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 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT
 
 Ralph Ryder of Brent 
 
 H Movcl 
 
 FLORENCE WARDEN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH, 'THOSE WESTERTON GIRLS,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENT LEY AND SON 
 
 iJublishcr? in (Drbiivarii to ^cr Jftajcstii tlu O^w^cn 
 1892 
 
 [A// rights reserved \
 
 
 4 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 i 
 
 ' Edinburgh, Saturday. 
 
 • My dearest, darlingest old Nanny, 
 
 ' I don't know what I think about 
 it ! To begin with, I was so surprised, so 
 utterly " dumfoundered and knocked all 
 of a heap," that I have hardly taken in the 
 news in all its bearings yet. At the same 
 time there is no getting away from it. 
 You, my little sister, the only girl in th^ 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 world worth mentioning — my little white 
 lily with the laughing eyes — are really 
 and truly going to get married ! Of 
 course it had to come, so I pass over the 
 fact that you are out of your turn, and 
 that you always promised to wait dutifully 
 until I, as elder, had gone off. Perhaps 
 you thought you would have to wait too 
 long, and, indeed, so you would, now I 
 have got stranded up here among these 
 snuff-dried Scotchmen. They are all 
 born at thirty-five, dear, and at once 
 begin to age rapidly. Ugh ! I hate 
 them. But you, you — Fm as jealous 
 as I can be of this man who is carrying 
 you off. To begin with, Fm sure he is 
 a great deal too old for you. His photo- 
 graph (which I duly return herewith) is 
 that of a man of sixty. You say yourself 
 that his hair is nearly white, and that he
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ** looks much older than he is." Depend 
 upon it, he is much older than he says, 
 dear. Men under thirty don't have 
 white hair and those lines in their faces, 
 unless they have been preternaturally 
 wicked — and you say that Captain Ryder, 
 on the contrary, is preternaturally good. 
 I am crazy to see him, and I must and 
 shall come to the wedding — however 
 quiet your future husband wants it to be, 
 he must let me be there. Of course there 
 will be a tussle with papa over the ex- 
 pense of the journey to Swansea. {He 
 thinks Captain Ryder an angel of light, 
 because he won't wait for a trousseau !) 
 But I don't care. I must battle it out, 
 and promise to go without a new evening 
 dress this winter. 
 
 ' To tell you the truth, though perhaps 
 I ought not to, I met an old lady the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Other evening at a most dreary soiree 
 given by one of papa's scientific friends, 
 who filled my head with all sorts of 
 alarming fancies about this Captain 
 Ryder. She is a Miss Anstruther, an 
 old thing who goes about a great deal, 
 and is looked upon as a very great swell. 
 She was listening while I told Mrs. 
 Robertson all about it, and interrupted 
 me, as these old ladies always seem to 
 think they have a right to do. 
 
 * *' Ryder !" she squeaked out, looking 
 at me through her gold -rimmed eye- 
 glasses as if I had done something shock- 
 ing. " Did you say the name was Ryder, 
 and that he had been in the army ?" 
 
 ' I had to sav " Yes." 
 
 ' " Then don't let her have anything 
 to do with him, my dear," she said, lay- 
 ing down the law as if the whole world
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 had nothing to do but to obey her, " for 
 he is «ure to turn out to be some relation 
 to that other Captain Ryder — that dread- 
 tul man that nobody talks about ;" and 
 she dropped her voice quite low, " Ralph 
 Ryder of Brent." 
 
 * I told her that your Captain Ryder's 
 Christian name was Dan, and that he was 
 not '' of Brent," but " of Madras." 
 
 * Then she got a little quieter, but she 
 refused to tell us anything more about 
 '* that dreadful man," except to say that 
 he was the husband of a very dear friend of 
 hers, who was a good deal younger than 
 herself. Lady Ellen Ryder, and that for her 
 sake she never talked about " the affair." 
 
 * You may guess how curious she made 
 us to hear what *' the affair " was ; but 
 all she would tell was that " it happened 
 a long time ago." And the old lady
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 finished by saying she should write to 
 Lady Ellen and ask if Dan Ryder was a 
 relation of hers. 
 
 * Of course you will laugh at all this 
 gossip, and at me for thinking enough 
 about it to repeat it. But, then, it would 
 really not be pleasant to marry into a 
 family that had some horrid scandal at- 
 tached to it ; and it seems rather strange 
 that he doesn't talk about introducing 
 you to his people first, or having any of 
 them to the wedding, doesn't it ? Any- 
 how, you must not be angry with me for 
 writing all this ; of course you cannot tell 
 everything in a letter, however fully you 
 may write, and no doubt you know a great 
 deal more about him than you can say 
 except by word of mouth. 
 
 * Oh, I do so hope and pray that he may 
 be a good, kind, loving husband to you —
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 one who will cherish and appreciate my 
 old fair-headed baby as she deserves ! 
 Papa just took his head out of his scien- 
 tific nosebag (this is vulgar, but expres- 
 sive) to say that if Captain Ryder really 
 was the grave and serious man you de- 
 scribe, your flirting ways would drive him 
 mad. But I laughed him to scorn, and 
 told him that when you were once mar- 
 ried there would not be a steadier wife in 
 England ; that you only flirted because 
 vou must be devoted to someone, and, in 
 fact, that you were one of the girls (and 
 they are the best, I think) who have wild 
 oats to sow, and that you would be all the 
 better for having sown them. Will you 
 laugh at this, or be angry, I wonder ! 
 
 ' It's of no use to send love by post. If 
 I were to send all I have for you, they 
 would have to put six engines on the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 train, and then it would take all the post- 
 men in England to drag it along at the 
 other end of the journey. 
 
 ' Ever your loving old sister, 
 
 * Meg. 
 
 ' P.S. — Miss Anstruther has started on 
 a voyage to Australia for her health, or 
 I should have shown her the photograph 
 of Mr. Ryder when it came this morn- 
 ing.' 
 
 Nanny May read this letter through 
 for the eighth time, as she sat on a stile 
 near Bay View farm-house ; and when 
 she put it slowly back into its envelope 
 and tucked it affectionately away in the 
 bodice of her dress, her face was as grave 
 as a girl's face can be when she is pretty, 
 twenty, and just 'engaged.' 
 
 She did not know more about her fiance
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 than she had told in her letter to her 
 sister, and, moreover, she could not help 
 fancying that she had heard him mention 
 a place called Brent. 
 
 If she had blindly adored Dan Ryder, 
 Nanny would not have thought twice of 
 this circumstance. What did his family 
 matter, so that he was himself? she 
 would have said or thought. But Dan 
 bore the proud distinction of being the 
 only man who had ever paid her atten- 
 tion with whom she had not felt the 
 least bit in love. And yet he was the 
 only one, of the long line of admirers she 
 had had since she was fifteen, whom it 
 had ever occurred to her as possible 
 that she might marry. 
 
 He was so different from all the rest : 
 there perhaps lay the secret. If she had 
 had to choose one of the others, it would
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 have been so difficult to have come to a 
 decision between their slightly varying 
 degrees of youth, good looks, sheep-like 
 devotion, and impecuniosity. But when 
 this grave - mannered man, with his 
 soldierly, distinguished bearing, long 
 gray moustache, and kind brown eyes, 
 fell in love with her at first sight, and let 
 the whole neighbourhood ring with his 
 straightforward admiration — Nanny, in 
 all the pride of the distinction it gave 
 her, and in the delight of a novel sensa- 
 tion, refused him twice for form's sake, 
 and finally accepted him. 
 
 And now she sat on the stile, a fair 
 young girl without any history, wonder- 
 ing in a vague youthful way what the 
 history of her future husband had been, 
 and whether old Miss Anstruther's mys- 
 terious, wicked Ralph Ryder had been in
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT ii 
 
 the family. Down in the depths of her 
 innocent Httle mind she rather hoped 
 that he had. A villain in the family was 
 almost as interesting as a ghost ; it gave 
 one a sort of distinction. But beyond 
 all else, the suggestion roused the girl's 
 curiosity, and set her maiden thoughts 
 running upon the future before her, so 
 strangely wide to the depths of her maiden 
 ignorance. How strange it was, she 
 thought, that he knew all about her, 
 down to the very weakness for almond 
 hard-bake that she had not yet quite 
 conquered, while she knew very little 
 more about him than his name and pro- 
 fession. 
 
 While she sat considering this marvel, 
 she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs 
 trotting in the lane close by, and she 
 blushed and tried to look unconcerned ;
 
 12 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 for, although the formation of the ground 
 did not yet allow her to see him, she 
 knew that the approaching horseman was 
 her lover. 
 
 Should she get off the stile ? Decorum 
 said 'Yes,' honesty said 'No' — and honesty 
 won the day. He should understand that 
 she was the sort of girl who would sit on 
 stiles ; it would give him an insight into 
 her character, she argued. So it was on 
 the stile that Dan Ryder found her, in a 
 frock of cheap brown stuff, a tall girl of 
 very slender build, with a dead- white, 
 almost colourless skin, scarlet lips, gray 
 eyes, and fair hair. Nanny's face was not 
 strictly pretty, but it was piquant, seduc- 
 tive ; and her slim figure approached the 
 perfection of grace. 
 
 These, on the whole, pleasing facts 
 had been impressed upon her again and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 13 
 
 again, and the knowledge of them gave 
 her more ease of manner than is possessed 
 by most EngHsh girls of twenty, and a 
 great deal more than her lover had, as he 
 tied up his horse to a gate in the lane 
 and came quickly up to her. 
 
 Captain Ryder was a thin, worn-look« 
 ing man, with a sun-browned skin, gentle 
 brown eyes, and gray hair and moustache. 
 He was not tall, though his upright 
 soldierly carriage made him appear so. 
 In fact, the type to which he belonged is 
 a common one enough among soldiers 
 who have seen service in hot countries ; 
 and the only point of difference between 
 him and them was that whereas other 
 men, as worn and weather-beaten as he, 
 own to fifty and sixty years of age. Cap- 
 tain Ryder claimed to be still on the right 
 side of thirty.
 
 14 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Margaret May's explanation seemed 
 the only possible one — that he was afraid 
 of frightening the girl by the disparity 
 in their ages. 
 
 It was easy to see that love had made 
 Captain Ryder abject enough for any 
 folly. He stood beside her, after a greet- 
 ing which seemed constrained by reason 
 of the very force of his passion, stroking 
 his moustache and watching her pretty 
 airs shyly, like a lad. 
 
 She pretended to be surprised to see 
 him so early in the day. As a matter of 
 fact, she would have felt no astonishment 
 if the * hands ' at the farm where she 
 was staying had stumbled over him out- 
 side the threshold when they went to 
 their work at four o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 * Please forgive me if I have come too
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 15 
 
 early/ he said humbly. ' It is so difficult 
 to keep away from you. I have to invent 
 little errands and duties to keep my feet 
 employed, or they would carry me off 
 here, against my will, as soon as I thought 
 you were up.' 
 
 * But it is never your feet that bring 
 you here, but your horse's.' 
 
 * My own would not be quick enough 
 — especially to-day.' 
 
 * Why " especially to-day " ?' 
 
 * Because I have something to ask you.' 
 The poor man was getting dreadfully 
 nervous. * I — I have to go away — on im- 
 portant business, next week.' 
 
 The evident pain with which Captain 
 Ryder made this announcement was all 
 on his side. Nanny bore it very calmly. 
 
 ' To go away ! Oh, that is a bore ! 
 For how long ?'
 
 i6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' I — I don't know.' 
 
 He was more than nervous : he was 
 getting miserable. 
 
 ' You don't know for how long !' 
 echoed Nanny, opening her eyes wider 
 in mild surprise. Then a possible expla- 
 nation of his evident embarrassment 
 occurred to her. * Oh, and you are 
 going to suggest that, as you are going 
 away for an indefinite time, we shouldn't 
 be regularly engaged till you come back 
 again ?' 
 
 Nanny said this in a very matter-of- 
 fact tone, but she was of course secretly 
 nettled by the possibility. Her lover, 
 however, protested with startling vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 * No, no, indeed ! I would give up 
 any business, however important, rather 
 than that. What I had to suggest was —
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 17 
 
 was, in fact, that we should be married 
 —first; 
 
 * First ! Before —next week ?' 
 
 ' Yes. Don't look alarmed ; and, above 
 all, don't be offended.' For over Nanny's 
 bright young face was creeping a look of 
 blank dismay. * You have promised to 
 be my wife ; I shall never be happy until 
 you have fulfilled that promise. Why 
 should we wait ?' 
 
 * My — wedding — dress !' gasped 
 Nanny. * I couldn't have even that 
 ready in time !' 
 
 On this Captain Ryder grew even 
 more persistent. 
 
 * What do you want with a special 
 dress ? The one you have on is charm- 
 ing !' 
 
 Nanny interrupted him with a little 
 scream. 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 i8 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' This old thing ! Oh, you can't 
 mean it !' 
 
 ' But I do, indeed. Above all things I 
 hate a fuss, such as people generally make 
 about weddings. I think it indecorous 
 — absurd,' said he, with more irritability 
 than Nanny had yet seen him show about 
 anything. 
 
 The poor child's expression was grow- 
 ing tragic. To be married in this brown 
 stuflF frock, which, when it was new, had 
 only cost elevenpence three-farthings a 
 yard, would be only a little better than 
 not to be married at all. But, beneath 
 her mutinous ways, there was in Nanny 
 an undercurrent of submission to autho- 
 rity which made her content herself with 
 protest, instead of pushing matters to 
 absolute refusal. 
 
 Her grave face made Captain Ryder
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 19 
 
 laugh, but it also woke in him a lover's 
 compunction. 
 
 * Why, I only told my sister about it 
 three days ago, and got her answer this 
 morning,' she murmured in a wavering 
 tone in which there was an accent of 
 despair. 
 
 ' And I got a letter from your father 
 this morning, in reply to mine, in which 
 
 he says that since — since ' Here 
 
 Captain Ryder hunted for the letter, pro- 
 duced a long document on blue, official- 
 looking paper, which Nanny recognised 
 as similar to that on which her father 
 wrote his scientific treatises, and pro- 
 ceeded to read aloud from it in a 
 modestly triumphant voice : * " Since my 
 daughter Antonia " ' — Nanny made a 
 grimace — * ** has selected you as the one 
 individual in the universe to whom she
 
 20 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 feels conscious that she may entrust her 
 happiness without hesitation (and that she 
 does so feel is evident from the precipi- 
 tancy with which she has entered into 
 this engagement), a refusal on my part to 
 accord my consent to her union with you 
 would argue a lack of appreciation of 
 your straightforward and honourable pre- 
 tensions, which I should be exceedingly 
 reluctant to exhibit. I therefore most 
 cordially 
 
 Nanny interrupted the reading by a 
 nod and a little cough. 
 
 ' Thank you,' she said dryly. * You 
 needn't read any more. I've known 
 papa for some years now, and I could tell 
 you what he means in a dozen words 
 without wading through all that. In 
 modern vulgar English, it is this : 
 '' Marry daughter ? (Frocks and food for
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 21 
 
 one girl less.) Rather !" All the same/ 
 she went on, with a sigh, ' I meant to let 
 him in for one frock more !' 
 
 * You shall buy yourself the prettiest 
 frock in London as soon as you are my 
 wife ; and I will send to Hancock's to- 
 night for some diamond rings to choose 
 from.' 
 
 ' Diamond rings !' cried Nanny, in 
 astonishment, her pretty eyes sparkling 
 and her disappointment forgotten, as she 
 leaped off the stile, unable to control her 
 delight. ' But you said you were a poor 
 man ! I begin to think,' she went on, 
 shaking her head wisely, * that your sort 
 of poverty is a very different thing from 
 our sort of poverty, and that I shall like 
 yours much the best.' 
 
 Captain Ryder laughed. 
 
 * Why, I did not mean, certainly.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 when I said I was poor, that I could not 
 provide my wife with everything befit- 
 ting her rank as my wife ' — Nanny felt 
 that she was growing taller — * but only 
 that I cannot afford to keep her in the 
 style her beauty deserves.' 
 
 The stiff, soldierly compliment de- 
 lighted Nanny. Her young face beamed, 
 and, between compliments and talk of 
 diamonds, she forgot her disappointment 
 over the quiet wedding. His next 
 words, however, threw a slight chill over 
 her exuberant joy. 
 
 ' There's a lot to be done at Brent 
 Grange,' he said, ' before it can be made 
 fit for you to live in. It has been shut 
 up for years — ever since my father died, 
 I believe. That's the important business 
 I have to see to. But we may just as 
 well be married first, and then there will
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 23 
 
 be less risk of my spoiling the business 
 by hurrying over it.' 
 
 And he looked at her with an affec- 
 tionate smile. 
 
 Brent Grange ! The name sounded 
 not quite pleasantly in Nanny's ears. 
 She did not feel any real alarm ; still, she 
 was conscious of a dim wish that Meg 
 had not listened to silly gossip, and put 
 ideas into her head which she would rather 
 have been without. Taking the cloud 
 which had come over her face merely as 
 a touch of maidenly hesitation at the 
 nearness of the opening of her married 
 life. Captain Ryder went on quickly : 
 
 * And we can stay at an hotel in 
 London while the workmen are in the 
 house, and go to the theatres, and buy 
 pretty things.' 
 
 Nanny turned her head quickly, with
 
 24 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 a little bubbling sigh of delight. The 
 theatres ! Oh, this was worth a possible 
 tragedy in the family ! 
 
 Her lover was obliged to smile, though 
 a little ruefully, at the ingenuousness 
 with which poor Nanny unconsciously 
 made it clear that the least interesting 
 part of marriage to her was the husband. 
 She burst into incoherent raptures ; and 
 as they made their way slowly over the 
 fields towards the farmhouse, Captain 
 Ryder had wit enough to use this induce- 
 ment so well that, before they entered, 
 Nanny had consented to marry him in 
 the following week. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas, the farmer's wife, was 
 a bright little rosy-cheeked woman, who 
 had been nurse to both Margaret and 
 Antonia May. So that when Nanny, 
 whose health was not robust, needed
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 25 
 
 change of air, it was down at the little 
 farmhouse on the hills overlooking 
 Swansea Bay that she found it. Here it 
 was that Captain Ryder, who was stay- 
 ing on the outskirts of the town of 
 Swansea, at a friend's house, met the girl 
 by chance as he was trespassing on Bay 
 \^iew Farm, fell in love with her as she 
 led him to the highroad, and left no 
 stone unturned until he had found means 
 to secure a proper introduction. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas curtsied as she invited 
 Captain Ryder to enter; but when she 
 heard the news they had to tell, she was 
 filled with dismay. She was holding 
 open the door of the ' parlour,' a tiny 
 apartment filled with souvenirs from her 
 old charges, and the window of which 
 was blocked up with straggling gera- 
 niums. Mrs. Thomas thought highly
 
 26 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 of this room, in which she had intro- 
 duced the luxury of a piano. 
 
 But Nanny loved the brick-floored 
 kitchen, with its rug made of odd scraps 
 of cloth, its miraculously hard sofa, its 
 garniture of hanging hams, and the linnet 
 in a wicker cage by the window, better 
 than the cold splendours of the parlour. 
 
 ' No, no, nurse. In here,' she said. 
 And she put her hands lightly on her 
 lover's shoulders to guide his steps into 
 the kitchen, where a faint glow under 
 the smouldering coals invited the atten- 
 tion of a small ginger-colourei cat, who 
 seemed to waver between the charms of 
 rug and fire on the one hand, and the 
 warm September sun outside on the 
 other. 
 
 'Oh, Miss Nanny,' cried Mrs. Thomas, 
 as soon as she fully comprehended the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 27 
 
 impending calamity ; ' why, it's as much 
 as there'll be time for me to get the cake 
 done — for the icing can't be done while 
 it's new !' 
 
 * Then why have icing, Mrs. 
 Thomas ?' said Captain Ryder, fearing 
 the old woman's influence might be 
 strong enough to make Nanny waver 
 again. ' I'm sure any cake of your mak^ 
 ing would be good enough without.' 
 
 * Good enough ! yes, sir. But there's 
 the proprieties to be considered in these 
 things,' said the ex-nurse with dignity. 
 * And Miss Antonia's too good to be 
 given away with a pound of tea, as it 
 were. Her own mother not being alive, 
 poor lady ! to look after her daughter, it's 
 for me to think of these things. And, if 
 I may make so bold, sir, it's not fitting 
 Miss Antonia should marry you till she's
 
 28 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 been introduced to some of the ladies of 
 your family.' 
 
 As the old lady uttered these words 
 with some dignity, secure in her know- 
 ledge of the etiquette of these matters. 
 Captain Ryder became so evidently dis- 
 turbed that both of his companions 
 looked at him curiously. He perceived 
 this, and laughed, though rather un- 
 easily. 
 
 ' My good lady,' said he, * your Miss 
 Nanny is not going to marry the ladies 
 of my family ; and she can very well put 
 off the curious scrutiny she will be sub- 
 jected to until she has acquired the 
 dignity of a married woman. What do 
 you think, my dear ?' he added, turning 
 to her rather anxiously. 
 
 * Oh, I will do — just what you like,' 
 she answered, with a blush of pretty sub-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 29 
 
 mission, but not without a slight secret 
 feeHng, half of curiosity, half of un- 
 easiness. 
 
 She would have liked, before taking 
 the final plunge, to have seen someone 
 who could tell her something about * the 
 family.' 
 
 But the matter was disposed of now, 
 and there were plenty of other things to 
 think about — the first, when Captain 
 Ryder left the farmhouse that afternoon, 
 being to write again to Meg, telling her 
 the date of the wedding. 
 
 Then for three days there was a rush 
 of work at the farm : frantic excitement 
 on the part of the women-folk ; ill-con- 
 cealed impatience on that of the lover ; 
 Nanny rushing about like a whirlwind 
 all day long, with a needle and cotton in 
 her hand, pretending that she could sew.
 
 30 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 On the day before the wedding the 
 lovers were sitting together in the farm- 
 house kitchen. Nanny was sewing a 
 button on her fiance's glove while he 
 was giving her a lesson in making toast. 
 Mrs. Thomas was bustling in and out of 
 the room, preparing an elaborate tea in 
 the front parlour, and grieving over the 
 lack of dignity revealed by the homely 
 tastes of the lovers. When s/ie was a 
 young girl * keeping company/ the par- 
 lour was the only place good enough for 
 her and her * intended ' to sit in, looking 
 through photographic albums. But, 
 there ! she had often noticed, in her years 
 of service, that gentlefolk were peculiar 
 in their tastes ; and if they liked the 
 kitchen better than the parlour, why, to 
 be sure, the floor was as clean as a new 
 pin, and the plates on the dresser and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 31 
 
 the tinware on the walls shone with 
 constant scrubbing. 
 
 She had just come to the fireplace 
 with the teapot in her hand, and Captain 
 Ryder was gallantly holding the kettle 
 and delivering a lecture on tea-making 
 at the same time, when a shuffling sound 
 was heard on the brick floor of the pas- 
 sage outside, and one of the farm-boys 
 put his head round the door. He didn't 
 look at anybody in particular, his atten- 
 tion being immediately absorbed by the 
 plate of hot muffins by the fire ; but he 
 sniffed, and he coughed, to intimate that 
 he was an ambassador. Captain Ryder 
 saw him first. 
 
 ' There's a gentleman at the door,' said 
 he gently. 
 
 The * gentleman ' grinned from ear to 
 ear.
 
 2,2 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * Nay, master,' said he ; ' but there's a 
 lady waitin' for you outside, look you !' 
 
 ^ A lady ! What do you mean by a 
 lady, Hugh ? Anybody from the village?' 
 asked Mrs. Thomas. 
 
 * Nay, it's nobody from the village, nor 
 from the town. It's a strange lady.' 
 
 And Hugh advanced a step into the 
 room, to get a better view of the muffins. 
 Mrs. Thomas went towards the door, 
 and Nanny looked up at her lover with 
 a laugh. But the expression she caught 
 on his face was one of unmistakable 
 fear. 
 
 ' What's the matter, Dan ?' she asked 
 anxiously, and with curiosity. 
 
 He laughed, but not very sponta- 
 neously, and as he answered he was 
 evidently listening. 
 
 ' Matter ? Nothing — but that the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 33 
 
 kettle is hot and Mrs. Thomas's kettle- 
 holder worn out.' 
 
 But Nanny was so convinced that this 
 was not all the matter that she withdrew 
 her eyes shyly from his face and kept 
 them on the glove in her hand, until a 
 familiar voice in the passage struck upon 
 her ear. 
 
 * Meg !' she shouted, as she threw 
 glove, button, needle and all away from 
 her, and flung her arms round her sister's 
 neck. * Oh, Meg, how lovely of you to 
 come !' 
 
 ' You didn't think I should let you go 
 right off in that way without coming, 
 did you ?' said her sister, in a voice full 
 of aflfection. 
 
 And then she turned sharply, full of 
 curiosity to see the man who was to be 
 her darling Nanny's husband. There 
 
 VOL. 1. 3
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 was nothing in him that she could find 
 fault with : appearance, manners, attitude 
 towards her sister, all were perfectly- 
 right. When the girls were alone to- 
 gether that night, Meg had nothing to 
 say against him. 
 
 But yet the vague fears roused in her 
 by old Miss Anstruther's words were not 
 wholly appeased, more especially as she 
 found that lier sister knew no more about 
 his connections than she did. As for 
 Nanny, Meg's coming had put every- 
 thing right for her — she would be crying 
 with girlish fright one moment, dancing 
 with excitement and happiness the next. 
 
 ' I shall have a house — a house of my 
 own, Meg, where you can come and 
 stay with me !' she cried. ' I shall be 
 Mrs. Ryder of Brent Grange.' 
 
 ' Bre?2f Grange !' cried Meg, aghast.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 35 
 
 Nanny frowned petulantly. 
 
 * Oh dear ! I didn't mean to tell you. 
 
 What do an old woman's stories matter ? 
 
 I was afraid you'd make a fuss about 
 
 it.' 
 
 But Meg did not * make a fuss ' ; she 
 
 was too much alarmed for that. She 
 could not stop the marriage now, with 
 nothing definite to go upon. She could 
 only lie awake that night worrying her- 
 self about her sister's hasty marriage, and 
 praying that Nanny might be happy. 
 
 The wedding took place in the 
 simplest fashion. Mr. Thomas drove 
 the sisters into the town at eight o'clock 
 in the morning ; they entered the church, 
 where they found Captain Ryder waiting 
 at the door, and the ceremony was per- 
 formed at once without incident, the old 
 clergyman mumbling the service through
 
 36 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 in a voice so low that Meg caught 
 scarcely a word. 
 
 But when they all went into the vestry, 
 and bridegroom and bride had signed 
 their names in the register, Meg stared 
 blankly at the page as she in turn took 
 up the pen. 
 
 The bridegroom had signed his name 
 as ' Ralph Ryder.'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Name : * Ralph Ryder '; Condition : 
 * Bachelor '; Age : ' 30.' 
 
 This was what Captain Ryder had 
 written in the marriage-register, and this 
 was what Margaret May read, with 
 starting eyes, as she took the pen to sign 
 her own name as witness to her sister's 
 marriage. As she glanced from the 
 writing to his face, Captain Ryder looked 
 hack at her with a slight frown of annoy- 
 ance. But he was admirably cool, and 
 even before she removed her gaze he
 
 38 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 smiled, and tapped the page to show her 
 where her own name was to appear. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said faintly, while Nanny, 
 not having noticed, in her excitement, 
 that which had alarmed her sister, looked 
 
 at her in surprise ; ' I know. But ' 
 
 She pointed, while clergyman, clerk, 
 Nanny, and Mr. Thomas looked on with 
 astonishment, to his signature. 
 
 Captain Ryder, with a little more 
 vexation than before in face and voice, 
 glanced down at the page, and then again 
 at Meg. 
 
 * Well, it is quite right. That is my 
 name,' he said irritably. 
 
 But this incident having drawn every- 
 body's attention to the register, the three 
 other men present were all considering, 
 with knitted brows, another point in his 
 description of himself, and, after reading
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 39 
 
 ' Age : 30,' were examining his appear- 
 ance in bewilderment. 
 
 Perceiving this, Captain Ryder sud- 
 denly showed more susceptibility to 
 criticism. He grew very red under the 
 sunburn of his skin, and, playing nerv- 
 ously with his moustache, answered 
 their looks with apologetic words. 
 
 ' Yes, yes. Nobodv will believe I 
 am not more than thirty, I know, 
 unless I produce my certificate of birth 
 — which unfortunately I don't happen to 
 carry about with me,' he said, irritation 
 getting the better of his confusion, as he 
 uttered the last words. * I ought to dye 
 my hair, or something — and I will, now 
 I am married.' 
 
 Again he caught Meg's eye, and saw 
 in her expression more suspicion than 
 ever. Instead of shrinking, however, he
 
 40 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 frowned upon her angrily as, having 
 recovered her quiet self-possession, she 
 held her ground. 
 
 'But the name you have written here is 
 *' Ralph," and we understood that it was 
 ** Daniel,"' she objected, not aggressively, 
 but in a courteously deprecating tone. 
 
 * *' Daniel !" ' he laughed derisively. 
 ' No, I am afraid I cannot claim to be a 
 Daniel. " Dan " is the nickname I am 
 known by in the regiment. My name is 
 Ralph.' 
 
 There was no more to be said. His 
 explanations were clear enough, and 
 seemed to satisfy everyone else — from 
 the clergyman, anxious to show regret 
 for his expression of surprise by relating 
 how his own father had gone gray while 
 still young, to Nanny, who tapped her 
 foot impatiently and looked at her sister
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 41 
 
 with open vexation. Whether he spoke 
 truth or falsehood, Captain Ryder had 
 such a perfectly natural and dignified 
 manner that it was scarcely possible to 
 express open disbelief. 
 
 In poor Meg's ears, howxver, as they 
 all left the church, rang the words she 
 had been repeating to herself ever since 
 she heard old Miss Anstruther^s com- 
 ment on her sister's approaching marriage 
 — * Ralph Ryder of Brent, Ralph Ryder 
 of Brent.' 
 
 She found herself walking to this 
 refrain, which, indeed, had rung in her 
 ears to the rattle of the train which 
 carried her from Edinburgh to Swansea. 
 It seemed to her that it must have been 
 familiar to her for a long time, and the 
 poor girl asked herself whether she had 
 not in her childhood heard the name
 
 42 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 whispered as that of some monster of 
 crime. 
 
 So they all got up again into the 
 farmer's cart, and were driven back by 
 him to Bay View Farm in the bright 
 sunshine of the early September morn- 
 ing, all very silent, and all conscious that 
 they had been assisting at a very rapid 
 rush into lifelong responsibilities. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas had been persuaded to 
 stay at home, ' to have the breakfast 
 quite ready in time,' they said, but really 
 to avoid the risk of her expansive feel- 
 ings getting the better of her during the 
 ceremony. ^She now met them on the 
 threshold, beaming with cheerful plea- 
 sure, incoherent with excitement, offering 
 a hearty embrace to all who would 
 accept it, not excepting the dignified 
 bridegroom himself.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 43 
 
 * Hold hard, lass !' said the farmer, in 
 eood-humoured amusement at his wife's 
 sobs. ' One 'ud think it was thou as had 
 just been married. Tears is the bride's 
 privilege.' 
 
 * Nonsense, Evan ! I am not crying. 
 And it's only because I'm so happy to 
 have my little lady, and like my own 
 child that was, go off from our house.' 
 
 * Well, if it's tears of happiness the 
 thought of marriage makes thee shed 
 now, it's the first time thou's seen it in 
 such a fair light, judging by what thou's 
 said to me/' grumbled Evan, with a 
 shake of the head. 
 
 His wife did not heed him. She was 
 leading Nanny, who was very quiet, 
 white, and nervous, into the parlour, 
 where a ' breakfast ' was spread, which 
 was a pride and a joy to Mrs. Thomas
 
 44 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 to her dying day. Even the unapprecia- 
 tive Evan felt a proud glow at the genius 
 of his better-half, as he looked from the 
 elaborate icing of the cake to the pink 
 blanc-mange, the castellated and highly 
 glazed wall of the raised pie, and the 
 opaque white paste which disguised the 
 chickens. 
 
 ' Nothing looked as if it was made to 
 eat, I declare it didn't !' was his admiring 
 comment to his wife afterwards. 
 
 The magnificence of the repast made 
 a convenient topic for the bridal party, 
 over whom an air of constraint had hung 
 since the incident in the vestry. Nanny, 
 to Meg's great grief, seemed to resent 
 those comments of the latter which had 
 led to it. 
 
 The bride and bridegroom were to 
 leave Swansea by an early train, and a cab
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 45 
 
 had been ordered to take them to the 
 station. When it drove up, Nanny ran 
 upstairs to get ready, as if impatient to 
 break up the oppressive constraint which 
 was upon them all. 
 
 Meg rose to follow her, but Captain 
 Ryder, anxious that no words of pre- 
 judice should be poured into his newly- 
 made wife's ear, and determined also to 
 have an explanation with her sister, de- 
 tained the latter ; and, at his suggestion, 
 they went out into the little garden 
 among the late roses, the southern- wood, 
 the asters, the purple pansies, and the 
 stiff rockeries with their pretty growth of 
 stonecrop. Here he opened fire upon 
 her at once. 
 
 ' Will you tell me. Miss May, what it 
 is that has caused you to look upon me, 
 and even to treat me, as if I were a sus-
 
 46 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 picious character ? If it is, as I suppose, 
 only the natural jealousy of one sister 
 who is losing the other, don't you think 
 you carried the expression of it this 
 morning a little too far ?' 
 
 Nothing could have been more simple 
 and straightforward than his manner. 
 Meg, who was a sturdy little sandy- 
 haired person, with penetrating blue eyes, 
 could detect no sign of a guilty con- 
 science under his annoyance. She hesi- 
 tated, and felt ashamed and uncomfort- 
 able. 
 
 ' I haven't known you long enough to 
 feel the confidence of an old friend to- 
 wards you, have I ?' she asked frankly. 
 
 ' But I am staying with old friends 
 who are very well known in this town. 
 Surely that is testimony enough to my 
 not being a bad character ?'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 47 
 
 ' Oh yes, but You seemed in 
 
 such a hurr\^ to marry her and carry her 
 off before you could know any of her 
 people, or she know any of yours.' 
 
 ' Well, you should be the last person 
 to be surprised at my anxiety to carry her 
 off. As for her people, they seem, as far 
 as her affections are concerned, to be 
 summed up in you. As for mine ' 
 
 * Well ?' said Meg somewhat eagerly, 
 seeing that he stopped. 
 
 ' Mine are all summed up in one 
 person also — my mother. And, frankly, 
 I was " in a hurry," as you call it, to get 
 my marriage over before she could learn 
 anything about it.' 
 
 ' But why r asked Meg, rather haugh- 
 tily. * We are poor, certainly. But, 
 after all, our father is a well-known 
 scientific writer, and our family '
 
 48. RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Is one that I am greatly honoured in 
 connecting myself with,' he interrupted, 
 with a formal little bow. * The whole 
 truth is simply this — that my mother, 
 having been left a widow young, with 
 no child but me, has hung over me and 
 kept me tied to her apron-string all her 
 life ; so that I dread the thought of her 
 jealousy in the weakest-minded way in 
 the world.' 
 
 He spoke with more irritability than 
 affection, which Meg considered an ugly 
 trait in a son so adored. 
 
 ' She won't want to live with you, I 
 hope !' broke out the girl, with more sin- 
 cerity than discretion. * I — I beg your 
 pardon, but, you see, it would be rather 
 unpleasant for Nanny, wouldn't it ?' 
 
 Captain Ryder's face clouded with 
 annoyance.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 49 
 
 ' Yes, very. I am most anxious to 
 avoid such a thing. But I think it can 
 be done. My mother hates Brent 
 Grange, because it recalls the loss of my 
 father. And I am determined to live 
 there. Now are you satisfied ?' 
 
 Not at all. Meg's lips did not say this, 
 but her eyes did ; and Captain Ryder 
 noted her suspicious expression in ap- 
 parent perplexity. 
 
 * Thank you,' was all she said. Then, 
 gathering a pretty half-blov/n rose, she 
 said she would take it to Nanny. 
 
 But again she was stopped. 
 
 ' No,' said the bridegroom impera- 
 tively ; * you are not going to poison 
 her mind with your suspicions and sug- 
 gestions. Whatever you have more in 
 your mind about me, say out frankly to 
 me.' 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' I will then,' cried Meg, her face 
 crimson, her voice shaking. ' I — I have 
 heard of a Captain Ryder w^ho is a very 
 bad man, and who — who has a wife 
 living.' 
 
 He heard her very quietly, and his 
 face grew at least as red as hers. There 
 was an embarrassed pause when she had 
 finished speaking. Meg's feet moved 
 restlessly on the garden-path. 
 
 * And you have reason to think — 
 what ? That I am that Captain Ryder ?' 
 
 But the suspicion she had entertained, 
 thus put into words, was too much for 
 poor Meg's equanimity. She drew a 
 long breath of horror and fear sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 * If it is some relation of yours,' she said 
 at last, in a scarcely audible whisper, 
 ' tell me. Naturally I should say nothing
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 51 
 
 about it. And the relief it would give 
 me — to know — after what I have won- 
 dered — and feared Tell me, do tell 
 
 me ! 
 
 Her heart sank as she looked up at 
 him. He either was, or pretended to be, 
 deeply offended. 
 
 * I am sorry that I can't credit my- 
 self with bigamous intentions to satisfy 
 you,' he said coldly. ' And as I am at 
 present the only Captain Ryder in the 
 service, your informant must hive been 
 drawing on his invention.' 
 
 Meg shot her last bolt quickly, hoping 
 to catch him by surprise. 
 
 ' Have you ever had in your family a 
 Lady Ellen Ryder ?' she asked. 
 
 At last she saw that she had come to 
 one little scrap of solid fact which he 
 was not in a position to deny. 
 
 UBRARt 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF nUWW
 
 52 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Well ?' said he shortly. 
 ' S/ie could tell me what you — wt7I 
 not!' 
 
 * It seems to me that, on the contrary, 
 you could tell her a great deal about her 
 family which she does not know.' 
 
 ' Will you introduce me to her ?' 
 ' I am afraid you must excuse me. I 
 must decline to expose any lady of my 
 family to the insulting cross-examination 
 you have put me through this morning.' 
 ' Now, why do I do it ? Isn't it clear 
 enough that I can have only one motive 
 — concern for my sister's happiness ? If 
 I had had time, I could have made 
 inquiries ; but it was suddenly sprung 
 upon me that she was to be married in a 
 few days, and I had no time. So I had 
 to put my questions direct to you.' 
 
 * And what was the use of that, since
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 53 
 
 you were determined not to be satisfied 
 with my answers ? 'Once for all, I tell 
 you there is nothing to learn about me, 
 and that there is not now, and never has 
 been, any sort of mystery attached to any 
 member of my family. We have always 
 been honest, ordinary, humdrum people, 
 with a penchant for the army, and no- 
 thing else to distinguish us.' 
 
 Nanny was at the door, putting on her 
 gloves, and glancing towards them with 
 nervous, eager interest. Therefore Cap- 
 tain Ryder uttered this last speech rapidly, 
 with his eyes fixed upon his bride. He 
 was at least thankful that he had suc- 
 ceeded in keeping the sisters apart at the 
 last. But when, after one long embrace 
 between them, the farewells were over, 
 and bride and bridegroom were driving 
 rapidly on their wav to the station
 
 54 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Nanny turned quickly to her husband 
 and asked : 
 
 ' What was that you were saying to 
 Meg ?' 
 
 Captain Ryder looked annoyed, as 
 well he might, and withdrew the arm 
 he had flung round her. 
 
 ' Nothing, my darling ; at least, she 
 was only telling me to take care of 
 you.' 
 
 * Oh no, she wasn't,' said Nanny, who 
 had caught stray words of their talk as 
 she stood preparing for the journey at 
 her little window not far above their 
 heads. * You said something about a 
 mystery. What was it ?' 
 
 ' I said that there was no mystery,' he 
 answered shortly. ' Your sister per- 
 sisted that I was the possessor of a 
 criminal secret of some kind, and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 55 
 
 wouldn't believe my denials. Do you 
 
 know where she got hold of the 
 story ?' 
 
 ' No,' answered Nanny. 
 
 She was rather frightened by the 
 vexation in his tones and by the change 
 to abruptness in his manner. She had 
 seen him before only in a state of yield- 
 ing, sentimental softness, and without 
 considering how much reason he had to 
 be annoyed, she shrank from him in 
 timid bewilderment. 
 
 After this they were both silent ; the 
 cab drove quickly on until, arriving at 
 the top of the steep descent into the 
 town, the horse had to slacken his pace. 
 As they jolted slowly down, they passed 
 the house where Captain Ryder had 
 been staying ; and from half a dozen 
 windows handfuls of rice were flung on
 
 56 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the cab by merry young girls who had 
 been lying in wait for it. 
 
 At the same time a man-servant ran 
 out of the gate and handed a telegram 
 to Captain Ryder through the window 
 of the cab. 
 
 ' It came for you only ten minutes ago, 
 sir ; so I was told to look out for you, 
 and deliver it as you went past.' 
 
 As Captain Ryder took it, a shade 
 passed over his face, which became a 
 black frown as he read the message. He 
 said nothing about it to his bride, who 
 was watching him, and even furtively 
 trying to read it over his shoulder ; but 
 he put the telegram carefully back 
 into its torn envelope, and into one 
 of the pockets of the great-coat he 
 wore. 
 
 Nanny, like the spoilt child she was.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 resolved to read that telegram or perish 
 in the attempt. 
 
 To Captain Ryder's annoyance, but to 
 the poor little bride's great joy, they 
 could not get a carriage to themselves in 
 the train, and had to get in with a fidgetv 
 City family, returning to London after 
 their summer holiday. Her head was in 
 a whirl with excitement and want of 
 sleep, and a young girl's wondering emo- 
 tions on her wedding-day. And a fear 
 of her newly-made husband ran through 
 it all, mingled with astonishment that 
 she could have married a man of whom 
 she knew so little. 
 
 The day was warm ; the heat of the 
 crowded carriage soon became unbear- 
 able, and Captain Ryder took off his 
 overcoat and made it into a cushion for ^ 
 her. She would have been much more
 
 58 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 comfortable without it ; but he was in 
 the adoring stage when he must make 
 her Hfe unbearable with his attentions 
 rather than leave her alone. So she put 
 up with the inconvenience patiently, in 
 the knowledge that it would make her 
 intention of reading the telegram the 
 easier tp carry out. When, therefore, the 
 train stopped for five minutes at Bristol, 
 Nanny at once sent her husband to the 
 bookstall to choose her a novel — ' one of 
 Ouida^s, or the author of *' Archie 
 Lovell," or Mrs. Oliphant's, or Rhoda 
 Broughton's.' 
 
 With which somewhat puzzling direc- 
 tions the bridegroom, marvelling at the 
 catholicity of her literary taste, submis- 
 sively took himself ofl^. 
 
 In a moment Nanny's fingers were 
 diving into his great-coat pocket ; she
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 59 
 
 pulled out the telegram, read it, and 
 thrust it back again, to the amusement of 
 her fellow-travellers and her own discom- 
 liture. For the message was as follows : 
 
 * Come up at once and meet me at the 
 Metropole. Take no step till I have 
 seen you. 
 
 ^ F. r; 
 
 The telegram had been sent off from 
 ' Brent,' and Nanny guessed that it was 
 from Captain Ryder's mother, who 
 visited the place from time to time, as he 
 had told the young girl, to look after the 
 property she had there. 
 
 Nanny trembled at the thought of 
 what awaited her. She knew that the 
 Metropole was the hotel to which her 
 husband was going to take her — he had 
 told her so the night before. If she was
 
 6o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 to be exposed, immediately on her arrival 
 in town, to the furious anger of a jealous 
 and imperious mother-in-law, Nanny felt 
 that she should break down, run away, 
 do something desperate. 
 
 When her husband came back, fol- 
 lowed by a boy with a tray full of books, 
 the poor child was in such a state of 
 confusion and excitement, consequent on 
 her own indiscretion, that she took up a 
 yellow-backed novel without even read- 
 ing the title, and, with a hasty ' This will 
 do beautifully,' sat back guiltily in her 
 corner. 
 
 Perhaps Captain Ryder, who had 
 already learned to v/atch every change of 
 her fresh little face, guessed what she had 
 been doing, and took pity on her. At 
 any rate, when they at last reached Pad- 
 dington, and got into a hansom, the hotel
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 6i 
 
 Captain Ryder directed the man to drive 
 to was not the Metropole. Nanny 
 dared not ask the reason of this change 
 of plan ; but her husband presently 
 turned to her and said : 
 
 ' I don't think you will find town 
 lively at this time of year. We have 
 just an hour to get something to eat, and 
 then we go right through to Paris/ 
 
 ' To Paris !' echoed Nanny, with a 
 start of surprise, and an impulse of de- 
 light, which was followed immediately 
 by a sneaking regret that it was not Meg 
 she was going with, instead of this alarm- 
 ing incubus of a husband. For Nanny 
 had not had time to fall in love with the 
 man who had chosen her, and he was 
 becoming every moment more terrible 
 in her girlish eyes. 
 
 This mother-in-law too, whom they
 
 62 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 were evidently going away to avoid, was 
 another terror in store for her. Nanny 
 pictured to herself the awe 7 inspiring 
 person she would be — an upright, com- 
 manding woman, with fierce black eyes. 
 The young bride knew that the elder 
 Mrs. Ryder had followed her son where- 
 ever he was sent with his regiment — 
 had been with him in India and at 
 Gibraltar — and that it was by a quite 
 unusual chance that he had been staying 
 at Swansea without her. To face her 
 would be an ordeal from which even 
 high-spirited Nanny shrank. 
 
 Meanwhile she was being whirled off 
 to Paris without a moment's time for 
 calm reflection. 
 
 And if the journey afforded no chance 
 of quiet thought, what of the next few 
 days ? Nanny, brought to the brightest
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 63 
 
 of bright cities, with all the fresh power 
 of enjoyment of early youth, attended 
 bv a slavishly devoted husband whom 
 she, in her turn, soon began to adore, was 
 as much intoxicated as a child at its first 
 pantomime. 
 
 All the sober realities of life, to say 
 nothing of ugly mysteries and evil whis- 
 pered stories, had disappeared from view 
 in these days, which were like a fairy- 
 tale adapted to the earth. From the 
 moment when the morning sun, shining 
 into the bright little bedroom of the 
 hotel, with its many-coloured carpet, its 
 huge looking-glass, and its gilt clock 
 which never told the time, kissed her 
 pretty eyes into wakefulness, one pleasure 
 followed fast upon the heels of another, 
 until, wearied with the delight of living, 
 she fell asleep again at night with words
 
 64 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 of love in her ears. And Captain 
 Ryder, if he was less susceptible to the 
 charms of the lively city, was at least as 
 happy as she, for he was even more in 
 love. 
 
 One trouble he had, but he would not 
 let her share it with him. Every day he 
 received a long letter in a woman's hand- 
 writing ; and while he was reading it, 
 and for some time afterwards, he looked 
 harassed and annoyed. These letters 
 were not sent to the hotel where they 
 were staying, but to another at which 
 Captain Ryder would call to fetch them. 
 And he made no secret of the fact that 
 he gave no one his real address because 
 he did not want his honeymoon to be in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 ' From your mother, dear ?' Nanny 
 would ask sympathetically, as he hastily
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 65 
 
 thrust the unwelcome letter into his 
 pocket. 
 
 He would say * Yes ' rather shortly, 
 and there, for the day, the matter ended. 
 
 Oh, what a Gorgon she must be, 
 Nanny thought, to worry the poor fellow 
 like this, when he had only done what 
 every other man did, and what he had a 
 perfect right to do, in getting married ! 
 But Captain Ryder, although he did not 
 speak of his mother with any striking 
 amount of affection, would never hear a 
 word against her. 
 
 ' She has had her own way all her life, 
 and is very clever and used to managing,' 
 he would say. 
 
 And then, having fulfilled his duty, he 
 would seem glad to change the subject. 
 
 But, after a fortnight or so, even this 
 cloud on their happiness seemed to meit 
 
 VOL. 1. 5
 
 66 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 away ; for the letters stopped. Thence- 
 forward the only small trial in Nanny's 
 rosy existence was the amount of atten- 
 tion her charming appearance excited in 
 the Parisians, whose courtesy to strangers 
 has been so ludicrously over- praised. 
 
 She bore this little annoyance in silence, 
 however, until one day when her hus- 
 band, having driven with her to the 
 Cascade in the Bois de Boulogne in an 
 open fiacre, left her alone one moment 
 to bring her some fruit from the restaur- 
 ant. She would have liked to accom- 
 pany him, and to eat her pear and drink 
 her wine at one of those little marble- 
 topped tables, among the bourgeois 
 wedding-parties and the gaily-laughing 
 couples who congregated there. But 
 her husband would have thought there 
 was contamination for his sweet wife
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 67 
 
 in such contact. When he returned, 
 Nanny was flushed with annoyance. 
 
 * Do you know, Dan, these people are 
 really very rude !' she said impatiently. 
 * As soon as you left me, a little old 
 woman, who was driving past, stopped 
 her fiacre, and deliberately got out and 
 walked round to stare at me. Of course 
 I pretended to take no notice, but it was 
 done deliberately, I assure you. And, 
 more than that, I have seen the same 
 old woman staring at me before like that 
 — once when we were sitting on the 
 Boulevard des Italiens, and once at the 
 Comedie Fran9aise. I do think these 
 French manners are shameful !' 
 
 * Perhaps she wasn't French,' sug- 
 gested Captain Ryder, in a very quiet 
 voice. ' What was she like ?' 
 
 ' She was very, very tiny, and bent and
 
 68 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 shrivelled. She had white hair, and an 
 insignificant, withered little face, with 
 two long, prominent front teeth, one on 
 each side. And she walked with a stick, 
 leaning on it all the time, just like a 
 witch.' 
 
 * I thought so,' said Captain Ryder, 
 pulling his moustache fiercely, as he did 
 when he was angry. * It was my 
 mother.' 
 
 ' Your mother !' echoed Nanny in 
 astonishment. ' Oh no ; that is not 
 possible. You have told me your mother 
 is not much more than fifty, and was 
 once a beauty. Now, this woman was 
 seventy-five at least, and as ugly as she 
 could be !' 
 
 * Nevertheless, it is my mother. Little 
 woman, our honeymoon is over !' 
 
 Nanny could not quite believe it.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 69 
 
 The little old lady was ugly and witch- 
 like, but she was not at all formidable- 
 looking ; not at all the clever, managing 
 woman Dan had described. 
 
 When, therefore, while she was dress- 
 ing the next morning, and her husband 
 had gone out for an early stroll, a card was 
 brought up to her bearing the name 
 * Mrs. Ryder,' she flew down into the 
 reading-room in a state of great curiosity 
 and excitement. Dan was right. It was 
 the little old lady who had stared at her 
 so persistently in the Bois. 
 
 And yet was it Dan's mother, after all ? 
 For, with a pleasant smile and the 
 softest, kindest voice in the world, the 
 tiny witch-like creature was raising her 
 face to the soft young one for a kiss, and 
 was congratulating her already on her 
 marriage !
 
 70 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' He will be a good husband to you, J 
 am sure,' said the soft voice, ' for he has 
 been a good son to me.' 
 
 And Nanny, returning the caress 
 timidly, felt alarmed and bewildered.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Nanny wondered more and more, as 
 she sat down by old Mrs. Ryder's side in 
 the big reading-room of the hotel, and 
 felt the affectionate touch of the small 
 thin hand, how the difference between 
 the real mother-in-law and the mother- 
 in-law of her imagination was to be 
 accounted for. Her husband had always 
 spoken of his mother with the greatest 
 respect, but without much affection, as 
 of one whose strong will had kept him 
 in bondage for a great many years, and 
 whose jealousy had prevented him from
 
 72 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 marrying. Yet here she was, all sweet- 
 ness and gentleness, already treating her 
 son's wife as a beloved daughter ; and 
 solicitously, yet with a pretty deference to 
 the girl-wife, asking questions about Dan. 
 * Is he well, dear ? Happy of course 
 he is,' she added with a smile. 
 
 Yes, he was quite well, Nanny said. 
 ' And you don't lead too dissipated a 
 life, I suppose ?' went on old Mrs. Ryder, 
 with a little anxiety in her tone. ' Late 
 hours, days too full of sight-seeing, 
 theatres night after night, and — and 
 champagne-luncheons as a pick-me-up in 
 the morning ?' 
 
 ' Everything but the last we must 
 plead guilty to, I am afraid,' answered 
 Nanny, laughing. * We do go about a 
 great deal, but we don't drink much 
 champagne. I like orgeat better, and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 73 
 
 Dan doesn't drink much of any- 
 thing.' 
 
 This answer evidently gave much satis- 
 faction to the old lady, who, noting the 
 little smile about the corners of the 
 bride's mouth, shook her head gently, 
 and said : 
 
 * You think me a fussy old woman, 
 dear, don't you ? But men who have 
 lived in India have to be very careful 
 what they drink, I assure you ; especially 
 those of highly nervous temperament, 
 like my son, Dan. Of course/ and she 
 leaned forward confidentially, and placed 
 her hand upon Nanny's much larger one, 
 ' you needn't tell him that I said this to 
 you. But it is better to know it.' 
 
 The young wife assented, with secret 
 amusement at the idea of her daring to 
 suggest to Dan what he should or should
 
 74 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 not eat or drink. Devoted though he 
 was to her. Captain Ryder, with his 
 gray hair and dignified manner, inspired 
 Nanny still with some awe ; it was he, 
 and not she, who took the lead in sug- 
 gesting what they should do and where 
 they should go. Therefore, when the 
 elder lady asked whether she liked the 
 idea of settling down at Brent Grange, 
 Nanny replied dutifully that she should 
 like whatever Dan chose to do. 
 
 * And you think he would like to settle 
 down at Brent ?' asked Mrs. Ryder doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 ' He has always spoken of it as a 
 matter of course,' said Nanny, looking at 
 her with some surprise. ^ Hasn't he got 
 some property or other there ? He seems 
 to think he ought to look after it, and I 
 know he blames himself for having left
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 75 
 
 all the trouble of it to you while he went 
 travelling about the world. Besides, he 
 says that, always wandering about, he has 
 never yet had a home.' 
 
 Both ladies flushed deeply, and poor 
 Nanny would have given worlds to with- 
 draw that apparently unkind speech. 
 She had, indeed, only repeated Dan's 
 words ; but it was not until now that she 
 saw what a reproach they contained to 
 the mother who had scarcely ever left 
 him. 
 
 ' Of course, travelling about always 
 must be miserable. And you can't expect 
 ever to be really comfortable until the 
 very ground your house stands on is 
 your own, so Dan says,' she added 
 quickly ; but with an uncomfortable 
 consciousness, as she noticed the expres- 
 sion on her companion's face, that she
 
 76 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 was making matters worse instead of 
 better. 
 
 * I thought that Hfe was the best for 
 him,' said the old lady humbly, almost 
 pleadingly. * And I knew that if he 
 married he would want to give it up. 
 But,' she went on, in a different tone, * I 
 don't think you would either of you be 
 comfortable at Brent Grange. The 
 neighbourhood has gone down of late 
 years ; almost all the large houses are to 
 let ; and they are pulling them down to 
 build rows of small shops. Besides, the 
 Grange is not half a mile from some 
 brick - fields, and the smell, when the 
 wind is south or south-east, is almost 
 unbearable.' 
 
 If this was a correct description, it was 
 not an inviting one, certainly. Nanny 
 considered the prospect for a moment, and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT -j-j 
 
 then burst out with a happy suggestion, 
 as she thought : 
 
 * But Dan has another house down 
 there, hasn't he ? He — - — ' 
 
 Mrs. Ryder interrupted her very 
 abruptly. 
 
 * Oh, he has a great deal of house- 
 property about there, but it consists 
 chiefly oi cottages, at a few shillings a 
 week.' 
 
 ' Ah, but he has another large house, 
 I don't know whether it is in Brent, 
 but it is somewhere about there. The 
 White House, I think it is called.' 
 
 Old Mrs. Ryder did not start, or 
 change colour, or do anything in the 
 least sensational, at the mention of this 
 house. But she involuntarily conveyed 
 to Nanny's mind, as clearly as if in words, 
 that the name woke in her some strong
 
 78 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 feeling. She answered at once, quite 
 quietly, evidently unconscious that she 
 had in any way betrayed herself: 
 
 * Oh yes, I know the place you mean 
 — The White House at Bicton. It 
 is on high ground, and would have done 
 very well if it had been in repair. But it 
 has been in a ruinous state for a great 
 many years.' 
 
 ' It could be repaired, couldn't it ?' 
 asked Nanny, curious and interested as 
 to the reason of her companion's emo- 
 tion. 
 
 ' I suppose it could — at least, of course 
 it could. But it would take a very long 
 time, and cost a great deal of money. 
 And then the grounds, which are large, 
 are simply a wilderness.' 
 
 Then the old lady started another sub- 
 ject, and Nanny got no chance of learning
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 79 
 
 more about The Whiie House before her 
 husband came in. 
 
 Captain Ryder was dutifully affec- 
 tionate in his manner towards his mother, 
 bat there was little spontaneity in his 
 tenderness. He was naturally annoyed, 
 Nanny thought, at her having spied upon 
 them, as it were, before presenting her- 
 self to her daughter-in-law. 
 
 ' Mrs. Ryder says, Dan ' began 
 
 Nanny presently. 
 
 She was interrupted by the old lady's 
 soft voice. 
 
 ' Say mamma, dear.' 
 
 * Mamma says,' corrected Nanny, with 
 a smile and a blush, * that The Grange 
 is in a horrid neighbourhood, and 
 that The White House is uninhabit- 
 able.' 
 
 Captain Ryder laughed.
 
 8o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * You are a good deal more particular 
 for us than we shall be for ourselves, 
 mother, I expect.' 
 
 ' Well, dear. The Grange has been 
 to let for years, with a great board up 
 that has had to be repainted again and 
 again. And yet nobody has taken it.' 
 
 ' I must run down there as soon as we 
 get back to town, and see how things 
 have been going on.' 
 
 ' Do you doubt that I have done the 
 best that could be done during all these 
 years that I have had the overseeing of 
 the place ?' 
 
 There was, not unnaturally, under her 
 habitual sweetness, the slightest possible 
 tone of acerbity. 
 
 * No, indeed, mother. But I doubt 
 whether it was in agents' human nature 
 not to take some advantage of your being
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 a sweet woman, instead of a burly, bully- 
 ing man.' 
 
 He was quite good-humoured, and 
 she had not lost her temper. But mother 
 and son exchanged looks which were not 
 those of perfect trust. Nanny, who was 
 quick-witted, watched with interest the 
 eye -to -eye encounter; and when the 
 visitor had left for her own hotel, she 
 turned to her husband with a world of 
 ill-suppressed curiosity in her face. 
 
 ' Why don't you like her better ?' was 
 what she wanted to say. ' I like your 
 mother very much,' was what she did 
 say. * And from the first moment she 
 wasn't a bit unkind, as I was afraid she 
 might be.' 
 
 * No, my mother would never be un- 
 kind to anyone,' said he shortly. 
 
 Nanny wondered why, then, there had 
 
 VOL. 1. 6
 
 82 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 been this anxiety to avoid meeting her, 
 this talk about her jealousy, this constant 
 interchange of vexatious letters. But to 
 a timid question on this head, all she got 
 in the way of answ^er was this : 
 
 ' She wants me to live abroad, and I 
 mean to settle down in England.' 
 
 Nanny was silenced. But she felt that 
 the explanation was by no means either 
 full or satisfactory. 
 
 Captain Ryder had one more interview 
 with his mother, the particulars of which 
 he did not relate to his wife, to whom 
 he merely said that he had seen the old 
 lady off on her way back to London. 
 
 ' Why do you say o/^J lady, if she is 
 only fifty-five ?' asked Nanny, who had 
 been struck with the same peculiarity in 
 the mother that she had remarked in 
 the son, namely, the great difl?erence
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 83 
 
 between her real and her apparent 
 age. 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't know. She seems 
 to me older than she is ; perhaps that is 
 the reason.' 
 
 * Yes/ said Nanny; ' she looks seventy, 
 doesn't she ?' 
 
 Perhaps this remark reminded him 
 that he looked more than his age, a 
 rather sore point with him. At any rate, 
 he answered somewhat shortly, and turned 
 his wife's attention to something else. 
 
 Old Mrs. Ryder's visit seemed to make 
 a break in their honeymoon from which 
 their spirits never quite recovered. 
 
 When they had been in Paris three 
 weeks. Captain Ryder suggested to his 
 wife that, instead of carrying out their 
 first plan of a visit to Italy, they should 
 return to London. Of course Nanny
 
 84 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 agreed to this, as she agreed to every pro- 
 posal of her husband's ; and the next day 
 they were back at the Charing Cross 
 hotel. 
 
 On the very evening of their arrival in 
 England, Nanny took courage to make 
 the suggestion that they should go down 
 to Brent Grange on the following day 
 and look about them. Looking grave at 
 once. Captain Ryder said that he had to 
 go down to Aldershot to see a friend who 
 was ill there, and added that there was 
 no need to hurry over it ; they had the 
 London theatres to sample before they 
 began to concern themselves with the 
 cares of housekeeping. Did she think 
 she would be dull to-morrow if he left 
 her for the whole day ? He would be 
 entirely at her service afterwards for an- 
 other month of gaiety.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 85 
 
 ' It will take quite the day to go to 
 Aldershot and back,' he said ; ' for my 
 old regiment is there now, and I shan't 
 be able to resist the temptation of letting 
 everybody congratulate me. For you 
 know I was a sworn old bachelor.' 
 
 Of course Nanny acquiesced in this 
 arrangement ; so Captain Ryder wrote at 
 once to his mother, asking her to come 
 round on the following afternoon to take 
 his wife for a drive. The next morning, 
 having taken care to provide her with 
 novels enough for a month's hard reading, 
 he went through the deliciously painful 
 experience of a first parting from her, and 
 started for Aldershot. 
 
 With the help of her books, Nanny 
 got through a couple of hours very com- 
 fortably. But it was a lovely day, and 
 she was of active habits. Very soon the
 
 86 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 armchair grew too hard to be endured, 
 the exciting adventures of the heroine 
 became insufferably tedious. She longed 
 
 to go out. 
 
 So she wandered about the big, hand- 
 some, unhomely sitting-room, now dip- 
 ing impatiently into a book, now looking 
 with longing out of the window at the 
 busy crowd in the streets, until a telegram 
 was brought to her. 
 
 It was from old Mrs. Ryder, who was 
 staying with friends in Kensington. This 
 was the message : 
 
 * Sorry cannot come this afternoon. 
 Will call 7.45 and take you to concert.' 
 
 Nanny threw the paper down, as soon 
 as the waiter had disappeared upon her 
 dignified intimation that there was no 
 answer, in a fit of petulant disappoint-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 87 
 
 ment. She would not, could not stay 
 indoors all day. What was the use of 
 being married, if you were to be shut up 
 all day long, and not have half the liberty 
 you had when you were single ? A 
 happy thought flashed into her mind : 
 she would go to Bicton, and see those 
 two houses, one of which was to be her 
 home. She would be back in plenty of 
 time for the concert, she thought. 
 
 Nanny ran downstairs to the office, 
 where a very young, pleasant-faced girl, 
 the daughter of the manager of the hotel, 
 got a * Bradshaw ' and helped her to find a 
 train for Bicton. Nanny took a fancy to 
 the girl, and asked her if was not dread- 
 ful to have to sit in the office all day long 
 on warm days like that. 
 
 ' Oh no,' said the girl, smiling. * It 
 is a pleasure to me. I live in the country,
 
 88 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 and am only allowed here for a treat now 
 and then. It's such fun to hear the 
 stories about the people who come here : 
 one hears such strange stories in hotels/ 
 
 ' Why, how can you tell much about 
 people who just come and go ?' 
 
 * One can sometimes. There's the 
 strangest story going on here now, for 
 instance. But — perhaps I oughtn't to 
 tell you.' 
 
 ' Yes, do — do !' 
 
 ' Well, there's an old gentleman here 
 now, who came here about three months 
 ago with a handsome lady who seemed 
 perfectly devoted to him. And as for 
 him, he didn't seem to be able to do the 
 least thing for himself ; it was always she 
 who must help him. She was his nurse, 
 she said, and the poor gentleman wasn't 
 exactly out of his mind, except just at
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 times, when she had to bring him up to 
 town to see the doctor. And she said it 
 was the wickedness of his wife that had 
 brought this upon him, and that he had 
 just seen her, and he always had an attack 
 after seeing her.' 
 
 * Poor man ! How very dreadful !' said 
 Nanny sympathetically. * And is the 
 nurse with him this time ?' 
 
 The young girl glanced about her mys- 
 teriously, and lowered her voice. 
 
 ' No ; that's the strange part of it. 
 He's brought quite a young girl with 
 him, who, he says, is his wife ! And now 
 he is behaving just as if he was sane.' 
 
 * Perhaps he's cured,' suggested Nanny. 
 
 * But how about the other wife — the 
 wicked one ?' 
 
 * She is dead, I expect.' 
 
 * But she was alive two months ago !'
 
 90 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * Well, he couldn't have married again 
 if his first wife wasn't dead.' 
 
 * But don't you think,' suggested the 
 young girl mysteriously, * that he may 
 have married her in an interval of sanity, 
 and forgotten that he had a wife already ? 
 It seems such a strange thing to bring 
 the new wife to the hotel he came to 
 with the nurse, unless his memory for 
 the past is quite gone, doesn't it ?' 
 
 Nanny had to admit that it did seem 
 strange. She had herself no suggestion 
 to make but that such things were not 
 likely to happen. 
 
 ' I wish the nurse would come here 
 again, and explain it all,' continued the 
 young girl, with a sigh of baffled curi- 
 osity. ^ I saw her, for I was here the 
 day they came. She was a very nice 
 woman, and she talked to me and gave
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 91 
 
 me her portrait. Mamma took it away 
 from me, because she wanted a photo- 
 graph to fill one of her frames. Here it 
 
 IS. 
 
 She took from the mantelpiece a 
 frame containing the photograph of a 
 rather handsome woman with a very 
 well-developed figure. 
 
 ' I don't think I like the face much,' 
 said Nanny dubiously. ' And did you 
 see the old gentleman too ?' 
 
 ' Yes. I saw him when he came with 
 the nurse, and I saw him to-day, too. 
 Such a change in him ! Instead of seem- 
 ing to be always brooding over some 
 trouble, as he was last time, he looks 
 as brisk and as happy as a boy !' 
 
 ' Perhaps it isn't the same man, but 
 his twin-brother!' suggested Nanny, much 
 interested.
 
 92 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Yes, it is the same,' said the girl, 
 shaking her head. ' Eyes, hair, voice, 
 everything, down to the very pin in his tie 
 — a Httle pearl acorn in a gold cup.' 
 
 * Oh, the pin is nothing. My husband 
 has a pin like that.' 
 
 ' Your husband !' echoed the young 
 girl, growing suddenly crimson. ' Oh, 
 are you married ? I didn't think — at 
 least, I thought — I mean you look so 
 young !' 
 
 She was very much disturbed, and, 
 taking up the ' Bradshaw,' began hunting 
 for a train to Bicton with great energy. 
 She alarmed herself unnecessarily, how- 
 ever. Nanny was, indeed, musing over 
 the story ; but no thought that it could 
 have any connection with herself entered 
 her head. 
 
 * I hope the poor young wife will
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 93 
 
 never find out that there is anything 
 strange — or wrong about her husband,' 
 she said at last. ' That would be dread- 
 ful !' 
 
 The young girl shot at her a quick 
 glance of frightened compassion over the 
 ' Bradshaw.' 
 
 * Yes/ she almost whispered ; ' she 
 — she would have to leave him, wouldn't 
 she ?' 
 
 Nanny was rather startled by this view. 
 
 ' I don't know,' she said slowly, with 
 a tinge of deeper colour rising in her 
 face ; * she would always /J^/ she was his 
 wife. And if she loved him very 
 much ' 
 
 Her voice trembled, and she broke off. 
 For a moment she had, in all innocence, 
 tried the case as her own, and found her- 
 self unable to give an answer. It was
 
 94 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 her turn now to find a relief in the pages 
 of * Bradshaw.' 
 
 Luckily for Nanny's chances of getting 
 to Bicton that day, the manageress of the 
 hotel returned at that moment to the 
 office, and made the route clear to her. 
 Still more luckily, Nanny, as she ran up- 
 stairs to get ready for her journey, did 
 not see the look of horror on the face of 
 the manageress, nor hear her sharp re- 
 proaches, as her young daughter con- 
 fessed what she had been telling the 
 guest. 
 
 On first arriving at Bicton Station, 
 Nanny was ready to hastily endorse all 
 her mother-in-law had said as to the un- 
 desirability of the neighbourhood. In 
 every direction she saw row after row of 
 small, brand-new, contract-built houses, 
 of that glaring red brick which, in con-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 95 
 
 junction with scraps of bilious glass let 
 into the windows, is facetiously termed, 
 by builders, * artistic' And there were 
 rows of cheap and startling shops to cor- 
 r^pond with the houses. Everywhere 
 was a mushroom growth of that dull- 
 souled poverty which loses its dignity in 
 empty pretension. But when, following 
 the direction given her by the second 
 person she asked (the first had never 
 heard of Brent Grange), she walked down 
 a half-built street which straggled off into 
 fields, things began to look brighter. 
 
 When the last of the ' eligible modern 
 residences ' was left behind, and a bit of 
 real country road, with a hedge on each 
 side, brought her to the corner of a little 
 * green ' surrounded by old houses, Nanny 
 felt that there was hope in life. For the 
 vulgarity of cheap modern improvements
 
 96 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 had scarcely yet touched the village of 
 Brent. 
 
 Nanny went straight forward by the 
 narrow village green, gazing all around 
 her in delight. Great trees spread their 
 branches over the roadway. Half a 
 dozen cows, munching the short grass 
 lazily, raised their stupid heads and stared 
 at her with the expression with which 
 an Englishman of the wealthy classes, 
 whether peer or potato-merchant, stares 
 at the stranger who dares to get into the 
 same railway carriage with him. 
 
 To right and left, in well-wooded 
 gardens, and shut in by tall shrubs, old- 
 fashioned houses, all of different shapes 
 and sizes, seemed to show, in shabby 
 paint and broken railings, a sense that 
 their best days were gone by. For the 
 well-to-do London tradesmen who had
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 97 
 
 formerly occupied them, instead of driv- 
 ing up to business daily in a gig from 
 Brent, now lived at * West ' Kensington, 
 and went to town on the penny 'bus. 
 One large white house, the tiled roof of 
 which had been repaired with slates, now 
 felt itself to be too humble for its 
 elaborate cast-iron gate, and had there- 
 fore abandoned this stately entrance in 
 favour of a modest wooden gate in the 
 side wall. 
 
 Before the next house to this 
 — a plain, shabby, red-brick structure, 
 with battered wooden railings — a little 
 comedy was being enacted, to the great 
 entertainment of a small group of chil- 
 dren, a neat maidservant sent out to post 
 a letter, and a few other idlers. A freshly 
 painted board announced that the house 
 was to let ; and the sale of the late occu- 
 
 voL. I. 7
 
 98 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 pier's goods, which had just taken place, 
 indicated the unhappy termination of his 
 tenancy. 
 
 The most conspicuous figure in this 
 scene was a young fellow in tennis cos- 
 tume who, with a large soft felt hat tilted 
 over his eyes, was sitting on the low wall 
 beneath the broken railings, and greeting 
 each piece of furniture, as it was taken 
 out and packed into a cart outside, with 
 a gentle stream of comment. 
 
 ' Gently, gently,' he murmured, as a 
 big, comfortable, but shabby chair was 
 brought out, and bumped in its passage 
 against the gate-post ; ' that off-side fore- 
 leg won't stand much rough handling. 
 It has precipitated me into the fireplace 
 more than once.' 
 
 Again, as a pile of school-books were 
 brought out — one or two being allowed
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 99 
 
 to fall on the pathway — he shook his 
 head reproachfully. 
 
 * I mustn't blame you,' he said with 
 magnanimity; 'I've found them heavy 
 myself 
 
 Nanny, who was standing near enough 
 to him to hear all this, was puzzled, but 
 amused. Without appearing to notice her 
 presence, the young man was evidently 
 not insensible to the fact that a beautiful 
 woman, who was also a stranger, was 
 within hearing. 
 
 * What is it ?' asked Nanny of the 
 maidservant with the letter. ' Some 
 poor man sold up ?' 
 
 The girl blushed, and glanced towards 
 the gentleman, who immediately rose 
 and, raising his hat, showed a fairly 
 good-looking young face, with a large 
 ginger-coloured moustache.
 
 loo RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Yes, madam/ he said, with an air of 
 much amusement ; ' /am the poor man.' 
 
 ' Oh, I — I beg your pardon ; Fm so 
 sorry. I ' 
 
 ' You're very good to be sorry about 
 it,' he said courteously, but with great 
 cheerfulness. ' But I assure you I'm not. 
 None of these things were worth carting 
 away, even if I'd had a cart, or the 
 money to hire one, which I haven't. 
 And now these good people have saved 
 me all trouble on that head. What "they 
 will do with the books I don't know, for 
 the people of this benighted village can't 
 read, and they wouldn't come to me to 
 be taught how to.' 
 
 But, moved by his misfortunes and 
 his tawny moustache, Nanny persisted in 
 once more expressing her sorrow before 
 she walked away. She made the tour of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT loi 
 
 the green, which comprised the whole 
 extent of the village, carefully looking 
 about for The Grange. 
 
 At the point of the green from which 
 she had started, a high, old-fashioned 
 brick wall, with a solid, projecting 
 coping, extended for some distance up a 
 road to the right ; this wall was fringed 
 by a thick growth of ivy, and enclosed 
 grounds so thickly wooded that no 
 glimpse of a house could at this time of 
 the year be obtained from the road. 
 Nanny followed the wall until it bent 
 inwards to the unpretending high 
 wooden gates, flanked by two smaller 
 ones, which formed the entrance. Above 
 the wall and the ivy she could just see 
 the roof and chimney of a small lodge. 
 Was this interesting-looking place The 
 Grange, she wondered. Still following
 
 I02 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the wall until, some distance further on, 
 it turned inwards from the road, she 
 espied a battered and defaced board, half 
 hidden by the branches of trees, on 
 which were still faintly traceable the 
 
 words * To Let. Apply to .' But 
 
 the name was now illegible. 
 
 This, then, must be The Grange. 
 
 In ever-rising excitement, Nanny re- 
 traced her steps until she stood again 
 before the entrance. Could she summon 
 up courage enough to ring the bell and 
 ask to be shown over the place ? Some- 
 body lived there, evidently ; for she could 
 see a thin line of smoke rising from a 
 chimney behind the trees. But, then, 
 who was the occupier ? A caretaker, 
 she supposed ; but it was evidently a 
 caretaker not used to being disturbed, 
 for the board which stated that the place
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 103 
 
 was to let would scarcely have been 
 seen except by someone who was look- 
 ing for it. 
 
 While she was thus debating within 
 herself, one of the side-gates opened, and 
 an old man, who looked like a gardener, 
 came out. Something about him re- 
 minded Nanny, in a vague way, of her 
 husband ; but she had not then had 
 enough experience to know that it was 
 merely the similarity in carriage and 
 bearing between one infantry soldier and 
 another, however wide the difference of 
 rank between them may be. The old 
 man, who had a hard, shrewd face, 
 noticed the unmistakable look of interest 
 in the young lady's eyes, and he saluted 
 her respectfully in passing. Nanny 
 turned to him eagerly. 
 
 ' Can you tell me — I beHeve this
 
 104 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 house is to let ?' she said. ' Could I see 
 over it ? Does anyone live there?' 
 
 ' Yes and no, ma'am. There's a lady 
 lives in it, but she's only there as a care- 
 taker-like, I believe, though she's been 
 there some years now. But I've heard 
 something about the gentleman that 
 owns the house coming to live there, 
 with the lady he's married. So, of course, 
 the other one's got to turn out.' 
 
 ' The other one !' It seemed a strange 
 way of speaking. Nanny began to feel, 
 on the one hand, very nervous about her 
 rash expedition, and, on the other, very 
 anxious to see this lady-caretaker, with 
 whose feelings in the matter her in- 
 formant seemed to side. 
 
 ' Mrs. Durrant ain't at home just now,' 
 he said, as he opened one of the little 
 gates and ushered Nanny through into a
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 105 
 
 paradise of luxuriant vegetation ; ' she's 
 gone to see her brother, who's met with 
 a misfortune, poor gentleman ! But I 
 can show you over the house, ma'am, and 
 answer any questions.' 
 
 ^ A.nd — and who are the people to 
 apply to, about the rent and all that P I 
 couldn't read the name on the board,' 
 said Nanny, who felt bound to keep up 
 the character of a house-hunter. 
 
 ' Oh, they're dead, ma'am, long 
 ago.' 
 
 ' Then who do people apply to, when 
 they come to look at the house ?' 
 
 ' They don't come to look at it, 
 ma'am.' 
 
 And Nanny perceived by his dry tone 
 that she was found out. 
 
 After this she followed him in silence 
 past the lodge, which was shut up,
 
 io6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 deserted, and in a ruinous condition ; up 
 a pretty winding drive under the trees ; 
 through a garden which showed signs of 
 care ; past a long line of now empty 
 stables, built of red brick mellowed with 
 age, to a large, rambling, old-fashioned 
 house of the same warm tint, with a 
 red-tiled roof, gable windows, and a thick 
 ill-trained growth of ivy and wisteria 
 over the lower portions. 
 
 ' Oh, what a pretty place !' she cried, 
 as she stopped short on the stone-paved 
 yard, half overgrown with moss, by which 
 they approached it from the side. 
 
 ' Yes, ma'am. And maybe Mrs. Dur- 
 rant finds it as unpleasant to leave it like, 
 as — as them that's going to take her place 
 finds it pleasant to come into it.' 
 
 Nanny felt her breath coming faster. 
 What did this man mean by his curious
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 107 
 
 insinuations ? He did not speak in the 
 least disrespectfully, but rather in a grave 
 tone, which sounded almost like one of 
 warning, and with the authority of a 
 person who knew all the circumstances of 
 the case. 
 
 * You like this Mrs. Durrant very 
 much, then ?' she asked in a tone which 
 she flattered herself was one of complete 
 indifference. * And perhaps you think 
 she is not being very well treated ?' 
 
 * Fve nothing to say against Mrs. 
 Durrant, ma'am. And at the same time 
 I've nothing to say against the family, 
 meaning Captain Ryder and his mother, 
 ma'am. It's not likely, considering how 
 I've been m their service nigh on forty 
 years.' 
 
 * Forty years !' 
 
 * Nigh on it, ma'am. And I would
 
 io8 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 only suggest — quite respectful, ma'am — 
 that people that have been in charge as 
 long as Mrs. Durrant, why, they learn to 
 know things which it's better they should 
 keep to themselves, ma'am. And I wish 
 Captain Ryder's lady — I should say Cap- 
 tain Ryder's mother, ma'am — would see 
 it in the same light. It would be better 
 for the family, take the word of an old 
 soldier that has seen the world.' 
 
 As he finished speaking, a rather high- 
 pitched feminine voice, speaking in a 
 fretful, complaining tone, reached their 
 ears : and the old gardener, if such he 
 was, courteously invited Nanny, by a 
 rapid gesture, to stand aside under the 
 spreading boughs of a tall cedar. 
 
 ' Mrs. Durrant, ma'am, and her 
 brother, Mr. Valentine Eley,' said he in 
 a low voice.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 109 
 
 The voice of this caretaker was that of 
 a young woman, and she was saying, as 
 she came up : 
 
 'Well, I am going to see the Captain 
 this evening, and we'll see what he says 
 about it.' 
 
 Nanny looked at her, and looked again, 
 with her heart beating fast and her 
 thoughts in a whirlpool of bewilderment. 
 For this Mrs. Durrant was the original 
 of the photograph which had been 
 shown to her at the hotel.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PANG of vague suspicion shot through 
 Nanny's heart as she overheard the lady's 
 words : ' going to see the Captain to- 
 night.' 
 
 How came the nurse of the mad old 
 gentleman to be caretaker at Brent 
 Grange ? And who was the ' Captain '? 
 
 Retreating still further into the shade 
 cast by the spreading trees, she watched 
 Mrs. Durrant as that lady passed in the 
 direction of the house. The command- 
 ing ' caretaker ' was tall, and what men 
 would call ' a fine woman ;' still young,
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT m 
 
 but already inclined to grow a little too 
 stout, according to the wont of this type 
 of beauty. Nanny did not see her face 
 until Mrs. Durrant was turning to enter 
 the house. Then she caught a glimpse 
 of a handsome profile, with an aquiline 
 nose and a rather tightly-shut, small- 
 lipped mouth. 
 
 The person to whom she was talking 
 was the young man whom Nanny had 
 seen enjoying the selling up of his home. 
 He was following with his hands in his 
 pockets, giving from time to time a lazy 
 assent to his companion's vehement 
 speeches, but without seeming to suffer 
 himself from any sympathetic emotion. 
 
 Nanny, watching the two intently, 
 forgot that she was not alone. The old 
 man who had shown her into the 
 grounds had retreated out of sight.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Stepping forward to get a better view of 
 the house, she heard a sharp voice above 
 her, and, looking upwards, saw Mrs. 
 Durrant, wearing an indignant expression 
 of face, at one of the windows. 
 
 ' Valentine !' she was crying out ; 
 ' there's someone trespassing in the gar- 
 den. Go out and tell her this is private 
 property.' 
 
 But Valentine being in no hurry to 
 obey this mandate, Nanny, with her 
 cheeks very red and her eyes filling with 
 angry tears, turned to walk back towards 
 the gate. As soon as there was an inter- 
 vening clump of trees between her and 
 the house, the old man rejoined her. 
 
 ' If you will wait here a few minutes, 
 ma'am,' he said, ' Mrs. Durrant is going 
 out, and I could show you over the house.' 
 
 * Oh, no, no, thank you,' she answered
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 113 
 
 vehemently. 'I — I don't think this 
 house would suit me. It's — it's too 
 
 big.' 
 
 The old gardener listened respectfully, 
 and made no comment. But she knew 
 so well that he guessed who she was that, 
 not troubling to make a fresh pretext, 
 she said simply : 
 
 ' Do you know The White House at 
 Bicton ? I want to see it.' 
 
 ' Yes, ma'am ; I can show you where 
 it is, but that's about all. For it has 
 been in a dismantled state many years 
 now, and the doors has been nailed up to 
 prevent the boys getting in and stealing 
 the flooring for firewood. If you want 
 to go over it, ma'am, you'll have to get 
 an order from the agent, and he'll have 
 to communicate first with old Mrs. 
 Ryder.' 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Isn't it a great loss of income to Cap- 
 tain Ryder to have two big houses unin- 
 habited ?' asked the young wife, with 
 some pride in her own acumen and 
 growing distrust of her mother-in-law's 
 powers of management. 
 
 The old man gave her a sharp look. 
 
 * Big houses aren't wanted about here, 
 ma'am,' he answered. * There's lots 
 more of 'em to let. Bicton and Brent 
 has gone out of fashion with people that 
 can afford to live in style. The place 
 has gone down, ma'am.' 
 
 Nanny had already seen for herself 
 evidences of the truth of this. As they 
 went out through the gate by which they 
 had entered, she gave one more fascinated 
 glance up the long vista of tall elms and 
 beeches on the left, through which 
 smooth lawns, with a fringe of flowering
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 115 
 
 shrubs, rhododendrons, laurestine, and 
 the tall sword-leaves of the iris, made a 
 most inviting picture. She turned sud- 
 denly to her guide. 
 
 ' This Mrs. Durrant,' she began, ' does 
 she ever take in mad people ?' 
 
 The stolid face of the old gardener 
 underwent just so much change as con- 
 vinced Nanny that the knowledge she 
 had gained was supposed to be a secret. 
 But he answered very quietly, with ap- 
 parent surprise : 
 
 ' Mad people ! No, ma'am. There's 
 nobody lives with her but her two 
 servants.' 
 
 ' But I know that she once had charge 
 of a mad old gentleman, who got well 
 and married,' Nanny went on, with a great 
 appearance of astuteness. * Now, I don't 
 think Captain Ryder would be pleased to
 
 ii6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 hear that his house had been used as a 
 private asylum/ 
 
 A most malicious smile twinkled for 
 an instant in the man's hard eyes. 
 
 ' I don't know how you came to hear 
 of it, but I wouldn't mention it to the 
 Captain, ma'am, if I was you,' he said 
 dryly. 
 
 And again a pang of vague and name- 
 less fear shot through Nanny's heart. 
 
 They were out in the road by this 
 time, and were going to the left, under 
 the old ivy-hung wall. A little shabby 
 wooden door in this wall was suddenly 
 opened from within, and Mrs. Durrant 
 came out with a quick step and locked it 
 behind her, with one of two large iron 
 keys which she carried tied together on a 
 piece of string. In the other hand she 
 held a small hand-bag ; and as she
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 117 
 
 Stopped to open it, and drop the keys 
 inside, Nanny noticed that her face was 
 not wholly hard, that she had brown 
 eyes which betrayed a passionate nature, 
 and that her mouth, when not com- 
 pressed with anger, had curves denoting 
 good nature. When she saw Nanny, 
 whom she recognised as the trespasser in 
 The Grange garden, she scowled and 
 seemed inclined to address her. But 
 noticing that she was accompanied by 
 the old gardener, Mrs. Durrant gave him 
 an indignant look, before turning up a lane 
 nearly opposite to the gate by which she 
 had come out. 
 
 Then Nanny and her guide went 
 steadily on towards the highroad, where, 
 turning to the right, they ascended the 
 hill into the old High Street of Bicton 
 itself
 
 ii8 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Bicton is one of those villages in the 
 more remote suburbs of London which, 
 under the rough hand of ' modern im- 
 provement,' are rapidly losing their pri- 
 mitive picturesqueness. Among the irre- 
 gularly-built, low-brov^ed shops, with 
 their thatched roofs and quaint chimneys, 
 tall new buildings have shot up, stiff, 
 straight, staring, and devoid of all beauty 
 or interest. To the right, on the brow 
 of the hill, a new church of red brick 
 has replaced the old one ; but further 
 on, for the most part deserted indeed 
 by their late occupiers, a dozen pretty, 
 stately old houses are still left to lament 
 their decadence, till such time as the 
 speculative builder shall come to run up 
 rows of many-gabled villas of mongrel 
 Gothic architecture where the guelder- 
 roses and lilac-bushes grow in clumps
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 119 
 
 upon the shady lawns. Past these 
 Nanny went with her guide, till the 
 straggling houses gave place to open 
 fields. Some distance along this pretty 
 road she saw, a long time before they 
 came to it. The White House. 
 
 It was built very near the road. A 
 plain, square, substantial-looking building 
 of considerable size, with many small 
 windows, most of which were fitted with 
 outside shutters which had once been 
 green, gave the house a rather un- 
 English appearance, as if more sun 
 had been expected to shine upon the 
 place than was likely to illuminate these 
 gray British skies. Such of the shutters 
 as had not broken away from their 
 hinges were closed. Most of the glass 
 which was not thus protected had been 
 broken, and green stains of damp showed
 
 I20 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 under the eaves. The roof of the stables 
 and a portion of a large conservatory, 
 most of the glass of w^hich appeared to 
 be broken, could be seen from the 
 road. 
 
 The tall front gates, the only thing 
 about the place which seemed to be in 
 good repair, were fastened up securely. 
 Nothing could be seen of the grounds, 
 which were evidently extensive, except a 
 forest -like growth of fine old trees. 
 When they came in front of the gates 
 Nanny stopped, and considered every 
 detail attentively. 
 
 ' I shouldn't like to live there!' burst 
 from her lips. 
 
 * That's what everybody else feels, 
 ma'am,' said the old gardener, with a 
 grim smile, ' and so it doesn't get 
 let.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 *Well, they don't seem to try to let 
 it. It wouldn't cost much to make it 
 look better, at least. A pot of paint and 
 a few nails would do something, and the 
 gate might be made to open, instead of 
 being blocked up as if the place were a 
 prison. I think the sooner Captain 
 Ryder takes the management of the 
 property into his own hands, the better it 
 will be for him.' 
 
 But the old man's face grew suddenly 
 severe in expression, and he shook his 
 head warningly. 
 
 ' Old folks' ways seems bad ways and 
 slow ways to the young like you, ma'am. 
 But there's some sense in it all, depend on 
 it. And the world goes round none the 
 worse for not going too fast.' 
 
 This shut-up, lonely old house in- 
 terested Nanny even more than the pic-
 
 122 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 turesque Grange. Her one idea was now 
 to get rid of her guide, and to try to force 
 an entrance on her own account. 
 
 * I should like to go over it,' she said, 
 peering about curiously, but without dis- 
 covering any breach in the lofty wall by 
 which a burglarious entrance could be 
 effected. 
 
 ' There's no way of getting in,' said 
 the old gardener. * It's fastened up every 
 way, as you see, all along of them vaga- 
 bond bovs.' 
 
 ' And why shouldn't the vagabond 
 boys enjoy it if they like T said Nanny 
 mutinously. ' Nobody else does. And 
 why boys, who can enjoy life so splen- 
 didly, should always be kept out of 
 everything and treated as if they were 
 pariahs, I never could understand. It 
 would be better for them to have the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 123 
 
 flooring for firewood than for the rats to 
 have it for food.' 
 
 But the old man would not see things 
 in the same light ; he accepted her half- 
 crown as a hint that he was at liberty to 
 leave her, and, having directed her back 
 to the station, retreated respectfully with 
 a lowered opinion of her judgment. 
 
 Nanny had an idea that the old gar- 
 dener — whose name, he had informed 
 her, by the way, was William Pickering 
 — intended to keep an eye upon her 
 movements ; so she walked back into the 
 overgrown village, found the station, and 
 made inquiries about the next train to 
 take her back to town. She had an hour 
 to wait ; so she promptly started to 
 return to The White House. It was not 
 yet much past six, and was still quite 
 light ; besides, her curiosity had got the
 
 124 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 better of her discretion. There must be 
 some reason, she argued, for keeping a 
 large house and its grounds in this neg- 
 lected state; indeed, Pickering, with his 
 wise saws about ' old folks' ways,' had 
 almost said as much. Nobody would tell 
 her what this reason was, therefore she 
 must try to find it out for herself. 
 
 And, as she walked along, the young 
 wife teased herself with a second ques- 
 tion : What did Mrs. Durrant mean by 
 her remark that she was ' going to see 
 the Captain to-night '? Of course she 
 could not have meant Captain Ryder, 
 Nanny's husband ; but for all that it 
 would be more satisfactory to know 
 whom she did mean. This, however, 
 Nanny felt, was more than she was likely 
 to discover. 
 
 There was no way of getting inside
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 125 
 
 the grounds of The White House from 
 the frontage on to the highroad — that 
 was clear; but Nanny said to herself 
 that the very care with which the front 
 gates were fastened up pointed to the 
 fact that there would be a practicable 
 entrance somewhere, bv which Picker- 
 ing, or whoever had charge of the place, 
 could enter and see that the much- 
 maligned ' boys ' had not succeeded in 
 storming the fortress. So she scoured 
 the neighbourhood by its lanes and by- 
 ways, until, as she had expected, she 
 came upon the back wall of the grounds ; 
 and following it for some hundred yards 
 along a narrow footpath skirting a field 
 of stubble, she at length found behind a 
 cowshed, and almost hidden by hawthorn 
 bushes, a door in the wall. It was 
 closed ; but Nanny's heart beat high as
 
 126 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 she saw in the keyhole a great iron key, 
 from which a second key dangled on a 
 piece of string. 
 
 She had seen these keys before — in 
 Mrs. Durrant's hand. 
 
 Without a moment's hesitation as to 
 this rash proceeding, Nanny pushed the 
 door open, passed through into the 
 grounds, and drew it close behind her. 
 An instant later she had plunged into a 
 thick growth of rank vegetation ; briars, 
 nettles, long grass, and tall heads of hem- 
 lock making a dense, damp mass in 
 which she struggled breast-high. This 
 was not the garden, but a park-like 
 enclosure separated from it by a wire 
 fence, and suffering comparatively little 
 from the neglect which had fallen upon 
 the whole place. True, the grass grew 
 rank and high in some places, while in
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 127 
 
 Others the earth was bare ; the paths 
 were overgrown and could scarcely be 
 traced ; broken boughs lay, with their 
 dead or withering leaves, half hidden in 
 the grass. 
 
 But it was in the garden on the left, 
 and the forlorn house beyond, that the 
 decay of the place was most plainly to be 
 seen. There was a wild beauty, certainly, 
 in the masses of laburnum, copper beech, 
 and barberry trees which, all untrimmed 
 and unrestrained, hung their straggling 
 branches over clusters of peonies and 
 Scotch rose-bushes, which in their turn 
 had outgrown their proper proportions 
 and thrown up weedy offshoots in all 
 directions. Everywhere the grounds 
 were so well wooded that, in their 
 present state of wildness, the whole place 
 was like a corner of a forest.
 
 128 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Through the park, however, and 
 straight to a point in the wire fence 
 where Nanny judged that, hidden by the 
 surrounding verdure, a gate must be, sh# 
 could see that a foot-track had been worn 
 over beaten-down grass and weeds. But 
 she did not dare to follow it, being afraid 
 to come face to face with Mrs. Durrant, 
 who must, she judged, be somewhere 
 about. Instead, therefore, of venturing 
 on the track, she approached the fence 
 by a roundabout way through the trees, 
 sometimes losing sight of the house alto- 
 gether, until, when quite close to the 
 fence, she perceived, as she had expected, 
 that she was not alone in the grounds. 
 
 In the garden, some distance from 
 where she stood, were two people, not 
 yet clearly discernible to Nanny by reason 
 of the intervening foliage, but sufficiently
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 129 
 
 near for her to hear that one of them, a 
 woman, was talking fast, in a low tone of 
 voice. This, she felt sure, was Mrs. 
 Durrant ; but who was her companion ? 
 A man. So much Nanny could see, but 
 for a long time that was all. 
 
 Something much stronger than an 
 instinct, however, although she could not 
 distinctly trace the source of her feeling, 
 told her that she knew the man. She 
 tried to stifle the suggestion that rose in 
 her mind, tried to tell herself that certain 
 tricks of gait and attitude in the half-seen 
 figure bore only a fancied resemblance to 
 those of her husband. 
 
 But the fear at her heart soon over- 
 mastered all other thoughts and emotions. 
 She leaned over the wire fence till it 
 bent under her weight, peering into the 
 mass of greenery with eyes that tried not 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 to see ; for the knowledge she hated was 
 growing inevitable. 
 
 After a few moments' anxious waiting, 
 the two figures moved a little, coming 
 more into the open. Nanny stared 
 stupidly at them, with a perplexed frown 
 upon her face. 
 
 The woman was indeed Mrs. Durrant ; 
 and just as surely the man with her 
 was Captain Ryder. What did it 
 mean ? 
 
 Something in their gestures and bear- 
 ing, as the two sauntered slowly in and 
 out among the trees, told her that they 
 were used to these strolls ; the woman's 
 hand seemed to find by habit rather than 
 by sight the bunches of reddening bar- 
 berries which she gathered as she passed. 
 As for Captain Ryder, with his erect 
 carriage, long gray moustache, and curly
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 131 
 
 gray hair, he was an unmistakable 
 figure. 
 
 If Nanny had dared, she would have 
 dimbed over the raiUng and met them, 
 pretending to see nothing very wrong or 
 surprising in the incident of their meet- 
 ing. But she felt that she would not be 
 able to carry off the encounter with the 
 self-possession she wished to show ; for 
 the story she had heard at the hotel ran 
 in her head — a jumble of facts which she 
 found it, at that moment, impossible to 
 disentangle or to understand. 
 
 While she was standing thus, in miser- 
 able doubt and anxiety, plucking ner- 
 vously at the little straight leaves of a 
 yew-tree which formed one of a group 
 in which she was half buried, she heard 
 the door in the wall, by which she had 
 entered, creak on its hinges. By moving
 
 132 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 back a few paces, and pushing aside the 
 sweeping branches of a willow-tree, 
 Nanny was able to see who it was that 
 had come in. 
 
 The intruder was Mr. Valentine Eley, 
 who walked along the trodden track to 
 the wire fence, then strolled beside it in 
 the direction of the spot where Nanny 
 was standing, with his eyes fixed on his 
 sister and her companion, and at last 
 stopped short and whistled. Mrs. Dur- 
 rant turned immediately, and, seeing who 
 the intruder was, at once ran to the fence. 
 Brother and sister were near enough to 
 Nanny for her to hear the conversation 
 which passed between them. 
 
 ' What business have you in here ?' 
 * Oh, my dear child, don't excite your- 
 self! I haven't come to disturb your 
 tete-a-tete, I've just met Pickering, and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 133 
 
 he says the pretty girl with the blue eyes 
 and the big gray straw hat is young Mrs. 
 Ryder, and that she's come down here to 
 look about her. That's all.' 
 
 ' Well, and what does that matter to 
 me ?' asked the lady sharply. 
 
 * Oh, nothing — nothing at all, of 
 course. I apologize for having brought 
 you to listen to anything so trivial.' 
 
 He was provokingly cool ; and she, in 
 spite of her assumption of indifference, 
 was disturbed. 
 
 * Where is she now, this woman ? Is 
 she about still ?' asked Mrs. Durrant, 
 after a pause, in a vixenish tone. 
 
 ^ Gone back to the station, Picker- 
 ing said. What did you want with 
 her?' 
 
 * I should have liked to get a good 
 look at her, that is all, and to see
 
 134 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 whether she looks as if she has any 
 brains.' 
 
 Valentine shook his head decidedly. 
 
 * I should think not/ he said briefly. 
 * Too pretty. Plays tennis, I'll swear ; 
 and thinks Browning's poetry, and Wag- 
 ner's music, and Madame Somebody or 
 other's bonnets, and strawberries and 
 cream, all " quite too charming." I'm in 
 love with her. I shall have to shoot her 
 husband.' 
 
 * You had much better save your shot 
 for yourself and me. What have we to 
 live upon if I am turned out ?' 
 
 ' Why, a secret which ought still to be 
 worth bread and cheese to us both, my 
 dear.' 
 
 * How coarse you are !' 
 
 * No, how honest ! Silence is said to 
 be golden — and it is, besides, our only
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 135 
 
 capital. Let us, then, get its fair value. 
 I don't wish any harm to anybody, and 
 least of all to the good people at whose 
 expense you, my dear, have been pretty 
 comfortable for so long. Still, I wish to 
 put off starvation for you (and for me, 
 too, for that matter) as long as possible. 
 Therefore I say that the Captain must be 
 worked upon, and the old lady made to 
 "■ stump up." Excuse the vulgarity of 
 the expression : I perceive that you 
 shudder. It is but homely English for 
 ** afford pecuniary assistance." ' 
 
 Mrs. Durrant gave a deep sigh. 
 
 * I wish Yd never come near the 
 people,' she said impatiently. ' Though 
 I am really fond of the Captain — I am 
 indeed — quite as fond, in my way, as his 
 wife is.' 
 
 ' I am sure of it, dear,' said Valentine
 
 136 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 easily. ' And all this time he is wonder- 
 ing what has become of you. Go back 
 at once with my apologies. Or, if you 
 like, ril take them myself.' 
 
 He made a feint of getting over the 
 wire fence, but Mrs. Durrant pushed him 
 back. 
 
 ' No, no,' she said impatiently ; * when 
 will you learn to keep in the background 
 until you are wanted ? The sight of you 
 would only irritate him.' 
 
 * I don't see how the sight of me could 
 possibly have an irritating effect on any- 
 body !' exclaimed her brother plain- 
 tively. 
 
 But he obeyed her wish without 
 further opposition, and began to stroll 
 back in a leisurely fashion towards the 
 gate by which he had entered the 
 grounds. Mrs. Durrant went back
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 137 
 
 across the shaggy lawn, as fast as she 
 could, in the direction of the spot where 
 she had left Captain Ryder. 
 
 Nanny was shaking like a leaf in the 
 wind. A dozen times during the course 
 of this conversation, which had been 
 carried on very rapidly, and in too low a 
 tone for her to catch more than the sense 
 of it, she had been on the point of inter- 
 rupting the speakers with a passionate 
 outcry. But her fear of confronting a 
 jealous virago, or of sinking to the same 
 level in her excitement, a dread of what 
 they were going to say next, and yet a 
 burning curiosity to hear it — all helped to 
 keep her silent until they had separated, 
 leaving her, half stunned, in the lengthen- 
 ing shadow of the old yew-trees. 
 
 It was no longer possible for Nanny to 
 doubt that the story she had heard at the
 
 138 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 hotel concerned her husband. He had 
 been subject to fits of insanity, and Mrs. 
 Durrant, the ' caretaker,' had been his 
 nurse. It was a dreadful thing to learn, 
 but in Nanny, full of young love, and 
 hope, and loyalty, the circumstance, con- 
 firmed as it was by his mother's hints, 
 awoke more tender pity than fear. He 
 was cured ; or, if his malady should ever 
 return upon him, was not she, his wife, 
 by his side to exorcise the evil spirit by 
 her loving care ? 
 
 The inexperienced woman of twenty 
 was less troubled by this than by jealousy 
 — retrospective jealousy of that first wife, 
 of whom she had never heard from him, 
 and actual jealousy of this woman — this 
 nurse — whom he visited in secret. The 
 suggestion of the girl at the hotel, that 
 the first wife was still alive, did not now
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 139 
 
 occur to her. Nor, if she had thought 
 of it, would it have troubled her. Not 
 even a man who had been insane could 
 forget such a circumstance as the fact 
 that he had a wife hving. 
 
 Nanny stared at Mrs. Durrant as the 
 latter ran through the long grass, but she 
 could no longer see her. The waving 
 branches of the trees seemed to form a 
 thick veil before her eyes, shutting out 
 the scene. 
 
 Why did the woman come to meet 
 Dan here, instead of receiving him at 
 Brent Grange, where she lived ? 
 
 The poor child stumbled back through 
 the long grass to the door in the wall by 
 which she had entered. Just as she 
 reached it, it occurred to her to wonder 
 whether Valentine Eley was outside 
 waiting for his sister. The thought only
 
 I40 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 made her pause for an instant. If he 
 should see her, what did she care ? But 
 there was no one outside, and she went 
 quickly along the road to the station 
 without incident of any kind. This 
 walk was a great relief to her, so was 
 the fact that the train was crowded, and 
 that during part of the journey she had 
 to stand. 
 
 It was not until she reached the hotel, 
 and it suddenly dawned upon her with 
 what different feelings she was returning 
 from those with which she had left it, 
 that she began to understand the force of 
 the shock she had received. The blood 
 rushed into her head and throbbed in 
 her temples as she stopped at the foot of 
 the stairs, afraid to go up, afraid to face 
 her husband. At that moment she 
 heard the soft voice of old Mrs. Ryder
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 141 
 
 addressing her from the top of the stair- 
 case. 
 
 * Ah, my dear child, Fve been waiting 
 for you for ever so long ! The concert 
 began at eight, and it is now nearly half- 
 past/ 
 
 With sudden agility Nanny ran up 
 the stairs, and looked down at her 
 mother-in-law with a white, passionate 
 face. It is in human nature to be glad 
 to find a scapegoat, and she had found 
 one. 
 
 * I want to speak to you,' she said, 
 scarcely above her breath. The old lady 
 began to tremble violently, and her 
 withered lips shook with fear. 
 
 For she saw that Nanny had found 
 out something.
 
 iP^^^^^^^^V'^WlAV 
 
 <\YA ^'\ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Nanny opened the door of the sitting- 
 room, and ushered her mother-in-law 
 in with a quiet deliberation which 
 astonished the elder woman, and discon- 
 certed her a little. A young woman 
 all tears and threatening hysterics would 
 have been more easily managed, because 
 more comprehensible. The old lady 
 recovered her self-possession in a moment, 
 and, taking Nanny's hands in hers, 
 looked up into her face solicitously, and 
 told her she looked pale.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 143 
 
 * I dare say I do,' said Nanny. ' I'm 
 tired. Tve been to Bicton.' 
 
 A tinge of colour came into the elder 
 lady's withered cheeks. But if the news 
 agitated her, this was the only sign she 
 gave of the fact. Drawing Nanny gently 
 with her, she sat down on a sofa, and 
 made her companion do the same. 
 
 ' Come and tell me all your adven- 
 tures then, my dear,' she said, with effu- 
 sive interest. * I do wish, though, that you 
 had waited for me to go with you. I 
 could have shown you so much more of 
 the place than you could see by yourself.' 
 
 ' I don't think so,' said Nanny. * For, 
 after all, the only things there of interest 
 to me were The Grange and The White 
 House. And I saw them both.' 
 
 ' Well, and what did you think of 
 The Grange ?'
 
 144 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * It is a beautiful house — from the 
 outside. I did not go over it. I was 
 more interested in The White House.' 
 
 * But you could not go over that. 
 It's shut up altogether.' 
 
 ' I went into the grounds.' Under 
 the close watch which was kept upon 
 her the elder lady could not hide the fact 
 that these words startled her. ' And I 
 saw a meeting there which seemed 
 strange to me.' Nanny was speaking 
 now very slowly, on purpose to observe 
 the effect which her words had upon 
 her companion. * It was between the 
 caretaker at The Grange, Mrs. Durrant, 
 and — my husband.' 
 
 Nanny detected no surprise in her 
 mother-in-law's face, but some annoy- 
 ance, and even more fear. 
 
 ' Dan !' she cried, after a moment's
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT [45 
 
 pause. * But how could that be ? Dan 
 has gone to Aldershot, I thought you 
 said.' 
 
 * He toU me he was going to Alder- 
 shot. But he did not go there. He 
 went to Bicton instead. I saw him with 
 my own eyes,' insisted the young wife 
 with emphasis. 
 
 Old Mrs. Ryder, though still evidently 
 somewhat disturbed, shook her head 
 with a light laugh. 
 
 * It could not have been Dan,' she 
 said. * He never deceived me, his 
 mother, in anything ; therefore nothing 
 is less likely than that he would deceive 
 his wife, and a wife whom he adores 
 too, and to whom he has not been 
 married six weeks !' 
 
 'That is what I thought at first,' 
 murmured poor Nanny in a trembling 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 voice, while the tears welled up into her 
 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Depend upon it,' broke in the other 
 with authority, * it was your eyes, and 
 not your husband, that deceived you. 
 You must have seen this man in the 
 distance, and your fears must have helped 
 you to see a resemblance which, on 
 nearer inspection, you would have found 
 not to exist at all.' 
 
 Nanny wavered for a moment. She 
 would have been so glad to believe this. 
 But a fresh, a stronger proof than that of 
 her eyes suddenly recurred to her. 
 
 ' She called him Captain Ryder,' 
 whimpered the poor child. 
 
 There was a pause. Old Mrs. Ryder 
 felt the shock of this proof as strongly as 
 she did, and grew white to the lips. 
 
 ' You misunderstood,' said she at last.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 147 
 
 * When Dan returns he will tell you that 
 he has been to Aldershot to-day, and not 
 to Bicton.' 
 
 ' He will tell me so, no doubt. Both 
 you and he have told me things which 
 are not true ; and, because I am young 
 and inexperienced, you think I am going 
 to believe them in spite of the evidence 
 of my own eyes and ears.' 
 
 * What things have we told you which 
 are not truer' asked old Mrs. Ryder, 
 growing quieter as her companion grew 
 more excited. 
 
 * You both told me there was no 
 secret, no mystery, connected with your 
 family. But there is a mystery, there is 
 a secret, and, inexperienced though I may 
 be, I mean to find it out. As for your 
 caretaker, this Mrs. Durrant, she is what 
 they call an adventuress. I have found
 
 148 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 that out already. And you have a reason 
 for keeping her there.' 
 
 Nanny rose, and, out of breath from 
 the rapidity with which she had poured 
 forth this indictment, stood looking at 
 her mother-in-law with an expression of 
 face which clearly said : * Deny this if 
 you can.' But the old lady saw that 
 denial was useless. She hesitated, lis- 
 tened for some minutes in silence to 
 Nanny's quick breathing, and then tried 
 to temporize. 
 
 * I don't deny, my dear child,' she 
 then began in her softest voice, * that 
 there is a little bit of a secret (it is cer- 
 tainly not of importance enough to be 
 called a mystery) about — about the pro- 
 perty down there. But it concerns my- 
 self entirely, I give you my word of 
 honour, and has nothing to do with Dan.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 149 
 
 Will you take my assurance — my oath, if 
 you like — and promise not to say a word 
 about it to my son ?' 
 
 * No/ replied Nanny decidedly. ' I 
 can't promise that.' 
 
 * Not if I assure you the secret merely 
 concerns some money difficulties I have 
 got into, through extravagant manage- 
 ment of the estate ? Would you betray 
 an old woman to her son ?' 
 
 ' But, mamma, why do you make up 
 all these stories to me, when I tell you I 
 know something ? I know,' and the 
 young wife's voice dropped to a tone of 
 sadness, as she hesitated for a moment to 
 go on — * I know that poor Dan — was ill 
 once, and — and not able to understand 
 things clearly, and that this Mrs. Durrant 
 was his nurse. And, you know, you 
 yourself have said things about life in
 
 I50 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 India, and its effects on men of nervous 
 temperament ' 
 
 She stopped. Old Mrs. Ryder, whose 
 face had Hghted up with an expression of 
 intense interest, turned to her suddenly. 
 
 * You mean that he — Dan — my son — 
 has been — insane — mad ?' 
 
 Nanny shuddered at the words. 
 
 ' Oh no ; not that exactly — but ' 
 
 The old lady slipped down to her 
 knees in front of Nanny, and clasped the 
 hands of the young wife in a fierce grip. 
 Her eyes seemed suddenly to have re- 
 gained the brilliancy of youth, her fingers 
 the strength of a girl. 
 
 ' You are right, you are right !' she 
 whispered earnestly. * I don't know 
 how you learned it, but it is true. And 
 don't you see, child,' she went on 
 earnestly, peering into the face of the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 151 
 
 Other, * that, this being so, you must never 
 give a hint of the fact to him ? And 
 that you should, by every means in your 
 power, dissuade him from settUng in a 
 place which has such melancholy asso- 
 ciations for him ?' 
 
 * What !' cried Nanny in alarm. ' Was 
 it at The White House that he lived 
 when ' 
 
 *Hush !' interrupted the mother. *Ask 
 no questions about that time. Be satis- 
 fied with what I have told you.' 
 
 But a fresh trouble occurred to 
 Nanny. 
 
 * I heard,' she said in a trembling voice, 
 * that Dan had been married before. If 
 this is true I ought to have been told of 
 it.' 
 
 * It is not true. There is not a word 
 of truth in it," asserted her mother-in-
 
 152 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 law energetically, but with a sudden 
 break in her voice. 
 
 Nanny got up, crossed the room, and 
 began to look out of the window farthest 
 from her mother-in-law. But if this 
 was intended as a hint to the latter to go, 
 it was a useless one. They remained 
 silent, the one at the window and the 
 other on the sofa, until the clock struck 
 ten. A few minutes later Captain 
 Ryder's step was heard in the corridor 
 outside. 
 
 He entered quickly, and it was clear 
 that his wife was queen of his thoughts. 
 
 ' My darling ! My darling, where are 
 you ?' he cried at once, in a low voice 
 ringing with affection. 
 
 They did not use the gas, from a dis- 
 like of Nanny's to that means of illumi- 
 nation. Four candles stood on the table
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 between the door and the window at 
 which the young wife was standing. 
 Therefore the first person Captain Ryder 
 saw was his mother, and at sight of her 
 his tone changed suddenly. 
 
 ' You here, mother ?' he said, not un- 
 kindly, though without much warmth. 
 
 ' Yes, my son. You wrote to me, 
 you know, asking me to take Nanny 
 out.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, to be sure I did. I — I had 
 forgotten. Is she in her room ?' 
 
 Nanny came forward and met him as 
 he was crossing to the folding-doors, 
 after having given his mother a some- 
 what perfunctory kiss. 
 
 ' Why, child ! what is the matter ?' he 
 asked in alarm. 
 
 For he detected, on the instant, a 
 change in her manner towards him, and
 
 154 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 he glanced with a sHght frown at his 
 mother, as if he thought this was her 
 doing. 
 
 * Nothing,' she answered in a con- 
 strained voice. ' I hope you have en- 
 joyed yourself — at Aldershot.' 
 
 ' Well, yes — in a way I did. But I 
 confess I don't find very much to enjoy 
 now anywhere without you.' 
 
 ^Oh!' 
 
 This was not a hard, ironical interjec- 
 tion. It was rather a little, timid, em- 
 barrassed bleat thrown out helplessly 
 instead of an answering comment. Cap- 
 tain Ryder was astonished. He looked 
 again, angrily, at his mother, who came 
 forward with little hands stretched out 
 before her, and pretty purring ways. 
 
 ' She is tired to death, this poor child,' 
 said the elder lady, putting one hand
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 155 
 
 caressingly on Nanny's arm. ' We may 
 as well tell you all about it, and you will 
 be able to tell her in return that she is a 
 fanciful little goose. But, remember, 
 Dan, if she were not so fond of you, dear, 
 she wouldn't take such fancies into her 
 pretty head.' 
 
 ' What fancies ? What is all this long 
 preamble about ?' 
 
 Nanny freed herself with quick move- 
 ments from both mother and son. 
 
 * I — I went to Bicton to-day,' she 
 burst out hurriedly — ' by myself,' she 
 added quickly, as again he glanced with 
 a frown at his mother ; ' and I saw, or 
 thought I saw, you there.' 
 
 ' Well ?' 
 
 ' Talking to a — a woman !' 
 
 * I was there, and I was talking to a 
 woman. What then ?'
 
 156 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Nanny felt confused. She put her 
 pretty hands up to her forehead. What 
 then, indeed ? But she was not satisfied. 
 Indeed, she only knew what she had 
 known before. She had, however, no 
 answer ready. It was old Mrs. Ryder 
 who broke the momentary silence which 
 followed. 
 
 * Nanny thought, dear, that you might 
 have told her you were going to Bicton, 
 or have waited until you could go with 
 her. She is just as much interested in 
 her new home as you, you see. I think 
 some such thought as that was passing 
 through the little mind ; eh, dear ?' 
 
 And again the caressing hand, which 
 Nanny suddenly began to feel that she 
 hated, was passed soothingly, and it 
 seemed to her warningly, down her 
 arm.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 157 
 
 * Was that it, Nanny ?' asked Captain 
 Ryder very gravely. 
 
 * N — not exactly,' said the young wife, 
 flushing deeply as she raised her face, but 
 vidth her eyes still cast down. She was 
 an honest, truthful girl, not given to petty 
 deceits ; and although she stood some- 
 what in awe of her husband, she was 
 determined to tell him the truth. ' I— 
 was — jealous.' 
 
 ' Jealous !' Captain Ryder laughed 
 almost contemptuously ; * I shouldn't 
 have thought it possible.' 
 
 Again his mother broke in : 
 
 * Don't scold her, Dan. It is all over 
 now, and ' 
 
 Captain Ryder interrupted her rather 
 sharply. 
 
 * Scold her? Scold Nanny? Why, 
 mother, what are you about, putting such
 
 158 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 a notion into her head ? I think you 
 must know me well enough to be sure 
 that to scold a loving woman, or a 
 woman I love, is as impossible to me as 
 it is to every other creature above the 
 level of a brute !' 
 
 * I beg your pardon, dear ; I did not 
 mean ' 
 
 Her tone was very humble, very con- 
 trite ; but this fact apparently irritated 
 her son, who found it hard to keep all 
 annoyance out of his tone as he inter- 
 rupted her again : 
 
 ' Listen, mother. You know I have 
 not been to Brent or Bicton since I was 
 a little boy — a baby, I believe — and that I 
 have left the management of the property 
 there — at your request, mind — altogether 
 in your hands. I go down there to-day 
 for the first time, find two big, handsome
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 159 
 
 houses there, not only untenanted but 
 neglected — although I have been short 
 of money for years — and I say nothing- 
 harsher to you than this bare statement 
 of facts. Now, if I were the bully you 
 are trying to make me out, should I be 
 so lenient ?' 
 
 Captain Ryder spoke, indeed, quite 
 kindly. His mother looked guiltily at 
 the floor. 
 
 * It is very difficult to let houses of any 
 size about there. The neighbourhood 
 has gone down so much lately,' she said, 
 with some sign of suppressed emotion in 
 her voice. ' But — but you will be glad 
 to hear that I have heard of a possible 
 tenant for The White House. Of course 
 I must make inquiries about the person. 
 But if they are satisfactory you will no 
 longer be saddled with a single unlet
 
 i6o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 house — that is, if you are determined to 
 live at Brent.' 
 
 * Quite determined,' said he simply. 
 She rose to go, and, having embraced 
 
 her daughter-in-law, suffered Dan to 
 escort her downstairs to the little victoria 
 which, in spite of fallen fortunes, she 
 always kept at her disposal when in 
 town. 
 
 When Captain Ryder returned to his 
 wife, he found her standing by the table, 
 quietly waiting for him, with no pretence 
 of being occupied. 
 
 ' Dan,' she cried, as soon as his arms 
 touched her, ' Fm not satisfied. It is of 
 no use to pretend that I am. What 
 made you go to Bicton at all to-day ? 
 You said you would go with me.' 
 
 * I didn't mean to go there at all, dear, 
 to-day/ he answered, with a look of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT i6r 
 
 anxiety and annoyance, the result of the 
 interview with his mother, still on his 
 face. ' I meant, as you know, to stay at 
 Aldershot all day, and dine at mess with 
 the — th. Well, two of my old friends 
 were away; and what with the disap- 
 pointment of not seeing them, and the 
 uneasiness I always feel away from you, 
 child, the day was a beastly failure, and I 
 came straight off after luncheon. But 
 remembering in the train that I had told 
 my mother to take you for a drive, I got 
 out at Clapham Junction, thinking I 
 would run down and have a look at the 
 place we are to live in. Now, if my 
 mother hadn't been talking to you, what 
 would you have seen suspicious in that ?' 
 ' But, Dan, I heard that Mrs. Durrant, 
 the caretaker, as your mother calls her, 
 say she was going to meet you. And 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 i62 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 then, what did you want that long inter- 
 view with her in the garden for ?' 
 
 ' I had plenty to ask her about the 
 house. And if you saw me with her, as 
 you say, I don't think my demeanour to- 
 wards her can have caused you much 
 jealousy. If she said she expected to see 
 me to-day, it must have been simply that 
 she had heard I was in England, and sup- 
 posed I should come down at once.' 
 
 * But she is so — so good-looking, 
 Dan ! If she had been ugly, I should have 
 thought nothing of it,' confessed the 
 young wife. ' Or — next to nothing,' she 
 corrected, remembering the secret. 
 
 ^ She was a pretty woman, certainly,' 
 admitted Captain Ryder at once. ' But 
 there isn't in the world a woman pretty 
 enough for you to be jealous of, my dar- 
 ling. Remember that, once for all.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 163 
 
 He spoke so peremptorily that Nanny 
 was rather frightened, especially as his 
 manner betrayed a certain preoccupation 
 of mind, such as she had never before 
 noticed in him. When he perceived that 
 she was watching him furtively, as, indeed, 
 the poor child could not help doing, he 
 recalled his wandering attention with a 
 strong and evident effort, and devoted 
 himself to her for the rest of the evening 
 with an assiduity which disarmed her 
 vague fears. 
 
 And yet, at the bottom of her heart 
 there remained, whenever for a few 
 moments he was not talking to her, the 
 inevitable uneasiness which could not but 
 follow her discoveries of that day. It 
 seemed to her now that the consciousness 
 of having what he believed to be secrets 
 from her was growing heavy upon him.
 
 i6j. RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Yet she dared not confess she knew them. 
 That he had had a former wife, that his 
 mind had been affected, oh ! she could 
 never venture upon forcing his confidence 
 upon such points as these ! And then 
 Dan would turn to her with looks and 
 words of tenderness again, and the ques- 
 tions and the doubts at her heart would 
 fade away. 
 
 The next day was one of almost per- 
 fect bliss for Nanny, for her husband 
 gave her five pounds to spend as she liked, 
 and took her out shopping. She had 
 never in her life before had so much 
 money, except burdened with the condi- 
 tion that it was * to last '; and no mil- 
 lionaire ever felt so conscious of the 
 power that wealth gives as this young 
 wife, as she hovered before the windows 
 of the bonnet-shops, all her energies con-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 165 
 
 centrated upon the choice of high brim 
 or low brim, gray straw with marguerites, 
 or black chip with poppies. Both hus- 
 band and wife were glad to forget for a 
 time the small annoyances and apprehen- 
 sions connected with their settling down 
 at The Grange ; and neither Brent, nor 
 Bicton, nor old Mrs. Ryder was men- 
 tioned by them in the course of that day. 
 On the following morning, however, 
 both felt that there was a business before 
 them which must be taken in hand, and 
 Captain Ryder suggested, during break- 
 fast, that they had better make their 
 way down to Bicton at once. 
 
 * And get it over,' he added. 
 
 * Yes,' said Nanny. 
 
 They felt that old Mrs. Ryder's 
 management, or mismanagement, had 
 made the subject an unpleasant one.
 
 i66 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * Supposing we don't go to live there 
 at all, Dan ?' suggested Nanny, who was 
 weakly afraid of Mrs. Durrant and her 
 ugly suggestions. 
 
 ' Supposing we have no choice,' said he. 
 * There we can live rent free, you know, 
 if the house should prove habitable. 
 And I suppose it is, or this Mrs. What's- 
 her-name ' 
 
 ' Durrant,' put in Nanny, with a hot 
 blush, wishing he had not thus affected 
 scarcely to know her. 
 
 ' This Mrs. Durrant couldn't have 
 lived there. At any rate, we'll go and 
 interview the lady, and perhaps it will 
 all pass off more pleasantly than we could 
 have hoped.' 
 
 He did not disguise the fact that he 
 felt nervous about the visit, and he 
 seemed anxious and preoccupied on the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 167 
 
 way down. As for Nanny, she was 
 excited and curious about the meetino: 
 with Mrs. Durrant, who might, she felt, 
 have some unpleasant communications to 
 make in her anger at having to leave 
 The Grange. 
 
 ' Shall you tell Mrs. Durrant to-day 
 for certain that we are going to move 
 in ?' asked Nanny, as they were walking 
 from Bicton Station. 
 
 * Certainly. But she knows it already. 
 I shall tell her the date. 1 shall say the 
 last week in October. That will give 
 her a month.' 
 
 * How came such a smart-looking 
 person to consent to act just as care- 
 taker ?' asked Nanny, not without a 
 feeling that she was on dangerous 
 ground. 
 
 * I'm sure I don't know. It was
 
 [68 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 my mother's doing,' answered Dan 
 shortly. 
 
 They had reached the pretty old wall. 
 Between the branches of the trees, now 
 thinning a little in the autumn breezes, 
 the tall chimneys of the house could just 
 be seen by eyes which knew where to 
 look for them. The noonday sun 
 streamed, bright and warm, on red wall, 
 hanging ivy, and dusty road. The row 
 of new vermilion semi-detached Gothic- 
 church-cum-Swiss-chalet villas on the 
 opposite side of the way glared in the 
 heat. They reached the heavy gates, 
 and rang the bell. 
 
 Again and again they rang, but there 
 was no answer. They tried the side- 
 doors ; they were locked. Captain Ryder, 
 who said very little, began to grow_ 
 angry ; Nanny felt anxious and disturbed.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 169 
 
 At last a small boy from the village, 
 with a basket on his arm and a half- 
 devoured apple in his hand, came by, sat 
 down on the gate which led into a 
 paddock opposite, and looked at them. 
 He offered no remark, however, and, 
 having finished his apple, was passing 
 on, when it occurred to Nanny to inter- 
 rogate him. 
 
 ' Can you tell me how to make the 
 people in the house hear ?' she asked. 
 ' We want to get in.' 
 
 * You can't make 'em 'ear,' replied the 
 young gentleman simply. ' They've 
 gone.' 
 
 Captain Ryder turned upon him, not 
 without savagery. 
 
 ' Then why couldn't you say so 
 before ?' 
 
 ' Cause vou didn't ask me.'
 
 I70 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Nanny wanted to laugh, but her 
 husband was so angry that she didn't 
 dare to. 
 
 ' Well, can you tell us any way of 
 getting in?' 
 
 ' Yes. You can go along the road till 
 the wall ends, and then get over the rail 
 and into the field, and go along under 
 the wall. And then when you gets to 
 the back you can go along by the wall 
 again till you comes to a hole in it. And 
 then you can get through. I've often 
 got through that way after birds' nests, 
 and everybody's been through that way 
 this morning.' 
 
 There was no resisting the impulse to 
 laugh now, and Nanny gave way to her 
 merriment until the tears came into her 
 eyes, so that in the end her husband was 
 perforce obliged to join her. Much
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 171 
 
 against the latter's will, they were com- 
 pelled to follow the boy's directions, and, 
 skirting the wall, they soon found them- 
 selves at the breach he had described- 
 This was a gap caused in the first place 
 by the fall of an old tree. Having been 
 left unrepaired, marauding boys had taken 
 care, by removing the bricks one by one, 
 to make it more convenient for them- 
 selves, until there was now an opening 
 wide enough to enter by without much 
 difficulty. The boy with the basket, 
 being apparently a gentleman of means 
 with time on his hands, had followed 
 them for the excitement of seeing them 
 climb through. 
 
 ' They haven't gone away,' exclaimed 
 Nanny, as she mounted into the aperture. 
 * I see a lot of people — one, two, three, 
 four — playing lawn-tennis.'
 
 172 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * That's only Bambridges/ explained the 
 boy. 
 
 * Bambridges ' seemed to be making 
 themselves at home. On a beautiful 
 wide lawn, sheltered on all sides by big 
 trees, three young girls and one young 
 man were playing tennis with great 
 vigour and enjoyment, making the old 
 place ring with merry young voices. 
 Nanny and her husband watched them 
 for some minutes, admiring the pretty 
 picture they made, in their light dresses, 
 amongst the trees. At last, however, 
 the young man caught sight of the 
 intruders, just as Nanny had sprung to 
 the ground and her husband was pro- 
 ceeding to follow her. 
 
 * Hallo !' he cried imperiously, * this 
 is private property, you know. You're 
 trespassing.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 173 
 
 * And pray what are you doing, then?' 
 asked Captain Ryder. 
 
 * Oh/ was the ready answer, * we're 
 in charge.' 
 
 A ripple of suppressed laughter from 
 the girls showed what substance of truth 
 was in this statement. Captain Ryder, 
 followed by Nanny, who hoped he would 
 not be too cruel to these delightfully 
 impudent intruders, stepped into the 
 midst of the group. 
 
 * You soon will be in charge if you 
 don't take yourselves off,' said he, with 
 assumed ferocity. ' I'm the owner of 
 this place.' 
 
 The effect of this announcement was 
 instantaneous and awful. As for the 
 girls, their very racquets grew limp in 
 their hands. One, the prettiest, seemed 
 to feel the policeman's hand already on
 
 174 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 her shoulder, and was trying to flee, 
 while a more sedate sister detained her 
 forcibly, and murmured incoherent apolo- 
 gies. The young fellow, who was evi- 
 dently their brother, tried to keep up a 
 bold front. 
 
 * What proof can you give us that you 
 are the owner?' he asked haughtily. 
 
 But his sisters with one accord rose 
 and fell upon him, metaphorically of 
 course, and filled the air with apologies, 
 some meek, some vehement, for his 
 conduct and their own. 
 
 * And if you like to send him to prison, 
 you can, and it will only serve him right,' 
 added the plainest but most vivacious- 
 looking of the girls. 
 
 ' Thank you,' said her brother, with a 
 vicious look. 
 
 He was a bright-faced lad of twenty
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 175 
 
 or SO, with pleasant eyes full of mis- 
 chief. 
 
 One of his sisters, clearly the eldest of 
 the party, had by this time recovered 
 sufficient composure to give a coherent 
 explanation of their presence. 
 
 * We are very, very sorry for ' 
 
 * Having been caught,' interpolated 
 the vivacious sister. 
 
 The other went on : * For our intru- 
 sion. But the caretaker left the house 
 yesterday, and ' 
 
 * And we didn't expect you to come 
 so soon.' 
 
 * And our tennis-lawn is such a miser- 
 able one, so small, and without any 
 shade, that our brother ' 
 
 * That's right, put it all on to me !' 
 
 * Suggested that we should have just 
 one game in here.*
 
 176 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * And the temptation was so great 
 that, being daughters of Eve, we fell,' 
 finished up the vivacious one. 
 
 Their spirits were rising all round as, 
 looking from the half-smiling owner to 
 his wholly-smiling wife, the young 
 people saw that they were forgiven. 
 
 ' Well, you must own that you have 
 committed a very serious offence. And 
 therefore, to punish you, I insist that 
 you all remain here playing tennis, 
 prisoners on parole, while my wife and 
 I go over another house we have at 
 Bicton.' 
 
 * If you mean the place they call The 
 White House,' said one of the girls, * I 
 don't think you can go over it now, for 
 it has just been let to a gentleman who 
 came in yesterday.' 
 
 Husband and wife stared at each other
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 177 
 
 in amazement. The tenant came in 
 yesterday ! And it was in a ruinous 
 state the day before ! Who could this 
 singular gentleman be ? 
 
 As quickly as they could, they took 
 leave of their amusing trespassers, and 
 started off for The White House in search 
 of an explanation. 
 
 They had scarcely got outside the 
 walls, by the same means by which they 
 had entered them, however, when Nanny, 
 who had gone on ahead, while her hus- 
 band lingered to disperse an admiring 
 knot of small boys, had her attention 
 attracted by the sight of a bent old man 
 who, leaning against the wall as if he had 
 received a blow, was gazing at Captain 
 Ryder with eyes that seemed to start out 
 of his head. He did not notice Nanny, 
 but, holding one hand to his side, kept 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 mumbling and muttering to himself as 
 she approached. 
 
 ' Lord save us ! Lord save us !' he 
 quavered, w^hile beads of sweat stood on 
 his forehead. ' It's the Captain ; it's 
 himself; it's no ghost. Lord save us ! 
 A murderer can't rest in his grave ; can't 
 rest — so they say, so they say. And 
 there he is, sure enough, the very man I 
 buried w^ith my own hands twenty-nine 
 years ago !' 
 
 A great sob of terror burst from 
 Nanny's lips and drew the old man's 
 attention to herself. His mouth closed 
 with a sudden snap, and as Captain 
 Ryder ran up to join his wife, the aged 
 labourer bent his head over his stick 
 with a mumbled word of supplication to 
 Heaven.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Captain Ryder, as he came up to his 
 wife, looked at her pale face and fright- 
 ened eyes with astonishment and alarm. 
 
 * What is the matter, child ? Are you 
 ill ? Has anything startled you ?' 
 
 Nanny shook her head, trying to laugh, 
 though the effort was not a very success- 
 ful one. She slipped her arm through 
 her husband's and walked along, leaning 
 on him for support. Then she told the 
 truth, though not the whole truth. 
 
 ' An old man — that old fellow who 
 was leaning on his stick under the wall — 
 began muttering and mumbling. And
 
 i8o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 for the moment it startled me. No, no ; 
 don't speak to him/ she went on, as 
 Captain Ryder turned quickly to look at 
 the man ; ' he didn't mean to frighten 
 me. He is childish, I expect.' 
 
 And Nanny told herself that this was 
 the true explanation of the old labourer's 
 alarming words ; but as she walked on 
 with her husband towards The White 
 House, she wished with all her heart that 
 he had not resolved to settle in Brent. 
 
 In twenty minutes they reached the 
 deserted mansion. 
 
 The broken shutters had been thrown 
 open, and a man was at work repairing 
 the broken glass of the windows, and 
 another was on the roof replacing some 
 dislodged slates. These appeared to be 
 the only changes consequent upon the 
 letting of the house. The carriage gates,
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT i8i 
 
 as the growth of grass and weed about 
 them plainly showed, had not been dis- 
 turbed, the workmen passing in and out 
 by a little gate of ornamental iron- 
 work which stood in the wall to the 
 right of the house. This gate, also, 
 had been disused for so many years that 
 a tangle of shrubs had grown close up to 
 it on the inner side, thrusting their 
 boughs through into the roadway, so that 
 the neighbours had been accustomed to 
 help themselves freely to sprays of lilac 
 and laburnum in the spring, and to sprigs 
 of holly in the winter. A passage had now 
 been roughly made by tearing up a couple 
 of these bushes by the roots. By the side 
 of these, a plasterer's boy now kept watch 
 and ward, throwing handfuls of gravel 
 from time to time, to scatter the little 
 crowd of curious children who gathered
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 round the gate, much interested in the 
 lively doings at the great house they had 
 always seen shut up and deserted. 
 
 The boy seemed puzzled how to deal 
 with the two grown-up visitors. He 
 had been told not to let anyone pass, he 
 said. A sixpence, however, was more 
 effectual than an assurance from Captain 
 Ryder that he was the owner of the 
 house. 
 
 * He had been told,' the boy said, ' that 
 the house belonged to an old lady.' 
 
 Having succeeded in overcoming the 
 boy's scruples, the next thing was to get 
 up to the house. This was not easy, for 
 the way to the front door was blocked 
 not only by more over-grown shrubs and 
 straggling plants, but by the ladders and 
 planks and pots of the workmen. When 
 at last they had stumbled to the front
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 183 
 
 door, which was open, there was another 
 difficulty in the fact that there was no 
 knocker, and that the bell wouldn't ring. 
 
 * Of course,' said Captain Ryder, * the 
 gentleman who has taken the place in 
 such a hurry cannot have come in yet. 
 So we shall be doing no harm if we go 
 in and look about for somebody to tell us 
 something.' 
 
 Now, Nanny had her doubts about this 
 view ; but not liking to put her suspicion 
 into words, she followed her husband 
 without comment. They passed through 
 a wide and handsome hall, which Nanny 
 observed was partly furnished. Old mats, 
 a chair or two, and a hatstand which now 
 held the workmen's coats, all looked as 
 if they had been here for many years. 
 A strange discovery this, in a house sup- 
 posed to be abandoned !
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Dan, however, walked on, taking no 
 apparent note of these things. They 
 could not get through the long hall very 
 fast, on account of the ladders and pails 
 that were lying about. As Dan bore to 
 the right, Nanny, seeing an open door at 
 the end of the hall, on the left, jumped 
 nimbly across the intervening impedi- 
 ments and peeped in. She saw a 
 carpeted room of fair size, containing a 
 small bed and a few pieces of plain fur- 
 niture. There was no one in it. Nanny 
 retreated from the door and rejoined her 
 husband, but did not tell him what she 
 had seen. 
 
 They peeped into a great empty din- 
 ing-room, they visited a lofty drawing- 
 room, where the damp had come through 
 from the outside and peeled some of the 
 white and gold paper off the walls.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 183 
 
 There was a veranda behind, raised 
 from the garden by a few steps, and now 
 a nest of wisteria, clematis, and Virginia 
 creeper, which had spread over the rail- 
 ings in all directions, so that it was with 
 difficulty that Nanny, opening the win- 
 dow, forced her way through to look out 
 over the grounds. The wild, luxuriant 
 vegetation in this neglected garden 
 seemed to her, at that moment, more 
 attractive than the better - cared - for 
 beauties of the grounds of Brent Grange. 
 
 ' Oh, Dan,' she cried, ' what a beauti- 
 ful place this might be made !' 
 
 Dan, who was standing just inside the 
 window behind her, made no answer. 
 He was staring out at the waste with a 
 frown on his face, and a look of mingled 
 anger and bewilderment. 
 
 There was a slight noise inside. A
 
 1 86 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 man's voice was heard uttering an im- 
 patient exclamation, a man's heavy tread 
 along the floor. Then Captain Ryder 
 found himself seized by the shoulder, and 
 drawn back roughly into the room. 
 
 * What business have you here ?' cried 
 a voice, which Nanny recognised. * Don't 
 you know that you have no right to 
 come inside this house at all now ?' 
 
 He had got thus far, when Captain 
 Ryder, recovering his breath, and indig- 
 nant at the unceremonious handling, 
 freed himself with so quick a movement 
 that his assailant staggered back a yard 
 or so. In the meantime, Nanny, breath- 
 less with amazement, and wondering 
 what was going to happen next, appeared 
 at the window, and instinctively caught 
 her husband's arm. 
 
 * Dan,' she exclaimed, ' it's a mistake.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 187 
 
 This is Mr. Eley, the brother of Mrs. 
 Durrant.' Then, turning to Valentine, 
 she went on with dignity, ' This is 
 Captain Ryder, my husband.' 
 
 But this introduction failed to restore 
 composure to the unfortunate Valentine, 
 who still stared at Captain Ryder with 
 an expression of quite unmistakable 
 terror. He stammered, he grew red, he 
 grew white, he did everything one would 
 not have expected in a man so self- 
 possessed as he had appeared to Nanny 
 on her first acquaintance with him. 
 
 ' You see,' he said abjectly, looking 
 from one to the other as he spoke, ' this 
 
 house — shut up so long, you know 
 
 What was it I said ? I forget the words.' 
 Again he looked anxiously from the 
 wife to the husband. ' But every passer- 
 by thinks he has a right to come in and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 — and tramp all about the place. And 
 I assure you. Captain Ryder, I apologize 
 most humbly.' 
 
 Both the visitors had long since re- 
 covered their serenity, and Captain Ryder 
 said at once : 
 
 * It is we who have to apologize, but 
 the place was let so recently that we 
 didn't think there was anyone inside but 
 workmen. To tell you the truth, the 
 first I heard of the letting was when I 
 came down here this morning. Two 
 days ago I was here, and there were no 
 signs of a prospective tenant. I don't 
 know even who has taken the house : 
 perhaps you can tell me ?' 
 
 But these remarks seemed to discon- 
 cert Valentine, who flushed a deep beet- 
 root colour, and laughed uneasily as he 
 glanced at Mrs. Ryder,
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Well, the fact is — that / am your 
 new tenant. I know you, Mrs. Ryder, 
 will hardly think me an eligible one.' 
 For Nanny could not repress a start of 
 astonishment. ' But — er — my friends — 
 er — have come forward, and not being 
 able to overlook the claims of such a 
 deserving case, have set me on my feet 
 again.' 
 
 Captain Ryder looked from the young 
 man to Nanny, with an evident touch of 
 jealousy at what looked like an under- 
 standing between her and this singular 
 tenant. She turned to him, blushing 
 and laughing very prettily. 
 
 ' You know, Dan dear, I think I did 
 tell you about my first meeting with Mr. 
 Eley r 
 
 'When Mr. Eley, having the misfor- 
 tune to be behindhand with his rent,
 
 I90 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 had his valuable furniture and effects sold 
 and carted off before his very eyes/ 
 
 This recital seemed to give Valentine 
 as much amusement as the incident had 
 caused him. But it w^as scarcely to be 
 wondered at that his new^ landlord did 
 not see the matter in quite the same 
 light. It vs^as with a little coolness, 
 therefore, on the one side at least, that 
 they parted, Captain Ryder observing 
 that they had left some people waiting 
 for them at The Grange. 
 
 * The Bambridges, by any chance, 
 may I ask?' said Valentine, who evidently 
 knew something of those young people. 
 * If so, they would say a good word for 
 me, I'm sure.' 
 
 ' It will take a great many good words 
 from a great many people to make me 
 like that young man,' said Captain Ryder
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT \gi 
 
 decidedly to his wife as soon as they got 
 outside. ' I don't like his face, and I 
 don't like what little I've heard of him. 
 And he has exactly the manner towards 
 women which they like, and I don'tj he 
 added emphatically. 
 
 This opinion of his was confirmed on 
 his arriving at The Grange again, where 
 the Bambridges, one and all, sang Mr. 
 Valentine Eley's praises. If one was 
 less vehement than the rest, it was 
 Laura, the vivacious one, who rather 
 listened to than joined in the general 
 chorus, but who blushed at every mention 
 of Valentine's name. They were all 
 delighted to hear the news that Nanny 
 let slip, that it was he who had taken 
 The White House. They all seemed 
 surprised at the intelligence, however, 
 and presently the story came out, as they
 
 192 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 all Stood together under the great trees 
 of The Grange, of the sale of his furniture 
 when he lived in a little cottage on the 
 green. 
 
 'That was his sister's fault, I'm sure,' 
 said Laura warmly. ' I always did dislike 
 that Mrs. Durrant. She was so mean, 
 and thought so much of herself, and had 
 curious ways of disappearing and re- 
 appearing. Of course, living here in the 
 biggest house in the place, we were dis- 
 posed to look up to her, and to expect 
 her to take the lead in things. But she 
 always said she was too poor. Though 
 we never believed it until this morning, 
 when we learnt that she had suddenly 
 left the place for good, and ' 
 
 Laura was interrupted in her glib 
 speech by Jessica, the eldest sister, a 
 plain-featured, dark girl, who looked
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 193 
 
 delicate, and whose only other salient 
 characteristic was a remarkably sweet 
 and gentle expression. 
 
 * You are making Captain Ryder 
 think us very inquisitive, Laura,' she 
 said warningly. 
 
 And poor Laura, becoming suddenly 
 aware how very indiscreet she had been, 
 laughed and blushed, taking the reproof 
 very well. 
 
 * You see,' chimed in Adela, the 
 youngest and only pretty sister, coming 
 very gracefully to her sister's aid, * it 
 really matters so much who lives here. 
 And with nice people in it, it will be so 
 different.' 
 
 * Now we shan't be so dependent 
 upon the Hitchins,' cried Laura tri- 
 umphantly, having already recovered her 
 spirits. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' And pray who are the Hitchins ?' 
 asked Captain Ryder, smiUng. 
 
 * Three old maids who Hve next door 
 to us/ began at least two voices. 
 
 ' And they keep doves and cats,' added 
 Adela. 
 
 * And sometimes the cats eat the 
 doves,' went on Laura. 
 
 ' And then one of the maids comes 
 with the Misses Hitchin's compliments, 
 and please have we found any feathers 
 in the garden, as the Misses Hitchin is 
 very much upset, and wants to give them 
 a proper funeral.' 
 
 ' And serve them right, for they 
 encourage all the stray cats in the neigh- 
 bourhood, until you can't leave a hat out 
 in the garden all night without finding a 
 kitten in it in the morning,' concluded 
 Arthur.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 195 
 
 * And when we get up a bazaar, they 
 always send two dozen kettle-holders, 
 and two dozen penwipers, and two 
 dozen bookmarks, with hieroglyphics 
 worked on them, that read ** Kiss me " 
 when you twirl them round and round. 
 And if they're not all sold (and they 
 never are),^ Arthur has to make the rest 
 up in a parcel and leave them in a train, 
 or they'd be offended, and they would 
 never put into our raffles any more.' 
 
 Having talked herself out of breath, 
 Laura took her eldest sister's hint, and 
 held out her hand in farewell to Nanny. 
 
 ' Please forgive us for detaining you 
 so long,' said staid Jessica, as they all 
 prepared to go. 
 
 They all trooped off in the direction 
 of the gate, but, finding that locked, had 
 to retreat with ignominy through the
 
 196 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 gap in the wall by which they had 
 come. Adela, however, the youngest 
 girl, ran back breathlessly to ask if they 
 wanted to get into the house, and 
 whether they had a key. 
 
 ' For I know it's locked,' she said, 
 with a laugh and a blush, * because we 
 were dying of curiosity to know what it 
 was like inside, and we — we tried the 
 doors.' 
 
 ' What ! haven't you ever been in the 
 house, when you lived so near ?' asked 
 Nanny. 
 
 * No, never. Mamma wouldn't let us 
 visit Mrs. Durrant. She didn't like the 
 look of her, she said. I've come back to 
 ask if I shall run across to old Mrs. 
 Spriggs, who has charge of the key.' 
 
 They didn't want to trouble her, they 
 said. But Adela said it was no trouble.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 197 
 
 and ran off, perhaps not without a secret 
 hope that she would be rewarded by an 
 invitation to get a peep at the interesting 
 old house before any of her brothers and 
 sisters. 
 
 If this was her thought, she was not 
 disappointed. When she returned with 
 the key, her round, rosy cheeks flushed 
 with running. Captain Ryder unlocked 
 the front door, and admitted both ladies 
 into a wide, low hall — spoiled, to fasti- 
 dious modern eyes, by two mean wooden 
 staircases with painted banisters. How- 
 ever, the interior of the house was not 
 altogether a disappointment. It had been 
 beautifully kept ; the dust of the one day 
 only that it had been shut up lay lightly 
 on the furniture, which was just not old- 
 fashioned enough to be in fashion, and 
 consisted chiefly of the curly - legged
 
 198 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 chairs, inlaid tables, and whatnots of the 
 
 * Keepsake ' period of civilization. The 
 pictures were either heavy engravings, 
 dark copies of ' old masters,' or fruit and 
 flower subjects and landscapes in water- 
 colour of a strictly conventional kind. 
 The carpets and curtains also, and the 
 tawny sheepskin mats, dated from pre- 
 South Kensington days. But there was 
 an appearance of cosiness and comfort 
 about the low-ceilinged lower rooms, and 
 a freshness about the white dimity of the 
 bedrooms, which gave a charm of their 
 own to the old place. 
 
 * It's like going through the Sleeping 
 Beauty's house, and expecting every 
 moment to come upon her,' said Nanny. 
 
 * Whatever this poor Mrs. Durrant may 
 have been like, she certainly kept the 
 place in most beautiful order.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 199 
 
 This last remark was not quite spon- 
 taneously made. She looked at her hus- 
 band to see whether this comment would 
 draw forth some expression of opinion 
 concerning the caretaker. But it did not. 
 Captain Ryder was busy, examining with 
 interest an old rifle which hung on the 
 wall, with a number of similar relics, in 
 a little corner room on the ground-floor. 
 
 ' This must have been my father's 
 study,' he said, as he glanced around him 
 at the massive amateur tool-chest, with 
 marks of use and wear ; the neat book- 
 case with its rows of undisturbed, beauti- 
 fully-bound standard works ; the hunting 
 sketches ; the horse's hoof mounted as an 
 inkstand. Everything in the little room 
 betrayed the tastes of a young man whose 
 habits had been active rather than seden- 
 tary. The study was at the corner of the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 house, with windows looking to the 
 north and east. These did not open 
 down to the ground, but were so low that 
 from the wide, cushioned window-seats 
 it was easy to get out on to the soft grass 
 underneath. But a thick growth of 
 creepers hung over the windows, tapping 
 at the frames as the wind stirred them, 
 and the moving branches of the trees 
 made strange, shifting patterns in the 
 afternoon sunlight on the faded drab 
 carpet. 
 
 Nanny saw that her husband was 
 deeply moved, and she stole up to him 
 while their young girl companion was 
 trying the window-seats. 
 
 * It reminds you of him very much, 
 doesn't it, Dan ?' she murmured. 
 
 Captain Ryder started. 
 
 ' I can hardly say it reminds me of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 him, for I never saw my father. He 
 died before I was born. But it all 
 touches one, of course.' 
 
 He turned from her to examine a 
 crayon drawing of a little fair-haired lady 
 with very blue eyes and very pink cheeks, 
 which hung on the wall opposite to one 
 of the windows. 
 
 ' She is very pretty,' said Nanny, with 
 a jealous feeling. ' Who is it ?' 
 
 * My mother. There is not much 
 resemblance left to that, is there ?' 
 
 Nanny, in astonishment, had to admit 
 that there was not. 
 
 * And your father. Isn't there a por- 
 trait of him somewhere ?' 
 
 * I think not. At least I have never 
 seen one. But I have sometimes enter- 
 tained a suspicion that the poor old lady 
 treasures one up for her own eyes only, as
 
 202 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 something too sacred to be shown even 
 to me.' 
 
 Adela rose suddenly from her window- 
 seat with an exclamation. 
 
 ' They are coming back,' she said. 
 ^ And, oh, look what they are bring- 
 ing !' 
 
 Over the lawn, laughing, scolding 
 each other, putting their burden in im- 
 minent danger, came Laura and Arthur, 
 with a wicker-work table between them 
 set out for tea. 
 
 * Mamma has sent this, with her com- 
 pliments and apologies for our shocking 
 conduct. — There now, you have joggled 
 the cream all over the bread-and-butter !' 
 panted out Laura, all in the same 
 breath. 
 
 * It was you who joggled. If it had 
 been me '
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 203 
 
 * I,' corrected Jessica, who was follow- 
 ing with a plate of cake. 
 
 * If it had been I,' went on Arthur, 
 accepting the correction without com- 
 ment, * the cream would have gone over 
 the biscuits. That stands to reason. 
 Only women have no reason. Captain 
 Ryder will see the justice of my case.' 
 
 ' And Mrs. Ryder. You are posi- 
 tively insulting, Arthur.' 
 
 *Not at all,' said Arthur gravely. 
 ' Married ladies learn reason from their 
 husbands. Mrs. Ryder has learnt it 
 from her husband, just as my wife will 
 learn it from me.' 
 
 He was laughed down in contemptuous 
 chorus, while his sisters asked Nanny 
 whether they should place the table 
 under a big mulberry-tree which grew 
 near the south-east corner of the house.
 
 204 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 * But won't you stay and have tea 
 with us ?' asked she, when she had 
 thanked them, and they were preparing 
 to retire. ' We shall be so disappointed 
 if you won't.' 
 
 'There, I told you so!' said Arthur, 
 aside to Laura triumphantly. ' I will 
 go and fetch some more cups and 
 saucers,' he added aloud, with an 
 obliging smile. 
 
 But, from the speed with which he 
 reappeared, it was too evident that, 
 expecting an invitation, he had had 
 those cups and saucers within easy reach. 
 He further * gave himself away,' as he 
 himself expressed it, by his alacrity in 
 bringing out some chairs from The 
 Grange drawing-room — which led to 
 the confession that he and Charlie had 
 before now watched Mrs. Durrant 2:0
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 205 
 
 out, and then broken into the grounds 
 and made explorations. 
 
 ' Of course,' added Arthur hastily, 
 perceiving that he might have admitted 
 too much, ' we shouldn't think of doing 
 so now. It doesn't matter how one 
 behaves to persons one is not on visiting 
 terms with.' 
 
 With which appalling axiom, deli- 
 vered with as little concern as if it had 
 been a truism, Arthur helped himself 
 abundantly to cake. 
 
 This unexpected meeting with a bright 
 lad and lasses of her own age delighted 
 Nanny, whose spirits had, in spite of her 
 husband's devotion, suffered somewhat 
 in consequence of her recent discoveries. 
 She expressed her pleasure to them with 
 frank confidence. Arthur shook his 
 head.
 
 2o6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' It is lucky it was I, and not Charlie, 
 who stayed away from the City to-day, 
 then,' he said, with sublime modesty. 
 
 * Or we should not have made such a 
 favourable impression. You won't like 
 Charlie, I'm afraid. At least, he may 
 be a very good fellow, but — he rides a 
 bicycle.' 
 
 * And why not?' asked Captain Ryder. 
 
 * It isn't everybody who can ride 
 one.' 
 
 ' I look upon the rider of a bicycle as 
 only one degree above the reader of Tit- 
 BitsJ said the lad majestically. 
 
 ' There are sometimes very amusing 
 things in Tit-Bits, Arthur,' cried Adela, 
 blushing. * In a copy I found in your 
 coat-pocket the other day ' 
 
 There was a most unkind outburst of 
 laughter, which did not disconcert
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 207 
 
 Arthur, who went on to explain that he 
 had bought that copy as a text on which 
 to read his elder brother a lecture on 
 the vitiation of the mind by * scrappy ' 
 reading. 
 
 And so, amid a buzz of light laughter 
 and ' young ' talk, tea under the mul- 
 berry-tree came to an end, and the lad 
 and the lasses, with hearty farewells, 
 tripped across the grass with their table 
 and cups and saucers, leaving an echo of 
 their merriment in the old trees. 
 
 Then silence fell suddenly on the 
 couple, who wandered indoors, and 
 began to peer about into the nooks of 
 the old house, making closer acquaint- 
 ance with it. Then they stood under 
 the cuckoo clock in the gallery over the 
 hall, while the little wooden bird sprang 
 out and jerked forth his two notes as six
 
 2o8 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 o'clock Struck. It was getting dark and 
 cool, and rather melancholy, Nanny 
 thought. Her husband was so silent, 
 and the old trees did sway about so, and 
 make such a sad sound in the rising 
 night breeze. 
 
 Suddenly they heard the sound of a 
 key in the lock of the front door down 
 below, 
 
 'Hallo!' said Captain Ryder to his 
 wife in an undertone ; * keep back, and 
 don't make a sound. This looks like 
 burglary.' 
 
 Nanny obeyed, and retreated into the 
 corner by the clock. Her husband went 
 quietly down the stairs, and waited, 
 grasping his stick tightly, for the door 
 to open. But it was no burglar who 
 entered : it was Pickering, the old 
 gardener, who started back at sight of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 209 
 
 Captain Ryder with a very evident 
 shock. 
 
 * Captain !' he exclaimed, in a low 
 voice full of alarm, * you here ? Why, 
 Lord love you, sir ! how did you get in ? 
 Didn't you know she'd gone away, sir ? 
 The old lady came and packed her off 
 yesterday, and she went as meek as any 
 lamb/ 
 
 * What the do I care how she 
 
 went ?' cried Captain Ryder, in an irrit- 
 able voice — * if you mean by ''her" 
 and *' she " the woman who has been 
 living here, and who has left me the 
 legacy of another undesirable tenant in 
 the person of her brother.' 
 
 * Oh yes, sir,' answered Pickering, in 
 an entirely different tone of voice. His 
 sharp eyes had caught sight of the- 
 outline of Nanny's head and hat against 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the window at the end of the gallery. 
 The suggestion of affectionate intimacy 
 had gone from his voice, which had 
 become on the instant cold, distant, and 
 respectful. * I beg your pardon, but I 
 thought you had perhaps called to see 
 Mrs. Durrant about the furniture and 
 the state of the place, sir, before coming 
 in. But she had an " infantry " made, 
 sir, most careful, and I don't think you'll 
 find anything wrong, barring the roof 
 over one of the attic bedrooms lets in 
 the water a little at times.' 
 
 ' Confound the roof!' said Captain 
 Ryder shortly, as he turned away, and 
 glanced anxiously up towards the place 
 where his wife was standing. 
 
 He foresaw that a * scene,' or a mis- 
 understanding, or something unpleasant 
 of the sort, was inevitable. For Nanny
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 had come forward, and was leaning 
 against the raiHng of the balcony, and 
 he could hear that she was breathing 
 heavily, and see that her slender little 
 figure was shaking like the branches of 
 the wind-tossed trees outside.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Captain Ryder did his wife injustice. 
 Nanny was very young, very inex- 
 perienced ; but common-sense and her 
 affection for her husband served her as 
 well, in this emergency, as maturity and 
 knowledge of the world could have 
 done. The little scene she had just 
 witnessed seemed only to prove what 
 she knew already, that Dan had not been 
 quite frank with her, in that he had 
 certainly known Mrs. Durrant more inti- 
 mately than he professed to have done. 
 But, on the other hand, if this woman
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BREMT 213 
 
 had really been his nurse while his mind 
 was affected, Dan, wishing to keep the 
 whole matter from coming to his wife's 
 ears, would, of course, have to pretend 
 he knew nothing of her. Nanny wished 
 that Dan would have confided in her, 
 and she made up her mind that some 
 day, when the awe in which she still 
 held her dignified husband should have 
 a little abated, she would worm out of 
 him, by coaxing and by practising all 
 the arts of cajolery she knew, the secrets 
 she had already learned. He should tell 
 her about that unhappy first marriage, 
 and even about the mental illness which 
 she felt sure was a consequence of it. 
 
 And then there flashed suddenly 
 through her mind the horrible words 
 uttered in her hearing that day by the 
 old labourer : wild, childish, rambling as
 
 214 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 they were, they troubled her. There 
 must be yet another secret in this family 
 into which she had married ; Nanny 
 resolved to find out what she could 
 about her husband's immediate ancestors. 
 For one word in the old grave-digger's 
 rambling talk had frightened her. 
 
 ' It's getting late, Dan, isn't it ? We 
 ought to be going back,' she said, with 
 a little nervous tremor in her voice, as 
 her husband came up to her. 
 
 Captain Ryder, who had reached the 
 top of the staircase, saw that her hands 
 were clasping and unclasping the railing 
 of the gallery. He knew that she must 
 have heard what passed between him 
 and Pickering ; and, much as he had 
 dreaded a * scene ' over the incident, he 
 thought it better to have done with it 
 there and then.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 215 
 
 * Yes,' he said briefly, in answer to 
 her suggestion. And then, coming a 
 little nearer to her, so that she might 
 not, in the half-Ught, be able to hide 
 the expression of her face from him, he 
 said : * You heard the way in which that 
 man spoke to me when he first came in, 
 Nanny. Now, what did it make you 
 think ? Tell the truth, dear.' 
 
 The young wife hesitated a moment 
 before replying, in a low voice : 
 
 * It made me think that you must have 
 known Mrs. Durrant before, and ' 
 
 ' And, therefore, that I had told you a 
 falsehood in saying I did not know her ?' 
 
 ' No, no, Dan, not that. I don't re- 
 member, now I think of it, that you ever 
 did tell me, in so many words, that you 
 had never seen her before yesterday. 
 And, Dan dearest, you don't think I
 
 2i6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 should trouble my head about an idle 
 word said by a servant ? Whatever you 
 do is right to me, and what you tell me 
 I believe without any question.' 
 
 * Then you will believe me when I 
 tell you that I am not even sure that the 
 woman I saw yesterday was Mrs. Dur- 
 rant. I only know that she said she was 
 the person in charge of The Grange. 
 
 Now are vou satisfied ?' 
 
 •I 
 
 Captain Ryder spoke with more irri- 
 tation than he had ever before shown to 
 her, and she listened to his words with- 
 out comment. But she was conscious 
 of a feeling of disappointment. She 
 could have remained content with half- 
 knowledge, and would have put her 
 own simple-minded and most generous 
 construction upon that part of the matter 
 which she did not know. But this chal-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 217 
 
 lenge she could not directly face. He 
 had denied too much. 
 
 * I was satisfied before, Dan,' she said 
 timidly. 
 
 * But are you satisfied now ?' he per- 
 sisted, being much too keen of sense 
 where she was concerned not to be con- 
 scious of the slight constraint which 
 peeped out under her wifely submission. 
 
 He came nearer to her, and his right 
 hand, which had so often caressed her 
 passionately, touched hers on the railing. 
 And emotion becoming on the instant 
 stronger than reason, she caught his arm 
 and put her fresh young face close to 
 his. 
 
 *I am satisfied — I am satisfied that 
 you love me — only me ! And that what- 
 ever you say it is right for me to believe, 
 if all the world besides deny it !'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Well, no husband of a month's stand- 
 ing could be otherwise than content with 
 such a declaration so uttered. And he 
 showered kisses on her pretty lips, and as 
 she leaned in his arms they both forgot 
 the untoward incident ; and they left the 
 old house with the feeling that they 
 would be happy together within its walls. 
 But as they drew near the gate they saw 
 Pickering, standing like a sentinel on 
 duty, among the trees not far off. Cap- 
 tain Ryder called to him ; but, affecting 
 not to hear, the man disappeared in the 
 shrubbery. And husband and wife, thus 
 reminded of what they would fain have 
 forgotten, made no comment, but felt 
 again a slight uneasiness — none the less 
 vexatious because neither would confess 
 it to the other. 
 
 Next day Captain Ryder started off
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 219 
 
 immediately after breakfast to see his 
 mother. He returned to the hotel to 
 luncheon, disturbed, annoyed and gloomy. 
 Nanny asked him no questions, but of 
 his own free will he presently satisfied 
 her curiosity. 
 
 ' I have had it out with the old lady,' 
 he said when, luncheon over, Nanny 
 was lighting his cigar for him. 
 
 ' Well, dear ?' 
 
 ' I put it to her that I couldn't afford 
 to have a big place like The White 
 House kept empty for the sake of this 
 lazy young protege of hers — this Eley.' 
 
 * What did she say to that ?' asked 
 Nanny, full of excitement. 
 
 * Said she had a personal regard for the 
 fellow : one of his relations had rendered 
 great services to our family.' 
 
 * And then — how did it end ?'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 *Just now? Oh, in her having her 
 own way, of course. I suggested that 
 she should offer this young man one of a 
 row of pretty little cottages I have at 
 Teddington, as being much more com- 
 fortable and convenient for a young man 
 than a great rambling house. She would 
 not hear of it.' 
 
 ' Well, now, isn't there something sus- 
 picious and mysterious about that fact 
 itself?' asked Nanny, who was secretly 
 full of indignation against both brother 
 and sister for their cynical avowal of 
 their intention to live on her husband. 
 
 ' My mother, Nanny, belongs to a 
 large class of strong-willed, imperfectly- 
 educated women who delight in mys- 
 teries — no matter how petty — because 
 they give them the sense of power, of 
 possessing some little scrap of generally
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 221 
 
 useless knowledge not held by someone 
 else.' 
 
 * And you think such a petty feeling 
 ought to be indulged ?' 
 
 * No, dear. I indulge it against my 
 better judgment. The old lady is mistress 
 of every art by which a woman gets her 
 own way. When I pleaded poverty, and 
 the hardship it was to me to have a big 
 place bringing in no rent, she said Valen- 
 tine Eley should pay me rent, and that if 
 I did not think it sufficient, she would 
 give up her own brougham and give me 
 what it cost a year to keep it up.' 
 
 * But it was unfair to say a thing like 
 that. And, do you know, Dan — of course 
 you won't believe me, but I don't believe 
 she meant to give her brougham up.' 
 
 ' Of course she did not. I knew that 
 all the time.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' And you let her have her own way 
 all the same ? Dan, you are more in- 
 dulgent to your mother than you are to 
 me.' 
 
 ' Quite true, child. You are tender, 
 unselfish, submissive. You have been 
 well educated, and not spoilt. As you 
 can never attain to it, I don't mind tell- 
 ing you that a steady, aggressive selfishness 
 is the best means in the world of getting 
 your own way, not only in youth, but in 
 age.' 
 
 Captain Ryder spoke with much 
 bitterness, and Nanny would not let him 
 say another word upon the subject. She 
 was not really jealous of his mother's 
 influence with Dan, since that influence 
 did not extend to an empire over his 
 heart. That, Nanny thought, was her 
 province, and it was one in which she
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 223 
 
 feared no rival. Indeed, in spite of his 
 submission to old Mrs. Ryder in the 
 matter of Valentine Eley, he showed a 
 growing wish to emancipate himself 
 altogether from what Nanny saw had 
 been a tyranny. 
 
 Thus, when his young wife suggested 
 consulting the old lady as to the servants 
 they would want, and asking her help in 
 engaging them, Captain Ryder answered 
 very shortly that she had better trust 
 her own judgment. 
 
 * We don't want a spy in the house,' he 
 added hastily ; then, feeling that he had 
 gone a little too far, he laughed and said 
 in a more leisurely tone : * These dear 
 old ladies always want to know too much 
 about a household that is newly started, 
 Nanny. Servants look upon the woman 
 who engages them as their mistress, and
 
 224 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 we don't want it reported to my mother 
 or anyone else what bad judges we are 
 of a leg of mutton, or how wasteful we 
 are with the sugar/ 
 
 * But, Dan dear, that's just what I'm 
 afraid of! I am a bad judge of a leg of 
 mutton, and I s/ia/I be wasteful with the 
 sugar ! You ought to have married 
 Meg. She's a splendid housekeeper.' 
 
 ' Perhaps if I'd wanted to marry a 
 housekeeper I should have chosen Meg. 
 We'll have a cook-housekeeper, and 
 then you won't have to tease your pretty 
 little head about it.' 
 
 ' Oh, Dan, won't that be too extrava- 
 gant ?' 
 
 ' I think we can manage it. Then 
 we must have three other women- 
 servants ; and for the present at least 
 we must do without any men-servants.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 225 
 
 except just a gardener and coachman. 
 Of course you must have a brougham.' 
 
 * But, Dan, I don't want one. I ' 
 
 * It is not what you want, but what 
 my wife must have,' interrupted he 
 decidedly. ' As soon as we are settled I 
 am going up to Durham, where I have 
 a little property. It has not suffered, like 
 the Bicton estate, from my mother's 
 mismanagement ; but I am going to see 
 whether the most is being made of it, 
 which I doubt.' 
 
 For the next few days husband and 
 wife were busily occupied, the former 
 with business, the latter with the search 
 for servants. Unluckily, of the four she 
 chose, only two were disengaged and 
 could come at once. However, Nanny 
 and her husband decided to settle in their 
 new home without further delay, and 
 
 VOL. I. I (;
 
 226 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 manage without a parlour-maid and 
 with only one housemaid for a little 
 while. 
 
 Before the end of October, there- 
 fore, they took possession of The 
 Grange. 
 
 It was on a raw, cold day, with a 
 drizzle of rain falling, that they arrived. 
 Nanny rather prided herself on her fore- 
 thought in having told the two servants 
 who could come to settle in the house 
 the day before, so as to have everything 
 ready. But only the cook-housekeeper, 
 a middle-aged woman with a formidably 
 excellent character and an appearance to 
 match, had put in an appearance when 
 her master and mistress arrived. She 
 had a cold in the head, was very cross at 
 having had to stay in the house alone all 
 night, and gave an appalling account of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 227 
 
 the deficiencies of the place. Having 
 been used to large households, she had 
 a way of talking which crushed poor 
 Nanny and drove Captain Ryder to 
 frenzy. 
 
 * The kitchen-range was of a sort she 
 had never even seen before, and was 
 evidently not intended for the purpose of 
 cooking. All the chimneys smoked ex- 
 cept one ; and in the case of that excep- 
 tional one, not only the smoke, but the 
 heat also, went up the chimney. The 
 passage was draughty, the boards creaked. 
 The ' 
 
 Captain Ryder would not let his wife 
 hear any more. He cut the woman's 
 complaints very short, and began to lead 
 Nanny, who was almost in tears, straight 
 to the study. But as they went the 
 cook - housekeeper, raising her voice.
 
 228 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 managed to deliver a parting salute which 
 struck terror to the heart of her so-called 
 mistress. 
 
 * And you will please understand, 
 ma'am, that I leave this day month, and 
 that if you can suit yourself before that, 
 I should be glad, ma'am. I've been 
 used to the best families, and to having 
 everything regular and comfortable. Let 
 alone that I did not expect to be left 
 alone in the 'ouse, which it's damp and 
 not fit to sleep in without a month of 
 airing, and with old women with staring 
 eyes prowling about and asking questions 
 which would never be heard of a re- 
 spectable 'ouse.' 
 
 Nanny dragged her arm out of her 
 husband's suddenly as these last words, 
 uttered in a shrill, piercing tone, fell upon 
 her ears.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 229 
 
 * What does she mean, Dan ?' asked 
 she, shaking with nameless fears. 
 
 * I don't know,' said he savagely. 
 * But whatever she means, we'll have no 
 more of her nonsense, for we'll send her 
 about her business this very minute.' 
 
 He was proceeding to suit the action 
 to the word, when Nanny detained him, 
 clinging to his arm. 
 
 * Don't, Dan ; don't. At least not till 
 one of the others comes. I can't cook 
 and I can't light fires, and — and ' 
 
 She broke down, and began to cry. 
 Captain Ryder, half distracted, found the 
 first experience of life in one's own home 
 disappointing. He postponed the evic- 
 tion of the cook, while he proceeded to 
 dry his wife's eyes and console her. 
 
 ' Don't — don't cry, there's a dear, good 
 child !' he said, slapping her hands under
 
 230 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the vague impression that this was a pre- 
 ventive of hysterics. 
 
 But through his kind words Nanny 
 heard a fresh outburst from the indignant 
 cook, who had expected to have /ler 
 wounded feeUngs soothed, and who had 
 instead overheard her master's threat of 
 dismissal. 
 
 ' Send her about her business, will 
 you ? No, nobody ever yet treated 
 Sarah Tebbits with insult, nor yet they 
 never shan't either,' she cried in vindic- 
 tive tones. ' Nor yet wouldn't she stay 
 in a place where there was a doubt who 
 her mistress was either. And when old 
 women that comes to pry about the 
 place says, says they : *' Is your mistress 
 plain Mrs. Ryder, or is she Lady Ellen 
 Ryder ?" why then 1 says to myself, " Sarah 
 Tebbits, 'says I, this is no p\^ce for you /"'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 231 
 
 With which words, uttered with 
 vicious emphasis, the enraged cook- 
 housekeeper slammed a door, and for a 
 time effaced herself. 
 
 Husband and wife had both listened, 
 both heard. Of the two, Captain Ryder 
 was the more startled by her angry 
 speech, and by the mention of ' Lady 
 Ellen.' Half lifting her off her feet, he 
 led Nanny into the study. It was 
 cheerless and cold there, and the room 
 felt damp, as if it had not been used for 
 some time. A fine rain was falling, 
 blurring the window panes, and making 
 the garden outside look fresh and green. 
 
 * What shall we do ?' cried Nanny, 
 sinking on the sofa, and looking tear- 
 fully at her husband. 
 
 The fireplace was filled with the old- 
 fashioned white shavings which had
 
 232 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 been put there for the summer. The 
 idea of making a fire in it seemed too 
 remote to afford any hope or comfort. 
 Captain Ryder was struck with a cheer- 
 ing suggestion. 
 
 ' I know/ he said. ' I'll find out 
 those nice girls who were here the other 
 day ; they'll do something for us.' 
 
 But Nanny felt reluctant for him to go. 
 
 'I'm so afraid,' she said, ' that that 
 dreadful woman will come in and abuse 
 me again. Couldn't I go with you ?' 
 
 * In the rain ? No, my darling; you 
 had better stay here. I know by what 
 those girls said that they live close by. 
 I shall be back in a few minutes.' 
 
 He sat down on the sofa beside her, 
 trying to coax her into acquiescence. It 
 was some minutes, however, before he 
 could persuade her to let him leave her.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 233 
 
 It was clear that something of more 
 importance than a servant's ill-humour 
 was troubling the poor child's mind. 
 
 * Lady Ellen ! Who did she mean by 
 Lady Ellen ? And who could the old 
 woman be whom she said she found 
 prowling about here ?' she broke out at 
 last. 
 
 * Oh, only some old local busybody 
 who makes other people's affairs the 
 business of her wretched life/ answered 
 Captain Ryder impatiently. 
 
 ' B ut Lady Ellen ? Who is Lady Ellen ? 
 Do you know anything of her ?' 
 
 His reply to this was shorter and more 
 constrained : 
 
 ' Never mind old women's tales now. 
 Let us think about ourselves.' 
 
 The sofa on which they were sitting 
 was in the corner between the two
 
 234 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 windows. Suddenly the light from the 
 north was partially shut out, and husband 
 and wife became aware of a face peering 
 in, close to the glass. 
 
 * There she is!' cried Nanny, starting 
 up. 
 
 The wet creeper outside swung about 
 and scattered a shower of raindrops, as 
 the intruder drew back quickly on 
 perceiving that the room was not empty. 
 Almost as quickly, however, she re- 
 covered her ground on catching sight of 
 Captain Ryder, and stood, as if trans- 
 fixed, gazing at him steadily through a 
 gold double-eyeglass. 
 
 ' Who is she ? who is she ? What 
 does she mean by spying on us ?' asked 
 Nanny in indignation and fear. 
 
 * I haven't the least idea, but I think 
 we'll have an explanation,' said he.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 235 
 
 Perhaps the woman outside heard or 
 guessed the gist of their talk. At any 
 rate, she disappeared so promptly that by 
 the time Captain Ryder had gone along 
 the passage to a garden door, unbolted it, 
 and got outside the house, there was no 
 sign of her recent presence to be seen 
 in any part of the garden. When he 
 returned to his wife, she had on her 
 gloves again, and was standing up ready 
 to accompany him, and he no longer 
 tried to dissuade her. 
 
 The first person they met in the road 
 outside was able to tell them where 
 * Bambridges ' lived. It was in a pretty 
 white house, facing the green, with trees 
 and tall shrubs darkening all the front 
 windows. The panels of the front door 
 were decorated with what looked, when 
 the gas was alight, like stained glass, and
 
 236 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the hall showed traces of pretty taste, 
 clever fingers, and visits to Liberty's. 
 
 Nanny and her husband had not been 
 five minutes inside the house when they 
 felt that they had found rest from their 
 troubles. Once settled in the pretty, 
 bright drawing-room, overfilled with 
 marvels of crewel-work, string-work, 
 fret- work, and every other sort of work 
 which busy girl-fingers could do, with 
 kind Mrs. Bambridge listening sympa- 
 thetically, the girls indignantly, and the 
 big brother Charlie ferociously, to her 
 account of the onslaught of the cook and 
 the apparition of the old woman, Nanny 
 recognised that the tragedy of it was all 
 over. 
 
 ' Mrs. Calverley !' cried a chorus at 
 the mention of the face at the window. 
 
 * Who is she ?' asked Nanny.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 237 
 
 * She is the grande dame of the 
 place, the only person in Brent who 
 ever dares to consider herself on the 
 same footing as The Grange people/ 
 cried Laura, in spite of a reproving 
 glance from her mother, which, indeed, 
 she did not see. ' She looks down upon 
 us from a great height, and has never 
 called upon us, in all the four years we 
 have lived here, until two days ago.' 
 
 * And then it was only because she 
 had heard the girls had seen you, Mrs. 
 Ryder, so she called to " pump " them 
 about you,' said Charlie, who was a very 
 tall young man, with a plain -featured, 
 intelligent face, and an expression of 
 quiet mischief in his eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Bambridge, good soul ! looked 
 much distressed by her children's ill- 
 chosen cackle. She was a kind.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 motherly woman, of a type common 
 enough in England^ — ^honest, honourable, 
 industrious, unselfish, devoted, full of 
 practical common -sense in the small 
 matters of life, in whom the natural 
 striving after the ideal found vent in 
 petty ambitions to be thought some- 
 thing a little different from what she 
 was. The greatest grief she had ever 
 known had been her husband's insistence 
 on leaving their gloomy porticoed house 
 in an obscure part of Bays water for the 
 fresher air and lower rent of Brent. 
 ' How could she hope to get the girls off 
 at Brent ?' she had piteously asked him. 
 Nor was she comforted by the reminder 
 that her ' at homes ' in the Bayswater 
 back street, where she had successfully 
 reproduced the heat and the overcrowd- 
 ing of a fashionable reception while
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 239 
 
 missing its brilliancy, had not brought 
 the young men to their knees. * Not 
 even your lukewarm lemonade and 
 flabby biscuits would drive 'em to it, 
 Emily, you know,' chuckled her matter- 
 of-fact husband, who was an accountant 
 in the City, with no soul for social 
 aspirations. 
 
 And of late her very children seemed 
 to be taking more and more her hus- 
 band's view of the matter, and not hers. 
 Here they were, at the moment when a 
 lucky accident had brought them promi- 
 nently under the notice of ' The Grange 
 people,' and placed them on a footing of 
 intimacy with them, taking a lower 
 ground and undoing the good of it 
 all! 
 
 * What nonsense, Charlie !' she ex- 
 claimed. ' Why should Mrs. Calverley
 
 240 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 look down upon us ? I am sure she was 
 most civil.' 
 
 * Well, mother, ten minutes' civility 
 once in two years ought not to be too 
 great a strain on the constitution of a 
 lady who has married the second cousin 
 of an Irish viscount.' 
 
 ' I don't know why you should sneer, 
 Charlie. It is not her fault that Mrs. 
 Calverley is well connected.' 
 
 ^ No, it is our misfortune.' Charlie 
 got up, and crossed the room to Captain 
 Ryder. ' If you want to get rid of the 
 cook to-night,' he suggested, 'you had 
 better pack her off before it gets dark.' 
 
 Captain Ryder agreed, and accepted 
 the offer of the young man's companion- 
 ship on the expedition. 
 
 ' If she won't go of her own accord,' 
 said Charlie, with a grim smile, * I'll
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 241 
 
 undertake that Arthur and I will dislodi^e 
 her/ 
 
 Mrs. Bambridge now came forward, 
 insisting that both husband and wife 
 should remain her guests for the night. 
 But, while accepting the invitation for 
 Nanny, Captain Ryder refused it for 
 himself. He would sleep at The 
 Grange, to take care of it. 
 
 He and Charlie Bambridge had not 
 left the house more than five minutes 
 when another visitor was announced, 
 whose name caused a great flutter — Mrs. 
 Calverley. For while Mrs. Bambridge 
 was delighted beyond measure that it 
 was at her house that the two great 
 ladies of the neighbourhood would meet, 
 poor Nanny was full of passionate excite- 
 ment at the thought of encountering a 
 woman whose questions and prying 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 investigations proved that she had some 
 knowledge of, and interest in, the Ryder 
 family. 
 
 Not all her vague surmises and appre- 
 hensions, however, had prepared Nanny 
 adequately for the critical stare, the 
 compressed lips, the frigid bow, with 
 which the old grande dame of the neigh- 
 bourhood greeted the young one. She 
 had evidently not expected this meeting, 
 and, while affecting annoyance, was really 
 delighted at this opportunity of express- 
 ing her mysterious disapproval of the 
 new mistress of The Grange. To the 
 other ladies this behaviour seemed a 
 mere affectation of importance ; but 
 Nanny knew better. 
 
 The young wife remained very silent 
 during the old lady's visit ; but when, 
 after a little bald talk about trifles, Mrs.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 243 
 
 Calverley rose to go, Nanny took the 
 opportunity of a diversion caused by the 
 overturning of the cream-jug on to the 
 carpet by Mrs. Bambridge's lap-dog to 
 address the departing guest rapidly, in a 
 tone almost as haughty as that lady's 
 own. She wanted an explanation of the 
 look on Mrs. Calverley's face at sight of 
 her husband. 
 
 ^ You know my husband, Mrs. Cal- 
 verley ?' she asked in very low and rapid, 
 but firm tones. 
 
 * I have not that honour now. I 
 knew him in the time of his first wife, 
 Lady Ellen — many years ago.' 
 
 On fire to hear more, and with self- 
 command enough still to speak low and 
 quickly, Nanny said : 
 
 * My husband is only thirty years of^ 
 age, madam.'
 
 244 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 The elder woman merely smiled with 
 thin, drawn lips. Nanny looked her full 
 in the eyes. 
 
 ' When did this Lady Ellen die ?' she 
 asked very quietly. 
 
 The answer, in spite of its cruelty, 
 came without hesitation : 
 
 ' I never heard of her dying at all.' 
 
 Nanny received the blow almost with- 
 out emotion. Before she put this last 
 question she had known what the answer 
 would be.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 No one who knew her, not even Nanny 
 herself, would ever have guessed that she 
 was capable of bearing a great shock so 
 bravely as she bore Mrs. Calverley's 
 announcement that her husband had 
 already a wife living when he married 
 her. Perhaps if she had had no hint of 
 the blow before it fell, she would have 
 felt it more. As it was, for a few 
 moments she felt stunned, and then she 
 remembered that her manifest duty was 
 to hide every sign of emotion until she 
 had been able to test the truth of the
 
 246 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Statement she had just heard. So she sat 
 down as Mrs. Calverley went out ; and 
 when one of the girls asked her if she 
 would have another cup of tea, she said 
 ' Yes,' and drank it with a perfect ap- 
 pearance of composure. 
 
 ' How dreadfully tired you look !' cried 
 Mrs. Bambridge suddenly, with kindly 
 solicitude. 
 
 The only indication Nanny betrayed 
 of the emotions which were agitating 
 her, was in her lips, from which the 
 bright vermilion colour which usually 
 contrasted so strongly with her pale face 
 had altogether disappeared. She laughed 
 a little without apparent effort. 
 
 ' I am tired,' she confessed ; ' my head 
 feels quite confused and sleepy.' 
 
 They brought her smelling salts and 
 eau de Cologne, and in their gentle atten-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 247 
 
 tions Nanny felt the balm of sympathy. 
 They were like Meg, she thought ; and 
 this was the highest praise she could give. 
 
 While they were thus ministering to a 
 need so much greater than they supposed, 
 Mr. Bambridge and his younger son 
 arrived from the City. The former gave 
 Nanny the impression of being a very 
 good match for his kind, sensible wife ; 
 but the latter engaged more of her atten- 
 tion by his lamentations when he heard 
 the story of the cook. 
 
 ' Why wasn't I here ?' he exclaimed, 
 feeling more burdened than usual with 
 the sense that nothing could be done 
 well without him. * What's the good 
 of Charlie in a thing of this sort ? It 
 wants diplomacy, and — I know !' and his 
 face lighted up as with inspiration, ' mag- 
 nesium wire !'
 
 248 liALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' What ?' cried two of the girls to- 
 gether. 
 
 * Don't say " What ?" It's vulgar/ 
 corrected Arthur, walking towards the 
 door. ' And I can't stop to explain. 
 You shall hear all about it when it's 
 done.' 
 
 With an air of great importance he 
 disappeared, paying no heed to his 
 father's injunctions not to set The Grange 
 on fire with his clown's tricks, and to 
 ask Captain Ryder and Charlie to come 
 back to dinner, and put off killing the 
 cook till afterwards. 
 
 The time went on, dinner was put 
 back, but neither Captain Ryder nor the 
 boys returned. Poor Nanny grew very 
 . uncomfortable, and begged so hard that 
 thev would not wait for her husband that 
 Mr. Bambridge, with a fine courtesy un~
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 249 
 
 usual in a City man, ordered the dinner 
 to be brought up instead of grumbling at 
 the delay. Then, after a meal which he 
 rather hurried in the fear that something 
 might have gone wrong, he put on his 
 straw hat and said he would go and see 
 whether his young ruffians had blown up 
 The Grange and its master. 
 
 Kind Mrs. Bambridge, divided be- 
 tween solicitude for her husband's diges- 
 tion and hospitable sympathy with 
 Nanny's growing anxiety, begged him to 
 have his nap first, a prayer in which the 
 younger ladies all joined. 
 
 ' It makes me so miserable to put you 
 all out so,' pleaded Nanny. 
 
 ' And you're always so cross, you know, 
 papa, if you don't get your forty winks,' 
 said Adela. 
 
 * You impudent little baggage !' Mr.
 
 2 so RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 Bambridge grumbled, with good humour. 
 And he kissed her as she let him out, and 
 looked anxiously at the sky. ' It won't 
 rain again,' said he ; * it has cleeard up for 
 the evening.' 
 
 Now, the one great anxiety at Nanny's 
 heart had swallowed up all smaller ones ; 
 so that she felt little or no uneasiness at 
 her husband's delay in returning. Nor 
 was she even alarmed when Arthur came 
 back, and, instead of entering the room, 
 called his mother into the hall, said a few 
 words to her, and went out again. 
 
 Mrs. Bambridge did not come back 
 into the drawing-room; and Laura, 
 whose tongue wagged more merrily 
 when the restraint of her mother's pre- 
 sence was removed, threw open the 
 window and offered to show Nanny ' the 
 estate.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 251 
 
 * We always call it " the estate " when 
 mamma isn't here,' said she gaily, as she 
 stepped out on to a veranda so small 
 that there was only room on it for one 
 American lounging-chair. 
 
 ' And sometimes when she is, Laura,' 
 added Jessica reproachfully. 
 
 * Now tell me, Mrs. Ryder,' cried 
 Laura, without heeding her sister, ^ did 
 you ever see so much in so little 
 before ?' 
 
 Nanny could truthfully say * No.' In 
 the ambitious attempt to make one poor 
 little half-acre yield all the joys of a 
 garden six times its size, the resources of 
 that poor corner of earth had been taxed 
 to the utmost. 
 
 First, there was a lawn which you 
 could have covered with a good-sized 
 tablecloth, and at the corners were
 
 252 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 flower-beds so diminutive that the un- 
 happy geraniums and calceolarias seemed 
 to jostle each other for breathing-space. 
 At the back of this came a rockery, on 
 which there flourished, among other 
 things which did not flourish, one fern 
 of fair size. A thin hedge separated 
 this part of the garden from the pond, in 
 the centre of which a fountain threw up 
 a jet of water, the volume of which was 
 exactly equal to the stream poured from 
 a teapot. Meagre as the fountain was, 
 however, it was almost strong enough to 
 wash right out of the pond the one small 
 duck swimming round and round in it. 
 Over the pond was one big tree, which 
 spread its branches on the one side over 
 this vast sheet of water^ and on the other 
 over the tennis-court, which was the 
 next attraction. Then came a forest of
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 253 
 
 scarlet runners, in the midst of which 
 was a summer-house. And to the beans 
 succeeded a row of small frames, in 
 which grew cucumbers and melons of 
 corresponding diminutiveness. And at 
 the end of all a narrow little strip of 
 ground had been set aside as a run for 
 half a dozen fowls. Round the whole 
 of the garden ran a narrow path, and a 
 still narrower flower-border. Every part 
 was exquisitely neat and well tended. 
 Bad as the light was getting, Nanny saw 
 this, and said so. 
 
 ' You, with your beautiful grounds, 
 can afford to say that,' said Laura, laugh- 
 ing half ruefully. * But in your heart 
 you must laugh at our attempts to do 
 much with — nothing.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Nanny earnestly, ' indeed 
 you are ridiculously wrong. I have
 
 254 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 never been used to big houses and 
 gardens before. It is quite a new ex- 
 perience to me. I have made my own 
 dresses and trimmed my own hats. Fm 
 a parvenue,' she ended, smiHng. 
 
 They were back under the Virginia 
 creeper, which now hung, a reddening 
 mass, over the raiUng. Nanny had 
 quickened her steps on seeing that 
 CharUe was standing at the drawing- 
 room window, and that the girls were 
 hanging about him as if he had been 
 telUng them something interesting. They 
 both shrank out oi sight, however, as 
 Nanny and Laura came up. Just at 
 that moment Arthur entered the room 
 from the inner door, crying out : 
 
 * It's all right. I've sent off the 
 wire !' 
 
 Charlie turned angrily. It was too
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 255 
 
 late. Running up the three steps from 
 the garden to the veranda, Nanny 
 sprang into the room, and met the elder 
 brother face to face. 
 
 * Something has happened !' she said 
 in a whisper. * What is it ?' 
 
 A glance from his face to the frigh- 
 tened countenances of the rest confirmed 
 her fears. 
 
 ' Where is my husband ?' she asked. 
 
 * And where is Mrs. Bambridge ? She 
 will tell me — what it is.' 
 
 ' I will tell you,' said Charlie, in a 
 broken, shame-faced voice, for, as he 
 said afterwards, it made him feel like a 
 brute to have to break the news to her. 
 
 * Your husband ' He stopped a 
 
 moment, and, waving his brother and his 
 sisters imperiously back into the room, 
 he came close up to the window, and
 
 256 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 spoke without looking into the young 
 wife's face: 'Captain Ryder has met 
 with an accident ; he has had a fall, 
 and ' 
 
 * Is — he — dead P' asked Nanny, craning 
 forward as if her eyes would dig the 
 truth out of his. 
 
 * Oh no, no — not even very seriously 
 hurt, I hope. But he was jumping out 
 of — of — of a window, in fact, and a 
 grating which was hidden by the creepers 
 gave way, and he fell, and — I — I must 
 tell you, you know — he has hurt his head.' 
 
 ' And — and who were you telegraph- 
 ing to ?' asked Nanny, in a low voice, 
 looking over his shoulder, and speaking 
 timidly, as if she had been put into a 
 trance. 
 
 * Captain Ryder's mother, I think : 
 47, Road, South Kensington.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 257 
 
 ^ His mother !' she repeated to herself. 
 And for a few moments she either forgot 
 Chariie, or had not self-command enough 
 to put any further questions. 
 
 * He hadn't time to say much before 
 he fainted with the pain, you know,' said 
 the voung fellow soothingly. ' No 
 doubt he was afraid of the shock to you, 
 and told me to send for his mother to 
 break it to you.' 
 
 Nanny had turned, and held out her 
 hand mechanically to each of the girls in 
 turn. 
 
 * Good-bye,' she said, in a dull voice. 
 * I shall never forget how kind you have 
 all been — never.' 
 
 Laura kissed her impulsively, and the 
 two others more timidly followed suit. 
 As for Arthur, afraid to face her in her 
 distress, he had disappeared. Charlie 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 accompanied her without question on 
 her way back to The Grange, and they 
 skirted the green in silence. Just as 
 they turned to the left into the road 
 that led to the big house, she said 
 abruptly : 
 
 * You may as well tell me the truth, 
 because I can guess nearly as much as 
 you know. My husband was getting out 
 of a window, you say ?' 
 
 ' Well — er — he was — er ' 
 
 * Getting out of a window ; you said 
 so. Which window ?' 
 
 ' That little corner-room where the 
 girls found you the other day. The 
 study, I think it is — the window facing 
 the lawn.' 
 
 * I know. He was following some- 
 
 one !' 
 
 She turned upon him so quickly, and
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 259 
 
 Uttered these words in a tone of such 
 absolute certainty, that for a moment he 
 was disconcerted. Recovering himself 
 almost on the instant, he said : 
 
 ' It was some tomfoolery of my 
 brother's. He had lighted some mag- 
 nesium wire to frighten out the cook, 
 and was making faces in the glare, 
 and ' 
 
 ' That would not have frightened my 
 husband !' cried Nanny contemptuously. 
 * Besides, the cook was not in the study, 
 I am quite sure.' 
 
 * That is the only way in which I can 
 account for the accident,' said Charlie 
 readily. 
 
 * Oh, but you know more than that,' 
 cried she impatiently. ' It is of no use 
 to try to deceive me, you see. Won't 
 you tell me what you saw if I swear that
 
 26o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 it will do no harm to anyone to tell me 
 — nothing but good — good ?' 
 
 And now, if Nanny had been doubtful 
 before, she knew that the young man 
 possessed more knowledge than he would 
 own to ; for he set his teeth hard and 
 frowned, and stared ahead of him, to steel 
 himself against her entreaties. When at 
 last he felt the temptation to break faith 
 grew too hard, he said briefly, ' Come 
 along,' and, drawing her arm within his, 
 fairly ran the rest of the distance through 
 the gates and up to the house, so that she 
 arrived too much out of breath for more 
 entreaties. 
 
 Mrs. Bambridge met them in the hall, 
 where she had been waiting, expecting 
 the wife's arrival. She threw a motherly 
 arm around Nanny, and told her not to 
 worry herself; he was going on as well
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 261 
 
 as possible. The doctor was with him 
 now, and she should see him in two 
 minutes. 
 
 ' Where is he ?' asked Nanny. 
 
 ' In the dining-room. The doctor 
 thought it better not to take him upstairs, 
 and the study was too small. We have 
 made a fire there, and Charlie and 
 Arthur took down one of the beds up- 
 stairs and made it up down here. They 
 are handy lads, my boys,' added the good 
 creature, in irrepressible pride of happy 
 motherhood. 
 
 ' You are all good — so good that I 
 never knew there were such kind people 
 in the world before,' said Nanny, pressing 
 her hand convulsively. Then she looked 
 round her at the candles and lamps they 
 had placed about the hall and gallery, 
 and at the grim black shadows which
 
 262 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 filled the gaps between. ' I will wait 
 here until the doctor comes out/ she 
 said. 
 
 Mrs. Bambridge tried to persuade her 
 to rest on one of the mahogany benches, 
 which were the only seats the hall con- 
 tained. But Nanny could not sit still. 
 She paced up and down, up and down, 
 remembering that she was not alone, and 
 therefore keeping strict control over her 
 feelings, but tortured with fears and 
 misery. 
 
 At last they heard a door open and 
 shut, and the doctor came quickly along 
 the short passage which led from the 
 dining-room to the hall. Mrs. Bam- 
 bridge came forward to meet him, but it 
 was to Nanny that he at once addressed 
 himself. 
 
 * Mrs. Ryder, I believe ?'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 263 
 
 * Yes/ said Nanny huskily. ' Is there 
 danger ?' 
 
 ' I hope not. But your husband is 
 very seriously ill. And your friends here 
 have done wisely in getting a nurse for 
 him at once.' 
 
 ^A nurse!' echoed Nanny sharply. 
 ' I'm going to nurse him.' 
 
 ' You are going to help, of course. 
 But it is no light matter to nurse such a 
 case as this, and you may think yourself 
 lucky that there was a certified nurse in 
 the neighbourhood.' 
 
 * You will forgive me, won't you, 
 
 dear, for sending ' began Mrs. Bam- 
 
 bridge's gentle voice. 
 
 ' Forgive you ! She is ready to go 
 down on her knees in gratitude, or she 
 will be when she knows all about it,' 
 interrupted the doctor. ' You might as
 
 264 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 well ask her forgiveness for sending for 
 me/ 
 
 ' Doctor,' broke out Nanny in a firm 
 voice, * it is very serious. I can tell that 
 by what you have said. You will tell 
 me just /low serious, won't you? Look, 
 I am quite quiet, and I am not hysterical 
 a bit. What is the matter with him ?' 
 
 * He has injured his head.' 
 
 * Oh, that is dreadful !' 
 
 ' Don't take it too seriously. His 
 head struck against an iron grating, and 
 he is suffering from concussion of the 
 brain.' 
 
 ' He must be kept very quiet ?' 
 
 ' Absolutely quiet.' 
 
 For the moment poor Nanny expe- 
 rienced a sensation of relief. For a time 
 the horrible doubt might rest. While 
 he was ill she was his wife, whatever
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT ' 265 
 
 miserable discovery might come after- 
 wards. She detained the doctor as he 
 made a step towards the door. 
 
 * You are not going away ?' 
 
 * I shall be back again presently. 
 Don't be frightened unnecessarily. It 
 will do you harm. You would not like 
 me to forbid you to see him.' 
 
 * Look at me. I am quite calm. I 
 am going to see him now.' She raised 
 her great gray eyes, widely distended 
 and bright with anxiety, and fixed them 
 steadily on his face. * But I want you 
 to be here when his mother comes. It 
 is she, not I, whom you have to fear.' 
 
 ' Very well. I will be here again in 
 an hour. Now, continue to be reason- 
 able and calm as you are, and don't try 
 to do too much.' 
 
 * I will do just what you tell me to
 
 266 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 do/ she said submissively, as he shook 
 hands with her, and turned to speak to 
 Mrs. Bambridge. 
 
 Nanny went straight to the dining- 
 room, opening the door softly. All the 
 spare leaves had been taken out of the 
 great mahogany table, which was pushed 
 into a corner, so that the room seemed 
 completely transformed. The nurse, a 
 short and pleasant-looking woman, with 
 quick dark eyes, was moving about 
 rapidly yet quietly before the fire. 
 There was a screen between the door 
 and the bed. Nanny acknowledged the 
 nurse's curtsey v/ith a faint smile and a 
 bend of the head, and stole gently round 
 the screen. 
 
 ^ He's quite quiet, ma'am, but you'd 
 better not speak to him. He won't 
 know you hardly. There's no fever
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 267 
 
 yet, but he's in a stupor most of the 
 time/ 
 
 So said the nurse in a low voice, 
 which did not disturb the sick man. 
 Indeed, he looked as if nothing would 
 disturb him any more. Poor Nanny 
 was frightened, and in spite of her pro- 
 mises and protestations of calmness, the 
 tears ran down her face, and she had 
 hard work not to let her sobs be heard. 
 In her distress at the sight of him, lying 
 there so pale, and with an expression on 
 his features which told, if not of the 
 pain he was suffering then, of that which 
 he had suffered only lately, she forgot 
 the shock she herself had received that 
 afternoon. There was only one thought 
 in her mJnd as she turned away, fearing 
 to lose her self-control altogether. This 
 thought found utterance as the kind but
 
 268 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 business-like gaze of the nurse met 
 hers. 
 
 * Will he — do you think he will get 
 better ?' she asked beseechingly, so low 
 that the woman could only just under- 
 stand the question without absolutely 
 hearing it. 
 
 But Nanny need not have been afraid 
 of the w^ords reaching her husband's 
 dulled ears. 
 
 The nurse does not despair, but is 
 never so hopeful as the doctor. To 
 impress the anxious inquirer with a sense 
 of danger, with which only the highest 
 skill and experience can successfully 
 cope, raises the dignity of one's pro- 
 fession. So Mrs. Walters looked grave, 
 even while she told the young wife not 
 to be afraid. 
 
 * We will do all we can for him, you
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 269 
 
 may be quite sure. And you, ma'am, 
 must take care of yourself. One invalid 
 is enough in a house.' 
 
 Nanny, who was not half so fragile as 
 she appeared, gave her a mournful look, 
 full of gratitude and entreaty ; and then, 
 feeling her own helplessness, she sat 
 down at a little distance from the bed, 
 and kept her eyes fixed on the pale face 
 on the pillow. Presently she heard the 
 front - door open and shut. Rising 
 quickly, but without noise, while the 
 remembrance of Mrs. Calverley's words 
 suddenly flooded her mind afresh, Nanny 
 left the sick-room and ran to the hall, 
 expecting to meet old Mrs. Ryder. It 
 was not she, however ; it was Arthur 
 Bambridge, with a heavy load of things 
 which he had been sent to fetch. 
 
 ' I think I've remembered everything,'
 
 270 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 he said with pride, as his mother unbur- 
 dened him of his various parcels. ' I 
 couldn't bring the shin of beef, because 
 Mr. Robins said he wouldn't recommend 
 it unless we liked it gamey. So I went 
 up into Bicton and tried the big 
 butcher's by the station. But when he 
 heard the meat was for the new people 
 at The Grange, he would have been 
 torn to pieces by mad wolves rather than 
 let me carry it home myself. So that 
 will come presently. In fact, the wel- 
 coming feeling the tradespeople here 
 show ought to warm your heart, Mrs. 
 Ryder,' the young fellow went on. 
 * Dicks, the dairyman, wishes you to 
 throw him into a frying-pan and poach 
 him if a single one of the eggs turns out 
 to be other than new-laid. And the 
 grocer would sell his own soul (adul-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 terated, of course, like the rest of his 
 goods !) rather than that you should 
 complain of soap or salt or sugar.' 
 
 * Hush ! hush ! you will drive Mrs. 
 Ryder mad with your chatter,' said his 
 mother when he had quite finished. 
 
 She thought him the prince of wits, 
 really, and would not for the world have 
 cut him short before he had said all he 
 wanted to say. 
 
 Nanny, too, liked to hear the boy 
 talk. But when Mrs. Bambridge had 
 carried off the parcels to the kitchen, 
 where she had installed one of her own 
 servants for the time, Arthur's tone 
 suddenly changed, and he said earnestly : 
 
 * Mrs. Ryder, don't you believe Charlie 
 if he told you that it was my magnesium 
 light that startled your husband. He 
 told the girls that, but it is not true. I
 
 272 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 should never forgive myself if it had 
 been through me the accident happened. 
 But it was not. I was right at the other 
 end of the house.' 
 
 Nanny nodded her head reassuringly. 
 
 * Don't worry yourself about that/ she 
 said. ' I know it had riothing whatever 
 to do with you.' 
 
 So he went away comforted. But 
 Nanny stole away to the study, with all 
 the perplexing and maddening questions 
 starting up in her mind again. Who 
 was it that had looked in at the window 
 and startled him ? Mrs. Calverley again, 
 perhaps. But no ; she had retreated in 
 confusion on seeing that the house was 
 occupied. Was it — Lady Ellen ? The 
 idea was so appalling that Nanny waited 
 outside the study-door, listening, before 
 she ventured inside. But there was no
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 273 
 
 sound to be heard, and in a few moments 
 she summoned enough courage to open 
 the door. 
 
 A rush of cold air blew straight in her 
 face, and extinguished the candle with 
 which she had taken care to provide her- 
 self Then she felt the door slowly shut- 
 ting upon her. She pushed it, trying to 
 force it wide open, believing that the 
 resistance was caused by the wind from 
 the open window. The more she pushed, 
 however, the more surely it closed upon 
 her. She could see, in the faint light, 
 the tendrils of the Virginia creeper blow- 
 ing about ; but it was in no such tempest 
 of wind as would have closed the door 
 violently upon her. 
 
 Someone was there — behind the door. 
 
 Nanny, with spasmodic courage, 
 looked round it. Her eyes, dazzled with 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the candlelight, could see nothing in the 
 gloom. But she was seized, pushed back, 
 and in another moment found herself 
 outside the door. Then the key was 
 turned on the inside. 
 
 She listened again. She could hear 
 something this time — the opening of the 
 bookcase. Something was taken out ; 
 then the bookcase was shut. 
 
 There was a way out into the garden 
 close at hand, by a door at the end of a 
 passage. Nanny ran down to this door, 
 drew back the bolt, and went out. 
 
 It was quite dark now, and the rain 
 had begun to fall again. Nanny ran into 
 a yew-tree, which shed upon her a 
 shower of raindrops. That window of 
 the study which looked towards the north 
 was the first she came to, and Nanny 
 pressed her face against the window, but
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 275 
 
 could see nothing. She ran round to the 
 window which faced the east. It was 
 still wide open, and, in the tangle of 
 down-trodden creepers which had been 
 dragged about on the grass, Nanny saw 
 the displaced grating which had fallen 
 into the area it covered, and caused her 
 husband's fall. With some difficulty she 
 climbed into the room and assured her- 
 self that no one was now in. Then she 
 opened the door, which she found un- 
 locked, and, procuring a light, made an 
 exhaustive search. 
 
 A gap had been made on one shelf of 
 the bookcase. Although she had studied 
 the titles of the books it contained, she 
 could not remember what volumes were 
 missing. Further examination, however, 
 showed something white at the bottom 
 of the area outside the window. With
 
 276 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 much trouble Nanny fished it out, and 
 found that it was an open book — the 
 first volume of a pretty little edition 
 of Byron, in six small morocco-bound 
 volumes, which she had previously noticed 
 and admired. On again looking at the 
 bookcase, she found that it was these 
 which were missing. 
 
 The intruder, then, had stolen these 
 books, and dropped one into the area in 
 a hasty flight. Stolen, did she say ? 
 Nanny turned quickly to the title-page. 
 
 In a neat, fine feminine handwriting 
 were the words : * Ellen Ryder. From 
 my dear husband, Ralph.' 
 
 Nanny leaned out of the open window, 
 feeling sick and faint. Was the person 
 who had taken the books the owner o{ 
 them. Lady Ellen ? 
 
 As she asked herself this question the
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 277 
 
 night-breeze blew against her face a 
 branch of a sweetbrier bush, the tiny 
 thorns pricking her cheeks. She pushed 
 it on one side. CHnging to it was a scrap 
 of black stuff, damp with rain. Not 
 doubting that it was a relic of the in- 
 truder, torn off and left behind in her 
 flight, Nanny examined it in the candle- 
 
 light. 
 
 It was a fragment of a woman's black 
 gossamer veil.
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 Nanny could no longer have any doubt, 
 as she turned over in her hands the scrap 
 of torn black gossamer, that it was a 
 woman whose appearance at the window 
 had disturbed her husband and been the 
 cause of his accident, and who, as soon 
 as the room was vacant, had entered and 
 taken the now missing volumes from the 
 bookcase. A woman ! Then what 
 woman ? 
 
 The rain fell in a never-ceasing drizzle. 
 The wind was rising and blowing the 
 dead and dying leaves from the trees.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 279 
 
 They swirled past her, they lodged in her 
 hair and on her shoulders as she stood by 
 the corner of the house, with the volume 
 of Byron in one hand, asking herself 
 what this secret visit meant. What 
 motive could anyone have for getting 
 into a house by an open window, only to 
 steal a handful of old books ? None but 
 a sentimental one, surely. Then Nanny 
 opened the volume which had been 
 dropped, and read again, in the dim light 
 of the moon faintly seen behind the rain- 
 clouds, the name * Ellen Ryder.' 
 
 This Lady Ellen, then, was Dan's first 
 wife. And if the sight of her — for 
 Nanny could not doubt that it was she 
 whom he had seen and pursued — had 
 startled him so much, it could only be 
 because he had believed that she was 
 dead.
 
 28o RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 A faint moan escaped from the poor 
 child's lips. Her eyes, distended with 
 fear, roamed about in the dusky obscurity 
 under the trees ; she saw arms of black- 
 robed women in the spread-out branches 
 of the cedars on the lawn, heard sighs 
 of distress in the rustling of the leaves. 
 But in a few minutes her youth and her 
 faith rose in revolt against the dark 
 thoughts which had seized possession of 
 her mind. Captain Ryder's first wife had 
 been described by Mrs. Durrant, to the 
 girl at the hotel, as a wicked woman. It 
 might be, then, that by her own act she 
 had lost the right to the name of wife, 
 in which case her appearance at The 
 Grange would alarm and enrage Captain 
 Ryder for Nanny's own sake. And if 
 any possible doubt of her husband's truth 
 remained in her mind, there rose to com-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 281 
 
 fort her the belief of the young : that 
 although exceptional happiness may be, 
 and probably is, in store for them, excep- 
 tional misery cannot be. Whoever the 
 intruder might be, she was, therefore, not 
 Dan's wife. 
 
 At the same time it was not desirable 
 that one's house should be subject to 
 burglarious entry on the part of an un- 
 known woman, however excellent her 
 intentions might be. And Nanny, who 
 was not of a nature to be either miserable 
 or inactive for long, without strong cause, 
 began carefully to pick her way over the 
 wet grass to the spot where the trees 
 grew thickest, and pushing the great, 
 dripping boughs aside, to search every 
 likely hiding-place. Making her way 
 thus, with ears and eyes on the alert, 
 she came at last to within a few paces
 
 282 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 of the great front gates, and heard some- 
 one running fast up the road out- 
 side. 
 
 It was a man. He burst open one of 
 the side-gates, and entered, panting so 
 vigorously that he had to lean for a few 
 moments against the gate-posts to recover 
 his breath. Nanny could not see him, 
 neither could he see her ; it was too 
 dark under the trees for that. But she 
 could hear him muttering to himself in 
 great excitement as he came slowly for- 
 ward a step or two ; and then, going 
 back to the gates, she heard him bolt 
 them all. Who was he ? She came 
 forward a little nearer to the drive, 
 counting upon the shelter of a great 
 copper -beech, the boughs of which 
 hung low. But the man caught either 
 a sound or a movement, and, turning
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 283 
 
 from the gates, rushed towards her like 
 a wild beast upon its prey. 
 
 Nanny was too much frightened even 
 to scream. It flashed through her mind 
 that her best chance of escaping this 
 man, whom she took for a lunatic, 
 would be to * dodge ' him among the 
 trees, and then seize the first opportunity 
 of making for the house. But as he 
 came on his mutterings grew loud 
 enough for her to hear, and her fear 
 of him gave place to a dread much 
 stronger. 
 
 * This is your Mr. Eley's doing — this js,' 
 he panted out. * And now — you've once 
 — given us the slip — you'll always be at 
 it, I suppose — and there'll be a nice job 
 —for some of us presently !' 
 
 This, punctuated by gasps for breath, 
 was the burden of the man's lament as
 
 284 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 he came along ; and Nanny, full of 
 curiosity, and no longer afraid of him, 
 stood quite still, hoping to hear more. 
 
 For it was Pickering — perfectly sober, 
 perfectly sane, but in a desperate state of 
 anxiety. At last he rushed, with a 
 triumphant roar, at the rhododendron 
 bush which was hiding her, and shaking 
 with her movements. To Nanny's great 
 disappointment, he discovered his mis- 
 take at once, and drew himself erect and 
 saluted, begging her pardon. 
 
 * Who did you think it was ? Who 
 were you looking for ?' cried she 
 eagerly. 
 
 * Why, ma'am, begging your pardon 
 if I've discommoded or frightened you 
 by a-rushing on you so sudden, but I 
 thought, seeing someone among the 
 shrubs at this time o' night, how it
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 28; 
 
 might be some tramp got in, and would 
 be getting up to the house presently. 
 You know, ma'am, of course I couldn't 
 see who it was in the dark, only some- 
 body moving.' 
 
 ' Somebody has been up to the house,' 
 said Nanny, * and got in by the study 
 window. Now, you know who it was 
 as well as I do.' 
 
 But Pickering was proof against her 
 innocent wiles. He stared before him 
 with as much expression in his face as it 
 he had just received the command, 'Eyes 
 front.' 
 
 * Indeed, ma'am, if you can tell me 
 who it was I shall be very glad,' said he, 
 with an almost plaintive assumption of 
 humble ignorance. 
 
 * It was Lady Ellen,' said Nanny 
 abruptly.
 
 286 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 He shot one glance at her, and was 
 himself again in the twinkling of an eye. 
 But in that half-second Nanny had 
 learnt that he knew who Lady Ellen 
 was, and that he was alarmed by the 
 thought that she knew also. He said 
 nothing, however, being unwilling to 
 commit himself further until she, in her 
 innocence, had let out the extent of her 
 knowledge. 
 
 ' And she got in to get some books 
 with her name in. And you have got 
 her shut up somewhere — in The White 
 House, perhaps,' she went on with a 
 flash of intelligent suspicion ; ' and she 
 has got away, and so you are afraid. 
 Pickering, who is she ? Tell me who 
 she is !' 
 
 Nanny spoke in a tone of passionate 
 entreaty, which, however, left the old
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 287 
 
 soldier unmoved. He shook his head 
 like a mechanical toy. 
 
 * I never heard of her, ma'am,' he said 
 coolly. * And there is for certain no lady 
 of that name at The White House, 
 seeing how it has been empty and shut 
 up for years, and is now let to a 
 single young gentleman by the name of 
 Eley.' 
 
 Nanny drew back a little, for a 
 moment disconcerted. Only for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' But I heard you say,* she persisted, 
 * that someone had given you the slip, 
 and that it was all Mr. Eley's doing. 
 Now, what did you mean by that ?' 
 
 * Mr. Charles Bambridge's bull-dog, 
 ma'am,' answered Pickering promptly. 
 
 Nanny knew that Charlie Bambridge 
 had a bull- dog, although she knew
 
 288 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 equally well that the animal was not the 
 cause of Pickering's uneasiness. 
 
 ' But I heard you bolt the gates ! 
 You would not have done that to prevent 
 a dog's getting out !' 
 
 * Not any other dog, ma'am,' answered 
 the man, unabashed ; ' but Crib has 
 more slyness than most Christians.' 
 
 Nanny saw that it was of no use to 
 try to learn anything from this man ; 
 therefore she turned impatiently from 
 him towards the house. Remembering, 
 however, that Pickering knew nothing 
 of the accident to her husband, she 
 said : 
 
 * Captain Ryder has had a severe fall 
 through this. He jumped out of the 
 study window to follow what you say 
 was only a dog, and has concussion of 
 the brain.'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 289 
 
 The effect of this announcement on 
 Pickering was much greater than she had 
 expected. He was silent for some 
 minutes, except for half-audible ejacula- 
 tions. At last he said, eyeing the lady 
 narrowly in the gloom : 
 
 ' Concussion of the brain ! That's bad. 
 He'll be full of queer fancies when he 
 gets better, and think he sees all sorts of 
 queer things, won't he, ma'am ?' 
 
 Nanny began to tremble. These 
 words were the echo of her own fears. 
 
 ' Oh no !' she cried earnestly ; ' I hope 
 not — I think not. I must ask the 
 doctor.' 
 
 * Ah, but doctors don't always know, 
 ma'am, 'specially with gentleman like the 
 Captain, that's been in India, where they 
 pick up all sorts of things that don't get 
 understood over here. What with the 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 heat and the drink, ma'am, India does 
 plenty of harm to a many gentlemen.' 
 
 Nanny said nothing to this, but she 
 shuddered. That concussion of the brain 
 would be more serious to her husband 
 than to another man, being likely to lead 
 to a recurrence of the mental malady 
 from which he had formerly suffered, she 
 could not doubt. And then, amidst the 
 rush of wild, unhappy thoughts which 
 chased each other through her mind, 
 there came the remembrance of a curious 
 reticence which would come into her 
 husband's manner when, in the course of 
 conversation, certain references to the 
 past were made. 
 
 She stopped short in the middle of the 
 drive, trying to recall some of those 
 references, to find out what they had 
 been. Pickering respectfully reminded
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 291 
 
 her that it was raining; but, as she paid 
 no heed, except by a brief * Thank you,' 
 the old gardener went on at a rapid pace 
 towards the house, leaving the young 
 lady absorbed in her own thoughts. 
 
 For she had just remembered that one 
 of those moments of reticence on the 
 part of her husband had been occasioned 
 by some chance allusion to the story of 
 a faithless wife. She walked on to the 
 house slowly, shivering, not so much 
 with the damp and the cold as with a 
 sick sensation of doubt, miserable doubt, 
 and fear. She had to pass the stables, a 
 deserted pile of red brick, corresponding 
 with the house. Most of the windows 
 were choked by a neglected growth of 
 creepers, and the paved space in front 
 was green with moss and grass. The 
 coach-house door was ajar, however, and
 
 292 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 from within came a low murmur of 
 voices. Her heart beating high with 
 excitement, Nanny crossed the old stone 
 pavement with light steps. Quietly as 
 she came, however, she was not quiet 
 enough to deceive the old soldier. Just 
 as she reached the coach-house door, 
 Pickering came out, closing it behind 
 him. 
 
 If she could only get past him, Nanny 
 felt that she should be one step nearer to 
 the secret of the Ryders, for she should 
 see the intruder whose appearance had 
 startled her husband. But that was not 
 Pickering's intention. He stood outside 
 the closed coach-house door, affecting 
 not to understand that she wished to 
 . enter, until they both heard another 
 door shut in the interior of the building. 
 Then Nanny knew that it was the in-
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 293 
 
 tention of the person inside to escape by 
 a back way, and retreating at once, as if 
 offended, she walked towards the house 
 until she was out of Pickering's sight, 
 and then ran to the back of the stables. 
 
 She was in time to see someone 
 escaping from the building, crashing 
 through the shrubs in the direction of 
 the side-door in the wall of the garden, 
 through which Mrs. Durrant had passed 
 on her way to The White House on the 
 occasion of Nanny's first visit to Bicton. 
 Nanny went in hot pursuit, but she was 
 too late. The wet boughs closed behind 
 the retreating figure, the outline of 
 which it was impossible to make out in 
 the darkness, and the door was opened 
 and slammed to before she could reach 
 it. When she looked out into the road, 
 no one was in sight but the driver of a
 
 294 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 cab, from the inside of which old Mrs. 
 Ryder's voice was heard calling shrilly : 
 
 * You've passed the gate, you've passed 
 it!' 
 
 Nanny ran back to the house without 
 a moment's delay. She wanted to be in 
 her husband's room when his mother 
 came in. Mrs. Bambridge was just 
 outside the sick-room ; she was taking 
 something to the nurse. Nanny told her 
 who was coming. 
 
 * Old Mrs. Ryder !' echoed Mrs. 
 Bambridge. ' Dear me ! A sad home- 
 coming after all these years !' 
 
 ' All these years ! But she visited the 
 place every year, did she not ?' 
 
 ' Never. Mrs. Durrant told me, on 
 one of the very few occasions I ever 
 spoke to her, that the old lady had never 
 been inside this house for thirty years. I
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 295 
 
 don't know how Mrs. Durrant knew. I 
 suppose the old gardener, Pickering, told 
 her.' 
 
 Nanny entered the sick-room in a state 
 of fresh bewilderment. If this was old 
 Mrs. Ryder's idea of managing an estate, 
 it was not surprising that The White 
 House had been neglected. The only 
 matter for astonishment was the excellent 
 order in which The Grange had been 
 kept. She stole round the screen and 
 looked at her husband. He was staring 
 at the rail at the foot of the bed, and 
 muttering to himself. From his left 
 hand, which was just under the bed- 
 clothes, the nurse was in the act of 
 taking something. 
 
 It was an old letter, which he had 
 crushed up in his fingers. The nurse 
 handed it to his wife.
 
 296 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' He has held it in his hand ever since 
 the accident/ she said, as Nanny took 
 the crumpled paper, which was hot and 
 limp and damp from the treatment it 
 had received. ' I could not get it from 
 him while he was conscious. It seemed 
 to worry him that he could not read it, 
 for he kept carrying it up and down, up 
 and down, to and from his face, and 
 seemed to try to hide it from me.' 
 
 Nanny took it quite quietly, and said 
 ' Thank you, nurse,' in a steady voice. 
 But she was in a tumult oi emotion, for 
 in an instant she had recognised the 
 slim, old-fashioned handwriting of the 
 inscription inside the volume of Byron. 
 
 There was not time to take the letter 
 away and read it in private. Mrs. Ryder 
 might be in at any moment. Nanny 
 never asked herself whether she had a
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 297 
 
 right to read it. Perhaps such strict 
 scruples were scarcely to be expected in 
 a young wife tortured by jealousy and 
 caught in a network of mysteries which 
 no one would explain to her. 
 
 With one guilty look towards the bed, 
 one deprecatory prayer to her unconscious 
 husband to forgive her, Nanny crossed 
 the room to the mantelpiece, where a 
 small shaded lamp was burning, and 
 where the screen shielded her from the 
 stare of the vacant eyes. Quickly she 
 spread out the crumpled papers, for it 
 was a long letter — there were two sheets 
 of it — and began to read. 
 
 This was the letter : 
 
 * Dear Ralph, 
 
 ' I cannot go on with this farce 
 any longer. That is why I have gone to
 
 298 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 mamma's to-day, so that I might write 
 this from her house. I am not coming 
 back. What would be the use ? The 
 same old round, the same continual 
 jealousy of yours, the same quarrels, and 
 then one of your mad outbursts. Of 
 course, I know what you will say — that 
 it is all my fault, that if I had never 
 made you jealous you would never have 
 taken to drink. But was it all my fault? 
 Was it my fault that the child could not 
 live in India, and had to be sent home ? 
 Was it my fault that I fell ill, and had 
 to be sent to England after her ? And, 
 once here, could I live like a nun ? I 
 might have done, perhaps, if I had been 
 fifty, and hideous ; but being as I am, it 
 was impossible. I did not even try. In 
 such a case one man is sure to be singled 
 out by a woman's kind friends as t/ie
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 299 
 
 man. But I don't care for Colonel 
 Garside ; I never did care for him. It is 
 not on his account that I am leaving 
 you, or, rather, it is because of your per- 
 petual use of his name when you want 
 to quarrel with me, but not for any 
 feeling I have for him. 
 
 ' It is of no use for you to come here 
 for me. I shall be gone. And I won't 
 receive any letters from you. Entreaties 
 and reproaches will make no difference, 
 for my love for you will never come 
 back. I know you are handsome and 
 that you love me, but you have made 
 your face more repulsive to me than if 
 you had been ugly ; and of what good is 
 love which is like the fitful passion of a 
 wild animal rather than the calm affec- 
 tion of a reasoning being ? 
 
 ' You had better get a governess for
 
 300 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 the child. She is getting too much for 
 nurse. Or your mother would come 
 and look after her. She loves children, 
 and has all the proper woman's ways 
 with them that I never had or could 
 have. And you need not try to work 
 upon my feelings by means of the child, 
 because you might just as well try to 
 work upon the feelings of the house she 
 was born in. She is your child, and 
 that is enough for me. I don't wish to 
 have anything to do with you or anyone 
 belonging to you any more as long as I 
 live. Of course, you and everybody will 
 say I am a wicked, heartless woman. 
 But I don't care — I don't care. I would 
 rather be wicked than live with you 
 again. 
 
 ' Your unhappy wife, 
 
 ' Ellen Ryder.'
 
 This letter was undated, and was 
 punctuated, in the old-fashioned slipshod 
 manner, with dashes and notes of excla- 
 mation. Nanny read it through with a 
 growing feeling of horror and disgust. 
 The story it told seemed clear as day- 
 light. Ralph, her husband, was, then, 
 as old as he looked, and had had for a 
 wife this ' Ellen Ryder,' who must be 
 the * Lady Ellen ' spoken of by old Miss 
 Anstruther to Meg, and by Mrs. Cal- 
 verley to Nanny herself, as being still 
 alive. Dan must, therefore, have divorced 
 her; for although in her letter she 
 declared herself innocent of the great 
 wrong, Nanny found it impossible to 
 rely upon the truthfulness of a woman 
 whose every word proved her to be 
 selfish, cold, and heartless. 
 
 The tears rushed to Nanny's eyes, and
 
 302 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 her heart glowed with a passionate sym- 
 pathy for her husband such as she had 
 never felt before. It was the old story. 
 The man who * has suffered/ or who 
 has the reputation of having suffered, from 
 the misconduct of some other woman, 
 will always out-distance, with an inex- 
 perienced young girl, the man who has 
 no such 'interesting' record. Of course, 
 there is the presumption that he will 
 know, by comparison, how rightly to 
 value the woman who treats him well. 
 Nanny forgave her husband his suppres- 
 sion of the fact of his first marriage and 
 its consequences — forgave him even the 
 fiction by which he represented himself 
 never to have cared for a woman before 
 he met her. He had forgotten the fact. 
 The past had faded away like some 
 frightful nightmare ; why conjure up its
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 303 
 
 hideous images again ? For that troubled 
 time had been disturbed by other horrors. 
 It seemed inconceivable to Nanny now, 
 knowing Dan as she did, as an adoring 
 husband to herself and the most tem- 
 perate of men, that he should ever have 
 b een driven, by his passion for a heartless 
 woman, to drink as a solace. But the 
 words of this letter put this fact beyond 
 a doubt ; and old Mrs. Ryder's warnings 
 and the man Pickering's words had con- 
 firmed it. 
 
 Nanny could understand, after this first 
 terrible matrimonial experience of her 
 son's, the fear and reluctance felt by the 
 old lady at the idea of his tempting Fate 
 for a second time. Lady Ellen herself 
 had said ' she loves the child, and has all 
 the proper woman's ways with her.' The 
 child ! What had become of her ? If
 
 304 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 living, she would be grown up by this 
 time. But Nanny had certainly never 
 heard of her before, and she came to 
 the conclusion that, having been born 
 in India, and therefore delicate, she must 
 have died in childhood. 
 
 She looked again at the letter, examin- 
 ing it carefully. In spite of the feminine 
 absence of a written date, the fine sloping, 
 angular handwriting, the thin discoloured 
 note-paper and faded ink, and the creases 
 into which the letter had worn, testified 
 to its being at least a quarter of a century 
 old. She was poring over these indica- 
 tions by the light of the lamp on the 
 mantelpiece, when a soft step behind 
 startled her, and caused her to turn. 
 
 Old Mrs. Ryder was standing there, 
 with her faded blue eyes fixed in curiosity 
 and apprehension on the letter in her
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 305 
 
 daughter-in-law's hand. She must have 
 seen it before, Nanny thought, and must 
 be suffering again from the shock the 
 heartless missive had given her ; for the 
 little white-haired lady was shaking from 
 head to foot, and her pale face looked 
 bloodless with anguish. Nanny passed 
 the letter gently before her eyes, and 
 Mrs. Ryder looked up at her and tried to 
 speak ; but at first the withered lips only 
 murmured indistinctly. At last she 
 whispered : 
 
 * Where did you find it ?' 
 
 ' In Dan's hands. He must have been 
 reading it when the accident happened.' 
 
 The wrinkled face became on the 
 instant distorted with terror. Old Mrs. 
 Ryder bent her head and pressed one 
 shaking hand to her forehead, while her 
 limbs trembled as she stood. 
 
 VOL. 1. 20
 
 3o6 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 ' Again, again !' she moaned — ' when 
 I had hoped the old story was forgotten!* 
 She looked up suddenly into Nanny's 
 face. * And you — you know it too, 
 then !' she murmured, in almost hys- 
 terical terror. ^ Oh, after all these years ! 
 What shall we do ? what shall we do ?' 
 
 She was startled into resumption of her 
 self-control by the appearance of the 
 nurse, who came round the screen with 
 a warning face. The old lady pressed 
 her handkerchief hastily to her eyes, and 
 crossed the room to look at her son. 
 After standing quietly for some minutes, 
 she asked the nurse for the fullest details 
 concerning the accident. These Mrs. 
 Walters was unable to give, so she asked 
 young Mrs. Ryder to come forward, and 
 retreated herself to the fireplace. 
 
 ' He was sitting in the study, as we
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 307 
 
 suppose,' said Nanny, in a dry voice, 
 
 * when he must have been alarmed by 
 the appearance of someone outside the 
 w^indow — someone he did not expect to 
 see. We think he opened the window 
 and jumped out in pursuit, but faUing 
 through the grating over the area, injured 
 his head.' 
 
 ' Someone outside the window!' echoed 
 Mrs. Ryder, looking at her curiously. 
 
 * And who was it ?' 
 
 * I think you know better than I. 
 Was it Lady Ellen ?' 
 
 The question, which Nanny took care 
 to shoot out suddenly, gave the old lady 
 a shock of surprise. 
 
 ' Lady Ellen !' she repeated, faltering, 
 as she gazed into her daughter-in-law's 
 face more searchingly than ever. 
 
 * Yes. Look,' Nanny said, in a very
 
 3o8 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 low voice, so that neither nurse nor 
 patient could hear, meeting the gaze of 
 the elder woman with one quite as pene- 
 trating, ' I know more than this letter 
 tells me. This ' — and she touched the 
 crumpled sheets of paper — ' only tells me 
 that Dan had a wife before he married 
 me ' — at that old Mrs. Ryder's eyes 
 suddenly fell, as it were slinking away 
 from the young woman's piercing look — 
 ' that she was a bad, heartless wife and 
 mother, deserting her husband and her 
 child, without giving a thought to 
 anyone but herself — old Mrs. Ryder 
 bowed her head in assent — ' faithless to 
 her husband, too, most likely ' 
 
 The old lady interrupted for the first 
 time, but timidly. 
 
 ' Not that, I think. She does not 
 own to that in the letter, does she ?'
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 309 
 
 There was a pause. The light of a 
 fresh perplexity, a fresh terror, came into 
 Nanny's face. 
 
 ' Then if she did not deceive her hus- 
 band, he could not divorce her. And 
 she is alive — I know that she is alive !' 
 she cried, in a choking voice. 
 
 The old lady did not answer at 
 once. It seemed to the unfortunate 
 young wife, hanging on her words, that 
 she was casting about for a loophole 
 of escape. When she spoke, it was in 
 the same meek, tentative tone as before. 
 
 ' Lady Ellen never was my son's wife,' 
 she quavered out. ' Won't you be satis- 
 fied with that, and — and let this old 
 scandal rest ?' 
 
 * No, no, no ! I will not be satisfied, 
 any more than you were satisfied when 
 you knew that he was going to marry
 
 3IO RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 
 
 me. You must have felt that he was 
 not morally free, or you could have had 
 no objection to his taking another wife.' 
 
 * I — I had other reasons, as you 
 know.' 
 
 Old Mrs. Ryder flashed another of 
 those curious, inquiring looks at her. 
 
 The shadow of a terrible fear came 
 over Nanny's face. 
 
 * Tell me — tell me the truth !' she 
 whispered hoarsely. * Had he been 
 deceived into thinking her dead, when 
 all the time she was alive ?' 
 
 There was a pause again. Old Mrs. 
 Ryder's reticence was horrible to Nanny, 
 implying, as it seemed to her, that there 
 was so much to conceal that silence was 
 the only safety until every course had 
 been fully weighed. 
 
 ' And then,' said Nanny suddenly.
 
 RALPH RYDER OF BRENT 311 
 
 seizing the old lady by the slender little 
 wrist and looking down into her face, 
 * there is the child. What about her ?' 
 
 All the withered flesh on the old lady's 
 thin face seemed to shrivel, and to leave 
 bare and shining the glassy eyes, the 
 yellow teeth. She shook and swayed 
 under Nanny's touch as if the life had 
 gone out of her aged limbs. 
 
 ^The child! Ah, the child!' she 
 muttered hoarsely. Then, putting her 
 quivering lips up as near to Nanny's ear 
 as she could, she gasped out : ' Never 
 ask, child ! Never — never try to 
 know !' 
 
 END OF VOL. I, 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTKKS, GUILDFDKU. 
 
 .S7. &- Uy.
 
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