that red cloak 
 would have kept you warm," he retm-ned ; " but these winds are 
 so treacherous." He followed her through the open glass doors ; 
 the robins were still cliattering and twittering in the ivy. Rotha 
 said nothing as Garton placed her favourite chair by the fire and 
 brought her a footstool ; she sat with the red cloak dropping oil
 
 340 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 from her shoulders and her hands folded wearily in her lap. 
 G-arton stood and watched her with that strange new heartache 
 of his till he saw the tears in her eyes, and then he could bear it 
 no longer; he was standing beside her "mountains high," as she 
 phrased it in her droll way, but now he suddenly got on one knee 
 and put his arm around her. "Don't, Rotha; don't, my dear 
 girl," he said— "just as though he had been used to comfort me 
 every day of my life," Rotha said afterwards. 
 
 What were they after all but boy and girl in spite of their 
 years % No one but Rotha would have thought much of Garton's 
 eloquence or of his clumsy attempts to cheer her, and yet she was 
 as honestly comforted by it all as though he had used the most 
 persuasive arguments. 
 
 They got up a figurative tableau of Millais' " Huguenots " 
 after that, which was very striking and characteristic in its way. 
 Rotha was for tying the white scarf round her lover's arm, but 
 Garton would not hear of it for a moment. Perhaps in her secret 
 heart she was only trying him — very young women like to test 
 theii- power sometimes ; it did not offend Rotha one bit that he 
 preferred his independence and his duty. Garton's firmness and 
 loyalty to his brothers satisfied that duty-loving nature of hers. 
 "How can they say he wants ballast?" she thought indignantly, 
 as she remembered the Vicar's grave warning. 
 
 She said something of this to Garton afterwards when their 
 little scene had been enacted ; they were sitting now side by side, 
 like sensible people, and Rotha looked as grave as a judge. 
 
 " I should not have cared for you half so much, after all, if 
 you had not been firm in this," she said to him. She looked at the 
 young man with sweet serious eyes, in which there was more 
 approval than pain. Garton, in spite of his heavy heart, thrilled 
 at her praise. 
 
 " I thought you would feel so ; I was certain of it," he replied 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "And you must not go and talk about it as though it were 
 six years," continued Rotha cheerfully, who did nothing by halves, 
 and was determined now to think the best of it. She was getting 
 quite brave and matter-of-fact over it all ; but such is the per- 
 versity of human nature that Garton, though he came out so 
 strong in the character of consoler, relapsed dismally at this 
 juncture. 
 
 " I don't know about years ; I think it will be an eternity to 
 me," he rejoined lugubriously. " It does seem so hard just when 
 we were going to be so happy, and Wednesday will be here in no 
 time."
 
 A WOMAN'S REASON. 341 
 
 "Why, it is Friday now. Oh," gasped Eotha — a sudden 
 cold water damped her resolution and chilled it thoroughly — 
 " Wednesday, how dreadfully near ! Could they not spare us 
 another dayl" 
 
 "It would not do; besides, what is the good of prolonging 
 one's misery'? Of course every horn- is worth its weight in gold," 
 returned Gar somewhat contradictorily, feeling all at once like a 
 condemned criminal waiting for a reprieve. 
 
 " No ; it would not do," returned Rotha decisively ; "we had 
 better make the most of our time and not spoil the little that 
 remains to us. Perhaps it will be better for us both when you are 
 once gone ; six months is not such a long time after all, and then, 
 you know, I shall expect plenty of letters." 
 
 "I am not a good hand at that, I am afraid," said Gar, with 
 a rueful smile. " Robert is the letter-writer of the family. After 
 all, Rotha, I am afraid that you will find out that you are cleverer 
 than I." 
 
 The Vicar's very words. Another dash of cold water to 
 Rotha. 
 
 " Never mind if I am," she returned impatiently. " I do not 
 think that sort of thing has anything to do with us two. You 
 can write and tell me, I suppose, what you do on board ship, and 
 what friends you make, and all that ; and I daresay you will con- 
 trive a short message or two to Rube," she added mischievously. 
 
 " Oh, I daresay I shall manage as much as that, and perhaps 
 a little more. I can tell you, for instance- " 
 
 But it is useless repeating all Gar's words. Love-making was 
 a novelty to him as well as to Rotha, and most likely he said 
 and did a hundred extravagant things. Robert's cool quiet style 
 would not have suited Gar's passionate nature at all. 
 
 * Rotha thought it all very beautiful ; and then they set them- 
 selves to plan out the few days that remained to them. The Vicar 
 had made Garton promise that he would bring Rotha round to the 
 Vicarage in the com'se of the morning, and he further stipulated 
 that she should remain there the rest of the day. This they both 
 considered charming. The next morning Garton was under an 
 engagement to accompany Robert to Stretton, where he was to 
 talk over business and receive final orders from Mr. Ramsay. 
 Robert was to stay at Stretton over Sunday, but Garton proniised 
 to take an early train that he might spend at least an hour or two 
 at Bryn. "Thistlay was as good as lost," Garton observed regret- 
 fully ; but Rotha consoled him by telling him that they woidd be 
 together all Sunday, and that he was to bring Rube up to tea. 
 Likewise she yielded to his entreaties that Meg and she should do
 
 342 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 a morning's shopping in Thornborough on Monday, where Garten 
 would be most of the day getting together necessaries for his 
 voyage. Robert had agreed to do the greater share of the busi- 
 ness, and was hard at work already in Carton's service, as, indeed, 
 were Mary and old Sarah ; and, though they did not know it, he 
 was at that very moment planning how he could stint himself to 
 lay out a few more pounds on his brother's poor outfit. 
 
 " Yes ; but we shall have to be back pretty early," observed 
 Rotha, who was very brisk and businesslike over these details ; 
 "you have not forgotten the party at the Rudelsheims' ?" 
 
 Now the Rudelsheims were among the naturalised strangers 
 appertaining to Blackscar and its environs. They were worthy 
 folk of German extraction, and were rather favourites with the 
 Vicarage people; but they followed Mrs. Stephen Knowles' ex- 
 ample in setting at defiance all Blackscar tradition, and in utterly 
 abhorring the very name of tea-parties. 
 
 The tide of popular disfavour had indeed been too strong for 
 that latter lady, who had succumbed so far as to tolerate kettle- 
 drums and to allow tea and thin bread-and-butter to be handed 
 round at an unwholesome hour of the afternoon ; but Mrs. Rudel- 
 sheim, or Madame Rudelsheim, as she dearly loved to be called, 
 would have nothing to say to such weak soiDhistries. She took 
 every opportunity of laughing at Mrs. Stephen Knowles' "slop 
 dawdles," as she called them. 
 
 " When I entertain my friends, I will entertain them properly," 
 she would say. " Dancing is good for young people, and I do not 
 see why they should not have it." And, in accordance with this 
 peremptory benevolence, the Rudelsheims issued invitations for a 
 party. 
 
 Rotha was going, but not Mary. Mrs. Ord had scruples about 
 dancing — theoretical, but not practical ones \ but the Vicar had 
 promised to look in during the evening, and Aunt Eliza had 
 engaged to chaperone both Rotha and Nettie. Robert had an 
 invitation, and so had Garton, and Rotha was extorting from the 
 latter a reluctant promise to be there. 
 
 He was not in the mood for dancing, he said ; and then there 
 were other objections. Madame Rudelsheim's parties were rather 
 grand affairs — at least in Gar's eyes. He could not tell Rotha 
 very well that his dress-coat was so shabby that he was ashamed 
 of it ; neither could he explain that even gloves and boots were a 
 consideration to him. Gar never felt his poverty quite so bitterly 
 as he did at this moment. If Rotha had been as poor as himself 
 he would have confessed his difficulties without hesitation ; but 
 their hours together were numbered, and she had alleged all sorts
 
 A WOMAN'S REASON. 343 
 
 of pretty arguments why lie should be there, and Gar felt that in 
 this point he was compelled to yield. 
 
 "And the next day — what shall we do on the next day f 
 exclaimed Rotha when this was settled. She looked just a little 
 grave and tearful when Garton told her what they should do. 
 
 "It will be my last day," said Gar sadly, "and I must spend 
 it with you and Rube ; there will be packing and all manner of 
 things to settle, I suppose, but I think we could manage to go 
 over for a few hours to Burnley, you and I and Rube. I think 
 that was the happiest day I ever spent in my life, and I want to 
 see the dear old spot once more." 
 
 " Yes ; we will go," returned Rotha dreamily ; what strange 
 fancies she had had in those dim old woods ! She thought it was 
 very nice of Garton to propose it. By this time it was growing 
 late, and Rotha reminded him that Mary would be expecting 
 them. 
 
 It was later still when they got to the Vicarage, for Meg came 
 in, and that detained them. Garton looked sheepish again when 
 Mrs. Carruthers shook hands with him and washed him joy ; but 
 he did not look so when, a few minutes afterwards, Rotha and he 
 walked down to the Vicarage. Mary was expecting them, and 
 met her friend witli open arms. " Oh, my dear. Gar is not good 
 enough for you," said the affectionate creature in a voice between 
 laughing and crying. " I don't care a bit for your hearing me," she 
 continued, nodding at Garton, who was standing by looking shame- 
 faced and happy ; " if you love her you will not mind being told 
 how good she is. Rotha, how shall we manage to make enough of 
 you, and to think of it being Garton after all %" finished Mary, who 
 was still in a highly-strung pitch of excitement, and had kept up a 
 variation of this one particular sentence ever since the news had 
 beefl told her. 
 
 Belle came down presently, while Mary and Rotha were still 
 talking. Both of them absolutely started at her ghastly looks. 
 She went up and kissed Rotha with some show of kindness, but 
 without any attempt at congratulation, and then went and sat 
 silently in her place. 
 
 Only once Rotha attempted to speak to her ; once when Garton, 
 who had been lingering by her chair all the afternoon, had been 
 summoned by the Vicar to come down and speak to a choir-boy 
 who was in disgrace, and Mary, who had a secret liking for the 
 cidprit, had followed him. When they had gone out Rotha crossed 
 the room and knelt down beside her. 
 
 " Dear Belle," she whispered, " will you not wish me happiness? 
 Every one has but you." She repented the speech the moment
 
 344 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 she had said it when slie saw the reproachful look with which she 
 answered her. 
 
 " Oh, Rotha, how can you ? Do I loik as thougli I could wish 
 any one happiness ? No, I don't mean that ; I do wish it you, 
 dear, none the less that you have everything, and that my heart is 
 broken \ and, before Rotha coidd say a word, the unhapi^y girl 
 had thrown her arms round Rotha's neck in a burst of bitter 
 weeping.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 
 
 ' ' Through my happy tears there look'd in miuo 
 A face as sweet as morning violets; 
 A face alight with love ineffable, 
 The starry heart hid wonder tremljling through.'' 
 
 Masse Y. 
 ' ' To his eye 
 There was but one beloved face on earth, 
 And that was shining on him ; lie had look'd 
 Upon it till it could not pass away ; 
 He had no breath, no being, but in hers. 
 She was his voice ; he did not speak to her. 
 But trembled on her words ; she was his sigh. 
 For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers. 
 Which coloui-'d all his objects ; — he had ceased 
 To live within himself; she was his life, 
 The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 
 Wliich terminated all ; upon a tone, 
 A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, 
 And his cheek cliange tempestuously." Byron. 
 
 Belle's fit of agitation lasted so long that Rotha was frightened. 
 In vain she caressed her, in vain she implored her, with a hundred 
 end'earing expressions, to tell her what had occurred to distress her. 
 Belle would say nothing, and absolutely refused to be comforted. She 
 had a paroxysm of coughing presently, and then she allowed Rotlia to 
 assist her to her own room and do many little womanly offices lor 
 her. She lay quite still, with heaving breast and closed eyes, while 
 Rotha loosened her hau- and freshened her burning face. But, when 
 she had finished, Belle put out her hand to her and said hoarsely : 
 
 " Do not mind me ; go now. Garton will be wanting you." 
 
 " But I should like to stay with you," retm-ned Rotha pityingly. 
 
 But Belle shook her head. 
 
 " I would rather be alone ; you know I must be alone some- 
 times. I shall like to think of you all being hapi)y downstairs. 
 You ;ire too good to me, Rotha. I do not deserve it, and I never 
 think of any one but him,"
 
 346 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 She looked up with quivermg lips when Rotha kissed her. 
 
 " Do not tell any one; do not let Mary know that I have been 
 so silly. She would not understand. I shall be punished for it, 
 for I shall not be able to come downstairs and see him to-night." 
 
 And a bitter sigh echoed her words as Rotha closed the door. 
 
 Rotha had no intention of obeying Belle by keeping her counsel. 
 She found Mary alone whei; she returned to the drawing-room, and 
 at once told her what had occurred, taking blame on herself for 
 her inconsiderate words. Mrs. Ord, who looked very distressed 
 over the whole recital, relieved her at once by throwing quite 
 another light on the matter. 
 
 She told Rotha that Robert had been in that morning, quite 
 contrary to his usual custom, and, finding Belle and her together, 
 had told Belle in her presence about Garton's engagement and his 
 own appointment. 
 
 " Robert had behaved beautifully," Mrs. Ord added, " and had 
 broken the double news very gently to Belle, who had, on the 
 whole, seemed to have taken it very quietly. He put everything 
 in a clear concise way, dwelt a little on the benefits of the large 
 salary, and the comfortable house that awaited them ; and then 
 asked her in a quiet straightforward way whether she thought she 
 could get ready for him towards the end of February, or if she 
 would prefer waiting till a few days before they sailed, ' unless, 
 indeed,' he remarked with a smile, ' you are unwilling to leave 
 Mary and come with me so far.' " 
 
 He went on a little more after this, and then pressed gently for 
 her answer. Neither of them could see Belle's face, for she had 
 kept her hand over her eyes all the time he had talked. Once or 
 twice she had shivered slightly, but for the most part she seemed 
 keeping herself still by force. When he liad finished she had un- 
 covered her eyes and looked at them so strangely that neither of 
 them could understand it ; and there had been a strained worn look 
 about her face that had gone to her sister's heart. 
 
 " You know I am not well enough. I don't think I shall ever 
 be well enough to be married," she had said to them ; and then 
 calling her sister to her, " Mary, tell him I cannot. Does he not 
 know what is the matter with mel" 
 
 " I don't think any one knows what is the matter with you, 
 Belle," he returned, but Mary saw a flushed uneasy look come into 
 his face. Belle caught her breath with a little sob of impatient 
 pain as he went on. No, she was not well ; he knew that, he re- 
 peated, but she must give him her word to see a doctor without delay ; 
 and Belle, in a tone of reckless misery, promised that she would ; 
 and then she had surprised them both by fixing on Mr. Greenock,
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 347 
 
 the Infirmary doctor. She would not hear of the family practi- 
 tioner, Dr. Chapman. 
 
 " Very well, then, it shall be Greenock." Robert had returned, 
 and, as far as he knew, he was quite as clever as the Blackscar 
 practitioner. And then he begged her smilingly to compose her- 
 self, and to leave all other arrangements to him and Mary. 
 
 "And what did Belle say ?" interrupted Rotha breathlessly at 
 this point. She had turned red and pale over Mary's narration. 
 She knew now why Belle had shrunk from the look of her happy 
 face. " Oh, Mrs. Ord," she cried, " I am so afraid that Belle thinks 
 herself very ill, and that it is jDreying on her mind." 
 
 " That is what I think," returned Mary, drying her eyes. " I 
 have told Austin so over and over again. Oh, Rotha, suppose this 
 is the beginning of decline; she looks so like poor Aunt Isabel, who 
 had disease of the lungs and died quite young. And then to think 
 that Robert would not let you take her away." 
 
 " He does not understand," returned Rotha in a low voice. 
 " But I am afraid now a milder climate ought to have been tried 
 long ago. I do not see myself how she is to be fit for a long sea 
 voyage. But Mr. Greenock will tell you. Did she say anything 
 more before she left you ?" 
 
 "No; Austin came in, and .slie let us kiss her, but at the first 
 word of congratulation she stopped us. Robert wanted her to go 
 and lie down — he is very gentle and considerate with her now — 
 and she went away directly. But I heard her tell Austin first that 
 she had promised to see Mr. Greenock, and that he would tell us 
 what she had tried so often lately to tell us, only she could not. 
 And as she said this she turned so wliite that Austin put his arm 
 round her, thinking she felt faint. But it was not faintness, Rotha, 
 it was misery. She knows she is worse than we think." 
 
 ""Why not send for Mr. Greenock at once?" interrupted Rotha 
 hastily; but Mary shook her head. It was hard to see Mrs. Ord's 
 fair face so troubled and worn. 
 
 " No ; it will not do to hurry it. We know Belle too well for 
 that. She has promised to see him on Tuesday, and Robert will 
 not be back from Stretton till then. Tuesday will be Garton's last 
 evening too, and Wednesday will be Christmas Eve. Oh, Rotha, 
 what a Christmas this will be for us all, if Mr. Greenock says that 
 Robert will have to go alone !" 
 
 " He cannot leave her surely 1" interrupted Rotha. 
 
 " He must. Wnat can he do 1 He will have thrown up his 
 situation too. If she be not well enough to accompany him, the 
 engagement will have to be broken off altogether, and that will kill 
 her. Oh, Rotha," continued Mrs. Ord remorsefully, " I did not
 
 348 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 mean to have said all this to-day. I was trying to forget it when 
 you and Garton came in. Ah, my dear, my dear, you must not 
 cry to-day of all days, just when we all meant to be so happy too." 
 
 " I cannot help it," returned Rotha, struggling with her tears. 
 "It seems so dreadful for her, and then for him not to see it." 
 She broke off suddenly as Garton re-entered the room, and after 
 that nothing more was said between them. 
 
 This conversation damped the rest of the evening to Rotha. 
 Garton, though he sat near her and talked to her, missed the old 
 merry smiles. Rotha was grave and abstracted, almost sad. Mary 
 was upstairs with her sister most of the time, and the Vicar was 
 busy. Robert never made his appearance at all. Just before she 
 went away she stole for a moment into Belle's room to wish her 
 good-night ; but Belle seemed weary, and hardly spoke to her, and 
 with a heavy heart she crept away. The next day things were 
 hardly more cheerful at the Vicarage ; Robert and Garton had 
 gone to Stretton; Belle had relapsed into one of her taciturn moods; 
 and Mary, after a few attempts, hardly made an effort to be cheer- 
 ful. She was very sympathetic, however, and had a long confi- 
 dential talk with Rotha about her own prospects. And in the 
 afternoon the Vicar, seeing how things were, put aside his own 
 business and took them and the four boys for a country ramble, 
 which lasted so long that Garton had already made his appearance 
 at Bryn and was harassing the soul of Mrs. Carruthers by his 
 restlessness and repeated expressions of wonder as to what had 
 become of Rotha. 
 
 The walk had done its work thoroughly, and Rotha came in 
 by and by just as Garton loved to see her, with her brown hair 
 ruffled and her bright face freshened with the wind. She had 
 brought them all in, in triumph with her, and Mary laughed and 
 looked like her old self as she helped Mrs. Carruthers to make 
 arrangements for so large a party. Rotha let her do it ; she stood 
 talking to Garton in a low voice till she was summoned to her 
 place at the head of the table. 
 
 These sort of impromptu gatherings were Rotha's delight. 
 She had sent off Guy to fetch Reuben, and when he returned with 
 the lad her pleasure was complete. Garton indeed would have 
 preferred having Rotha to himself — love-making and tender 
 speeches were hardly possible before the lads. But Rotha, in her 
 unselfishness, never thought of such a thing ; she was quite con- 
 tent to beam at Garton at intervals across the boys' rosy faces. 
 She talked more to the Vicar than to him ; it made her shy to 
 encounter several pairs of round curious eyes every time she 
 addressed him. Rufus and Laurie were always telegraphing their
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 349 
 
 astonishment to each other, and Arty's audible remarks made her 
 desperate ; she wished Garten would not break oft" his conversation 
 every minute to catch her faintest words ; he did all sorts of things, 
 this clumsy lover of hers, that confused and put her out of counte- 
 nance. The Vicar could not help admiring the graceful tact with 
 which she checked and kept him in order. After tea, when 
 Mary had stolen away to look after Belle, she taught the boys 
 games, and made them happy in a dozen ways. She played and 
 sang to them, and joined in some of their favoiu'ite glees ; but, 
 through it all, she was always conscious that Garton was near her 
 or following her about with wistful eyes. 
 
 She went into the long drawing-room once, in the moonlight, 
 to put away some music, and there she was startled by seeing 
 him standing between the pillars like a black shadow. " Oh, 
 Garton," she said, " I did not know you were following me. How 
 you startled me ! " And then, as he did not answer, she went up 
 to him and touched him on the arm. 
 
 " Come, Garton, the boys are going. I think the Vicar wants 
 you." 
 
 " Let him want me," returned Garton, detaining her. '■ Rotha, 
 do you know that you have hardly spoken to me this evening % I 
 have been almost jealous of those boys — Rube especially." 
 
 " Rube, your fixvoimte? Oh, for shame !" 
 
 "My dear, I suppose it is only natural. I have so few hours 
 left to me, and they will see you day after day." He held her 
 fast for a moment, as though under some strange agitation. 
 "Rotha, put your little hand here a moment," and he held it 
 firmly to his heart. "Do you know, dear, it aches so to-night 
 that I can hardly bear it 1" 
 
 She looked up in his face, almost frightened. Was it fancy, or 
 did the moonlight make him look so pale % 
 
 " My dear Garton — my poor boy !" 
 
 He smiled at that. 
 
 " I cannot help it, dear ; it is a sort of feeling — a presentiment, 
 I suppose. People are always talking about those sort of things, 
 and perhaps it has come to me. I cannot get it out of my mind 
 that it would be better for us both if I were not going away." 
 
 "Oh, Garton!" 
 
 "There, perhaps I ought not to have said that. These things 
 are always in God's hands, and I am doing my duty. You re- 
 member what you fiaid about putting 'the hand to tlie plough'? 
 There must be no looking back in one's work, eh, Rotha?" 
 
 " No ; but I do not know how I am to let you go," said Rotha 
 rcinorscfully, feeling that she had not made enough of liiin. She
 
 350 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 heard the boys tramping out of the front door, but for once she 
 had forgotten her duties as hostess. " Oh, Gar, if you talk like 
 this I shall never be able to let you go." 
 
 " Yes, you will," he returned, with that wonderful new gentle- 
 ness which had come to him in the last few days, and which 
 reminded her of the Vicar. " I do not fear you, Rotha. You 
 are the bravest girl I have ever seen. You would let me go if 
 you knew that I should never come back to you." 
 
 " Dear Garton, do you think I would be so hard-hearted %" 
 
 "It would not be hard-heartedness, Rotha; but perhaps I 
 shall never make you understand, any more than you would if I 
 told you that I loved you a hundred times more than you loved me." 
 
 " No, indeed," returned Rotha, rather indignant at this admission. 
 
 "Nevertheless it would be the truth," he retiu-ned quietly. 
 " I have watched you so much these two days, and I know you so 
 well, dear — don't misimderstaud me," he continued, with a touch 
 of his old vehemence, as Rotha tried to draw away her hand, " I 
 am not complaining — why should 1 1 It could not be otherwise. 
 The time may come^I do not say it will, Rotha — when you will 
 give me all that is in you to give ; but it will not come to me just 
 yet. Hush! Is that Austin calling?" 
 
 " He is only spealdng to Mrs. Carruthers. Garton, what makes 
 you talk so strangely to-night 1 Have I done anything to hurt you ?" 
 
 " Hurt me, my darling %" But she need not have asked the 
 question, for his ansv^'er fully satisfied her. 
 
 " What a grand room this is, Rotha !" he said presently, when 
 they were still standing gazing out on the moonlighted lawn. 
 "You look too young to be the mistress of this great house; and 
 to think that it all belongs to you !" 
 
 " Do you mind it V she returned softly. " I am keej^ing it all 
 for you and your brother." 
 
 "For me!" He absolutely started. A sudden film came 
 before his eyes ; he had not realised before that all these good 
 things were to come to him. 
 
 " Yes ; but we must not forget Robert," said Rotha, following 
 out the unspoken thought. 
 
 " Do you mean you and I % No, we will not forget him. You 
 must not think me strange or ungrateful, Rotha ; but it almost 
 oppresses me to think that I may possibly share all this some day ; 
 it does not seem right or true. I wonder," he paused, looking 
 round him with strange unseeing eyes ; and then he stooped and 
 kissed her softly once or twice. 
 
 What was that dull pain beating at his heart — that shadow 
 that darkened his face with subtle trouble, and which haunts him
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 351 
 
 even uow ? What though he never dwell here, in the presence of 
 the woman he loves'? "In thy Father's house there are many 
 mansions " for thee and such as thee, Garton Ord. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. It was one of those soft wintry 
 days which seemed snatched from the early spring. The robins 
 chirped busily in the ivy ; here and there a snowdrop peeped out 
 from the ground. The sea was all in a glitter again, with a maze 
 of deep blue shadow. Rotha, in soft blue dress, looked perfectly 
 in unison with the day itself, as Garton thought, as he came 
 through the lich-gate to join her after service. 
 
 Rotha long afterwards looked back on that day as one of the 
 most peacefid she had ever spent. Garton had lost that feverisli 
 restlessness which had somehow oppressed her in spite of herself. 
 He was a little qiueter than she had ever known him, but full uf 
 though tfuln ess for her and Reuben. Reuben came up to Bryn by 
 Rotha's express desire, and the three spent the afternoon together 
 in the old way. 
 
 But once, when Garton and she were left alone together, he 
 said suddenly : 
 
 " I have been thinking, Rotha, that I should like to leave you 
 a little keepsake, and I have nothing in the world but my mother's 
 keeper. It is very old-fashioned, and hardly worthy of your 
 acceptance; but I should like you to wear it, dear, when I am 
 away." And Rotha changed colour very prettily as he sli]iped the 
 quaint old ring on her finger. 
 
 Nothing more was said for a few minutes, and then Rotha 
 asked Garton if he did not like the old German custom of exchang- 
 ing rings at a betrothal. 
 
 " There is a ring upstairs among yoiu: aunt's treasures that I 
 should like you to wear for my sake," she said quickly ; and 
 before-Garton could answer her she had left the room, and shortly 
 after returned with the little case in her hand. She blushed a 
 little as she held it out to him. "Look here, Garton; this ring 
 always reminded me of you somehow, and you must wear it as a 
 kind of talisman to preserve you from danger. When you are 
 lonely and home-sick you can look at it and think of me." 
 
 " But it is too beautiful. Oh, Rotha, how can you? — and after 
 my poor old keeper too !" he returned in a broken voice. 
 
 Garton was right as to its beauty, for the ring was of a 
 singular design, and almost unique of its kind. In the centre was 
 a recumbent cross farmed of tiny rose diamonds set round with 
 blue enamel, and graven on the broad gold band itself were the 
 words, In hoc spero ("In this I hope"). 
 
 Garton kissed the glittering cross reverently as Rotha put it
 
 352 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 on, and there were tears in his eyes as he thanked her. " /« hoc 
 spero" Rotha heard liim wliisper, once or twice. " I wish all 
 crosses were as light to carry as this;" and once, very solemnly, 
 " Dear, you are right, and the cross is the only talisman." 
 
 The next morning Garten was under an appointment to meet 
 his brother at Thornborough ; and, according to promise, Rotha and 
 Meg set out also for a day's shopping. Rotha was in hopes that 
 Mary would accompany her, but at the last minute the Vicar came 
 round to say that Mrs. Ord was unwilhng to leave her sister. 
 This damped the expedition a little ; but, as Rotha had a great 
 deal of business to transact, she started reluctantly without her. 
 She got through all her commissions before Garton was at liberty 
 to come in search of her. As they walked through the smoky 
 streets or looked in at the shop-windows for the trifling gifts that 
 Garton proposed to buy for Mary and the boys, they met Robert 
 once or twice, evidently bent on more important errands of his 
 own; but he barely noticed the little party beyond lifting his 
 hat to the ladies, and Rotha was certain that he was anxious to 
 avoid coming into direct contact with them. 
 
 When he had passed, however, Garton had plenty to say in 
 his brother's praise. He told her that Robert was stinting himself 
 that he might procure comforts for his journey ; Robert had been 
 with him to the different shops and ordered things almost lavishly ; 
 he had attempted to remonstrate with him once or twice, but 
 Robert only answered that he meant to do his best for him. 
 
 " I don't think I have ever had so many things in my life 
 before," finished Garton, who knew nothing about the handsome 
 travelling dressing-case and writing-case with his initials stamped 
 in silver on the Russian leather. Mary knew all about it, and so 
 did the Vicar ; but Rotha's desire was that they should be slipped 
 into the bottom of the box, and only be brought to light as a 
 pleasant surprise on the voyage. 
 
 Rotha went into the Vicarage on their return and found Mary 
 already marking some of Garton's new things. A heavy travelling- 
 trunk blocked up the passage ; Garton pointed it out rather sadly 
 as they went through the hall. " Forty-eight hours more and I 
 shall be on my way," he observed, with a sigh, which Rotha was 
 only too ready to echo. 
 
 It was arranged that Garton was to come up to Bryn and wait 
 for Rotha, while the carriage went to fetch Aunt Eliza and Nettie ; 
 l)ut Rotha, who had put off dressing for the party till an uncon- 
 scionably late hoiu", was not nearly ready when he arrived ; and to 
 beguile his impatience he sent up all sorts of messages by Mrs. 
 Carruthers, to Prue's and Catherine's great amusement.
 
 IN HOC SPE'RO. 353 
 
 Meg gave ludicrous accounts of Garton pacing up and down 
 like a Polar bear ; his hair was just a quarter of an inch long, 
 Meg protested ; and she was sure that Madame Rudelslieim would 
 take him for an escaped convict. "And he has holes in his 
 gloves already through fidgeting them, Rotha ; and he looks such 
 a giant in his dress-coat." Rotha burst out laughing at the flatter- 
 ing picture. 
 
 " There, give me my fan and gloves, you ridiculous woman," 
 laughed Rotha. " I must go down now and ask if I shall do." 
 
 She went rustling into the room in her pink dress — her white 
 neck and arms showing through the folds of some flimsy scarf. 
 She burst into the presence of the astonished Garton radiant and 
 smiling. Wonderful pearls gleamed on her neck. She wore glitter- 
 ing armlets and serpents with brilliant heads. She stood tapping 
 the ground before him with her satin slipper. 
 
 "Shall I do, Garton 1" she said. "I have put on some of 
 the old jewels in your honour to-night." She laughed at the awe 
 and reverence with which the young man seemed to regard her. 
 A hot flush crossed Garton's face as he answered. Rotha spark- 
 ling with jewels seemed difierent from the Rotha in the gray dress 
 and blue ribbons. He could not make her understand this, but 
 in his humiUty he seemed to be suddenly removed miles away from 
 her. What could there be in common between such as he and 
 the radiant girl before him % 
 
 Garton did not say all this — he would not have known how to 
 speak, but he looked at her with grave wistful eyes. 
 
 " How will you do % Don't ask me. I do not know you to- 
 night, Rotha. Are those Aunt Charlotte's pearls you have on ?" 
 He glanced anxiously at her hand to see if the old keeper was there, 
 but it was half hidden under a glittering diamond hoop. 
 
 "Do not you like me to wear them ? Are you not pleased?" 
 asked Rotha. She felt disappointed and half ready to cry. She 
 was a thorough woman, and wanted her lover to admire her. 
 She wished Garton would not stand looking at her with such big 
 solemn eyes. Perhaps he thought that a future clergyman's wife 
 had no business to wear jewels. She moved her bracelet up and 
 down her arm so restlessly that it unsnapped, and Garton had to 
 come to the rescue with bungling fingers. He looked at her in 
 a queer uucertam way when his clumsy hands had achieved the 
 clasp. 
 
 " I was half affaid that I should be kept at arm's length this 
 evening. I cannot believe that you belong to me to-night, dear," 
 he said wistfully. It was this humility, this self - distrust, that 
 was Garton's great stumbling-block in Rotha's eyes ; another time 
 
 23
 
 354 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 she would have waxed a little imiDatient over it, but now it ouly 
 I^ained her. She drew back from him with tears in her eyes ; iu 
 a moment she felt both chilled and wounded. After what she 
 had done for him — how could he — how could he ! 
 
 Rotha was too gentle to retaliate, but Garton felt the silent 
 reproach instinctively ; in another moment he was beside her. 
 
 " Oh, Rotha, I did not mean that. How could you misunder- 
 stand me 1 Sweet heart, dear heart, how can you be what you 
 are and not be deserving of my reverence 1" 
 
 But Rotha's answer was right womanly. 
 
 " I woidd rather be loved, Garton." 
 
 "Well, and are you not?" But the rest of his reply must 
 have been tolerably satisfactory to Rotha, to judge by the happy 
 blush and smile with which she answered him. 
 
 Madame Rudelsheim's handsome rooms were in a blaze of 
 light, and dancing had long commenced when Rotha and her party 
 entered. To Rotha it was a dazzling spectacle ; she leaned on 
 Gartou's arm, a little confused and giddy : the whirling couples, 
 the lights, the music, the gay dresses, the small knots of chaper- 
 ones and wallflowers nodding like well-preserved exotics against 
 the wall, the conservatory with its compound lights, a blending 
 of Chinese lanterns and moonlight, were like the shifting of a 
 kaleidoscope to Rotha, whose sole notion of a party was derived 
 from the breaking-up at Miss Binks', where the young ladies were 
 all dressed in a uniform of white muslin, and dancing was carried 
 on to the limited hour of eleven. 
 
 " How beautiful it all is ! Don't you like parties V asked 
 Rotha, with little gasps of admiration. Her eyes sparkled, her 
 cheeks glowed ; how pleasant it was to be there, among all those 
 people, leaning on his arm ! She moved away from him a little 
 reluctantly when her partner, Mr. Effingham, came to claim her. 
 As for Garton, he might have been in earnest, he glared at him 
 so ; Gar could not dance. He went off rather sulkily with Rotha's 
 flowers in his hand. He stood by Aunt Eliza's side, rearing him- 
 self against the wall in a thoroughly English-like bad humour ; 
 the poor flowers rather suffered for it. Rotha came up for them 
 and her fan presently — rather to Mr. Effingham's surprise. He 
 half believed Jack's account was true, after all. Gar gave them 
 without a word ; as far as that went, he was quite content to fetch 
 and carry for her all the evening. He had her scarf, a scented 
 gauzy thing, hanging conspicuously over his arm ; nay, under other 
 circumstances he would have been quite happy to have stood in a 
 corner all the evening and watched her — his lady of delight ; but 
 he could not help feeling hurt and sulky when one gay partner
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 355 
 
 after another whirled her away. Kotha was much sought after, 
 and it was only natural, but perhaps it was trying for Garton. 
 Mr. Effingham in particular became abhorrent to him — probably 
 because he was the handsomest man in the room, and danced often 
 with Kotha. Gar longed to go after him and tell him that she 
 belonged to him. Before the evening was half over the impulse 
 was strong upon him to make his claims knoAvn to the whole 
 room ; he leant against the wall hour after hour buttoning and 
 unbuttoning his huge gloves, or pulling the fronds of maidenhair 
 out of Rotha's bouquet. He stood like a stony young giant when 
 Rotha innocently brought up her partners to him, and frowned 
 heavdy over the graceful badinage as though every joke were 
 treason to his love. I think, after a little while. Aunt Eliza woidd 
 have gladly dispensed with his close attendance — he trampled on 
 her ricli silk dress and answered all her cheerful remarks with 
 monosyllables. He burst into a gruff" laugh when Aunt Eliza 
 feared that he was not enjoying himself, and then checked himself 
 with a twinge of remorse. 
 
 " No ; I am not, but she is," he said in a tone that told Aunt 
 Eliza everything. " Does not she look beautiful % — just fit for this 
 sort of thing," he burst out after a moment. " Of course every 
 one admires her — no one else in the room can compare with her ; 
 and then how gracefully she dances ! " 
 
 "Why don't you take her in to supper ■?" said Aunt Eliza, 
 nodding at him till her brown front got slightly disarranged. 
 " Of course I see how it is : you should not let Mr. Effingham 
 monopolise her. He is handsome, but he is no good — more 
 whiskers than brains ; there's Nettie there won't say a word to 
 him." 
 
 " He — I hate him — that is Confound his impertinence ! 
 
 there -he is making up to her again. I beg your pardon, Miss 
 Underwood, but there are some things a fellow can't stand." And 
 with these obscure remarks Garton threaded his wrathful way 
 through the dancers to where Rotha sat fanning herself, with the 
 obnoxious Mr. Effingham leaning over her. 
 
 Garton almost pushed against him as he held out his hand to 
 her. 
 
 " Come," he said, " they are going down to supper now, and I 
 want to get you a good place." 
 
 "Miss Maturiu has accepted my escort, I believe," lisped 
 young Effingham, with a twirl of his moustache, and with what 
 he intended to be a fascinating smile. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Effingham," retorted Gar, "Miss Maturin 
 is engaged to me for this. You promised, you remember f witli
 
 356 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 a change of tone so meaning and tender that it wais not lost on the 
 watchful rival. Rotha coloured a little as she answered : 
 
 " Yes, I remember ; but I thought you had forgotten me. 
 You seemed so engrossed with Aunt Eliza. You see you must 
 excuse me, Mr. Effingham, but I shall be ready for our next 
 dance." 
 
 " That is if Mr. Ord will allow us. I had no idea that I was 
 interfering with a monopoly," he returned, with a perceptible 
 sneer. It was lost on Garton, however, as he hurried Rotha 
 away. 
 
 " How often have you been dancing with that fellow V in- 
 quired Garton hastily. " I hate him ! None of the Effinghams 
 are any good, I can tell you.'' 
 
 " Hush ! he is behind us— he will hear you. He dances very 
 nicely — that is all I know. Don't let us talk about him. I am 
 so glad to get back to you." And Rotha looked so honest and 
 so genuinely happy as she said this that Garton was instantly 
 mollified, and aU his sulkiness vanished under the magic of her 
 smiles. 
 
 That hour was the one oasis of the evening to Gar, the rest 
 was a splendid blank ; and he roused himself to such purpose, and 
 was so devoted and attentive, that it was sufficiently patent to 
 every one at their end of the table how things stood between them. 
 Nothing is perfect in this world, and there is always a cause foi 
 discontent to leak out. Such is the contradictoriness of human 
 nature, and female human natm-e in particular, that Rotha wished 
 that his manner to her had not been quite so empresse, and that 
 he would not look at her so often. How she hated herself for this 
 feeling afterwards ! but it made her a little quiet at the time — 
 perhaps because she was aware that Mr. Effingham still watched 
 them from a distance. How glad she was that there was no room 
 for him at their table ! 
 
 He came up by and by to claim her for the Lancers. Rotha, 
 who was drawing on her gloves, was very cool and dignified all of 
 a sudden, but she rose without a word. 
 
 " Do put on your scarf ; it is so cold and draughty in the pass- 
 ages," said Garton, following her. Rotha bit her lip with some- 
 thing like vexation at this unwelcome pertinacity. 
 
 " No, no, I don't want it ; give it to Aunt Eliza to hold if you 
 are tii-ed of it," she said impatiently. How she wished afterwards 
 she had spared him this rebuff ! 
 
 He went off sadly enough after that. As he passed through 
 the hall there was a sudden load ring at the door -bell, and a 
 moment afterwards he was shivering in a drauyht of cold night-air.
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 357 
 
 " I suppose a carriage has arrived for some one ; I wish it were 
 ours," muttered Gar disconsolately ; and half in curiosity he turned 
 back to question the waiter, the very green-grocer in disguise who 
 was at all the Blackscar parties, and who rejoiced in the mellifluous 
 appellation of Gubbins. 
 
 "Gubbins, was that the carriage from Bryn?" 
 
 " Carriage, sir? no, sir ! I w^as just coming to find you, sir. 
 Your brother, sir " — motioning to a small apartment where hats 
 and coats had been multiplying and dividing all the evening under 
 the care of a large-headed youth in a suit of tight livery — "your 
 brother, sir, wanted you fetched immediately." 
 
 " All right, Gubbins, that will do. It is I, Garton. Come 
 in here, my dear fellow ; I want to speak to you." And Kobert, 
 taking hold of Garton's arm, gently led him into the little room 
 and shut the door.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 GAR." 
 
 '* Glitters the dew and shines the river, 
 Up comes the lily and dries her bell ; 
 But two are walking apart for ever, 
 
 And wave their hands for a mute farewell. 
 
 (t 
 
 II 
 
 And yet I know, past all doubting, truly — - 
 A knowledge greater than grief can dim — ■ 
 
 Know, as he loved, he will love me truly — 
 Yea, better — e'en better than I love him. 
 
 And as I walk by the vast calm river. 
 
 The awful river so dread to see, 
 I say, ' Thy breadth and thy depth for ever 
 
 Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me. ' " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Meanwhile Rotha went through the Lancers somewhat lan- 
 guidly, and for once Mr. Effingham's gay chatter fell unheeded 
 on his partner's ear. Rotha was absent, a little distraite — she 
 was wondering what had become of Garton, and why he had not 
 followed her into tlie room. Aunt Eliza was still in her old 
 corner, talking in a loud voice to a very sidky young wallflower, 
 who gave her small cool answers in return. Nettie was carrying 
 on a violent flirtation with a stout bald-headed widower, old 
 enough to be her father and the happy parent of nine children ; 
 and Mat O'Brien, in an audible voice, was telling Mrs. Stephen 
 Knowles that the thing was as good as settled. How flat, stale, 
 and unprofitable these sort of affairs were, after all ! Everybody 
 was enjoying themselves, it was true — except the chaperones, who 
 were just getting drowsy. Rotha began to be a little tired of it 
 all. The lights were not quite so bright, the flowers were faded, 
 the music had .degenerated into a mere jig. Mr. Effingham's talk 
 was tedious. Rotha looked wistfully across to the empty corner, 
 but no impatient young giant blocked it up, no dark eyes followed
 
 '' GOOD-BYE, GAR." 359 
 
 her up and down the room ; no wonder her dancing was spiritless 
 and that her unlucky partner got short answers. 
 
 " I wonder where he is 1 How I wish this dance were over ! 
 I am afraid that he has not enjoyed the evening as much as I 
 have," thought Eotha, with an undefinable feeling of remorse as 
 she remembered that she might have given up at least one dance 
 to stay with him ; and then she resolved mentally that ]Mr. Effing- 
 ham shoidd not again tempt her. She had been angry with him 
 ever since his speech as to Gartou's monopoly ; and then Garton 
 did not seem to like him. 
 
 "It is your turn now; ladies to the centre," observed her 
 partner. " It is a bore, you know, and all that sort of thing " — 
 and he shrugs his shoulders slightly and walks to his place, look- 
 ing handsome and used up. "Ah, there's our monopolising friend," 
 he continues presently, with a cool well-bred stare, which Rotha 
 immediately resents; but she looks up very eagerly notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 Yes, he was right ; there was Garton making his way towards 
 them, pushing through the dancers with a pale determined face. 
 Rotha's flowers are all to pieces now, strewn hither and thither as 
 his strong shoulders part the crowd. 
 
 " I don't congratulate you on your choice of a bouquet-holder. 
 Miss Matuiin," says Mr. Effingham, caressing his whiskers to hide 
 a smile. " Ladies to the centre again, if you please." 
 
 Garton makes a hasty stride and lays his hand on her arm, 
 her dress. 
 
 " Rotha, I want you." 
 
 " Presently," she says, with a smile ; and she goes up and 
 makes strange fluttering movements with three other ladies. 
 Garton watches the grave profound salaams with a mixtm-e of 
 contempt and impatience. "Hands across!" Rotha is back in 
 her place again, and now the gentlemen perform mysterious 
 evolutions and turn their backs disdainfully on each other. 
 
 " Oh, Rotha, do leave all this nonsense. I want you," says 
 Gar, trying to speak steadily. His face is very pale indeed by 
 this time ; he looks like one who has received a shock. 
 
 " How can I come in the middle of a dance 1 Is anything 
 the matter? Has oiu- carriage comel How strange you look, 
 Garton !" 
 
 "Tliere is nothing the matter; at least I shall have to go 
 home alone if you will not come. I am wanted directly," says 
 Gar in an agitated manner. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean. Of course I will come if you 
 want me," returned Rotha, quite bewildered. "I am afraid
 
 360 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 something is the matter, Mr. Effingham, and I must go home. 
 There is Annie Johnson without a partner. Shall I tell Aunt 
 Eliza we are going, Garton ?" 
 
 " No ; leave her alone, she will only be in our way. We can 
 send back the carriage with a message presently. I am so sorry to 
 disturb you, dear, but it could not be helped." And Gar looks at 
 her with such sad eyes that Rotha feels quite frightened. 
 
 "But what is it? and why must we go home?" she inquires, 
 pressing his arm. The music sounds softly in the distance. 
 There is a sweet overpowering smell from a daphne near. The 
 Chinese lanterns have burnt out in the conservatory, and the 
 moonlight pours in unchecked. She detains Garton by the door, 
 but he draws her on. 
 
 " Hush ! I can't tell you here, they are all coming in. I don't 
 think I quite understand how it is myself, though he has been 
 telling me. I only know that I am to leave you directly." Then, 
 with a sudden burst of despair, " Oh, what shall I do without 
 you, Rotha, my darling?" 
 
 "Leave me directly?" cries Rotha, with a start. Her hand 
 tightens insensibly on his arm. " Oh, my dear boy, do tell me 
 plainly what you mean." 
 
 " Hush ! there's Robert. It means that I am going now, this 
 morning, and not to-morrow evening, as we thought. Ask Bob to 
 explain it; it is more than I can." And Gar's face worked with 
 agitation. 
 
 Rotha gave a little exclamation when she saw Robert, but he 
 did not hear it. He looked a little moved from his usual calm- 
 ness when he saw her coming in on Garton's arm. Undefinable 
 feelings of remorse chilled him ; a nameless pain smote upon his 
 heart as he marked her clinging gesture. How young and fair she 
 looked in her evening dress ! Jewels, too ! He always knew how 
 well she would look in jewels. How milky-white the pearls were 
 against her soft neck ! but the clear eyes looked up at him sorely 
 troubled. He saw quicker than Garton, too, that she was trem- 
 bling. He came iip to her with what Mary called " his good look 
 on his face." 
 
 "This is a sad business. I am so sorry for you and Garton. 
 It is all the fault of those telegraph clerks that the mistake has 
 occurred. Do sit down ; " for she was trembling more than ever 
 at his kindness. " Garton, my dear fellow," with a touch of im- 
 patience at his brother's dilatoriness, " why do you not give Miss 
 Maturin a chair ?" 
 
 "Thank you. I am very silly; but- •" 
 
 " But Gar was too sudden. Yes, I understand ; that was
 
 " GOOD-BYE, gar:' 361 
 
 always his fault, dear old boy." He sent Garton off with prompt 
 thoughtfulness for Rotha's wraps, and then poured out some wine 
 and brought it to her, putting it to her lips himself. Tears came 
 to Rotha's eyes at this. She was a little giddy and stunned at 
 the quick transition of events. She was tired, too ; and this was 
 the first kindly ofiice he had ever rendered her. Of course Robert 
 misunderstood her emotion, but he was not the less kind. 
 
 When Garton brought the furred cloak he took it from him 
 and wrapped her in it himself. In trying to fasten it his hand 
 accidentally touched hers, and with a sudden kindly impulse he 
 took it for a moment in his as though to detain her. Did she 
 remember, even at that moment, that it was the first time their 
 hands had ever met? 
 
 " There is no hurry — at least not until you are ready. Was I 
 right in thinking you would come with vxs to the Vicarage'?" 
 
 "Do they expect me?" asked Rotha. 
 
 " Yes, Mary does ; and so does Austin, I believe. If you are 
 really ready there is no time to be lost." And Rotha rose imme- 
 diately. 
 
 "How soon must he go?" she said presently, when they were 
 in the carriage. Garton's hand had already felt for hers in the 
 darkness, but he had not trusted himself to speak, and Robert's 
 sympathy kept him silent. 
 
 " In little more than an hoiu," he replied. " You know we 
 have to go to Stretton first, and then he is to take the six o'clock 
 train to London ; of coiuse I shall go with him and see him on 
 board. They expect to drop anchor about four." 
 
 " But why — what is the reason of all this hurry V persisted 
 Rotha, with dry lijjs. She leant back in the carriage, too confused 
 and giddy to follow the explanation that Robert gave her. She 
 never understood more than that it had been a mistake in a tele- 
 graphic message as to the time the vessel was to leave the docks, 
 and that it had been rectified too late. Robert had arrived from 
 Stretton a little before midnight, and had found the Vicar and his 
 wife up. Mary was hard at work at some of Garton's things, and 
 he had stayed to explain matters and put everything in train 
 before he set off" to find Garton. By these means very little time 
 had been lost, for Garton was so bewildered by this sudden parting 
 with Rotha that his arrangements were hardly to be depended on. 
 
 Yet, even though their very minutes were numbered, he could 
 not bring himself trt siieak to her ; but the convulsive pressiue of 
 the hand he held spoke volumes. Once, somewhat alarmed at his 
 continued silence, Rotha put up her other hand and touched his 
 face in the darkness, and then she felt something very like a tear
 
 3G2 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 on his cheek. "My poor boy — my own poor boy!" she whis- 
 pered. But Garton only said, " Hush ! don't be too kind to me 
 to-night — I cannot bear it ; it will unman me." And then kissed 
 the caressing hand humbly as though to atone for his words. 
 
 It seemed a long drive to all three before they were set down 
 at the Vicarage. The Vicar was in the dining-room awaiting 
 them ; a bright fire burned cheerily ; breakfast was already laid 
 on the table, and Deb came up with the steaming coffee-pot soon 
 afterwards. Short as was the interval that had elapsed since 
 Robert had left them, Mary and Deb had already got through 
 half the packing, and Garton's presence was urgently required for 
 its completion. 
 
 "We have brought Miss Maturiii," said Robert, leading her 
 in. "I thought you would take care of her, Austin, while Gar 
 and I finish going through the papers. I will bring him back as 
 soon as possible," he added gently as he placed Rotha by the fire. 
 Tired and sick as she felt, she could not help giving him a grateful 
 look ; its sweetness lingered long with him through the wretched 
 time that followed. He could not fail to remember afterwards 
 that she had acquitted liim of blame. 
 
 Rotha sat quietly by the fire after the brothers had left the 
 room. Gar had given her one long wistful look as he went out. 
 Highly as the Vicar esteemed her, he never fully realised her 
 gentleness and unselfishness till this moment. Robert's kindness 
 had roused her from the bewildered state into which Garton's 
 agitation had thrown her, and she was now quite collected and full 
 of thought for them all. 
 
 " Do not mind me," she said to the Vicar as he hovered near 
 her anxiously. " We shall have plenty of time to think of our- 
 selves and our own loss afterwards. Do go to Garton. I am sure 
 he wants all the help you can give him." And, as he quitted her 
 reluctantly, she followed him and begged him to be siu:e and tell 
 Mary to put her presents just inside the trunk that he might see 
 them the moment he opened it. 
 
 When she was left alone she cast about in her own mind how 
 she might comfort him. She would hardly have a minute to ex- 
 change a word with him perhaps ; and then the others woidd be 
 with them. And yet she longed to say some such word of comfort 
 to him. 
 
 There Avas a little worn Testament which she always carried 
 about with her, and which had belonged to her mother, and her name 
 and her mother's name had been written in it. After a moment's 
 hesitation she thought that would do, and sat down with trembling 
 fingers to pencil a few words on the title-page. The eflbrt made
 
 "" GOOD-BYE, gar: 3G3 
 
 the tears spring to her eyes, but she wiped them com-ageously 
 away. " It will never do for him to see that I have been crying," 
 she thought; but, notwithstanding the resolution, one or two drops 
 blurred the handwriting. Garton afterwards read these few tender 
 words, the noblest farewell that any lover coidd pen : — ■" The Lord 
 watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another. 
 — Your faithful friend, Kotha Maturin." How many Mizpahs 
 are set up between loving hearts in this earthly wilderness ! 
 
 After that she sat herself down again with the book on her 
 lap and patiently awaited tlieir retm-u. Robert came in first and 
 began arranging and sorting some impers. He looked up a little 
 surprised when Rotha rose suddenly from her seat and offered to 
 help him. "No, no; you are too tired," he began, but at her 
 reiterated request he gave way. She stood beside him, following 
 his directions with a quiet intelligence that won his good opinion. 
 She never asked after Garton or seemed the least impatient till he 
 returned. Robert gave her more than one ciulous look of mingled 
 admiration and pity when she was too much engaged to notice it. 
 The white fur cloak, the starry flowers in her hair, and the un- 
 gloved hands sparkling with rings, all came under his notice ; but, 
 most of all, the wistful young face with its quiet air of sadness and 
 its patient droop of the head. 
 
 The Vicar came in next, and then Gartou in his dark tweed 
 travelling suit, and afterwards Mary, who came round and kissed 
 Rotha without a word, and then began poiuing out the coflee. 
 Mary looked as though she had been crying, and there were dark 
 lines under the pretty eyes, but she spoke with lier old cheerfulness 
 now and then. The rest gathered round the table and made some 
 pretence at a meal, as though to set Garton an example ; but he 
 told them he had already supped, and only wanted a cup of coftee. 
 Rotha made him break bread, however, and then he sat for a long 
 time with his hand drawn silently over his eyes. He started up 
 presently from his place as though he had forgotten something. 
 
 " Rube ; I have not wished my poor Rube good-bye." 
 
 " There is no time now," returned Robert ; " besides, the whole 
 house is asleep." 
 
 " Yes, I know ;" and Garton sat down again with a heavy sigh. 
 " No one thought of rousing him, I suppose % and now it is too 
 late. Poor Rube," he went on in an agitated voice, "how un- 
 happy he will be to jvake up to-morrow and find me gone !" 
 
 " No, no ; nonsense. Gar," said Robert, with a touch of kind 
 peremptoriness ; but Rotha stopped him. She put her hand gently 
 on the young man's arm. 
 
 " You can trust him to me, Garton, can you not ? I will go to
 
 364 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 him to-morrow myself, and if he frets I ^\■ll take him home. You 
 know he belongs to me now as well as to yon." 
 
 "Trust him to her?" Rotha might weii treasure the smile 
 with which he answered her ; the rugged brown face worked and 
 softened with conflicting feelings. " Come, Mary, I am ready to 
 go up and wish Belle and the boys good-bye." 
 
 " Go, my dear fellow ; we have only seven rainn*-t,s," called out 
 Robert, and Gar nodded in answer. Rotha had slipped the little 
 Testament into his hand as they sat at the table. He had a choked 
 sort of feeling that his good-bye would be as mute as hers when it 
 came to the point. He hardly understood himself what the bitter 
 ache at his heart meant, but it almost suffocated him. 
 
 Arty was fast asleep in his cot, and murmured drowsily in 
 answer to his uncle's kiss. He had all the contents of his Noah's 
 Ark littered on the coverlet, and the elephant and a cassowary re- 
 posed on his pillow. Gar leant over the little fellow fondly. The 
 other boys had been roused at the last moment by Deb, and sat 
 shivering and miserable on the respective edges of their beds, 
 especially Laurie, who began to cry. Garton kissed them and bade 
 God bless them one after another, and sent his dear love to Rube ; 
 and then he went to Belle, who was waiting up for him. 
 
 Belle had never got on very well with Garton, and Mary was 
 surprised to see how much she seemed affected at saying good-bye 
 to him. She tiu-ned quite pale as he leant over to kiss her. 
 
 " Gorid-bye, dear Belle ; get well soon, and marry Robert." 
 And Belle folded her arms round his neck just as though he had 
 been her brother. 
 
 ■' Good-bye, dear old Gar. Forgive me for having been so 
 often cross with you. I never meant to be so, dear. I always 
 loved you, Gar." 
 
 "And I you, dear. There — there is Robert calling me, and I 
 must go to Rotha. Don't come down with me, Mary ; better not, 
 better not. "Oh, Mary!" — and he leant against the half-closed 
 door with whitening face — " I feel as though I shall never come 
 home again, and as though this were good-bye for ever." 
 
 " Gar ! Gar ! don't let Belle hear you, my dear boy. This 
 is very, very wrong." And Mary put her hand tenderly on the 
 dark closely-cropped hair. 
 
 "I can't help it. Hark! is that Austin's voiced Good-bye, 
 dear sister ; take care of hei' for my sake." 
 
 " You have only two minutes, Garton. Robert is having the 
 luggage put on the fly. Go to Rotha, my dear boy." And the 
 Vicar put his hand on his shoulder and led him gently in. 
 
 " Not good-bye," said Rotha, putting her soft hand over his
 
 " GOOD-B YE, GAR." 365 
 
 mouth as though to silence him ; " not good-bye. 1 like farewell 
 so much better." 
 
 "Farewell, then," returned Garton, taking her ia his arms; 
 " farewell, and God bless you. If I kiss this dear face for the last 
 time, His will be done." 
 
 " My own Garton," murmured the girl, putting back her head 
 that she might look at him, — " my own Garton, you do not fear to 
 go now, do you? You would not have it otherwise V 
 
 " No; not otherwise," he repeated ; and the mom-uful steadfast- 
 ness of his look haunted her long afterwards ; it reminded her 
 much of a martyr's look, — " not otherwise, while I have this talis- 
 man." He held up his ring that she miglit see the glittering cross. 
 ^^ In hoe spero. Beloved, that must be our motto;" and before 
 she coidd answer he closed her fair face .suddenly between his 
 hands. For a brief moment she heard the beating of his heart 
 and his whispered " God bless you ! " Another minute his hand 
 was within the Vicar's grasp ; and then he was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 ROBERT ORD'S REPENTANCE. 
 
 " How sweet is woman's love, is womau's care ! 
 When struck and shatter'd in a stormj' hour 
 We droop forlorn ! and man, with stoic air, 
 Neglects, or roughly aids ; then robed in power, 
 Then nature's angel seeks the mourner's bower. 
 How blest her smile that gives the soul repose, 
 How blest her voice, that, like the genial shower 
 Pour'd on the desert, gladdens as it flows. 
 And cheers the smiling heart and conquers woes." 
 
 Gally Knight. 
 
 The next day was a blank as far as Kotha was concerned. 
 
 It was daybreak before the Vicar had taken her home ; and 
 then she had dragged herself wearily to her bed, too tired and 
 dispirited with the evening's strain to do more than fall asleep with 
 Gar ton's name on her lips. She woke late the following morning, 
 and opened her eyes on a wet cheerless prospect, on dripping trees, 
 sea-fog, and all the depressing accompaniments of a hopelessly rainy 
 day. Her head ached too, and she felt stiff and jaded with the 
 unaccustomed exercise of the previous evening. She would have 
 liked to have been where she was another hour or two, reviving 
 the bitter-sweet memories of last night, their happy evening to- 
 gether, the unlooked-for interruption, and Garton's fond farewell. 
 But, mindful of her self-imposed task, she roused herself with a 
 strong effort and went out in search of Reuben. 
 
 It was already so late that she met him coming out of the 
 Grammar School with a troop of boys at his heels, and conveyed 
 him off to Bryn, where she kept him the whole afternoon. She 
 had a little trouble with him at first, as Garton predicted. Reuben 
 burst into a flood of indignant tears when he learnt that his friend 
 had really gone. " He oiight to have come and wished me good- 
 bye," sobbed the boy. " I didn't think it of him ; he might have 
 thrown a little gravel against my window, as he did once, and then 
 I should have understood in an instant. It was cruel of him to
 
 ROBERT ORD'S REPENTANCE. 367 
 
 forget me wheu I never forget him ; and perhaps I shall not see 
 him again for such a long time," finished Rube, to whom six months 
 seemed an interminable period, and South America the very end of 
 the world. 
 
 "He didn't forget you, dear. Have I not given you his 
 messages? You must not be so hard on him. Rube." Perhaps 
 the task of comforting Reuben was the best thing that could have 
 happened to Rotha. Gar's shadow was next to having Gar 
 himself 
 
 She kept the boy with her most of the evening, and only sent 
 him away because her head ached so that she could hardly bear it. 
 It gave her an excuse for dismissing Meg too. In spite of her 
 pain she felt it would be a relief to be allowed to sit quietly and 
 speak to no one. She was glad tliat Mary sent round a kind little 
 note instead of coming herself, for she began to feel so wretched 
 that even her friend's society would have been irksome. 
 
 Rotha was almost surprised to find how she missed Garton. 
 She had been very brave all day, and had succeeded wonderfully 
 in comforting Reuben, and she had even astonished Meg with her 
 cheerfulness. But towards evening the effort had been manifest ; 
 even while she sat and talked to Rube about his studies, a cm-ious 
 sick longing took possession of her — vague feelings of remorse for 
 her neglect last night — a yearning to see him again and hear his 
 voice. Not till he had really gone did Rotha discover how much 
 she loved him, and what a blank his absence would leave in her 
 daily life. 
 
 Six months — only six or seven months ! Rotha scolded herself, 
 and cried shame on her foolish cowardice ; but the pain was none 
 the less real while it lasted. She was spent, too, with physical 
 exertion ; and, though she hardly remembered it just now, her 
 heart was very heavy about Belle : undefinable fears haunted her 
 dreams ; she had cried herself to sleep like a child, but even in 
 sleep an uneasy pain pervaded her slumbers — all sorts of misty 
 images chased each other across her brain. Garton's sad face 
 seemed always before her; he seemed asking her for some help 
 that she could not give. Once she had a terrible dream, but she 
 could not remember it when she woke. Some haunting terror 
 seemed upon her, and she woke with a stifled scream to find Meg 
 bending over her, and watching her uneasy sleep. That soothed 
 her ; and afterwards she fell into a dreamless slumber, and woke 
 more refreshed this tknc to find Mrs. Ord by her bedside. 
 
 Robert had returned from London late the previous night, and 
 had begged Mary of his own accord to go round to Rotha in 
 the morning and give her the latest news of Garton — a fresh
 
 3G8 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 instance of his new though tfulness for her, whicli made the colour 
 come into Rotha's pale face. 
 
 Robert had seen Garton fairly on board, and had left him 
 tolerably comfortable. Mr. Ramsay had accompanied them to 
 London, and had expressed himself as much pleased with Garton's 
 appearance and bearing. Gar seemed to have plucked up more 
 heart about the whole affair, Robert added, and had entrusted him 
 with loads of messages for them all ; and among them a precious 
 little scrap for Rotha, evidently pencilled on the leaf of his pocket- 
 book while Robert was still on deck, and thrust, half-crumpled, 
 into his hand at the last moment. 
 
 How strange it was for Rotha to read that queer cramped 
 handwriting for the first time when Mary had gone ! She took it 
 out of the folds of her dress, where it lay hidden, and read it over 
 and over again. If only Garton could have seen the way in which 
 she kissed it — though she did not know then that that crumpled 
 paper would be one of her greatest treasures. 
 
 " My own Rotha," it began, " how many hours have we been 
 parted ! and I have been thinking of you every minute since then. 
 I do not think you knew how full my heart was when I bade you 
 good-bye this morning — farewell, I mean, you like that word 
 better, you said ; but perhaps I had better not speak of that 
 now. 
 
 " I want to tell you that I have just read your parting message 
 to me. I found it on the title-page of the little Testament, under- 
 neath your mother's name. Oh, how I should have loved her, 
 Rotha, if I had known her ! 
 
 "Dear little book ! all marked and underlined. I shall carry 
 it next my heart till, God giant it so, we meet. Robert is waiting 
 — they are going to drop anchor — the pilot has just come on 
 board. God bless you, my darling ! Yours, in every sense of the 
 word, Gae,ton." 
 
 These few words from Garton made Rotha almost happy. 
 She felt ashamed of the inactive misery of last night. " If Garton 
 were here, he would tell me that I ought not to neglect my work," 
 she said to herself, and, more because she thought it would please 
 him than even from a sense of duty, she went down to the church 
 with Reuben to help with the decorations. 
 
 It was rather dreary work in spite of her efforts — the church 
 always brought Garton so vividly before her ; she found herself 
 starting at every footstep in the momentary notion that it was his. 
 On all sides she heard whispered lamentations and regrets among 
 the ladies concerning the absence of the young sacristan. The 
 Vicar was there and did his best to help and direct the workers ;
 
 ROBERT ORD'S REPENTANCE. 369 
 
 but Garton's taste and ready good bumuiir were uot easily to be 
 replaced ; he had always been the universal referee on these 
 occasions, and it gave Rotha a heavy pang to see Reuben filling 
 the flower-vases for the altar — a work that had always been his 
 delight. Slie heard Nettie and Aimt Eliza talking in sympathising 
 whispers about his lonely Christmas on board, and how he would 
 miss the services ; and her eyes filled with tears as she twined 
 long trails of holly and shining evergreens over the chancel- 
 screen. 
 
 The Vicar noticed her dejected look, and wanted her to leave 
 her work to be finished by Nettie and come home with him ; but 
 Rotha quietly refused — it was not her way to shirk any duty, 
 however painful, and she had Garton's work to do as well as her 
 own. So she had a cup of tea at Nettie's and stayed on till 
 everything was finished, and then joined in the eve service. 
 
 She was glad afterwards that she had done so, for it soothed 
 and refreshed her, in spite of the pain it was to her to see the boys 
 walk up to their places in the choir-stalls without Garton at their 
 head. How sorely she missed the dark earnest face, and the 
 clear deep voice that had always led the singing ! The lessons were 
 read by a stranger ; and after the service was over no tall figure 
 went swinging to and fro across the chancel to extinguish the 
 lights and cover up the altar. Reuben performed these offices 
 very sadly and slowly, as though his heart for once were not in the 
 work. 
 
 Two things had struck Rotha during the service — the Vicar was 
 not in his place, a very unusual thing on Christmas Eve ; and 
 the prayers of the congregation were requested for one travelling 
 by sea ; and after they had risen from their knees that beautiful 
 hymn for those at sea had been sung. It was evident that some 
 of the Vicarage people had intended to be there ; but, when Rotha 
 had 'summoned courage to look round, no one was in the Vicar- 
 age pew. 
 
 This puzzled her and made her rather anxious, and she was 
 not the less so when she found Rufus waiting for her outside the 
 church with a note from Mary. 
 
 " I have been all the way up to Bryu," exclaimed the boy, 
 " because father understood that you were not going to remain to 
 the service ; and Mrs. Carruthers sent me down to wait for you 
 here. I have been waiting for more than half an hoiu". I thought 
 they would never have finished that last hymn." 
 
 " Why were yt)U not in the choir, Rufus % Yes ; was it not 
 beautiful — so soothing, too ? How pleased he would be to know 
 we had sung it ! " And, without waiting for the boy's answer, she 
 
 24
 
 370 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 carried the note down to the lich-gate and read it by the light of 
 the street-lamp. 
 
 " Dear Rotha," it said, " please come to us. Mr. Greenock 
 has been here, and we have had a terrible scene with Belle. She 
 knows now what is the matter with her ; but it has broken her 
 down utterly to have her fears verified, and I dare not leave her. 
 Austin has been obliged to stay at home to tell Robert. He is in 
 a dreadful state, and no wonder. Do come to me at once." 
 
 " I ought to have had this note an hour ago," exclaimed Rotha; 
 and, without waiting for Rufus to follow her, she set off for the 
 Vicarage at a run that brought the boy panting after her. " Don't 
 knock," he cried, " I have the key ; and it would disturb Aunt 
 Belle. I will go and fetch mother." And, almost before Rotha 
 could grope her way through the dark hall, Mary had come to her 
 side silently, and, taking her hand, brought her into her own room 
 and closed the door softly. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Ord, I am so sorry," began Rotha ; " did Rufus tell 
 you I was at church ?" 
 
 " Hush ! yes, I know. I have been wanting you ; but it could 
 not be helped, and she is quiet now. Oh, Rotha, what a day this 
 has been ! " And Mary began to cry, but in a subdued imtient 
 sort of way that went to Rotha's heart. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Ord, and you are so tired ! " said the girl in a 
 sympathising voice, at which Mary leant her head against her 
 shoulder and cried more than ever. It was some time before she 
 could recover herself to speak plainly. 
 
 " I didn't mean to do this," she said at last in answer to 
 Rotha's silent kisses ; " but I think it has done me good. Oh, 
 Rotha, I hope I am not rebellious, and I have Austin and the 
 boys. But still she is my only sister." And the tears coursed more 
 swiftly down Mrs. Ord's face as her grief resolved itself into words. 
 
 " Perhaps it is better so. Oh, my dear, to think of her going 
 day after day to that Infirmary without letting us know how ill 
 she was — and all to spare Austin ! I cannot bear to think of it. 
 And then for them to say that all this strain and anxiety has been 
 kiUingher!" 
 
 " Who are they % Dear Mrs. Ord, would it not ease you to 
 tell me everything plainly out % Is it Mr. Greenock who has been 
 telling you all this ?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Greenock and Dr. Chapman. Mr. Greenock wished 
 a consultation wlien he found how things were, and then they told 
 Austin, and he fetched me. They say one of her lungs is quite 
 gone, and that she is in a very precarious state. Mr. Greenock 
 said he could not understand how any one could have suffered so
 
 ROBERT ORD'S REPENTANCE. 371 
 
 much and have done what she has done ; and he declared if it 
 had gone on — this concealment and strain, I suppose he meant — 
 that she could not have lasted three months." 
 
 " But I don't understand. Is it as you fear — is it " — decline, 
 Rotha was going to add, but she hesitated. Mary shook her head 
 mournfully. 
 
 " That is what I cannot find out — neither of them would speak 
 plainly. Mr. Greenock did not say much, but I could see he 
 dreaded the worst. He would not exactly say that she was in a 
 decline, but he owned that he feared it. Dr. Chapman took a 
 milder view of the case. Both of them agreed that a warm climate 
 should be tried without delay. But I noticed that, though Dr. 
 Chapman spoke hopefully of Torquay now and Mentone next 
 winter, and added his conviction that by these means a partial if 
 not a complete cure might be effected, Mr. Greenock only looked 
 grave ; and it struck me afterwards that he had recommended it as 
 a last chance, and that he knew it could only j^rolong her life for a 
 few months ; and I can see that Austin fears it too." 
 
 " But, Mrs. Ord, would not it be cruel to remove her if they 
 know it is of no use ?" 
 
 " That is what Austin said. He wanted Mr. Greenock to give 
 us leave to keep her with us ; but both he and Dr. Chapman 
 agreed that the March winds would kill her. They want her to 
 go to Torquay in about two or three weeks' time, but she must 
 not undertake the journey this weather in the state she is in. 
 One thing, we are not to allow her to break off her engagement — ■ 
 at least not yet, or we shall take away her last chance. But, oh, 
 Eotha, I know they think that she will never be well enough to 
 marry him." 
 
 Rotha sighed heavily. " I am afraid not ; but they are right, 
 and \i would kill her at once. Oh, Mrs. Ord, how dreadfid it will 
 be for him when he knows it ! " 
 
 " Hush ! don't speak so loud — he knows it now. Austin has 
 been with him all the evening. We have had hard work with him 
 to get him to believe it ; he fights against it so. I don't think he 
 gives up all hope yet, though he knows he must go without her. 
 He turned round quite fiercely on Austin when he said something 
 about the engagement having to be given up. He declares he will 
 come over in six months' time and marry her. Oh, Rotha, it is 
 plain to see that he is half beside himself with remorse ; it is more 
 that than grief that is troubling him." 
 
 Eotha leaned her head on her hand ; she hardly knew what to 
 say. "He ought to have sent her with me," she returned slowly 
 at length ; " he knows that himself now. Mrs. Ord, I don't quite
 
 372 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 know what to do, but I think I should like to go to him. He 
 might listen to me now. Hark! what is that ?" she continued, 
 turning very pale. Everything startled her just now, but it was 
 only the dining-room door opening and the Vicar calling softly 
 across the hall for Mary. 
 
 Mrs. Ord went at once, and Rotha followed her; the Vicar 
 held out his hand to her with a little surprise when he saw her. 
 " Robert has been asking for you," he said. " I did not know you 
 were here ; I thought Rufus came in alone." 
 
 " I was at church, but I came directly afterwards. Did you 
 say" — turning paler than ever — "that he was asking for mel" 
 
 The Vicar nodded. "He is in there ; he has been asking for 
 you two or three times this evening. He wished me to tell you 
 when you came in that he wanted to speak to you alone." 
 
 Rotha looked bewildered, as well she might — wanting to see 
 her, and alone ! 
 
 Robert was leaning against the mantelpiece with his back 
 towards her ; but he started at her entrance and raised his head, 
 and then, after a moment's hesitation, held out his hand. It was 
 not taken for an instant ; perhaps Rotha hardly perceived it, but 
 a bitter smUe wreathed his thin lips at what he imagined was 
 her pride. 
 
 " You need not to have hesitated," he said sharply — the sharp- 
 ness of pain, not anger. " I meant to have told you — but never 
 mind, it will keep ; the thing is, that I have sent for you. I 
 suppose I ought to thank you first for your kindness in coming to 
 me. Some women would not have acted as you have, but I con- 
 fess I am in no mood for mere courtesy to-night." 
 
 " Neither am I," returned Rotha quietly. His harsh words, 
 his pale face only inspired her with pity. With an involuntary 
 movement she went up a little closer and looked at him with 
 straightforward honest eyes. "You are in trouble, and you have 
 sent for me," she said softly; "and now what can I do for you?" 
 
 " Stop," he said hoarsely. " I don't want pity — least of all 
 from you. Pity her if you will. Good heavens, to think how 
 she loves me, and that I, blind fool that I am, have as good as 
 murdered her ! " 
 
 " Mr. Ord !" She is constrained to cry out his name, his 
 violence is so terrible to her; and then, with a sudden pitiful 
 impulse, she goes nearer and lays her hand on his arm. 
 
 " Have you sent for me to tell me this ?" 
 
 " Yes, to tell you tins — this, and anything else you like. Oh, 
 you may humble me at your pleasure. I am a proud man if you 
 will, but this is your hour of triumph. I would rather have you
 
 ROBERT ORD'S REPENTANCE. 373 
 
 triumph over me than pity me. Why do you look at me like this, 
 Miss Maturing Do you think I am mad to-night?" 
 
 " I think you are," she returned softly. " God help you 1 
 Mad with pain and disappointment and remorse, you are cruel to 
 yourself, cruel to me, to Belle, to everybody. Was it yoiu- fault 
 that you were so blindfolded that you could not see the truth 1" 
 
 " Yes," he returned, with a dogged sort of honesty ; " it was 
 my fault, I would not allow myself to be convinced. Is your 
 memory so bad that you have forgotten our conversation down on 
 the sands 1" 
 
 She drooped her head sadly; she could not help it. Why 
 should he recall those bitter moments'? Humiliated — ah, and 
 had she not been humiliated then ! 
 
 " Well, I see you remember," he continued, watching her ; 
 "you tried to convince me then. You would have saved her for 
 me if I had only permitted it ; and I let her fade before my eyes, 
 brute that I was, rather than owe her preservation to you. No, 
 do not stop me ; if I did not know my motives then, I do 
 now." 
 
 " No, no," she cried, putting out her hand to stop him. 
 " Don't talk so — you must not talk so ; it was this terrible pre- 
 judice against me that hardened you. I came between you and 
 your happiness, and made you mad." 
 
 " More shame to me !" he retorted. But she put out her hand 
 again to stop him. 
 
 " Ah, you are more cruel to yourself than you have been to me," 
 she exclaimed. " If you mean that you have sinned against me, 
 have I not forgiven it long ago % Mr. Ord, you have sent for me, 
 but it is not Miss Maturin who has come to you now — it is the 
 little sister. Gar's future wife, who prays you to be reconciled 
 to her." 
 
 Her hands went out to him tremblingly as she uttered his 
 name ; she had forgotten everything at the sight of his terrible 
 grief. If he had wronged her she did not remember it now. 
 "Gar's brother! Poor Robert," he thinks he hears her say so 
 softly. As he turns away and folds his arms over his breast 
 something that would have been tears in other men glistened now 
 in Robert Ord's eyes. Another moment and her hand rests on 
 his outstretched palm. 
 
 "Forgive me if you can," he begins in a broken voice; but 
 she stops him, * 
 
 " Hush ! I understand you. There is no need to say anything 
 more." 
 
 " There is every need, you mean. Do you tliink I shall spare 
 
 t)
 
 374 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 myself' You told me that I must never come and offer you my 
 hand till I would own that I had wronged you. I own it 
 
 now." 
 
 u 
 
 " I know it — I can see it. Please spare yourself this." 
 "Spare myself !" he repeated scornfully. "Oh, I have been 
 so good to you — you may well ask me to do this. Because I 
 envied you your possessions I must look upon your every act and 
 word with a jaundiced eye. I must even sacrifice my poor Belle 
 10 my unnatural rancour. Oh, you were right when you said you 
 would rather die than touch my hand." 
 
 " I am touching it now ; it feels like the hand of a friend. 
 Mr. Ord, these things are all passed and over. I have forgiven 
 them long ago. Why will you recall them "?" 
 
 " To do you a tardy justice," he replied vehemently. " Because, 
 God knows, I have done you a bitter wrong ; because you were as 
 innocent as a little child, and I was cruel to you." 
 
 " Not cruel — only hard, and hardest of all to yourself. You 
 were wrong to your better judgment, and now the scales have 
 fallen from your eyes. Indeed it is all forgiven. You know me 
 now, and you know I am your friend." 
 
 " My friend !" he muttered, " my friend !" A strange softness 
 crept over his face, and then he turned it away and leant heavily 
 against the mantelpiece ; but at that moment something hard and 
 bitter passed out of Eobert Ord's heart for ever. 
 
 By and by she knew why he had sent for her — not to tell her 
 this, as he reiterates again and again, but to beg her on his knees, 
 if needs be, to take Belle away. It is her last chance — her only 
 chance, he affirms sadly. And Rotha slowly and seriously grants 
 the request. She cannot tell him what she has told Mary, that 
 she believes it has come too late. 
 
 Mary came down presently to tell Robert that Belle was asking 
 for him. " She is growing restless again and wonders what has 
 become of you, dear. She knows now that Austin has told you 
 everything." 
 
 Robert turned very pale. 
 
 " I did not mean to have seen her to-night," he said. " I am 
 half afraid of what I may say. I think you had better come up 
 with me, Mary." And Rotha was left alone. 
 
 She might have been alone about twenty minutes when she 
 heard Mary calling her, and went up at once. 
 
 " Belle wants to bid you good-night," began Mary cheerfully 
 as Rotha entered ; but Belle's feeble voice interrupted her. 
 
 " No, not good-night. I want to speak to you, Rotha. Please 
 come here," And Belle raised herself from Robert's arm and held
 
 ROBERT ORD\S REPENTANCE. 375 
 
 out her hot hands to Rotha. How beautiful she looked with that 
 hectic flush on her wasted cheek and her eyes burning with fever ! 
 
 " Dear Rotha, come here. Tell him — Mary will not — that it 
 is all no use, and that he must not send me away. Tell him it 
 will kill me." 
 
 "It will kill you to remain here, Belle. Mr. Greenock and 
 Dr. Chapman both said so." 
 
 " That is what he keeps saying. Oh, Rotha, ask him not. 
 He knows that he is going in less than three months, and yet he 
 wants us to be parted. It is not enough that I am never to be 
 his wife, but he will not even let me see the last of him." And 
 Belle flung herself down on the couch again as though her last 
 hope were taken from her. 
 
 "For your own good — only for your good. Belle; it is your 
 last chance. You know they said so." 
 
 " But they did not think so," she returned in a voice of despair. 
 " Rotha, does he think that I shall care to live when I am never 
 to be his wife % TeU him to ask me anything but this." 
 
 "I cannot," he returned in a low voice. "Dear Belle, why 
 will you persist in speaking as though there were no hope % Did 
 not Dr. Chapman say that a winter or two at Mentone would set 
 you up % Go with Miss Maturin in a fortnight's time, and I will 
 come down to Devonshire to wish you good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye !" she retiu-ned in a bewildered voice; "it is not 
 you who have to say good-bye surely?" 
 
 " Yes, for a little while ; but it will not be long, I will promise 
 you. Only do as the doctors tell you, and in six months or a 
 year's time I will come over myself and take you home with me." 
 
 " Take me home ! Only hear him," she returned in a faint 
 voice. " He is deceiving himself still. Dear Robert, why will 
 yo& not understand that we must give it all up % I am your poor 
 friend, dear, but I shall never be anything more to you." 
 
 "Dear Belle, do not refuse him; he means it for your good," 
 exclaimed Rotha. "Look at him; you are breaking his heart." 
 For, overcome by her words, Robert had covered his face with his 
 hands. In another moment Belle had flimg her thin arms round 
 his neck. Never to her dying day did Rotha forget the look of 
 despairing love on her face. 
 
 " Oh, Robert, don't ; anything but that. Dear Bertie, put 
 down your hands, and let me see your face. Do you really mean 
 that you wish mtf to go?" 
 
 " Yes, really and truly ; for my sake — for the sake of your own 
 love." He looked at her eagerly, almost hopefully ; but there was 
 no answering gleam in Belle's eyes.
 
 376 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " For your sake % yes, I understand. Kiss me, Bertie. I will 
 go. No, not that name — that is what I used to call you ; it must 
 be Robert now." 
 
 " I like the old name and the old ways best, Bella." 
 
 " Do you, Bertie? Ah, there it is again. Are we alone, or is 
 Rotha there?" 
 
 " I am here," said Rotha, coming gently to her side. " I am 
 waiting to say good-night. Belle." 
 
 " Good-night," returned Belle dreamily. " I thought I was 
 alone with Robert, and that I was, oh, so tired ! You will have to 
 carry me upstairs to-night, Bertie. Where is Mary ?" But, before 
 her sister could be summoned to the room, Belle, exhausted by 
 her emotions, had fainted away. 
 
 {
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 
 
 " To us, 
 The fools of habit, sweeter seems 
 
 To rest beneath the clover sod. 
 
 That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
 Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
 
 The chalice of the grapes of God ; 
 
 Than if with thee the roaring wells 
 
 Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 
 And hands so often clasp'd in mine, 
 
 Should toss with tangle and with shells." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 It was the saddest Christmas Day that tlie inhabitants of the 
 Vicarage had ever known. Uncle Gar's absence was loudly 
 lamented by the boys, who could imagine no holiday without 
 their favourite playfellow and adviser, while it was felt as a very 
 real loss by the other members of the family. Mary especially 
 missed the bright unflagging spirits and helpful good-nature which 
 had 'gone so far to make Gar's influence with the lads ; she had 
 always called him her eldest boy, and had been very motherly and 
 watchful over him, claiming a right to lecture him on all his short- 
 comings, to which Gar had submitted with a tolerable amount of 
 patience. But even Carton's absence sunk into comparative insig- 
 nificance beside the fact of Belle's failing health, and it was quite 
 sufficient to note the Vicar's grave looks and Mary's troubled face 
 to see how heavily this new blow had fallen on them. 
 
 If Belle had lacked somewhat in gentleness and warmth to 
 those with whom she Uved ; if she had been self-absorbed, reticent, 
 and failing in that large influence that might have been hers, it 
 was all forgotten now ; and nothing was remembered of her but 
 her sorrow, her passionate devotion to Robert, and the fortitude 
 with which she had borne her ill health ; or, if this were not suffi- 
 
 \
 
 378 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 cient to win their forbearance, was she not Mary's only sister — the 
 sister whom she had loved, and with whom she had borne through 
 her own happy married life, and whom Austin had cherished for 
 her sake with more than a brother's patience % 
 
 And as it was with them, so it was with the boys. No need 
 to hush their noisy footsteps and merry voices now, as the lads 
 crept about the house bating their very breath for fear Aunt Belle 
 should be disturbed. Aunt Belle, who had never won their boyish 
 confidence, who had never tried to win it, on whose knee they had 
 rarely clambered since their babyhood, and whom they had always 
 held in an awe and reverence which their mother with her open 
 arms and ready kisses had never inspired. 
 
 It was strange to see the lads waiting upon her ; Guy especi- 
 ally, who was in reality her favourite, was very helpful and zealous 
 in her service. It must have given Belle many a pang to remem- 
 ber how little she had interested herself in Mary's boys — their 
 very affection was a reproach to her. Arty one day got into her 
 lap and put his arms round her neck. " Dear Aunt Belle," said 
 the affectionate little fellow, " why don't you get weU when we all 
 love you so % It makes mammy so unhappy." 
 
 " I don't think you can love me much, Arty," replied Belle, 
 fixing her hollow eyes mournfully on the child. "I have not done 
 much for you ; I have been very selfish and wicked, Arty. " And 
 then, before the boy could answer, she pressed him to her closer 
 than she had ever done before and burst into tears. 
 
 Mary, who was working at the other end of the room, hurried 
 across and lifted her boy off his aunt's lap. 
 
 " Oh, Arty," she exclaimed reproachfully, " you must not th c 
 poor Aunt Belle so." But Belle, struggling vainly with her emo- 
 tion, said, " No, it is not that, dear Mary ; let him stay — it is not 
 Ai'ty that tires me, it is only " — drawing her sister's face down to 
 hers and kissing it remorsefidly — " it is only because it makes me 
 so unhapijy, Mary, to think how little I have done for you and 
 your boys." 
 
 Poor Belle ! Always self- tormented and self-absorbed, worn 
 to a shadow by consuming sadness, shedding bitter tears over a 
 useless past, and fighting against the doom she feels is irrevocable 
 — baffled, weary, and unconvinced — so did she drag on her heavy 
 days. Willingly, right willingly, would Austin have ministered 
 to her sick heart and soul, but Belle shrank from his loving counsel. 
 " Ask Austin not to come and read to me," she said more than 
 once to her sister; "it looks so as though I were dying. If I 
 grow worse I will send for him." And the Vicar, albeit with a 
 heavy heart, forbore out of consideration for her morbid fancies.
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 379 
 
 "It seems wrong, but what can I dof lie said once to Rotha; 
 " her mind is harassing her body, and both are alike sick, poor 
 soul ! but she will have none of my healing." But Rotha only 
 murmured quietly, " Leave her alone, Mr. Ord. Belle is like no 
 one else ; she is fighting it out with herself. By and by her weak- 
 ness will overcome her, and she will cling to your every word as 
 eagerly as she now repels them ; but just now she only remembers 
 that she is unhappy." 
 
 Rotha's unspoken sympathy, so intense and so delicately mani- 
 fested, did much to win Belle's wayward confidence. Her soft 
 voice and quiet ways were very pleasant to the sick girl, whose 
 shattered nerves could bear so little ; she felt Rotha's presence a 
 rest, and grew more than reconciled to her sister's brief absences 
 from her room if Rotha could take her place. In many ways she 
 suited her better than Mary. Mary, oppressed with many cares, 
 had lost much of her wonted cheerfulness ; faint streaks of gray 
 were plainly discernible in the mother's pretty hair, her smiling 
 face had grown worn and anxious-looking ; it was not always easy 
 for her to conceal her uneasiness when Belle coughed or looked 
 more than usually ill ; and Belle, who disliked to be pitied, would 
 turn impatiently from her questions and caresses. She would 
 have deceived them all still, and cheated herself too, if it had been 
 possible. 
 
 But Rotha's face, grave only with reflected sadness, grew daily 
 more necessary to her; she woidd watch for her coming every 
 morning, and brighten perceptibly at the sound of her footsteps. 
 She could always bear her to talk to her when Mary's voice fretted 
 her into a fever ; and her reading was a real refreshment during 
 the long twilight, when she lay and waited for Robert. 
 
 Rotha did not always go home at these times. Robert always 
 loo'ked for her, and expected her to be there. Since the day of 
 their reconciliation, when he had owned and acknowledged her as 
 a friend, Rotha had no reason to complain of his manner to her. 
 As far as she was concerned he was an altered man. 
 
 He never met her now without a kind smile and a hearty 
 grasp of the hand ; if she stayed late at the Vicarage, however 
 tired and jaded he was, he would always walk up with her to her 
 own door. 
 
 Others besides Rotha noticed the almost deferential reverence 
 with which he addressed her ; it seemed as though he were always 
 trying to make atnends for his past injustice to her. The Vicar 
 openly congratulated her on this happy condition of things, but 
 Rotha just now was a little silent over the whole matter. If the 
 truth must be told, she felt somewhat oppressed by it all ; in her
 
 380 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 humility it was almost painful to feel herself so watched and 
 considered. 
 
 She was somewhat perplexed too at his sudden change of 
 opinion, but at her first timid questioning on the subject Robert 
 had stoutly denied that it was sudden. 
 
 " I had my doubts a long time before I would own to them," 
 he said to her, with the rare honesty which had first won her 
 esteem for him ; " but I think it was that talk down on the sands 
 that first shook my faith in my own judgment. I woidd not give 
 in at the time — but it somehow conquered me; and then your 
 giving everything to Gar : that did not look like covetousness — 
 did it ?" 
 
 " I wish he would come back !" sighed Rotha, touched by this 
 reference to her lover ; " how many days is it since he went away 
 — hardly a week yet, Mr. Robert ?" — turning to him half seriously, 
 half playfully — " you had as much right to come up to Bryn and 
 steal some of my property as to send away Gar." 
 
 She was afraid she had hurt him, for he did not answer. But 
 a moment afterwards she saw his eyes fixed on her with a strange 
 indefinable expression. 
 
 " Send him away % Yes, you are right. I am afraid it was 
 my doing. Evil for good — not good for evil. Miss Maturin, I 
 wish I could have gone in his stead ! Yes, I wish to heaven I 
 could have gone in his stead ! " 
 
 " And left Belle % Oh, for shame, Mr. Robert ! " 
 
 " Yes, and left Belle. What is Belle to me, or I to her now ? 
 Shall we ever be man and wife ? Oh, my poor girl ! How little I 
 knew when I gave up everything for her sake that we should ever 
 come to this ! Miss Maturin," tiuning on her abruptly, " do you 
 believe in long engagements? — I do not." 
 
 "I don't know," faltered Rotha. " I think it is a great test ; 
 it was so in Jacob's case. Seven years is a long time, Mr. 
 Ord." 
 
 "Why will people always quote Jacob as an example?" re- 
 turned Robert impatiently. "An exception is nothing to the ride. 
 Did Rachel's beauty fade, I wonder % Did Jacob eat out his heart 
 with that long waiting % Do you think it well that all freshness 
 should wear offi Do Belle and I love each other the better for 
 knowing each other's faults and learning painful lessons of forbear- 
 ance for half a dozen years % Does not the heart grow old too 
 sometimes?" 
 
 "No," replied Rotha indignantly. "If that be your man's 
 sophistry I repel it entirely. ' Many waters cannot quench love,' 
 we read, and many years ought not to exhaust it. Belle may try
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 381 
 
 you, Mr. Ord — you see I am speaking plainly — but she never loved 
 you better than she loves you now." 
 
 " I do not deserve it," he returned in an agitated voice. " I 
 feel you are right — women always are. Never mind if I meant 
 what I said just now. Heaven knows I would cut off my right 
 hand if I could make amends to her for what she has gone through 
 for my sake ; and if she may only be spared to me for a few years 
 I will guarantee that I will make her happier, poor child, than she 
 has ever been before." 
 
 ^' I am sure of it," replied Rotha, and then the subject dropped. 
 But she never forgot his words : they convinced her that her sus- 
 picions were true — that Robert Ord's remorse was greater than 
 his love ; that, however noble and faithful he had been in his 
 allegiance to his betrothed, the engagement had been a hasty 
 one ; and that in spite of his warm affection Belle was not loved, 
 never had been loved, with the whole strength and passion of his 
 nature. 
 
 Rotha hardly knew whether she resented this for Belle's sake ; 
 but it was certain that this instinctive perception of his lukewarm- 
 ness kept her a little aloof from Robert, and caused her to 
 redouble her tenderness and pity to Belle ; for she now watched 
 jealously for every symptom of coldness on his part, but could not 
 find the slightest fault with his manner. Never since the days of 
 his early love, when her beauty and her too evident affection for him- 
 self had tempted him from his prudence, had he been so gentle, so 
 devoted ; and less keen eyes than Rotha's would have judged that 
 his was the deeper affection of the two. 
 
 But alas ! alas ! though in his re)uorse and pity he would have 
 cut off his right hand to have been allowed to call her his wife, 
 her face was not the dearest to him, neither was her name the 
 oftenest on his lips. But those who saw his altered looks and 
 marvelled at his sorrow never guessed Robert Ord's secret, and 
 least of all she who had exercised so baneful an influence over his 
 life. 
 
 Did he know it ? 
 
 Ay, and battled with the sore temptation as only a good man 
 can battle, crushing and stamping out the unholy thing with his 
 strong proud will till he believed he had trodden it under foot. 
 
 Was it his fault that his oppression had begotten this ; that 
 out of his hatred and her exceeding patience had sprung the 
 mad infatuation wjiicli was to make him gray before his time and 
 embitter so many of his future years ; when his memory could 
 recall to him nothing but the tears he had caused her to shed, 
 and the hopes that through his means had been broken ; when
 
 382 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 the knowledge of her forgiveness and sisterly affection were no 
 consolation to him, and he fed on the ashes of his unhappy 
 passion ? 
 
 Did he love or did he hate her ? It was long since Robert 
 Ord had asked himself that question. The little stab that her re- 
 proachful words had given him that day when they had walked side 
 by side on the sands had first awakened him to the sense of his 
 danger. How her face had haunted him ! — it haunted him stUl ; 
 but not till the hour when he heard that she was to be his brother's 
 wife — when he saw her clinging to Gar's arm — thinking of Gar, 
 sorrowing for Gar — not till then did he know that Belle's dying 
 beauty was nothing to him compared to Rotha's wistful eyes and 
 the sweet pale face which was henceforth to be his torment and 
 his delight. 
 
 Oh, inexplicable workings of human nature, entangled and 
 involved and interwoven with all manner of devious threads ! 
 Was it Rotha's womanly instincts or the mere prompting of her 
 generous love for Gar which made her shrink more from Robert in 
 his strange new amity than ever she had done in the days of his 
 bitter warfare ? 
 
 It was almost a week since Garton had left — a long week, as 
 it seemed to Rotha, sitting so patiently in Belle's sick room day 
 after day. 
 
 Rotha flagged a little in the heavy atmosphere, as was natural, 
 but she never complained of its dullness. It seemed a dreary 
 exchange for the free happy life of the last few months, when 
 Mary and she sang and laughed over their work, and Garton and 
 the boys came and teased them out of all propriety ; how she 
 missed their boating excursions and their happy rambles, and the 
 grand teas which Meg prepared to surprise them on their retvu-n ! 
 Now hour after hour she sat listening to the faint click of her own 
 and Mary's needles, broken now and then by low-voiced conversation 
 while Belle dozed. Here was daily suffering to be witnessed — 
 suffering borne patiently indeed, but without the cheerfulness of 
 real submission. Here was the languid body and unquiet mind 
 acting and reacting lamentably on each other — suffering which 
 Rotha strove to lighten, but without success. Still it was some- 
 thing that Belle liked to have her, though it did seem a little 
 hard for Mary that Rotha's were the only absences ever noticed. 
 Not that Mary's unselfishness ever wasted a sigh on this ; she 
 would sigh a little sadly over this new infatuation of Belle's, but 
 only remonstrated when her exactions were likely to be injurious 
 to Rotha. 
 
 "Has not Rotha come yet? How long she is!" was often
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 383 
 
 the querulous complaint of a morning. Rotha would come up 
 presently with all sorts of pretty excuses for her delay, in the shape 
 of tiny baskets embedded with moss, with rare liothouse flowers 
 or choice fruit daintily nestled in the greenery. Sometimes it 
 woidd be a picture, or a new book, or a portfolio of engravings 
 from Bryn — all sorts of little surprises to cheat the invalid's new 
 day into brightness. It was a sign of changed feelings on Belle's 
 part that the Cashmere shawls were in their old place. One day 
 she made some sort of mention of them in a shamefaced way, and 
 the next afternoon she woke up to find them covering her. Belle 
 drew them over her face and shed a few silent tears imderueath 
 their soft folds. It was so hke Rotha's magnanimity. 
 
 One afternoon Rotha had left her somewhat unexpectedly, in 
 obedience to a summons from Meg. Mrs. Carruthers wanted her 
 up at Bryn on some domestic business. Belle was a great deal 
 better, and she coidd leave her comfortably, especially as Guy 
 promised to be on guard when his mother was not there. It was 
 a lovely afternoon, and even these few steps were a refreshment to 
 Rotha, and so was her quiet talk with Meg. 
 
 She had promised to be back again as soon as possible, but by 
 the time her letters were written and tea was over it was get- 
 ting late — almost time for Robert to be back from Thoruborough, 
 and then she would no longer be wanted. She said something of 
 this to Meg as she put on her hat. 
 
 " I shall just say ' good-night ' to Belle and see slie is comfort- 
 able, and then I shall come away. You shall not have another 
 lonely evening, Meg, if I can help it. We will have one of our 
 regular home-evenings — music and a little reading. How delicious 
 it will be !" And Rotha ran ofi" with one of her sunny smiles. 
 
 It was moonlight, and the sea looked just as she loved to see 
 it--all black shadow, save for one broad pathway of silver ripples. 
 Down by the bridge lay a stretch of shining sands. The whole 
 scene, so full of fixed shadow and gleaming light, the white road, 
 the dark wintry sky, sown here and there with stars, seemed full 
 of a new beauty to her, and a sense of her unworthiness and little- 
 ness suddenly smote upon her as she remembered the pleasant 
 lines that had been appointed to her, and how from "If needs be" 
 she had learnt to say, " It is well." 
 
 "God is very good," said the girl softly to herself, "and I am, 
 oh, so happy !" And as she looked over the moonlight haze she 
 thought of Garton, sailing farther and farther from her, but with- 
 out any mournfuliiess. "What is, is right," she thought. 
 
 It was about the time when the family were generally gathered 
 round the tea-table — the most sociable hour of the day, as the
 
 384 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 mother called it — but, to Rotha's surprise, the meal remained 
 uutasted on the table, and only Lam'ie and Arty were in the room 
 — Ai'ty sitting disconsolately on Laurie's knee with his finger in 
 his mouth, and his small round eyes fixed on the cake ; both were 
 rather incoherent in their answers to Rotha's questions. Arty 
 opined that somebody was cross. Deb was for one, and they weren't 
 going to have any tea at all, at all. 
 
 " Do be quiet, Arty," interrupted Laurie, giving him a shake ; 
 " here I have been telling you Jack the Giant-KiUer for the last 
 half-hour and it is all no use." 
 
 "I don't want Jack Anybody. I want my tea," returned 
 Arty, beginning to whimper. " If nobody's cross, why can't we 
 have some, Laurie?" 
 
 "Where is every one?" asked Rotha, bewildered by the 
 children's disconsolate condition, so unlike the mother's ordinary 
 care. Arty's hair was rough and his collar tumbled, and Laurie's 
 hands were covered with ink. 
 
 " Where's everybody ?" repeated Laurie slowly. He always 
 meditated over his words. " Oh, I don't know. Guy's up with 
 Aunt Belle, and Rufus has gone to the telegraph oflice, and mother 
 is shut up with father in the study, and Uncle Robert is there too, 
 and — do be quiet, Ajty ! Deb has just been in, and is going to 
 bring us our tea; and it is so dull all alone," finished Lamie, 
 running his blackened fingers through Arty's hair, at which Ai-ty, 
 being cross enough already, fairly roared. 
 
 Rotha could learn nothing from Laurie's drawled-out sentences, 
 so she betook herself to Belle's room, but Belle had fallen asleep, 
 and at first sight she thought Guy was asleep too, for he was 
 curled up on the easy-chair with his head on his arms, but he 
 started at her light footstep and held up his hand. 
 
 " Hush ! Aunt Belle is asleep, and mother says we must be 
 very careful not to wake her ; she had such a bad night." And 
 Guy, having delivered his message, seemed inchned to put down 
 his head again, but Rotha knelt down and put her lips close to 
 his ear. 
 
 " What's become of the mother, Guy ? Is she busy ? Why, 
 Guy, you have been crying." 
 
 "Oh, hush!" implored the boy. He sat up quite straight 
 now, and looked very frightened. " If you wake her what am I 
 to do, and mother not here % Don't ask me any questions," he 
 continued, with quivering lips, and trying hard not to burst out 
 crying. "I must not teU you anything; they told me I must 
 not." 
 
 " Not tell me ? Is anything the matter % Oh, Guy, if you
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 385 
 
 love me don't keep me in suspense. There is not anything the 
 matter, is there, dear ? You have only tried to frighten me." 
 
 " I haven't," retui-ned Guy indignantly. " I woiddu't be so 
 wicked. Oh, dear Rotha, do go downstairs ; I can't bear it," 
 cried the boy, trying to swallow his sobs, — " I can't bear it, when 
 we all love you so, to see you looking at me like this." 
 
 " Oh, Guy, don't." The lad's rosy face was quite pale now, 
 but it was not so white as Rotha's as she rose stiffly from her 
 knees. Why does she put her hand to her side as though she had 
 been struck there % why do her thoughts fly to Garton instantly ? 
 " That it may please Thee to preserve all that travel by land or by 
 water." "We beseech Thee to hear vis, good Lord." Why do 
 these clauses rise unbidden to her mind as she leans for a moment 
 over the sobbing child ? Guy, who never cried — who, his mother 
 said, had never cried since his babyhood — and Guy loved Garton ; 
 she remembers that. 
 
 " Do go down, Rotha ; they are all in the study," groans out 
 poor Guy. Rotha makes a gesture of assent and goes slowly 
 down, not hurriedly, but dragging one foot heavily after another, 
 as though they were suddenly weighted with lead. When she had 
 got there she paused in the dark hall and said two things to her- 
 self — or rather the two things got themselves spoken unconsciously 
 in her mind. "Whatever happens, God is good, and I must 
 remember that. And if anything be wrong with Gar — my Gar — 
 I would like to lie down and die before life is a long misery to 
 me." But she never knew she spoke thus within herself ; she had 
 a notion instead that she was standing for nearly half an hour try- 
 ing to turn the handle of the study-door with her nerveless hand, 
 and listening to Mary's low sobbing inside, and yet five minutes 
 had hardly elapsed since she had left Guy. 
 
 If she had gone in quite unprepared she would have known at 
 once that something had happened. The Vicar was sitting in his 
 usual place at his writing-table, just opposite the pictiu-e of the 
 Good Shepherd, with his head bowed down on his hands, and 
 Mary was kneeling beside him with her arms round his neck, and 
 Robert — but Rotha saw nothing beyond the Vicar's motionless 
 figure and Mary's tear-stained fixce. 
 
 " Oh, Austin, here is Rotha ! Why, my dear, my dear, who 
 has sent you in here just now 1" 
 
 "Nobody sent me. I came of my own accord." How 
 strangely her voice «ounds ! Her lips have become suddenly dry ; 
 her strength fails, and she leans heavily on Mary's shoulder to 
 support herself. Tliere is a deep-drawn sigh behind her, and then 
 some one, she fancies it is Robert, places her silently in a chau-. 
 
 25
 
 386 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "Mary, I was not prepared for tlii.s. Robert — Mary, what 
 shall we do '? I am becoming weak with all this suddenness. I 
 must have time." AA'^as that the Vicar's tone, so broken, so irrit- 
 able % Who was it that said Garton was his favourite brother, 
 
 his pupil, his No matter, the strongest man will give way 
 
 under a sudden shock. 
 
 " Some one must tell her, Mary ; this is a woman's work," 
 says Robert, still from the background. Through it all Rotha 
 fancies his voice comes from a distance — miles away — muffled — ■ 
 sepulchral. She shudders away from it. 
 
 " Yes, Austin, I will tell her ; dear husband, dear husband, as 
 though I would not spare you this ten times over." When did 
 Mary Ord consider herself when Austin was in trouble % But, with 
 a sudden terror, Rotha puts out her hands as though to ward off 
 her approach ; she would stop up her ears if she could, she knows 
 it all ; why need they trouble her with words % But Mary, press- 
 ing the cold hands to her bosom, falters out " that she loves her, 
 she loves her, and that she must be very patient, for their heavenly 
 Father had afflicted them all. Do not look at Austin, my 
 dear, do not look at my husband, be is not himself just now, he 
 cannot help us. Look at Robert, Rotha darling ; he is so brave 
 and thoughtful for us all." But Rotha, moving her dry lips, 
 shakes her head and fixes her eyes still on Mary. 
 
 " When our dear boy left us only a week ago " 
 
 "Only a week ago!" repeated Rotha; then suddenly, "Oh 
 Gar, Gar !" 
 
 " When our poor boy, our dear Gar, sailed last Tuesday night, 
 Heaven knows how little we expected such bitter tidings, how 
 much need there would be for our prayers — ' That it may please 
 Thee to preserve all that travel by land or by water.' 'We be- 
 seech Thee to hear us, good Lord.' " — The two little hands locked 
 together on Mary's bosom struggle hard to be free. — " 'We beseech 
 Thee, we beseech Thee, good Lord.' " 
 
 " Oh, Mary, the cruel sea, the cruel hungry sea ! Oh Gar, 
 Gar !" 
 
 " Robert, what shall we do % She guesses, but she does not 
 hear me. She looks blind and deaf — stupefied almost, poor 
 darling ! " But Rotha only repeats again and again slowly, " Oh 
 Gar, Gar!" 
 
 "When our poor Gar," began Mary again, this time very 
 slowly, — "when our poor Gar left us never to return again " 
 
 "Never to return again !" repeated Rotha, and then stopped 
 suddenly with a low moan, 
 
 " He little thought what would happen so near home. Thej
 
 UNDER THE ROD. 387 
 
 were fog-bound, Rotha ; and on Sunday night," said Mary, speak- 
 ing as though to a little child, "when they were quite near home, 
 and all but the helmsman were asleep, a great vessel ran on to 
 them and sank the ship, and they were all — oh, pitiful God !— all 
 lost but a few men and two or three women." 
 
 " And Gar was not among them— speak louder, Mary, louder ; 
 the waves seem to drown yom- voice ! The waves ! Oh, my poor 
 boy, my poor boy !" 
 
 In the many mansions she knows it now — no need to tell her 
 more. Somebody behind her says, "That will do. Open the 
 door, Austin, and give her air." Cold fragrant waters splash on 
 her forehead. She has a notion that Mary has taken her in her 
 arms and is crying softly over her. The Vicar's massive figure 
 seems to block up her vision, but he does not say much. She 
 tries to tell him that she is not faint, that he must not be so 
 sorry for her, because it is his loss too ; but breaks down at her 
 first word and hides her head in Mary's bosom. 
 
 " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away," said the 
 Vicar solemnly. His voice reaches Rotha. She can hear him, 
 oh, so clearly ! " Dear wife, I have been very weak. I ought 
 not to have left this to you. It is not poor Gar, it is happy Gar 
 now, and she will think so by and by." And as he lays his hands 
 on her head pitifully, yet in silent blessing, Rotha suddenly looks 
 up at him with wild eyes and prays him to take her home. 
 
 But it is not the Vicar — it is Robert who takes her ; but she 
 hardly knows it, for she is looking up at the starlit sky, where her 
 saint is — her lover, lier Garton. She has no idea of the strong 
 arm that is supporting her all the way, or of the looks of anguish 
 that he casts on her pale uplifted face. She scarcely knows what 
 he says as she totters into Meg's arms, but she wonders with a 
 dreary wonder why Meg cries so. Mary cried too, and Guy ; but 
 she has no tears, only a hot choking pain. By and by, when she 
 lies down on her little white bed, and Meg extinguishes the Kght 
 and leaves her, by her own desire, to the friendly darkness, Rotha 
 turns her face to the wall with an exceeding bitter cry, "Oh Gar, 
 Gar, I loved you so ! Come back to me, Gar !"
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 
 
 ' ' I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 
 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 
 "lis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 ' Oh ! blest be thine unbroken light ! 
 That watch'd me as a seraph's eye, 
 And stood between rae and the night 
 For ever shining sweetly nigh. 
 
 " And when the cloud upon us came, 
 
 Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray 
 Then purer spread thy gentle flame, 
 And dash'd the blackness all away." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Never till slie had lost him did Rotha know what Garton had 
 been to her, and how their brief engagement and the loss of his 
 great love would influence and sadden her life. For a little while 
 she seemed utterly broken. 
 
 It was not that she rebelled against his cruel fate — cut off in 
 such an awful way in the midst of his youth ; it was not that she 
 failed in meekness and submission, or complained that her lot was 
 unduly hard. She was far too humbly and sincerely a Christian 
 for that. It was only that the spring of her energy and life 
 seemed broken by the suddenness of the shock, and that for a little 
 time she seemed so crushed that it was diflficult to rouse her. 
 
 All the next day she lay on the couch in her own room, with 
 her face hidden from the light, as she had hidden it on the pre- 
 vious night ; just ill enough to be soothed by Meg's attentions, but 
 neither asking for nor needing sympathy, and keeping perfect 
 silence in the midst of her grief. 
 
 But, as hour after hour passed on. Heaven only knew the bitter- 
 ness of that girlish heart as the tide of recollection swept over it, 
 recalling Gar's tenderness and sad farewell. Once, towards even-
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 389 
 
 ing, when the tide was rising, the low surging of the waves seemed 
 to break the stilhiess of the room. Meg never knew why she 
 suddenly buried her face in the cushions and tried to stifle her 
 sobs. Many and many a night for long afterwards she dreaded to 
 go to sleep for fear that sound should mingle with her thoughts, 
 and so the awfid scene be reproduced in her dreams. Often she 
 started in affright, thinking she heard the crash of the broken 
 timbers, the angry rush of the water, the despairing cries of drown- 
 ing men, and amongst them one dark figure, steadfast, yet with 
 the look of mortal agony on his young face, calling on his God as 
 he went down into his yawning grave. 
 
 Oh, no marvel if she brooded silently over her trouble, and 
 shrunk from the least mention of any of the facts ; not for many 
 a long week did she learn any of the distressing details, though 
 she must have known that the papers were full of them, and that 
 the country was ringing from end to end with news of the sad 
 disaster. Meg put them all carefidly aside in case she shoidd ask 
 for them, but she never did ; by and by she heard all the particu- 
 lars from another quarter, when she was better fitted to bear it. 
 
 From the moment they brought Eube to her they ceased to 
 be seriously uneasy, for at the sight of her favoiuite the white 
 strain on Rotha's face relaxed ; and though she wept bitterly, any- 
 thing was better than the numbness and apathy of the last few 
 hours, and tears, as they knew, would ease the overburdened heart. 
 
 Rotha was more herself when she had seen Rube : the boy's 
 sorrow seemed to arouse her to the conviction that others were 
 suffering as well as herself. She did not try to comfort the poor 
 child — that would have been impossible ; but she stroked his 
 curly head as he knelt beside her, and whispered to him that he 
 was her boy now, and she would love him — oh ! so dearly — for 
 Gar's sake. And then she called to Meg faintly to take him away, 
 for he woidd make himself iU with crying and she could do nothing 
 to help him. 
 
 But the next day she had him again, and the next day after 
 that ; and Meg found that she would do anything that Rube asked 
 her, and that she seemed always more restless and unhapjiy when 
 the boy was away. After his second visit she roused herself to 
 inquire after her friends at the Vicarage, and found that, to her 
 surprise, Robert had been every morning and evening to inquire 
 after her. 
 
 He looked verynll, Meg added, and he had told her that the 
 Vicar had been far from well too. Mrs. Ord had sent all sorts of 
 affectionate messages to Rotha ; but she had not come round her- 
 self, as Belle was fretting so sadly that she could not leave her.
 
 390 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Eotha was greatly disturbed when she heard this. She felt as 
 though it were selfish for her to be sitting alone and feeding on her 
 grief while Mary had her own and her husband's trouble to bear, 
 and was worn out besides with attending on her sister. She 
 thought how Gar would have acted in her j^lace, and wept and 
 l^rayed that she might have strength to do what he would have 
 done. 
 
 She tried, and not ineffectually, to make some sort of beginning 
 that same evening, and sent Meg round, laden with good things, 
 aiid with a little pencilled line to Belle, in which she told her that 
 she had not forgotten her, that she was thinking of them all from 
 morning to night, that she sent them her dear love, and that she 
 would come round very soon, when she felt she could help and not 
 distress them. 
 
 It so happened that as Meg left the house, charged with Rotha's 
 commissions, she met the Vicar coming slowly towards Bryn, bound 
 on much the same errand as herself. IMeg tm-ned back and let him 
 in with her own key, so that he went in, as he wished it, quietly 
 and unaimounced. Rotha was sitting by the fire in her black dress, 
 looking white and weak, as thougli she had had an illness, but 
 trying to interest herself in some work Meg had wished her to do. 
 She started up when she saw the Vicar ; her composure visibly left 
 her, and she trembled violently. But he sat down beside her with 
 his old kind smile — a little graver, perhaps — and questioned her so 
 tenderly about her health, and what she had been doing with her- 
 self, that her agitation soon subsided, and she found herself talking 
 to him, soothed in spite of herself by his calmness and sympathy. 
 
 And yet the Vicar looked worn and ill, and there were dark 
 lines under his eyes which betokened sleeplessness and pain. He 
 looked like a man who had battled through some great sorrow and 
 had attained peace. He could think now for others besides him- 
 self, and very tenderly and skilfully he set about performing the 
 work which he had in hand — which was not only Rotha's consola- 
 tion, as she found out afterwards. 
 
 But just now he seemed to have no thought but for her, and 
 indeed the weary young face smote him with strange feelings of 
 compassion. 
 
 "I have been thinking of you so often, Rotha," he said. "I 
 have thought of the little sister as one whom He hath loved and 
 chastened, and who will always be dearer to us than ever now, 
 because Gar loved her." 
 
 Ah ! she has not heard the name since, and her tears fall fast. 
 
 " Do you remember what I said that night about our dear boy — 
 that he was not poor Gar, but hapjiy Gar now % Ah ! Rotha, think
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 391 
 
 of it literally, not figuratively, ' drawn out of many waters,' and so 
 brought into the haven where he would be." 
 
 " I know," she returned ; " but so young, and to die so terrible 
 a death!" 
 
 "Is it terrible, I wonder 1" mused the Vicar. " They mount 
 up to the heavens, they go down again to the dej^ths, it may be 
 their soul is melted because of trouble. Let us hope that bitter 
 baptism, that weary chrism, were less terrible than our imagination 
 paints them. Oh, Eotha, never forget ' man's extremity is God's 
 opportunity.' What if the angel of healing went down with him 
 into the troubled waters % Are not the darkness and the light both 
 alike to himi" 
 
 " He was fit to die," said the girl, weeping ; " none more so — I 
 know it." 
 
 " He would not like to hear us say so, and yet we may console 
 ourselves that ' this our brother rests in sure and certain hope.' 
 When I speak of Garton I always think of some trusty young 
 soldier of the Cross. If any one loved his Lord, he did. It seemed 
 to me," continued the Vicar solemnly, "at least in my poor human 
 judgment, as though he always strove to follow the advice of the 
 Wise Man, ' Let thy garment be always white, and thy head lack 
 no ointment.' He was not worldly wise, Rotha, hardly as clever as 
 most men ; but it may be that of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Eotha still wept, but more silently. These praises of her lost 
 love were like a sweet solemn dirge. " Oh, if we could only be 
 like him !" she murmured out of a full heart. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," returned the Vicar; "he has taught me many 
 a lesson, has my poor boy, when he only thought he was learning 
 from me. Once, when he was a very little child, Rotha, a mere 
 infant at his mother's knee, he asked if he might not pray to die 
 youiig \ and only a few years ago he told me that he always 
 missed out that clause in the Litany, * From sudden death, good 
 Lord, deliver us.' I had some difficidty in persuading him that it 
 merely meant ' sudden unprepared death.' Oh Rotha, when I 
 think of his hidden life among us, a life so different from other 
 men's, I feel sure that the Lord's mark was on him," 
 
 " I always said he was good," faltered Rotha. " When all were 
 against me, he was kind to me. Even that dreadful evening at 
 Nettie's he came up to me and wished me good-night. Do you 
 think I shall ever forget it % He was my best friend, the kindest, 
 the truest, and h^ loved mc. Oh Mr. Ord, what shall I do, what 
 shall I dor' 
 
 He waited quietly imtil the pent-up feelings had had their vent, 
 and then he took her hand and told her — what she knew already,
 
 392 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 and yet what it was always good to hear — how the sinless One had 
 wept beside an open grave, and how since then the tears of all 
 mourners had been hallowed. He told lier that she was right to 
 weep for Garton, for a nobler and a braver heart had never gone to 
 its rest. And then when he had said this he asked her to listen to 
 him, for he wanted to tell her about some one who was more un- 
 happy than she, and when she looked at him inqumngly he told 
 her that it was Robert. 
 
 "Robert !" repeated Rotha doubtfully. She was a little con- 
 fused as to the Vicar's meaning. " Robert more unhappy than 
 she V Her sad face seemed to add " impossible." 
 
 " Yes, Robert; my brother, Rotha. When I saw him just now 
 I was almost shocked at his appearance. He looked as though he 
 had gone without food or rest for days ; his eyes were bloodshot, 
 his face quite haggard, and his hand felt almost as weak as yours. 
 I could hardly speak to him, he startled me so." 
 
 "But why?" asked Rotha, quite bewildered. She began to 
 feel rather frightened at the Vicar's description. " Surely it could 
 not be Gar's loss only % I did not know he loved him so," she 
 said, with quivering lips. "I thought he coidd not understand 
 him ; that he made him impatient % " 
 
 " Perhaps so," retiuned the Vicar ; " but, Rotha, do not your 
 very words give the clue to Robert's misery ? If he felt he had 
 always been kind and patient to the poor boy, do you think his 
 grief would be so unbearable ? You know the tenacity with which 
 Robert clings to one idea. Well, he has got ii into his head that 
 it is all his fault that this has happened — that, but for him. Gar 
 would never have gone away. He tells me that you said so, and 
 he says that he never means to see you again." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Rotha, sorely troubled, "not see me — 
 Robert ! I\Ir. Ord, surely you misunderstood him, he could not 
 have said that?" 
 
 " He not only said it, but I am afraid he meant it," replied 
 Austin. " He says he has injured you past all hope of forgiveness, 
 and that you will not care to see his face again. He was terribly 
 vehement over it. You know Robert's way. What with this 
 hopeless engagement of his and Gar's death, and all his morbid 
 feeling, I am afraid he will torment himself into a fever. He looks 
 ripe for anything to-night, and, Rotha, we can hardly bear any 
 more trouble just now. My dear child, where are you going V 
 
 " I am going to Robert, of course. Come, Mr. Ord." 
 
 " But now, at this late hour of the evening V 
 
 " Why not 1 There is no time to be lost. Did you not mean 
 me to go and see him V
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 393 
 
 "Yes, certainly, when you are stronger. I only hoped you 
 would volunteer, but not to-night. You are not fit; and it is so 
 cold and damp outside, snowing hard too." 
 
 " Do you think the snow ought to prevent my going to Gar's 
 brotlier % Oh, Mr. Ord, how can you think such a thing % Would 
 not Gar have gonel" And the Vicar, secretly overjoyed at this 
 unlooked-for success, offered no further objections. 
 
 It was a bitter night. The wind had subsided, but the air was 
 full of the driving snow. The roads were already covered with it, 
 and Eotha shivered and clung closer to the Vicar's arm, for it 
 seemed to her excited fancy as though the whole place was one 
 great winding-sheet, and she was being pelted by frozen tears. She 
 had no idea she was so weak till she stood at the Vicarage gate 
 with trembling limbs waiting for him to go in. 
 
 "Not there!" exclaimed the Vicar. "Kobert is in his own 
 house. He never stops long with us of an evening now." And, 
 opening the door, he looked back and beckoned her to follow. 
 
 Rotha was a little staggered when she found it was Robert's 
 house that she was to enter, but she took courage when she remem- 
 bered it had been Garten's home too. She followed the Vicar 
 through the dark hall and up the narrow stau'case, wondering how 
 she was to account for her intrusion, but perfectly convinced she 
 was doing the riglit thing all the same. She waited while the 
 Vicar tapped at the study-door, and followed him closely when the 
 impatient " Come in" gave them a right to enter. 
 
 " I have brought a friend to see you, Robert," began tlie Vicar 
 cheerfully. " Rotha heard you were far from well, and she wished 
 to accompany me and judge for herself Well, my dear fellow, 
 what's the matter?" 
 
 " Miss Maturin here — in this house ! " burst out Robert. But 
 Rotha stepped forward and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. 
 
 " Yes, I have come to see you, Robert," speaking his Christian 
 name for the first time so naturally. " I could not bear to think 
 that Gar's brother was ill, and I might do him good, and yet keep 
 away. I am very weak. May I sit down?" she said softly, 
 taking the seat next him. 
 
 Ah ! there was no need to question the Vicar's accoimt when 
 she saw his face. 
 
 He had been sitting, or rather crouching, over the fire when 
 they had entered, and had hardly raised his head till Rotha's name 
 was mentioned ; a* more desolate figure, amid more desolate sm-- 
 roundings, it was scarcely possible to see. The fire had burnt low, 
 and was merely a mass of reddened embers ; a candle guttered on 
 the table by the side of a smoky reading-lamp, and a solitary meal,
 
 394 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 imtempting and untouched, was spread amidst a mass of books, 
 inkstands, and heterogeneous rubbish. Cinders lay curled up on 
 Garton's empty chair, and beside her was his old felt hat, still left 
 as he had last flung it down. How tenderly the Vicar took it up, 
 and lifted the favourite cat on his knee ! 
 
 "Don't touch it," said Robert savagely; "he left it there." 
 He had made no sort of response to Rotha's friendly pressure — 
 unless the weary stare he gave her may be called one ; only, when 
 she took that seat beside him, he turned away his face with a sort 
 of groan. If this had come to him, if her reproachful face were to 
 haunt him, let him die, for what good was his life to him ? 
 
 " Will you speak to me ? I am not very well, and I have come 
 to see you. Dear Mr. Ord, ask him not to turn from me when I 
 am so sorry for him — so very sorry for him." 
 
 " Do not waste your sorrow upon me," returned Robert hoarsely, 
 addressing her for the first time. " Austin, why did you bring her 
 when you knew that I never intended to see her again ? Have I 
 not darkened her life suSiciently without bringing her here 1" 
 
 " He did not bring me ; I came of my own accord," returned 
 Rotha, trying bravely to restrain her tears. " I heard that you 
 were ill and unhappy, and tormenting yourself; and I said, 'If 
 Gar's brother wants me, he will never send for me ; I must go and 
 tell him that it is all right — that it wiU never be wrong again 
 between him and me.' " 
 
 " Rotha, are you mad 1 Do you hear her, Austin 1 Right 
 between her and me, when she knows that but for me that poor 
 boy would never have gone away — would be happy now — yes, 
 happy, and sitting where you are !" 
 
 " God would have it otherwise," replied the weeping girl. " Do 
 not make it too hard for me to say, ' His will be done.' I will not 
 blame you — no, not for worlds ; because you had pledged your 
 word, and thought it right for him to go. Could you know that 
 he would never come back again — that we should see his face no 
 more V 
 
 " If I thought you could forgive me " he began ; but she 
 
 interrupted him. 
 
 "There is nothing to forgive — nothing," she said hiu-riedly. 
 " To think I could cherish bitterness against his brother when he 
 loved me so dearly, and wanted me to be his wife ! Oh, put away 
 these terrible fancies ; they are not worthy of you. Dear Mr. 
 Ord, tell him that I will love him and be his sister if he will only 
 let me." 
 
 But the Vicar, making her a sign, moved quietly away ; he 
 thought it well that, for a moment at least, he should leave him to
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 395 
 
 her woman's tenderness. It was well he did so, for he had scarcely 
 left the room a minute before Robert, overwhelmed by his conflict- 
 ing emotions, and worn out by sleeplessness, broke into those con- 
 vulsive tearless sobs which are so terrible to hear — a man's agony 
 finding sudden vent, but giving no relief, and tearing his frame to 
 pieces with useless throes. 
 
 Eotha lost her courage when she heard those terrible sobs. 
 
 " Do not ; I cannot bear it. You are hm-ting me. Do not 
 make me sorry that I came. Oh Gar, Gar, if you were only 
 here to help me ! What would you say to see him like this 1" 
 
 " Have I frightened you, Rotha ? Give me yoiu- hand a 
 moment — there, it will pass directly. Oh, forgive me ! I know 
 you do — I feel you do ; but if you knew what I have suffered ! 
 There, say something more to me ; call me Robert again ; it may 
 exorcise the demon within me." 
 
 " Poor Robert ! There — you are better now. You were ill ; 
 you could not help it. You liave not slept for nights, perhaps, and 
 that has shattered your nerves." 
 
 "I think I prayed not to sleep," he returned, shuddering. 
 " Have you not seen it all, Rotha % I have, over and over again. 
 I dare not shut my eyes, for fear that poor boy's face should haunt 
 me. Last night I saw him clearly : he had his hands clasped on 
 his breast, and his dead eyes seemed to look me through and 
 through." 
 
 "Hush!" said the girl, trembling; "it was only a dream. 
 When I see him I always fancy there is a halo round his head." 
 
 " I cannot get his voice out of my ears. How long ago is it % 
 hardly a fortnight, since he said, ' Good-bye, Robert ; I hope you 
 will not miss me much. Take care of yourself.' " 
 
 "Are you doing as he saidl" returned Rotha gently; "the 
 Vicar tells me that you eat nothing. I can see you have not tasted 
 anything this evening. No wonder your nerves are unstrung if 
 you neglect yourself like this." 
 
 " What does that matter % What good am I to any one % Oh, 
 if these three months were but over, and I could get away some- 
 where — anywhere, out of this place." 
 
 His agitation began to return, but she laid her hand on his arm 
 and called him brother softly, and then put aside her cloak, and 
 told the Vicar, when he came back, that she was not going to leave 
 him just yet ; and begged him to help her to put things a little 
 comfortable for him. 
 
 Did she guess what she was doing for him when she laid aside 
 her own trouble and weakness to minister to the stricken man 
 who a little while ago had been her greatest enemy % Years after-
 
 396 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 wards he told her that she had saved him from braiu fever, for 
 sleeplessness and want of food, and the morbid dwelling on one 
 diseased idea, had driven him well-nigh mad. " A few hours more, 
 another night of that terrible solitude, would have done for me," 
 he said ; and Rotha, as she recalled the fierce fire of his eyes and 
 the strangeness of his manner, felt within herself that he was 
 right. 
 
 Some one besides Robert blessed Rotha as she moved softly 
 about the comfortless room. In a little while she had coaxed the 
 sullen embers into a cheerful blaze, the smoky lamp was re-trimmed, 
 and the little black kettle sang merrily on the hob, the cricket 
 came out with a premonitory chirp, and Cinders, rousing herself 
 in the belief that something was going on, jumped uninvited on 
 Robert's knee and purred loudly as she whisked her tail in his face. 
 
 The Vicar knew how to be useful, and had the table cleared in 
 a trice. Old Sarah toddled up with more tempting-looking viands ; 
 and then he and Rotha sat down to break bread at Robert's table. 
 
 When had Robert ever failed in his duty as host before % But 
 he failed now. He let Rotha bring his cup to him, and, though he 
 loathed the very sight of food, he ate and drank to please her. 
 The Vicar told Mary afterwards that he almost shuddered at the 
 haggardness and beauty of Robert's face ; and that, as Rotha sat 
 beside him in her black dress, she looked, but for her uncovered 
 hair, like a young sister of mercy. 
 
 Rotha did not say much till tea was over. She began to look 
 somewhat spent, and the Vicar told Robert that he must take her 
 away ; but before she left she told him that she should be at the 
 Vicarage to-morrow, and that she hoped he would be there. And 
 then she whispered to him a few words, that he must never hurt 
 her so again, for that it was all right between them — that she 
 prayed for him every night, and pitied him from her heart. 
 
 Later on, just as Robert was beginning to relapse into his 
 dreary brooding, and the cricket had gone in, and the fire had 
 begun to biu-n very low, the door opened, and a round boyish face, 
 very sleepy, and no longer rosy, thrust itself into the room. 
 
 " Please, Uncle Robert, it's nearly eleven ! aren't you going to 
 bed % There's such a jolly fire in your room, and mother's mulled 
 some wine, and it's all so comfortable. Do come and see." 
 
 " A fire in my room ! Am I ill % Good gracious, Guy, what- 
 ever brings you here at this time of night % Go home, lad, and go 
 to bed, do." 
 
 " I am not going to bed till you do," maintained Guy sturdily, 
 " I've come to keep you company. Uncle Robert, and to see that 
 your fire does not go out, and that you have proper food to eat.
 
 AN ERRAND OF MERCY. 397 
 
 and that Cinders does not drink up all the cream. Holloa, Cinders, 
 come here." 
 
 "But, Guy," remonstrated his uncle feebly, but cheered uncon- 
 sciously by the lad's sleepy face, " this is all nonsense. I am not 
 ill — at least, not very. Who sent you to me^" 
 
 "Who sent me^ Oh, father and Rotha. I was asleep when 
 they came in ; but it was so jolly getting up. I heard Rotha tell 
 him that you must not be left alone to feed on your own thoughts. 
 Mother came in, and got all comfortable ; but she is gone now. 
 Come along to bed. Uncle Bob, there's a good fellow ; for I am 
 awfully sleepy, and I won't budge an inch till you do." 
 
 Rotha knew what she was about when she persuaded the Vicar 
 to wake up Guy, for the boy dearly loved his uncle, and for his 
 sake would be ready to sacrifice anything. He sat on the bed and 
 chatted till the mulled wine, and the warmth, and the company had 
 made Robert drowsy. Half a dozen times in the night he turned 
 out of his warm bed, roused by Robert's restless mutterings : 
 
 "Is that you. Gar? I didn't mean it, Gar. I wouldn't have 
 sent you away for worlds." 
 
 " No, of course not. Go to sleep, Uncle Bob ; it's only Guy." 
 
 " Only Guy ! My dear lad, are you sure of it? I thought it 
 was Gar ; give me your hand, boy — there." And Robert, tiuning 
 over on his side, and muttering still, would fall into another short 
 moaning sleep, and so on, until with the dawning day he slept 
 soundly for a few hours.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 
 
 " I watch the clouds flit over the moon 
 And wonder if it can be, 
 That her tremulous eye looks tenderly down 
 On those graves in the deep lone sea. 
 
 " Are they safe from thy furious blast, Wind, 
 In the haven where they would be : 
 Hast thou wafted them on to the stormless shore, 
 Where there shall be 'no more sea?' 
 
 " Was their prayer on their lips when the Master's voice 
 Rang over the deep that day, 
 And the gallant ship with its freight of souls 
 Sailed into the 'far away ?' " 
 
 Helen Marion Burnside 
 
 " Hold it up before me, Father, Father ! 
 Hold it up before my closing eyes ; 
 Dimly o'er my sight the death mists gather. 
 And my way looks lonely through the skies. 
 Loose the silver cord, 
 ' In hoc spero,' Lord, 
 Only this can lend me wings to rise." Ibid. 
 
 RoTHA had not failed in her errand of mercy, and although at one 
 time Robert had been very near it, he was saved from an attack of 
 brain fever. 
 
 But for some time his nerves seemed completely shattered. He 
 could make no pretence at cheerfulness now as he sat by Belle's 
 side ; nay, more, he could hardly rouse himself sufficiently to talk 
 to her. He was ill himself — irritable and restless. The whole 
 atmosphere of the place was oppressive to him ; and, seeing how 
 things were with him, he was almost feverishly anxious that there 
 should be no unnecessary delay in the Torquay plans, and that 
 Belle should be removed as soon as possible from the saddening 
 influences that sm-rounded her. 
 
 Rotha was of the same opinion — Rotha, who had long ago
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 399 
 
 taken up her old duties at the Vicarage, and was fidfilling them 
 as heartily and unselfishly as ever. 
 
 Save that she was graver and paler, that her words were few, 
 and her smiles sweeter and sadder than of old, no one would have 
 guessed that she had gone through a great trouble. Even Mary 
 marvelled at her sometimes, and wondered what Austin meant by 
 saying that Rotha was growing older. Perhaps the Vicar knew 
 that the brief summer beauty of freshness and colom- had died out 
 of the girl's face, never to return. It was a careworn yoimg face 
 now, too grave by half, when she came in wearily of an evening, 
 and there was no need to force her cheerfidness any longer. Too 
 grave, oh ! far, far too sorrowfid, when she crept to her window 
 in the winter's night to look up at the stars and wonder what 
 Gar was doing ; and to tell him, as though she felt him very near 
 her, that she was doing all she could for Robert and for them all ; 
 but that she was so tired, so very, very tired. 
 
 Nobly as she had worked for them all, she had never so denied 
 herself, so forgotten everything but their interest, as she had done 
 now. It was almost heroic, the way in which she put aside her 
 own grief to bear with Belle, to cheer Belle in what seemed to the 
 others a tedious convalescence ; for she was better now, wonderfully 
 better, as Robert said, and the doctors had given permission for 
 her to be removed at once. The weather had become unusually 
 mild; there was no time to be lost, and Rotha, acting by her 
 friend's advice, had sent Meg, with little more than a day's delay, 
 off to Torquay to secm^e the most commodious lodgings that could 
 be found, so that everything might be ready for an immediate 
 start, while Mary, with many secret tears, set about the prepara- 
 tions for her sister's journey. 
 
 It was decided between Robert and the Vicar that the leave- 
 takjngs were to be made as brief as possible — the doctors had laid 
 a great stress on that ; anything like agitation or excitement was 
 to be warded off as much as possible, and, after many consultations, 
 it was arranged that Belle was not to know of it till the day before 
 that appointed to start. It was no use prolonging her misery, and 
 she had promised him to go whenever he wanted her, as Robert 
 very justly remarked ; and as soon as Rotha could tell him that 
 her arrangements were completed, he would break it to Belle as 
 quietly as possible. 
 
 So one morning Rotha came round to the Vicarage very early. 
 There was no time to talk it over, for Robert had to leave by the 
 next train to Thornborough, but he promised to be back in time 
 to tell Belle that same afternoon. 
 
 It so happened that Belle was unusually well and cheerful that
 
 400 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 day ; she had coughed very little, aud walked up and down the 
 room frequently on Guy's arm without seeming tired. Poor Mary 
 — who knew she was so soon to lose her — liardly dared to come 
 near her all day for fear her tell-tale face should betray her, and 
 yet could hardly bear her out of her sight a moment. 
 
 "She looks so pretty and so good, and she has got her old 
 lovely smile," cried poor Mary, coming as usual for consolation to 
 her husband ; " and she has actually laughed once at something 
 Guy said. Oh, Austin, it does seem so hard that I cannot go 
 with her !" 
 
 "My darling Mary, you know Eotha has offered you over and 
 over again to go." 
 
 " Yes, I know ; but how could I leave you and the boys ? I 
 could not do it, Austin ; and then there is Robert looking so ill, 
 and Deb laid by, and Arty, and the parish !" And Mary put down 
 her tired head on the Vicar's shoulder as though it were her only 
 resting-place. It was well she did not see the look of pain that 
 crossed her husband's face as he drew her tenderly within the 
 shelter of his strong arm and comforted her. 
 
 Robert came in presently, tired and harassed, and went up to 
 Belle ; he was with her alone for a long time, and then came down 
 looking pale and utterly spent. 
 
 "Thank heaven, that is over !" he said to Mary; "I do not 
 think you will have any difficulty with her now. I have tried to 
 be as gentle as I could with her, but I was obliged to be very firm 
 too. But I am afraid it goes very hardly with her, poor girl." 
 
 Mary was afraid so too when she saw Belle. Belle was lying 
 quite still — so motionless, indeed, that Mary fancied she was asleep 
 till she saw a tear rolling down the white sunken cheek and stooped 
 to kiss it away, and then Belle opened her eyes. 
 
 "Is that you, Maryl" she cried; and then she suddenly 
 stretched out her arms to her sister. " Oh, Mary, he is going to 
 separate us ; he is going to send me away, and I shall never see 
 your dear face again ! " 
 
 But Mrs. Ord could not answer her, and for a little time the 
 sisters mingled their tears together. 
 
 " You must get well and come back to me. Belle ; I shall want 
 you so much — oh, so much, my pet," cried poor Mary, kissing 
 Belle's fair hair, her hands — even her dress. " I cannot bear to 
 think you are going so far from me, and that Roth a will do every- 
 thing for you and not I." 
 
 Belle shook her head, and then began stroking Mary's face 
 half dreamily. 
 
 "Do you remember, when we were little children together,
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 401 
 
 Mary, when we slept in the great sloping attic that looked ont on 
 the apple trees, and how I, the younger and weaker little sister, 
 would never go to sleep till you had put your arm round me and 
 said, 'Good -night, God bless you, Belle'? Do you remember 
 it, Mary?" 
 
 "Eemember it, darlhig ! too well, too well; but why do you 
 ask?" sobbed Mary, melted by this tender recollection. 
 
 " Because I was thinking — don't cry, Mary ; I can't bear to 
 see you cry — I was thinking how, when that comes, I should like 
 you to put your arm round me and say that over again. It would 
 make it feel less terrible, and more like going to sleep if you will 
 only say 'Good-night, God bless you, Belle!' as you did then." 
 And drawing Mary's face down on the pillow, she told her not to 
 fret ; for she did not mean to make her unhappy, for if God heard 
 her prayers she would surely come back, if only to lay her head 
 once more on that faithful breast. 
 
 A more beautiful morning had rarely dawned than that on 
 which Belle took her sorrowful departure from Blackscar. Robert 
 was to go with her to the station, and Guy had also pleaded to be 
 allowed to accompany his uncle ; but the rest of the boys and 
 Austin and Mary came no farther than the Vicarage gate. Mary 
 had hardly slept all night, and her led and swollen eyes bore wit- 
 ness to the tears she had shed. It went to the Vicar's heart to 
 see how the sisters clung to each other at the last moment. 
 
 " Good-bye, Blary ; one more kiss, Mary. Good-bye — good- 
 bye, my darling sister." 
 
 " Dear Mary, let her go. Robert is waiting to lift her into the 
 carriage." 
 
 " You hear what Austin says. Belle, darling ; you must go now. 
 Good-bye, my precious, and God Almighty bless you." 
 
 And Robert, gently disengaging Belle from her sister's arms, 
 lifted* her into the carriage and jDlaced her by Rotha's side. 
 
 But even then, while Austin was giving her his brotherly fare- 
 well and blessing. Belle leant across him and held out her arms 
 again to her weeping sister. 
 
 " One more kiss, Mary darling — one more kiss, my own Mary," 
 and hung about her neck till Austin gently, but firmly, put his 
 arm round his wife and drew her away. 
 
 She scarcely spoke a word after that till Robert took leave of 
 her in the railway carriage ; but she was as white as death and 
 trembling all over when he took her in his arms. 
 
 " It is not goo1:l-bye, Belle, you know. I am coming very 
 
 soon." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; the sooner the better, Bertie ; but it will be good- 
 
 26
 
 402 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 bye tlieu." And, as he stooped over and kissed her with some 
 emotion, she only looked at him with strange wistful eyes. "It 
 will be good-bye then, Bertie, will it not?" 
 
 It was a long desolate journey, and scarcely less so to Eotha 
 than Belle, and a heavy responsibility to the young nm'se ; and it 
 was a greater relief than she could have imagined to see Meg's 
 friendly face awaiting them at the station : it seemed to give a 
 home -look to the strange surroundings, and even Belle, though 
 sadly exhausted, smiled faintly when she saw Mrs. Carruthers, and 
 held out her hand with a feeble welcome. 
 
 Eotha wrote a tolerable account to Mary the next day ; she 
 said, of course Belle was suffering from the reaction of excitement 
 and unusual exertion, but that in other ways she seemed much the 
 same ; and a few days after that she was able to give even a better 
 report. Belle had recovered from the fatigue of her journey and 
 was able to sit up and look about her a little. They liked what 
 they could see of Torquay, though of com-se Belle had not yet gone 
 out ; but they had very pleasant apartments, in the house of a 
 widow lady. The rooms were all on the first floor, and opened into 
 each other, and Belle's sitting-room was especially pleasant, as it 
 looked over a lovely old garden, with a patch of sunny road beyond, 
 planted with rows of trees. Eotha said the place where their 
 house was situated was called " Torquay within the Hills," and she 
 described the air as perfectly delicious. Mary had been guided in 
 her choice by the advice of Dr. Vivian, who had recommended this 
 locality as singularly adapted to all pulmonary complaints. 
 
 Dr. Vivian had been to call on BeUe once or twice, and Eotha 
 told Mary that he seemed to understand Belle's complaint thor- 
 oughly; he had spoken most cheerfully to his patient, and had 
 recommended them a great many pleasant walks and drives. Belle 
 was to see Bishopstowe, and Babbicombe Bay, and Warren HiU, 
 and Daddy Hole Common. She was to go out every fine morning 
 and see all the objects of interest in Torquay. Eotha wrote amus- 
 ing accounts of the trawling with long nets in Torbay, the walks 
 they had in the Torwood Eoad, and their visit to the quaint little 
 fishing-town of Brixham. Belle had a little pony-carriage, Eotha 
 added, and was greatly interested by the novelty of everything 
 around her. 
 
 Mary used to read those letters to the Vicar with tears in her 
 eyes. " Do you think she will get better, Austin % I have heard 
 of people living for years and years with only one lung ; and 
 perhaps the other is not so much diseased as Mr. Greenock thought.'" 
 But the Vicar only shook his head ; he noticed how Eotha's letters 
 were filled with descriptions of scenery, and how little she said
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 403 
 
 about Belle herself. The doctor's visits were touched on very 
 lightly ; she always spoke of Belle as being happier or brighter, but 
 never once said that she was really better. One day the Vicar 
 shut himself up iu his study and wrote a long letter to Eotha, 
 which she answered by return of post. But he never showed either 
 the letter or the answer to Mary ; but for a long time afterwards 
 he was very grave, and went about as though he had something 
 heavy in his thoughts. 
 
 Robei't was in London just then on business connected with his 
 firm, and it so happened that something very strange befell him 
 there, of which Rotha was to hear shortly. One day, when they 
 had been about three weeks at Torquay, and Rotha, in spite of the 
 doctor's prognostications, was beginning to cheat herself into the 
 belief that Belle was better, she was sitting in her own room, while 
 Bella was having her noonday rest, when a large official-looking 
 document in Robert's handwriting and the postmark London was 
 put into her hands. 
 
 She had not an idea what it contained, and was opening it 
 listlessly enough, when she caught sight of a never-to-be-forgotten 
 cramped handwriting, and a moment afterwards something lay 
 sparkling at her feet. With a low cry she snatched it from the 
 ground, and sank back half fainting into her seat. 
 
 What is it that she devours with such hungry tears and kisses 
 — which she presses alternately to her bosom and her lips ? 
 
 There is the ring that she placed on Garton's finger, with the 
 diamond cross that he kissed so reverentially, and the words "/«■ 
 hoc spero " traced round on the blue enamel ; and there on her lap 
 lies the "message from the sea." 
 
 Not for a long time — not until she has read it over and over 
 through her blinding tears, not until she has found Robert's note 
 and mastered its contents, is the bewildering mystery cleared up ; 
 not until Meg has come to her aid and read it slowly and patiently 
 again and again can she understand how it has come to her — out 
 of the very shadow and blackness of death. 
 
 And yet how clearly Robert explained it all ! 
 
 "I am sending you something very precious," he wrote. 
 " Heaven grant you may receive it safely. I am sending the very 
 letter he was writing to you just before the terrible concussion took 
 place — the very ink was wet, you can see, as he thrust it hurriedly 
 into his bosom ; you can tell that by the half-obliterated words at 
 the end. < 
 
 " How he gave the ring and letter with his last dying love, you 
 must read in another man's words ; I have taken it down myself 
 from his lips, just as he told it me, and remember he was the very
 
 404 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 man who saw our Gar die. Another time, when we meet, perhaps 
 I will tell you by what strange chance I lighted on him in this 
 great city ; and how, in a lonely coffee-house under the shadow of 
 the mighty dome of St. Paid's, I heard word for word, as you have 
 it here, how oiu- poor Gar perished like the hero he was." 
 
 Will she ever weary of the sweet perusal % She spreads the 
 crumpled paper out again — blotted, half defaced with ink, and in 
 some parts scarcely legible. She reads once and yet once again her 
 " message from the sea." 
 
 " My darling Rotha," it began, " I am sitting down in my cabin 
 to write to you by the light of a very smoky lamp ; the rest of the 
 passengers are just thinking of retiring to rest, and only the watch 
 is on deck. Just now I went up to see what chance there was of 
 our beating down the Channel to-morrow — for you will be surprised 
 to hear that, though it is Simday, we are only now anchored off 
 Dungeness — but the pilot tells me that the wind is still ahead. 
 We have had ill luck enough already to begin with : to think we 
 are still here on anchorage, and it is Sunday evening. 
 
 " But I have not sat down to comi^lain, but just to let you 
 know how things are going. I told you once that I was a bad 
 hand at a letter, and I am afraid you will agree with me, for I do 
 not think I have made much of a beginning, though I mean to 
 send a little more than a message to Rube. 
 
 " It is not more than five days since I said good-bye, but I feel 
 as heavy-hearted as though it were five months. I know now 
 what people mean by home-sickness, for I am just sickening for 
 the siglit of one dear face that is all the world to me. It is not 
 always easy for a man to express what he feels. I have tried over 
 and over again to tell you how much I loved you, but I never 
 could ; and now I think that I shall die before you know what 
 you are to me. 
 
 " That is a strange sentence, and I do not know why I have 
 written it ; but it is Sunday evening, and my heart is just as 
 heavy as lead. I cannot help feeling as though .some great gulf lies 
 between us. It may be because I have never been far away from 
 home before that I am so low and miserable. 
 
 " I have been thinking of you so much, my darling. I do not 
 think you are ever out of my mind for a single minute. You do 
 not know what a man's love is when he gives it all to one woman, 
 as I have given it to you. I have often said to myself, ' She will 
 never understand it, but if God grant that I ever make her my 
 wife I think she will feel it then.' 
 
 " Do you remember, sweet heart, my telling you that I was 
 not clever, and how indignantly you assured me that such a thing
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 405 
 
 should never be mentioned in connection witti you and me 1 I 
 have blessed you for those words over and over again ; and yet, all 
 the same, I am rejoiced to think that you are cleverer and better 
 and wiser than I. Do you think I would have it otherwise 1 
 Only put your little hand in mine, Rotha — the little soft hand 
 whose touch I remember still — and I think I can follow those dear 
 feet wherever they climb. 
 
 " Do you remember, too, my telling you that yom- love was 
 not to be compared to mine, and that perhaps some day you might 
 give me all you have in you to give 1 Not for worlds would I 
 have even that otherwise ; how could you misunderstand me so 1 
 The very thought of the treasures that yet are vuiwon only nerves 
 me to yet stronger efforts. How could you, being what you are, 
 Rotha, give all at once to such a one as I ? No ; dearly as you 
 love me, you could not give me all. One day you shall tell me 
 your thoughts, and I will try and understand them, and then per- 
 haps I shall be able to tell you what I mean. 
 
 " There is a little deaf-and-dumb boy on board, Rotha, that 
 somehow reminds me of you. I suppose the eyes of most mutes 
 are eloquent, but I have never seen any like this boy's. They are 
 brown and soft, and have strange appealing looks in them, like a 
 dumb animal's in pain. 
 
 " You know my fancy for boys. This one has taken my fancy 
 strongly. He is such an afflicted little creature, and without 
 parents, and he and his mulatto nurse are bound like myself for 
 Buenos Ayres ; on such a long journey we are siu:e to become w^ell 
 acquainted " (Ah, Gar ! on such a long journey ; ay, along the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death). 
 
 "He takes to me already. You must tell Rube not to be 
 jealous. Dear old RuT)e ! he must not have a boyish rival in my 
 heart. To-day he sat beside me on the poop for hours, holding 
 the lapel of my coat, and looking quite contented. Tell Rube his 
 name is David ; but he will not be like the first David to me — 
 who was, as one may say, the captive of my own bow and spear, 
 for I suppose, humanly speaking, I saved his life. Dear lad ! he 
 has rewarded me for it over and over again. 
 
 " And tell him, with my love, that I hope he has forgiven me 
 for not bidding him good-bye, and tell him to remember me in his 
 prayers every night. There's a word, too, I might say to my 
 torments, Guy and Rufus, but it is getting late, and I suppose I 
 must turn in. 
 
 " I shall finish this to-morrow ; but now God bless you, my 
 
 own dear love — and " Then came some blurred unintelligible 
 
 words, and then Death wrote Finis.
 
 406 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Oh, how the girl wept and smiled over her treasure, and then, 
 hiding it in her bosom, read in Robert's handwriting, traced boldly 
 on the thin foreign paper, the sad particulars of Garton's death ! 
 
 And this is what it said, taken down from the lips of the 
 sailor, Richard Martin : — 
 
 " I was seaman on that unfortunate Phoenix, sir, and have served 
 under Captain Murray for, I shoidd say, nigh upon five years, and, 
 though I say it, a finer captain never commanded a finer vessel. 
 
 " Well, the vessel that we left off Dungeness, with nothing 
 but the masts standing up out of the water, left the Loudon Docks 
 about nine o'clock on "Wednesday morning, bound for Buenos 
 Ayres, and with, I should say, about three hundred soids on board, 
 some of them belonging to a gang of navvies that were going out 
 to work some contract, the rest of them saloon passengers and the 
 crew. 
 
 " But you don't want to put down a lot of sailor's yarn ; but 
 just to tell that lady about the unfortunate man who put the letter 
 and the ring in my hands when we had climbed up upon the pile 
 of boats and were holding on together for dear life. Yes, sir, I 
 quite understand you , and I hope you'll cut me short if I spin it 
 out ; for, as sure as my name's Richard Martin, I'll tell that poor 
 young lady aU I know. 
 
 " I recollect his coming on board with you, sir, for I was just 
 hauling that coil of rope when he stepped across the gangway — a 
 tall dark sort of a chap, with the cut of a parson about him, but 
 a fine figure of a man too. 
 
 " He was a civil sort of person — none of your fine gentlemen, 
 who won't give a word to a rough seaman. He used always to 
 say ' Good morning, mate,' and sometimes he would stop and have 
 a bit of chat with me ; it seemed to cheer him up, for at other 
 times he looked so down-hearted that I often said to myself ' that 
 young man has left his sweetheart,' for I kind of know how a man 
 will carry on when he leaves a woman behind him. 
 
 " I remember, too, that I got it into my head that he was going 
 to be a parson. I thought so when he reproved two of my chums 
 for swearing. I recollect him sitting down and talking to them 
 in a simple hearty sort of way, and how when Joe Greene — he 
 who had a widowed mother — slunk away fairly ashamed of himself 
 he followed him and shook hands with him, and told him that he 
 would be a fine fellow if he "would break himself of that evil habit. 
 That's Joe Greene, sir, that you saw alongside of me in the bar, 
 and a more sobered chap I never set eyes on ; as he should be, 
 when he was saved out of all those poor drowning wretches. 
 
 " There was a deaf-and-dumb child on board, under charge of
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 407 
 
 a mulatto mirse, going out to some relations who lived in Buenos 
 Ayres ; and it was odd what a curious fancy that afflicted little 
 creature seemed to take to that young gentleman. Joe Greene 
 was pointing them both out to m.e that same day — it was Sunday, 
 I remember — ' That's a simple sort of chap, Martin,' he says, ' to 
 let that child sit alongside of him for hours like that.' I remem- 
 ber his saying that now, though I made no sort of observation at 
 the time. 
 
 " But I am taking up your time, you will say, and I have not 
 told you how it came about that we were lying at anchor so snugly 
 on Sunday evening, when we had left the London Docks early on 
 Wednesday morning. 
 
 " Well, we ran down to Gravesend all right ; and then we foimd 
 the wind dead against us, and had to lay by till Friday. On 
 Friday we had middling weather, but the wind was still rising, so 
 we towed down the Channel ; but the pUot passing word, we cast 
 anchor off Dungeness. 
 
 " Here we were snug enough, and, the watch being set, the rest 
 of us turned in to our hammocks, and I for one was soon fast 
 asleep. 
 
 " Well, sir, all at once I was wakened by an awfid crash, just as 
 though it were the Day of Judgment, and every rock that was on 
 the earth was rent to pieces ; and immediately afterwards I heard 
 the captain sing out, ' AU hands to the boats,' 
 
 " Well, sir, I heard it afterwards from one of my mates, who 
 saw it all from first to last, a great lubberly steamer had cut the 
 Phoenix asunder amidships, and there was a big hole in the ship's 
 quarter, which was letting in the English Channel on us. 
 
 "It is all in the papers, and you don't want me to go over it 
 again ; but I wish to say that nothing that the papers can say will 
 give you an idea of the horrors of the scene. When I rushed up 
 on deck it wasn't only the women who came swarming up the 
 ladders shrieking fit to tear your heart to pieces, it was the men 
 too, half-maddened by mortal terror, who crowded roimd the boats 
 fighting for their very lives. 
 
 "AVell, sir, you've read it all; you know how that vessel 
 sheered off regardless of our cries ; how the cannon would not go 
 off, and we sent up rockets for no manner of good; and you 
 know how om- cai)tain stood by the boats and tried to save the 
 women. 
 
 " Bless your life, sir, I did what I could, but it was like fight- 
 ing with savages, and in the dark too : the wrong people got into 
 the boats and coidd not be made to leave them ; the men, the 
 navvies especially, were like mad, and wouldn't obey orders. I
 
 408 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 could see we were doomed, and the captain, he says to me, ' Martin, 
 save yourself — you've got a wife and seven children ashore, but 
 my i^lace is here.' I wish the papers had said a little more about 
 the captain, for if any one ever died at his post om* captain 
 did. 
 
 " Well, Joe Greene and I were struggling at the boats between 
 the main and mizzen masts, but bless your heart it was no manner 
 of use, for we couldn't move them, and up comes that young 
 gentleman you say was your brother, sir. ' The ship's going down 
 very fost,' says he, and, seeing nothing for it, we three jumjoed on 
 to the pile of boats. 
 
 "Joe Greene, he splutters out, 'I wish some one would tell 
 my poor old mother I was thinking of her now ;' and the gentleman, 
 he says, holding out his hand, ' Martin,' he says, ' if you live to get 
 on shore, and I hope with all my heart that you will, will you send 
 this letter and this ring to the young lady % You'll see the direc- 
 tion Avritten inside;' but lor, sir, there was no direction at all. 
 ' And tell her,' says he, with a sort of sob, ' that the thought of 
 her is making me strong to die, and that even at this minute I 
 am thinking of her and bidding God bless her with my latest 
 breath.' 
 
 " And I said, ' All right, mate, but hold on if you're a man, 
 and we may be picked up after all ;' for he was a plucky sort of 
 chap, and did not seem to be holding on at all. 
 
 "Well, sir, he might have been saved like the rest of us, and 
 that's the hardest part I am coming to, but that negro woman I 
 told you of began howling and screaming, as indeed most of the 
 other poor creatures were, and begging us to save the child. So 
 the gentleman, he says, ' I can't stand this, Martin ; give me a 
 hand, my good fellow, I must go and fetch the child ;' and I said, 
 ' Not for worlds, mate. Don't leave these ere boats.' But he did 
 not hear me, and just swung himself down, and I saw him lift the 
 boy in his arms and try to get back to us. 
 
 " You'll excuse me a moment, sir, but it makes even a rough 
 seaman feel soft to think of a brave man caught in the net like 
 that. ' Joe Greene,' he screamed out, and then I saw the sea rise 
 to the level of the poop, and then the white foam seemed to sweep 
 him away, with the child still clinging round his neck ; and I can't 
 help thinking, sir, that somehow that little child will just lead 
 him by the hand into the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 " You don't want to know any more ; or how Joe Greene and I 
 got liold of some rigging, and how we were picked off it by the 
 lugger BeUy Jane ; or how I got up to London and saw you, sir, 
 in this same coffee-house. But I hope you'll tell that young lady
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 409 
 
 that I've done my best by her, as svire as my name is Richard 
 Martin." 
 
 A iDostscript by Robert added, " I have seen Joe Greene, and 
 he has confirmed Martin's account ; but I think it needs no com- 
 ment on my part, save to say that to our brave Gar the worda 
 may surely be applied, ' Inasmuch as ye did it even unto one of 
 the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' And 
 once more, 'And a little child shall lead them.'"
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS 
 
 " For me, my heart that erst did go, 
 Most like a tired child at a show 
 That sees through tears the mummers leap, 
 Would uow its wearied vision close. 
 Would childlike on his love repose 
 Who giveth His beloved sleep. 
 
 "And friends, dear friends, when it shall be, 
 That this loAV breath is gone from me, 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let one, most loving of you all, 
 Say, ' Not a tear o'er her must fall. 
 He giveth His beloved sleep. ' " 
 
 E. B. Browning 
 
 Three weeks passed very quietly and smoothly with Rotha and 
 her charge. Belle had grown more reconciled to her banishment, 
 and seemed to take interest in her new sm-roimdings. The deli- 
 cious balmy air, the pleasant drives, could not fail to soothe the 
 poor invalid after her long and tedious confinement to the four 
 walls of the Vicarage. There she had been afraid to pass even 
 from one room to the other ; but here the sunshine and soft air 
 tempted her to many a short stroll on Rotha's supporting arm, 
 whUe the very sight of the wild flowers, which even at this season 
 of the year nestled in sheltered hollows, the long green lanes, the 
 enchanting views, were som-ces of enjoyment to the weary eyes 
 from which they had been so long debarred. 
 
 True, her spirits were still variable, and there were times when 
 the old sullen depression seemed to return with tenfold power, but 
 these moods were rare. In general she was very patient, deeply 
 grateful for any little attentions on Rotha's part, and touched 
 sometimes almost to emotion with the imfailing kindness with 
 which Meg and she nm^sed her. 
 
 But as it is with the flame of a candle as it gutters to its close 
 before the feeble spark is extinguished, so was it with the treach-
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 411 
 
 erous disease to wlaich Belle was slowly succumbing. From the 
 first Dr. Vivian had held out no definite hopes of recovery, though 
 he had once declared that Belle's youth and constitution were in 
 her favour ; but since his second visit he had never repeated this. 
 He had spoken very cheerfully to his patient, and even to Rotha, 
 but it had struck the latter that his cheerfulness was forced, and 
 that he kept his real opinion to himself; and very soon she was 
 strengthened in this conviction, when she was sure that he looked 
 upon Belle's case as entirely hopeless, and that his skill was merely 
 directed to soothe and alleviate the few short weeks or months 
 that still remained to her. It was very diflicult to realise this 
 sometimes when she looked at Belle. Never had Belle looked 
 more lovely than now, when her cheeks were glowing with diseased 
 colour, and her eyes brilliant with the fever that was wasting her 
 so imperceptibly. But this condition of things coidd not last. 
 
 On the day after Rotha had received her precious letter a sud- 
 den and alarming change was apparent in the sick gM. All at 
 once there was a decay of the vital powers ; the deep tight cough 
 retui-ned with increased violence, and emaciation set in ; exertion 
 became impossible ; every moment brought on the labom-ed breath, 
 the rapid pant ; a fainting-fit of long dm-ation added to her nurse's 
 anxiety. In a day or two Meg was obliged to lift her in her strong 
 arms from her bed to her couch in the adjoining room ; at night 
 her restlessness and suffering were so great that one or other 
 remained in close attendance by her side. After three or foui 
 days of suspense and watching. Dr. Vivian told Rotha that every 
 symptom of the most rapid decline had set in, and that it was 
 impossible to say how long or how short a time she might linger. 
 
 Under these cu-cumstances Rotha wrote oft' to the Vicar and 
 impjored him to send Mary at once to her dying sister, and to 
 communicate the bitter tidings to Robert ; but great was her con- 
 sternation at receiving the Vicar's reply. In it he told her — and 
 with what grief she might imagine for herself — that his dear wife 
 was ill with an attack of pleiu-isy. She had caught cold one bitter 
 day in going about her district, and had neglected to take proper 
 precautions, and fretting about her sister had retarded her recovery. 
 She had been confined to her bed some days when he wrote, but 
 they had neither of them let Rotha know for fear of adding to her 
 anxiety. Under these circumstances he had decided in keeping 
 from Mary the knowledge of her sister's dangerous condition, at 
 least for the present. He told Rotha, to her further grief, that 
 Robert had been despatched to Glasgow on important business, 
 which would detain him for the next four or five days, and that 
 unless there were any immediate danger it would be extremely
 
 412 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 difficult to recall him ; but he charged Rotha to telegraph if auy 
 alarmiug change should take i^lace. 
 
 " It seems as though in becoming one of us," he concluded, 
 "you have come into a larger share of trouble than of joy; we arc 
 walking among the shadows now, Rotha, or it may be in the very 
 fire of the furnace, and that seven times heated. Ah, well for us, 
 my child, if amid its exceeding fierceness we may discern the form 
 of One who walked before us in the fiery way, and know it as the 
 form of the Son of God." 
 
 The Vicar's letters, always so wise and tender, were Rotha's 
 great comforts, and just now she needed something especially 
 bracing to nerve her to the bitter duty that lay before her — that 
 of acquainting Belle with her hopeless condition. 
 
 She was only waiting for an opportunity, but it came soon. 
 
 " Does Dr. Vivian say I am better, Rotha V asked Belle one 
 day when the doctor had just been paying his morning visit. 
 
 " Why do you ask, dear Belle V returned Rotha, quickly 
 averting her face from the invalid. 
 
 "Because I think I feel so," replied the sick girh "I have 
 not coughed half so much this morning, and the pain has left me. 
 You do not answer, Rotha ; you do not look at me. Does he — 
 does he think me worse?" And Belle raised herself on her elbow 
 and looked at Rotha anxiously. 
 
 " He does not think you better," returned Rotha in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Not better! — that means worse, of coui'se. Come here, 
 Rotha. Has Dr. Vivian said anything — anything that I ought 
 to know % Oh, Rotha," with a sort of despair as she saw her fixce, 
 " it is not that — it is not dying, is it V And, as Rotha knelt down 
 and folded her silently in her arms, she repeated in a frightened 
 voice, " Do not tell me — I cannot bear it — that I have got to die 
 yet." 
 
 "Dear Belle, try and say 'His will be done;' it is the only 
 thing that can make it easy." 
 
 "I cannot," repeated Belle in a choked voice, "I cannot — it 
 would be a falsehood to say it. What have I done that it should 
 all be made so hard for me % Just as I was beginning to hope too 
 that I was getting better, and it was only those dreadfid winds 
 that were killing me." 
 
 "I thought you knew it," retm-ned Rotha gently. "You 
 seemed as though you did when you said good-bye to them all." 
 
 " Knew it ! Of course I always knew it. Did I not always 
 say I was doomed % But it does not make it easier when it comes. 
 I wanted a little longer time to get used to the idea — to — Oh,
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 413 
 
 Rotha, it is not the knowing of it — that was long ago ; it is the 
 terror, the awfulness of approaching dissolution — the — the — oh, I 
 cannot talk of it." And, overwhelmed by her emotion, the un- 
 liappy girl clasped her wasted arms round Rotha and held her 
 fast. 
 
 " Oh, Belle, this is dreadful ! Heavenly Father, what am I 
 to say to her? Help me to comfort her," prayed Rotha, with 
 streaming eyes. Then aloud, " Oh, if the Vicar were only here — 
 if you would see a clergyman ! " But Belle shook her head. 
 
 " It would be no use, Rotha ; it is not that. I suppose I have 
 gone to church oftener than most people. You forget I have lived 
 in a clergyman's house many years, and tliat Austin has often talked 
 to me, but I never would open my heart to any of them, it is not 
 in me. You may send any one you choose, but you must not ask 
 me to confide in a stranger." And Rotha, knowing her strange 
 wayward nature, dared not press the point. 
 
 " If Robert were only here," began Belle presently, in calmer 
 tones, " I think he would do me good. No clergyman could be 
 better than Robert ; you have no idea how beautifully he talks. 
 Oh, Rotha, there it is — the sin and tlie stumbling-block. I have 
 made Robert my idol, and now God is punishing me for it." 
 
 " ' Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,' " retm-ned Rotha, 
 using unconsciously the Vicar's words. 
 
 " Whom He loveth, yes ; but is it not idolatry all through the 
 Bible that He condemns % Listen to me, Rotha. You shall hear 
 what I have never told any one before — not even him. For six 
 years — it is nearly six, is it not, since he first saw me at the 
 Vicarage ? — all that time I have never had a thought apart from 
 him — never once — never once." 
 
 "Dear Belle, you could not help it, I suppose." 
 
 '.' No, I could not help it ; you would have said so if you had 
 seen him then. You can hardly judge now, he is so different, and 
 he has shown you nothing but his faults. But if you had seen 
 him as I have, admired, beloved, sunny-hearted and radiant with 
 happiness, I think you would not recognise my Bertie in the care- 
 worn Robert you know." 
 
 " I can believe it ; there are traces of it still. I think you 
 will bear me witness that I have always done justice to his nobler 
 qualities." 
 
 "Ah, he was always noble, but he is not wdiat he was — poor 
 Robert !— when he gave it all up for me — for me " — and for a 
 moment a mournful smile passed over the sunken face — " when he 
 told me he would rather have me than all his aunt's riches. But 
 my beauty faded, Rotha, and he grew warped and weary, and then
 
 414 R OBER T ORD 'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 he began to misunderstand me and doubt my love ; and at last it 
 was all doubt and wretchedness." 
 
 " My poor girl ! But hush, this is doing you harm." For the 
 hard heavy pants interrupted her every word. But Belle per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Let me, I cannot often talk, and anything is better than 
 thinking — even this," as the distressing cough rung its hollow 
 knell. " I sometimes think I am not so much to blame after all ; 
 for if he had let me do what I wished — earn my own living, I mean 
 — I should not have lived all those years dwelling on one idea, and 
 growing morbid over my very love ; and then I began to be afraid 
 I should tire him." 
 
 "Belle, dear, it is all over now." 
 
 " Ah, it was all over for me a long time ago — what I have 
 gone through since I knew first that I shoidd never be his wife, 
 
 never make him happy — that I was doomed — doomed " And 
 
 Belle covered her face with her hands and wept bitterly. 
 
 It was a terrible trial to Rotha, and one which the girl with 
 her lifelong habits of submission and her simple faith could hardly 
 understand. " Oh, Belle ! it is not like that — it is like going 
 home," she said presently, when Belle, exhausted but unconvinced, 
 had required comparative calmness ; " when the Master calls. 
 Belle, it is hard the children are not ready." 
 
 " I am not ready," retm-ned BeUe, with a shiver. " From a 
 child I have dreaded death — and I dread it now. Oh, Rotha, 
 what can you say to comfort me when you know you would not 
 be in my place for worlds % " 
 
 It was the fii'st time that she had seen Rotha break down, but 
 she broke down utterly now. "Oh, would I not? Gar! would 
 I not? Oh, the pain and trouble of life," slie moaned ; " the j^ain, 
 and the loss, and the trouble." And for a little while she could 
 only hide her face in Belle's pillow. 
 
 This was the beginning of many a sad hoiu", and many a 
 terrible conflict, before the tormenting siiirit had been cast out, 
 and Belle lay upon her bed, white and weary, worn to a shadow, 
 but peaceful as a little child ; and it came to her in this wise. 
 
 One night when she was unusually restless, and her few words 
 only testified to the sore disquietude of her mind, Rotha sat down 
 by her side and read to her the last two chapters of Revelations, 
 thinking the glowing descriptions of the city with its golden 
 streets and gates of pearl might soothe the tortm-ed imagination of 
 the poor sufferer ; but Belle only listened with contracted brow, 
 and, when Rotha had finished, she said : 
 
 " It does me no good — it makes me worse. All the time you
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 415 
 
 have been reading I have been thinking of the shining streets, and 
 the white-robed multitnde that no man can number walking up 
 and down them. But I don't see myself there, Rotha." Slie 
 paused, and then, impeded by her broken breath, went on : " That 
 is all glory, but unattainable glory, it seems to me. There are the 
 river and the dark mountains to pass first — and oh," panted the 
 dying gkl, " why have the greatest saints prayed so earnestly for 
 the gift of final perseverance if there be no conflict, no terrible 
 struggle at the last % " 
 
 " Oh, Belle," cried Rotha, with a pity that amounted almost to 
 agony, " what is the meaning of faith if we cannot trust Him 
 then % " For it seemed to her as though Belle's stern and mystical 
 religion had become strongly imbued with the gloomy notions of 
 the Calvinists. "These doubts and terrors are infirmities, not 
 sins; nay, did not even He, the Sinless One, in His human 
 nature, shrink from the mysterious hoiu' of His dissolution*?" 
 And then, turning to another page, she read the story of Geth- 
 semane, and how, under the gray olive trees, the God-Man wrestled 
 in the bloody sweat of His most bitter passion ; how He drank 
 even to the dregs all the concentrated pain and terror that 
 humanity could feel. " The cup that my Father hath given me, 
 shall I not drink it 1 " Then she closed the sacred volume and 
 laid it aside. 
 
 But long after Belle had fallen into an vmeasy slumber did 
 Rotlia, on her bended knees, pray that the dark hour might 
 cease, and the weary heart find its true rest. Never had she 
 prayed so passionately, so urgently ; and, when she rose at last 
 from her knees, it was with the peaceful assurance that she would 
 be heard and answered. 
 
 Belle slept at intervals through the night, but nothing passed 
 between them till the following afternoon. Belle was very quiet, 
 and unusually silent, but every now and then her eyes rested on 
 Rotha with a strange wistful expression, and when Meg left them 
 together once she beckoned her to come close. 
 
 " Closer, dear Rotha. I am very weak to-day, and I think 
 the end is not so very far off. Rotha, I want to ask you something. 
 Were you praying for me last night 1 " 
 
 Rotha pressed her hand, but did not answer. 
 
 "I knew you were, dear — I felt it. Ah, Rotha, it is all 
 gone." 
 
 " What is gone, dear Belle 1 " 
 
 " The fear of death, the trouble and the misery. I can see 
 clearly — oh, so clearly ! — and I know now that He is good. It 
 came to me in a dream— nay, a vision rather. You do not mind
 
 416 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 my speaking so slowly and painfully, do you, dear ? But I want 
 to tell you what I saw when you were praying for me last night." 
 
 "Dear Belle, I am listening." 
 
 "I think I must have been asleep, for I woke and saw you 
 kneeling by the bed ; the candle was shining full on your hair, 
 and I remember I tried to put out my hand and touch it, like 
 this. And then all at once I fainted, or seemed to faint, and 
 when I came to myself I was standing in a narrow place shut in 
 by rocks, and before me was a deep sullen river, black and 
 full of hideous shadows, and lapping to my very feet ; and all on 
 the other side was hidden by a gray cloud, luminous as though the 
 light were shining through it — like a wall of mist, only clearer. 
 And I thought that I was obliged to cross the river, and that I 
 was standing on the brink crying and wringing my hands, and 
 shuddering in the icy blast tliat seemed to sweep over the waters ; 
 and all behind me were dark mountains and rocks that seemed to 
 shut out the very sky, and a horror of great darkness fell upon 
 me. 
 
 " And as I stood weeping there, the cloud suddenly became 
 more luminous, and a voice behind it said, ' When thou passest 
 through the waters I will be witli thee, and through the rivers, 
 they shall not overflow thee.' And I seemed to answer the voice, 
 ' But what if the sullen waters sweep me away, within sight of the 
 luminous cloud?' And it said again, 'Fear not, for I am with 
 thee. I have holden thee by the right hand : thou art mine.' 
 And suddenly the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I could 
 see that multitudes besides myself were crossing the river every 
 minute, but that nearly every one had a small raft in the form of 
 a cross. And immediately I seemed to hear the words, ' There- 
 fore do men commit their lives unto a small piece of wood, and 
 passing througli the rough sea on a frail vessel, are saved.' And 
 as I listened I found myself launched on the small bark with the 
 others ; and immediately the winds seemed to subside, and the 
 waves ceased their roaring, and the light grew stronger and clearer, 
 and ray little raft floated nearer to the far-ofl" shore. And out of 
 the cloud I seemed to hear voices like the sound of many waters, 
 and this is what they said : — ' He maketh the storm a calm, so 
 that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they 
 be quiet ; and so He bringeth them to their desired haven.' And 
 immediately I awoke." 
 
 " Oh, Belle, what a beautiful dream ! " intervened Rotha. But 
 Belle, looking up and pressing her wasted hands reverently to- 
 gether, said : 
 
 " No, not a dream ; but true — all true. I know now that
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 417 
 
 ' His grace is sufficient, that His strength is made perfect in 
 weakness.' " 
 
 A few hours after this Robert was returning to his house, 
 jaded from a long hurried journey, when he found the following 
 telegram awaiting him — 
 
 " Sinking ftist. Come at once. No time to lose if you wish 
 to see her alive." 
 
 Half an hour afterwards he was travelling as fast as steam 
 would carry him to Devonshire. 
 
 " Rotha, do you think he will be here in time % " murmured 
 the dying girl. And Rotha stooped over and wiped the clammy 
 brow. Those who were standing round her knew that it was the 
 beginning of the end. 
 
 " I hope so. I pray to heaven that it may be so, dear Belle." 
 
 " I should like to see him again," returned Belle faintly. The 
 breathing was growing more labom-ed every moment, and the 
 sharpened face was gray with approaching death. 
 
 " I do not want to die till he comes, if it be His wilh Read 
 that once again, dear Rotha." And Rotha, struggling for calm- 
 ness, repeated again Keble's glorious Evening Hymn — or Hymn 
 for the Dying, as it might be called — " Abide with me " — 
 
 "Hold Thou Thy cross before my closiug eyes, 
 Shine through the mist, and guide me through the skies." 
 
 " Rotha, I can hear a step. Open the door, quick ! " Ah, she 
 has heard it. Faithful to the last, she hears Robert's footstep, 
 and knows it to be his. As he enters the room and falls down on 
 his knees beside her couch, she nestles into his arms with a low 
 cry of content — " Oh, Bertie, Bertie, I shall die happy now ! " 
 " My darling Belle — my poor girl — my own, own Belle !" 
 'j Dear Bertie, you must not grieve like this. It is better so. 
 I am so tired, and He is giving me rest — rest — rest." The 
 laboured breath became more difficult, the words fainter and 
 more broken. " Where is Rotha ■? I have bidden her good-bye, 
 and blessed her long ago ; but now it is getting dark. 
 
 ' Hold Tliou Tliy cross before my closing eyes — 
 The cross ' " 
 
 Her eyes were fast glazing now. He puts his ear to her lips 
 that he may catch the last dying sounds. What is it that she 
 says? 
 
 " It is growing late, Mary — cold too. Put your arm closer 
 round me. There, good-night. God bless you, dear ! Who says 
 Bertie is here 1 " And as he held her closer, and called her by 
 lier name, those who were near saw that she tried to kiss him with 
 
 27
 
 418 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 her dying lips, and failed. One moment, and Rotha gently lifted 
 her from his arms and laid her down. 
 
 " And I heard a voice say. Blessed are the dead which die in the 
 Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, for they shall rest from their labours." 
 
 It was over — the brief life, the weary restlessness, the suffering ; 
 those who loved her best said, weeping, it was better so, for the 
 feverishness and the weariness were over, and she rested at last, and 
 rested well. 
 
 They took the poor remains back to Kirkby ; that was Rotha's 
 doing, for they knew it was the spot where she would most love to lie. 
 
 "If it be possible, let me be taken back," she had said to 
 Rotha some hours before the fatal change came on, " and let them 
 carry me under the old lich-gate, where I have often walked with 
 him." And on Rotha making her a solemn promise that her wish 
 should be fulfilled in this, she pressed her hand gratefully, and 
 v\^ent on : 
 
 " I have always wished to be there when my time came. 
 There is a corner by the west door where I have often stood of an 
 evening looking over at the distant furnaces, and listening to the 
 waves rippling low down on the shore. You will know the place ; 
 it is where Ned Blake was buried, the boy who was my favourite 
 Sunday scholar, and who was drowned last year ; it feels so high 
 and breezy up there, and the wind sweeps so freshly over the 
 graves, and it is just by the little path where the choir-boys go to 
 and fro. And, Rotha, if you and the lads ever come to visit me 
 there, don't forget to pull the nettles off Ned's grave, for I've 
 always kept it tidy, and his poor mother is blind." 
 
 " Dear BeUe, it shall be done. Is there any other wish that 
 
 you have concerning that — that " But Rotha, greatly moved, 
 
 could not go on. 
 
 " No, none. All the rest must be as you and Robert like, 
 only let it be green like the humbler graves round it, and, if Robert 
 would not mind, just my name and ' Jesu, mercy' underneath it. 
 Don't let them put any grand text, nothing but that, or ' Resur- 
 gam ;' they put 'Resurgam' over our father's grave." 
 
 Rotha gave her word that it should be so ; and when all was 
 over she wrote to the Vicar. And so they took her back, and 
 one wild March morning, when the dust was whirling down the 
 white roads, and the wind swept the long grasses of the church- 
 yard, and the gray clouds scudded over the sunless skies, the Vicar 
 went down bareheaded to the gate, and under the old lich-gate 
 they carried her, and laid her close to the dead boy's grave, and 
 under the shadow of the west door.
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 419 
 
 And in time the green grass grew over it, and the sun shone 
 down, and the dews and rains of heaven swept sadly over it, and 
 the swalloM's that built their nests under the church eaves twittered 
 and chirped endlessly about it ; and there, in process of time, was 
 placed a fair marble cross at the head, with but few words graven 
 upon it : — 
 
 "ISABEL FELICIA CLINTON, 
 
 Died February 29, ISC- 
 Aged 25. 
 
 JESU, MERCY." 
 
 But the cross had not yet been erected, and the sods were 
 hardly green, when Robert Ord went up to Bryn to wish Rotha 
 good-bye. She was sitting alone in the sunny parlour, and jjut 
 down her work hastily, as though she suspected his errand. 
 
 "You are going'? you have come to say good-bye?" she said, 
 looking in his pale face anxiously. He had been walking up 
 and down for hours trying to school himself to calmness, and yet 
 he could hardly meet her eyes as he answered her. 
 
 "Yes, it is good-bye now, and for long enough. Heaven knows. 
 I suppose it will be four or five years at least before I get a chance 
 of seeing any of you again." 
 
 " So long as that % Oh, Robert ! " 
 
 " Yes, unless " He stopped, and then completed his 
 
 sentence recklessly enough — " Unless I am dead and buried, I 
 ought to say." 
 
 She sighed heavily, then put her hand in his, as a sister might 
 have done. 
 
 " Poor Robert ! and going alone too. It seems hard, very hard, 
 and yet it is better than staying behind and missing it all daily," 
 she finished in the patient tired voice that was habitual to her 
 now. 
 
 His heart smote him for his selfishness. Had she not suffered 
 too % How white her young ftice had grown ! how thin, how 
 anxious-looking ! Some joy had passed out of her life, some hope 
 that would never be renewed. A painful consciousness that this 
 was so, that she would be very foithful to Gar, seized upon him as 
 he looked at her. How could he ever ask her to come to him and 
 comfort him for the loss of Belle if this shadow of her dead love 
 were to be for ever between them ? Even now, when he had come 
 to wish her good-bye, that look of pain on her face was not for him, 
 it was for Gar — always Gar. 
 
 "You will write to me sometimes, Rotha'? — you will not 
 foro^et me V
 
 420 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 "Forget my brother ! " answered the giii reproachfully. Oh, 
 how often she called him that now ! How innocently she clung to 
 the conviction that Gar's brother must be hers too — that the name 
 must be as soothing to him as it was to her ! 
 
 He turned pale at that, even to his lips. Ah, the sods were 
 not green over Belle's grave, and yet the mad infatuation for the 
 living was blending with his sorrow for the dead. Rotha — his 
 sister — impossible! His face was stern enough, but he had 
 schooled himself to patience — he bore even that, 
 
 " No ; I knew you would not. I ought to know your kindness 
 of heart by this time, Rotha. When I ask you to write to me, 
 remember that I shall be interested in anything, everything that 
 you do." 
 
 " It is good of you to say so — — " she replied gratefidly. But 
 he interrupted her. 
 
 " Never mind how trivial it is— it will be sure to please me. 
 Sometimes you may tell me about my godson, Guy, he has grown 
 very dear to me lately, and about Rube — poor Rube ! — and then 
 there is Mary ; I do not like to go away and leave her looking as 
 she does." 
 
 " She will be better soon," returned Rotha hurriedly. " You 
 know we are all going away, and for her sake principally." 
 
 " Have you any idea where V 
 
 " Yes ; the Vicar and I have been talking it over. It is to be 
 Lucerne or Zermatt, and the boys, even Arty, are to go with us. 
 You know who is going to take the Vicar's duty for a couple of 
 months ?" 
 
 " The clergyman who came to poor Belle at the last." 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Hillyer; he has resigned his curacy, and is waiting 
 for another. We shaU be away quite two months, all Jime and 
 Jidy, and we are going to Filey for a few weeks first." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it, for your sake as well as hers. You look 
 pale and worn, almost as though you had been ill yourself." 
 
 She smiled at that, as though the subject did not interest her. 
 
 " You must take care of yourself, for — for all our sakes." 
 
 "It is nothing," she replied in a low voice; "only my nerves 
 are out of order, and I cannot sleep — that is the excuse I am 
 obliged to make to Mary to get her away. She has only agreed 
 to go because she thinks I need a change." 
 
 "Poor Mary! she never likes to leave Austin; Belle would 
 have been just like her. Oh, Rotha, no other woman will ever 
 love me as she did." 
 
 Rotha shook her head ; she thought so too. And then her 
 eyes fell on the glittering cross which she wore now night and day
 
 ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS. 421 
 
 on the same fiuger on which he had placed his mother's old keeper. 
 Some one would have loved her as well, if he had lived, as ever 
 Belle had loved Robert — faithful even in death, blessing her with 
 his last dying breath. 
 
 "Well, I must go now," exclaimed Robert hurriedly, as though 
 the action moved him ; " there is nothing more to say, and I have 
 all my packing to do." 
 
 " NothiHg ; but God bless you, and grant you a safe voyage," 
 said Rotha, rising ; but now the tears were in her eyes. She was 
 thinking of what had befallen his brother ; she was sorry — yes, she 
 was soriy even for him. 
 
 "If I do not say anything it is because I cannot," he said, 
 pressing her hands hard. " The only thing I dare say is, God love 
 you and bless you for all you have done for me and mine." 
 
 " And you too, dear Robert." And then she put up her face 
 and kissed him, and called him brother once more. And he went. 
 
 But that night, an hour before he was to start by the night 
 mail to Liverpool, he left his brother and Mary, and went secretly 
 and alone to the churchyard. 
 
 It was quite dark now ; the wind was still abroad, and howled 
 drearily round the church, and the rain splashed sullenly on the 
 tombstones, or dripped silently into tiny pools. But Robert, as he 
 stood bare-headed and with folded arms, heeded it not, for the fierce 
 fever and pain that burnt in his veins. 
 
 But once, as he stooped and plucked a few blades of grass from 
 the grave and hid them in his breast, a sudden ovetwhelming 
 sense of his loneliness came over him. " Good-bye, Belle," he cried, 
 pressing his lips to the dripping sod, and stretching out his arms 
 over it in the darkness. " Good-bye, my darling. Never woman 
 loved as you woidd have loved me." Then whispering low, as 
 though he would hide his secret in her very grave, " You know it 
 now, dear, do you not \ But you are not angry with me % Oh, 
 Belle, to think that my heart is broken with aU this, and that you 
 are not here to comfort me ! " 
 
 Three-quarters of an horn- after this Robert had bidden good- 
 bye to Kirkby and Blackscar, and had taken his place by the night 
 mail for Liverpool.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIJ. 
 
 THE children's HOME, 
 
 " I pray you liear my song of a nest, 
 For it is not long : — 
 You shall never light in a summer quest, 
 
 The bushes among — 
 Shall never light on a prouder sitter, 
 
 A fairer nestful, nor ever know 
 A softer sound than their tender twitter, 
 That wind-like did come and go. " 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 "A maid of fullest heart she was, 
 Her spirit's lovely flame 
 Nor dazzled nor surprised, because 
 
 It always burned the same. 
 And in the heavenward path she trod, 
 
 Fair was the wife fore-sho^vIl ; 
 A Mary in the house of God, 
 A Martha in her own. " 
 
 Patmore. 
 
 There are pauses in life, strange pauses, every now and then. 
 
 The tide of human circumstance sometimes flows sluggishly 
 and sometimes swiftly. There is a turn, a slight ebbing or flowing ; 
 imcovered rocks glisten in the sun ; there are coloured sparkles, 
 light frothings ; the foam and bubbles burst in the sunlight ; snow- 
 white sails gleam on the horizon. The children build up their sand- 
 castles, and deck them proudly with sea-weed and shells. In the 
 evening the golden tide silvers and breaks into dark blue shadows 
 — how fair it is, how grand ! In the morning the children rise 
 early and go down to the shore to seek their treasures, but, alas ! 
 everything is changed : a sullen wind sweeps over the sands, the 
 sea is all gray, the sky hangs low, the waves break into foaming 
 heaps, terrible rolling avalanches of gray froth ; the gulls fly inland ; 
 there are rumours of wrecks ; the fishermen's wives grope wearily 
 to and fro. So it is with the tide of life ; so does it ebb and flow 
 in calm and storm. Now and then there is a break of smnmer
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. 423 
 
 monotony — changeless, unvarying, almost colourless ; the tints are 
 imllid — all grays or misty blues. 
 
 And then comes a long waiting, as the children wait for some 
 ship that never comes after all. And just as, weary of play, and 
 weary of constructing battlements of sand for the waves to demolish, 
 they watch for the dim white sail which flutters for a moment on 
 the horizon, so do their elders sit afar oft", listening, sometimes for 
 months, sometimes for years, and waiting for what the tide shall 
 bring them. 
 
 Such a pause had come to Rotha — a break, when the strange 
 tide of events that for the last ten months had swept her on so 
 hurriedly from one transition to another had at length rolled away, 
 leaving her bruised and battered indeed, but with much soundness 
 in her ; when months and even years sped on in a calm unvarying 
 round of duty not immixed with pleasure ; when Time, that great 
 healer, did its salutary work, and Garton became but a beautiful 
 memory, a link onward and heavenward. 
 
 Five years, five whole years, and Rotha is Rotha ]\Iaturin still. 
 
 Brief must be the record of these years, during which Rotha 
 strove more and more in her honest woman's endeavour to follow 
 out the Divine precept, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do 
 it with thy might ; " when she took up new work and found it 
 rich with blessings ; when " full measure meted out was pressed 
 into her bosom," and she reaped her woman's harvest of pure 
 unselfish joys. 
 
 Five years, five long years, and the Vicar looks proudly round 
 at his growing lads, Guy — almost a man now — and Rufus, half a 
 head taller than himself; and the mother's hair is quite gray, but 
 her face is sweeter in its chastened gravity than it has ever been 
 before ; and Robert is working still, uncomplaining, but sad, in his 
 far-(3ff home ; and tlie swallows fly down on the marble cross, and 
 the daisies grow up among the grass on the dead boy's grave and 
 on Belle's; and in the church, just opposite to wdiere Rotha sits, 
 is a noble painted window, witli the Man of Sorrows bearing His 
 cross along the bitter way ; and under it is written : — 
 
 "In memory of 
 
 GARTON ORD, 
 
 Who died December 29, 186— 
 
 Aged 23. 
 
 IN HOC SPERO. 
 
 It was soon after the anniversary of his death that something 
 very unexpected befell Rotha. Mr. Effingham made her an off"er.
 
 424 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 He had come up very boldly to Bryn to prefer his request, and 
 bore himself in a way sufficiently manly ; but Rotha shrank back, 
 feeling herself wounded, she hardly knew why. 
 
 " I never gave you any encoiu-agement — any right to speak to 
 me like this, Mr. Effingham," she said, turning pale and trembling 
 at this strange story of love. Her tone was repellent, almost 
 indignant. 
 
 "I never said that you did," he returned sullenly; "but when 
 a man loves a girl I think he has a right to tell her so." 
 
 Poor George Effingham ! He had a heart somewhere in spite 
 of his shallowness, and, to do him justice, he was smitten by the 
 woman as well as the heiress. Rotha relented at the sight of his 
 crestfallen looks. He had not much to say for himself; but he was 
 tolerably honest, and then there were tears of positive disappoint- 
 ment in the poor fellow's eyes. Her next words were more gentle. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to thank you, Mr. Effingham. Many girls 
 would feel themselves honoiu-ed by what you have told me. If I 
 have been imijatient or ungrateful, you must forgive me ; it is not 
 my fault that I cannot forget him," continued the girl, bursting 
 into tears. " I don't think that I shall ever be able to listen to 
 any one after Gar." 
 
 But, as he turned to go, she held out her hand to him with a 
 little contrition for her hardness. 
 
 "You must not be hurt or angry because 1 cannot forget my 
 trouble. I do not want to be any one's wife now that poor Gar is 
 gone. I do not mean to marry — never — never," cried the girl, 
 with a flush. " But I hope I shall be your friend always," smiling 
 in the face of the discomfited young man. " There, go, Mr. Effing- 
 ham, and God bless you !" 
 
 Rotha kept her word, for Nettie did not marry the widower 
 after all ; but fifteen months afterwards she married George Effing- 
 ham, and made him the best little wife possible. George told his 
 wife everything, like a man. But he was hardly prejDared for the 
 confidence she gave him in return ; he found that Nettie had loved 
 Gar really and truly, and that many of her reckless and fantastic 
 ways had grown out of her disappointment. 
 
 She never told Rotha, though Rotha guessed it ; but they all 
 three became excellent friends. Nettie gave up fifteen out of her 
 three-and-twenty bosom friends when she married, and consoled her- 
 self instead with her babies. But if any one had asked who was 
 the most notable housekeeper and the most domesticated little 
 matron in the whole of Blackscar, they would tell you that it was 
 Mrs. Effingham. 
 
 This was the first little episode that disturbed Rotha's mono-
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. 425 
 
 tony ; but by and by there was another, when a great work grew 
 out of a little speech of the Vicar's. 
 
 Eotha was still insisting on being Lady Bountiful at the Vicar- 
 age ; but at last the Vicar — that most endiuing of men — became 
 restive, and told her that it would not do at all ; on which occasion 
 he addressed her in the following words : — 
 
 " It will not do, Rotha, and I really mean it. And now I am 
 quite determined that we shall come to an understanding with one 
 another, for this sort of thing must not go on." 
 
 " What sort of thing, Mr. Ord ?" 
 
 " Now, Rotha, I can tell by that quiet curl of the lip that you 
 are going to be troublesome ; but I beg to inform you that I am 
 quite serious." 
 
 " So am I — painfully so, I assure you. Now, Mr. Ord, what 
 sort of thing ^" 
 
 *' Do you want me to publish a list of yoiu: iniquities % You 
 are growing too barefaced a sinner for me to deal with. Never 
 mind. I will serve you up a resume^ hot and strong. First, there 
 was taking Mary away to Filey — a piece of generous forethought 
 that prevented a relapse after Belle's death ; then there were the 
 travelling expenses to Zermatt, and maintaining an establishment 
 there for two months, Avhen Mary and the boys and Reuben were 
 your visitors." 
 
 " And you would not be. Oh, do you think I have ever for- 
 given you that?" 
 
 " Forgiven, forsooth ! because I had a little bit of manly inde- 
 pendence left. I like that. But that was nothing to my feelings 
 when I got home. The Vicarage papered and painted from garret 
 to basement — my servants bribed and made accessories to the plot 
 — new carpets and curtains all over the house — fresh chintz in the 
 drawing-room — a new easy-chair in the mother's room — a new- 
 fangled writing-table and a lot of oak fm'niture in the study ! 
 When I think of it now," finished the Vicar, passing his hand over 
 his face to conceal his smile, " I almost wonder that I can have 
 anything to do with such a criminal." 
 
 " Now, Mr. Ord, we have heard this almost twenty times. You 
 forget that I heard you tell Nettie the other day that it did your 
 heart good to see dear Mary's face light up at the sight of her 
 renovated house. I am sm-e you never liked any wiitiug-table so 
 well as this." 
 
 " Bless her ! " very nearly said the Vicar, but he checked him- 
 self in time and went on sternly with the list. 
 
 " I don't think jierhaps I ought to mention the marble cross 
 and the memorial window in the same category?"
 
 426 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 "No — oh uo," faltered Kotha, with qiuvering lip, and the 
 Vicar, clearing his throat several times, went on in the same serio- 
 comic manner. 
 
 " But I do not think that a clergyman's wife ought to dress as 
 Mary does. I do not understand it myself, of course," continued 
 the Vicar, somewhat puzzled ; " and, except that her dresses are 
 black and shiny, I do not know much about it. But I do not think 
 Mrs. Stephen Knowles ought to say, as she does, that Mrs. Ord 
 wears the most expensive stuffs that are to be got. I heard her 
 say so myself the other day." But to his surprise, Rotha, after 
 vainly trying to answer him in the same vein, suddenly burst 
 into tears. " Nay, my dear child, I am only in jest. What is 
 this ?" 
 
 " I did not mean— I tried not. But, Mr. Ord, you must let 
 nie do this for Mary ; you don't know how I love to do it, and I 
 never had a sister. And now she is everything to me, and I want 
 to feel that I am a sister to her in Belle's place." 
 
 " Dear Rotha, you are a better sister to her than ever Belle 
 has been." 
 
 " No — no — don't say so ; almost her last words were for Maiy; 
 and, if it were true, she would never think so." 
 
 " My faithful-hearted Mary, no— nothing could ever shake her 
 belief in Belle's goodness and affection to herself Dear Rotha, we 
 are ending our conversation rather sadly. Don't fear for one 
 moment that I shall ever call you to account for what you do for 
 her. Be sisters in heart and deed if you will, but, Rotha, you have 
 done enough for us now — let it rest here." 
 
 Rotha was silent for a moment, and then she said very gravely, 
 " Do you really wish it ?" 
 
 " Yes," he returned, without hesitation ; " my circumstances 
 are better now, since the burden of poor Belle's maintenance is 
 withdrawn, and I have no longer to help Robert in supporting 
 Gar. Robert is quite rich too, and he talked in his last letter of 
 having his godson sent out to him." 
 
 " No, no," interrupted Rotha hastily ; " let it be Rufus — Rufe 
 has no taste for learning, and Guy lias. I will accede to all yoiu: 
 conditions if you will only let me provide for Guy." 
 
 The Vicar shook his head doubtfidly, but Rotha laid her hand 
 on his arm persuasively and went on : 
 
 " He is more than sixteen now, and is getting a great fellow — 
 too big to be idle, and be a burden to his father. In another year 
 or two my boy " — Rotha always called Reuben her adopted son — 
 " is going to Oxford. I am glad and thankful the dear boy is 
 anxious to be a clergyman. Let Guy, Robert's godson, go with
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. . 427 
 
 him ; and let me feel," whispered Rotha, laying her cheek against 
 the kind hand, " as though this were my monument to Gar ; and 
 that the two boys he loved so fondly may become faithful priests, 
 as he would have been if he had been spared." And, deeply 
 touched, the Vicar, after a little hesitation, granted her request for 
 his eldest born. 
 
 It was some words of his dropped shortly afterwards that gave 
 Rotha the idea which she was so ready to carry out. 
 
 She was complaining to him that, in spite of her lavish gifts, 
 her money seemed to accumulate rather than otherwise. 
 
 " We want so little, Meg and I, and we prefer to live simply," 
 added Rotha. " And there seems so little chance of its finding its 
 way, after all, into Robert's hands, or his children's either ; for I 
 fancy, after what has happened, that he will not marry any more 
 than I shall." 
 
 " And it is my opinion that both will marry ; but all in good 
 time," prophesied the Vicar, who was the only one who had a 
 glimmering of Robert's secret. 
 
 Rotha looked surprised and a little hm-t, for it was only six 
 months since she had refused George Effingham ; and Mary, her 
 sole confidante, knew she had refused him, and Llary told every- 
 thing to her liusband. After such a proof of faithfulness to Garton's 
 memory, she scarcely liked to be told that it was possible, nay, very 
 probable, that she would marry after all ; and Robert, too, who 
 had cared for one woman for five years. 
 
 The Vicar saw the girl's hot flush, but he took no notice. His 
 knowledge of the world told him that Rotha woidd think very 
 difierently presently. "If I were you, I would seek some interest 
 or object in which you might invest your surplus money. I don't 
 kno.w whether you have ever thought of such a thing, or whether 
 it would exactly suit your views, but the surgeon of the Cottage 
 Hospital at Thornborough told me that he wished it were possible 
 to have a small branch establishment at Blackscar, or even Kirkby, 
 that some of tlie convalescent children might have a month or two 
 of pm-e sea air before returning to the wretched alleys and dens 
 where they lived." 
 
 Rotha almost clajipcd her hands when she heard the Vicar's 
 words. "The very thing!" she exclaimed; "the very thing that 
 Meg has been longing for — work among children, and I tliink," she 
 added, with a quajnt sadness, "that it will just suit me too." 
 
 And so it came about that the " Children's Home," as it w'as 
 called, was established in Kirkby. 
 
 Rotha and Meg thought over the matter deej^ly before they 
 matured their plans and laid them before the Vicar. Meg was
 
 428 ROBERT ORD'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 even more enthusiastic than Rotha, although Botha threw herself 
 heart and soul into the undertaking. 
 
 By the Vicar's advice it was ouly begun on a small scale at 
 first. Two or three of the whitewashed cottages adjoining the 
 Vicarage were taken and thrown into one, and furnished in the 
 simplest manner. A young woman, whose sad history had brought 
 her under Rotha's notice, was to be the nurse in charge, and an 
 orphan, who had been trained under Mrs. Ord's own eye, would be 
 sufficient for the cooking and cleaning. The " Little Sister," as 
 she now began to style herself, was to be head matron and house- 
 keeper, with Meg under her. 
 
 Perhaps the happiest hours that Rotha had ever spent since 
 Garten's death were in fitting up and arranging her Children's 
 Home, Mary found her often singing over her work as she sewed 
 carpets or stitched blinds — nothing seemed to come amiss to her 
 nimble fingers. The boys, Reuben and Guy especially — her two 
 devoted knights, as the Vicar dubbed them — worked hard in their 
 leisure hom-s. The three gardens had been thrown into one, and 
 made a tolerably large enclosure. Guy and Reuben laid down the 
 new grass sods, and planted the privet -hedge to shut out the 
 palings ; while Laurie and even Arty were never weary of rolling 
 the fresh gravel. And Rufus, who was no mean carpenter, put ujj 
 shelves, fitted up the cupboards with pegs, knocked his head 
 valiantly against the low cottage ceiling in hanging the clean 
 dimity curtains, and was the most good-natured aide-de-camp to 
 the two women that could be found. 
 
 His last duty was to put up the huge board over the entrance, 
 on which Reuben had been bestowing iufinite care, and paint on 
 it " The Children's Home." It was put up at the High Street 
 entrance, facing the chux'ch, and deeply affected Rotha when she 
 went down to the bottom of the garden with the boys to read it. 
 
 " How big it is ! — I can read it from here," said Arty, con- 
 templating it with feelings of awe, 
 
 " It really looks like a beginning, Meg," whispered Rotha ; 
 and Meg, always chary of words, dropped her eye-glass with a 
 satisfied nod. 
 
 The next day was a perfect fete to the young workers, for the 
 Vicar and his wife and the new curate, Mr. Tregarthen, a distant 
 relation of Sir Edgar's, were to come on a tour of inspection ; and 
 Nettie and Aunt Eliza were to be of the party ; and in the after- 
 noon the first patient, a crippled boy afilicted with abscesses, was 
 to come over from Thornborough. 
 
 Rotha had come very early in the morning ; but, early as it 
 was, Rufus and Lamie had rolled the paths freshly and watered
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. 429 
 
 the grass, while Reuben was nailiug up the last beautiful illuminated 
 text that Rotha had finished late last night, just fronting the 
 entrance — " Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such 
 is the kingdom of heaven." Every room and nearly every cot was 
 furnished with the same illuminated texts, all appropriate to the 
 sick and suffering little ones who were to be received under that 
 roof. 
 
 The visitors arrived punctually at the appointed hour, and the 
 boys formed abeady a sort of guard of honour to receive them ; 
 but neither the Vicar nor Mary could forbear a smile when they 
 saw the little sister. Rotha and Meg had arranged that, for con- 
 venience sake as well as decorum, they would wear a simple uniform 
 of gray during their working hom's at the Home ; and Rotha wore 
 a little cap over her bright hair, which suited her infinitely better 
 than it did Meg ; for, if possible, Mrs. Carruthers looked more 
 gauche than usual in the homely gray dress and linen collar and 
 cufis that looked so natty on Rotha, who came bustling up with 
 her keys dangling from her trim waistband to receive her 
 friends. 
 
 "Peace be to this house!" said the Vicar, taking off his 
 broad-brimmed hat ; but one cannot repeat the whole of that 
 solemn beautiful blessing, which thrilled those who heard it. And 
 then, stepping over the threshold, he spoke a few forcible words on 
 that text — " I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye 
 clothed me. I was sick, and ye. visited me;" and then, kneeling 
 down, he invoked a blessing on the house and the work that was 
 to be that day undertaken for the glory of God, and for the relief 
 of His suffering children. "And oh," prayed the Vicar, "may 
 He who took the little ones in His gracious arms and blessed 
 them, enter with us this day, and stretch out His hands in blessing 
 over this liouse ! May He strengthen the heart and hands of this 
 ministering woman, that it may be said of her and of all who 
 follow her in this work, in that day of days, ' She hath done what 
 she could.'" 
 
 There was a brief silence, hushed and full of feeling. " And 
 now," said the Vicar, rising, and giving his hand to Rotha, " We 
 are ready to follow you, and to see and admire all that is to be 
 seen. And first, what room are we in V 
 
 "They are all written up over the doors," retiurned Rotha in 
 a low voice ; for she was somewhat overcome by the solemnity of 
 the Vicar's address. 
 
 "This is called the 'The Mother's Room,'" interrupted Rube 
 eagerly, who had kept as near to his adopted mother as pos- 
 sible.
 
 430 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I want to feel as though I am their mother," returned Rotha 
 bashfully, " and as though they were all my children for the time 
 being. It will help me to be more patient and loving with them 
 than I might otherwise be. This is where I shall write and keep 
 my accounts, and receive visitors, and where Meg will sit too. I 
 shall always be here from ten to one on every day in the week, and 
 Meg from two to five in the afternoon. One or other of us will 
 always be here." 
 
 " I see you mean to work it thoroughly," returned the Vicar, 
 smiling. "A very good arrangement; don't you think so, Tre- 
 garthen?" And tlien he looked round approvingly on the snug 
 cottage parloiir, with its cool summer matting and white curtains, 
 and the fresh flowers on the little round table, and a beautiful 
 engraving of " Christ Blessing Little Children " over the mantel- 
 piece. The illumination for this room was Botha's favourite one — 
 "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And 
 on the table, as though willing to put the precept into practice, 
 svas a visitors' book, in which the Vicar wrote the fu-st entry, and 
 a newly-lined account-book, with a formidable array of pens 
 bristling in a very large inkstand. 
 
 From this room they proceeded to the kitchen, where they were 
 received by the smiling orphan, clad in a new print dress of 
 alarming stifiuess, over which she wore a snow-white bib-apron. 
 " Come, show your cupboards, Emma," said the Vicar. And the 
 girl, curtseying and rosy with pleasure, showed the shelves, with 
 their rows of shining pewter and china mugs ; while Caroline, the 
 nurse, a pleasant-looking young woman, slightly marked with the 
 smallpox, led them into the storeroom, where Rotha's linen-press 
 was, and where she was to keep her stores of groceries and jams 
 and the simple medicines and salves that they were likely to 
 need. 
 
 Leading out of this was the long low room where the children 
 were to dine or have their lessons, and where they could also play 
 on rainy days. There was no furniture but one long table and a 
 few chairs and stools ; but sevei'al beautiful prints, all sacred 
 subjects, hung on the walls ; and Mary noticed there were flowers 
 tastefully arranged in this room, while a canary sang shrilly in a 
 green cage, and a fine tabby cat and kittens reposed in a cushioned 
 basket, 
 
 " Carrying out your theories, Rotha 1" said her friend, with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Yes," returned Rotha softly. "I cannot imagine children 
 without pets and flowers ; to me it seems a part of their education. 
 My children will delight in those kittens. If you njicn those cup-
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. 431 
 
 boards, Nettie, you will find them full of picture-books and toys. 
 You see the school-books are all boimd neatly for use." 
 
 " I don't believe you have forgotten a single thing," cried 
 Nettie, with a sigh, half admiring, half envious. " Just look at 
 those little work-boxes for the girls, Mr. Tregarthen, and the 
 patterns of wool-work for the boys. Why, Rotha, you could have 
 done nothing else for months." 
 
 " You forget I have had Meg to help me ; that is Meg's 
 department," returned Rotha, blushing ; and then they went up to 
 the dormitories. They were only foiu: neat little rooms, with three 
 or four beds or cots apiece, all fitted up with the same pretty 
 summer matting, and with white dimity curtains, blowing in the 
 fresh sea-breeze ; over every bed was a pictiire, and a text under- 
 neath ; and a white plaster angel on a bracket in every room 
 seemed to keep guard over the little sufferers. 
 
 "Oh, Austin, is it not lovely 1" whispered Mary, with tears in 
 her eyes. " If only our darling Belle had been here to see it." 
 
 " She sees it now, perhaps," he retm-ned ; " and our Gar too." 
 And Rotha, catching the words, looked out on the sunny waves, 
 and thought how he would have liked it. 
 
 Rotha was greatly tired by all the excitement ; she had worked 
 early and late too, and, when all her visitors except Reuben had 
 departed, she merely stayed to welcome her little patient — a perfect 
 "Tiny Tiin" of a child, rejoicing in the extraordinary name of 
 " Shirtle Pearl ;" and, leaving Meg to undress him and lay him in 
 his little cot, she went slowly home, leaving Reuben to have tea at 
 the Vicarage with Guy, who was now his great chum. 
 
 When she got home she found a letter awaiting her from 
 Robert, for they had kept uj) a steady correspondence now for more 
 than two years. Robert wrote extremely well, and one of his long 
 letters was always a treat to Rotha. She had just written him a 
 full account of her plans for her Children's Home, and doubtless 
 this was in answer ; so, asking Prue to bring her a cup of tea in 
 her own room, she sat down by the open window to enjoy that and 
 her letter together. 
 
 But the tea cooled, and Rotha's cheek grew white before she 
 had read many hnes ; but long before she had finished it her face 
 was burning, and, as it dropped from her hands, she put her head 
 down on the window-sill and cried long and bitterly. But all she 
 said was, "Poor Robert! poor Robert!" And then, "Oh, Gar, 
 what would you say? Oh, Gar, never — never!" and kissed the 
 gold keeper that guarded the glittering cross. 
 
 And yet it was more than two years since she had lost him — 
 and it had been but a nine days' wonder after all — and Robert had
 
 432 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 written a letter such as few women could have resistecl, and had 
 shown her his heart with such a depth of passionate love in it that 
 she might well weep and wring her hands, knowing that it was in 
 vain. 
 
 What it had cost him to write it ! and yet every line was 
 tinged with hopelessness akin to despair. It was as though he 
 knew that he tried his fate in vain, and still coidd not resist the 
 attempt. 
 
 " What you will say, or what you will think, I dare not pause 
 to ask myself, or I should never send this ; but something within 
 me forces me to speak, and demands to be heard. If I cannot 
 wring an answer from you now, perhaps the coming years may do 
 something for me ; not that I can afford to wait, God knows, for 
 I am growing old and gray before my time with all this misery, 
 but because I love you so, Eotha, with every fibre of my being, 
 with every thought of my heart, as I have never — dear Belle, 
 sweet saint, you know it now — loved or could love any other 
 woman." 
 
 Well may she tremble and cover up her face with her hands, 
 and cry out that it must be a mistake — Robert ! Gar's brother ! — 
 and then calm herself with saying the dear name over and over 
 again. Does she feel now, as she must have done, that Gar was 
 but a boy compared to this man % She reads on, page after page. 
 Ah ! he does not spare himself. She can hardly bear to read the 
 generous self-accusing — the many acts of his i:)ast cruelty which he 
 brings back to her recollection; it was as though he strove to 
 humiliate himself even in her sight. Never, he tells her, has 
 he forgiven himself — never is her face, so sweet and reproachful, 
 absent from his mind for one moment ; and then he speaks of the 
 long atonement, of the dreary evenings when he and his remorse 
 are brought face to face, and how little by little he feels himself 
 purified by sufi^ering, and more worthy to address her, 
 
 " Not that my pride would even now tell you this," he finished, 
 " if I did not know that I might any day command an independent 
 position in England. But, Rotha, unless I grow weak — which I 
 may, Heaven knows, seeing to what I have come — I have almost 
 sworn that nothing but you can ever recall me ; but speak that 
 word, Rotha, and I come. 
 
 " Yours, through and through, however you may scorn my 
 love — Robert Ord." 
 
 Ah, well may she make herself nearly ill with weeping, and 
 creep to her bed that her faithfid Meg may not guess the cause of 
 her grief. Not for days — days during which her white weary looks 
 move the Vicar and his wife to compassion, not unmixed with
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOME. 433 
 
 curiosity — does she write her auswer. "She is in trouble," she 
 tells them ; but begs them earnestly not to ask her why, and then 
 goes and sits among her children till her sweet face grows calm 
 and serene again. But that is not until she has written to hira, 
 not until she has penned a few lines with many tears, in which 
 she tells him that she loves him dearly, dearly ; that she will 
 pray for him, and think of him day and night, but that she cannot 
 forget Gar. No, she cannot, she cannot ! And then bids God 
 bless him for his faithful friend and sister — Roth a. 
 
 28
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE BEOKEN CLAUSE. 
 
 ''Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away, 
 Die ere the guest adored she entertain ; 
 Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day, 
 Should miss thy heavenly reign. 
 
 "Come weary-eyed from seeking in the night, 
 
 Thy wanderers strayed upon the pathless wold, 
 "Who wounded, dying, cry to Thee for light, 
 And cannot find their fold. " 
 
 Jean Ingelow, 
 
 But another episode occurred shortly which disturbed Rotha not a 
 little, and which for a short time broke up the tranquillity of Bryn. 
 
 It was about foiu- or five months after the Children's Home 
 had been established. So far the trial had been a success. Nine 
 children had been received as patients, and Rotha was now at work 
 in earnest. 
 
 Every one who saw it — and visitors were numerous during the 
 first few weeks — said that the home was admirably managed, as 
 indeed it was. 
 
 Rotha was there every morning, and never left till Meg took 
 her place. Rotha's part was to give out stores, write orders for 
 the tradesmen, keep the accounts, and receive visitors. She also 
 looked after Caroline and saw that the dormitories were kept tidy 
 and ventilated. 
 
 Meg's duties were different ; she presided over the children's 
 meals, gave short lessons to those who were well enough to receive 
 them, taught the little gii-ls work, and sang hymns with them, and 
 when the weather was fine took them down to the shore, where 
 she might be seen any lovely afternoon among the sand-hiUs with a 
 crippled baby in her arms, pushing Shirtle Pearl's perambulator 
 before her, and surrounded by a crew of sickly or limping little 
 ones. This was Meg's own work, and she dearly loved it. 
 
 Of coui'se Rotha's time was greatly taken up, and an afternoon
 
 THE BROKEN CLA USE. 435 
 
 or an evening at the Vicarage became a rare treat. lu general it 
 was understood that Meg and she were to have their evenings free, 
 and to spend them together in the old way, but often Meg stopped 
 till the nttle ones were safely tucked up in their dormitories, and 
 Shirtle had left off moaning himself to sleep. Meg used to sing 
 the Evening Hymn with the children, and then come out through 
 the sweet summer air to meet Rotha going to or from church. 
 Rotha used to smile, but she never reproached Meg for her delay. 
 She knew that Meg began to centre aU her happiness within those 
 cottage walls. The children loved Meg almost more than they did 
 Rotha. She told them quaint stories when they sat among the 
 sand-hills, and she could carry two or three together in her strong 
 arms when they were tired. When the children were sick they 
 always asked Meg to come and sing to them. Meg could sing 
 them " Ye faire one with ye goldene locks" as well as she could 
 "The Three Kings" and the Manger songs, Rotha, retm-ning for 
 her afternoon, would peep iu sometimes into the refectory, as it 
 was called, and find Meg sitting on the floor with the children 
 swarming round her, telling the story of "Henny Penny," or 
 " Goody Two Shoes," or the " Little Tiny, Tiny Woman"— kittens 
 and children and Meg, and sometimes Rotha's little gray skye 
 Fidgets, all in a chaotic mass together. The youngest child there, 
 a mere baby, would clap her hands and say " Meg" if asked whom 
 she loved, though she always finished with " Meg, and little mother 
 too, and Meg loves Annie." 
 
 It woidd have been no wonder if Rotha grew absorbed in her 
 sweet work ; but she did not forget the duties that her position 
 entailed, and, though she told all her friends frankly that she had 
 no time for either paying or receiving mere calls of ceremony, she 
 stiU accepted invitations for a quiet evening, and now and then 
 dispensed hospitality by throwing open her pretty rooms and mak- 
 ing all her friends heartily welcome. 
 
 These evenings were much sought after, for Rotha was an 
 admirable hostess under Sirs. Ord's chaperonage, and among her 
 most frequent visitors were Lady Tregarthen and Mr. Ramsay, who 
 were both Uberal subscribers to the Home. 
 
 Rotha had taken the Vicar's advice, and received all voluntary 
 donations and subscriptions, and after the first year it was found 
 necessary to form a ladies' committee, when Rotha was unanimously 
 elected as secretary* and treasurer, and in a little while another 
 cottage was added, and then another, as the applications became 
 more numerous, until at last Rotha acceded to Mr. Ramsay's 
 generous proposition to unite with her in building new and more 
 spacious premises ; and when this was done, which was not for
 
 436 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 some years after this story closes, Meg was elected as resident 
 lady-superintendent, and spent the last years of a long and useful 
 life among the children whom she so dearly loved. 
 
 One cloudy afternoon late in October Meg had occasion to go 
 into Blackscar on some business connected with the Home. Rotlia, 
 remaining on duty during her absence, was sitting writing in the 
 mother's room, with baby Annie fast asleep at her feet, when 
 there was a quick light tap at the door, and the Vicar entered. 
 
 " I thought Mrs. Carruthers was here, Rotha," he said rather 
 anxiously. " Is she up at Bryn then ?" 
 
 " No, she has just gone into Blackscar, and I do not expect 
 her back till nearly five. Why, did you want herf she asked, 
 struck by something grave in the Vicar's tone. 
 
 In reply he went to the door and shut it carefully, and then, 
 taking a seat, stirred the fire thoughtfully and warmed his hands 
 over it, for the afternoons were growing decidedly chilly. 
 
 "Do you think you could find herl" he asked after a pause, 
 dm-ing which Rotha's curiosity had been strongly roused by his 
 unusual gravity. 
 
 " Well, I am not quite sure that I can. She has gone to the 
 infirmarj^, and to the bank, and to several shops. Is anything the 
 matter, Mr. OrdT' 
 
 " There is no time to be lost," continued the Vicar musingly, 
 and rubbing his hands slowly over each other. " The Rector said 
 so, and I suppose he knew. Rotha, who do you think is lying ill, 
 apparently dying, oidy two or three miles from here?" 
 
 Rotha looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then the 
 truth flashed on her. 
 
 " Do you mean Jack Carruthers, poor Meg's husband ?" and 
 the Vicar nodded. 
 
 " I have just come from the Rector's, Rotha. I hurried on 
 here thinking I could find her before I took the train to Thorn- 
 borough. You know I have to preach a charity sermon at St. 
 Luke's?" 
 
 "Well !" exclaimed Rotha breathlessly. 
 
 "I must tell you what he said. But you must find Mrs. 
 Carruthers, for there is no time to be lost. Mr. Hodgson sent for 
 me directly he found out the truth. 
 
 " Early this morning he was sent for by the landlady of the 
 ' Pig and Whistle,' a little public-house on the Leatham road, 
 just before you turn off by the path that leads to the Leatham 
 woods. I daresay you have often passed it ; there is an old stone 
 drinking-trough i^laced under a very fine elm tree, with a small 
 green before it, always full of geese."
 
 THE BROKEN CLA USE. 437 
 
 "Yes, yes," returned Eotha eagerly; "I went in once with 
 Meg to ask my way." 
 
 "Well, the landlady is a very tidy body, and she told Mr. 
 Hodgson when he got there that she was greatly troubled about a 
 poor man who had come in for a night's lodging about ten days 
 ago, and had lain there ever since, growing from bad to worse, till 
 at last the doctor said that he had not many hours to live, and she 
 thought she had better fetch a clergyman to him. She described 
 him when he came in as very emaciated and miserable looking, 
 almost as though he had been half-starved, with a driven hunted 
 look in his eyes, as though he was not quite in his right mind; and 
 she described to the Rector his moaning and restless picking at the 
 clothes as a sign that the end was not for off." 
 
 " Oh, my poor Meg !" sighed Rotha; but the Vicar went on. 
 
 " I must tell you exactly what happened, and then leave it in 
 your hands. Mr. Hodgson went up, of course, and found the poor 
 creature just as she described, and a more forlorn object the Rector 
 said he had never seen. He had evidently once been a fine- 
 looking man, the Rector said, but a more hollow wasted face he 
 had never seen, rendered more intensely death-like by the ragged 
 black whiskers and beard, and eyes unnaturally large. He seemed 
 pleased to see Mr. Hodgson, and told him scraps of his history as 
 well as he could. He had been a sheep-farmer in Australia, and 
 had afterwards gone to the diggings ; had then lost all, and worked 
 his way home again ; and in some drunken fray had broken a blood- 
 vessel, and had lain in a hospital for months at the point of death. 
 He gave his name as Jack Carruthers, and told Mr. Hodgson that 
 he had a wife living, he supposed, near London; that he had made 
 some attempts to find her, but had never succeeded. But his 
 description of her to Mr. Hodgson so exactly resembled our Mrs. 
 Carruthers, whom he had met several times at my house, that, 
 without saying anything to the poor fellow, he brought back a 
 scrap of his handwriting with him and sent for me at once." 
 
 "There can be no doubt that it is her husband, I suppose," 
 interrupted Rotlia at this point. 
 
 " None, I think ; but of course she will recognise his hand- 
 writing. Now, Rotha, I can do nothing more in the business my- 
 self, and I must leave it, as I said before, in yoiu- hands. Will 
 you undertake to find Mrs. Carruthers f >r me, for I am afraid, from 
 the Rector's account, that this is the poor fellow's last night on 
 earth % Mr. Hodgson has promised to go again to-morrow in case 
 ' he should be alive. But he could make very little impression on 
 him. All the time he was praying he was moaning out to ' Madge' 
 — I suppose that was his wife — to come to liim."
 
 438 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " I will go at once," returned Eotlia, lifting up the sleeping 
 child in her arms. 
 
 " And I will wait and go with you as far as the station," ob- 
 served the Vicar. And in another five minutes Eotha and he had 
 left the house together. 
 
 The bank was already closed, but Eotha went to the infirmary 
 and to several of the principal shops before she foimd Meg in the 
 chemist's dark little back parlour waiting till sundry prescriptions 
 had been made up. Eotha made some excuse to the druggist and 
 took her out, and then, linking her arm in hers, led the way down 
 one of the side streets which led to old Blackscar church and to 
 the Leatham road. 
 
 It was a cloudy afternoon, and already it wag growing dusk, 
 and one or two drops, forerunners of a wet evening, splashed down 
 on Eotha's mantle. 
 
 " Meg, darling, can you bear a shock % Will you promise me 
 not to be too much upset at what I am going to tell you?" began 
 Eotha very tenderly, all the more as she felt the sudden close 
 grip of her arm. 
 
 " Something is the matter ! You have heard of Jack ! He is 
 dead ! " exclaimed Meg in a wild pitiful sort of way, as she caught 
 sight of Eotha's grave face. 
 
 " No j not so bad as that. Meg, dear, look at this writing ; is 
 it his ?" She need not have asked when she saw Meg kissing it 
 and crying over it. 
 
 " My own Jack's handwriting ! Oh, Eotha, for pity's sake 
 tell me where you have got it. Is he alive? Can I go to 
 him ?" 
 
 " We are going to him, and I trust to Heaven that we may 
 find him alive. But he is very ill, Lleg — desperately so ; dying, 
 they say." And then as they hiu'ried on, regardless of the fast 
 pattering drops, she told Meg all that she had heard from the 
 Vicar, and begged her to prepare herself and be calm for Jack's 
 sake, as well as her own, for he was very ill, so very ill, and 
 so on. 
 
 Meg made no answer but to wring her hands and walk on 
 fiister; once she broke out into bitter weeping when she heard 
 he had asked for "Madge." 
 
 " He never called me anything but that when he was in a good 
 humour," she said. " Oh, Jack, Jack, just to hear you call me 
 that once more," and then quickened her pace till Eotha could 
 hardly keep up with her. It was a wet evening and still early, 
 and there were few loungers around the door of the 'Pig and 
 Whistle ' ; and they took very little notice of the two ladies.
 
 THE BROKEN CLA USE. 439 
 
 who, they supposed, wished to take shelter from the approaching 
 storm. 
 
 "It is going to be a dirty night, ladies," said one who looked 
 like the ostler. 
 
 Rotha said, " Yes, a very unpleasant evening," and pushed past 
 into the little dark entry, where a bright glow shone from the bar, 
 in which a rosy-feced landlady was sitting alone at a little round 
 table drinking tea. 
 
 Even under these painful circumstances Rotha noticed how 
 cosy it looked, and what a bright fire it was, before the landlady 
 started up at the sight of the two ladies, and came bustling up. 
 
 " You have a Mr. Carruthers here," began Rotha with diffi- 
 culty, and in an instant a shade came over the woman's pleasant 
 face. 
 
 " Dear, dear ; yes, the poor creature ! The Rector has sent you, 
 has he ?" glancing curiously at Rotha's dress and Meg's agitated 
 face. 
 
 Rotha said "Yes" impatiently, and begged that they might 
 be shown up at once ; but Meg put her hurriedly aside. 
 
 " I am his wife, good woman — his wife — do you hear ? For 
 pity's sake take me to him at once." 
 
 "Dear sakes alive," muttered the rosy landlady; "who woidd 
 have thought his wife was here, poor creature % The Madge, no 
 doubt, he's calling after. Bet's with him now. Bet's a famous 
 nurse, and was with him all last night. Bet's nursed two brothers 
 and a sister, and saw a winding-sheet in the candle last night," 
 gasped out the garrulous landlady as she toiled before them up the 
 steep crooked staircase. " One landing more. He asked for our 
 worst room, having little money ; and he's got it, sure enough. 
 Stoop your heads as you go in, ladies, for the ceiling is rarely low ; 
 and" there is a deep step, you might break your necks leading down 
 to the room." 
 
 " Hush, he's partly asleep," said Bet, a strong-featured, red- 
 armed wench, coming forward. " It's been 'Madge, Madge' off and 
 on all the afternoon till I'm that moidered I'm half crazed." 
 
 " It is the gentleman's wife. Bet," said the landlady, wiping 
 her eyes on her apron as Meg, with a sort of sob, kneels down 
 beside the na,rrow truckle-bed ; and Rotha, half awed, half dizzy, 
 looks round the comfortless garret with its lean-to roof, and its 
 carpetless floor, and the creaking bedstead with the blue-striped 
 counterpane. Bet puts her arms akimbo and says, " Lor heart's 
 alive, missis, and to think of that !" and breaks into a hysterical 
 chuckle. The rain pours down against the crazy window, the sign 
 flaps madly outside, the fire splutters up with a faint gurgle, and
 
 440 ROBER T ORB'S A TONEMENT. 
 
 the candle gutters Ioav in the socket. Meg, kneeling with her 
 arms extended over the bed, kisses a pale hand lying motionless on 
 the coverlet ; and the uneasy sleeper stirs and moans restlessly, 
 "Madge, .Madge!" 
 
 "Hear him," says Bet; "he says nought else." 
 
 Meg, turning her white face to Rotha, repeats softly, "Hear 
 him ?" And whispers to herself, " Thank God !" 
 
 Rotha clears the room after that, and sets the guttering candle 
 aside and lights another ; and then, replenishing the tiny fire, 
 closes the door and comes again to the bed. 
 
 " He looks very ill, Meg," she whispers. Meg, laying the 
 skeleton hand against her cheek, points to the wasted arm and 
 shakes her head. 
 
 "Not long for this world, are you, Jack? Oh Jack ! Jack !" 
 she repeats in a heartrending voice, " will you not wake up once 
 more and speak to your wife?" And, as though the suppressed 
 agony of her tones had power to rouse him, he opened his eyes 
 wildly and rolled them from side to side. 
 
 " Whose voice was that?" he muttered hoarsely; "it is like 
 hers when the dead boy was carried out. Don't hamit me, 
 Madge ; don't haunt me !" 
 
 "Oh, Jack, your own Madge — never, never!" 
 
 The restless picking of the clothes recommenced. 
 
 " Who said it was my fault, and that she might have died 
 too V he raved more loudly. " Somebody pointed out the black 
 bruise on her neck. Who struck her % Not I. ' Don't strike 
 me. Jack, when I love you so,' she said, a curse on her white re- 
 proachful face. No, Madge, I did not mean that. Come here, my 
 girl. The boy died and the mother too, but I did not murder them. 
 All the legions of hell are trying to put it on me. But I won't say 
 I did it, I won't !" and the voice fell into indistinct muttering. 
 
 " Jack ! do you not know me, dear Jack?" 
 
 "Know you — too well," he muttered. "You are Madge 
 Browning — tall Madge Browning — old miser Browning's daughter 
 — ugly as sin. Who said that ? Nonsense. I've brought you 
 some carnations. Dark reds for Madge's faded colours. Don't 
 wear white, it does not suit you. Say it aloud. Louder still. I 
 can't hear you — love, honour, and cherish. Whom 1 Browning's 
 daughter ? Ah, ah, no ! Nonsense. Kiss me, Madge. I'm a 
 drunken brute, but I never meant to hurt you." 
 
 " He does not know me. Oh, Jack, one word, only one 
 word!" 
 
 " Hush ! she is playing her music — grand, grand ! The ' Dead 
 March in Said.' No, not that. Do you hear ? Ah, terrible,
 
 THE BROKEN CLA USE. 441 
 
 terrible !" Again the indistinct nmtterings, again he dozed, then 
 woke more conscious as Meg was putting something to his lips. 
 
 " Who is this ? Not Madge— Madge herself ! " 
 
 "Yes, your own Madge, dear; your faithful loving wife. 
 Drink some more, dear Jack." 
 
 The hollow eyes stared over the rim of the china vessel, and 
 then he pushed it aside. 
 
 " No more. I can't swallow. Is it really you, Madge, and 
 not a dream ?" 
 
 " Really and truly. Thank God you know me at last !" 
 
 "I don't know you," he repeated, half frightened. "My 
 Madge had no gray hair, and her face was not wdiite like yours." 
 
 " That was seven years ago, Jack." 
 
 "Seven years ago? ay; that's a long time, surely." He 
 seemed wandering again, but she roused him. 
 
 " Say something to me before you go to sleep. Jack," she said, 
 supporting the poor dying head on her arm. " Say ' God bless you, 
 Madge,' once — only once !" 
 
 " God bless you, Madge ! That is a prayer, isn't it ? I haven't 
 said my prayers for seven years ; never, I think, since I was a 
 child." He looked up in her face as though a glimmering of the 
 terrible truth reached him even in his semi -consciousness. "I 
 haven't said my prayers, and I am going to die." 
 
 " Say them now. Oh, Jack, fold your hands in mine and say 
 one prayer for mercy !" He shook his head feebly. 
 
 " I don't know any. Teach me, Madge." And he let her 
 hold his hands, and tried to say the words after her. 
 
 " ' I will arise and go to my Father. To my Father.' What 
 next, Madge ? ' And will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned 
 
 against heaven, and before — before ' " The broken clause was 
 
 never finished, for he dropped his face, muttering still, upon her 
 bosom. Two hours afterwards he slept away, unconscious still, 
 and Meg fell weeping upon Piotha's neck, and suffered her to leod 
 her from the room.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 
 
 " Her letters too, 
 Tho' far between, and coming fitfully 
 Like broken music, %vritten as she found 
 Or made occasion, being strictly watcli'd, 
 Charm'd him thro' every labyrinth till he saw 
 An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him." 
 
 Tenntsok. 
 
 " Yes it was love, if thoughts of tenderness 
 Tried in temptation, strengtheu'd by distress, 
 Unmov'd by absence, firm in every clime. 
 And yet, oh, more than all ! untired by time." 
 
 Byron, 
 
 Two more years passed on, summer and winter, seed-time and 
 harvest, since Meg closed the eyes of her poor prodigal, and took 
 up the fresh biu-then of her grief and her widowhood together. 
 
 At first the shock seemed to have stunned her, and then she 
 wept till her poor half-blind eyes could weep no more. It was sad 
 to witness that terrible waste of love and sorrow ; she grew worn 
 and gray — thin almost to a shadow ; a sick loathing of all her duties 
 came upon her ; she shrank even from her children, and for a little 
 while cared to do nothing but to sit by Jack's grave and to brood 
 silently over her trouble. But the dark hour passed and the pale 
 face grew placid again under the widow's cap ; and strangers, as 
 they lingered in the churchyard in the summer evenings, often 
 paused to hear the wonderful rich pealing of the organ, and steal- 
 ing into the empty church in the twilight, saw Meg sitting alone 
 with upturned face in the moonliglit and playing fragments of 
 strange requiem masses. Was it Jack's requiem she was playing ? 
 Hark ! it breaks into a low monotonous chant. The moonbeams 
 play on the chancel pavement. The perfume of fresh lilies, dim 
 white globes with golden hearts, bound up with scented sheaves, 
 pervades the air ; a voice tender, tremulous, breaks into deep rich 
 tones — " I will arise and go to my Father "
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 443 
 
 Ah ! Jack's dying prayer. The broken sentence xinfiuished 
 and suggestive. The strangers steal away. Meg comes out, a 
 black shadowy figure, and pauses for a moment by a white tomb- 
 stone whereon is the name " Jack Carruthers," and underneath it 
 that noble clause from the Creed — " I believe in the forgiveness 
 of sins." 
 
 " Where have you been to-night, dear Meg V And Meg, with 
 the solemn light still shining in her eyes, would often answer : 
 
 " Half-way to Paradise and back. And the music seemed ■ 
 like angels' wings, and carried me away till the chords jarred. 
 And then I went to Jack's grave and wished him good-night." 
 And Meg would tiu-n the wedding-ring round and round on her 
 thin finger with a happy smile. And Rotha woidd know that that 
 strange communion had strengthened and refreshed her, and that 
 for many a day Meg woidd be bright, almost joyous. 
 
 But the anniversary of Jack's death had come round twice, and 
 it was now more than five years since Robert had come up to Bryn 
 to wish Rotha good-bye. More than five years, for then the rough 
 March winds had been blowing, and now the soft May breezes 
 swept refreshingly over the blue summer sea, and the primroses 
 and the cowslips had long ago made golden hollows in the Biu-nley 
 glens and Leatham woods, and the children weut out in the fields 
 to make daisy-chains, and to hunt in the hedges for brier-roses and 
 bunches of pink and white May blossoms. And Meg had taken 
 all her nurslings to drink fresh new milk at a farm, and to see the 
 young calves and lambs and the brood of yellow ducklings at 
 Gammer Stokes', and Rotha was up at the Vicarage helping Mary 
 to arrange her plans for the Sunday school treat. 
 
 "Austin has decided that it must be Bm-nley-upon-Sea this 
 time," began Maiy, as Rotha entered the room. Mary was sitting 
 on' her low chair by the open window watching Arty playing on 
 the lawn with his father. They were attempting a game of cricket, 
 with Jock and Jasper as long-stops, and the root of an old tree for 
 a stump. And, to enhance the glory of the game, Arty had already 
 scored more than the Vicar. Arty had taken to a jacket and 
 trousers now, and looked very boyish in his turned -down collar 
 and blue ribbon. And Laurie, wlio was lying on the grass lazily 
 watching them with his broad-brimmed straw hat tilted over his 
 eyes, was now a tall thin stripling of fifteen, with a fair effeminate 
 face, that had grown strangely like poor Belle's, and which bid fair 
 to be almost as t)eautiful. In fact, Laurie's beauty and his lazi- 
 ness, his sweet voice and liis lovable indolent ways, often made 
 Mary and the Vicar anxious about their boy's future — ]\Lary on 
 account of his delicacy, and the Vicar for fear that his talents
 
 444 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 should outstrip his energy. But they need not have feared if they 
 could have known the future. For the seeds of self-sacrifice and 
 self-renunciation were somewhere hidden in Laurie's sweet nature, 
 and came to light nobly at a fitting time ; for, having been trained 
 by his own desire for the jjriesthood, he was one of the few who, 
 on the great day of intercession for the missions, consecrated his 
 fresh young life to the arduous work of a missionary ; and among 
 the names of those who were reckoned as the first-fruits of that 
 mighty prayer which pulsed through the length and breadth of 
 England was the name of Laurence Garton Ord. 
 
 And the mother who gave up the flower of her flock to this 
 noble work, and the fair young creatm-e who had promised to 
 follow his fortimes as soon as he can make a home for her in that 
 foreign clime, will long remember the day when Laiu-ie, coming 
 out from the Church " ruddy and beautiful " as a young David, 
 walked silently home beside them, and then, putting his arm round 
 his mother, told them that he had dedicated himself to a distant 
 ministry, and asked his father's blessing on his undertaking. 
 
 But on this May afternoon in question Laurie was nothing but 
 a fair-haired stripling, graceful and lazy enough indeed to justify 
 Rotha's name, still applied to him, of " the little king." Rufus, 
 loose-limbed and freckled still, but handsome enough in his mother's 
 eyes, had joined his uncle long ago in New York, and was doing 
 well. " As sturdy and independent and Rufus-like as ever," wrote 
 Robert. While Guy and Reuben, fine young men now — Guy 
 nearly twenty-one — were two young undergraduates at Queen's. 
 Reuben was a reading man, and hoped to take high honours, but 
 Guy had joined the boating set ; they were still chums and insepar- 
 able, but Reuben, the younger and steadier, kept Guy straight, 
 aud pulled him up every now and then when his fun and inex- 
 haustible spirit were likely to get him into mischief. Both of 
 them wrote to Rotha dutifidly, and called her " the little mother," 
 but Rube's letters are the more affectionate and frequent. Five 
 years have jxTssed very lightly over Rotha Maturin. She is seven- 
 and-twenty now, but she hardly looks it ; she is a little thin and 
 pale, slightly grave perhaps, but the sweet face is as calm and good 
 as ever, and she looks a mere girl this afternoon in her fresh sum- 
 mer muslin, with her smooth brown hair and a breast-knot of lilies 
 of the valley. There is a pretty dimple still wlieu she speaks, and 
 the large eyes grow bright and dark in a moment ; it is only in 
 repose that a vague air of sadness still lingers — a quiet ciurve or 
 two, an added thoughtfulness on the brow, which would tell a keen 
 observer that Rotha IMaturin has not been exempt from her woman's 
 lot of love and suffering.
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 445 
 
 "Austin says it must be Burnley -upou-Sea, after all," repeated 
 Mary. 
 
 " I am sorry for it," replied Rotlia quietly ; and then the 
 Vicar tlirew down his bat and came across the lawn to shake 
 hands with Rotha. 
 
 Five years have made less havoc with the Vicar than with any 
 one else ; he is not tliinner, of course, and he continues to mom-n 
 over his s\iperfluous weight, which he has sometimes been heard 
 to declare is worse than even St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, but the 
 kind benignant face is as kind as ever, and the wide-open gray 
 eyes are quite as keen, but the crisp curls are slightly tinged with 
 gray ; but Guy says liis father is as young as ever, and ]\Iary 
 declares that Austin will never grow old, and the Vicar tells his 
 wife privately that he is afraid that he is a boy still in his heart, 
 for he likes a game as much as Arty does, only Arty runs faster 
 and gets longer innings. 
 
 " Well, Mary, have you told Rotha the news V 
 
 "No, dear; I've been leaving it to you," returned his wife, 
 smiling. " He has been dying to tell you himself, Rotha, and so 
 I would not spoil his pleasure." 
 
 " Oh ! I know Nettie has another boy. I met Mr. Effingham, 
 and he told me all about it. Aunt Eliza is so disappointed — she 
 wanted a girl this time ; she had quite made up her mind for a 
 little Eliza, but Nettie and her husband both like sons best." 
 
 " 'My sou's my son till he gets him a wife;' Mary is always 
 saying that ever since Guy danced six times with Laura Tregarthen. 
 Poor Mary ! she does not understand calf-love ; she thinks at 
 twenty boys ought to think of nothing but their mother." 
 
 " Now, Austin, I call that too bad. Lam-a was a little flirt, 
 or she would never have gone on so with Guy ; and I do say, and 
 say so still, that Lady Tregartlien has very frivolous young sisters- 
 in-law, and if Guy is to marry I hope he will not choose such a 
 giddy little thing as Laura for his wife." 
 
 " My dear, Guy will fall in love possibly with a dozen Lauras 
 before he hits upon the right one ; boys always do, and handsome 
 ones like Guy especially ; but here we are talking about Nettie and 
 Guy, and quarrelling as usual, and Rotha has not heard the news 
 
 yet." 
 
 " I can gucss it is good news though, by the way you are rub- 
 bing your hands," said Rotha merrily. 
 
 "Ha, ha," laughed the Vicar, "so it is — so it is. Capital 
 news — first-rate news — old Bobus is coming home." 
 
 "Robert coming home!" returned Rotha, feeling suddenly 
 rather giddy. She felt a quick flush rise to her face, and turning
 
 446 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 her back for a moment on them both, went to the table and busied 
 herself in finding some work. "When is he coming?" she said 
 from a safe distance. 
 
 " When % Oh, he may be here any day ; the letter has been 
 detained, and ought to have reached ns a week ago. He was on 
 his way then. I wiU. tell you aU about it if you will leave that 
 work alone and come here. I thought the news would have inter- 
 ested you." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Ord ! " returned Rotha, dismayed at this implied 
 imputation of indifference. " Of com-se I am glad he is coming 
 home — poor Robert ! " but her voice was not very steady, and her 
 face was growing hotter than ever under the Vicar's keen eyes. 
 What woidd she have said if she had known that Robert in his 
 despair had made his brother his confidant, and that Austin was 
 looking at her and wondering whether Robert had really any 
 chance, and whether he had been wrong in advising him to come 
 home and try what three more years had done for him, and was 
 speculating whether the sudden burning of Rotha's face meant only 
 confusion or pleasure. 
 
 He was to remain in doubt on this point, for Rotha now 
 regained her self-possession. 
 
 "Is he bringing Rufus with him, or will he come alone ?" she 
 asked presently. 
 
 " Oh no. Rufe is doing too well where he is, and Robert says 
 that a year or two more of that work will be of great service to 
 him ; and that, though he is so young — barely eighteen — he is 
 already a valuable assistant ; he means to have him over by and 
 by when an opening presents itself Do you know, Rotha, I 
 always guessed Mr. Ramsay would send for Robert when that 
 accident disabled him. Poor man ! he will never be able to go 
 down to the work again." 
 
 "And is Robert to be manager there 1" asked Rotha, not lift- 
 ing her eyes. 
 
 "Yes; manager and partner too, I believe. He is to have 
 double the salary he now receives, to begin with. The firm are 
 very loath to part with him ; but Robert says that he hardly feels 
 justified in throwing away such a chance, and especially to refuse 
 Mr. Ramsay after what he has done for him. Don't you think he 
 is right?" 
 
 " Quite right," retm-ned Rotha quickly ; " only he said nothing 
 to me about all this in his last letter, so I cannot help feeling 
 a little surprised. I suppose he has made up his mind rather 
 suddenly." 
 
 " Yes ; he tells me that he had no idea when he last wrote.
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 447 
 
 By the bye, that explains a rather misty paragraph. He says — ■ 
 let me see, what is it he really does say 1 — oh ! here it is—' I am 
 afraid Eotha, for one, will think me somewhat inconsistent after 
 what I once said to her, but I think you can explain my reasons 
 for acting on this sudden impulse, and why I cannot feel justified 
 in refusing so kind a friend and benefactor as Mr. Ramsay. A 
 man may sometimes alter his mind without being open to the im- 
 putation of weakness.' There, perhaps you can interpret that 
 mysterious clause better than Mary and I can." But Rotha said 
 nothing, and coloured so exceedingly that the Vicar rather abruptly 
 changed the subject, and Mary, after a few warm expressions of 
 pleasure at the thought of seeing dear Robert again, and wondering 
 how he would look, and when he would arrive, and telling Rotha 
 that Deb and she had been beautifying and arranging the spare 
 room that very morning for his reception, in case he should come 
 any day, took up the subject of the school-treat again, and assured 
 Rotha for the third time that the Vicar and Mr. Tregarthen 
 had already fixed on Bui-nley-upon-Sea. "You see we have 
 exhausted all the places. We were at Nab Scar last year, and at 
 Finnock's Hollow the summer before, and Biu-nley is so near, and 
 the children can go by train, and it is so much less fatiguing for the 
 teachers than jolting over those coimtry roads in open carts ; so if 
 you do not mind, dear — being your treat — Austin thinks he could 
 save you expense and trouble that way, for the season is not far 
 enough advanced to go a long distance, and the gardener's wife 
 at the head of the glen could boil our kettles for us, and it would 
 not be far to carry the hampers ; you know Austin can always 
 get license for us." 
 
 Rotha was silent for a moment. It was more than five years 
 ago now since Garton and Reuben and she had spent the day 
 there, but she had only been there once since, and then quite 
 alone. It was summer then, and she had walked where they had 
 walked, and sat in the same i:)lace where she had sat, and dreamt 
 of the fairy prince, and then lifted up her eyes to see Garton 
 striding through the dim woodland aisles. She had taken a 
 movunful pleasm-e in thus following his footprints, and in thinking 
 what he had said and how he had looked, and it had seemed as 
 though the very place were sacred to her ; it would jar on her 
 sadly to see it again surrounded by merry and shouting children ; 
 but she now banished this thought as selfish, and quietly told Llary 
 that, if the Vicar Vished it, there was nothing more to be said, and 
 then, in her usual self-forgetful way, tried to throw herself into 
 her friends' plans, and to calculate the number of buns and the 
 pounds of seed and plum cake that would be wanted, but she had
 
 448 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 never found it sucli hard work to keep her attention on anything 
 — she made a mistake in her addition twice, and Mary, with 
 placid surprise, put her right. 
 
 She was undecided too, till tlie last minute, whether Meg 
 should not go in her place; but on Mrs. Ord objecting to this, on 
 the ground that it was Rotha's treat, and that she need not do 
 anything to tire herself, that the children woidd amuse them- 
 selves, and that there was nothing but to give them their tea and 
 marshal them to the train, she reluctantly consented ; and then 
 scolded herself again for her selfishness, and told Mary that she 
 was getting old and lazy, but of course she woidd go, and that 
 perhaps Meg would be glad to be spared the fatigue ; and, when 
 this was settled, she rose to take her leave. 
 
 " But, Rotha dear, Mi's. Carruthers is out, and Austin fully 
 expects that you are going to stay to tea," pleaded Mrs. Ord, " and 
 we have not half discussed dear Robert's coming home." But 
 Rotha would not be persuaded ; she had some work to do for her 
 children, she said, and shoidd rather enjoy a quiet evening. She 
 felt stupid and tired, and her head ached a little, and, if Mary did 
 not mind, she would come round in the morning and arrange every- 
 thing for Thursday, and she thought, after all, the Vicar had been 
 right in fixing on Burnley. 
 
 If Rotha had any work to do she certainly did not do it that 
 evening. Meg found her sitting at her window looking out at 
 the sunset, as though she had been doing little else for hours. 
 
 It woidd be difficult to describe Rotha's exact feelings when 
 she heard of the news of Robert's speedy arrival ; but from the 
 moment the words " he may come any day " had been spoken, a 
 curious mixture of confusion, terror, and excitement had thrown 
 her into such a whirl of conflicting emotions that she hardly 
 realised herself what his coming home would be to her. 
 
 Three years had passed since she had answered that passionate 
 letter of Robert's, and the correspondence which had been carried 
 on between them had been in a measiu-e somewhat constrained on 
 both sides. Robert's letters especially had been brief and rather 
 forced ; and though he had never referred to his disappointment 
 since then, even in the most distant manner, it was in a way 
 brought home to Rotha in every word. Robert never spoke of 
 himself now, never even answered her friendly questions as to his 
 health and prospects. His letters related mainly to Rotha and 
 her aff"airs, every trifle to which she had alluded was canvassed 
 and magnified ; but the unrestrained outpourings of the writer's 
 heart seemed kept in check and forced back by a strong hand ; 
 only a tenderer phrase than usual sometimes conveyed to her that
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 449 
 
 the writer himself was unchanged, patient but hopeless, and per- 
 haps no eloquence could have touched Rotha's heart more deeply 
 than those letters — so brief, yet so suggestive ; so thoughtful for 
 her, so forgetful of himself 
 
 Once he had been ill, but Rotha never heard of it till long 
 afterwards. He had met with an accident, and inflammation and 
 fever had set in, and Austin told her one day very gravely that 
 his life had been despaired of for days, and his recovery was 
 chiefly owing to the watchful um-sing of his landlady and her 
 daughter. 
 
 Rotha wrote a reproachful letter to Robert after that, a letter 
 full of sisterly affection and tenderness ; but he wrote back in a 
 little sui-prise, thanking her for her kindness. " I should not have 
 thought that you woidd have cared so much whether I lived or 
 died," it said. "I never fancy that I am much good to any one, 
 or to myself either. I sometimes think that my life has been a 
 failure, and that it would be better to go to one's long rest than 
 to labour without hope in the heat of the day. "When the laboui-er 
 is weary he can go home. I have no home — not a soul belonging 
 to me but Austin ; the only woman who loved me lies under the 
 grass sod. Sometimes I wonder why God permits such loneliness, 
 such desolate hearths, such broken 'denied lives.' Forgive me, 
 Rotha, I am weak still from recent illness, or I should not write 
 like this. Just now, Rachel, my faithful nurse, brought me some 
 nourishment, and told me I was getting faint, and must be more 
 careful of myself. I will not tell you how I thanked her, — I was 
 very ungrateful, and she went away with her eyes full of tears. 
 Rachel is a good creature. She thinks I ought to put a higher 
 
 value on my life. She little knows There, I will not finish 
 
 that sentence. Good-night, Rotha. Thank you for your goodness 
 to *me, dear — I was going to write ' Sister,' but I have sworn 
 never to call you by that name ; I will substitute ' Friend.' — 
 There ; it is cold enough, it makes me shiver, but many a man 
 might think himself rich with such a one ; but not when he is 
 sick and solitary — growing old, but still far enough oft" his end— 
 as I am, Rotha. Adieu. Robert." 
 
 That was the last letter Rotha had received, nearly three 
 months ago, and now he was coming home. She showed no one 
 that letter, but put it away with mingled feelings of pleasure and 
 pain. It was hardly in woman's nature not to be touched and 
 made proud by tRis passionate fidelity — this patient hopelessness. 
 For the first time slie lost sight of Garton's love, to wonder upon 
 the lengtli and breadth of this man's affection, tliat could survive 
 distance and time and disappointment^ that could refuse to be 
 
 39
 
 450 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 satisfied with the crumbs of her comfort. " Could Garton have 
 loved me better?" she thought, as though for the fii"st time she 
 realised Robert's feelings in all their intensity, and a little fear and 
 trembling seized her. She thought, "What if he shoidd ever 
 renew his suit % Woidd her purpose remain as unflinching and 
 steadfixst as it had done three years ago % Would Garton wish it 1 
 Would Belle?" But at this point she always broke off, shrinking 
 from her own thoughts, trembling and blushing even in the dark- 
 ness, and, folding her hands, would pray that He who had guided 
 her through her troubled youth, and had brought her feet out on 
 these pleasant places, would lead her still through the shadows of 
 the future in a plain path ; but not now, because of her enemies. 
 
 These petitions always calmed her, but to-night they failed. 
 The mere recollection of the words " coming any day " threw her 
 into a state of distressing restlessness and excitement, a longing to 
 go away somewhere, to fly from some inevitable fate which seemed 
 to come upon her. She resolved to avoid the Vicarage, to shut her- 
 self up in the fortress of Bryn, to live at the " Home," to do any- 
 thing, in short, to put ofi" the evil day of their meeting ; and yet, 
 such was her inconsistency, she longed to be somewhere that she 
 might see him without his being aware of her presence. " Just 
 to see him, and to be sure that it is Robert, and that he is well 
 and safe, and to go away where he could not find me, or ever say 
 what he said to me in those letters." 
 
 These were some of Rotha's thoughts ; but it would be difiicult 
 to describe half of them. The leading idea seemed to be terror at 
 what Robert might say to her, and yet in her secret heart she 
 rejoiced at the knowledge that he was still imchanged. She fell 
 asleep trying to recollect the contents of his last letter, and awoke 
 depressed and restless, and passed a most imsatisfactory day, 
 and, as often happened, everything jarred with her mood : the 
 children were troublesome, and Caroline had a raging toothache 
 and was obliged to go down to the Infirmary ; Meg was called ofi^ 
 in the middle of the afternoon by the Vicar, and Rotha had to 
 take her place just as she was most longing for quiet. 
 
 The childi-en had got through their stage of fractiousness by 
 this time, and were playing at Nebuchadnezzar and the bm-ning 
 fiery fm-nace. The game struck Rotha as slightly profane, but 
 she was languid, and lacked energy to interfere. It struck her as 
 rather droll, however, that Shirtle Pearl, who was still there, 
 shoidd enact the part of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image 
 as well, and she got once or twice slightly confused over it ; and 
 she could not understand for a long time why the youngest boy 
 there shoidd be playing the Jew's harp industriously in the corner,
 
 FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS. 451 
 
 till he told Shirtle crossly that he wasn't going to play Dulcimers 
 for ever, and that he thought it a stujjid game, which woke her up 
 in earnest; and after she had reprimanded Shirtle gravely, and 
 had taken the refractory Dulcimer on her lap, she told them a 
 story, and then made them sing the hymns Meg had taught them, 
 and told them softly about the Child Christ, who had come to 
 their beds when they were little and weak, with His arms full of 
 tiny crosses, and had laid one down by the side of each child, 
 bidding them carry them bravely for His sake. 
 
 "And what sort of cross did the Child Christ leave you, 
 Shirtle ?" asked Eotha. 
 
 " I think it was a knobbly one, mother," returned Shirtle 
 promptly, for Shirtle was an orphan, a mere waif and stray cast 
 upon Thornborough streets, and Eotha had classed him among 
 her adopted children. " A wery knobbly one, biu-sting out with 
 abysses and such like." 
 
 " I should think being almost dark is worser than abysses," 
 put in Sallie, a diminutive child with a patient sickly face and a 
 shade over her eyes, " Shirtle can learn to spell, and cast up, and 
 read pretty picture books, though his bones is so sore that he cries 
 sometimes." 
 
 " But Sallie can pick up shells and dig on the sand, and feel 
 the sweet sea-breeze — can she not?" returned Eotha, putting 
 her hand tenderly on the cropped head, for she knew that by and 
 by it would be quite dark, and not almost, with Sallie. " And 
 what did the Child Christ say to little Salhe when he laid on her 
 this heavy cross V 
 
 " Carry it, and it will carry you," retm-ned the child in her 
 shrill little voice. 
 
 . "Yes; and, heavy as it is, it is not so heavy as His — we 
 must remember that. And when do we lay down om* crosses, 
 children?" 
 
 " Never " returned one, and " When we die " responded others ; 
 and one small boy opined, " When theu- backs ached or they were 
 tired ; " but he was a cripple and a hunchback, and spoke feelingly, 
 and every one knew that poor Teddy was breaking down imder 
 the weight of his. 
 
 "Oh, Teddie, I wish we could !" said Rotha, with a compas- 
 eionate glance at the deformed boy. ' " I wish we could lay them 
 down, Teddie, sometimes, you and Sallie and I — when we are so 
 tired, and our hearts and arms are so sore with the weight !" And, 
 iu that fanciful imagery so dear to children, she told them they 
 must lie down in their narrow beds with their crosses beside them 
 to tlie Inst — they and their crosses under the shadow of one mighty
 
 452 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 one ; and how they must carry them right up to the Golden Gate 
 itself, and there, laying them down for ever, should receive tiny 
 jewelled crowns ; and where their crosses had fallen should spring 
 up roses, white and red, and lilies fairer than any they had seen, 
 and the Child Christ should lead them into the City — cripples, 
 and blind, and suffering no longer. "Now children, sing the 
 hymn Meg taught you last Sunday," and the children united their 
 weak quavering voices and sang " We are but little children 
 weak," but the Didcimer had gone fast asleep, and Teddie came 
 and laid his heavy head against Rotha's dress.
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 WON AT LAST. 
 
 ' Some one came and rested there beside me, 
 Speaking words I never tliought would bless 
 Such a loveless life ; I longed to bide me, 
 Feasting lonely on my happiness. 
 But the voice I heard 
 Pleaded for a word. 
 Till I gave my whispered answer, 'Yes.' 
 
 " Yes ; that little word so calmly spoken 
 
 Changed all life for me, my own, my own 1 
 All the cold gray spell I saw upbroken. 
 
 All the twilight days seemed past and gone, 
 And how warm and bright 
 In the ruddy light 
 Pleasant June days of the future shone ! 
 
 ' ' So we wandered through the gate together, 
 Hand in hand, upon our future way, 
 Leaving shade and cold behind for ever. 
 Out to where the red sun's westering ray 
 Gave a promise fair 
 Of such beauty rare 
 * For the dawning of another day." 
 
 Helen Marion BuENsroE. 
 
 The Sunday school treat was fixed for the following day, and 
 when the children were safe in their dormitories Rotha meant to 
 go round to the Vicarage to make the final arrangements with 
 Mrs. Ord. 
 
 It was a lovely evening, and the setting sun streamed into the 
 long low room where Rotha sat among the little ones ; the chil- 
 dren had broken down in the middle of the hymn, and Rotha's 
 sweet voice took up the refrain and hummed it softly with a sort 
 of weird accomi)auimeut from Teddie ; the rest crooned out a 
 dolorous chorus of "We don't know it, mother," when the garden 
 gate suddenly clicked. Fidgets, who was fast asleep, got up and 
 limped to the door on three legs and began a fiuious barking,
 
 454 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 every hair bristling with excitemeut. Firm footsteps crimched up 
 the garden-path, voices were heard in the little passages, the door 
 of the mother's room opened and closed quickly. 
 
 " Run and tell the Vicar I am here, Joe," said Rotha, break- 
 ing off her hmnming ; " and, children, do not forget to get up and 
 curtsey to him." 
 
 "May we come in, little sister f said the Vicar's cheerful 
 voice over Joe's head. " Do not let the children disturb them- 
 selves ; they look far too comfortable. No, do not come in just 
 yet," he continued to somebody in the background. " Guess what 
 visitor I have brought to see you, Rotha?" 
 
 " That is not hardly fair," returned a well-remembered voice ; 
 "let me introduce myself, Austin." A firm hand puts the Vicar 
 aside — a dark figure blocks up the entry, a tall man, gray-haired, 
 with a worn handsome face. Rotha stands up, white and 
 trembling, with the sleeping boy still in her arms — it is Robert ! 
 
 " Rotha, are you surprised to see me ? I did not mean to 
 startle you like this." 
 
 Her only disengaged hand is taken and pressed kindly, and 
 then Robert replaces her in her seat.- She has not spoken one 
 word of welcome — not one, except that low uttered " Robert ! " 
 — but her heart is beating so that she can hardly breathe. 
 
 " That is not a very warm greeting after five years' absence," 
 says the Vicar mischievously ; and Robert, gravely as before, just 
 touches her cheek with his Kps, and says quietly that Austin 
 has brought him in to see the little sister in the midst of her 
 children, and that he is glad to see her looking so strong and 
 well, and so on. All spoken in the same calm kind manner, as 
 though the blood that swept over Rotha's pale face did not stir 
 every pulse within him at the thought that he had the power to 
 stir her thus, that those burning blushes and quivering lips could 
 not mean only that he had taken her unawares. 
 
 "I hope you do not mind my bringing him in like this? 
 Robert was so anxious to see you," said the Vicar, trying to put 
 a stop to this painful embarrassment. "You are so completely 
 one of us, you know, Rotha; and Mary said she was sure you 
 would be pleased to see him." 
 
 " I am very pleased," returned Rotha, finding her voice with 
 difficulty. "When did you come?" lifting her eyes timidly to 
 Robert, who was leaning against the mantelpiece watching her. 
 
 " Only an hour ago ; I got ofi" the dust of my journey, and 
 talked to Mary and Austin a little, and then Mary proposed our 
 coming roimd to fetch you. How well dear Mary looks, to be 
 sure ! and as pretty as ever ; only her hair is so gray — not so gray
 
 WON AT LAST. 455 
 
 as mine though." And he tossed it carelessly from his forehead 
 as he spoke. " Do you not think me very changed, Rothaf 
 
 "Very much changed. You look as though you had been 
 very ill," she returned softly. She was regaining her calmness at 
 the sight of his, but her coloiu- still varied dangerously. 
 
 Yes, he was changed, wonderfidly so; but she thought she 
 had never seen a nobler face. His dark hair was quite iron-gray, 
 though he was hardly more than thirty-sLx ; and his face was 
 thinner and paler, and the forehead deeply lined. But the hard- 
 set ciu-ve of the lips had relaxed, and the cm-ve round the mouth 
 was exceedingly sweet and sorrowful ; only when he smUed, which 
 he did rarely, his smile was like Gar's. 
 
 " I was very near death," he returned, reading the unspoken 
 sympathy in her eyes. " I suppose if I had not been with good 
 Samaritans it would soon have been all over with me. Rachel 
 cried when she received your present, Rotha. When I gave it to 
 her I said it was so like the little sister that Austin talks about." 
 
 He had used the Vicar's title twice, but not as though he had 
 appropriated it. Was it merely to put her at her ease with him, 
 or to remind her that he had no hope ? Somehow the name jarred 
 on her for the first time. 
 
 "You do not find Rotha much altered, do you, Robert '?" 
 struck in the Vicar briskly. Rotha's eyes fell again before 
 Robert's swift keen glance. 
 
 "No; she is not a day older. How do you manage to preserve 
 your youth, Rotha — you look so yoimg 1 And do you always wear 
 that little cap 1 Do you know, it reminds me of the day I met 
 you first in the Castle gardens 1 You had a cap on then, had you 
 not?" 
 • " No ; only a lace kerchief tied over my hair," returned 
 Rotha, with a smile. " This is our uniform, Meg's and mine," 
 she continued hurriedly. She knew intuitively why Robert looked 
 so grave. Woidd he ever forget that day when he saw her under 
 the low apple trees, a slim creatm-e in her black di-ess 1 It made 
 her speak to him in her own frank way to see that look of pain 
 on his fiice. "Meg will be so glad to see you, Robert." 
 
 " Ah, to be sure. Poor Mrs. Carruthers ! I was so sorry to 
 hear about her trouble ; but you told me in one of your last letters 
 that she has been more settled ever since. How good you have 
 been, Rotha, to* write to me so often !" 
 
 " You were lonely, and I knew you would like to hear about 
 everything," she returned, beginning to get hot again. 
 
 " You have no idea what letters she can write," he continued, 
 turning to his brother, who had half a dozen of the chUdrcn round
 
 456 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 his knee, and was talking to them in an undertone. " They used 
 to be like a series of pictures to me, and clever pictm-es too. I 
 don't think all these five years I have ever had to ask after any- 
 body." 
 
 " We did not know you were a scribe, Rotha," returned the 
 Vicar, laughing ; " but here we are keeping Mary and tea waiting. 
 Do you know we have orders to carry you off f 
 
 " Indeed ! But I do not think I can leave just yet ; I have 
 my working dress on, and the children are not in bed, and " 
 
 " Perhaps not," interrupted the Vicar ; " but Mrs. Carruthers 
 is on her way to help Caroline, so that excuse has fallen through. 
 And as for the working dress, if you want to honour Robert by a 
 festive attire, we will willingly escort you to Bryn ; but I can 
 assure you that that gray serge is quite as becoming in our eyes 
 as gray silk would be." A mischievous little speech which made 
 Robert smile, and after that Rotha would have gone in gray sack- 
 cloth, if there were such a material ; but as she still hesitated, 
 though for far different reasons, Robert settled the matter by lift- 
 ing the drowsy Dulcimer off her lap and, taking out his watch, 
 told her that they would wait for her just five minutes — a piece 
 of peremptoriness which reminded her of the old Robert Ord, and 
 brought one of her sunny smiles back in an instant. 
 
 Rotha was in a curious state of mind all the evening; an 
 uneasy sort of happiness, too nearly approaching nervous excite- 
 ment to quite deserve that name, seemed to be the prominent 
 feehng; it was very strange and very pleasant to have Robert 
 back again. Now for the first time she realised bow she had 
 missed him, and what a blank his absence had made. The Vicar- 
 age had never looked so like itself for five years, and the Vicar 
 seemed so wondrously content and so proud of Robert, and the 
 boys hung about their imcle eager for news of Rufus, and the 
 family tea-table had never looked more cheerful than it did 
 to-night. 
 
 Rotha was very quiet and kept in the background all the 
 evening, but no one seemed to notice it. For Robert and Austin 
 had so much to say to each other, and were so busy in discussing 
 the former's prospects, and every one had so many things to tell 
 him and so much to hear, that no one seemed to perceive what a 
 silent listener Rotha was \ and though now and then Robert turned 
 to her with a quiet word or smile, as though to show her presence 
 was by no means forgotten, he never once strove to bring her into 
 the conversation. But more than once the uneasy conviction 
 seized her that her silence was understood and respected. And 
 deeply as this thoughtfulness and delicacy touched her, it made
 
 WON AT LAST. 457 
 
 her still more conscious. Now aud then she started and flushed 
 painfully as some tone or some expression of Robert's recalled 
 Garton vividly. She had never thought the brothers alike, but a 
 hundred times this evening some trick or turn of Robert's voice 
 brought him before her. Now and then she coidd look at him 
 unperceived, and then she was struck afresh by the gi-eat change 
 in him ; and once or twice the thought crossed her, of what noble 
 metal the man must have been made that the fire of suffering had 
 so purified and strengthened him. 
 
 She had been perfectly content in her quiet corner, but she 
 was more than ever tongue-tied and embarrassed when he walked 
 with her to her own door. A dread of being alone with him, a 
 terror of what he might say under tliese circumstances, was strong 
 within her when she went out of the Vicarage gate. But she 
 need not have been afraid. Robert seemed bent on putting her 
 at her ease. Nothing could exceed his quiet gentleness. He 
 spake about the beauty of the night, and asked Rotha if she ever 
 took long walks now. And he described an excursion Rufus and 
 he had taken, which lasted till they had got to Bryn ; and then 
 he shook hands with her and bade her good-night, as though he 
 had been doing so every evening for the last five years. 
 
 Rotha gave up her thoughts in despair when she reached her 
 own room. To disentangle and arrange such a hopeless confusion 
 of ideas was next to impossible. A sense of disappointment and 
 regret — inconsistent regret — at Robert's calmness and brotherly 
 kindness were the paramount feelings ; it increased her admiration 
 and respect tenfold, but it humiliated her. He had loved her for 
 five years, and only three months ago had hinted at his despair. 
 But now he was by far the calmer of the two, and she herself had 
 been taken unawares, and had betrayed her embarrassment in a 
 hundred ways. The calmer of the two ! What if she had looked 
 out that very moment and seen the lonely figure pacing up and 
 down the sea-wall for hours? — could see him standing in the 
 moonlight beside Belle's grave, and leaning his hot brow against 
 the marble cross, and coidd hear him say, " Dearer than ever — 
 the one face — the one woman in the world— to me. Oh, my God ! 
 to see her every day and not to win her, will be more than I can 
 bear. I must — I will win her ! Something tells me that I shall, 
 Rotha." 
 
 The next d:vy was that appointed for the school treat, and 
 Rotha had promised to be round at the Vicarage as early as 
 possible to help Mary and Aunt Eliza pack the hampers. But, 
 early as it was, Robert had already started for Strctton, where he 
 would probably be detained the greater part of the morning.
 
 458 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 Rotha felt a little chill of disappointment, for she had quite 
 made up her mind to be her old self with him to-day. It reheved 
 her, therefore, and sent quite a glow of satisfaction to her heart, 
 when the Vicar casually remarked to Aunt Eliza that she would 
 certainly have her wish to see Robert gratified that very afternoon, 
 for he had promised him faithfully to take the four o'clock train 
 from Blackscar, and to be present at the distribution of buns ; and, 
 as he always kept his word, she might be certain that he would 
 make his appearance at the time specified. 
 
 Rotha said nothing, but she worked with redoubled zeal, and 
 at the appointed hoiu joined the phalanx of teachers and children 
 on the Blackscar platform, looking singularly appropriate to the 
 occasion in her pretty spring dress — a soft blue — with her white 
 chip hat. Dress always set off Rotha, but she never looked 
 prettier than she did to-day, as Mary remarked to the Vicar and 
 to Aunt Eliza about half a dozen times. 
 
 There was nothing worth recording in the afternoon itself As 
 in most other school treats, the children were wild with pleasure, 
 and ran all over the glens hke a herd of young colts. Rotha 
 strove once or twice, in quiet moments, to bring back the sweet 
 and mournful associations of the place, but for once the efibrt was 
 manifest. The day was so glorious, the sunshine so bright, the 
 play of light and shade so delicious in the bosky dells and hollows, 
 the little river ran underneath so brimming over with ripples and 
 tiny gurgles of joy, the children's mirth was so infectious, the 
 knots of eager rosy faces such warm vivid pictiu-es set in the green 
 bowery depths, that a less happy nature than Rotha's must have 
 expanded to the cheering influences; and more than one bright 
 thought kept her pulses beating to a tune they had not heard for 
 many a long year, as she walked up and down the shady walks, 
 or sat on one of the tiny lawns keeping watch and ward over the 
 little ones. But about five o'clock, when the children were ranged 
 in orderly files on one of the green lawns, and the Vicar was called 
 upon to say grace, Rotha's eyes often wandered to the little white 
 gate in the hope of seeing a tall figure advancing from the road ; 
 but tea was over and the children scattered to their games again, 
 and still no Robert made his appearance. 
 
 Mr. Townsend, the Vicar of Burnley, had just entered the 
 gardens, and Rotha was slightly surprised when, after a brief 
 conversation, our Vicar walked quickly to the gate with him. 
 She was tolerably near them, and saw that both looked rather 
 grave and anxious, the Vicar especially; and the latter spoke 
 almost irritably to some boys who siurounded him with entreaties 
 to join their game.
 
 WON AT LAST. 459 
 
 " Ruu away, cliildi-eu, I can't attend to you now. Now, Sam, 
 don't block up our way, please ; Mr. Townsend and I have busi- 
 ness in the town." And he swung round one small lad who was 
 in his path so hastily that he nearly tripped him up, 
 
 " Elliot," said Rotha, addressing a young Sunday-school teacher 
 who had been with the Vicar most of the time, " what has Mr. 
 Townsend been saying to make the Vicar look so grave ? " 
 
 " Haven't you heard f returned young Elliot eagerly. " All 
 the teachers have been talking about it : there's been an accident 
 to the Blackscar train — some collision, I believe ; and two or three 
 people have been killed. Mm-ray heard it in the town." 
 
 Rotha turned suddenly white, and then began to shiver. 
 
 "What train, Elliot r' 
 
 "Why, the four o'clock from Blackscar — a goods train or 
 something ran into it. There are not many people hiu-t — only the 
 engine-driver and the stoker and one passenger were killed. The 
 line will not be clear for another hour or two, and that's why 
 the Vicar has gone up to the station." 
 
 "No, no," retui-ned Rotha, half beside herself; "don't you 
 know his brother was to be in that train 1 Oh, Elliot, for mercy's 
 sake, don't say anything to Mrs. Ord. Suppose anything has 
 happened to his brother. There, go, go ; don't you see Mr. 
 Tregarthen is calling you 1 " 
 
 " We are going to take some of the children on the pier," called 
 out Mr. Tregarthen ; "the ladies and the younger ones can stop 
 behind, if they like. You know there is no possibiUty of getting 
 home for another hour or two." 
 
 Rotha heard no more. She was in a high winding walk, just 
 under the suspension bridge and near the entrance to the gardens ; 
 and feeling giddy, and even her limbs tottering, she sat down, 
 thankful that no one was witness to her violent agitation. 
 
 A collision, a railway accident, and he was in it — that was 
 her first thought ; he — Robert — Garton's brother, the man who 
 had loved her so patiently and so hopelessly for more than five 
 years, and whom, as she knew too well by this terrible heartache, 
 she was already beginning to love in return. Poor Rotha ! it 
 needed this shock to reveal the real nature of her feelings for 
 Robert. For months past — ever since his last letter — she had 
 been fighting against her own heart, and hiding her eyes like a 
 child from the destiny that was in store for her. This had been 
 the secret of her trembling eagerness to escape a meeting. One 
 word from him whose fidelity she had so severely tested might in 
 a moment, she knew, overthrow the resolutions of years. And if 
 she had doubted her heart even yesterday, one glance at Robert's
 
 460 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 face, with its evidence of sufFeriug, would have undeceived her ; 
 and now — now, when he might be lost to her for ever, mortally 
 hurt, or even dead — now did she realise for the first time that, 
 however she might ha^'e tried to blind herself, her heart was 
 assuredly and entii'ely his. 
 
 But to have another lover destroyed in such a cruel way — 
 impossible, merciful God, impossible ! 
 
 " Why are you sitting here alone, and where are they all gone % 
 Good heavens, are you ill, Eotha % " 
 
 He might have thought so by the way she uncovered her white 
 face and looked at him, and then clung to his arm with her two 
 hands, trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " Robert, is it really you — alive — unhurt '2 Oh, Robert, Robert, 
 what a fright you have given us ! Oh, I thought it must be too 
 terrible to be true," cried the girl, with her eyes brimming over 
 and her face perfectly radiant. 
 
 " What is too terrible ? Do you mean you have heard of the 
 accident to the Blackscar train ? I galloped round as fast as Mr. 
 Ramsay's horse would take me, that I might arrive before any one 
 heard of the affair. I was afraid Austin would be frightened, but 
 I hardly thought — I hardly hoped — that " 
 
 He did not finish his sentence, but his own face worked, and 
 he was evidently greatly moved at this frank expression of joy at 
 his safe return. For the moment he held the little hands tightly 
 in his, and then with a sudden impulse lifted first one and then 
 the other to his lii^s. 
 
 " I did not expect such a sweet welcome, Rotha. How could 
 you — how could you care so much, my darling ? " 
 
 But Rotha, scarlet and confounded at her own impidsive words, 
 started away from him like a young fawn. 
 
 " Where is the Vicar, Robert? We must go and tell the Vicar; 
 he has gone down to the station with Mr. Townsend." 
 
 " Come then," said Robert, holding out his hand, with a smile. 
 
 He had no wish to take advantage of the sweet impulse that 
 had made her cling to him. For this evening at least he would 
 respect the shy reticence that had grown out of her impulsiveness. 
 He walked beside her with a proud and swelling heart, but out- 
 wardly as calm and kind as ever ; but Rotha, who had overheard 
 his last words, drooped her head and answered in monosyllables, 
 and, as soon as she caught sight of the Vicar, took shelter under 
 his wing directly. 
 
 The Vicar did not say much, but he looked from one to the 
 other, and held out liis hand to Robert witli an unsteady smile. 
 
 " We have had a terrible fright, Robert, and I hear Edward
 
 WON AT LAST. 461 
 
 Elliot told her, and so she knew it too. I would not go through 
 the last half-hour again for half my income. By what providential 
 means did you manage to miss yoiu: train 1" 
 
 " Mr. Ramsay detained me, Austin ; and while I was waiting 
 on the platform, chafing like a blind fool at the tiresome delay, 
 we got news of the collision just outside Leatham Junction ; and, 
 knowing what a horrible state you would be in, I went round to 
 the mews where I had put Mr. Ramsay's bay mare, and rode her 
 off to Burnley as hard as I could, and here I am." 
 
 "For His mercy endureth for ever," ejaculated the Vicar. 
 " Oh, Bob, if I had been called upon to lose another brother — 
 and you only just come home ! " And Robert, touched by his 
 agitation, linked his arm in his brother's, and the two walked 
 away together. 
 
 The line was pretty clear by this time, and the oflicials informed 
 the Vicar that a special train would be ready in half an horn-. So 
 Rotha went down on the pier with the other teachers to marshal 
 the children and himt after stragglers. The work and the cool 
 sea-breezes did her good, and she was successful in holding herself 
 aloof from Robert dming the return jom-ney. She got into a 
 different compartment, and as soon as they reached Blackscar she 
 headed the first division of the children to the schoolhouse, where 
 they were to receive a final bun each ; and Robert, who had to see 
 after his horse, was left far enough behind. 
 
 Rotha left the other teachers at the schoolhouse and went oft' 
 alone, in reality to get herself quieted for the evening, for Mrs. Ord 
 had made her promise to come to the Vicarage to supper to talk 
 over the events of the day. The church was always open, and it 
 seemed to her the quietest place. It did not matter one bit that 
 Meg was playing there ; she slipped into a dark pew by the door 
 and listened to the solemn strains, feeling rested and soothed in 
 spite of herself. She was so absorbed by the music and her own 
 thoughts as well that she was quite unaware that after a time she 
 had been followed, and that a tall dark figure had silently entered 
 and taken up its station near her, awed and silenced by the weird 
 music that seemed to peal out of the semi-darkness. 
 
 Rotha rose and went out after a time, and then paused as 
 usual by Belle's grave to readjust the wreath which always hung 
 over the cross. Yesterday Rotha had placed a fresh one made of 
 sweet spring flowers, but already it was withered; a mournful con- 
 viction that this withered garland was a meet emblem of Belle's 
 unfhiished life and broken hopes crept over Rotha, and, as she laid 
 her cheek to tlie marble cross, where only last night Robert had 
 rested his weary head, she said more than half aloud :
 
 462 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Poor Belle, how well she loved him ! But I can understand 
 it now. Ah, it is coming; I know it ; I am sure of it, if only Gar 
 would have had it so !" 
 
 " What is coming, Rotha ? Why would Gar not have it so'? 
 Dear, I did not mean to startle you. I could not help following 
 you here." A hand is laid softly on her arm; the voice is very 
 calm and reassuring. What does she fear that she lays her cheek 
 only the closer to the marble cross, and clings more tightly to its 
 smooth stoniness % 
 
 Only a churchyard — a white gleaming cross — the moon shining 
 from behind a bank of dark fleecy clouds ; only a tale of love told 
 over a grassy mound ; only a gud listening to it with her arms 
 entwined about the marble headstone ; only the tears from hajjpy 
 eyes watering the dead girl's grave with dews of blessing for the 
 living, and a voice with a tender break in it like Gar's says : 
 
 " Just one word, Rotha — one word to tell me that you have 
 listened and heard; or, if you cannot speak, put your hand in 
 mine and I shall understand you then." 
 
 What if her hand goes out to him in the darkness % What if 
 strong arms draw her from her stony support, and gather her close 
 to a faithful breast % Can she check those happy tears flowing all 
 the faster for his mute tenderness? Presently, when she grows 
 calmer, she lifts up her face to him — that dear face which he has 
 learnt to read so clearly now — and asks him if he will take her 
 back into the church for a little while. 
 
 And as he yields, in some little sm-prise, the music breaks into 
 some grander measure, swelling triumphant down the echoing 
 aisles ; and then he understands that this is their betrothal, 
 and kneels beside her in that mute thanksgiving prayer of hers ; 
 and then, as the music ceases and Meg leaves the organ, Rotha 
 comes out of the porch hand in hand with Robert, and walks down 
 with him to the Vicarage.
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 "Ah, who am I, that God hath saved 
 
 Me from the doom I did desire, 
 And crossed the lot myself had craved, 
 
 To set me higher ? 
 What have I done that He shovdd bow 
 
 From heaven to choose a wife for me ? 
 And what deserved He should endow 
 
 My home with thee 1" Jban Ingelo'W. 
 
 ..." My story is told out ; the day 
 
 Draws out its shadows, time doth overtake 
 
 The morning. That which endeth call a lay 
 
 Sang after pause — a motto in the break 
 
 Between two chapters of a tale not new 
 
 Nor joyful, but a common tale. Adieu ! " Ibid. 
 
 They were at supper at the Vicarage when they entered, but Mrs. 
 Ord had hardly time for a reproachful exclamation before the Vicar, 
 after one glance at Rotha's happy blushing face, had jumped from 
 his seat and had fairly taken her in his arms. 
 
 " Is it so ? God bless you, my dear child. You have made us 
 all yery happy. Won at last, and bravely too. Dear old Bobus ! 
 There, take her to Mary." 
 
 But Mary, startled and overwhelmed by what were to her such 
 utterly unexpected tidings, could only huld Rotha in her arms 
 and cry over her, and hope inarticulately that she would be happy, 
 very happy. 
 
 "That she shall be, God helloing me," said Robert quietly. 
 " Mother Mary, are you not going to wish me happiness too V 
 
 And, as he stooped his handsome head over her, she put back 
 the gray waves of hah- tenderly from his forehead and whispered, 
 " Dear Robert, I a,m so glad, and our darling would be glad too," 
 and then hid her face — poor Mary — on his shoulder and cried, re- 
 membering how, ten years ago, he had come to her for her sisterly 
 congratulations. 
 
 " Dear Mary, I understand you."
 
 464 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 It was a proof of Robert's new gentleness that he should soothe 
 this bm'st of uatm-al feeling so patiently and kindly. Rotha was 
 looking shy and almost sad over this little scene, but Robert pre- 
 sently came to her side with a quiet happy smile, and Austin soon 
 cheered up his wife, and the remainder of the evening passed like 
 a delightful dream. Robert walked as losual with Rotha to her 
 own door, but before they parted he said a grave word or two that 
 somewhat upset her. 
 
 " I shall leave everything to you, Rotha; but do not let it be 
 long before you become my wife. For five years I waited for a 
 blessing which never came, and for five more I suffered almost hope- 
 less, and now I feel as though many of my best years are gone ; 
 but you must come to me soon, dear, and make me young again." 
 
 Rotha pondered over these words, and grew hot and cold over 
 them, but for a little time nothing more was said to mar the 
 beautiful serenity of those first few days when Robert and she 
 were always together ; and she learnt hour by hour to appreciate 
 still more fuUy the noble nature of the man who was to be her 
 futiure husband, when the traces of his past faults became beauties 
 in her eyes, and she could realise more and more that it was good 
 to lean on the strong arm that was to be hers through life. 
 
 Rotha had respite for a little while, diu-ing which she learnt to 
 know herself and Robert more thoroughly, days during which Meg 
 and Mary were never weary of praising the sweet face that had 
 grown so calm and trustful under its new happiness ; and then 
 came a day when Mary and the Vicar came to her, and when 
 Robert pleaded in a few manly strong words that there should be 
 no delay, no dallying with time. 
 
 " I shall never grow younger, darling, and I think you know 
 me well enough by this time to trust me with your happiness. I 
 want my wife, to have her dear presence always near me, strengthen- 
 ing me." 
 
 And Rotha, with the look of meek love she already bore for 
 him, slipping her little hand in his, said : 
 
 "Whenever you like, dear Robert, and the Vicar wishes," and 
 quietly yielded the point, when they all said that it was no use 
 waiting till the autumn, but that they thought she might be ready 
 by the middle of August, and, when it was pressed upon her, Rotha 
 said she thought so too. 
 
 Mary and Meg soon had their hands full of delightful business, 
 and Rotha was quite passive in their hands. She did everything 
 that her friends thought right. One or two of the rooms in Bryn 
 were to be remodelled for the new master, and Meg, by her own 
 desire, was to take up her abode in the Children's Home.
 
 CONCLUSION. 465 
 
 Eotha took far more interest iu these arnmgemeuts tliau in 
 ordering her fine new dresses. She made Robert come up to Bryn 
 and look at his old rooms before the painters and whitewashers 
 turned everything topsy-turvy. Robert was strangely moved at 
 these evidences of his boyhood, and at Rotha's care in preserving 
 them. He knew all about her full-grown heir by this time, for 
 one day the Vicar basely betrayed her confidence in her presence. 
 Robert went all over Bryn, from the garret to the basement, tell- 
 ing Rotha many anecdotes of his old life. He made her show him 
 Aunt Charlotte's jewels, and fm-ther stipulated that the pearls were 
 to be worn on her wedding-day ; and before he left he drew her 
 to him, and told her iu grave tender tones how her generosity 
 and magnanimity had humiliated him long years ago, and how the 
 bitterness of his accusation had recoUed upon himself, and made 
 his life for a long time barren ; and how little he deserved to spend 
 his future days under the shelter of that roof from which his bad 
 temper and obstinacy had driven him, and how still less he deserved 
 the crowning glory of her love. 
 
 " My future life shall be one long act of gratitude and atone- 
 ment if I am spared," he finished, and Rotha, who knew his flxith- 
 fulness and integrity, felt certain he would keep his words. 
 
 The summer, with its pleasant courting days, passed away only 
 too quickly for Rotha. Robert spent all his leisure hours with her, 
 either at Bryn or at the Vicarage. He had a horse of his own 
 now,. a wedding present from Mr. Ramsay, and rode to and from 
 Stretton every morning and evening. By and by, when it was in 
 the stable at Bryn, a beautiful bay mare made its appearance from 
 the same mimificent donor, and Robert ordered a riding-habit from 
 London, and taught Rotha to ride, and was not at all sm-prised 
 when she made a splendid horsewoman. 
 
 " My wife does everything well," was a speech very often in 
 Robert's mouth. 
 
 But at present Rotha had neither horse nor habit, but was quite 
 content when Robert took her out for long country walks in the 
 sweet summer evenings. They went over to Burnley once or 
 twice, and Rotha told Robert all the girlish fancies she had had in 
 the dim wintry woods. 
 
 But she loved best to take him to her Children's Home, and 
 see him gather the children round his knee and tell them stories 
 of the New Worjd and its wonders ; and before long Rotha found 
 she woidd have a true helpmeet in all her benevolent schemes. 
 Robert's large-heartedness and his secret ways of doing good were 
 proverbial in the family ; lie threw himself into Rotha's plans for 
 the new Home with an enthusiasm wliich surprised her, until she 
 
 30
 
 466 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 learnt more and more how liis deep still nature loved to do good 
 for its own sake, and thought nothing too small if it coidd benefit 
 a suffering brother or sister. 
 
 " You can build the Home, if you like, next summer, Rotha," 
 he said to her one day. " I have been looking over your accounts 
 as you wish, and I see you have a large surplus sum at the 
 bankers, in spite of your munificent deed of gift to Reuben and 
 Guy ; and although the expenses of your two sons' education are 
 very great, I think we can afford it, for I am a tolerably rich man 
 now, and Laurie is going to be my charge." 
 
 " We can do so and so " — how sweet that used to sound in 
 Rotha's ears ! Never to be alone any more, to have Robert to 
 work with her, to direct her with his man's counsel and strengthen 
 her hands with his praise ; what a rest to the lonely girl who had 
 fought such a fierce battle, and who had accepted her bitter 
 stewardship so bravely ! No need to keep it all for him any longer, 
 who prized one word of love from her lips more than the wealth and 
 comforts she could give him ; no need to keep it all for him when 
 she had given herself into that faithful keeping. 
 
 It was the evening before her marriage ; it had been a busy 
 trying day in spite of Meg's efi'orts to lighten her labours ; and 
 Rotha, when she came down to Robert, looked pale and harassed, 
 a trifle moved from her serenity. And Robert, understanding how 
 she felt, took her down on the shore that the fresh sea-breezes 
 might blow her fatigue away, and let her stand there silently by 
 his side undisturbed by questioning, till the tired eyes, dazzled by 
 pomp of finery and the imreality of bridal garments, might grow 
 rested by the calm of summer seas and evening shadows. 
 
 It was a proof of his unselfishness that he never spoke of his 
 own exceeding happiness, or reminded her by look or word that 
 this was the last evening that she would be Rotha Maturin. Now 
 and then he spoke to her, but only of the scene that lay before 
 them, till he was rewarded by seeing the ruffled brow grow cabu 
 again, and the old colour come back to the weary face. 
 
 "Dear Rotha, they ought not to have let you tire yourself 
 like this. I shall take better care of you than that." 
 
 " They could not help it, Robert ; there was so much to do, 
 and Mr. Tracy came so late. I don't mind now. I am getting 
 rested, I always do with you," and Rotha leant gratefully on the 
 strong arm that loved to support her. 
 
 Presently, of her own accord, she asked him if they should walk 
 towards the churchyard, as service was over, and it woidd be quite 
 quiet now. Robert answered that it was just what he wished ; 
 but that he had feared to tire her by proposing it ; and then they 
 slowly retraced their steps.
 
 CONCLUSION. 467 
 
 They stood for a long time silently by the marble cross, till 
 Robert saw the tears in Rotha's eyes, and questioned her gently. 
 
 " I ought not to have brought you here to-night, my darling." 
 
 " Why not, Robert % It is so quiet and beautiful up here ; 
 and see how the soft wind sweeps over the grass, as she said. 
 Robert, I can't help thinking of Gar to-night." 
 
 " Oh, Rotha !" he drew her towards him sorely troubled, almost 
 jealously ; " not of Gar to-night, surely darling." 
 
 " Happily — only happily. Nay, Robert, you never thought 
 that. I was so wishing he could see us to-night. I think he 
 would be so glad, Robert." 
 
 "My darling, why should we doubt it? Siu^ely the knowledge 
 of our happiness, if they know it, will be as precious as ever to 
 their sainted souls. But, Rotha, I am only a poor earthly lover, 
 and earthly love is prone to jealousy and doubt. Tell me, dearest, 
 if at this moment one shadow of regret for the past, one fear for 
 the future, is in your heart to-night; for, as surely as we have 
 crossed over two graves to each other, I believe that God intended 
 each for each and none other." 
 
 Rotha looked up in his face, a little moved by his passion. 
 
 " Do you mean if I regret Gar still, Robert V 
 
 He made an affirmative motion, but did not trust himself to 
 speak. 
 
 She stole her hand in his. "What do you think, Robert ?" 
 
 " My darling, it is for you to answer and not I." 
 
 It was nearly dark now, and she took up the hand she held and 
 kissed it, as though that were the fittest expression of her love ; 
 but closing her suddenly in his arms he prayed her to tell him. 
 
 " Oh, Robert, to think you need my words still ! Do you 
 know, Gar once told me that I had not given him all that was in 
 me to give, and now I feel he was right." 
 
 "What then, lovef' 
 
 " I have given it all now !" And then, speaking with her face 
 hidden, " God has taken Gar, and for a long time I was inconsol- 
 able, now I know it was for the best ; for if he had lived I should 
 have loved him well, no doubt, but not as I shall love you." And, 
 as he pressed her to his heart, the anguish of that doubt died away 
 out of Robert Ord's heart for ever. 
 
 THE END.
 
 y. D. * Cp. 
 
 Printed hy R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
 
 OS. Volumes. 
 
 BENTLEY'S 
 
 Favourite Novels. 
 
 LIST FOR 1802.
 
 BENTLEY'S FAVOURITE NOVELS 
 
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 By ROSA N. CAREY. 
 
 Nellie's Memories. 
 
 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. 
 
 Heriofs Clioice. 
 
 Mary St. John. 
 
 Not like Other Girls. 
 
 Only the Governess. 
 
 Queenie's Whim. 
 
 Robert Orcfs Atonement. 
 
 Uncle Max. 
 
 Wee Wifie. 
 
 Wooed and Married. 
 
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 Between the Heather and 
 
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 The Haven tinder the Hill. 
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 Thirlby Hall. 
 
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 Miss Shafto. 
 
 The Rogue. 
 
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 Thelma. 
 
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 Ought We to Visit Her ? 
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 Misitndcrstood. 
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 Seaforth. 
 
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 Ladybird. 
 
 Too Strange not to be True. 
 
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 Sir Charles Danvers. 
 
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