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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/blottedoutOOthomrich 
 
BLOTTED OUT 
 
 UL 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE THOMAS, 
 
 (Mrs. PENDER'CUDLIP) 
 
 author of 
 
 "*he cometh not,' she said," 
 
 "called to account," 
 
 **n0 alternative," 
 
 ** denis donne," 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY, 
 
 1877. 
 
 \[A// rights reserved. 1 
 
Mo 
 1^77 
 
 BLOTTED OUT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ABOUT US ALL. 
 
 HERE is no doubt about it ! The soft sighing 
 western wind that comes slowly along the 
 valley, bending the flowers' heads, and freshen- 
 ing them into brighter beauty ; the golden, 
 gracious atmosphere of this gorgeous July day ; the 
 general air of satisfaction which hangs over indolent 
 everything — each and all of these fail in producing a 
 better effect upon me. 
 
 The verdict has been delivered to me to-day, and no 
 criminal ever cringed lower than I did when I heard it. 
 It issued forth from the lips of partial affection too, not 
 from those of stern justice. " Tim is very unattractive — 
 pitifully so," my large, handsome, moon-faced, ox-eyed 
 Juno of an aunt was saying to my father when I came 
 into the breakfast-room this morning. And though I 
 tried to back and falter away, I seemed to be chained to 
 the spot, and condemned to listen to the words of 
 doom. 
 
 ivi75G7S8 
 
2 BloiUd Out 
 
 ** Little Tim wilJ* do very well to stay at home and 
 take care of me when the others are all gone," my father 
 said, pitying my abject state; and it did seem such a 
 tame little fate to look forward to at the time. But now 
 I have determined to accustom myself to the prospect. 
 But it will be very dull for me in this big old house 
 when all the other girls are gone. 
 
 It is luncheon time now, and I must go in and face 
 them all with the feeling upon me that they all know 
 that I have heard to-day how very unattractive I am, 
 and that I have been crying my face into the semblance 
 of mottled soap about it. My eyelids are tight and red, 
 my nose and hps are swollen, my hair is horribly touzled 
 — for I have been stretched out on the grass — I am sun- 
 burnt, and the cambric dress that was as fresh as my 
 sisters' in the morning has suffered considerably from 
 contact with the affectionate paws of a brace of setters. 
 Altogether I am at my very worst, and my worst must be 
 something very deplorable, considering how unattractive 
 I am at my best. 
 
 "Late and out of breath, as usual, Tim," Aunt Helen 
 says, as I come in through the open window and find 
 them seated at luncheon — Aunt Helen at the head of 
 the table, feeding away steadily in that calm, unhungry 
 way of hers, papa opposite to her, my two pretty sisters 
 facing the window, and Claire, my beautiful sister, with 
 her back to me, by the side of a stranger. 
 
 I take in the group at a glance, and am. ashamed of 
 myself. They are all cool and unruffled; they are all 
 eating mayonnaise^ and sipping iced claret cup (I feel as 
 if a pint of the latter would not assuage the raging thirst 
 which is born of crying and exposure to the hot sun) ; 
 they all present such an appalling contrast to touzled, 
 overheated, miserable me, that I turn and incontinently 
 flee away through the window again. I hear a light peal 
 of amused laughter, and I positively bound along in my 
 eagerness to get beyond earshot of it. As I reach a 
 side door and pause, meaning to turn in through it, a 
 fleeter foot than mine presses the gravel at my side, and 
 
About us AIL % 
 
 I leap round startled, at bay, to find myself face to face 
 with the stranger. 
 
 : Humbled, enraged, mortified, furious, untidy as I am, 
 this is the last straw, and it breaks me down. 
 
 ** How dared you do it ? " I cry ; and then I gulp, and 
 the blinding tears rush out in a torrent, and I know I 
 must look more hideous than ever. 
 
 " Don't ! " he says, in accents of such entreaty that I 
 forget myself for a moment. *' It's natural to run after 
 anything that runs away ; your sister thought you didn't 
 like finding me in your place, so I came to tell you I'd 
 resign it to you." 
 
 He speaks so seriously that I look up at him to see if 
 he is in earnest or not. 
 
 *' Claire would never try to make you believe I was 
 such a fool," I say with emphasis. For Claire is the 
 one of my sisters who always comes between me and 
 misunderstanding and mortification. Odd as appears 
 to every one, Aunt Helen included, Claire likes me. 
 
 "Miss Vincent rather gave me the impression of 
 thinking me a fool for being in your way for a moment. 
 Do come back, that I may make my peace." 
 
 The plea is of avail. I think of Claire, and reflect 
 that it must be an awful thing for any man to be at odds 
 with her. So I walk slowly back by my late pursuer's 
 side, and arrive to find that they have all finished 
 luncheon ; that they are getting themselves out of the 
 room, and preparing to leave me to the dismal glories of 
 a solitary meal. 
 
 I am young, healthy, hungry, but I am also heartsore, 
 and so^ when I take my seat in a limp and flurried way, 
 a certain wistfulness creeps into my face, as I watch the 
 others sailing out serene and satisfied. And Claire 
 catches this expression, I suppose, for she comes back 
 and sits beside me, and helps me carefully, and seems to 
 be interested in what may please my appetite — much 
 more interested than I am myself. 
 
 In gratitude to her — and in obedience to the laws of 
 nature — I eat heartily, and feel less dejected; she 
 
4 Blotted Old, 
 
 moving about me the whole time, caring for me so 
 palpably that I forget that I am mottled-faced from cry- 
 ing, and rough-headed, and generally unattractive and 
 unworthy of attention. 
 
 " Who is he?" I ask, when I have finished, rising and 
 taking my place by Claire, who, from the vantage post of 
 a high window-sill, is watching the family taking its air 
 elegantly on the lawn. 
 
 Claire turns her gleaming, winsome face to me, and 
 an expression of utter sin-prise reigns on it. 
 
 *' Didn't Aunt Helen tell you he was coming this 
 morning?" she asks. "Why, Tim, he's her nephew, 
 Theo Bligh ! " 
 
 " I'm glad he isn't like her," I say heartily. 
 
 Aunt Helen is the widow of a cousin to whom my 
 father was greatly attached. But we young ones all wish 
 that the sentiment had been buried in Arthur Vincent's 
 grave, instead of being carried on and expended upon ' 
 his widow. For Aunt Helen has entirely failed to 
 secure our suffrages, and she is omnipotent with papa. 
 
 " ' For ways that are dark, and for tricks that are 
 mean,' commend me to Aunt Helen," Claire goes on' 
 discontentedly. '^ She throws you oif your guard too, by 
 being big and fair and placid ; but I feel sure that she 
 has been scheming for this boy to come here, and all the 
 time papa is thinking that he is entertaining an angel 
 unawares, and that it's pure accident which brought him 
 into his esteemed aunt's neighbourhood." 
 
 " He must be a schemer too," I say sagaciously, and I 
 remember how he scuttled after me in the garden, and 
 hate him. 
 
 Claire laughs tolerantly. " One couldn't be very hard 
 on him, even if he had taken a turning or two away from 
 the straight road to come here — we Vincents are worth 
 knowing, Tim, dear ; even Aunt Helen's poor powers of 
 description must have taught him that." 
 
 I look at her as she speaks, and from the bottom of 
 the heart that loves her so I feel that Claire is worth 
 knowing, that any man may be forgiven for having taken 
 
About us AIL 5 
 
 any number of tortuous turnings in getting to her, and 
 that she is a great deal too precious to be thrown away 
 on any one appertaining to Aunt Helen. 
 
 Every bit of her short oval face, every lock of her 
 wavy golden hair, every expression of her clear violet 
 eyes, every curve of the freely smiling mouth, are well 
 known and desperately dear to me. But I cannot 
 describe her, I cannot catalogue her charms, I cannot 
 attempt to put her before you on paper as she seemed 
 to me this morning when she soothed me so, as only 
 Claire can. 
 
 We walk out presently and join the others on the 
 lawn, her brilliant blue cambric crisply fluttering in the 
 wind, mine hanging limp and dull,— her strong, supple, 
 slender figure carrying itself unfalteringly under the fire 
 of the battery of the five pairs of eyes that are levelled 
 at us ; my slimmer and less well-balanced frame totter- 
 ing under the conviction that I shall stumble presently, 
 and bring still more obloquy upon my unhappy and 
 most unattractive person. So we advance into the midst 
 of the family group, and so Theo Bligh sees us together 
 for the first time. 
 
 I have called my other sisters pretty, and I am quite 
 ready and able to set forth their claims to the title. 
 They are twins; they have nice, well opened, soft grey 
 eyes, and masses of flaxen hair, which looks like tow 
 when they wash it, before they anoint it with brilliantine; 
 they have pleasant, womanly, comfortable figures and 
 faces and manners; they are devoted to one another, and 
 deadly uninteresting to me. 
 
 Unquestionably, though, they are household successes, 
 these two fair, pleasant sisters of mine. Far-sighted 
 papas and mammas who have noted them well, have 
 spoken words of promise concerning their sons when 
 the twins have been to the fore. More than one son of 
 some neighbouring house, indeed, has sought to lop 
 them from the family tree ; but, as they truly say, they 
 "are in no hurry to separate," and the law of the land 
 will not admit of their both marrying the same man. 
 
6 Blotted Out 
 
 They were always much easier to manage in their 
 childhood, Aunt Helen avers, than either Claire or my- 
 self; and now, in their good-looking, graceful young 
 womanhood, they are much more comfortable com- 
 panions than are we, the Beauty and the Beast of the 
 establishment. Aunt Helen is a woman who believes in 
 every axiom that has ever been uttered by every wise 
 man and every fool, from the beginning of tiuie until the 
 present day. She was wont to hurl that special one, as 
 to the advisability of our letting our first years be passed 
 in "books or work or healthful play," at our young 
 heads from the moment she reigned over us. The 
 advice rebounded from Claire's head lightly and easily, 
 as did every other evil thing. It fell with a dull, de- 
 pressing weight on mine, keeping me down, as did the 
 majority of Aunt Helen's good gifts. But the twins 
 always bent gracefully before the instructive blast, and 
 upreared themselves after it as if nothing had happened 
 — and had their reward in her perfect appreciation of 
 them, let it be hoped ! 
 
 They are sitting here now, on a rug at her feet, tatting, 
 there is nothing wrong in tatting in the abstract, but how 
 evil it makes me feel, when I am altogether awry with the 
 world, to see our twins tatting at Aunt Helen. We all 
 know that every round and square abomination which 
 their hooks and ingenuity shape will be sent off to the 
 Bligh family, for the furtherance of their bodily comfort. . 
 Aunt Helen is always making affectionate mention of 
 some cousin to us unknown, who is in sore need of a sofa 
 rug, or a counterpane, or a cloud. And forthwith the 
 twins tat, and knit^ and net in her service, until Berlin 
 wool, and everything else that can be turned to account 
 with a hook and needles, has become an abomination in 
 my eyes. 
 
 Aunt Helen is always sleepy after luncheon. If I dare 
 to yawn or look bored, if I venture to be flushed or pale, 
 if I lounge about and steep myself in golden silence, she 
 declares that my digestion must be seriously impaired, 
 and offers me a pill, or a long walk to some goal which I 
 
About us AIL 7 
 
 have not the slightest desire to gain. But she is very 
 lenient to herself in the matter of after-luncheon lassitude, 
 "Her system is so perfect," she assures us, " that it must 
 not be disturbed by either annoyance or exercise." Even 
 to-day, though her nephew Theo has but just appeared 
 before her for the first time for seven or eight years, her 
 eyes are closed, and her head is jerking gracefully 
 forwards on to her broad matronly bosom. 
 
 For one wild moment I hope that I shall escape 
 observation and reprimand, and I try to slip round 
 behind the large cushioned chair which lives on the lawn 
 for her sole use during the summer— a fat, sleepy hollow 
 of a chair, that has somehow or other a ridiculous family 
 likeness to its occupant; but she opens her light blue 
 eyes and lows at me. 
 
 " Tim," she says, " if you sit down on the grass in the 
 open air in your present heated condition, I will not 
 answer for the consequences ; a friend of mine did so 
 once, and repented it to the day of her death, for it 
 was the cause of a most unsightly eruption in her face." 
 
 " I can't keep on walking up and down, or round the 
 circle like a wild beast, and I can't stand on one leg like 
 a stork, Aunt Helen," I say peevishly; I must sit 
 down." 
 
 And I sink down on the grass as I speak, crumpling 
 my skirts carelessly, and hate Aunt Helen as I never 
 hated her before, for having remarked on that boiling of 
 the blood which is making my cheeks feel as if they were 
 scorched, and causing my eyes to smart and ache and 
 droop in sheer shame at their owner's unprepossessing ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 " Tim doesn't waste much time in sacrificing to the 
 Graces," papa says, languidly removing his cigar from his 
 lips. 
 
 Papa, be it known at starting, is most thoroughly 
 satisfied with each one of his daughters. Claire amuses 
 him, for she talks well and spiritedly, and treats him 
 more as she would an indulgent elder brother than a 
 father, Moreover, he is proud of her great beauty, and 
 
lo Blotted Out, 
 
 " Tim," she says passionately, as I resignedly proceed 
 to pick them up again, "you're not to touch pen and ink 
 to-day. I come armed with authority; papa sent me 
 after you " 
 
 "Of his own free will ? " I question eagerly ; and Claire 
 hesitates a litde as she answers — 
 
 " Well, he told you you needn't do it — now, didn't he ? 
 — and he seemed quite glad when Theo Bligh said he 
 should come and help you in your task, for Aunt Helen 
 instantly suggested that you should be let off for to-day." 
 
 " Claire/' I say solemnly, pausing in my occupation of 
 putting papa's copy in order for him the following 
 morning, " why is all this ? Am I so very ungainly that 
 she fears I shall shock him with the whole family ? " 
 
 " It isn't that," she says thoughtfully \ " I think some- 
 times, Tim, that you, more than any of us, come between 
 papa and Aunt Helen, and she knows it." 
 
 " She isn't our real aunt," I say in extenuation of my 
 unconscious interposition. 
 
 "No," Claire says drily; "if she were, very likely she 
 wouldn't mind about your little growing power so much. 
 As it is " 
 
 She pauses, and I ask — 
 
 " As it is, what ? " 
 
 " She is only papa's cousin's widow " — Claire laughs — 
 " and there is no law, human or divine, to prevent her 
 marrying him. How we have hated the name of Bligh all 
 our lives, haven't we, Tim ? " 
 
 " Ye-es," I say slowly, unwillingly almost, for I re- 
 member how one of that name has fetched a rug for me 
 this very day, and shown me the first manly kindness 
 and attention of which I have ever been the recipient. 
 
 Claire goes on without noticing my tone. 
 
 " And now we have another Bligh brought down upon 
 us, as if one of the family were not enough. We won't 
 get intimate with him, Tim, however long he stays, and 
 Aunt Helen is planning festivities in his honour weeks 
 ahead — we'll leave him to the twins, won't we ? " 
 
 ** Yes ; we'll leave him to the twins," I echo heartily. 
 
About us AIL II 
 
 '^But we won't let papa get infatuated with him too, 
 Claire : one Bligh in the establishment is quite enough. 
 Papa's mind shall be kept pure and undefiled on the 
 subject of this interloper." 
 
 We have sauntered out of papa's study by this time, 
 and are crossing the lawn, away from the group who still 
 occupy the seats under the copper beech, and in the 
 direction of a slipv of wilderness which borders the garden 
 and runs down to the glorious pasture lands from the 
 rental of which a goodly portion of my father's income 
 comes. A turnstile admits us into the wild Httle wood, 
 which is thickly carpeted with wild flowers and straw- 
 berries. Regardless of Aunt Helen's unpleasant prophe- 
 cies as to unsightly eruptions being the result of sitting on 
 the crisp, dry grass in the dry, fresh air, Claire and I 
 both cast ourselves down on the ground, and pick and 
 eat the dainty little fruit at our idle leisure. I am soothed 
 by her presence, by the murmuring breeze, by the hum 
 of insects, into forgetfulness of the mortification and 
 burden and heat of the morning ; and presently, with my 
 head resting on Claire's lap, I fall fast asleep. 
 
 Mine is no dreamless sleep. In a vision I see Claire 
 and myself traveUing along a bright, happy road, enjoying 
 everything together, helping each other to gather fruits 
 and flowers, when suddenly the road narrows, darkens, 
 and at the end of it we see a figure standing with out- 
 stretched arms. Am I to go into them, or is she ? Do 
 we either of us wish to go into them ? All is confusion : 
 after the beautiful manner of dreams, I cannot grasp a 
 single fact or feeling. It gets darker ; we grope about ; 
 and in the dim light, though I cannot see, I feel that 
 Ciaire and I are separated, and I wake with a cry of 
 sorrow and of pain. 
 
 My head is on my sister's lap still ; her pretty white 
 fingers are turning about the long locks of my hair, which 
 have fallen loose over my shoulders; her sweet, light, 
 flexible voice is ringing in my ears. 
 
 "Tim could make any one she liked worship her, but 
 she hates Aunt Helen/' I hear her say, and I raise my 
 
12 Blotted Out. 
 
 head and find that she is saying it to Mr. Theo 
 Bligh. 
 
 I am so relieved that it is all a dream about Claire and 
 I being separated, that I sit up, fling myself into the 
 conversation with fervour, and make the best of myself 
 according to my lights. Now that I am freed from the 
 observation of Aunt Helen and the twins, I am no longer 
 crushed by the consciousness of the shortcomings of my 
 unattractive person. Sleep has refreshed me, the sense 
 of scorch has passed off my face, and it is pleasant to 
 hold intercourse with one who brings fresh ideas and 
 experiences into our circle sometimes. Before I know 
 well what I am doing, I have taken this stranger into my 
 confidence sufficiently to discuss the plot of papa's forth- 
 coming novel with him. Before I remember that Claire 
 and T have agreed to leave him entirely to the twins, I 
 find myself thinking that I hope he won't let Aunt Helen 
 set him against me. Before we go in to dinner on this 
 first day of his arrival, I have almost forgotten that he is 
 one of the obnoxious Blighs. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUR compact! 
 
 T is rery pleasant having Theo here, although 
 he is Aunt Helen's nephew. But he knows so 
 little about the Blighs that he hardly appears 
 like one of them. He is the only son of Aunt 
 Helen's youngest brother — the " scamp of the family " 
 she says he was, but she must have been fond of him, for 
 I really believe her torpid blood warms with love at the 
 sight of this Theo. As for Theo himself, he never saw 
 either his father or mother. Aunt Helen took care of 
 him until she married papa's cousin Arthur, for his parents 
 both died when he was a baby. 
 
 He has been here a week now, and both Claire and I 
 pity him greatly. Other people might think he was not 
 at all a fit and proper object for pity, but Claire and I 
 know better than other people : we know that nothing 
 will ever do away in our eyes with the painful fact of his 
 being Aunt Helen's nephew. We can't forgive that, and 
 it is sad for him. 
 
 Fourteen years ago, when Aunt Helen first came to 
 live with us, I was a little puny thing of four. But, puny 
 as I was, I was papa's pet in those days, and she never 
 liked me. She was a very, very handsome young woman 
 then, and, baby as I was, I knew that she had two 
 manners. One manner was for our friends and acquaint- 
 ances, when she used to purr to them about the sacrifices 
 
14 Blotted duL 
 
 she made in order to carry out our dead ni other's injunc- 
 tion, that she, Helen Vincent, and she only, should look 
 after us poor little motherless ones. The other manner 
 was shown to papa, and bore no manner of reference to 
 our dead mother j and this manner Claire and I had 
 detected (though we could not define it) from our earliest 
 youth, and so we have never loved Aunt Helen. 
 
 Once when I was a restless child of ten, I prowled at 
 an untimely hour, when I ought to have been in bed, into 
 papa's study. He was sitting at his writing table, his 
 arms were folded on the table and his head bent down on 
 them, and by his side Aunt Helen knelt, crying bitterly. 
 I don't know what possessed me, but I rushed across the 
 room, and flung my arms round papa's neck and howled 
 out — " She shan't, she shan't ! " and he rose up quiet in a 
 moment, and smiled at me and said — 
 
 " Little Tim, tell me exactly how long you have been 
 listening, and what you have heard ? " and I told him, 
 truthfully enough, that I had heard nothing but Her 
 sobs. 
 
 Then she got up from her knees and said all she had 
 proposed was for our good, and he held his hand out to 
 her and asked her to pardon him, and I asked if she had 
 wanted him to send me to school ; and she said, '' Yes, 
 yes ; that was all." And so the scene ended, but she has 
 hated me ever since. 
 
 I have been thinking about this half-forgotten sensa- 
 tional mystery of my early life a good deal this morn- 
 ing, for Theo Bligh's presence here seems to throw a 
 new light upon Aunt Helen. How well she loves him 
 evidently, and how strange it is that, loving him as she 
 does, she should have spoken so little about him to us, 
 and never have told us he was coming. She has not 
 even taken the twins into her confidence. Is it possible 
 that his advent was as great a surprise to her as it was to 
 us? 
 
 I am sitting in papa's study copying for him this 
 morning, but my thoughts go wandering here and there — 
 back to that scene which I interrupted here so long ago, 
 
Our Compact I ij 
 
 on to picnics and other parties which are coming in the 
 immediate future. Even as I am thinking of him rather 
 tolerantly as the cause of these pleasant effects, he comes 
 into the room. 
 
 " Oh, you mustn't come here ! " I exclaim hurriedly, 
 for papa's study is not open to invasion; and he irritates 
 me by answering — 
 
 "Aunt Helen gave me leave.'' 
 
 I forget his relationship to her, I forget common polite- 
 ness, I forget that excellent axiom as to the inad- 
 visability of crying family jars aloud, and I blurt out — 
 
 " She has no more business here than you have — she 
 can't give you leave." 
 
 " You Httle tempest," he says coolly, coming up and 
 lounging close to me on the end of the table, '* don't 
 flame and rage in that way about nothing. I only want 
 you to tell me just as you would tell Claire why it is you 
 hate Aunt Helen ? " 
 
 **Just as I would tell Claire!" I repeat after him in 
 stupid wonderment. 
 
 " Yes," he replies frankly ; " treat me as a friend, Tim. 
 There's some screw loose in all the arrangements here, 
 
 and " 
 
 ** I don't think you were sent to tighten it," I interrupt 
 insolently ; but he won't be offended, and he won't be 
 thrown out of his course. 
 
 "Aunt Helen has given up all her own people for you 
 four girls," he says decidedly, " and the two nicest of you 
 can hardly stand her, that is evident. Why is it so ? " 
 
 " Because we are the two nicest of us, I suppose," I 
 say, and his face falls a little, and I wish, oh, how I wish 
 that I had not spoken disparaging words to him of the 
 woman who is nearer to him than she is to us. 
 
 ** My father was her favourite brother," he says 
 presently ; " she was very true and good to him, and she 
 has never wavered in her kindness to me. Do you know," 
 he adds confidentially, " that she is the only one of my 
 father's family who has ever done anything for me ? She 
 paid for my nurse, she paid for my education, and up to 
 
1 6 Blotted Out. 
 
 the present day she makes me an allowance. Let me like 
 her, Tim.'' ^ 
 
 He says it almost beseechingly, as if he rather wishes 
 me to beUeve that I have some influence over him. In 
 my indignation at his thinking that I am capable of 
 believing any folly of the sort, I answer roughly (and I 
 would so much rather answer softly) — 
 
 " As if it mattered a bit to us — to Claire and me — 
 whether you like her or not ! Why, you belong to her ; 
 we look upon you as part of her : you wouldn't be here 
 but for her ! Like her as much as you like — it doesn't 
 matter to us." 
 
 All the time I am speaking, I am putting papa's loose 
 MS. sheets in order and away, with nervous, shaking 
 hands. They slip and slide out of place, after the 
 manner of loose sheets, and some of them flutter to 
 the floor at his feet. 
 
 "You poor little flustered, bungling woman ! " he says, 
 laughing in a superior way \ *' here, give them to me." 
 And he picks them out of my hand and up from the floor 
 before I can protest against his unwarrantable interference. 
 
 I look at him more in sorrow than in anger, as he 
 places the pages aright, and puts them on the table, 
 under the protection of a weight. He is tall, handsome, 
 undeniably fine. His face is cut like a cameo, and is 
 brilliant in expression. There is a musical ring in his 
 voice that seems to me to be the very sound a lover's 
 voice would have in Paradise ! What a melancholy 
 reflection it is, that he, though possessed of all these 
 natural advantages, should be cut out for ever from the 
 regard of Claire and myself, through his being Aunt 
 Helen's nephew. 
 
 He has been whistling an old English melody while 
 engaged upon the task he has wrested from me, and, 
 now that he has finished his task, he breaks into the 
 words of the ballad. 
 
 " There was a youth, 
 And a well-beloved youth." 
 
 he sings out, and then he pulls up to ask, — 
 
Otir Compact f 17 
 
 *' Look here ! do you play by ear ? If you do, you 
 may come and accompany me, and I'll teach you the 
 words of one of the most fetching English ballads that 
 was ever written. Do you know * The Bailiff's Daughter 
 of IsHngton ' ? " 
 
 '^ I can't play by ear, and I don't want to hear the 
 song," I say rather savagely, and then he sings it right 
 through, just as though I had not spoken. 
 
 *' There, you see," he says, when he has howled his 
 last bar, '*the moral is, don't be coy and mock-modest 
 in the wrong place ; * she was coy and would not wed ' 
 when he wanted her to do it, so he charged off to town, 
 and left her to spend seven years of rather a dull time 
 down at Islington." 
 
 *'And at the end of it she went after him like a fool," 
 I blurt out. 
 
 " Like a woman," he cries cheerily. " Now, look 
 here, in the very short course of this ower true history, 
 she's presented to us as a perfect type of her sex. She 
 won't have him when she might, she runs after him when 
 he has got himself clear of her, and she tells him a lie 
 directly she meets him — trades on his old tenderness, 
 and tells him she's dead, when she's all alive and kicking 
 the whole time in * mean attire ' by the road side. Oh, 
 it's a jolly little drama of life." And he sings it over 
 again in his satisfaction with its moral and his clear 
 appreciation of it. 
 
 '^ If you worked hard, and had good lessons, and 
 didn't go spoiling your voice by screeching, you might 
 sing by-and-by," I say magnanimously. 
 
 *' Do you really think so ? It's very good of you to 
 give your mind to a subject you know nothing at all 
 about," he answers blithely, and then he offers me his 
 arm and leads me out on the lawn, and again informs mt 
 in an uncultivated tenor that — 
 
 ** There was a youth, 
 And a well-beloved youth, 
 And he was a squire's son. '*' 
 
 " Papa won't be at all pleased at your having int e?^ 
 21 
 
i8 Blotted Out. 
 
 rupted me and spoilt my morning's work/' I say 
 seriously; and he only looks down at me with his 
 laughing, green hazel eyes, and says, — 
 
 '' Pooh ! nonsense ! Work ? " 
 
 *' It may seem nonsense to you, Mr. Bligh," I begin 
 arguing in a happy tone, "but it's important to papa 
 whether it's copied or not, and it's genuine work to me." 
 
 " All right," he answers carelessly. " I'll make up for 
 my misdemeanour in the afternoon " 
 
 " If you mean that you'll take my work on your own 
 shoulders, you're very much mistaken," I strike in 
 hurriedly ; " I would rather not have your help." 
 
 " I hadn't the least intention of offering it," he replies 
 coolly. " I meant that I would put the whole team on — 
 give your three sisters their share of it. Why should 
 their time be passed in books and work and healthful 
 play, while you're corroding your nails away with ink ? " 
 
 "Never mind my nails," I say pettishly, for I am 
 conscience-stricken. My fingers are inky, and do what 
 I will, I can't double up the first joints and conceal the 
 shady fact. 
 
 *' Oh, I don't mind them much. Do you remember 
 that old song — 
 
 ** There was ink on her thumb when I kissed her hand, 
 And she whispered, ' When you die 
 I'll write you an epitaph gloomy and grand.* 
 * There's time enough for that,' said I."? 
 
 *' I hate your old songs ! " I cry out. *^ And as for 
 your * putting the whole team on,' Claire wouldn't write 
 a line if you were the one to ask her to do it ; and the 
 twins ! " 
 
 I make a pause expressive of the most utter contempt 
 of and disbelief in the twins' ability to do anything 
 useful. 
 
 "You mean that the spirit of the twins would be 
 willing, but the flesh would be weak?" he questions. 
 "Well, it would be a pity for them to ink those nice 
 white hands of theirs ; I'll not put them into the team ; 
 
Our Compact ! 19 
 
 but Claire — why do you think Claire wouWn^t do it if I 
 asked her ? " 
 
 He asks it with a little air of earnestness, that becomes 
 him wonderfully. " In sooth he is a goodly youth," the 
 words of the song he has been singing, describe him 
 well. Why can't Claire and I like him a little ? 
 
 Even while I am thinking this, I say stiffly, '• My 
 sister" (I will not call her " Claire " to him) *•' has a 
 perfect horror of impertinent interference from strangers." 
 
 " I'll forgive the apparent rudeness of your speech 
 before you ask me to do it," he laughs out joyously. 
 " By Jove ! you're the funniest Httle thing I ever saw in 
 my life." 
 
 I am on the brink of a burst of tears, as I remember 
 how very unattractive my aspect has been from the first 
 in the eyes of this young natural enemy of mine, who is 
 as brilliant and beautiful as a fresh sculptured ideal of 
 the young Antinous ; but I make one strenuous effort to 
 be dignified. 
 
 " Your circle may be a very wide one, Mr. Bligh, but 
 its training is bad, for it has taught you to make un- 
 answerable speeches. When the point of having the 
 last word is won by rudeness, surely a man can't be 
 proud of having gained it from a woman." 
 
 " You're seriously savage ? " he asks earnestly. 
 
 *' No, not savage in the least degree," I say with 
 dreadfully overdone indifference, and he actually pauses 
 to take aim with his straw hat at one of the twins' pet 
 doves before he answers me. 
 
 Then he says, "Yes, you are savage, and I don't 
 want you to be savage with me, or to get upon stilts with 
 me : I want to get your friendship, Tim, your's and 
 Claire's, and I want to know what has set you against 
 me so at starting." 
 
 He has cast off his irritatingly teasing, vivacious 
 manner, and is speaking quite soberly to me. For the 
 moment I forget Aunt Helen and every cause of annoy- 
 ance that I have fancied I have had with him, and say — 
 
 " I'm not set against you ; I wish I was." 
 2 — 2 
 
id ' Blotted Old. 
 
 He laughs merrily at my vehemence. 
 
 "All right, Tim," he says. "You have tried to hate 
 nie and can't ; now, I want to know why you tried. Tell 
 me?" 
 
 I shake my head in negative. 
 
 " I'll give three guesses, then, and I shall see in that 
 rum little face of yours when I guess right. You have 
 lived in this peaceful seclusion so long that you have got 
 to think that, like the Lady of Shalot, a curse will come 
 upon you if you look up at any one passing by ? " 
 
 " I haven't been such an idiot." 
 
 " Then you're afraid that I am going to have the 
 presumption to fall in love with your sister, Claire, and 
 the massacre of the twins would be a lesser sin than 
 that?" 
 
 It is the wildest folly that he is talking, and I know it; 
 but, nevertheless, my heart almost dies within me as he 
 speaks of the possibility of loving Claire, of the possibility 
 of his being even suspected of daring to love Claire — 
 Claire, our queen, our beauty ! 
 
 " No, no," I say with reassuring earnestness, " I 
 never did think you such a fool as that.'*' 
 
 " How indebted I am to you for your high opinion ! " 
 he says, and out of his wonderful green hazel eyes there 
 gleams a sudden perception of something of which I 
 have not even the remotest knowledge, which angers 
 and perplexes me. 
 
 *' I have one guess more," he says presently : " you 
 dislike me with a childish dislike, because I am Aunt 
 Helen's nephew." 
 
 " Yes, that's it, that's it," I cry eagerly, and I know all 
 the time that it isn't it, and that I don't dislike him at 
 all. 
 
 For a moment or two after my confession of dislike 
 and the cause of the same, I dare not venture to look at 
 him. When I do steal a glance he is perfectly impassive, 
 instead of being steeped in the miserable mortification I 
 had dreaded to witness. 
 
 *' Do you believe m a real, thorough friendship between 
 
Our Compact ! 21 
 
 a man and a girl ? " he staggers me by asking. "I do. 
 I feel it for you. There's not a particle of sentiment 
 about it, so you needn't be afraid; but I do like you 
 heartily, Tim : you're about the most sensible girl I ever 
 imagined, much less met with. I am going to tell you 
 comething, to treat you as I would a — a " 
 
 *' Friend," I suggest quietly. 
 
 "Yes — a friend. Weil, Aunt Helen meant me to 
 marry one of the twins when she got me here." 
 
 I feel the blood ebbing away from my heart, and my 
 voice sounds like a far-off buzz, as I ask, — 
 
 ^^ And do you mean to do it ? " 
 
 " You'd give your consent to that — the twins are so 
 much less precious than Claire ? Even I, despicable as 
 I am, am good enough for one of the twins ? " 
 
 Is he in earnest, or is he mocking me? I do not 
 know, I cannot discern, for he has his normal manner of 
 bewildering vivacity on again. Happily, before I am 
 compelled to answer him, we meet Claire, radiant, beau- 
 tiful, with no vexed question on her mind. 
 
 " I couldn't think what you two people had to say to 
 each other, you have been patrolling the lawn such a 
 long time," she says instantly, with candid interest (Claire 
 from her babyhood has been in the habit of stating most 
 openly whatever she wishes, or wants, or thinks). '' As 
 for you, Tim," she goes on, passing to my side and 
 tucking my arm through hers, '*you look like a bit of 
 fog let in to a sunny landscape. What is it ? " 
 
 I do not answer her, I am too uncertain myself of what 
 it is ; but in the midst of my pain of doubt I take notice 
 of the pleasure that lights up his truth-telling eyes as he 
 watches her. 
 
 " Talk to me," Claire says presently, subsiding into a 
 saunter, with her arms folded behind her back, her face 
 uplifted, and her hat cocked forward over her black- 
 lashed violet eyes and little, straight, stick-out nose. 
 " Talk to me ; tell me what you have been talking about : 
 you're both clever, and I like to be amused.^' 
 
 In my admiration for her, in my love and pride for this 
 
22 Blotted Out. 
 
 beautiful sister, I am ready to kneel in my unattractive 
 ugliness at her feet, and tell her that I have no words to 
 utter worthy of her hearing. Fortunately I do not make 
 such an exhibition of myself. I only say discontentedly — 
 
 '* Our * talk ! ' — you do well to call it that ; it doesn't 
 deserve the name of conversation — isn't worth re- 
 peating." 
 
 " We have made a compact though," Theo says, with 
 an air of triumph. And Claire pulls up in her progress 
 to ask, with a heightened colour— 
 
 "Yes?— what is it?" 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF A CHANGE. 
 
 fE is, without any exception, the coolest young 
 man it has ever been my unlucky fate to meet 
 with. Mr. Theo Bligh, whom Claire and I 
 regard almost as one of a hostile clan, who 
 came uninvited, and remains on though he is unwanted ; 
 who is an interloper, and who must feel, if he has any 
 feeling at all, that we consider him such, now quietly 
 offers Claire an explanation about *' our compact," as he 
 persists in calling it. 
 
 " Miss Tim (what is your proper name, by the way ?) 
 and I have agreed to strike up a friendship on the sound 
 and reasonable basis of perfect confidence and honest 
 liking, with every particle of sentiment eliminated from 
 it. It will do her good, for I shall be the soul of candour 
 in my dealings with her, and tell her that she talks non- 
 sense whenever she does talk nonsense ; and in various 
 ways I shall knock to pieces those rickety little edifices 
 of prejudice that you and she are so fond of building up." 
 He says all this in his light, half-mocking, half-serious 
 way. Appeal and a slightly patronising air are so 
 strangely blended in his manner, that I am dubious as to 
 whether I shall resent the freedom or fall into the fun of 
 it. Before I have decided what line to take, Claire 
 answers him, and staggers me. 
 
24 Blotted Out. 
 
 *' A very good thing for Tim, indeed, Mr. Bligh. We 
 both want our rough edges worn off a little, it must be 
 admitted." (Claire's manner is soft and harmonious as a 
 piece of delicately tinted grey velvet.) " Won't you take 
 the trouble to demolish some of my foolish prejudices 
 too?" 
 
 " I should be adopting them, I suspect," he says in 
 a low voice ; and Claire seems not to hear him, for she 
 has turned her head in the opposite direction, apparently 
 much struck with some novel effect in the familiar 
 landscape. When she does speak, it is to say — 
 
 " Tim's real name is Emma, but she has been Tim 
 from the cradle." 
 
 "Have the twins any name?" he asks laughingly; 
 '•every one addresses them as *you'." 
 
 "Yes— the twins are Mabel and Magdalen; they 
 always speak together and think alike, I suppose you 
 have observed. Tim and I wonder sometimes what will 
 happen, for they are sure to fall in love with the same 
 man." 
 
 "Awful catastrophe! Will he have to marry them 
 both ? I shouldn't mind it if they were Hke " 
 
 He breaks off abruptly, takes his hat off and runs his 
 fingers through the little silky rings of dark brown hair that 
 are lying on his forehead, and I see that the blood has 
 rushed up to his face, and I hope that at length he is 
 conscious of being a little too free and easy in his manner 
 and remarks. With all his wild vivacity, with all his 
 almost boyish boisterousness at times, sensitiveness 
 enters largely into his organisation. You may read his 
 feelings as clearly in his large greenish hazel eyes, as if 
 they were lighted by the soul of a woman. Yes, un- 
 doubtedly, though he is a Bligh, he is the possessor of 
 qualities and qualifications that are dazzling, and very 
 likely to destroy one's judgment and sap one's reason. 
 If he were only as handsome as a star it would not signify 
 at all. But he is brilliant, and has all the highest in- 
 tellectual faculties. The shape of his beautiful, proud- 
 looking head, and the way in which it is poised on a 
 
I 
 
 The Shadozv of a Change. 25 
 
 throat that is as slender and as delicately refined away at 
 the back as a woman's, proves this. Taking all these 
 facts into due consideration, and observing the signs of 
 contrition (as I imagine) in his flushed face, I say reas- 
 suringly — 
 
 " I am sure I hope you'll have a better wife than either 
 or both of the twins would be ; .don't you, Claire ? " 
 
 " Perhaps he may have a wife already, who knows ? we 
 know nothing about him," Claire says, answering me, but 
 looking with that wonderful long smiUng look of hers at 
 him. And he answers her with just such a look as her 
 own, and says — 
 
 " No, there isn't that difficulty in my path to contend 
 with, at any rate. Look here ; sit on this bench, won't 
 vou?"^ 
 
 We sit down, and I am half conscious that the arrange- 
 ment is made for the purpose of detaching himself from 
 my side, and going nearer to Claire. As soon as we are 
 seated he flings himself on the grass in front of her, and 
 resumes — 
 
 '* You're right in saying you know very little about me. 
 If any one asked you, * Who and what is that fellow ? ' 
 what would you say ? '* 
 
 "Ask Tim," Claire says; " she's cleverer at description 
 than I am." 
 
 " No, no ; what would you say of me ? " 
 
 Claire's eyes flash out one look at him — is it of anger 
 at his pertinacity ? While I am debating this question 
 she solves it for me. 
 
 *' I should say you were a friend of mine. Should I be 
 right, Mr. Bligh?" 
 
 He leaps up, and goes to windward of the trunk of a 
 tree, wheie he emiploys the ensuing minute in lighting a 
 cigar. He is certainly a queer mixture of carelessness 
 and impetuosity. If he cared so much to hear what 
 Claire would say were she questioned concerning him, he 
 might take the trouble to make some comment when she 
 condescends to tell him the sweet thing she would say of 
 him. 
 
26 Blotted Out, 
 
 Bat Claire does not seem annoyed at his inattention. 
 She has her face turned towards him, but her lashes are 
 drooping over her eyes, as if she would let him read her 
 countenance if it so pleases him, but is careless as to the 
 expression of his. I would rather that she showed slight 
 anger against him, poor fellow ! than treat him with such 
 profound indifference. Careless as he seems, such a 
 course of conduct from Claire must hurt him. 
 
 He begins presently sauntering up and down in front 
 of us, puffing rings of smoke out in jerks, and occasionally 
 calling upon us to admire the skill with which he does it. 
 I am divided between admiration for his versatility, and 
 chagrin at his boyishness. If he were not so gracefully 
 idle I should take my stand upon the friendship which he 
 chooses to imagine exists between us, and reprove him 
 for the v/ay he is wasting his own time, and causing me 
 to waste mine. 
 
 As he appears to be more intent upon the formation of 
 his perfect rings of smoke than upon any effort to make 
 himself agreeable to us, I try to talk to Claire as if we 
 were alone, a thing no human being has ever succeeded 
 in doing yet before a third person. 
 
 " I wish we were not going to this affair this afternoon," 
 I say in a grumbling tone of voice. " Can't we get out 
 of it?" 
 
 *' We are told off to go, Tim, and, my dear, you'll 
 like it much better than being at home when you get 
 there," Claire says beamingly ; " you know you always 
 get on well where Sydney Dale is." 
 
 It is the first time that Claire has ever mentioned our 
 old friend, playfellow, almost brother, Syd Dale, in con- 
 nection with me, or any enjoyment I may possibly extract 
 from any party at which he happens to be present. I am 
 perplexed, and in my perplexity I grow embarrassed. 
 Fancy me, Tim Vincent, being embarrassed about Sydney 
 Dale ! I am vexed with myself, and almost for the first 
 time in my life I am annoyed with Claire. By way of 
 increasing my pleasurable sensations, Mr. Theo Bligh 
 bursts into a fit of laughter, and says something about 
 
The Shadow of a Change, 2; 
 
 my'* having kept my horse dark," and Claire glances 
 smilingly up at him, and seems to think there is wit in 
 his slangy chaff. 
 
 For once I see Aunt Helen sailing along towards us 
 without wishing her at some far distant corner of the earth 
 from whence she may never return. Yet she approaches 
 evidently in no very balmy mood. Displeasure is ex- 
 pressed in her heavy determined tread, and in her heavy 
 determined chin. I shudder under the conviction that 
 she is going to low reproof at me, and so she does. 
 
 " Tim," she begins, *' if you had told your father, or 
 told me, that you didn't intend to do that work for him 
 this morning, I should have asked one of your sisters to 
 do it, and spared him much inconvenience." 
 
 How is it that this woman can cover me at any given 
 moment with the mantle of mortification that is the 
 portion of a scolded child ? In her presence I invariably 
 forget my nineteen years, I lose my powers of judgment, 
 I let go my self-possession. I stand now before her, cast 
 down and abashed, as I used to stand in the old days, 
 when phials of wrath were poured out over my head on 
 account of torn pinafores and dirty hands. 
 
 Claire comes to my rescue instantly — 
 
 *' This one of her sisters wouldn't have touched the 
 copying. Aunt Helen ; and papa wouldn't have thanked 
 you if you had let the twins do it ; he doesn't like his copy 
 going to the printer's in their inane handwriting." 
 
 " It's very ungrateful of you all," Aunt Helen goes on 
 ponderously. *' You are not above benefiting by the 
 results of your father's talents, but you're too idle to try 
 and help him at all." 
 
 The words are addressed to me. Aunt Helen never 
 openly attacks Claire, for Claire is very fearless in the 
 matter of retort. However, now, I being still dumb, 
 Claire chooses to treat the last remark as if it were ad- 
 dressed to her. 
 
 " I don't know about our benefiting so greatly by the 
 prices papa gets for his novels," she says with a careless 
 laugh; "by the time he had got your sables, and your 
 
28 Blotted Out, 
 
 brougham, and your Roman cameos, there was very little 
 left for us out of the results of the talent he had expended 
 on his last three books." 
 
 Aunt Helen's head wags in wrath, which she probably 
 deems it wise not to word, and we all go in to luncheon 
 presently, with the humbled discontented feeling upon us 
 that we have been in ignominious action, and that none 
 of us have gained a victory, however insignificant. A 
 cloud appears to have fallen upon the ordinarily irre- 
 pressible Mr. Theo Bligh. He has lost his appetite, his 
 powers of speech, and his light, laughing, vivacious 
 expression. His eyes have darkened, and a line or two 
 has come across his forehead, which look as if they were 
 drawn by that artist whose lightest touch is so un- 
 mistakable — temper ! 
 
 I happen to go back into the dining-room after we have 
 all dispersed after luncheon, in search of a book, and as 
 I pass through the door I hear Theo Bligh say — 
 
 '^ I made her cut that copying this morning, so I shall 
 stay at home and do it myself. How you try to bully 
 that girl. Aunt Helen ! " 
 
 He is standing just outside the open window, leaning 
 against the side of the sash ; she is inside with her back 
 to the door. Happily I escape without my presence and 
 the fact of my having overheard his speech being suspected 
 by either of them. I forget my book, and rush up to our 
 room, where Claire is dressing for the garden-party. 
 
 ''He's the best-natured, dearest fellow in the world," I 
 say impulsively; and then I tell Claire what he has said, 
 and add, "He shall not think that I want to shirk it ; I shall 
 stay at home and work with him." 
 
 Claire is arranging the festoons of a delicate rose- 
 coloured polonaise over the flouncings and puffings of a 
 silver-grey skirt. Her hat is a combination in felt and 
 silk and satin of the same colours. The counterparts of 
 the costume and the hat are lying on the bed, ready for 
 me to induct myself into them, and I feel almost heroic 
 as I resolve to renounce them all, and stay at home 
 scribbling for dear Duty's sake. 
 
The Shadow of a Change. 20 
 
 There is a little pause, during which my heart beats 
 quickly at the recollection of his good-nature, of the 
 ringing clear manliness of the tones in which he has ex- 
 pressed it — and at the prospect of that sympathetic 
 companionship which I shall have with him this afternoon. 
 Then Claire turns round, and I forget him, myself, 
 everything ; for Claire is paler than I ever saw her before, 
 and it seems to me that it is the pallor of pain. She 
 stands here an exquisite model of herself, but with all the 
 bewitching piquancy of her beauty tamed and dulled. 
 
 "What is it.^" I cry out, as she stands quite still, 
 looking at me. And she gasps out a little short sigh, 
 and sends one of her best smiles sparkling out from her 
 eyes and mouth, and answers — 
 
 " Nothing; only how do I look? It seems to me that 
 I want something stronger than pinks and greys.'* 
 
 " It seems to me that you're not well enough to go, 
 Claire," I say anxiously. "Stay at home with us." 
 
 What have I said, that she winces so? Can it be 
 possible that she has some special interest in going to this 
 garden-party at the Brothertons' of which I am ignorant ? 
 
 " No, thank you, Tim," she says, turning sharply round 
 to face the glass again, and elaborating the arrangement 
 of her veil ; " nothing — no power on earth would induce 
 me to stay at home this afternoon, so don't go through 
 the form of proposing it." 
 
 She catches up her gloves and parasol, she gives me a 
 hasty kiss, and runs out of the room. And when I follow 
 her, feeling bewildered, I find her standing with papa 
 and Aunt Helen in the hall, just going to get into the 
 brougham. 
 
 As I appear on the scene in my morning dress. Aunt 
 Helen surges towards me in amazement. " Why are you 
 not dressed ? " she begins ; "how long do you mean to 
 keep us waiting ? Mr. Vincent, look at this ! " 
 
 I stutter out an explanation of the cause of my determi- 
 nation to stay at home, and papa receives it with 
 resignation. But Aunt Helen protests against it volubly, 
 and for once Claire does not say a word for me. She is 
 
30 Blotted Out. 
 
 already seated in the brougham looking out through the 
 window that is farthest from the hall-door, perfectly unin- 
 terested in the discussion, apparently perfectly indifferent 
 as to whether I go or stay at home. In the bitterness of 
 my spirit at this novel neglect from her, I grow more 
 obstinate ! My beautiful sister evidently thinks that home 
 is the proper place for unattractive Tim. All the 
 humiliating " ugly princess " sensations beset me, and I 
 turn away and run to the study and bury my head in a 
 sofa-cushion, where I remain crying for the next quarter 
 of an hour, in utter forgetfulness of the work I have stayed 
 at home to do, of the one who is going to help me, of the 
 pretty pink and grey costume, and the pleasure I might 
 have experienced in wearing it if none of these things had 
 happened — of everything, in short, save Claire, and the 
 change in her. 
 
 I recall everything to my recollection with a jerk as a 
 firm light step strikes upon my ear, and I raise a mottled, 
 steaming, tear-furrowed face from the pillow just as Theo 
 Bligh comes in through the window. He is singing and 
 whistling, and smoking all at the same time, but he 
 ceases from song and his cigar abruptly as he catches 
 sight of me. 
 
 "What on earth are you doing here ?" he asks, and 
 there is not a particle of pleasure at the sight of me in his 
 tone. 
 
 " I heard what you said to Aunt Helen," I gurgle out, 
 " quite by accident, and I couldn't let you think me lazy, 
 so I wouldn't go to the Brothertons', I stayed to work 
 with you." 
 
 "What a beastly bore! ''he says, with most uncom- 
 plimentary emphasis, shying his hat at a bust of Sir 
 Walter Scott. "You have gone and upset everything, 
 Tim. I wanted you to go and enjoy yourself with your 
 Sydney Dale, and to do away with the possibility of Aunt 
 Helen finding fault with you ; and your staying at home 
 will spoil it all." 
 
 He speaks in a seriously vexed and disappointed 
 tone. 
 
The Shadow of a Change. %t 
 
 "Aunt Helen can bear the idea of my losing any 
 pleasure very calmly," I say bitterly. I did not expect 
 raptures from him, but I did expect something like a 
 cordial recognition from him of my evident desire to 
 show gratitude to him and to make him think well of me. 
 
 " Well"! you are a goose," he says, with a sigh. 
 " Here, you've done it now, so we may as well make the 
 best of it. Poor Tim ! you're always in for it in some 
 way or other ; they will both be awfully annoyed with you 
 for staying at home." 
 
 ** Aunt Helen is always annoyed with me, whatever I 
 do," I say with vigour ; ** and as for Sydney Dale ! I don't 
 know what Claire could have meant ; I " 
 
 *'I wasn't thinking of Sydney Dale," he interrupts 
 quietly. *' Never mind ; I'm glad you have stayed at 
 home, any way, though it was my l30unden duty to re- 
 prove you for it at first. Now, look here : let us clear off 
 this business as soon as we can, and then go out for a 
 prowl." 
 
 I joyfully fall into his present mood, and pleasant 
 proposition. For an hour we scratch away incessantly 
 without speaking. Then, as I finish my portion of the 
 task, I say — 
 
 *'I have done." 
 
 "And I shall have done in five minutes. Go and get 
 your hat," he says in a most fraternal tone of despotism, 
 and I go away as promptly as if it were his place to 
 command, my duty to obey. 
 
 It must be purity of conscience, and a sense of duty 
 done, which makes my spirit seem so light now. Not 
 even the sight of the pink and grey costume causes me a 
 pang of regret for possible pleasure missed — not even 
 the recollection of the mystery that came into Claire's 
 manner just before her departure has power to cast a 
 gloom over me. For once in my grown-up life I am 
 supremely, excitedly happy! For once I see, with a 
 delighted joy for the expression of which words are 
 weak, I am looking well ! 
 
 All sign of the storm which has raged within me has 
 
32 Blotted Out, 
 
 passed away. My eyes are no longer heavy, red-lidded, 
 dull, and hopeless. My complexion, now that the tear- 
 stains are effaced, is white in the summer heat, warm 
 with rosy reflections. And the coils of hair that I am 
 winding round my head in thick soft rolls, it is unjust of 
 any one to call it red, when everybody calls the same 
 shade *' beautiful " when they see it on the heads of the 
 women in the paintings of the old Venetian masters. 
 
 Though my heart is beating, though my hands are 
 trembling with impatience to be down and setting out on 
 this prowl which he has proposed, the instinct of making 
 myself look as well as I can is thoroughly roused within 
 me, and I steadily pursue it. The passion for being 
 pretty, wh'ch lives in every woman's heart, has been 
 dormant hitherto in me. But it is awakened now, and I 
 cherish it into strength, greet it gladly as a friend who 
 has been unfairly swept away from me. I" open our 
 common wardrobe and take a hasty survey of the dresses 
 that are hanging therein. Aunt Helen has always 
 insisted on keeping me in pallid hues, " to tone down 
 the vulgar warmth of my hair," she says. I have been 
 condemned to indisposed greens and blues. To-day I 
 will have none of them ! Fraught with a sudden resolve 
 to make the best of myself, and to find out if, after all, 
 that best is so unattractive, I snatch down a bronzed- 
 gold semi-transparent dress of Claire's that appears to be 
 made of idealised silk, and array myself in it. 
 
 It is one of those partially loose French bodices which 
 adapt themselves to any figure if properly made, and it 
 adapts itself to mine marvellously. My experiment has 
 succeeded ! As I finish myself off at the neck and 
 wrists with some ruffles of old point lace, and put a 
 black velvet hat with a metallic looking feather in it, 
 that turns to flame-colour in the sun, on my head, I 
 curtsey to myself in gratitude for all I have done for my- 
 self. 
 
 I am a different being as I go down-stairs. No fairy 
 godmother ever effected a greater change than has been 
 effected in me by this sudden fancy of mine. And I 
 
The SJiado7V of a Change, 33 
 
 know, though I have great pleasure in Claire's dress and 
 hat, that the change comes from within more than from 
 without. 
 
 At any rate, the change is such, that when I go in, 
 trying to look unconscious, and say, ** I am ready," he 
 looks at me with such a look as mortal man has never 
 bestowed upon me before — with such a look as Claire is 
 in the habit of receiving from the great majority — and 
 says — 
 
 *' It was a happy thought of yours to stay at home this 
 afternoon, Tim. I shouldn't have known what to do 
 without you." 
 
 The others being out, and the twins not counting as 
 anything in the family calculations, I have the delicious 
 feeling upon me of being as free as air, and I take the 
 responsibility of disposing of myself upon myself with a 
 vivacious ardour that amuses him. 
 
 ** We'll go to the otter-pool," I propose. '^ It's only 
 two miles from here, and if we take Heartless and Music 
 with us we may have some fun. We may do what we 
 like until it's time to come home to the eight o'clock 
 dinner." 
 
 ^' I'll take your father's pole," he says, and then we go 
 round to the kennel, and take the two old otter-hounds, 
 who have been in many an otter fray, and start on an 
 expedition that Aunt Helen would countermand with a 
 bellow, if she were only conscious of it. 
 
 >^ 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 'MUSIC' AND "HEARTLESS.' 
 
 JT is half-past four by the time we get fairly 
 under weigh, and start for the otter-pool. 
 The air is sultry. There is a hush in nature's 
 usual noises ; and a cloudy splendour in the 
 atmosphere, that is langour-inducing, but very deUghtful, 
 as we have nothing to do but enjoy it. We saunter very 
 slowly over the lawn, through the wilderness, down into 
 the meadows, through which the river twists and turns in 
 a thousand involutions. We are rather proud of our 
 river in these parts. It takes its rise in the bosom of 
 some hills that tower in the heart of a broad expanse of 
 mcorland, whose shadow we can just see in the far 
 horizon, from our lawn. And it has many of the wild 
 and free characteristics of its birth-place, at some portions 
 of its career. But here, in the meadow-lands under our 
 house, the Raven glides along gaily and brightly, under 
 over-arching trees, between flower-laden banks, like a 
 river in a pastoral poem. 
 
 The meadow-sweet in tempting profusion is perfuming 
 the air; the great golden king-cups are rearing their 
 heads tantalisingly near to the bank ; the water ripples, 
 ripples along, with a dreary murmur ; there is no breeze 
 abroad, but some aspens shiver according to their wont, 
 and make light whisperings to which I feel induced to 
 
^^Music " and ^^ Heartless:' 3 g 
 
 pause and listen. It is all familiar, and yet it is all 
 strange to me to-day. I must have been steeped in this 
 atmosphere, have seen these flowers bloom, have listened 
 to these sounds, hundreds of times in the course of the 
 nineteen summers of my life. Yet I realise them all for 
 the first time to-day ; and I realise them with an intensity 
 of enjoyment that has a dash of pain in it. 
 
 We stroll along the bank, and I get my arms filled 
 with meadow-sweet, and king-cups, and spoil one sleeve 
 of Claire's almost new dress with the wet stem and 
 foliage of a water-lily. Never mind ! I am having my 
 day — hardly that, but my hour. The future must take 
 care of itself. 
 
 When we reach the otter-pool, our keenness for the 
 sport has considerably diminished. The hounds sniff 
 about a cavernous looking hole in the bank for a few 
 minutes, and then lie down and pant, as if they were 
 almost relieved to find that the old dog-otter, who has 
 given them so many tough days' work, is absent. I sit 
 and make ridiculous wreaths, which I twine about my 
 hat, and round the necks of Music and Heartless; 
 and Mr. Theo Bligh performs feats of skill with the 
 pole, balancing it on the top of his head, on the palms 
 of his hands ; finally, he is so appallingly boyish, he 
 tries to do it on his nose, and papa's favourite pole 
 splashes into the river and glides away down-stream. 
 
 He shies stones and sticks at it to accelerate its 
 progress, and does not make the slightest effort to 
 recover it, until I tell him that the loss of papa's pet 
 pole would cause cark and care at Ravensbourne. 
 Then he splashes into the river as carelessly as he 
 suffered the pole to fall in, and presently comes out with 
 his salvage, wet up to his waist. 
 
 He pooh-poohs all my representations as to the 
 certainty of his catching cold. He disregards all my 
 entreaties that he will run back to the house for dry 
 clothing and hot brandy-and-water. He laughs at me 
 for being such a goose as to be wistfully, genuinely 
 anxious about him. He has "been wet through 
 3-2 
 
36 Blotted Out. 
 
 hundreds of times in his hfe," he tells me, as he sits 
 down by my side — " wet through for days and nights 
 together, and no one ever cared before whether he died 
 of damp or dry-rot." 
 
 A sudden irrepressible desire to know more about 
 him, to know something of his past, of his prospects, of 
 his age, of his hopes and wishes, seizes me, and I blurt 
 out awkwardly in my earnestness — 
 
 "Are not you and your family very fond of one 
 another ? or have you been separated from them a good 
 deal?" 
 
 **I was in the proud and happy position before I 
 came down here of ' caring for nobody — no not I, and 
 nobody caring for me,*" he rejoins lightly. "Yes, by 
 the way, I was rather fond of Aunt Helen before I came 
 here — very fond of her, I may say," he adds thought- 
 fully. 
 
 " And don't you feel quite as fond of her now ? " I 
 strive to say it as one who is strictly impartial and un- 
 prejudiced. But a glow of pride and something sweeter 
 shoots through my being, and makes me falter from the 
 new warmth it puts into me. He is chivalrously dis- 
 pleased on my account with his Aunt Helen ! AVell, if 
 her hate wins me his liking, I am satisfied. I listen 
 eagerly for his next words. They come. 
 
 " How magnificently Claire stands up at her and pays 
 back shot for shot," he says admiringly. " By the way. 
 Miss Tim, why don't you fight your own battles? all 
 the fighting Claire does is on your account, I observe." 
 
 " Claire always has been able to speak and to fight, 
 and to do everything better than I can,'' I say truthfull)^ 
 And then he leans his head on his elbow quite close to 
 me, and says, in that tenderly confidential way of his 
 which becomes him as well as any other of his many 
 manners, — 
 
 " Look here : you and I get on so well, that we ought 
 to know more about each other than we do. I want you 
 to take an interest in me, Tim. Am I not a selfish 
 fellow to ask it?" 
 
** Music *' and " Hearlkss.** 37 
 
 Selfish ! If ever I think the curled darling at my 
 side "selfish" for desiring me to be interested in him, 
 what a cold and hardened woman I shall have become ! 
 Why, his mere presence to-day has had the effect upon 
 me that the gracious sun has upon a half-opened flower 
 that has been nipped by a cutting wind ! Like a woman, 
 I am ready instantly to render him far fuller service than 
 he requires at my hands. Like a fool, I make manifest 
 this readiness. 
 
 " I wish I could do more good to you than ^ take an 
 interest in you,' " I say : " that's no good from me, but 
 I do it already. Neither Claire nor I can help liking 
 you, though we made up our minds to leave you to the 
 twins when you came here first ; and after your kindness 
 to me to-day, of course we shall like you better. How I 
 wish we could do more for you ! " 
 
 "Claire and you hunt in couples, don't you?" he 
 asks — " at least, you always speak of * us ' and * we.' I 
 suppose you're entirely in each other's confidence." 
 
 " Entirely," I say, with energy. 
 
 " You're the dearest little thing in the world, Tim," he 
 says, tearing my fading flowers from my hand, and taking 
 that member into his own safe keeping. " Let me see ! 
 What was I going to say ? Oh yes, I want to tell you 
 what I have been about all my life, and what I wish to 
 do now." 
 
 He tells the tale of a bereft childhood, of a neglected 
 and heart-hungry boyhood, of a manhood marked by 
 failure, of passionate yearnings for love that has never 
 been yielded to him, of misused opportunities, of a 
 naturally careless nature growing gradually more and 
 more reckless until it has been arrested in its downward 
 course by 
 
 " By what ? " I question eagerly, as he pauses abruptly 
 in his narrative, and sends a flat pebble skimmering along 
 the surface of the water ; and when all the " ducks and 
 drakes " it leaves in its track have widened away, he 
 answers, — 
 
 " By coming in contact with you." 
 
38 Blotted Out 
 
 He does not say more than this, and I sit in silence, 
 stultified almost by a feeling of overweening happiness, 
 letting the sweet truth sink into my heart. I am in 
 Paradise ! I, the ugly duck of the family, have un- 
 wittingly established such an influence over this erring 
 Apollo that he has selected me as his guide, philosopher, 
 and friend. Woe for me if it turns out to be but a fool's 
 paradise after all. 
 
 Presently into the midst of our meditations the twins 
 come, homeward bound from a walk and a visit to the 
 rectory. They are warm and fluttered. They are 
 cooing as they approach about some visitors who have 
 just arrived at the Polands', and who appear to have 
 created a Uvely interest in their virgin breasts — too great 
 an interest, happily for me, for them to do more than 
 manifest a fleeting surprise at the scene upon which they 
 have chanced, and the situation of the actors in it. 
 
 " The Polands are going to walk up after dinner and 
 bring their friends with them, Tim ; won't it be nice ? " 
 Mabel says. 
 
 *' And we'll all play croquet," Magdalen says ; " and 
 we ought to go home now and dress for dinner. We're 
 going to wear our blues. Claire will be in pink, you 
 know ; and hadn't you better put on — Why I good 
 gracious, Tim ! you've got on Claire's dress.'* 
 
 In a spasm of mortification at this ruthless exposure of 
 my weak attempt to deck my ugliness in his eyes by 
 means of borrowed plumes, I exclaim, angrily, — 
 
 " Don't be so foolish, Magdalen." 
 
 " Have Claire and you swopped, then ? " Mabel asks, 
 and I rise up reluctantly, for I see Theo Bligh is laughing, 
 and beg my sisters not to talk of matters which they do 
 not understand, and suggest that we had better all go 
 home without delay. 
 
 My hour is over, and no mistake. It was such a 
 golden one, and now in a moment it is tarnished. Theo 
 Bligh roars with most unsympathetic laughter, when Mabel 
 (who always experiences a difficulty in detaching what 
 mind she has from anything to which she has fastened it) 
 
*' Music " and " Heartless^^ 35 
 
 babbles on that she " really thought it was Claire, until 
 she caught sight of my red hair." He has cast away 
 every atom of the manly seriousness that he had exhibited 
 while we were alone, and all the way home he amuses us 
 with impromptu comic operettas. He dances a break- 
 down at a cow, until that outraged animal bellows and 
 stamps its foot savagely, on which the twins scream, and 
 appropriate him as their protector, clinging to his arms, 
 and altogether demoralising me by making ghastly 
 boobies of themselves. And lastly, he places the last 
 straw on my overweighted spirit, by singing, " Look dowfi 
 below, lady ! look down below," and holding out his 
 arms in an impassioned way to a lady who is standing on 
 a hill not far off — an austere conventional woman of 
 whom papa thinks very highly, because she reads all his 
 books, and makes a point of praising them to his face. 
 All this buffoonery would have amused me very much a 
 day or two ago. But to-day, after the insight he has 
 given me into his higher nature, it mortifies and irritates 
 me to see what a boy he becomes on the shortest notice, 
 with or without sufficient cause. 
 
 We reach home, and find that papa. Aunt Helen, and 
 Claire have not returned yet, and that it is half-past seven 
 o'clock. There is plenty of time to dress. The twins, 
 still babbling about the Polands and the Polands' friends 
 (the creatures who are coming to play croquet), melt 
 away into their own room, discoursing to each other as 
 to what flower they shall wear with their blues. Theo 
 remains outside on the terrace, clinging to the last ashes 
 of one of his pet cigars, and I get myself into my own 
 room, and try to decide as to the best way of telling 
 Claire " all about it " at once when she comes in. And 
 the mere thinking of it makes me cavil at the phrase 
 "all about it." What is^ it? What have I to tell? 
 Nothing, absolutely nothing, save that I have been 
 ridiculously happy, and ridiculously cast down. 
 
 I sit down on the sofa at the foot of the bed, and 
 lazily proceed to take off the old point lace which I had 
 put on some hours before with ecstatic haste, I ^o on, 
 
40 Blotted Out. 
 
 after my usual habit, to empty my pocket, and I find a 
 letter there — a letter which I leisurely open and begin 
 
 reading : " I have nothing to offer you but love " 
 
 and I pause, and dash the letter back into my pocket, 
 shot through the heart by the sudden remembrance that 
 it is not my property, but Claire's. 
 
 I shiver at finding myself on the brink of a discovery 
 concerning Claire which she, my confidante, my sister, 
 my idol, has sedulously concealed from me. Curiosity 
 claims me for his own. Who has been loving Claire 
 lately ? I haven't seen anything symptomatic of such a 
 state of things in any one who has been about the house 
 for the last few weeks. Perhaps (my heart leaps lightly 
 at the thought) it is our old friend, Sydney Dale. But 
 why hasn't she told me? 
 
 She comes into the room as I am bewildering myself 
 about it, and I see at a glance that she is the Claire I 
 have known all my life, and not the chilled and altered 
 being who left me in uncertainty early in the afternoon. 
 She has enjoyed herself very much, and Sydney Dale has 
 come home with them, she tells me. And then I dis- 
 burden my mind, and tell her how I have worn her 
 dress, and spent my afternoon and spoilt her sleeve, and 
 nearly read her letter ! 
 
 She listens with keen, but not displeased attention. 
 When I finish, she says, with her sudden smile that is 
 like a sun-burst, '' I'm glad you didn't read the folly ; " 
 and she takes the letter out of the pocket, tears it into a 
 dozen pieces, and as she throws it away, says with an air 
 of relief, " That's done with, any way. Come, darling 
 Tim ! let me help you to dress ; I'm ready arrayed, you 
 know. Who are these friends of the Polands' ? " 
 
 "I don't know," I answer curtly, for I want to get 
 back to the subject of Theo Bligh, and what he has said, 
 and how he has said it, and how I really wish her to Hke 
 him, for that there is a great deal more in him than she 
 nnagines. And she just wafts aside all these remarks of 
 mine in her airiest manner. 
 
 *' You dear Tim ! " she says, when I become very 
 
" Music " and " Heartless!^ 41 
 
 pertinacious and try to insist on her saying that she will 
 take an interest in him, and will not suffer herself to be 
 bUndly prejudiced against him any longer. '' You dear 
 Tim ! you're satisfied with him, and surely that is enough 
 for all purposes — for his and for yours ; what more do 
 you want ? " 
 
 '" That you should do him justice," I cry earnestly. 
 
 *^I do him full justice; I estimate him very thoroughly, 
 I assure you, dear Tim. I never saw you look so jolly 
 as you do to-night ; but I'm perplexed about something 
 for your hair: you must wear my jet comb;" and she 
 drags her comb out of her own lovely, cloudy hair, alid 
 fastens my ruddy coils up with it. 
 
 " And what will you wear ? " I ask. 
 
 '^ Nothing. Did you never feel too tired to care to 
 look well, Tim? I am feeling so to-night. What use 
 has the face and figure you all call so pretty been to me ? 
 It has never brought me happiness yet, and it never will 
 — I feel sure of that. I'm sick of everything.'* She 
 winds up with startling vehemence, and then she puts her 
 arms round my neck, and says, " Tim, don't you make 
 any mistake, dear. Enjoy this pleasant, selfish young 
 wretch's society, but don't get to care more about him 
 than you would for one of the beasts that perish. I 
 shall come to curse him if he casts a cloud over you." 
 
 She is not like herself. She is metamorphosed from my 
 pretty debonnaire Claire into a Vengeance for this moment. 
 As the second dinner-bell is ringing, I have only time to 
 say — 
 
 " I wish you would take the trouble to know him a 
 little better. You wouldn't misjudge him after one such 
 conversation as he and I have had together this after- 
 noon. ' And she answers, as we fly down-stairs — 
 
 'Til take your word for it. You're looking your best, 
 Tim — that's the chief consideration with me to-night." 
 
 We have a comfortable dinner on the whole. Very 
 often the occupants of a country house in the summer 
 season come to the stage of hating each other all round 
 by dinner time, in consequence of having had each other 
 
42 Blotted Out 
 
 to entertain all day long. But this day we have been 
 separated by the grace of the Brothertons, and so are fully 
 equal to the task of tackling one another at the dinner- 
 table. Moreover, a fresh element is introduced — Sydney 
 Dale dines with us. 
 
 How shall I describe Sydney Dale ! Dear old fellow, 
 he lives in my memory as one of the dearest, and best, 
 and best-looking of God's creatures ! But, somehow or 
 other, I invariably forget all about him directly he is 
 gone. But papa always says he " might be a model for 
 a Hercules, he is such a splendidly grown, and propor- 
 tioned fellow." Be kind enough to imagine Hercules in 
 the broad-cloth of to-day, and you will save me an 
 immense deal of descriptive trouble. 
 
 Papa is in one of his best moods to-night, and his best 
 moods are delightful. I am sitting next to him, and he 
 makes me recount to him the story of the afternoon. He 
 is pleased to find that his copy is ready for the printer, 
 he is amused at the impromptu otter-hunt which ended 
 in nothing, he is pleased to observe that I am looking 
 very much better than he ever saw me look before. By 
 his manner he makes me of importance in my own eyes, 
 and in the eyes of the others ; and just as the spirit of 
 elation is causing me to forget everything that is outside 
 this temporary proud position, he says — 
 
 "I shall be glad when I hear that young fellow is 
 thinking of going, Tim. Aunt Helen doesn't say any- 
 thing about it, but I can see that she is annoyed at his 
 prolonging his visit ; she feels that she was the cause of 
 his coming here — innocent as she was of it." 
 
 " Why, she asked him here ! " I say indignantly. " She 
 wished him to marry the twins, and she's only savage now 
 because she sees " 
 
 I stop in confusion, and papa asks incisively — 
 
 " What does she see ? " 
 
 '* That he doesn't want to marry them, I suppose," I 
 answer in a crestfallen way. 
 
 " Whether he wants to marry the twins or not is of very 
 little consequence," papa says quietly. ** You're clever 
 
<* Music " and " Heartlcssr 
 
 43 
 
 enough, Tim, to know that he*s no match for one of my 
 daughters. If you think Claire is likely to make a fool 
 of herself, tell me." 
 
 " Claire make a fool of herself — with him, do you mean? 
 Oh, papa, how blind you are ! " I say ; and he laughs and 
 calls me his " ingenuous Tim." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN LOVE AND DOUBT. 
 
 ** When first I met thee young and warm, 
 There hung such truth about thee." 
 
 f HY do I feel like a pariah and an outcast this 
 night ? I have done nothing wrong, nothing 
 deserving of censure, and yet here I am 
 stranded on the lone, lorn shore of my own self 
 during that depressing half hour after dinner which we 
 ladies enjoy by ourselves. Claire is tenderly loving to m» 
 when she does speak, but she does seem to dislike 
 speaking so very much to-night. She has "talked herself 
 out at the garden-party," she says. " Will I mind letting 
 her rest and be thankful for the fact that she need not 
 exert herself any more to-night ?" As for the twins, they 
 are swamped in their expectations of pleasure consequent 
 upon the arrival of the Polands and the Polands' friends. 
 And as for Aunt Helen ! — I recoil from her. I have 
 never liked her, but to-night I hate her as if she were an ugly 
 Fate. She has only spoken one sentence to me, but in 
 that one sentence there are worlds of venom. 
 
 " If I were in your place, Tim, I wouldn't make myself 
 so cheap as you are doing. Nothing will come of it but 
 mortification ; and for your father's sake I would avert 
 that." 
 
 She is so large, fair, and placid — she is so palpably 
 
In Love and Doubt, 45 
 
 *' right," that original sin prompts me to rise up and beat 
 her, and I have hard work to withstand the promptings 
 of original sin. I have not self-possession enough nor 
 hypocrisy enough to pretend to misunderstand her. I 
 know that she means me to feel that I have been indis- 
 creet, unmaidenly, in wandering away through the heavy, 
 luscious, heat-oppressed air, to rippling streams and quiet 
 meadows with Theo Bligh. But though I smart under 
 the dull lash of her disapprobation, how I enjoy the 
 remembrance of my indiscretion ! how I long for him to 
 come in that I may read in his eyes — in those wonderful 
 eyes that reflect every emotion, and flash and cloud like a 
 summer storm — how I long to read in them that he 
 remembers it too, and likes the memory ! 
 
 I pant for sympathy ! it is no use. Claire is tired and 
 not inclined to be talkative \ but at least she can listen. 
 I plant myself on a footstool at her feet, I loll my head 
 back on her lap, I take her tiny darling hands in mine (I 
 am at fever heat to-night, but her hands burn mine), and 
 I say — 
 
 *^We had such a delicious ramble along by the otter- 
 pool, Claire •. I never saw the place look so lovely as it 
 did to-day." 
 
 *' Why on earth can't you use idiomatic English, and 
 say you had a * pleasant walk,' " Claire answers testily : 
 " people never * ramble' in real life ; it's confined to those 
 abominable little children's books where all the exemplary 
 characters behave unnaturally." 
 
 " You have no idea how sensibly Theo Bligh can talk 
 when he gets alone with one," I say confidentially, though 
 I feel rather crushed by the way in which Claire seems 
 disposed to treat my conversational advances. 
 
 " I should recommend your getting alone with him very 
 often, then, for he certainly very rarely talks sensible when 
 there is more than one present." 
 
 " I know that he wishes you to like him, Claire," I 
 plead earnestly, for I cannot bear to think that Claire's hand 
 is against us too. It is quite trying enough to have papa 
 and Aunt Helen drawn up in battle array against the 
 
46 Plotted Out 
 
 furtherance of this sudden friendship between Theo and 
 myself, which seems to me in its dawning to be the 
 sweetest thing the world can ever hold for me. 
 
 " How very good of him to give a thought to me in 
 the matter ! " Claire says languidly. " I am not the rose, 
 but I am near it. Dear Tim," she cries, rousing up into 
 sudden animation, " take care ! Sydney Dale is worth a 
 dozen of this fickle, feather-headed young fellow, who will 
 gather women just as he did my tea-roses last night, that 
 their sweetness may please him for a moment before he 
 throws them away." 
 
 " I am sure you misunderstand him," I say in a low 
 voice, for Aunt Helen has surged up to within ear-shot ; 
 and before I can get Claire all to myself again, the 
 Polands and their friends come in, and Theo Bligh and 
 Sydney Dale saunter up to the open window with their 
 cigars in their mouths. 
 
 The twins unquestionably are lacking in the great 
 womanly gifts of tact and discernment. These two men 
 who accompany Mr. and Mrs. Poland are as unlikely to 
 indulge in gay fooling among the croquet hoops with my 
 expectant sisters as they are to play leap-frog or balance 
 otter-poles on their noses, after the manner of Theo 
 Bligh. 
 
 The elder of the two, Mr. Murray, is a man with a 
 name in literature, and a reputation that ought to have 
 filtered through their ears to the minds of the twins, for 
 they must have heard frequent mention of him. Papa 
 quotes him often as the most classical of living English 
 writers, as a purist in style, as a man who ought to do a 
 great deal more than he — ever has done, or ever will do. 
 Papa knows him already, it appears ; but the rest of us 
 see him for the first time to-night, and this is how he 
 looks, and what he seems to me to be. 
 
 He is of middle age, rather stout, and very pale, with a 
 singularly sweet smile, and singularly sympathetic brilliant 
 eyes. He is devoid of those attributes of commanding 
 height and deportment which often cause a man to be 
 called distinguished looking, but he is so by the mere 
 

 tfi Love and boiiht, 4^ 
 
 force of a most perfectly organised and most thoroughly 
 refined intellect. Without being skilled in physiognomy 
 I can tell at once that the man sitting so quietly by me 
 is an ardent-natured, keen-minded man — a gentleman, a 
 humorist, a scholar — and a failure. 
 
 There is a buzz at the other end of the room, where 
 every one is holding forth at once, it appears to me. But 
 here by the couch, from which Claire has just risen and 
 walked away, there is twilight silence. I am still on the 
 footstool, leaning my head back against the sofa cushion, 
 and Mr. Murray has taken a seat close to me, and I am 
 watching him with interest, for his plain mobile face has 
 won my liking already. 
 
 "Your father is a fortunate fellow to have you all 
 grown up about him/' he begins. " When I go out of 
 my study it is into rooms that are dull and devoid of 
 every trace of a feminine presence, excepting that of the 
 housemaid's — which is not an attractive one." 
 
 I cast about in my mind for a suitable answer, and can 
 find none. Is he bachelor, widower, or childless married 
 man with a dull wife who has no taste ? I develop a 
 decided distaste to the unconscious Mrs. Murray instantly, 
 but I refrain from expressing it, and fall back upon my 
 own family for conversational sustenance. 
 
 " Papa could spare the twins very well indeed,'' I say 
 with injudicious frankness : " they're pretty enough to 
 look at, but they bore him.'* 
 
 *' He couldn't spare your other sister and you so well, 
 then, you mean me to understand ?" he says smiling. 
 
 " Well I'm not pretty to look at," I say, rising up, **but 
 I'm useful to papa ; and Claire is — but you saw her ? " 
 
 " A lovely creature 1 '* he says in his soft, slow tone of 
 perfect appreciation. *^ Is that your brother ? " he asks, 
 pointing to Theo, who is leaning half in at the window, 
 talking in subdued tones to Claire. My heart gives a 
 satisfied bound — Claire is not going to be unreasonably 
 r antagonistic to him. 
 
 No, he is not a brother; he's a great friend who is 
 \ sta)'ing with us." 
 
48 Blotted Out. 
 
 " He's a nice looking lad," Mr. Murray says, com- 
 posedly ; and I have hard work to subdue my inclination 
 to go away from our stranger guest, and leave him to 
 meditate on his gross sin of commission. To speak of 
 the handsomest living creature as " a nice looking lad ! " 
 Annoyance keeps me silent. 
 
 " They're a bonnie pair,'* my unconscious tormentor 
 continues, and I can stand it no longer. The figures of 
 Claire and Theo are receding in the dim distance on the 
 lawn. I feel that I, too, must go out into the fresh air. 
 Out of politeness, and not out of any desire for his society 
 now I say — 
 
 " It's pleasanter out in the garden ; will you come ? " 
 
 He follows me, and we go out. Sydney Dale, Mr. 
 Poland, and the twins are simply banging about the balls. 
 Papa and the other stranger are having a political 
 argument. Aunt Helen has fallen a prey to a long state- 
 ment, which Mrs. Poland feels herself called upon to 
 make, concerning the shortcomings of her domestics. 
 Claire and Theo are out of sight ; and Mr. Murray claims 
 attention at my hands. 
 
 We have been taught our social duty well in this 
 respect. Papa never suffers us to neglect a guest ; so now, 
 though I would rather stand aside and conjecture why and 
 where my sister and my friend have gone, I am obliged 
 to exert myself. 
 
 *' You live in London, I suppose ? " I say. 
 
 " Yes ; in a barn of a house in Russell Square, where I 
 am alone chiefly, but where I sometimes get two very 
 distinct sets of visitors — the only ones who ever come to 
 brighten and bless my solitude." 
 
 I don't like to ask him of whom he speaks, but I 
 suppose I look as if I wished to know, for he goes on — 
 
 ** Shall I tell you about them? The ones who come to 
 brighten my solitude are a set of Bohemians, excelleni 
 good fellows, all of them, clever, and hard-working ; and, 
 by Jove ! nearly as unsuccessful as I am myself — fellows 
 whose plays are damned, and who are always out of the 
 way when Fame blows her trumpet and Fortune 
 
In Love and Doubt 49 
 
 distributes her gifts, but right good fellows for all that, 
 who manage to say much better things than ever get into 
 print." 
 
 " And the others ? " I question eagerly, for again he 
 has caught my interest, and won my sympathy. 
 
 *' The others are the visions of a very brief bit of by- 
 gone happiness, Miss Vincent. I lost my poor wife 
 about a year ago. I never cared to look back — the 
 present and the future were enough for me while one of 
 the most beautiful and the best of God's creatures lived 
 for me, and loved me ', her beauty and her goodness kept 
 me straight, and made me work; but she died just when 
 I wanted her most, and now I've only myself to take care 
 of myself for, so the inducement to be careful isn't 
 strong." 
 
 In my vast pity for his sorrow and his solitariness, in my 
 longing to be able to comfort him ever so little, I take up 
 my injudicious parable, and say — 
 
 " But who can tell what may happen, Mr. Murray ? 
 You're not old enough to give up everything and let 
 yourself drift, though you have had such a great grief. I 
 shall always be sorry when I hear of you now. I shall 
 think of you writing in a gloomy study. Does it look 
 into a garden ? " I hastily pull up to ask. 
 
 " It looks out against a dead wall which is frequently 
 decorated with chalk by the tradesmen's boys." 
 
 " Have you any flowers in your window ? " 
 
 " Not a leaf, not a flower, and I never see a bit of blue 
 in the sky half the size of Helen's eyes ! " he adds tenderly 
 — '' God in Heaven, to think that they should have closed 
 in their last sleep before mine ! " 
 
 For a minute or two there is silence between us. A 
 heavy cloud of sorrow is over his face, and I dare not try 
 to Uft it by any frivolous utterance — and any utterance of 
 mine would be frivolous after that last most solemn one 
 of his. At the end of the minute a servant stumps out 
 with a tray, and some slender-necked bottles. He rouses 
 himself to say — 
 
 " There is a time for everything, though, and this seems 
 4 
 
5 o ^^Hk ^^^^^^^ ^^^* 
 
 to be the time for some Rudesheimer. May I give you 
 some?" ^^ '^^^^ ^^ 
 
 I shake my head, ^t hate the interruption. Had it 
 not been for this he would have gone on talking about 
 himself, and his dead wife, and I am in a mood to 
 sympathise thoroughly with the element of melancholy 
 to-night. The spirits that had been so high down by the 
 otter-pool are quenched now. Moreover, independent of 
 my selfish desire to listen to tones that are congenial and 
 that treat of a subject that does not demand animation 
 or a show of anything but quiet interest — independent of 
 all this, it appeals to the latent spirit of poetry within me 
 to hear this man lamenting his lost wife. It sounds to 
 me almost like a page from an antique romance. Her 
 beauty, her beneficent influence over him, her early death, 
 her unforgotten memory ! I hate the Rudesheimer which 
 has put an end to the pathos of the situation, and left me 
 time for wondering vaguely again where Claire and Theo 
 Bligh have gone. 
 
 mrs. Poland has wound up her narrative of wrongs which 
 she has suffered at the hands of a contumacious cook, and 
 a carnal-minded housemaid who has been seen to smile 
 upon a rising baker. Papa has brought his political 
 argument to a close. The four croquet players have 
 given up the effete attempt to play a game about which 
 they even fail to feign an interest. The atmosphere is 
 far clearer than it has been all day, and the moon is 
 sailing high in the cloudless heavens. What is it that 
 oppresses, nearly chokes me, that weighs me down and 
 enervates me as the burden and heat of the day failed to 
 do? Sydney Dale advances to my side just as papa 
 walks up to join Mr. Murray. 
 
 *' I have been envying you your daughters, Vincent," 
 the latter says ; and I return a short and decided 
 negative to Sydney's proposition that I should go down 
 on the lawn, for I want to hear how my new friend will 
 talk to a man. 
 
 ** They're not bad for a scratch team, are they ? " papa 
 says, laughing. ** They all have their vocations, and they 
 
/;/ Love and Doiiht, 5 1 
 
 fulfil them tolerably well. The twins have a faculty for 
 decorating drawing-rooms, both wiih their presence and 
 with wool-work : it's astonishing how useful girls are who 
 know how to sit about judiciously, and listen to the right 
 things." 
 
 " And what is your vocation ? " Mr, Murray asks me in 
 his soft slow tones. 
 
 " To understand what is meant, and to be able to 
 read through the lines of what is said — which not one 
 woman in a thousand can do," papa answers for me, put- 
 ting his hand kindly on my shoulder. " Claire's is to 
 send men to the devil." 
 
 **She has never done so yet," I put in. 
 
 ** She's doing it fast enough now," papa mutters \ and 
 then I know that he has harked back to that absurd 
 idea of his as to there being something between Claire 
 and Theo. 
 
 " She isn't the only one of the family on whom that 
 great gift has been bestowed," Mr. Murray says as placidly 
 as if he were saying good-morning ; and I glance quickly 
 at him, to find those large soft brilliant eyes of his, that 
 are as tender and true as a woman's, bent upon me 
 admiringly. And my vanity is flattered. There is balm 
 in Gilead still for me ! At any rate, this clever brilliant 
 man must recognise in me a certain intelligence which in 
 his estimation compensates for the want of that personal 
 attractiveness which I never strongly coveted until to- 
 day. 
 
 ** Why wouldn't you come to the Brothertons', Tim," 
 Sydney is muttering on my other side. " I was in to play 
 
 for the hunt eleven against the th eleven this afternoon, 
 
 but I gave it up and sent my brother as my jsubstitute, for 
 I made sure you would be at the Brothertons'." 
 
 ** How silly of you, Syd," I say in a superior tone, " to 
 give up cricket when you were wanted to come to the 
 Brothertons', where probably they could have done just 
 as well without you. I always thought the dog such a fool 
 for drooping the bone and snapping at the shadow." 
 
 He sr^n is u) hetore me, tall, st oni;, brorid. flor'd. 
 
52 Blotted Out, 
 
 and brotherly. The face that has, ever since he was a 
 sturdy little boy and I a bony-elbowed little girl, been 
 bent kindly upon me, is bending kindly down at me now. 
 And I look up at him, and take keen note of the facts 
 that, though there is plenty of strength in his youthful, 
 vigorous frame, there is no grace, and that his mouth and 
 chin have certain heavy lines about them, and that his 
 eyes do not scintillate, and cloud, and lighten, and 
 sparkle out a thousand tender possibilities, like — ah ! 
 like his who comes swinging suddenly into our midst at 
 this juncture, and flings himself down on the grass by 
 the side of my seat. 
 
 " Where is Claire ? " I ask ; and, half against ray will, 
 my head inclines towards him, and I feel that I am a 
 very weak Clytie, and he a very powerful sun-god. 
 
 *'Gone into the house with Aunt Helen, and a head- 
 ache," he answers. " I wish you would come and take 
 a stroll, Tim. I haven't half finished my cigar.'* 
 
 I rise up obediently, and papa glances carelessly at us 
 as we move off in the moonlight. I am not Claire ! 
 Papa is not in the least afraid. I throw off some of the 
 unaccountable weight that has been oppressing me, by 
 drawing one of those long breaths that are almost sighs ; 
 and he asks, — 
 
 " What are you panting about ? " 
 
 " I am not panting," I say indignantly \ " only I have 
 talked my throat dry, and I feel tired." 
 
 " Who did you find to talk to — the fat old fellow who 
 was sitting by you when I came up, or your rustic 
 Hercules?" 
 
 Now, I am only a woman, and moreover I am only a 
 woman who is weakened and shaken by the first approach 
 of the passion which is the holiest, the most heartrend- 
 ing, the highest, and the most humiliating, love ! But, 
 above all things, I am loyal. I have the fidelity of a 
 dog to the friends who are only wrong in being absent. 
 
 *' There are some men one never ought to speak of in 
 that way," I say quickly. " Mr. Murray can charm any- 
 one who has brains into forgelfulness of his personal 
 
I 
 
 In Love and Doubt S3 
 
 appearance altogether. And don't sneer about Syd Dale ; 
 I've told you already he's as dear as a brother to us, and 
 even you shall not say a word against him." 
 
 " Cease, rude Boreas ! " he says coolly, patting my 
 head. ** Young ladies should not bluster forth the state 
 of their affections. Well ! I didn't get you down here 
 to bother you either about the man of mind or the man 
 of matter. I wanted to tell you that I'm going away to- 
 morrow." 
 
 I stop suddenly as if I had been shot, and my face 
 must be ghasdy in the moonlight, for I can feel it 
 tightening and quivering with the pain of keeping back 
 the hot tears of disappointment, love, and agony, which 
 have rushed into my eyes. I can't speak. I can only 
 stand still and suffer. 
 
 " Don't take it like this, Tim ; " and his face, which 
 expresses every feeling and thought, is alive with pity, 
 and radiant with a tenderness that seems to me so great 
 a thing to have won from him, that I have a difficulty in 
 restraining myself from going down on my knees and 
 thanking him in my gratitude. Timely reflection saves 
 me from making such a spectacle of myself, but still I 
 cannot speak. 
 
 " Don't take it like this, Tim," he repeats ; ** the first 
 time was bad enough, but this " 
 
 " It is the first time," I interrupt with a jerk; "that's 
 what staggered me so ; just as Claire and I are getting 
 used to you, you go away." 
 
 " By order of Aunt Helen," he says savagely. ** But 
 you must write to me, Tim ; I can't be cut off from you 
 altogether." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ''after that parting on the lawn.*' 
 
 am a girl who has not been brought up to 
 consider that when a man has said " so much,*' 
 then by all the laws of chivalry he ought to 
 say so much more. In other words, it has not 
 been a part of our system of education to study the 
 question of intentions. Nevertheless, woman, whether 
 lovely or the reverse, is so uncommonly ready to stoop to 
 folly, that I now allow myself to feel that I have been 
 cheated in a measure — that Theo Bligh has said too 
 much, and too little— that he has led me on to beggar 
 myself, and does not care to be enriched by my offering ! 
 But I am taking a first sharp lesson in the absolute 
 necessity of self-control, and I struggle to seem the same 
 Tim I had been down by the otter-pool, and say, — 
 *^ Yes : I'll write to you when I have anything to say." 
 " Now, what do you mean by that ? " he asks in his 
 tone of bantering superiority. " You're quite clever 
 enough to write a very amusing letter, whether you have 
 anything to say or not. You can always tell me how the 
 wind is blowing here, you know, and how Claire and you 
 run the gauntlet of the attentions of your friend Sydney 
 Dale. Won't you care, either, to hear how I am getting 
 on, Tim ? " he winds up with, coming to a full stop in 
 front of me, taking both my hands, and bending his 
 
I 
 
 " After that Parting on the Lawn,^^ 53 
 
 handsome head to look at me something after the fashion 
 of the Black Bmnswicker. 
 
 The moonbeams stream down upon us, and he is 
 clearly revealed to me as we stand in the middle of the 
 lawn. His eyes look sad and deep; his face is robbed 
 of all its light, laughing brilliancy ! He does feel this 
 fiat which decrees that he shall leave Ravensbourne to 
 be a hard one ! He does feel leaving me ! 
 
 " I'll write to you, or, — or do anything else you ask 
 me to do," I say with a rush. ** It's cruel that you 
 should have to go when you wish to stay ; it's barbarous 
 that she should have so much authority over you, even if 
 she is your aunt, as to be able to turn you out from a 
 friend's house " 
 
 *^ I daresay I shall manage to rub on some way or 
 other," he puts in with a quick relapse into carelessness ; 
 " very likely I shall turn up again some day or other, and 
 in the meantime you'll write to me ? " 
 
 Once more I agree to his request, but faintly this 
 time. It is so little after so much. I cannot feel any 
 enthusiasm for a correspondence that will, my intuition 
 tells me, be a one-sided one ; for I am beginning to 
 divine that Mr. Theo Bligh is of the order that absorbs 
 rather than gives out glory. However, I agree to write 
 to him, as I would agree to do anything else he asked 
 me to do. But I am depressed by the poverty of this 
 interview, which stands out in such marked contrast to 
 the wealth of pleasure I had derived from the stroll to 
 the river-side. 
 
 " Now I think we may as well go in, don't you ? " he 
 says. " Jolly well the room looks from here, doesn't 
 it?" ^ 
 
 I look in at the brightly lighted drawing-room, and 
 this time I cannot acquiesce in what he has said. The 
 room does not look well to me, for I have to return to it, 
 and it is full of people, and when we go back all chance 
 of my having one more word in private with him will be 
 over. I am infatuated with him, but I do shiver at his 
 callousness in forgetting this fact. 
 
56 Blotted Out. 
 
 He irritates me as we saunter back towards the open 
 window by breaking into song, in a jerky way, between 
 the languid puffs he is giving at his cigar ; and my heart 
 contracts with a spasm as the conviction darts into it 
 that he does not ache as I do at the thought of this 
 approaching parting. He had been nothing to me — to 
 any of us a few days ago, and now the idea of indifference 
 to us stings me into saying, just before we step into the 
 room, — 
 
 " What a free and happy state of things it is when one 
 doesn't care whether one goes or stays in a place ! " 
 
 *' Are you making roundabout allusions now to me, or 
 to yourself? " he asks quite gaily. " If they are about , 
 yourself, they're very improper. Young ladies ought to 
 care whether they go from or stay in their homes ; and if 
 they're about me, you're mistaken, for I'd very much 
 rather stay than go— you ought to know that very well, 
 Tim." 
 
 He is not a young man who deems it worth his while 
 to drop his voice under any circumstances ; and his 
 articulation is remarkably distinct Claire, who is stand- 
 ing close to the window, must have heard his last words. 
 I look straight into the long, sweet violet eyes that have 
 all my life looked back into mine with love and sympathy. 
 They turn from me without an answering glance, and 
 rest on some one else — and what do they express ? 
 
 Reproach, pain, love ! I turn, I strive to follow that 
 glance, but there is a medley behind me. The two 
 young men, Sydney Dale and Theo Bligh, are outside, 
 sitting on the window-sill, and Sydney is striving to catch 
 a light from Theo's cigar. Can it be that our old friend 
 — the boy who has been like our brother — has won a 
 particle of regard from Claire which he has not recipro- 
 cated ? Reason seems to tell me that it is impossible. 
 The man does not live, I tell myself hotly, who could 
 withstand Claire, or do other than worship her for the 
 smallest concession she might make. I feel indignant 
 with Sydney, and rather shocked to think that Claire can 
 like him in that way. Dear old friend as he is, it jars 
 
*' After that Parting on the Lawn,^^ 57 
 
 upon me that he should have won from Claire such true, 
 such hopeless interest as beamed from her eyes in that 
 one glance which I intercepted. I get near to her, and 
 whisper, — 
 
 ''I shall be glad when all these people are gone, 
 Claire ; I have so much to say to you." 
 
 " So shall not I be glad," she answers, with a little 
 effort ; " these people are the only people I have met 
 lately who are worth speaking to." And she rather 
 hastily withdraws herself from me, and puts herself in an 
 inaccessible place between the table and Mr. Murray. 
 
 I am convinced now ! The " man of matter," as 
 Theo somewhat rudely called him, has disappointed 
 Claire, and she has turned to one who at least will satisfy 
 her mentally. I bestow a gratified and approving glance 
 upon the unconscious face. If I, with my head and 
 heart full of Theo Bligh, could rest and be thankful 
 while Mr. Murray chained my attention, what a perfect 
 panacea he must prove to any regretful thoughts of 
 Sydney Dale which Claire may mistakenly be disposed 
 to indulge herself in. 
 
 Cut off from each one to whom I desire to talk, I 
 deliver myself up to gloom and Mr. Poland, who drives 
 me mad by declaring that he sees I am not well, and 
 that he shall ask my father as a special favour to let me 
 accompany Mrs. Poland to Brighton, whither she is 
 going to-morrow. In vain I protest that I am quite 
 well, and that papa cannot spare me. Mr. Poland is an 
 old family friend, and knows better. " Aunt Helen has 
 been telling him that I really need a change, and why 
 should I not have it? " he asks. His wife is taking the 
 opportunity of his having the companionship of Murray, 
 to give herself a little holiday — a little change ; and as 
 papa will have Murray's companionship also, he will be 
 able to spare me from Ravens bourne better than at any 
 other time. 
 
 My heart sinks as I feel that I must bow myself to 
 the inevitable and go, if Aunt Helen has decreed it. But 
 it is hard, very, very, very hard, that I am to be deprived 
 
S8 Blotted Out 
 
 of the solace of Claire's society and sympathy, of the 
 crumbs of comfort that might fall to me from Mr. 
 Murray's companionship, just when, in my great grief for 
 the loss of Theo, I need these things most. All before 
 me seems dark and dreary. But this one ray glorifies 
 my gloom — at least, I shall have had all that there is to 
 be had of Theo's companionship ! I am going, but I 
 shall not leave the man who has become the light of my 
 life behind me. 
 
 I dread the departure of the Polands and their friends. 
 It will be the signal, I know, for the matter of my going 
 to Brighton to be mooted and discussed. If I could only 
 get a quiet word with papa, I might save myself still ! 
 But though I watch for this opportunity as a cat watches 
 for a mouse, circumstances balk me, and time slips by, 
 and they are going ! 
 
 Hungrily seeking for a crumb of comfort in any 
 direction, I turn to Sydney Dale, and pour forth in one 
 impassioned, badly punctuated sentence, the story of the 
 sentence of banishment that is about to be pronounced 
 upon me. And to my disgust, Sydney smiles all over his 
 face, and says, " That's just what I have been hoping to 
 hear, Tim ; I am going to Brighton, too, in a day or 
 two." 
 
 I fret, I fume, to my shame be it said, I scowl at him. 
 How can he be so callous in his own happiness ? Even 
 if Claire is extraordinary enough to love him, he need 
 not be so abominably fraternal in his feelings towards 
 me, as to rejoice in being near me at Brighton, when the 
 idea of going to Brighton at all is repugnant to me to 
 the last degree. 
 
 *' You have given me a brighter hour this evening than 
 I've had for twelve months," a voice says in my left ear,, 
 and I look up and eagerly take in the full force of all the 
 flattery there is in such a sentence from the lips of such 
 a man as Mr. Murray. Does Theo Bligh see that this 
 clever man considers me clever enough, and attractive 
 enough, to suffer his gloom to be brightened by my 
 efforts (slight as they have been) to amuse him ? I steal 
 
" After thai Parting on the Lawn.^^ S9 
 
 a glance at Theo, and he just looks away from me to 
 Sydney Dale with a grin of gay sarcasm. He will not 
 even see that it is to Mr. Murray I am listening. He 
 will vex and underrate me by seeming to suppose that I 
 am engrossed with Sydney Dale. How surprised he 
 (Theo) will be when it comes to be known that our 
 queen, our Claire, has surrendered her heart into the 
 keeping of the man whom Theo dubs as "rustic 
 Hercules." 
 
 "Good-night, my dear; I have just heard very 
 pleasant news — most pleasant news indeed. We won't 
 tell them what we do at Brighton, will we ? or how we 
 amuse ourselves. The gentlemen are going to enjoy 
 themselves in their way during my absence, and we will 
 enjoy ourselves, and show them that we can do without 
 them." 
 
 Mrs. Poland is the speaker. Mrs. Poland is an 
 " admirable woman," people say ; and so doubtless she 
 is, but she frets my nerves cruelly on all occasions. She 
 is a woman who talks in sentences in an artificial tone 
 of voice ; and this not out of any desire to be other than 
 she is, but really and truly because she wishes to say the 
 right thing in the right way. She does a great deal of 
 good in the place, and no man nor woman can say that 
 she has ever neglected a single duty. Nevertheless, at 
 this moment I hate her — and she has been kind to me 
 all my life ! 
 
 Surely Satan has entered in and taken possession of 
 me? The thought of being condemned to her com- 
 panionship after those hours by the Raven with Theo 
 Bligh racks my brain, and tortures my heart. Yet I can 
 count up those hours on the fingers of one hand, and the 
 years and the instances of her kindness make up a roll 
 that is as long as my life. 
 
 Huskily, ungratefully, awkwardly, I ask, — 
 
 " Is it settled, then, that I am to go ? " 
 
 And she answers, — 
 
 " Yes, dear ! your papa and I settled it in a moment. 
 ' Let the child do as she likes/ he said ; and I told him 
 
6o Blotted Out. 
 
 *I knew what you wanted: young people want a 
 change/ " 
 
 " O papa ! papa ! papa ! " 
 
 I don't make an idiot of myself and utter these words 
 aloud. They only say themselves in my heart; and 
 while they are saying themselves, good, kind Mrs. 
 Poland chirrups about me, and plans for to-morrow, and 
 speaks in tones of festive hope about Brighton, until I 
 have to remind myself that — 
 
 ** Be the day weary or be the day long, 
 At length it cometh to evenspng.'* 
 
 Mr. Murray says a few more words to me in that rich, 
 soft voice of his, which is like molten gold ; and though 
 the words are unimportant, they please and soothe me. 
 
 *' Mrs. Poland never did an unkind thing in her life 
 before," he says ; " and now she has shot at random and 
 lodged an arrow in my selfishness. I was looking 
 forward to having some pleasant hours with you. Miss 
 Vincent, and now I hear you are to be swept away to 
 Brighton, where, by the way, you will get a great deal more 
 good than you would from listening to the prosings of a 
 fellow like me." 
 
 " All the same, I'd like to stay and listen to them," I 
 say heartily, and he gives me one more of those soft, 
 kindly glances, that seem to me to be full of power and 
 protection, and I hear him say to my father — ^* What an 
 honest lass it is ! " just as though I were a child, which 
 view of myself taken by him does not hurt my dignity at 
 all. 
 
 They are all gone, and I am free to utter my plaint 
 and protest. Every one seems worn out and weary, but 
 I have no pity upon their fatigue to-night. Papa is 
 yawningly lighting his bed-room candle ; Aunt Helen is 
 trying to sweep us off to bed ; Claire is bending with 
 folded arms over a book which I am sure she is not 
 reading ; and Theo Bligh has flung himself on a sofa, 
 and put his arms up over his head, and half closed his 
 
^^ After that Parting on the Laum!^ 6i 
 
 eyes. I go close up to Claire, near to whom papa is 
 standing, and I put my hands on her shoulders, and 
 say,— 
 
 "Claire, do help me make papa understand that I 
 don't want change of air, and that I'd much rather stay 
 at home than go to Brighton to-morrow." 
 
 " My dear child, I thought I was going the way to 
 please you by giving my consent," he says, a trifle im- 
 patiently ; and Aunt Helen strikes in, — 
 
 " It's impossible to attend to all Tim's whims ; Mrs. 
 Poland will be disappointed, and will naturally think us 
 all very rude if any change is made in the plans now." 
 
 "Go, my child, and don't humbug about it," papa 
 says, kissing me ; and Claire, who has not spoken 
 before, rises up and makes an effort for me now. 
 
 " Let Tim stay at home, papa, and I'll be her substi- 
 tute with Mrs. Poland,'* she says very earnestly, but she 
 does not give my hand a responsive grasp, nor does she 
 look at me. 
 
 " Claire ! " I burst out, " I want to be with you — 
 chiefly " 
 
 " Oh, settle it among yourselves," papa says, rather 
 irritably. " Good night, my dears — all of you. Murray 
 was envying me my four daughters tonight!" and he 
 goes away to bed, laughing at Murray's short-sighted- 
 ness. 
 
 " What's the row about ? " Theo asks lazily. " Doesn't 
 Tim want to go to Brighton ? Go, Tim ; I would if I 
 had the luck to be free; it's a jolly place." 
 
 As he ceases speaking, he gives me a long, soft look of 
 most friendly sympathy. His eyes have the magic 
 power of expressing most things without his having to 
 trouble himself to utter a word. They seem now to say 
 to me, "I am going to-morrow ; why should you wish to 
 stay ? " In my awkward, honest, genuine belief in him, 
 I am on the point of blurting out, — 
 
 " I'll go if you think it better I should; but my health 
 is good enough, and I can't bear leaving Claire." How- 
 ever, I don't utter this sentence — I check myself, for a 
 
62 Blotted Out. 
 
 strange expression, a hard, cold look of scorn, has crept 
 over Claire's face, and I ask myself in agony for whom is 
 she feeling it ? 
 
 Crushed by a nameless, undefined dread, I suffer myself 
 to drift along the current of Aunt Helen's will, and that 
 will ordains that I am to go. I resign myself without a 
 word, but when we get up to our own room I break forth, 
 and make my lamentation to Claire. 
 
 " I hate going away from you," I say, " and she knows 
 it, and that is why she is sending me." 
 
 '*I am sorry you are going, as you hate it so much," 
 Claire replies coolly. " I would have spared you the 
 penance if I could. But he is going too ; why should 
 you hate it so much ? " 
 
 '* You'll be here still," I stammer out. " Though Theo 
 Bligh is going, he isn't everything." 
 
 " I should have thought he was — to you, after that 
 parting on the lawn^' she says, looking me full in the face 
 at last* 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 CLAIRE PUZZLES ME. 
 
 LEASURE and pain mingle themselves together 
 strangely with my confusion as Claire addresses 
 me in this way. The pleasure is due to the 
 fact that I am glad that she has seen Theo*s 
 demonstration of regard for me. Claire, at least, will be 
 able to sympathise with my sorrow at parting with him, 
 even though she does not love him well enough to sym- 
 pathise with my love for him. But as she has witnessed 
 that little scene, after the manner of the Huguenot, on the 
 lawn, she will feel that he has given me some reason, 
 even if I have no right, to care for him. This reflection 
 gives me pleasure. That Claire should be such a weather- 
 cock as to let herself drift back to the exploded, 
 unreasonable prejudice against him because he is a Bligh, 
 gives me pain. 
 
 Being pleased, pained, and confused, I am more awk- 
 ward than usual. Out comes the truth ! 
 
 ** You saw him looking down at me ? I'm glad." 
 " Poor Tim," she says pitifully, " what morsels satisfy 
 you, dear ! Now I, in my exacting spirit (I shall be 
 much more exacting for you than you are for yourself, 
 Tim), fancied there was too much of the conquering cat 
 over the overcome mouse in Theo's manner to you on 
 the lawn. It betokened great intimacy, certainly ; but, 
 Tim, are you sure of your footing ? " 
 
64 Blotted Out, 
 
 There is a degree of eager vehemence in her manner 
 of asking this last question that re-establishes me, as it 
 were. While she is cold, concise, un-Claire-like, I 
 cannot respond to her. The instant that she becomes 
 herself I become myself, and proceed to tell the truth 
 without fear. ' "^ 
 
 " I'm not sure of anything, Claire ; only I do like 
 Theo Bligh, and I did feel glad when he stood looking 
 down at me, and telling me I was to be sure and write to 
 him. You wouldn't like to lose sight of him altogether, 
 would you, Claire ? " 
 
 She shakes her head, but it is not a negative shake. 
 It is the sort of shake which seems to say, " I am outside 
 the question, I am a fool ; pray don't consider my bear- 
 ing on the case at all." 
 
 " The sight of him has not brought us so much bliss 
 that I must needs sigh for a continuation of it,'* she says 
 moodily. Then she adds hastily, " But sufficient for the 
 day is the evil thereof; leave the burden of to-morrow to 
 itself; we have done with the past, we are enduring the 
 present, do leave the future unmolested." 
 
 *' How strangely she talks for Claire," I think piteously. 
 Then, with my confidence crushed, my sympathy thrown 
 back upon myself and my heart and mind in a state of 
 chaos, I go back to bed and dream a jumble wherein 
 Theo Bligh and Mr. Murray have a part. 
 
 I am impatient for the morning light. It streams in at 
 last, floods the rooni with radiance, and gilds Claire in 
 her unconscious beauty as she lies still in a deep sleep. I 
 begin packing up my things, but my uninterested hands 
 halt in their task, and I decide that I will leave it all to 
 our maid. Aunt Helen is so desirous of getting rid of 
 me, that she is sure to speed and supervise the packing, 
 and to see that all things connected with it are done in 
 order, and in time. 
 
 A foolish, irresistible spooney impulse seizes me to go 
 out to the wilderness and gather a bunch of wild flowers, 
 in memory of that first day of Theo's coming when I 
 went to sleep with my head on Claire's lap. I obey the 
 
Claire Puzzles Me, 65 
 
 impulse, I gather them from the very spot on which he 
 lounged, I tie them up with some of my own glittering hair, 
 which I tear from my head at the cost of much pain to 
 myself, and when I have done this I look up at the sound 
 of a light cheerful whistle, and he is standing before me. 
 
 He advances over the ground I have consecrated in 
 my heart to the memory of his recumbent form with a 
 careless free step. He catches hold of my bunch of wild 
 flowers, not too gently, and bruises them. He examines 
 them with an essentially critical and unromantic eye, and 
 says finally — 
 
 *' I didn't know you botanised at all, Tim. I'll get 
 you some much better specimens than these. Let me 
 hear how much you know about it." And he proceeds 
 laughingly to catechise me about petals and calyxes, of 
 which I know next to nothing, until my cheeks burn 
 under the fire of his mockery, and I say — 
 
 "I didn't get them for specimens; I got them 
 
 for '' 
 
 " Sentiment," he interposes with a bhthe boyish roar 
 of laughter. ** By Jove ! what a joke ! Miss Tim out in 
 the dewy morn, gathering weeds and wild flowers before 
 she quits the place of her birth for the giddy whirl, and 
 the seductive wiles of a week in Brighton with Mrs. 
 Poland." 
 
 The heartlessness of his humour is intolerable to me 
 this morning. If he would only go back and be the 
 better self of whom he gave me a brief vision yesterday 
 by the Raven, I should be weak enough to love him still, 
 and to bitterly lament our approaching separation. As it 
 is, his conduct goads me into saying — 
 
 ^' I hate people who see fun in everything, even in 
 other people's sorrow," I say sharply, turning to go home. 
 He is by my side in a moment, saying — 
 
 *^ What a genuine little woman you are, Tim ! what a 
 sweet little friend ! You're harder to look at," he says, 
 with that bonnie laugh of his which peals out so readily, 
 **but I really believe you're softer and gentler at heart 
 than Claire; you forgive more readily — don't you now?" 
 
66 Blotted Out 
 
 I answer this question with another. 
 
 " What have you done to annoy Claire ? " 
 
 "Nothing," he answers unconcernedly. 
 
 " Oh, but you must have done something," I urge, 
 " because she distrusts you." 
 
 '* That's her misfortune, not my fault," he replies. 
 
 "I should rather think it was your misfortune," I 
 strike in. ** She's the one person in the world whom I 
 want to think well of you. Of course, I should like 
 papa to like you, and he's sure to do that in time ; but if 
 Claire distrusts you " 
 
 ** I may as well give up the game altogether, I suppose 
 you mean ! " he interrupts, and his laughing eyes enlarge 
 and deepen with thoughtfulness, and his handsome face 
 clouds over with what looks very much like anxiety. 
 
 What game ? The game of winning my heart, does 
 he mean ? Why, he has done that already ! It is too 
 late for him to talk of giving up the game if Claire 
 distrusts him now. I only think this, though. Aloud, I 
 say — 
 
 '* Even Claire will not be able to influence me against 
 you." 
 
 He bends his head, and stoops his lithe tall figure 
 down as he walks by my side, and looks me in the face 
 with his laughing, affectionate, patronising glance. Were 
 ever eyes seen before so full of power, so full of pathos, 
 so full of passion, or so full of fun ? Never, surely, I 
 tell myself, as I look into their depths, and deny myself 
 the supreme pleasure of smiling, for fear he should think 
 I am not sincere in my down-heartedness about Claire's 
 distrust of him, and my thorough conviction that it is 
 rather a serious matter. 
 
 ** Do you know what your address will be in Brighton ? " 
 he says, as we near the open drawing-room window. 
 
 I shake my head. 
 
 " No ; I didn't even care to ask it," I say. " It's an 
 awful thing to be sent off to enjoy yourself against your 
 will, I can tell you." 
 
 We are close to the winjow now, my foot is on the 
 
Claire Puzzles Me, dy 
 
 sill as I am preparing to spring in, when he arrests my 
 progress by saying — 
 
 " The position of affairs is reversed. I shall be able to 
 write to you and tell you how the wind is blowing, and 
 how your sister Claire runs the gauntlet of the attentions 
 of the rustic Hercules. My sentence of banishment is 
 revoked ! I am to stay here until further notice." 
 
 He says all this with speed, in a monotone. 
 
 There is no time for me to answer him by word or 
 glance. The fangs of the fatal truth — that he is to re- 
 main in the paradise from which I am exiled — are gnawing 
 at my heart, but I have to go on. What a blessing it is, 
 perhaps, sometimes, that the exigences of society and 
 family life step in and compel us to **go on," when other- 
 wise we should falter and fall away. 
 
 There is a blight over the breakfast-table this morning, 
 although roses, in slender specimen-glasses, are blooming 
 all over it. Papa is engrossed, as usual, with his news- 
 papers. The twins are sedately savage with us, their 
 sisters, for having, as they imagine, engrossed the Polands' 
 friends last night. Aunt Helen is watchful and wary of 
 everybody in her slow, stout way — especially watchful 
 and wary of me, it appears to me ; and a broad sense of 
 being treated with horrible injustice overwhelms me, and 
 makes me seem guilty when, in reality, I am guile- 
 less. Her accusatory glances seem to say " You have 
 been enjoying the unhallowed pleasure of free and happy 
 intercourse with Theo Bligh this morning ; you have 
 been tasting forbidden fruit \ you shall suffer the heaviest 
 punishment I can inflict upon you. I will keep my eye 
 upon you while you are here, and I will banish you as 
 soon as possible." 
 
 All this I read in her glances, and all this I could 
 endure with calmness, not to say indifference, if that of 
 which she is accusing me had been. But in my own 
 sorrowful heart I know that my intercourse with Theo 
 Bligh this morning has been anything but free and happy ; 
 that it has, on the contrary, been constrained, un satis* 
 factory, meaningless^ miserable ! In fact the conclusion 
 5—2 
 
68 Blotted Out 
 
 is forced home upon me by common sense that he has 
 been playing bob-cherry with me, and has swung the fruit 
 far out of my reach now. 
 
 Claire comes in as, with pain and mortification, I 
 reach this stage in the journey of self-humiliation, which 
 the great majority of my sex are compelled to make at 
 some period or other of their lives — comes in with her 
 hands full of letters, which she makes the excuse for only 
 inclining her head to the circle by way of general salutation 
 as she takes her seat next to me, and opposite to Theo 
 Bligh.^ 
 
 He is apparently at his happiest ease, with such a good 
 appetite, and such a light laugh, I think admiringly what 
 a clear conscience he must have. Aunt Helen plies him 
 with the strongest, creamiest coffee, with the most delicate 
 cutlets, with the daintiest poached eggs, with marma- 
 lade, with everything that the table bears that may gratify 
 the palate of man. She is not annoyed with him. Probably 
 in the femininely just and generous recesses of her heart, 
 she believes that I pursued him through the dewy meads 
 this morning. Doubtless she regards him as an excellent 
 edition of St. Kevin, and looks upon me as a reproduction 
 of that forward puss, Kathleen ! And I dare not tell her — 
 or anybody else for that matter — that the extent of my 
 froward folly is that I responded too quickly to the 
 advances he made — that I basked with too ready a 
 delight in the warm rays of " the light that ne'er shall 
 shine again on life's dull stream." 
 
 He has behaved with magnificent impartiality conver- 
 sationally, this morning. He has argued with papa, and 
 opposed him with sweeping assertions, on a literary point 
 on which papa is specially well informed, and about which 
 there hangs the charm of perfect novelty for Theo. He 
 has been gracious in a way I have never seen him be 
 before to Aunt Helen. He has shown a readiness to 
 enter into the twins' sports and pastimes, proposing boating 
 to them during the ensuing week, as a means of whihng 
 away the glowing, gorgeous July weather — which I shall 
 be spending at Brighton, with Mrs. Poland. Now, though 
 
Claires Puzzles Me. 69 
 
 Claire is devoting herself to her letters, he turns his 
 attention to her. 
 
 *' You promised to go for a ride with me one day, Miss 
 Vincent ; will you go this morning ? '* 
 
 " I am not going out this morning," she says coldly. 
 
 But, coldly as she speaks, I see the warm colour 
 creeping over her dear, sensitive face, and the letter 
 flutters in her hand. She is actually angry still with this 
 boy for seeming to trifle with me — far more angry with 
 him than I can find it in my heart to be. I look across 
 at him pitifully, to see how he bears it. 
 
 He bears it wonderfully — with gleams of smiles and easy 
 satisfaction about his eyes and mouth. The former are 
 fixed on Claire's face, but Claire will not lift her eyes to 
 meet them. 
 
 Twice in the course of the morning, before I am 
 driven down to Mrs. Poland's, I come in contact with 
 Theo Bligh. The first time it is in the drawing room, 
 where I have gone to pick up a few trifles, my blotting- 
 book, my own paper-knife, my favourite pen, and — a 
 flower he had flung aside last night! I find all these — 
 with the exception of the flower — put together carefully, 
 and Theo standing by them. 
 
 " I knew they were yours," he says, as I come in with 
 my eyes dancing and my face brightening, in spite of 
 myself, at sight of him. " I've noticed your aflection for 
 this fat smooth paper-knife. We're alike in that respect, 
 Tim ; I never like to cut a book with cold steel.'' 
 
 I take the articles from his hand one by one, and as 
 the paper-knife is ceded up to me, his hand clasps mine 
 and retains it. 
 
 '*Tim, you're vexed with me," he says, bending his 
 handsome head down, and looking pathetically into my 
 eyes. " I saw it from the moment we came into the fond 
 family circle this morning. You have been offended with, 
 not to say unpleasant, to me. What's the matter ? " 
 
 '* Nothing ! Yes ! how can I be anything but uncom- 
 fortable and unpleasant when I am sent away from " 
 
 I stop, and I see that a smile is spreading over his face. 
 
70 Blotted Ottt 
 
 I had been about to say, " away from Claire and you/' 
 but that smile checks me, and causes me to check my 
 sentence. I try to remember some sage axioms which 
 had been uttered to me in my youth, relative to maidenly 
 dignity demanding silence on the part of the woman, on 
 the subject of her feelings, until she has been asked in 
 plain English to expound them. But the remembrance 
 of all the axioms in the world cannot subdue the irresis- 
 tible impulse I have to look with deprecating tenderness 
 at this chameleon-like idol of mine, who is, after all, so 
 perfectly resigned to being left at Ravensbourne without 
 me. 
 
 *^ I wish Mrs. Poland could have contented herself with 
 the twins, and not have aspired to either Claire or you," 
 he says, when I pause. " I could have got on very well 
 here without them." 
 
 " And you'll get on very well without me ? " I say 
 questioningly ;— that offer of his to ride with Claire this 
 morning is still eating into my soul, though I try to per- 
 suade myself that I am glad that Claire should have 
 every opportunity of learning to appreciate the sterling 
 good qualities of this man whom she so hardly misjudges 
 at present. Even while I am thinking this, I am trying 
 furtively to pick up the flower he had thrown away on the 
 previous night. It is lying half under a huge photographic 
 album, and in my desire to avoid detection I become more 
 awkward than usual. The paper knife slips to the ground, 
 the other things begin to fal], but I grab at them violently 
 and arrest them midway, jerking myself about most 
 ungracefully in doing it. "Why can't I be easy, and 
 pretty in my way of moving about like Claire is ? " I ask 
 myself, with burning cheeks, as I stand erect again, and 
 see that the smile on his face has deepened into a broad 
 grin. 
 
 " You remind me of a sportive young Newfoundland 
 dog, leaping and gambolling with your playthings in that 
 way. What are you making dashes at ? Another flower ! 
 halloo ! " 
 
 My hand trembles with conscious guilt, and fails to 
 
Claire Puzzles Me. 7 1 
 
 grasp and conceal the flower before he can recognise it. 
 He does recognise it ! His ejaculation, together with a 
 certain look of confusion which is very foreign to his face, 
 proves to me that I am detected in my act of silly, senti- 
 mental worship of whatever appertains to him. 
 
 " Well, you are a rum little thing," he says, recovering 
 himself. *' You go out in the early morning and get your 
 feet wet in pursuit of a few rubbishing weeds, and you 
 nearly smash your fat paper-knife in securing a stale 
 flower. Perhaps it adorned Mr. Sydney Dale's button- 
 hole, though ; if so, I will respect this pleasing weakness 
 and hold my tongue about it." 
 
 I have thrown the flower far from me as he speaks, and 
 now wrathfully I turn from him, muttering something 
 about the pony-carriage being ready to take me away. 
 He follows me to the door, and his light mocking 
 accents follow me as I fleetly run up-stairs, as he utters 
 words of affected self-reproach for having been " an inno- 
 cent witness of my eflbrts to make a collection of the 
 decayed flowers of my native county." 
 
 *^ I almost hate him ! " I say angrily aloud to myself as 
 I burst into my bed-room, and Claire is there and hears 
 me. 
 
 " Do it quite, Tim, and we shall all be the happier," 
 she says rather eagerly ; and then I feel that I quite hate 
 myself for the unguarded expression. 
 
 My sister gets up and comes over and puts her hands 
 on my shoulders, and looks me in the face. 
 
 ^* I would have gladly gone to Brighton for you, Tim, 
 but you would not be the happier really for staying here 
 now. Will you make me a promise ? " 
 
 I tell her, ** Yes, a thousand, anything she can ask 
 me." 
 
 ** It's a little thing, and it is for your good. Promise 
 me not to write rashly to any one while you are away." 
 
 " I won't write rashly." 
 
 She sighs and turns away, and we hear the pony- 
 carriage drive up to the door, and know that the moment 
 for me to go has come. 
 
72 Blotted Out, 
 
 "John is going to drive you to the Polands*," she says. 
 "Good-bye, dear ; try to enjoy yourself." 
 
 I am a litde hurt that she does not drive me down her- 
 self, but the recollection that there is a little cloud 
 between us qualifies my regret. I run down and kiss 
 papa, who gives me a ten-pound note for pocket-money, 
 take a hasty leave of the twins and Aunt Helen, and get 
 out of the house without another sight of, or one word 
 from, the one who has made home alternately a paradise 
 and a purgatory to me during the last few days. 
 
 At the lodge gate he is standing, though ; and he runs 
 a few yards by the side of the carriage, and contrives to 
 put into my hand, unseen by John, a fresh glowing rose, 
 and a scrap of paper. So we part in peace after all. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CLOUDY AT BRIGHTON, 
 
 HERE is a good deal of fuss and bustle at the 
 usually well-ordered rectory. Mrs. Poland 
 makes as many arrangements, and provides for 
 as many emergencies before going to Brighton 
 for a few weeks as if she were going for a voyage round 
 the world in an unseaworthy ship. Her servants have 
 lived with her for years, and know the routine of the 
 house thoroughly. Nevertheless, she now insists on un- 
 rolling the list of their daily duties before them in as 
 diffuse and verbose a way as if they had never heard of, 
 or been accustomed to perform them before. 
 
 The magnitude of her boxes, and the number of her 
 little bags, appal me as I consider that we two ladies 
 shall have to look after them at every station ourselves. 
 But she regards them cheerfully herself, and counts them 
 over several times with evident pleasure before they are 
 put into the cart that conveys them to the station, and 
 tells off several of them to my especial care. The 
 bustle, and the fussy excitement about trifles, grate upon 
 me this day, and give me a foretaste of the joys that I 
 shall experience at Brighton in her society, in a depress- 
 ing wa}'. I can hardly exert myself even to respond to 
 Mr. Murray^s friendly salutation, and kindly regrets that 
 I should be " going away " just as he was " beginning to 
 
74 Blotted Out 
 
 know me." He seems to me to-day, by contrast with 
 Theo Bligh, to be heavy, old, uninteresting. When he 
 says that he has been teUing Mrs. Poland that very Hkely 
 he "shall soon look us up in Brighton, as his work will 
 recall him to town sooner than he had thought at first," 
 I feel so impatient of the proffered attention, that I 
 remain perfectly speechless. 
 
 It is too hard to think that both Sydney Dale and Mr. 
 Murray are free to go there, while poor Theo is chained, 
 by his aunt's spiteful tyrannical will, to Ravensbourne. 
 
 I am glad when we get off, glad when the final wrench 
 comes, and I am speeding away to Brighton by express, 
 with all chance of a reprieve over. I am not a very 
 amusing companion to my kind old friend Mrs. Poland. 
 She takes the lively and active interest in everything, 
 however uninteresting in itself, which often distinguishes 
 elderly ladies who rarely move from their own quiet 
 homes. 
 
 I respond to all her remarks relative to the state of 
 the country, the possibility of such a collection of 
 dwelling-places and shops being such a town or such a 
 village, the vitiated and depraved minds which those 
 guards must have who bang the carriage doors and 
 shatter our nerves, and the "strange kind of feeling it 
 gives one to be going away from one's own home for 
 several weeks," in monosyllables. My mind is ever 
 travelling back to Theo, and to the possibihties which 
 Theo had implied in his last words. I am retracing all 
 my experiences with him, and hating myself for having 
 been awkward here, and ungainly there ; for not having 
 learnt, too, the great lesson that there is great beauty in 
 neatness. Memory becomes an avenging nuisance, and 
 tells me that my hair has been unpicturesquely out of 
 order during the majority of our interviews. I look at 
 my hands ! — they are small and well-shaped, it is true, 
 but a vision of Claire's crosses my mind as I gaze at 
 them, and I hate them for their bronzed backs 1 Why is 
 it that the sun, and the biting, freezing March winds 
 always get hold of me sooner than they do of other 
 
Cloudy at Brighton. 75 
 
 people — of Claire, for instance ? Why, why, why am I 
 condemned by pitiless frost in winter, and by burning 
 sun in summer, to a red nose and freckles ? Why, when 
 al] these questions are vexing my mind, will Mrs. Poland 
 persist in speaking to me ecstatically of the scenery that 
 is being unwound for us as we roll along ? She insists 
 on calling my attention to " exquisite peeps " and 
 ^' magnificent places," and they invariably involve the 
 wringing of my neck as I twist my head round at an 
 impossible angle in order to look at them. Exquisite 
 peeps and magnificent mansions have no charm for me 
 to-day. I have been taken away from the human being 
 who has in the course of the last few weeks caused me 
 more pain, pleasure, perplexity, and mortification than I 
 have experienced in the whole course of my previous 
 life. Not only have I been taken away from him, but I 
 am in saddening doubt as to whether or not I may ever 
 see him again. The scenery blinds, bewilders, irritates 
 me, as it is forced upon my observation at every turn. 
 Yet even in the midst of my misery I am not ungenerous 
 enough to blame Mrs. Poland, or to endeavour to 
 persuade even myself that she is responsible for my un- 
 happiness. I only am in error, and vaguely I understand 
 in what my error consists ; I believe both too little, and 
 too much. I have faith in Theo's merits being deserving 
 of warmer, fonder recognition even than I am bestowing 
 upon them. At the same time, I distrust the result of 
 such recognition as I have given being a happy one for 
 me. 
 
 It is a blissful break for me when we reach Brighton. 
 I tell myself that I am miserable still, but there is a 
 change in the monotony of my misery. The mere 
 mental excitement of looking after Mrs. Poland's in- 
 numerable parcels distracts my thoughts, and makes me 
 resemble myself of the other day, more than the gloomy 
 and self-absorbed young person into whom I have 
 recently developed. By the time we have collected our- 
 selves and our belongings, secured a fly, and surreptitiously 
 feed a too seductive porter, I feel that smiles are widen- 
 
76 Blotted Out. 
 
 ing my mouth, and making my eyes twinkle. When 
 Claire smiles, her lips first curve themselves, and are set 
 in dimples. My mouth in my moments of mirth 
 " resembles an hilarious gash," Theo Bligh has told me. 
 Nevertheless, though I remember that he has made this 
 remark, I indulge in my merriment now, and tell myself 
 that he would think it rather a pleasant thing to behold if 
 he could see it. Love is so blind ! 
 
 Lodgings have been already prudentially secured for 
 us through the medium of an advertisement. In reliance 
 on this authority, Mrs. Poland informs me two or three 
 times in the course of our drive to them that they ^'are 
 airy, and command a good view of the sea." 
 
 " These are two very important considerations — in 
 lodgings," Mrs. Poland says seriously ; and I find myself 
 assenting aloud to her proposition, and conjecturing 
 silently whether or not they are utterly unimportant con- 
 siderations out of lodgings, as her last words seem to 
 imply. 
 
 A slight display of ill-timed severity as regards the 
 multifarious packages upsets that buoyant and winning 
 manner of the cabman, which had beguiled us into 
 selecting him from amidst a number of competing 
 brethren. He infuses his ill-humour into the spirit of his 
 horse, and we are slowly dragged the whole length of a 
 couple of streets from the sea, and finally deposited at 
 the door of a house that may command a view of the 
 mighty element from its chimney-tops, but that certainly 
 does not do so from any other part of it. Nevertheless, 
 Mrs. Poland audibly snifts the air as she emerges from 
 the cab, and says how " refreshingly clear it is ; she 
 almost fancies she is the better for it already." I 
 mendaciously echo her words, and wish, oh ! how 
 fervently, that I were back on the brink of the dear otter- 
 pool with Music and Heartless and — Theo Bligh ! 
 
 But my love-fever is intermittent. I have my lucid 
 moments, and during one of them it dawns upon me that 
 we have a long evening before us, and that the air is 
 warmly, brightly, beautifully clear; and with that love of 
 
i Cloudy at Brighton. " 77 
 
 change which makes young people so intolerable to 
 elderly ones, I say, — 
 
 " When we have had dinner, we'll go out — won't we ? 
 I do long to see the sea and the Brighton shops." 
 
 " When we have had a nice comfortable tea we will see 
 about it," Mrs. Poland says, composedly settling herself 
 in a chair by the window, and taking out her knitting. 
 " I think we shall find plenty of amusement in watching 
 the passers-by this evening." 
 
 I almost groan at the monotonous prospect, as I look 
 out of the window. An evening alone with excellent 
 Mrs. Poland even up at the picturesque flower-covered 
 rectory is an honour that we all, even the twins, avoid as 
 much as possible. But to be cooped up with her in the 
 dull glaring sitting-room of a second-rate lodging-house, 
 and to know that the sea is rolling in its waves of ever- 
 changing beauty within a few hundred yards of us, is un- 
 endurable. 
 
 I fret under the feeling of restraint for a few moments, 
 during which I watch the well-known gUttering needles 
 with feelings of almost personal animosity. Mrs. Poland 
 is perfectly absorbed in her pattern. She counts her 
 stitches carefully, anxiously almost, and never gives so 
 much as a glance at the novel scene before her. Why 
 couldn't she have stayed at home and done her knitting, 
 and suffered me to remain in the spot where at least I 
 had the excitement of being rendered alternately wildly 
 happy, and despairingly wretched, every hour of my life ? 
 Failmg to answer this question with anything like satis- 
 faction to myself, I say, — 
 
 " Well, it would be a shame to try and drag you out 
 this evening if you're tired ; but you like your nap in the 
 evening, don't you ? and while you're having it I'll go 
 and explore a little." 
 
 " My dear Tim/' she says beamingly, " when I take 
 the charge of young people on myself I like to make them 
 perfectly happy ; I'm not going selfishly to indulge in my 
 nap, and leave you to be dull by yourself : no, no ! we'll 
 have a nice quiet little evening together, and just get 
 
7^ Blotted Old. 
 
 accustomed to our new rooms ; and to-morrow we'll see 
 about going out." 
 
 " We'll see about going out ! " I almost groan aloud as 
 I repeat her words to myself. A fell conviction darts 
 through my mind that I am to be treated with such kind- 
 ness and consideration that I shall be virtually a prisoner. 
 I flash a mental glance forward through a vista of un- 
 varying days, and pity myself profoundly. I shall never 
 be able to have myself to myself. Even an occasional 
 uninterrupted indulgence in the miseries of memory will 
 be denied to me. A vivid picture of Theo Bligh, as 
 bright as before I was banished, paints itself for my 
 benefit. In my helpless anger against fate I am blind to 
 every possibility ; I can only feel that I am a caged, 
 fettered, forcibly tamed fool : and in my despair I go 
 back to the hard horse-hair sofa that stands in a dusky 
 alcove, and strive to stifle my sobs in a slippery sausage- 
 like cushion. 
 
 For a minute or two Mrs. Poland goes on clicking her 
 needles and counting her stitches happily oblivious of my 
 condition. Then a gurgling sob apprises her of it, and 
 she rises up and crosses the room, full of kindly but most 
 untimely sympathy. 
 
 " My poor child, the journey has been too much, far 
 too fatiguing, for you," she says. " Your Aunt Helen was 
 quite right, you do want change most sadly. We'll 
 have tea up at once : a nice hot cup of tea, and a fresh 
 egg or little bit of chop or something, and a good night's 
 rest, will set you up again." 
 
 " I'm not ill," I gasp, all my being in revolt against the 
 impending tea and its accompaniments ; " I'm not ill a 
 bit," I repeat more energetically, as I see her preparing 
 an odious little composition of red lavender and sugar. 
 
 "Not ill, my dear; I know that," she asserts aggrava- 
 tingly — "just a little hysterical: the change and excite- 
 ment " 
 
 This is more than I can stand. I am in a state of 
 inanition from excessive mental fatigue, engendered by 
 boredom, and she lays my state at the door of excitement 
 
Cloudy at Brighton, 79 
 
 and change. *^ I am only horribly disappohited," I say 
 with candid rudeness, **and horribly ashamed of myself 
 for being so," I add penitently, as I see her dear kind 
 old face fall at my brusque declaration. 
 
 " Disappointed ? " she repeats after me ; and I find 
 myself offering a lame explanation to the effect that I am 
 pining for the sight of the sea which is such a novelty to 
 me. 
 
 *' Do let me go down to it alone ? " I plead passionately, 
 for I am aching to institute the recognition of so much 
 liberty of action. "If you go I shall feel unhappy 
 — I shall know you're out for my sake alone ; do let me 
 go by myself." 
 
 She hesitates, and debates the subject with her ex- 
 periences and the traditions by which she has always been 
 guided, all the time we are at tea. But in the end, I 
 carry my point, and I am permitted to go out, and " think " 
 as freely and restlessly as I please, by the free and rest- 
 less sea. 
 
 For the first four or five days I am buoyed up by the 
 novelty of everything, and by the daily hope I have that 
 each post may bring me some news from home. If it were 
 not for this gnawing restlessness, my out-door life would 
 have sufficent charms for me, for in my moments of gloom I 
 can have solitude to my heart's content down by the 
 plashing sea ; and in my moments of healthy reaction 
 from that gloom I can see such an amount of glitter and 
 show, of fashion and wealth, of pretty things to wear, and 
 prettier women to wear them, than has ever dawned upon 
 my vision before. Indeed, if it were not for that still 
 ungratified craving for news from home, I should be as 
 happy as in my few sane moments I acknowledge that I 
 ought to be. 
 
 But my indoor life is too insignificantly placid, too 
 cooped up and little altogether, forme to be at ease in it, 
 even if I had no back thoughts of Theo Bligh to render 
 it still more trying. Decent feeling forbids that I should 
 leave my kind companion-loving hostess too much to her- 
 self, and her method of daily life is a very worrying one 
 
go Blotted Old. 
 
 for a light-hearted young girl to witness. All our lives 
 we have been accustomed to hear Aunt Helen and other 
 people say, " How admirably Mrs. Poland manages 
 everything ! " and in the abstract I have always given in 
 my adhesion to the statement. Hitherto, I have had 
 something like a loving appreciation for the scrupulous 
 daintiness of all her household arrangements. I can 
 recall now the healthy appetite with which, as a child, I 
 have devoured her wholesome cakes and comfortable 
 family dinners. But now, when I see all the details of 
 her organisation of different matters, I am profoundly 
 tired of them. The way in which every morning she 
 carefully enters into a little book (the sight of which I 
 hate) every penny she has expended on the previous day, 
 and in which at night she recapitulates all the successful 
 little arrangements she has made during the last twelve 
 hours, and throws herself with animation into the qi-j^stion 
 of to-morrow's breakfast, dinner and tea, is all hidtbusly 
 and irritatingly narrowing and tedious. I feel Hke a }bung 
 chained-up wild beast. I sit and writhe in the little room, 
 which, with its carpet of white ground, covered with big 
 bunches of scarlet roses, and its white blinds and curtains, 
 seems to be the very home of glare — and dig my nails 
 into the palms of my hands, as I picture the shady 
 river banks at home, and the bright, young, beautiful 
 versatile people who are strolling about those banks, free 
 of Mrs. Poland, free of the necessity of seeming interested 
 in the question as to whether the fish we had yesterday 
 cost two shillings and twopence or two shillings and 
 twopence half-penny, free even of me ! 
 
 Still the post brings me no peace, much less any 
 pleasure. I get, it is true, an uninteresting note from 
 Mabel in answer to my letter to Claire, and the receipt of 
 this note makes me ten times more restless and uncertain 
 of myself and everybody else than I was before. " Claire," 
 Mabel says, " is too poorly to write to you herself ; she 
 has seemed poorly, and cross, and tired ever since you 
 left. Papa seems put out, too, about something ; and the 
 only person in the house who is in high spirits, and 
 
Cloudy at Brighton, 8 1 
 
 doesn't mind whether other people are pleased or not, is 
 Theo Bligh, Syd Dale was here yesterday to know if he 
 could take anything for you, as he means to go to 
 Brighton in a few days. You happy girl ! to be there en- 
 joying yourself while we are all so dull at home. Even 
 Mr. Murray is gone." 
 
 Ciaire ill and unhappy, papa put out, and Theo Bligh 
 in his normal condition of gleeful unconcern ! What can 
 it all mean ? Why am I exiled instead of being permitted 
 to return and read the signs of the times ? 
 
 I nearly shed tears at first over the intelligence that 
 Syd Dale will be in our midst so soon. Alternately 
 refreshing and enervating myself, as I do, by perpetually 
 nursing reminiscences concerning Theo Bligh in the past, 
 and hopes connected with him in the future, the thought 
 of this other one whom Fate will substitute for Theo comes 
 as a jarring interruption. However, common sense and 
 the instinct of a gentlewoman tell me that before this old 
 playfellow and friend I shall be compelled to banish the 
 memory even of my brilliant absent love, unless I would 
 appear a maudlin, love-sick, sentimental, limp-minded 
 noodle in Syd's eyes. How oppressive he will be in his 
 health, and strength, and happiness, and heartless vigour! 
 How intolerable his rough, ready, honest, Newfoundland 
 dog-like attentions will seem ! How dreadful it will be 
 to have to sit and smile and suffer when he blurts out 
 fragmentary pieces of news about those I have left with 
 my heart at home ! how viciously I shall scrunch the sand 
 under my feet as I saunter by his side along the border 
 of the sad sea waves, striving unsuccessfuly to stultify the 
 craving desire all the time that Theo Bligh could be in 
 his (Syd's) place. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 
 
 pNOTHER postman passes the door after having 
 made my heart throb by halting on the opposite 
 side of the street, gazing intelHgently at our 
 number, and elastically prancing over to within 
 a foot or two of our steps. I watch his proceedings from 
 my bed-room window, from which I have rudely displaced 
 my toilet table for this sole purpose, and feel that now 
 indeed will breakfast be a hollow mockery, and smiling 
 toleration of Mrs. Poland's tediousness an impossibility, 
 I am positively hungering for some news from those I 
 have left behind me. Mabel's vapid epistle has had the 
 effect of sherry and bitters in whetting my appetite for 
 some definite statement as to what all those who are 
 dearest to me are about. I can't finish dressing myself 
 properly. What is the use of dressing yourself properly 
 when the only eyes you care about in the world can't 
 behold you ? My hands tremble, and the hair-pins fall 
 out, and the hair which ought to be my glory is my shame, 
 as I descend presently with some of it creeping down my 
 neck already in untidy, careless waves, that are eminently 
 unbecoming to my very questionable personal charms. 
 ** If I were a beauty like Claire," I tell myself, " I would 
 make the most of myself always, out of a strong sense of 
 duty to that priceless possession of loveliness with which 
 nature has munificently endowed her j being only myself. 
 
The Real and the Ideal. S3 
 
 an unattractive person at the best of times, it is not worth 
 while trying to make myself look merely tolerably passable, 
 after all, for the satisfaction of myself only." 
 
 I feel a little bit ashamed of my theory, as well as of 
 my practice, when Mrs. Poland says to me, — 
 
 *'Tim, my dear, you don't look at all as if Brighton 
 were agreeing with you ; or is it the way you have done 
 your hair ? We were saying at home the other day, how 
 much better you were looking — your new way of dressing 
 your hair up high improved you so much ; perhaps it's 
 only that you've let it straggle about again, but you don't 
 look half so well as when you came." 
 
 She says it all with such real motherly anxiety about 
 me that I am more ashamed of myself than ever. I 
 know that I am looking more than usually unprepossess- 
 ing, and I know that it is more than half my own fault, 
 still I utter my protest, — 
 
 " It's not fair to call me to account for being such a 
 plain little wretch that a hair out of place makes me look 
 ill, and uglier than usual," I say, ** I'm not like some 
 girls — the twins, for instance. I can't stand for an hour 
 before a glass studying whether a bulge out here, or a 
 bow there, makes me look a trifle better ; besides, what 
 does it matter how I look ? '* 
 
 I speak in piteous spasms of self-abasement, wounded 
 vanity, and love ; and Mrs. Poland is so good that she 
 does not detect the genuine ring of the metal in my 
 accents. 
 
 **My dear, you want a tonic," she says gravely; "the 
 air isn't enough for you — too strong for you, indeed, I'm 
 afraid. I've known many people who couldn't stand a 
 bracing sea-air — it tires them ; now, you look tired this 
 morning." 
 
 ** So I am," I sob passionately* 
 
 She lifts her hands up in sympathising amazement. 
 
 "Tired ! at this hour in the morning !" she ejaculates. 
 " I wish I hadn't left my recipe book at home ; one 
 never ought to move without it ; if I'd had it here, I 
 should have known what to give you at once." 
 6—3 
 
84 Blotted Out, 
 
 So she maunders on half through breakfast, madden- 
 ing me, and doing it so unintentionally — so well mean- 
 ingly, in fact, that in her presence I absolutely turn with 
 relief to Syd's anticipated advent. At least he's a man, 
 and he will not talk to me of recipe-books, and the 
 necessity that exists for carefully entering a dozen times 
 over every farthing of my daily expenditure. Remember- 
 ing all his blushing, boyish adoration for us (Claire and 
 myself) also, I reflect with pleasure, that I can be sulky, 
 silent, unpleasant to a degree in his society, without any 
 fear of his ever venturing to ask the reason why I am 
 these things. Yes, Syd, lightly as I value him, will be 
 preferable to solitude and Mrs. Poland. 
 
 But before the morning passes away, inoffensive as 
 Syd is in himself, he is made a cause of offence to me by 
 Mrs. Poland. She will speculate as to why he is coming 
 to Brighton. Having known us all from our respective 
 babyhoods, she feels aggrieved at the possibility of any 
 relation or intimate friend of Sydney's existing in Brighton 
 of whom she has not heard 
 
 "He must be coming to see some one," she says, 
 '* and I can't imagine who it can be — can you, Tim ? " 
 
 " I haven't thought about it," I say mendaciously — for 
 I have thought about it, and feared lest Sydney, in the 
 absence of Claire, may not be coming to make vicarious 
 love to me. 
 
 " It can't be for his health," Mrs. Poland goes on 
 speculating ; " and as for its being mere love of change ! 
 oh dear, no ! I'd never believe it was that for a moment. 
 Sydney isn't the young man to pine for change for mere 
 love of it ; he has too much to do, and he does it all 
 with too hearty a good will for one to suspect him of 
 that. No, no, my dear; take my word for it, he's 
 coming to see somebody." 
 
 I am unfeignedly indifferent to the possibility, still I 
 lazily try to picture the state of mind of the expectant 
 " somebody," whom Sydney Dale may be coming to see. 
 Dear, frank, honest, straightforward, uninteresting fellow ! 
 No woman will ever have a pang of doubt or jealousy on 
 
The Real and the Ideal 8 5 
 
 his account. "Not like him, not like my Lancelot," 
 about whom prophetic instinct warns me, doubt and 
 jealousy will be rampant for ever. No ! the girl selected 
 by Sydney Dale to be his queen will be blessed with the 
 eminently safe feeling that no other woman will ever 
 tempt him to stray from her. The tribute of attempted 
 rivalry will never be paid to her taste, and her heart will 
 be at peace at the expense of her vanity. 
 
 Fraught with these sentiments, I try to make some of 
 them manifest to Mrs. Poland in an abstract way. 
 
 '^Were you ever jealous of Mr. Poland?" I question 
 abruptly. Not that I think it likely that she can have 
 violated all probability in such a glaring way, even in the 
 days of her youthful infatuation. 
 
 She shakes her head, while a warm little smile, 
 illustrative of a confidence in her absent lord that has 
 never been shaken, crosses her face. 
 
 *' I was engaged to Mr. Poland very soon after I met 
 him first, my dear, so I had no time to be jealous," she 
 says simply ; and I feel a pang of conviction shoot 
 through my mind to the effect that, if I had been 
 engaged to Theo Bligh the minute after I had met 
 him first, I should have been just as jealous as I am 
 now. 
 
 " I suppose, on the whole, one's happier for not being 
 jealous," I go on. "But you can't feel anything like 
 pride in a man unless you feel that other people grudge 
 him to you, can you ? " 
 
 " I felt pride in knowing that he never wavered from 
 me," she says. 
 
 '*Ah! yes; that's all very well and very nice to feel 
 that he won't waver from you ; but I should think more 
 of him if I saw other people trying to make him waver 
 while he stood steady as a rock ; I'd like to see him 
 resist temptation." 
 
 My cheeks glow, and my eyes flame, as I say this ; a 
 lovely vision of Theo resisting the wiles of a Venus, for 
 my sake, flashes itself before me. 
 
 " My dear, it's safer when men have no temptation," 
 
86 Blotted Out. 
 
 she says. ^^ I should pray for one I loved to be kept 
 from it, if I were young again." 
 
 " And I should like to see the one I loved vi^ithstand it 
 for my sake, I answer vain-gloriously, as I recall some of 
 Theo's flattering subdued tones and looks, and banish the 
 memory of his careless, heartless indifference. 
 
 Mrs. Poland looks at me scrutinisingly. 
 
 **Tim, my dear," she says warningly, "you're not 
 letting yourself think of Mr. Murray and his pretty 
 speeches, are you ? My husband says he's a very clever, 
 brilliant man, and a great scholar, and so he may be ; 
 but don't you be carried away by that, for he has faults 
 that would make you very wretched if you came to care 
 for him ; all his scholarship and brilliancy wouldn't make 
 up to you for what he is when he has taken too much 
 wine, and it's right you should know that he does that 
 very often, before you give him your heart." 
 
 I have been dumb with amazement and annoyance 
 during her speech. That I, who am in the early glow of 
 a feeling that is absorbing my very being for Theo Bligh, 
 should be suspected of cherishing tender sentiments 
 towards a man whom I describe to myself as old and 
 fat ! What have I done to merit such an indignity being 
 offered to my taste ? In my wrath I am about to tell the 
 truth, but a timely reflection to the effect that Theo has 
 not besought me to banish my maidenly reserve on the 
 point yet, saves me. Consequently I content myself 
 with saying, — 
 
 " It would be more suitable for Aunt Helen to fall in 
 love with Mr. Murray than for one of us to do it. He 
 belongs to papa's generation, and ought to have given up 
 thinking of making anyone think of him in that way. I 
 should be ashamed if he tried any nonsense of the kind 
 with me." 
 
 I speak vehemently, for I feel it to be such an insult to 
 Theo that any one short of an opposition Apollo should 
 presume to act in a way that can create the suspicion that 
 he is trying to win me with anything like reasonable 
 hopes of success. 
 
The Real and the Ideal 8 7 
 
 " It would be a happy day for you all if Mr. Murray 
 did take a fancy to your Aunt Helen, if she would have 
 him," Mrs. Poland says thoughtfully. As she says this, 
 a feeling of annoyance that I know to be an infinitely 
 small thing, but that I cannot check, shoots through my 
 mind, and makes me smart. It is a little hard, it is more 
 than a little mortifying, that the pleasure and the triumph 
 I had felt in being able to win Mr. Murray from his sad 
 thoughts for one evening should be dashed in this way. 
 Why did he tell me that I had " bloomed like a wild-rose, 
 and gleamed like a sunbeam in his path," if he could 
 bring himself to give other people the impression that he 
 could possibly " take a fancy to Aunt Helen ? '* I had 
 been in joke when I spoke of the suitabiHty of Aunt 
 Helen falling in love with him. But Mrs. Poland is in 
 earnest when she speaks of the advisability of his falling 
 in love with Aunt Helen, and it hurts me. 
 
 **He thinks too much of his dead Helen ever to think 
 of another living one," I say poutingly. *^ He talked to 
 me a great deal about her that night you brought him to 
 Ravensbourne : he told me he had never opened his 
 heart so entirely to any one about it before." 
 
 " My dear, he opened his heart to all the world when 
 she died," Mrs. Poland says, smiling — **he wrote most 
 prettily in several of the magazines about her, but I think 
 that there are other things in the world that he cares more 
 for than that pretty dead wife of his." 
 
 As Mrs. Poland winds up her speech with a sad shake 
 of the head^ I feel my heart swell with wrath and indig- 
 nation against any and every one who can dare to doubt 
 the genuineness of Mr. Murray's affectionate grief for his 
 lost wife, or of his confidence in my being an exceptional 
 thing. I look at Mrs. Poland as she prosaically pours 
 out the tea, and I feel it to be absurd on her part that 
 she can delude herself for an instant with the idea that he 
 has ever sought for that sympathy from her, which he 
 told me he was taking from me. No, no ! old and fat he 
 may be, but not too old and fat to be able to discriminate 
 between Mrs. Poland and me. Or is it the case that I am 
 
88 Blotted Out 
 
 so utterly unattractive that men simply notice me oc- 
 casionally out of half-contemptuous pity ? Papa, whose 
 fears had been awakened so unfoundedly about Claire 
 and Theo Bligh, has never given a thought to the possi- 
 bility of Theo caring for me, and papa thinks a good 
 deal of me too ! Now Mrs. Poland speaks of Aunt 
 Helen as quite as likely to win regard from Mr. Murray 
 as I can be ! There must be some good and reasonable 
 ground for their belief in my inability to win from any 
 man that which all women sigh for — Love ! As I try to 
 accept this bitter truth patiently, I feel that I am looking 
 hopelessly depressed, spiritless and plain, and wild 
 thoughts of changing the form of my faith and going into 
 a nunnery assail me. Claire can never know this pain, 
 Claire can never understand it. Her only difficulty in 
 life will be to destroy the false hopes she has unin- 
 tentionally raised. My only difficulty will be to avoid 
 being openly destroyed by the false hopes that will be 
 unintentionally raised in me. This is natural, just exactly 
 what I have been trained all my life to expect. Never- 
 theless, it is hard. 
 
 Some of the bitterness has passed away, happily, by the 
 time Sydney Dale arrives. He comes straight to our 
 lodgings from the railway station, and I contrast his 
 heated, dusty appearance with that which Theo Bligh 
 would have made had Fate allowed him to come. Syd's 
 eagerness to see us does not flatter me in the least. He 
 would have looked so much better, so much less like a 
 " rustic Hercules," if he had gone to his hotel first, and 
 rid himself of the grime and dust of travel. Hearty, hot, 
 and healthy, he strikes me as being much too strong for 
 the situation of temporary substitute for Theo Bligh, or 
 even for Mr. Murray. 
 
 He has no tact, and no conversational wiles, I tell 
 myself crossly, as he responds briskly to Mrs. Poland's 
 invitation that he shall stay and dine with us. He must 
 feel that he is too big for the room, and terribly in the 
 servant's way, as she lays the cloth. Yet there he sits, 
 large and radiant in the glare of the afternoon sun, never 
 
The Real and the Ideal, "" 8$ 
 
 saying a single thing that can distract my attention for a 
 moment from the fact that he is awkward and in the way. 
 He explains fully all the arrangements he has made with 
 a maiden aunt whom he has left in charge, for keeping 
 things "going straight" in his household during his 
 absence. He carefully draws an uninteresting ground 
 plan of a new wing which he contemplates adding to his 
 house, and submits it to us, and joyfully asks for my 
 opinion of it, and begs me to make suggestions of furdier 
 improvement. He speaks of this coming to Brighton as 
 if it were some tremendous feat of travel and adventure, 
 and irritates me horribly by remarking that " we (he and 
 I) shall have plenty to tell them all when we go home." 
 What has come to me that I blush for my old country 
 friend's almost boyish enthusiasm, and wish with all my 
 heart that he had never left that home and those friends 
 which are running so perpetually in his honest stupid 
 head ? 
 
 As the evening draws on, anger and resentment against 
 him take the place of simple impatience. He has not 
 said one word yet about Theo Bligh, though he has skated 
 over the Ravensbourne subject several times. I am 
 panting with anxiety to hear if Theo is still there, and if 
 he is, what he is doing, and how he is getting on with 
 them all. But a feeling of consciousness restrains - me 
 from asking a question, and Sydney has not the tact to 
 answer it, unasked ! 
 
 At length, just as I have given up all hope, he stumbles 
 upon the subject inadvertently. 
 
 " Claire seems to have taken to riding a good deal 
 lately ; I've met her several times on that cob of your 
 father's ; but he isn't a nice mount for a lady." 
 
 '^ Alone?" I stammer out. Sydney has caught my 
 interest at last. 
 
 " No ; that young fellow, young What's-his-name, was 
 with her." 
 
 I tingle down to the tips of my fingers under the in- 
 fluence of divers sensations. A faint hope that Claire is 
 cultivating Theo for my sake only flickers up for a 
 
 s^ 
 
50 Blotted Out, 
 
 moment, and is then beaten back by the stronger fear 
 that she may be cultivating him for her own. Mingling 
 with these opposition pangs, is one of annoyance that 
 Sydney should presume to speak of Theo as "young 
 What's-his-n am e." 
 
 "Oh! is Mr. Bligh there still?" Mrs. Poland asks 
 indifferently. " Dear me, what a long stay he is making 
 at Ravensbourne ! " 
 
 " Yes, and while Claire, for want of metal more at- 
 tractive, smiles on him, he'll stick on," Sydney says 
 blithely, as if Claire's conduct were of no consequence to 
 him nor Theo Blights to me. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 "have I PLAYED FAIR?" 
 
 series of awkward circumstances culminate 
 about eight o'clock in my going out to walk 
 alone with Sydney Dale. It has been in vain 
 that I have pleaded fatigue, polite unwillingness 
 to leave Mrs. Poland alone, or to rob her of Sydney's 
 society. She obtusely insists upon it that she " knows 
 young people are happier for the absence of their elders 
 sometimes," and he supinely accepts her dictum, though 
 he must see that I am girding against it. 
 
 I put on my hat and prepare to accompany him 
 unwillingly enough. At the same time delusive hope 
 whispers to me that after all it may be for the best — it 
 will be establishing a precedent, and if Theo comes to 
 Brighton I shall quote it against Mrs. Poland if she 
 should feel inclined to demur at the proposal he is sure 
 to make to give me a foretaste of Paradise by going out 
 with him alone. 
 
 Meanwhile Sydney has to be walked with, and endured. 
 
 I take him down to the pier, where he insists on in- 
 haling the sea air demonstratively in a way that makes 
 me nervous. He expands his chest, and throws his 
 shoulders back, and, young Hercules as he is, looks un- 
 commonly ridiculous in my eyes. I see two or three 
 people looking at him with undisguised amusement as he 
 
92 Blotted Out, 
 
 illustrates his sense of enjoyment ; and a savage longing 
 to crush him for his being here instead of Theo seizes me. 
 
 " You're delighted at being here, aren't you ? " I begin ; 
 and as he promptly responds — 
 
 " Yes, Tim, I should be delighted at being anywhere 
 with you," I harden myself and add — 
 
 " And I would give anything, everything to be back at 
 home!" 
 
 " Now, if Claire could come here you'd be as happy as 
 the day's long, wouldn't you ? I never saw two girls fonder 
 of each other than you are." 
 
 " I love Claire dearly, dearly, dearly ; you know that I 
 do, Syd," I reply eagerly ; " but her being here wouldn't 
 make me one bit happier." 
 
 " Yet you want to be back with her at Ravensbourne ? '* 
 he questions gravely. 
 
 " Not with her," I say, with candour that is almost 
 cruel to myself, for it will alter Sydney's opinion of me so 
 entirely — " not with her ; Syd, don't you see — don't you 
 see ? " 
 
 I lift my eyes tremblingly, bashfully, to his face as I 
 say these words, and I read in it that he does see in an 
 instant. 
 
 " It's that young fellow, is it, Tim ? " he asks, in dry 
 low tones that are utterly unlike his ordinary full, rich, 
 manly, ringing ones. 
 
 " I like him," I say abruptly ; " and when I think that 
 he's there, and I am here, I hate being here." 
 
 " Poor child, poor dear little Tim ! " he says in a very 
 sober voice ; and I half sob as I reply — 
 
 " Don't pity me, or laugh at me yet, Syd. He's fond 
 of me, but there's Aunt Helen in the way ^' 
 
 " My dear Httle sister," (and I feel so glad that his 
 affection for me is so paternal,) he interrupts sadly, 
 *' don't deceive yourself; I haven't thought about it at all 
 before, you see, because I wasn't interested ; but now I 
 feel that it's Claire who is in the way " 
 
 " Claire ? " I stutter. 
 
 " Yes, Tim, Claire in yours, and you in hers, and all 
 
<* Have I Played Fair:' 93 
 
 for such a fellow." He says it is so bitterly, is he jealous ? 
 — is he jealous of Claire ? 
 
 I feel so grateful to him for his sympathy on behalf of 
 poor Httle disappointed, humiliated me, that I would like 
 to set his mind at rest about Claire if I could. 
 
 '^ She doesn't care for him much, Syd," I say earnestly ; 
 *^ and he doesn't care for her a bit, I know that ; so we 
 can never be in each other's way about him." 
 
 He looks at me kindly, awkwardly, sorrowfully. 
 
 " Poor Tim, I'd like to dare to try to help you out 
 of your mistake," he mutters ; and I tell myself how 
 desperately fond he must be of Claire since he can be so 
 tolerant to her sister's foibles. 
 
 " It isn't a mistake." I make my statem.ent doggedly, 
 for my dawning feminine vanity is hurt at the idea of any 
 man's thinking that I must of necessity be an offering 
 which Theo does not care to accept. 
 
 ** Has he been hound enough to try and make you 
 believe that he loves you, Tim, while he's playing that 
 game on down there still ? " 
 
 My lips tighten, quiver, but I will ask the question, 
 
 " What game is he carrying on ? " 
 
 '*The game of winning Claire. I never thought till 
 now that it meant anything — I never thought him worth 
 a conjecture, but now that I find you sad " 
 
 " I'm not sad," I say, while the tears pour down my 
 face. 
 
 "Well, at any rate, you're anxious and expectant, and 
 I don't like to know that you're that about any fellow of 
 whom I feel so little sure as I do of Bligh." 
 
 ** Now, if it had been Claire who had been silly 
 enough to lose her head as I've done I should under- 
 stand your being interested," I remark meditatively ; 
 " but as it's only me, I wonder that you take the trouble 
 to think about it." 
 
 " I'd take more trouble than that for a friend any day,'* 
 he says quietly; and a soothing sense of satisfaction 
 steals over me as I reflect that he is speaking the truth, 
 and that whatever pain may be the portion dealt out to 
 
94 Blotted Out. 
 
 me from another quarter, Sydney Dale will invariably be 
 just, generous, and kind to any friend in need. 
 
 We parade in silence for a little time after this, for I 
 am absorbed in the contemplation of the doubt which he 
 has worded, and which, now that he has worded it, I am 
 obliged to acknowledge has been vaguely oppressing me 
 ever since the evening of that happy day on which Theo 
 had, as I fondly believed, nearly disclosed his affection to 
 me by the otter-pool. My sorrow inclines me to speech- 
 lessness, and my selfishness inclines me to indulge my 
 sorrow. Actually a distorted sort of gratitude to Sydney 
 for being too amiably unimportant for it to be necessary 
 for me to exert myself on his account takes possession of 
 me, and I begin to wish that Claire was not so much too 
 good for him, as to render it impossible for me ever to 
 give my consent to the match. Presently a happy 
 thought strikes me ! Perhaps he may be trained to turn 
 his affections in the direction of the twins ! Who can 
 tell what happiness may not result to one of my blame- 
 less though little-prized sisters, and this worthy young 
 man, if I assume the office of guide, philosopher, and 
 friend towards him ? Imbued with this feeling, enlivened 
 by this hope, I brighten up considerably, and as we seat 
 ourselves at the end of the pier, and gaze out over the 
 free expanse of blue water, I say to him quite cheer- 
 fully,- 
 
 *'I can't tell you how glad I am that you have 
 happened to come while Mrs. Poland and I are here, 
 Syd. I didn't seem to care about it much when you were 
 first announced, but now I think that it may be very 
 much for your happiness that we meet here." 
 
 "You're always kind and sweet, Tim," he answers. 
 But his face does not brighten sympathetically, and 
 nothing in his manner leads me to suppose that he shares 
 my hopeful feeling. "He must be pitiably fond of 
 Claire," I think compassionately, and I begin to think 
 there has been some blunder made in our bringing up. 
 We should never have been permitted to have been on 
 such fraternally intimate terms with a boy who, in the 
 
^^Have I Played Fair i ** 95 
 
 order of things, would grow into a man, and want to 
 marry one of us. However, though the errors of the 
 past cannot be rectified now, their evil consequences may 
 in a measure be averted, if I can teach Sydney to regard 
 me as a distant woman, instead of a wild girl, and get 
 him to listen to my advice. 
 
 ** Don't I seem much more grown-up here than I do 
 at home, Sydney ? " I ask, in pursuance of my self- 
 appointed task ; and at last he looks me steadily in the 
 face, with an anxious, searching look, that makes me feel 
 surer than ever that he dreads my dashing his hopes 
 about Claire to the ground utterly. 
 
 '* Yes, you do seem older,'* he says; and there is a 
 certain hoarseness in his voice which I attribute to the 
 evening air. "You look as if you had begun to think 
 there may be trouble in the world, though it has not 
 touched you yet, Tim," he goes on ; and as he says it, 
 the shadow of the greatest trouble that I can picture 
 befalling myself looms over me — I may lose Theo ! 
 " Lose him ! Why, I have not won him yet ! " I remind 
 myself sharply. 
 
 ** I don't wish to talk of myself," I say quickly. " I 
 only want to feel sure that you do see that I have grown 
 older and wiser lately, before I presume to offer you 
 some advice." 
 
 My old friend and playfellow smiles at me very kindly, 
 and I feel a certain sense of pride in being rehed upon, 
 and looked up to by such a splendid young Hercules as 
 he is. Out here on the pier, where there is plenty of 
 room for him, he presents quite a different appearance to 
 that which he made in our narrow, cramped lodging. I 
 shall like him dearly for a real brother, as he will be 
 when he has found that his real earthly paradise will be 
 in a marriage with one of the twins. 
 
 " Do you remember when we were all children 
 together, Sydney, how much less trouble Magdalen 
 and Mabel gave you in our games than Claire and I 
 did?" 
 
 "I don't remember having many games with the 
 
g6 Blotted Out. 
 
 twins," he replies carelessly ; " they were always afraid 
 of spoiling their clothes." 
 
 " Yes, and they're just as careful and nice now," I say, 
 trying to infuse an accent of intense admiration for my 
 sisters into my passing tribute to them. 
 
 " Claire and you were always pretty equal at flat races 
 on foot," he goes on ; " but when it came to riding the 
 bare-backed ponies, and jumping the brooks, Claire was 
 nowhere." 
 
 " Yes, she was in the brooks very often," I laugh out 
 heartily. " Claire wouldn't like to be reminded that she 
 ever did such a thing, even in her short frock days " 
 
 ** And you wouldn't mind even doing it now, would 
 you, Tim? You're just as jolly, just as natural, as you 
 were in the dear old days, when you always took my 
 part, and bore many a scolding from Aunt Helen rather 
 than deliver me up to justice, as the one who had led 
 you into mischief." 
 
 I make no immediate response to this, for I feel that 
 we are ebbing away from the subject of the twins in a 
 very foolish manner. Moreover, I am not at all sure 
 that I am brave enough to ride bare-backed ponies, or do 
 anything else now that would justify Theo Bligh in 
 laughing at me, and thinking me ridiculous. When I do 
 speak, I approach my subject with a jerk. 
 
 " Claire was always quite the royal princess, wasn't 
 she ? It will be a blow to everybody's sense of right, if 
 she doesn't make a splendid marriage." 
 
 *^ I trust she will, with all my heart," he says quite 
 cheerfully. " Like the rest of you, I can only think of 
 Claire in a high position, and as she certainly would 
 grace the highest, I don't like to see her wasting her 
 time on that frivolous young fellow, Bligh." 
 
 Did ever love speak so tolerantly and tamely ! I'm 
 nearly staggered out of my belief in his being in love 
 with Claire at all. Yet, if he is not, to what am I to 
 ascribe those mystical allusions which he made some few 
 minutes ago ? 
 
 All my life-long habit of confidence in him comes to 
 
<* Have 1 Played Fair ? " 97, 
 
 my aid now, and teaches me to be very frank, warns me 
 not to attempt to diplomatise or ** manage" this man 
 whom I regard with the warm affection I could feel for a 
 brother. " Sydney, dear," I say in my most persuasive 
 accents, and they all say at home that my accents are as 
 soft and low as ever fell from any woman's lips — " Sydney, 
 dear, I thought you were fond of Claire, and now I don't 
 know what to think. If it's any other trouble, would 
 you mind telling me ? " 
 
 He laughs with a little under-current of feeling shadow- 
 ing his mirth, that I have never observed in Sydney 
 before, as he tells me, — 
 
 " Fond of Claire ! Why, yes, I am fond of them all 
 at Ravensbourne, excepting Aunt Helen ; but my fond- 
 ness for Claire can never give me a pang, Tim." 
 
 ** Oh ! " I ejaculate in unfeigned surprise and agony, 
 as a light is half revealed to me ; but he says nothing 
 further. He only rises up, and after staring straight at 
 nothing particular for a few moments, he turns round to 
 me with his old smile on his kind jolly face, and the old 
 hearty roundness in his voice, and says, — 
 
 " Come, Tim ; it's time we went back to Mrs. Poland ; 
 you haven't been well, she tells me, and if I let you stay 
 out here and catch cold, I shall wish I had never brought 
 my carelessness and myself to Brighton." 
 
 " Papa never drives me in of an evening, for I amuse 
 him," I pout ; " besides, I have so much to say to you." 
 
 *' Brothers are sometimes more careful than fathers," 
 he says quietly, "and you've said quite enough, little 
 woman," he goes on with most uncalled-for energy; 
 " your consideration for me to-night has taught me that I 
 haven't been mistaken about you in one way, though I 
 have in another. You're worth the best love any fellow 
 can give you ; and though I've given you mine, dear, 
 and it has been found wanting, no other man shall give 
 you a poorer offering, or be less in earnest about your 
 acceptance of it." 
 
 I am d'jmb with amazement as he speaks. It is start- 
 lii^g to be resigned in this flattering manner, before I 
 7 
 
98 Blotted Out 
 
 knew I had been asked for, even before I knew I had 
 been wanted. Gradually entering into, and presently 
 over- coming my amazement, there creeps a haunting fear 
 that I may have been behaving badly — meanly — to this 
 man, and that my conduct, though he may be noble 
 enough to forgive it, may cost me the best part of his 
 friendship, namely, that perfect faith which he had in my 
 honour when we played together as children. 
 
 " Oh, Syd ! " I say with a moan, as the memory of all 
 those old, childish days rushes upon and overpowers me, 
 ** have I played fair ? " 
 
 " I would never forgive any one else who asked me 
 such a question about you, Tim," he says, bending his 
 dear, kind face towards me protectingly. 
 
 And I walk in silence home, by the side of the man 
 whom I wish with all my heart was my brother in 
 reality. 
 
 A slight hum as of two people conversing drowsily 
 together falls upon our ears as we pass Mrs. Poland's 
 open sitting-room window, and when we go in I see 
 coming gladly, eagerly, to meet me, the form of a man 
 who has been very little in my thoughts lately. Notwith- 
 standing, now that I see him again, I remember vividly 
 that he is clever, that he has a name in the world of 
 letters, which I have been trained to believe to be the 
 brightest sphere, and that he has told me that I shone like 
 a star above him, and bloomed like a rose in his path. 
 Remembering these things, what wonder that I respond 
 gladly to the greeting which is given to me in the twilight 
 by Mr. Murray 1 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ON THAT SUMMER SEA. 
 
 AM a woman ; therefore, to be wooed ! I am a 
 woman ; therefore, to be won ! I am a 
 thorough woman, for I remind myself gladly 
 and proudly that these privileges of my sex are 
 mine rather largely just at present. Sydney Dale has told 
 me in unmistakable language that it is me he has been 
 wooing all along, and not Claire, and that it is only out 
 of consideration for my caring for somebody else that he 
 abstains now from seeking to win me. In almost equally 
 unmistakable language Mr. Murray gives me to under- 
 stand that I am the motive-power which has drawn him 
 from his daily labour, and London life, and brought him 
 down to further his suit with me by the sad sea waves, at 
 Brighton. Unaltered, unalterable as aremyfeehngs con- 
 cerning Theo Bligh, I am more pleased and flattered than 
 I can express by the victory I have gained in such an easy, 
 effordess way, over the heart and head of this clever, 
 cultivated Scotchman. 
 
 He has bestowed a searching and suspicious glance on 
 Sydney Dale as the latter has followed me into the room, 
 but presently suspicion seems to clear away, as is just and 
 reasonable, for Sydney's gloomy face is not that of a 
 successful lover. Deadly depression, which he does not 
 attempt to disguise, envelops my old friend like a mantle, 
 
TOO Blotted Old, 
 
 and I am just beginning to feel that until he removes 
 himself, and releases us from the restraint of his presence, 
 there will be a growing awkwardness in my manner to 
 Mr. Murray. This feeling has hardly bloomed into being 
 before it and every other feeling is crushed out by Mr. 
 Murray's next remark. 
 
 " I suppose you're expecting me to congratulate you 
 on your sister's engagement ? But, to tell you the truth, 
 I don't feel inclined to do so ! The lad's a handsome 
 lad, and a pleasant one ; but he's not the right sort of 
 husband for a girl like Claire, and so I told your father." 
 
 Mrs. Poland ejaculates something, it doesn't matter 
 what ; Sydney moves nearer to Mr. Murray, and says 
 eagerly — 
 
 ** Has young Bligh got engaged to Claire Vincent ? This 
 is news to us all ; you mustn't be surprised at her sister 
 being too staggered to speak." 
 
 Even in the first madness of my misery I feel grateful 
 to Sydney for coming to my aid, for seeikng to save me 
 from the humiliation of exposure. But I can't speak, 
 words won't come, and a scream would, probably, if I 
 opened my lips. 
 
 " They've been engaged for the last ten days, I think," 
 Mr. Murray goes on, lazily looking at me with rapidly 
 growing interest — such interest as shuts out anything like 
 earnest feeling on Claire's account. " The lad is nothing, 
 and has nothing ; but he says that now that he will have 
 such a sweet wife to work for, he'll make a career for 
 himself; you'll probably give in your adhesion to the plan, 
 because he's a handsome fellow — won't you. Miss Tim ? '* 
 
 " I can answer for it, that Tim will be glad of anything 
 that adds to her sister's happiness," Sydney says, coming 
 to my rescue again, like the gallant fellow he is, though 
 the sight of my agony at the bursting of my beautiful 
 bubble must have hurt him horribly. And at this junc- 
 ture I do remind myself that, though I have been lightly 
 won, and cruelly cast aside, I need not let the whole 
 world know it. 
 
 " My dear ! doesn't it astonish you very much ? Not 
 
On that Summer Sea, loi 
 
 that any one can be astonished at any one's falling in love 
 with Claire," Mrs. Poland says, and I speak at last. 
 
 "I don't think I'm astonished; I'm only hurt that 
 Claire should have let me hear it from any one but herself," 
 I say in tones that I steady with much difficulty. 
 
 ** There's nothing half so sweet in life 
 As Love's young dream," 
 
 Mr. Murray chants out. "Remember, she's tasting 
 it for the first time, and be lenient to her for forgetting 
 you ; by-and-by you*re sure to hear all the details ; but 
 they're all the world to each other at present, and all the 
 world is nothing to them." 
 
 I see Sydney watching me closely, striving by the 
 earnestness of his gaze to make me repress any exhibition 
 of the hideous weakness of my unrequited love. Strong, 
 faithful, generous, fellow ! why can't I love him, and be a 
 happy, honoured woman, founded on the rock of a true, 
 good man's affection ? Why can't I turn away from the 
 unhallowed recollection of that other one who has used 
 me as a blind, who has deceived me and treated me with 
 the most careless cruelty ? Why can't I do these things, 
 and be true to myself, and untrue to all the fatally weak 
 instincts of my sex ? Ah ! my sorrow is so young still 
 that I cannot find it in my heart to treat it with firm, 
 reasonable harshness. 
 
 " Dear, dear, dear ! " Mrs. Poland puts in, " to think 
 of Claire making such a moderate match after all ; if it 
 had been one of the twins, now " 
 
 " He wouldn't look at one of the twins ; he might marry 
 anybody he pleased," I interrupt, throwing all my family 
 loyalty over directly his claims to the highest consideration 
 are aspersed, and Mr. Murray unconsciously satirizes the 
 whole situation by saying — 
 
 " He'll have a strong advocate in you, that's very 
 certain ; if your sister is ever inclined to veer, you'll keep 
 her straight. He's a lucky fellow, for he will have the 
 loveliest wife and the sweetest sister that man ever had 
 
102 Bloiied Out 
 
 in this world ; and Tm thinking that the last good gift is 
 greater than the first " 
 
 Again Sydney comes to the fore, and spares me the 
 necessity of replying by saying — 
 
 " We're treading on dangerous ground, don't you know ; 
 we may injure his cause by talking about him j for the 
 man who is the first to break up a family circle is never 
 too gladly greeted. I see Mrs. Poland is looking * good- 
 night ' and * go away/ though she's too polite to say it ; 
 shall we go together ? " 
 
 Yes, Mr. Murray agrees that they shall go away 
 together ; and so at last, at last, mercifully I am left to 
 myself, for I rid myself of Mrs. Poland and her conjec- 
 tures with the words — 
 
 " Before I talk to any one about it any more, I'll write 
 to and hear from Claire." 
 
 " I'm afraid it's not all pure sunshine, my dear, or they 
 wouldn't have let the first ray of it be thrown upon you 
 by a stranger like Mr. Murray ; I'm afraid that the course 
 of their true love isn't destined to run smooth." 
 
 I hurry away out of ear-shot of more of her blackly 
 prophetic words. Claire, my darling sister ! my idol, 
 before whom I have bowed down from little childhood, 
 anything rather than that you should suffer ! I must write 
 to Claire and to him, and tell them both, in language that 
 will carry conviction with it, that I am happy in the 
 thought of their happiness. I must do this, but it is the 
 hardest act of self-abnegation that has surely ever been 
 given to a girl to perform ! 
 
 I write my letter to her, and, though the task is hard, 
 I perform it, for it is not impossible. I tell her of my love 
 for her chiefly, and I say a little about my amazement at 
 the tidings, and my hopeful belief in his being capable of 
 assuring her happiness. I beg of her to write to me, and 
 not to let the gnawing pang of fear assail me that she is 
 learning to unlove and do without me, because the other 
 love has intervened. When I have worded this plea with 
 all the integrity and pathos that is in me, I begin my 
 letter to him. I begin it, but it is many weary hourg 
 
On that Sununer Sea, 103 
 
 before I can finish it. How the man must have under- 
 mined me, to cause me to hesitate and doubt as I do 
 about my choice of words in addressing him ! My pen 
 will not run glibly, my language is stilted ! I throw off 
 copy after copy, and one is too warm, and another too 
 cold, while a third means nothing, and a fourth far too 
 much. I am too true to write falsely ; I am too indignant 
 to write kindly ; 1 am too proud to write truly; and I am 
 too wrathfuUy restless to abstain from writing at all ! 
 
 At length I scribble off something that is to a slight 
 degree less unsatisfactory than anything else I have 
 written. There is safety in its brevity, and yet, will not 
 that brevity tell him what I have suffered in being com- 
 pelled to write at all ? 
 
 " Dear Theo " (I write), 
 
 **I have heard the great news to-day from Mr. 
 Murray. If you love Claire half as well as I love her, 
 and as she deserves to be loved, you must be the happiest 
 man in the world ; and as I will believe that you do this, 
 I will greet you as a brother gladly. 
 
 " Yours always " 
 
 I pause here and wonder whether I shall sign myself 
 his " always affectionately." No ! I shall never feel 
 " affectionately " towards him again, but I am sure of 
 myself, of my own loyalty to my sister, and so I sign 
 myself without fear his " always truly," and I seal the 
 letter. 
 
 How long and lagging are the hours of the night ! 
 How glaring and distasteful the first flush of the dawn ! 
 This first experience of getting up hopelessly tries me 
 terribly, and sends me down a very jaded girl to Mrs. 
 Poland's breakfast table, where I find Mr. Murray already 
 seated, looking as if he expected me to be very glad to 
 see him. 
 
 " Mrs. Poland tells me you haven't had a sail since 
 you have been here/' he begins. " I mean to take you 
 
T04 Blotted Out, ^^ 
 
 out for one this morning ; there's breeze enough to bring 
 the roses into your cheeks. We'll take a book and go 
 out for a couple of hours' quiet enjoyment." 
 
 I would rather go to the bottom of the sea, and enjoy 
 myself quietly there, than go out in a boat upon it with 
 Mr, Murray, a book, and my own unhappy memories for 
 my companions. But it would be both foolish and ill-bred 
 to word this feeling, and as I am neither foolish nor ill-bred 
 by nature and training, I compel myself to say as cheer- 
 fully as I can — 
 
 " It's just the morning for a sail; and if you'll read to 
 me, and the boat doesn't rock, I shall enjoy it." 
 
 " The sea's as calm as a mill-pond," he rejoins ; " and 
 I'll read to you with pleasure. You won't be alarmed if 
 we're not back for some hours, will you? for when I'm 
 away^pith her and with Shelley on the sea I may forget 
 how time flies," he adds, turning to Mrs. Poland. 
 
 Mrs. Poland looks at me wistfully, and answers him 
 half deprecatingly, half warningly — 
 
 "I don't like boating under any circumstances^^ she 
 says, emphasising her last two words in a way that is al- 
 most a challenge, "and I'm responsible for her, you 
 know, Mr. Murray, and altogether I shall not be too well 
 pleased if you keep her out long in this hot sun." 
 
 " You may trust her with me : she's the sweetest thing 
 in life to me," he says dreamily ; and I wish with all my 
 heart that he were not so unpoetically fat, and so poetically 
 minded. 
 
 There is scarcely a ripple on the water as we get into 
 the boat presently, and I can't get up a sensation of fear 
 to distract my mind from my other miseries. The 
 boatman puts up the sail, and subsides into the bow, 
 where he and the bit of sky I catch, and the flapping 
 sail, make up a perfect Hook. 
 
 I sit and play at steering, and Mr. Murray adjusts his 
 rather stout person with some difficulty on a cushion at 
 my side. He puffs as he gets into position, and looks 
 altogether so middle-aged and plump that romance flies 
 scared away, even though he reads "Weep not for 
 
^^ On that Summer Sea, log 
 
 Adonais " in the sweetest accents that ever dropped from 
 a man's tongue. 
 
 "If you and I were on the blue Mediterranean, the sea 
 of poesy and phantasy, the sea of my youth, I'd m.ake 
 you understand Shelley better," he says presently, when I 
 have too palpably not only not " wept for Adonais," but 
 not listened sympathisingly to the tale of the manner of 
 his death, and the many reasons why all generations 
 should go on bewailing him bitterly. 
 
 *^ Wouldn't you like Hfe in the south ? " he asks presently 
 — "blue unclouded weather, and grapes for breakfast, 
 and the sweet dolcefar niente air there is over everything." 
 
 " I don't feel to-day as if I should like life anywhere," 
 I reply despondently. 
 
 " You're full of youthful vigour ; you're the brightest 
 thing that ever crossed my path ! you're too^^^^^j^ake 
 such a melancholy tone in earnest ; what is it, my child ? 
 Tell me your sorrow, and let me try to soothe it." 
 
 I turn my haggard face, my weary eyes towards him, 
 and there is such a wealth of sympathy in the kind, rugged 
 face, that I am prompted to tell him truly. 
 
 " My sorrow is that I have been a fool." 
 
 " Some perfect trust you've had, some loyal faith youVe 
 pledged, has been betrayed ? " he questions. 
 
 " My perfect trust has been betrayed, but there was no 
 faith pledged — by either of us," I reply. 
 
 " By that lad who has taken your sister from you," he 
 half assents, half interrogates. " Come, my sweet little 
 friend, take a more hopeful view of it. He's an idle, 
 graceless young ne'er-do-well now, but under her influence 
 something like genuine manliness may crop up ; think the 
 best of him, and don't take other people's troubles on 
 your young shoulders." 
 
 He is positively so blind about me that he does not 
 see that my trouble is that I have lost Theo, not that I 
 have lost Claire ! 
 
 A sudden revulsion of feeling, a sudden flash of delight 
 that as far as he is concerned my secret is my own still, 
 causes me throw off my air of sentimental gloom, and fall 
 
io6 Blotted Old, 
 
 into the spirit of the hour ; sailing on that summer sea 
 with a companion who can talk to me with the knowledge 
 and understanding that perfect acquaintanceship gives, of 
 the scenes amidst which Shelley wrote, is enough for the 
 hour. And when this hour is past, there will be some- 
 thing else to catch if not to absorb my attention ; and so 
 it will go on, and life will not be, shall not be, all a blank 
 because I have gone into the market of love and bartered 
 my heart away for nothing. 
 
 I've turned to the South, like a sunflower to its god, all 
 my life ; there's no beauty in the rugged north to me, 
 though it's the land of my birth and the land of my first 
 love. I'd like nothing better now, if certain conditions 
 were fulfilled, than to turn my back on England for the 
 rest of my days, and anchor in Florence with the sweetest 
 companions a man can have — books and the woman he 
 loves. 
 
 I look back to what my life has been at Ravensbourne, 
 and forward to what it will be, and I feel that my past 
 has prepared a miserable future for me in the home of my 
 youth. I look at the man by my side, and see that he 
 loves me, and a vision of possible happiness, or at least 
 contentment, in which Florence, and sunshine, and poetry, 
 and a general warmth and langour are mixed up, floats 
 before my mind's eye. 
 
 " I think I should like life in the South too, under 
 certain conditions," I say languidly; and he leans 
 forward with animation, and tells me that now a Con- 
 servative Government is coming in his chances of a 
 consulship are sure — that he has been told that it will be 
 Florence, and that he will go there the happiest of men, 
 if I will accompany him as his wife." 
 
 It is all over before I realise that I care no more for 
 him than I do for the boatman in the bow. I sail back 
 over the summer sea engaged to Mr. Murray, and I care 
 very little whether or not the boat goes down before we 
 reach the landing-place. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ''you make me very happy." 
 
 FHAT all Mrs. Poland's friendly fears are roused, 
 and all her mental energies paralyzed when I 
 go home, and tell her what I have done, are 
 very minor matters to me. I am in a state of 
 apathy ; and though I hate myself for being so un-girl-like, 
 so unwomanly, so untrue to the traditions of courtesy in 
 which I have been brought up, I can't rouse myself. I 
 look vaguely into her face, vvhile Mrs. Poland alternately 
 bewails that she ever knew me, and that her husband 
 ever knew Mr. Murray. She blames herself, and the 
 boating, and me, in one breath ; and in the next, she de- 
 fends herself from all possible charges of negligence, 
 which may ever be brought against her. She wonders 
 why I couldn't have encouraged Sydney Dale, who, she 
 is sure, with a little leading on, " such as any girl is justi- 
 fied in giving a man," might have been brought to think 
 about me. She wonders even more, how I could have 
 been weak, vain, and wicked enough to encourage Mr. 
 Murray, who is old enough to be my fathc, and much 
 too fond of wine ever to go on working steadily for any 
 woman. And I am not even irritated by her incon- 
 sistencies, nor stung by her manner of wording them. I 
 seem to have lost all feeling, all fear, and all hope. But 
 I h^ve a faint kind of impression that I may care a little 
 
io8 Blotted Out. 
 
 for strange scenes, and manners, and for blue skies and 
 seas, and eternal sunshine. I have also a faint kind of 
 impression that it would stir some sort of sensation within 
 me, if I could witness the way in which the news of my 
 engagement will be received at Ravensbourne. 
 
 After talking round the subject verbosely for hours, 
 Mrs. Poland winds up with this exordium — 
 
 "Ponder well, my dear, before you write and com- 
 municate your folly to your friends at home. I ought 
 to write too, but what to say about it, I don't know. 
 Mr. Murray's age ought to have been a protection to 
 you ; I shall never forgive him, and never think well of 
 him.*' 
 
 ** I think I should like papa to know it at once," I say, 
 exerting myself to have a wish, and to express it. " As 
 soon as papa knows it, there will be no going back, and 
 I don't want to go back." 
 
 "What a spirit for a girl to speak about first 
 
 engagement in ! " Mrs. Poland says, lifting up her eyes. 
 And she is quite right. I acknowledge that it is a 
 miserable, heartless, unfeminine way of speaking. But 
 at this juncture I am miserable, and almost unsexed by 
 bitter despair. 
 
 " I have nothing to go back to," I say, raising my 
 dreary eyes to her face. " Claire will soon be gone from 
 me, and papa will let Aunt Helen come between us. 
 Why should I go back to the old life that has nothing to 
 offer me, when, at least, I can have change in the new 
 one." 
 
 She is too much vexed and perplexed to answer me 
 reasonably, and if she reasoned like a Solon to-day, the 
 ears of my mind would be deaf to her words of wisdom. 
 She has failed to touch me in any way ; she has even 
 failed to make me pity myself. My fate seems to me, 
 even when she is making her worst representations con- 
 cerning it, to be quite as good as I deserve. I have been 
 found wanting by Theo Bligh. After this, ought I not 
 to be at least passively grateful to any one who betrays 
 the faintest recognition of my poor merits ? 
 
i^ 
 
 " You Make Me Very Happy P 109 
 
 Mr. Murray accepts the situation with a coolness that 
 is very comforting to me. Having freely indulged his 
 vein of poetry in the morning, he is going, he tells me, 
 to devote the afternoon and evening to the writing of 
 some political articles. There is a crisis somewhere or 
 other, in Turkey or in Timbuctoo, and there is a diffi- 
 culty somewhere else, and the always-ready Spanish 
 question is being very much discussed just at present by 
 the press. Altogether Mr. Murray derives, it is evident, 
 just as much pleasure from reading his papers, and 
 writing for them, as he does from the consideration that 
 I have promised to go with him into flowery exile, if he 
 can get a remunerative appointment there. 
 
 '*It's a sample of what your life will be with him,** 
 Mrs. Poland says triumphantly, when the shades of 
 evening fall, and nothing is seen of Mr. Murray; "he 
 will read and write and talk to you about what he has 
 read and written, when he can get no other audience, 
 but while he can sit at a club over good wine, and get a 
 circle of clever men round him, it will be little enough 
 that you will see of the literary star you're going to 
 marry in your madness." 
 
 " I don't want to see anything of him," I say thought- 
 fully, and when she naturally questions, — 
 
 **Then why in the name of common sense have you 
 agreed to marry him ? " I answer again veraciously, — 
 
 "I really neither know nor care *why' IVe made 
 the promise, but I have made it, and so I shall keep 
 it." 
 
 At nine o'clock this evening Sydney Dale comes to say 
 good-bye to us. He is going to leave Brighton the next 
 morning, " not for home." No, he's not ready for home 
 yet, he says, but for the house of a married sister, who 
 has settled herself away in wild Connemara with an even 
 wilder Irishman. Trouble has fallen on this sister's 
 hearth, he tells us. Her husband's lavish Irish nature 
 has led him to live beyond his income, and the land has 
 been neglected, and so has not brought forth plenteously, 
 and the herds have been sacrificed to cover current 
 
116 jB lotted Out. 
 
 expenses, and altogether things are looking in a bad way 
 in the eyes of the English trimly nurtured wife. 
 
 He is so engrossed by the consideration of this family 
 difficulty, that I feel I am only thoughtful for him, and 
 not absurdly reticent in keeping back from him the news 
 of the change which has taken place in my status since 
 he last saw me. The idea of having to discuss it with- 
 him becomes repugnant to me the instant I catch sight of 
 his dear, kind, familiar face this evening : and as I sit by 
 him and realise how entirely he belongs to my old care- 
 less, happy, youthful life, and how entirely Mr. Murray 
 belongs to the untried and unknown, to the dubious and 
 uncertain, I feel strangely tempted to put out my hands 
 and literally cling to Sydney. 
 
 " I shall find you at Ravensbourne by the time I get 
 back from Ireland, I hope, and let me find you looking 
 yourself, Tim, and not the tired-out, fashionable young 
 lady that you are here ; and — I'll always be like a brother 
 to you ; remember that.'* 
 
 He whispers these last words, and I bend my head to 
 listen to them, for they soothe and comfort me. I know 
 that he is real, leal, to be trusted. I know that he loves 
 me well with no selfish love. But I also know that the 
 romance of my life is over, and that I may as well take 
 up the burden of the reality of it uncomplainingly in the 
 person of Mr. Murray. At least, I say I know these 
 things, but the truth is that I know nothing of myself as 
 yet. Only intuition tells me that if I am to be con- 
 demned to live again at Ravensbourne, my own dearly 
 loved home, I shall sink prematurely into a monotonous- 
 minded woman, and the intellect with which I have been 
 endowed will become obscured and dulled. 
 
 " Will you say that you'll be glad to see me back ? '^ he 
 pleads, and the demon of the desire to please rises up 
 within me, and tempts me to tell him that " I shall be 
 glad, that when he comes home he shall take Claire's 
 place with me, and be my chief friend, companion, 
 counsellor." 
 
 ** And you could say all that to the poor young man, 
 
*' Vou Make Me Very Happy ^"^ 211 
 
 knowing all the while that you have promised to marry 
 this other one, and that by the time Sydney sees Ravens- 
 bourne again, you'll be known to belong so to Mr. 
 Murray, that it will be a scandal if you go playing the 
 game of friend, companion, and counsellor with anybody 
 else," Mrs. Poland says with earnestness, dashed with 
 anger, as soon as he is gone. 
 
 For a moment or two I am frightened. Whatever I 
 do seems to be wrong. Then the rash, reckless spirit 
 seizes me. I may as well do what is wrong as be 
 perpetually accused of doing it. I may as well have the 
 game as the name. 
 
 '* Sydney's liking will be a pleasure, a comfort to me ; 
 I'll return as much of it as I can get," I say doggedly. 
 
 *' And do you think that it will be a comfort to him 
 when you have taken as much of it as you can get, and 
 then take to Mr. Murray, and go away leaving poor 
 Sydney with the feeling that the girl he has loved from a 
 little child has played with his good, true heart, and 
 thrown it away out of wilful wickedness ? yes, dear, I will 
 tell you in plain words what your conduct will be if you 
 act as you say you will," Mrs. Poland says with quiver- 
 ing lips, and her head shakes with her strong sense of 
 the enormity of my projected course. Her words recall 
 my better angel, the dark spirit is exorcised for a time, 
 and I kneel down by her side and rest my head on her 
 bosom, and sob out a string of remorseful words. 
 
 ''What can I do?" I wail. "I know that I have 
 done very wrong in saying that I will marry a man whom 
 I don't love, but having said it, I must do it, mustn't I ? 
 It will be worse of me to go back than to go on. It's 
 too late for me to try to do right : I must go on doing 
 wrong, not because I like doing it, but because I can't 
 help myself." 
 
 '' It is never too late to try to do right," Mrs. Poland 
 says soothingly; ** you're so young to go headlong to 
 destrucUon because you haven't the courage to confess 
 that you have been wrong, and to bear a litde censure. 
 Mr. Murray, with all his faults, is a gentleman ; tell him 
 
112 Bloiied Out 
 
 simply and truly that you have no love for him, and that 
 you have been rash and wrong in promising to marry 
 him, without having a particle of that love for him which 
 is the only thing that can carry a woman safely and 
 happily through all the trials of married life, and all the 
 temptations of the world. You may not think so now, 
 my dear, but depend upon it, I am right.'* 
 
 I know she is right, and that I am utterly wrong 
 in all that I have done, and in all that I am weakly 
 inclined to allow myself to drift into doing. Neverthe- 
 less, I shrink with all the force of my nervously organised 
 nature from the task she assigns me of breaking it off 
 with Mr. Murray — my admired friend, though uncon- 
 genial lover. 
 
 He may be too old for me ! I do not love him ! He 
 may be addicted to wine ; he may be imbued with the 
 strongest intellectual selfishness ; he may simply see in 
 me a young hero-worshipping girl, whom judicious 
 training may turn into his safeguard in the present, his 
 nurse in the future. All these things he may be, all 
 these things he doubtless is. But at least in him I think 
 I recognise a way of escape from a great deal of mono- 
 tonous misery, a great deal of desolation of feeling that 
 without him will surely be my portion. Strengthening 
 myself with this reflection, I pursue my wilful path, and 
 tell her and myself that I cannot, with either honour or 
 delicacy, retract my word and mar the prospect I have 
 made for this man, who does me the honour of thinking 
 it fair. But I cannot cast all feelings of honour, all 
 scruples of conscience aside ; and so, though I resolve 
 to persevere in my course, my resolution makes me very 
 unhappy. 
 
 In a day or two I get a letter from Claire. 
 
 " My Darling " (she writes), 
 
 " Your letter is like yourself, sweet and sym- 
 pathetic. Theo and I are very happy, but there are 
 drawbacks to our happiness which I cannot explain to 
 you in writing. Theo sends his love to you, and thanks 
 
" You Make Me Very Happy. ^^ 113 
 
 you for your letter and congratulations. You will hear 
 from him shortly, but just now he is worried by papa's 
 doubts about the judiciousness of my having engaged 
 myself to him (Theo), and Aunt Helen's distrustful ness 
 of the wisdom of Theo having engaged himself at all. 
 I shall be glad when you come back \ your sagacious 
 litde head will be of value in this difficulty. What are 
 you doing with Sydney Dale ? Think well before you 
 pledge yourself to marry a man whom you cannot admire 
 as well as respect. Theo's brilliant qualities will naturally 
 make me more fastidious than evtr, and I never thought 
 Syd quite good enough for you. Do tire of Brighton 
 soon and come back to your affectionate sister, 
 
 " Claire." 
 
 The letter is loving, but still it is not like Claire. Some- 
 thing in the tone of it, something in the wording of it, 
 leads me to infer that she is either not perfectly satisfied 
 with herself or with her prospects. I realise with plea- 
 sure that she has no doubt or fear as to any feeling I may 
 have foolishly allowed myself to entertain for Theo. At 
 the same time I realize with a pang that Theo must have 
 garbled facts to her considerably for her to have this sure 
 conviction, after the doubts and fears which I am sure 
 now she did entertain on the subject, at one time. But I 
 try to banish memory, and to cease from conjecture on 
 the subject, and remind myself perpetually that Theo 
 Bligh is going to be my brother, my darling Claire's 
 husband. 
 
 During these days, my engagement with Mr. Murray 
 becomes a ratified and accepted fact. He is far more 
 practical and energetic on the subject than I had antici- 
 pated he would be, and he brings me papa's letter of 
 consent before I know that his consent has been applied 
 for. Papa's letter is a very characteristic one ; but much 
 as I admire his character, the letter disappoints me. He 
 writes to Mr. Murray — 
 
 * My daughters are not marrying as I have expected 
 them to marry. Claire has determined to try love in a 
 8 
 
tl4 Blotted Out. 
 
 cottage, with a young fellow who has luxurious tastes 
 which he will never attempt to curb, and idle habits which 
 he will never endeavour to break. This is very sad and 
 serious to me, but the days of locking up contumacious 
 daughters are past, and the days of daughters listening to 
 paternal advice are past too, it seems. As for my little 
 Tim, the girl I thought would be left to me when the 
 wilful and weak wills of the others had taken them away, 
 I feel that she must be mad to dream of marrying you, a 
 man who can cast no halo of romance or splendour over 
 the future (and it is romance or splendour which wins a 
 woman when there is no love in the case), and who is 
 old enough to be her father. Still, if you like to take 
 charge of a maniac, I can only say, may you be happy 1 
 I certainly am not so, in the prospect of my children 
 leaving me in this way." 
 
 I read this letter from my father with tearful eyes, and 
 d, heart bowed down by the consciousness of the truth of 
 his judgment. He is right in saying I "must be mad." 
 I am mad — so mad that I determine to go on and 
 immolate myself. 
 
 " He's not too sanguine as to our happiness, is he ? " 
 Mr. Murray says, as I hand him back the letter, ^' but 
 we'll prove to him that May and December may be 
 happy together, if December bears in mind constantly 
 that only flowers and poetry and love should twine about 
 the bright feet of his May. You can trust me to remem- 
 ber this, can't you ? " 
 
 " I think you'll be kind to me, and take me away to 
 some place that will fill me with new thoughts — and 1 do 
 want new thoughts so much," I say piteously. And my 
 middle-aged lover is obliged to be contented with this 
 anything but warm acceptance of his promises and 
 protestations. If he would only be chilled by my cool- 
 ness, if he would only exert himself to feel indignation at 
 my indifference, and cast me off. But he will not do this. 
 He is to all appearances as satisfied as if I were happy 
 and in love with him. 
 
 I have no feeling of girlish glory in my engagement. 
 
I 
 
 ** Vou Make Me Very Happy !^ 115 
 
 He does not even strive to make me feel that I put out 
 the light of all the other women who have shone for him 
 before me. On the contrary, when he puts the pledge of 
 his faith in the shape of a turquoise ring on my finger, he 
 says the stones are "as blue as his lost Helen's eyes." 
 And the only pang I feel when he says it, is caused by 
 the knowledge that I am too indifferent to him to experi- 
 ence jealousy about his lost Helen, or anybody else. 
 
 " You make me very happy," he says to me frequently ; 
 "you're so appreciative and so jolly ignorant. I don't 
 like learned women \ now, you're something to strive for, 
 and something to teach." 
 
 I make him happy, do I ? But how miserable I am 
 myself] 
 
 8—2 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MOON AND THE BROOKS. 
 
 i|RS. POLAND and I both feel that to stay on at 
 Brighton with the fallacious hope of deriving 
 any benefit from its bracing air is a hollow 
 mockery, after all these untoward complications 
 of feeling and circumstance have environed us, and been 
 played out. Accordingly we turn our thoughts home- 
 wards, and make preparations for returning, to bless our 
 respective hearths again, and for fairly facing the questions 
 by which our sadly prophetic souls tell us we shall be 
 assailed. 
 
 Mr. Murray bears the news of my approaching depar- 
 ture beautifully. Hotel life, though he likes it, he 
 confesses, is rather antagonistic to the work which is a 
 matter of necessity to him. " When I have you with me 
 always, to keep me straight, it will be all right," he tells 
 me ; " but just now very often the temptation to have a 
 peg instead of writting a leader, is too strong for me. I 
 am better back in my own study, where I can't call for 
 anything every hour without giving myself a good deal of 
 trouble.'' 
 
 He frightens me dreadfully by speaking in this way, 
 and I tell him so, although, in my ignorance and inno- 
 cence, I do not know half the cause I have for fear. But 
 in reply to my outburst of alarm, he speaks so gently and 
 
The Moon and the Brooks. t t y 
 
 gratefully, that I am ashamed of myself for having dared 
 to distrust him, 
 
 " My child, I would as soon bruise a wild rose as do 
 anything that could give you a moment's distress. You 
 must trust me, my darling, and you will find that your 
 trust has not been misplaced. I am not going to be the 
 first of my clan to bring sorrow upon the woman who 
 honours me with her love." 
 
 I shiver when he says this to me, for I know that I am 
 not honouring him with my love ; and whatever his 
 failings and faults may be, I feel this, that he deserves to 
 be honestly dealt with by the woman to whom he offers 
 his hand and the unstained name of his race. But I dare 
 not risk bringing upon myself the sad, earnest, reproach- 
 ful gaze that he will surely bend upon me if he ever 
 discovers that I have used him as a mere temporary blind, 
 to shield myself from the world's detection of my blighted 
 hopes respecting Theo Bligh. I keep up my fainting 
 spirit by telling myself that something will surely happen 
 to avert misery from the man who is so kind and 
 generous, so tender and trustful to me ! I don't love 
 him, but I pity him so much for his faith in my falsity, 
 that my manner grows more gentle to him daily, and so, 
 unintentionally, I bind my chains more and more se- 
 curely about his willing feet. 
 
 Oh, Brighton, how I hate you, as I look at you through 
 the gay, fashionable, careless atmosphere which surrounds 
 you, and remember that I came to you free, and realise 
 that I am leaving you fettered by my own wilful reckless- 
 ness, by my own inability to bear the outer pangs of 
 disappointment ! What an evil pass I have come to ! 
 How I hate Brighton, and how I hate going home ! 
 
 I feel like a convicted criminal when our journey comes 
 to an end ; and I find myself in the brougham on my 
 way to Ravensbourne alone. How will Claire meet me ? 
 How will Theo meet me ? I remind myself that he is 
 going to be my brother, and promise my own sense of 
 honour that I will meet him as Claire's sister ought 
 to meet him. A sister's quiet love is all that I will 
 
ii8 Blotted Out 
 
 let my wayward heart give him in the future. But here 
 I am at the door, and my strength is to be taxed in a 
 moment. 
 
 It is a bleak, dreary, autumnal night ; the wind has 
 even a wintry sound as it whistles round the corners of 
 the house. There is a certain comfort, though, in the way 
 in which the warm light floods out to welcome me when 
 the door is opened, and, joy ! just inside my father stands 
 with welcome and kindness for me visibly stamped upon 
 his face. 
 
 I pass the steps with flying feet ; I trip over the door- 
 mat, and fall into his arms, and I find comfort and safety 
 there. He gives me a close, protecting clasp, and then 
 he holds me away from him, and looks into my face, and 
 says very gently — 
 
 " My little girl has come home an engaged woman, has 
 she ? A happy woman too, I hope ! " 
 
 A ball rises in my throat and nearly chokes me; 
 scorching tears collect round my eyeballs, but I resolutely 
 force them back, for if I break down now, my unhap- 
 piness will be patent to everybody, and they will begin to 
 surmise concerning the reason why I have rushed into it. 
 Steadying myself with this reflection, I lift my eyes as fear- 
 lessly as I can, and face my father's scrutiny, as I reply — 
 
 ** If you're not displeased at it, I am happy." 
 
 The few moments given to the interview seem long to 
 me, for Claire has not come to me yet ; and though I 
 dread the meeting, I do long for it so yearningly. As we 
 pass on to the drawing-room I find time to ask where 
 they all are, and I am told that Aunt Helen and the 
 twins are dressing, and that Claire and Theo are strolling 
 about the grounds. 
 
 What a reception! The indifference exhibited by 
 Aunt Helen and the twins does not hurt me very much, 
 but that Claire should hold aloof from me for a moment 
 is a thing that stings me sharply. I am glad to free my- 
 self from papa's observant gaze, by running up-stairs to 
 my own room, to which haven presently comes Aunt 
 Helen, attended by Mabel and Magdalen. 
 
The Moon and the Brooks, 1 1 9 
 
 Fresh from the sight of little Mrs. Poland, Aunt Helen 
 strikes me as being larger than ever. In other respects 
 she is unaltered. At a glance I take in these truths, 
 namely, that she is as calm, as overbearing, and as much 
 disposed to find fault with me as ever. The twins are— 
 themselves. 
 
 "I am very glad you have come back, Tim," Aunt 
 Helen begins, giving me a large cheek to kiss ; " I was 
 afraid you might have consummated your folly by marry- 
 ing that man before you gave any of us a chance of 
 reasoning with you. I never heard of anything so 
 ridiculous in my life as your engagement," she says with 
 slow scornful emphasis. 
 
 "We do all wonder so what you can see in him,*' 
 Mabel puts in. 
 
 " Theo says that ' disappointed by Apollo, girls some- 
 times turn to Bacchus/ You must have found and lost 
 your Apollo very quickly, Tim. Theo likes to chaff 
 everybody, you know, Tim," Magdalen says deprecatingly, 
 as a crimson blush burns over my face as I listen to the 
 idle, foohsh words wherewith Theo has been underrating 
 me and the man to whom I have turned in my folly and 
 sorrow. 
 
 " Don't tell me anything more that he may have said/' 
 I begin, but Mabel interrupts me to say, — 
 
 " Now don't turn against Theo because he can't 
 admire your choice; you'll find that we're all his 
 champions here now. We stand up for Theo quite as 
 much as you used to do ; don't we. Aunt Helen ? " 
 
 "Whom do you stand up for him against?" I in- 
 terrogate. 
 
 "Well, I hardly know," my inconsequent sister 
 replies, "because every one likes him excepting papa. 
 Sometimes papa is rather hard on him ; but we adore 
 him. He has a little to put up with, too, from Claire." 
 
 " From Claire ! from the sweetest-tempered, sweetest^ 
 natured darling that ever lived ! " I ejaculate. 
 
 " Claire isn't always sweet-tempered to him, but he 
 never lets anything she says put him out; being en- 
 
120 Blotted Out, 
 
 gaged gives her so much to think of, I suppose. She 
 certainly has moods sometimes now." Mabel tells me 
 this in a cheerful, commonplace way, as if it were the 
 most unimportant thing in the world. But to me the 
 statement is fraught with a significance. If Claire has 
 " moods," Claire is not happy. 
 
 "Here she comes," Mabel says, as Claire comes in 
 swiftly, and in a moment our arms are round one another's 
 necks, and we are clinging to each other, as if we felt 
 that we had not much else to cling to. This thought 
 flashes across my mind in an instant, then I banish it — 
 Claire is loved by and loves Theo ! Claire must be 
 happy. 
 
 " We'll always love each other, and always be true to 
 each other, won't we, Tim?" are her first words, and 
 they are spoken with emotion. 
 
 How heartily, how honestly, I answer ** Yes." 
 
 " Just take off your hat and cloak," she says, taking 
 them off as she speaks, " and come and see him at once, 
 before the others are down; be kind to him, for my 
 sake!" 
 
 " I'll be anything to him for your sake ; I'll always be 
 true to you in everything," I answer, as we go down arm- 
 in-arm to the room where my brother-in-law elect awaits 
 me. 
 
 Lissom, supple, and splendid looking, he comes to 
 meet me with outstretched hands, with laughing eyes, and 
 a face that has a more glowing flush on it than I have 
 ever seen there before. But somehow or other it strikes 
 me that the light, laughing air is not as natural as usual, 
 that it is assumed to cover a sort of nervous excitement, 
 which betrays itself in spite of his graceful gift of acting. 
 
 ^* Awfully glad to see you; let me imprint a chaste 
 fraternal salute upon your brow," he begins, as he takes 
 me by both hands and kisses my forehead ; and at the 
 tone of his voice, at the touch of his lips, I quiver 
 through every fibre of my being with the miserable con- 
 viction that he is still the dearest thing on earth to me. 
 
 For all his carelessness, for all his easy grace, I detect 
 
The Moon and the Brooks, 121 
 
 that it is a sigh of relief which he heaves as he turns 
 away from me when I have greeted him with the words, 
 *^ I am very glad you're going to be my brother, Theo." 
 Perhaps he too has dreaded this meeting ? Perhaps his 
 memory has painted some scenes from our past, as vividly 
 for him as mine has for me ? 
 
 " So you're going to bring back the light of other days 
 to Murray's life by accompanying him into his flowery 
 exile, are you?" Theo says presently, laughing and 
 swaying about as he stands up before Claire and me. 
 Every debonair gesture, and every light, half-ironical 
 accent are so familiar to me, and so desperately dear to 
 me, that they inflict sharper pangs upon me than do his 
 half -derisive tone of talking of my future husband. 
 There is no doubt about it ; I am much more loyal to 
 my misplaced first love, than I am to my recently 
 plighted vows to Mr. Murray. 
 
 "' In plain English, I am going to marry him and go 
 abroad,'^ I reply briefly; "you can word the fact in a 
 ridiculous way if it pleases you, but pray don't say it to 
 me ; be amusing at my expense to other people." 
 
 " Don't be savage," he says softly, bending down over 
 me and forcing me to look him straight in the eyes at 
 length ; " I was merely quoting his own words to your 
 father. I thought the idea pretty, don't you see ? Like 
 a line from a lovely poem, it's always running in my 
 head. I wonder if he'll always * lisp in numbers ' to you 
 when you're Mrs. Murray." 
 
 " Don't be rude as well as silly, Theo," Claire says 
 quickly, but Theo does not regard her reproof; indeed, 
 I think he scarcely hears it, he is laughing so hilariously 
 at the suggestion he has thrown out. 
 
 " I am only putting the beautiful possibilities of the 
 future before her. I can't do the blank verse business 
 in conversation myself, but I want Tim to feel that I 
 understand and sympathise with her appreciation of it," 
 he says, affecting to excuse himself. As I steal a glance 
 at him I see that he is watching me sharply, and I feel 
 sure that in reality he is not so conscience-free, not quite 
 
123 
 
 Blotted Out 
 
 so careless, nor quite so indifferent about me as he feigns 
 to be. 
 
 Claire leaves us presently on some slight pretext, and 
 as soon as she is out of the room his manner changes 
 with that miraculous rapidity which has been one of its 
 chief charms to me hitherto. I distrust it when in all 
 seriousness he mutters to me, — 
 
 "You don't believe in this badinage^ do you, Tim? 
 You know that I feel all this too much to dare to speak 
 earnestly of it before any one." 
 
 "Then you shall not speak earnestly of it at all," I say 
 with determination. " I should Hke you to reverse your 
 place— to be earnest about it before people, if you must 
 say anything at all about it, and to treat me to nothing 
 but badinage when we're alone." 
 
 He stands leaning against the mantel-piece looking 
 down at me with those lightly glancing greenish hazel 
 eyes of his, with an expression that is surely caused by 
 some feeling of chagrin or disappointment. After a 
 moment or two he changes his attitude ; he gives me a 
 side view of his face to look at only, and says, — 
 
 "You haven't told me yet what you think of our affair. 
 Were you surprised ? " 
 
 "Partly yes, and partly no; not surprised at your 
 loving Claire " 
 
 " Only astonished that Claire or anybody else should 
 care a brass farthing for me, is that it ? As you would 
 have said * no ' had my presumption carried me in your 
 direction, you're rather staggered at discovering your 
 favourite sister has shown more toleration for me ; is that 
 it, Tim, dear?" 
 
 He asks it with such a winning, pleading charm of 
 voice and manner, that I forgive him for torturing me. I 
 conquer all jealousy, all resentment, for the time being, 
 and say with sincerity, — 
 
 " I think that Claire and you were born for each other, 
 no one else would have been good enough for her, and 
 no one but Claire would have been good enough fgr 
 you," 
 
The Moon and the Brooks. 123 
 
 For a second my ardent, genuine tribute to his deserts 
 (as I estimate them) touches the careless young Antinous 
 before me into an exhibition of real feeling. 
 
 " Ton my word you are good, darling," he says with 
 impassioned emphasis, and he takes my hand, and presses 
 it with fond fervour. But in another second he is his 
 own gay, ratthng, effervescent self again, for all the 
 family come into the room, and he evidently thinks that 
 there is need for a transformation scene. 
 
 "Tim's as serious as a judge," he begins, whisking 
 about the circle like an animated young stag; " IVe just 
 been telling her that she's prematurely demure ; we all 
 know that it's the saddest sight of all to see — 
 
 ' A gay and girlish thing 
 Give up her maiden gladness 
 For a name and for a ring,* 
 
 but this little episode hasn't come off yet ; she has no 
 right to relinquish the gay and girlish gladness before 
 Mr. Murray pays her for letting them slide, with the little 
 bar of gold and the name of his ancient race." 
 
 He positively sparkles with fun as he says this, and I 
 come to the horrible conclusion that he has two manners, 
 one for Claire and the others, and one for me alone. 
 He wears two faces under that handsome, brilliant mask 
 of his ! Yet I, seeing this, fathoming it entirely, aclie 
 with the gnawing regret that only a woman who loves 
 desperately can feel, for that I have lost him for ever, 
 though he has been gained by the one for whom I have 
 always and for whom I always will make silent sacrifice. 
 
 " Is that your engagement ring ? " Mabel asks, taking 
 my hand as she sits by me at dinner this night ; " oh 
 dear ! only turquoise ; I would have had something that 
 looked a little less like one school girl's gift to another; 
 it isn't half important enough." 
 
 "Certainly not for a consul's wife," Theo says with 
 feigned seriousness. " As the representative of Britannic 
 majesty abroad, some quaint device that was worn by 
 
124 Blotted Out. 
 
 some of the royal houses from which he is collaterally 
 descended would have been neat and appropriate — a 
 broad band of gold, for instance, with the words, ' Pledge 
 of my faith ; Fitzjames* ring ! ' engraved on it would be 
 the very thing. I shall give the suggestion to Murray, 
 and I am sure he will be very much obliged to me for 
 it." 
 
 " We should all be very much obliged to you if you 
 would spare us any more laboured witticisms,'* Claire 
 says coldly. 
 
 "They're not laboured in the least; they spring 
 spontaneously from the fruitful soil of my own philan- 
 thropic heart. There's not the least doubt of it that 
 Murray is descended from that fellow who used to go 
 loafing all about bonnie Scotland under the name of 
 Fitzjames — the one who unearthed the Lady of the Lake 
 after a bad day with the hounds, you know, Sir," he 
 adds, pretending to explain seriously to papa. " I'm 
 sure," he goes on, " Murray would be pleased at my 
 prompt recognition of claims that he has been too 
 delicate to put forward for our consideration yet; a 
 Scottish gentleman of an ancient house " 
 
 His imitation of Mr. Murray's manner is so perfect in 
 its want of exaggeration, that, combined with his air of 
 perfect unconsciousness, it is too much for me ; I break 
 into a fit of hysterical laughter, which ends ignominiously 
 in a flood of tears. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 HEN we are sitting alone in our room this 
 night, Claire opposite the looking-glass in 
 which I see the reflection of her beautiful pen- 
 sive face, I by the fire whose warmth comforts 
 me like a living thing, for I am chilled and nervous after 
 my burst of crying, and my teeth chatter, and my whole 
 frame shivers when I try to speak — when we are sitting 
 thus, I feel that my hour has come. 
 
 **Tim," Claire begins, turning round and leaning her 
 slight, white-dressing-gown-robed form over the back of 
 her chair, "I want you to tell me the truth, all the 
 truth, and nothing but the truth ; are you prepared to do 
 it?" 
 
 " I will tell you nothing but the truth," I say evasively, 
 and the evasion does not content her. 
 
 " I was sure of that before I asked you, Tim darling : 
 you couldn't tell a falsehood, but— will you tell me 
 everything ? '* 
 
 "About what? " I say piteously ; " oh.! Claire, do let 
 me rest without questioning to-night ; I'm trembling, I'm 
 nervous, and I may say more than I ought, more than I 
 wish, to say about anything." 
 
 "What made you engage yourself to Mr. Murray?" 
 she persists, utterly ignoring my plea. 
 
126 Blotted Out 
 
 "Vanity, I suppose," I say with a shudder. "I was 
 flattered, I mean I am flattered, at such a clever man 
 caring for me in that way. You know how I love 
 talent, Claire," I say meekly. 
 
 "Nonsense," Claire says calmly. She never moves 
 her beautiful steady eyes from my face ; and I feel as if 
 she were reading my secret, and my agony, my self- 
 censure, and strong, true yearnings to so act in the 
 future as to avoid giving her or Theo a single pang. 
 " Nonsense ; you have no vanity, and you've . been too 
 much accustomed to the society of clever men all your 
 life to be overwhelmed by the honour done you by the 
 first one who asked you to sacrifice your bright young 
 life to his middle-age and selfishness. What was it ? tell 
 me.'' 
 
 She comes over to me, kneels at my feet, and taking 
 my face between her hands, tries to read my soul in my 
 eyes. 
 
 " I think that when I heard you were going away, I 
 felt as if there would be nothing to come back to at 
 home," I stammer out ; " and while I was feeling this, 
 Mr. Murray came, and talked to me about new scenes 
 and a new kind of life, and made me think that I should 
 make him very happy by doing as he asked me ; and I 
 do like him, you know, Claire ; and altogether I shall be 
 very happy." 
 
 I cling to her as I conclude my sentence, and hide 
 my face in her neck, but she is not to be turned away 
 by my caresses from her pursuit of the knowledge which 
 she craves. She lifts me back very tenderly and says — 
 
 " This is worse than I feared even. Why, you won't 
 even confide in me, poor dear Tim ! How tired your 
 eyes look ! The tears you shed to-night are not the first 
 you've shed during this last week, I'm sure." 
 
 " It's the journey, and finding myself at home again, 
 and parting with Mr. Murray," I say. And as I utter 
 my last hypocritical words, I see a sad expression of 
 doubt and distrust flit over her face. 
 
 " No, Tim, it's not that last, at any rate. Don't try 
 
p 
 
 In the Wilderness, 127 
 
 and deceive yourself and me about your feelings for Mr, 
 Murray ; and do, my darling, treat him as the gentleman 
 he is. Don't deceive him either. He's not the man, 
 clever as he is — it is not the marriage for you," she says 
 resolutely. " Some blight has fallen on you, which has 
 chilled your hot, true, tender heart, and numbed your 
 judgment ; you have turned to Mr. Murray in despair, 
 not in love ? What rendered you despairing ? what 
 made you reckless, Tim ? what is making you immolate 
 yourself? '* 
 
 I am nearly broken down by the passion and the 
 pathos which she puts into her final appeal. But I 
 brace my resolution with the timely remembrance of 
 the fact, that if I do weakly respond to it^ and confide 
 to her the real reason of my having accepted the fate 
 offered to me by Mr. Murray, that I shall plant a dagger 
 in her breast which no after efforts of mine will be able 
 to remove. 
 
 " Love of change, and liking for Mr. Murray," I say 
 decisively. ** Come, Claire, don't try to disparage him 
 to me j he's going to be my husband, and I mean to be 
 very proud of him; even papa admits his talents, 
 admires them, in fact, and I'm ambitious, and mean to 
 make him work on for a better name and a higher fame 
 than he has won yet." 
 
 "You're clever, dear," she says, rising up, "much 
 cleverer than I am, but the instinct of love teaches me 
 to see through you like a crystal. You don't confide in 
 me because you dare not for the sake of another person. 
 My darling, loving, loyal pet, I won't importune you any 
 more ; but, Tim, believe this, understand this, if I made 
 a sacrifice for you now, if I surrendered something 
 which is mine now, but which might have been yours if 
 it hadn't been for me, it would be useless ? " 
 
 She speaks so eagerly, so deprecatingly, and so self- 
 excusingly, that I hardly recognise my high-spirited 
 Claire. But I know only too well what she means. 
 
 Down at the bottom of my wicked, wayward heart I 
 do still love Theo Bligh, But as Claire speaks that love 
 
128 Blotted Out 
 
 lies down out of sight, and all that I as sister owe to 
 sister, all that I as woman owe to myself, comes to the 
 fore. 
 
 " It would be useless, because it would be uncalled 
 for, unnatural, the most Quixotic thing that was ever 
 done in madness, darling," I say warmly. " I can't help 
 knowing what you mean — it is that, if you had not 
 existed Theo Bligh might have liked me; he never 
 would, though, Claire, believe that." 
 
 "Does it hurt you still that he loves me instead?" she 
 asks anxiously. 
 
 " Not a bit," I say stoutly ; but I am suffering horrible 
 qualms of conscience during all this cross-questioning, 
 which for her sake I am compelled to answer menda- 
 ciously. 
 
 " It drove you into promising to marry Mr. Murray," 
 Claire goes on; "that's what makes me so wretched. 
 Theo was only a passing fancy on your part, and if you 
 could have borne the first disappointment passively, your 
 true love would come riding by in time ; but you would 
 go out and do something definite. Why couldn't you 
 have been your own true little self this time, and told 
 yourself that, though you had built a fair fa^ ic of mis- 
 taken hopes on Theo's brotherly attentions, now that 
 you knew they were only brotherly, you would not 
 embitter my life by acting as if they had been of another 
 order?" 
 
 Her tone, her manner grow colder as she speaks. With 
 a shiver I recognise that she is scolding me, reprimanding 
 me as if I had been guilty of some unaccountable self- 
 delusion and selfishness. I can't defend myself. I can't 
 tell this dear sister of mine, whose heart is evidently sick 
 and sore with love for him, that he had tried with all his 
 matchless easy art to make me believe that his attentions 
 were not of that purely fraternal order which never turn 
 to ashes on one's lips. I cannot tell her this, so I take 
 up the burden of the shame of having proffered my love 
 to one who had been obliged to courteously decline it, 
 unrepiningly. 
 
hi the Wilderness, 129 
 
 "I will never forget that Theo is to be my brother," is 
 all I can bring myself to say; "and, Claire, just this, 
 dear ! you in turn must remember that I am your sister, 
 and that not even Theo must know what you fancy you 
 have discovered." 
 
 I make my pitiful appeal for common justice very un- 
 willingly. But I feel that there is a strong necessity 
 for making it. Claire loves me as well, perhaps better, 
 than ever. But her judgment is a trifle distorted by a 
 love that she is already beginning to feel is unwise, and 
 by a jealousy that she is ashamed of herself for enter- 
 taining. I look in the glass and see myself, I look back 
 at the low seat by the fire, and see her; it can't be 
 jealousy. 
 
 Even as I think this she comes over to ifie, and kisses 
 me "good-night," and coos out her trouble about the 
 uncertainty of their future. " Papa's despising him more 
 and more every day for staying on here, and doing 
 nothing, and not trying to do anything; yet what can he 
 do, poor boy? He has no money, he has no interest; 
 and though he has hundreds of friends, they're no good 
 to him in any emergency. Don't you wish we had for- 
 tunes, Tim ? " 
 
 With all my heart I assent. Once more she kisses 
 me and goes away, but she is back again in five 
 minutes. 
 
 *' There's one trifle I forgot to mention," she says, and 
 from her manner of saying it I know that it has been on 
 her mind to say it all the evening, ** don't let one of 
 the others ever find out that Theo and you are not 
 exactly on the same terms you were before you went to 
 Brighton." 
 
 " But we are on the same terms," I urge mendaciously, 
 and anger clouds Claire's lovely face in an instant. 
 
 " I can trust you not to be on the same terms, however 
 it may be with him," she says. And I understand that, 
 after all, my sister does rightly gauge the relation that 
 existed between Theo and me, and that she does cast us 
 correctly for the parts we respectively played. How he 
 9 
 
130 Blotted Out, 
 
 must have misled her judgment ! how he must have 
 perverted facts to have led her to suppose that I had 
 given my love to him unsought ! My god is tottering on 
 his pedestal ! but still — still, I am only a woman, and I 
 shall prop him up again and again, for her sake now as 
 well as his once idohzed own. 
 
 •It is difficult after this break in it to settle down into 
 the regular routine of Ravensbourne life again. I am in 
 a transition state ; while the old is slipping from me I am 
 unable to grasp the future, and the present seems hazy. 
 There are times when in my new-born desolation I crave 
 for Mr, Murray's companionship. He, at least, can talk 
 me into taking an interest in things for the time being, 
 however evanescent or fictitious that interest is. 
 Moreover, I belong to him; and at home I seem to 
 belong to no one, for papa is engrossed with his work, 
 Claire is engrossed with Theo, and the twins are engrossed 
 with themselves. 
 
 The one sharp, clearly outlined interest which I take 
 in things that are passing before me is a change which I 
 see creeping over Theo Bligh. He is as volatile, as care- 
 less, as amazingly idle apparently, as ever. But some 
 subtle instinct teaches me that the volatility is mere 
 excitement, and the gay fooling merely adopted as a mask. 
 The darling boy whom I love with a passion that has 
 taken such deep root in my soul that it can never be 
 eradicated, is unhappy, and it seems to be of vital 
 importance to him that his unhappiness should be con- 
 cealed from every one. One other thing, too, interests 
 me a little — Aunt Helen is altering. Her manner is no 
 longer that of a large, well-fed, composed cow, but rather 
 that of a cow whom flies are worrying. She still dozes 
 after luncheon, and sleeps after dinner, but she often 
 ejaculates in her sleep, and wakes herself from it with 
 frequent jerks to inquire if she has **been indulging in 
 that foolish habit of talking in her dreams." She assures 
 us earnestly on two or three occasions when she has 
 muttered incoherent words, that the "real living 
 interests are subjects that are never discussed by sleep* 
 
/// the Wilderness, %\i 
 
 talkers ; the most innocent minds run on crime in their 
 sleep," she says, to which theory I am antagonistic at 
 once, for my mind does not run on crime in my sleep, 
 and I trust that it is innocent when I am waking. 
 
 I hear constantly from Mr. Murray all this time, 
 and his letters are charming; we all pronounce them 
 *^ charming," for I read them to the rest of the family, just 
 as I would a couple of columns from the Pall Mall Gazette, 
 Charming as they are, there is that about them which 
 tells me that he takes more pleasure in writing them than 
 he does in writing them to me. The literature is the first 
 consideration ; the recipient a very secondary one. As I 
 am not in love with him, this discovery does not hurt my 
 heart, but it does not incline it more tenderly towards 
 him ; and I breathe more freely day by day as I tell 
 myself that I am not at all necessary to him, after all ; I 
 am only a peg to hang some of his pretty thoughts upon ; 
 I am doing him no injustice in contemplating going to 
 him with my tepid trust and hero-worship instead of the 
 love and honour for which he has asked. 
 
 One day at luncheon I announce that I am going to 
 spend the afternoon with Mrs. Poland. I have been all 
 the morning with Claire and Theo, and the latter has 
 been in one whirl of apparently most joyous excitement. 
 As there is no visible cause for this, it has caused me to 
 be both speculative and sad, and so I think that a brisk 
 walk through the meadows and woods, with a brief bit of 
 Mrs. Poland's society at the end of it, will brace me up 
 and change the current of my thoughts, which have grown 
 rather gloomy lately under the influence of the sustained 
 monotony of home life, and the dread that when this shall 
 be broken up, it will be by a change that will be even 
 sadder for me than the monotony. 
 
 By this time Mrs. Poland has ceased to flutter when 
 she sees me. In the early days after our return from 
 Brighton the appearance oi any one member of our family 
 at her gates was the signal for a sudden accession of 
 nervous excitement on her part, which would have made 
 her conduct seem criminal to the last degree had there 
 
 9-2 
 
132 Blotted Out. 
 
 been any guilt in my engagement. She was always 
 expecting to be called to account for that which to her 
 was simply unaccountable. The dread fear that the 
 charge of having slept while on guard would be brought 
 against her by my father, robbed her return to her 
 husband and her home of every particle of pleasure which 
 she would otherwise have taken in both. And the weight 
 of responsibility which she insisted on bearing upon her 
 shoulders, because of being the wife of the man whose 
 friendship had brought Mr. Murray into our midst, was 
 sufficiently heavy to crush all semblance of her former 
 genial manner out of the kindest-hearted woman in the 
 county. 
 
 But these days of dire distrust are over now, and Mrs. 
 Poland greets me this day with a face full of smiles. 
 Her faith in time is large, and she has strong hopes that 
 in my case at least absence may make the heart grow fonder 
 — of somebody else ! In other words, she is sanguine as 
 to the probability of my first forgetting and then freeing 
 myself from Mr. Murray under the influence of the 
 glamour which the approaching winter county season is 
 likely to throw over me. She sometimes words this 
 sanguine expectation of hers to me, and I, having grown 
 stolidly redcent, neither crush nor encourage it. 
 
 She is so cheery and comforting this day that I stay 
 with her until the shadows begin to fall, and then I start 
 hurriedly for home, determining to run through the 
 meadows and take the short cut through the wilderness. . 
 Country-bred as I am, accustomed to being out at all hours 
 on horseback and on foot, I am not likely to let myself fall 
 a prey to needless alarms, though the veil of dim twilight 
 envelops itself around everything before I gain the dense 
 shade of the trees. Still it is with a start of pleasure, 
 though I am no coward, that I see the red end of a 
 fragrant cigar advancing rapidly to meet me in the 
 growing darkness, and feel sure that the cigar is held 
 between the lips of Theo Bligh. 
 
 *' He is going to be my brother, I may be glad to see 
 him." I am reassuring myself in this way when he comes 
 
In the Wilderness, 
 
 ^U 
 
 up, and as he doffs his hat to me I see that he looks pale 
 and unhappy. 
 
 " It would have gone hard with me, httle woman, if I 
 hadn't got a word alone with you to-nigh r," he says ; and 
 at the sound of his troubled voice my heart bleeds lor 
 him, myself, and Claire. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 *'a well beloved youth." 
 
 jlT would have gone hard with me if I hadn't 
 met you," he repeats, as I bring myself to a 
 full stop before him, and look up into his 
 handsome, harassed young face with my 
 enquiring, sympathetic eyes. 
 
 ** Is anything wrong with Claire ? " I ask at once. 
 
 " Well, yes and no ; I hardly know which to say to tell 
 the truth," he answers impatiently. "Claire has dis- 
 appointed me a good deal to-day; either she doesn't 
 care for me half as much as I thought she did, or there's 
 a good deal of selfishness about her." 
 
 " There's not a grain of selfishness in her nature," I 
 say warmly ; '' and as for her not caring for you, she has 
 no other inducement but that of caring for you, to make 
 her marry you." 
 
 " We're not married yet," he says, carelessly ; " there's 
 many a sHp 'twixt the cup and the hp, you know. A girl 
 who stands out for her own way, as Claire did to-day, is 
 quite capable of throwing a fellow over, if he ever found 
 occasion to thwart her." 
 
 *' Claire will never break a promise lightly ; besides, 
 
 Theo, you know she loves you ■ 
 
 " She's not blest with any very great power of portray- 
 ing affection, even if she feels it ; but that's not what I 
 
''A WeU Beloved Youths 135 
 
 came out to say to you to-day,'^ he says, with the vexed 
 careworn expression creeping over his handsome mobile 
 face. "I want to ask you to help me — to be a real 
 iriend to me, Tim." 
 
 He takes my hand as he speaks, and puts it on his 
 arm, and presses it affectionately, and looks down at it 
 with pathetic tenderness. And I cannot meet his eyes 
 steadily, for the pulses of my heart are quickened, and to 
 still them I have to remind myself that he is going to be 
 my brother, that he is Claire's lover, and that I am to 
 marry Mr. Murray, who is as unconscious of all this 
 infirmity of purpose of mine as one of the dogs at my 
 heels — more unconscious, in all probability ; for I often 
 fancy that our faithful four-footed friends know a good 
 deal more about us than they would in their loyalty like 
 to mention. 
 
 In order to be a real friend to Theo, I must be true as 
 Milan steel to Claire. Reasoning thus rapidly, I am 
 justified to myself in assuring him warmly and earnestly 
 that I will be a real friend to him. 
 
 "You see," he begins, " I have been wasting a lot of 
 time down here, and time is money — is life to a young 
 fellow like myself, who has brains and nothing else for 
 capital, and wants to make a career. This time here 
 with Claire — with you all — has been an idyl, a summer 
 romance \ but the stern realities of life have set in, they 
 are placed very prominently before me, and Claire seems 
 vexed that I can't help seeing them." 
 
 I know Claire so well that I answer at once — 
 
 ** Claire will never want to make you idle — she will 
 never put a pebble in the path of your ambition, and 
 she'd rather give up the best man in the world than that 
 he should give up his career for her, I speak for Claire 
 as I would for myself." 
 
 "If you were speaking for yourself, now, I would 
 believe you fast enough, Tim dear," he murmurs ; " but 
 I am not quite credulous enough to take in all those 
 noble sentiments which you're enunciating about Claire. 
 While she remembers that my ambition may forw^ard her 
 
136 Blotted Out, 
 
 own she's all right enough, and will further it to the best 
 of her ability ; but she's apt to forget that fact in the 
 absorbing interest which she takes in herself, and in 
 these moments of forgetfulness she would let me slide to 
 destruction rather than take the trouble to hold out one 
 of her pretty fingers to save me from it." 
 
 " Claire would never go to your sister if you had one, 
 and speak against you," I say indignantly. 
 
 " Probably not. Claire would remind herself cautiously 
 of the proverbial weakness of her sex — tattling. Now, 
 I'm not in the least afraid of you're repeating a word I've 
 said to Claire. I shouldn't value you and turn to 
 you — I shouldn't love you as I do, if I couldn't trust 
 you," 
 
 I am a reed shaken by the wind as he speaks. I 
 ought to ice my heart and make my manner frigid. 
 Instead of doing this, I remind myself that he is going to 
 be my brother, and that on these grounds I am justified 
 in doing a little evil to myself, in order that good may 
 come to him. Perhaps, if the special form of evil which 
 I contemplate doing were unpleasant to me, I should 
 recoil from it. As it is, I heroically brave any painful 
 result that may accrue to myself from pursuing such a 
 course, and say — 
 
 " You may always trust me to do everything to further 
 your happiness — and Claire's." 
 
 "Love me for myself a little," he whispers; "leave 
 Claire out of the question sometimes. Tim ! why did 
 you go away to Brighton, just as I was getting to feel 
 that life wasn't life without you ? I mustn't say anything 
 of this kind now, because — because you're a darling, and 
 I am engaged to your sister, and you think that you're 
 going to marry Murray, and be happy for ever after ; but 
 still love me for myself a little, won't you ? " 
 
 We are walking slowly along among the trees in the 
 wilderness as he says this. The whole situation is pretty, 
 wrong, unworthy of him, and of Claire's sister ! I remind 
 myself that it is these things. I take my hand from his 
 arm, I force my eyes to lift themselves with the semblance 
 
''A Well Beloved Youth:' -137 
 
 of fearlessness, and I compel my tongue to speak without 
 faltering. 
 
 " You may trust me, and confide in me just exactly as 
 if I were your sister/' I say. '* Now, what do you want 
 me to do ? " 
 
 "It's a paltry, beggarly matter to put before a girl," he 
 says complainingly; ^'but the fact is, I might do a splendid 
 thing for myself if I could only put my hands on a 
 couple of hundred pounds at the present moment — 
 there's my cursed misfortune. I can't do it ; mine are 
 summer friends ; they'll love me, and waste my time, and 
 cavil at my not making a local habitation and a name for 
 myself, but they won't risk their blessed two hundred 
 pounds ! " 
 
 He paused, evidently upset by the recollection of the 
 ungenerosity of those with whom he has had to deal. And 
 I feel very much as I should do if I saw the original 
 Apollo Belvedere placed upon a tenpenny Paris plaster 
 column. 
 
 " Oh, Theo ! if I had two hundred, or two thousand, 
 or twenty thousand, for that matter, you should have it.'' 
 
 " Now, look here, don't be ecstatic," he says quietly, 
 " but if you want to help me, do this : just ask your 
 father to let you have two hundred pounds ; he will 
 understand that it's for your trousseau, and by the time 
 you want it for that purpose, I shall be able to refund it 
 to you. It's not a great thing, this first favour that I ask 
 of you, is it, little Tim ? it's only asking you to put off 
 the purchase of your wedding finery for a few weeks." 
 
 I would put it off for ever to serve him ; I love him so 
 utterly, that I would go in sackcloth and ashes from the 
 present moment to the day of my death, if my doing so 
 would make things pleasant for him ; still, I feel that in 
 asking me to do this he is asking me to do something 
 which is ignoble. I am impulsive, but I am not an 
 impostor. Why should Theo take it. for granted that I 
 am ready to go to my father, whom I regard as the 
 grandest gentleman that ever lived, with a lie in my 
 mouth ? But I love him, I love every light and shadow 
 
1^8 Blottdd Out. 
 
 on the careless face that changes so rapidly, mirroring 
 truly every rapid change within. Besides, in saving him, 
 shall I not be serving Claire ? Their interests are in- 
 divisible. 
 
 ** Will you do this for me, and do it at once, Tim ? " 
 he asks softly. " Claire raved and ranted when I asked 
 her to do it, although she is the one who will benefit by 
 it in the end ; but you have nothing to gain by making 
 the effort for me. And so, as you are the truest woman 
 I know, you'll make it ? " 
 
 Aye ! that I will ! for my sister's sake and his, love 
 shall win for him the lucre that he needs. I pledge 
 myself very quietly, merely saying, " I'll speak to papa to- 
 night ; " but he feels a certain security in my words I am 
 proud to see, for he becomes his own irrepressible self 
 again as we approach the house, and trolls out more 
 thrilling than ever the ballad of " The Bailiff's Daughter 
 of Islington.'* 
 
 *' We'll dramatize this ballad for two, and cast ourselves 
 for the parts, shall we?'* he laughs. "You're just the 
 kind of girl to play the little game she played." 
 
 " But I don't think that you're just the kind of man 
 to be faithful to the girl for seven years," I reply. 
 
 "Well, I don't know that I am," he says, "and I 
 think I should have 'sworn off' if I had found her sitting 
 in * mean attire,' in a hedge. To find the girl you've 
 loved with seven additional years on her head, and in 
 * mean attire,' must be a trying thing. What a pity it is 
 you women ever grow old ! you're so nice when you're 
 young." 
 
 He looks at me with the eyes of a connoisseur as he 
 speaks, and I wonder how he will regard Claire when 
 she has furrows on her brow and wrinkles on her cheek. 
 Hastily I banish the horrible thought. Old age and 
 Claire are antagonistic ideas. 
 
 " I'd take to writing for the stage," he goes on airily, 
 " if it didn't involve such a lot of dirty work. I couldn't 
 stand snobs of managers taking the high hand with me, 
 and cads of actors grumbling at their parts ; and that's 
 
"^ Well Beloved Youth:' . 139 
 
 what all young dramatic authors have to go through at 
 first. If it weren't for that trifling drawback, I shouldn't 
 mind the career at all/' 
 
 He speaks quite as if it were merely his refined 
 sensitiveness to rebuffs which prevents him from placing 
 himself on the same platform with Gilbert, and in my 
 ignorance and infatuation I am ready to credit him with 
 the power of producing some similar intellectual pheno- 
 menon to the " Wicked World." What can he not do — 
 brilliant young Adonis that he is ? Still it does occur to 
 me to wonder a little that he does nothing at all 
 
 " What do you think you'll be by-and-by, Theo ? " I 
 ask hesitatingly. It seems like presumption on my part 
 to suggest that he should ever be anything more than he 
 is. 
 
 **What shall I be by-and-by? — a jolly lucky fellow if a 
 little robbery I'm in now turns out well." 
 
 "A little robbery ! " I repeat, horror-stricken. 
 
 "Yes, don't be alarmed; I merely meant a little 
 speculation not wholly unconnected with a horse — that's- 
 what I want the two hundred pounds for. Mind you 
 don't disappoint me, Tim. Get me that money as soon 
 as you can, and I'll be off without delay to play for 
 fortune, and win it for Claire." 
 
 This last sentence settles me. It is for Claire that he 
 is going to strive ! It is for Claire that. I am going to 
 sneakingly aid him. I go into the house fully resolved to 
 make my appeal to papa before I go to bed this night, 
 and firmly convinced that my resolve is a good one. 
 
 As we cross the hall, Claire meets us, and ranges her- 
 self by my side at once. 
 
 *' Theo and you look like a couple of conspirators," 
 she begins. " I watched you crossing the lawn from the 
 wilderness gate. I couldn't see your faces, but there was 
 a stealthiness in your step that was suspicious. What 
 have you been conspiring about ? " 
 
 She tries to speak playfully, but she cannot subdue 
 the expression of real serious interest which she takes in 
 the subject which she is handling in the dark. 
 
140 Blotted Out. 
 
 *' Our conspiracy is a most harmless and honourable 
 one," Theo says gaily and mendaciously. *' IVe been 
 telling Tim that I'm going in for writing for the stage. 
 I've an awful lot of dramatic talent, and she's good 
 enough to give me hearty encouragement — which is more 
 than I can say of you, Miss Claire." 
 
 She looks at him with such love, such reproach, in her 
 sweet lovely face, and I turn to leave them to make love 
 and peace» But she follows me, and takes my hand, and 
 says, — 
 
 *Ms this true, Tim ? is Theo going to try and do good 
 work well ? " 
 
 In all my life I have never paltered with the truth to 
 my sister ; I do so now, for I say with a ring of sincerity 
 in my voice, — 
 
 " I think he's going to try." 
 
 She heaves a sigh of relief, and I leave them. When 
 I see them again, it is at the dinner-table, and Theo is 
 making arrangements for the disposition of our time for 
 the next few weeks, and identifying himself with all these 
 arrangements, as lightly and gracefully as if he had not 
 an hour ago assured me that he was going off almost 
 immediately to fight for fortune for Claire. 
 
 " Can you do a little copying for me to-night, Tim ? " 
 papa asks in a couple of hours later ; and I acquiesce 
 gladly, for I am rejoiced to do anything kind to papa to- 
 night. I am going to deceive him for the first time in 
 my life ! 
 
 " It's good practice," he goes on laughing \ " you'll 
 have to copy for Murray in a little time. By the way, 
 when do you think of becoming Mrs. Murray ? I may 
 as well know the worst at once." 
 
 I put my arms round his neck, and bury my head in 
 his breast, and whisper, — 
 
 "Papa, I want to speak to you alone." 
 
 Aunt Helen hears the sound, but cannot catch the 
 sense. She pounces forward, looking large enough to 
 crush me, and says, — 
 
''A Welt Beloved Yoiithr I41 
 
 " If you have anything to say to your father that you 
 are ashamed for me to hear, pray take him into another 
 room, and say it, Tim, but do not whisper in my presence, 
 please." 
 
 " I am not ashamed to say it before you, but I don't 
 care that you should hear it," I say as coolly as I can. 
 " Do come into your study with me, papa ; I feel there 
 that I am more to you than she is." 
 
 I am sorry that I have spoken the words as soon as 
 they are uttered. My father clasps me closer to him with 
 a reassuring shrug, but I can feel all the while that my 
 words have hurt him. As for Aunt Helen, she simply 
 stands by silently, seething in a white fury. The look on 
 her face is not a good one, as she glances from papa to 
 me ; but I feel triumphantly that she is powerless to hurt 
 me with my father, as he says, — 
 
 " My daughters are more to me than all the world ; we 
 needn't retire to the study to prove your supremacy; 
 still, we'll go there, my pet, if you please." 
 
 And we go there ! 
 
 I carry my first begging petition very badly, very un- 
 gracefully, to the paternal throne : nevertheless, the great 
 fact remains that I carry it ! I get papa well down in 
 the recesses of the plumpest arm-chair in his sanctum, 
 and stand by his side with my arms round his neck, and 
 my curly head poised on the top of his grey one, and 
 then I say, — 
 
 ''Papa dear, I shall want such a lot of new things to 
 wear when I am married — you know that, don't you ! " 
 
 '' And you will want a lot of money to get the new 
 things — is that what you want me to understand, my 
 child?* 
 
 I nod assent. 
 
 '' Of course I understood so much as that of my 
 daughter's needs,'' he laughs. " I was saying to-day that 
 as the lambs insist upon being slaughtered, they must be 
 well decked for this sacrifice. Hadn't you better trust to 
 Aunt Helen to order your fit out ? " 
 
 With sudden injudicious energy I exclaim, " I don't 
 
I4i Blotted Out, 
 
 want Aunt Helen to have anything at all to do with it. 
 I don't want her to know even that you have given me 
 the money. I want to act for myself, papa. I ought 
 not to marry at all, if I am incapable of managing such 
 a little matter as this for myself." 
 
 He puts his hand under my chin and lifts my face up 
 for the purpose of inspecting it more closely. Then he 
 kisses me and says, — 
 
 " As you will, my child ; you have a motive, I suppose, 
 for this, and I'm sure that whatever motive you have is 
 good. Now for the sum : how much do you want ? 
 
 " Two hundred pounds — is that all ? Claire would have 
 been a much bolder beggar. Well, for your modesty's 
 sake, I'll double the sum, Tim ; for you must dress your 
 part of Consul's lady in silk attire — in brave array." 
 
 " Papa ! papa ! papa ! " One word more in this strain 
 from him, and I shall break down, and make a most 
 absolute confession. I am saved from taking this course, 
 which would be ruinous to Theo, by papa saying pro- 
 saically, — 
 
 " Let me see ; I'll write the cheque for you at once, 
 and cash it for you to-morrow, pet ; will that do ? " 
 
 ** Yes, that will do, thank you a thousand times ; " and, 
 with downcast eyes and aching heart, I leave my father's 
 presence. 
 
 Claire is not very far off. Claire captures me with a 
 winning gesture and a winning word as I stumble up- 
 stairs, eager to gain the safety and solitude of my bed- 
 room. For all the grace with which she accomplishes 
 her end, I wish she had not done it when she says, — 
 
 " Tim, dear, you've done something you're ashamed 
 of; what is it?" 
 
 Her face is glowing, her eyes are sparkling. 
 
 **I am not ashamed of what I've done," I say 
 resolutely. 
 
 " * Of what youVe done.' Then you have succeeded ? 
 O Tim ! my darling, tell me at once — have you got this 
 money for " 
 
 " For Theo, for your sake," I interrupted. " He told 
 
^'A Well Beloved YouihP 143 
 
 me it was for your sake. But Tve deceived papa, Claire, 
 and Theo must be good to you to repay me for all this 
 shame and misery." 
 
 " Don't cry, dear," Claire says soothingly. " I wouldn't 
 have done it myself, because I'm to be Theo's wife, and 
 I shouldn't like him to be able to say that I had ever 
 done a mean thing ; but what would have been mean in 
 me is noble in you, Tim, and at least you'll always find 
 me grateful." 
 
 I cannot answer her. 
 
 '* I'll go and tell Theo now that his little ambassador 
 has worked his royal will. Send him a sisterly message 
 — say you're glad you've done it, won't you ? " 
 
 *^ I am glad to have saved him," I sob ; ** but oh ! 
 Claire ! papa has trusted us all our lives, and now " 
 
 ** The end justifies the means," Claire cuts in coldly. 
 "Theo gets twitted for remaining on here at Ravens- 
 bourne, and yet no one has sufficient generosity to give 
 him the means openly of going away. You're having 
 done this will be his salvation, and mine, Tim — lay this 
 flattering unction to your soul. You send your love to 
 him, then, my pet," she adds with a kiss, *' and I may 
 tell him from you that he will have the money from his 
 sister Tim to-morrow." 
 
 " You may tell him what you like," I say in my agony 
 and impatience. So Claire leaves me with a light step to 
 bear the good news to her lover, and I go to the glass, 
 and scan my face, to see if the word deceiver is not 
 legibly written upon it. 
 
:^^H: 
 
 *•' '^T-i' *^^.v "^K 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "you are awfully good." 
 
 DIVERSION occurs the day after I make my 
 succesful raid under false pretences upon my 
 father's pocket. Papa goes up to town as he 
 promised me he would do, and when he comes 
 back he brings with him not only the four hundred 
 pounds, but Mr. Murray ! And I have to meet him as if 
 I were glad that he has come ! 
 
 During the whole of the day Theo has been so essenti- 
 ally himself, that I begin to doubt his having a single fear 
 as to his future. I also begin to doubt his having the 
 fervent desire to do something for Claire's sake with which 
 he had impressed me yesterday. He is born apparently 
 to play the part of curled darling and favourite of fortune, 
 and he treats the little effort I have made on his behalf as 
 so entirely a matter of course, that I am astonished at 
 myself for having expected any gratitude from him. 
 
 "You must have treated the trousseau question very 
 cleverly," he says to me as soon as he can get me alone. 
 *' Claire tells me the way your father forked out at once, 
 and I can tell you, little woman, I'm awfully pleased at 
 your powers of diplomacy." 
 
 " At my powers of deception," I say indignantly. 
 
 " No, no, we'll have no hard words about it ; youVe 
 done me a great kindness, and I shall never forget it, 
 
'^ You are Awfully Good,^^ 145 
 
 never forget what I owe to you. I'm not the kind of 
 fellow to turn round and revile a woman for being weak 
 on my account ; I know that you've done this because — 
 well ! because you think too much of me j but I'm grate- 
 ful to you, Tim, and I'll never turn round upon you !" 
 
 His magnanimity simply paralyses me ! Have I fallen 
 so low for love of him, that his nature can dare to pity 
 and despise me ? 
 
 I don't ask this question aloud, I ask it of my own 
 conscience, and to my joy my true conscience tells me 
 *' No." What I have done I have done for Claire's sake, 
 for his good ! My love for him, ruinous as it may be to 
 myself, will never lead me to do anything that may re- 
 bound upon and be hurtful to him ! 
 
 Fraught with this feeling I turn from him, that he may 
 not read my thoughts aright, and so gain more power 
 over me, and I say — 
 
 " You could never turn on me for trying to help Claire ; 
 and till you do well, Theo, till you're free and indepen- 
 dent and working for yourself, Claire will never be happy. 
 You must — you will do something good for her sake ? " 
 
 " By Jove ! I'll do it for my own," he says, *' but they 
 won't give me the chance. It's no use their thinkin of 
 sticking me down to business ; I can't stand routine, 
 and I can't suck up to snobs because they happen to be 
 in power and to have patronage. I can deal with gentle- 
 men, but I can't deal with fellows whose women-folk 
 stumble over their H's; I ought to have gone in for 
 diplomacy " 
 
 ** You'd have had to subdue your magnificent ideas a 
 little if you had," I suggest. 
 
 ** Ah ! your notions on the subject are derived from 
 Murray," he replies superbly. " Consuls have to do a 
 lot of unpleasant work, but as an unpaid attache to an 
 embassy, I could have adjusted my angles to my niche 
 very well indeed." 
 
 " But to be that you must have a fortune of your 
 own," I say aghast. And he answers patronisingly — 
 
 "Of course, dear; no other fellow in my position 
 10 
 
146 Blotted Out, 
 
 would have been short-sighted enough to have engaged 
 himself to Claire — a girl whose face is her fortune. Not 
 but that I am quite contented with mine in getting 
 her." 
 
 Oh, Claire ! what are we all about ? I ask the question 
 of myself, but I cannot answer it ; and I am still trying, 
 vainly trying to think it out, when Mr. Murray comes. 
 
 He is a delightful friend. He tell us such a number of 
 interesting things in such an interesting way, that he har- 
 monises our circle marvellously. Above all — oh, be 
 joyful ! — he does not attempt to monopolise me. He 
 makes no special claim on either my time or attention, 
 and how grateful I am to him for this, until Theo 
 says — 
 
 " He looks upon you as part of the gear it will be well 
 for him to take out to his consulate. I shouldn't like 
 that if I were you, Tim. He's all very well, but he must 
 remember that we're granting him an awful favour in letting 
 you go to him at all. It seems to me that he should show 
 he sets a higher value on it." 
 
 He fumes and throws himself into an affectionate fuss 
 about me ; but somehow or other I can't help feeling that, 
 however wanting in chivalrous devotion to me Mr. 
 Murray may be, he would never attempt to make me 
 deceive my father. I have done this for Theo, and I am 
 coward enough to try and brace myself to bear the 
 stings of conscience, by telling myself that I have done it 
 for Claire. 
 
 Calmly as I can, I say— 
 
 "I think, Theo, that the less we say about Mr. Murray 
 • and my future life the better ; you will never try to make 
 me look upon either in the best light, and — I have to 
 live my life, you know. You can make it more bitter, 
 but you can never make it one bit the brighter for me ; 
 let me alone." 
 
 I regret it the instant I have made my appeal. Theo's 
 vanity is flattered by my implied admission of the sway 
 he holds over me. His vanity is flattered, but his heart 
 is not touched. His sorrow at my being pained is al- 
 
'* You are Awful ly Good,^^ I47 
 
 together overruled and trodden down by his pleasure in 
 having the power to pain me. 
 
 He sees how deeply I am stung, and he is so skilful in 
 extracting a sting at once. 
 
 " Can't I make it a bit the brighter for you, Tim ? then 
 my will is very much weaker than I believe it to be, that's 
 all I can say. My sweetest friend, why, you gave me 
 your help when Claire refused me hers 3 do you think I 
 am ungrateful? do you think I don't love you for what 
 you have done, my darling ?" 
 
 I find breath to utter the words — 
 
 *' Not for what I have done ; " and as he is a gentleman, 
 he responds — 
 
 " I didn't mean that — I didn't mean to insult you by 
 implying that you had purchased my liking. No, no, 
 Tim: I gauged you the day I came here first, and I've 
 never found my measure faulty. There's only one thing 
 I am sorry for, and that is that you should have taken 
 Claire into your confidence respecting this swim we're in 
 about getting the money from your father." 
 
 I shrink appalled from him as he speaks, I feel that I 
 am in the toils. 
 
 " It was for Claire's sake I did it," I cry ; " you know 
 that ; you told me that yourself." 
 
 " Yes, but Claire will nerer acknowledge a debt of that 
 sort," he says, as he proceeds with cautious cruelty to nip 
 the end off a cigar. " Claire is an awfully conscientious 
 girl — she wants me to be without fear and without re- 
 proach before your father. I am grateful to you, dear — 
 more grateful than 1 can express, but Claire would have 
 thought better of you if you hadn't given me a helping 
 hand in what she considers to be the perpetration of a 
 swindle. However ! the thing is done now, and I am 
 awfully obliged to you, and we will say no more about 
 it." 
 
 I can say no more about it, for I am dumb ! — dumb 
 
 with amazement and grief that the two whom I love best 
 
 in the world should be so unutterably wanting in the 
 
 power of appreciating my share in the transaction. To 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 Bioited Old, 
 
 hear Theo speak, one could be led to imagine that it was 
 myself I had served in being untrue to all my instincts. 
 I can't attempt to right myself, I am dumb, and he thinks 
 me ill-tempered. 
 
 " Don't show airs about it, because I don't garble facts," 
 he says in a fine argumentative way. *' I tell you I think 
 you were awfully kind to do it for me ; you wouldn't think 
 the better of me if I told you I thought it was the right 
 kind of thing for a girl to do, now would you ? " 
 
 I feel hunted down, insulted beyond all my powers of 
 bearing insult, yet I will not turn traitor and ruin him 
 with my father. I remind me of one friend who will 
 always be leal and trusty, who will always forgive and aid 
 me, however deeply I may err. 
 
 *^ I will tell Sydney Dale what I have done," I say to 
 myself, and as soon as I name him I feel safe. 
 
 ** Now, don't you go making mistakes, and unburdening 
 your heart to Murray," Theo goes on without regarding 
 my silence. *• He's an awfully clever fellow when he's 
 got his pen in his hand — if he can hold it steadily ; but 
 he'd talk a Saturday Review article about the affair, and 
 give it an importance it doesn't possess ; moreover, if it 
 comes to that, you like me a long way better than you'll 
 ever like him, and you're not a girl to play a fellow you 
 like false." 
 
 It is ingeniously put, but it goes beyond the line of my 
 forbearance. He taunts me with the very thing which 
 should give me the strongest claim upon every gentlemanly 
 feeling of which he is possessed. 
 
 " I am not a girl to play false to any one, whether I 
 like him or not," I answer ; *'but this is the last secret I'll 
 ever share with you, Theo, for you don't leave me either 
 Claire or my self-respect to turn to in this trouble and 
 uncertainty which I've gone into on your account." 
 
 "Now, don't get melodramatic," he laughs, and his 
 eyes sparkle merrily with fun and satisfaction at the way 
 in which he is carrying everything before him. " Do the 
 blank verse and melodramatic business with Murray as 
 much as you like, when you're in your garden of roses, 
 
" You are Awfully Good,^* 149 
 
 over in the Sunny South ; but while you're my own 
 fetterless sister Tim Vincent here, in the * hardy north/ 
 be what you always have been the whole way through — 
 the most sensible girl it has ever been my lot to meet. 
 Now perhaps Tve kept you here long enough j I don't 
 want to get a rise out of Claire's jealousy." 
 
 " How you insult us both ! " I say as savagely as I 
 can bring myself to say it to him ; but he merely laughs, 
 throws away the end of his cigar (he has smoked it out 
 — he never forfeits one half-inch of pleasure), and nods 
 farewell to me as he goes out of the room to call Claire 
 for her usual before-dinner stroll with him. 
 
 It is soon after this that Mr. Murray comes in with 
 papa, comes in with a coat on that makes him look as 
 broad as he is long, and a little out of breath from the 
 effect of the sharp walk up from the station. By the 
 time the two travellers are ready for dinner, dinner is 
 ready for us ; and during dinner, though he makes me 
 his theme and winds about me in graceful language, he 
 does not distress me by any personal demonstration. 
 After dinner the wine is good, and papa is a capital 
 audience — I have no tcte-ct-tite to fear ! 
 
 I force my thoughts away from the remembrance of 
 the fraud I have committed upon my father, and am 
 singing light-heartedly with Claire when the gentlemen 
 come into the drawing-room. All my light-heartedness 
 flees when Mr. Murray comes to me, and, in a louder, 
 more assured voice than he has ever addressed me in 
 before, says — 
 
 "They've given me a Spanish town instead of the 
 sweet Italian one 1 coveted ; but it's not bad — it's on 
 the shores of the blue Mediterranean of my youth. I 
 have to take up my appointment very soon, and — you'll 
 be ready to go with me, won't you, my child ? '* 
 
 I shrink from him as lover, but I do like him so much 
 as friend. Oh ! for the power to recall that hour in 
 which my wilful reckless nature led me to pledge myself 
 to him. I know his honourable, chivalrous character so 
 well, that I feel sure that one appeal, the lightest appeal, 
 
150 Blotted Out 
 
 would be sufficient to make him release me. At the 
 same time I feel sure that the appeal would hurt him 
 horribly, and so I can't make it. 
 
 ** Yes,'* I say, " I shall be quite ready; *' and I smile a 
 sickly smile, and try to think that my life will not be 
 more of a colourless blank with him than it would be 
 with any one else — since it can't be passed with the 
 only one who could have put warmth and colour into it. 
 
 ** Your father has been telling me what a modest sum 
 you asked him for your outfit," he says in a matter-of- 
 fact way. *^ He has been very generous, Tim; you won't 
 require to be very well rigged in the out-of-the-way place 
 we're going to, so if I were you I'd keep at least half of 
 it for a future rainy day." 
 
 Something in the whole tone of his speech grates 
 upon and disappoints me. I am inexperienced in these 
 matters, but it does strike me that he is not striving to 
 make me look at the future, which he has arranged for 
 me, in a fair light. Can it be possible that he has 
 awakened to a sense of the incongruity of such a 
 marriage as ours will be ? Now that the glamour of the 
 ' sunshine on the summer sea at Brighton has passed 
 away, does he perchance reflect that his ways of life and 
 mine can never be bound up in one satisfactory sheaf? 
 If he will only frankly tell me that these are his con- 
 victions, how delightedly will I confess to him that they 
 are mine also ! That remark of his about a rainy day 
 has sent me down to the most dismal depths of depres- 
 sion. Arn I going into poverty, among other things, 
 with him ? Why am I such a coward that I dare not 
 speak the few words that would set me free ? He is a 
 gentleman to the very core of his heart, and he would 
 understand me at once, and would release me promptly, 
 if I only made the desire that he should do so manifest 
 to him. But " out and for shame " on my infirmity of 
 purpose ! I tell myself that, though I may do it finally, 
 I cannot do it yet. And so this evening passes. 
 
 I have been in my room about ten minutes when 
 Claire comes in and tells me that the others have all 
 
" Vou are Awfully Good^ 151 
 
 gone to bed, and that Theo is waiting to receive the 
 money from me in the library. I have counted out the 
 notes, and I push them towards her, but she says — 
 
 "No, no ! it must not pass through my hands ; you 
 must take them to him yourself." 
 
 *'When I have done that will you promise for him 
 and for yourself that you will never try to make me his 
 tool again, Claire ? " I ask imploringly ; and Claire tells 
 me " not to be tragic, and to make haste down to Theo." 
 So, accompanied by her, I go down to the man to whom 
 I have been rendered slavish by love. 
 
 I am choking, trembling with nervousness, with an 
 awful dread of some undefined evil growing out of this 
 transaction. My teeth chatter, my limbs quiver, and I 
 cling to Claire convulsively for physical support. Theo, 
 on the contrary, is perfectly calm and pleased. He 
 thanks me with the words, " Dear little thing, awfully 
 good you are ! " and a hasty kiss, and he neither sees 
 nor cares for the fact of my being shaken to the centre 
 of my soul with fear and remorse ! And the heaviest 
 trouble I had upon my young head on the day when 
 Theo first crossed my path was that I had heard Aunt 
 Helen call me " unattractive." 
 
 " Theo will break the fact of his departure to papa 
 and all of them at breakfast to-morrow morning, and go 
 up by the twelve o'clock train," Claire informs me ; and 
 Theo adds — 
 
 " And look here, Tim, dear, mind you look innocent 
 and surprised. If they fancy you had any foreknowledge 
 of the matter, they may begin asking all sorts of 
 questions, and I don't think you would come with flying 
 colours out of the examination." 
 
 I am heart-broken, shattered, by his ruthlessness, but 
 I refrain from wording the agony I feel. It would 
 hurt Claire to know how unhappy I am, and never shall 
 Claire be hurt intentionally by me. 
 
 " I'll follow you up in two minutes," Claire says as she 
 clasps and kisses me, and I rejoice in the permission to 
 go and leave the room with flying feet. I look round at 
 
152 
 
 Blotted Out, 
 
 Theo as I gain the door, and I see him counting over 
 the bank-notes, looking brighter, more brilliant and 
 beautiful, than I have ever seen him look before, and I 
 try to take comfort in the thought that he owes his 
 happiness to me. 
 
 The next day both he and Mr. Murray go up to town 
 by the mid-day train, and we are alone again without a 
 guest to break up the family routine for the first time 
 since Theo's first appearance among us. Now that he 
 is gone my nerves resettle themselves ; and a feeling of 
 almost peace and safety sets in when Sydney Dale 
 comes home, bringing with him his married sister, Mrs. 
 Tierney. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 "l AM SO GLAD — FOR HIM." 
 
 EVERAL weeks have elapsed since Claire and I 
 took leave of our respective lovers, and we 
 have quite resumed our dear intimate sisterly- 
 relations with one another. Mr. Murray still 
 sustains a brilliant and cultivated correspondence with 
 me, but his letters resemble first-rate journahsm more 
 and more every week. I like them, for I in my 
 ignorance cannot be expected to respond to them in any 
 but the tersest way. Papa likes them too : he says he 
 shall feel that there is a literary blank in his life, when 
 that long-looked-for appointment is given and taken, and 
 I have gone to share it with Mr. Murray, and the 
 brilliant letters cease. 
 
 Theo's letters to Claire are very frequent, but they are 
 not public property by any means. No one but Claire 
 would miss them if they ceased. Whatever intelligence 
 he gives her, she guards zealously, even from me. She 
 does not even tell me whether he is doing well or 
 ill; she only tells me that he is ** working hard for 
 her." 
 
 Christmas has come, and gone; the crocuses and 
 snowdrops, and, above all, the hounds, are out in full 
 force. I say, ** above all, the hounds," because since 
 Sydney Dale's return Claire and I have taken greatly to 
 
154 Blotted Out, 
 
 hunting under the chaperon age of Mrs. Tierney, and 
 under the safe guidance of Sydney. 
 
 These beautiful bright February days, when we four 
 ride happily along the roads, whose hedges are blooming 
 already with the yellow aconite and blue periwinkle, and 
 the woods where little clumps of pure white snowdrops 
 lift up their graceful heads to greet us, and our horses in 
 their stride brush aside the elegant daphne laureola, 
 will never be forgotten. They are very sweetly, purely, 
 truly happy days. Mrs. Tierney, devoted as she is to 
 her reckless husband and her Irish home, is very happy 
 to find herself back for a time in the cradle of her race, 
 in the midst of peace and plenty, and with a brother 
 whom she loves with a tender warmth that does equal 
 honour to him and to her. While as for Claire and my- 
 self — she evidently is nursing some bright hope in her 
 heart that gilds the pleasant present, even more richly 
 than current circumstances would gild it ; and I, having 
 no particularly bright future to look forward to, enjoy 
 the fleeting hours, and gather such spring roses as are 
 about my path gladly and gratefully. 
 
 To tell the truth, there is intense comfort in Sydney's 
 companionship. He is more than friend, more than 
 brother, and less than lover, and I find it very delightful 
 to stand on this neutral ground, with the knowledge if I 
 overstep the border on either side, if I either go back or 
 go on, I shall be in safety. Outwardly he is the 
 frankest, kindest, most heart-whole friend that ever a 
 girl had. In his heart he is at my feet ! and I know it ! 
 I think there are few men like him, unless they are 
 bound by the powerful fetters of esprit de corps to the 
 absent, authorised lovers. Syd knows that Mr. Murray 
 has no more hold on the sentimental part of my nature 
 than has the horse I am riding — not half so much, 
 perhaps, for I thrill with pride and pleasure in having 
 attained the mastery over my horse's spirit, and I feel no 
 such thrill and pleasure in having attained it over Mr. 
 Murray's. Nevertheless, Syd makes no attempt to sap 
 my allegiance, though I gather from Mrs. Tierney that I 
 
^^I am so Glad-- for Him!^ 155 
 
 have been, that I am, and that I always shall be, the one 
 woman in the world to him. 
 
 There is a lawn-meet one day at Syd's place, Dales- 
 meet, and papa has ridden over with Claire and me to 
 the breakfast, at which Mrs. Tierney is presiding. As is 
 usual at such meets, we have a grand gathering, and a 
 very poor prospect of sport. Notwithstanding this last, 
 I feel in unusually high spirits as I jump from my chest- 
 nut mare " Kismet," at the door of Dalesmeet House, 
 and am met by Sydney, who must have kept a look-out 
 for our arrival, as he runs from the dining-room where his 
 guests are, the instant we pull up. 
 
 "We have half the county here, Tim," he begins. 
 " More ladies out than we've had ifor the season, and 
 some one you'll be surprised to see," he stoops down to 
 add in a whisper. 
 
 Claire and papa are engaged with a group who have 
 come out to welcome the beauty of the district. I feel 
 that I must watch her, as I ask him anxiously, — 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " Theo Bligh," he replies. '* He's staying, it seems, 
 with Sir Harold Torrens. Does Claire know it ? " 
 
 " I don't know," I answer, but I feel sure that she does 
 not ; and so as we go through the hall I take advantage 
 of the throng and the hum it is making, to say, — 
 
 " Do you know that Theo is staying with Sir Harold 
 Torrens ? " 
 
 She shakes her head, and compresses her lips, and I 
 have just time to whisper, — 
 
 " They're here ; don't mind it ! " the advice forces it- 
 self through my Hps, and I am glad to see that it acts 
 like a spur on Claire. Her head goes up, her colour 
 rises, her lovely violet eyes sparkle and dilate. She 
 enters the room where the flower of the county are 
 assembled, the brightest beauty in it. 
 
 We are greeted warmly by Syd's sister, we are sur- 
 rounded instantly by the best set in the room, and for a 
 moment or two I can't see Theo. Then he flashes upon 
 my vision in a faultless hunting-suit, the most striking- 
 
156 Blotted Out. 
 
 looking man in the room, and he is standing by an 
 equally striking-looking woman. He catches sight of us 
 at once, and comes forward elastically at once, making 
 his wonderful eyes sparkle a thousand welcomes. He 
 grasps my hand in silence, then passes on to Claire — to 
 Claire, who is the cynosure of all eyes — and my heart 
 leaps with joy to see that he does show that he is proud 
 of her. 
 
 Then I turn my eyes again in the direction of the lady 
 he has just left, and I know that I am looking at beautiful, 
 graceful, popular Lady Torrens. 
 
 What do I see? A woman above the middle height, 
 well and gracefully formed, and capable of carrying her- 
 self commandingly whenever she cares to do it — a sweet, 
 frank, fair face, lighted up by a pair of fearless grey-blue 
 eyes that are well outlined by arched brows and long 
 dark lashes — a mobile, r.estless mouth, and an ever-varying 
 expression — a woman that I like at once for her free 
 grace and beauty, for her manifest fearlessness, and above 
 all for that dominant characteristic of generosity which is 
 so visibly stamped upon her, that I, stranger as I am, 
 recognise it, and respond to it, and suffer the prophetic 
 truth to sink into my soul concerning it, that it will sway 
 me whithersoever it will, should it ever care to do so. 
 
 By the time we are ready for the start I can see that 
 Theo has quite made his peace with Claire about having 
 kept her in the dark as to his present place of sojourn. 
 He is most empresse in his manner of devoting himself 
 to her — puts her up on her horse with the most tender 
 assiduity, adjusts reins and habit and stirrup with the 
 skill and celerity of a lover and a horseman, and keeps 
 close by her oft-side for the next hour. But when we 
 get away after a stout old dog-fox, he shoots ahead of 
 her. Theo Bligh, to be happy, must take a prominent 
 place, must be the first in everything. Sir Harold Torrens* 
 hunting stables are famous, and Theo has judiciously 
 selected a splendid mount from them for himself. 
 Accordingly, now he leads the field, and Claire is well 
 contented in her pride for him that he should do so, 
 
"/ am so Olad —for Him,^' 157 
 
 although the ambition which urges him on separates him 
 from her ! 
 
 The one thing in which I excel my sister Claire is the 
 art of riding. She has a pretty graceful seat, and she 
 can look quite at home in the saddle while her horse 
 pursues beaten tracks and does nothing unlooked for. 
 As papa — guided by Sydney — has taken care to provide 
 her with a horse that is exacdy suited to her require- 
 ments, she always does look perfectly at home, and 
 graceful, in her saddle, and as she knows the country 
 well, and is well piloted, she sees as much of the rian as 
 do those of us who ride straight. 
 
 It is different with me. Kismet has been my deliberate 
 choice, in spite of her bad name for a certain nervous- 
 ness of temperament, which amounts at times to diabolical 
 temper. She is a thoroughbred, was overrun on the 
 race-course at two years' old, and has never learned to be 
 way-wise. She is fidgety, she gets hot about nothing, 
 she has bursts of most perplexing skittishness at most 
 inopportune times. Nevertheless, I love Kismet, for she 
 is as fleet as the wind, and, when she can command her 
 temper, she flies her hedges like a bird. 
 
 It happens that she starts in an unusually good 
 temper this day, and so, with Syd keeping by me stride 
 for stride, we are in a very good place, not far behind 
 Theo Bligh. But now, creeping up to us faster and 
 faster, and presently sweeping by us in a way that makes 
 Kismet leap in her gallop, there comes Lady Torrens on 
 her celebrated horse Wildfire, and in a minute or two 
 Theo no longer leads the field alone, for Lady Torrens is 
 well up with him. 
 
 Whether the vague feeling of dissatisfaction which 
 afl"ects me at this sight communicates itself in some 
 subtle way or other to Kismet or not, I cannot say. But 
 from the moment of being passed by Lady Torrens* 
 black horse, the mare goes wildly. In vain I give her 
 the most loving encouragement to regain her composure 
 with both hand and voice. She becomes almost uncon- 
 trollable, refuses a hedge, and takes me for a fierce burst 
 
158 Blotted Out. 
 
 in a perfectly contrary direction to that in which I desire 
 to go. In fact, if I were not more at home in my saddle 
 than I am in any place in this world, something un- 
 pleasant would probably happen to either Kismet or me. 
 
 Her fury expends itself in a rushing gallop and a series 
 of plunging bounds that strains her girths severely in a 
 heavy field, and I come out of the encounter rather 
 excited, and, to tell the truth, rather elated. To my 
 surprise, Sydney meets me with an anxious face, and his 
 voice falters as he says, — 
 
 " Tim, let me change our saddles. You must never 
 ride that she-demon again." 
 
 " She hasn't done anything very bad to-day, Syd," I 
 plead. 
 
 " She's not a safe mount for you," he says. " She's 
 lost you the best part of the run, and in watching you 
 I've lost sight of the field altogether." 
 
 " I'm sorry she has cost you the run," I say humbly ; 
 " but we shall soon hear of them ; we'll soon pick them 
 up. They're sure to go away to Dogberry Gorse — they 
 always do from your place, it seems to me. Kismet will 
 go like an arrow now her temper's over." 
 
 "Her temper is sleeping, like a tired tigress, for a 
 time," he says. ** It's safe to wake up again. Without 
 any nonsense, Tim, she's a dangerous beast, and to please 
 me, dear, you won't ride her after to-day, will you ? She 
 stopped short in her gallop just now as if she had been 
 shot. You're bound to come out of your saddle some 
 day or other, if she tries that trick often. You won't 
 ride her after to-day, will you ? " 
 
 *' If I sell her, some other woman may ride her, and I 
 couldn't bear to hear of it 3 I couldn't bear the sight of it, 
 Syd," I plead. 
 
 *' Jealous of her, are you? or vainly jealous of your 
 reputation of being able to manage the most unmanage- 
 able beast that was ever bitted? How's that, Tim? 
 you're not jealous in — in other matters." 
 
 " No, I'm not," I say confidently; *^at least, if I have 
 the feeling, I'm ashamed of it." 
 
^^I am so Glad—for Ilimf^ 159 
 
 '* But you nurse it about Kismet. Well, look here, let 
 me have her j you'll be sure then that no other woman 
 shall ever ride her, and I'll get you something that will 
 compensate you for the loss of Kismet." 
 
 I am unaccountably reluctant to accede to his proposi- 
 tion, but he presses it so hard that after a time I give in, 
 and he takes my promise that I will send Kismet over to 
 his stables to-morrow, and leave the choice of the horse 
 that is to replace her to him. 
 
 " I'll make it all right with your father ; he has been 
 nervous all along about your riding the mare, I know," 
 he says. Then we drop the subject, for we catch sight 
 of a few stragglers who are land-marks to tell us which 
 way the field has gone; and Kismet justifies my state- 
 ment concerning her — her temper has expended itself for 
 this day, and she does go along as straight as an 
 arrow. 
 
 We kill this day at Dogberry Gorse, and the field 
 disperses here. We began late, and have had a long run, 
 and there is nothing more to be done this day. We find 
 ourselves riding homeward in the dying light with Sir 
 Harold and Lady Torrens and Theo 3 and presendy 
 papa, who has known Sir Harold on the magisterial 
 bench, introduces him to Claire and me, and a minute 
 after Sir Harold introduces us to his wife. 
 
 We soon fall into the following order. The roads are 
 somewhat narrow, and we pair off ; Sir Harold and papa 
 lead the way. Lady Torrens and I follow with Sydney, 
 and behind us ride Claire and Theo Bligh. 
 
 Pretty Lady Torrens, who is an ardent sportswoman 
 and a perfect rider, has enjoyed her day to the uttermost. 
 She has been perfectly carried, she has been in a good 
 place all the day, she has been in at the death, and she 
 has won the brush. Her manner is as frank and friendly 
 as her face, and she enters into conversation with me 
 freely. 
 
 " I've often heard of your sister's beauty," she says to 
 me, " but Tve never seen her before. It's a treat to look 
 at anything so exquisite and know that it's young, and 
 
i6o Bloiied Out 
 
 likely to last, and adorn the world for a long time. I 
 wonder I've never seen her or you before." 
 
 " We don't go out much," I reply. 
 
 " But you ought to go out much — of course you ought. 
 You don't contemplate remaining the Miss Vincents — or 
 Misses Vincent, whichever is right — all your lives, do 
 you?" 
 
 She asks it with an air of laughing amusement, and I 
 feel sure that the rumour of our unpropitious engagements 
 have not reached her ears. I, as a rule, am very chary of 
 speaking of either Claire's plighted troth or my own. 
 But on this occasion I am prompted to go on, and say — 
 
 " Haven't you heard Theo Bligh speak of us ?" 
 
 " Mr. Bligh speak of you ! — never ! Did you know him 
 before to-day ? " 
 
 She looks me steadily in the face as she says this. 
 There is a look of surprise mingled with one of inquiry 
 in her eyes. Evidently she is astonished at my having 
 called him by his Christian name. Equally evidently she 
 wants to know all about my intimacy with him. 
 
 "We have known him for some months," I say as 
 quietly as I can. ** He stayed with us at Ravensbourne 
 for many weeks ; I wonder he hasn't mentioned us to 
 you, for he is engaged to my sister Claire." 
 
 Some instinct restrains me from looking at her as I say 
 this, but I know that she shudders. In a moment after, 
 though, her vivacious voice rings out upon the air with the 
 words — 
 
 " He has indeed shown the most wonderful modesty in 
 keeping anything that redounds so greatly to his honour 
 a secret." She says it in a pretty, eager way, in which 
 there is not the semblance of affectation, but in which I 
 fancy I discern a little ring of some true metal that she 
 does not wish all the world to hear, or understand. When 
 I do look at her, she is bending forward, caressing 
 Wildfire's neck, speaking gently and lovingly to her horse 
 as if she felt glad that there was something that was 
 tender and true to turn to. 
 
 The instant she becomes aware that I am looking at 
 
'^ T am so Glad— for HimP 
 
 i6i 
 
 her she turns on me with a glance that is at the same 
 time bright and tearful. 
 
 " You see, Tm a little disappointed," she begins in her 
 eager impulsive way. ** I thought he had made such a 
 friend of me — I thought he would have told me every- 
 thing, at least such a thing as this ; but I am so glad — for 
 him." 
 
 %t 
 
.©'-^s-^ll^**^?^^' ^^■Y'J^ >'-^:'V<**^''\ *'^jiLt<g":3^" v^.^feTy^ Y 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LADY TORRENS CALLS. 
 
 was never so tired in my life ! " are the first 
 words I hear from Claire when she gets 
 home this day. After parting with the 
 Torrens, when our roads branch off, Sydney 
 Dale and I ride home briskly, and he and I are having a 
 comfortable cup of tea by papa's study fire when Claire 
 and papa come in. 
 
 " I was never so tired in my life ! " Claire repeats, 
 throwing aside all my attempts at assisting her to take off 
 her hat and gloves. 
 
 " We've had a very light day, too ! " Sydney remarks. 
 
 " Do you call it a light day ? " she retorts. " Well, to 
 me a day that begins with a midday breakfast and 
 finishes at Dogberry Gorse is a very heavy day." 
 
 " You certainly seem to have had enough of it," papa 
 says. 
 
 " I have, papa," she answers piteously, *' enough of 
 hunting, and enough of everything else ; I was never so 
 utterly worn out in my life." 
 
 *•' I am glad you are tired, and I hope that there will be 
 an end of this tearing after the hounds soon," Aunt Helen 
 puts in. She has come into the room during Claire's last 
 speech, and in contrast with us — a pair of lissom slender- 
 limbed, habited girls — she looks more like a large white 
 milchcow than ever. 
 
 Claire is standing before the fire, one slight foot rests 
 
Lady Torrens CaUs, 163 
 
 on the fender, one delicate hand grasps the raantle-board. 
 How I wish that Theo was here to mark the beauty of 
 these points of hers. 
 
 *' You did upset me so, Tim," she says, turning straight 
 upon me suddenly. " When I saw Kismet go off in that 
 way I was sure there would be a scene, and I do so heartily 
 detest a scene." 
 
 " But neither Tim nor Kismet made one," papa says 
 dryly. 
 
 " No, but I had the fear for an indefinite period that 
 they would," Claire says hastily, and then she runs from 
 the room quickly, and I follow her, for I see that she is 
 wounded and sore, and that it is not about Kismet or me 
 that she is so. 
 
 She has pitched her hat down, and is unbuttoning her 
 habit with rapid fingers when I reach her room. 
 
 "Claire," I begin, "let me help you. Dear, don*t be 
 frightened about me and Kismet any more ; I am going 
 to send her to Syd to-morrow, for he pronounces her an 
 unsafe mount for me." 
 
 She gets rid of her habit, and wearily casts the folds of 
 her dressing-gown about her, and says — 
 
 " I wish Syd were as fond of me as he is of you ; how 
 I'd turn to him, the dear true fellow, in any trouble I " 
 
 " So I do," I say. 
 
 *' And so I can't— nor would I if I could, if it comes 
 to that. No, I'd rather hug my woe to my heart than 
 share it with any one else." 
 
 " Has Theo annoyed you ? " I ask. 
 
 " * Annoyed ' is not the word : I can't be annoyed with 
 Theo for choosing to stay with old, disreputable Sir 
 Harold Torrens if it pleases him to do so ; but he ought 
 to have told me he was there, he ought not to have allowed 
 Lady Torrens to visibly triumph " 
 
 " Claire ! " I interrupt. 
 
 " Oh yes, I know, she's a married woman and her fame 
 
 is sacred, but Sir Harold is old and ailing, and Lady 
 
 Torrens may soon be in the market with a large fortune. 
 
 She must be meanspirited to trifle with an engaged man,'* 
 
 II — 2 
 
1 64 Blotted Out. 
 
 " Do you mean with Theo ? " I ask. " If so, let me 
 tell you she didn't know till I told her this evening that 
 he was engaged. Don't make a foe of her in your 
 imagination, Claire." 
 
 Claire laughs scornfully. 
 
 "She has evidently fascinated you," she says — "fas- 
 cinated you into the folly of believing her. How 
 credulous you must be ! Theo tried to disarm my 
 suspicions about her flirting with him by telling me that 
 she ' wasn't the kind of woman to hang her chains about 
 a fellow whom she knew to be engaged.' How does that 
 agree with her statement." 
 
 " Not at all," I am compelled to admit. But at the 
 same time I have a higher opinion of Lady Torrens* 
 . veracity than I have of Theo's. However, it would be 
 unkind to tell Claire this ; besides, putting aside the un- 
 kindness to Claire, I shrink from the pain I should inflict 
 upon myself in wording any sentiment that is derogatory 
 to Theo. He is very faulty, and I am beginning to see 
 him with clearer vision every day. But though the scales 
 have fallen from my eyes, I love him still — how I love 
 him still 1 
 
 " Has he got anything to do yet ? " I venture to ask 
 presently ; and Claire rises up impatiently and begins to 
 pace up and down the room. 
 
 " Got anything to do ! Theo's not the kind of man to 
 find employment for himself; it must be found for him 
 and thrust upon him. Oh, dear ! what will my life be 
 with him, I wonder ! He began lamenting his want of 
 money to-day as we rode home, and when I asked him 
 why he didn't work and make some for himself, he said 
 ' he had no trading blood in his veins.' Tim, what a 
 happy thing it would be if I could leave ofl" loving 
 Theo." 
 
 Tears of wounded love and pride well from her lovely 
 eyes as she says this ; and as I have no comfort to ofl^er 
 her, I remind her, prosaically, that it is time she began 
 to dress for dinner. 
 
 " I'm not going down," she says abruptly. " I'm too 
 
Lady Tor reus Calls. 165 
 
 tired to rouse myself, and I can^t stand being conjectured 
 about and pitied." 
 
 " Shall I come up to you after dinner ? " I ask. 
 
 " No no ; I shall only talk myself into a more miserable 
 frame of mind than Fm in already if you come up; 
 besides, I want to write to Theo — I parted with him very 
 coldly, and if I don*t write and remove the impression 
 that I'm annoyed with him, he won't come here to- 
 morrow ; his is such a bright nature," she adds lovingly, 
 " that he would rather keep apart from any one, however 
 much he loved the person, than hear or say any fault- 
 finding words." 
 
 She looks happier at once, now that she has begun to 
 excuse him, and I leave her with a comparatively lightened 
 heart. It would be too terrible if after all Claire and 
 Theo should come to misunderstand each other, for she 
 loves him with a love that will leave her poor indeed if it 
 is unrequited. 
 
 Sydney Dale, rather to my surprise, has mastered all 
 the incidents and grasped the whole dramatic situation of 
 the little domestic piece of plot and passion which is at 
 present engaging the interest of our house. 
 
 "Claire is a little distressed at Theo*s being with 
 Torrens, isn't she ? " he asks me. " Tm afraid if Sir 
 Harold gets him on the turf that Theo will never do any 
 good for himself." 
 
 " Do you mean that he*ll lead Theo on to bet?" I ask 
 anxiously. 
 
 <* Well, Sir Harold is a regular racing man, you know," 
 Sydney answers, " and if he sees a young fellow is well 
 inclined to fling away his money after horses, he's not the 
 man to balk him." 
 
 " But Theo has no money to throw away," I urge, as I 
 remember how ignominiously Theo had obtained com- 
 mand of the two hundred pounds. 
 
 " But no one, to hear Theo talk, would guess at that 
 fact," he laughs; "besides, he has been lucky in his 
 betting transactions lately — he told me so himself." 
 
 **Poor Claire!" I sigh. 
 
166 Blotted O^tt. 
 
 ** Don't be distressed," Sydney says kindly. *^ Lady 
 Torrens loves riding, and takes a keen interest in every 
 race in which her husband's horses run ; but she loves 
 fair play better, and she won't see any young fellow 
 tempted to take the road to ruin if she can help it. Sir 
 Harold wouldn't put himself out of the way for any one, 
 but she would." 
 
 I am a little reassured by this statement, but my mind 
 is not set perfectly at rest. Lady Torrens' will may be 
 good to do the good deed of putting a check on Theo's 
 spirit of gambling, but I know Theo too well to suppose 
 that she will have the power to divert him from any path 
 he desires to tread. He may seem to act under her 
 guidance, but in reality Theo Bligh will please himself 
 under all circumstances. 
 
 Claire is quite her own bright sweet self again after a 
 night's rest, and after having held out the olive-bran chin 
 writing to Theo. She sends the letter over to Sir Harold 
 Torrens' quite early, before breakfast ; but the morning 
 passes away, and no Theo appears in response to it. But 
 just as we are rising from luncheon, Sir Harold and Lady 
 Torrens come to call. 
 
 " I have lost no time in coming to offer you my con- 
 gratulations," Lady Torrens says, coming up heartily to 
 Claire and me. " Miss Vincent, your sister told me of 
 your engagement, but she didn't mention her own; I 
 gained that knowledge, though, from Mr. Bligh." 
 
 Then she goes on to ask if we are going to be married 
 on the same day, and to shudder in a very unaffected 
 way when she hears that my lot is to be in a far-off dull 
 town, on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 " The ' sunny south ' is all very well in books," she 
 says \ and I know at once that Theo has been giving an 
 imitation of the poetical side of Mr. Murray's manner, 
 and I feel abashed and uncomfortable ; ** but how will you 
 do without the hunting ? I watched you yesterday, and 
 I saw that you sent your heart over everything first, and 
 your horse was bound to follow it, What a lovely creatuiQ 
 your mare i§," 
 
Lady Tbrrens Calls, 167 
 
 " She's mine no longer," I say pathetically. " Sydney 
 Dale fancies she's unsafe, and so he has persuaded me to 
 send her to him, and he's going to get me another." 
 
 " I am glad of it," she says quickly. " I'm glad — I'm 
 delighted that she's safely away from you. To tell the 
 truth, though I wished to see you both again, I really 
 came to-day to speak about Kismet." 
 
 " You know her name ? " I ask in astonishment. 
 
 " I gave her the name. Two years ago my husband 
 had a string of horses up in Yorkshire, and on the race- 
 course a horse of his that he had backed very heavily 
 was beaten by several lengths by this chestnut mare. He 
 made up his mind to buy her, and got her with much less 
 difficulty than he anticipated — the fact is, her temper is 
 so vile that no one will put money on her, though she's 
 fleet as the wind. It is a relief to me to find that you're 
 safe from her mad caprices." 
 
 **Tim, you've had a lucky escape, thanks to Syd,** 
 Claire says warmly ; and then she goes on to tell Lady 
 Torrens how nervous Kismet's escapade had made her 
 yesterday, and how, in consequence, she had made herself 
 self disagreeable to Theo Bligh during the ride homewards. 
 
 " Mr. Bligh ought to have come with us to-day," said 
 Lady Torrens ; ** but he altered his mind about it just as 
 we were starting. Do you know " — she hesitates for a 
 moment, then adds rather anxiously — " that he rides in 
 the steeple-chase next Saturday ? " 
 
 We shake our heads. 
 
 " They are all gentlemen-riders. Most of them have 
 ridden several steeple-chases in Ireland, where they go at 
 racing speed over a stiff hunting- country. Is Mr. Bligh 
 accustomed to the work ? I never saw him in the saddle 
 till yesterday, and then it struck me that he went wildly 
 and rashly." 
 
 Lady Torrens speaks so thoughtfully and earnestly, that 
 I fathom at once that she does distrust Theo's prowess 
 and skill as a horseman — his courage no one can doubt. 
 But Claire resents the implication that her hero i3 ks^ 
 than perfect in every position, 
 
1 68 Blotted Out 
 
 "If he has undertaken to ride, he*ll do it well, be sure 
 of that," she says ; and then she asks, " Whose horse is 
 it?" 
 
 " Sir Harold^s, I am sorry to say," Lady Torrens replies, 
 and Claire colours with vexation. And presently, as we 
 all go out together to show Lady Torrens our green-houses, 
 and the otter-pool, and some of the other things for which 
 we are famous at Ravensbourne, Claire whispers to 
 me — 
 
 " She ought to be proud of his riding their horse, instead 
 of being afraid that he'll lose them the race. I believe 
 she has taken a disUke to him since she heard he is 
 engaged. I can't bear her, Tim ; I wish I had never 
 heard of her." 
 
 Claire is unmistakably, unjustly, obstinately, jealous ! 
 Her manner grows constrained, and presently she leaves 
 me to entertain Lady Torrens, and makes an excuse to 
 go back to the house. 
 
 As soon as she is gone. Lady Torrens turns from the 
 close inspection of the ferns, and says to me — 
 
 ** Is Mr. Bligh usually as reticent on the subject of- his 
 friends and his plans as he has proved himself lately ? I 
 am more disappointed in his character than I can express 
 to you. In my estimation he is proving himself selfish, 
 vain, and deceitful. But your sister's heart is bound up 
 in him, is it not ? " 
 
 I tell her " Yes," and I abstain from adding the truth 
 that so is mine also. 
 
 " Poor girl ! may he prove himself worthy of her 
 eventually. Is he well off? '* 
 
 " Not at all," I say eagerly. 
 
 " Then, again, he has not been candid," she says in a 
 vexed tone. " I told him the other day that I shouldn't 
 be a true friend to him unless I told him that for a young 
 man who has to make his way in the world, ours was not 
 a good house to stay at ; nor was my husband's racing, 
 betting set a good set for him to be in. His answer was 
 that his way was * made for him in the world,' and that if 
 he lost his own fortune, he cpuld always * pull himself to^ 
 
Lady Torrens Calls, 169 
 
 gether by making a rich marriage ; ' — and all the time 
 he is engaged to your sister ! He is too utterly 
 contemptible ! " 
 
 " I wonder why he never told you about Claire," I say 
 musingly; and Lady Torrens does not help me to a 
 solution of the problem. But she stoops forward and 
 kisses me on the forehead, and says — 
 
 " Theo Bligh, though he often talks without a motive, 
 never holds his tongue without one, dear. But now I 
 know how he is situated, I will take a stand : he shall not 
 be led astray on the turf by any one connected with me, 
 if I have any influence over either him or my husband." 
 
 And I thank her gratefully for this, for I know that she 
 means it, and means it well ; and just as I am doing this, 
 Sir Harold and papa appear in the conservatory, and the 
 horses are ordered round, and Lady Torrens and her 
 husband ride away, and Claire and I stand on the steps 
 watching them till they take the turn of the drive, and 
 are out of sight. Then Claire says — 
 
 '^ Let us call the dogs and go down to the otter-pool; I 
 want to have a long talk with you quietly." 
 
 I accede to her proposition, and tremble I 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HEART-SICK. 
 
 LAD even of this momentary diversion, I leave 
 my sister, and run round to the stable-yard to 
 call Music and Heartless. By way of further 
 prolonging the time, I endeavour to unloose 
 the big St. Bernard, Rescue, and I peep in for a moment 
 at Kismet's empty stall. Poor Kismet ! sorry as I am to 
 lose her, I feel more oppressed by the prospect of this 
 tete-a-tete walk with Claire than by anything else. I know 
 that she is going to talk about Theo, and to take my 
 opinion about Theo — or, rather, to ask it. For I love 
 Theo with all his faults much too well to give her or any 
 one else my real opinion concerning him. 
 
 Claire has not grown impatient, she has only become 
 very much dejected when I rejoin her in the front of the 
 house, and for a while she seems to be as glad as I am 
 that we have the dogs to bestow our attention upon. But 
 presently she sends the two otter-hounds off with a word 
 in the direction of the river, gives Rescue her gloves to 
 carry, and linking her hand in my arm begins to take me 
 for my preliminary canter over the hot plough-shares. 
 My ordeal has commenced, and I must get through it as 
 honourably as I can for myself ; but above all, I must 
 get through it honourably for Theo, for the sake of her 
 happiness 1 
 
Heart-sick, 
 
 171 
 
 " Has Lady Torrens been speaking to you of Theo ? *' 
 she begins; ^^I know that she has, I needn't ask you. 
 You've always told me everything, Tim darling, since we 
 were tiny girls together \ tell me the worst now." 
 
 "There's nothing bad to tell," I rejoin earnestly. 
 ''She said she thought a fast, sporting set like her 
 husband's, you know, was a bad set for a young man like 
 Theo, now that she knows he's engaged." 
 
 " Now that she knows he's engaged ! " Claire echoes 
 scornfully. *'So she's going to make him smart socially 
 in her house ' now that she knows he's engaged ! * If it's 
 bad for him now, it was bad before these evil tidings 
 came to her ears — officially." 
 
 "They had never come to her ears at all," I say 
 bluntly. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " Claire replies suspiciously ; " but I 
 won't argue that point with you. I only want you to 
 understand that if she gives Theo a hint to leave her 
 house and the society she suddenly declares to be 
 dangerous to him now, I shall not like her the better for 
 it ; nor will Theo like you the better for having urged 
 her on to take such a course." 
 
 I am so innocent of this of which I am accused, I am 
 so shocked at the accusation, that I remain silent. 
 
 " What is it ? " Claire goes on, with a sudden access 
 of emotion which seems to indicate an intensity of 
 feeling which the circumstance hardly warrants — " what 
 has he done, or what have I done, that you should plot 
 and counterplot with a stranger about us ? Lady Torrens 
 came here to-day to find out from you whether or not 
 there's a flaw in Theo. Tim, have you been false to 
 him ? " 
 
 " Neither to him nor to you," I find breath to say. 
 
 " I will believe you, I do believe you," poor Claire 
 says, "but we women are all so weak, and — he liked you 
 very much at one time, Tim, and tried to make you like 
 him. I know all that, and — he's not a man to be easily 
 forgotten." 
 
 She is cruel in her candour with which she lets mQ 
 
172 Blotted Out 
 
 understand that he has told her of the conquest he 
 achieved over me, without any special effort on his part 
 — any special effort, that is, that was apparent to others. 
 She is cruel, and he is cowardly ! Some horrible instinct 
 insists upon forcing this explanation of their conduct 
 upon me for a moment. The next I fling off its degrading 
 influence, and am true to myself, and to them. 
 
 *' If Theo were a man to be easily forgotten, I shouldn*t 
 wish you to be his wife," I say; "and as for my being 
 weak about him, I shall go on being weak about you both 
 all my life, I hope." 
 
 We are close by the river bank now, and the old habits 
 of our childhood come back upon us. Rescue goes 
 into the river after a stick, and Music and Heartless 
 plunge their noses into the holes in the bank, utterly 
 regardless of the fact of its not being the otter-hunting 
 season. We are girls still, girls whose only misery so far 
 has been that a reality has fallen short of our ideal. 
 Our youth, our vitality, asserts itself here in the open air, 
 and we shout to Rescue and encourage the otter-hounds 
 with all the force and energy, all the heart-whole enjoy- 
 ment in the pursuit, which we expended upon it in former 
 days before Theo Bligh and Mr. Murray came to cumber 
 us, the one with the burden of loving him, the other with 
 the burden of being loved by him. 
 
 Presently Claire, growing tired of throwing dirty sticks 
 into the river with her delicate hands for Rescue's 
 amusement, stops that portion of the sport, and says to 
 me, — 
 
 " You drift back into romping childhood very readily, 
 Tim ; do you realise what a change has come over us 
 both since we used to come here at this time last year, 
 and find real pleasure in making the dogs our play- 
 fellows?" 
 
 " I find real pleasure in making them my playfellows ' 
 still, Claire," I say deprecatingly. " I shall feel parting 
 with them awfully, awfully !" and as I speak I conjure 
 up a vision of all the good-byes that will have to be 
 spoken before I start for my new home under Mr. 
 
I 
 
 Jleart'Sick, 1 73 
 
 Murray's auspices, and I bless Rescue's fat honest head 
 for being at hand for me to bury my flushed face and 
 tearful eyes in it. 
 
 "What's come to us," Claire goes on speculating, 
 " that we're not as happy and contented as we were a 
 year ago ? We have the dogs, and the river, and each 
 other, and our youth still, and other things in addition ; 
 why aren't we as happy as we were ? Are you jealous of 
 Mr. Murray ? — is it that with you ? " 
 
 I am giving all my strength to the task of breaking off 
 a big out-growing root, wherewith to lure Rescue into 
 the river again. Nevertheless, I shake my head very 
 energetically as I say emphatically, — 
 
 « No !— I should hke to be." 
 
 " No, you wouldn't — a thousand times no, you 
 wouldn't," Claire says, throwing herself spiritedly into 
 the argument. "Jealousy sears one's brightness so 
 horribly. Who can be at one's best when you're watch- 
 ing for a word or a glance to be given to some one 
 else ? Do you know, Tim, I think jealousy is the real 
 Hades." 
 
 " What an awful thing an eternity of being on that 
 kind of ignominious look out would be ! " I say laugh- 
 ingly. 
 
 " It's an awful thing to have a time of it here," Claire 
 says ; " it makes one so pitifully low. Fancy wanting to 
 pull down one fellow- creature because you suspect 
 another fellow-creature of preferring the first to yourself." 
 
 I throw my hardly gained stick away without regard to 
 Rescue ; I turn to my sister, and I jpray to speak aright 
 to her. 
 
 " I think you'd like a better woman than yourself to 
 be preferred to you ; but the 'better woman ' will never 
 be found, and so you're safe, you will never try to pull 
 any one down." 
 
 " Then don't you try to build any one up in Theo's 
 estimation against me," Claire says hghtly but warningly, 
 and out of the fulness of my heart,' out of my firm belief 
 in Claire's perfect ascendancy over Theo's mind, I say, — 
 
174 Biotied Out. 
 
 " 1 pity the woman who ever ranges herself against 
 you in Theo's estimation — he wouldn't spare her, for he 
 loves you." 
 
 "Don't give me false security," she says anxiously; 
 and the fear possesses me, that in order to be quite loyal 
 to her, I cannot be loyal to him. 
 
 " I don't like the idea of her assuming that she has 
 influence enough over him even to keep him from evil," 
 my poor sister goes on peevishly, before I have made up 
 my mind as to what I had better say ; and I perceive 
 that her malady is at its height, that the fever must 
 expend itself, for that no cooling draughts of verbal 
 wisdom from me will avail to allay it. 
 
 " I wish I knew some one who had sufficient influence 
 over Mr. Murray to keep him from evil all the days of 
 his life," I say, with an attempt at a light-hearted laugh, 
 which breaks down into a sort of sobbing gurgle that is 
 anything but mirthful. " If such a person only exists, 
 and will be kind enough to point out to him how unfit / 
 am to be his wife and the companion of his exile, I feel 
 as if I should be so happy that nothing would ever trouble 
 me again." 
 
 " Nonsense ! that's all sham ! *' Claire says indignantly* 
 " You'd get out of it if you were as tired of it as you 
 profess to be." 
 
 ** It's an awful thing to break an engagement in cold 
 blood," I say musingly. "You write yourself down 
 such an utter fool for having gone into it at all." 
 
 Claire's eyes flame, and all her beauty is transformed 
 from its gentleness as she says, — 
 
 " If that was the only thing that kept me back from 
 breaking my engagement, wouldn't I do it at once ! I'd 
 * write myself down a fool ' without the slightest hesi- 
 tation ; but I love Theo's faults better than I ever should 
 love any other man's good qualities, and so for my heart's 
 sake I must keep to it — I love him so that I can't leave 
 him." 
 
 Her words catch my ear, and recall some other 
 words whose music has sunk into my soul, and I begin 
 
Heartsick, 175 
 
 to half hum and half ** howl/' as Claire calls it, the 
 words^ — 
 
 ** What shall I do fot thee ? — weary thee? — leave thee ? " — 
 
 Hum — hum — hum — hum, because I've forgotten the 
 words. I relapse into song here— 
 
 I 
 
 ** I love thee so dear that I only can leave thee." 
 
 ** That's a form my love will never take," Claire says ; 
 until he shows he's tired of me, I'll hold him as my very 
 own before all the world. What form would your love take, 
 Tim, if you doubted him — I mean, doubted any man — 
 and loved him still ? " 
 
 "I'd just ask him to clear away the doubt — to tell me 
 if it were an idle or a well-founded one ; and, if it were 
 the last — if I found he had gone from me, Claire, well— 
 I'd never go after him." 
 
 " Wouldn't you hate him in that case ? " Claire asks, 
 setting her small teeth firmly together ; " wouldn't you 
 love to make him suffer ? wouldn't you hurt him if you 
 could ? wouldn't you have revenge ? " 
 
 Myreckless, untutored nature lies down tamed, softened, 
 and saddened inexpressibly as my sister speaks. My 
 sweet, fair-faced sister is vindictive ! The truth forces 
 itself upon me — she can hate where she has loved ! 
 
 The idea of unloving is repugnant to my nature ; the 
 idea of placing revenge on the throne where love once 
 sat is repulsive to me. I feel that I could leave Theo, 
 that I could resign all prospect of ever seeing him again ; 
 that I would rather die than attempt to win him 
 back ; that I would serve him, if it were in my power to 
 do so, until my life's end : but I could never hate him, 
 nor try to harm him ! How, then, can Claire, whom he 
 has placed on the pedestal of his open regard, speak even 
 in jest of doing these things ! She must love herself 
 better than she does him after all. 
 
 ** Wouldn't you have revenge ? " Claire repeats. 
 
1)6 B Med Out 
 
 ** I think I should say, ' I love thee so dear that I 
 only can leave thee ! '" I say, thinking it better to put forth 
 my views in other people's words than in my own. 
 
 " I wish I could renounce Theo in that way," Claire 
 says, subduing herself suddenly, " but I can't. I could 
 only leave him under one condition — namely, that I left 
 him for a man who could put me into a much better 
 position than Theo can ever hope to touch." 
 
 *' No, you'll never leave him in that way," I say coax- 
 ingly. I cannot endure the idea of my sister ever treating 
 this man with meanness, though my prophetic heart tells 
 me that he is quite capable of treating her in any way 
 that will best serve his own interest. Still, as I would 
 rather myself be wronged than wrong another, I do 
 earnestly hope that Claire may never be the aggressor — 
 the one to play false — to break vows that were made in 
 faith and love, and in the youth that should be so pure 
 and loyal. 
 
 " You'll never leave him for another man merely 
 because the other man is rich and Theo is poor, will you, 
 Claire darling ? " I repeat. And poor Claire looks at me 
 wistfully, and answers truthfully, with all semblance of 
 hardness and worldliness banished from her manner. 
 
 " Something tells me that I shall never be parted from 
 Theo, but it will be his * will ' to leave me — Tim, his 
 interest to remain. Theo will never disgrace himself 
 openly in the eyes of the world by jilting a girl like me; 
 but if he can do it quietly, and get well paid for it, he's 
 just the man * to love and ride away T at a moment's 
 notice." 
 
 " Yet you love him still — better than anything in the 
 world," I say confidently, for I judge her by myself, and 
 / love him still, "better than anything in the world." 
 Yes ! better even than my own happiness, though I am 
 still young enough for happiness to be an object to 
 me. 
 
 " I wish I knew where this steeple-chase is to be ridden," 
 Claire says, as we walk home ; " it's so annoying to think 
 of other people — other women — being there to flatter and 
 
Heart-sick. 177 
 
 encourage him, and of our being in the dark about it 
 altogether." 
 
 " Lady Torrens won't be there to flatter and encourage 
 him," I say. 
 
 " Nonsense ! she's sure to be there. Most likely she 
 has worked him her colours on jacket and cap — she's just 
 the kind of woman to do that sort of thing ; and she'll tell 
 him to ride for her favour, and urge him on to all sorts 
 of foolish exploits. But we shall not be there to see the 
 exhibition, that's one comfort." 
 
 Bat there evidently was no " comfort " in this reflection 
 for poor Claire, in spite of the energy of her assertion, 
 and I grow heart-sick for her. 
 
 19 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MY IDOL SLIPS. 
 
 [HERE is a letter lying on my plate when I go 
 down to breakfast the morning after my walk 
 and talk with Claire, which takes away my 
 appetite. It is from Mr. Murray, who evidently 
 looks upon a wedding as a little incident which can be 
 got over without being led up to by any absurd or conven- 
 tional preliminaries. His own preparations for leaving his 
 native land, and assuming the consular dignity, are 
 completed, and he writes to tell me that he thinks we had 
 better be married ** next week ! " I read on to this 
 clearly worded expression of his desires and opinion, and 
 then the words jumble themselves together, and the lines 
 seem to be swimming about before my eyes. I feel that 
 the letters flutters ; I feel that my eyeballs are floating in 
 scalding tears that must not be shed ; I feel — that they 
 are all looking at me, and that I must say something 
 presently, 
 
 " Why, Tim ! what's the matter ? " Claire asks, leaning 
 towards me. 
 
 *^ Nothing,^' I say, shaking my head imploringly; 
 at least " 
 
 Papa glances up from his paper, first at me, then at the 
 epistle in my hand. 
 
 " Letter from Murray, eh ! " he says. " What does he 
 say ? " 
 
My Idol Slips, 179 
 
 " That I'm to be married next week," I blurt out ; and 
 if I were announcing my impending execution I could not 
 feel more miserable, or speak more hopelessly. 
 
 Papa looks away from me abruptly, and jerks the paper 
 nearer to his face \ Aunt Helen gives forth the verdict, 
 " Next week ! Impossible ! " and my twin sisters proclaim 
 that they " have always said that Tim never would have 
 her things ready whenever she was married/' Only Claire 
 is silent. But she draws her chair nearer to mine, and 
 takes one of my trembling hands in hers, and lets me feel 
 that she does understand it all so fully that I may dare to 
 speak to her. 
 
 '* Not a bit of the trousseau begun even," Aunt Helen 
 says. " Absurd as this marriage is in itself, both Mr. 
 Murray and Tim seem to do all in their power to make 
 all the circumstances attending it ridiculous." 
 
 " You see he's a Scotchman, and in Scotland you 
 needn't be married at all to be married, you know — at 
 least, if you say you'll be somebody's husband or wife, 
 and somebody else hears you say it, it's quite as good as 
 if " 
 
 " You jumped over a broomstick," papa says, inter- 
 rupting the twin who was expounding. '^Remarkably 
 lucid, Mabel, my dear, but I think Murray is prepared for a 
 little more ceremonial on the occasion than you suppose. 
 But how's this about the trousseau, Tim ? I thought you 
 had been making active preparations for many weeks ? " 
 
 I turn scarlet and shake my head ; and Claire says 
 hurriedly — 
 
 *' It's all right, papa ; she can get everything at a day's 
 notice. 77/ go up to town with her, and we'll get the 
 trousseau together. Come, Tim dear, run up with me to 
 your room, and we'll make out the list." 
 
 lam glad to escape ; I am trying to get out of the 
 room, but papa rises, takes hold of me, and kisses me, 
 and as he does so whispers — 
 
 " I thought that money would have burnt holes in your 
 pocket long before this, my child. How is it that you 
 have been so dilatory ? " 
 
 112 — 2 
 
i8o Slotted Out. 
 
 " I don*t know," I stammer : " I always put off eviry* 
 thing disagreeable if I can, you know." 
 
 ** It's not too late," he mutters anxiously. " My poor 
 child, if it's repugnant to you, it's not too late; tell 
 me?" 
 
 " Not now," I say, bursting from him and rushing after 
 Claire, who has regarded the whispered colloquy with 
 eager interest. 
 
 " What shall we do if Theo can't let you have the 
 money, or at least some of it back at once ! " she com- 
 mences as soon as we are safely in my room. 
 
 "Be lowered in papa's estimation for ever," I cry 
 despairingly ; and Claire retorts, " Now please don't 
 become supine about it, Tim. Sitting down and weepingly 
 contemplating the worst side of the case won't improve 
 matters : something must be done, for papa must never 
 know that Theo had that money from you. I hope 
 Theo will come over to-day ; his bright brain will get us 
 out of the scrape." 
 
 " It ought to, considering that it got me into it," I 
 say. 
 
 " Now don't harp on that * mouldered string ' and don't 
 look so woe-begone : your expression of face is enough 
 to put any number of suspicions into papa's mind, and 
 any number of questions into his mouth. Do exert your- 
 self, dear. Suffer anything rather than betray my 
 Theo." 
 
 She kneels by my side as she says this, she lays her 
 royal-looking little head on my shoulder, and I promise 
 her that I will do anything rather than betray the trust 
 which her Theo has reposed in me — for his own good ! 
 
 " There's always the other two hundred to fall back 
 upon," she goes on. " Papa's not likely to ask to look 
 into your dressing-case and purse to see how your 
 finances stand. You're free to spend that, and Theo 
 will soon refund you the rest, and no one will know any- 
 thing about it." 
 
 " Only Mr. Murray asked me to keep two hundred for 
 a rainy day," I say, shivering, as I repeat his phrase. 
 
My Idol Slip. lit 
 
 " That really is expecting too much, even of you," she 
 says, kissing me tenderly. " Poor dear Tim ! ' rather 
 twenty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay ; ' rather 
 wet weather all the year round with Theo Bligh than one 
 rainy day with Mr. Murray. What did make you fall in 
 love with him?" 
 
 " In ' love ' with him ! " I echo. 
 
 *^I won't ask you, though," she goes on hastily. 
 " What lives we used to plan out for ourselves when we 
 were young, Tim ! Your love was to be like little 
 Elsie's in The Romance of the Swan's Nest : * I will 
 have a lover, riding on a steed of steeds ; and the steed 
 shall be red-roan, and the lover shall be noble ; * that 
 was your idea, and Mr. Murray is the reality ! " 
 
 I wince, and reply — 
 
 " And yours was * the happy prince with joyful eyes, 
 and lighter-footed than the fox.* Theo realises your 
 ideal well." 
 
 " How I wish I could see him ride to-morrow ! " she 
 cries, with a sudden thrill of exultation in her lover's 
 glorious appearance. " No one will look like him, no 
 one can ! How he'll swing in his saddle " 
 
 " I hope he won't swing out of it," I say prosaically ; 
 and then — I can't bear any more just now — I remind 
 Claire that it is the day for refilling the flower baskets 
 and vases, and that to do it is my office. 
 
 For the first time since the receipt of Mr. Murray's 
 letter, I breathe freely when I find myself away in the 
 wilderness, where I have come to gather foliage, and 
 mosses, and ferns for my baskets. Prowling hither and 
 thither among the trees that mercifully intervene between 
 me and the windows of the house, I dare to droop de- 
 jectedly, I dare to look as wretched as I feel. 
 
 Presently, before I have had energy enough to gather 
 a single leaf, or tear up one bit of emerald moss, a few 
 brilliantly whistled bars of a popular waltz fall upon my 
 ears, and Mr. Theo Bligh comes springing through the 
 wet tangled undergrowth like a young stag. 
 , "What brings you into this morass.^" he begins,' 
 
i82 Blotted Out. 
 
 " Nothing but the fervour of my devotion to your many 
 excellences would have led me to follow you, I never 
 knew a girl go out of her way to catch a cold and a red 
 nose as you do. Why, I ask, the wilderness when it's 
 wet?" 
 
 "Why did you follow me?" I answer. "I didn't 
 want you." 
 
 " It's not civil to tell a guest that you don't want him 
 under any circumstances," he says gaily, "especially 
 when he comes to you brimful of plans for your welfare 
 and happiness." 
 
 He pauses, and I begin — 
 
 " Oh, Theo ! have you brought me " 
 
 " An invitation from Lady Torrens for Claire and you 
 to go and stay with her for a few days." 
 
 " Have you seen Claire ? " 
 
 *' No, I saw your fluttering garments disappearing in 
 this direction as I rode up, and came after you; I 
 wanted to say something to you alone, in fact," he 
 adds, his manner clouding over a little, and a light 
 scowl marring the brightness of his handsome face, 
 " What made you tell Lady Torrens about Claire and 
 me?" 
 
 "She asked me if I had ever seen you before the 
 other day, and I told her yes, you were engaged to my 
 sister," I reply curtly. 
 
 " That's just what I didn't want you to say. A fellow 
 when he's staying in a country house, where there is a 
 lot of gossip going on, hates to have his engagement 
 blurted out all over the shop. Moreover, Lady Torrens 
 is just like the rest of you, as unreasonable as a woman 
 can be — she chooses to fancy that I'm not 'straight- 
 forward,' as she calls it, because I didn't go into her 
 house with a trumpet, proclaiming, ' Hear ye, all whom it 
 may concern ! I'm engaged to Claire Vincent, a tocher- 
 less lass with a lang pedigree.' " 
 
 How heartless he is ! how vain he is ! how utterly 
 regardless of the feelings of every living creature but 
 himself 1 I know him to be all these things, and yet — 
 
My Idol sups. 183 
 
 we women are constituted in such a wonderful way — I 
 don't love him one bit less than I did on that summer 
 day when he first flashed across my path. 
 
 " Don't begin to scold me," I say, and I know that 
 my tone is tired, I know that there is a very giving-up air 
 about me altogether. It hardly surprises me when he 
 says — 
 
 ** What a wet blanket, what a kill-joy you are, Tim, 
 since you have got engaged ! Come on ; let us gather 
 our mosses and ferns while we may, and then go in to 
 Claire and luncheon. I'm like Maud Miiller at the 
 present moment — * a vague unrest, and a nameless long- 
 ing fills my breast.' I require food and 'sustenance/ 
 by which last I mean a peg." 
 
 "A what?" I ask. 
 
 '*A brandy and soda; and mind you never let out to 
 Lady Torrens that I've taken one at this hour of the 
 day, or she'll get me scratched, as she has failed about 
 the horse." 
 
 ** Doesn't she want you to ride, or doesn't she want 
 Sir Harold's horse to run ? " I ask. 
 
 " She doesn't want me to ride— she's taken a feminine 
 fad into her head that I'm too * spasmodic,' as she calls 
 it, to deport myself decently ; but if I kill her husband's 
 horse I'll show her that I can ride." 
 
 " What's the worst you have to do ? " I ask 
 tremulously. 
 
 ** The worst is a thundering big fence-and-water jump ; 
 and that's a mere nothing to Grey Dolphin, a horse 
 who'd take a church if it came in his way. You'll see 
 the black-and-green come in in a very good place, 
 Tim." 
 
 " We shan't be there," I say. 
 
 " Oh yes, you will ; of course that's what I've come 
 over about. Lady Torrens won't go unless Claire and 
 you go with her. You'll see, in spite of her pronouncing 
 me * spasmodic,' that I shall be cool enough to bow to 
 you as I pass your carriage." 
 
 ** Please think of the race and your neck, and don't 
 
1 84 Blotted Out 
 
 risk either for the sake of showing off before us," I say 
 hastily. 
 
 "Showing off! Is it likely that I, who've ridden 
 dozens of races, should care to \show off' before a lot of 
 people who won't even know whether I'm going in good 
 form or not?" Theo says, with an air of the most 
 magnificent contempt. " I wouldn't have gone in for 
 this local affair at all — it's altogether out of my line — if 
 Lady Torrens hadn't asked me to do it ; but when a 
 woman asks a fellow to wear her colours, and ride the 
 horse she's backing, and all that kind of business, what's 
 to be done?" 
 
 " You told me just now that she didn't want you to 
 ride at all," I remind him. 
 
 "Yes; but that's only since she found out that I'm 
 engaged to Claire. There's a good deal of * high falutin' 
 sensationalism about Lady Torrens ; she quite thinks 
 that it's the right kind of thing for her to do, to put the 
 drag on about Claire." 
 
 "I am glad she does remember Claire's claims on 
 you," I say reproachfully. 
 
 " Who wants to forget Claire's claims ? I don't. If I 
 were to forswear every manly sport and pleasure in life, 
 and turn myself into a moody milksop, would Claire, 
 or you for her, be one bit the better satisfied ? What 
 did you like me for at first ? — tell me that, Tim 
 dear?" 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," I tell him truthfully. 
 
 "* Of course you don't know, but I can tell you why it 
 was : I was just myself — a fellow who goes in with 
 ardour for whatever comes in 'his way. I pledged my- 
 self to ride this race, just as I pledged myself to marry 
 Claire — the opportunity of doing it came in my way, and 
 I embraced the opportunity. I don't go out of my way 
 to do things, but if they're well in my path I don't avoid 
 them." 
 
 Poor Claire ! what a pity that she was so " well in his 
 way ! " I have to look away from him resolutely in 
 order to think this. As soon as I steal a glance at the 
 
My Idol Slip, 185 
 
 handsome, fearless, open-looking face which surmounts 
 the gallant, well set up, stalwart young frame, I alter 
 my opinion, and instead of pitying Claire, I pity 
 myself. 
 
 " Lef s get on a little faster," Theo suggests. " Claire 
 will be pleased, won't she, at my answering her letter in 
 person ? " 
 
 " Claire's always pleased to see you," I say j and I 
 might add, ** and so am I — idiotically glad." 
 
 **I know she is," he answers egotistically. "Have 
 you managed to get up any of that feeling for Murray 
 yet?" 
 
 He bends his head, and looks into my face with 
 laughing eyes. My engagement evidently strikes him as 
 being a great joke — a comical episode in his career which 
 affords him a certain amount of amusement, for which 
 he is rather pleased with me for supplying him than 
 otherwise. What my feelings may be on the subject he 
 never pauses to consider. 
 
 " For my own sake, it's to be hoped that I have got 
 up the feeling," I say mendaciously; "for I am to be 
 married next week." 
 
 " No ! " he cries out in a startled tone ; and a tiny 
 sensation of triumph thrills my heart for an instant, 
 while I believe that he is not so utterly indifferent to all 
 that concerns me as he sometimes leads me to think he 
 is. The next instant the triumph fades away as he 
 says — 
 
 " What a bore ! for I can't touch a farthing of that 
 money you lent me, and I suppose you'll be wanting it, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 " Of course I shall, Theo." 
 
 " Well, I really don't see what's to be done for you. 
 However, it's no use discussing an unpleasant topic, and 
 howHng over the inevitable, is it?" And as he speaks 
 he seems airily to dismiss the subject from his mind, and 
 goes forward with the bound of a deer to jump over a 
 long, high-backed garden seat that is in the middle of 
 the lawn. 
 
i86 
 
 Blotted Out. 
 
 Either through the grass being slippery, or his nerves 
 a trifle shaken in spite of himself, he falls as he 
 lands, and when he rises, I see that he grasps his left 
 wrist. 
 
 " Are you hurt, Theo ? " I cry anxiously. 
 
 " My bridle-hand's strained — what cursed luck!" he 
 mutters. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 "can she be cruel?" 
 
 HEO vacillates a good deal in his treatment of 
 the subject of the strained hand. When it is 
 suggested to him by Claire that he should 
 make it the excuse for doing what we all wish 
 to have him do, namely, resigning his place in the steeple- 
 chase to-morrow, he declares himself to be absolutely 
 unhurt, and indignantly repudiates the idea of proclaim- 
 ing himself " such a muff to the Torrens' set," as to be 
 turned from his purpose by ** a bruise and a girl." Never- 
 theless, when this effort at interfering with the liberty of 
 the subject in his person has passed from his memory, he 
 makes great capital out of the strain. He tells papa 
 that he is on the brink of getting a good appointment, 
 but that this accident will militate against his chance of 
 success ; and when papa reminds him that he does not 
 write with his left hand, Theo glides gracefully out of the 
 difficulty, as only Theo can, and holds his hand out to 
 Claire to be bathed and bandaged. 
 
 I do not for one moment doubt that it is extremely 
 pleasant and amusing for Clare to sit on a low chair by 
 the side of the couch on which Theo reclines, tending 
 that strained wrist of his, and making him feel himself to 
 be essential to her happiness, and to the well-being of 
 the world in general. But it is not pleasant or amusing 
 
1 88 Blotted Out. 
 
 to me to watch them. If it were only summer weather, 
 I could relieve them of my presence, and try to forget 
 them in the companionship of the dogs out of doors, or 
 of my own thoughts in my own room. But on this 
 dreary, chill February day, I am tempted to stay by the 
 bright, big drawing-room fire ; and as I turn my face to 
 the cheery glow, and my back to the pair of lovers, they 
 presently forget that I am there — and I am too dazed by 
 all that is happening around me to remind them of the 
 fact. 
 
 What complications are about me as I sit here in my 
 day-dream ! To all outward appearance I am as un- 
 harrassed a girl as I was that first day, when I scuttled 
 away from danger in the shape of the then unknown 
 Theo Bligh. In reality I am in debt to my father, and 
 to my conscience, the sum of two hundred pounds. But 
 what is that compared to the debt I shall presently owe 
 to Mr. Murray, the man who is going to take me in 
 entire faith, and who will surely find me so terribly 
 wanting ? 
 
 Suddenly my pity for him changes into pity for myself. 
 I may be very wicked, but I am not wicked enough, 
 surely, to merit such an interminable vista of misery as 
 this which stretches out before me. To go through a 
 long life, perhaps — for I am young and healthy, and full 
 of that vitality which death respects and keeps aloof from 
 — hearing this dread monotony of a loveless chilled life, 
 from the very prospect of which I shrink appalled. 
 
 " I can't endure it ! I can't endure it ! " I cry aloud, 
 in my agony of impatience \ and I break down altogether, 
 bending forward into my own lap, in a state of supine 
 wretchedness which I cannot combat, although I despise 
 myself for yielding to it. 
 
 I am raised from the depths by a strong, nervous arm ; 
 I am restored to a consciousness of my utter imbecility 
 by the words — 
 
 " Tim darhng, is it a nightmare ? or a pang of con- 
 science on account of some little unconfessed crime, 
 such as murder, or arson, or ? " 
 
*' Can She be Cruel V^ 189 
 
 '*Is It a desire to make a little scene, since no other 
 form of entertainment was at hand ? " Claire cuts in 
 coolly ; and at her words I remind myself of where I am 
 and what I am doing, and I unwind myself from Theo 
 Bligh's embrace, and lift my hot, tear-stained face from 
 the lappet of his coat. 
 
 " I meant that I can't be married," I exclaim, looking 
 imploringly from Theo to Claire. " It's too horrible now 
 that it's coming so close. I didn't think it was half so 
 awful when he asked me, but to go away from — from 
 everything I love, and live with him always ! Claire, 
 don't let me do it ; I'd. better die ! " 
 
 ** A deal better," Theo observes philosophically. "As 
 a member of the family I should certainly say * die,' or 
 you may be tempted to bolt, if there were no other 
 alternative ; but there is an alternative — break it off : it's 
 easily done." 
 
 " How lightly you speak of breaking an engagement in 
 which honour is involved," Claire puts in. 
 
 ** She'd far better do it before than after marriage," 
 Theo says quietly, lounging back to the sofa. " How- 
 ever, it's an affair that she only can settle for herself; but 
 I think Tim, if you give Murray the benefit of that little 
 scene you've just rehearsed, that he'll be ready to declare 
 with Montrose, that ' he'll never love thee more.' By 
 Jove ! " Theo goes on — and I see that the blood rushes 
 to his brow — "/ should know intuitively if a girl recoiled 
 from me in that way ; but some fellows have hides like a 
 rhinoceros.*' 
 
 I don't love Mr. Murray, but I must be loyal, though 
 it hurts me to open my lips on the subject, 
 
 " If he ever saw me look sorry he'd release me on the 
 spot," I explain ; " but I'd never look sorry before him. 
 And, Claire — Theo — you will never, either of you, betray 
 what a goose I made of myself just now, will you ? " 
 
 I go up to my sister and clasp my arms round her 
 neck, and my sister unclasps them, and almost pushes 
 me away. 
 
 " You really may trust me, Tim, not to do a single 
 
1 90 Blotted Out. 
 
 thing that will give you the slightest excuse for being un- 
 stable and infirm of purpose. You're so unpractical — 
 you have so little real understanding of what you want 
 yourself — that I believe, if you were to get out of this 
 engagement, you'd get into another that would be equally 
 uncongenial to you before a week was over your head. 
 For my part, I shall be far more at rest about you when 
 youVe safely married and away." 
 ** Oh, Claire, you*re joking ! " I cry. 
 " Claire, I think you are giving out your real senti- 
 ments with a lucidity that does you credit," Theo says, 
 with a dash of earnestness in his mirthful manner that 
 makes me wonder what it is all about. " I'm sure you'll 
 be far more at rest about Tim when she's safely married 
 and away." 
 
 " For her sake only," Claire says quickly. 
 " Exactly ! You're afraid till it's ratified that the 
 Murray bond will break, and that Tim may enter into a 
 fresh alliance with some reckless, good-looking scamp 
 like myself. Well, Claire, what better fate can you wish 
 for your sister than you have chosen voluntarily for your- 
 self? A duplicate of me would suit Tim's taste a good 
 deal better than ever Murray will. — No offence to your 
 future lord and master, Tim, but, as Swinburne observes 
 of Mary Queen of Scots, * Do I not know thee to the 
 bone, my sweet ? ' Don't I know you, Tim ? " 
 
 He asks it with all the wheedling emphasis of which 
 he is master — and he is master of such a large amount of 
 wheedling emphasis. Still I am silent, for it is a question 
 that my sister's lover ought not to have asked me ; and 
 even more than the contemptuous certainty it implies as 
 to the state of my feelings, does it bespeak a sort of re- 
 gardlessness of Claire's, which makes me fear that he will 
 grow careless as to her suffering on his account — careless 
 enough to allow her to perceive it. 
 
 " You think Tim much more shallow than she is, if you 
 believe that you have fathomed her," Claire puts in. 
 "Bef:ause she isn't rhapsodical about Mr. Murray, you 
 mustn't fall into the error of thinking that she's not very 
 
^^ Can She he Cruel V 191 
 
 proud of his having chosen her; its only that she 
 feels " 
 
 " ' That there's a nearer one still, and a dearer one yet 
 than all other,' " Theo interrupts, bringing out his words 
 and his light laugh as carelessly as if he had never probed 
 the weakness of my heart for him, and found out all that 
 was to be known of the root of my disease. 
 
 " I wasn't going to say that," Claire rejoins ; " I was 
 only going to tell you that she feels nothing more than 
 the little natural sorrow, the little natural hesitation, which 
 every girl feels when she's going to leave * her own ' for 
 the first time in her life, never again to come back to 
 them as * their own ' entirely. Why, I shall feel the same 
 when it comes to the point, and I shall be leaving them 
 for you." 
 
 There is such proud love, there is such open idolatry 
 in these words of hers, that Theo forgets the strain, and 
 rises from his recumbent position, pleased, flattered, and 
 eagerly anxious to continue the subject. 
 
 " I believe it is true," he says, taking her hands in his, 
 and drawing her nearer to him caressingly; "I do believe 
 that you would throw over your family, and the brightest 
 fate and fortune that could be offered you, for me." 
 
 Either she does not heed my presence, or she has for- 
 gotten it. With a passionate gesture she frees her hands, 
 and as her arms twine round his neck, and her face 
 buries itself on his shoulder, she says — 
 
 " No fate could be bright without you. Theo, don't 
 ask me to go there ! Leave that woman's house ; I can't 
 be her guest !" 
 
 " You must, dear, for to-morrow, if you want to see 
 me ride," he says blithely. "Come, all my attention 
 will be given to Grey Dolphin to-morrow ; I shall think 
 more of him than I shall of any woman on the course." 
 
 ** More than you will of me ? " she asks reproachfully. 
 
 " Well, to be honest, more than I shall of you," he 
 answers ; and even I know that there is something un- 
 unchivalrous in his brilliant candour. 
 
 *^ By the time I've ridden home and dcsscd it will be 
 
19^ Blotted Out. 
 
 the Torrens' dinner-time," he goes on. "Now, look 
 here, Claire ; I shall settle it for you. Don't stay there 
 unless you like, but spend to-morrow with Lady Torrens. 
 Her husband will be awfully annoyed if she doesn't go, 
 and she swears — I mean, she says — she won't go without 
 you. Be with her by twelve o'clock : my race comes off 
 at one." 
 
 " Do you really wish me to go with her ? Do you 
 really wish me to be there ? " Claire asks. 
 
 "It wouldn't do for you not to be there now," he 
 says, with a look of vexation. " There has been talk 
 and a fuss, you see ; and if you're not there, she will 
 think there is something wrong with us ; and if she once 
 thinks that, I should get the cold shoulder from her. 
 You women are kittle cattle to deal with." 
 
 " Then, to please you, I will go, Theo ; but, what with 
 my anxiety about you and my dislike to Lady Torrens, I 
 shall not have a very happy day,'" Claire says wist- 
 fully. 
 
 *' I tell you that Grey Dolphin and I are like one. 
 By Jove ! we must be the two parts they talk about in 
 the Symposium, which must come together to form a 
 perfect whole," he laughs gaily, by way of reply to her 
 first objection. But I observe that he ignores the subject 
 of her dislike to Lady Torrens. Indeed, the statement 
 as to the feeling existing does not seem to make the 
 slightest impression upon him. The fact is that Theo 
 has gained his point about Claire's being present to see 
 him ride. Having gained his point, he light-heartedly 
 casts behind him all consideration for the pain that point 
 may inflict upon any one else. I see all this ; I under- 
 stand it perfectly. Nevertheless, he is selfish in such a 
 gay, bright, easy way, that there is the most subtle 
 fascination in his selfishness. Claire can't be angry with 
 him; and as for me — I find it impossible to like him 
 one bit less than I did when I first began to love him, 
 and was blind to all his faults. 
 
 "Mind you look your best to-morrow,'* he says to 
 Claire in parting. <^ It will be known all over the place 
 
** Can She be Cruel ? " 1 9^ 
 
 that you're engaged to me, and I want other fellows to 
 see that I had some excuse for the weakness of which 
 Fve been guilty." 
 
 '^ The folly is not irreparable," Claire says. But even 
 as she says it she clings more closely to him, and smiles 
 more winningly on him ; and I understand clearly that, 
 with her own good-will, she will never relinquish the 
 hold she has on him, however weak that hold may grow. 
 I would relinquish him — if he were mine to relinquish — 
 at any given moment, if he seemed to wish it. But 
 Claire will cling to him. Whose love is the truest, I 
 wonder, Claire's or mine ? 
 
 Having finally taken his leave of Claire, he gives me a 
 farewell greeting in parting. 
 
 " Good-bye, Tim. I shall be awfully sorry when you 
 go ; especially as you'll go as Mrs. Murray, and I shall 
 not be allowed to write to you as I please. Think better 
 of it while there's time — there's a dear girl." 
 
 " Think better of it 1 " I hardly dare to think of it at 
 all. 
 
 As soon as he is gone, and Claire is no longer under 
 the invigorating influence of his presence, her spirits sink 
 rapidly, and she develops a sort of peevish, nervous 
 excitability which is quite a new feature in her dis- 
 position. 
 
 " How fooHsh we were to let him persuade us to go 
 to-morrow — especially to go with Lady Torrens ! We 
 ought to be up in town buying your things, Tim. The 
 end of it will be that you won't be half ready to be 
 married when Mr. Murray comes, and your dilatoriness 
 will give him a very just cause of offence against you at 
 starting." 
 
 " I don't care," I say desperately ; " he has so many 
 just causes of offence against me that one or two more 
 will signify very little. Claire, what can I do — what shall 
 I do ? " 
 
 " Marry him, of course ; unless you want to marry 
 someone else and create a scandal," Claire repHes coldly; 
 and the conviction shoots home to my heart that Claire 
 
194 Blotted Out, 
 
 is anxious to get rid of me — that she does distrust me 
 with regard to Theo. 
 
 And all the while I know that I would die rather than 
 wrong her or win him. However, these are noble senti- 
 ments which it would be absurd to endeavour to sub- 
 stantiate now. Accordingly, as I am called upon to say- 
 something, I tackle the far less difficult question of my 
 clothes. 
 
 ** IVe made up my mind not to be married in white," 
 I say, with abrupt decision. 
 
 ** Nonsense ! " Claire rejoins. "Why should you want 
 to make yourself conspicuous by being married in some- 
 thing that's out of the way? It will look exactly as if 
 you wanted to call attention to what you are doing, 
 and why you're doing it, if you startle people into 
 questioning the reason why you're dressed in some un- 
 expected colour. You'll just wear white, Tim, dear, and 
 the description of your dress in the County Press shall 
 read just like that of any other person. I should say " 
 — and now Claire looks at me critically — " that you can 
 stand satin even — and satin is awfully trying ; but I do 
 think you can stand it ; and it will be such a grand dress 
 for you by-and-by, when you're illustrating our national 
 hospitality in a foreign land." 
 
 I look at my dear Claire, and for the first time in my 
 life I ask myself, " Can she be cruel ? " And I will not 
 hear the answer that my despairing question has 
 demanded. 
 
CHAPTER XXIT. 
 
 **THE FAVOURITE AGAINST THE FIELD ! " 
 
 I HAT a day it is ! What a sweet, fresh spring 
 day this is on which we drive with Lady 
 Torrens, between hedges that are bursting 
 into every shade of green, to the trysting- 
 p^ace of the sporting population of the county. This 
 try sting-place is a pretty, bijou Swiss cottage belonging 
 to Sir Harold Torrens — a lovely toy place some miles 
 from town, village, post-office, butcher, baker, and 
 every other convenience that is essential to the well- 
 being of humanity. In consequence of this it is un- 
 tenanted ; but it is beautifully kept up, and is as habit- 
 able and home-like on a sudden emergency — such as 
 the present— as if it were always occupied. 
 
 It is set like a gem in the middle of a velvet lawn. 
 Its Walls are covered with lattice-work, and are brilliant 
 on this sunny spring day with scarlet japonica, monthly 
 roocs, yellow jasmine, and glitteringly green ivy, which is 
 fast spreading over its thatched roof and eaves. In- 
 side, the rooms are draped and furnished with flowered 
 chintzes — even the looking-glasses are framed in chintz 
 — and large baskets of trailing plants are pendant, in 
 place of chandeliers, from the centre of every ceiling. 
 Refreshments are served in a dining-room which is fitted 
 up with a lightness, brightness, and grace, that makes 
 
196 Blotted Out. 
 
 it seem like a banqueting hall for Queen Titania and 
 her darling elves. Even Claire, who has been sad and 
 silent during the drive, is charmed into animation by 
 the beauty and fitness of the adornments and arrange- 
 ments; and there is almost cordiality in the tone in 
 which she congratulates Lady Torrens on her taste, 
 when we learn that the Swiss cottage and all about it, 
 within and without, has been designed and carried out 
 by her, " unaided by landscape-gardener, upholsterer, or 
 artist," as she tells us herself. 
 
 ''People speak disparagingly of love in a cottage," 
 Claire says, "but in such a cottage as this it must be a 
 poem. Isn't it so, Lady Torrens ? '' 
 
 " Tve never tried it," Lady Torrens says ; and then 
 she blushes, for she has previously mentioned to us that 
 she and Sir Harold spend a good many weeks here 
 every summer. 
 
 Glancing from her to Claire, I see that a correspond- 
 ing blush has mounted to my sister's cheek, but hers 
 is a blush that seems full of happy thoughts. Probably 
 she is picturing to herself what Hfe would be Hke here 
 with Theo. At any rate, I do this for an unguarded 
 minute or two, and the picture that I paint is that of an 
 Elysium on earth. 
 
 The cottage stands on the highest part of the grounds, 
 and out under the verandah we get a capital view of 
 the whole course. It commences on the border of the 
 lawn, bears away to the left over rather a stiff hedge, 
 then along on the flat for a field or two, then over a 
 hurdle and ditch, then along by the side of a hill, 
 which is the turning-point, then over a stone wall — a 
 bad jump by itself, but not so dangerous if it had to 
 be taken alone; but parallel with the wall, deceitfully 
 close to it, an ugly grip yawns. 
 
 *' It's the only confusing bit in the whole course," Lady 
 Torrens says, pointing it out to us and some other of her 
 lady guests, as we stand outside the cottage windows. 
 " When once I see them well over that, my heart will be 
 lighter." 
 
^^The Favourite Against the Field /*' 197 
 
 As she speaks, Theo, with a loose coat over his jockey 
 costume, runs up to us, and answers her last words as he 
 shakes hands with Claire and me. 
 
 "We have to go round twice, remember; don't let 
 your heart get hght too soon. That brown beggar that 
 Sir Harold is riding changes from a lamb to a lion 
 almost as suddenly as that sweet Kismet of yours, 
 Tim." 
 
 " I'm not afraid for Sir Harold — T mean I have such 
 absolute confidence in Sir Harold's skill/' Lady 
 Torrens says. Then she adds — and an uneasy expres- 
 sion creeps over her face as she speaks — *' And you 
 will be very careful, I'm sure, for Miss Vincent's sake. 
 You must promise us that you will rival Sir Harold in 
 caution ? " 
 
 She speaks very earnestly, and her lips quiver for an 
 instant, and Theo grows radiant with pleasure at this 
 proof of the interest she takes in him. His handsome 
 face flushes ; his tell-tale eyes sparkle with gratified 
 vanity. He forgets Claire's presence among other things, 
 and bends his haughty, beautiful boy's head down to- 
 wards Lady Torrens. 
 
 "I'll promise to do my best," he says ; "for when it 
 was first started it was understood we were to ride for 
 your favour, and that you were to give the prize. You've 
 backed out of the last part of the arrangement ; but I 
 choose to consider that we're riding for your favour 
 still." 
 
 She draws her lithe figure up in a stately way at 
 once. 
 
 '^ My favour will never be given to any one who does 
 anything against my will and judgment," she says 
 coldly. " This race is entirely against my will and 
 judgment, and no one knows this better than you do, Mr. 
 Bligh." 
 
 He merely laughs in reply, gives her a thrilHng glance 
 through his eyelashes, and turns to Claire. 
 
 " Look sharp at that corner when we're passing," he 
 says, pointing out the angle of the lawn; *' that's where 
 
198 Slotted Out, 
 
 I am going to raise my cap to you — that's where Grey 
 Dolphin will have me at a disadvantage if he chooses to 
 take it." 
 
 He steals a look at Lady Torrens as he speaks, but 
 Lady Torrens— though she is conscious of the look, I 
 am sure — will not respond to it. 
 
 "Theo," Claire cries in a sudden access of fear for 
 him, *' don't do anything rash — don't risk anything.— 
 Lady Torrens ! " — she turns appealingly to our hostess, 
 forgetting everything, forgiving everything, throwing aside 
 all her vain imaginings and foolish jealousies in her 
 genuine fear for Theo — "Lady Torrens, do use your 
 influence ; do insist upon his riding without any show- 
 off or folly at all ! — I sha'n't be able to watch you, 
 Theo, unless you'll promise me that you'll not play 
 tricks." 
 
 He begins to move away, and she follows him, urging 
 her request most winningly, most passionately ; seeking 
 to make him regard her wishes with a winsome grace that 
 I think only Claire possesses. As she does so, Lady 
 Torrens says to me, — 
 
 " How much too well she loves that careless, though- 
 less, fickle boy ! No, I won't say that she loves him too 
 well ; for if anything can exorcise that demon of selfish- 
 ness which possesses him, it will be the love of such a 
 pure, good girl as your sister Claire ; but she is allowing 
 herself to become subservient to him ; his caprices affect 
 her, and it is not for her happiness that she should let 
 
 him see this. If he had a nobler nature " She 
 
 pauses, and I say, rather crossly — 
 
 ** You're beginning to find him full of faults^ Lady 
 Torrens. You liked him well enough the other day to 
 claim him as your intimate friend, and to feel hurt 
 because he had not told you of his engagement, and now 
 
 " I know him better, though I do not like him less," 
 she interrupts. " My child, we're all alike in this : we 
 see his faults clearly when we don't see his face ; wheQ 
 W^ look in that we forget them aljj" 
 
" The Favour ite Against the Field / ** j 9 9 
 
 Claire comes back to us now with cloudless eyes and 
 a mouth that is curved with a happy smile. 
 
 *' He made me give him a rose," she says to me ; 
 ^' and he promises that he will ride steadily, and not go 
 looking about him and lifting his cap, or any nonsense 
 of that kind. And as for riding for her favour, Tim," 
 she adds in a whisper, " he says he only told her he 
 would do that to flatter her and keep her in a good 
 humour. He says she's a most exacting woman and will 
 have no medium manner from any man. If he's not the 
 slave of her whims, she won't even treat him with con- 
 ventional attention. I consider that a detestable nature 
 — don't you?" 
 
 " Yes — but it's not hers," I say bluntly. '^ If she has 
 ever seemed to demand flattery and devotion from Theo, 
 it must be because, to serve his own ends, he has given 
 her both freely at some time or other. It's mean of 
 him to run her down to you, Claire," I continue in- 
 dignantly. " It's cowardly to cast all the blame on the 
 woman, even if there has been any foolish half-flirtation 
 going on ; it's not like a gentleman ! How can he 
 do it ? " 
 
 Claire shrugs her shoulders. "When your flow of 
 intemperate language has ceased, I have a remark to 
 make," she says. 
 
 *' I've said all I'm going to say," I reply, cooling. 
 
 " Doesn't it occur to you that if there has been any 
 ^ foolish half-flirtation ' between them, that it must have 
 been entirely her fault?" she asks contemptuously. 
 *' She ! Lady Torrens, a married woman of position, and 
 he a young, warm-hearted, warmer-headed, impression- 
 able man — it must have been her fault ! " 
 
 *' Perhaps so," I say resignedly. "Anyway, I would 
 rather be the one in fault than the one so frightfully 
 false as he must be to talk about it and against her." 
 
 Our conversation ends here, for they are weighted and 
 mounted by this time, and are falling into position at the 
 edge of the lawn. 
 
 In another minute they are off ! For a few seconds 
 
200 Blotted Out 
 
 dead silence reigns among all of us who are out under 
 the verandah, but presently chatter resumes her dominion 
 over the majority, and only Claire, Lady Torrens, and 
 myself are silent. Lady Torrens is bringing a powerful 
 pair of glasses to bear upon the forms that are flying 
 round the course. Claire's sweet eyes see them vividly 
 enough without any artificial aid ; and as for me — I 
 believe I should know what was happening if I were 
 blind. 
 
 From the sporting crowd assembled at a short distance 
 from the cottage, shouts are wafted to us every instant, 
 and we learn that Grey Dolphin is the favourite, and 
 that he is being heavily backed. " The favourite against 
 the field, bar none," is the verdict given at the end of 
 the first round ; and Theo puts on a spurt at once, 
 and skims ahead of the rest without an effort, ap- 
 parently. For the first time Lady Torrens speaks. 
 
 " He is riding it splendidly," she says — somehow or 
 other, it never occurs to one of us to question whom 
 she means by " he : " we all understand her perfectly 
 well — " not one of them will creep up to him. Grey 
 Dolphin's the winner." 
 
 As she says it we see Theo lifting the good horse to 
 the big jump. He rises to it in a way that suggests in- 
 visible wings, then the others come popping up and 
 over, and — one is knocked out of the race when they 
 go skimming along over the flats. The favourite has 
 dropped into the grip, and has not come out again ! 
 
 In a moment the spot is surrounded, and Grey 
 Dolphin bounds out of his temporary difliculty and 
 gallops riderless over the field ; and Claire and I make 
 a dash down the lawn, and arrive at the fringe of the 
 crowd, breathless, shaking, heart-sick with dire ap- 
 prehension. Even in this supreme moment I envy 
 Claire, in spite of this agony of suspense which is 
 her portion ! She may show her anguish ; I must conceal 
 mine. 
 
 He is lifted out of the fatal ditch and laid on the 
 grass till a stretcher can be fetched, and Claire kneels 
 
'^ The Favourite Against the Field / * • 201 
 
 by his side, and looks into his insensible face with all 
 the love she feels. I stand by passively till Lady 
 Torrens comes down to us, and sends me back to the 
 cottage with orders as to bed and bandages, and a 
 doctor. Presently he is brought in, and we learn that 
 his arm is broken, and that there is concussion of the 
 brain. 
 
 "Hadn't he better be taken to our house at once?" 
 Claire prompts me to say, and the doctor's answer strikes 
 dismay into our hearts. 
 
 " He mustn't be moved from here for some time — for 
 some weeks," he says. " I can't tell yet how much 
 mischief is done ; but if he's to pull through it he must 
 be left here quietly. — Are you staying here now, Lady 
 Torrens ? " 
 
 "We only stay here in the summer,'* she says. 
 ** That's unfortunate. Well, I must send him in the 
 best nurse I can get ; but I'm sorry you can't be here to 
 look after him; he'll want more care than a rough 
 country nurse will give him." 
 
 I go and give this intelligence to Claire, and for the 
 first time since Grey Dolphin failed his rider, her face is 
 recognisable as the face of Claire. 
 
 " Aunt Helen will come and nurse him, of course, and 
 I shall come with her. I should have been more than 
 disgusted if Lady Torrens had assumed the post. I'll 
 send for Aunt Helen at once. I'll write, and I shall 
 wait here till she comes." 
 
 " If I'm ever ill I hope Aunt Helen won't nurse me," 
 I say petulantly, for the outsider sensations are strongly 
 upon me. Claire will know a little, at least, of what love 
 in a cottage is like, if she stays here to help Aunt Helen 
 to nurse Theo. I shalbremain in the most dire ignorance 
 concerning it. (How I would tend him, though, if I had 
 the opportunity !) Is it any wonder that I feel inclined 
 to unjustly deride love in a cottage ? Is it any wonder 
 that I think that Claire "really ought to go home"? 
 
 As I realise that I do really think this, I almost 
 recoil from myself. Am I growing so mean in my misery 
 
202 Blotted Out. 
 
 that I would debar my sister from the enjoyment of any 
 legitimate bit of happiness — and surely this, of nursing 
 the man she is to marry, is a legitimate bit ? I strive to 
 be magnanimous ; I struggle to put my own foolish pain 
 aside, and I succeed to the extent of being able to 
 say — 
 
 "Your place is here, Claire, undoubtedly. Shall I 
 come over to-morrow with the things you'll want?" 
 
 " Well, no ; I think you'd better be getting on with 
 your own trousseau," Claire says dubiously. " You see, 
 any one can bring my things, but no one but yourself 
 can select yours, as I shall be absent ; but write to me> 
 and — don't let there be any hitch about the marriage, dear: 
 we Vincents will be getting ourselves terribly talked about, 
 if we don't take care." 
 
 " Claire," I mutter mournfully, *' what is this that has 
 come between us ? " 
 
 " Nothing — it's a mere idle fancy on your part that 
 anything has come between us," she says, and she tries 
 to smile ; but I see that it costs her an effort to do this, 
 and so her words carry no conviction to my sore, sus- 
 picious heart. I am turning away discomfited and 
 depressed, when she adds abruptly — " There is something 
 between us, Tim, my darling. It is my hateful fear that 
 Theo likes you so much that he's on the brink per- 
 petually of loving you better than he does me. Oh, Tim, 
 I am ashamed of the feeling, but it's a real one ! " 
 
 It is a real one, and a cruel one too — cruel to me, who 
 am undeserving of the implied distrust ! Cruel to poor 
 Claire, whom in its blind savagery it tears, and rends, 
 and weakens. It is a devil, and must be cast out. 
 
 " There shall be no hitch of my making about my 
 marriage," I begin with trembling lips ; " but as for Theo's 
 liking me, Claire, his liking has never shown itself to 
 me," (May I be forgiven this lie, which I am telling 
 to make her feel happier !) " He has played with me to 
 amuse himself, as he would play with a kitten." 
 
 " The play has been too strong for the poor kitten," 
 Claire says, knitting her brows ^ little in inquiry, not 
 
" The Favourite Against the Field P^ 203 
 
 in anger. "Go now, dear; get Aunt Helen over as 
 soon as possible, for until she comes. Lady Torrens will 
 stay." 
 
 I take a down-hearted leave of Lady Torrens, and am 
 driven home ; and I go at once to Aunt Helen's room 
 with my evil tidings, and the request for her immediate 
 attendance at the Swiss cottage. Mabel meets me at the 
 door with a tumbler and a fork in her hand, and before I 
 can give my news, she drowns my voice by proceeding 
 to whisk up the yolk of an egg with amiable but noisy 
 zeal. 
 
 " Aunt Helen's bronchitis has seized her so badly," 
 she tells me in a distinct whisper, ^' Magdalen and I are 
 quite nervous about her. Doctor says she*s of such a 
 full habit that he's afraid it will go hardly with her. We 
 haven't been able to get her to swallow anything 
 to-day.'' 
 
 I pass my sister and creep up to the bedside. Even 
 my inexperienced eyes tell me that Aunt Helen is very 
 ill indeed. She breathes with difficulty, her face is un- 
 naturally flushed, and pain is lord paramount evidently in 
 her heavy head and blood-shot eyes. I hate myself for 
 being a messenger of woe ; and when I have told her 
 about Theo, and she moans out an entreaty to be let 
 go to him, and tries to lift her agony bound head from 
 the pillow, and fails to do so with an even more piteous 
 moan than the first — when I have seen and heard these 
 things, my heart softens towards Aunt Helen inexplic- 
 ably. 
 
 ** Don't fret," I say soothingly; ''he will be well 
 looked after, though you can't go to him. Lady Torrens 
 will stay, I'm sure, as you're too ill to go yet, and Claire 
 can remain with her." 
 
 Her eyes flash excitedly, even through the film of 
 suftering by which they had been overspread a moment 
 before. She makes me jump up from my sympathetic, 
 stooping attitude, by exclaiming — 
 
 " Claire must come home at once. I can quite trust 
 hirii to the care of Lady Torrens ^ and I should not be 
 
204 Blotted Out, 
 
 doing my duty to one of your father's daughters if I 
 allowed her to remain in a position which could be 
 questioned. Claire must come home at once : it is my 
 duty to insist upon it," she winds up in a hoarse painful 
 whisper. 
 
 The sense of duty and the determination to do it, invari- 
 ably renders Aunt Helen more detestable in my eyes 
 than she is when she pounds along her path with an 
 air of stolid disregard to every consideration that does 
 not concern her own immediate comfort and well-being. 
 When this latter course is hers, I am justified to my- 
 self in letting my well-established dislike to her reign 
 absolutely over me. But when, in grand duty's name, 
 she thwarts, vexes, hurts and injures us, I fail to plead 
 my own cause satisfactorily even to myself. 
 
 ** It will be cruel to bring Claire away from Theo now," 
 I plead. " You are fond of her, you know, Aunt Helen ; 
 and you do love Theo : let her stay." 
 
 Aunt Helen moans and turns her head wearily on the 
 pillow. 
 
 " I'm too fond of them both to let her stay," she 
 murmurs. '* Don't oppose me, Tim ; she musl — she 
 shall come home ! If /, his aunt — the one who loves 
 him best in the world — am satisfied to leave him 
 solely in the care of Lady Torrens (if she'll accept the 
 trust), rather than that one of you ungrateful wilful girls 
 should be compromised, it will be strange indeed if you 
 oifer any opposition." 
 
 "You're hurting Aunt Helen by making her talk," 
 Mabel says, pushing me aside. " Now, not a word more; 
 you are so awkward in a sick-room, Tim. It's to be 
 hoped Mr. Murray will always enjoy rude health, or 
 he'll discover that the art of listening well isn't the 
 highest a wife should possess. Please go ! " 
 
 I go, with this thought crushing all power of speech 
 out of me. For some reason or other. Aunt Helen 
 wishes to separate Claire from Theo, and her wish to 
 do so is not based on any honest desire for Claire's 
 real happiness and welfare. What noxious weeds of 
 
'^ The Favourite Against the Field I ^^ 
 
 205 
 
 suspicion will spring up and poison poor Claire's already 
 sick mind if she is compelled to come away from Theo 
 now ! The craving that possesses me to set everybody 
 at ease and everything straight makes me injudicious, 
 as usual, and I exclaim aloud, as Mabel hustles me out 
 of the room — 
 
 " I'll go and speak to papa : he shall decide about 
 Claire.'' 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SYDNEY IS STRONG. 
 
 GO to papa's study in a white heat. The 
 fervour of my spirit of partisanship for Claire 
 is kept ahve by the irrepressible dread I have, 
 that I may not do all I can to secure for Claire 
 this privilege of helping to nurse Theo, which is her 
 right. I enter the room with a rush, and, as the window 
 is open, the draught I make flutters a lot of loose sheets 
 off the table, and disperses them — written side down- 
 wards on the floor — in a way that is very maddening to 
 the one who has just inscribed them, and who has doubts 
 as to their being dry. Without looking round, papa says 
 impatiently — 
 
 " I wish you could come into the room as the others 
 do. What have you come to bother me about now ? " 
 
 Never in my life have I been spoken to in this way by 
 papa before. I spring to his side, and put my arms 
 round his neck. I must keep papa at any cost of current 
 displeasure from him. 
 
 " Forgive me, I'm so unhappy," I begin ; and he 
 throws down his pen, and takes my face between his 
 hands, and exclaims — 
 
 " My little Tim here ! I thought it was Mabel or 
 Magdalen. They've worried me awfully to-day, by 
 insisting upon reporting the progress your poor Aunt 
 
Sydney is Strong, 20^ 
 
 Helen's illness is making every ten minutes, and de- 
 claring that they feel sure she * has something on her 
 mind.* When the twins begin to dabble with mysteries 
 and melodrama, the family peace is likely to be wrecked, 
 for they do it clumsily, don't they, Tim ? — as clumsily as 
 you opened the door just now.'* 
 
 Papa puts me away from him affectionately but firmly ; 
 he wants to write, and I am very much in his way. I 
 have never had either the temerity or the inclination 
 before this hour to intervene between him and the pursuit 
 that I love and honour, but now I am both brave and 
 irrepressible. 
 
 " Papa," I begin, taking the pen from his hand, *' the 
 young people of your real life claim precedence over 
 those of fiction. Theo has met with a bad accident ; 
 Claire wants to stay and nurse him, and Aunt Helen says 
 Claire sha'n't do it. Claire's your own child, papa : con- 
 tradict Aunt Helen, for Claire's sake, for once." 
 
 ** What's happened to young Bligh ? " he asks anxiously. 
 *' His horse fell at a stiff stone wall and landed him 
 in a ditch." 
 
 " It's not a hunting day ? '* 
 
 " No, papa — he was racing," I explain hesitatingly. 
 " Steeple-chasing, in fact, when he's hardly safe in his 
 saddle on the flat," papa says sternly ; and there is no 
 anxiety, but a great deal of anger in his tone now. 
 " Where is he ? and how is he hurt ? " 
 
 " His arm is broken, and the doctor says ' there's some- 
 thing like concussion of the brain,' " I reply as firmly as 
 I can. 
 
 " There's nothing ' like concussion of the brain ' but 
 concussion of the brain itself : why couldn't the ass say 
 what he meant?" papa says contemptuously. "Where 
 did it happen ? Where have they taken the boy ? " 
 
 **To Sir Harold's Swiss cottage. Claire is staying 
 there with Lady Torrens," I say with a whimper, for the 
 strain upon me has been a long-continued and a heavy 
 one. 
 
 " She must come home, Tim," he says quietly. " Lady 
 
2o8 Blotted Out, 
 
 1 orrens is not like an old friend, or even an intimate ac- 
 quaintance. Claire mustn't stay in a stranger's house to 
 nurse a lover, who in all probability will never be her 
 husband." 
 
 He puts his pen down as he says this, rests his elbow 
 on the table, and his chin on his hand, and gazes gravely 
 and silently at nothing particular ; and I gaze at him and 
 discern that it will be useless to make any appeal against 
 this decision of his. 
 
 *' You're quite right, my child," he says presently; 
 " the young people of my real life ought to claim pre- 
 cedence with me over those of fiction. I'm afraid, though, 
 that I haven't yielded them this precedence often enough, 
 or Claire and you would be differently circumstanced now." 
 
 " Don't mind me," I plead ; " I've never expected 
 much happiness from — I mean, I never thought about 
 marrying at all, so I can't be disappointed, however it 
 turns out. But Claire loves Theo as well as he does her, 
 and everything that keeps her away from him, and every- 
 thing that happens to make her uncertain or anxious 
 about him, really hurts her." 
 
 " That's not an uncommon condition with girls who 
 are in love," papa says, half laughing. " Well, it's gone 
 too far for me to forbid her nursing her love-sick fancies, 
 but I do most decidedly forbid her to stay there and 
 nurse him. My opinion of him is that he will throw 
 Claire over for the first woman with money who is weak 
 enough to listen to him ; and I only hope that my opinion 
 is well founded." 
 
 ** It will kill her ! " I say passionately. 
 
 " Not at all," papa replies coolly ; " it will be very un- 
 pleasant to her for a time, but it won't be half as 
 unpleasant a position as that of his wife would be in a 
 year or two on a tightened income. Does Claire — or do 
 you think that Theo Bligh would consider any woman's 
 happiness or peace of mind for a moment unless that 
 woman ministered to his comfort, his love of luxury, and 
 his habits of idleness ? If Claire could put money in his 
 purse, lie would remember that he is in honour bound to 
 
Sydney is Siron^^ ^09 
 
 her. As she can do nothing of the sort, hell accept her 
 
 devotion until he meets some woman with a soft heart 
 and head, who is willing to pay a high price for the 
 pleasure of being his neglected wife." 
 
 I think very highly of papa ; I do most firmly believe 
 in his love and care for us, but I do question now why, 
 if he thought all this, he should have allowed Claire to 
 taste the happiness of being engaged to Theo at all. My 
 feelings are expressed in my face, I suppose, for he says 
 presently — 
 
 " You wonder I didn't forbid the engagement at first, I 
 see. If I had done so, Claire would have gone through 
 life regarding me as her natural enemy, and Theo as 
 superior to the very best fellow she could ever possibly 
 marry. You've been allowed to reason about things for 
 yourselves ever since your reasonable faculties developed, 
 yet such is the perverted nature of women that a hare- 
 brained boy turned Claire's head at once, and Murray's 
 talents made an idiot of you. And now," he adds, rising 
 up, " I will go and bring Claire home myself; and when 
 she comes, Tim, don't you sympathetically urge her on to 
 feel more aggrieved than she'll be naturally inclined to 
 feel. This is a question of decorum, and I am bound to 
 deal with it to the best of my judgment." 
 
 He prepares to start, and I stand by in silence, smarting 
 under a sense of defeat. He is our father, and I am as 
 sure as I am that I exist at the present moment that there 
 is no alloy of selfishness, no desire to tantaUse us, no wish 
 to sport with our feelings, in any determination he comes 
 to concerning us. At the same time I feel intensely for 
 the agony that will be Claire's portion, when she knows 
 that it is decreed that not only is she to be separated 
 from Theo for a time at this crisis, but that he is to be 
 left in charge of Lady Torrens. And I have it in my 
 heart to pray to papa to be more sympathetic and less 
 paternal for once. 
 
 But I dare not word my prayer, for I feel too fearful of 
 his doubts of Theo being well grounded to dare to oppose 
 them. I know that Claire will think that I have not 
 14 
 
210 !B totted Out, 
 
 exerted myself to the uttermost in her behalf. I know 
 that the twins and Aunt Helen will chant hymns of praise 
 and thanksgiving for my defeat. I know that Theo, when 
 he recovers — if he recovers, Heaven help him ! — will 
 think that my weakness for him made me a weak advocate 
 for Claire. I know all these things, for sorrow has taught 
 me well. Above all, I know that we two poor girls are 
 altogether hopelessly wrong. 
 
 It seems such a long, long time before papa comes 
 back with Claire and news of Theo, for I spend the whole 
 of it in loitering about vaguely, and in evading the twins, 
 who are continually making missions of mercy into un- 
 expected places, in order to procure for Aunt Helen 
 something which the commonest understanding ought to 
 teach them Aunt Helen cannot possibly want. They 
 pervade the whole house, in spite of their voluble 
 declarations to every one who will listen to them that 
 they can't be a minute out of Aunt Helen's room — *^ she 
 requires such constant attention, poor dear ! " Our old 
 housekeeper, Mrs. Martin, comes to speak to me, and to 
 extract information from me " about Mr. Theo." (Theo 
 is a most popular person in the household : he fees and 
 smiles upon all who can serve him, and do serve him, 
 with equal liberality.) And when I have told her all I 
 can recall of the episode that made my brain reel, she 
 informs me that the twins " are born nurses " — born 
 *' blessings," she calls them. " They've been in and out 
 of that room ever since Mrs. Bligh was taken without 
 stopping, as one might say, and without a thought of 
 saving their poor dear legs." I strive to sympathise with 
 the strain on their poor dear legs ; I struggle to respect 
 my sisters for their feats of pedestrianism and self sacrifice ; 
 but I cannot feel cordially disposed to greet them kindly 
 when they perpetually interrupt me. The truth is, I am 
 nervous, shattered, heart-sick, uncertain of myself and 
 everybody else, and I have no one to turn to for counsel 
 and support. 
 
 Just as my solitude and the interruptions to it have 
 grown altogether unbearable, Sydney Dale comes in, and 
 
Sydney is Strong, 2 1 1 
 
 I tell him all that has happened, and a little of what I 
 fear will happen. 
 
 " Claire will break her heart at being brought away 
 from him ; and who knows what misery may come of 
 bringing her away ? Theo may think she was careless 
 about him, and if he thinks that " 
 
 " If he thinks that, he must be a m.ore conceited fellow 
 even than I think he is," Sydney interrupts. **He 
 wouldn't have Claire set her fathei's judgment and 
 wishes at defiance in such a matter." 
 
 ** He's very fond of her, you know," I say, with a 
 qualm, ''and so he's tenacious." 
 
 ** He's very fond of himself, and so he's awfully ex- 
 acting," Sydney rejoins. **I'm of your father's opinion : 
 I don't think that it will ever be a marriage ; and if, by 
 any unlucky chance, it comes to one, it won't be a happy 
 marriage." 
 
 " There's a risk, of course ; there is in everything," I 
 say wearily. ** He mayn't be a model of fidelity — what 
 man is ? " 
 
 " I know one man, at least, who, having shot his arrow 
 and missed his mark, will never aim at another target," 
 he says gravely 3 and I am too conscious of his meaning 
 to say anything depreciatory of such a course of constancy 
 in reply. 
 
 " I don't understand a fellow giving the reins to his 
 fancy in that way, and trying to pluck every flower he 
 thinks fair, and getting tired of them one after another. 
 You're not fickle either, Tim," he adds, looking me 
 straight in the face. ** And though your loyalty is mis- 
 placed, I love you for it." 
 
 " Your loyalty is misplaced too," I say with a burning 
 blush. ^^All loyalty is misplaced, I'm beginning to think, 
 in such cases. Be a dear, sensible fellow, Syd. Send me 
 away from home with this bit of happiness, at least, in my 
 heart — that I may hope to hear of you soon with some 
 pretty, dear girl as your wife, who'll make Dalesmeet a 
 paradise to you, instead of the purgatory it will be when 
 Mrs, Tierney goes." 
 14—3 
 
j2i^ Blotted Out 
 
 He laughs — but it is not a hearty laugh, by any means 
 — and tells me I must always think of Dalesmeet while 
 he lives as the house of a bachelor brother who will al- 
 ways gladly welcome me and mine, and of Kismet as the 
 petted tyrant of the Dalesmeet stables. ^Tve got quite 
 fond of the mare. She's as gentle as you are yourself at 
 times ; but occasionally she loses her temper and would 
 hurt me if she could, which you never could do, and never 
 have done — intentionally." 
 
 " It's a dreadful world," I say despairingly ; and he 
 rouses himself at this into the semblance of cheerfulness 
 and satisfaction wiih things as they are and as they are 
 going to be, and tries to make me understand that 
 all the painful part of that Brighton episode is blotted out 
 of his memory. Two or three times I am on the brink 
 of telling him the dilemma I am in about the money, 
 and two or three times I check myself successfully. At 
 last I feel that I must make him comprehend that Theo 
 had not been merely making a vain-glorious display of 
 his horsemanship when he met with his accident (as Syd 
 is evidently only too well inclined to think). So I make 
 the disclosure to Syd as creditably as I can, that Theo 
 has a debt of honour, to pay which he risked his life. 
 
 If he strove to get the real truth from me gradually, bit 
 by bit, Sydney would never do it. But he is so absolutely 
 impolitic and truthful that I am at a disadvantage 
 immediately. 
 
 ^' What do you know of his debts of honour, Tim ? " he 
 asks. " Are they so heavy that he has been compelled to 
 burden Claire and you with the knowledge of them ? " 
 
 " I only know about one," I stammer, " and that he 
 can't prevent my knowing — and it would be mean of me 
 to split about it, Sydney. You know I never did split 
 about anything, did I, Syd? Don't you tempt me to do 
 it now." 
 
 " I wouldn't tempt you to do anything that is wrong 
 for the world, my darling," he mutters ; *' but— you want 
 help, Tim, and, till I know your trouble, I can't give you 
 that help. No other man has a better right to offer it 
 
Sydney is Strong* 213 
 
 than I have, Tim ; I have known you such a long time, 
 dear, and I know you so well" 
 
 I am touched by his appeal, but not sufficiently 
 touched by it to relapse into the " confiding fool " mood. 
 If he made half such a point of his love for me as he does 
 of his knowledge of me, I should surrender without dis- 
 cretion, and tell him the tale of my weakness and my 
 woe. But he keeps his head in a way that compels 
 me to keep mine. I do not dread verbal reproof or 
 lecture from my dear brother-lover, but I do dread the 
 outburst of honest indignation which will sparkle from 
 his eyes, and flash from his true face, when he learns that 
 I have been false to my nature and my father at the 
 bidding of Theo Bligh. 
 
 "You are so good,'' I murmur, and he shrugs his 
 shoulders at the epithet — the best man in the world would 
 revolt at being called "good '^ when he is only loving — 
 but I disregard this fact, and proceed to expound my 
 unformed views to him. "You are so good. You don't 
 know what it is to be tempted by vanity or any other 
 little passion, Syd. Theo has snares laid for him on every 
 side " 
 
 I pause, and he nods his head and says, " I grant it.'* 
 He won't even disparage the lures which are 1 laced in 
 the path of his magnificent rival. 
 
 I feel myself to be counsel in a bad cause, but my 
 overpowering admiration for Theo drives me on. I am 
 committed to myself to admire and uphold him now, and 
 in spite of all my fears about him, and all my distrust of 
 him, I dare not draw back now. My idol is shaken on 
 his pedestal, but, like a woman, I try to prop him up 
 still. 
 
 "You see," I say eagerly, "even you, a man who 
 doesn't like him too well, cede him the right to be a 
 forgiven sinner from the commencement. He is unstable 
 as water, he is easily led astray, he is just the kind of man 
 that every sensible person would eschew and denounce ; 
 but I'm only a woman and a fool, Syd, and I 
 would " 
 
2T4 Blotted Out 
 
 I falter, and bend my face down into my kindly 
 shrouding hands ; and Syd asks — 
 
 *' You would do what, dear ? " 
 
 *' Die for him, if that would do him any good — or save 
 Claire," I add spasmodically, as my beautiful sister comes 
 into the room with papa, with a white, angry face and 
 a manner that is composed too carefully. 
 
 I spring to her at once, and ask her — 
 
 " Is he better ? " and she flings off furred jacket and 
 hat before she answers — 
 
 ** Address your inquiries to Lady Torrens, Tim ; I can 
 tell you nothing, absolutely nothing ! Syd, dear old boy, 
 it is a pleasure to find you here 1 " 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SYDNEY IS WEAK. 
 
 j]AYS pass without any outer change in the round 
 of our daily life at Ravensbourne. Some 
 official circumlocution keeps Mr. Murray 
 " hanging on," as he calls it, in town, and again 
 our marriage is indefinitely postponed. Our marriage ! I 
 often catch myself looking at my reflection in the glass 
 and wondering why I haven't altered more than I have, 
 under the influence of the idea of it. I do look such a 
 mere girl still to be the wife of such a man as Mr. Murray. 
 When my hair breaks loose, and hangs about me in 
 copper coloured festoons, I am, as Theo Bligh says, 
 "much more like an unbroken chestnut colt than a 
 consul's wife." Perhaps it is the consideration that I shall 
 have a little more time to study, and master a few more 
 matronly graces, which causes me to heave a sigh of 
 relief wnen I hear that "our marriage" is deferred 
 indefinitely. Perhaps it is for this reason, but I more 
 than suspect myself of rejoicing chiefly because I am left 
 within reach of daily tidings of Theo Bligh. 
 
 He stays on at the Swiss cottage, under the care of 
 Sir Harold and Lady Torrens, and for a while his progress 
 is very slow. What torments of concealed agony and 
 anxiety I go through during these days ! Claire is justified 
 in looking pale and harassed—her lover is at death's door, 
 and she is not with him. But I am only expected to 
 
21$ Blotted Out 
 
 exhibit a tender, outspoken, sisterly sympathy ; and as I 
 can't exhibit this without betraying my real feelings, I 
 stultify myself altogether, and am accused by the twins of 
 being so selfishly absorbed in my own affairs that I take 
 no interest in "' poor dear Theo." 
 
 Claire is not with him. Even now, when he is in 
 actual danger, when Aunt Helen, in her newborn help- 
 lessness, lies weeping hopelessly about him all day long, 
 when papa removes his veto and offers to take Claire 
 over to Lady Torrens, Claire is not with him. " He 
 is well taken care of, Pm sure of that," she says, in reply 
 to papa's offer, " and too many authorities in a sick room 
 are apt to complicate matters : while Lady Torrens 
 watches over him he does not need me — I doubt if he 
 misses me." 
 
 It is in vain that I remonstrate with her, in vain that I 
 plead as passionately for her to consider her own hap- 
 piness and his as if I were pleading for myself. It is in 
 vain that I beseech her to put Lady Torrens out of the 
 question altogether. Claire is firm — obstinate in her 
 resolve not to go near Theo while Lady Torrens remains 
 at the Swiss cottage. " It may be natural that she, as 
 his hostess, should stay to take care of a guest who has 
 been half killed by her husband's horrible horse, and who 
 is lying ill in her house, but it's not nice," Claire says ; 
 and I can only answer her that " it is natural." 
 
 At length there comes a letter from Lady Torrens to 
 Claire that ought to charm her over to Theo's side at 
 once. ** Mr. Bligh has recovered consciousness for the 
 first time this morning — ten minutes ago only. His first 
 words were — * Where's Claire ? ' Come to him without 
 delay, for he is impatient to see you, and any outbreak 
 of impatience may retard his recovery," Lady Torrens 
 writes. And Claire throws the letter down, and repeats 
 her resolve not to go to the Swiss cottage while Lady 
 Torrens stays. 
 
 " What will papa think — what will Theo think — what 
 will Lady Torrens think herself ! " I urge. 
 \ " I am perfectly indifferent as to what they think," Claire 
 
Sydney is Weak 2 1 y 
 
 i-etoits. " I dislike her so that any show of kindness from 
 her would be odious to me, and any show of gratitude 
 to her would madden me. Aunt Helen ought to exert 
 herself, and go and take Lady Torrens' place. My belief 
 is that Aunt Helen is as well as 1 am now, but that she 
 has a motive in almost thrusting Theo upon Lady 
 Torrens' care and kindness. She has a motive, and I am 
 to be sacrificed to it." 
 
 " If he were my Theo, no one but himself would 
 separate me from him," I say. 
 
 ** And Lady Torrens would very soon teach him how 
 to do it/' Claire cries out. "You would act very 
 differently to me, I know that ; you'd make friends with 
 Lady Torrens and rely on her honour, and one fine day 
 you would find that you had relied on a broken reed. At 
 least, I'll not gather up the dust and hand to her which 
 she is crying to throw in my eyes. Nor will I wear the 
 willow for Theo. There are other men in the world who 
 would give their lives to gain the love that Theo doesn't 
 take too much trouble to keep." 
 
 This is the first intimation I have that Claire is capable 
 of carrying her resentment to what I regard as the 
 extreme length of even contemplating the possibility of 
 tolerating any other man's love. I am shocked and 
 surprised at the revelation, but I am more shocked and 
 surprised when, presently, I see that she is drawing on 
 Sydney Dale to be one of the men who would give their 
 lives for that love of hers which Theo Bligh has kept 
 such a slack grasp of recently. 
 
 Claire has a genius for winning, and I fear that 
 Sydney, in his unsuspicion, will be readily won. It has 
 been a matter of wonderment to me, ever since Sydney 
 let slip that half confession of his liking for me at 
 Brighton, that he should have broken down the fraternal 
 barrier which custom had erected for my sake instead of 
 for Claire's. But now that Claire is engaged with his 
 knowledge, and while the man to whom she is engaged 
 is hors de combat^ it is more than a matter of wonderment 
 to me that he should be so un-Sydney-like as to allow 
 
^i8 Blotted Out 
 
 her to lure him on to even seem to forget Theo and 
 Theo*s claims on her for a moment. 
 
 I must confess that though she is not justified in her 
 efforts to beguile the time while Theo is absent and ill, 
 in the way she is doing, that she is justified in her doubt 
 as to the genuineness of Aunt Helen's suffering, and the 
 integrity of Aunt Helen's conduct. Aunt Helen is 
 keenly anxious about something, but she is no longer ill. 
 She makes a great parade of getting up from her sick 
 bed one morning, and being driven over to the Swiss 
 cottage swathed in furs to see Theo ; but the sharpened 
 visions of Claire and myself see that no suffering is 
 involved in the matter, and that it has cost her neither 
 pain nor fatigue to make the effort. For some reason or 
 other, Aunt Helen is practising a deception upon us. 
 For some reason or other, though her affection for him 
 prompts her to go to Theo, some other feeling in 
 connection with him induces her to feign and plead 
 physical inability to relieve Lady Torrens of the charge 
 which has been laid upon her. 
 
 These are dolefiil days for me. My future is hazy; 
 my intercourse with Claire is embittered by the sarcastic 
 tone in which she speaks of Theo, though I know at the 
 same time that she longs to be with him, longs to show 
 him some of the love she feels, and make him respond 
 to it; and, lastly, Sydney Dale is becoming estranged 
 from and altered towards me. When we three — Claire, 
 Syd, and I — ride out together now, it is by her side he 
 keeps the whole time. Or if he does leave it for a 
 minute, a pretty, half-imperious, half-coquettish gesture 
 and smile from her takes him to his station, flushed, 
 happy, and yet half ashamed of himself. My pulses 
 have never been quickened by the slightest pang of love 
 for him, but I did respect him so thoroughly ; and now 
 he is showing himself to be even as other men are — 
 weak, vain, and false ! 
 
 Yes, false ! Even I, a girl deficient in a man's sense 
 of honour, know him to be false, when I see him thrilling 
 under Claire's glances, and remember that Theo is lying, 
 
Sydney is Weak. 219 
 
 ill and in unconsciousness of all this, at the Swiss 
 cottage. 
 
 But through it all I can't get up a feeling of anger 
 against Claire, the beautiful temptress, my own darling 
 sister. " 'Tis want of thought, not want of heart,'' I tell 
 myself at one time ; and, again, at another I apologise 
 for her to myself, by declaring that her love for Theo, 
 and Theo's love for her, places her on so high a 
 pedestal that she does not see the devotees who are 
 worshipping at the base of it. Even as I think this I 
 tell myself that it is a pretty theory, but that the practice 
 is very imperfectly carried out. 
 
 So we go on, through the blistering suns and cutting 
 winds of March, until April comes upon us warmly and 
 weepingly (after the manner of weak woman) ; and still 
 Theo Bligh lingers on, an invalid at the Swiss cottage, 
 and still Aunt Helen is " too ill " to displace Lady 
 Torrens from that situation to which social duty and 
 humanity have ahke called her. 
 
 Where am I when I hear it ? Gathering snowdrops at 
 the foot of the big weeping elm-tree on the lawn. Some 
 one comes out to me and says — 
 
 '* Oh, Miss, Sir Harold Torrens is dead, and my lady 
 has sent for you and " 
 
 I hear no more. My gathered snowdrops I send 
 flying to the uttermost ends of the lawn, and I go 
 fleetly into the house, where I meet white-faced 
 Claire. 
 
 In my excitement I hurl myself at her, catch her 
 hands and say — 
 
 " Come with me, darling. Lady Torrens has sent for 
 me ; her husband is dead : she is in trouble." 
 
 '* In trouble ! " Claire repeats contemptuously. " Her 
 trouble is over, Tim \ mine is beginning : will you desert 
 me for her ? " 
 
 " Desert you ? " I echo. 
 
 " YeS; desert me ; it has come to this. ' Who is on 
 my side — who ? ' Go to Lady Torrens/' if you like ; but, 
 if you do it, never come back to me." 
 
220 Blotted Out. 
 
 She is in earnest \ she is really ungenerous for the first 
 time in her life. 
 
 From the very bottom of my heart well out the words, 
 "Poor Lady Torrens!" 
 
 " Spare me that, at least," Claire cries out. " Don't 
 pity her for her release from slavery — for her newly 
 acquired power of going into new bondage honourably. 
 Oh, Tim, spare me this ! Don't pretend to pity her." 
 
 Claire is transfigured for an instant. All the gentle- 
 ness vanishes from her beauty ; all the possible cruelty 
 that has been dormant all her life comes out. My sister 
 looks like a lovely vengeance, as she rears her slight 
 frame up before me, and commands me not to feel or 
 express any pity for Lady Torrens' bereft condition. 
 
 In default of anything original, I fall back upon a 
 platitude, and say — 
 
 " We ought to go to her, Claire. Just think how un- 
 pleasant it will be for her to be left alone at the Swiss 
 cottage now." 
 
 Claire almost writhes. 
 
 " Don't talk to me about it, Tim," she cries. " She 
 has right, reason, conventionaUty, hospitality, charity, 
 everything that's good, ranged on her side in justifica- 
 tion of her course; she is Lady Torrens; she is a married 
 woman; she is his dead friend's wife; she is above 
 suspicion. I know all this, but I hate her the more for 
 holding these winning cards ; for she is a x\Q}i\free v/oman 
 now, and Theo wants money." 
 
 She droops and almost falls as she says it — she, the 
 pet of our county side, the girl on whom so much love 
 has been lavished all her life that she has come to 
 regard it merely as a dutiful daily offering. 
 
 I am so afraid myself of what he may be tempted to 
 do that I at once deprecate her fear of him. 
 
 " Oh, Claire," I say, " Theo is a gentleman." Then I 
 essay a feeble witticism, and add, *' Like the sons of 
 Erin — 
 
 Though he loves women and gold astore, 
 Sir knight he loves honour and virtue more.' " 
 
Sydney is Weak. 221 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't follow in his track, and quote 
 appropriate Hnes," Claire grumbles. " I hate the habit 
 of bringing poetry to bear upon every bit of practice in 
 real life. It may be pretty and soothing at the time, but 
 if the rhythm is good it haunts one, and helps one to 
 idealise all the misery and cruelty, and falsity and base- 
 ness — — " 
 
 " Claire ! " I interrupt. 
 
 '* Yes ! I know him as he is, and would marry him 
 to-morrow and go into abject slavery to him," she cries 
 recklessly. '' You're clever and bright and sweet, Tim, 
 and your own nature is a grand crucial test by which to 
 try that of other mortals, but you have not taken his 
 measure more accurately than I have. I know him in 
 every phase — his perfidy, his mean ambition, his selfish- 
 ness, and, above all, his deadly art of charming ! Don't 
 I know him well, Tim ? Even you can't know him or 
 love him better than I do ? " 
 
 " I am loving him for your sake ; I'm trying to know 
 him through you," I protest. And I do mean what I 
 say, for I would not hold out one velvet paw to my 
 sister, while I scratched her with the other, to save my 
 life. 
 
 " Ah, you poor child ! " she says contemptuously ; 
 " you're a better girl than I am, I suppose ; at any rate 
 you're more easily hoodwinked." 
 
 I can't tell how it is that the matter is settled, but it 
 does arrange itself in some way or other. Papa takes 
 me over to the Swiss cottage, and I find myself with 
 Lady Torrens, but before I meet her I see Sydney Dale, 
 who has a few words with me. 
 
 *' Claire ought to be here with you, Tim. Why hasn't 
 she come ? " he asks. 
 
 " Claire is unsettled," I reply, "and you have helped 
 to unsettle her, Syd." 
 
 He looks so guilty, so sorrow-stricken at my ac- 
 cusation, that I repent me on the spot of having 
 made it. 
 
 " Claire is as sacred to me as if she were Theo Bligh's 
 
j^^Ih Blotted OuU 
 
 wife," he answers ; '^ but you won't blame me by-and-by, 
 Tim, if he breaks his trust and I tax her faith again, will 
 you?" 
 
 He asks me to sanction his love for my sister as 
 eagerly as if he had never proffered it to me ! What can 
 I do ? My fealty to Theo forbids me to wish Sydney 
 God-speed in his wooing of Claire ; nevertheless I can't 
 help feeling how secure and well cared for Claire would 
 be, if she could only forget Theo and take Syd con- 
 tentedly for better and worse. I trust to intention, and 
 let the words that rise to my lips speak themselves aloud. 
 
 " I'll never blame you for anything you do, Syd, for 
 you'll never do anything that a man should be ashamed 
 of doing," I say quietly ; and I am rather startled when 
 Syd comes and takes me in his arms, and kisses my fore- 
 head, and says — 
 
 " You darling Tim ! I will try my hardest to retain 
 that good opinion of yours, and to do so I must put 
 myself out of the reach of temptation. I'll not see 
 Claire again until I know what line Theo Bligh will take 
 now." 
 
 " Do you think— no, you don*t think " I begin ; 
 
 and he puts in — 
 
 ** I think it will depend entirely upon Lady Torrens 
 whether Theo turns traitor to Claire or not. If she's as 
 straight as I think her, she'll have nothing to say to him^ 
 but you never know what a woman is till she's tried." 
 
 It is true : you never do *' know what a woman is till 
 she's tried." I go into Lady Torrens' room, expecting to 
 find her rather sad — death can't touch even an enemy 
 without saddening one — but certainly not expecting to 
 find her as sorry as she is. Her eyes are swollen, her 
 face is white ; she is nervously agitated, and seems to 
 pine for kindness and sympathy. Is it possible that she 
 can really have cared for old, uninteresting, horsy, 
 dissolute Sir Harold? 
 
 " You're a good child to have come to me in my grief," 
 she says, kissing me. " I am very much alone in the 
 world now he is gone. You don't know — no one knows 
 
Sydfiey is tVeak ^23 
 
 ^-liow good he has been to me, and what care he has taken 
 of me. I can never show him any more than I am grate- 
 ful — that's what hurts me." 
 
 " I didn't know you cared anything at all about him,'^ 
 I say brusquely, for an impression begins to pervade my 
 impressionable mind that there may be some truth in 
 what Claire has said, namely that Lady Torrens may be 
 capable of acting a part for the sake of blinding me. 
 
 " I didn't care anything about him in the way you 
 mean, my child," she says quietly ; " but " — the tears 
 well up into her eyes again as she says this — '* I knew 
 that, however far astray my thoughtless nature led me, I 
 had a sure refuge at any moment in him. He was 
 generous, lavishly generous to me, and I should be a 
 worse woman than I am if I didn't feel heavy-hearted 
 to-day at the thought of his being gone from me for 
 ever." 
 
 We sit in silence for some few moments after this, for 
 Sir Harold has never been lavishly generous to me, and 
 I can't get up the faintest feeling of gratitude or regret 
 concerning him. Moreover, I feel sure that she is just 
 the kind of woman to have any number of friends at her 
 own sweet will, and so her allusion to her forlorn con- 
 dition has failed to touch me. Lastly, I remember that 
 Theo Bligh has been tended by her assiduously for the 
 last few weeks, and this remembrance is the parent of a 
 thousand doubts and fears. These are not dispersed 
 when she says, suddenly — 
 
 *' You have not asked for Mr. Bligh. How strangely 
 your sister is treating him ! " 
 
 "In what way?" I stammer. 
 
 ** In not coming to see him ; in avoiding my house as 
 if a pestilence prevailed, while her lover is lying here in 
 suffering and danger. Do you think he is obtuse or 
 callous? Do you think I am blind? Your sister is 
 behaving bitterly to him and to herself, and she does it 
 because she hates me." 
 
 She looks me full in the face as she makes her asser- 
 tion, and I can't deny it. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TIS AN OLD TALE. 
 
 j|HE makes a band of her handkerchief, covers 
 her eyes with it, and leans back in her chair 
 as she says this, and presently she goes on. 
 " Tim, I'll be very candid with you up to 
 a certain point ; beyond that you must not press me. 
 When I knew you first, Theo Bligh was an acquaintance 
 of mine of a month's standing only, but circumstances 
 had thrown us very much together, and he is not the man 
 to abstain from seeking to make a woman he admires 
 admire him in return. He had succeeded so well with 
 me that, if I had not heard from you that he was engaged, 
 I should have arranged it so that he should have left my 
 house and not crossed my path again. But your news 
 was a tower of strength to me : I dared to trust myself 
 v/ith another woman's lover. I knew that it wasn't in 
 me to tempt a man whose heart and honour were 
 pledged, by the show of any sign of interest in him. 
 I will only tell you that though all these long -weeks 
 I've nursed him as if I had been his sister, that I can 
 look your sister fairly in the face, for I did not overrate 
 my power over myself.'* 
 
 She pauses, and with delight I acknowledge to myself 
 that I am compelled to believe her. 
 
 ** Claire isn't often unjust," I say extenuatingly, " but 
 
'"'Tis an Old TakJ' 625 
 
 she has been unhappy and unsettled, and she has fancied 
 things, I suppose." 
 
 ** She has had no right, no cause, no foundation what- 
 ever for her idle fancies/' Lady Torrens answers calmly. 
 " I'm not going to affect to be indignant at her having 
 thought me, a married woman, capable of carrying on a 
 flirtation ; I've done it a dozen times very successfully 
 and pleasantly since I've been married, but never with 
 an engaged man. It was not my own bonds, but 
 his, which restrained me. I should like your sister 
 to understand that, or she will be more suspicious of me 
 than ever now that I am free." 
 
 " Theo is a trying man to be engaged to, you know/' 
 I plead. 
 
 " Trying ! He's torturing," she says. *^ Your sister's 
 will not be a happy lot as his wife — though I'll frankly 
 confess that I would marry him myself if he were free. 
 As it is, I'll spare him the temptation my presence would 
 be to him. If he perjures himself, it shall be through no 
 fault of mine. When you leave this house to-day 1 shall 
 leave it too : the Hall is the proper place for me now, 
 until the new baronet comes to take possession ; and the 
 nurse is quite competent to take care of Mr. Bligh." 
 
 " Is he quite out of danger ? " I ask tremulously. 
 
 "Quite." she says decidedly. " He will recover rapidly 
 now, for the nurse has a hoarse voice and is very ugly, 
 and Mr. Bligh would rather exert himself and give 
 himself a little paip than listen to hoarse voices, or 
 look at ugly women. You will probably have him at 
 Ravensbourne in a few days. Wouldn't you like to see 
 him," she asks suddenly. " You ought to take back a 
 first-hand account of him to your sister." 
 
 I feel that I grow guiltily glad at the thought of seeing 
 him again. I try to say nay to her proposition, but " he 
 is going to be my brother," I remind myself, and so I 
 say — 
 
 "Yes ; he may have a message for Claire." 
 
 She rings for the nurse, and that authority gives me 
 leave to see her patient, on condition that I don't stay 
 15 
 
^2& telotied Out 
 
 too long, that I don't let him talk too much, and that, in 
 fact, I put myself entirely under her supervision. I give 
 the requisite promises, and follow her into a little morn- 
 ing-room on the ground floor, which opens into the 
 verandah. The day is mild, the window is open, and 
 the scent of violets is wafted in on the light breeze that 
 just lifts the rings of hair that are lying loosely on Theo's 
 brow. 
 
 He is stretched out on a sofa, looking, in spite of his 
 pallor, as gay and bright and handsome as it is his 
 normal condition to look ; but his bandaged arm, and a 
 cut which extends from his left eyebrow up to the rings 
 of curls, where it loses itself, reminds me that he has 
 gone through a great deal of suffering since last we 
 met. 
 
 He sends the book he is reading skimming across the 
 room as he catches sight of me, and holds his hand out 
 to me warmly, and greets me with vivacious words and 
 smiles. 
 
 " Dear little Tim, I'm glad to see you again before the 
 ring is on your hand, and the veil is on your brow. I 
 say, old Murray seems to be taking it very easy, doesn't 
 he? Just shove this pillow straight for me, and sit 
 down." 
 
 I straighten his pillow with hands that tremble, and 
 he watches the trembling with laughing eyes. Neither 
 his accident, his estrangement from Claire, nor Sir 
 Harold's death, have depressed him in the least. He 
 is exactly the same brilliant, careless boy who chased me 
 from the dining-room window to the side entrance on 
 that summer morning when I saw him first. 
 
 " I came over to see poor Lady Torrens, and she asked 
 me if I would like to see you. I don't disturb you, do I, 
 Theo ? " I ask timidly, for somehow or other we don't 
 seem to be on the same terms of easy intimacy that we 
 were on before he rode Grey Dolphin to his downfall. 
 
 " Disturb me ! Not a bit of it. I have seen nothing 
 but that hideous old devil's face for the last three days. 
 1 thought when there was nothing more to be done for 
 
'''Tisan Old TaleP 227 
 
 ner departed lord, that Lady Torrens would have re- 
 membered that a wounded knight was boring himself to 
 death under her hospitable roof, but she hasn't been 
 near me yet, and I'm awfully glad to be disturbed by 
 you." 
 
 It is not the most complimentary way in the world of 
 greeting me, but it has never been Theo's wont to waste 
 many compHments on me, unless he wants some sub- 
 stantial and immediate return for them. But I am in 
 such abject bondage to my desperate regard for him, 
 that I gladly gather up the smallest crumbs of civility 
 from him, and look upon them as more succulent morsels 
 than can ever fall from another man's lips. 
 
 " We have been so anxious and wretched about you 
 all this time, Theo," I say, seating myself on the chair 
 by his pillow. 
 
 **' Of course you have," he responds ; " I've been 
 anxious and wretched about myself too, I can tell you. 
 It's no joke for a fellow to smash his bridle hand and 
 arm as I did ; besides, as I have been lying here, I've 
 had time to think what an awful fool I've been in the 
 course of my life " 
 
 *' And to make up your mind never to be one 
 again,'* I suggest. 
 
 ^' Good resolutions are not much in my way, but I have 
 made one or two lately, Tim. One is about Claire. 
 Wouldn't you like to hear it ? " 
 
 " Yes," I reply, but I wince with the pain of the dread 
 I have that I am destined to carry home evil tidings to 
 Claire. 
 
 **It's this, Tim. I'm as idle a dog as ever lived — I 
 know that — and the habit of indulging myself in doing 
 nothing good is growing upon me. I've made up my 
 mind to give Claire up, and leave her free to make a 
 better match with a better man. I'm not going to be 
 selfish about her, at least, any longer." 
 
 **Give her up?" I stammer. 
 
 " Yes. Just put your chair where I can see you with- 
 out twisting my neck to look at you. It will be an awful 
 
228 Blotted Old. 
 
 wrench for me, I can tell you ; but I can't flatter myself 
 that Claire will care very much about it. Judging from 
 the perfect indifference she has shown for me lately, and 
 from the preference she's exhibiting for Mr. Sydney Dale, 
 I should say she will receive her order of release with a 
 good deal of satisfaction." 
 
 He gives out his heartless decree with so much easy 
 grace, he looks so superbly handsome lounging there, 
 with his head resting on his sound arm, that I realise 
 with all the greater intensity that it will be to rob Claire's 
 life of all its brightness if he does carry out this resolution 
 of his, which he has the heartlessness and audacity to speak 
 of as a good one. 
 
 " Well, what do you say, Tim ? " he asks impatiently. 
 **Are you dumb? Of all things, I object to my 
 remarks being received with a stony stare and stolid 
 silence. What are you going to say ? " 
 
 " Claire loves you, Theq,'' I say, with a sob ; " I think 
 it would kill her if you do as you say you will." 
 
 ** Nonsense ! that kind of business isn't done by girls 
 of this generation," he says, with his gay smile. " Mine 
 is by far the most unpleasant part of the affair, as you'll 
 perceive if you only think about it for a moment. I shall 
 have to go to your father with a confession of my utter 
 incapability of making an income sufficient to support a 
 wife upon ; and I know your father well enough to feel 
 pretty sure that he will say something neat and incisive 
 by way of reply, which will rankle in my mind for some 
 little time." 
 
 " And that will be your sole suffering, your only punish- 
 ment ! " I cry angrily, " Oh, Theo, you can't mean to 
 be so cruel ? It's surely not in the heart of a man who 
 looks as you do to be so callous, so cold, so horribly cruel 
 to a girl like Claire ? She does love you so ! " 
 
 He moves uneasily, and his eyes refuse to meet mine ; 
 but there is neither hesitation nor embairassment in the 
 tone in which he says — 
 
 " I tell you I shall act as a man of honour ought to 
 act " — he speaks as loftily as if he were determining to 
 
^^'Tisan Old Tale. 229 
 
 do some decent deed — ** and Claire will be the first to do 
 justice to my motives and pronounce them right. As for 
 you, Tim" — he puts his hand on my arm, and draws 
 me nearer to him — "I know you better than you do 
 yourself. The flame of your wrath against me will soon 
 die out. Why, you couldn't hate me ! " 
 
 No ; he is quite right, I can't hate him, though I know 
 perfectly well that his conduct is hateful and despicable to 
 the last degree. His personal influence is still so strong 
 over me, that I not only can't hate him, but, if it were not for 
 Claire, I would lay my ofl'ering of love at his feet, not- 
 withstanding my conviction that he would take it for one 
 hour and spurn it the next. Surely nature must have 
 been in a most vengeful and splenetic mood, when she 
 gave so gracious an exterior to such a graceless heart and 
 mind as his. 
 
 " I've thought it better to say this to you, Tim, before 
 I write to Claire. You can put my real motives before 
 her better than I can word them in a letter ; you can 
 make her understand that it's a question of honour with 
 me, and that I do it entirely for her sake." 
 
 The lies rise so readily to his lips that, for a moment, 
 I delude myself into the belief that he must believe them 
 himself. The next instant I recover my reason, and 
 answer — 
 
 " If I tell her your real motives, I shall have to say 
 harder things of you than will be pleasant for me to 
 speak, or for her to hear. Are you deceiving yourself, 
 Theo, or are you only trying to deceive me, when you 
 speak of your selfish, mercenary cruelty as a point of 
 honour ? " 
 
 *' Mercenary ! A new feature in thd case," he laughs. 
 '^ The name of my faults is legion, I admit, but if you'll 
 kindly tell me on what occasions I have developed the 
 miser's spirit, I shall be extremely obliged to you. Good 
 Heavens ! why, I've never even entered myself for the 
 race for wealth ; on the contrary, I've conducted myself 
 uncommonly like a lily of the field, and been reviled for 
 it. I can neither toil nor spin, but if you will be good 
 
230 Blotted Out, 
 
 enough to propose any scheme to me by which Claire 
 and I can live in comfort and respectability on nothing a 
 year, I shall be your debtor for ever." 
 
 " You were in just the same position, you knew all this, 
 when you engaged yourself to Claire,'* I say. 
 
 Then I check myself. It is not meet that I should 
 plead to any man to keep faith with Claire. My sister's 
 dignity, my family pride, my womanly delicacy all alike 
 protest against my taking such a course. On the other 
 hand, if, for want of a saving word from me, this fickle, 
 unstable nature does veer away altogether, and Claire 
 regrets it lastingly, remorse and self-reproach will claim 
 me for their own through all the days of my life. 
 
 He rouses himself from his lounging, easy attitude at 
 last to answer my last rebuking reminder, and I see, with 
 warm pity that is indeed near akin to burning love, that 
 the splendid stalwart form has become worn and wasted. 
 He catches the change of expression in my face at once, 
 and plays upon the feeling that produces it instantly. 
 
 ** You see now how seedy I am, don't you, Tim dear ? 
 I haven't made much of a howl about it, but it's been 
 touch and go with me, I can tell you. You ought not to 
 be hard upon a fellow in my state, when he's struggling 
 to do what is right and honourable at the cost of a good 
 deal of pain to himself." 
 
 He catches his breath with difficulty, apparently, as he 
 says the last words, and with a sound that is half laugh, 
 half sob, throws himself back upon the couch ; while I, 
 fairly melted now, kneel down quiveringly by his side, 
 and murmur forth entreaties that I may get him some- 
 thing, or call for the nurse, or bathe his forehead, or do 
 something that may relieve this sudden access of pain or 
 weariness. 
 
 *' It's no use," he says languidly. "Get up, there's a 
 darling. If that old harridan comes in, she'll blow it all 
 over the house and make mischief out of it. You see it's 
 true, I'm not good for much." 
 
 All the passionately loved, the well-remembered sweet- 
 ness and brightness of the smile that has been the 
 
'''Tisan Old Takr 231- 
 
 sunshine of my life, and that has scorched me so horribly, 
 glorifies his face as he speaks. The look of langour and 
 weariness has fled ; as he reclines there, I don't see that 
 his form is attenuated. Once again he is the brilliant, 
 well-beloved youth of the first happy weeks at Ravens- 
 bourne. I shall not be called upon to renounce him to 
 that most hideous of all rivals — Death. 
 
 *' You're good for a great deal of health and happiness 
 and prosperity, I'm sure of that, Theo," I say hopeiully ; 
 and as I say it, the nurse comes in, and I have to leave 
 him unwilhngly enough, with Claue's fate still in the 
 balance. 
 
 Lady Torrens is waiting for me, dressed and ready to 
 start tor the Hall, whither the dead Sir Harold has been 
 already carried, to lie in state for the gratification of the 
 morbid curiosity of his tenants and constituents. She 
 lingers for a moment or two under the verandah, ques- 
 tioning me, before we part, as to what has passed between 
 Theo and myself. 
 
 " Does he know that I am going ? '* she asks ; and I 
 say — 
 
 '* I did not tell him so.*' 
 
 ** That's just as well ; he will be told after I am gone, 
 and I shall be spared an appealing message from him, 
 which might possibly tempt me to break my resolution, 
 and go in and see him again. Have you a good account 
 of him to render up to your sister, Tim ? " 
 
 I shake my head despondently. 
 
 " What ! has he gone back ? isn't he so well ? " with 
 the genuine loving anxiety that can't be feigned. 
 
 " He's better in health, he's as bright as ever in mind, 
 but in his heart he's changed to my sister Claire," I say 
 looking at her steadily. 
 
 *' Changed ! Has he let you see the change ? " 
 
 " Changed so completely that he talks of breaking off 
 his engagement for the honourable reason that he can't 
 maintain a wife on nothing a year, and that he won't 
 either toil or spin to make something." 
 
 ** Wh^t a source of unhappiness he is to every one of 
 
232 Blotted Out, 
 
 us ! " she says dejectedly. Then she gives me a rapid 
 kiss, gets into her carriage, and is driven away, leaving 
 me more unhappy, more uncertain, more dubious as to 
 " what is, what is not " than I have ever been before in 
 my Hfe. 
 
 I send for my pony-carriage, and while I am waiting 
 
 for it I stroll towards the open window of the room in 
 
 which Theo is. He must know my step, for he calls out — 
 
 " You are coming to me ? You're not going away 
 
 without one good-bye ? '* 
 
 I spring through the open window gladly, in response 
 to the heartfelt tones of the summons, and his face is 
 covered with a fiery blush, as he stammers out — 
 
 "You, Tim! I thought I heard you drive off just 
 now ? " 
 
 *'That was Lady Torrens," I say falteringly; for, alas! 
 I not only realise that the heartfelt tones were not meant 
 for me, but I also understand thoroughly for whom they 
 were meant. 
 
 Claire meets me at the lodge gates as I go home, and 
 gets into the carriage with me. 
 
 " I don't want to hear anything about the widow's 
 tears and woe," she begins ; " I don't believe in either. 
 Papa was saying just now that if she's left as every one 
 expects she is, she'll be the richest woman in the 
 county. Don't pretend to believe that she's sorry to be 
 left free to enjoy her wealth, and with wealth to enjoy 
 her freedom." 
 
 " For all her wealth and freedom, she went off to the 
 Ha 1 with a very heavy heart," I say. 
 
 " Oh, is she gone — coy, careful Lady Torrens ? Now, 
 why should she pretend to think it necessary to leave 
 the Swiss cottage simply because Theo Bligh is there ? 
 There's something underhand going on, I always find, 
 when people go out of their way to be so conspicuously 
 proper. She wants to let the whole world see how soon 
 Theo Bligh will run after her." 
 
 *' There would be something conspicuously improper 
 in that," I remark. 
 
'''Tisan Old Tale.'' 233 
 
 "There would be, there will be ; but the impropriety 
 will be on Theo's side, not on hers : she's evidently 
 determined to be without reproach. Did you hear of 
 Theo?" 
 
 " I saw him," I say, with a cold shudder, for I dread 
 being cross-examined. 
 
 " Did you ? " 
 
 Glancing askance at her, I see that her eyes dilate 
 and her face blanches, but she is evidently not going to 
 question me. Growing bolder under this conviction, I 
 say — 
 
 " Theo thinks you have shown indifference to him, 
 and he has heard of the changed tone that has come 
 over your intercourse with Syd. I think Theo is hurt, 
 Claire." 
 
 " And what do you think I am ? " she asks, with 
 almost fierce energy. ** I am hurt so that a look or 
 word from any one now makes me smart all over ; IVe 
 bent so low under the influence of my love for Theo 
 that I feel in the dust, and he won't hold out a finger to 
 lift me up. His cruel, capricious fancy has changed to 
 me : but, though I feel sure of this, I can't '* 
 
 She pauses, and I whisper — 
 
 '* What, dear?" 
 
 "Do what I feel I ought to do — give him up. Tim, 
 he won't be able to help loving me when he sees me 
 again, will he ? " 
 
 Her lovely face turns itself eagerly towards me, and 
 looking at it I can but endorse her belief in the efficacy 
 of its charm. But Theo's selfishness is as potent as her 
 loveliness, and — Claire has no money I 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ** CLAIRE first!'* 
 
 E live in a state of direful uncertainty for some 
 little time after this. The worst of it is, that 
 it is uncertainty that we dare not discuss and 
 speculate about among ourselves ; for, disguise 
 the truth from ourselves as we may, there is a great deal 
 of humiliation in it. Sir Harold Torrens has been laid 
 in the tomb of his fathers, and a clergyman cousin has 
 come into the title and entailed property, which latter is 
 utterly insufficient to support the title. Accordingly the 
 Hall is let to the widow, and Lady Torrens still reigns, 
 over our part of the county by right of her beauty, grace, 
 and wealth. 
 
 There has been a brief correspondence between Claire 
 and Theo, but what the whole purport of it may be no 
 one can tell. She merely tells us that Theo will come 
 to Ravensbourne as soon as his health is sufficiently re- 
 established for him to bear the excitement of meeting us 
 all. Meantime, he is going to leave the Swiss cottage 
 and stay with a friend. 
 
 "You're satisfied about him?" papa asks her when 
 she gives out this information. "You're sure you 
 wouldn't like me to go and see him, and find out exactly 
 bQW he's progressing, and if he is doing well ? " 
 
^^ Claire First r 235 
 
 Papa asks significantly, and Claire's answer is 
 significant too. 
 
 "Perfectly satisfied, papa; perfectly convinced that 
 Theo had much better be left to himself for a time." 
 
 She so evidently means what she says ; she is, I see, 
 so perfectly sure that good will come from the course 
 which she desires may be pursued, that I can't help 
 feeling convinced that Theo must have written some 
 very clever and reassuring lie to her. But I dare not 
 investigate. Whatever he has said has made her com- 
 paratively happy for the time, and I am getting very 
 much afraid of looking ahead. 
 
 My own position is, to speak plainly, an ignominious 
 one. The trousseau has in some marvellous manner been 
 got together, thanks to Claire's taste and ingenuity; 
 even the wedding-cake — an awful mass of indigestion 
 that gives me the preliminary shivering fit of bilious 
 fever as I look at and smell it — has come. The twins, 
 and Claire, and a nice-looking, unimportant, young girl 
 friend of ours, have arranged to dress in a pair of pink 
 and a pair of blue costumes respectively ; in short, 
 "bride and bridesmaids wait the groom," and the latter 
 is not forthcoming. The position is an ignominious 
 one, but what joy there is to me in the ignominy of it ! 
 
 Mr. Murray continues to write me long letters, and 
 they still continue to be of the order which may be read 
 aloud and commented upon in family conclave. But 
 they weekly more and more resemble the letters a clever 
 man would write to a clever boy, whose tastes and 
 sympathies were in unison with those of the man, and 
 who was bent upon chalking out a career similar to that 
 which the man had achieved, than they do those an 
 ordinary mortal lover would address to the ordinary mortal 
 woman he desires to wed. But then Mr. Murray is not 
 an ordinary mortal lover ; and surely Pm not an ordinary 
 mortal woman, or I shouldn't be so perfectly well satisfied 
 with the utter lack there is of anything like lover-like 
 devotion on his part. 
 
 During this period of uncertainty the twins come mor^ 
 
236 Blotted Out. 
 
 to the fore, in all household and social arrangements 
 and questions, than they have ever done before. Claire 
 and I seem to slide away into an indistinct background, 
 and this not through any undue pushing on the part of 
 Mabel and Magdalen, but just through sheer inability 
 on the part of Claire and myself to hold our own. We 
 two seem to have had our day ; and, ah me 1 how much 
 the bitterness exceeds the brilliancy of it. But the 
 twins, in their hazel-coloured freshness, are ready for 
 any number of dawnings and settings ; and we — Claire 
 and I — watch them, and are compelled to confess that 
 they are not declaring themselves ready without being 
 well prepared. 
 
 " Whatever encounter they go into they'll never come 
 out worsted, Tim ; they're such sensible young women," 
 Claire says to me one day, as we watch the twins driving 
 off with Aunt Helen to the first archery meeting of the 
 season. " They will love in the right direction, you'll 
 see, and they will marry well, and people will be justified 
 in comparing their case with yours and mine, to our dis- 
 advantage." 
 
 " Our cases are not ended yet," I say, and I try to say 
 it hopefully. 
 
 " Heaven help us both ! no, they're not," she says 
 piteously. ** Mine will drag on longer than yours, and 
 conclude more miserably, Tim ; for you began by expect- 
 ing nothing from your scheme, and I began by expect- 
 ing the highest earthly happiness from mine : but every- 
 thing has changed, everything has faded and grown dim, 
 even Sydney Dale's liking for me." 
 
 She turns away into the house, shrugging her 
 shoulders, as she goes, in a giving-up, renunciation- 
 of-all-things-pleasant way that touches me into unwise 
 confidence. 
 
 " Syd's liking for you is so strong, Claire, that he dare 
 not see you, for fear of being a traitor to Theo, till he 
 knows whether Theo is going to be true to you or not," I 
 say with injudicious wsirmth; and Claire checks her 
 dejected progress indoors, and comes back to me. 
 
^^ Claire First r' 637 
 
 " How do you know this ? " she asks. 
 
 "He told me so himself, the day I went to Lady 
 Torrens — the day I saw Theo. Claire, if I could kill 
 the regard I have for Theo, I would advise you to turn 
 to Syd : he's such a good, true fellow ; his love will 
 last." ^ 
 
 " His love for you hasn't lasted, apparently," she says 
 dryly. " He told me himself that to marry you has 
 been his hope from hobbledehoyhood ; and yet, as soon 
 as I began to wheedle and flatter and humbug him 
 because I was piqued with Theo, he relinquishes his 
 hope, and shows himself a Samson shorn of his locks at 
 once." 
 
 " Consider what a Delilah you are," I urge ; *' have 
 mercy on him." 
 
 " He has had none on himself," she says contemptu- 
 ously. " What a coarse net it was I spread for him ! 
 He must have been blind or stupid, indeed, not to have 
 seen that it was woven by jealousy of and rage against 
 Theo; yet he went groping into it, and sat stolidly 
 fettered, pretending to believe that I meafit the nonsense 
 I^poke and acted ; and now that I really should be glad 
 of his company for diversion, he takes a sentimental 
 scruple into his head and keeps out of my way. * Afraid 
 of proving a traitor to Theo,' indeed ! I detest the idea 
 of a man being cautious for me in that way ; it's a direct 
 implication that I can't take care of myself." 
 
 " He only wants to take care of himself, and to save 
 himself from being hurt further," I say humbly ; and 
 Claire changes her mood in a moment. 
 
 " Darling Tim," she says, ** if he had gone from me to 
 you, as he has from you to me, I shouldn't have had a 
 generous thought, much less a generous word, for him." 
 
 Later on this same day, I go out for a ride on the 
 horse that Sydney has given me in exchange for Kismet, 
 with the dogs for my companions. I ride far away 
 through the little-frequented, grass-grown roads and lanes 
 that I have known from my childhood, and try to believe 
 
238 Blotted Out. 
 
 that the wicked wish that I may not live to see another 
 spring is a natural and good one. I am so full of health 
 and vitality that there is not the faintest probability that 
 the wish will be gratified. But the idea of my marriage 
 is hourly growing more hateful to me, and life holds 
 nothing pleasant for me. 
 
 I ride on for hours, regardless of time and distance, 
 until I find myself in a village I have never seen before. 
 It is a large, well-built, clean, thriving-looking village, 
 surrounded by comfortable, prosperous farmhouses and 
 yards. A river spanned by a substantial bridge runs 
 right through the middle of the street, and I pull up 
 on the top of the bridge to rest my horse, and survey 
 the pretty new scene, and let my weary dogs splash and 
 drink in the water underneath. 
 
 I sit there staring at the setting sun so long, that 
 when I turn my head at the sound of a horse's hoofs, I 
 am too dazzled to recognise the face or figure of the 
 horseman, but a voice that I know well shouts out 
 hilariously — 
 
 ** Halloo, Miss Tim ! I thought you had gone to other 
 climes long ago?" 
 
 There is something so coolly heartless in the expression 
 of this supposition that I am goaded into saying — 
 
 ** You may be quite sure that you'll hear when I am to 
 start for other climes, Theo. You and I have a little 
 affair to settle before I go, you know.'' 
 
 ** Good heavens ! how marriage, or the prospect of 
 marriage even, alters and spoils the nicest girls ! " he 
 says, sitting at ease in his saddle and lolling forward on 
 to his horse's neck. " You were the nicest girl, out and 
 out, the nicest girl I ever knew, when I saw you first, 
 and now you've degenerated into a mercenary little 
 v/oman, full of anxiety as to ways and means." 
 
 '*I've degenerated since you knew me first, I know 
 that," I say, " but not into a mercenary Httle woman, 
 Theo." (I pine so to set myself straight in his un- 
 worthy estimation that I am quite prepared to enter into 
 an abject explanation and defence of my conduct.^ 
 
^^ Claire Pir St /'^ 239 
 
 " Theo, how could you try to hurt me by pretending to 
 think that I could have married and gone away without 
 your knowledge ? " 
 
 *' How could you be so utterly foolish as to believe 
 for a moment that I meant what I said?'* he rejoins 
 laughing. ^' My dear Tim, Murray's matter-of-fact and 
 careful cultivated, pruned, and directed humour is spoil- 
 ing your intuitive perception of it. I thought that yotc 
 knew perfectly well that / knew perfectly well that you 
 would just as soon have gone into the untimely grave 
 at once as have left me without a clue to your where- 
 abouts." 
 
 The whole scene swims before me ; I feel that I am 
 gasping for my breath and grabbing at my reins, vaguely, 
 weakly, for a moment. Then I steady myself and 
 recover my reason. 
 
 " Claire's husband will always have a clue to the 
 whereabouts of Claire's sister. When do you come to us 
 at Ravensbourne ? Tell me your plans as we ride home." 
 
 ** Let's whistle up the dogs," he says cheerfully, taking 
 a little silver call from his pocket and using it effectively ; 
 **and when we've got them safely, I will tell you what my 
 prospects and plans are as we ride home together." 
 
 " Where are you staying ? " I ask eagerly ; " not with 
 
 *'Not with Lady Torrens; set your sweet, jealous, 
 womanly soul at rest about that; I'm at Dalesmeet with 
 Sydney Dale." 
 
 " Syd's an angel,'* I say. 
 
 ** Not a bit of it. If he were, he would be an ex- 
 ceedingly unpleasant host ; as it is, being mortal and well 
 endowed with what conduces greatly to mortals' happi- 
 ness, he's an exceedingly pleasant host. I've been with 
 him ever since I left the Swiss cottage. Didn't you 
 know it?" 
 
 " No. I've been wondering where you were, Theo ; 
 I've been longing to see you," I reply truthfully. 
 
 *' Is there a screw loose between Sydney Dale and 
 you ? '^ he asks, disregarding my complimentary remark. 
 
^40 Blotted Out 
 
 "Indeed, there's not; Syd and I are incapable of 
 getting wrong with each other for an hour even.'* 
 
 *' What keeps him from Ravensbourne, then ?" he asks, 
 suspiciously pulling himself up erect in his saddle. " Tell 
 me, Tim, if he's had no split with you, what keeps him 
 from Ravensbourne ? " 
 
 I am so proud of Syd's honour and integrity, I am so 
 awkward at anything like concealment, I am so in the 
 habit of telling Theo exactly what he wants to know, that 
 I blurt out the truth regardless of consequences. 
 
 " He won't come because he likes Claire, and Claire's 
 engaged." 
 
 "Poaching on my preserves in his heavy fancy, is 
 he ? " Theo says savagely. " Look here, Tim ; I'm not 
 jealous, I wouldn't do myself the injustice of being 
 jealous of a fellow like Dale, but Claire must have been 
 awfully careless of her own dignity, as well as of mine, 
 for an oaf like your friend to have forgotten himself so 
 far. It seems to me that, whatever I do after hearing this, 
 Claire will have no cause of complaint." 
 
 I have shown him the weakest part of the fortress ! I 
 have shown him where to put in the thin edge of the 
 wedge ! I have injured the cause I would die to serve — 
 the cause of Claire ! 
 
 "You've no reason and no right to be angry with him, 
 or annoyed with Claire," I begin protesting eagerly. 
 " She can't help being herself — charming ! And he's 
 only a man — how can he help being charmed? You 
 wouldn't behave as he does under the circumstances." 
 
 " You're right there," Theo says loftily ; " I couldn't 
 behave as he does, Tim. I wouldn't hold out my hand 
 in affected friendship, and open my doors with simulated 
 hospitality, to a man I was attempting to rival. Well, 
 I should pity her taste if she could think of him after me." 
 
 "And I should pity your taste if you could think of 
 anyone after her," I say as cheerfully and good- 
 temperedly as I can. " Of course you're neither of you 
 going to flutter any more. I must ride on now. When 
 will you come to Ravensbourne ? " 
 
- ^ Claire Pirst r^ 24 1 
 
 His brow clears gradually as I speak, but there is a 
 little temper audible in the tone in which he answers. 
 
 ^' I haven't called anywhere since my accident, and I 
 think it's due to the woman who nursed me like a sister 
 that I pay my first devoirs to her." 
 
 I picture to myself that agony of jealousy and doubt 
 through which Claire will have to pass when she hears 
 of his paying this open mark of preference to another 
 woman. There will be no comfort to Claire in my know- 
 ledge of the very scant encouragement to be false which 
 he will receive from Lady Torrens. It will be Theo's 
 will and wishes on the subject which will contain the 
 sting for Claire. Lady Torrens' disregard of them will be 
 like oil on the flames of Claire's wrath. That her lover 
 should love another in vain is the refinement of torture 
 to the majority of women. Remembering this, I say — 
 
 " No, no, Claire first, Theo ! You owe it to yourself 
 to pay this girl, who is going to be your wife, the greatest 
 honour — don't you ? " 
 
 ■ " By Jove ! little Tim, your devotion to Claire makes 
 you worldly wise and eloquent too," he says, thawing in 
 his old sudden manner. '* I do owe it to Claire. I owe 
 a good deal more to Claire, and to you too, than I shall 
 ever pay ; but I promise you, Tim, that I will pay that 
 first instalment of my debt to her. If it's any pleasure to 
 her to see me before I have offered my thanks to Lady 
 Torrens, Claire shall have the pleasure." 
 
 I wisely suffer myself to be satisfied with this. I 
 know Theo so well tiiat I turn away from the subject at 
 once before it becomes tiresome, and the remainder of 
 our ride homewards is all peace and pleasantness. It is 
 twilight when we reach our lodge gates, and I give him a 
 quiet invitation to " come in and see us all " in a simple 
 kind of way that is expressly designed not to startle him. 
 But he seems afraid of facing the family just yet, for he 
 mutters something about " Dale's waiting dinner " for 
 him, and, with a wave of his hat, he gallops off into the 
 fast growing darkness. 
 
 I try to catch Claire as I go into the house, but I fail; 
 x6 
 
^4^ Plotted Out 
 
 they are just filing into the drawing-room, and Claire has 
 only time to smile at me and say, *' Late again, Tim." 
 When I come down I find that I can't introduce the 
 subject of Theo without a good deal of awkwardness, for 
 papa knows nothing of his being in the neighbourhood, 
 and so when I am questioned about my ride, I recount 
 it fully, with the exception of mentioning the companion 
 of the latter half of it. Once or twice I try to break the 
 embarrassing bonds of concealment, but they wind them- 
 selves about me more and more tightly with every 
 sentence, and when we go into the drawing-room, I feel 
 my face grow hot and red with the difficulty I experience 
 in telling Claire. 
 
 " I've seen Theo," I manage to mutter at last, '* and 
 he rode home with me. He's coming to see you as 
 
 " Why have you made a mystery of it ? " Claire inter- 
 rupts. "Tim, you aid Theo in these fatal complica- 
 tions." 
 
hSi^ 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 ** IT IS KTSxMET 1 *' 
 
 f HE little unfavourable breeze has exhausted itself. 
 Claire has listened to my honourable reasons 
 for not proclaiming before papa that I had met 
 Theo, and discovered that he was domiciled 
 with Sydney Dale. Theo has been to Ravensbourne, 
 and in his own essentially airy and graceful way has got 
 over everybody, and persuaded Claire that he owes a deep 
 debt to Lady Torrens, and that it is his bound en duty to 
 seek that lady at the earliest opportunity ; and, additionally, 
 he has actually seriously discussed with papa a scheme 
 for maintaining himself and his future wife (as he calls 
 Claire to her parent) comfortably and honourably. He 
 astounds us all by suddenly avowing that he knows a 
 good deal about farming ; that he has studied both cattle 
 and crops practically ; and that he means to go in for the 
 post of steward or farming agent on the estate of the new 
 baronet, Sir Ralph Torrens. 
 
 *'Not know anything about it?" he says gaily, when 
 papa questions his ability for the post. ^' Just ask Aunt 
 Helen if I didn't grind away down in Cambridge for two 
 years aS farming pupil ! It's the only kind of country life 
 I can lead, as I haven't an estate of my own ; and I think 
 you'll admit that our finances are scarcely suited to the 
 sort of London life you'd hke your daughter to lead. I 
 16-— 3 
 
^44 Blotted Out. 
 
 shall be able to keep a couple of horses, and hunt, if I 
 get it." 
 
 " While you are hunting I shall be rather dull up in 
 that house among the hills," Claire protests ; and papa 
 adds — 
 
 " And while you're hunting, your work will slip behind 
 you, and the land will go to destruction. You're not fit 
 for it." 
 
 "What am I fit for, then?" Theo asks brightly, with 
 consummate ease and grace. 
 
 " Nothing that I know of," papa answers bluntly ; but 
 he smiles as he says it, for he, like the rest of us, is always 
 on Theo's side in his heart and taste in Theo's presence. 
 " My own opinion of myself, endorsed by an indis- 
 putable authority," Theo laughs. " Where is the avenging 
 bull who always tossed the idle naughty boys in the 
 fiction of my childhood. It's odd that he and I have 
 never met yet." Then he changes from frivolity to 
 fervour in a moment, and adds, " Your father is right, 
 Claire : I am a ne'er-do-well ; think well before you go 
 into double harness with me." 
 
 '* No one can say that Theo has not given Claire an 
 opportunity of getting out of an ill-advised engagement 
 most honourably," Aunt Helen puts in ; and at this Claire 
 blushes, papa evidently broils, and Theo scowls and 
 growls out a request to Aunt Helen to be kind enough to 
 leave the management of his own affairs in his own hands ; 
 which request of his, being made in real earnest evidently, 
 and not in jest, restores the peace for a time. 
 
 It is soon after this that Mr. Murray writes a cheerful, 
 philosophical, interesting letter to me on the subject of 
 " our future," as he terms it — out of politeness, apparently, 
 for it deals entirely with his own. The Government has 
 not kept its word of promise either to his ear or his heart 
 he tells me without any circumlocution. " Another, and 
 very far from a better man " has got the consulate which 
 had been nominally given to him, and until something 
 else " turns up," Mr. Murray has clearly no intention of 
 taking the irrevocable step, from the moment of taking 
 
^^ It is Kismet r^ 245 
 
 which we two ill-matched ones will be yoked together so 
 long as we both do live. 
 
 I grasp this information glibly and gladly. There is no 
 mortification or humiliation to me in the fact of having 
 been selected, ordered, and not fetched home yet. I 
 don't want to marry him, and I don't want to be the nine 
 days' wonder of our little set, by reason of breaking my 
 engagement. I am very well contented to remain on the 
 shelf, a thing set apart for an owner who is in no hurry 
 to claim it. 
 
 But the passive satisfaction I derive from the first few 
 paragraphs of his letter are considerably dashed by what 
 follows. He does not want to assume the sole responsi- 
 bility of my well-being yet, but he does want to exhibit 
 his choice, and seek his friends' suffrages for me. 
 
 " My sister Janet — Mrs. Macpherson, the widow of 
 my good friend and kinsman Allan Macpherson — has 
 travelled down from her home in the north to see me 
 before I go abroad, and I should like to show her the lassie 
 who is going with me. I would bring Janet on to 
 Ravensbourne if I could leave town, but though she's as 
 good a creature as ever lived, she is never quite her happiest 
 self in the home of a stranger. A staunch sensible woman, 
 she carries her own habits with her wherever she goes, 
 and nothing incidental in the way of other people's customs 
 turns her aside from her path. Besides this drawback to 
 my bringing her to your house, my work chains me to 
 town. But the good and graceful thing for you to do 
 will be to come and stay with my sister (whose invitation 
 I enclose) in her lodgings, on the border of the square 
 where I'm living." 
 
 " Thank Heaven he hasn't brought his clan here ! " 
 papa remarks, when I make public Mr. Murray's wishes. 
 " A female Murray without the learning, and the culture, 
 and the knowledge of the world possessed by your future 
 lord and master, Tim, would be the destruction of all 
 that's humane in me." 
 
 *' Surely you won't be reckless enough to go and stay 
 with her ; you'll be up the family tree so completely that ^ 
 
JI45 Blotted Out. 
 
 you'll never get down again. Tim will come back waving 
 the wild claymore, and piping the pibroch, and talking 
 of ' the Macpherson,' and generally conducting herself in 
 a deplorably Gaelic fashion, if we let her go to the 
 excellent lady who carries her own habits about with her, 
 and disregards other people's customs." 
 
 Theo is the speaker. He is back staying with us for 
 a few days, devoting himself to Claire in a more fasci- 
 nating way than ever, and without a back thought of 
 Lady Torrens in his mind, to all appearances. 
 
 *^ I suppose I ought to go," I say hesitatingly, and I 
 look round at the circle in the vain hope that some one 
 will oppose me, and argue against my sense of right. 
 
 " I think, if you wish to please Mr. Murray, you won^t 
 neglect an opportunity of making the acquaintance of his 
 sister," Claire says. *' She's a widow, and she most 
 likely is well off — a woman ought to be who proclaims 
 that she'll have her own way wherever she goes." 
 
 " And as she's * on his border,' you'd see a good deal 
 of Mr. Murray," Theo puts in. ** You've been debarred 
 that pleasure lately." 
 
 " Girls always have to go through the ordeal of visiting 
 their lovers' families — haven't they, Magdalen ? " Mabel 
 asks. 
 
 Then the twins proceed to quote numberless instances 
 of the torments of confusion which have been the portions 
 of various Lauras and Kates and Fannys with whom they 
 imbibed knowledge in their youth. 
 
 " Go ! " Theo takes an opportunity of whispering to 
 me \ and T, taking it into my head that he wishes me to 
 go because he sees that Claire desires to get rid of me 
 for some reason or other, declare aloud my readiness to 
 go to Mrs. Macpherson, if papa sees fit to send me. 
 
 Once more papa uses the phrase that he used in his 
 letter of consent to Mr. Murray — '' If there is to be a 
 sacrifice, let everything be done decently and in order." 
 Then he takes me apart, and says to me alone, ^' She 
 may be more sensible than her brother, Tim ; she may 
 save you both from making fools of yourselves." 
 
^^ It is Kismet P^ 247 
 
 T write and accept the invitation, which is for me to 
 start the day after to-morrow, and remain with her a 
 month ; and then I ride over to the Hall to say good- 
 bye to Lady Torrens, who has been living in such strict 
 seclusion since her husband's death, that people are 
 beginning to be very bitter about her not having given 
 them anything to cavil at. I find her looking very happy, 
 very pretty, and not at all bored by the dull daily 
 routine of the life she is leading. 
 
 " And how are the engaged people ? " she asks, with- 
 out hesitation, as soon as she has welcomed me. " Is it 
 going^n well? is your sister satisfied, happy?" 
 
 " She's always happy when he is with her. You can't 
 wonder at that, can you ? " I urge. 
 
 " Well, I don't know ; I've been very unhappy when 
 he has been with me sometimes. What do you think of 
 his offering himself to Sir Ralph as steward ? " 
 
 " It's not quite the position he ought to hold. Isn't it 
 dreadful that Fortune deals so unequally with people ? 
 Theo ought to be something grand." 
 
 "It's not his fault that he isn't," Lady Torrens says 
 laughing; "he only proposed himself as Sir Ralph's 
 steward, after his proposal to do me the honour of be- 
 coming my husband had failed. There is no treachery 
 and no vanity in my telling you this, for you will not 
 betray him to Claire, and / wish you thoroughly to 
 understand that I quite realise that he only wanted my 
 money." 
 
 "You know him well, yet you like him still, don't 
 you ? " I ask eagerly. 
 
 " I know him well, much better than you do, Tim, 
 yet I wouldn't harm him for the world," she says sadly. 
 
 " Harm him ! Why I'd die for him," I cry, thrown off 
 my balance of caution in an instant at the mere idea 
 of any human being base enough to contemplate the 
 possibility of injuring him, 
 
 " If your life would serve him in the least, I've no 
 doubt he would take it," she says, recovering her light, 
 gay tone with a little effort. "As it is, cherish the 
 
248 Blotted Out. 
 
 fraternal feeling as much as you like, but cherish your 
 life a so ; it will certainly be useful to other people, and 
 it niay be useful to him too." 
 
 I am so grateful to her for letting my idiotic expres- 
 sion of sentiment escape the scathing censure which she, 
 as a woman of the world, must have ready to apply to 
 it, that I pass on hurriedly to another topic, and leave 
 off mopping and mowing over that dear one of Theo, 
 which always tangles me, and keeps me struggling in its 
 meshes, whenever I venture near it. 
 
 " I've come to say good-bye to you for a month," I 
 say ; " I'm going up to town to stay with a sister of Mr. 
 Murray's." 
 
 " Good gracious ! why go half-way to meet unpleasant- 
 nesses ? And the sisters of the men we marry generally 
 are unpleasant." 
 
 " He and she wish me to go. I'm ready to go 
 because I think it right, and papa has no objection to 
 my doing it." 
 
 ** Tell me, what do you know of her? *' 
 
 " He says she's a staunch, sensible woman, who never 
 gets on in other people's houses, because she carries her 
 own habits about with her, and never allows them to be 
 interfered with by other people's customs." 
 
 *' What a darling she must be ! what a pleasant woman 
 to stay with ! Look here, Tim, I'll be more considerate 
 for you than you have been for yourself; I'll go up and 
 stay in Green Street, and when you find a change 
 desirable, you shall come to me. What do you say ?" 
 
 She exercises such a fascination over me by her pretty 
 grace and her cordial warmth, and by the luxurious 
 refinement which surrounds her like an atmosphere, that 
 her invitation seems to offer me a peep into Paradise. 
 I accept it unconditionally, and we then move a step 
 further, and arrange that I shall go to Mrs. Macpherson 
 for a fortnight only, on the definite understanding that 
 at the end of that fortnight I go on to Lady Torrens's in 
 Green Street. 
 
 " I've a nutshell of a house of my own there," she 
 
^^It is Kismet P^ 249 
 
 explains to me when I am leaving — "a little bit of a 
 nest, wherein you can fold your wings and rest in 
 comfort, and — that is all I can promise. I can give you 
 no gaiety, for I can't go into it myself. Do you think 
 you like me well enough to stand solitude with me when 
 the murmur of society will be audible, and you'll feel that 
 being with me debars you from it. Dullness in London 
 is very different to dullness in the country, Tim. Will 
 you risk it ? " 
 
 *' Gladly," I tell her ; and then she says — 
 
 *' I shall only admit one friend to our privacy, Tim. 
 I'll tell you who that is when you come to me." 
 
 I am half afraid of her feeling insulted by the question, 
 still I must ask it. 
 
 " Not Theo— you don't mean Theo ? " 
 
 "It is not Theo. I have not the least reason to 
 suppose that he will ever wish to come to my house 
 again ; but if he does do so, believe me, it will not be 
 to see me. Tim, there is one pleasure we may indulge 
 in while we're up. I'll take up Wildfire, and get a nice 
 mount for you, and we'll ride. That we can do, even 
 while you're staying with Mrs. Macpherson." 
 
 There is a certain jubilant air about all things, I 
 fancy, as I ride home. This project of Lady Torrens' to 
 have me as her guest in town has thrown a halo about 
 my visit to London. In imagination I select the prettiest 
 dresses which have been prepared for my trousseau, and 
 resolve to wear them ; for my marriage is an uncertain 
 evil which may never come upon me, and staying with 
 Lady Torrens is a certain joy which is to be shortly 
 realised. All my youth comes back with a rush, as I 
 turn out of the Hall grounds at a slinging trot, and then, 
 coming down to my saddle, send my horse along the 
 grass- grown road at a stretching gallop that cuts the air 
 and makes it whistle in my ears. At any rate, on horse- 
 back I shall supplement Lady Torrens fairly. I have 
 not her beauty, and out of the saddle I have not her 
 stately grace. But in it ! — well, I can hold my own 
 against any woman, I feel triumphantly, as my horse 
 
Sjd htotted OuU 
 
 swerves suddenly right across the road, and then bounds 
 and rears with terror in a manner that obliges me to 
 crouch down to his glossy mane, in order to retain my 
 balance. 
 
 It is nothing very alarming or unusual, after all, which 
 has demoralised my nervous horse — only the flicker of a 
 gipsy-camp fire that is blazing away a few yards up a by- 
 lane we are passing at the moment. As I restore my 
 horse's confidence, and put him across the road again, 
 two or three tall, picturesque forms come over to me, 
 and falter forth their low-toned, courteous apologies for 
 having frightened me. Then they tell me that a woman 
 of their tribe is lying there, in one of the tents, ill to 
 death nearly ; and in an impulse of sympathy with suffer- 
 ing, I jump down from the saddle, and follow the 
 husband of the woman to a spot where, stretched out on 
 a few wretched shawls and rugs, and insufficiently 
 covered by a meagre piece of canvas propped up upon 
 a few low sticks, the dying gipsy lies. 
 
 *' Our camp took fire the night before last," the 
 man tells me, as he rises up from bending over the 
 sufi'ering woman, whose appearance knocks all my pre- 
 conceived notions of Romany women and *' gay gitanas" 
 on the head. There is no sweet romance about either 
 her or her surroundings. But there are such sorrowful 
 realities about us that my heart aches at my inability to 
 help them. 
 
 Evidences of the truth of his statement as to the fire 
 are painfully abundant. Blackened canvas flutters in 
 the breeze ; charred children, half clad and wholly 
 miserable, stand and lie about on every side. The sick 
 woman, through the exertions of the whole of the tribe, 
 has been saved from the scorching flame ; but the shock 
 has been too much for her weakened, fevered mind, and 
 she lies here now unconscious of all the misery and woe 
 which brings the tears into my eyes as I look upon it. I 
 have very little money with me, and that I give gladly, 
 together with a promise of food and wine, and linen and 
 ointments, as soon as I can get home to send them. At 
 
^'It is Kismet r ^^i 
 
 least, too, I can send clothes to cover the shivering baby 
 limbs that protrude themselves upon my observation 
 from every point. And even if papa is a little hard on 
 the faults of theiF race, and refuses to administer all the 
 relief I think needful for them, I can apply to Sydney 
 Dale, and get what I like from him. 
 
 I receive poetical blessings in abundance as I pass 
 along between the tents back to the spot where my 
 horse is being held by a brace of black-browed, flashing- 
 eyed boys, who cease from grinning and grimacing as I 
 approach, and assume an aspect of fervour and devotion 
 to the well-being of my horse which is, to say the least 
 of it, uncalled for. I steadily ignore the appearance of 
 several steaming flesh-pots which are suspended from 
 sundry tripods. I decline to sniff in the fumes of 
 savoury compounds which are wafted towards me from 
 every side. The grave, handsome, sad-looking gipsy 
 who has been my guide has declared to me that they 
 are all naked and starving, and my interests are fairly 
 aroused. 
 
 Suddenly, when I come within a few yards of my 
 horse, a loud, ringing, familiar neigh falls upon my ears ; 
 and, regardless of my guide's hastening on towards my 
 own horse to show me the way in the gathering gloom, 
 I turn aside, and go in the direction whence that neigh 
 proceeds. A group of gipsy men are standing about a 
 tent that is stretched out upon higher sticks than any of 
 the others. For a moment they close in, but I am as 
 fearless before these men, who, being true bred, are sure 
 to respect a woman, as I am in the hunting field. I just 
 pass through their ranks, and they all move aside at once, 
 careful even that not so much as a rag of their flattering 
 garments shall touch me. I stoop my head at the 
 entrance of the tent, and a velvety nose nearly knocks 
 my hat off; and a sprightly stamp, expressive of pleasure 
 at seeing me, and inability to get out, tells me I was 
 ri^ht. It is Kismet 1 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 "love is a devil, TIM." 
 
 Y old favourite, the wicked little mare, shines 
 like a star in the midst of her gloomy surround- 
 ings. They are treating her to their best. A 
 bucket full of oats is by her side, a bundle of 
 sweet hay protrudes from an impromptu rope rick, and a 
 beautiful brown berry of a boy stands at her head with a 
 fine white loaf in his hand, from which he feeds her with 
 dainty pieces. 
 
 I look round at my guide, the husband of the dying 
 woman for whom all my tenderest sympathies have been 
 evoked, and I am delighted to see that he doesn't look 
 the least ashamed of himself. It makes my task so much 
 the easier. Embarrassment on his part would have 
 embarrassed me, but his well-bred indifference to the 
 fact of being *' found out " reassures me. 
 
 " You must lead this horse home at once,** I say 
 politely ; " the gentleman she belongs to is very fond of 
 her, and he won't like her staying with you any longer." 
 
 " She has only been — staying with us since last night," 
 the man answers ; and no one interferes with me as I 
 proceed to unbuckle the rein of her head-stall from the 
 iron ring to which it is fastened. 
 
 " You must lead her back to her stable, please," I say 
 a little tremulously, for the other gipsies are beginning to 
 
^^ Love h a Devily Tim.^^ 253 
 
 look darkly at me, and my faith in their chivalry receives 
 a trifling shock. 
 
 " We led her away from a stall in the stable of the 
 Golden Lion at Halsford," my friend tells me ; *' it's too 
 far for me to take her back there to-night." 
 
 I have got Kismet out of the tent by this time, and her 
 skittishness quickly clears a space for me. As, in her 
 liveliness, she prances round me, letting her heels out 
 with a carelessness and grace that is peculiarly her own, I 
 feel as safe from molestation from any one of that lower- 
 ing band as if I had a dozen men or a dozen dogs with 
 me. Moreover, the gipsy to whose wife I have shown 
 tenderness, to whose children I have promised clothes, is 
 passively on my side already, I feel, and will be actively 
 so if any of the others interfere with me, or attempt to 
 thwart me in my endeavour to carry out my views of 
 justice and equity as regards Kismet. Rendered brave 
 by this feeling, I gather up my habit, and walk quickly up 
 to my own horse. Kismet following me like a lamb, and 
 the lounging, soft-footed, stealthy band (who remind me 
 of tigers in repose) coming after Kismet at a safe distance 
 from her heels. 
 
 I am terribly frightened now, for I remind myself that 
 Kismet is a valuable horse — that " they shall take who 
 have the power, and they shall keep who can " — that they 
 are many and strong, unscrupulous, and only acting ac- 
 cording to their lights in stealing horses— and that I am 
 a mere girl, and alone. But I won't show the white 
 feather, and so, with a palpitating heart and a steady 
 voice, I say to the gipsy who has been the one to lead 
 me into this difficulty and danger — 
 
 " Give me a hand up, please ; lift when I say ready ; 
 and then send some one who is safe to lead the mare, 
 and ril show him the way to Dalesmeet, and see her put 
 back into her stable, and your envoy safe off the place 
 unquestioned." 
 
 " The mare belongs to a friend of yours, lady ? " he 
 asks. 
 
 As he speaks he lifts me into my saddle with a subtle 
 
igS4 Slotted dut. 
 
 sweeping movement of his hand that no Englisti groorft 
 can catch, and as I settle down I bend forward and 
 hold my hand out to him (for he is a gentleman), and 
 say — 
 
 " The mare belonged to me ; she was my pet ; and I 
 gave her to Mr. Dale, from whom you've— borrowed her 
 for a few hours. Shall we go now ? " 
 
 Ay, shall we not with due honour ! Every ragged bit 
 of head-gear that adorns every picturesquely ragged head 
 in the camp is doffed to me, as I ride through it with a 
 gipsy lad running in step with Kismet by my side. They 
 will not attempt to dispute my possession of the mare 
 that has been a pet of mine, I feel sure, for I have dared 
 to thwart them single-handed in their own stronghold, 
 and at the same time I have treated them like fellow- 
 creatures. For some reason or other I am thoroughly 
 attuned to sympathy with them, and so, as I reach the 
 mouth of the lane, I turn round and wave a parting sa- 
 lutation to the wild troop, who are thrown out in strong 
 rehef by the leaping fire-flames, and I feel almost as if I 
 were leaving friends. 
 
 We go along the road to Dalesmeet at a sharp pace. 
 I have offered to walk my horse, but the little fleet gipsy 
 boy has dechned my offer, and declared in favour of a 
 fast trot. It costs him no effort, evidently, to slip along 
 by Kismet's side ; for he talks glibly enough as he runs, 
 and tells me, among other things, that he is going to 
 marry the daughter of the woman who is sick, in a few 
 weeks, and that he will beat any man who even looks at 
 her or speaks to her after that, until the offender's bones 
 shall be bruised under his accursed flesh. And I preach 
 patience and toleration to him, and feel intensely delighted 
 the whole time with the glimpse he is giving me of the 
 wild, lawless, loving, revengeful nature of his race. 
 
 I dismiss him at the door of Dalesmeet House as soon 
 as, by a vigorous ring at the bell, he has summoned a 
 servant to my aid ; and then Sydney comes to me and 
 listens to my adventure, and pets and caresses his re- 
 covered mare as tenderly as if she were a woman. As 
 
^' Love is a Devil, fiin}^ S S 5 
 
 he stands with one hand on Kismet's neck, and the other 
 on the off pummel of my saddle, I am struck by the. 
 careworn, sad look that seems to have settled upon his 
 face. I bend near to him suddenly, and say — 
 
 "Syd, you're ill or unhappy? Which is it? Tell me 
 before I go. I'm going away, the day after to-morrow, 
 for a month." 
 
 For answer he says — 
 
 **l've kept my promise, you see; I haven't been near 
 her, Tim." 
 
 '' Is it that ? Do you still care for Claire ? Oh, Syd ! 
 how can you be so weak ? " 
 
 *' Shall I tell you ? When you wouldn't have the love 
 I'd cherished for you ever since I was a boy, I felt dis- 
 appointed and miserable, but not at all bitter. There was 
 no dishonour in my failure; you were just the same as 
 you had been all along; and I could bear the conse- 
 quences of my mistake, because there had been nothing 
 mean in my making it. I told myself that no other 
 woman should ever win from me what I had given to you, 
 and you had not taken. You were so perfect in my eyes, 
 that I believed it to be an impossibility for any less 
 perfect woman to come between me and my right to think 
 of you still as the one love of my life. And so, when 
 Claire began to lead me on at first, I was so confident in 
 the strength of my good love for you, that I never even 
 thought I was in danger from her, until she broke down 
 the barriers herself, and maddened me by such a show of 
 preference as I should have been more — or less — than 
 man if I had withstood. She did it to pass away the 
 time till Theo Bligh came back to her, but she has ruined 
 my hfe ; for she's made me lose my self-respect, and de- 
 stroyed my right to think of you as the girl to whom I had 
 been true all my life. It's her face that's always rising 
 before my eyes now, it's her voice that is always ringing 
 in my ears ; and all the time I know that she never thinks 
 of me, and never has thought of me, except as a birch rod 
 to bring Theo Bligh into order." 
 
 [* How cross everything is cut in this world!" I say, 
 
256 Btottecl Oui. 
 
 with a vivid recollection of the various wrong directions 
 in which the tendrils of affection of everybody with whom 
 I am concerned are turning, 
 
 " It's our own loo-kout, in a great measure, that it is 
 so," Syd says. 
 
 " No, no, it isn't," I cry eagerly. "We don't hold the 
 scissors of fate. Do you think, if I had been a free agent, 
 I wouldn't have cut out a different pattern for my own 
 life ? Do you think that it's my wish and will to go away 
 from every one I love, to spend the rest of my days in a 
 strange land, among people who'll only think of me as an 
 unpleasant, dissatisfied sort of a woman, who's not fit for 
 the position in which she has been placed. You're luckier 
 than I am, Syd : you have yourself to yourself still." 
 
 " And no one need envy me the possession," he sighs 
 out ; and though there ought to be something infinitely 
 comical to me in the idea of dear old Sydney sighing 
 under any circumstances, I don't feel inclined to smile at 
 him now. His sorrow and remorse are very genuine 
 things, and I can't help feeling that he is not the one who 
 ought to suffer from these things. 
 
 "Look here, Httle lady," he exclaims, as I sit still 
 gazing at him, and pondering over what he has said and 
 what he has implied; "you must wait a few minutes 
 while I have my horse saddled ; I shall ride home with 
 you, and, as we go, you must tell me more about this pro- 
 jected trip to town." 
 
 I don't know how it is that, as we ride homewards, we 
 are led on to speak of the many, many times we have 
 traversed these lanes together, or what gloomy forethought 
 it is which leads me to say — 
 
 " I shall remember our last ride all the days of my life, 
 Syd." 
 
 " Why speak of it as our ' last,' Tim dear ? " he says, 
 trying to speak cheerily. " I've told you before, mine will 
 always be the bachelor brother's house to which you and 
 yours will come when you want change of air ; for I'm 
 more than ever fixed in my purpose never to marry 
 now." 
 
*^ Love is a Devil, TimP 257 
 
 " How wretched that Claire and I should have been 
 the girls to spoil your life ! " I say mournfully ; and, little 
 vain as I am, Sydney does not raise my spirits by 
 replying — 
 
 " It's not your fault, dear ; youVe nothing whatever to 
 do with it now. It stings me as much as anything else 
 that I can't regret having lost you, who are so much 
 better worth winning, as I do having lost Claire." 
 
 " You can't call it having lost Claire,'' I protest ; " she 
 was never yours to lose." 
 
 " Never in reality — she only said she was," he says 
 bitterly. "What a blackguard I am to speak about 
 her ! " he continues hastily. 
 
 " I beheve you would die for her," I say, with that 
 unaccountable longing to probe a wound which is com- 
 mon to the majority. 
 
 " That's not much for a man to do, to be ready to lay 
 down his life for the woman he loves. I've done more 
 — I've laid down my honour for her; and we're so 
 thoroughly wrong all round, that at the same time I've 
 thought very hardly and badly of Theo Bligh. You're 
 safely home, dear, now. Good-bye." 
 
 He holds his hand out, and an instinct of hospitality 
 makes me say — 
 
 ^'Do come in, Syd ; it's too sad never to see you 
 here." 
 
 " I can't stand the sight of them yet," he says, shaking 
 his head ; " by-and-by I shall be less of a fool. Good- 
 bye, my always true little Tim." He leans forward as 
 he speaks, and kisses me ; and then, with the words, 
 " My first kiss and my last, Tim," he rides away 
 and I go in, feeling now that it is too late — that there 
 is a great deal more to love in Sydney Dale than I 
 thought there was in my salad days, when I might have 
 had him. 
 
 My family pay me the compliment of being very eager, 
 not to say wildly curious, for information on the subject 
 of the way I have been redeeming the time this after- 
 noon. I see Claire's eyes glitter when I tell them that 
 17 
 
258 Blotted Out. 
 
 Lady Torrens is going up to London, and that she has 
 asked me to be her guest; and Theo lifts his head at the 
 sound, and shoots a laughingly interrogatory glance at 
 me. I can't help giving him a resentful glance, and 
 apparently he gathers from it all he wants to know, for 
 he bobs his head backwards and forwards in a way that 
 signifies " I thought so," and as soon as he can do so un- 
 heard by the others, he says to me — 
 
 " Did Lady Torrens do me the honour of making any 
 inquiries about me ? " 
 
 "She asked me how you and Claire were getting 
 on." 
 
 " And I hope you told her that you considered our 
 case was progressing very favourably ? " 
 
 ** She would hardly have believed me if I had told 
 her so, after her recent experience of you," I say 
 unwarily. 
 
 " She's been boasting, has she ? " he says, and his eyes 
 emit sparks of light. "There's not one woman in a 
 thousand who understands the point of honour ; there's 
 not one of you that a fellow's safe with, when once you 
 begin to gabble to one another. You're all alike under 
 such circumstances \ your fancies lead you into making 
 such statements that no fellow is safe." 
 
 He is unmistakably angry, and in his anger he lets 
 himself slip back into uncouth school-boy rudeness. 
 Nevertheless, though the rudeness stings me, and though 
 there is nothing so disillusioning, as a rule, to a woman 
 as anything bordering on incivility from a man, however 
 much she may be infatuated with him, I can't even 
 wonder why I like him myself, or look upon it as at all 
 a thing to be marvelled at, that Lady Torrens and 
 Claire should have surrendered their hearts and happi- 
 ness to him without discretion. His power lies, I am 
 inclined to think now, in his provoking way of con- 
 centrating attention on himself, by means of the warm 
 interest he takes in, and the unceasing satisfaction he 
 feels with, himself. Yet that's not it, either; for if 
 another man were half as vain, half as egotistical, half as 
 
^^Love is a Devil, Timj^ 259 
 
 conceitedly at ease with himself, and cheerfully certain 
 that he was gaining universal suffrages, we should all 
 recoil from him as something infinitely little. Up to the 
 present time we none of us have evinced anything Hke 
 a desire to high-mindedly recoil from Theo. It's no use 
 trying fo define what it is. Even as he scolds me roughly, 
 and brings bitter, boyish, untrue accusations against my 
 sex, I know that I like him better than all the rest of the 
 world. It is a fascination so subtle that I am conscious 
 that, if he tried to give me some curing shock, however 
 shattered I might be by it, all that was left of me would 
 go on loving him to the end. What a fool I am ! And 
 yet this very fidelity which makes me such a fool, is the 
 quaUty that is most highly prized in woman ! 
 
 "You wouldn^t have thought that she was boasting, 
 Theo, if you had heard her. She doesn't even wish me 
 to suppose that you cared for her, or pretended to care 
 for her. I declare, I should have thought better of you 
 if it had been love of her, and not love of money, which 
 had made you false to Claire.*' 
 
 He laughs contemptuously. 
 
 " That just shows that you want a little fuller instruc- 
 tion than you've had yet in the art of love,'' he says. 
 ** Why, Claire would never forgive my loving another 
 woman, and telling her so ; but she would sympathise 
 with my tender passion for filthy lucre. My dear Tim, 
 don't you deceive yourself. I'm no Don Quixote ; I 
 don't go out and fight wind-mills, nor do I elevate the 
 girl of every-day life into a heroine of romance. I know 
 perfectly well that Claire has provided for the worst con- 
 tingency in my case ; if our engagement comes to smash, 
 she'll settle down very comfortably at Dalesmeet, and 
 Sydney Dale will be a very tractable husband. No one 
 knows better than Claire how to play the game of con- 
 sequences ; she has prepared for the worst, and is ready 
 with a clear statement as to * why she will marry her own 
 love,' whichever he may be. Why blame me for having 
 tried to be equally provident ? '* 
 
 I would like to defend Claire from this mean charge 
 17 — 2 
 
26o Blotted Out, 
 
 of interestedness and low policy which Theo is bringing 
 against her, but the words are ringing in my ears which 
 Sydney Dale used when I told him that Claire had 
 ** never been his to lose " — " Never in reality- — she only 
 said she was ; " and the sound of them robs the line of 
 defence I would like to adopt of all its powers. 
 
 Before I commit myself to the care of my future 
 husband's family, Claire breaks the ice, and speaks of 
 Sydney. 
 
 "I'm afraid I went too close to the border with 
 Sydney, Tim," she says, in a tone in which I strive to 
 detect a penitential cadence. " He might be generous 
 enough to forgive me, though, for our old friendship's 
 sake. Can't he understand that it was Lady Torrens' 
 manner about Theo that upset my balance? You like her 
 and trust her, I know \ but, really, even you must confess 
 that Theo is one in a thousand to have withstood her 
 lures, or that I am one in a thousand to have chained 
 him!" 
 
 I can't even feel annoyed at my sister's vanity ; T pity 
 her too sincerely for the delusion under which she labours, 
 for I know that at any moment, should it suit him to 
 shatter it, that delusion will be shattered ruthlessly by 
 Theo Bligh. 
 
 *' You should have spared Syd," I say. 
 
 *' Spared Syd ! Nonsense ! " Claire says contemptu- 
 ously. " Do men ever spare us ? Tim, it's a horrible 
 thing to say, but all my experience of what is called 
 * love ' goes to prove that it's war to the knife between 
 the sexes. One of the two must be hurt in every en- 
 counter of the sort — why should it always be the woman ? 
 If Kismet had ever thrown you and dragged you in the 
 dust, wouldn't you have taken it out of the next horse 
 you rode ? " 
 
 ** It would have been mere revenge to have done so." 
 
 "It would have been — and revenge is sweet to a 
 woman." 
 
 " And revenge is ignoble, too. Why should I profess 
 to feel it when I don't ? " 
 
'^ Love is a Devil, Tim,^* 
 
 261 
 
 Claire bends her face down on my shoulder, and hugs 
 me to her closely. 
 
 "I don't know what revenge may be," she says, 
 "but *love' is a devil, Tim. It's making me try to 
 corrupt you. If you turned traitor to your true nature, 
 I should believe that there was * no light in heaven or 
 earth.'" 
 
CHAPTER XXIX, 
 
 AUNT HELEN CAN SUFFER. 
 
 jlT is my last evening at home, and I am wearing 
 away the time as best I can. It flags terribly, 
 in spite of my most earnest endeavours to 
 make it seem the fleeting thing it is. There is 
 a wistful air about papa, whenever he does bestow any 
 attention upon me, which seems to me to bode some- 
 thing evil, or at least, unpleasant. Aunt Helen is 
 steeped in deeper torpor and lethargy than usual • the 
 twins are preparing to go out and do batde in the most 
 respectable way, at various polo matches, and archery 
 meetings, and race balls ; and Claire and Theo don't 
 want me. 
 
 Pretty April has given up her place to bright green 
 May but she (April) comes back to us constantly in 
 floods of tears so soft and clear, that the children of her 
 successor bathe in them gladly, and are beautified by the 
 process. Our wilderness is a paradise of flowers now ; 
 and so, remembering that I have heard that a few blooms 
 and green leaves are a boon to those who dwell in dark 
 London squares, and high-housed, shady streets, which 
 seem specially designed to build out the few sunbeams 
 Nature vouchsafes to shoot down upon this ** right little, 
 light little island," I slip out from the house, and run 
 agro3s the lawn, determined to get everything green 
 
Aunt Helm can Suffer. 263 
 
 and bright which that wilderness can yield to me, as an 
 offering to Mrs. Macpherson. 
 
 I am in a gluttonous mood this evening, and I gather 
 such a bouquet of the great pure white, starlike blossoms 
 of the stichwort, as would fit it to be a suitable offering 
 to a bride. Around this I place a border of the germander 
 speedwell, whose heavenly blue requires something 
 deHcately clear to tone it down. I find what I want 
 directly in the dainty wood-sorrel, with its bright trefoil 
 leaves, and its transparent, white-veined, slightly droop- 
 ing bells. The genuine shamrock of old Ireland ! Surely 
 no penalties are so heavy, no pain so severe, as to make 
 us give up " the wearin' " of such green as this ? 
 
 I don't " think " these sentiments, as I stand here 
 gathering my flowers " eagerly," but still with such loving 
 care that I don't bruise a single petal or stamen. All my 
 thoughts are concentrated on this one object, namely, 
 that of arranging them to the best of my ability, as a 
 propitiatory offering to Mrs. Macpherson. As I kneel 
 down to tear away a piece of waving, succulent-looking 
 moss from a boulder, every other consideration is knocked 
 out of my head by the sight of Aunt Helen surging round 
 the trunk of a tree to meet me. 
 
 I get up and shake the dirt off my hands, and feel that 
 either Aunt Helen or myself will go out of this wilderness 
 to-night having got " the worst of it." 
 
 "Tim," she begins panting, "I have come to say a few 
 words to you that will be very unpleasant for me to speak, 
 but I think it*s well you should hear them ; for I want 
 your help, and when I've told you something Tm going 
 to tell you, I think you will give it to me gladly." 
 
 She pauses, not for want of words evidently, but for 
 want of breath ; and I stand quietly and silently before 
 her, arranging and rearranging my bouquet. 
 
 " You've never liked me, Tim — I'm well aware of that," 
 she resumes presently, and her big face flushes at some 
 recollection (perhaps it is of that scene in papa's study, 
 which took place when I was a child) — "and I've never 
 liked you; but I'm going to trust you now as I wouldn't 
 
264 Blotted Out, 
 
 trust one of the others, for I»know you've a good head, 
 and I think you have a good heart." 
 
 I'm not a bit carried by the flattery ; it only makes me 
 keenly conscious that Aunt Helen has some great point 
 to gain. 
 
 " I know what your feelings are about Theo," she goes 
 on coarsely. " No need to redden about it, child j a girl 
 can no more help falling in love than she can help growing. 
 I saw from the first of his coming here how it was with you, 
 and if I hadn't fancied that you were the one from whom 
 danger was to be apprehended, I should have seen and 
 put a stop to the nonsense with Claire before it came to 
 an engagement." 
 
 " It's too late to talk of that now," I say ; " it has 
 come to an engagement, and it will come to a marriage, 
 in spite of you." 
 
 I delight in defying her, and I am quite justified in 
 doing so, I think, on the good and loyal ground of 
 fidelity to Claire. 
 
 It costs her an effort to keep her temper under, I can 
 see ; but she achieves the difficult task, and .answers me 
 very calmly. 
 
 " You are fond of Theo ; what will you say when I tell 
 you that if he marries one of your father's daughters, such 
 disgrace will fall upon him, as he will never be able to 
 throw off — never be able to hold his head up under. 
 Poor boy ! poor dear, innocent, unhappy boy ! " 
 
 She is crying bitterly, and her tears are genuine. I am 
 touched in spite of my aversion to and distrust of her. She 
 is in earnest now. Whatever the feeling may be that 
 actuates her, of this I am sure — it is a real one. 
 
 " Why should disgrace fall upon him, if he marries 
 one of us, more than if he marries any one else ? " I 
 argue. 
 
 *' Because I am pledged to reveal a secret about him, 
 which I have kept all the boy's life, before he becomes your 
 father's son-in-law ; and when he knows it, your father 
 would break it off if they stood at the altar, and Theo 
 would learn the cause, and would be — and feel — dis- 
 
Aunt Helen can Suffer, 265 
 
 honoured — and might come to hate me," she adds, with 
 a shudder of heart-felt pain. 
 
 I look into her eyes and strive to read her thoughts, 
 and the secret which concerns Theo ; but she dazzles me 
 with her tears, and bewilders me by shaking her head. 
 
 " Why have you come to tell me this ? " I ask sulkily. 
 
 " Because I know you love Theo well enough to try 
 and serve him," she answers quickly. "Don't injure him 
 with Lady Torrens, and don't thwart me in every attempt 
 I make to break the chain between him and Claire." 
 
 " You've always been unjust and unkind to me," I say, 
 '* but you've never been absolutely cruel to me till now. 
 How can you ask me to be the one to help you to hurt 
 Claire ? " 
 
 " What's Claire to me compared to him ? " she cries. 
 '* Disgrace will fall upon him, I tell you, if they persist 
 in this engagement. Can you bear that for him ? Yoti^ 
 I thought, at least, loved him unselfishly." 
 
 ''So I do," I say boldly; "that's the very reason why 
 I don't want to see him perjure himself to Claire, and go 
 with false vows of love to Lady Torrens, when he only 
 wants her money. Moreover, Aunt Helen, it's too late ; 
 Lady Torrens has seen through him, and refused him." 
 
 '* Because of his engagement to Claire. If he went to 
 her free, she would tell another story — she couldn't wring 
 her own heart then by refusing him." 
 
 "Why should he marry Lady Torrens more than 
 Claire ? " I ask impatiently. " If something disgraceful 
 about him must come out before he marries Claire, it 
 ought to come out before he marries any other lady. No, 
 Aunt Helen, your appeal to me is useless ; I won't be 
 tricked into the certain evil of being false to my sister 
 for the sake of doing a very uncertain good to Theo. 
 Keep your secret from me still ; I won't be your ally." 
 
 " Not when I tell you that Theo is illegitimate, and 
 that if this marriage with Claire is persisted in, he must 
 learn that there is a stain on his birth, and the knowledge 
 will crush him ? " 
 
 She speaks tremulously, excitedly ; but it is borne in 
 
266 Blotted Out, 
 
 upon me that she speaks truly, and my hearts sinks low, 
 and my head whirls, as a vision of the agony and shame 
 that will be Theo's portion, should this bitter secret 
 ever be divulged, flashes itself before me. My father's 
 strongest feeUng, next to his love of letters, is his honest 
 pride in the purity of his race. He has no sons to carry 
 on his name ; and if his daughters marry men who have 
 no fathers' names to bear, there will indeed be no balm 
 in Gilead for him. I know all this ! I realise it with vivid 
 force. At the same time, Theo himself, the first and last 
 god of my imagination, is still enshrined there, untainted 
 by the terrible accident of his birth. 
 
 " The sin of his father and the shame of his mother will 
 crush him when he comes to know of it," Aunt Helen 
 goes on in a voice that is very terrible to me in its newly 
 acquired intensity of purpose and feeHng. " Won't you 
 help me to spare him the knowledge, Tim ? Is your love 
 for him so poor and mean that, because he does not love 
 you in return, you'll stab him to the heart with such a 
 poisoned blade as this secret of his birth will be when it's 
 flashed before the eyes of the world." 
 
 I writhe in my innermost spirit under the influence of 
 her goading words. That I should be suspected even of 
 a desire to humiliate the man I have loved so desperately 
 ever since I have know what lov« is, is too cruel, too unjust ; 
 On the other hand, how can I even consent to remain 
 neutral, while Claire's adversaries are trying to undermine 
 her happiness ? I am in a cleft stick : act as I will, I must 
 seem to act badly. I have smarted under the conscious- 
 ness of being unattractive all my life ; but I never before 
 felt hopelessly awkward, as I do now. In this extremity 
 I do what a woman almost invariably does, when her 
 heart and interests are at war with equity and justice, 
 wisdom and discretion — I endeavour to temporise. 
 
 ** Supposing we let things drift?" I say, suggestively. 
 " Why can't we go on just as we are now ? There is no 
 immediate call made upon you to denounce Theo as some- 
 thing too degraded, through no fault of his own, to papa. 
 Papa may never inquire into his parentage ; and even if 
 
Aunt Helen can Siiffa, 267 
 
 papa does come to know it, he may say like the man who 
 tells the tale of the painter's shame in the American 
 poem — 
 
 * ** Not thine," I cried, ** another's guilt, 
 
 I'll break no hearts for silly pride ; 
 So kiss yon weeper if thou wilt," ' " 
 
 " When . you indulge in high-flown bursts, and quote 
 poetry, and cease to take a commonplace and sensible 
 view of a commonplace misery, I feel indeed that I have 
 made a mistake in relying upon your aid, Tim," she says, 
 wagging her large head at me mournfully. " Well, I've 
 done my best to spare Theo. If you had joined me in 
 trying to stave off disgrace from him, disgrace would have 
 
 been staved off ; as it is My poor boy j my poor 
 
 boy!" 
 
 She buries her face in her hands, and her fat frame is 
 convulsed with sobs. What a twist there must be in my 
 moral vision, that even in this supreme moment of 
 genuine distress, my physical one can't help seeing how 
 bovine she is ; and the sight paralyzes all the sympathy 
 I should otherwise feel for her, as a woman who may be 
 compelled to deal a death-blow to one whom she evidently 
 dearly loves. I steel my heart, and ice my accents and 
 say — 
 
 " Aunt Helen, all you have said this evening seems to 
 me so artificial and hysterical that I shouldn't be justified 
 in acting upon it at ail, even if I were inclined to do so. 
 As it is, I'm not inclined to do so, and I'm happy to say 
 that Fm going out of the reach of the temptation to be a 
 snake in the grass to Claire, under the guise of being a 
 real friend to Theo." 
 
 She looks at me vaguely and vacantly for a moment or 
 two j then a spasm of pain contracts her usually crease- 
 less face, as she says — 
 
 "I try to do what is best for him now, but con- 
 sequences are pitiless. My best efforts will do him so 
 little good, poor boy, unless they're assisted by others, 
 
268 Blotted Out. 
 
 who have the power but not the will to serve him. It is 
 only fair to tell you, Tim, that Claire will suffer as much 
 as he will when the climax comes. Does that move 
 you?" 
 
 *' She'll cling to him more closely when he's in trouble 
 and unmerited disgrace," I say vehemently. ** Claire 
 
 won't love him the less when she hears that he is ^" 
 
 " A child of shame ! " she says sternly. " It's hard 
 for me to say it of him, Tim, but I will say it broadly to 
 you, in the hope that you may be touched to pity for 
 him, that you may be won to help me to try to spare him 
 the hearing of the horrible words. As for Claire cling- 
 ing to him in his downfall ! Ask yourself. Is Claire a 
 girl to bear the sneers of the world ? Is Claire a girl to 
 be happy in obscurity with a man who can't even give 
 her a name ? " 
 
 She asks her questions with scathing force, and I 
 acknowledge that they are unanswerable. In the bottom 
 of my heart there lurks a doubt of Claire's staunchness 
 under circumstances that are not only adverse, but dis- 
 graceful. I should deem myself only too well favoured 
 if I were permitted to have the right, and allowed to 
 exercise it openly, of clinging to Theo in the face of the 
 whole world, however degraded he might be socially. 
 But Claire, from her earliest childhood, has had a habit 
 of looking at things from a society point of view. 
 She has a strongly marked aversion to ignominy, and 
 obscurity, and poverty. Perhaps, when she learns that 
 she will have to taste freely of all these in marrying 
 Theo Bligh, her spirit will faint, and her steps will falter 
 away from him, and of her own accord she will leave 
 him free to choose another wife. 
 
 For a moment there is a possibility of happiness to 
 me in this thought ; then I remember Mr. Murray, and 
 all the little fetters which are being fastened about my 
 feet ; and then I can only see possibiHties of fresh forms 
 of misery in Theo's freedom, and feel prophetically sure 
 that they will shape themselves. 
 Aunt Helen says no more, but stumps away through 
 
Aunt Helen can Suffer. 269 
 
 the wilderness and across the lawn as quickly as she 
 can ; and I saunter moodily behind her, all the vitality 
 and hope of brighter days dawning for us crushed out of 
 me by the knowledge I have of this woeful secret about 
 Theo. Illegitimate ! illegitimate ! The word has an 
 awful sound to me. It is only associated in my mind 
 with some poor village girl's downfall and disgrace. 
 But Theo's mother must have been a lady. He being 
 what he is, his mother must have been a la-dy as gently 
 born and bred and as beautiful as Claire. " How could 
 a mother do such a son so great an injury?" I ask my- 
 self indignantly, forgetting, in my wrathful sorrow, that 
 the evil was wrought before . Theo was a grown-up and 
 irresistibly handsome and fascinating man. 
 
 I look at him anxiously when I get back into the 
 drawing-room, and I tell myself that Aunt Helen's dis- 
 closure is a mere trap to catch me. He is singing to 
 Claire's accompaniment — singing very badly indeed, as 
 far as science and management of his uncultivated voice 
 goes, but with a degree of fervour and taste that makes 
 me prefer him infinitely to Sims Reeves. The song is 
 not one of the idiotic, ephemeral trifles of the day. 
 They are grand words, full of pride and glory, and they 
 are set in a way that is worthy of them. 
 
 ** I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 Loved I not honour more," 
 
 he is bellowing out as I go in, and I ache with pity for 
 him at the thought of the bitter draught of dishonour 
 that is being prepared for him, and envy Claire her right 
 to cling to and comfort him as only the woman he loves 
 can. 
 
 He looks gaily, blithely proud and happy, so infinitely 
 superior to the bluest-blooded men I know, that, as I sit 
 looking at him, I doubt Aunt Helen's veracity more and 
 more. Suddenly my eyes fix themselves on her face, 
 and I doubt her veracity no longer. I never saw such 
 yearning, hopeless, apologetic love expressed in any 
 
^76 
 
 Blotted Out 
 
 living face before. Somewhere on canvas I have seen 
 it, and sympathised with it intensely ; but this breathing 
 picture of loving remorse stirs some depths in my nature 
 that have not been fathomed yet. Aunt Helen can 
 suffer on account of a fellow-creature 1 Aunt Helen can 
 suffer for somebody besides herself I 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 NEW friends! 
 
 FORGIVE Aunt Helen a good many of her 
 sins against me the morning after she has 
 made her sad disclosure to me concerning 
 Theo, for the look of unhappiness on her face 
 has intensified itself into one of stolid despair. I have 
 never realised till now that any one with such a con- 
 sistently good appetite and lethargic temperament as are 
 the portions of Aunt Helen can be oppressed by any 
 mental pain, or be the repository of such a secret as this 
 which she is guarding. But, for all my pity for her, for 
 all my tender sympathy with the sorrow and the shame 
 she feels at the prospect of sorrow and shame over- 
 taking Theo, it is an infinite relief to me to see that 
 she has no intention of burdening me with any further 
 confidence on the subject. When her eyes do meet 
 mine they are full of sullen resentment, and against the 
 dictates of conscience and common sense I can't help 
 feeling, every now and again, that I am arraying myself 
 with the oppressors against Theo. 
 
 Theo himself is in extravagantly high spirits ; and as I 
 am unconscious of the cause of them, and also as they 
 are not displayed for my benefit and amusement, I feel 
 them to be out of place. They jar against my recently 
 acquired knowledge of the gloomy truth about him, and 
 
27^ Blotted Out. 
 
 somehow or other they don't seem to please Claire. I 
 discover the reason of this just before I go. Claire 
 draws me aside and says — 
 
 *' Has Theo said anything to you about going up to 
 town in a week or two ? " 
 
 "No. Is he going?" I ask, and I can't help my 
 eyes lightening a little with pleasure at the prospect of 
 seeing him again, sooner than I had anticipated when 
 my sentence of banishment to the hold of the Macpher- 
 son was first pronounced. 
 
 "Yes. Suddenly this morning he discovers that 
 business will take him up in a week or ten days," 
 Claire says discontentedly. "It is so miserable ! I 
 can't help distrusting Theo's business engagements, and 
 yet if I make any difficulty about it, or even show that 
 I don't like it, he declares that I thwart him in his 
 efforts to make a career for himself, and that I'm a 
 hindrance instead of an incentive to him." 
 
 " That's unjust, but like him too, isn't it ? " I say. 
 " He does delight in being encouraged and applauded at 
 every fresh step he takes, doesn't he, Claire ? I think 
 you may be sure that he wouldn't go away from you and 
 Ravensbourne for anything but business now." 
 
 *^Yes, he would — for pleasure and Lady Torrens," 
 Claire says bitterly. "I can't blind myself — he's been 
 in a state of almost boisterous elation ever since he 
 heard you were going to stay with her in Green Street. 
 I know what he will do ; he will make you his cat's-paw. 
 You will be his excuse for going to her house and 
 being her companion, and you're such a bHnd bat that 
 she'll win him before your eyes, and you won't see it." 
 
 " I shall not see it, because she won't do it," I say 
 confidently. 
 
 " Nonsense ! She's only a woman, and she loves him. 
 Why should she make a sacrifice for me any more than I 
 would for her? What forces she can bring to bear 
 upon him — beauty, money, position, breeding ! You 
 see I do her justice. She ivill turn his head. She has 
 knowledge of the world — she has tact. If a Venus 
 
New Friends ! 273 
 
 endowed with the weahh of Croesus had entered 
 the lists against me, and there had been the tiniest 
 taint of vulgarity about her, I could have put it before 
 him in a light that would have disgusted him. But 
 she can defy my criticism at all points — I can only hate 
 her." 
 
 " Perhaps he will change his mind before my visit to 
 Mrs. Macpherson is over," I say reassuringly. I find 
 myself drifting rapidly into the confirmed habit of buoying 
 myself up with the hope that something will turn up to 
 obviate impending unpleasantness. 
 
 " At any rate, discourage his visits, and let Lady Torrens 
 see that you disapprove of them," Claire goes on, dis- 
 regarding my suggestion, which, I admit to myself, has 
 but little sinew and strength in it. *^ Think of me, Tim, 
 down here, while he's disporting up there. I'm getting 
 suspicious and soured, for I love him more than ever ; 
 and if I lose him, I shall marry in despair, and go to the 
 dogs as fast as I can. So think well before you fall in 
 quietly with any one's plans to separate us." 
 
 I give a solemn promise that I will do anything or 
 nothing, as the case may be ; and, after the final leave- 
 taking, I go off weighted with so many contradictory 
 pledges to Claire and my conscience that I feel quite old 
 and world-worn, and heartily tired of everything. Theo 
 is the last to say good-bye, and as he comes down the 
 steps to the carriage, he looks so grave, so thoughtful, 
 such a gallant young prince under a cloud, that all feeling 
 for everybody else is merged in one of passionate com- 
 passion for him. But he rather shatters this sentiment 
 when he says — 
 
 "Shake off the Macpherson's relict as soon as you 
 can, Tim, for I shall be up very soon, and mine shall 
 be the pleasant task to show you the 'wonders of 
 our great metropolis.' We'll not make spectacles of 
 ourselves by taking the Murray and Macpherson in tow, 
 will we ? " 
 
 '* I shall be more sorry than I can say to see you come 
 near them/' I say coldly. ** I should be afraid the whole 
 
2 74 Blotted Out, 
 
 time that you would forget what is due to them, and to 
 yourself as a gentleman." 
 
 ** Ah, well," he says, carelessly leaning in at the carriage 
 window, while Claire watches him anxiously from the hall- 
 door, "perhaps I had better wait to commence my 
 fraternal duties till you're with Lady Torrens. Say you'll 
 be glad to see me then, Tim. Won't you ? — won't you, 
 dear?" 
 
 He utters the last words in his own peculiar coaxing 
 whisper, seeming to fondle the syllables with his lips as 
 he speaks them. I can't help being thrilled by the thrill- 
 ing tones. I can't help looking back into the depths of 
 the eyes that, half veiled by their lashes, look so absorb- 
 ingly into mine. I see a half smile flicker over his face, 
 and I feel that it is one of triumph at the ease with which 
 he can gain a victory over me whenever he pleases. 
 Stung by this I exclaim — 
 
 " You can't possibly come to Lady Torrens' house un- 
 less she invites you, Theo. I won't be your excuse for 
 coming to see her when she doesn't want you." 
 
 He merely laughs in reply, draws back from the carriage, 
 and as I drive off without further let or hindrance, I see 
 him run back to Claire and draw her hand within his arm. 
 How many women can this versatile genius make love to 
 simultaneously, I wonder ? 
 
 I let romance reign over me during the first portion of 
 my journey; that is to say, I allow my thoughts to dwell 
 wholly on Theo, without snapping them off or rudely 
 crushing them, as I have felt it to be my duty to do lately. 
 But as I near the terminus I feel that I had better banish 
 romance, for I shall have to face the reality of Mr. 
 Murray's presence at the station, where he has promised 
 to meet me. 
 
 I am neither astonished or annoyed when I get out at 
 my journey's end and look up and down the platform in 
 vain for Mr. Murray. I understand at once that probably 
 he is talking to some one who listens to him suggestively, 
 answering and interesting himself, and that I have slipped 
 out of his memory for the time being. When he calls me 
 
New Friends f 5 7 5 
 
 to mind he will be sorry for the omission, which savours 
 sh'ghtly of neglect, and I shall accept his apologies with 
 the toleration and gentleness which is born of perfect in- 
 difference and What is this ? 
 
 I am disturbed in my musings by the sudden apparition 
 close in front of me of a little stout woman with a round, 
 rosy face, which seems to grow rounder and rosier as I 
 look at it, under the influence of a smile. For an instant 
 I fancy the smile must be for me, but I am quickly un- 
 deceived. It is an unconscious expression of the genial 
 interest she is taking in all things that have life upon the 
 platform, from the first-class passengers down to a crateful 
 of cackling hens, all fuss and feathers, who are nearly 
 maddening me. Finding that she can do nothing to 
 assuage the paroxysms of nervousness from which the 
 fowls are suffering, she ambles after a refractory retriever, 
 who is being lugged along towards the dog-box by an 
 impatient guard ; and, as I watch her luring him on with 
 bits of cake, which she produces from the bowels of a 
 plump black satin bag that hangs on her arm, my pro- 
 phetic soul tells me that this is my future sister-in law, 
 Mrs. Macpherson. 
 
 She is dressed in woollen materials that are too warm 
 and heavy for the time of year, and the form of her dress 
 is old-fashioned, but there is nothing otitre or ridiculously 
 national in her appearance, as I had foolishly led myself 
 to suppose there would be. She is not covered from 
 head to foot with the plaid of her clan j she is the reverse 
 of puritanically severe in her aspect. As she looks 
 rapidly about her — in search of something that she may 
 assist, it seems to me — with bright, intelligent eyes, I feel 
 that the kindness so freely rendered to the cackling hens 
 and the crouching dog will not be withheld from me, 
 however culpable I may have been concerning her 
 brother. 
 
 Having coaxed the retriever into a better frame 
 of mind and the dog-van, she comes quickly back to 
 where I am standing, looks at my boxes and me, and 
 says — 
 
 18—2 
 
^j6 Blotteci Out 
 
 '^You're the young lady my brother, Robert Murray 
 has asked me to meet? I knew you by your hair when 
 you stepped from the carriage, but I thought I'd wait 
 one while before I spoke to you, to see if you're sorry or 
 angry that he didn't come himself." 
 
 She has taken my hand as she speaks, and is giving it 
 a hearty, cordial clasp, that presses my engagement ring 
 into my finger, and counsels me not to attempt to deceive 
 her. 
 
 " I'm neither sorry nor angry, and I'm very glad you 
 came instead of him," I say, without hesitation ; and she 
 nods her head approvingly at me, though her smile fades. 
 
 "Come out now to the coach,'^ she says, leading me 
 along ; " we'll have our tell when we get home out of 
 the din and rattle." 
 
 So we m^arch off the platform in procession with my 
 boxes, which are delivered up to*" my Mrs. Barnie," as 
 Mrs. Macpherson calls a woman who, dressed very much 
 like her mistress, takes them off in a cab, while we follow 
 in a little brougham. 
 
 Our progress through the streets is not a rapid one, for 
 Mrs. Macpherson sees everything evil that happens to 
 everybody and everything on every side, and generally 
 insists upon getting out to see if she can do anything to 
 remedy the evil. The fall of an omnibus horse delays us 
 for some time, and we are hardly clear off from the scene 
 of that accident, when she insists upon stepping out of 
 her ''coach" again, like a beneficent, fat old fairy, and 
 risking hydrophobia in the attempt to separate a couple 
 of fighting kennel curs. She aids a sobbing woman to 
 draw a drunken husband from a pot-house by the gift of a 
 few silver coins, and she causes contrition to reign in the 
 heart of a frivolous-minded nursemaid, by trotting to re- 
 store two lop-sided babies to their perpendicular in a 
 perambulator. I confess to myself that existence might 
 become intolerably spasmodic if passed with one addicted 
 to making these charitable raids ; at the same time I 
 recognise fully that such a nature as hers will be a valuable 
 prop and stay to me. She is full of pity, and love, and 
 
New Friends f 277 
 
 tender leniency for her fellow-creatures, and while she 
 serves the sinned against, she is not severe on the 
 sinner. 
 
 Her rooms in the house in which she is lodging look to 
 me as if they must be portions of her Scotch home 
 brought over bodily, and fitted in cosily to a grim London 
 house. Every trace of the crude, garish vulgarity of 
 lodging-house furniture is done away with. Soft rugs of 
 wool, lined with white and grey furs, cover the sofas, and 
 Shetland shawls, fine as cobwebs, some scarlet and some 
 white, hang about ready for use from the backs of 
 chairs. A silken-haired, brown-eyed collie, with a big 
 feathered tail tipped with white, lies on a huge deerskin 
 before the fire. A big grey tabby cat, who purrs as loudly 
 as a thrashing machine the moment he catches sight of 
 his mistress, occupies the most comfortable chair in the 
 room ; and a blue-faced monkey, perched upon a stand, 
 makes unceasing grimaces that would be grotesquely 
 mirthful, if they were not so intensely melancholy. 
 
 " IVe brought my own bits of things with me ; sit ye 
 down among them," she says, planting me on a chair be- 
 tween the monkey and the cat. " Give her a greeting, 
 Laird," she adds casually to the collie, who rises at once, 
 with a deprecating smile on his sweet, sagacious face, and 
 a conciliatory wag of his big feathered tail When he 
 lays his head on my hand, and Mrs. Macpherson plies me 
 with short-bread, in order that I may give him wee bits 
 and so cement my intimacy with him at once, I feel so 
 much at home with them all, and so thoroughly at peace, 
 that I begin to regret my promise to Lady Torrens to 
 leave them all for her, and the feverish excitement I shall 
 feel in an atmosphere that may be permeated by Theo at 
 the end of a fortnight. 
 
 Mrs. Burnie, my hostess's waiting-woman, comes and 
 takes away my travelling wraps, and a grim old man- 
 servant brings us in fragrant and refreshing tea. 
 
 " We'll dine at six o'clock, and we'll not wait a minute 
 after the clock strikes for Mr. Robbie," Mrs. Mac- 
 pherson says, and I don't realise for a few moments 
 
278 Blotted Out. 
 
 that the affectionate diminutive is applied to Mr. Murray. 
 The thought of him introduces discord into the harmony 
 of my feelings with all around me, and it is with some- 
 thing Uke petulance that I say — 
 
 *' Does Mr. Murray often forget to be in time ? Does 
 he break his appointments with you, and keep dinner 
 waiting ? " 
 
 " It's been his way all his life, and a harmless way 
 enough it is if one's not put out by it/' she answers. 
 " And now tell me, my dear, what has brought you all 
 this way to stay with an old woman you didn't know, 
 because she's his sister, when you care so little about 
 seeing him ? Tell now, poor child ! " 
 
 She calls me " poor child '^ so softly and genially, that 
 if it were not for the vivid remembrance I have of 
 Claire's anxiety to see me married and out of the way, I 
 should make a clean breast of it at once. As it is, I 
 defer the hour of explanation, and say — 
 
 "He wanted me to come, and I wanted to please 
 him." 
 
 She gives a little unsatisfied shake of the head, as she 
 looks at me searchingly, but there is no displeasure in 
 her face. Presently she says — 
 
 "His first wife loved him well, puir lad. It's just a 
 pity that he's forgotten he's not the same he was when he 
 married her ; he might have made you forget the one 
 who has gone before him with you if he had been. As 
 it is, you've not forgotten, and ye must tell me. Tell me 
 who 'tis ye remember, and all about it ? Puir child ! 
 puir lassie ! " 
 
 The Scotch accent grows stronger as she grows more 
 earnest ; it appeals to me so strongly, that I believe I 
 should tell her all my trouble, all my doubts, all my 
 foolish fatal fears of being misunderstood, if, by a new 
 exercise of the virtue of punctuality, Mr. Murray himself 
 did not appear to interrupt our tete-d-tete. 
 
 " The flower I'm going to transplant," he says, calling 
 his sister's attention to me as if he had planted, and 
 trained, and cultivated me 3 and I perceive at once that 
 
New Friends ! 
 
 279 
 
 he regards his sister's opinion of me as of infinitely more 
 importance than my opinion of his sister. 
 
 *'See and have your coat brushed for dinner, Robbie," 
 she feciys. "And when did you have your bit lun- 
 ' cheon ? And have you taken care of yourself to-day, 
 man?" 
 
 Evidently he requires to be taken care of I 
 
Iipsi: 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 "he's not the one." 
 
 |F I had been married to him a year, or a dozen 
 years, Mr. Murray could not take me more 
 completely for granted than he does. It is 
 just tolerable during dinner, tolerable, though 
 tedious, for he discourses to me about the epicurean 
 tastes and the splendour generally of the old Romans 
 and Greeks. In fact, he talks to me as if I were a youth 
 whom it were his pride and pleasure to instruct ; and 
 though I am rather bored, I am just enough to acknow- 
 ledge that it is I who am to blame, and not he. But, 
 after dinner, middle-aged drowsiness overcomes him as 
 he sits before the fire, and I tingle all over with disgust 
 at the prospect of having to watch his unbecoming 
 slumbers through all the evenings of my future life. 
 
 Mrs. Macpherson plants herself on the sofa, with 
 Laird at her feet, and Nannie, the cat, on her lap, and 
 with bright, wakeful eyes watches her brother and me 
 observantly. For a time I feign to be unconscious of 
 her observation, as I lounge back in a chair by the side 
 of the hearth. I concentrate all my attention on Mr. 
 Murray's half-recurcbent form and sleep-obscured face, 
 and question myself as to how I shall endure it when 
 endurance becomes my duty. 
 I look at him until all recollection of all that is cul- 
 
''He's Not the One:' 28 1 
 
 tivated, refined, and intellectual in the man's soul and 
 mind vanishes from my memory, and I see him and 
 think of him only as he is externally — stout, short, and 
 ungraceful, with every trace of the glory of youth gone 
 from him. 
 
 He wakes himself suddenly with a little snort, and 
 opens his eyes and smiles at me, not in an apologetic, 
 but merely in an explanatory way. " After a long day's 
 writing, I like my after-dinner nap," he says, settling him- 
 self into a still more comfortable position, and going off 
 into balmy slumber with a sigh of satisfaction that is pro- 
 longed into a wheeze. 
 
 All the elastic young muscles in my body, all the 
 rapidly circulating blood in my veins, all the youth and 
 love of change and action in my heart, rise up in revolt 
 and protest against being fettered down to the continual 
 contemplation of this physical inactivity. I feel so 
 strong and supple, so eager for change and novelty and 
 excitement, so full of desire to exercise these qualities 
 and inclinations, that the contemplation of his middle 
 age, and the monotony to which his slackened zest for 
 all things will condemn me, rouses me, and I spring from 
 my low seat with an exclamation of aversion on my lips, 
 and an expression of it on my face. 
 
 '' Come here, lassie," Mrs. Macpherson's quiet voice 
 says ; and I go and sit myself down on the soft mat by 
 the side of the sagacious, silken haired coUie at her feet. 
 
 *^ We may speak now as if Robert were not in the 
 room," she begins without lowering her voice in the least. 
 " He's a heavy sleeper after his work — and his whisky 
 toddy, puir Robbie ! " 
 
 I wince as I listen to her, but I reply steadily enough 
 — " I can't help * hushing ' in a room where a person's 
 sleeping. I'm not used to it. However hard papa 
 works all day, he's never tired, like this, at night." 
 
 She nods her head assentingly. 
 
 " It's just one of Robert's bad habits, dear. He's 
 many of them, and no one will tell you of them more 
 frankly than he will — if he thinks of it. Anyway, he'll 
 
sSa Blotted Out 
 
 let you see them, for he's as open as the day, and never 
 deceived man, woman, nor child, nor one of the dear 
 dumb brutes that have crossed his path, from the day he 
 was born up to this day." 
 
 She pauses, and if Mr. Murray did not punctuate the 
 sentence with a half-stifled snore, I should be more 
 touched than I am by the noble and honourable qualities 
 to which she pays such high tribute. As it is, the snore 
 distracts my attention, and I gaze unwillingly at the 
 snorer instead of replying to Mrs. Macpherson. 
 
 *^ His carelessness, now," she goes on good-naturedly. 
 " Robbie can tell you stories by the hour, that will make 
 you die with laughing ; but it used to go hard with his 
 wife — poor Helen ! — to make amends for it. The money 
 he'll lose out of his pocket, and no one be better for the 
 loss — for he drops it through holes generally — would 
 keep a decent family. We used to say, when he was a 
 boy at home, that we had to follow him about with a 
 needle and thread.'* 
 
 I understand her motive thoroughly. I see that, out 
 of her great pity for me, she is giving herself the pain of 
 putting her brother before me in his most unattractive 
 colours, in order that I may be driven into freeing myself 
 before it is too late. But all the little home counter- 
 plots rise up in my mind and hamper my actions, and 
 prevent my bringing about the grand denouement which 
 would make me a free and a comparatively happy girl 
 again. 
 
 **rm glad of one thing," I say inconsequently, taking 
 in mine the kind, firm, warm hand of the sympathetic 
 old Scotch lady ; ** I'm glad that anything — no matter 
 what it is — has made me know you." 
 
 ^'See here, child?" she answers, calling my attention 
 to the buxom cat. " I found this when 'twas a kitten, on 
 the hearthstone among the cinders, with a great log just 
 ready to fall out of the fire upon it. The log was a big, 
 beautiful burning log, my dear, but it would have killed 
 the kitten; so I snatched her out, and — Nannie's a happy, 
 contented cat, ye see.'* 
 
^'His NottheOne:^ 283 
 
 I see; I understand everything, all she says and 
 all she implies. But she knows nothing of Theo 
 Bligh ! It is altogether outside her knowledge of me 
 that I carry within me a smouldering grief that must 
 consume me sooner or later. Oh, my bright, beautiful 
 love ! — who can never be my lover — why has the manager 
 Nature cast me for such a suffering part as this, that 
 I can never forget you, and that your worst faults and 
 follies have a greater interest and charm for me than 
 other men's virtues and merits? So cries out the 
 sentimental portion of me, as I look at Mr. Murray and 
 contrast him with the man whom I am idolising. Happily, 
 the common-place portion will have its sway also ; and 
 this reminds me that Theo is a being with whom to be 
 identified entirely is a little bit of a failure too, for his 
 braggadocio breaks down occasionally under cross-ex- 
 amination, and then confusion is socially the portion of 
 all those who have believed in him and it. 
 
 " Tell me about the home in which you were brought 
 up, and the life you led there," I say; and Mrs. Mac* 
 pherson shakes her head, and answers — 
 
 " No, no, child ; an old woman's garrulity is harmless 
 enough when it doesn't stop the discussion of weightier 
 matters. You tell me a little about your home and friends, 
 and the life you've led ; and then I shall be able to tell 
 you a little more of the life I think you ought to lead." 
 
 I lean my head back on her lap, and cosset my hand 
 down on Laird's soft, friendly head, and begin to gabble 
 about Ravensbourne, and Claire, and our childhood. I 
 tell her about the old thriftless life we have led between 
 the dear old home rooms, and the wilderness, and the 
 otter-pool and hunting-field : and I warm to my theme as 
 I speak of Sydney Dale and all that he has been to me. 
 
 *^But he's not the one, my child," she says, when I 
 have finished my story. 
 
 **Not the one what?" I ask, foreshadowing in my 
 mind the answer, although I ask the question in seeming 
 sincerity. 
 
 "Not the one you're grieving for; not the one you 
 
284 Blotted Out, 
 
 wanted to forget when you thought you'd take my brother; 
 not the one you're remembering so sadly still, puir 
 child ! " 
 
 *' I do remember Syd sadly enough, though," I say, 
 trying to evade the point at which she is driving. ** I 
 saw him two nights ago, and he was depressed and 
 melancholy to a degree that depressed me. We ought 
 both of us to have been in high spirits, too, for I had 
 just had an adventure, and rescued a horse of his from a 
 gang of gipsy thieves ; " and by way of diversion I proceed 
 to recount the story of the way 1 carried off Kismet from 
 the aggressors. 
 
 She listens patiently to my narration, but it does not 
 cause her to deviate a bit from the straight path she is 
 taking to my real feelings. As soon as I pause, she 
 says — 
 
 " I'm sure he is what you say, just a brother to you. 
 The one who has driven you to take up with * Auld Robin 
 Grey ' " (she looks toward her brother as she speaks) '^ will 
 never take that place with you." 
 
 ** Yes, he will j not only in fancy, but in reality," I say 
 unguardedly. "He's going to be married to my 
 sister." 
 
 " Oh ! then he's the feckless lad my brother has told 
 me about, the handsome, graceless fellow who thinks that 
 less well-favoured folk ought to work for him ? So your 
 sister took him from you, and though he's not worth 
 having, from what Robbie tells me, still that's not what a 
 sister should have done." 
 
 *^He was never mine to take," I say, eager to vindicate 
 Claire. 
 
 ** But he must have made you think he was yours, or 
 you wouldn't have let all your heart go out to him as 
 it has," she says, shaking her head. " We old ones don't 
 always forget the lessons of our youth, child ; we don't 
 always forget the lessons of our youth." 
 
 I look up at her in amazement. Her dear old round, 
 rosy face is stained and blurred with tears. She has 
 suffered as I am suffering now, and though the days of 
 
^' His Not the Oner 285 
 
 her youth are long past, though she has been wedded wife 
 and is now faithful widow to the Macpherson, " still the 
 memory rankles" of that love-lit, long-lost time, the 
 thought of which teaches her to sympathise with 
 miserable, bewitched me. Shall I smart under memory's 
 lash as keenly as she does, I wonder, when I am as old 
 as she is ; or will age and fate have kindly deadened my 
 faculties of feeling by that time, and nearly effaced the 
 strongly marked lines and vivid colours in which Theo is 
 now limned forth before my mind's eye ? 
 
 1 ponder over this problem so long that, when I at 
 length wrest my consideration away from it, Mrs. 
 Macpherson is once more the cheery, bright woman who 
 met me on the platform, and Mr. Murray is shaking him- 
 self free from soporific fetters, and declaring that it's 
 eleven o'clock, and time for him to tear himself away 
 from the rejuvenating influence of my society I 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A FEMININE FOOL. 
 
 fE must give the child as much pleasure as we 
 can ; we can't expect her to be contented 
 with the quiet, jog-trot round that is enough 
 for us old people," Mrs. Macpherson says 
 to her brother, when he drops in to luncheon the day 
 after my arrival, and asks, *' What weVe going to do ? '' 
 
 " I shall be free after five this evening," he says ; " we 
 might take her to the theatre, Janet." 
 
 He makes his suggestion rather timidly, but Mrs. 
 Macpherson does not utterly scout it, as he evidently 
 expected her to do. On the contrary, she treats it with so 
 much consideration that I am wearied out of all patience 
 by the verbose discussions which she and her brother 
 engage in concerning the relative merits of every theatre in 
 London. 
 
 The treat is projected for my amusement solely, and I 
 am grateful for the intention, but I would rather be left 
 quietly at home to suffer the most excruciating dulness, 
 than have to listen to Mrs. Macpherson's fears and doubts 
 as to the propriety of every piece that is proposed, and 
 the purity of every person who takes part in it. She 
 knows less about all matters theatrical then Laird does, 
 and Mr. Murray knows less still. But he has Shakespeare 
 
A Peminine Foot 2 §7 
 
 at liis fingers' ends, and rolls out passages of great beauty 
 and length, at intervals, while the debate is going on. I 
 feel that, in their society, I shall probably cry at a comedy 
 and laugh at a tragedy, and so I am rather pleased than 
 otherwise when it is decided that, until she can possess 
 herself of some more authentic information on the subject, 
 she will not take the onus on herself of introducing me to 
 a haunt of frivolity and vice. 
 
 Five or six days slip away very quietly, and rather 
 happily, I must confess, in spite of my anomalous 
 position. Mr. Murray says nothing to me, but from the 
 time when I stood like an iceberg before him, as he 
 began to kiss me and say good-bye, he has let me feel that 
 he has relinquished me. My spirits rise under the 
 influence of this conviction, and I find myself growing as 
 glad a girl almost as I was before I knew Theo Bligh. 
 
 Almost, but not quite, for the bloom has been brushed 
 off my heart, and the halo that surrounds the head of the 
 man I love is dimmed by the knowledge I have of his 
 unhappy birth, and of the rage and shame that will be his 
 portion should he ever come to know it. 
 
 It is the afternoon of the day before I am to go to 
 Lady Torrens, in Green Street. A letter from her has 
 reached me, bidding me be ready to be taken away by 
 her to-morrow at four o'clock, and fond as I am of her, 
 and much as I shall like the sunny, silken life I shall lead 
 with her, I am feeling very sorry to leave my present 
 hostess. Moreover, I am feeling very sorry that I can't 
 evade the explanation which she tells me we three must 
 offer to each other this evening. *' My brother sees the 
 folly of what he wanted, and you feel the misery of it, 
 and I know the wickedness of it," she says to me ; " and 
 when we've said this fairly to one another, we'll all be 
 happier, Tim." 
 
 " How little you thought this would be the end when 
 you asked me to visit you, and treated me as your 
 brother's future wife," I say humbly. 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! I wouldn't have made myself 
 ridiculous by treating you as anything of the kmd ; and 
 
ft 88 Blotted Old. 
 
 it's just the end I prayed God to bring about, when He 
 put it into my heart to ask you here. Robert will say a 
 word or two to-night that will make your conscience free, 
 and show you he's not the foolish man he was when he 
 fancied you were the wife for him." 
 
 That habit he has of treating me more like a quick and 
 appreciative boy than a girl whom he has thought pf 
 marrying, renders the parting a comparatively easy 
 process. 
 
 "Janet has told us — at least, her manner more than 
 her words have shown us — the folly of that dream of 
 mine, Tim," he says to me genially. " You mustn't let 
 the thought of it weigh upon your spirits any more. I 
 shall write to your father and make him understand that 
 the only amends I can make to you for the blind vanity 
 which you were too true a gentlewoman and too sweet- 
 natured a girl to wound as it deserved to be wounded, is 
 to give you back your freedom. And now we'll say no 
 more about it." 
 
 A little demon of perversity goads me into saying — 
 
 " After all, you give me up very readily." 
 
 "We'll say no more about that either," he says. 
 " Janet's very fond of you, Tim : you must come back to 
 her when your visit to Lady Torrens is over , and till 
 your sister and that lad Bligh are man and wife, you're 
 better with Janet than you'll be at Ravensbourne." 
 
 " Better, perhaps, but not happier." 
 
 However, I don't argue the point with my late lover 
 and now, really, highly esteemed friend, who reads the 
 evening papers, and eats his dinner afterwards, precisely 
 as if nothing had happened. I don't feel in the least as 
 if I have had a blight or a disappointment. I can hardly 
 imagine that 1 am that most pitiable of all social mis- 
 fortunes — the victim of a broken engagement. I enjoy 
 my dinner too, and dnnk the wine and eat the oHves 
 which Mr. Murray specially commends to me. And now 
 that it is no longer in the order of things that I am to 
 have a great deal of them, I begin to feel that I shall 
 
A Peminine FooL 289 
 
 miss his society, and his sympathy, and his conversation 
 in a way that will forbid me ever to forget him. He has 
 had the good taste to make himself desirable, by rendering 
 himself unattainable. The same feeling of vague regret 
 assailed me when first I achieved the long-coveted 
 dignity of " long dresses," and was debarred by them, 
 and the consciousness of all they implied, from riding 
 bare-backed ponies, "fielding" for Sydney Dale, and 
 running the unbecoming but innocent career of a tom- 
 boy generally. 
 
 About eight o'clock a card is brought in and handed 
 to Mrs. Macpherson, who looks at it first through her 
 spectacles, and then over them, and then under them for 
 several moments without speaking. Finally she hands 
 the card to me, with the words, " What brings the young 
 man here at this hour of the night ? " and I see with 
 very mixed feelings that it is inscribed with the name of 
 Theo Bligh. My first fear is that Mrs. Macpherson, 
 having fathomed my feeHngs for him, may refuse to 
 admit him; my second, that he may have brought me 
 bad news from home. 
 
 " Let him come in," I cry eagerly. " It must be 
 something important to make hira call on a stranger at 
 this hour. Do let him come in." 
 
 In my impatience I move nearer to the door, and 
 Mrs. Macpherson looks at me rebukingly for the first 
 time. 
 
 " The young man can come up the stairs without your 
 aid, my dear — if indeed Robert thinks he had better 
 come up at all. He may stay on and spoil your nap, 
 since he's been inconsiderate enough to come at all," 
 she adds kindly to her brother ; while I stand by 
 absolutely quivering with the keen desire I have to look 
 upon the bright, beautiful face, and hear the fight, heart- 
 less voice, of the man I love. 
 
 ''We'll make him welcome for the sake of Claire," 
 Mr. Murray says mercifully, and I dart a grateful 
 glance at him ; and in another minute Theo is in our 
 midst. 
 
 19 
 
t^6 Blotted Out 
 
 His opening speech carries Mrs. Macpherson, as of 
 course he intends it to do ; and dearly as I love him, I 
 feel sure that he has some motive besides the desire to 
 see me in coming here. What the other motive m.ay be 
 I don't discover yet, but I distrust it unhesitatingly. 
 
 " It required a strong effort of assurance to bring me 
 here to-night," he begins, with an air of deferential 
 courtesy that is a new bit of ** business " to me, and 
 that evidently impresses Mrs. Macpherson very favour- 
 ably. " Inclination led me here, conventionality coun- 
 selled me to keep away, and despairing loneliness nearly 
 drove me to a fancy dress ball." 
 
 " You did well in following inclination for once," Mrs. 
 Macpherson tells him heartily. And then Theo proceeds 
 to paint a pathedc picture of the aching void which life 
 is to a young man of virtuous tendencies, and a thought- 
 ful but still gregarious turn of mind, when condemned to 
 the barren solitude of lodgings. 
 
 " To be sure, you will say there are plenty of theatres 
 and billiard-rooms and clubs, to say nothing of other 
 places, open to young fellows like me," he pleads. 
 " But I've been given a taste for something better 
 than these down at Ravensbourne, haven't I, Tim?" 
 he asks suddenly, in an affectionate tone, turning 
 to me. 
 
 And I, forgetting how little real stuff there is in the 
 matter, am so entirely carried by his manner for the 
 moment, that I say, " Yes, Theo," effusively, and feel 
 myself to be a fool for saying it. 
 
 " Let the lad feel that he's having a warm welcome 
 home every time he comes here, Janet," Mr. Murray 
 says to his sister before he departs this night. " We 
 must try to keep him straight for her sake, for she's 
 rarely fond of her sister Claire." 
 
 "You're so wise and so good at keeping every man 
 but yourself straight, Robbie," his sister answers tenderly. 
 " It's all your unselfishness, I know well, man. If you 
 haven't a sorrow of your own to drown^ you'll try to 
 drown a fellow-creature's." 
 
A Feminine FooL 291 
 
 '' Don't give us a sermon, Janet," her brother replies, 
 with equal good-nature, "but just order up the lemons; 
 it's the time for whisky toddy." 
 
 "It's like Robbie, to forget that there's anything 
 stronger and wickeder than the lemons in toddy," Mrs. 
 Macpherson whispers to me, as she rings to order in the 
 fierce, smoky liquid, whose fumes presently fill the 
 room and mount to Theo's brain. 
 
 I hardly recognise him as he becomes momentarily 
 more and more truthful under the influence of the most 
 subtle — the only subtle — Gaelic foe we have. He seems 
 to me to be so real and earnest, as he bemoans himself 
 to Mrs. Macpherson, that I can't help believing for a 
 few infatuated minutes that he has a great future before 
 him, if only he will put his shoulder to the wheel. 
 That Mrs. Macpherson, with all her Scotch shrewdness, 
 is of my opinion also is patent to me before this evening 
 closes. 
 
 " The old lady will bleed freely," is Theo's whispered, 
 laughing, farewell speech to me to-night. 
 
 Mrs. Macpherson's sweet, sober, sympathetic utterance 
 is— "All that money can do to make the lad worthy of 
 your sister shall be done, dear. If I could give a 
 daughter to him, I'd be a happy woman this day." 
 
 Not even the widow's sombre dress can do away with 
 the intensely warm and sunny brightness of Lady 
 Torrens. She sparkles up to the door in a little victoria, 
 and as her eyes gleam, and her face flushes with pleasure 
 at sight of me, she looks so bewitchingly womanly and 
 attractive, that for Claire's sake I am glad that Theo is 
 not here to see her. 
 
 " I feared I should have a fight before I got you out 
 of the fastness," she says, as we drive oif, leaving Mr. 
 Murray bowing, hat in hand, on the pavement. " Why 
 didn't you endorse my invitation to Mr. Murray, Tim? 
 He was waiting for his little lady-love to tell him she too 
 would be glad to see him." 
 
 " I'm not that any longer," I say. 
 19—2 
 
292 Slotted Out 
 
 "Not what any longer — not glad to see him, or not 
 his little lady-love ? My dear Tim, don't be foolish ! I 
 had my young lovers too, Tim, in the days when I was 
 free and pretty with the prettiness of freshness and 
 youth, but I married a much older man than Mr. 
 Murray, and I was happy ; for I was safe and cared for, 
 prized and loved. It's the safer plan, dear — marry the 
 lover, not the loved. No woman is a queen to the man 
 she crowns ; we are always * beggar-maids ' to the 
 monarchs whom we ourselves elect to reign over us." 
 
 "It's all come to an end between Mr. Murray and 
 myself," I say, with girlish pomposity; and she draws 
 the whole story from me, and hears that Theo is to the 
 fore again. 
 
 " How specious he is," she says, shaking her head, as 
 I tell her of the way in which he has traded on his 
 loneliness, and created an interest for himself in Mrs. 
 Macpherson's essentially humane nature. " I wish now 
 that I had gone in and been introduced to your High- 
 land dame ; I should have known then to what extent 
 she is likely to become immeshed in his net. That 
 speech about giving him a daughter gladly, if she had 
 one, is suspicious. One never knows what these 
 matured ladies, who begin by playing the maternal 
 part, will be at — and Theo will sell his soul for 
 money." 
 
 " She's much too old and too good ^" I am be- 
 ginning, but she checks. 
 
 " Hush ! Don't word anything you may fear or dis- 
 believe, but trust me. A woman is never too old to 
 make a fool of herself, and very rarely ' too good ' to be 
 driven into a dubious course by a man in whom she has 
 faith. She must be a rabid philanthropist to lay her 
 fortune at his feet the first time she sees him." 
 
 ** How you exaggerate," I protest. " It's her nature 
 to be kind to everything that's in want of kind- 
 ness. She would settle an annuity on a decayed cat, 
 and ^" 
 
 ''Offer a premium for the vice and idleness of a well- 
 
A Feminine Fool. 
 
 293 
 
 bred, good-looking puppy," Lady Torrens says. '^ My 
 dear Tim, I'm not harsh generally in my judgment of 
 my own sex, am I ? but, according to your own showing, 
 Mrs. Macpherson is a fair specimen of the feminine 
 fool." 
 
 " The only side of her that Fve shown to you is her 
 liking for Theo," I can't help saying. 
 

 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 "you are a goose, TIM." 
 
 WEEK slips away rapidly in Lady Torrens' 
 society, and at the expiration of it I am able 
 to report conscientiously to Claire that Theo 
 has not been running into temptation, by 
 seeking to effect an entrance into her ladyship's presence. 
 We ride in the Row every morning, and though a 
 hundred hats are raised to Lady Torrens, not one of 
 them covers the head of Theo Bligh. We drive every 
 afternoon, and still he is not one of the herd of 
 acquaintances who crowd about my bewitching hostess. 
 Whatever he may be doing, it is clear that he is not 
 wasting his time by frequenting haunts of fashion. I 
 hope fervently, and try to believe, that he is at work in 
 earnest at last; and this thought consoles me for his 
 absence, and enables me to be patient, though the 
 burden laid upon me of never even hearing of him, is 
 almost greater than I can bear. 
 
 Meantime I have received the warmest congratula- 
 tions from my father on Mr. Murray and myself having 
 recovered our senses ; and from Sydney Dale I hear 
 that Claire is annoyed about my engagement being 
 broken off, and unhappy about Theo, who rarely writes 
 to her, and leaves her in utter ignorance of his plans 
 and pursuits. Altogether, severely as I struggle to 
 
You are a Goose, Tim!^ 295 
 
 retain a remnant of faith in Theo's honour, his conduct 
 to Claire, and Sydney's comments upon it, compel me 
 to condemn him entirely, and distrust his fidelity to every- 
 thing but his own selfish ends. 
 
 "I mustn't let Mrs. Macpherson think that I'm forgetting 
 her; I'll go and see her this morning, while you're 
 riding,'' I say to Lady Torrens, as we meet in her boudoir 
 for our morning coffee. 
 
 " And you mustn't let Mr. Murray think that you're 
 ungrateful for his having released you so sagaciously," she 
 answers. 
 
 " Ungrateful ! Far from that ; my gratitude, my 
 admiration, my friendship, my sympathy — they are all 
 his." 
 
 " And he would give them all for your love, you funny 
 little thing," she says meditatively ; " and you give your 
 love to Theo, though you've no feeling of gratitude, or 
 friendship, or sympathy for him, I hope. How one-sided 
 and badly designed everything is ! " 
 
 "Don't say I've no friendship for him," I protest. 
 " I'd make any sacrifice I could that would secure his 
 happiness. If I had a fortune I'd make it over to Claire, 
 that she might marry him. Isn't that friendship for 
 him?" 
 
 *'It's transcendental imbecility," Lady Torrens laughed. 
 " My dear Tim, you'll be a much happier woman when 
 you can feel as I do, that the man isn't born yet who can 
 appreciate a woman's sacrifice, or repay her for making 
 it. I wish you could see Theo Bligh as I see him. I 
 wish you could realise that he's about as ignoble a 
 creature as was ever born to be the bane of every woman 
 he meets, from his mother down to the worst feminine 
 toy he ever played with. He's unutterably mean and 
 selfish, Tim ! Forget that glorious young figure and face, 
 and think a Httle of the qualities they clothe. I wonder 
 what sort of a woman his mother was ? " 
 
 "She died when he was a baby," I say in an ex- 
 tenuating tone, as if in that fact were to be found 
 countless excuses for all bis shortcomings : and then I 
 
296 Blotted Out. 
 
 remember the blot on his birth, and pity him more than 
 ever. 
 
 " You are a goose, Tim," she says, shaking her head 
 at me. " I'm getting hopeless about you ; you're such a 
 faithful goose. There's many a love in a life, dear, ^ ere 
 we learn to love wisely and well.' The women who can't 
 forget are more to be pitied, I think, than any other of 
 God's creatures, for they're always sure to remember the 
 wrong man." 
 
 "Inhere can be no harm in remembering the man 
 who's going to marry my sister," I expostulate. " How 
 can one forget a member of one's own family who is 
 always being discussed ? " 
 
 " Don't advance specious arguments," she says gaily \ 
 '^ and take me for your model in one respect, at least. 
 I confess that I was infatuated with Theo Bligh, but 
 when he let me find out how much smaller he was 
 than myself, I cured myself of him as I would of a fever 
 or any other disease. Go home and marry Sydney Dale, 
 if you don't meet with any one you like better who is as 
 well off as Sydney, under my auspices : with health, 
 horses, and wealth, any woman may be happy if she 
 likes." 
 
 She stands before me, glowing with beauty, spirit and 
 satisfaction, a living example of the truth of her words. 
 Why can't I take her for my model ? Why can't I do as 
 she has done, marry for money, and reap the reward of 
 having everything about me that money can procure to 
 make life smooth and pleasant ? 
 
 "I'll try to follow your advice," I say; "I'll try and 
 turn worldly; but just this morning I'll go and be good, 
 and uncalculating, and unselfish, and unworldly in Mrs. 
 Macpherson's company. Her only weakness is humanity: 
 she's a true Sister of Mercy unprofessed." 
 
 " I hope she isn't wasting her time in trying to do 
 good to Theo Bligh," Lady Torrens says contemptu- 
 ously. "She has money, and he has wit enough to 
 get it out of her, if she gives him the opportunity of 
 seeing much of her. Don't look incredulous, Tim. I 
 
^^Vou are a Goose, TM* 297 
 
 read Theo Bligh as easily as I do many another well- 
 bound, well-lettered, perfectly worthless work of fiction." 
 
 " I'll go to Mrs. Macpherson, and take a fresh lesson 
 on the theme, * Greater than all is charity,' " I cry, stop- 
 ping up my ears ; and Lady Torrens shrugs her shapely 
 shoulders, and says — 
 
 " For * charity,' read ' credulity,' where Theo Bligh is 
 the object that excites it. I shouldn't be in the least 
 surprised to hear of him arrayed in the plaid of her clan, 
 and accepted as the heir to her property." 
 
 These words fall almost meaninglessly on my ears at 
 the time they are spoken. I do not attempt either to 
 refute the implication, or to deride it. It is meaning- 
 less, unjust, and above all absurd, I tell myself; and 
 being these things, it is utterly unworthy of generous, 
 sensible, bright Lady Torrens. 
 
 I reach Mrs. Macpherson's lodgings, and find every- 
 thing unaltered — save my dear old friend's manner to me. 
 She greets me kindly, but there is a want of heart and 
 force in her salutation that jars upon and distresses me. 
 The cat, the collie, and the comfort of the room are the 
 same as ever. But a chill has fallen upon Mrs. Mac- 
 pherson, and my spirits sink to a very low ebb in prompt 
 response to the change in her. 
 
 " You're very happy and very gay with Lady Torrens, 
 I suppose, Tim ? " she says. And I tell her truly that I 
 am as happy with Lady Torrens as I can be with any- 
 one j and then my voice falters, and the foolish tears fill 
 my eyes, as I add — 
 
 *^ I get depressing letters from my sister Claire. It's 
 all uncertainty still about Theo Bligh, and Claire isn't a 
 girl to bear uncertainty well." 
 
 *^ She judges him by herself, and has no trust in him, 
 perhaps," she says severely. 
 
 *^Ah, Mrs. Macpherson, that's unfair. Claire has 
 borne more from him and for him than I thought it 
 possible she could have borne from and for any man. 
 He has neglected her, he has kept her in the dark about 
 his doings and plans, and he has professed love for 
 
298 Blotted Out. 
 
 another woman, and tried to hide his engagement to 
 Claire— all this I know." 
 
 I speak steadily, but very, very sadly. It is painful to 
 the last degree to me to be compelled, in justice to my 
 sister, to complain of Theo, and to point out flaws in 
 his conduct. But there is little sympathy for me in 
 either the words or the tone of Mrs. Macpherson's 
 reply. 
 
 " You're ready enough to blame him, but what can 
 you say for your sister's behaviour when he was at death's 
 door, and was watched over and nursed by a woman 
 whose wiles and lures were enough to tempt a saint? 
 Did Claire ever go near him ? Did her anxiety for him 
 even keep her modesty quiet? On the contrary, didn't 
 she make herself conspicuous by riding about with a 
 young man of large property, who, if she had succeeded 
 in catching him, could have put Claire in the position 
 her mercenary soul covets ? While the poor lover was 
 thought to be dying, she angled openly for the rich one, 
 and it was only when he drew back that she remembered 
 that engaged people have certain claims on one another." 
 
 " What a garbled story you must have heard ! " I say 
 indignantly, and Mrs. Macpherson merely shakes her 
 head and smiles, and by so doing goads me into using 
 ill-advised language. " Mrs. Macpherson, do listen to 
 me, and believe me. You have had your judgment 
 warped by Theo himself — no one else could be base 
 enough to find fault with Claire ; no one else could be 
 ingenious enough to twist and distort facts in such a 
 way as to make him seem the aggrieved, and poor Claire 
 the aggressor; and as for Lady Torrens having used 
 wiles and lures to wile him from my sister, she scorns 
 him too much for his fickleness and falsity to take him 
 even if he were free." 
 
 " You can say all this of the lad you professed to love 
 so well that his coldness to you drove you to take the 
 desperate step of promising to marry my brother ? " she 
 answers sternly. " Tim, pray for a better heart and a 
 juster mind towards the poor harrassed boy. He's none 
 
^^ You are a Goose^ Tim,^* 299 
 
 but good words to say of you ! indeed, there's no bitter- 
 ness in the boy towards anyone." 
 
 "No one knows better than I do how winning he is/' 
 I cry eagerly, " but when I hear of his trying to poison 
 your mind against poor Claire, I must try to make you 
 understand how insincere he is, though it hurts me to do 
 it. Why should he influence you against Claire, who 
 loves him so — who is going to be his wife ? " 
 
 "I'm not so sure of that," Mrs. Macpherson says, 
 drawing up her head. "She has written him such a 
 letter as no girl who is going to be a man's wife ought to 
 have brought herself to write. Her pride is in arms 
 evidently, however it may be with her love, and she 
 insults him by casting doubts on his veracity, and 
 threatens him with a rival " 
 
 "And he has been mean enough to show her letter to 
 you ! " I exclaim. 
 
 "He has told me its contents, not shown it. He 
 came to me smarting under her false accusations, with his 
 laith in her shaken, and he poured out his heart to me 
 as he would to " 
 
 " A mother," I suggest, finding that she hesitates for a 
 word. 
 
 "An elder sister," she goes on, waxing rosier and 
 more excited ; and I begin to look at her curiously, and 
 to ask myself if it be possible that the wild, unaccount- 
 able god can have lodged a shaft in the heart that beats 
 within that matured, rotund Httle form. It is too 
 ridiculous, too utterly unreasonable a conjecture to be 
 seriously entertained. And yet what other influence can 
 have been used to have made her wax to receive any 
 impression Theo Bligh desires to make upon her? I 
 am so astounded that I am on the brink of charging her 
 with the folly. Then I call to mind her extreme sagacity 
 in the matter of her brother and myself, and I see her 
 wrinkles and grey hairs, and feel that it would be an un- 
 warrantable insult to her to suggest it. 
 
 " Don't let us talk any more about Claire," I plead. 
 " I can't put the crooked matter straight, and I shall 
 
300 Blotted Out, 
 
 only say things that vex you ; and you've been too good 
 a friend to me for me to care to do that. How's Mr. 
 Murray ? " 
 
 " Well in health, but ill in spirit," she answers, and I 
 feel that I am blushing with remorse. " It's not to do 
 with you, child," she goes on. " He's a strange mixture, 
 is Robert. If you could have been happy with him, he 
 would have loved you very truly, and thought of no 
 other woman while you lived ; but as your heart 
 wandered, why, he just did the wise thing and released 
 you, and will make the best of it. It's a good heart, is 
 Robert's, and it's governed by a sensible head." 
 
 "No one knows that better than I do," I say 
 enthusiastically. " If I had been older or he had been 
 younger, I know I should have been happy with him ; 
 but you yourself thought it unwise and wrong to think 
 of marriage, as there was such a disparity of age, didn't 
 you ? " 
 
 " The difference of age was the least drawback in my 
 opinion," she says emphatically; "it was the want of 
 will on your part and the want of money on both sides 
 that rendered it so unadvisable. A few years more or 
 less on either side are just immaterial." 
 
 I am convinced against my will that there is some 
 solid foundation for the fear I tried to strangle in the 
 birth as too monstrous a thing. Mrs. Macpherson is 
 preparing a line of defence in case she is accused of 
 making a fool of herself. 
 
 The rest of my visit to her this day is a pitiable 
 failure. Mr. Murray comes in, but though he is kind 
 and gentle as ever to me, there is such evident 
 estrangement between him and his sister that his 
 presence does not improve the aspect of affairs. Can 
 this be Theo's work ? Is it necessary for the perfecting 
 of any scheme he may have with regard to Mrs. 
 Macpherson that he should alienate her from her 
 brother? I weary myself with asking these questions, 
 and failing to find answers for them, I begin to distrust 
 and dislike and despise everything and everybody, my- 
 
■^ You are a Goose, TimP 301 
 
 self included. I want to get away from Mrs. Macpher- 
 son, whose common sense has broken down, thereby 
 setting me all adrift in my calculations concerning her, 
 and yet I don't want to face Lady Torrens just yet, with 
 the confession that I have been wanting in foresight 
 and penetration, and that Mrs. Macpherson is verifying 
 the adage that "there's no fool like an old one." 
 Before I can make up my mind to go boldly back and 
 bear the pangs of detection, a pealing knock is followed 
 by a springing footstep and a light-hearted whistle on 
 the stairs, and Theo Bligh comes in with an air of being 
 quite at home, that makes my position a very perplexing 
 one. 
 
 Mr. Murray responds coldly to his greeting, but Theo 
 is far too good an actor to show even that he marks the 
 coldness. The collie wags his well-fringed tail in wel- 
 come, the cat purrs out a sleepy salute as he brushes 
 past her, and Mrs. Macpherson radiates pleasure at sight 
 of him from every square inch of her broad, beaming 
 face. He is a time-server — he is an arch-deceiver and 
 hypocrite — he is a humbug, I can't help feeling and 
 acknowledging, as he bends his animated, Apollo-like 
 young head down towards her, and says — 
 
 "I've been dodging the performing cats about the 
 whole morning ; at last I saw the fellow strike the tabby 
 cat several times with a strap till the poor brute howled, 
 but had to fence again ; then I was down upon him at 
 once with a policeman." 
 
 "Did you succeed in getting the cats from him?" 
 Mrs. Macpherson breaks in eagerly; and Theo de- 
 liberately helps himself to sherry and bitters before he 
 answers — 
 
 " I succeeded in getting the cats, but not in keeping 
 them. I put them into a cab and was driving here with 
 them, but just down by Mudie's there was a crowd and 
 a noise, and the beggars got frightened and bolted 
 through the window. I'd paid a hundred pounds for the 
 pair, too, as you'd made up your mind to redeem them 
 from slavery. You'll never make me your agent again." 
 
302 Blotted Out, 
 
 " May the Lord restore her senses I " Mr. Murray 
 mutters to me, as he gets up and shuffles out of the 
 room ; and, feeling sick, sore, and disgusted, I ask at 
 once for a cab to be sent for. When it comes, much 
 against my desire, and not quite in accordance with Mrs, 
 Macpherson's design, Theo insists on taking me down to 
 it. Rapidly as I walk, he finds time to say — 
 
 '*Tim, don't 'scorn and let me go' in this way. 
 Poverty's a hard task-master. Do you think it's pleasant 
 and congenial to me to go about avenging outraged cats, 
 and pandering to an old woman's mania for mercy? 
 But what can I do? I've no profession; I've no 
 prospects ; ' all the markets overflow,' at any rate I can't 
 supply a single thing that there is any demand for, 
 excepting the flattery and the fooling that all women, old 
 and young alike, crave for." 
 
 " And you supply that flattery and fooling for — 
 what?" I ask. 
 
 *' There's no price fixed yet," he answers, recovering , 
 his gaiety in his old spasmodic manner. " Let me come 
 and see you, Tim. Lady Torrens can't be spiteful 
 enough to want to come between us ; she doesn't know 
 that I have been in love with you." 
 
 He says the last words in a whisper, as he hands me 
 into the cab ; and all I can bring myself to say is — 
 
 *' You are false, Theo ! " 
 
 " Though you fancy that, how true you are to me !" 
 he murmurs tenderly. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 AT THE RINK. 
 
 FIND Lady Torrens ready dressed for the rink 
 
 when I get back, and she follows me into my 
 
 room, nominally to assist and hasten me at my 
 
 toilet, in reality to find out what I have heard 
 
 and suffered at Mrs. Macpherson's. 
 
 " You look positively haggard, Tim. Has Mr. Murray 
 done anything desperate in the way of lemons — and 
 their accompaniments — on account of his disappoint- 
 ment, or does he bear it in such a philosophical way 
 that your vanity is nettled ? No ; it's something nearer 
 to you and harder to bear than either of these. Poor 
 Tim!'' she adds heartily; "it's something fresh and 
 disagreeable about that man on whom you've wasted so 
 much genuine feeling already that I wonder you have 
 any left to expend. Tell me — what is it ? " 
 
 " I wish I knew," I reply ; and then I tell her as 
 nearly as I can recollect all that has taken place. 
 
 She gives an unaffected shudder as I strive to re- 
 produce as vividly as I can his manner to Mrs. 
 Macpherson, and Mrs. Macpherson's manner to him. 
 
 " Oh dear, dear ! Isn't it awful ? What won't men 
 do for * red, red gold ' ? And we have loved that man 
 who turns himself into a cat-catcher for the sake of 
 getting lucre and an old woman's unwholesome regard I 
 
304 Blotted Out, 
 
 That's the bitterest thing of all : we have loved that 
 
 man 1 
 
 " And Claire loves him still," I splutter out. 
 
 " And so do you, you goose ! " she says, taking up my 
 rinking hat and readjusting its band of feathers with un- 
 called-for vigour. " You Uttle moping, infatuated booby! 
 what is the use of my setting myself as a model before 
 you, when you don't even attempt to copy me ? Now, 
 just bind your hair a little more closely about your head, 
 or it will come down and disgrace you if emotion causes 
 you to rink unsteadily. And come away with me, and 
 look and be at your best, and thank Providence that 
 you have no responsibilities of wife and mother upon 
 you, but that you're a free girl still, justified in enjoying 
 the hour to the utmost." 
 
 Her vivacity is infectious, and the costume to which 
 the hat is an accompaniment is becoming. I revive as 
 I look at myself in the glass. I feel somewhat as I did 
 on that day when I borrowed Claire's dress and nearly 
 robbed her of her lover. In spite of my stupid doubts 
 and fears and dejection, I am keenly alive to the fact 
 that I am anything but unattractive in appearance, as I 
 take my place by Lady Torrens in the victoria, and we 
 drive off to a big enclosed space of ground with an 
 asphalt floor, that is sufficiently well supervised to be 
 respectable, and not too select to be amusing. 
 
 Two or three well-authenticated and deadly uninteres- 
 ting British matrons meet us at the entrance, and I am 
 drawn into the skating vortex under the most exceptional 
 auspices. I become meek, awkward, nervous, and 
 demoralised generally the instant I find myself upon the 
 ungovernable rollers ; but after a purposeless plunge or 
 two backwards and forwards, I settle myself into a stolid, 
 upright position, and try to look as if I liked remaining 
 motionless without a motive. 
 
 Lady Torrens has skated off with a swaying, easy grace 
 that I would peril much to emulate, leaving me under the 
 charge of a lady who thinks it a pretty exercise, but who, 
 at the same time, has a dishearteningly good memory for 
 
Af the Rink. 303 
 
 every accident that has happened upon every rink since 
 the roller-skates were first introduced into England. As 
 I stand there helplessly, she tells me of girlish spines and 
 skulls and legs that have been dislocated and fractured 
 and broken in the pursuit of the seductive amusement. 
 And I dare not even totter to a seat and take the rest 
 of the tale of horrors sitting. 
 
 A moderately good band is clanging out a remarkably 
 good waltz, and at least a couple of hundred of my 
 fellow-creatures are swaying rapidly by in time to the 
 music. A hundred more are staggering, stumbling, 
 plodding, and tumbling round, according to their 
 respective degrees of security, on their slippery stand- 
 points. Altogether the scene is bewildering, and I feel 
 giddy, and wish with all my heart that I dared move 
 towards a seat without having the dread alternative 
 before me of prostrating myself on my forehead and 
 front teeth, or of performing a sort of magic measure 
 on the back of my head. 
 
 It occurs presently to my temporary guardian that 
 the skates have not been put upon my feet for the sole 
 purpose of chaining me to one spot, fettered by terror 
 and inability to move. She recalls to her mind that 
 her son is there. She impresses upon me that he is 
 careful, and not given to foolish, fanciful flights upon 
 the *' outside edge '' (whatever that may mean) ; and 
 finally she sends me off with crossed arms under the 
 guidance of a gentleman who undulates about like a 
 willow wand for a few miserable moments, and then 
 suddenly lets me drop with crushing force upon my 
 knees in front of him, while he wildly paws the asphalte 
 floor in vain attempt to recover his equilibrium. 
 
 We are stepped upon, grinned at, kicked, and even- 
 tually shoved upon our legs again; and with a face 
 hot with discomfiture, and a hat knocked off its 
 balance by the shock of the fall, I take my place by 
 his side again, and prepare to let my skates carry me 
 whithersoever their eccentric fancy may lead them. 
 
 ** Don't think about what you're doing, and you'll 
 20 
 
3o6 Plotted Out 
 
 do remarkably well," he says encouragingly. *^That*s 
 right, bend well forward, and strike out boldly.'* 
 
 I obey his directions, and bend so well forward 
 that my figure must resemble a note of interrogation, 
 and strike out so boldly that my feet execute a clat- 
 tering and novel figure entirely on their own account. 
 But my partner in affliction and humiliation props me up 
 this time, and we hobble round the rink without a 
 tumble. 
 
 Breathlessness, deadly fear, and the concentration of 
 my faculties on the one object of keeping my head off the 
 floor and my heels on it, combine to render my efforts to 
 emulate the lissom and supple grace of the adepts in 
 skating fruitless. Thin young girls cut through the air 
 like swallows ; gracious figured women revolve and twirl 
 and bend about with an air of ease and security that makes 
 my attempts to conquer the mere rudiments of rinking 
 seem elephantine. My gallant escort — he has been 
 introduced to me as " Captain " something or other, and 
 I gather from some of his remarks that he is one of the 
 military defenders of my beloved country — has saved 
 himself from downfall by clutching wildly at the wall, and 
 has at the same time suffered me to slip into safety on a 
 seat by his mother. I feel in a bright red glow from- 
 exercise and mortification, and at this very moment Theo 
 Bligh skims past, holding a slender, graceful woman by 
 the hands, and swaying from side to side with her in a 
 way that commands admiring attention from everybody 
 on the rink. 
 
 He lifts his hat in recognition, and before I have time 
 to worry myself much as to whom his new friend may be, 
 he is round with me again, alone this time. 
 
 "You didn't seem to derive that pure and perfect 
 pleasure from your first tour that I should wish you to 
 feel, Tim," he says, holding out his hands to me ; " come 
 with me, you'll think better of it after a turn with me." 
 
 I mutter a brief statement to the lady in whose charge 
 Lady Torrens has left me, relative to Theo's position in 
 our family and fraternal claim upon my obedience, and 
 
A^ the Rink 307 
 
 then I stagger on to my feet, and feel absurdly happy 
 because the exigencies of rinking compel me to cling to 
 him, and rely upon him, and swing along hand in hand 
 with him for a time. 
 
 ** I wish you could have had a back view of your com- 
 panion and yourself as you appeared before my delighted 
 eyes just now," he says, with a cheerful laugh, as he 
 swings me along, utterly regardless of my frantic efforts to 
 fall. " Where did you pick him up ? " 
 
 "I didn't pick him up at all," I say, my feet seeming 
 to slip away yards in front of me, as annoyance causes me 
 to lose the little control I have had over them hitherto ; 
 " he's a friend of Lady Torrens ? " 
 
 " Where did she pick him up ? " he interrupts. 
 
 ** From his mother," I answer curtly. 
 
 ** I see — his mother's the old lady to whom you thought 
 it necessary to explain me just now. Holdup; that's 
 right ! What is he ? " 
 
 ^'A captain in some line regiment," I answer in- 
 differently. I want to question Theo about the pretty 
 woman with whom he has been rinking, but he won't give 
 me the opportunity, 
 
 ^' Really," he laughs, " may I ask what is the affinity 
 between this special branch of the British army and 
 yourself? Is it sentimental or intellectual ? " 
 
 " It's certainly not sentimental," I reply decidedly. 
 
 ** And I'm shot if it's intellectual," he retorts ; and, in 
 spite of everything, I can't help feeling a little pleased 
 that he takes sufficient interest in me to dislike seeing me 
 on terms of the most superficial intimacy with any other 
 man. 
 
 We go along in silence for a few minutes. I know that 
 there is a great deal of bitter-sweetness in being with him 
 in this way, and I dare not endeavour to analyse the 
 feeling. I know that a dozen topics have a common 
 interest for us, but I dare not touch upon one. So I 
 just gather those perishable roses of pleasure, and let 
 myself go on with him for as long as it may be his 
 pleasure to take me, 
 ?o--2 
 
 J 
 
3o8 Blotted Out. 
 
 "Dofyou like it better now, Tim [dear ?*^ he asks 
 presently. 
 
 " Much better ; only directly I begin to think about it, 
 I sliall do something that will exceed in awkwardness 
 every one of my former performances." 
 
 " I hope not ; for, without wishing to flatter you, I 
 must say that you deserve the prize for hopeless 
 incapabihty and awkwardness. There's your friend 
 again, waiting for you. FU drop you with him. I don't 
 question his being a very nice fellow, of course, but how 
 on earth has he fetched you ? " 
 
 •* He hasn't fetched me," I say earnestly. 
 
 " Oh yes, he has ; if he hadn't, your sense of humour 
 would have prevented your making a spectacle of your- 
 self with him. Love is proverbially blind ; but after 
 having liked me, I wonder at your being able to like any 
 one else." 
 
 " 1 never have, and I never shall — in that way," I say, 
 with foolish vehemence. And having received this 
 tribute, Theo feels that he has had enough of me for a 
 time ; so he puts me back into my seat and skates off 
 rapidly with an object — for I see him again in a minute, 
 reeh'ng along in time to the waltz music, with the same 
 pretty woman who had excited a little of my animus and 
 a great deal of my curiosity before. 
 
 " Look at Theo ! " Lady Torrens says, pausing before 
 me. '* There's something fitting in his present occupa- 
 tion and companion. They're gradually effacing that 
 horrible impression I got of him from your report this 
 morning. Why are you not trying to learn to skate ? Get 
 up and come with me." 
 
 "I can't," I protest. "Theo has taken me round 
 several times, and I felt safe with him, I'd rather sit still 
 than try it with any one else." 
 
 " Of course you would, but that is jiust an exhibition of 
 affectionate idiotcy that I don't want you to offer to the 
 world at large, or to him in particular. Tim, though I 
 laugh at you, dear, I would give a great deal to be able 
 to feel and suffer as truly as you do. I've forgotten wlut 
 
At the Riftk. 309 
 
 it IS to be anxious and jealous, despairing or hope- 
 ful " 
 
 " You hadn't forgotten how to be any one of these things 
 that day I rode home with you from Dogberry Gorse," I 
 say quietly ; and she answers frankly — 
 
 " No, I hadn't I was trying hard then to nurse a weak, 
 spurious sentiment into a strong, real feeling. My 
 bantling died soon afterwards, and was buried in the 
 same grave with my belief in Theo's honour. Look at 
 him now, feeling sure as he smiles at us that we are both 
 pining for more of that audacious insolently beautiful 
 presence of his." 
 
 " I don't pine for more of it ; I only want not to care 
 whether I have it or not," I reply, as Lady Torrens goes 
 off, saying — 
 
 ** * Oh ! love for a year, a month, or a day ; 
 But, alas ! for the love that loves alway 1 * " 
 
 "When you're tired of sporting with Amaryllis in the 
 shade, I shall be happy to give you some further school- 
 ing," Theo whispers, coming close to me at once, as Lady 
 Torrens goes off. **What was her sweet ladyship saying 
 about me ? Was she keen on the subject of the pretty 
 woman I was rinking with ? " 
 
 " Not a bit ; she's not keen about anything you do or 
 leave undone." 
 
 "Isn't she, really? Well, Mrs. Macpherson doesn't 
 resemble her in that respect, so, while I think of it, I'll 
 ask you not to mention to her that you've seen me on 
 the rink. She thinks that it's flying in the face of Provi- 
 dence to skate on anything that can't crack away under 
 your feet and leave you to be drowned. I've listened to 
 her precepts and agreed with them. She mightn't like it 
 if she knew that my practice was considerably less 
 rigorous." 
 
 " You like deceiving ; it comes like breathing to you, 
 Theo," I say ; and though I mean what I am saying 
 thoroughly, and loathe the sin of which I am speaking, . 
 
310 ( Blotted Out» 
 
 honestly, I do love the sinner so much the whole time. 
 " Why are you deceiving Mrs. Macpherson ? What do 
 you want of her." 
 
 He has grace enough left to colour and look confused 
 for once in his unembarrassed life, as he answers — 
 
 " She talks of adopting me or something of that sort, 
 and wants me to take her name. She's no children, you 
 see, and no one has any claim on her ; and finding me 
 a poor friendless, fortuneless devil, she seems to think 
 we may as well turn ourselves into a firm." 
 
 " Have you forgotten Claire ? " is all I can say ; and he 
 replies — 
 
 " By Jove, no ! But what is a fellow to do ? Re- 
 membering her won't bring us any nearer each other. 
 It's no use your trying to jog my memory; try and 
 beUeve that I'm a worthless fellow altogether, and let me 
 slip as your friend Lady Torrens does. She would see 
 me break my neck at this moment without losing her 
 balance, yet I've said a good deal more to her than I 
 ever have to you, httle Tim." 
 
 " I do beUeve that you're utterly worthless," I answer ; 
 but I don't go on and tell him the truth, that I can no 
 more forget him than I can forget myself. 
 
 " I don't ask you not to tell Claire anything you may 
 have seen — or suspected," he resumes, as he circles about 
 with me, with safety and celerity, for I abandon myself 
 entirely to his guidance ; " I leave that quite to your 
 discretion. If you think it kinder to your sister to make 
 her savage before there's any definite reason for her being 
 so, tell her by all means ; if you think you'll do more 
 harm than good, maintain a masterly inactivity." 
 
 " I have been doing more harm than good ever since I 
 knew you," I say in a spasm of angry truthfulness. 
 
 And he calmly tells me that he knows it, and that it's 
 very odd, but most of the women he meets do go mad 
 about him without his going very much out of his way to 
 dazzle their senses. 
 
 '' They stick to me, as a rule, just as you do, little 
 woman. Lady Torrens is the only exception to the rule, 
 
At the Rink, 
 
 311 
 
 and IVe known all along about her, that she*s blessed 
 with a plethora of brain and a paucity of heart. Holloa ! 
 there's * God save the Queen.' Time's up, and we must 
 part, Tim ! " 
 
 It sounds so like a final farewell, that in my agony of 
 fear lest it may be so, lest I may never again see my 
 bright bane, I forget Claire's injunctions, and Lady 
 Torrens' aversion to receiving him, and say — 
 
 "Call on me to-morrow afternoon — I must see you 
 once again." 
 
 He raises his hat, and promises me that he will come, 
 and I know that he will keep his promise if nothing 
 pleasanter intervenes. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 CAT AND MOUSE. 
 
 jjURPRISES assail and shatter me on every side 
 the morning after my first experience on the 
 rink. Lady Torrens receives a letter while we 
 are at breakfast, which she reads through twice 
 attentively. When she has finished it she looks at me 
 searchingly, and I say at once, though I can't see a 
 character in it — 
 
 " That's from Theo Bligh ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is ; and if there had ever been a particle 
 of love in his protestations to me — if he had not deceived 
 me from the beginning, deceived numbers of others in 
 the mean time, and were not trying to deceive me again 
 now — that is all I would say. I would never betray the 
 confidence of a man who had given me one spark of 
 real love ; but Theo simply gambles and speculates with 
 affection. See ; he would still prefer riches and me to 
 riches and Mrs. Macpherson — at least, I take it that he 
 would, for he tells me that his engagement with Miss 
 Vincent is broken off by mutual consent, and that he is 
 free now to offer me a hand as indisputably my own as 
 is his heart. The young wretch is amusing ! He thinks 
 I may believe him." 
 
 " And why shouldn't you believe that he loves you ? 
 Any man might do it," I constrain myself to say. I try 
 
Cat and Mouse, 313 
 
 to feel generously towards the charming woman who 
 takes and lets go the liking of the man whom Claire and 
 I cherish, with an easy facility that I would emulate if I 
 could j and she answers — 
 
 "And many men do it, my dear Tim: in that fact 
 there is the real panacea. Now, you see, I'm neither 
 angry nor pleased with Theo for thinking that his latest 
 vows would go down with me. I meet him on his own 
 ground ; I say — 
 
 * Love for a year, a month, or a day ; 
 But, alas ! for the love that loves alway.' " 
 
 " As I do," I sigh out, and Lady Torrens laughs and 
 frowns at me for my impracticable fidelity. 
 
 *^ Broken off with Claire ! " I go on. " He tells you of 
 it as if it were a mere nothing, and it will spoil her life. 
 Even if she gets over it enough to marry anybody else, 
 she'll not care for him, and not take the trouble to do 
 her duty by him " 
 
 " Don't nurse such sick sentimentalism," Lady Torrens 
 interrupts. "Claire is not the girl to let her life be 
 spoilt by him. If he's needful to her happiness she will 
 recall him ; if he is not as essential as you in your mis- 
 placed devotion think he is, she will turn down the page 
 whereon his story is inscribed, and find balm in Gilead. 
 Whatever Claire does, she won't let unhappiness sit upon 
 her and crush her as you do, Tim. You are a generous 
 goose ! In addition to your unhappiness about yourself 
 in relation to him, you are ready to take up your sister's 
 burden before you've ascertained that it is one. Oh dear ! 
 how I wish that I had freshness of feeUng enough left to 
 care to retain anything that is pleasant and agreeable to 
 me without being valuable ! I should accept Theo's 
 shallow offering in that case, and so spare your sister the 
 misery of marrying him." 
 
 " But as it is, you will " 
 
 "As it is, I will answer him according to the dictates of 
 matured experience and common sense — and you shall 
 
314 Blotted Out. 
 
 see my letter," she interrupts ; and with an unconcerned 
 air that I would give worlds to emulate, she sits down to 
 write her refusal to the man who won her heart at one 
 time, and lost it through trifling with her pride. " There 
 it is," she says, handing it to me presently ; and I read : 
 
 "Dear Mr. Bligh, 
 
 " I will not go through the empty form of thank- 
 ing you for the honour you have done me, as, con- 
 scientiously, I do not consider that you have done me 
 any honour at all. A forsworn hand and a perjured 
 heart, would, in my estimation, be a poor exchange for 
 the loss of my liberty and self-respect. I remain truly 
 your friend, 
 
 "Lily Torrens." 
 
 " It's harsh," I say concisely, and I cannot with any- 
 thing like truthfulness bring myself to add that it's 
 unjust. 
 
 She laughs. "Tim," she says, "you're painting a 
 mental picture of the way in which he will receive it. 
 You fancy that he will feel hurt and cast down — that he 
 will be sorry to find that a woman whom he has asked- to 
 be his wife should have such a contemptible opinion of 
 him ; in fact, you picture your idol discomposed at being 
 found out and exposed to himself by a woman. Shall I 
 tell you how I picture him ? " 
 
 I nod assent. 
 
 " I paint him discomfited at the consequences of being 
 found out. If I had gone on being as credulous as — 
 some other women would be about him, he might have 
 secured my fortune and got rid of me at the earliest con- 
 venient opportunity after our marriage. Detection at my 
 hands means failure to him, and failure is what he hates, 
 not moral disgrace. Theo will always laugh off the 
 latter, unless it affects either his position or his fortunes. 
 See him as he is, Tim ; this is the burden of my song to 
 you. Until you succeed in doing this, you'll fancy that 
 he is suffering a variety of things that are quite outside 
 
Cat and Mouse, 3Tg 
 
 his comprehension. Mendacious, vain-glorious egotist 
 that he is, it's beyond him altogether to think or fear that 
 he may sink in the opinion of women like ourselves, 
 whose good opinion is worth having. See him as he is, 
 and ask yourself, is his a portrait that it is worth your 
 while to hang in the gallery of your memory ? " 
 
 She folds and seals her letter as she speaks, and before 
 I have made up my mind what to say in reply, she rings 
 for the servant, and sends it off direct to him. It is a 
 horrible, wholesome dose for him, and she is right, of 
 course, in making him drink it. Still I am glad that, 
 having once loved him, I feel that I would suffer any- 
 thing myself rather than rebuke him as she has done. It 
 is agonising to me to know that another woman has it in 
 her power to inflict a sense of shame upon Theo Bligh. 
 
 " He will probably light the first cigar he smokes after 
 the receipt of it with my note : he won't keep it to show, 
 because it's not flattering to him, you see, Tim ; and as 
 soon as he has puffed away his sense of chagrin he will 
 go to Mrs. Macpherson. Blot him out from this day, 
 Tim ! " 
 
 She speaks earnestly, and I know that she speaks 
 wisely. But, in spite of this knowledge, I merely shake 
 my foolish head in negative and say — 
 
 " He's written in indehble ink, I'm afraid. If I only 
 liked him for good quaUties, I might forget him in time ; 
 but I like him in spite of all his bad qualities, and I'm 
 sure to be continually reminded of them." 
 
 " Yes, you are," Lady Torrens says. ** Unfortunately, 
 he hasn't the exclusive right to the use of the arts of 
 braggadocio and lying. You may match his * inner man ' 
 any day ; it's only the case that is unique." 
 
 I wonder if she is quite as indifferent, quite as scornful 
 of him as she seems to be. If she is, she 
 
 ** Never loved him truly. 
 Love is love for evermore \ " 
 
 and if she never loved him truly, she can never judge him 
 
it 6 Blotted Out, 
 
 justly. So I try to comfort myself, and prop up tny 
 tottering idol on his shaken pedestal still. 
 
 I am a little surprised, when we reach the rink this 
 afternoon, to see Theo giving a great amount of bright, 
 energetic perseverance to the task of surmounting the 
 difficulties of the " double step." I know that he must 
 have received Lady Torrens' letter of rejection, for she 
 sent it by a private messenger ; I know how cutting its 
 terms were ; yet Theo glides up to us, before our skates 
 are fastened on, with the free, happy air of one on whom 
 never so much as the shadow of a shade of disappoint- 
 ment has lowered. 
 
 " May I take you round ? or do you mean to try a turn 
 or two by yourself?'* he asks, doffing his hat to Lady 
 Torrens ; and she answers — 
 
 " I think you had better take Tim. I can rely upon 
 myself on the skates much better than she can." 
 
 As I am thrust upon him, and it is his habit to accept 
 the inevitable gracefully, he takes me without hesitation, 
 and after a minute or two he says — 
 
 "Who has Lady Torrens got hanging about her 
 now?" 
 
 I take him literally, and look round to see if any one is 
 clinging to my friend. 
 
 " I don't mean at this moment," he says, rather cap- 
 tiously ; " but she's not the sort of woman to be off with 
 an old love before she's on with a new. You may as well 
 tell me who's the reigning favourite." 
 
 " I think she's in the happy condition of not caring for 
 any one at all ; certainly she has no preference for any 
 one over another." 
 
 " She's always in that happy condition," he says with a 
 sneer quivering over his handsome, delicately cut lips, 
 " but she likes other people to prefer her, and to make 
 their preference very manifest. She's a bad companion 
 for you, Tim. I wouldn't invest any real feeling in her 
 myself. A thoroughly heartless woman is the very 
 devil." 
 
 " She's not heartless, and if you think her so why did 
 
Cai and Mouse, 317 
 
 you want to marry her this morning?" I say intem- 
 perately. 
 
 " Oh, she's told you that^ has she ? " he says calmly. 
 " I thought that if I could get a rise out of you, that I 
 should rapidly arrive at the truth. My reason for asking 
 her to marry me, as you put it broadly, was a very simple 
 one. She had led me to believe that if I were free from 
 Claire she would marry me ; and Claire having broken 
 with me ^^ 
 
 " She can't have done it ! " I interrupt. 
 
 " I give you my word of honour that she has ; I heard 
 from her last night. Apparently a sudden change has 
 taken place in her sentiments about me, for sTie dismisses 
 me as absolutely and grandly as if I had been hanging on 
 very much against her will all this time. Here, sit down 
 for a minute, Tim, and let me tell you something — shall 
 I?" 
 
 '* You had better not," I stammer, for I am in a tremor 
 soul and body, half of fear and half of joy. 
 
 *' But / w///," he murmurs. " Words can do no harm ; 
 you can forget them if you don't like them — no one will 
 know they've been spoken. You have been the cause of 
 the whole business, Tim. I loved you, and let you go to 
 Brighton, and fancied that I had lost you altogether, and 
 — turned to the others for diversion; that's the whole 
 story." 
 
 Liar that he is, how I love him still ! Inwardly, I am 
 wounded, shaken, smarting and sore j outwardly, I am as 
 much at ease as he is himself. 
 
 " What a pity it is that I can't believe in even that 
 pitiful excuse for your having behaved so badly to my 
 sister ! I might deceive myself into feeling tolerantly to- 
 wards you still, if I could," I say quietly. 
 
 ** Tolerantly ! " He gives a low, satisfied laugh. " If 
 you could only tone yourself down into feeling merely 
 * toleration ' for me, you'd be a considerably happier girl 
 than you are now. What is it about me, I wonder ? 
 Why, Tim, it I were ten thousand times more worthless 
 than I am — which isn't possible — and you knew it, you'd 
 
31 ft JB lotted duL 
 
 love me as devotedly as— you do now, little woman. 
 Come, let us have another turn." 
 
 He rises up and holds his hands out, and I take them 
 and am drawn on by him, though I tell myself that he is 
 bloodthirsty in his passion for conquest over me. For 
 what purpose has he stained his soul with these latest 
 falsehoods ? Why has he striven to shatter the one rock 
 upon which I beHeved myself to be founded, namely, my 
 faith in his having cared for Claire from the first, and only 
 having used me as a blind. Why ? What nonsense it 
 is, though, to question why the cat plays so gracefully 
 with the mouse ! Cat and mouse are cast for their 
 respective parts from their birth, and bound to fulfil 
 them. 
 
 For about three weeks we hear no more of Theo Bligh, 
 and though I call repeatedly on Mrs. Macpherson, I fail 
 to find her at home. Claire writes to me once during 
 these weeks, and begs me, if I love her, never to mention 
 Theo Bligh to her again. *^ He has quite broken down 
 my patience and killed my love," she writes. " I mean 
 to marry some one else, and be very happy, but I won't 
 have his name mentioned to me. Papa is very kind and 
 generous to me; he seems to be quite pleased that two 
 of his daughters are looked upon as rejected and jilted 
 girls." When I read this I know that it is Claire's pride 
 which is bent, not her heart which is broken. 
 
 By mutual consent Lady Torrens and I cease to speak 
 of Theo Bligh, or of that past with which Theo is con- 
 nected. She interests herself heartily in the family of 
 her husband's successor to the title and estates. The 
 daughters of this branch of the Torrens family are not up 
 to the mark of their position, and their pretty widowed 
 cousin is keenly alive to their deficiencies, and genuinely 
 anxious to remedy them. She has them up to stay with 
 her, and introduces them to society, and her own dress- 
 maker and milliner. She makes me ride with them ; and 
 altogether startles them out of a portion of that lethargy 
 which has crept over them in the course of their uneventful, 
 
Cat and Mouse. 319 
 
 monotonous Jives. It comes about that gradually the 
 Misses Torrens make spasmodic confidences to me, and 
 I discover that one of the greatest anxieties which oppress 
 their maiden hearts is the dread that " Cousin Lily " may 
 marry again. 
 
 "Why, of course she will," I say, with such profound 
 conviction that I am impressed by it myself, and I look 
 about keenly for a few days with the design of discovering 
 in which one of the many men who are about her Lady 
 Torrens takes a special interest. And I come to this 
 conclusion, that in her power of enjoyment, in her intense 
 liking for life, beauty, pleasure, variety, and sympathetic 
 companionship, she is as fresh as ever ; but that in love 
 she is played out. 
 
 The echoes of the past are re-awakened rather strongly 
 the day before I go back to Ravensbourne. Mr. Murray 
 calls to say good-bye to me. He has got his appoint- 
 ment, and is off to fill it in a day or two. 
 
 " I was nearly playing the coward's part, and slinking 
 off without seeing you, Tim" he says to me; "but you 
 might have thought, if I had done so, that I was 
 accessory to the deed " 
 
 I see Lady Torrens put her finger to her lips, and he 
 pulls himself up abruptly ; but it is too late. 
 
 " What deed ? " I question breathlessly. 
 
 " My sister has bought that lad, and makes him call 
 himself her husband and * The Macpherson,' " he says 
 sternly ; and I feel as if I would gladly cower into a 
 grave, to avoid the shame of facing a world that knows 
 of Theo's degradation. 
 
^pi 
 
 ■j3^5»-f*H^;. 
 
 :=«**«^- 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE KING OF TERRORS. 
 
 [HREE months have passed since the words of 
 doom were sounded in my ears by Mr. 
 Murray. Three months of expectation, anxiety, 
 hopes, fears, mortifications, and a multiplicity 
 of minor miseries. In spite of these having been our 
 portions respectively, neither Claire nor I are in the 
 least degree emaciated. We have not waxed paler and 
 thinner than is well in ones so young." We go out into 
 society, ride, play, and sing, dress, dine, and dance, as 
 freely as ever we did. And if we don't sleep quite as 
 well, we are not romantically idiotic enough to mention 
 the fact to any one. 
 
 *"Tis an evil lot, and yet 
 Let us make the best of it," 
 
 we declared to each other, when the blow first fell and 
 we had to face it ; and so we have faced it fairly in our 
 different ways. Claire meets every covert attempt that 
 is made to bestow scornful pity upon her with a scorn 
 so much more genuine, that the offenders never repeat 
 the offence. So far from shunning those who knew her 
 story, she seeks every scene in which they are to be 
 
The. King of Terrors. 321 
 
 found, and invariably enlivens that scene. Like the 
 **free and happy barley," she's the *^ queen above them 
 all" — the queen of every social gathering, whether it be 
 a revel on a refined scale, or a humdrum tea-party at 
 Mrs. Poland's. Claire is always to the fore. First in 
 beauty, first in brightness; fascinating every man; forcing 
 every woman to feel friendly towards her because of her 
 kind, spontaneous manner — and apparently utterly for- 
 getting Theo BHgh. 
 
 As for me, barring the beauty and brightness, I am 
 very much what Claire is, and I do very much as Claire 
 does. We both occupy a more prominent position 
 domestically and socially than we have done heretofore, 
 for Aunt Helen has left us, and the onus of inviting and 
 entertaining, of managing and arranging all household 
 matters, is on Claire now, and naturally Claire hands all 
 the drudgery of it over to me. 
 
 Aunt Helen has left us, and left us of her own free 
 will too, after a long interview with papa, which must 
 have been a sufiiciently sad one to both, to satisfy the 
 worst enemies of either. They come back into the 
 room where my sister and myself are after it, and 
 say a few words that have a painful air of being pre- 
 arranged. 
 
 " Your Aunt Helen has resolved upon going away, as 
 you girls are grown up and capable of managing my 
 household," papa says, with a ghastly air of ease that 
 doesn't impose for an instant even upon the twins. *'I 
 regret her determination, naturally, but our selfish 
 interests mustn't stand between her and her higher 
 duties any longer. What do you say, Claire ? " 
 
 " I say nothing," Claire says, lifting her eyes to the 
 faces of the chief actors in the scene in turn ; and then, 
 though I haven't been appealed to, I put in — 
 
 *' And I say Aunt Helen is quite right to go where 
 higher duties take her, and where, perhaps, she will get 
 more love in return for all she does than we have ever 
 been able to give her." And papa begins to whistle, 
 and Claire throws her head up a little, and the twin§ 
 
 21 
 
322 Blotted Old, 
 
 open their eyes and mouths; but Aunt Helen puts a 
 trembling hand on mine for a moment, and says — 
 " Thank you, my dear." 
 
 There is nothing more approaching to a scene after 
 this before her departure. But on the morning she is 
 going away, I am prompted to pay her some unusual 
 trifling attention, and she responds to it curiously. 
 
 "Tim," she whispers, "we old people have our 
 romances as well as you young ones; I'm sentimental 
 enough to wish you to give me a promise that you will 
 be a friend to Theo Bligh, if the day should ever come 
 when he may need your friendship. I know him, and I 
 know that he will tax it — hardly, perhaps. Will you tell 
 me that you'll be good to him ? " 
 
 I tell her " Yes ! " It's all I can say. 
 
 " I am able to give you back a portion of what he 
 owes you, Tim," she whispers, putting a bundle into my 
 hands. " Try and think well of him ; try and remember 
 that if he had had a better mother — one who had loved 
 him too truly ever to scheme for him — he might have 
 been a better man ; try to remember that the sins of the 
 parents are visited upon the children, and that his father 
 and mother wronged him from the beginning, and gave 
 him nothing but poverty and shame for his birthright ; 
 try to remember all that's best about him, Tim, and, if 
 he ever wants your goodness, be good to him." 
 
 It seems to me to be an utterly idle and vain request ; 
 nevertheless, she infuses so much earnestness into her 
 manner of making it, that I am won to reply — 
 
 " I do promise. Aunt Helen ; but it will be the fable 
 of the mouse and the lion over again, if I can ever help 
 Theo — or *The Macpherson,' as we ought to call him 
 now. As for * thinking well of him,' I can't do that, 
 but I shall always love him." 
 
 I say this doggedly, for I am perfectly well aware that 
 though Aunt Helen asks for my suffrages for her 
 favourite now, that she never has and never will give 
 in her cordial adhesion to my love for him. In her 
 
The Ring of Terrors. 3^3 
 
 estimation I am at liberty to serve him and to suffer for 
 him — so is the whole world, as far as that is concerned 
 — but she looks upon my love as a dubious honour 
 thrust upon him. What is it about Theo Bligh which 
 so warps and distorts the judgment of every woman, 
 young and old, who comes within the radius of his 
 personal influence ? 
 
 ** Be good to him, if he ever wants your goodness," 
 she repeats emphatically. ** Other women will be found 
 in any number to flatter him and spoil him, but you be 
 good to him, Tim, You've no beauty to snare him, no 
 vanity to bHnd you into believing that his idle speeches 
 are meant to hold good for more than the hour " 
 
 She pauses suddenly, seeming to think that she has 
 said too much in disparagement of what every true 
 woman prides herself upon possessing, namely, my 
 power of "charming," though I have no beauty. But 
 I literally have no vanity — at least, none that is so near 
 to the surface as to be touched by another woman's half- 
 grateful, half-jealous mention and acceptance of me. 
 
 " I'll never hold them good for more than the minute," 
 I say ; and Aunt Helen relapses into herself, gives my 
 hand a satisfied squeeze, and departs from our midst — 
 who can tell with what feelings for any one of us ? 
 
 I can't help remembering that she has spent a large 
 portion of her life at Ravensbourne. I can't help feel- 
 ing that, however unsympathetic she may have been 
 with us and we may have been with her, at least she has 
 given a full equivalent for all we have endured, in time, 
 trouble, love, and disappointment. I can't help feeling, 
 in fact, that Aunt Helen is a woman, and that, as she 
 has invested a certain amount of feeling in us Vincents, 
 she has assuredly suffered by us. 
 
 A thunderstorm in June is a much more difficult 
 matter to tackle than a thunder-storm in August. I 
 realise this fact one morning when I wake up and find 
 that there is nothing at all the matter with me, but that 
 simply I cannot move. I drawl out a request for tea, 
 and my maid tells me that my tea has gone cold — that I 
 
 21 — 2 
 
324 Blotted Old. 
 
 haven't taken my little bit of roll — that she's afraid it's 
 uj)set me very much. 
 
 "What has upset me?" 
 
 I start up as she speaks, and she gets herself away to 
 the toilet-table, where she fidgets with the inane trifles 
 that adorn it, and worries me. 
 
 *' What has upset me ? " 
 
 I repeat the question so quietly that she is compelled 
 to answer me. 
 
 *^0h, Miss, it's Mr. Dale." 
 
 I subside after this, subside into utter indifference 
 about all things. When I rouse myself at last, I hear 
 somebody say that I have had "a shock." The phrase 
 frightens me back into oblivion again, and for a long, 
 long time, misery lies down with me, and I am conscious 
 of nothing save her presence. 
 
 When I free myself from the soporific part of her 
 embrace, I hear that Sydney Dale wants to see me once 
 more, and they turn away and don't answer me when I 
 ask why he asks me to go to him in that way — I, who 
 would go to him at any time, anywhere, if he desired to 
 see me. And when I say this they none of them speak 
 a word. 
 
 The whole thing is photographed on my brain. I can 
 but reproduce it — crudely and coarsely perhaps, but with 
 cruel fidelity ! 
 
 **Go and see him," Claire says. ^^ Go alone, Tim; 
 the time's past for being conventional — go alone." 
 
 " Why ? " I ask vaguely. 
 
 '^You'll know for certain soon enough — go ! There ! 
 your hat is all safe as far as the elastic goes, and your 
 dear little face is a sweet thing to behold, though you do 
 look very white. I wish I dared to go with you ; I wish 
 I dared to see him now." 
 
 " What is it ? " I ask once more ; and she says — 
 
 " Go to Dalesmeet and hear ; I daren't tell you. 
 Kismet has nearly killed him, they say, but, till you tell 
 me so, 1 won't believe it's true. He's turned from you 
 to me — as they all do — but you wouldn't have given 
 
The King of Terrors, 325 
 
 liim a horse to kill him, would you, Tim ? It catit be 
 true." 
 
 I have been lifted up from my bed and put into a hat and 
 jacket as she speaks, and presently I feel that I am out 
 in the air, and that I am responsible for the grey pony's 
 doings. *^ Shall / drive him, Miss ? " the little stable- 
 boy who accompanies me asks ; and I yield the reins 
 to him, and get numb with some unexplained fear and 
 dread. 
 
 How pretty everything is ! There is a soft moisture 
 in the atmosphere that is not " damp," and that yet puts 
 everything in a gentle, hquefied light that is eminently 
 becoming. How can I think of these trivial things as I 
 drive along through the sweetbriar-bordered hedges 
 where Sydney Dale and I have so often ridden together ? 
 I do think of these and many other trivial things, in 
 spite ' of reason and myself — no, not in spite of myself, 
 for I am weakly inclined to drift whithersoever feeling 
 leads me ; and I have no guide I Fate has made me 
 my own fortune, circumstances have made me counsellor 
 to myself. 
 
 " And I hope you'll find that he's not gone, Miss,*' my 
 little John says, as we pull up at the door of Dalesmeet ; 
 and as I get out of the pony carriage I feel inclined to 
 cling to that stable-boy, I am so utterly wretched. 
 
 Mrs. Tierney meets me at the door, meets me with 
 sighs and heaviness, and I crouch at once under the 
 accumulated forces of family feeling and feminine hysteria. 
 
 *' You must come to him at once, but it'll hurt him 
 awfully to see you," she says, " and it will hurt you more, 
 poor child, to see him. That wild, wicked mare ! " 
 
 *^ How long — you here?" I try vainly to gasp out a 
 coherent question. I want to know something so much, 
 but I am not clear what it is that I want to know, or 
 what words shall frame my meaning. 
 
 ^'I've only arrived this morning," she explains. '^ I 
 got the telegram yesterday and started at once. Oh, the 
 journey I've had, Tim ! so long and hopeless, and to end 
 in this ! " 
 
326 Blotted Old. 
 
 She turns away from me in her bitter grief, and I stand 
 quite still, hardly daring to breathe, in ignorance still of 
 what has really happened, only conscious vaguely that in 
 some way or other / have been the means of bringing 
 destruction upon one who is dear to me, and who has 
 been good to me. 
 
 How long I stand there I don't know — measured by 
 my misery it must be a very long time \ measured by 
 the hands of a clock, probably it is only a few moments. 
 She puts her hand on my arm, and I move on with her 
 into a room that was the very heart of the house while 
 Sydney's mother lived — the room where her children 
 were always sure to find her of a morning ; the room to 
 which they took all their joys and troubles ; the room 
 where Syd and I have played hunt-the-shpper and hide- 
 and-seek a hundred times ; the room wherein he is dying 
 now ! 
 
 I need no introduction. I recognise Death in a 
 moment \ the whole room is filled with his presence ; he 
 permeates everything. I see him in the slanting sun- 
 beams that come straggling in through the closed 
 Venetian blinds ; I see him in the solemn watchfulness 
 of those who stand about a bed ; above all, I see it in 
 the face of the man who is lying here. 
 
 Coward that I am, I can't approach at once and treat 
 him as the real Sydney whom I have loved and relied 
 upon all my life. I dread coming near him ; he, in his 
 powerlessness, is terrible to me ; and in my cowardice I 
 cling to everything I pass — to a chair, to his sister, finally 
 to the side of the bed, in which I bury my face as I fall 
 upon my knees. 
 
 " He wants you to take his hand ; he can't move it to 
 you," the doctor whispers, and there is something so 
 awful in this inability that my soul dies within me. 
 
 " He was the grandest of them all, 
 The manliest in his strength ! " 
 
 Why is he down in this way ? Why is it that the strength, 
 
The King of Terrors. 
 
 327 
 
 and courage, and kindness that have been nnine to rely 
 upon so long are here no longer ? Why can't I feel that 
 this which is stretched at fearful length before me is 
 Sydney Dale? 
 
 I creep nearer and nearer to him in spite of my terror, 
 I realise that he is Syd directly I touch his hand ; and as 
 my quivering lips touch his cheek and try to caress him 
 back into himself, the others stand afar from us, and I 
 am alone with Sydney Dale and the King of Terrors. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIT. 
 
 HE DIES. 
 
 IE opens his eyes as my lips touch his cheek, and 
 they try to smile at me, but the smile struggles 
 vainly against the weakness and suffering which 
 are binding him down. In an ecstasy of love 
 and remorse I clasp my arms about my dear old friend's 
 neck, and mutter,— 
 
 " Oh, Syd, my darling Syd ! " in a paroxysm of 
 impotent pain. 
 
 " Loving little Tim ! " he says, in a hoarse whisper that 
 does not bear the faintest resemblance to the free, strong, 
 ringing accents of manly Sydney Dale. ^' You're going 
 to stay with me to the last, aren't you ? " 
 
 To the last — to the end of his time here, till he goes 
 into the silent land, and we have no further knowledge 
 of him ! Would that I could go into eternity with him, 
 ibr surely he will go where good, true souls dwell ! 
 
 " Let me have more light ! " he gasps, and I see that 
 his vision is darkening fast. But I can't take my clinging 
 arms from round him while there is any life left to cherish 
 in his form. I can't give up the chance of getting one 
 more loving look, one more tender word, before Sydney 
 Dale and I part for ever. So I motion to open the 
 window and to raise the blind, and let in more of the 
 bright, glorious sun, and the free, pure air. 
 
 How silently and motionlessly we sit by him after 
 
He Dies. 329 
 
 this ! We are all so powerless before the grim Destroyer 
 who is overcoming him so rapidly. The death-sweat has 
 broken out on his brow; his breath comes more and 
 more faintly ; Sydney Dale is dying fast. There has 
 been a curse on the intercourse which began so sweetly 
 when we were all little children, for Claire has broken 
 his heart, and the horse I gave him has killed him. 
 
 He makes one more effort, but this time, though the 
 eyes open slowly and turn towards my face, they no 
 longer see me. 
 
 " You're here still, Claire ? " he gasps. " The poor 
 little mare ! it wasn't her fault. Kiss me, Claire ! " 
 
 I press my lips to his as Claire would if she were here 
 and loved him. And so he dies, happy in his delusion 
 at the last, let us hope — happy in the belief that it is 
 Claire who has caught his dying breath, and let him 
 carry her love and kisses with him into the unknown 
 world, as a last remembrance of this one which he is 
 leaving. 
 
 I rouse myself with a start and a shudder to the 
 knowledge that what I am clasping is senseless flesh. It 
 is an awful thought ! I can't think of it by the con- 
 ventional word " clay ; " I can only remember that it is 
 dead flesh and blood which I am holding to my heart — 
 that it does not respond to m}- tender warmth, and that 
 It will never, never move, nor speak, nor be actuated by 
 any feeling whatever again. The thought is awful to me, 
 and in my terror I can't free myself, for I have slipped 
 one arm quite round his neck, and the dear head has 
 become so heavy that it seems to have locked me down, 
 
 **Let me go!'' I cry piteously, abject terror of the 
 " incomprehensible " gaining the mastery over me. *' Syd, 
 it's not you any longer ; let me go ! " 
 
 Scared out of my senses, bewildered, and unstrung, I 
 strive to scramble away, and am restrained by that 
 passive power which it seems sacrilege to oppose ; and 
 all my grief for the loss of him is merged in the passion 
 of fear I feel of the form that was Syd, and that he has 
 gone away and left me in some mysterious way. 
 
33<=> 
 
 Blotted Out. 
 
 They restore me with their commonplaces presently, 
 and I find that I am standing by the window, that a sheet 
 has been thrown over that which lies on the bed, and 
 that the doctor and some of the servants are begging us 
 dear ladies to be calm, and to go away from the sad 
 spectacle. Calm ! I shall never be anything but calm 
 again. I feel I have been shocked, stultified, subdued 
 out of all power of ever experiencing agitation again. 
 
 "You needn't feel fear, poor dear lamb," the nurse 
 says unnecessarily j " he never hurt a living thing while 
 he was here.*' 
 
 I know that quite as well as she can tell me. What 
 shatters me to pieces is that Syd is not here now, and 
 that what has been Syd all my life to me is lying there, 
 under that awful sheet. As I get myself away out of the 
 room at last, I steal back one more look over my 
 shoulder, and the fine linen has settled itself down so 
 closely that every feature is expressed. I leap on with 
 bent head and outstretched hands, and my nervous, 
 flying footsteps are arrested by Claire. 
 
 Her darling face is convulsed with weeping, but I dis- 
 regard even her anguish in my own pain. 
 
 '* I'm too late to see him?" she begins. *^No, I'm 
 not : don't tell me that, Tim : come with me." 
 
 " Where ? " I falter. 
 
 I shrink from telling her ''he is dead." Death is so 
 much more awful to me, now that I have seen it, than I 
 have ever supposed it possible to be before I looked 
 upon it. I would rather go into a lion's den, or a 
 maniac's cell, than into the room where the senseless, 
 powerless form of the man who has been dearer to me than 
 a brother is lying. But Claire is persistent; she must see 
 him again, dead or alive : she will see him. So Mrs. 
 Tierney takes Claire away to the room, from the very 
 recollection of which I shrink appalled. I meanwhile 
 move about aimlessly, and try to think how it was that I 
 could ever have been miserable before this affliction 
 overtook me. He made up so large a portion of our 
 ives here, that it seems that nothing can possibly go on 
 
He Dies, 331 
 
 without him. And it is the mare I loved, the gift / gave 
 him, which has brought this utter desolation upon us. 
 
 The whole story is unrolled to me soon in various 
 terms, with a considerable diversity of style, but with 
 none at all of matter. The cook tells me, and the 
 gardener tells me, and the groom tells me, and the doctor 
 tells me ; and the sum and substance of that which I gain 
 from these different authorities is simply this — that the 
 best rider in our county was thrown by the fidgety little 
 mare Kismet, who took fright at a crash of thunder or a 
 flash of lightning, and dashed herself and her master to 
 pieces in a thick plantation, close by his own home. 
 
 "The mare was found dead," they tell me, "and poor 
 master not much better. He never spoke a word till you 
 came. Miss. It's a hard day for us all — hard on him, 
 poor dear gentleman, to die and leave no son to follow 
 him ; and hard on us all, for we shall never serve a better 
 master." 
 
 So they speak, their selfishness making itself apparent 
 at once, in a way that is essentially human. And I Hsten 
 to them in silence, and look at them curiously, and 
 wonder why Kismet couldn't have executed her grand 
 fatal coup in company with one of them, instead of with the 
 one whose loss has left me bankrupt in hope and friend- 
 ship ; for, though he had transferred his love from me to 
 Claire, I know for a fact that I have lost in him my 
 staunchest, truest, worthiest friend. 
 
 The days pass over, and Sydney is buried ; and papa 
 comes home from the funeral, and from hearing the will 
 read, with tidings that make me so proud and so unhappy. 
 He has left money to me, and from the wording of the 
 will every one who has heard it has gathered that I might 
 have been his wife if I had pleased, and infers that I 
 must have been mad not to have pleased. I don't care 
 for the money — I don't want it, for Aunt Helen has 
 repaid me the two hundred pounds which I lent to Theo, 
 so he will be screened under any circumstances. Still, 
 though I don't want it and don't care for it, I love the 
 proof it affords me of thQ estimation in which Syd held 
 
332 Blotted Out. 
 
 me, though I failed, like a fool, to love him in the right 
 way. 
 
 Claire listens to the tidings very quietly, but somehow 
 or other I can't help feeling that she doesn't quite like 
 them. When papa says — 
 
 "You're the best judge, I suppose, Tim ; but, if I had 
 known that poor fellow ever thought of you in that way, I 
 should have cautioned you to think twice before you said 
 'no' to an offer that any wise woman would have 
 accepted." 
 
 **Tim mistook friendship for love, I think," Claire tries 
 to explain. " He never proposed to you, did he, Tim ? 
 Never asked you right out to marry him ? " 
 
 I recall what he did say at Brighton, and though I 
 know well what he meant, I am justified in assuaging any 
 feeling Claire may have in the matter by assuring her that 
 " he never did ask me right out to marry him.'* 
 
 " I thought not," Claire says, a light frown flitting over 
 her face. " I am sorry that there's anything in the wili 
 to make any one think such nonsense. He had a warm 
 regard for Tim, a true regard, but Tim was not the one 
 poor dear Syd wanted to marry." 
 
 Papa merely lifts his eyebrows and his shoulders a 
 little, and Claire continues to explain. 
 
 " If Syd had lived, I beUeve I should have married 
 him in time. His unselfishness was so winning, and the 
 truth was stamped upon everything that he said ; and I 
 have suffered so much from selfishness and deceit — haven't 
 I, Tim ? " she continues, with the tears bubbling up into 
 her sweet eyes. 
 
 Poor Claire ! She has indeed " suffered," but she does 
 not suffer supinely. The outside world would never guess 
 that she has experienced a single pang on the subject of 
 Theo Bligh's defalcation and dishonour. Much as I 
 admire her for not being supine, for not sitting down and 
 weeping, '^ Woe*s me ! " under her affliction, I still can't 
 blind myself to the fact that, if her vainty had not received 
 a bruise that hurt her more than the love-wound, she 
 could not have portrayed heartlessness quite as effectively 
 
tie Dies. 333 
 
 as she has done. But even to myself I won't blame her, 
 for she has been sinned against deeply by one whom I 
 still love so well, that I seem a traitor to my sister when- 
 ever I think of him. 
 
 "If Theo had only been steadfast, how happy this 
 money might have made you two," I say meditatively to 
 Claire one day; and she answers promptly, as if the 
 subject had presented itself to her mind before — 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; if it had only come to us before, he 
 wouldn't have disgraced himself by a marriage with that 
 dreadful old woman, that philanthropic fool; it would 
 have been only like you to hand it all over to him, or to 
 me for him, and Theo's love would have lasted if it had 
 been strengthened by the thought of ten thousand 
 pounds ; but now, what's the good of it ? It's not making 
 you any the happier. You had as much as you want to 
 spend while you're Tim Vincent before it came, and it's 
 caused Sydney's brother and sister, not to feel annoyed 
 with him exactly, but to think themselves very admirable 
 and magnanimous people for not being annoyed with you. 
 It's not that they want what you've got, Tim — of course 
 their ' dear brother was quite justified in leaving personal 
 property to any one he pleased,' as Mrs. Tierney says ; 
 but they think about it a little, and thinking doesn't 
 make them happier, any more than the money makes you 
 happier." 
 
 " It's a tangled yarn," I say gloomily, for Claire's 
 remarks are about as dispiriting as any that I have ever 
 listened to ; and Claire replies — 
 
 " I was afraid you would say something of the sort. 
 You have acquired the habit from Theo of fitting a line 
 of poetry to the majority of things that are under discus- 
 sion, and some other bore has inoculated you with th^ 
 fatal disease of uttering platitudes about the remainder." 
 I am not in the least nettled at her aspersions on my 
 inteUigence, but I am pained that she should think me 
 false enough to agree with anything like implied dis- 
 paragement of Theo's mental quahties. I have been hard 
 pressed and compelled to surrender all faith in, and all 
 
j34 ^Slotted Out 
 
 hope of, his moral ones. But I will strike one little blow 
 for that brilliant ability of his, which, as much as his 
 superb appearance, is to blame for my abject slavery to 
 him. 
 
 " If Theo had had the saving characteristic of being a 
 bore, he wouldn't have been so fatally pleasant to every 
 one, old and young, whose path he has crossed ; and if 
 he hadn't been so fatally pleasant, he wouldn't have been 
 tempted, by flattery and gold, to the dishonourable things 
 he has done," I say. 
 
 Her eyes flash and her colour rises. 
 
 " I believe you'd be tame enough to make friends with 
 him even now, if he crossed your path with that foolish old 
 woman (who has made herself a laughing-stock) in his 
 train. He has broken you most thoroughly on the wheel 
 of his vanity, and yet you make yourself his champion 
 even to me." 
 
 ^' I have a presentiment that, some day or other, you'll 
 be glad that I've never run him down, Claire," I say ; and 
 Claire shakes her head emphatically, negativing my 
 suggestion, and tries to make me believe that her love for 
 Theo is dead beyond all power of resuscitation. 
 
 It is soon after this that I receive a letter marked 
 *^ Private," in the large, free, well-known handwriting of 
 Theo. The receipt of it embarrasses me cruelly, for every 
 one at the breakfast-table catches sight of the super- 
 scription at once, and marks the " Private," and looks 
 away from me with the laboured air of being intensely 
 indifl'erent, which only people who are intensely interested 
 about anything can assume. Intuition tells me that, for 
 his sake, I had better attend to his careless attempt to 
 secure privacy for the contents of his letter, and at the 
 same time sympathy for Claire teaches me that the mere 
 idea of there being anything clandestine is his correspon- 
 dence with me must be exquisitely painful to her. 
 Conflicting feeling makes me clumsy, and urges me on to 
 the pursuit of a feeble, futile course that is infinitely 
 distressing to myself. I half open the letter ; it is thick 
 
he JDies, 33 S 
 
 and long apparently. Claire still looks away elaborately, 
 but I feel as if she had eyes in the back of her head — eyes 
 that are endowed with the power of inspecting my soul 
 and analysing the motives which influence it. I put the 
 letter down, and pick up a sheet of the Times, and feel 
 fast sinking into a state of idiotcy, when Claire forces a 
 conclusion by saying — 
 
 '' Tim, hadn't you better read that letter and know the 
 worst at once ? It's from Theo, of course we can all see 
 that — and probably he wants some favour from you. 
 Don't be afraid to open it; I will not tempt you to 
 betray him to me." 
 
 '* Poor Tim ! the office of everybody's friend is about 
 the most unpleasant one in the world to fill," papa 
 laughs. 
 
 Then they disperse; Claire sailing out of the room 
 with a debonaire assumption of having nothing at all to 
 do with either Theo or me, which is, to say the least of it, 
 ungrateful, as I am ready to forfeit every chance of 
 happiness which may be left to me in life for the sake of 
 making either of them happy. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 ALL FOR HIM. 
 
 ** Morwell-in-the-Marsh, Essex, 
 
 August 2oth. 
 DEAR TIM, 
 
 *^ My foot is on the Macpherson native 
 heath no longer. You would let soft pity- 
 fill your kind little soul concerning me, if 
 you could only guess what a time I have had of it up 
 there, with the helpmeet whose unnatural selection of me 
 removed me from the Ravensbourne sphere. It's an 
 awful thing to be an old woman's darling, I can tell you, 
 especially if one shares the dubious honours of the 
 situation with every homeless and starving cur that finds 
 its way to her. 
 
 " Seriously, if I committed an error in marrying as I 
 did, I've been punished for it as fully as if it were a 
 crime. Mrs. Macpherson keeps a tight hand on the 
 money, and diligently checks every effort I make to 
 conduct myself like a free agent. In fact, she has, 
 under that genial guise, as grasping and grinding a spirit 
 as was ever parsimoniously trained and perfected. Her 
 attempts to keep me in subjection would be odious and 
 unbearable in a young and pretty woman — in an old and 
 ugly hag they're simply maddening. I have got away 
 down here for a week or two — alone, luckily, but I 
 
All for Him, 337 
 
 shouldn't be surprised at any moment to see her, her 
 wrong?, and her cursed cats, and arrogant old servants 
 arrive. I have heard of the windfall you had when poor 
 Sydney Dale died : if I had been the lucky owner of his 
 wealth, I wouldn't have waited till my death to endow 
 you with it. You can run from your station down to this 
 place in a couple of hours. I wish you would come off 
 quietly one morning and see me. The sight of your 
 dear little face would cheer me up and send me back to 
 my onerous duties better able to fulfil them. The fact is, 
 / must see you, Tim, and I can't venture near Ravens- 
 bourne. Aunt Helen is up at the Highland home ; she 
 and Mrs. Macpherson hate each other cordially. Drop 
 me a line saying what day you're coming, and say nothing 
 to any one about having heard from me. 
 
 " Yours ever truly, 
 
 "Theo Bligh. 
 
 " Address me at the Golden Lion, and as Theo * Mac- 
 pherson,' — I've to pay that tribute to her besotted family 
 pride.'' 
 
 The letter burdens me. He thinks it so easy to 
 deceive, that he has probably never given one considera- 
 tion to the subject of the difficulties which will encompass 
 me about it. I feel about it very much as a murderer must 
 about the best means of disposing of the dead body. 
 I can't put it in the fire, for the weather is warm, and 
 there are no fires in which to put it ; moreover, I don't 
 like to destroy it till I have more thoroughly mastered its 
 contents, and I am afraid, if I tear it up, that I shall 
 forget the address. If I say nothing about it, Claire will 
 conjecture something worse than the reality, perhaps; 
 and if I say something and not everything, they v/ill all 
 suspect that which I keep back of being too bad to bear 
 the light of day. For the remainder of this day I go 
 about with the stamp of guilt on my brow. I take the 
 letter out of my pocket two or three times when I am 
 
 22 
 
.33S ' Blotted Old, 
 
 alone, and begin reading it, and each time I am inter- 
 rupted and startled out of all semblance of self-possession 
 and innocence by some one coming upon me suddenly. 
 I diplomatise more than I ever did in my life before 
 about anything (excepting the two hundred pounds), in 
 order to get a quiet half-hour in some secluded spot in 
 which to write my reply — for it never occurs to me for a 
 moment to disobey him. I drop him the few lines he 
 has asked for, and I fix an early day for my surreptitious 
 trip down to Morwell-in-the-Marsh. Then I fall to 
 plotting and planning how best to deal with that early 
 day when it arrives, and altogether I feel very unhappy 
 and criminal for bearing such a load of deceit about with 
 me in the midst of my innocent family. It is accident 
 in reality, but it has very much the appearance of a 
 design to frustrate my plans, when Claire actually pro- 
 poses " an outing,'^ in a very simple, quiet way for this 
 very day. 
 
 *' Let us take the pony carriage and a luncheon basket, 
 and just go, the two of us, to some pretty place, and 
 spend the day there. It's too glorious a day to waste in 
 the house. Will you do it, Tim ? or have you any other 
 scheme to propose ? " 
 
 I am dyed a guilty red in an instant to the roots of my 
 hair, as I stammer out a lame apology for not falling in 
 with her proposition. 
 
 "How limp you've become about everything lately, 
 
 Tim," she complains. " I've broken the day up in my 
 
 imagination, and it will be quite lost to me ; for I shall 
 
 not know what to do with it, as you won't go with me. 
 
 I What are you going to do ? " 
 
 Her untoward pertinacity as to the pursuits I con- 
 template following this day confuse and lead me into a 
 fearful mesh of falsehood. 
 
 " I hardly know ; I haven't made up my mind ; it^s too 
 hot to do anything very definite," I say hesitatingly. 
 
 " Oh, Tim, how ungracious you've grown ! You have 
 no plans of your own, and yet you won't agree to mine. 
 Tim, you're not like yourself; you're changing. Thig 
 
AUjorRlm. J30 
 
 money that poor dear Syd left you is doing you more 
 harm than good." 
 
 The accusation is awful to me ; but I will let her 
 think me " changed," purse-proud, anything she 
 pleases to day, rather than say anything that may lead 
 her to suspect that Theo is once again weaving a net for 
 my feet. I am conscientious about the majority of 
 things, but when he is in question, though I don't 
 absolutely lose my sense of right and wrong, I muddle 
 them up together and make him my only law. That he 
 needs me now I am convinced. Theo would never take 
 the trouble to write a long letter to me unless he needed 
 me sorely. Therefore I must go to him, though in order 
 to do so I must put Claire out, and make use of endless 
 subterfuges. 
 
 I have found that a train leaves our station for Morwell- 
 in-the-Marsh at twelve o'clock, and that train I must 
 catch. I hear Claire say she is going over to the market- 
 town about seven miles off to shop, at eleven, so she will 
 be out of my way. Unluckily, she chooses to have the 
 pony carriage, and as it would be an unprecedented 
 thing for me to take the brougham out in the morning, 
 and, additionally, as I don't want any of the servants to 
 know that I go to the station, I resolve to ride. There is 
 nothing out of course in my riding away alone for several 
 hours at a time, but this day I feel as if my object were 
 patent to groom, gardener, lodge-keeper, and everyone 
 else who meets me as I ride away from Ravensbourne. 
 
 The necessity for concealment seems to me to be so 
 urgent that I make i detour and reach the station by a 
 circuitous route, and only just in time to put my horse 
 into safe keeping, and take my ticket. ** I shall be back 
 by the five train," I say to the station-master, who has 
 seen me consign Firefly to a porter ; " see that my horse 
 is taken care of, will you ? " 
 
 I spring into a carriage as I speak, and the station- 
 master comes forward with maddening civility, just as 
 the train is off, to assure me that Firefly shall be sent up 
 to the Ravensbourne stables, and fetched for me again 
 
 22 — 2 
 
340 Blotted did, 
 
 at five. Everybody will know everything ! I am per- 
 fectly powerless ! The train runs out of the station, and 
 as we wind our way along, I catch a glimpse of the 
 porter climbing up into my saddle, as a preliminary to 
 taking Firefly back to Ravensbourne and instructing all 
 there whom it may or may not concern as to my very 
 dubious-looking proceedings. How angry papa will be ! 
 How indignant Claire will feel with me ! How thoroughly 
 they will all of them misunderstand me, and how impos- 
 sible it will be for me to explain my real motives ! I 
 form and re-form a hundred stories, and know the whole 
 time that I shall not tell one of them, and that the truth 
 will get itself blurted out to the detriment of Theo. 
 
 I have let Theo know the time of my arrival, and 
 as we run into the little station, which is represented 
 by an uncovered platform and a sad-looking porter, I 
 half expect to see him there waiting for me. But he 
 has not thought it necessary to pay me that attention, 
 and so I take my dreary path from the station to the 
 village alone. 
 
 My progress is a very depressing one. The sun is out 
 strongly by this time j the hedges are cut down so low 
 that there is not any shade to be found, however close I 
 creep to them. I am in my riding gear, and therefore 
 have no parasol. I am painfully conscious of being a 
 very conspicuous object, even here by the unfrequented 
 wayside. How much worse it will be when I go up to 
 the door of the Golden Lion. How distinctly I shall be 
 seen; how derisively I shall be thought about; how 
 desperately foolish I feel for being here at all. 
 
 As I go along, the dismal appropriateness of the name 
 of the village for which I am bound strikes me vividly. 
 The muddy marshes are about me on every side — dull, 
 uninteresting wet lands, intersected here and there by 
 narrow dykes. What can have brought Theo down into 
 this flat, tame country ? It is not a sporting country, 
 and, if it were, the time of year forbids the notion of 
 sport ; it is not a country for sketching ; and I feel sure 
 that there is not so much as a trout stream in the neigh- 
 
All for Him. 34 1 
 
 bourhood. What can have brought Theo here ? His 
 home unhappiness must be of a desperate kind indeed, 
 since it has driven him to such a doleful harbour of 
 refuge as Morwell-in-the Marsh. What can have brought 
 him here ? 
 
 Indications of the village being close to me are on 
 either side of the way, in the shape of a few stray- 
 cottages and one or two houses of rather a better order. 
 Then I seem to come with a sudden jerk upon the church 
 which stands at the roadside end of a large, straggling, 
 unpicturesque yard. The heart of the village is lying 
 open before me ; in fact I am in its only street. 
 
 I pass the village shop, where groceries and draperies 
 contend for empire in the dusty window, and begin to look 
 out anxiously for the Golden Lion. I have just caught 
 sight of him, as I am about to pass the green-barred 
 gateway of an abominably glaring, shadeless, stucco-and- 
 shellwork garden, when my steps are brought to an 
 abrupt standstill by the sight of Theo, and of the cause 
 of his being here. 
 
 There he stands in the chequered shade of a most un- 
 romantic-looking porch, talking to the same pretty, grace- 
 ful-looking woman with whom I saw him skating on the 
 rink. Apparently she is striving to detain him with 
 pretty eager eloquence and graceful animated gestures, 
 and he seems laughingly careless as to whether he goes 
 or stays, for he saunters backwards and forwards with a 
 cigar between his lips, his hands in his pockets, and the 
 well-known well-loved smile of bright indifference on the 
 face that is still so exquisitely dear to me. 
 
 My habited and hatted form must cast a peculiar 
 shadow on the glaring path, for he turns to look at me, 
 and is down by the gate in an instant. 
 
 " Dear Tim, your train is early," he begins at once, 
 "or I should have been there to meet you. I was just 
 going to the station, and now you're upon me and have 
 saved me the trouble. You are a brick, Tim ! " 
 
 He has passed the green barrier and is by my side in 
 the street as he says this. Then I suppose it occurs to 
 
342 Blotted Out 
 
 him that he has left the lady rather unceremoniously, for 
 he opens the gate and runs back to her, and — I do not 
 hear his farewell 
 
 When he comes back to me he has thrown away his 
 cigar, his air of indifference, and a goodly portion of his 
 gaiety. There is almost solemnity in the earnestness 
 with which he says — 
 
 *^ I'm in an awful fix, Tim ; if you hadn't come down 
 here to me to-day, I should have risked everything and 
 presented myself at Ravensbourne. I never wanted a 
 friend so much in my life as I do now, and naturally I 
 thought of you at once. You look fagged, dear." 
 
 No ; I am not fagged. I am not anything but keenly 
 conscious that if this man were good, painstaking, 
 conscientious, not given to acting upon impulse, and 
 endowed with a large share of that prudent, cautious 
 self-control which is wisdom's root, he would not be half 
 as interesting or half as dear to me as he is now that he 
 is his own faulty self. The weight of my own folly in 
 being so lenient to all his shortcomings fatigues me. 
 
 " I am fagged," I say emphatically. " Theo, not even 
 our old friendship justifies you and me in playing such a 
 
 perfidious part to — to " I hesitate, for I am not 
 
 sure to whom we are playing the "perfidious part,'* 
 whether it is to Claire or to his wife. 
 
 So fearfully have my notions as to right and wrong 
 been distorted by my keen appreciation and dread of 
 the difiiculties encompassing the cleft stick in which I 
 have been placed for the last few months, that I am still 
 doubtful as to whether Claire has not the highest claim 
 still on Theo's personal allegiance. What is the real 
 solution of the riddle of his being here with the lady 
 with whom I saw him on the rink ? I am not naturally 
 curious on such matters, but womanly feeling causes me 
 to revolt against Theo's cool and practised deceptions. 
 I long to ask him who and what this woman is. I long 
 to reproach him for the omission of that courtesy 
 towards me to which I, as a gentlewoman, am entitled, 
 which he has shown in allowing me to arrive at the 
 
All for Him, 343 
 
 station unwelcomed, and walk to the vihage unattended 
 (though I am here on his summons), while he is in idle 
 dalliance with this strange lady in a garden that is 
 redolent of bad taste. But though I long to question 
 and to reproach, I know that it will be useless to do 
 either, for he will evade the truth in replying to the 
 question, and laugh light-heartedly at the reproaches. 
 
 " Well, Tim," he says gaily, as I hesitate after launch- 
 ing the words "We are both playing a perfidious part to 
 
 " at him ; *^ well, Tim, before you hurl any more 
 
 anathemas at me, let me ask how you think domestic 
 happiness agrees with me. Am I looking as well as I 
 did in those happy days before Mrs. Macpherson 
 claimed me for her own, when * I was a free and a fetter- 
 less thing,' like the Greek girl's heart ? " 
 
 I look at him ; undeniably he is better looking than 
 ever. He seems to me to have increased in stature, but 
 a second glance shows me that this effect is produced 
 solely by his more erect bearing, and more determined 
 air. He has lost a little of the greyhowidy grace of the 
 boy, and gained in exchange the grander grace of the 
 man who feels that he has a good position in the world, 
 which his personnel well fits him to fill. Still he does not 
 look a bit like a married man, and I can't help giving a 
 moment or two to speculating as to whether that good- 
 looking girl whom he has just left in the garden is aware 
 that he is one or not. 
 
 "Well, Tim," he repeats impatiently, "out with the 
 truth : has age withered or custom tamed me yet ? " 
 
 Before I can answer, he turns in at the door of the 
 Golden Lion, and I am too staggered at finding myself 
 in the parlour of a common inn, in company with Mr. 
 Theo Bligh, to give a cool and critical answer to his 
 question. 
 
 " Where is your wife, and what are you doing here, 
 Theo ? " I ask instead. 
 
 " My wife " (he makes a grimace expressive of the 
 most profound distaste as he mentions her) "is up at 
 her own place — I believe IVe told you that already ; I 
 
344 Blotted Out, 
 
 am here — simply because being here is as good as being 
 anywhere else." 
 
 " You had no motive in coming ? You have no 
 friends?" 
 
 " None," he says, with the consummate coolness of a 
 master in the art of lying. 
 
 " Then was your meeting with that lady with whom I 
 saw you on the rink accidental ? " I say, goaded into 
 something like unseemly persistence in pursuit of know- 
 ledge by the calm way in which he assumes that I am 
 credulous enough to believe everything he says. 
 
 " I'll satisfy your curiosity on that point, and then 
 we'll get on to a more interesting topic — ourselves, 
 namely," he replies. " If it hadn't been for that young 
 lady — she's a fine girl, isn't she? — I should never have 
 heard of Morwell-in-the-Marsh. Some one introduced 
 us on the rink, and she spoke of the place she lived in, 
 and somehow or other succeeded in giving me a favour- 
 able impression of this infernal hole. You see, she's an 
 unsophisticated girl, Tim — attached to the home of her 
 youth, and all that sort of thing " 
 
 " And she asked you here ? " I interrupt. 
 
 " She did nothing of the kind," he answers, flushing 
 up ; *' but when the yoke of Mrs. Macpherson became 
 too heavy the other day, I thought I'd come to the most 
 peaceful spot of which I'd ever heard, partly because it's 
 peaceful, and partly because it's within reach of Ravens- 
 bourne. Does my explanation satisfy you ? " 
 
 « Not a bit." 
 
 **What more do you want to know?" 
 
 " Does she know you — are married ? " I ask. The 
 last two words come laggingly, for as my question first 
 framed itself in my mind it stood thus : ^' Does she 
 know you were engaged to my sister ? " 
 
 " Marriage has never come upon the tapis between 
 us," he says coolly. " Do you find it necessary to 
 explain to every man you meet that you are not 
 married ? Unless you do, I don't think you ought 
 to call me to account for not proclaiming to every 
 
All for Hint. 34S 
 
 tjasual acquaintance I meet the unpleasant fact that 
 I am.'' 
 
 " Then she doesn't know it ? " I urge. 
 
 " Certainly not," he laughs ; " why should she ? My 
 object is to promote the greater happiness of the greater 
 number at the cost of the least trouble to myself. Now, 
 I don't think it would make Miss Ashton a bit happier 
 to know that I'm married, and the mention of the fact 
 would involve me in a long-winded explanation ; accord- 
 ingly, I obey the golden rule of silence. Are you 
 satisfied now?" 
 
 " Why did you send for me ? " I ask. 
 
 "Because I want your help, Tim, and you have 
 promised that, whenever I want it, I shall have it. 
 What made you come in your habit ? You're so awfully 
 conspicuous, all the village will be talking about you, and 
 asking who you are, and why you came." 
 
 "All the village will be talking?" I repeat, with con- 
 temptuous emphasis. " Really, Theo, if the village and 
 its possible opinion and probable impertinence are of 
 more importance to you than my presence here, it's a 
 pity you sent for me, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I can't answer that question till the close of your 
 visit," he says, with that invincible good-humour which 
 closes all argument, and leaves the aggressed in the 
 position of the aggressor. *^ Time's slipping on too; 
 shall I offer you some luncheon before I bother you 
 about my business ? " 
 
 His hand is on the bell to ring and order it, but I 
 stop him. Food would choke me at this juncture. 
 
 "No, thank you, I'm not hungry. Tell me your 
 business." I try to speak coldly, but cold accents have 
 about as much effect on him as chilled shot has on the 
 impenetrable side of a man-of-war. 
 
 " * Drink, pretty creature, drink,' then," he says, offer- 
 ing me a glass of sherry. " No ? Well, it would make 
 yoii ill, probably, for it's sweet and hot, and we don't 
 value those qualities in our sherry as a rule. To come 
 straight to the point, Tim, as the time is short — I 
 
34^ Blotted Ouii 
 
 want money awfully, and I know you'll let me have 
 it." 
 
 " How much ? " I ask timidly \ for, to tell the truth, it 
 occurs to me that Theo may fancy the whole sum, and 
 in that case, though I shall be scouted for my folly by 
 my family and society, I shall probably let him have it* 
 
 He pauses for an instant and then says — 
 
 ** Let's see. There's the two hundred I owe you 
 already; let me have eight hundred more-— that will 
 make it a cool thousand " 
 
 ^* Aunt Helen paid me back the two hundred,'' I say 
 eagerly. 
 
 ** Did she ? Bless her ! " he says, with something 
 really like an approach to gratitude and warmth. 
 *'Then lend me a thousand straight out, Tim, will you, 
 dear ? You can get at it without going to your father, 
 can't you ? " 
 
 I nod assent. I am too glad, too ready to serve him, 
 but my heart is too full to speak. 
 
 " I can never thank you enough, never repay you for 
 the kindness, Tim," he goes on. ** It was my right to 
 have had it from that horrible old woman I've married ; 
 but she wants to buy my presence, and a show of what 
 she calls decent affection and respect, with her coin. By 
 the way, Tim, I can't help feeling that you let me in for 
 that business ; your letters were filled with hysterical 
 tributes to her generosity and readiness to part with her 
 money to any deserving object, and I thought it a pity 
 that it should be frittered away upon a number of little 
 cais and dogs, when such a deserving object as myself 
 needed it." 
 
 "I think I would rather have seen you dead than 
 married as you are," I say indignantly ; *^ don't accuse me 
 of having had any hand in such an iniquitous union." 
 
 " As I had to remark to you on a former occasion, 
 cease, rude Boreas," he laughs. " And now — excuse the 
 apparent rudeness, but I must remind you .that you 
 ought to be getting back to the station. I'll walk with 
 you." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 DO I DESERVE IT? 
 
 [N order that I may catch my train and reach 
 Ravensbourne at something like a respectable 
 time, we are obliged to walk fast ; but, urgent 
 as is the need for haste, Theo finds time to run 
 in for a minute to speak to Miss Ashton, who apparently 
 spends her life in the garden, for she is sauntering about 
 its glaring little gravel walks now as we pass. 
 
 " Who is Miss Ashton ? " I ask, when he rejoins me. 
 
 ^* Rather a nice girl as that class of country girls go," 
 he replies carelessly. " Her father is a rich retired trades- 
 man here. She's good looking, isn't she ? " 
 
 I concede the fact, but not very heartily. Miss 
 Ashton's good looks are not of an order that appeal to 
 me. I grant that she is tall, Hthe, well-formed, and that 
 no fault can be found with her features. But there is no 
 mobility in her face, and the only expression 1 have seen 
 in her eyes is one of leering interest in Theo Bligh. 
 How Theo, who has loved Claire and been fascinated by 
 graceful Lady Torrens, who satisfies a man's head as well 
 as his heart, can be even temporarily in subjection to the 
 soulless charms of this uninteresting piece of mere animal 
 beauty is perplexing to me. 
 
 " She has a handsome head," he goes on, utterly re- 
 gardless of the depreciation of Miss Ashton which is 
 
348 Blotted Out 
 
 conveyed in my tone ; " a very good-looking head, indeed. 
 Not much in it, you know." 
 
 *' Why discuss her," I ask. 
 
 "Why? Well, for this reason — she's the most in- 
 teresting object Fve seen by the wayside as we have 
 come along ; and she's awfully fond of me ? " 
 
 I am awfully fond of him myself — perilously, idiotically, 
 hopelessly fond of him ; but a strong sense of the iniquity 
 on Miss Ashton's part of loving a married man sets in 
 upon me as he speaks. 
 
 " Has she been disgracefully imprudent enough to tell 
 you so ? " I ask. 
 
 " ' Pray, goody, please to moderate the rancour of your 
 tongue.' My dear Tim, why should you want to 
 monopolise the privilege? She's fond of me, so are you \ 
 so are a number of other women. There's no harm in it, 
 and it makes things pleasant for me." 
 
 " But you're married," I protest. 
 
 " So are several of the other women — that squares it, 
 doesn't it ? " he says blithely. " I say, Tim, we're in very 
 good time for the train — settle that matter for me as soon 
 as you can, and say nothing about it, will you ? " 
 
 Of course I say '' Yes " to both his requests, and he 
 proceeds to make the matter of helping him easy to 
 me. 
 
 " I won't bother you to come over here again, Tim ; 
 our seeing one another without the saving knowledge that 
 the restraining eye of Mrs. Macpherson is upon us might 
 be bad for us, mightn't it? Dear little Tim, you're just 
 as good as a sister; who's your man of business ?" 
 
 I tell him, " The same as was Sydney Dale's." 
 
 " That's all right," he says encouragingly. " He and 
 your father are not on the best terms, I found, when I 
 was staying with poor Syd Dale. Just write to him to- 
 night, Tim, and put it strongly. Make the cheque 
 payable to yourself, not to me — I wouldn't compromise 
 you tor the world, dear ; and people might talk if it were 
 known that you were lending me such a sum of money. 
 It's entirely for your sake that I speak." 
 
.T)o t Deserve It i g45 
 
 I am nearly struck dumb by this mark of his con- 
 sideration, still I manage to say — 
 
 " Thanks, Theo, but let them talk." I restrain myself 
 from adding, " No one can think me a greater fool than I 
 think myself." 
 
 ** Here comes your train," he says, as carelessly as if we 
 were sure to meet again soon, and as if it were no ordinary 
 errand that had brought me over. " I wish you had not 
 come in riding gear; it's bad form for a girl in your 
 position to be going about in this way. You're not a 
 Miss Ashton, remember." 
 
 *' You say that to teach me to feel that you recognise 
 the difference in our position, and yet you treat her as a 
 friend — you put her on the platform of equahty with 
 yourself ! You men are coarse — some of you ! " I exclaim. 
 
 " Now, don't go off in that way," he says, as the train 
 puffs up and I bounce into the carriage. "I'm down 
 here on business, and I meet a girl I've met before, and 
 I'm civil to her. Why shouldn't I be civil to her ? Give 
 me your hand. Good-bye ; how's Claire ? " 
 
 With the last words the best Theo shows himself. 
 Real feeling flushes his face. I take back this scrap of 
 consolation with me : his professed love for Claire was not 
 a lie. 
 
 I need all the consolation I can scrape together as the 
 train btars me swiftly along to home and confusion. 
 How shall I account for myself if I am questioned ? 
 How shall I deport myself under their observation if I am 
 not questioned ? How shall I clear myself if it all comes 
 out, without involving Theo ? I ask myself these riddles 
 over and over again, and as I run on in the train I can't 
 read them. 
 
 The home station at last ! I nerve myself to bear the 
 worst, spring out on the platform, meaning to call for 
 Firefly and gallop home without giving myself a moment 
 for further thought, and there stands papa. 
 
 ^' I've brought the brougham up for you, Tim," he says 
 quietly; "I thought you'd find it pleasanter than riding 
 home/' 
 
3gO dotted duL 
 
 So I step into the brougham, feeling that my character 
 is restored in the eyes of all the station-people, who must 
 have wondered at my going off in such a dubious and un- 
 conventional way in the morning, but feeling much more 
 keenly that I am afraid to be alone with papa. 
 
 Despair makes me very desperate. As he seats him- 
 self by my side, I turn round and meet his eyes. 
 
 *' Papa, tell me the worst you think about my going off 
 in such a funny way ; tell me at once." 
 
 " That your heart has misled your head, Tim," he says 
 quite cheerily ; ** that some nature far less noble than your 
 own is influencing you, against your better judgment, 
 through your affection. I suppose it's that scamp Bligh, 
 is it?" 
 
 " I have seen Theo," I say quietly, though my lips 
 grow stiff. 
 
 " Is his wife dead or dying ? Is he trying to sound you 
 about Claire ? " papa questions savagely. " He shall 
 never have her, if he crawls from his house of shame up 
 
 in the Highlands to Ravensbourne on his knees '* 
 
 " His wife is quite well, and he only mentioned Claire 
 to ask how she was," I cry out eagerly. " Papa, don't be 
 too hard on him. He has sinned and he is suffering ; he 
 wanted to hear about us all ; he knew I was the only one 
 foolish enough to go to him, and so he sent for me." 
 *' Is he staying anywhere near here with his wife ? " 
 
 " No, he is alone — on business at a place in He 
 
 said I wasn't to tell you where, though." 
 
 *^ Business ! " papa repeats sneeringly. " He's deluded 
 you with that idea, has he ? Well, don't go again, Tim ; 
 that's all I have to say now." And as he says it we reach 
 Ravensbourne, and I breathe freely under the conviction 
 that papa hasn't the faintest notion of the real reason of 
 Theo's desire to see me. 
 
 But Claire has to be met still, and Claire is a woman 
 who knows Theo as well as I do myself. She spares me 
 during dinner, for we have several guests this evening, 
 and one of them, Cuthbert Dale, is much favoured by 
 my father as an aspirant to the hand of Claire. But when 
 
Lot Deserve It 1 ^gt 
 
 we are sauntering about in the moonlight on the lawn, 
 knocking about the croquet balls^ she says — 
 
 *' Did you enjoy your trip to day, Tim ? " 
 
 I can answer this question truthfully, at any rate : I 
 say ** No " emphatically. 
 
 She comes and links her arm within mine, and leads 
 me off from the others. 
 
 *' Poor dear Tim ! " she says softly. " What a victim 
 you are ! I won^t ask to whom you went or why you 
 went, dear ; I seem to know all about it without asking. 
 I'll only say one thing : is he in trouble ? " 
 
 " His marriage naturally makes him wretched," I say 
 extenuatingly. 
 
 ** Don't you believe it, Tim; nothing makes Theo 
 wretched but want of money, and surely he has plenty 
 of that now ? " 
 
 " How can I tell you about his private affairs ? " I say 
 evasively. **He seems wretched — well, not that exactly, 
 but reckless and regardless of consequences ; and being 
 these things, he must be wretched." 
 
 Claire laughs. 
 
 ** That's your reasoning, is it? Why, Tim, he was 
 reckless and regardless of consequences when he made 
 love to you and me at the same time, but I don't think 
 he was a bit * wretched \ ' he leaves all the wretchedness 
 to be done for him by his friends. I am glad I'm past 
 that phase ; I can never feel anything about him again. 
 But I'm glad that he only wanted to see you to-day to 
 throw a halo of romance over his position. I was afraid 
 he wanted to regain a friendly footing at Ravensbourne, 
 and while I am mistress he shall not come here." 
 
 I repeat her sentence : " While you are mistress ? " 
 
 "Yes. It may not be for long; I haven't the art of 
 wearing the willow gracefully. Cuthbert Dale isn't qicite 
 as dear a fellow as poor Syd was, but he reminds me of 
 Syd, and it's good to be reminded of something honest, 
 and manly, and true. It will end in my going to Dales- 
 meet — if he's pertinacious enough." 
 
 I look at my sister and admire her for her sense. 
 
3 5 (J Blotted Out 
 
 After all, why should she waste her life on an idea, and 
 that idea so untrustworthy a one as Theo — especially 
 now that Theo is a married man, and to think of him is 
 sin, and shame, and social degradation? I respect 
 Claire for her resolution, but I know I couldn't follow 
 her example. 
 
 She is not put to the test yet awhile. Cuthbert Dale 
 is a young man who acts with the greatest deliberation ; 
 and though he pursues his suit steadily, he is in no haste 
 to proffer it. He evidently desires to be sure of his 
 ground — to be more certain than he is at present of 
 Claire being genuine. She leads him on, and flatters 
 him so prettily, that I wonder how he can withstand the 
 temptation to claim her " for his Queen of Love " before 
 all the world. But perhaps he knows something of his 
 brother's story, and may fear that she is fooling him too. 
 
 The little business matter between Theo and myself 
 has been settled very satisfactorily and privately as far 
 as the transfer of the money to him is concerned, and he 
 has even begun to pay me heavy interest for it — which is 
 too noble of him, I think, as not a word had been said 
 about interest when the loan was made. I receive 
 business letters from his lawyers regularly, but from him- 
 self I hear nothing, and I begin once more to think of 
 him as one who has passed out of my life for ever. 
 
 After all, there is a great deal of happiness in my life. 
 The twins are both fully and fairly engaged to gentlemen 
 who need not be more exhaustively described here than 
 as most " excellent matches, and admirable young men." 
 One is a wealthy rector \ the other, the equally wealthy 
 squire of his parish. They have hunted in couples ever 
 since their boyhood, and now they come courting 
 together, and agree to be united in holy wedlock on the 
 same day; and I believe it would be perfectly immaterial 
 to either of them which of the twins he married. 
 Altogether domestic happiness reigns supreme at Ravens- 
 bourne, and it is not in my nature to be antagonistic to 
 an order of things which makes other people so perfectly 
 happy. 
 
!bo I Deserve It? 353 
 
 I am getting well accustomed to the discipline of rising 
 up each morning and not expecting the day to bring 
 forth anything specially pleasant to me, when I am upset 
 again by a request from Mrs. Macpherson that I will go 
 up and stay with her in her own house, amidst the pine- 
 trees and strong blasts which surround and sweep about 
 the hold of the Macpherson. 
 
 " You are the only person I can think of who can give 
 me comfort. I am a fooHsh and unhappy woman, and I 
 care not to be alone, and dare not have anyone but you 
 here," she writes. 
 
 Am I worthy of her trust ? Do I deserve it ? 
 
 ^3 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 CAIRNHOLME. 
 
 fHE journey has been a trying one to me, both 
 physically and mentally. It is a long one, and 
 I am not quite as strong as of old, and it has 
 been a harrowing one, for its solitariness has 
 enabled me to have a long and undisturbed interview 
 with recollection. But now, after a three hours' drive 
 through wild, grand mountain scenery, I arrive at Cairn- 
 holme, the Highland home of the Macphersons — the 
 house of which Theo Bligh is master by right of his 
 marriage with its mistress. 
 
 Everything has been vividly impressed upon me from 
 the moment of my feeling that I have entered the Mac- 
 pherson border. The same grim old man-servant who 
 was with her in London has been sent with the coach to 
 meet me, and at a certain point he gets down from his 
 seat by the coachman, looks in at the window, and tells 
 me, as if it were part of the programme, that *' we've 
 now come on our leddie's land." I look out, eagerly, 
 curiously — for her property is Theo's — and I see vast 
 heath-covered tracts, dotted with sturdy cattle and 
 brightened by groups of clean-looking sheep, stretching 
 away on every side. All is Theo's, by right of his 
 marriage with the lady of the land. How I hate this bit 
 of hardy Scotland, as this view of it first dawns upon me. 
 The road winds away into a dell at last, shows signs of 
 
Cairn holme, 3^5 
 
 culture, and presently is barred by a gate before it passes 
 along between two thickly grown rows of pines. Sheeny 
 silver firs, ladylike larches, and rowan berries mix them- 
 selves up together, and form a lovely late summer 
 picture; and suddenly we emerge from the shade of the 
 trees, and pull up in front of a big porch, under the eaves 
 of which I see standing Mrs. Macpherson, Aunt Helen, 
 and Laird. 
 
 I feel that my face is covered with blushes, as I spring 
 out to meet the dear old friend who has done herself and 
 my judgment of her the wrong by marrying Theo Bligh 
 in her old age. She is not the bright, rosy-faced, elderly 
 woman who met me, some months ago, at the London 
 terminus any longer. The smiles no longer shed them- 
 selves sunnily over her lips, nor does tender solicitude 
 beam any more from h*er watchful, observant eyes. She 
 looks like a disappointed, humiliated woman, as she 
 welcomes me and presses me to her heart. But still 
 there is a little air of pride in her manner, as she turns 
 to lead me into the house, and notices the glance of un- 
 disguised, honest admiration which I bestow on the novel 
 scene. 
 
 Cairnholme is only a two-storeyed house, and from its 
 exterior I had not been led to expect such a hall as this 
 in which we pause. It is pannelled with pinewood, and 
 its grained roof runs the whole height of the building. 
 The floor is covered with rugs and skins of all kinds ; the 
 corners are fitted up with stuffed stags, antlers, and other 
 trophies of the chase. Mild as the weather is down with 
 us in the south, a chill has come into the mountain air, 
 but this is set at defiance by the huge wood fires that are 
 burning on dogs at either end of the hall. Near one of 
 these fires a large round table, covered with a snowy 
 cloth, stands spread with every description of grain and 
 confectionery dainty that is admissable at afternoon tea. 
 As on a former occasion, Mrs. Burnie, the sedate waiting- 
 woman, comes to relieve me of my travelling wraps, and 
 Nannie, the comfortable cat, purrs a welcome to me from 
 the depths of a fat chair. But, unhappy as I was on that 
 2 3 — 2 
 
356 Blotted Out, 
 
 former occnsion, I can't help feeling still more unhappy 
 now, as I reflect that Theo is master here, and my host ; 
 that Aunt Helen is present to watch me : and that Mrs. 
 Macpherson is sad, sorry, and pitiably conscious of the 
 fall she has had in my estimation. 
 
 I make a great struggle to be natural and at my ease. 
 I discourse as volubly as I can to Aunt Helen concerning 
 Ravensbourne and the march of events there, and try to 
 mention as if it were a matter of no moment to anybody 
 that I think "it will be a match between Claire and 
 Cuthbert Dale." I also speak of the great friendship 
 which now exists between Lady Torrens and ourselves, 
 and at the mention of this latter circumstance, I cannot 
 be blind to the fact that Aunt Helen pricks up her ears, 
 and hoists a little signal of interest in her cheeks, in the 
 guise of a blush. 
 
 At length I nerve myself to say, "How is your 
 husband ? " 
 
 It's an awful thing to ask — it's an even more awful 
 thing for me to mention him thus — but I must not call 
 him Theo, and I caTUt call him Mr. Macpherson. It 
 seems to me that it will be wording the price of sin to 
 give him this latter designation. So, though it makes 
 my tongue ache to call him what he is, Mrs. Macpherson's 
 husband, I brave the pain and do it. 
 
 " He's out on the hills schooling a young horse," Aunt 
 Helen replies, as Mrs. Macpherson looks aside with 
 tearful eyes and quivering lips. " There's not much to 
 keep a young man at home ; I mean there's not much to 
 amuse him in an out-of-the way place like this, you see, 
 Tim. I tell Mrs. Macpherson she'd be wise to give up 
 the grandeur, and go to some place where Theo would 
 be able to get work to employ his time." 
 
 The words are dropped out lethargically from Aunt 
 Helen's lips, but I detect, for all their monotonous 
 cadence, a malicious ring in them. She loves Theo, and 
 is glad that he is wealthy, but — she cannot be lenient to 
 Mrs. Macpherson for having been the means of giving it 
 to him in such a way. 
 
Cairnholme, 357 
 
 We sit sipping our tea for a few minutes, talking 
 awkwardly and dispiritedly, until at last, happily for me, 
 the thought strikes Mrs. Macpherson that I may like to 
 see " some of the rooms." As soon as we are in the 
 spacious, airily furnished, and most comfortable-looking 
 drawing-room, away from Aunt Helen, the barrier of 
 reserve breaks down, and my hostess shows me herself 
 in her own honest, true colours. 
 
 "I am a wretched woman this day, Tim," she says, 
 " and all through having been such a foolish one that I 
 deserve no pity. IVe only one comfort, my dear, and 
 that is that I have saved some better woman than myself 
 from a miserable fate, by marrying a man who hasn't it in 
 him to be grateful, and who loves himself better than all 
 the rest of the world put together." 
 
 " I am sorry you're unhappy," I say, as gently as I 
 can j and then I think of Theo's wicked charm, and 
 wonder how she can have dared to marry him. 
 
 '* It's all deserved, all deserved," she says hastily ; " he 
 is young and I am old, my child, and the wickedness and 
 the folly of it are greater than it was when 'twas the other 
 way with you and Robbie. I saw all the wrong and 
 foolishness then clearly enough, didn't I ? and I saved 
 yoie- from a fate that would have been as hard for you to 
 bear as he finds his with me." 
 
 There is no anger, only pain and sorrow, in her voice 
 as she speaks of her young, faulty husband. I am 
 touched by her forbearance, in spite of my contempt for 
 her infatuation and my indignation at the result which it 
 has brought about, and so I say, — 
 
 " A man can't be as unhappy as a woman under such 
 circumstances ; he has his liberty, and all sorts of 
 resources that are denied to women." 
 
 She looks at me sharply. 
 
 " All sorts of resources ? " she repeats. " That's what 
 his Aunt Helen, as he calls her, declares I deny to him. 
 I offer him the mastership of the house, and the manage- 
 ment of the property — they're offices that Scottish gentle- 
 men have filled with pride; but he just shrugs his shoulders 
 
358 Blotted Out. 
 
 and goes off with that laugh of his without a word, and 
 I know that all the interest he takes in the place that is 
 so dear to me is the money he gets from it to spend on 
 his own pleasure away from it." 
 
 She pauses, and I remember Morwell-in-the-Marsh, his 
 flirtation by the wayside with Miss Ashton, and have no 
 words at command wherewith to answer her. We are 
 standing at one of the windows that open down to the 
 floor as she speaks, looking away down a long vista of 
 loveliness into the very heart of the dell, and I cannot 
 wonder at her resenting his indifl"erence to a place that 
 so abounds in beauty. It is but natural that she should 
 forget that she, in her age and lack of all comehness, 
 blurs the fairest aspect of the place in his eyes. It is 
 but natural that she should feel hurt and aggrieved that 
 the man whom she has made lord and master over a 
 place that has never owned any other than genuine, 
 legitimate Macpherson sway before, should show himself 
 to be arrogantly indifferent to the honour. It is but 
 natural that she should feel these things about him, but 
 even as I acknowledge this truth to myself, I look at my 
 poor old friend, and feel that Theo's conduct is natural 
 too. 
 
 " He was always restless," I say rather timidly ; for I 
 am afraid to offer an apology of the faintest kind for 
 him, in case she may think that I am taking sides against 
 her, his legal wife. 
 
 " And he's grown more so since his Aunt Helen came 
 to us,'' Mrs. Macpherson goes on. " He makes her the 
 excuse for leaving his home and me more than ever. I 
 have Aunt Helen for a companion, he tells me. And 
 she tells me that I can't expect to tie a young man to 
 my apron-string." 
 
 The tears are pouring down her sunken cheeks as she 
 speaks. Horrified as I am at the exhibition of the 
 sentimental pain she feels on account of her young 
 husband's neglect, I can't help pitying her. Heavy as 
 her sin against common sense and good taste has been 
 in marrying him, she is being heavily punished for it. I 
 
Cairnhoime, 359 
 
 picture the continual mortifications to which she must be 
 subjected here, under the observation of the old friends 
 and servants who have revered her formerly ; I picture 
 his goading indifference to her and her affection and 
 her wishes : and, in spite of my strong sense of the 
 enormity of her folly, I do pity her. 
 
 " You will have my companionship, too, now," I say, 
 as soothingly as I can. "The thought of how good 
 you've been to me ought to make you a little tiny bit 
 happy." Then I venture to ask for Mr. Murray ; and I 
 hear, much to my surprise, and — shall I confess it? — a 
 little to my chagrin, that he is well and happy, and 
 going to be married shortly. 
 
 " He has chosen well this time, has Robbie,*' she says 
 approvingly. "A nice sensible woman she seems to be 
 from her letters, and one with a good bit of money, too. 
 She will appreciate having a kind, good man like Robert 
 to turn to and take counsel of, for she's a lone woman, 
 and has had no settled home for years, being fond of 
 travelling." 
 
 In my own mind I paint a portrait of the future Mrs. 
 Murray, and it is not a flattering one. She is probably 
 one of those restless old maids who are just sufficiently 
 well off to be able to ravage the well-frequented spots on 
 the Continent in search of their natural prey. I dislike 
 the idea of being succeeded by such a one as this, and I 
 suppose my displeasure is expressed in my face, for she 
 says earnestly, — 
 
 " Child, never regret that I was wiser for my brother 
 than I have been for myself, and never grudge him a 
 more suitable companion than you would have been. On 
 
 the journey downhill There's the gong for dinner, 
 
 and his voice in the hall," she adds suddenly, as Theo's 
 light, ringing tones peal out some imperious command ; 
 and I notice that her face brightens, and that the hand 
 she has placed on my arm trembles. I feel incHned to 
 stand apart from her, to show her that I cannot counte- 
 nance her folly. Love of the romantic or passionate 
 order in a woman of her age and appearance seerp§ (g 
 
360 Blotted Oui» 
 
 me to be so wildly incongruous a thing, that I can hardly 
 constrain myself to be even contemptuously tolerant to 
 it ! For a moment I feel thus \ then I banish the feeling, 
 and let only pity for her reign again in my breast, as I 
 think of his false, fair, winsome manner and face, and 
 sweet, subtle tongue ! Who can tell how perfidiously 
 he pleaded to her ? Who can tell how bewitchingly he 
 beguiled her into believing herself all it suited his 
 purpose to pretend to believe her himself? Who can 
 tell how strongly he mixed the potions which he offered 
 to her love and vanity ? Has he not the curse laid upon 
 him of being able to win every woman whose evil fate it 
 is to be thrown in his ruthless path ? Have I been 
 so wise in my generation about him that I may dare to 
 sit in the seat of the scornful about her folly ? 
 
 He comes in, a Scotch bonnet in his hand, a Scotch 
 plaid over his shoulders, the beait, ideal oi a young Scottish 
 chief, and he tries to do away with embarrassment on my 
 part at once with the words, — 
 
 *'You are welcome to these wilds. The wilderness 
 will become a smiling land to us now Tim has come, 
 won't it? What's your news from Ravensbourne ? 
 Remember, I've not seen you since I took upon myself 
 the honourable state of matrimony. Consider how I 
 must be thirsting for information ! " 
 
 I remember those hours at Morwell-in-the-Marsh so 
 vividly as he speaks, that I fear the incidents that occurred 
 as they passed must be photographed in my face. I feel 
 that I am playing a treacherous part to his wife, the 
 woman who trusts me, in tacitly aiding in the conceal- 
 ment he is practising upon her. At the same time, I 
 know well that I should do more harm than good, were 
 I to betray him now. Accordingly, I do violence to all 
 that is honest within me, and I respond to his greeting as 
 if it were the first I had received from him since he 
 became Mrs. Macpherson's husband. 
 
 This first evening at Cairnholme is a bitter trial to me 
 in every way. It goes against my sense of right that he 
 should treat the woman whom he has made his wife, the 
 
Cairnholme, 361 
 
 woman by means of whose generosity he is surrounded 
 by the affluence that is so dear to his pleasure-loving 
 soul, with a carelessness that almost amounts to contempt. 
 My cheeks burn as he leaves her remarks (and every one 
 of them betokens anxiety to please him) unanswered, 
 while he rattles away gaily and easily to me. I seem to 
 myself to be aiding and abetting him in this sin of 
 neglecting the unfortunate lady, who is tasting the full, 
 bitter flavour of the sensations of ^^the woman scorned." 
 On the other hand, I cannot help despising her for 
 that supine yearning for a word or a look from him which 
 betrays itself in her every glance, sentence, and gesture. 
 At dinner she worries and wearies the servants by the 
 countless directions she gives them concerning the 
 master, and what they are to request him to eat, drink, 
 and avoid. She calls his attention to numerous dainties 
 which have evidently been ordered because he has at 
 some time or other expressed a liking for them, and he 
 rejects them with contumely, and turns with renewed 
 eagerness and a remark to me after each freshly proffered 
 attention of hers. I am truly and thoroughly miserable, 
 and I acknowledge that I am deservedly so. He is 
 showing himself in the most hatefully selfish colours in 
 my eyes, yet this is not the real reason of my misery. I 
 will try to lighten my consciousness of sin by confessing 
 it. I am still good enough to scorn myself for being 
 here, in the house of the woman who has been a true, wise 
 friend to me, unintentionally filching from her that which 
 she would give her life to gain — the attention, namely, of 
 her husband, of my bane, of the man I love to such a 
 degree that neither crime nor cowardice on his part can 
 alienate my erring heart from him. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ** I WILL BE MASTER, UNDERSTAND ! " 
 
 AM infinitely happier this morning. Mr. Mac- 
 pherson goes out for one of his customary 
 long rides, and I am left alone with Mrs. 
 Macpherson, for Aunt Helen never leaves her 
 room till the luncheon hour. My heart grows lighter 
 the moment I am alone with my old friend, for I feel 
 that she is comparatively happy in my society while she 
 has it to herself. The knowledge that her husband 
 shares her sentiments spoils all the pleasure she would 
 otherwise derive from me when he is one of us. And I 
 am just enough to acknowledge that it is reasonable she 
 should feel displeasure that such should be the case, and 
 generous enough to admit that it is only human, only 
 what ninety-nine women out of a hundred would do, to 
 show that displeasure to me, the innocent one. 
 
 But now that he, the graceful shadow of whom I am 
 " half-sick," like the Lady of Shalot — the beautiful bone 
 of contention, which has been grabbed at by so many, and 
 secured to her cost by this luckless woman — how that he 
 has gone out, and left us to ourselves, peace settles 
 down upon my spirit ; for I begin to fulfil my proper 
 vocation — I begin to be 0/ use to Mrs. Macpherson. I 
 listen with interest, I listen " well," to a tale she would 
 shrink from pouring into any other ear, A tale of 
 
^^ I will be Master^ Understand P^ 363 
 
 foolish fondness — " foolish " because she feels the whole 
 time that it was against nature — of the falling away from 
 her of the friends of her youth and the family of her first 
 husband — of the gradual decline of that power which their 
 respect for her had formerly given her over the servants 
 and retainers who are now witnesses to her want of 
 influence over the monarch whom she has elected to 
 reign absolutely over her kingdom. She tells me all 
 these things in a desultory, uncertain, almost unwilling 
 way. Still, there is comfort to her in the telling, for she 
 must (as she is a woman) feel that I listen with sorrow, 
 with pity, and above all, with sympathy. 
 
 I see my task before me, and I prepare to fulfil it. I 
 am to be the repository of her grievances against Theo, 
 and the fate her own folly has brought upon herself, 
 whenever we are alone. This portion of my burden I 
 can bear. It will be a dead, unpleasant weight, but still 
 I'll be humane enough to take it up for her sake, poor 
 thing ! But how about the part which I may have to 
 play towards Theo, when the custon of seeing me daily 
 has taught him to drop into that habit of reliance upon 
 me which has invariably hitherto been developed in him 
 when we have been thrown together ? 
 
 It is sufficient amusement for me to wander about the 
 house during the first part of the day. It is an old time- 
 honoured place, showing evidences of having been in 
 the possession of a race with plenty of wealth at com- 
 mand for generations. The furniture is splendid in a 
 sturdy, substantial way that never aimed at being artistic 
 when it started in Ufe, but that is so now because time 
 has mellowed and coloured it so well, toning down what- 
 ever might have been crude and coarse, glaring and too 
 pronounced, fifty or a hundred years ago, into a most 
 harmonious series of pictures. It is congruous enough 
 to think of Theo in the midst of richly carved buffets 
 and escritoires, of heavily embossed shields and flagons 
 and salvers of silver and gold that came originally from 
 the " rare old town of art and traftic." Thoughts of him 
 dp not jar with the billiard-room^ or the well-filk4 
 
364 Blotted Out. 
 
 stables, or with any of the tangible proofs that are about 
 me that I am in the home of one to whom these luxuries 
 and extravagancies come in the natural order of things. 
 But the thought of him. — and far more the sight of him 
 — does jar with the pictured forms of those brawny, 
 bony, long-armed, high-cheek-boned Macphersons who 
 look down upon me from the walls of every room. 
 The ancestors of her former husband seem to me to 
 follow me with their cold grey eyes wherever I go, and 
 when I face round and try to read the impression those 
 eyes convey, it is invariably one of reproach for my 
 being a passive ally even of the interloper. 
 
 I am more and more imbued with a sense of respect 
 for the property, as being the representation of the 
 power of one race, when I go out on to the side of a 
 hill which kindly rises on the north-east side of the 
 house, and look away over miles of moorland, and hear 
 that " It's all Cairnholme. It's all mine — ours," she 
 hastily corrects herself ; " the Macphersons have never 
 parted with an acre for five hundred years." 
 
 I am impressed with the statement, and am in a sort 
 of glow of enthusiasm about the greatness of the clan 
 Macpherson, when Mrs. Macpherson tells me this as we 
 stumble down the hill after my first surveying expedition. 
 It is difficult to avoid this special form of hysteria when 
 a possessor is playing the part of showman to you over 
 possessions which he or she regards as rather superior to 
 any other corner of creation. Walking here with the 
 relict of the last of a race that has held every inch of the 
 land for five hundred years, I find myself balancing and 
 adjusting Theo's claims to consideration far more 
 reasonably and moderately than I have ever succeeded 
 in doing before. I compare his Will-o'-the-wisp nature 
 with that grand tenacity which has kept the Macpherson 
 lands intact. 
 
 "They must often have been tempted to sell,' I 
 exclaim involuntarily ; " is your air up here so pure and 
 good that love of gain can't flourish here ? " 
 
 " They've all loved the land like a livine: thins:/' she 
 
*'/ will he Master^ tlnderstand / '* 365 
 
 says, with a little touch of pride, ^'and they must be un- 
 easy in their graves now that " She pauses and 
 
 shakes her head, but her sentence seems to finish itself 
 in my ears as Theo comes to meet us from the stables. 
 
 His hat is tipped forward over his brow, to protect his 
 eyes from the sun ; but no shadow darkens those 
 flickering, false, beautiful eyes as they fall on us, two of 
 the women whose lives he has shaded. He comes 
 forward loungingly, followed by a troop of Gordon 
 setters, soft-eyed colHes, and big majestic deerhounds ; 
 and I see that Mrs. Macpherson is ready to melt into 
 tears of admiring affection for him, as she sees how 
 lovingly the dogs she loves follow the man who has no 
 heart for her. 
 
 His first words are addressed to me. 
 
 " What sort of a fellow is Cuthbert Dale, Tim? Is he 
 a safe fellow, like Sydney ? " 
 
 "I don't think Syd's duplicate is born yet," I say, 
 flushing up with the remembrance of how things are 
 between Claire and Cuthbert Dale. 
 
 " I don't want aesthetic tributes to the varied ex- 
 cellences of the loved and the lost," he laughs, wheeling 
 round by my side ; " all I want is to be assured of the 
 banking account of the living Dale. He has written 
 about the Hut and the moors," he adds in a careless but 
 still explanatory tone, turning his head to address his 
 wife. 
 
 Mrs. Macpherson is compelled to trot in order to 
 keep up with that slinging step of Theo's, which covers 
 so much ground, and which he does not deem it 
 necessary to moderate for our convenience. Trotting 
 takes away her breath, and so she is obliged to pull up 
 before she can reply. 
 
 " About the Hut and the moors ! What do you 
 mean, Theo?" 
 
 ** That I'm going to let them," he says airily. " I've 
 been wasting my substance in advertising them in the 
 Field ioT the last six weeks, and at last I've got two 
 decent offers for them. I should like to let Dale have 
 
3^d Blotted dul 
 
 them for auld lang syne and his brother's sake/' he adds 
 to me. 
 
 I am so saddened by the recollections of Syd which 
 are evoked by his speech, I am so stultified by the idea 
 of the sacrilege he is committing in merely contemplating 
 letting the cherished Macpherson moors, that I don't 
 attempt to answer him. Mrs. Macpherson, however, 
 having recovered her breath, does so. 
 
 " But I'll have no Mr. Dale nor Mr. anybody else at 
 the Hut and on my moors for the sake of auld lang syne 
 or any money they may offer," she says angrily. *' You 
 should have told me this before, Theo. If 'twas money 
 you wanted, you should have had it — have I ever 
 refused it to you ? — and if you wanted to disgrace me 
 in the eyes of the people of the man whose name you've 
 condescended to take, you've done that so well already 
 that you might surely rest satisfied with your work, and 
 not want to bring fresh witnesses of my folly to my very 
 threshold." 
 
 If it is an ill-advised, infuriated, inconsequent speech, 
 nevertheless I don't wonder at her having been goaded 
 into making it, as I mark his utter insouciance, his 
 supreme disregard of her and her feelings in every way. 
 
 "Now, pray, none of that nonsense," he protests, 
 appealing to her as if he really had put up with more 
 of her whims already than mere mortal man could be 
 expected to endure. "Whenever the matter of money 
 is mooted, Mrs. Macpherson's nationality comes to the 
 fore, and she ' fears I'm going to be incautious ; ' and 
 whenever I propound a scheme for raising the wind, 
 she's afraid I'm going to mulct * the family ' of one of 
 their hardly held acres ; so between the two fears I come 
 rather badly off, you'll observe, Tim." 
 
 Her poor anxious, unhappy face grows plainer by 
 reason of that very anxiety and unhappiness of which he 
 is the cause. 
 
 *'You have never found any difficulty about money, 
 Theo," she says gently, and there is such a profound 
 sense of having deserved all the humiliation he can put 
 
^^I will he Master, Understand /^^ 367 
 
 upon her, that I "suffer" more than ever on account of 
 her position and the probabiUty of his taking advantage 
 of it. I am getting to know him so well as such a 
 thoroughly heartless fellow, that I believe myself to be 
 prepared for the worst, the wildest statements he can 
 make. Nevertheless, well-prepared as I delusively 
 suppose myself to be, he staggers, hurts, wounds, out- 
 rages me by his next remark. 
 
 '^ I was going to tell you, when you interrupted me," 
 he says sparklingly, swaying himself towards her in order 
 that she may catch his words distinctly and have no 
 doubt as to their meaning — " I was going to tell you, 
 that though feeling prompts me to give this man Dale, 
 the Vincents' friend, the preference, interest (the genuine 
 motive power of my life) counsels me to take the offer 
 of a man called Ashton. Ashton's a snob, but he has 
 plenty of money, and he'll keep things going at the 
 Hut, and get such a lot of fellows about him that 
 there will be no difficulty in managing the matter 
 another year." 
 
 I anticipate an outbreak from Mrs. Macpherson in 
 response to this ; rather to my surprise, she listens to 
 him quietly. All she says is — 
 
 "/ must know something about this man whom you 
 call a ' snob,' even while you want to plant him at your 
 gates, Theo. Who is Mr. Ashton ? Is he some wild 
 young fellow you're bringing up here to back you up in 
 whatever course of life seems pleasantest to you ? " 
 
 " Hear her ! " he says contemptuously. " Was there 
 ever such irrational and absurd opposition offered to a 
 fellow before ! Ashton is a man who has made more 
 money than he knows how to spend in trade; he has 
 heard that it's the right thing to have a moor, and so 
 he's ready to pay highly for the privilege. Dale would 
 be quite a different fellow to deal with ; but with Ashton 
 at the Hut, I shall feel as if the place were entirely in 
 my own hands still." 
 
 " It v/ould give me pain — worse than that, it would 
 give the friends I have left to me still a worse impression 
 
^6S Blotted Out 
 
 of you than they have already," she interrupts with 
 trembling lips. '*Keep the moors in your own hands 
 still — don't let the Hut — have as many of your friends as 
 you please here to stay with you and shoot with you ; let 
 me have my way in this for once." 
 
 He answers with his boyish, heartless laugh, and the 
 words — 
 
 " I will be master here, understand ! It's not a 
 woman's province to manage these outdoor matters, even 
 when she is endowed with the wisdom of years and 
 experience which are your portion. IVe decided Ashton 
 shall be the man. I could hardly have Dale at my gates, 
 if he came accompanied by Claire — could I, Tim ? " 
 
 I look at him angrily, reproachfully — that is to say, I 
 try to do so, but his winning, pleading glance meets mine 
 and disarms me ; and as we near the entrance to the 
 house he backs up these mute, but potent, supplications 
 with even more potent words, uttered in a whisper — 
 
 "Let my wife go in alone, Tim ; you're the only friend 
 I have in the world, and I'm going to tax your friendship 
 nov/." Then aloud he adds — 
 
 ** I'm going to take Tim to show her the horses. You 
 never care for the stable round — do you, Mrs. Mac- 
 pherson ? — so we'll say good-bye to you for an hour or 
 two." 
 
 He saunters away, leaving us two women standing 
 together in uncertainty. I long to obey him and go 
 with him ; I long to have some fresh demand made 
 upon the love and forbearance I feel for him. But how 
 will *' his wife " (he needn't have called her that ; he 
 needn't have reminded us both that she has the highest 
 claim upon him, and that he holds that claim in the very 
 lowest estimation) — how will his wife regard the fact of 
 my doing so ? It will be like ranging myself on his side 
 against her position as the wife and mistress here; it will be 
 holding up my hand in favour of his election as lord and 
 master absolutely without appeal ; above all, it will be 
 like myself to try and please him at any cost to every- 
 body also, myself included. 
 
*' / will he Master^ tfnderstand / " 36 9 
 
 " Go with him, Tim," she says. " Don't let him have 
 this to accuse me of, that I grudge him the society of 
 those who can interest him as I can never hope to do : 
 go with him, Tim." 
 
 I obey her and follow him to the entrance of a winding 
 walk, bordered with high thick shrubs, which leads away 
 to the stable yard. A garden seat is planted midway 
 dov/n the little winding walk, and on this he reclines while 
 he lights his cigar. When he has satisfactorily accom- 
 plished this feat, he says to me — 
 
 " Our little expedition to Morwell-in-the-Marsh must 
 be kept dark from the old lady — you understand that, 
 don't you, Tim ? " 
 
 *' It seems to me that everything you do has to be 
 kept dark from somebody or other," I grumble. 
 
 " No, now really, that's taking an exaggerated view of 
 my amiable foibles," he answers good-humouredly. 
 " As I've told you before, it wouldn't be a good thing 
 for you for it to get blown about that you had met me 
 there by appointment, unknown to your family and 
 friends. I don't care for myself, but Mrs. Macpherson 
 would make Cairnholme rather hot for you, if she sus- 
 pected anything of the sort." 
 
 "There was nothing dishonourable in my being there, 
 Theo," I half plead, half assert. "I went there to be- 
 friend, if possible, a man whom I once thought would 
 have been my brother : \vas my aid of use ? " 
 
 I say this more with the hope of turning the subject 
 and taking his thoughts away from Morwell-in-the Marsh 
 than with any other design. But apparently the diversion 
 is not pleasing to him, for he starts up with the scowl that 
 is apt now to cloud his once always bright, careless face, 
 and says — 
 
 " Don't revert to the money, please, Tim. It's dis- 
 agreeable enough for a fellow to owe it to a woman, I 
 can assure you, and I'd have lost the best chance I've 
 ever had of fortune rather than have borrowed it of you, 
 if I hadn't made sure of being able to repay it almost 
 directly; but you see what Mrs. Macpherson is. My 
 24 
 
376 Blotted Out 
 
 only chance of raising the sum unknown to her will be 
 to let the moors, and do a little horse-dealing with Ashton." 
 
 I ask the question I have been longing to ask him 
 since the first mention was made of the Hut and its 
 probable tenant — 
 
 " Is the Miss Ashton you were speaking to when I went 
 to you at Morwell-in-the-Marsh any relation to this 
 man?" 
 
 " His daughter." 
 
 I have anticipated the answer, nevertheless it stuns me. 
 However direfully we may dread baseness developing in 
 those we love, the shock is none the less when it does 
 develop. 
 
 No further word is spoken between us till we enter the 
 stables, when, as I stand patting one of his beautiful 
 horses, and thinking how much nobler this powerful, 
 gentle beast is than the man who owns him, he 
 mutters — 
 
 *' I have trusted you with a secret because you asked 
 me for it ; I charge you on your honour as a gentle- 
 woman, not to betray it." 
 
 " And in return I charge you, on your honour as a 
 gentleman, to take your wife to call on Miss Ashton as 
 soon as she comes to the Hut. The girl, not knowing 
 you're married, may get to care for you, to her mis- 
 fortune." 
 
 " Not unlikely," he answers carelessly. " Well, as you 
 make a point of it, I'll take my wife. But I tell you 
 what, Tim, I'll keep you from the Hut ; Miss Ashton not 
 being a thoroughbred, might betray surprise or emotion 
 at seeing you, and then the little tale which I have a 
 terror of being unfolded for your sake solely, would tell 
 itself." 
 
 " IVe no desire to go," I say, drearily following him 
 into another stall and patting the glossy sides of another 
 gentle, generous creature. " I only want Miss Ashton to 
 know your true position. It's not the action of a 
 thoroughbred to have deceived her, whether she is one 
 herself or not." 
 
*' / wilt he Master, Understand / ** 371 
 
 " When I have sold my horses to the old cad at my 
 own price, the Ashton family may return to their native 
 marshes at their earliest convenience. Until my horses 
 are sold, it will be my object to make life at the Hut as 
 delightful to every member of the Ashton family as 
 possible. Now you know all about it, Tim, it's not a 
 very nefarious or immoral scheme, is it ? " 
 
 I question myself seriously as to whether anything he 
 ever does, or ever has done, has been the reverse of 
 these qualities ; but I think silence the better part, and 
 my silence annoys him. 
 
 " Cairnholme seems to have stultified your faculties ; 
 you used to be as amusing a companion as a man could 
 have. Do you remember the day by the otter-pool?" 
 
 Do I not remember it ! 
 
 *' I was a better fellow then than I am now," he goes 
 on more seriously. " Well, come back to my bonnie 
 bride, Tim ; we don't seem to hit it off together as well 
 as we did in that time of roses. It's a bargain about the 
 Hut." 
 
 It has been a horribly unsatisfactory tete-d-tete for me, 
 for he himself has painted a few fresh traits in his cha- 
 racter in even darker colours than I had ever seen them 
 in before. It is hard, therefore, to detect, as I do 
 when I go back to the house, that Mrs. Macpherson 
 seems to think that I have had sunshine enough for 
 one day, and accordingly glooms at me in a way that, 
 by reason of my sore and sorry state, makes me feel 
 that mean injustice is the strongest characteristic trait 
 of the majority of my fellow creatures. She it was 
 who had weighted the beam and sent me over into 
 the peril of that quiet promenade with him. If she 
 could only know how unhappy he has made me by his 
 callousness to every consideration that I hold dear, she 
 would surely be kinder. 
 
 24—2 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 HAVE been at Cairnholme three weeks, and 
 the futility of my visit becomes more apparent 
 to me hourly. I am no comfort, as she hoped 
 and said I should be, to the woman who has 
 quitted the tower of strength in which she was placed by 
 her wealthy and respected widowhood, for the uncertain 
 footing afforded her in her new position of not only un- 
 loved, but utterly neglected and despised, wife. She 
 shrinks from my observation — my poor old friend who 
 has sought to purchase indemnity from suffering for 
 violating nature's laws, and all her gold has failed to do 
 it ; and, though all my heart aches for her, I can but ac- 
 knowledge the grim justice of nature's unvarying decree. 
 
 " Gay youth loves gay youth." 
 
 I recall these words of Owen Meredith's, and as I think 
 of the good-looking Miss Ashton who is coming and the 
 elderly, podgy Mrs. Macpherson who is present, I tremble 
 for Theo's fair fame before the world; for intuition 
 teaches me that he will continue to deceive the girl into 
 the belief that he is free and unmarried, if it be possible 
 for him to do it. 
 ^ In spite of all my fears, time will not stand still ; and 
 
To the Rescue. 373 
 
 so the day dawns which brings to us at Cairnholme the 
 tidings that the Ashtons have arrived at the Hut. The 
 inteUigence is conveyed to Theo in a brief, business-like 
 note from Mr. Ashton, to the following effect : — 
 
 " Sir, — This is to inform you that I have taken up my 
 residence at the Hut, and that I shall be happy to see 
 you whenever you like to bring your gun and have a day's 
 sport. 
 
 ^' Yours obediently, 
 
 " John Ashton." 
 
 Theo reads the letter aloud, and laughs over the 
 manner of it, while his wife perceptibly winces at the 
 matter. Presently she speaks. 
 
 " Has the man brought a family with him, or is he a 
 bachelor ? " she asks. 
 
 " He didn't go into those details when he offered to 
 become my tenant," Theo says gaily. " I can only say, 
 if he has brought a family with him, that they'll have to 
 camp out on the moors. The Hut's a sweet place, but 
 rather cramped." 
 
 I tingle \ my intuitions are correct ; Theo is going to 
 continue his game of deception, and I have not the 
 courage to unmask him. I have not the courage — so 
 much is certain. Am I sure that I have the wish ? 
 
 About eleven o'clock he orders out a string of horses, 
 and directs that they are to be taken over to the Hut. 
 There has been a soiip^on of truth in his statement after all ; 
 he does hope to do something in the horse-dealing way 
 with Mr. Ashton. I grow absolutely hopeful about the 
 future, as I suffer my mind to revel in the luxury of the 
 new delight of finding him veracious. 
 
 ** Shall you call on the Ashtons ? " I venture to ask 
 timidly of Mrs. Macpherson in a day or two ; and she 
 shakes her head and answers — 
 
 " Theo only speaks of ' Mr. Ashton,' my dear ; he has 
 made no mention of ladies, so I conclude tliere are 
 none ; why should I call ? " 
 
374 Blotted Out. 
 
 " Ask him if there are any," I say boldly. " If there 
 are, it looks unneighbourly on your part to hold aloof 
 from them. Surely you won't do such a wrong, even in 
 seeming, to your Scotch pride of hospitality.'* 
 
 " It's his object to ingratiate himself with Mr. Ash ton, 
 for he wants good prices for his horses," she says, with 
 concentrated bitterness. " If there were ladies, he would 
 make me show them courtesy. My dear, I needn't ask 
 him if there are any." 
 
 She foils me herself, when J am trying to work for her 
 weal. I cannot bear it, so this day at dinner I say, 
 looking him innocently in the face — 
 
 " Has Mr. Ashton a wife or daughters with him ? " 
 
 He gives me back a gay glance ; nothing discomposes 
 him. 
 
 " No wife — only a daughter," he says. *' Oughtn't you 
 to call on her, by the way ? " he adds abruptly, addressing 
 Mrs. Macpherson. 
 
 " If you wish me to do it, but I see no necessity for 
 the performance of such a penance," she replies. 
 
 " Well, as you like ! send your card — that will be 
 enough. I shall go over there to-morrow, and I'll convey 
 it with your compliments, if you'll allow me." 
 
 She accedes to his proposition, and he looks at me 
 and laughs at my obvious discomfiture. 
 
 "You do try your utmost to explode me," he says to 
 me in the evening. ** How is it, Tim, that, clever as you 
 are, you can't do it." 
 
 " Because you're meaner than I am," I say bluntly ; 
 " we don't fight with the same weapons." 
 
 He gives me credit for a greater amount of talent the 
 following morning, when he is about to depart for the 
 Hut in his dog-cart. I have obtained Mrs. Macpherson's 
 permission to go over and deliver her card to Miss 
 Ashton, and so, just as Theo is about to start, I say as 
 carelessly as I can — 
 
 " Tell Miss Ashton that I am going to call on her 
 to-day as Mrs. Macpherson's representative." 
 
 H« stands still, one foot on the step of the dog-cart, 
 
To the Rescue, 373 
 
 the reins in his hands, and he withdraws the inevitable 
 cigar from his Hps. 
 
 " You are ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Nonsense ! Why should you ? She'll remember 
 
 As you please, though. A wilful woman will have her 
 way, however unpleasant that way may be to her. Miss 
 Ashton won't be at home, in the first place \ she drives 
 out with the luncheon, and when once she gets with the 
 guns, she's in no hurry to leave them. She's a deter- 
 mined young woman, is Miss Ashton, and doesn't stick 
 at trifles." 
 
 " If you tell her your wife's representative is coming to 
 call on her, as I ask you to do, she'll hardly have the 
 incivility to go out," I say. 
 
 He smiles. 
 
 " Well, Tim, the drive's a pleasant one, at any rate. I 
 can't make myself responsible for Miss Ashton, of course ; 
 nor can I presume to attempt to regulate her movements. 
 Good-bye ; I'm rather late," and he springs into the dog- 
 cart and drives off, leavmg me dissatisfied with him. Miss 
 Ashton, circumstances, and above all — oh, above all — . 
 with myself. 
 
 " You arc a good girl to take so much trouble for the 
 sake of keeping up my character as gentlewoman in the 
 opinion of these people," Mrs. Macpherson says to me 
 affectionately, when I am about to depart on my self- 
 appointed mission. " I can trust the telling of the right 
 thing about me to you, Tim. I couldn't see the place 
 habited by strangero." 
 
 " You'll let me ask Miss Ashton to come over here, 
 won't you ? " I plead, for I do long for Miss Ashton to 
 realise the whole truth. 
 
 Little red spots blaze up in Mrs. Macpherson's 
 cheeks at once. 
 
 " You heard what Theo called the father," she repHes ; 
 "is it likely that the daughter of such a man as he 
 described w^ould be in place as a visitor at Cairnholme ? " 
 
 " Very likely, indeed," I say eagerly. " Her father is 
 
376 Blotted Out 
 
 rich — don*t you think that he has taken care to surround 
 her with all those external refinements which tend to refine 
 a woman's nature ? Remember, she is alone here \ be 
 kind to her." 
 
 " She is not likely to care for the kindness of an old 
 neglected, despised, woman," she says, with angry energy. 
 *' No, Tim, my dear \ probably Theo has painted such 
 a picture of his wife that Miss Ashton pities him and 
 loathes me. No, Tim ; I will make no further advances to 
 the Ashtons." 
 
 I dare not tell her the strong reason there exists for 
 her facing the Ashtons, and proclaiming herself to be 
 what she is — Theo's wife. So I withdraw for a while 
 from this weary game of expostulation which I am for 
 ever playing with her, and go away to my first fencing 
 match with Miss Ashton. 
 
 It is a splendid drive along the roads which intersect 
 the lofty hills that lie between Cairnholme and the Hut. 
 I have no very great hopes of achieving an interview with 
 Miss Ashton, for probably Theo will do the very thing he 
 ought not to do, and win her in some indefinable way to 
 go out and avoid me. Still, I may do some good ; so I 
 go on in hope, and enjoy the scenery. 
 
 I have been warned that the distance is long between 
 Cairnholme and the Hut — " something like eight miles 
 as the crow flies" — but I am unprepared to find it as long 
 as it is in reality ; for the road winds in and out among the 
 hills, and prolongs itself in the wild, lovely mountain 
 passes, until I tell myself in my impatience that, even if 
 I find Miss Ashton at home, I shall have no time to say 
 more to her than " Good-morning " and " Good-bye," if 
 I wish to regain Cairnholme before the shades of night 
 fall. 
 
 At last I reach the Hut ; and in answer to my almost 
 eager inquiry for her, I am told that Miss Ashton is in. 
 In another moment I am face to face with the young lady 
 who, in my estimation, is either despicable as a lure, or 
 to be pitied as a dupe. 
 
 A gleam of something like recognition crosses her face 
 
To the Rescue, Z11 
 
 as she comes to'meet me ; a puzzled expression follows it. 
 She evidently cannot completely identify me with the 
 girl who went to see Theo at Morwell-in-the-Marsh ; and 
 small marvel that it should be so, for my sorrow is of 
 stronger growth and greater age now, and it is telling upon 
 me. Just as I am thinking this, and being glad of it — 
 for I do not want her to conjecture about or question me 
 — her eyes fall on that golden-red hair of mine, and she 
 remembers me perfectly. 
 
 " What odd places we meet in ? " she says. " First on 
 a 'rink where, out of all the hundreds who were there 
 yours is the only appearance I can recall ; then at my 
 dear little village home in Essex ; and now up in the 
 Highlands. Are you staying in the neighbourhood ? " 
 
 She is perfectly quiet, self-possessed, and polite. In 
 spite of everything, I am rather prepossessed with her. 
 
 " I am staying at Cairnholme '' 
 
 " At Mr. Macpherson's place ? '' she interrupts, and her 
 face works rather nervously. 
 
 Ah ! do I not know the feeling well which causes it 
 so to work ? She shrinks from the thought of even a 
 possible rival near the throne of her king. 
 
 " I am staying with Mrs. Macpherson ; I am the bearer 
 of her cards and compliments," I say, as cheerfully as I 
 can under the circumstances, which are depressing me out 
 of all hopefulness as to good resulting from my visit. 
 
 She glances at the cards, which are lying by her on a 
 monkey-table, trifles with them nervously for a moment 
 or two, and then says — 
 
 " Is Mrs. Macpherson too old or infirm to drive out ? " 
 
 '* Oh dear, no ! " I reply with energy ; *^ she's activity 
 itself" 
 
 " But not even the spirit of activity which possesses her 
 is strong enough to bring her from Cairnholme to the 
 Hut," she says, with a slight forced laugh. *^ I am sorry 
 for it. Papa is absurdly sensitive on the subject of any 
 slight being offered to me, and I'm afraid he will take this 
 as a shght, and perhaps be annoyed with Mr, Macpherson 
 about it." 
 
378 Blotted Out 
 
 "It IS a long drive," I say apologetically ; "and, more- 
 over, Mrs. Macpherson has a little feeling still about this 
 place having been let. I've no doubt she will get over it in 
 time, and then you will find her what I do, — one of the 
 kindest of women and warmest of friends." 
 
 She looks at me uneasily again, and asks — 
 
 "Have you known her long and intimately? Have 
 you known her son long ? " 
 
 The moment has come for the thunderbolt to fall on 
 this poor girl's innocent, unhappy head. My voice 
 trembles with real pity for her, as I reply — 
 
 " She has no son. Yes, I have known her for several 
 months, and we have both passed through such trouble 
 that we have become very intimate." 
 
 " No son ! Who, then, is Theo ? " 
 
 " Her husband. Hasn't he told you ? " 
 
 She stands up, her slight, graceful figure absolutely 
 swaying under the cruel pain this weighty blow is giving 
 her, and I dare not try to comfort her. For a few 
 moments she stands covering her face with her hands, 
 then she lets them fall, and says brokenly — 
 
 " Pray don't think that Mr. Macpherson has made any 
 false statements, or even deceived us voluntarily \ but he 
 has always spoken of her as Mrs. Macpherson, and I 
 knew she was old. I have been the one to blame all 
 through. I took no interest in any human being but Theo 
 himself, and I suppose I ought to feel that I am rightly 
 punished ; but my father will be more than angry, and in 
 his anger he is apt to be so hard and unjust, that my life 
 will be a very wretched one." 
 
 My own life is a very wretched one, but I have grown 
 accustomed to the wretchedness of it. This poor girl's 
 misery is so very young a thing, that I can but treat it 
 tenderly. Moreover, I am touched by her generosity. 
 She has been duped, wronged, led on to love where no 
 love may be honourably paid back to her, and still she 
 tries to spare the man who has done it — still she will have 
 him held blameless if she can. 
 
 I say one or two words that are utterly inadequate to 
 
1 
 To the Rescue, 379 
 
 the occasion, and prepare to take my leave. As she holds 
 my hand at parting, some instinct teaches her to trust me. 
 
 " You will never let him know that the intelligence 
 affected me as it has done," she says, with quivering lips ; 
 " and you won't betray the concealment he has practised 
 — it has been nothing worse than that, you know — to his 
 wife?" 
 
 I give her the promise she asks for, and go back to 
 Cairnholme with such a craving for rest in my soul, that 
 I fancy I must be suffering from premature old age : youth 
 can surely never be so intensely weary as I am. 
 
 Theo is neither cast down or angry when he comes in, 
 rather earlier than usual, this evening. He tells us, as 
 carelessly as if it were a matter of no moment to him, that 
 Mr. Ashton has "backed out of the purchase of the 
 horses " — has ** made up his mind to leave the place, as 
 he finds he is no sportsman, and his daughter finds it 
 intolerably dull ; " and that they have come to a mutual 
 understanding, by which he (Theo) has it all in his own 
 hands again, even for the remainder of this season. 
 There is clearly no animus in his heart against me as he 
 tells us all this, even though he is the loser through my 
 zeal. There is good in Theo, perverted though it be. I 
 feel a trifle less weary as I think this. 
 
 It is not for two or three days after my visit to Miss 
 Ashton that he finds an opportunity of saying to me — 
 
 " I wish you had deferred your call for a few days, till 
 I had landed the money for the horses. Old Ashton fell 
 into the pardonable error of believing that I meant to ask 
 his daughter to be the lady of the land. He's very 
 savage, and thinks I've behaved ill. However, ' all's well 
 that ends well.' The Hut will be vacated the sooner for 
 the occurrence of the little mistake; and Mrs. Mac- 
 pherson, consequently, will be better pleased." 
 
 '* I hope it will all end well. Theo, I wonder what 
 would be the best ending for you ? " 
 
 And he shakes off my sympathy by saying — 
 
 " Freedom ; but I shall never find it, I'm afraid." 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 GOING HOME. 
 
 am home again, hearing of great and astounding 
 changes that are coming to my own people at 
 Ravensbourne. As I Hsten to them with 
 loving interest, something in the looks of 
 those who are telling me of them apprises me of the fact 
 that a greater change has been wrought in me than any of 
 which they can inform me. 
 
 They are happy changes of which I hear; there 
 " comes a sound of wedding bells " as I listen to them. 
 Mabel and Magdalen are to married with much pomp, 
 on the same day, a fortnight hence ; and a week later 
 papa and Lady Torrens are going to take each other "for 
 better and for worse " in a quieter way. 
 
 " She'll be a darling stepmother," Claire says, turning 
 to kiss Lady Torrens, who is leaning over me as I lie on 
 the sofa ; " only you and I will be left to bother her, Tim, 
 and I expect we shall bother her for the remainder of our 
 lives." 
 
 I smile in response to this, and I feel that I smile very 
 feebly. My day is done, I know that very well, and they 
 all know it for me ; but Claire is in all the glory of her • 
 beauty still. Claire, in the order of things, will go out to 
 add to all that is good and gracious and beautiful in some 
 other family. Claire will surely reward the Dales for their 
 fidelity by marrying Cuthbert. 
 
Going Home, 381 
 
 1 suppose I look all this, for, though I do not speak a 
 word, Claire answers the unspoken thought. 
 
 " Tim, dear Tim ! " she says caressingly, " our earthly 
 idol is broken, but we both love him still : you with such 
 resignation, such perfect renunciation of him, that your 
 folly will surely be forgiven ; I with anything but resigna- 
 tion — in fact, with a most faulty hope." 
 
 She says these last words in a very low, remorseful kind 
 of voice, and neither Lady Torrens nor I care to ask her 
 the reason why. 
 
 Winter passes away, and the changes have taken place, 
 and have become such established facts that I sometimes 
 have the feeling that the present order of things has been 
 going on all my grown-up life. It is as though it had 
 never been otherwise, when my two married sisters and 
 their husbands come to dine with us, and she who was 
 Lady Torrens takes the head of the table as Mrs. Vincent. 
 The only change that never ceases to puzzle me is in my- 
 self; hour after hour, day after day, week after week, I 
 lie on the sofa in my stepmother's boudoir — lie here list- 
 lessly, aimlessly ; reading sometimes, but far oftener doing 
 nothing but suffer the pain of utter weakness and 
 weariness. 
 
 A chill has settled in my system, the doctors say, and 
 I am ordered to " lie up " and recruit my strength during 
 these winter months, in order that I may come out as 
 good as new in the spring. My two married sisters tell 
 me (in confidence) that their respective husbands have 
 told them (in confidence) that I am "a very foolish girl 
 to cherish a fruitless affection for a worthless scamp like 
 Theo, and that by doing so I nourish an illness which 
 might otherwise be shaken off." They are very sensible 
 men, and I acknowledge their sensibleness, and my sisters' 
 kindness in repeating their improving advice, but my 
 gratitude does not give me the power to follow it. I do 
 not " cherish" an affection for the *' worthless scamp; " my 
 affection for him is a hardy, strong plant, that stands in 
 no need of care and culture. It is a love that is real and 
 true — " a love that ne!er rose to passion, nor to passion's 
 
38j Blotted Out 
 
 sure decay " — a love that is bound up with my being — a. 
 love that has never been shaken or weakened, shadowed 
 or defiled, by any rival — a love that will surely, some 
 day or other, plead with Theo for himself. 
 
 Winter is passing — has passed, and spring's bright 
 glances are bent upon us without intermission. Every- 
 thing seems waking up into new life. The fern fronds in 
 the window-garden burst their earth-bonds, and in their 
 vigorous strength and beauty compel me to look forward 
 with anxious delight to the day when they shall be full- 
 grown luxuriant plants. Heartless and Music are happy 
 and useful, for otter-hunting has set in with enthusiasm 
 in our neighbourhood, and the two good old hounds are 
 still unmatched in our country-side for keenness, courage, 
 and prowess. Lily and Claire ** get up " wonderful 
 archery costumes. Picnics are organised by every one 
 we know — and still I lie here, wondering why I do it, 
 and unable to do anything else. 
 
 The beauty of everything in nature grows upon me 
 with such intensity that I strive to gather in as much of it 
 as is possible, and to clasp it to myself so closely that we 
 can never be quite parted. I cling to beautiful thoughts 
 in books ; I steep myself in the fragrance of the beautiful 
 flowers with which the thoughtful love of those around 
 me fills my room ; I gaze at Claire's ripening loveliness 
 until my eyes swim in tears and a halo surrounds her, 
 and I almost fancy my darling sister is an angel already. 
 The dogs seem to grow fonder of me ; they flop their 
 kind old heads down on the pillow by my side, and give 
 vent to little grunts of affection whenever they come 
 into the room. And as for papa, I seem to be more to 
 him than ever, in spite of the constant presence of his 
 beautiful wife. He seems unwilling to leave the house, 
 for ever so short a time, and interrupts himself in his 
 beloved writing perpetually to run up and ask if there is 
 anything he can do or get to amuse Tim. 
 
 Snowdrops and hypaticas give place to violets and 
 primroses, and these again vanish and are replaced by 
 the roses and lilies of June. I love this summer weather 
 
Going Home, 383 
 
 more than I ever loved it in my life before. It reminds 
 me of those glowing, gorgeous days when Theo first 
 came to us — of the days when my love was a young, 
 fresh, happy, pure thing — of the days when I went 
 through hfe with a bound, I was so full of vigorous 
 health and spirits. 
 
 How changed I am — how entirely altered ! I see 
 them go out two or three times a week — a great gather- 
 ing of them — to the otter-pool, where they pleasantly 
 mix up sport with picnic, after the fashion I know so 
 well — the fashion I have been accustomed to since I was 
 a tiny child ; and, to my own surprise, I have no desire 
 to join the merry group, or rather the group that would 
 be so merry were it not that the thought of my listless, 
 lazy state damps it. Is it listlessness and laziness only, 
 though ? I begin to think that it is something else — 
 something that I cannot combat, something that we 
 must all face sooner or later, and that I shall be called 
 upon to face very soon. 
 
 I realise the truth : I am dying. 
 
 How they will all grieve for me, and how hard it will 
 be for me to tell them the truth, that I am glad that I am 
 going home ! May God, in his goodness, grant happiness 
 to Claire and Theo I 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 TRUE TO ONE FOR EVER ! 
 
 CLAIRE, take up the pen my sister Tim laid 
 down six months ago, with a full sense of my 
 unworthiness to complete the story of her life 
 '"^^ of self-abnegation. The last words she wrote 
 were words of tender, loving hope for Theo and for me. 
 
 Mine is a difficult task, but it is self-assigned ; and, 
 having commenced, I will not shrink from it, nor will I 
 seek to avert criticism by offering apologies, or putting 
 forth painful and perplexing circumstances as a plea for 
 leniency being extended to me. It is my wish and will, 
 not my pleasure, to tell out the tale of my sister's un- 
 selfishness, and in doing so I must portray the selfish- 
 ness of myself and another. 
 
 It was the time of roses when she died, the brightest, 
 most glorious season of the year — the same season as 
 when Theo came among us first : and she, the brightest, 
 most glorious flower of the family, faded just as the roses 
 came to perfection. 
 
 How wildly we clung to her during those last awful 
 hours ! How we tried to hold her back from Death for 
 a while, until all in a moment we felt the full force of his 
 terrible power, and understood all the puny insignificance 
 of our futile efforts to thwart him ! It was such agony 
 to see her ebbing away, knowing how powerless we were 
 
True to One for Ever. 385 
 
 to save her, that there were moments when I prayed for 
 the end — that the agony might come to a climax. When 
 the end did come, there seemed to be no light in heaven 
 or earth for me, and my sorrow was dry-eyed, /had no 
 tears to shed. 
 
 What a blank it was, when what had been Tim was 
 taken away and lowered to the bottom of that ghastly 
 deep grave ! While she was lying in her coffin, in the 
 room that will always be a hallowed spot to us all, 
 with a sweet look of rest and peace on her face, I 
 seemed to hold communion with her still, and hardly felt 
 as if my sister and I were parted for ever in this world. 
 But when my longing gaze followed the flowers into that 
 terrible pit, then the woefulness of it all came upon me, 
 and I knew that Tim was gone. 
 
 Those flowers ! How they will always be associated 
 in my mind henceforth with death and despairing misery ! 
 Crosses of lilies of the valley, crowns of the roses Tim 
 loved so dearly, white Eucharistic and arum lilies, and 
 delicate azaleas, covered her in her coffin, steeping all 
 that remained of her in an atmosphere of such fragrance 
 and purity as befitted my darling. 
 
 That flower-covered bier ; I shall see it all the days of 
 my life. Flowers must love death, otherwise they could 
 not have remained blooming, beautiful and fragrant as 
 they did while clustering round Tim's marble cold form, 
 during all the days that intervened between the hour she 
 died and that woefully blank one when she was carried 
 out of our dear old home for ever. 
 
 Time has toned down the circumstances that were so 
 vividly, gleamingly painful and distinct that day. There 
 was pathos and anguish in everything — pain in the faces 
 of the sympathetic friends who came about us to show, 
 with that sweet instinct of humanity which such times 
 call forth, that, though they recognised our claims to 
 greater grief, it was reflected in their hearts — pain in the 
 sight of the rooms she had inhabited, of the dogs she 
 had petted, of the horses she had ridden — pain in bloom- 
 ing flowers and foliage, whose ripening and decay would 
 25 
 
386 • Blotted Out. 
 
 not be witnessed by her ; and such pathos and agony in 
 the sound of the suppressed sobs that burst from the 
 crowd of our humbler friends, when our sorrowful, broken 
 family band passed through it from the church to the 
 churchyard, and all around realised that all that was 
 human of her was blotted out from our circle for ever. 
 
 " A dreary thought, yet human too, 
 For love is not the soul's alone : 
 It winds around the form we view, 
 
 The mortal we have known. 
 With these the * human ' human love 
 Will weave its thoughts and share its doom. 
 And still confound the life above 
 With death beneath the tomb." 
 
 That Theo was there, uninvited, looking ill and un- 
 happy to a degree that would have been deemed 
 impossible by those who only knew him in his brighter, 
 better days, and that his was the last hand that showered 
 down pure white blossoms into her grave, was the one 
 gleam of light to me in that dark day. Surely her 
 prayer for him will be heard, and her unrewarded fidelity 
 will some day or other plead with his better nature for 
 himself, and will not plead in vain. During these six 
 months that have passed since that sad sultry day, when 
 he betrayed the best and most manly feeling of his life 
 over that early grave, up to the present time, we have 
 heard nothing of him. He, too, is blotted out \ and 
 when Lily and I talk of him, as we do occasionally, it is 
 always as if he and all interest attaching to him were 
 things that belonged entirely to a past that can never be 
 resuscitated. 
 
 Papa has changed into an old man quite suddenly, but 
 Lily, his wife, does not seem to like him the less for the 
 change. " There must be a taint in the nature that is 
 not altered by the death of a child," she says. " It's in 
 the order of things that the parents shall go home first ; 
 and when, in our own individual cases, that order is 
 reversed, we must be callous indeed if we don't feel that 
 
True to One for Ever, 387 
 
 we must have offended a merciful God deeply to have 
 been so heavily punished." Poor papa ! Tim, of all his 
 children, was the dearest ; she was his idol. He beHeved 
 her to be capable of making any intellectual effort, and 
 saw in her a possibility of his own mental power being 
 reflected in such a way, some day or other, as would have 
 redounded to his own honour. Now that she has gone 
 before him, all the frivolity and want of high motive, all 
 the idleness and vanity and uselessness of the class of 
 writing to which he has devoted his life and talents, come 
 home to him. When he takes up the pen it is that of an 
 unready writer; and fictitious joys and woes stand a 
 poor chance of faithful portrayal at the hands of one who 
 has only lately learnt to know what sorrow really is, and 
 who has been taught the lesson by being bereaved of an 
 adored child. 
 
 It is a black, bitter January morning. The side of my 
 face which is towards the fire burns fiercely ; for the fire 
 is composed of blazing logs, which throw out an immense 
 amount of heat, and yet fail to warm the room. Lily 
 and I are wrapped up in furs, and declaring to each other 
 that no consideration for the necessity of exercise, as a 
 matter of health, will induce us to leave the house to-day. 
 Suddenly a change comes over me, and I am possessed 
 by the spirit of restlessness. Tim's grave must look so 
 desolate to-day, with its flowers nipped by the frost, and 
 parched and perished by the wind. I cannot resist the 
 impulse that is on me to go to it, and put my hand upon 
 it, and (if there is communion between the spirits of the 
 dead and the living) make her sweet soul understand how 
 my guilty one pines for, and loves, and longs to rejoin 
 hers. 
 
 There is a footpath through the grounds to the village 
 churchyard, and I take it without delay. It leads through 
 the wilderness where Tim slept with her head on my lap 
 on that bright summer day, long ago, when we first saw 
 Theo, and past the meadows by the otter-pool. The end 
 of it twists about the Polands* garden, and as I am 
 running by the house a tap at the drawing-room window 
 25—2 
 
388 Blotted Out, 
 
 arrests me, and I look through the glass at Mrs. Poland's 
 face, whereon tears and smiles are fighting for su- 
 premacy. 
 
 " I will come in on my way back," I scream, for a 
 biting blast is sweeping by me, and my voice will be 
 carried away if I do not elevate it greatly ; and for answer 
 she opens the window, and drags me in. 
 
 *' Is the child mad to be out in such weather ? '* she 
 says. ''Wait patiently ; wait here." 
 
 " What for ? " I ask wonderingly ; and she looks at me 
 in amazement, and asks — 
 
 *' Where are you going ? " 
 
 " To Tim ! " I reply. 
 
 '* What for? " she asks now, and I feel that my answer 
 will seem a vague one to her when I say — 
 
 "For comfort." 
 
 " Wait here," she repeats ; " wait here till I know what 
 I ought to do. You shouldn't be out ; it shouldn't be 
 there " 
 
 "Why shouldn't I be out, and what shouldn't be 
 there ? " I say, getting myself away to the door as I 
 speak. 
 
 " My dear Claire, I have a visitor," she pants out ; but 
 I rush on, for I see she wants to detain me, and I will 
 not be detained. 
 
 It is but a step to the wicket-gate of the churchyard, 
 and my eager feet carry me quickly from thence to the 
 corner under the cypress where Tim is lying. Some one 
 is standing here before me I As he lifts his bowed head 
 from the t >p of the white marble cross to which he has 
 been clinging, I see that it is Theo. 
 
 So once again Tim and Theo and I are together, and 
 we have this comfort given to us in the midst of our 
 misery, that she is happy and at rest. 
 
 Claire Vincent. \ 
 
 My wife Claire refuses to write another line, therefore 
 I am compelled to finish the story our sister, friend, 
 favourite Tim began. Tim had her faults, and, to be 
 
True to One for Ever. 389 
 
 perfectly candid, her worst fault was a mistake — she loved 
 me ! Other women have done the same thing, and seen 
 the folly of it and got over it. But Tim was better both 
 in mind and soul than these others, and so, though she 
 saw the folly (that is, the futility) of it, she never got over 
 it — but died. 
 
 It is a great pity, because Tim was just the sort of girl 
 to have brought me to her feet, and made me the 
 responsive, self sacrificial, slave-like friend she wished me 
 to be, if she had only been patient enough to have lived 
 a httle longer. She always thought of me before she 
 thought of herself, and still she loved to seem to sway me. 
 In short, she was a mixture of queen and child, and the 
 mixture is a potent one to a man. 
 
 But in all honesty, I must confess that I should 
 never have loved Tim, as I love Claire, my wife. Claire 
 has superb beauty, and a magnificent manner ; but her 
 beauty and her magnificence never appeal to me so 
 strongly as when she forgets them utterly, and bows her 
 head into my bosom in a spasm of bitter recollection of 
 Tim. When she does that, I love her almost as much 
 for her resemblance to the darling who always made me 
 her first consideration as I do for her charming self. This 
 crowning one is added to my other debts to Tim — her 
 example has made Claire far less selfish than she was when 
 I knew her first ; and a fellow does appreciate unselfish- 
 ness in a woman, especially when it is exhibited for 
 himself. 
 
 That day when Claire and I met at Tim's grave was 
 three months from the date of Mrs. Macpherson's death. 
 The good old soul died of a cold she caught while 
 superintending the scouring out of the Hut, in order to 
 free it from every taint of the strangers who had inhabited 
 it for a while. She was not ill long, and she did not 
 suffer much, and I was remarkably attentive to her the 
 whole time. So her end was peace, and she left me the 
 whole of her property unconditionally. 
 
 Claire and I spend most of our time at Cairnholme. 
 I dislike the Ravensbourne district on account of 
 
390 Blotted Old, 
 
 associations that are painful when recalled, and that I see 
 no possible use in recalling. Mrs. Vincent is quite as 
 charming as Lady Torrens was, but I can never quite 
 forget that she snubbed me once. 
 
 Aunt Helen and I are not such good friends as we 
 used to be. She falsified facts about my birth to Tim, 
 and accused my father of crime and my mother of shame, 
 in order to carry out her own aim and separate me from 
 the Vincents. It was done of her ambitious love for me, 
 but 1 can never quite forgive her. We ignore the subject, 
 but are not comfortable together. 
 
 Our first child is a week old ; it's a boy, and we are 
 going to christen him Tim Vincent. May he, like Tim, 
 " love through life and death with perfect faith," and be 
 "true to one for ever ! " 
 
 PRINTED BY W. H. SMITH AND bON, 160 bTKAND, LONDON, W,C. 
 lY— 11— 76 
 

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 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA