\ 
 
 LI B R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 X2.7r- 
 
 v.l 
 
A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ^ infaet. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND YATES, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 BLACK SHEEP,' ' THE FORLORN HOPE,' ' BROKEN TO HARNESS,' ETC. 
 
 IN THKEE VOLUMES. 
 YOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TINSLEY BKOTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 
 
 1870. 
 
 [All rights rcserved.'i 
 
LONDON : 
 ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCBAS ROAD, N.W. 
 
W3 
 K/ 
 
 CONTENTS OP VOL. I. 
 
 • 1X1 ' 
 
 5 
 
 c? 
 
 ^ 
 
 -^ VIII. 
 IX. 
 
 XI. 
 
 I. Homeward bound . 
 II. Pages from the Past 
 
 III. Discomfiture 
 
 IV, The Ideal and the Eeal 
 
 V. Chatleigh .... 
 
 VI. Half-confidences . 
 
 VII. The old familiar Faces. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret is congratulated 
 What the Woman meant 
 The Letter from Melbourne 
 Fools' Paradise . 
 
 XII. Dawning . . . 
 
 ^ 
 *) 
 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 15 
 
 39 
 50 
 66 
 
 83 
 100 
 121 
 
 138 
 
 183 
 218 
 249 
 
A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOilEWARD BOUND. 
 
 ' Good-bye, again ; good-bye!* 
 ' Good-bye, my dear ; perhaps not for 
 ever, though: I may make my way back 
 to the old country once more. You will 
 tell my old friend I kept my word to him ;' 
 and then the speaker kissed the woman 
 to whom he addressed these parting words 
 tenderly, went quickly away, and was hid- 
 den from her in a moment by all the be- 
 wildering confusion of ' board ship' at the 
 hour of sailing. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
Z A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 He had not waited for words in reply 
 to his farew^ell; she could not have spoken 
 them, and he knew it; and while she tried 
 to make out his figure among the groups 
 upon the deck, formed of those who were 
 about to set forth upon the long perilous 
 ocean voyage, and those who had come to 
 bid them good-bye, some with hearts full 
 of agony, a few careless and gay enough, 
 a suflfocating silence held her. 
 
 But when at length she saw him for 
 one brief moment as he went over the side 
 to the boat waiting to take him to the shore 
 so long familiar to her, but already, under 
 the wonderful action of change, seeming 
 strange and distant, the spell was lifted oflP 
 her, and a deep gasping sob burst from her 
 lips. 
 
 A very little longer, and the boat, with 
 its solitary passenger, was a speck upon 
 the water ; and then she bowed her head, 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 6 
 
 unconsciously, and slightly waved her hand, 
 and went below. 
 
 There was no one person in all the 
 crowd upon the deck of the good ship 
 Boomerang sufficiently disengaged from his 
 or her own cares to take any notice of the 
 little scene which had just passed — only 
 one amid a number in the great drama 
 which is always being acted, and for which 
 a ship with its full complement of passen- 
 gers, at the moment of beginning a long 
 voyage, is a capacious and fine theatre. 
 Selfishness and self-engrossment come out 
 strongly in such a scene, and are as ex- 
 cusable under such circumstances as they 
 ever can be. 
 
 She was quite alone in the little world 
 of the ship ; in the great world of England, 
 to which she was going, she might find 
 herself alone too, for who could say what 
 tidings might await her there ? in the inner 
 
4 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 world of her heart she was still more surely 
 and utterly alone. In the slight shiver, in 
 the forlorn glance around, which had ac- 
 companied her gesture of farewell to the 
 man who had escorted her on board, there 
 was something expressive of a suddenly 
 deepened sense of this solitude. 
 
 In the cabin, which she shared with her 
 maid only, she found this sole and newly- 
 selected companion making such prepara- 
 tion as she could for the comfort of her 
 mistress. The girl's face was kind and 
 pleasant and handsome ; but the sight of it 
 did not lessen the sense of her solitude to 
 Margaret Hungerford, for the kind and 
 handsome face was also strange. 
 
 Eose Moore, whom she had engaged to 
 act as her servant during the voyage, was 
 an orphan girl, who wished to return to 
 Ireland to her 'friends,' as the Irish people, 
 with striking inaccuracy of speech and 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 5 
 
 touching credulity, designate their rela- 
 tives. 
 
 When Margaret Hungerford had lain 
 down upon the little crib, which was to 
 serve her for a bed during a period which 
 would sound appalling in duration in the 
 ears of a world so much accelerated in 
 everything as our world of to-day is, she 
 thought of Kose Moore, and of the differ- 
 ence between her own position and that 
 of the girl who was to be her companion. 
 
 ' She is going home to friends,' she 
 thought, ' to a warm welcome, to a kindly 
 fireside, and she is bringing money with 
 her to gild the welcome, to gladden the 
 hearth; while I — I am returning alone — 
 0, how utterly alone! — and destitute — ah, 
 how destitute! — I, to whom not even the 
 past is left; I, who do not possess even 
 the right to grieve; I, to whom life has 
 been only a mistake, only a delusion. I 
 
6 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 am returning to a home in which I was 
 regarded rather as a trouble than anything 
 else in my childhood, and which I was 
 held to have disgraced in my girlhood. 
 Returning to it, to feel that the judgment 
 I set aside, the wisdom I derided, was right 
 judgment and true wisdom, and that the 
 best I can hope is to keep them from ever 
 findmg out how terribly right they were. 
 The only real friend I now possess I am 
 leaving behind me here; and I am glad 
 it is so, because he knows all the truth. 
 Surely no one in the world can be more 
 lonely than I.' 
 
 Margaret Hungerford lay quietly in her 
 narrow bed, while the ship resounded with 
 all the indescribable and excruciating noises 
 which form a portion of the tortures of a 
 sea- voyage. 
 
 She did not suffer from them, nor from 
 the motion. She was tired, too tired in 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 7 
 
 body and mind to care about discomfort, 
 and she did not dislike the sea. So she 
 lay still, while Rose Moore moved about 
 in the little space allotted to the two, and 
 which she regarded as a den rather than 
 a 'state-room,' looking now and then curi- 
 ously at her mistress, whom she had not 
 had much previous opportunity of observ- 
 ing. 
 
 The girl looked at a face which was 
 not less remarkable for its beauty than for 
 its expression of weariness and sorrow, at 
 a figure not more noticeable for its grace 
 and suppleness than for the languor and 
 listlessness which every movement be- 
 trayed. 
 
 Margaret Hungerford was tall, but not 
 so tall as to be remarked for her height; 
 and her figure, rounded and lithe, had still 
 much of the slightness of girlhood remain- 
 ing. Her face was not perfect; the fore- 
 
8 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 head was too high and too heavy for ideal 
 beauty; there was not enough colour in 
 the clear pale cheek ; there was not enough 
 richness in the outline of the delicate mouth. 
 Her face was one in which intellect ruled, 
 and thus its beauty served a master which 
 is pitiless in its exactions, and wears out 
 the softness and the fineness and the tint- 
 ing in a service which is not gentle. 
 
 But it was a beautiful face for all that, 
 more than beautiful for those who looked 
 beyond the deep dark colouring of the large 
 gray eyes, deep-set under the finely-marked 
 brows; who looked for the spirit in their 
 light, for the calm and courage which lent 
 them the limpid placid beaming which was 
 their ordinary characteristic. It was not 
 a perfect face ; but it had that which very 
 few perfect faces possess — the capacity for 
 expressing feeling, intelligence, the nobler 
 passions, and utter forgetfulness of self. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. \) 
 
 To look at Margaret Himgerford was 
 to feel that, however faulty her character 
 might be, it at least was noble, and to 
 know that vanity had no share in an or- 
 ganisation which had no place for anything 
 small, whether good or evil. It was a mag- 
 nanimous resolute face — not strong, in any 
 sense implying roughness, hardness, or self- 
 assertion, but evincing a large capacity of 
 loving and working and suffering. 
 
 And she had loved and worked and 
 suffered. The bloom that was wanting to 
 her pure fair cheek, which touched too 
 faintly and grudgingly her small, well- 
 curved, but ascetic lips, had vanished from 
 her heart as well; the slight white fingers, 
 too thin for beauty, — though the hands, 
 clasped over her breast as she lay still 
 with closed eyes, were curiously small and 
 perfectly shaped, — had been unsparingly 
 used in many and various kinds of toil in 
 
10 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the new land, which had been wild and 
 rough indeed when she had come there. 
 
 The girl looked at her admiringly, and 
 with a sort of pity, for Avhich she had no 
 reason to give to herself except that her 
 mistress was a widow. Explanation enough, 
 she would have said, and naturally; and 
 still, there was something in the face which 
 Rose Moore felt, in her untaught, instinc- 
 tive, but very acute fashion, had been there 
 longer than three months, which was the 
 exact period since Mrs. Hungerford's hus- 
 band had died. 
 
 Who was she going to? she thought; 
 and did she like going home? and what 
 was she leaving behind? Not her hus- 
 band's grave, the girl knew, and felt the 
 knowledge as an Irish peasant would feel 
 it. No, she had not even that consolation; 
 for her husband, who had been a member 
 of one of the earliest - formed exploring 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 11 
 
 parties who had undertaken to investigate 
 the capacities of the unknown new conti- 
 nent, had been killed in the AustraUan 
 bush. It was better not to think what the 
 fate of his remains had been, better that 
 it was not known. 
 
 What, then, was this pale young widow, 
 who looked as though her sorrow far ante- 
 dated her weeds, leaving behind her? Rose 
 Moore was not destined to know. What 
 was she going to? the girl wondered. In 
 the short time she had been with her, Mrs. 
 Hungerford's kindness had been accom- 
 panied with strict reserve, and Rose had 
 learned no more than that she was return- 
 ing, probably, to her father's home ; but of 
 even that she was not certain. 
 
 Thus the ' lone woman' seemed pitiable 
 to the gay and handsome Irish girl, and 
 the thought of it interfered with her visions 
 of 'home,' and her exultation in the money 
 
12 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 she had to take thither, and the love she 
 was going to find. 
 
 Pitiable indeed she was. 
 
 As the long low banks of Port PhilUp 
 faded from the sight of the passengers on 
 board the 'homeward bound,' not a heart 
 among the number but yearned with some 
 keen and strong regret, too keen and strong 
 to be overborne by the gladness of hope 
 and the relief of having really begun the 
 long voyage. Not a heart, not even that 
 of Margaret Hungerford ; for she had looked 
 her last on the land where she had left her 
 youth, and all its dreams and hopes ; where 
 love had died for her, and truth had failed ; 
 where she had been rudely awakened, and 
 had never again found rest. 
 
 At such a tirae, at such a crisis in life, 
 retrospection is inevitable, however unde- 
 sirable ; however painful and vain, it must 
 be submitted to. The mind insists on pass- 
 
HOMEWAKD BOUND. 13 
 
 ing the newly- expired epoch in review; in 
 repeating, in the full and painful candour 
 of its reverie, all the story so far told; in 
 returning to the old illusions, and exposing 
 their baselessness; in summoning up the 
 defeated hopes, which, gauged by the mea- 
 sure of disappointment, appear so unrea- 
 sonable — weighed in the balance of experi- 
 ence, seem so absurd. 
 
 Can I ever have been such a fool as to 
 have believed that life held such possibili- 
 ties? is the question we all ask at such 
 times ; and the self- contempt which in- 
 spires it is only as real, and no more, as 
 the pain which no scorn or wonder can 
 decrease. 
 
 So, like one performing an enforced 
 task, with what patience it is possible to 
 command, but wearily, and longing for the 
 end, and for release, Margaret Hungerford, 
 during the early days of the long voyage 
 
14 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 from Australia to England, gazed into her 
 past life as into a mirror, and it gave her 
 back a succession of images, of which the 
 chief were these which follow. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 PAGES FKOM THE PAST. 
 
 The woman who was now returning to her 
 native land after a long and painful exile 
 looked back, in her retrospective fancy, 
 upon a home which had external beauty, 
 calm, and comfort to recommend it. She 
 was the daughter of a gentleman named 
 Carteret, a man of small but independent 
 fortune, and whose tastes, which had been 
 too extensively and exclusively cultivated 
 for the happiness of his son and daughter, 
 led him to prefer a life of quietness and 
 seclusion, in which he devoted himself to 
 study, and to the pursuit of natural his- 
 tory in particular. 
 
16 A ETGHTED WKONG. 
 
 Mr. Carteret, who is an old man now, 
 might have been the original of ' Sir Tho- 
 mas the Good,' whose wife, ' the fair Lady 
 Jane,' displayed such becoming resignation 
 on his death. Mr. Carteret, like the worthy 
 knight, ' whose breath was short, and whose 
 eyes were dim,' would 'pore for an hour 
 over a bee or a flower, or the things that 
 come creeping out after a shower;' but he 
 was sadly blind to the subtle processes of 
 the human heart in the development of the 
 human beings under his own roof, which 
 were taking place around him. 
 
 He had lost his wife very soon after 
 the birth of his daughter, and when his 
 son was three years old ; and within little 
 more than a year, a resolute young wo- 
 man, who had long made up her mind 
 that a pretty little country place within 
 easy distance of London, — for Mr. Carteret 
 lived in Eeigate, — a fair position in the ^ 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 17 
 
 county society, and a comfortable income, 
 were desirable acquisitions, married him. 
 
 People said Miss Martley made all the 
 prelimmary arrangements, including even 
 the proposal, herself; and though that state- 
 ment was probably exaggerated, there can 
 be little doubt that the suggestion, that it 
 would be an advisable and agreeable cir- 
 cumstance that Miss Martley should be- 
 come Mrs. Carteret, originated with the 
 lady. 
 
 She was rather young, and rather pretty ; 
 and there really was not so much to be 
 said against the match, excejot by Mr. Car- 
 teret's servants, who naturally did not like 
 it. They liked it still less when the new 
 mistress of the establishment, emulating the 
 proverbial new broom, swept them all away, 
 and replaced them by domestics of her own 
 selection. 
 
 The novel state of things was not a 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
18 A EIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 happy condition for Mr. Carteret. He was 
 a gentle -natured man, indifferent, rather 
 cold, and indolent, except where his par- 
 ticular tastes were concerned; he pursued 
 his own avocations with activity and energy 
 enough, but his easy-going selfishness ren- 
 dered him a facile victim to a woman who 
 managed him by the simple and effectual 
 expedient of letting him have his own way 
 undisturbed, in one direction, — that one 
 the most important to him, — and never 
 consulting his opinion or his wishes in any 
 other respect whatever. 
 
 Mr. Carteret might spend time and 
 money on ' specimens,' on books, and on 
 visits to naturalists and museums ; he might 
 fill his own rooms with stuffed monkeys 
 and birds, and indulge in the newest form 
 of cases for impaled insects, and even dis- 
 play very ghastly osteological trophies if 
 he pleased ; his wife in nowise molested 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 19 
 
 him. But here his power was arrested — 
 here his freedom stopped. Mrs. Carteret 
 ruled in everything else; and he knew it, 
 and he suffered it ' for the sake of a quiet 
 life.' He had a conviction that if he tried 
 opposition, his life would not be quiet; 
 therefore he never did try opposition. 
 
 The new Mrs. Carteret did not actually 
 ill-treat the children of the former Mrs. 
 Carteret; she only neglected them — neg- 
 lected them so steadily and systematically 
 that never was she betrayed into accident- 
 ally taking them, their interests or their 
 pleasure, into consideration in anything 
 she chose to do or to leave undone. 
 
 The servants understood quickly and 
 thoroughly that if they meant to retain 
 their places they must keep the children 
 from annoying Mrs. Carteret, from incom- 
 modmg her by their presence, or intruding 
 their wants upon her. They understood 
 
20 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 as distinctly, that if this fact were impressed 
 by any misplaced zeal upon the attention 
 of Mr. Carteret, the imprudence would be 
 as readily repaid by dismissal ; and as they 
 liked and valued their places, — for Mrs. 
 Carteret, provided her own comfort was 
 secured in every particular, was a liberal 
 and careless mistress, — the imprudent zeal 
 never was manifested. 
 
 Thus the two young children grew up, 
 somehow, anyhow, well-fed and well-clothed, 
 by the care of servants ; but in every par- 
 ticular, apart from their mere animal wants, 
 utterly neglected. People talked about it, 
 of course ; and just at first the neglect of her 
 husband's children threatened to be a little 
 detrimental to the popularity which Mrs. 
 Carteret ardently desired to attain. But 
 she gave pleasant garden-parties, at which 
 neither husband nor children 'showed;' she 
 dressed very well; she was very kind to 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 21 
 
 the young ladies of the neighbourhood who 
 were still on their preferment; her well- 
 trained household were discreetly silent; 
 and she had no children of her own. 
 
 This last was readily accepted as a very 
 vahd excuse; no one thought of the total 
 absence of wifely sympathy and womanly 
 tenderness which the argument conveyed. 
 Mrs. Carteret could not be expected to 
 care about children — no one really did who 
 had not children of their own ' to arouse 
 the instinct,' as a foolish female, who fancied 
 the phrase sounded philosophical, remarked. 
 So the neighbourhood consented to forget 
 Mr. Carteret's children, and that contem- 
 plative gentleman consented to remember 
 them very imperfectly, and things were 
 very comfortable at Chayleigh for some 
 years. 
 
 But Haldane and Margaret Carteret grew 
 older with those years ; the little children. 
 
22 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 who had been easily stowed away m a 
 nursery and a playroom, — judiciously dis- 
 tant from drawing-room, boudoir, and study, 
 — were no longer of an age to be so dis- 
 posed of The boy must either be sent 
 to school or have a tutor, — he and his 
 sister had passed beyond the rule of the 
 nursery governess, — the girl's education 
 must be attended to. 
 
 The latter case was especially disagree- 
 able to Mrs. Carteret. It forced upon her 
 attention the fact that she was no longer 
 in the first bloom of her youth. A ra- 
 ther young and rather pretty stepmother 
 is capable of being made interesting, if the 
 situation be judiciously treated; but Mrs. 
 Carteret had never treated it judiciously, 
 and now it could not avail. 
 
 She had nearly exhausted her o^ole of 
 young matronhood at thirty-seven, and Mar- 
 garet was then twelve years old. True, 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 23 
 
 there would be a revival of its material 
 pleasures, its gaieties and dissijDations, when 
 Margaret should be ' brought out ;' but Mrs. 
 Carteret found feeble consolation in the an- 
 ticipation of the pleasures and importance 
 of chaperonage. They can only be reflected 
 at the best; and Mrs. Carteret cared little 
 to shine with a borrowed light. 
 
 In the mean time, she had no notion of 
 having a gawky girl, as she called Margaret 
 in her thoughts, always about her at home, 
 growing old enough to interfere, and per- 
 haps to attract her father's attention un- 
 duly and put absurd ideas into his head. 
 Margaret Carteret was not at all gawky ; 
 but even then, at the least beautiful period 
 of life, gave promise of the grace and dis- 
 tinction which afterwards characterised her. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret made up her mind, and 
 then informed her husband of the resolution 
 she had taken, and the arrangements she 
 
24 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 had made. He acquiesced, as he always 
 did ; and when Margaret, startled, confused, 
 not knowing whether to be frightened at 
 or pleased with the novelty which the pro- 
 spect offered, asked him if it was really 
 true that she was going to school at Paris, 
 and was not to return for a whole year, he 
 said placidly, 
 
 ' Certainly, my dear. Mrs. Carteret has 
 arranged it all ; and I have told her to be 
 sure and ask the school people to take you 
 to the Jardin des Plantes.' 
 
 Then Mr. Carteret, who never perceived 
 that his daughter was no longer a baby, 
 sent her away with a pat on the head, and 
 turned his attention to investigating the 
 structure of a 'trap-door spider's abode,' 
 which had reached him the day before, 
 having been sent by a friend and fellow- 
 naturalist from Corfu. 
 
 The education of Haldane Carteret had 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 25 
 
 been differently provided for. It chanced 
 that the one human being besides herself 
 for whom Mrs. Carteret entertained a senti- 
 ment of affection was her cousin, James 
 Dugdale, a young man who had no chance 
 of success in any active career in life, being 
 deformed and in dehcate health — anything 
 but a desirable tutor for a delicate retiring 
 boy, like Haldane Carteret, people said — 
 a boy who needed encouragement and com- 
 panionship to rouse him up and make him 
 more like other boys. But Mrs. Carteret 
 evinced her usual indifference to the opi- 
 nion of 'people' on this occasion. She 
 chose to provide for her cousin a mode of 
 life suitable to his mental and physical con- 
 stitution. 
 
 James Dugdale came to live at Chay- 
 leigh. The deformed young man had much 
 of the talent, and all the unamiability, which 
 so frequently accompany bodily malforma- 
 
26 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 tion, and he inspired Margaret Carteret 
 with intense dislike and repulsion — with 
 admiration and some respect, too, child as 
 shq, was ; for she soon recognised his talent, 
 and succumbed to his influence. James 
 Dugdale taught Margaret as much as he 
 taught her brother ; he implanted in her 
 the tastes which she afterwards cultivated 
 so assiduously ; but the boy learned to love 
 him, while the girl never faltered in her 
 dislike. When she found her lessons easily 
 understood and soon learned at school, she 
 knew that she had to thank her step- 
 mother's cousin — her brother's tutor — for 
 the aid which had rendered them light to 
 her; but she never could bring herself to 
 thank him in thought or word. The girl's 
 heart was almost void of love and gratitude 
 at this time of her life. She hardly could 
 be said to love her father; her stepmother 
 she neither loved, hated, nor feared ; for her 
 
PAGES FEOM THE PAST. 27 
 
 brother alone were all her kindly feelings 
 hoarded up. She loved him, indeed; and, 
 next to that love, the strongest sentiment 
 in her heart was dislike of James Dugdale. 
 
 Time passed on, and Margaret grew up 
 handsome, with a strongly intellectual stamp 
 upon her face, and, in her character, self- 
 will and impulsiveness prevailing. She 
 liked the Parisian school — ^for she ruled her 
 companions, some by love, others by fear 
 and the power of party — and she cared little 
 for her home, where she could not rule 
 any one. 
 
 Her father was not worth governing; 
 her stepmother she treated with a studious 
 and settled indifference, formino- her man- 
 ner on the model of that of Mrs. Carteret, 
 but never attempting to gain any influence 
 over that lady, who was, however, not 
 without a misgiving at times that when 
 Margaret should come home ' for good' she 
 
28 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 might find it rather dif&cult to 'hold her 
 own.' Holding her own, in Mrs. Carteret's 
 case, rather implied holding every one else's, 
 and that privilege she felt to be in danger. 
 It was, therefore, with but a passing re- 
 flection on the fatal obstacle which such an 
 occurrence must offer to her maintenance 
 of the ' young married woman's' position in 
 society, that Mrs. Carteret, when Margaret 
 was fifteen, began to speculate upon the 
 chances of getting Margaret ' off her hands,' 
 when she should have finally left school, 
 by an opportune marriage. 
 
 A year later, and, much to the surprise 
 of his father, and indeed of every one who 
 knew him except James Dugdale, Haldane 
 Carteret proclaimed his wish and intention 
 of entering the army. His father did not 
 oppose; his stepmother and his tutor sup- 
 ported him in his inclination; the interest 
 of a distant relative of his mother's was 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 29 
 
 procured; and thus it chanced that, when 
 Margaret came home 'for good,' at a little 
 more than sixteen years old, she found her 
 brother in all the boyish pride and exulta- 
 tion of his commission and his uniform. 
 
 Then Margaret's fate was not long in 
 coming. The first time her brother came 
 home, and while she had as yet seen little 
 of the society in which her stepmother 
 moved, he brought a brother officer with 
 him, a handsome young man, named God- 
 frey Hungerford, with whom he had con- 
 tracted a friendship — the more enthusiastic 
 because it was the first the lad had ever 
 experienced. 
 
 And now active antagonism arose be- 
 tween Margaret Carteret and James Dug- 
 dale. The girl fell in love with the hand- 
 some young officer, whose bold and adven- 
 turous spirit pleased her; whose manifest 
 admiration had a pardonable fascination for 
 
30 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 her; who raised even her father to anima- 
 tion; and for whom Mrs. Carteret thought 
 it worth while to put forth the freshest of 
 her somewhat faded graces. 
 
 Haldane paraded and boasted of his 
 friend according to the foolish hearty fashion 
 of his time of life, and was delighted that 
 his sister felt with him in this too. 
 
 But the ex-tutor, who, it aj)peared, was 
 to remain a fixture at Chayleigh, conceived 
 a profound distrust and dislike of the bril- 
 liant young man, whom he quietly observed 
 from his obscure corner of the house — and 
 of life indeed — and who had no notion of 
 the scrutiny he was undergoing. 
 
 Was James Dugdale's penetration quick- 
 ened by the hardly- veiled insolence of God- 
 frey Hungerford's manner to him — insolence 
 which sometimes took the form of complete 
 unconsciousness, and at others of an elabo- 
 rate compassionate politeness ? It may have 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 31 
 
 been so ; at any rate, he made his observa- 
 tions closely, and, when the time came, he 
 expressed their result freely. 
 
 The time came when Godfrey Hunger- 
 ford asked Margaret to become his wife; 
 and then James Dugdale, for the only time 
 during his long residence in Mr. Carteret's 
 house, spoke to that gentleman in private 
 and in confidence. 
 
 'Insist on time, at least,' he urged upon 
 Margaret's father ; ' think how young she 
 is ; think how little you know of this man. 
 You have no guarantee for his character 
 but the praise of an enthusiastic boy. For 
 the girl's sake, insist on time; do not con- 
 sent to less than a two years' engagement ; 
 and then rouse yourself, and go to work as 
 a man ought on whom such a responsibility 
 rests, and find out all about this man before 
 you suffer him to take your daughter 
 away from her home — a girl, ignorant of 
 
32 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the world and of life, in love with her own 
 fancy. I know Margaret's real nature better 
 than you do, and I know she is incapable of 
 caring for this man if she knew him as he 
 really is. It is a delusion; if you can do 
 no more, you can at least secure her time 
 to find it out.' 
 
 ' Find what out ? asked Mr. Carteret, 
 fretfully ; ' what do you know about Hun- 
 gerford? — how have you found out any- 
 thing? 
 
 ' I know nothing ; I have not found out 
 anything,' said James Dugdale. 'I wish I 
 had, then my interference might avail, even 
 mth Margaret herself; but I have only my 
 conviction to go upon, that this man is not 
 fit to be trusted with a woman's happiness ; 
 that Margaret is not really attached to him ; 
 and, in addition, the suggestion of common 
 sense, that she is much too young to be 
 permitted to settle her own fate irrevocably.' 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 33 
 
 The latter argument seemed to have 
 some weight with Mr. Carteret, and James 
 Dugdale saw his advantage. 
 
 ' Do you think/ he said, ' if her mother 
 were living, she would permit Margaret to 
 marry at her present age? Do you think, 
 if you knew you would have to account to 
 her mother for your care of her, you would 
 listen to such a thing?' 
 
 This reference to his dead wife was not 
 pleasant to Mr. Carteret. He was growing 
 old, and he had begun of late to think life, 
 even when surrounded by specimens, and 
 enlivened by numerous publications con- 
 cerning the animal creation, rather a mis- 
 take. So he assented, hurriedly, to James 
 Dugdale's arguments, and the interview 
 concluded by his promising to prevent Mar- 
 garet's marriage taking place for two years, 
 when she would be nineteen. 
 
 But Mr. Carteret and James Dugdale 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 both knew that the real decision of that 
 matter rested not with them, but with Mrs. 
 Carteret, and that, if she decreed that Mar- 
 garet should be married next week, mar- 
 ried next week she inevitably would be. 
 So the ex- tutor addressed himself to his 
 cousin, with whom he adopted a different 
 line of argument. 
 
 'I know you don't care about Margaret,' 
 he said ; ' but I do ; and I know you admire 
 Lieutenant Godfrey Hungerford, which I 
 do not; but you care what people say of 
 you, Sibylla, as much as any one, I know; 
 and you will get unpleasantly talked about 
 if the girl is allowed to marry, so young, a 
 man whom you know little or nothing 
 about, and who is a scoundrel, if ever there 
 was one, or I am more mistaken than I 
 generally am. Take care, Sibylla, your 
 husband is notoriously under your guid- 
 ance, and you will have to bear the blame 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 35 
 
 if this marriage takes place too soon ; it is 
 a serious thing, and you have never been a 
 fond stepmother, you know.' 
 
 Mrs. Carteret loved her cousin, and 
 feared him; she also had a great respect 
 for his judgment; and he had gone to work 
 with her in the right way. The result was 
 satisfactory to the ex-tutor, who took him- 
 self to task concerning his own motives, 
 but found no room for self-condemnation. 
 
 ' If I could suppose for a moment,' he 
 thought, ' that I am insincere in this thing 
 — that I am actuated by any selfish feeling 
 or hope regarding Margaret— I should hesi- 
 tate; but I know I am not: my heart is 
 pure of such self-deception; my brain has 
 no such cobwebs of folly in it. Separated 
 from him finally, — if I can contrive to part 
 them, — held back from her fate for a while, 
 by my means, at all events she will only 
 dislike me the more. And my conviction 
 
36 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 respecting this man, — is that prejudice? — 
 is that an unjust dislike? — is it pique, be- 
 cause he has good looks, and grace, and 
 good manners, and I have none of these? 
 Is it spite, because he has been insolent to 
 me when he dared, and, in a covert way, 
 more insolent still, when these simple peo- 
 ple did not understand him? No; I can 
 answer to myself for single-mindedness in 
 this matter. I might not have seen so 
 plainly had not Margaret's happiness been 
 at stake. But I do see; I do not only 
 fancy. I do judge; I do not only imagine.' 
 So James Dugdale carried his point. 
 Margaret resented his interference bitterly ; 
 she learned that his arguments had induced 
 her stepmother to take the view to which 
 her father had acceded; and she raged 
 against him and denounced him as inso- 
 lent, presuming, intolerable. 
 
 But she liked the idea of the long en- 
 
PAGES FROM THE PAST. 37 
 
 gagement, too. She was romantic and 
 imaginative, and her bright pure young 
 heart — all given up to what was in reality 
 a creation of her fancy, but in which she 
 saw the dazzling realisation of her girlish 
 dreams — was satisfied with the assurance of 
 loving and being loved. 
 
 The presence of her lover was happiness, 
 and his absence was hardly sorrow. Had 
 she not his letters ? Were there ever such 
 letters? she thought; and while she ex- 
 ulted in all the delicious exclusiveness of 
 the possession of such treasures, she al- 
 most longed that the world might know 
 how transcendent a genius was this gallant 
 soldier whom she loved. 
 
 She was glad that Godfrey felt so much 
 disappointment at the delay; and the im- 
 pertinence of any one who interfered to 
 prevent the fulfilment of any wish of his, 
 no words could adequately describe. But, 
 
38 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 for all that, Margaret Avas extremely happy, 
 though she did hate James Dugdale. 
 
 Her lover encouraged her in this feeling, 
 and when he and her brother had rejoined 
 their regiment she restricted her intercourse 
 with the officious ex-tutor to the barest 
 acknowledgment of his presence. James 
 Dugdale took this mode of procedure calmly, 
 and applied himself to the task of finding 
 out all that was to be ascertained con- 
 cerning the circumstances, character, and 
 antecedents of Lieutenant Godfrey Hunger- 
 ford. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DISCOMFITURE. 
 
 When the engagement between Godfrey 
 Hungerford and Margaret Carteret had 
 lasted six months, during which time 
 James Dugdale had contrived to learn 
 several facts to that gentleman's disad- 
 vantage, Haldane Carteret made his ap- 
 pearance unexpectedly at Chayleigh. Mar- 
 garet's first look at her brother revealed 
 to her quick instinctive fears that his 
 errand had in it something unfriendly to 
 her love. With all the selfishness which 
 comes of an engrossing feeling, she was in- 
 sensible to any other impulse of alarm. 
 Margaret was right ; her brother was 
 
40 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 come to unsay all he had said of Godfrey 
 Hungerford — to tell his father that he had 
 been deceived in his friend — to try to undo 
 the work he had helped to do. 
 
 ' He drinks and gambles, Margaret ; for 
 God's sake, don't marry a man with such 
 vices,' said Haldane eagerly to his sister. 
 
 Her father roused himself, and warned 
 her too ; but the girl was obdurate. She 
 only knew of such things by name ; they 
 had no meaning to her as terrible realities 
 of life ; and then she had her lover's letters 
 — the priceless, charming, incomparable 
 letters — and they told her that her brother 
 had come round to Dugdale's way of think- 
 ing, and had turned against him because 
 he had interfered to keep him out of some 
 boyish scrapes. 
 
 The strongest and most spurious of all 
 arguments too, used to a loving foolish 
 girl, were not wanting. If even he were 
 
DISCOMFITURE. 41 
 
 guilty of some follies, granting that he was 
 not a perfect being, could he fail to become 
 so under her influence — could he resist such 
 perfection as hers, become the light and 
 guidance of his home? It is needless to 
 repeat the flimsy foolish strain of the ar- 
 guments which bewildered and beguiled 
 the girl. She met her father and her bro- 
 ther with vehement opposition, and replied 
 to everything they urged, that she alone 
 knew, she only understood Godfrey, and 
 she was not going to forsake him to serve 
 the turn of interested calumniators. 
 
 This taunt, aimed at the brother, did 
 not hit the mark. He had not the least 
 notion to what it referred. The young man 
 spoke frankly and gently to the infatuated 
 girl, lamented his own easy credulity which 
 had at first betrayed his judgment, and 
 finally left the matter in his father's hands, 
 only entreating him to be firm, and to take 
 
42 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 into consideration, in addition to what he 
 had told him, certain circumstances which 
 had come to the knowledge of James Dug- 
 dale. For himself, the pain of enforced as- 
 sociation with his quondam friend would 
 soon be at an end. The brigade of Royal 
 Artillery to which he belonged was then 
 under orders for Canada, and this was to 
 be his farewell visit to his home. 
 
 The brother and sister parted, in sor- 
 row on Haldane's part — in silent and sullen 
 estrangement on Margaret's. The girl's 
 heart was full of angry and bitter revolt, 
 and of the keen indignation which inex- 
 perienced youth feels against those who 
 strive to serve it against its will. They 
 were trying to protect her from herself 
 — to save her from the worst of evils — the 
 most cruel of destinies ; and she treated 
 them as if they had been, as indeed she be- 
 lieved them to be, her worst enemies. 
 
DISCOMFITURE. 43 
 
 But they were not to succeed — Mar- 
 garet was not to be saved. The girl's hfe 
 at home — though no one molested her — 
 though her father, if the matter were not 
 pressed upon his attention, took no notice 
 — though her stepmother was, as usual, 
 coldly but civilly negligent of her — though 
 James Dugdale maintained his inoffensive 
 reserve — became intolerable to her ; in- 
 tolerable through its loneliness — intolerable 
 by reason of its cross-purposes. The one 
 thought, the one image, the one hope for 
 which she lived was not only unshared, but 
 condemned by those with whom she lived. 
 The one name precious to her heart, de- 
 lightful to her ears, was never spoken 
 within her hearing — the little world she 
 lived in ignored him who was all the world 
 to her. 
 
 When Haldane Carteret had been three 
 months in Canada, Godfrey Hungerford was 
 
44 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 dismissed the service for conduct unbe- 
 coming an officer and a gentleman ; and in 
 another month, Margaret Carteret had clan- 
 destinely left her home, joined her lover, 
 and become his wife. 
 
 The shock to her father was very se- 
 vere. It was the first misfortune of his 
 life, including his first wife's death, to 
 which 'specimens' offered no alleviation. 
 It was not an evil which brought finality 
 with it ; and Mr. Carteret therefore found 
 it difficult to bear. If Margaret had died, 
 her father would have grieved for her, no 
 doubt, but there would have been an end 
 of it ; now, though no one could foresee 
 or foretell the end, it was easy to prog- 
 nosticate evil as the result, and impossible 
 to hope for good. 
 
 Like all men of his sort, Mr. Carteret 
 had a great horror of the openly violent 
 and aggressive vices of men. He was in- 
 
DISCOMFITURE. 45 
 
 capable of understanding the amount of 
 suffering to be inflicted upon women by 
 the supineness, selfishness, indolence, im- 
 prudence, or eccentricity of their husbands 
 and fathers ; but the mere idea of a woman 
 being in the power of a man who actually 
 got drunk, lost or won money at cards or 
 dice, used bad language, or had any stain 
 of dishonesty on his name, was terrible to 
 his harmless, if valueless, nature. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret was extremely indifferent. 
 Of course it was an unpleasant occurrence, 
 and people would talk unpleasantly about 
 it ; but she had never pretended to care 
 much for, or interfere with. Miss Carteret, 
 — and no one could blame her. 
 
 Of all those who had shared her life, 
 who had seen her grow from childhood 
 to girlhood, James Dugdale was the only 
 one who had made Margaret Carteret's 
 character a subject of close and loving 
 
46 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 study — the only one who understood its 
 strength and its weakness, its forcible 
 points of contrast, its lurking dangers, its 
 unseen resources. He knew her intellec- 
 tual qualities, he knew her imaginative- 
 ness, and understood the danger which 
 lurked in it for her — a danger which had 
 already taken so delusive and fatal a form. 
 With all the prescience of a calm and un- 
 selfish affection, he feared for the girl's 
 future, and grieved as only mature wis- 
 dom and disinterested love can grieve 
 over the follies and illusions, the inevit- 
 able suffering and disenchantment, of youth 
 and wilfulness. 
 
 'She has a dreadful life before her,' 
 said her misjudged and despised friend to 
 himself, as he left Margaret's father, after 
 the two had discussed the letter in which 
 the misguided girl had informed him of 
 her marriage; 'a dreadful life, I fear, and 
 
DISCOMFITURE. 47 
 
 believe ; but, if she lives through it, and 
 over it, and takes it rightly, she may be a 
 noble and strong woman yet, though never 
 a happy one.' 
 
 For some time Margaret Hungerford's 
 communications with her family were brief 
 and infrequent. She said nothing in her 
 letters of happiness or the reverse, and 
 she made no request to be permitted to 
 revisit her former home. She never wrote 
 to or heard from her brother. 
 
 After a while a formal application was 
 made to Mr. Carteret by Mr. Hungerford 
 for pecuniary assistance, as he had deter- 
 mined to try his fortune in Australia. To 
 this Mr. Carteret replied that he would 
 give Margaret half the small fortune 
 which was to have been hers on his 
 death, but required that it should be dis- 
 tinctly understood that she had nothing 
 more to expect from him. 
 
48 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 Mr. Carteret went up to London and 
 drew the sum he had named, 500/., out of 
 the funds, and availed himself of that op- 
 portunity to make his will, by which he 
 bequeathed to his son all his property, a 
 life-interest in the greater part of which 
 had been secured to his wife by settle- 
 ment. This done, and provided with the 
 money he had named, he went to see 
 Margaret and her husband. The meeting 
 was brief and final. Mr. Carteret returned 
 on the following day to Chayleigh. 
 
 Godfrey Hungerford and his wife were 
 to sail for Sydney in a fortnight, he told 
 Mrs. Carteret, in reply to her polite but 
 quite uninterested inquiries. Nor was he 
 much more communicative to James Dug- 
 dale. 
 
 'How does she look?' he asked. 
 
 The father made no reply, but shook 
 his head, and moved his hands nervously 
 
DISCOIMFITURE. 49 
 
 among the papers on the table before 
 him. 
 
 'Already!' said James Dugdale, when 
 he had softly left the room, and then he 
 went away and shut himself up alone. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE IDEAL AND THE KEAL. 
 
 If it were possible to linger over the story 
 of Margaret Hungerford's life — if other and 
 later interests did not peremjDtorily claim 
 attention — how much might be said con- 
 cerning it? On the surface, it had many 
 features in common with other lives; and 
 the destruction of a fancy, the awaking to 
 a truth, terrible and not to be eluded, is 
 the least rare of mental processes. But the 
 individual history of every mind, of every 
 heart, has features unlike those of all others 
 — features worthy, in even the humblest 
 and simplest lives, of close scanning and 
 of faithful reproduction. Margaret Hunger- 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE EEAL. 51 
 
 ford was not an ordinary person; she had 
 strongly-pronounced intellectual and moral 
 characteristics, and her capacity, whether 
 for good or evil time and her destiny alone 
 could tell, was great. 
 
 The very intensity of her nature, which 
 had made it easy for her to be deceived, 
 easy for her to build a fair fabric of hope 
 and love on no sounder foundation than 
 her fancy, made it inevitable that the truth 
 should come with terrible force to her, and 
 be understood in its fullest extent and in 
 its darkest meaning — that most full of ter- 
 ror and despair. 
 
 The external circumstances of her life 
 subsequent to her marriage did not affect 
 Margaret Hungerford so much as might 
 have been anticipated, in consideration of 
 her delicate nurture, her previous life of 
 seclusion, and her habitual refinement. She 
 was destined to encounter many vicissi- 
 
 ^ OF ILL LIB. 
 
52 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 tudes, to endure poverty, hardship, uncer- 
 tainty, solitude of the absolute kind, and 
 of that kind which is still more unbearable 
 — enforced companionship with the mean 
 and base, not in position merely, but in 
 soul. 
 
 . She had to endure many actual priva- 
 tions — to do many things, to witness many 
 scenes which, if they had been unfolded to 
 her in the home of her girlhood, uncon- 
 genial as it had been, as probabilities lurk- 
 ing in the plan of the future, she would 
 have merely regarded with unalarmed in- 
 credulity, would have put aside as things 
 which never could have any existence. 
 
 But these things, when they came, she 
 bore well — bore them with strength and 
 patience, with quiet resolution and almost 
 indifference, which, had there been any one 
 to contemplate the girl's life, and study her 
 character at that time, would have revealed 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE EEAL. 53 
 
 the truth that worse things than privation 
 and hardship had come to her, and had 
 rendered them indifferent to her. 
 
 Worse things had come. Knowledge 
 and experience, which had outraged her 
 pride and tortured her love, crushed her 
 faith, scattered her hopes, and left her life 
 a desert waste, whence the flowers of youth 
 and trust had been uprooted, and which 
 lay bare to be trampled under foot of in- 
 vading foes. 
 
 Margaret's delusion had lasted so short 
 a time after her marriage that the first feel- 
 ing her discovery of the utter worthlessness 
 of the man into whose hands she had com- 
 mitted her fate produced in her mind was 
 dread and distrust of herself. 
 
 Was this fading away of love, this dy- 
 ing out of all respect, of all enthusiasm, 
 this dreary hopelessness and fast coming 
 disbelief in good, was all this inconstancy 
 
54 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 on her part? "Was she false to her own 
 feeUngs, or had she mistaken them? Was 
 she light and fickle, as men were said to 
 be? 
 
 But this dread soon subsided : it could 
 not long disturb Margaret's clear good 
 sense. The fault was not hers ; she was 
 not inconstant, though she no longer loved 
 Godfrey Hungerford. The truth was, she 
 had never known him; there was no such 
 person as her fancy had created and called 
 by his name. 
 
 She had believed herself to be domg a 
 fine heroic thing when she married a dis- 
 graced man, a man unjustly judged of his 
 fellows, one against whom the world had 
 set itself — why, she did not quite know, 
 but probably from envy — and who there- 
 fore needed her love and fidehty more than 
 a prosperous man could need them. It 
 was a foolish, girlish, not unnatural de- 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 55 
 
 lusive notion of grandeur and self-sacrifice, 
 and, added to the fascination exerted over 
 her by Godfrey HuDgerford's good looks 
 and artistic love-making, it "had hurried 
 Margaret to her doom. 
 
 The girl married, as she believed, a 
 hero, with a few follies perhaps, all to be 
 forsworn and forsaken when she should be 
 his, to guide and inspire every moment of 
 his life, and whose unjust penalties her 
 love was to render harmless. What did 
 she not believe him to be! Brave, true, 
 generous, devoted, clever, energetic, un- 
 worldly, poetical, high-minded, and pure — 
 the ideal man who was to disprove those 
 horrid sayings of disappointed persons, that 
 the lover and the husband are very differ- 
 ent beings, and that 'man's love is of man's 
 life a thing apart.' 
 
 They would prove it to be their ' whole 
 existence.' Could any sacrifice be too 
 
56 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 great to make for such a prize as this? 
 No. The sacrifice was made by him. Who 
 would not have loved and married Godfrey 
 Hungerford ? She did not believe that any 
 one could be so bad as to believe the accu- 
 sation brought against him by a low mean 
 cHque, a set of men who could not bear 
 to know that he was cleverer at card- 
 playing than they were— just as he was 
 cleverer at anything else — and who did not 
 know how to lose their money like gentle- 
 men. Of course, as he never could be 
 secured against meeting persons of the sort, 
 it was much better that Godfrey should 
 make up his mind, as he had done, never 
 to touch a card after their marriage. 
 
 And then how great was his love for 
 her ! How delightful was the scheme of the 
 future, according to his casting of it! So 
 Margaret dreamed her dream, and when 
 the waking came she blamed herself that 
 
THE EEAL AND THE IDEAL. 5.7 
 
 she could dream it no longer, and could 
 not be lulled to sleep again. 
 
 Godfrey Hungerford has no place in 
 this story, and there is no need to enter 
 into details of the life he led, and con- 
 demned his wife to. He proved the exact 
 reverse of all she had believed him. Base, 
 mean, cowardly, in the sense of the cow- 
 ardice which makes a man systematically 
 cruel to every creature, human and brute, 
 within his power, though ready to face 
 danger for bravado's, and exertion for 
 boasting's sake, or either for that of money 
 — a liar, a gambler, and a profligate. 
 
 He laughed at her credulity when she 
 quoted his promises to her, and ridiculed 
 her amazement and disgust as ignorance of 
 life, girlish folly, and squeamishness. In 
 a fitful, 'worthless' sort of way, he liked 
 and admired her to the end ; but the truth- 
 fulness that was in her prevented Margaret 
 
58 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 from taking advantage of this contemptible 
 remnant of feeling to obtain easier terms of 
 life. She had ceased to love him, and she 
 never disguised the fact — she let him see 
 it; when he questioned her, in a moment 
 of maudlin sentiment, she told him so quite 
 plainly; and her tyrant made the truth- 
 fulness which could not stoop to simulation 
 a fresh cause of complaint against her. 
 
 What Margaret suffered, no words, not 
 even her own, could tell ; but the material 
 troubles, the grinding anxieties of her life, 
 deadened her sense of grief after a time. 
 They were always poor. Money melted in 
 the hands of her worthless, selfish husband. 
 Sometimes he made a little, in some of the 
 numerous ways in which money was to be 
 made in colonial life, sometimes he was 
 quite unemployed. He was always disso- 
 lute and a spendthrift. 
 
 It was hard training for Margaret, se- 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 59 
 
 vere teaching, and not more full of actual 
 pain, privation, and toil than of bitter 
 humiliation. They moved about from place 
 to place, for at each Godfrey Hungerford 
 became known and shunned. 
 
 Yillany and vice were loud and ramp- 
 ant indeed in the New World then, as now ; 
 but he was not so clever as the superior 
 villains, and not so low, not so irretrievably 
 ruffianly, as the inferior ruffians, and it fell 
 out, somehow, that he did not find any 
 permanent place, or take any specific rank, 
 among them. Of necessity, suffering, both 
 moral and material, was his wife's lot, and 
 it was wonderful that such suffering did 
 not degrade, that it only hardened her. It 
 certainly did harden her, making her cold, 
 indifferent, and difficult to be touched 
 by, or convinced of, good, or truth, or 
 honesty. 
 
 Of necessity, also, her life had been 
 
60 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 devoid of companionship. Too proud to 
 tell her sorrows, and unable to endure the 
 associations into which her husband's evil 
 life would have led her had she been driven 
 by loneHness to relax in her resolute isola- 
 tion, she had neither sympathy nor pity in 
 her wretchedness. But at length, and when 
 things were going very hard and ill with 
 her, she found a friend. 
 
 Time, suffering, and disenchantment had 
 taught Margaret Hungerford many hard 
 and heavy, but salutary, lessons, before the 
 days came which brought her fate this 
 alleviation ; and she did not regret it, 
 because it had been procured for her 
 by the care and solicitude of James Dug- 
 dale. 
 
 Her love had died — more than died ; for 
 there is reverence and pious grief, with 
 sweetness in its agony, and cherished recol- 
 lections, to modify death and make it mer- 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 61 
 
 ciful — it had perished. So had her dishke 
 of James Dugdale. He had been right, 
 and she had been wrong; and though he 
 could never be her friend, because she 
 never could admit to him the one fact or 
 the other, she thought gently and regret- 
 fully of him, when she thought of her old 
 home and of the past at all, which was not 
 often, for the present absorbed her usually 
 in its misery and its toil. 
 
 When, in the course of their wanderings, 
 the Hungerfords went to the then infant 
 town, now the prosperous city, of Mel- 
 bourne, Margaret sent home one of her in- 
 frequent letters to her father. Thus James 
 Dugdale learned that the woman whose 
 fate he had so unerringly foreseen — the 
 woman he loved with calm, disinterested, 
 clear-sighted affection — was at length with- 
 in reach of his influence, of his indirect 
 help. 
 
62 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 An old friend, schoolfellow, and college 
 chum — one Hayes Meredith, a younger man 
 than James Dugdale by a few years — had 
 been among the first of those tempted from 
 the life of monotonous toil in England by 
 the vast and exciting prospects which the 
 young colony offered to energy, industry, 
 ability, and courage. 
 
 Hayes Meredith possessed all these, and 
 some capital too. He had settled at Port 
 Phillip, and was a thriving and respected 
 member of the motley community when 
 Godfrey and Margaret Hungerford arrived 
 to swell the tide of adventure and misery. 
 To him James Dugdale wrote, on behalf 
 of the woman whose need he divined, whose 
 unhappiness he felt, with the instinct of 
 sympathy. 
 
 Hayes Meredith responded nobly to his 
 old friend's appeal. He befriended Mar- 
 garet steadily, with and without her hus- 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 63 
 
 band's knowledge; he won her affection, 
 conquered her reserve, softened her pride, 
 and, though her fate was beyond ameliora- 
 tion by human aid, he succeeded in mak- 
 ing her actual, everyday life more endur- 
 able. 
 
 When Margaret was sought out by 
 Hayes Meredith, release was drawing near, 
 release from the tremendous evil of her 
 marriage. Godfrey Hungerford, by this 
 time utterly incapable of any steady pur- 
 suit, and seized with one of the reckless, 
 restless fits which were becoming more and 
 more frequent with him, jomed a party of 
 explorers bound for the unknown interior 
 of the continent, and, regardless of Mar- 
 garet's fears and necessities, left her alone 
 in the town. 
 
 For months she heard nothing of him, 
 or the fate of the expedition ; months dur- 
 ing which she was kept from destitution 
 
64 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 only by Hayes Meredith's generous and un- 
 failing aid. 
 
 At length news came ; a few stragglers 
 from the party of explorers returned. God- 
 frey Hungerford was not among them; and 
 the remnant related that he had been mur- 
 dered, with two others, by a tribe of ab- 
 origines. 
 
 Hayes Meredith told Margaret the truth ; 
 he sustained and comforted her in the early 
 days of her horror and grief; he counselled 
 her return to England, and provided money 
 for her voyage. He secured her cabin and 
 the ser\dces of Eose Moore. It was he 
 who bade her farewell upon the deck of 
 the Boomerang — he of whom she thought 
 as her only friend. 
 
 Margaret had little power of feeling, 
 love, or gratitude in her now, as she be- 
 lieved, and that little was exerted for the 
 alert, kindly-voiced, gray-haired, keen-eyed 
 
THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 65 
 
 man who left her with a heavy heart, and 
 said to himself, as the boat shot away from 
 the ship's side, ' Poor girl ! she has had 
 hard lines of it hitherto. I wonder what 
 is before her in England !' 
 
 VOL. I, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHAYLEIGH. 
 
 A BRIGHT soft day in the autumn — a day 
 which appealed to all who dwelt in houses 
 to come forth and taste the last lingering 
 flavour of the summer in the sweet air — a 
 day so still and peaceful that the sudden 
 rustle of the leaves, as a few of their num- 
 ber [ennuyes leaves, tired of life sooner 
 than their fellows) detached themselves, and 
 came, gently wafted by the imperceptible 
 air, to the ground, made one look round, 
 as though at an intrusion upon its perfect 
 repose — a day which appealed to memory, 
 and said, 'Am I not like some other day 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 67 
 
 in your life, on which you have pondered 
 many things in your heart, and looked far 
 back into the past mthout the agony of 
 regret, and on into the future undisturbed 
 by dread — a restful day, when life has 
 seemed not bad to have, but very, very 
 good to leave ?' — a day on which any settled, 
 stern, inexorable occupation seemed harder, 
 more unbearable than usual, even to the 
 least reasonable and most moderate idler — 
 a day on which the house which Margaret 
 Carteret had forsaken looked particularly 
 beautiful, tranquil, and inviting. 
 
 The orderliness of Chayleigh was de- 
 lightful ; it was not formal, not oppressive ; 
 it was eminently tasteful. Inside the house 
 and outside it order reigned, without tyran- 
 nising. The lawn was always swept with 
 extreme nicety, and the flower tbeds, though 
 not pruned down to a tantalising precision, 
 bore evident signs of artistic care. 
 
66 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 The house stood almost in the centre 
 of the small grounds, and long wide French 
 windows in front, and bow windows in the 
 rear, oj)ened on smooth grassy terraces, 
 which fell away by gentle mclines towards 
 the flower-garden in front, and at the back 
 towards a pleasaunce, with high prim alleys, 
 and bosquets which in the pride of sum- 
 mer were thickset with roses; and so, to 
 some clumps of noble forest-trees, behind 
 which, and hidden, was the neat wire-fence 
 which bounded the small demesne. 
 
 On this soft autumnal day, the three 
 bow windows which opened on the terrace 
 at the back of the house were open, and 
 every now and then the white curtains 
 faintly fluttered, and the leaves of the creep- 
 ers which luxuriously festooned the win- 
 dow-frames gently rustled. Far above the 
 height of the central window, an aspiring 
 passion - flower, rich in the stifi*, majestic. 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 69 
 
 symbolical blossom, stretched its branches, 
 until they ^vreathed the window just above 
 the centre bow, and aided an impertinent 
 rose to look into the room. They had 
 looked in ever since the one had blossom 
 and the other leaves, but they had seen 
 nothing there that lived or moved. 
 
 The middle room, above the suite of 
 drawing-rooms — whose rosewood furniture, 
 whose Ambusson carpets, and whose spark- 
 ling girandoles formed the chief delight 
 and pride of Mrs. Carteret's not particu- 
 larly capacious heart — had not been used 
 since Margaret Carteret had left her home 
 to follow the fortunes of her lover. 
 
 That such was the case was not due to 
 any sentiment on Mr. Carteret's part, or 
 any spite on that of his wife. If the former 
 had happened to want additional space 
 for any of his drying or ' curing' processes, 
 he would have invaded his daughter's for- 
 
70 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 saken room without the slightest hesitation, 
 and, indeed, without recaUing the circum- 
 stance of her former occupation, of his own 
 accord; while it was quite safe from inter- 
 ference on the part of the latter for another 
 and a different reason. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret's rooms were perfectly 
 comfortable and sufficient, and she never 
 had * staying company.' She knew better. 
 She was quite sufficiently hospitable with- 
 out inflicting that trouble on herself, and 
 she had no notion of it. Indeed, she never 
 had any notion of doing anything which 
 she did not thoroughly like, or of putting 
 up with any kind of inconvenience for a 
 moment if it were possible to free herself 
 from it; and she had generally found it 
 very possible. Life had rolled along won- 
 derfully smoothly, on the whole, for Mrs. 
 Carteret. She possessed one advantage 
 which does not always fall to the lot of 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 71 
 
 supremely selfish and heartless people — she 
 had an easy temper. 
 
 It is refreshing sometimes to observe 
 how much utterly selfish people, whose sole 
 object in life is to secure pleasure and to 
 banish pain, suffer by the infliction upon 
 themselves of their own temper. But Mrs. 
 Carteret was bucklered against fate, even 
 on that side. She took excellent and suc- 
 cessful care that no one else should annoy 
 her, and she never annoyed herself. It 
 would have afforded a philosophic observer, 
 indeed, some congenial occupation of mind 
 to divine from what possible quarter, save 
 that of severe bodily pain, discomfiture 
 could reach Mrs. Carteret. She was very 
 well off, perfectly healthy, wholly indiffer- 
 ent to every existing human being except 
 herself and her cousin, had everything her 
 own way as regarded both objects of affec- 
 tion, had got rid of her stepdaughter, and 
 
72 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 had a very comfortable settlement ' in case 
 anything should happen' — according to the 
 queer formula adopted in speaking of the 
 only absolute certainty in human events — 
 to Mr. Carteret. 
 
 This seemingly-invulnerable person had 
 no need of Margaret's room then, and when 
 James Dugdale said to her, 
 
 ' If you don't want that middle room 
 over the drawing - room for any particu- 
 lar purpose, I should be glad to have the 
 use of it for mounting my drawings, and 
 so on; the light is very good,' she said at 
 once, 
 
 ' yes ; you mean Margaret's room, do 
 you not? I don't want it in the least. I 
 will have it put to rights for you at once ; 
 it is full of all her trumpery.' 
 
 No third person listening to the two 
 would ever have discerned that any matter 
 of feeling, or even embarrassment, had any 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 73 
 
 connection with the subject under mention, 
 still less that the ' Margaret' in question 
 had so lately left the home of her girlhood 
 on a desperate quest, which the woman 
 who spoke of her complacently believed to 
 be desperate. 
 
 ' Yes, I mean that room,' said James 
 Dugdale in a careless tone ; ' but pray don't 
 have anything in it touched. I will see to 
 all that myself; in fact, presuming on your 
 permission, I have put a lot of my things 
 in there, and the servants would play the 
 deuce if they meddled with them. I may 
 keep the key, Sibylla, I suppose?' 
 
 'Of course,' replied Mrs. Carteret; and 
 from that moment she never gave the 
 matter a thought, and James Dugdale had 
 the key of Margaret's room, and he did 
 put some sketch-books, some sheets of 
 Bristol board, and other adjuncts of his 
 favourite pursuit on a table, and thus form- 
 
74 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ally constituted his possession and his pre- 
 text. But he seldom unlocked the door; 
 he rarely entered the apartment, even at 
 first, and more and more rarely as time 
 stole on, and all his worst fears and fore- 
 bodings about Margaret Hungerford had 
 been realised. 
 
 Sometimes, when all the house was 
 quiet, on moonlight nights, his pale face 
 and bent figure might have been seen, 
 framed in the window, between the branches 
 of the passion-flower which he had trained. 
 There he would stand awhile, leaning 
 against the woodwork and gazing into the 
 sky, in whose vastness, whose distance, 
 whose sameness over all the world, there 
 is surely some vague comfort for the yearn- 
 ings of absence, uncertainty, even hopeless 
 separation, or why is the relief of it so 
 often, so uniformly sought? 
 
 Sometimes, but not often, he wrote in 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 75 
 
 Margaret's room; one letter which he had 
 written there had exerted a great influence 
 upon her fate, how great he little knew. 
 All the girl's little possessions were in the 
 room, just as she had left them. 
 
 Tidy housemaids, with accurate ideas of 
 the fitness of things, had come to and 
 gone away from Chayleigh since the sole 
 daughter of the house had taken her peril- 
 ous way, according to her headstrong will, 
 and had been disturbed, and even mutin- 
 ous, in their minds concerning the ' middle 
 room.' But on the whole they had obeyed 
 orders ; and James Dugdale, who had long 
 ceased to be the ' tutor,' and was supposed 
 to be Mrs. Carteret's stepbrother by the 
 servants of late date in the establishment, 
 enjoyed undisturbed possession of the trum- 
 pery water-colour sketches ; the little desk 
 with a sloping top, with ' Souvenir' en- 
 graved in flourishes on a mother- o'-pearl 
 
76 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 heart inserted over the lock ; the em- 
 broidery-frame, the bead -worked watch- 
 pocket, and the little library which occu- 
 pied two hanging shelves, and chiefly 
 consisted of the ' Beauties' of the poets, 
 and a collection of ' Friendship's Offerings' 
 and ' Forget-me-nots.' 
 
 James Dugdale's thoughts were busy 
 mth Margaret Hungerford that sweet au- 
 tumn day — more busy with her than usual, 
 more full of apprehension. The time that 
 had elapsed had not deadened the feelings 
 with which he regarded the wilful girl, 
 who had scorned his interference, scoffed 
 at and resented his advice, but been obliged 
 to avail herself of his aid. 
 
 He knew that she had done so, but he 
 knew nothing more. And as he roamed 
 about the garden, and the terrace, and the 
 pleasaunce, and rambled away to where 
 the forest-trees stood stately, idly treadmg 
 
CHAYLEIGH. 77 
 
 the fallen leaves under his listless feet, so 
 lately in their green brightness far above 
 his head, he sickened with longing to 
 know more definitely the fate of the ab- 
 sent girl. 
 
 ' She hated me then,' he said with a 
 sigh, as he turned once more towards the 
 house; 'and she is just the woman to hate 
 me more because she has found out for her- 
 self that I was right.' 
 
 He little knew how fully, to how far 
 greater an extent than he had discovered 
 it, Margaret had learned the worthlessness 
 of Godfrey Hungerford. 
 
 As he crossed the garden, a woman- 
 servant came towards him, and asked him 
 for the key of 'the middle room.' The 
 request jarred upon him somehow, and he 
 asked rather sharply what it was wanted 
 for. 
 
 ' We are getting the cleaning done, sir ; 
 
78 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 master and missus is to be home on Satur- 
 day.' 
 
 James Dugdale handed the key to the 
 housemaid, and entered the drawing-room 
 through the open window. 
 
 ' I may as well write to Haldane,' he 
 muttered. ' The Canadian mail leaves to- 
 morrow.' 
 
 When James Dugdale had written his 
 letter, he went out again; but this time 
 he took his way to the village, intending 
 to post the packet, and then pursue his 
 way to a ' bit' in the vicinity from which 
 he was making a water-colour drawing. 
 
 As he passed the inn which occupied 
 the place of honour in the hilly little street, 
 the coach which ran daily from a large 
 town on the south coast to London was 
 drawn up before the door, and the pro- 
 cess of changing horses was being accom- 
 plished to the lively satisfaction of nume- 
 
CHAYLEIGII. 79 
 
 rous bystanders, to whom this event, though 
 of daily occurrence, never ceased to be ex- 
 citing and interesting. 
 
 James Dugdale glanced carelessly at 
 the clustering villagers and the idlers 
 about the inn-door, of whom a few touched 
 their hats or pulled their hair in his hon- 
 our ; observed casually that two female 
 figures were standing in the floor- clothed 
 passage, and that one of the ostlers was 
 lifting a heavy trmik, of a seafaring ex- 
 terior, down from the luggage -laden top 
 of the coach ; and then passed on, and 
 forgot all these ordinary occurrences. He 
 took his way to the scene of his intended 
 sketch, and was soon busily engaged with 
 his work. 
 
 When the autumnal day was drawing 
 to its close, and the growing keenness of 
 the air began to make itself felt, quickly 
 too, by his sensitive frame, James Dug- 
 
80 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 dale turned his steps homewards, and, tak- 
 ing the lower road, without again passing 
 through the village, he skirted the clumps 
 of forest-trees, and entered the little de- 
 mesne by a small gate which led into the 
 pleasaunce. 
 
 He had almost reached the grassy ter- 
 race, when, glancing upwards, as was his 
 frequent custom, — it had been his habit 
 in the time gone by, when Margaret's 
 light figure and girlish face had often met 
 the upturned glance, — he saw that the 
 window was wide oj^en, and some one was 
 in the room; saw this with quick impa- 
 tience, which made him step back a little, 
 so as to get a clearer view of the intruder, 
 and to mutter, as he did so, 
 
 ' Those confounded servants ! What can 
 they be doing there up to this time ?' 
 
 But, as he murmured the words, James 
 Dugdale started violently, and then stood 
 
CHAYLEIGII. 81 
 
 in fixed, motionless, incredulous amaze- 
 ment. The window of the middle room 
 was wide open, and against the woodwork, 
 framed by the blossoms and foliage of the 
 passion-flower, leaned a slight figure, in a 
 heavy black dress. 
 
 The slender hands were clasped toge- 
 ther, and showed white against the sombre 
 garb; the pale, clear-cut, severe young 
 face, lighted by the last rays of the quickly- 
 setting autumn sun, looked out upon the 
 tranquil scene; but on every feature sat 
 the deepest abstraction. The eyes were 
 heedless of all near objects, fixed appa- 
 rently upon the trees in the distance ; they 
 took no heed of the figure standing in rapt 
 astonishment ujDon the terrace. 
 
 Not until James Dugdale uttered her 
 name with a faltering, with an almost 
 frightened voice, as one might address a 
 spirit, did the face in the window droop, 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 and the eyes search for the speaker. But 
 then Margaret Hungerford leaned forward, 
 and said, quite calmly, 
 
 ^ Yes, Mr. Dugdale, it is 1/ 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 HALF-CONFIDENCES. 
 
 'You cannot surely be serious — you do 
 not really mean it?' said James Dugdale, 
 in a pleading tone, to Margaret Hunger - 
 ford, as, some hours after he had dis- 
 covered her presence at Chayleigh, they 
 were talking together in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 ' I do mean it,' she replied. ' You never 
 understood me, I think, and you certainly 
 do not understand me now, if you think 
 I shall remain here dependent on my fa- 
 ther, having left his house as I did.' 
 
 James Dugdale did not speak for some 
 minutes. He was pondering upon what 
 
84 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 she had said. He had never understood 
 her! If not he, who ever had? Unjust 
 to him she had always been, and she was 
 still unjust to him. But that did not 
 matter: it was of her he must think, not 
 of himself. 
 
 The first bewildering surprise of Mar- 
 garet's arrival had passed away ; the mingled 
 strangeness and familiarity of seeing her 
 again, changed as she was, in the old home 
 so long forsaken, had taken its place, and 
 James Dugdale was looking at her, and 
 listening to her, like a man in a dream. 
 
 Their meeting had been very calm and 
 emotionless. Margaret, in addition to the 
 hardness of manner which had grown upon 
 her in her hard life, had felt no pleasure 
 in seeing James Dugdale again. She had 
 not quite forgiven him, even yet, and, 
 though she was relieved by finding that 
 the first explanations were to be given to 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 85 
 
 him, and not to her father or Mrs. Car- 
 teret, she had made them ungraciously 
 enough, and with just sufficient formal ac- 
 knowledgment of the service which James 
 Dugdale had rendered her, in securing to 
 her the friendship and aid of Hayes Mere- 
 dith, as convinced her sensitive hearer that 
 she would rather have been indebted to 
 the kindness of any other person. 
 
 On certain points he found her reserve 
 invulnerable; and he was not slow to sus- 
 pect that she had made up her mind ex- 
 actly as to how much of her past life she 
 would reveal, and how much should re- 
 main concealed; and he did not doubt her 
 power of adhering to such a resolution. 
 She had briefly alluded to her widowhood, 
 acknowledged the kindness she had experi- 
 enced from Hayes Meredith, said a little 
 about the poverty in which he had found 
 her, and had then left the subject of her- 
 
86 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 self and all concerning her, as if it wearied 
 her, and mth a decision of manner which 
 prevented James Dugdale from questioning 
 her further. 
 
 Her questions regarding her father, her 
 brother, and all that had occurred at Chay- 
 leigh during her absence, were numerous 
 and minute, and James answered them 
 without reserve or hesitation. They chiefly 
 related to facts. Margaret dealt but shghtly 
 in sentiment; but when she asked James 
 if her father spoke of her sometimes, there 
 was a little change in the tone of her voice, 
 a slight accession of paleness which she 
 could not disguise. 
 
 'At first, very seldom; in fact, hardly 
 ever, Margaret, for I see you wish the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth; 
 but more frequently of late. Only the day 
 before he and Mrs. Carteret went to Bath, 
 he — you remember his way — was showing 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 87 
 
 me a peculiarly repulsive specimen of some 
 singularly hideous insect, and he said, " How 
 pleased Margery would have been with 
 thaty Quite a hallucination, if I remem- 
 ber rightly, but still pleasant to hear him 
 say it, and showed me that he was think- 
 ing of you. You see this as I do ? 
 
 ' yes,' she answered, with a smile that 
 was a little hard and bitter, ' very plea- 
 sant; indeed, the pleasantest possible asso- 
 ciation of ideas according to papa. And — 
 and Mrs. Carteret? 
 
 James Dugdale hesitated for a little, 
 and then he said, 
 
 'You remember what Sibylla is, Mar- 
 garet, and you know she never cared much 
 for you, or Haldane — ' 
 
 ' Particularly for m^,' she interrupted, 
 in a tone whose assumed lightness did not 
 impose on James. ' Well, she need not fear 
 any intrusion or importunity from me. I 
 
88 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 have come here because I must — I must 
 see my father once more, before I have 
 for ever done with the old Hfe and begun 
 with the new.' 
 
 ' Are you going away again, Margaret ?' 
 said James, astonished. ' Going away, after 
 having come home through such suffering 
 and difficulty ! Why is this ? 
 
 And then it was that Margaret asked 
 him if he were really serious in supposing 
 she had any other intention. 
 
 The truth was, she had very vague 
 notions of what she should do with her- 
 self. The pride and self-will of her nature, 
 which the suffering she had undergone in 
 Australia had somewhat tamed, had had 
 time for their reawakening during the long 
 voyage ; and it was not in the most amiable 
 of moods that Margaret reached her former 
 home. 
 
 'Whatever my fault may have been, I 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 89 
 
 have fully expiated it; and I must have 
 peace now, and forgetfulness, if it is to be 
 had/ was the form her thoughts took. 
 
 She had not been recognised at the 
 villao;e inn, where she had left Rose Moore 
 and her scanty luggage, and the servant 
 who had opened the door of her father's 
 house to her was a stranger. He might 
 fairly have hesitated to admit a lady whom 
 he did not know; but Margaret's manner 
 of announcing herself permitted no hesi- 
 tation within his courage. His master and 
 mistress were not at home, the man said, 
 but she could see Mr. Dugdale when he 
 came in. So she walked into the drawing- 
 room, and James was sought for, but not 
 found. 
 
 What agony of spirit the young widow 
 underwent, when she found herself once 
 more in the scene of the vanished past, 
 none but she ever knew. The worst of it 
 
90 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 had passed away when James saw her lean- 
 ing out of the window, a picture framed in 
 the branches of the passion-flower. 
 
 The hours of the evening went rapidly 
 by, though the talk of the strangely - as- 
 sorted companions was constrained and 
 bald. Margaret was resolute in her re- 
 fusal to remain at Chayleigh. James Dug- 
 dale, she argued, might believe that her 
 father would gladly receive her; but he 
 could not know that he would, and she 
 would await that welcome before she made 
 her old home even a temporary abode. A 
 few sentences sufficed to show James that 
 this determination was not to be overcome. 
 
 'At least you are not alone,' he said; 
 and then she explained to him that Hayes 
 Meredith had engaged an Irish girl, named 
 Rose Moore, to act as her maid during the 
 voyage, and that the girl, having become 
 attached to her, was willing to defer her 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 91 
 
 departure to Ireland for a few days, until 
 she, Margaret, had made some definite ar- 
 rangement about her own future. 
 
 'I got used to Irish people at Mel- 
 bourne,' said Margaret, 'and I like them. 
 I have half a mind to go to Ireland with 
 Eose. I suppose people's children want 
 governesses there, and people themselves 
 want companions as well as here; and I 
 fancy they are kind and cordial there.' 
 
 ' You must be very much altered, Mar- 
 garet,' returned James gravely, 'if you are 
 fit to be either a governess or a dame de 
 compagyiie. I don't think you had much 
 in you to fit you for either function.' 
 
 ' I am very much altered,' she said ; 
 ' and what I am fit for, or not fit for, nei- 
 ther you nor any one can tell. There is 
 only one thing which would come to me 
 that would surprise or disconcert me now.^ 
 
 She rose as she spoke, and drew her 
 
92 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 heavy black cloak, which she had only 
 loosened, not laid aside, closely around 
 her. 
 
 ' And that is — ' said James. 
 
 'Finding myself happy again, or bemg 
 deceived into thinking myself so,' she said 
 quickly and bitterly. 
 
 This was the first thoroughly unre- 
 strained sentence she had spoken in all 
 their conversation, the first clear glimpse 
 she had given James Dugdale into the 
 depths of her heart and experience. 
 
 They went out of the house together, 
 and she walked by his side — he did not 
 offer his arm — to the village. The night 
 was bright and beautiful, and some of its 
 calm came to the heart of Margaret, and 
 reflected itself in her pale steadfast face. 
 The road which they took wound past the 
 well-kept fences and ornamental palings of 
 a handsome place, much larger than Chay- 
 
HALF-CONEIDENCES. 93 
 
 leigh, which, in Margaret's time, had been 
 in the possession of Sir Eichard Davyn- 
 try, whose good graces, and those of Lady 
 Davyntry, she remembered her stepmother 
 to have been particularly anxious to cul- 
 tivate. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret had not succeeded re- 
 markably well in this design, and her 
 failure was conspicuously due to her treat- 
 ment of Margaret ; for Lady Davyntry was 
 a motherly kind of woman, much younger 
 than Mrs. Carteret, and whose own child- 
 less condition was a deep and unaffectedly- 
 avowed grief to her. 
 
 As Margaret and her companion passed 
 the gates of Davyntry, she remembered 
 these 'childish things,' as they seemed to 
 her now, and she paused to look at the 
 stately trees, and the fine old Elizabethan 
 house, on .whose gilded vane the moon- 
 light was shining coldly. 
 
94 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 She asked if Sir Kichard and Lady 
 Davyntry were staying there just now, 
 adding, ' As I remember them, they were 
 not people who, having a coimtry house 
 and place combining everything any one 
 can possibly wish for, make a point of leav- 
 ing it just when all is most beautiful.' 
 
 ' No,' said James Dugdale, ' they cer- 
 tainly are not; and Sir Richard stuck to 
 it, poor fellow, as long as he could; but 
 he died nearly a year ago, and not at Da- 
 vyntry either — at his brother-in-law's place 
 in Scotland.' 
 
 ' Indeed !' said Margaret. ' I am sorry 
 for Sir Richard, and more sorry still for 
 Lady Davyntry; she" is a widow indeed, I 
 am sure. Perhaps she wants a lady com- 
 panion. I might offer myself: how pleased 
 Mrs. Carteret would be !' 
 
 ' Margaret !' said James Dugdale reprov- 
 ingly. 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 95 
 
 He spoke in the tone which had been 
 familiar to him in the days when he had 
 been ' the tutor' and Margaret his puj)il ; 
 and she laughed for a moment with some- 
 thing of the same saucy laugh with which 
 she had been used to meet a remonstrance 
 from him in those old days. James Dug- 
 dale's heart beat rapidly at the sound; for 
 the first time, her coming, her presence 
 seemed real to him. 
 
 'Well, well, I won't be spiteful,' said 
 Margaret. ' Is Lady Davyntry here ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; she has been more than a month 
 at Davyntry. Her brother is with her, and 
 a remarkably nice fellow he is. I see a 
 o'ood deal of him.' 
 
 o 
 
 ' I don't remember him. I don't think 
 I ever saw him,' said Margaret absently. 
 ' What is his name ?' 
 
 James Dugdale did not note the ques- 
 
96 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 tion, but replied to the first part of the 
 sentence. 
 
 *I don't think you can have seen him. 
 He was abroad for some years after his 
 sister's marriage ; indeed, he never was here 
 in Sir Eichard's lifetime — never saw him, 
 I believe, until he and Lady Davyntry went 
 to Scotland, on a visit, and he died there.' 
 
 ' Is he here now ?' Margaret asked in 
 an indifferent manner. 
 
 'Yes,' returned James ; 'I told you so. 
 He comes to Chayleigh a good deal. He 
 is nearly as fond of natural history as your 
 father, and nearly as fond of drawing as 
 I am ; so we are a mutual resource — Chay- 
 leigh and Davyntry I mean.' 
 
 ' And his name ? again asked Margaret 
 quietly. 
 
 'Did I not tell you? Don't you re- 
 member it ? Surely you must have heard 
 
IIALF-COXFIDENCES. 97 
 
 the name; it is not a common one — Fitz- 
 william Meriton Baldwin.' 
 
 ' Xo, it is not common, and rather nice. 
 I never heard it before, that 1 remember. 
 We have arrived, I see ; and there is Rose 
 Moore looking out for me, like an im- 
 pulsive Irish girl as she is, instead of pre- 
 serving the decorous indifference of the 
 truly British domestic. You mil let me 
 know when my father arrives. JN'o, I shall 
 not go to Chayleigh again until his return. 
 Good-night, Mr. Dugdale.' 
 
 She had disappeared, followed by her 
 attendant, whose frank handsome face had 
 candidly expressed an amount of disappro- 
 bation of James Dugdale's personal appear- 
 ance to which he was, fortunately, perfectly 
 accustomed and philosophically indifferent. 
 Fate had done its worst for him in that 
 respect long before; and he had turned 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 away from the inn- door, and was walking 
 rapidly down tlie road again, when a cheery 
 voice addressed him : 
 
 ' Hallo, Dugdale ! Where are you going 
 at this time of night? and what are you 
 thinking of? I shouted at you in vain, 
 and thought I should never catch you. Are 
 you going home ? Yes ? — then we shall be 
 together as far as Davyntry.' 
 
 The speaker was a young man, per- 
 haps six-and-twenty years old, a little over 
 middle height, and, though not remarkably 
 handsome, he presented as strong a con- 
 trast in personal appearance to James Dug- 
 dale as could be desired. He had a fair 
 complexion, bright -blue eyes, with an ex- 
 pression of candour and happiness in them 
 as rare as it was attractive, light -brown 
 hair, and a lithe alert figure, full of grace 
 and activity. In the few words which he 
 had spoken there was something winning 
 
HALF-CONFIDENCES. 99 
 
 and open, a tone of entire sincerity and 
 gladness almost boyish ; and it had its 
 charm for the older and careworn man, 
 who answered cheerily, as he linked his 
 arm with his own : 
 
 ' It is always pleasant to meet you, 
 Baldwin; but to-night it's a perfect god- 
 send.' 
 
CHAPTER YIL 
 
 THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 
 
 The communication which James Dugdale 
 made to Mr. Carteret on his arrival at Chay- 
 leigh was received by that gentleman not 
 altogether without agitation, but with more 
 pleasure than the ex-tutor had expected. 
 
 Mr. Carteret had missed his daughter, 
 in his quiet way, and had occasionally ex- 
 perienced something which approached re- 
 morse during her absence, when he pon- 
 dered on the probabilities of her fate, and 
 found himself forced to remember how dif- 
 ferent it might have been had he 'looked 
 after' the motherless girl a little more 
 closely, had he extended some more sym- 
 
THE OLD FA^IILIAR FACES. 101 
 
 pathy to her and exerted himself to under- 
 stand her, instead of confining his fatherly 
 fondness to occasional petting and careful 
 avoidance of being bored by her. 
 
 Mr. Carteret was easily reconciled to 
 most things, but he had never succeeded 
 in reconciling himself thoroughly to Mar- 
 garet's marriage and her exile, and he 
 heard of her return mth equal pleasure 
 and relief. These feelings expanded into 
 positive joy when he learned the dehghtful 
 fact of Godfrey Hungerford's death. 
 
 In the first vague apprehension of James 
 Dugdale's news, he had imagined that Mar- 
 garet had left her husband and come home, 
 and even that he hailed with satisfaction. 
 But to know that his son-in-law was safely 
 dead was an element of unmitigated good 
 fortune in the matter. And so strongly 
 and unaffectedly did Mr. Carteret feel this, 
 that he departed from his usual mild 
 
102 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 method of speech on the occasion, and 
 delivered himself of some very strong lan- 
 guage indeed. 
 
 'The infernal scoundrel!' he said; 'he 
 made her miserable, I've no doubt. She'll 
 never tell us anything about it, James, if 
 I am not much mistaken in her, or she is 
 not very much changed; and so much the 
 better. I don't want to hear anything 
 about him; I should like to think I should 
 never hear his name mentioned again as 
 long as I live!' 
 
 'Most likely you never will hear it 
 mentioned, sir,' said James. ' If you like, 
 I'll tell Margaret you would rather she did 
 not talk about him.' 
 
 ' Do, do,' said Mr. Carteret eagerly. He 
 hated explanations, and would never en- 
 counter anything he disliked if he could at 
 all decently avoid doing so. ' The only 
 good or pleasant thing that could be heard 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 103 
 
 in connection with the fellow, I heard when 
 you told me he was under the sod, and 
 there is no use in hearing bad and un- 
 pleasant things. Of course, the child knows 
 she is welcome home; and the very best 
 thing she can do is to forget the scoundrel 
 ever existed.' 
 
 The ignorance of human nature, and the 
 oblivion of his wife's peculiarities, which 
 this speech betrayed, were equally charac- 
 teristic of Mr. Carteret ; but James Dug- 
 dale could not smile at them when Mar- 
 garet was concerned. 
 
 He determined to say nothing to the 
 young widow's father about her expressed 
 resolution of leaving Chayleigh again, but 
 to abandon that issue to circumstances and 
 the success of the mode of argument he 
 intended to pursue with Mrs. Carteret. He 
 would go and fetch Margaret home pre- 
 sently, when he had spoken to his cousin. 
 
104 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 He thought it better her father should not 
 accompany him, and Mr. Carteret, who had 
 some very choice beetles to unpack and 
 prepare, thought so too. 
 
 He delightedly anticipated Margaret's 
 pleasure in exploring the extended trea- 
 sures of his collection, and was altogether 
 in such an elated state of mind that he 
 had consigned the whole of Margaret's 
 married life as completely to oblivion as 
 he had forgotten the partner of that great 
 disaster, by the time James Dugdale passed 
 before the windows of his study on his way 
 to fulfil his mission of peace and reconcilia- 
 tion. 
 
 It never occurred to him to think about 
 how his wife was likely to take the news 
 of Margaret's return. Mrs. Carteret had 
 not given him any trouble herself, or per- 
 mitted other people to give him any trouble, 
 since Margaret and Haldane had gone their 
 
THE OLD EAMILIAR FACES. 105 
 
 own way in life, and he was not afraid of 
 her departing now from that excellent rule 
 of conduct. 
 
 ' Margaret is not a child now, and they 
 are sure to get on together,' said the mild 
 and inexperienced elderly gentleman, as he 
 daintily handled some insect remains as 
 reverently as if they had been mummies of 
 the Rameses ; ' each can have her own way.' 
 He had forgotten Margaret's 'own way,' 
 and he knew very little about Mrs. Car- 
 teret's. 
 
 It was rather odd that his wife did not 
 come to talk about the news that James 
 Dugdale had communicated to her. He 
 wondered at that a little. He would go 
 and find her, and they should talk it over 
 together, presently, when he had put this 
 splendid scarabaeus all right — a great crea- 
 ture ! — how fortunate he had secured it, just 
 as old Fooster was on the scent of it too ! 
 
106 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 And so Mr. Carteret went on, and the 
 minutes went on, and he had not yet com- 
 pleted his arrangements for the adequate 
 display of the scarab^us, when two figures, 
 one in heavy black robes, passed quickly 
 between him and the light. A window- 
 sash was thrown up from the outside, and 
 Margaret Hungerford's arms were round 
 her father's neck. 
 
 Under the roof of Chayleigh, on that 
 bright autumn night, there was but one 
 tranquil sleeper. That one was Mr. Car- 
 teret. He was thoroughly happy. Mar- 
 garet had come home, Godfrey Hungerford 
 was dead, and she had never mentioned his 
 name. 
 
 He felt some tepid gratitude towards 
 Hayes Meredith: of course he should at 
 once repay him the sums advanced to Mar- 
 garet, and it would be a good opportunity 
 of extending his correspondence and his 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 107 
 
 scientific investigations — the Australian 
 fauna had much to disclose. 
 
 He had experienced a slight shock at 
 observing the change in Margaret's appear- 
 ance ; but that had passed away, and 
 when Mr. Carteret fell asleep that night he 
 acknowledged that everything was for the 
 best in the long-run. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret had behaved very well. 
 She had met Margaret kindly, ^vith as 
 much composure as if she had been away 
 from home on a week's visit ; had inquired 
 whether ' her maid' would remain at Chay- 
 leigh; had added that ^her things' should 
 be placed in her 'former' room; and had 
 evinced no further consciousness of the 
 tremendous change which had befallen her 
 stepdaughter than was implied in the re- 
 mark that ' widow's caps were not made so 
 heavy now,' and that Margaret's 'crape 
 skirt needed renewal.' 
 
108 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 The evening had passed away quietly. 
 To two of the four individuals who com- 
 posed the little party it had seemed like 
 a dream from which they expected soon to 
 awaken. Those two were Margaret Hun- 
 gerford and James Dugdale. 
 
 One slight interruption had occurred. 
 A note had been handed to Mrs. Carteret 
 from Lady Davyntry. She had heard of 
 the return of her former ' pet' to Chayleigh 
 — the expression was as characteristic of 
 Lady Davyntry as it was unsuitably ap- 
 plied to Margaret, who was an unpromising 
 subject for ' petting' — and hoped to see her 
 soon. Mr. Meriton Baldwin would forego 
 the pleasure of calling at Chayleigh that 
 evening, as he could not think of intruding 
 so soon after the arrival of Mrs. Hunger- 
 ford. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret threw down the letter 
 with rather an ill-tempered jerk, and her 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 109 
 
 face bore an expression which Margaret 
 remembered with painful distinctness, as 
 she said, 
 
 ' Yery absurd, I think. I don't suppose 
 that Margaret would object to our seeing 
 our friends because she is here.' 
 
 The speech was not framed as a ques- 
 tion; but Margaret answered it, lifting up 
 her head and her fair throat as she spoke, 
 after a fashion which one observer, at least, 
 thought infinitely beautiful. 
 
 ' Certainly not, Mrs. Carteret. Pray do 
 not allow me to interfere with any of your 
 usual proceedings.' 
 
 And then she went on talking to her 
 father about the habits of the kangaroo. 
 
 The thoughts which held Mrs. Carter- 
 et's eyes waking that night were anything 
 but agreeable. She did not exactly know 
 how she stood with regard to her step- 
 daughter. If she determined on makino- 
 
110 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the house too unpleasant for her to bear 
 it, she might find herself in collision with 
 her husband and her cousin at once, unless 
 she could contrive that the unpleasantness 
 should be of a kind which Margaret's pride 
 — which she detected to be little, if at all, 
 subdued by the experiences of her married 
 life — would induce her to hide from the 
 observation of both. 
 
 Margaret should not live at Chayleigh 
 if Mrs. Carteret could prevent it ; but what- 
 ever means she used to carry her purpose 
 into effect must be such as James Dugdale 
 could not discover or thwart. The thing 
 would be difficult to do ; but Mrs. Carteret 
 had well-grounded confidence in her own 
 power of carrying a point, and this was 
 one which must be held over for the pre- 
 sent. It was agreeable to be able to decide 
 that, at aU events, Margaret was no beauty, 
 that she was decidedly much less handsome 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. Ill 
 
 than she had been as what Mrs. Carteret 
 called ' a raw girl.' 
 
 And this was true, to the perception of 
 a superficial observer. Margaret looked 
 very far from handsome as she sat in a 
 corner of the bow- window of the drawing- 
 room, her small thin hands folded and 
 motionless, her head, with its hideous co- 
 vering, bent down ; her pale face, sharpened 
 by the angle at which the light struck it, 
 and her whole figure, in its deep black 
 dress, unrelieved by the slightest ornament 
 or grace of form, pervaded by an expres- 
 sion of weariness and defeat. She might 
 have been a woman of thirty years old, and 
 who had never been handsome, to the per- 
 ception of any stranger who had then and 
 thus seen her. 
 
 But, three hours later in the night, 
 when Margaret Hungerford was alone in 
 the room which had been the scene of her 
 
112 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 girlish dreams and hopes, of the fond and 
 beautiful delusion so terribly dissipated — in 
 the room where her dead mother had 
 watched her in her sleep, where she had 
 read and yielded to the lover's prayer 
 which lured her from her home — when she 
 was quite alone, and was permitting the 
 waves of memory to rush over her soul ; 
 — no one would have said, who could then 
 have seen her, that Margaret was not 
 handsome. Her face was one capable of 
 intensity of expression in every mood of 
 feehng, and as mobile as it was powerful. 
 The wakeful hours of that night passed 
 over her while another crisis in her life 
 was lived through — another crisis some- 
 what resembling, and yet differing from, 
 that which had marked the first hours of 
 her voyage. 
 
 She had sent Rose Moore away as soon 
 as she could, but not before the girl had 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 113 
 
 imparted to her her conviction that Eng- 
 lish people, always excepting Margaret, 
 were 'quare.' She could not understand 
 the tranquillity of the widowed daughter's 
 reception at Chayleigh. The reception 
 awaiting her in the 'ould country' would 
 be of a very different kind, 'plase God,' 
 she added internally; and the extent and 
 importance of the business of eating and 
 drinking among the servants had gone 
 nigh to exasperate her. 
 
 Kose was devoted to Margaret, but she 
 thought the sooner she and her mistress 
 turned their back on a place where ser- 
 vants sat down to four regular meals a 
 day, and did not as much as know the 
 meaning of the ' Mass,' the better. 
 
 ' She'll never do for these people,' the 
 girl thought, as she waited for Margaret in 
 her room ; ' she's restless with sorrow, and 
 it's not a nice nate place, like this, with 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 A KIGHTED WKONG. 
 
 the back parlour full of spiders laid out in 
 state, as if they were wakin' them, and little 
 boxes full of bones — nor yet the drawin'- 
 room, all done out with bades, and a mo- 
 ther, by way of, sittin' in it that 'ud think 
 more of one of her tay-cups bein' chipped 
 than of the young crayture's heart bein' 
 broken — that '11 ever bring comfort or con- 
 solation to the likes of her.' 
 
 The thoughts which had put them- 
 selves into such simple words in the Irish 
 girl's mind had considerable affinity with 
 Margaret's own, but in her they took more 
 tumultuous form. The strong purpose, half 
 remorse, half vain - longing, which had 
 brought her home, was fulfilled. She had 
 seen the place she had left, and thoroughly 
 reahsed that her former self had been left 
 with it. 
 
 The few hours which had passed had 
 made her comprehend that her life, her 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 115 
 
 nature, were things apart from Chayleigh ; 
 she could not, if she would, take up the 
 story of her girlhood where she had closed 
 the book. Between her and every former 
 association, the dark and miserable years 
 of her married life — unreal as they seemed 
 now — almost as unreal as the illusion un- 
 der which she had entered upon them — had 
 placed an impassable gulf. 
 
 Wrapped in a dressing-gown, and with 
 her dark hair loose upon her shoulders, 
 Margaret paced her room from end to 
 end, and strove with her thoughts. She 
 was a puzzle to herself. What discord 
 there was between her — a woman who had 
 suffered such things, seen such sights, heard 
 such words as she had seen, and heard, and 
 suffered — and the calm, well - regulated, 
 comfortable household here! If she had 
 ever contemplated remaining an inmate of 
 her father's house, this one night's com- 
 
116 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 mune with herself would have forced her 
 to recognise the impossibility of her doing 
 so. The stain and stamp of her wander- 
 ings were upon her ; she could not find 
 rest here, or yet. 
 
 Her father's dreamy ways ; the selfish- 
 ness, heartlessness, empty - headedness of 
 Mrs. Carteret ; the distaste she felt for 
 James Dugdale's presence, though she 
 persuaded herself she was striving to be 
 grateful ; — all these things, separately and 
 collectively, she felt, but they did not pre- 
 sent themselves to her as the true sources 
 of her present uncontrollable feelings : she 
 knew how utterly she was changed now 
 only when she knew — for it was know- 
 ledge, not apprehension — that the home to 
 which she had found her way of access so 
 much easier than she had thought for, could 
 never be a resting-place for her. 
 
 Was there any resting-place anywhere? 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 117 
 
 Had she still to learn that lifers lessons are 
 not exhausted by one or two great shocks 
 of experience, but are daily tasks until the 
 day, 'never so weary or long,' has been 
 ' rung to evensong' ? She was a puzzle 
 to herself in another respect. 'No grief 
 for the dead husband, the lover for whom 
 she had left the home which could not be 
 restored, had come back to her. No gentle 
 tender chord had been touched in her heart, 
 to give forth his name in mournful music. 
 
 In this, the truth, the intellectual 
 strength of her nature, unknown to her, 
 revealed themselves. No sentimentality 
 veiled the truth from Margaret. She had 
 said to herself that it was well for her 
 her husband was dead, no matter what 
 should come after, and she never unsaid 
 it, — not even in the hours of emotional 
 recollection and mental strife w^hich formed 
 her first night under her father's roof 
 
118 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 Standing by the window at which 
 James Dugdale had first caught sight of 
 her the day before, Margaret clasped her 
 hands over her head and looked out 
 drearily. The moon was high, the light 
 was cold and ghastly. She thought how 
 she had seen the same chill gleam upon 
 the shimmering sea, and upon the grassy 
 wastes of the distant land she had left; 
 and the fancy came to her that it was to 
 be always moonlight with her for ever- 
 more. 
 
 ' No more sunshine ; no more of the 
 glow, and the glitter, and the warmth — 
 that is done with for me. There's no such 
 thing as happiness, and I must only try to 
 find, instead, hard work.' 
 
 There was another wakeful head at 
 Chayleigh that night. James Dugdale was 
 but too well accustomed to sleepless nights, 
 companioned by the searching, mysterious 
 
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. 119 
 
 pain which so often attends ujDon deformity 
 — pain, as if unseen fingers questioned the 
 distorted limbs and lingered among the dis- 
 turbed nerves ; but it was not that which 
 kept him waking now. 
 
 It was that he, too, was face to face 
 with his fate, questioning it of its past 
 deeds and its intentions for the future — a 
 little bitterly questioning it, perhaps, and 
 yet with more resignation than rancour 
 after all, considering what the mind of the 
 man was, and what a prison-house it ten- 
 anted. Among the innumerable crowd of 
 thoughts which pursued and pressed upon 
 each other, there was one all the more 
 distinct that he felt and strove against its 
 unworthiness. 
 
 'I am so thankful she is at home — so 
 glad for her sake. Nothing could be so 
 well for her, since the past is irrevocable; 
 but nothing could be so bad, at least no- 
 
120 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 thing could be worse for me. No, nothing, 
 nothing.' 
 
 And James Dugdale, happily blind to 
 the further resources of his destiny, felt 
 something like a dreary sense of peace 
 arising within him as he assured himself 
 over and over again of the finality to which 
 it had attained. 
 
CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 MKS. CARTEKET IS CONGRATULATED. 
 
 'I AM positively dying to see her — I am 
 indeed; you have no notion what a dar- 
 ling she is. I am sure you would be 
 delighted with her, Fitzwilliam!' 
 
 These gushing sentiments were uttered 
 by Lady Davyntry, and addressed to her 
 brother, Mr. Fitzwilliam Meriton Baldwin, 
 while they were at breakfast together, on 
 the morning after Lady Davyntry's note 
 had been received at Chayleigh. 
 
 Lady Davyntry was given to gushing. 
 She was a harmless, emotional kind of 
 woman, who had led a perfectly discreet 
 
122 A RIGHTED WEOXG. 
 
 and comfortable life, and had never known 
 a sorrow until the death of her husband. 
 
 Lady Davyntry was a very pretty 
 woman — as pretty at her present age, 
 thirty-five, as she had been at any time 
 since she had turned the corner of ex- 
 treme youth. Her mild, lambent blue 
 eyes were as bright as they had ever been, 
 and her fair, rather thick skin had lost 
 neither its purity nor its polish. 
 
 She had been rich, well cared for, and 
 happy all her life; she had never had any 
 occasion to exert herself ; the ' sorrows 
 of others ' had cast but light and fleeting 
 ' shadows over ' her ; and her sentiment- 
 alism, and the romance which had not 
 been much developed in the course of 
 her prosperous uneventful life, were quite 
 ready for any demands that might be made 
 upon them by an event of so much local 
 interest as the return of Mr. Carteret's 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 123 
 
 daughter, whose marriage was generally 
 understood to have been very unfortu- 
 nate. 
 
 She was interested in the occurrence 
 for more than the sufficient reason that 
 she had liked and pitied Margaret in her 
 neglected girlhood. Perhaps the strongest 
 sentiment of dislike which had ever been 
 called forth in the amiable nature of Lady 
 Davyntry had been excited by, and to- 
 wards, Mrs. Carteret. 
 
 The two women were entirely anta- 
 gonistic to each other; and Lady Davyn- 
 try felt a thrill of gratification on hearing 
 of Margaret's return, in which a convic- 
 tion that that event had taken place with- 
 out Mrs. Carteret's sanction, and would not 
 be to her taste, had a decided share. 
 
 She had favoured her brother — to whom 
 she was very much attached, and who was 
 so much younger than she that he did not 
 
124 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 inspire her with any of the salutary reserve 
 which induces sisters to disguise their fa- 
 vourite weaknesses from brothers — with a 
 full and free statement of her feelings on 
 this point, and he had not strongly com- 
 bated her antipathy to Mrs. Carteret. The 
 truth was, he shared it. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin had risen from the break- 
 fast-table, and was standing, newspaper in 
 hand, by a large window which commanded 
 an extensive view, including the precise 
 angle of the little demesne of Chayleigh 
 in which the rear of the house and' the 
 window of Margaret's room, with its frame 
 of passion-flowers, could be seen — not dis- 
 tinctly, but clearly enough to induce the 
 eyes of any one gazing forth upon the 
 scene to rest upon it mechanically. 
 
 His sister rose also, as she repeated her 
 assurance that Margaret was a 'darling,' 
 and joined him. 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 125 
 
 'Look,' she said; 'you have sharp eyes, 
 I know. There is some one leaning out of 
 the centre window. I see a figure, don't 
 you?' 
 
 'Yes,' said Mr. Baldwin; 'I see a figure, 
 all in black, — there's a flutter of something 
 white. Who is it?' 
 
 'I'm sure it's Margaret,' said Lady 
 Davyntry, ' and the white thing must be 
 the strings of her widow's cap, poor child. 
 How horrid it Avill be to see her sweet, 
 pretty little face in it ! Ah, dear ! to think 
 that- she and I should meet under such 
 similar circumstances !' and Lady Davyntry 
 sighed, and a tear made its appearance in 
 each of her calm blue eyes. 
 
 'Similar circumstances!' repeated her 
 brother, in some surprise. 'Ah, yes! you 
 are both widows, to be sure ; but the simi- 
 larity stops there; if what Dugdale said, 
 or rather implied, be true, — as of course 
 
126 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 it is, — you and Mrs. Hungerford wear your 
 rue with a difference.' 
 
 'We do, indeed,' said Lady Davyntry. 
 ' Give me that field -glass, Fitz. I must 
 make out whether that really is Margaret.' 
 And then she added, as she adjusted the 
 glass to her sight, ' And I pity her for that 
 too. I cannot fancy any lot more pitiable 
 than being forbidden by one's reason to 
 feel grief. Yes,' she went on, after a 
 minute,' it is Margaret. I can see her 
 figure quite plainly now. Look, look, Fitz !' 
 and she held out the glass to him. But 
 Mr. Baldwin did not take it from her hand ; 
 he smiled, and said: 
 
 ' No, no, Nelly, I could not take the 
 liberty of peeping surreptitiously at Mrs. 
 Hungerford. You forget you are renewing 
 your acquaintance with her; mine has to 
 be made.' 
 
 ' That's just like your punctilio,' said 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 127 
 
 his sister. 'I declare I feel the strongest 
 impulse to nod to her, this glass brings 
 her so near; and you are a goose for your 
 pains. However, when you do see her, I 
 prophesy you will agree with me that she 
 is a darling, a delightful girl.' / 
 
 ' Well, but,' said Mr. Baldwin, who was 
 amused by his sister's enthusiasm, ' you for- 
 get how long it is since you have seen this 
 paragon, and that she is not a girl at all, 
 but an unhappy and ill-treated wife, who 
 has lately had the good fortune to become 
 a widow.' 
 
 ' That's true,' said Lady Davyntry ; 
 ' but I'll not believe that any change could 
 interfere with Margaret's being a darling. 
 At all events, I am going to see for my- 
 self this very day.' 
 
 ' So soon ?' asked Mr. Baldmn, in a 
 surprised tone. 
 
 'So soon! why not? You don't sup- 
 
128 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 pose Margaret has any tender confidences 
 with Mrs. Carteret which must not be 
 broken in upon, and, as for her father, 
 I am sure he is as much accustomed to 
 her being there, since yesterday, as if she 
 were one of those horrid specimens en per- 
 manence.' 
 
 Mr. Baldwin laughed. 'I don't suppose 
 the meeting has been very demonstrative,' 
 he said, 'considering the parties to it whom 
 I do know, and Dugdale's account of the 
 party whom I do not According to the 
 little he said, Mrs. Hungerford's firmness 
 and reserve are wonderful — more wonder- 
 ful than pleasing, / should consider them.' 
 
 'Never mind Mr. Dugdale, Fitz,' re- 
 plied his sister. ' He never liked Margaret 
 either I believe: I know she quarrelled 
 with him at the time of her love-afi'air. It 
 is very likely he does not like her coming- 
 home ; she may make things unpleasant for 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 129 
 
 him now, you know, which she could not 
 when quite a girl. Don't you imnd Jmn, 
 Take my word for it, the young widow 
 is a darling.' 
 
 ' Take care, Nelly ; that is rather a dan- 
 gerous thing to insist upon so strongly, 
 except that you know I have a prejudice 
 against widows — always excepting yoii,' he 
 added, as she raised a warning finger. 
 
 'Nonsense,' said Lady Davyntry; and 
 then she left the room, and her brother 
 resumed his newspaper; but, as he folded 
 it and prepared to read the leading articles 
 leisurely, he thought, ' I wonder if she is 
 really nice. Certainly Dugdale did not 
 convey to me any impression that he did 
 not like her, or that her coming was con- 
 trary to his convenience, — rather the op- 
 posite, I think. This must be a fancy of 
 Nelly's.' 
 
 'Am I right? Did I say too much of 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 A KIGHTED AVRONG. 
 
 Margaret, you incredulous Fitz ? asked 
 Lady Davyntry of her brother, when the 
 gates of Chayleigh had closed upon them 
 at the termination of an unusually protrac- 
 ted visit, during which Mrs. Carteret had 
 endured the mortification of seeing Lady 
 Davyntry in a character of affectionate 
 neighbourliness, which had never been 
 evoked by all her own strenuous and un- 
 relaxed efforts. 
 
 ' Did you ever see a nicer creature ? 
 persisted the impulsive Nelly, 'and though 
 of course she's changed, I assure you I 
 never thouo^ht her so handsome when she 
 was quite a girl; and her quiet manner — 
 so dignified and ladylike — not cold though : 
 you didn't think it cold, did you, Fitz ?' 
 
 'Not cold to you^ certainly,' replied 
 Mr. Baldwin, who was glad to escape, by 
 answering this one, from the more direct 
 question his sister had put to him at first. 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 131 
 
 .'No, no,' she went on; 'quite cordial; 
 and I told her how I looked at her with the 
 glass this morning, and how you were quite 
 too proper and precise to follow my exam- 
 ple ; and she blushed quite red for a mo- 
 ment — her pale face looked so pretty — and 
 just glanced at you for an instant : it was 
 when Mr. Carteret was bothering you 
 about the articulations of somethins; — and 
 I'm sure she thought you very nice and 
 gentlemanly, and ' 
 
 ' What / thought of Mrs. Hungerford is 
 more to your present purpose, Xelly,' said 
 her brother, in an embarrassed voice. 'I 
 quite agree with you in thinking her very 
 charming, but she looks as if she had gone 
 throuo-h a erreat deal.' 
 
 ' Yes ; doesn't she, poor dear ?' said 
 Lady Davyntry, who simply did not possess 
 the power to comprehend even the outlines 
 of Margaret's life; 'but now that she is at 
 
132 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 home, it will be all right ; I shall have her 
 with me as much as possible, and she will 
 soon forget all her troubles.' 
 
 Mr. Baldwin did not reply. There was 
 something in Mrs. Hungerford's face which 
 forbade him to believe that Davyntry and 
 its mistress would prove a panacea for what- 
 ever was the source of that expression. It 
 was not grief, as grief is felt for the dead 
 who have been worthily loved and are fitly 
 mourned. 
 
 It was an utter forlornness, combined 
 with suppressed energy. It was the ex- 
 pression of one who had been utterly de- 
 ceived and disappointed, and was now 
 crushed by the sense of bankruptcy and 
 defeat in life. The quiet manner which 
 had been so satisfactory to the shallow per- 
 ceptions of Lady Davyntry did not impress 
 her brother in the same way. 
 
 ' That is a woman,' he thought, ' who 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 133 
 
 has gone perilously near to the confines of 
 despair/ 
 
 When he had seen Lady Davyntry into 
 the house, Mr. Baldwin turned away from 
 the door, and went a long ramble through 
 the fields. His wanderings did not take 
 him out of Chayleigh; and once he stood 
 still, looking towards the window where 
 Margaret's figure had been dimly seen by 
 him. that morning, and thought, 
 
 'What does this woman mean to me? 
 Not a mere passing interest in my life ! 
 What does this woman mean?' 
 
 ' I suppose you don't see much change 
 in Lady Davyntry? Mrs. Carteret said to 
 Margaret, after the visitors had departed. 
 ' She is as nice-looking, in a common way, 
 and as full of herself as usual.' 
 
 ' Lady Davyntry was always very kind 
 to me,' replied Margaret gravel}'. ' In that 
 she is certainly unchanged.* 
 
134 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' yes, she's kind enough, m her empty 
 way,' said Mrs. Carteret ; ' but for my part 
 I don't care about those violent intimacies. 
 I never would be led into them — they are 
 quite in her way. If I would have re- 
 sponded, there would have been perpetual 
 running back and forward between Davyn- 
 try and Chayleigh ; but that sort of thing 
 does not suit me — I consider it vulgar and 
 insincere.' 
 
 Margaret did not exactly know, but 
 she suspected, quite correctly, that her 
 stepmother was endeavouring to disguise 
 a considerable amount of pique under this 
 depreciation of undue intimacy. She there- 
 fore made no reply, and Mrs. Carteret con- 
 tinued : 
 
 ' I daresay she will be taking you up 
 violently, for a while, until she tires of 
 you. The fuss she makes with her bro- 
 ther is quite absurd. He is a nice-look- 
 
MKS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 135 
 
 ing young man, and nothing more. Don't 
 you think so, Margaret?' 
 
 'He is nice-looking, certainly,' said 
 Margaret ; ' but I have seen too little of 
 him to pronounce any further.' 
 
 ' He has the great attraction of being 
 very rich,' said Mrs. Carteret, in a sharp 
 tone ; Margaret's cautious and reasonable 
 reply irritated her. ' If he dies without 
 heirs, his sister will have all the Scotch 
 property ; it is worth fifteen thousand 
 a-year, and entailed on heu's general. It 
 is a wonder some manoeuvring mother has 
 not made a prize of him long ago. He's 
 rather a soft party, I should say.' 
 
 ' Should you ?' said Margaret. ' Mr. 
 Baldwin looks firm as well as gentle, I 
 think — not the sort of man to be married 
 by anybody without his own unqualified 
 consent.' 
 
] 36 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 'Of course he's a great catch/ said 
 Mrs. Carteret, ' and I understand he is 
 terribly afraid of ladies. He thinks every 
 woman who looks at him is in love with 
 himself or his acres.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said Margaret — and there 
 was a tone of polite incredulity in her 
 voice — ' I should not have taken Mr. Bald- 
 mn to be a vulgar-minded man.' 
 
 ' I daresay not,' returned Mrs. Car- 
 teret ; ' he is rather prepossessing than 
 otherwise to strangers ; but then, you know, 
 Margaret, your judgment of men has been 
 rather rash than infallible hitherto. Dear 
 me ! I had no notion it was so late — time 
 to dress for dinner!' 
 
 Mrs. Carteret rose, laid aside her ever- 
 lasting fancy - work, and left the room. 
 Margaret rose also, but lingered for a few 
 moments. As she stood with her hands 
 
MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED. 137 
 
 pressed upon her temples, and her pale face 
 drawn into a look of pain, she thought : 
 
 ' I wonder, if James Dugdale had heard 
 that speech, would he think I could possibly 
 stay here.' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 
 
 A MONTH had elapsed since Margaret Hun- 
 gerford's return to her father's house, and 
 had brought with it certain changes in the 
 situation of things at Chayleigh, which, 
 though they could not have been under- 
 stood by outsiders, were very keenly appre- 
 ciated by the actors in the small domestic 
 drama there. 
 
 It had brought to Margaret more calm 
 and peace. It had not changed her in- 
 tention of leaving Chayleigh, of seeking 
 some independent means of providing for 
 herself; but it had decreased her anxiety 
 to put this intention into immediate, or 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 139 
 
 even into very early, execution. The main 
 element in this alteration was her per- 
 ception of her father's pleasure in her 
 society. 
 
 'It is not much to bear for his sake,' 
 she said to herself, 'to put up with Mrs. 
 Carteret. I have had worse things than 
 that to endure without the power or the 
 prospect of escaping from them either, and 
 I will stay for six months with papa. 
 James Dugdale thinks it the right thing, 
 and, if Mrs. Carteret is convinced that it 
 is to be only for six months, she will see 
 that her best policy, in pursuit of her 
 favourite plan of making things pleasant 
 for papa, in order to have her own way 
 thoroughly in things she really cares about, 
 is by behaving properly to me. I will take 
 care she shall labour under no delusive 
 fears about my having come to take up my 
 abode here; and then I am much out of 
 
140 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 my calculations, and egregiously mistaken 
 in my amiable stepmother, if she does not 
 chano'e her tactics altoo;ether.' 
 
 The result justified Margaret's calcula- 
 tions. She took an early opportunity of 
 informing Mrs. Carteret that she did not 
 contemplate a long stay at Chayleigh. 
 
 The intimation was received by her 
 stepmother with much propriety of man- 
 ner, but without the slightest warmth. 
 She designed to let Margaret perceive that 
 while she (Mrs. Carteret) was too ladylike, 
 too perfectly trained and finished in the 
 polished proprieties of life to fail in the 
 fulfilment of the exact laws of hospitality, 
 it had never occurred to her to consider 
 Margaret in any other light than that of 
 a guest; and that she therefore regarded 
 the communication as merely relating to 
 the duration of her visit. 
 
 Margaret clearly perceived her mean- 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 141 
 
 ing, but she did not resent it, nor did it 
 grieve her. The peace of a settled resolu- 
 tion had come to her. Mrs. Carteret con- 
 descended to express her approbation of 
 Margaret's determination, and her readi- 
 ness to assist her in carrying it into effect. 
 
 ' Nothing is more admirable in young 
 people than an independent spirit,' said the 
 approving lady ; ' and, notwithstanding your 
 unfortunate marriage, Margaret, I consider 
 you as a young person still. You are quite 
 right in considering it unjust that your 
 father should be expected to provide for 
 you twice over — first, in handing over the 
 money you were not really entitled to, to 
 that unpleasant person, Mr. Hungerford, 
 and a second time, by having you to live 
 here.' 
 
 ^ My father is not expected, either by 
 me or by any one that I know of, to do 
 anything of the kind,' interrupted Margaret, 
 
142 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 with a slight quivering of the lips and a 
 transient accession of colour to the pale 
 cheeks. 
 
 ' That is just what I am saying, my 
 dear. I highly commend your very proper 
 view. It would be quite my own. In- 
 deed, I am sure, were I in your position, 
 I could not endure dependence, even if my 
 father were a much richer man than yours 
 is. I cannot understand any one not doing 
 anything to secure independence.' 
 
 Margaret smiled, rather a hard kind of 
 smile, as she thought there was one thing 
 she certainly would not do to attain inde- 
 pendence, and that one thing was precisely 
 what Miss Martley had done in becoming 
 Mrs. Carteret. 
 
 The elder lady continued to talk for 
 some time longer in the same strain, and 
 at length she asked Margaret how she in- 
 tended to procure occupation. 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 143 
 
 ' I have not thought about that part of 
 it yet,' she replied. 
 
 Then Mrs. Carteret allowed the truth 
 to slip out ; then she betrayed her real con- 
 sciousness of the meanness she was perpe- 
 trating. She shifted her eyes uneasily away 
 from Margaret's face, as she said, 
 
 ' I should not mention the matter to 
 any one about here if I were you, Margaret. 
 People talk so oddly, and your father might 
 not like it. I always think, when anything 
 of the kind is to be done, it had better be 
 away from home, and among a different 
 connection.' 
 
 ]\Iargaret answered her with hardly- 
 disguised contempt : 
 
 ' Your warning comes rather late. I 
 have already told Lady Davyntry of my 
 intention, which she approves as much as 
 you do. She has been good enough to 
 promise me her friendship and interest in 
 
144 . A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 settling matters to my satisfaction. As for 
 papa, he will not mind how I do it, when I 
 can succeed in reconciling him to my doing 
 it at all.' 
 
 Mrs. Carteret felt strongly tempted to 
 get into a violent rage, and relieve her 
 vexation, which was intense, by saying any- 
 thing and everything which anger might 
 suggest to her, to Margaret. 
 
 That Lady Davyntry, who had taken 
 no notice of the advances she had made 
 towards an intimacy which would have been 
 a social triumph to Mrs. Carteret — Lady 
 Davyntry who, since Margaret's return, had 
 gone so near ignoring her stepmother's ex- 
 istence as was consistent with the observ- 
 ance of the commonest civility — that she 
 should be admitted behind the scenes, that 
 Margaret should instruct her in the dessous 
 des cartes^ was gall and wormAvood to her. 
 She had never been very far oiF hating 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 145 
 
 Margaret hitherto; her quiet stealthy dis- 
 like to the girl now deepened into the 
 darker feeling ; and though she merely re- 
 plied, ' 0, then, in that case, it cannot be 
 helped,' Margaret knew that that minute 
 marked an era in Mrs. Carteret's feelings 
 towards her. 
 
 ' Never mind,* she said to herself, as 
 thouo^h she had been encouraoino^ another 
 person ; ' never mind, it is only for six 
 months. She will always be civil to me, 
 and it can't last.' 
 
 She was right; Mrs. Carteret always 
 was civil to her. She was a woman in 
 whom cunning and caution were at least 
 as strong as temper, and she took counsel 
 of both in this instance. She was by no 
 means free from an uneasy suspicion that, 
 if Margaret had formed a contrary deter- 
 mination, her influence with her father 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 would have outweighed that which she her- 
 self could have exerted. 
 
 It behoved her, therefore, to be thank- 
 ful that the occasion for testing that un- 
 pleasantly-important point had not arisen, 
 and to confine her tactics to such consist- 
 ently-ceremonious treatment of Margaret 
 as should keep her position as only a guest 
 constantly before her eyes, and maintain 
 her resolution by the aid of her pride; 
 while all should be so contrived as to avoid 
 attracting the attention of her absent- 
 minded husband. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret conquered her temper, 
 therefore — an operation in which she found 
 the counting of the stitches of her ever- 
 lasting fancy-work afforded her a good deal 
 of assistance — and, after a short pause, 
 took up a collateral branch of the same 
 subject. 
 
 Margaret had dismissed Rose Moore, 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 147 
 
 and the girl had gone on her journey with 
 a weight at her heart which she would 
 have hardly believed possible, seeing that 
 she was going home. But she had come 
 to love Margaret very much, and she was 
 very imperfectly consoled for parting with 
 her by the distant hope which the young 
 widow held out of a future meeting. 
 
 ' You will be married, and away in a 
 house of your own, my dear girl, very soon, 
 and you will not care much about anything 
 else then; but I promise you, if ever I 
 want you very much, Rose, I will send for 
 you. I don't think I ever can want you, 
 in all my life, as much as I wanted you 
 when you came to me ; and of course you 
 never can want me; your life is laid out 
 for you too securely for that.' 
 
 ' None of us can tell that^'' said Rose 
 Moore ; ' who knows ?' 
 
 'Well, of course no one knows,' said 
 
148 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 Margaret ; ' but it looks like it. However, 
 we shall never forget one another, Rose, 
 and if either can help the other, the one 
 who can will.' And with this understand- 
 ing they parted. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret had never taken any 
 notice of Rose Moore, who, in her turn, 
 had held the lady of the house in slight 
 reverence. Mrs. Carteret had a constitu- 
 tional aversion to the Irish. She considered 
 them half- civilised beings, with a natural 
 turn for murder, a natural unfitness for 
 domestic service, and an objectionable pre- 
 dilection for attending the ceremonial ob- 
 servances of their religion. 
 
 As an Irishwoman, then. Rose Moore 
 was antipathetic to her; and as a devoted 
 though humble friend of her stepdaughter's, 
 she was something more. The Irish girl's 
 bright-hearted love and sympathy for the 
 young widow was positively repulsive to 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 149 
 
 Mrs. Carteret, because there was a reproach, 
 in it. 
 
 But when Rose was actually gone, Mrs. 
 Carteret found herself in a difficulty. She 
 disliked the idea of a successor to Rose 
 being found, because her narrow, grasping 
 nature was of the small tyrant order, and 
 she could not endure that in her house 
 there should be any one who did not owe 
 allegiance to her. 
 
 Another reason was to be found in 
 Mrs. Carteret's parsimony. She was as 
 avaricious as she was despotic, and both 
 these passions were stirred within her when 
 she asked Margaret, in the most distant 
 and uninterested tone which even she could 
 assume, whether she had yet made any 
 arrangements about replacing Rose Moore. 
 ' Moore,' she called her, after the English 
 fashion, which had been a deadly offence 
 to Rose. 
 
150 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 'Calling you as if you were either a 
 man or a dog,' the indignant damsel had 
 said. 
 
 'It's the English fashion, Kose,' Mar- 
 garet had pleaded in mitigation. 
 
 ' Then it's like more of their fashions, 
 and they ought to be ashamed of it, and 
 would if they were Christians. However, 
 I suppose English servants put up with 
 that, or any thin' else, for their four meals 
 a-day, and snacks into the bargain, and 
 their beer, and the liberty their clargy 
 gives them to backbite their masters and 
 mistresses.' 
 
 Margaret tried to explain that neither 
 in this nor in any other particular were 
 the objects of Kose's indignant scorn in 
 the habit of applying to their 'clargy;' 
 but this was an enormity which she found 
 the girl's mind was quite incapable of re- 
 ceiving as a truth. 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 151 
 
 Mrs. Hungerford replied to Mrs. Car- 
 teret's question, that she had no intention 
 of providing a successor for Rose Moore. 
 
 ' I should have thought it quite un- 
 necessary to tell you so,' she said, rather 
 angrily. ' You can hardly suppose I am 
 in a position to keep a maid. Even if I 
 were for the present, to accustom myself 
 to any luxury which I must lose at the 
 end of six months would be unpardonable 
 folly and weakness.' 
 
 ' You are quite right, my dear,' said 
 Mrs. Carteret, with a cordial tone in her 
 voice, and a side-glance in her eye of in- 
 tense dislike of the speaker. ' I admire 
 your correct and self-denying principle, 
 but I am not sure that your father will 
 like it. While you stay with us, I am 
 sure he would not wish you to be without 
 a maid.' 
 
 Margaret did not take much trouble to 
 
152 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 conceal the contempt which animated the 
 smile that she permitted to pass slowly 
 over her face as she replied : 
 
 ' Pray do not trouble yourself about 
 that, Mrs. Carteret. If papa thinks about 
 it at all, which is very unlikely, he will 
 know how little personal attendance I have 
 been accustomed to. But you and I know 
 the fact of there being a servant more or 
 less in the house will never present itself 
 to his notice. Pray make your mind easy 
 on that point.' 
 
 ' But there's — ' said Mrs. Carteret hesi- 
 tatingly — 'there's James, you know; he is 
 sure to know that Moore has left you, and 
 to find out whether you have got any one 
 to replace her.' 
 
 ' Make your mind easy about tliat^ too, 
 Mrs. Carteret,' said Margaret; and the con- 
 fidence in her tone was particularly dis- 
 pleasing. * I will take care that Mr. 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 153 
 
 Dugclale understands my wishes in this 
 matter.' 
 
 So Mrs. Carteret carried three points. 
 She avoided having a servant in the house 
 who should not be her servant ; she escaped 
 an additional expense ; and she was ex- 
 empted, by Margaret's express disclaimer, 
 from oiFering her the services of her own 
 maid — an offer which, had she found her- 
 self obliged to make it, Mrs. Collins would 
 probably have declined to carr}^ into exe- 
 cution. There was one person in the world 
 of whom Mrs. Carteret was afraid, and that 
 individual was Mrs. Collins. 
 
 When the conversation between Mar- 
 garet and Mrs. Carteret had come to an 
 end, to their mutual relief, Margaret went 
 to her father. As she approached the study, 
 she heard voices, and knew she should not 
 find him alone. 
 
 ' I suppose it is James,' she thought. 
 
154 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 and entered the room. But it was not 
 James; it was Mr. Baldwin, who held a 
 large old-looking volume in his hand, and 
 was discussing with Mr. Carteret a pass- 
 age concerning the structure of Crustacea. 
 He closed the book, and replaced it on the 
 table with great alacrity, as Margaret came 
 in and spoke to him. Then she turned to 
 her father. ' I was going to talk to you 
 for a little while, papa; but as Mr. Bald- 
 win is here — ' 
 
 ' Never mind that, Margery,' said her 
 father; 'Mr. Baldwin was just going to 
 the drawing-room to see Sibylla and you. 
 He has a message for you from Lady Da- 
 vy ntry.' 
 
 Mr. Baldwin confirmed Mr. Carteret's 
 statement, and took from his waistcoat- 
 pocket a tiny note, folded three - corner- 
 wise. This was before the invention of 
 square envelopes and dazzling monograms ; 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 155 
 
 and female friendship, confidences, and ge- 
 neral gushingness usually expressed them- 
 selves in the three-cornered form. 
 
 Margaret took the note, and, passing 
 before the ' specimen'-laden table, went to 
 the window and seated herself on the low, 
 -wide, uncushioned ledge. She held the 
 twisted paper in her hand, and looked idly 
 out of the window, before she broke the 
 seal, unconscious that Mr. Baldwin was 
 looking at her with an eager interest which 
 rendered him singularly inattentive to the 
 arguments addressed to him by Mr. Car- 
 teret in pursuance of the discussion which 
 Margaret's entrance had interrupted. 
 
 The girlish gracefulness of her attitude 
 contrasted strangely with her sombre heavy 
 dress; the soft youthfulness of her colour- 
 less face made the harsh lines of the close 
 crimped cap an odious anachronism. 
 
156 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' My darlixg Margaret,' — this vv'-as 
 the note, — ' I have such a cokl, I cannot 
 get to you. Do be charitable, and come 
 to me. My brother will escort you, and 
 will see you home at night, unless you 
 will stay. 
 
 ' Always your devoted 
 
 ' Eleanor.' 
 
 The renewed acquaintance with Lady 
 Davyntry was at this time an event of a 
 fortnight old, and the irrepressible Eleanor 
 had to a certain extent succeeded in thaw- 
 ing the frozen exterior of the young wo- 
 man's demeanour. Kindness, if even it 
 were a little silly and over-demonstrative, 
 was a refreshing novelty to Margaret, and 
 she welcomed it. 
 
 At first she had been a little hard, a 
 little incredulous towards Lady Davyntry; 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 157 
 
 she had been inclined to treat her rapidly- 
 developed fondness for herself as a caprice 
 de grande dame. But she soon abandoned 
 that harsh interpretation; she soon under- 
 stood that, though it was exaggerated in 
 its expression, the affection with which she 
 had inspired Lady Davyntry was perfectly 
 sincere. 
 
 Hence it came that Margaret had told 
 her friend what were her views for her 
 future; but she had not raised the veil 
 which hid the past. Of that dreadful time, 
 with its horrid experience of sin and misery, 
 with its contaminating companionship, and 
 the stain which it had left of such know- 
 ledge of evil and all the meanness of vice 
 as never should be brought within the ken 
 of pure womanhood at any age, Margaret 
 never spoke, and Lady Davyntry, though 
 inquisitive enough in general, and by no 
 means wanting in curiosity in this particu- 
 
158 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 lar instance, did not seek to overcome her 
 reticence. 
 
 She had considerable delicacy of mind, 
 and, in Margaret's case, affection and in- 
 terest brought her not-naturally-bright in- 
 telliofence to its aid. She had noticed and 
 understood the changeableness of Mar- 
 garet's moods. She had seen her, when 
 animated and seemingly happy in conver- 
 sation with her or Mr. Baldwin (what a 
 treat it was to hear those two talk! she 
 thought), suddenly lapse into silence, and 
 all the colour would die out of her cheeks, 
 and all the light from her eyes — struck 
 away from them doubtless by the stirring 
 of some painful memory, aroused from its 
 superficial slumber by some word or phrase 
 in which the pang of association lurked. 
 
 She had seen the expression of weari- 
 ness which Margaret's figure had worn at 
 first come over it again, and then the 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 159 
 
 drooped head and the listless hands had a 
 story in them, from even trying to guess 
 at which the Idnd-hearted woman, whose 
 one grief had no touch of shame or dread 
 or deo-radino; remembrance in it, shrunk 
 with true delicacy and keen womanly sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Lady Davyntry had been a daily visitor 
 at Chayleigh since Margaret's return. She 
 treated Mrs. Carteret mth civility; but 
 she made it, as she intended, evident that 
 the attraction was ]\Iargaret, and Mrs. 
 Carteret had to endure the mortify mg con- 
 viction as best she could. Her best was 
 not very good, and she never allowed an 
 opportunity to pass of hitting Margaret's 
 friend as hard as her feeble powers of sar- 
 casm, which only attained the rank of spite, 
 enabled her to hit her. Lady Davyntry 
 was totally unconscious, and Margaret was 
 profoundly indifferent. 
 
160 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 It happened, however, on this particular 
 day, after the conclusion of Mrs. Carteret's 
 conversation with her stepdaughter, and 
 while she was superintending the interest- 
 ing operation, performed by Colhns, of 
 altering the trimmings of a particular!}" 
 becoming dress, that she came to a deter- 
 mination to alter her tactics. She had not 
 to dread a permanent invasion of her terri- 
 tory, a permanent usurpation of her place 
 by Margaret ; she would therefore profit 
 by the temporary evil, and so entangle 
 Lady Davyntry in civilities that it would 
 be impossible for her to withdraw from so 
 afficJie an intimacy when Margaret should 
 have left Chayleigh. 
 
 In all this there was not a particle of 
 regard for Lady Davyntry, of liking for 
 her society, of a wish that i;he supposed 
 intimacy should become real. It would 
 be quite enough for her that the Croftons 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 161 
 
 and the Crokers, the Willises, the Wyn- 
 groves, and the Savilles should know that 
 Lady Davyntry was on the most familiar 
 terms with the Carterets, and quite be- 
 yond those to which any other family in 
 the neighbourhood could lay claim. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret's busy small brain began 
 to entertain an idea that Margaret's stay 
 might be made profitable, in a social point 
 of view, to her future position. 
 
 The writing of the note of which Mr. 
 Baldwin was the bearer had been the sub- 
 ject of some doubt and discussion between 
 Lady Davyntry and her brother. 
 
 ' Do you think it would do to ask her 
 here, to dinner and all that, without ask- 
 ing Mrs. Carteret, and making a regular 
 business of it ?' said Eleanor. 
 
 ' Of course it would,' returned Mr. Bald- 
 win. ' If you want to have Mrs. Hunger- 
 ford here, and do not want to have Mrs. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 Carteret, as I understand you that yoa do, 
 you could not have a better opportunity. 
 Now is your time. You have a cold, you 
 can't go out, and you certainly cannot see 
 company. Write your note, Nelly, and I'll 
 take it. I want to see Mr. Carteret. You 
 cannot have a better opportunity.' 
 
 ' Let me see,' said Lady Davyntry, bit- 
 ing the top of her pen contemplatively; 
 ' Mr. Dugdale is down at Oxford, isn't 
 he?' 
 
 'Yes,' said her brother; 'gone to see 
 his old tutor, — a fellow he is, but I forget 
 his name, — and won't be back for three 
 weeks.' 
 
 ' Well, then, I will ask Margaret alone. 
 I thought, if Mr. Dugdale had been at 
 home, we might have asked him to come 
 to dinner. But you won't mind seeing 
 Mrs. Hungerford home, Fitz, will you ? 
 She could have the carriage, of course. 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 163 
 
 and go round by the road ; but I am sure 
 she would not like that.' 
 
 Mr. Baldwin was exceedingly complai- 
 sant and agreeable. So far from growling 
 an assent in an undertone, sounding much 
 more like a protest than an acquiescence, 
 as is the usual manner of men with regard 
 to the bosom friends of their sisters, he 
 expressed his readiness to undertake the 
 task of seeing Margaret home with a cheer- 
 ful readiness quite beyond suspicion of its 
 sincerity. 
 
 When Margaret had read the note, she 
 twisted it in her fingers without speaking. 
 Mr. Baldwin's attention wandered a little, 
 though Mr. Carteret had opened one of 
 the glass cases, and taken out a horrid ob- 
 ject like an old-fashioned brooch -with an 
 areole of long spikes, and was expatiating 
 upon it with great fervour. 
 
 He looked at Margaret; but her eyes 
 
164 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 were turned from him, straying over the 
 garden. At last he moved to where she 
 was sitting. 
 
 ' You will grant my sister's prayer,' he 
 said. ' I know what is in the note. She 
 really has a cold, Mrs. Hungerford. It will 
 be a charity if you will go to her. — What 
 do you say, sir ?' 
 
 Mr. Carteret said nothing, for the ample 
 reason that he had not the remotest idea 
 of what Mr. Baldwin was talking about. 
 When, however, that gentleman explained 
 the matter, he gave it as his decided opi- 
 nion that Margaret ought to go for Lady 
 Davyntry's sake and her own. A little 
 change would do her good. She must not 
 mope, the kind gentleman said; and he and 
 Sibylla were but dull company now. She 
 must find it dismal enough now that James 
 was away. By the bye, did Margaret know 
 how Mr. Fordham was? Had James found 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 165 
 
 him any better than he expected when he 
 arrived at Oxford? Yes, yes, Margery 
 must go — she moped too much; she did 
 not even care for the specimens so much 
 as she used to do. 
 
 ' Indeed I do, papa,' said Margaret, 
 rising suddenly from her seat and laying 
 her hand on her father's shoulder ; ^ I care 
 for them a great deal more — for everything 
 that interests you, and that you care for.' 
 
 Her luminous eyes were softer and 
 brighter than Mr. Baldwin had ever seen 
 them. She had evidently been thinking of 
 something in the past with which her fa- 
 ther's words had chimed in. He was wait- 
 ing her decision with a strange feeling of 
 suspense and anxiety, considering that the 
 matter involved was of no greater moment 
 than the question whether his sister's friend, 
 who had seen her yesterday, and would in 
 all probability see her to-morrow, should 
 
166 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 make up her mind to refrain from the 
 luxury of seeing her to-day. 
 
 'Do you, my dear?' said Mr. Carteret. 
 ' That's right; you will go, of course, then, 
 and Foster shall fetch you this evening. — 
 No, indeed, Mr. Baldwin, I could not think 
 of your taking the trouble.' 
 
 But Mr. Baldwin insisted, subject to 
 Mrs. Hungerford's permission, that he would 
 see her home. This permission she care- 
 lessly gave, and then left the room to pre- 
 pare for her walk. The two men stood 
 silent for a minute ; then Mr. Carteret said, 
 with a deep sigh, 
 
 ^ Poor Margery ! she has had plenty of 
 trouble in her time. I often wonder whe- 
 ther she is going to have peace now. We 
 can't give that to our sons and daughters, 
 Baldwin, or get it from them either.' 
 
 There was a sad desponding tone in Mr. 
 Carteret's voice. Now he was beginning 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 167 
 
 to understand something of the meaning 
 and extent of the sorrow that had befallen 
 his daughter — now, when the indelible 
 stamp of its effect was set upon her changed 
 face, upon her shrinking figure, upon her 
 slow and unelastic movements. 
 
 She had had time now to feel the re- 
 pose, the comfort, the respectability of the 
 home to which she had come back, and yet 
 there was no chang-e in her beyond the 
 release from mere bodily fatigue. The 
 wan weariness which he had not seen at 
 first, but had seen when James Dugdale 
 directed his attention to it, was there still, 
 unaltered ; indeed, to the eye of a keen ob- 
 server, it was deepened. In some cases, 
 mere respite from physical labour does not 
 produce the effect of mental repose. Mar- 
 garet's case was one of those. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin did not reply to Mr. Car- 
 teret's observation; he walked towards the 
 
168 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 window, and looked dreamily out, as Mar- 
 garet had done. Presently she came back, 
 wearmg her sombre mantle and the close 
 widow's bonnet of a period when grand 
 deuil^ in the Mary- Stuart fashion, was un- 
 known. 
 
 ' You will tell Mrs. Garteret, if you 
 please, papa, I could not find her.' 
 
 ' I will be sure to tell her,' said Mr. 
 Carteret; 'and, Margery, I want you to 
 observe Lady Davyntry's Angora cat very 
 carefully, and bring me word whether she 
 has one ring or two round the top of her 
 tail. Don't forget this, my dear, for it is 
 really an important point.' 
 
 ' I'll be sure to remember it, papa,' said 
 Margaret; and then she and Mr. Fitzwil- 
 liam Meriton Baldwin went out through 
 the French window of Mr. Carteret's study, 
 and took their way across the grassy ter- 
 race, through the lawn, to the little iron 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 169 
 
 gate which opened into the meadow-lands, 
 through which the ' short cut' between 
 Chayleigh and Davyntry lay. 
 
 In the first field beyond this gate a 
 noble clump of beeches stood. 
 
 ' That is a favourite point of view of 
 Dugdale's,' said Mr. Baldwin. ' I have two 
 sketches he made of those forest lords. 
 Splendid trees they are. I love them.' 
 
 ' And I hate them/ said Margaret. 
 
 He glanced at her in surprise. Her 
 tone was bitter, and her face wore an angry 
 scornful look. But it was scorn of herself 
 that Margaret was feeling. There, under 
 the shade of those trees, she had come sud- 
 denly upon her brother and Godfrey Hun- 
 gerford; there the first incense of her 
 worship of the false god had been offered 
 up. She felt his glance, and instantly be- 
 gan to talk of Lady Davyntry's cold. 
 
 ' The idea,' she thought indignantly, 
 
170 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' of saying such a thing as that — of my be- 
 traying feelings to a stranger which it is 
 impossible to explain.' 
 
 The first visit made by Margaret to 
 Davyntry was the beginning of a series 
 which contributed not a little to bringing 
 about the changed aspect of things at 
 Chayleigh, at the end of the first month 
 of Margaret's residence there. She was 
 beginning to feel something like a revival 
 of her youth. The cheerful society, the 
 sense of being loved and valued ; the action 
 of time, so mighty, so resistless, when one is 
 young ; the future dim, indeed, but still in 
 a great measure within her own control: 
 these were all telling on the young widow. 
 
 At first she had suffered keenly from 
 the remembrance of the past episodes in 
 her life, which seemed to set a barrier be- 
 tween her and the well-regulated, spot- 
 lessly respectable social circle to which she 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 171 
 
 was restored; a social atmosphere in which 
 shifts, contrivances, shady expedients for 
 the procurmg of shabby ends, were as un- 
 known, as inconceivable, as the more vio- 
 lent roisterous vice with which she had 
 also, and only too frequently, been brought 
 into contact. At first, this sense of an ex- 
 istence, separate and apart from her present 
 associates, oppressed Margaret strangely, 
 and caused her to shrink away from the 
 manifestations of Lady Davyntry's friend- 
 ship with sudden coldness, cjuite inexplic- 
 able to the impulsive Eleanor, whose life 
 was aU so emphaticaUy aboveboard. 
 
 There were times when, in the luxurious 
 and picturesque drawing-room at Davyn- 
 try, whose treasures of old china and ivory 
 caused Mrs. Carteret acute pangs of envy, 
 Margaret felt the whole scene fade from 
 before her eyes like a stage transformation, 
 and some squalid room which she had once 
 
172 A KIGHTED WKONG. 
 
 inhabited rise up in its place, with its 
 mingled wretchedness and recklessness; a 
 horrid vision of dirty packs of cards, of 
 whisky-bottles, and the reek of coarse to- 
 bacco ; and the refined tones of Mr. Bald- 
 win's voice would mingle strangely in her 
 ears with the echo of loud oaths and coarse 
 laughter. 
 
 At such times her face would harden, 
 and the light would fade out of her eyes, 
 and the grace would leave her form in some 
 inexplicable way; and, if the cloud settled 
 heavily, and she knew it was going to last, 
 she would make some excuse to get away 
 and return to her father's house and the 
 society of Mrs. Carteret, to whom her 
 moods, or indeed those of any human being 
 in existence, except herself, were matters 
 of perfect indifference. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin thought he understood the 
 origin of these sudden changes in Margaret 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 173 
 
 Hungerford ; and, though he had no know- 
 ledge of the past, he discerned the spirit 
 of the young widow with the marvellous 
 skill Avhich has its rise in very perfect sym- 
 pathy. When his sister spoke to him about 
 her friend's strange manner at times, he 
 entreated her not to notice it in any way. 
 
 ' She has had such troubles in her life, 
 as, thank God, neither you nor I can un- 
 derstand, Xelly ; and when this cloud comes 
 over her, depend upon it, it is because the 
 remembrance of them returns to her, made 
 all the more real by the contrast here. 
 Take no notice of it, and it will wear away 
 in time.' 
 
 ' She seems to me, Fitzwilliam, as if she 
 had some painful secret pressing on her 
 mind. I don't mean, of course, any secret 
 concerning herself, anything in her own Hfe ; 
 but Margaret constantly gives me the im- 
 pression of being a person in possession of 
 
174 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 some knowledge unshared by any one else, 
 and which she sometimes forgets, and then 
 suddenly remembers.' 
 
 ' It may be so,' said Mr. Baldwin slowly, 
 and looking very uncomfortable. ' I hope 
 not ', I hope it is only the effect of the early 
 trouble she has gone through.' 
 
 'I wonder how she will get on when 
 she leaves Chayleigh,' said Lady Davyntry. 
 
 'When she leaves Chayleigh!' repeated 
 her brother, surprised, for the intentions 
 of Margaret had never been discussed in 
 his presence. 
 
 Then Lady Davyntry told him what 
 Margaret had said to her, and how she 
 had asked her advice and her aid. 
 
 'I could not possibly advise her to re- 
 main all her life with that dreadful step- 
 mother of hers, could I, Fitz? You can 
 understand what Mrs. Carteret is in that 
 relation, civil as she is to you. I really 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 175 
 
 think she imagines you entertain a pro- 
 found sentiment for her; perfectly proper 
 and Platonic, you know, but still profound ; 
 and I don't think Margaret's naturally 
 active mind could endure the idleness of 
 the life at Chayleigh, even if Mrs. Carteret 
 were out of the question.' 
 
 ' Idleness !' said Mr. Baldwin, ' what 
 idleness? There is just the same kind of 
 life to be had at Chayleigh, *I Suppose, as 
 women, as ladies, lead everywhere else — 
 the kind of life Margaret was born to. I 
 can't see the matter in '^^ light.' 
 
 ' I daresay not, Sife,' said Lady Da- 
 vyntry, rather proud of the chance of ofFer- 
 ino^ a suo:o;estion to this infallible and in- 
 comparable younger brother of hers. ' But 
 I can. Margaret certainly was, as you say, 
 born to lead the kind of life which all 
 women of her position get through some- 
 how; but then she was taken out of it very 
 
176 A EIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 young, and, whatever it was she did or 
 suffered, you may be sure that it gave her 
 mind a turn not to be undone. Of course, 
 I don't mean to say she wants to go back 
 to that again, whatever it was; but I am 
 sure she must have some settled occupation 
 to be hapj)y. I do not think, when one's 
 heart has been once crammed quite full of 
 anything, be it joyful or sorrowful, one 
 can stand a vacuum.' From which speech 
 it will be made plain that Lady Davyntry 
 did not cultivate her emotions at the ex- 
 pense of her good sense. 
 
 ' You are right, Nelly ; I see you are 
 quite right. But what does her father 
 say?' 
 
 ' That I really cannot tell you ; but I 
 suppose what Mr. Carteret usually says, in 
 any matter unconnected mth birds, beasts, 
 fishes, or insects — nothing. He and Mar- 
 garet have a tacit understanding that Mrs. 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN ISIEANT. 177 
 
 Carteret and she are not exactly sympa- 
 thetic, and he has a feeble desire that his 
 daughter should be happy. Beyond that 
 he really thinks nothing, and would have 
 as much notion of the new life she wants 
 to enter upon, as of the old life she has 
 escaped from.' 
 
 ' What does Dugdale think ?' 
 
 ' That I cannot tell you. Margaret 
 never said a word about: his -opinion in con- 
 nection with the matter. I don't think she 
 likes him.' 
 
 ' No,' said Mr. Baldwin, ' I don't think 
 she does.' • 
 
 'I asked her to come to me,' Lady 
 Davyntry continued, ' and tried very hard 
 to persuade her that I required the services 
 of a dame decompagnie. But she laughed 
 at me, and would not listen to me for a 
 moment, though she told me she had once 
 suo;o;ested to Mr. Dus^dale that she should 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ask me to take her, for the commendable 
 purpose of spiting Mrs. Carteret. ^'Do 
 you think I want to play at independence?" 
 she said. " If you do, you are much mis- 
 taken. I won't have any more sJiams^ 
 please God, in my life. Xo, I am going to 
 work in earnest." So I could not say any 
 more. She may change her mind in six 
 months, though I do not think she will.' 
 
 Mr. Fitzwilliam Meriton Baldwin left 
 his sister to entertain a selection of the 
 Croftons and the Crokers and the Willises, 
 and betook himself to a solitary ramble. 
 The question which he had asked himself 
 when he had seen Margaret Hungerford 
 but once had recurred to him very often 
 since then. Now he asked himself if he 
 might dare to hope that he had found the 
 answer. V 
 
 He did not deny to himself now that 
 he loved Margaret Hungerford. He was .. 
 
AVHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 179 
 
 quite clear on that point ; and he knew, 
 too, that it was with an immortal and a 
 worthy love. What did she mean? Was 
 she to mean to him happiness — the realisa- 
 tion of a man's best and wisest dreams? 
 Was she to mean this to him in time, or 
 did that sombre past in her life, of which 
 he knew nothing, interpose an impassable 
 barrier between her and him? He thought 
 of Margaret's frank unembarrassed nt^mer 
 towards him without discouragement; he 
 never fancied she could feel anything for 
 him yet; he perfectly comprehended that 
 nothing was so utterly dead for her as 
 love. 
 
 But he would have patience, he would 
 wait ; a resurrection morning might come ; 
 he would try to win such a prize as she 
 would be, not by a coup de main^ but by 
 slow degrees, if so it might be. In the 
 true humility of his mind, in the perfect 
 
180 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 nobility of his soul, it never occurred to 
 Mr. Baldwin to think of himself as a prize 
 also worth the winning. 
 
 He had often laughed with his sister 
 about the ' man-traps' set for him ; but it 
 was always Lady Davyntry, and not he, 
 who had detected the devices prepared for 
 the captivation and capture of Mr. Baldwin 
 of the Deane. 
 
 It rarely happened that Fitzwilliam 
 Baldwin thought about his wealth ; his 
 habits and tastes were simple, and his large 
 property was Avell administered. He had 
 been a rich man ever since he had come 
 to years of manhood, and the fact had not 
 the same significance for him which it as- 
 sumes for those who come late to a long- 
 looked -for inheritance, whose attractions 
 are exaggerated by the aid of fancy. 
 
 But he began to think complacently of 
 his wealth now; he began to see visions, 
 
WHAT THE WOMAN MEANT. 181 
 
 and to dream dreams ; to think of the 
 power he had to reverse all the former 
 conditions of Margaret's life, let them have 
 been what they might. At least he knew 
 she had been unhappy ; he could give her 
 hajDpiness, if unbounded love and respect, 
 if the guarding her from every ill and care, 
 if the holding her a sacred being, apart, 
 to be seated in a shrine and worshipped, 
 could give her happiness. This he could 
 do, if she would but let him. 
 
 He knew that she had been poor, that 
 she had now no means of her own. There 
 was his wealth, which had never been very 
 important to him before, and could never 
 be important again if she would not in 
 time take it from him. How he would 
 lavish it upon her; how he would try, 
 without annoying her in any way, to find 
 out some of the features of her past ex- 
 perience, and efface them by the luxury 
 
182 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 and honour in which he would envelop 
 her! Fitzwilliam Baldwin had advanced 
 very far in a dream of this kind before the 
 end of the month. He had no longer any 
 doubt of what this woman meant to him. 
 
 Shortly after, and sooner than his re- 
 turn was looked for, James Dugdale came 
 back to Chayleigh, and found a letter 
 awaiting him. It was from Hayes Mere- 
 dith. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 
 
 'Before you receive this letter, my dear 
 Dugdale,' wrote Hayes Meredith, ' you will 
 have seen Mrs. Hungerford, and she will 
 have told you all the news about me, in 
 giving the history of herself — a history, 
 by the bye, which has had a better ending 
 than I expected, when first I made her 
 out, according to your request. 
 
 ' She is not much given to talking, I 
 fancy, to any one, and I dare say she mil 
 not let you know much about her wretched 
 life out here; but I can tell you it was 
 wretched; and when I came to know her, 
 and understand how superior a woman she 
 
184 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 is to the generality of women, such as I 
 have kno^Yii them, I was really grateful to 
 you for giving me the chance of serving 
 her. I don't think I was much more obHged 
 to you in my life, and I have owed you a 
 turn or two. 
 
 ' Hungerford was a regular blackguard, 
 and an irredeemable snob as well, and she 
 was only to be congratulated heartily on 
 his death. The mode of it was rather hor- 
 rible, to be sure; but if he had not been 
 knocked on the head in the bush, the 
 chances are he would have been hanged; 
 and there's something to choose between 
 the two, at all events. 
 
 ' She is an interesting young woman, 
 and I was sincerely glad to do her all the 
 service in my power, which was not much, 
 after all. I should like to know what be- 
 comes of her. I hope she has better days 
 to see than any she lived through here ; and 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 185 
 
 I hope you will write to me when you 
 can. 
 
 ' But my letter does not solely concern 
 Mrs. Hungerforcl. I have a selfish purpose 
 in writing to you also, and the explanation 
 of it needs some detail. You know that 
 I am, and that I have been for some years, 
 what I may safely call a prosperous man; 
 and though I have a large family to pro- 
 vide for — five of them now (they were 
 seven, but two little ones early succumbed 
 to the climate) — I have never found that 
 same very difficult to do. My children are 
 all well, hearty, jolly, sturdy children, with 
 the exception of our eldest boy — you have 
 seen him, you may remember — Eobert. 
 He is not exactly sickly, but he is not 
 strong ; but it is less his bodily than his 
 mental health that troubles his mother and 
 myself. 
 
 ' The boy is not contented, not happy, 
 
186 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 not a born colonial, like the rest- he has 
 ideas and fancies other than theirs ; he has 
 an unruly temper, a quick impressionable 
 brain, and a great aptitude for the graces, 
 refinements, and luxuries of life, which — 
 as I need not tell you it has had no chance 
 of cultivation here — must be natural to 
 him. 
 
 ' His mother and I are not people to 
 have a favourite among our children; it is 
 share and share alike with them all, in af- 
 fection as in everything else ; but Robert is 
 a discord somehow, and captious — in short, 
 very hard to manage — and I have not the 
 time to devote to an exceptional person in 
 the family. 
 
 ' He has a great notion that he is very 
 superior to his brothers — quite an un- 
 founded one — and thinks he should do no 
 end of wonderful things in England, if he 
 had the chance, by which, of course, he 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 187 
 
 means the money. This I can give him; 
 and as there is no doubt he can get a better 
 education in England than here, and should 
 his projects fail, or should he get tired of 
 them, he can come back whenever he 
 pleases, and still find a corner for himself 
 here, I am quite disposed to let him try 
 his own plans out. 
 
 ' The others are true colonials ; they 
 have not the least desire to see the old 
 country until they can do so in independent 
 manhood; but I can plainly perceive that, 
 for his own sake, and that of all the house- 
 hold, Robert must be allowed to have his 
 own way, as far as it lies in my power to 
 give it him. 
 
 ' There is some prospect of an improved 
 and accelerated communication between us 
 and England, and should it be realised by 
 the spring of next year, I will probably 
 bring the boy to England myself, and thus 
 
188' A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 see you once more in this world, which I 
 never had any hope of doing a httle while 
 ago. 
 
 ' My wife does not like, nor, to tell the 
 truth, do I, the notion of a whole year 
 being taken out of our span of life together, 
 which it must be if I make my proposed 
 voyage; but neither does she like the idea 
 of her son travelling alone to a strange 
 country, and commencing his career with- 
 out the assistance and the comfort of his 
 father's presence and guidance in those im- 
 portant "first steps." We shall see, when 
 the time comes, which of these feelings mil 
 prevail. 
 
 ' In the mean time, my dear Dugdale, 
 I rely on your friendship, aided by your 
 experience of English life, and all the 
 changes in public opinion and manners 
 which have taken place since my time, to 
 guide me in this matter, to tell me what 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 189 
 
 it will be best for me to do for and with 
 the boy. 
 
 ' Eobert is not ill educated, in as far as 
 the limits of our colonial possibilities ex- 
 tend ; but his education will aid him little 
 in English life, and towards that his in- 
 clinations set. 
 
 'Turn all I have said over, and write 
 to me concerning it. Then, by the time 
 I get home, if I ever get home, and, if I 
 do not, by the time I send my boy home, 
 you will have made up your mind, which, 
 in a matter of this kind will be, as it ought 
 to be, equivalent to making up mine, as to 
 the proper course to be pursued. 
 
 - ' With all his faults, Robert will inter- 
 est you, my dear Dugdale, I am certain; 
 in his industry, his ambition, and his adapt- 
 ive nature you will find something to ad- 
 mire. 
 
 'I have almost forgotten the ways of 
 
190 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the old country, so completely have I 
 turned — not my mmd only, but my heart 
 and my tastes — to the life of the new. I 
 daresay you remember the days in which 
 I was rather a " buck," ran heavy accounts 
 with our common tailor, and knew, or pre- 
 tended to know, a lot about good dinners 
 and wines. 
 
 'Ask Mrs. Hungerford what sort of 
 rough and gruff old fellow I am now, and 
 you will understand, from her description, 
 the difficulty I should have in getting into, 
 or even comprehending, the ways of the 
 other side of the world again. But, re- 
 membering what I once did know, and 
 thinkino^ of what I have heard and seen 
 since I ceased to know, I think Robert is 
 cut out for success in England. Mind, he 
 will not have it all to do unaided ; he will 
 have a little money, enough to keep him 
 respectable, to back him. 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 191 
 
 ' I feel I am unwise in thus talking to 
 you so much beforehand of Robert — time 
 enough when we meet, as I hope we shaL 
 do; but I have a notion you might hit 
 upon some plan for him for the future 
 more easily and successfully if you had an 
 idea of the sort of person he is. 
 
 ' If his mother could see this letter, and 
 recognise the very moderate colours in 
 which I have sketched her eldest son, I 
 don't think I should hear the last of it 
 between this and the date at which I and 
 he are to start for England. I am such a 
 dolt in these matters, I do not rightly know 
 what to ask you to think about, or advise 
 me upon ; but you will know generally. 
 Shall it be private tuition, or public school, 
 or business life at once combined with 
 education ? 
 
 ' My other boys never give me the least 
 anxiety. I know they will take to the 
 
192 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 sheep-walk or the counting-house as readily 
 as to their food, and plod on as comfort- 
 ably and as cheerily as possible. And, 
 indeed, while I am anxious about Kobert, 
 it would be giving you an unfair impression 
 to say that I am uneasy about him. I am 
 not that; but he is so different a stamp, I 
 hardly know how to manage him. 
 
 ' I have written all this to you with as 
 much ease and confidence as if we were 
 smoking together in the old quarters, vel- 
 veteen-coated and slippered, as in the time 
 I remember so well. I wonder if you — 
 who have remained in England, to whom, 
 at all events, life cannot have brought such 
 physical changes as it has brought to me — 
 remember it half so well as I do. 
 
 ' There are hours even yet, when I am 
 alone and thinking, when all that has in- 
 tervened seems utterly unreal, and those 
 old days, with their old associations, the 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 193 
 
 one true and living period in my life. Do 
 you remember the day after you, poor 
 little shivering youngster as you were then, 
 came to school, when I was a great hulk- 
 ing fellow, and my mother, God bless her ! 
 came to visit me, and, being taken by old 
 Maddox to see the playground, was just in 
 time to behold me tumble from the very 
 top of the forbidden pear-tree and break 
 my arm? 
 
 ' I can see her face and hear her voice 
 now, as plainly as if I could see the one and 
 hear the other by going into the next 
 room. And how you cried! Well, well, 
 I suppose something of the boy remains 
 until the last in every man's nature, and 
 that more of it has the chance of remaining 
 in our lives here than in yours at home. 
 
 ' The progress of this place is extraor- 
 dinary, and there are rumours of discoveries 
 in metals, and so forth, which, if verified, 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
194 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 will give it very great impetus. I don't 
 mind them much; they don't disturb and 
 they don't excite me even in this go-ahead 
 colonial life. I carry my old steadiness 
 about with me, and am go-ahead in my 
 own business only. 
 
 ' There is much in the political and 
 social world here which would interest, but 
 little which would please you, unless you 
 are very much changed. 
 
 ' I never could arrive at a very clear 
 notion of you from Mrs. Hungerford; she 
 was not communicative on any point, and 
 she never told me anything about you, 
 except that your health was delicate, which 
 I could have told her from your letter. 
 The sort of life we lead here is certainly 
 calculated to give one the power of feeling 
 acutely for a man to whom bodily exertion 
 is forbidden ; but you were always a patient 
 fellow.' 
 
THE LETTER EROM MELBOURNE. 195 
 
 The letter was a very long one ; the 
 above is but an extract from it. James 
 Dugdale had recognised the handwriting 
 of his friend with pleasure, and had 
 opened the letter with delighted eager- 
 ness. It would tell him something of Mar- 
 garet ; it would give him an insight into 
 the troubles of her life ; it would give him 
 a clue to the enigma which lived and moved 
 mthin his sight and his reach daily. 
 
 But his calculations were overthrown ; 
 he perceived at once that he was destined 
 to gain no further knowledge of Margaret's 
 past life from Hayes Meredith. The dis- 
 appointment was so keen that at first he 
 hardly had power to feel the interest in 
 his friend's communication which it was 
 calculated to evoke ; and, when he had 
 read half through the letter, he returned 
 to the earlier portion in which Margaret 
 was mentioned, and reperused it. 
 
196 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' I wish he had even told me more about 
 Hungerford's death,' said James Dugdale to 
 himself. He was lying on a couch drawn 
 close to the window of his own room, and 
 he allowed the letter to drop by his side, 
 and his gaze fixed itself on the landscape 
 as he spoke. ' I wish he had said more 
 about him. What were the circumstances 
 of his death ? The little he says here, and 
 one sentence of Margaret's — "when I first 
 heard that my husband had been murdered 
 by the black fellows" — comprise all I know 
 — all any one knows — for her father would 
 not mention his name, and I verily believe 
 has forgotten that the man ever existed. I 
 wish he had told me more.' 
 
 He resumed the letter and read it again, 
 this time through to the end, steadily and 
 attentively. 
 
 Then he said slowly, and with a de- 
 spondent shake of the head ; 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 197 
 
 ' I am very much afraid my old friend's 
 son, Kobert, is a bad boy.' 
 
 James Dugdale had not been more than 
 an hour at Chayleigh when he had read 
 Hayes Meredith's letter. His return was 
 unexpected, and he had been told by the 
 servant who admitted him that the ' ladies' 
 were out. This was true, inasmuch as 
 neither was in the house, but incorrect in 
 so far as it seemed to imply that they were 
 together. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret had departed in her pony- 
 carriage, arrayed in handsome apparel, the 
 materials and tints whereof were a clever 
 combination of the requirements of the sea- 
 son then expiring and the season just about 
 to begin, with a genteel recognition of the 
 fact that an individual connected with the 
 family had died within a period during 
 which society would exact a costume com- 
 memorative of the circumstance. Mrs. Car- 
 
198 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 teret had gone out, in high good humour 
 with herself, and her dress, and her pony- 
 carriage, with her smart servant, her pretty 
 harness, her visiting-list, and the state of 
 her complexion. 
 
 This latter was a subject of unusual 
 self - gratulation, for Mrs. Carteret's com- 
 plexion was changeable : it needed care, 
 and, on the whole, it caused her more un- 
 easiness, and occupied more of her at- 
 tention, than any other mundane object. 
 She was by no means a plain woman, and 
 she had once been pretty — but her pretti- 
 ness had been of a sunny, commonplace, 
 exasperating, self- complacent kind ; and 
 now that it existed no longer, the expres- 
 sion of self-satisfaction was rather increased 
 than lessened, for there was no delicacy of 
 feature and no genuine bloom to divert at- 
 tention from it. 
 
 If Mrs. Carteret believed anything 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 19^ 
 
 firmly, it was that she was indisputably 
 and incomparably the best, and very 
 nearly the handsomest, of created beings ; 
 and she had a way of talking solemnly 
 about her personal appearance, — taking 
 careful note of its every peculiarity and 
 variation, and bestowing upon it the mi- 
 nutest and most vexatious care, — which 
 was annoying to her friends in general, and 
 to James Dugdale in particular. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret was a woman who would 
 be totally unmoved by any kind or degree 
 of human suffering brought under her 
 notice, but who would speak of a cold in 
 her own head, or a pimple on her own 
 face, as a calamity calculated to alarm 
 and grieve the entire circle of her acquain- 
 tance. She was almost amusing in her 
 transparent, engrossing, uncontrolled self- 
 ishness — amusing, that is, to strangers. It 
 was not so pleasant to those who lived in 
 
00 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the house or came into constant contact 
 with her ; they failed to perceive the hu- 
 morous side of her character. 
 
 Her husband, who, with all his oddity 
 and absence of mind, was not destitute of 
 a degree of tact, in which there was a soup- 
 con of cunning, and which he aired when- 
 ever there was any risk of his dearly-prized 
 ' quiet life' being endangered, had invented 
 a kind of vocabulary of compliments of sim- 
 ulated solicitude and exaggerated sympa- 
 thy, which was wonderfully efficacious, and 
 really gave him very little trouble. To be 
 sure he was rather apt to adhere to it with 
 a parrot-like fidelity, and on her ' pale days' 
 to congratulate Mrs. Carteret on her bloom, 
 and on her 'dull days' to discover that it 
 was difficult to leave her, she talked so charm- 
 ingly — ' but those new specimens must be 
 seen to,' &c. &c. 
 
 But these were mere casualties, and, as 
 
THE LETTER FROM :MELB0URNE. 201 
 
 intense vanity is frequently accompanied 
 by dense stupidity, they never endangered 
 the good understanding between the hus- 
 band — who was not nearly so tired of his 
 wife as a more clever and practical man 
 must inevitably have been — and the wife, 
 whose wildest imaginings could never have 
 extended to the possibility of any one's 
 finding her less than perfectly admirable, 
 or her husband otherwise than supremely 
 enviable. 
 
 In the days when Mrs. Carteret had 
 been pretty, her pcettiness was of the cor- 
 set-maker's model description, a prettiness 
 which consisted in straight features, a high 
 and well-defined colour, and a figure which 
 required, and could bear, a good deal of 
 tight-lacing. 
 
 Women did lace tightly in the golden 
 prime of Mrs. Carteret's days, and she was 
 not behindhand in that or any other fashion ; 
 
202 A RIGHTED Y/EONG. 
 
 indeed, she had a profound and almost re- 
 ligious respect for fashion, and she had, in 
 consequence, a stiffness of figure suggestive 
 of her being obliged to turn round ' all at 
 once' when it was necessary for her to turn 
 at all, which gave her whole person an air 
 and attitude of stiff* and starched stupidity, 
 highly provoking to an observer endowed 
 with taste. 
 
 The paying of morning visits was an 
 occupation especially congenial to Mrs. Car- 
 teret's taste, and well suited to her intel- 
 lectual capacity, which answered freely to 
 the demand made on it on such occasions. 
 She was not by any means a vulgar gossip, 
 but she possessed a satisfactory enough 
 knowledge of the affairs and ' ways' of all 
 the ' visitable' people Avithin reach, and she 
 found discussing them a very agreeable 
 pastime. 
 
 She was not so stupid a woman as to be 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 203 
 
 unaware that she and her affairs were dis- 
 cussed in their turn ; but her invariable 
 conviction that, in all respects, she was a 
 faultless being, rendered the knowledge 
 painless. 
 
 Thus, when Mrs. Carteret set out on a 
 round of visits, in the aforesaid equipage 
 and in her customary choice apparel, she 
 was as happy as it was in her not expan- 
 sive nature to be. 
 
 All the happier that Margaret did not 
 accompany her, for, though Margaret's 
 heavy mourning dress was not a bad foil 
 to the taste and elegance, as she believed, 
 of her own, people were apt to be too much 
 interested in, too curious about, the young 
 widow — always rather an interesting object 
 ■ — for the fancy of Mrs. Carteret, who did 
 not admire her stepdaughter herself, and to 
 whom it was neither intelligible nor plea- 
 sant that other people should admire her. 
 
204 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 As to Lady Davyntry and Mr. Baldwin 
 (for she had been forced to include the 
 brother with the sister in the category of 
 Margaret's friends), she had, as we have 
 seen, resolved to find her account in that 
 intimacy, and she did not trouble herself 
 about it. 
 
 At the same hour in which Mrs. Car- 
 teret was giving way to her self-complacent 
 sentiments, Margaret was taking leave of 
 Lady Davyntry. She had been at Davyn- 
 try since the morning, and was then going 
 home. Mr. Baldwin was ready, according 
 to his now almost invariable custom, to 
 offer her his escort. 
 
 It was quite the end of October, a 
 soft, shadowy, beautiful day, the air full of 
 the faint perfume of the fallen leaves and 
 of the golden gleam of the sunshine, which 
 lingered as if regretfully. Lady Davyntry 
 accompanied Margaret to the little garden- 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 205 
 
 gate which opened into the demesne, and 
 then took leave of her. 
 
 When her friend and her brother had 
 left her, she stood for a few minutes look- 
 mg after them, then walked up the garden- 
 path, saying to herself: 
 
 'I hope I shall be able to hold my 
 tongue about it, and not spoil all by letting 
 her see that such an idea has ever entered 
 into my head !' 
 
 In many respects Lady Davyntry was a 
 sensible woman. 
 
 Margaret and her companion went on 
 their way, slowly. They were talking of a 
 projected journey on the part of Mr. Bald- 
 win. He was going to visit his Scotch 
 estates. 
 
 ' I have not been much there,' he said ; 
 'my time has mostly been passed abroad. 
 My longest stay at the Deane was when 
 poor Nelly was there with Sir Eichard ; 
 
206 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 and, of course, I can't expect her to go 
 back to the scene of all her trouble so 
 soon; so I must go alone.' 
 
 ' Can't you ?' said Margaret, with a sud- 
 den flush on her cheek ; ' I should have 
 thought it would have been her greatest, 
 her best consolation. But people feel so 
 differently,' she said absently ; and then 
 made some remark about the beauty of the 
 day. Her companion wondered at her 
 strange manner. He took the hint to 
 change the subject. 
 
 ' Shall you be long away ?' Margaret 
 asked him. 
 
 He would have been only too happy 
 to tell her that the duration of his absence 
 would depend entirely on her pleasure — 
 to tell her what was the truth, that he was 
 leaving her now because he loved her, and 
 hoped the day might come when he might 
 try to make her love him ; when respect for 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 207 
 
 her position should no longer bind him to 
 silence. 
 
 He felt he could not remain in her 
 vicinity during the time that must elapse 
 before he could venture to acknowledge 
 his feelino^s, without the risk of offendino^ 
 her, perhaps losing her by their premature 
 betrayal, and he had determined to go to 
 Scotland and remain there until the time 
 should be near when she thouo-ht of leavins; 
 Chayleigh. 
 
 Then he would return and take his 
 chance. If she would accept the love, the 
 home, the fortune he had to offer her, he 
 almost dreaded to think what happiness 
 life — which had never been adorned with 
 any very brilliant hues of imagination by 
 him before — would have in store for him. 
 
 When she asked him, in her clear, sweet 
 voice, whose tones were to-day as pure and 
 untroubled as if she had never spoken any 
 
208 A EIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 words but those of the gladness which 
 should so well have beseemed her youth, 
 that careless question, he felt all the diffi- 
 culty of the restraint he had imposed upon 
 himself. 
 
 'I am not quite certain,' he replied; 'I 
 daresay I shall find a great deal to do at 
 the Deane, and a good deal will be ex- 
 pected from me in the way of sociability — 
 a tribute, by the way, which I render very 
 unwillingly. I — I suppose you will not 
 leave Chayleigh this winter?' 
 
 ' I don't think my father has any inten- 
 tion of going anywhere,' Margaret said; 
 'and I shall remain with him until I leave 
 him ''for good'' — as people say when they 
 leave for the equal chance of good or evil. 
 I believe, too, there is a chance of my 
 brother's coming home.' 
 
 'Indeed,' said Mr. Baldwin; 'that is 
 good news. I didn't hear anything of it.' 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 209 
 
 ' No. I told Lady Davyntry this even- 
 inof, before vou came in. I should like to 
 
 'o' 
 
 you 
 
 be here when Haldane comes ' — and her 
 Ikce was overcast by the mournful, musing 
 expression he knew and loved so well. 
 ' He and I quarrelled before he went away 
 — but I suppose he will not keep that up 
 with me now.'^ 
 
 She looked round with a forlorn kind 
 of smile actually painful to see. In it 
 there was an appeal to the dreariness of 
 her lot, to the terrible blight which had 
 settled on her youth, against harsh judg- 
 ment of the wilfulness and folly which 
 had led her to such a doom, inexpressibly 
 affecting. 
 
 The strong restraint, the habitual pa- 
 tience which she maintained over all her 
 emotions, seemed to forsake her quite sud- 
 denly. Her companion might have taken 
 it as a good omen for him that it was in 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
210 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 his company alone the control was loosened ; 
 but he did not think of himself, only of 
 her. 
 
 The forlorn smile was succeeded by an 
 ominous twitching of the lips, and the 
 next moment Margaret had covered her 
 face with her hands and burst into tears. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin watched her with inex- 
 pressible pangs of love and pity. He dared 
 not speak. What could he say? He knew 
 nothing, though he could surmise much, 
 of the past which had given rise to this 
 burst of emotion. 
 
 To try to console, was to seem to ques- 
 tion her. He stood by her in the keenest 
 distress, and could only entreat her to 
 remember that it was all over now. The 
 paroxysm passed over as he uttered the 
 words for the second time. 
 
 Margaret took her hands away from 
 her face, and looked at him, and there was 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 211 
 
 an angry sparkle in her eye which he had 
 never seen before, but which he thought 
 very beautiful. 
 
 ' You don't believe what you say,' she 
 said quickly, and walking on hurriedly as 
 she spoke ; ' you don't believe what you say. 
 You know there are things in life which 
 are never over — sorrows and experiences 
 which time can never change. When you 
 say to me that it is all over now, you say 
 what is not true, and you know it, or you 
 guess it ; you might know it if you would. 
 Do you think I am like other women, like 
 your sister, for instance, with nothing but 
 pure and sanctifying grief for the dead, 
 to ripen my mind? Do you think I am 
 like her, or like any other woman, whose 
 quiet life; however sad, has been led in de- 
 cency, and has been sheltered and guarded 
 by the protections which may be found in 
 honest poverty? Do you think I can come 
 
212 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 home here, and find myself once more 
 
 among the people and places I knew when 
 
 I was a girl, and not feel like a cheat? I 
 
 tell you the Past is not all over; it will 
 
 stand as long as I live between me and 
 
 other people — not my employers, for there 
 
 will be no associations in their case; but 
 
 every one who knew me once, and who 
 
 knows me now. Why does no one speak 
 
 to me^ in even a casual way, of the places 
 
 I have seen, or the people I have been 
 
 amongst? Do you think I imagine it is 
 
 because they are unwilling to awaken a 
 
 slumbering sorrow? No! You know, and 
 
 I know, it is because they feel that I have 
 
 seen sights unfit for women's eyes, and 
 
 heard words unfit for women's ears; and 
 
 can I ever forget it while others remember 
 
 it whenever they see me ? No, no, no ! I 
 
 never, never can!' 
 
 She pressed her small hands together 
 
THE LETTER FllOM MELBOURNE. 213 
 
 and slightly wrung them ; a gesture habitual 
 to her in distress, but which he had never 
 seen before. He cauo^ht her rio'ht hand 
 in his, and drew it within his arm. She 
 walked on with him, but was, as he knew, 
 almost unconscious of his presence. 
 
 How he loved her! how he hated the 
 dead man who had caused her to suffer 
 thus I A young man himself, and she no 
 more than a girl ; and yet how little of 
 the aspect, hoAv little of the sense of youth 
 there was about either as they walked to- 
 gether through the woods and fields that 
 day! 
 
 This sudden revelation of Margaret's 
 feehngs brought a sense of despair to Fitz- 
 william Baldwin. If the spectre of the 
 past haunted her thus, if she were divided 
 from all the present by this drear shade, 
 then was she divided from him too. 
 
 How should he hope to lay the ghost 
 
214 A KIGHTED WKONG. 
 
 which thus walked abroad in the noonday 
 beside her ? Had he had a little more ex- 
 perience, had not Margaret been so com- 
 pletely a new type of womanhood to him, 
 had he had a little less humility, he would 
 have taken courage from the fact that she 
 had given utterance to such feeUngs before 
 him. 
 
 That he had seen Margaret as no other 
 human being had ever seen her, ought 
 to have been an indication to him that, 
 however unconsciously to her, he was to 
 Margaret what no other human being was. 
 The time was to come in which he was to 
 make that discovery; but that time was 
 not yet, and he left her that day with pro- 
 found discouragement. 
 
 She recovered herself after a little, and 
 when they reached the confines of the de- 
 mesne of Chayleigh they were talking in 
 their ordinary manner of ordinary subjects. 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 215 
 
 but Margaret's arm still rested on that of 
 her companion, nor was it removed until 
 they reached the little gate between the 
 wood and the pleasaunce. 
 
 As they crossed the lawn, Margaret^s 
 dress swept the fallen leaves rustling after 
 her. She was very near the house now, 
 and the sound caught James Dugdale's ear 
 as he lay on his couch in the window. He 
 raised himself on his elbow and looked out. 
 The letter from Hayes Meredith was still 
 in his hand. Margaret looked up and 
 fifreeted him with a smile. 
 
 The next moment she was in the ve- 
 randah, and he heard her laugh as she 
 spoke to her father. Her voice thrilled his 
 heart as it had done on the first day of her 
 return. Her laugh had something like the 
 old sound in it, which he had not heard 
 since she was a o^irl. Good God ! how lonsf 
 ago ! She was looking better than when he 
 
214 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 which thus walked abroad in the noonday 
 beside her? Had he had a little more ex- 
 perience, had not Margaret been so com- 
 pletely a new type of womanhood to him, 
 had he had a little less humility, he would 
 have taken courage from the fact that she 
 had given utterance to such feelings before 
 him. 
 
 That he had seen Margaret as no other 
 human being had ever seen her, ought 
 to have been an indication to him that, 
 however unconsciously to her, he was to 
 Margaret what no other human being was. 
 The time was to come in which he was to 
 make that discovery; but that time was 
 not yet, and he left her that day with pro- 
 found discouragement. 
 
 She recovered herself after a little, and 
 when they reached the confines of the de- 
 mesne of Chayleigh they were talking in 
 their ordinary manner of ordinary subjects. 
 
THE LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. 215 
 
 but Margaret's arm still rested on that of 
 her companion, nor was it removed until 
 they reached the little gate between the 
 wood and the pleasaunce. 
 
 As they crossed the lawn, Margaret^s 
 dress swept the fallen leaves rustling after 
 her. She was very near the house now, 
 and the sound caught James Dugdale's ear 
 as he lay on his couch in the window. He 
 raised himself on his elbow and looked out. 
 The letter from Hayes Meredith was still 
 in his hand. Margaret looked up and 
 greeted him with a smile. 
 
 The next moment she was in the ve- 
 randah, and he heard her laugh as she 
 spoke to her father. Her voice thrilled his 
 heart as it had done on the first day of her 
 return. Her laugh had something like the 
 old sound in it, which he had not heard 
 since she was a orirl. Good God ! how Ions: 
 ago ! She was looking better than when he 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 fools' paradise. 
 
 Shortly after the incidents narrated in the 
 preceding chapter, Mr. Baldwin left Davyn- 
 try. His sister maintained to the last the 
 strong constraint she had put upon herself. 
 She had seen with a genuine disinterested 
 pleasure, for which the world in general 
 might fairly have been excused for not 
 giving her credit, that her young favourite 
 had captivated her only brother. 
 
 Without being a very wise, a very witty, 
 or in any marked way a very superior wo- 
 man, Eleanor Davyntry possessed certain 
 admirable and estimable qualities. Not the 
 least remarkable, and perhaps the most rare 
 of these, was disinterestedness. This vir- 
 
fools' paradise. 219 
 
 tue was in her : it did not arise from cir- 
 cumstances. She was not disinterested 
 because she was rich, — the amount of wealth 
 in people's possession makes no difference 
 in their appreciation of and desire for wealth, 
 — and Lady Davyntry ' had no nonsense 
 about her.' 
 
 She thoroughly understood the value 
 of her money as a means towards the en- 
 joyment of the happiness which she acknow- 
 ledged to be hers; but it never occurred 
 to her for a moment to consider her own 
 interests in the question of her brother's 
 future. That he would probably marry at 
 some time she looked upon as certain; and 
 the inheritance of the Deane from one so 
 much younger than herself would not have 
 been a hopeful subject of speculation, had 
 she been a person who would have specu- 
 lated upon it at all. Even if she had had 
 children, it would have been all the same 
 
220 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 to Lady Davyntry. She would not have 
 been covetous for them any more than for 
 herself. She had thought rather nervously, 
 since Sir Richard's death had left her more 
 dependent on her brother for the love and 
 companionship without which life would 
 have been intolerable to a woman of her 
 disposition, of the probabilities of Mr. Bald- 
 win's marriage. 
 
 Lady Davyntry had her prejudices ; one 
 of them was against Scotchwomen. She 
 hoped he would not marry a Scotchwoman, 
 therefore she had never encouraged her 
 brother's residence at the Deane. 
 
 ' It is not so much their ankles and 
 wrists,' she had assured Sir Eichard, when 
 he had remonstrated with her for ' snub- 
 bing' a florid young lady who hailed from 
 Aberdeen ; and did it in a voice which set 
 Lady Davyntry's teeth on edge, and made 
 her backbone quiver, ' as it is their minds 
 
fools' paeadise. 221 
 
 and their ways. Of course, the way they 
 speak is very a^vful, and the way they move 
 is worse; but I could stand all that, I 
 daresay. But what I cannot stand is their 
 coarse way of looking at things, and the 
 hardness of them in general. And as for 
 flirting ! Voii may think it is not danger- 
 ous, because it is all romping and hoyden- 
 ism; but I don't want a sister-in-law of 
 Miss Mac Alpine's pattern, and so I tell 
 you.' 
 
 ' Hadn't you better tell Baldwin so, my 
 dear IN'elly,' the reasonable baronet had 
 made answer. ' / don't want a MacAlpine 
 importation into the family either ; but, 
 after all, it's Ms business, not mine.' 
 
 ' Xo, no,' said the astute Nelly ; ' I am 
 not quite so stupid as to warn any man 
 against a particular woman of whom he 
 has hitherto taken no special notice. That 
 would be just the way to make him notice 
 
222 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 her, and tliat would be playing her game 
 for her. I am not really afraid of the fair 
 Jessie ; Fitzwilliam can see her wrists, and 
 her ankles too, quite as plainly as I can; 
 and I fancy he suffers rather more acutely 
 from her accent. I shall limit my inter- 
 ference to getting him away from the 
 Deane.' 
 
 Other and sadder preoccupations soon 
 after claimed Lady Davyntry, and Miss 
 Jessie Mac Alpine was forgotten. And now, 
 when her brother spoke of leaving her to 
 return to the Deane, she remembered the 
 young woman and her mosstrooper -like 
 accomplishments without a shade of appre- 
 hension. 
 
 ' My darling Margaret has made my 
 mind quite easy on that point, at all events,' 
 thought Eleanor, as Mr. Baldwin imparted 
 to her some of his intentions for the benefit 
 of his tenantry and estate. ' Whether she 
 
fools' paradise. 223 
 
 cares for him or not, whether good or evil 
 is to be the result, — and I believe all will 
 go well with them both, — he is safe in such 
 an attachment.' 
 
 When her brother had left her, Eleanor 
 thought long and happily over it all. Of 
 his feelmgs she did not entertain a doubt, 
 and her keen feminine perception had be- 
 gun to discern in Margaret certain symp- 
 toms which led her to hope that for her 
 too the dawn of a fair day was at hand. 
 If she had known more of the young 
 widow's inner life, if she had had a clearer 
 knowledge of her past. Lady Davyntry 
 would have hoped less and feared more. 
 But her ignorance prevented the discour- 
 agement of fear, and her natural enthu- 
 siasm aided the impulses of hope; and she 
 saw visions and dreamed dreams which 
 were pure and beautiful, for they were all 
 of the happiness and the good of others. 
 
224 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 Thus Margaret's sadness and silence, the 
 gloom which sometimes settled heavily over 
 her, did not grieve her watchful friend. 
 If only she loved, or should come to love, 
 Fitzwilliam Baldwin, all this should be 
 changed. All the darkness should pass 
 away, and a life adorned with all that 
 wealth could lend, enriched with all that 
 love could give, should open before the 
 woman whose feet had hitherto trodden 
 such weary ways. Lady Davyntry pleased 
 herself with fancies of all she should do to 
 increase the happiness of that splendid vi- 
 sionary household at the Deane. 
 
 If Lady Davyntry could have known 
 what were Margaret's thoughts just at the 
 time when Mr. Baldwin went away, she 
 would have felt some discouragement, 
 though not so much as a person less given 
 to enthusiasm, and to the raising of a fancy 
 to the rank and importance of a hobby. 
 
fools' paradise. 225 
 
 She had never realised any of the painful 
 features of Mrs. Hungerford's past life ; she 
 had never tried to realise them. Her mind 
 was not of an order to which the realisation 
 of circumstances entirely out of the sphere 
 of her experience was possible, and she 
 never speculated upon them. 
 
 In a different way, and for quite an- 
 other class of reason. Lady Davyntry had 
 arrived at a state of mind similar to that 
 of Mr. Carteret, who regarded the blissful 
 fact of his son-in-law's death as not only 
 the termination, but the consignment to 
 oblivion, of all the misery his existence had 
 occasioned. 
 
 ' Of course she is low at times,' thought 
 Lady Davyntry; 'that is only natural. 
 After all, she must feel herself out of her 
 place at Chayleigh, with that detestable 
 woman. But that will not last; and she 
 
 VOL. I. Q. 
 
226 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 will be all the brighter and the happier 
 when Fitz has her safely at home.' 
 
 The world wonld have found it hard 
 to understand that Mr. Baldwin's only 
 sister — the great, rich, enviable, to-be-cap- 
 tured - if - possible Mr. Baldwin's sister — 
 should desire so ardently the marriage of 
 her brother with a person who had no 
 fortune, no claim to personal distinction, 
 and — a story. Horrible dowry for a wo- 
 man! Better any insignificance, however 
 utter. 
 
 And Margaret? While Mr. Baldwin 
 was attending to the long -neglected de- 
 mands, undergoing active ^persecution at 
 the hands of a neighbourhood resolved on 
 intimacy, and longing, with all the strength 
 of his heart, for the sight of Margaret's 
 pale face and the sound of her thrilling 
 voice — while his sister was building castles 
 in the air for him to tenant — what of Mar- 
 
fools' paeadise. 227 
 
 garet ? What of her who was the centre, 
 so unconsciously to herself, of all these 
 hopes and speculations? 
 
 She was perhaps farther just then than 
 she had ever been from a mood which was 
 likely to dispose her towards their realisa- 
 tion. She had been disturbed rather than 
 affected by the perusal of Hayes Meredith's 
 letter. It had immediately succeeded to 
 the outburst of emotion to which she had 
 yielded in the presence of Mr. Baldwin, 
 and for which she had afterwards taken 
 herself severely to task; and it had upset 
 her hard-won equanimity. 
 
 She was ashamed of herself, angry with 
 herself, when she found out how much she 
 desired that the past should be utterly for- 
 gotten. She had had to bear it all, and 
 she had borne it, not so badly on the 
 whole ; but she did not want any reference 
 to it; she shrunk from any external asso- 
 
228 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 elation with it as from a physical pain. 
 Her reluctance to encounter any such asso- 
 ciation had strangely increased within the 
 past few weeks. 
 
 She did not know, she did not ask her- 
 self, why. Was she ungrateful because she 
 had felt intense reluctance to read Hayes 
 Meredith's letter? Had she forgotten, had 
 she ceased to thank him for all he had done 
 to lighten her lot? Was she so cold, so 
 'shallow-hearted,' as to think, as many a 
 vulgar-minded woman would have thought, 
 that her account with the man who had 
 succoured her in a strange land was closed 
 with the cheque which her father had given 
 her to be sent to him, in payment of the 
 money he had lent her? 
 
 No, Margaret Hungerford was not un- 
 grateful; but there was a sore spot in her 
 heart which something — she did not ask 
 what — was daily making sorer; the letter 
 
EOOLS' PARADISE. 229 
 
 had touched it, and she shrunk with keen 
 unexplained anguish from the touch. She 
 lay awake the whole night after she had 
 read the letter from Melbourne, and it 
 seemed to her that she lived all the old 
 agonies of despair, rage, humiliation, and 
 diso^ust over ao;ain. 
 
 It chanced that the next day James 
 Dugdale was ill. This was so common an 
 occurrence that no one thought much about 
 it. James was familiar with suffering, and 
 it was the inevitable penalty of fatigue. 
 'Not for him was the healthy sense of being 
 tired, and of refreshing rest. Fatigue came 
 to him with pain and fever, with racked 
 limbs, and irritable nerves, and terrible de- 
 pression. His journey had tired him, and 
 he lay all day on the couch placed in the 
 window of his room. 
 
 Hither came Mrs. Carteret frequently, 
 fussily, but genuinely kind, and Mr. Bald- 
 
230 A RIGHTED WEONG. 
 
 win, to say some friendly words, and feel 
 the truest compassion for the strong man 
 thus imprisoned in his weak frame. Hither, 
 later in the day, and much to the surprise 
 of James Dugdale, came Margaret. He 
 had thought she had gone to Davyntry, 
 and said so. She reddened, a little angrily, 
 as she replied, 
 
 ' No : I have not been out. You seem 
 to think I must always go to Davyntry/ 
 
 ' Xot /, indeed, Margaret,' said James, 
 with a smile ; ' but I think they do. Since 
 I have been away, I understand you have 
 been constantly at Davyntry, and I am very 
 glad to hear it ; it is good for you and for 
 Lady Davyntry also.' 
 
 ' Perhaps so ; she is very kind,' said 
 Margaret absently. 'At all events, I am 
 not there to-day, as you see, and I am not 
 going there, or anywhere, but I will sit 
 here with you, if I may.' 
 
fools' paradise. 231 
 
 She turned on him one of her rare, 
 winning smiles — a smile far more beauti- 
 ful, he thought, than any her girlhood had 
 been decked in. She drew a low chair into 
 the bow of the window, beside his couch, 
 and sat down. Between him and the light 
 was her graceful figure, and her clear pale 
 face, with its strangely-contrasted look of 
 3'outh and experience. 
 
 'Are you really going to give up all 
 the afternoon to me?' said James, in de- 
 light. 
 
 ' I really am. I will read to you, or we 
 can talk, just as you like. I suppose you 
 don't feel any great fancy for turning tutor 
 to me over again, though I see all my old 
 school-books religiously preserved on your 
 book-shelves,' she said, glancing round at 
 the well-stocked walls of the room, which 
 had been the schoolroom in the days when 
 Haldane ^nd she had been James's pupils. 
 
232 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' I have kept every remembrance of that 
 time, Margaret,' said James. 
 
 There was a tone in his voice which 
 might have been a revelation to her, had she 
 heard it, but she did not. She smiled again, 
 and said : 
 
 ' You had a troublesome pupil. I am 
 in a good mood to-day, as I used to say 
 long ago, and I want to talk to you about 
 this.^ 
 
 She took Hayes Meredith's letter out 
 of her pocket as she spoke. 
 
 James Dugdale kept silence, looking at 
 her. ' Is she going to tell me the story of 
 her life ?' he thought. ' Am I going at last 
 to learn something of the history of this 
 woman whom I love?' 
 
 Margaret did not speak for some mo- 
 ments ; she looked at the letter in silence. 
 Then she unfolded it, and said : 
 
 ' I am glad you let me read this letter 
 
fools' paradise. 233 
 
 for myself, James' (she had dropped into 
 the habit of calling him by his name) ; 
 ' there are some hard things in it, but 
 they are true — and so, better spoken, no 
 matter how hard they may be. But let 
 us pass them over, they are said of the 
 dead.' 
 
 Her face hardened, and she turned it 
 away from him. James Dugdale laid his 
 thin hand on her arm. 
 
 'Margaret,' he said, 'you know I would 
 not have given you that letter to grieve 
 you. I was thinking so much of what 
 Meredith says of himself and his son that I 
 forgot the allusion to — ' 
 
 'I know, I know,' she said hurriedly; 
 ' don't say his name ; I never do.' 
 
 The admission was a confidence. She 
 was breaking down the barrier of reserve 
 between them. She trusted him. She might 
 come to like him yet. The friendship at 
 
234 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 least of the woman he loved might 3^et come 
 to gild this man's lonely life. It would be 
 much to him to know that she forgave him ; 
 and there was something in her manner now 
 so different from anything that had ever 
 been there formerly, that he began to hope 
 she had really forgiven him. 
 
 In his quiet life, James Dugdale had 
 contrived to attain, with very little aid from 
 experience, to a tolerable amount of com- 
 prehension of human nature, and he under- 
 stood that Margaret's practically - enforced 
 conviction, that he had been unerringly 
 right in all he had suspected and pre- 
 dicted of the fate in store for her, in her 
 marriage, had not made her more inclined 
 to pardon the interference on his part 
 which she had so bitterly resented. But 
 this was all over now, he did not know 
 why ; he felt it, he did not understand 
 it. 
 
fools' paradise. 235 
 
 Was it that the natural elasticity of 
 youth was asserting its power — that Mar- 
 garet was regaining her spirits, was throw- 
 ing off the burden of the past, and, with 
 it, all the feelings which had obscured the 
 brightness and injured the gentleness of 
 her nature ? This was the most probable 
 explanation ; if, indeed, there was any 
 other, it did not present itself as an alter- 
 native to James Dugdale. While he was 
 thinking thus, she began to speak again in 
 a hurried tone : 
 
 ' I should like to tell you now, James, 
 because I would rather not have to refer 
 to the matter again, that I know how kind 
 you Avere to me, and how right in every- 
 thing you said, and how hard you tried to 
 save me. Yes, yes ; let me speak,' she 
 went on, and tears, seldom seen in her 
 eyes, stood in them now. ' I could not 
 again ; let me speak now. You tried, 
 
236 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 James, I know ; but you could not suc- 
 ceed. It was from myself I needed to be 
 saved. Never think that you could have 
 done anythmg more than you did ; in- 
 deed you could not. Nothing could have 
 saved me.' 
 
 She was trembling now, even as the 
 hand which he laid on hers, unnoticed, was 
 trembling. Her lustrous eyes were wet, 
 and the emotion in her face made it quite 
 beautiful. James Dugdale did not attempt 
 to speak ; he looked at her, and his heart 
 was wrung with j^ity. 
 
 ' It had to be, James, and it is done 
 with, as much as it ever can be in this 
 world, in which there is no release from 
 consequences of our own acts. And now' 
 — she raised her head, she released her 
 hand, she was regaining her composure, 
 the momentary expansion was past, as he 
 felt, and he had learned nothing! — 'let us 
 
fools' paradise. 237 
 
 talk of your friend, who was so kind to me, 
 and retains so kind a recollection of me. 
 What do you think of all he says?' 
 
 ' I think badly of it,' said James, as he 
 leaned back on his couch again, and adopted 
 the tone she had given to their conversa- 
 tion. ' I fear Robert Meredith is a bad 
 boy.' 
 
 ' So do I,' said Margaret. ' I have seen 
 him, though not often, and I never saw a 
 boy — almost a child — whom I disliked so 
 much. He is a handsome fellow, but self- 
 ish, heartless, and sly. His very cleverness 
 was revolting to me, and I suspect the feel- 
 ino; of dislike between us was mutual ; he 
 has an American-like precocity about him 
 which I detest. His little brothers, rough 
 colonial children as they are, are infinitely 
 more to be liked than he is. Of course you 
 must do as Mr. Meredith asks you ; but if 
 you will credit my judgment — and, all 
 
238 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 things considered, I am rather daring in 
 asking you to do so — you will not under- 
 take anything like personal charge of Eo- 
 bert Meredith.' 
 
 ' I will certainly take your advice in 
 the matter, Margaret ; you know the boy. 
 I fancy I had better urge Meredith to bring 
 him to England himself, if it is determined 
 that he is to come. Tell me as much as 
 you remember about the boy, and all the 
 family, I remember Mrs. Meredith a 
 pretty, active, pert kind of girl — strong 
 and saucy — a capital wife for him, I should 
 think.' 
 
 ' I daresay,' Margaret answered care- 
 lessly ; ' I did not know much of her.' 
 
 Then their conversation turned on the 
 career and circumstances of Hayes Mere- 
 dith, with which this story has no concern. 
 In aftertime James Dugdale remembered 
 that day as one of the happiest of his life. 
 
239 
 
 They were quite uninterrupted until late 
 in the evening. Mrs. Car'teret had carried 
 off to a dinner-party her reluctant husband, 
 who would have infinitely preferred to su- 
 perintend the dinner of a peculiarly fine 
 spider — whose proceedings he was watch- 
 ing just then, and whose larder was largely 
 provided mth the last unwary flies of the 
 expiring autumn. 
 
 Margaret and James Dugdale dined 
 alone. She was in good spirits on the oc- 
 casion ; she had almost lost the painful 
 impression produced by Hayes Meredith's 
 letter, by talking it over with James ; and 
 between herself and him there reigned 
 harmony and unreserve which had had no 
 previous existence. James had never seen 
 her look so nearly beautiful; he had never 
 seen her so kind, so gentle to him. 
 
 The hours passed over him in a kind of 
 trance - like spell of pleasure. Margaret 
 
240 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 talked as he had never imagined she could 
 talk. He had soon recognised that her 
 character was hardened and strengthened 
 hj the trials she had endured ; but until 
 this day he had not known that her intel- 
 lect had grown and brightened in propor- 
 tion. 
 
 They read together Haldane's letters to 
 his old friend, and Margaret found in them 
 many a kindly mention of her. Her bro- 
 ther would know of her arrival in England 
 at about this time. 
 
 ' You must promise to tell me what he 
 says, James, if it is not something very dis- 
 agreeable indeed.' 
 
 And James promised. 
 
 From that day Margaret was a less 
 unhappy woman than before. The first 
 effect produced on her by Meredith's let- 
 ter returned when she went to Davyntry, 
 after Mr. Baldwin's departure, and was 
 
tools' paradise. 241 
 
 more than ever warmly greeted by her 
 friend. 
 
 ' I don't think I could bear Fitzwilliam's 
 absence if I had not your society,' Lady Da- 
 vyntry said to her ; and, fond and flatter- 
 ing as the words were, there was, not in 
 them, but in the mood in which she lis- 
 tened to them, something that hurt Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 The young widow's pride was for ever 
 rebelling against the unshared knowledge 
 of the experiences through which she had 
 passed. Eleanor talked to her incessantly 
 of her brother, of the Deane, of his occu- 
 pations, his neighbours, and his popularity. 
 The theme did not weary Margaret ; and 
 Lady Davyntry accepted her unflagging at- 
 tention as a delightful omen. 
 
 ' She misses him ; I am sure she misses 
 him,' was her pleased mental comment. 
 
 ' I hardly expected Margaret to remain 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 SO long at Davyntry to-day^'' said Mrs. Car- 
 teret to James Dugdale, as the family party 
 were assembled in the drawing-room at 
 Chayleigh. 
 
 James observed the emphasis, and re- 
 plied : 
 
 ^ Indeed ; why not ?' 
 
 ' Mr. Baldwin is not there, you know, 
 and I fancy he is the great attraction.^ 
 
 James made her no reply. He fully 
 understood the spiteful animus of the ob- 
 servation, but he also admitted its terrible 
 probability ; not in the present — he did not 
 take so superficial a view of Margaret's 
 character as that would have implied — but 
 a thrill of fear for the future came over 
 him, troubling his Fools' Paradise. In a 
 little while Margaret came in, looking as 
 tranquil as usual, and, in her accustomed 
 manner of placid, unalterable calm, — the 
 bearing she always opposed to the masked 
 
fools' paradise. 243 
 
 battery of Mrs. Carteret's insinuations and 
 insolences, — answered the questions put to 
 her. 
 
 When James Dugdale was alone that 
 night he took himself to task, in no gentle 
 manner. He knew he had nothing to ex- 
 pect beyond the unexpected boon of kind- 
 ness and confidence she had already ex- 
 tended to him ; and yet the thought that 
 another might again stand nearer to Mar- 
 garet than he, struck him with an anguish 
 almost as keen as the first torment had 
 been. He had doubted that fate could 
 bring him anything very hard to bear 
 asrain, and here was a faint sickenino; in- 
 dication that fate intended to resolve his 
 doubt into a fatal certainty. 
 
 But no : he would not think of it ; he 
 would not let it near him ; it could not be. 
 He knew he was weak in shrinking as he 
 did, in striving to shut out anything that 
 
244 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 might possibly be true — and, therefore, 
 ought to be faced — as he did; but the 
 weakness would have its way, like the 
 fainting of the body, and, for the present 
 time at least, he would put the apprehen- 
 sion from him. 
 
 The days and the weeks passed by, 
 and the external state of things remained 
 unchanged at Chayleigh. Uninterrupted 
 friendship, and a certain degree of confid- 
 ence, were maintained between Margaret 
 and James. The health and spirits of the 
 young widow improved ; her friendship 
 ■with Lady Davyntry remained unimpaired. 
 The correspondence between Eleanor and 
 her brother was frequent and lengthy, and 
 the letters from the Deane were imparted 
 with great frankness by the elder to the 
 younger lady. They were vivid, amusing, 
 and characteristic, and invariably included 
 a message of cordial remembrance to the 
 
fools' paradise. 245 
 
 household at Chayleigh. Peace of mind 
 was prevalent among all the parties con- 
 cerned in the little drame intime with which 
 we are dealing. 
 
 Lady Davyntry's mind was at peace, 
 because she saw that Margaret's interest 
 in Mr. Baldwin's report of his doings at 
 the Deane did not flag ; and, as she said to 
 herself, ' there was no one to interfere with 
 his chances.' 
 
 James Dugdale's mind was at peace, be^ 
 cause Margaret seemed happier and calmer 
 than he had ever again expected to see her ; 
 and, as Mr. Baldwin remained away, he was 
 not to be feared ; and it was evident that 
 the source of her renewed content was to 
 be found in her present sphere. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret's mind was at peace, be- 
 cause Margaret gave her no trouble, and 
 kept herself so quiet, so completely aloof 
 from ' the neighbourhood,' that that noun of 
 
246 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 moderate multitude, — having satisfied its 
 curiosity by observing how Mr. Carteret's 
 daughter looked in her 'weeds,' — was con- 
 tent to forget her existence, or ready to 
 condole with Mrs. Carteret upon her step- 
 daughter's strange unsociability, and to 
 compliment the lady upon the contrast in 
 that respect which they presented. 
 
 Things had turned out so differently 
 from Mrs. Carteret's first aj)prehensive an- 
 ticipations — she had been able to exploiter 
 Margaret so successfully; her boasted inti- 
 macy at Davyntry had been so compla- 
 cently indorsed by Lady Davyntry, who 
 would have gone more directly against her 
 conscience even than that to make Mar- 
 garet^s position at home easier — that Mrs. 
 Carteret had almost ceased to wish for 
 Margaret's departure — had even thought 
 casually that it would certainly looh bet- 
 ter, and might possibly he better, if she 
 
fools' paradise. 247 
 
 could be induced to remain at her father's 
 house. 
 
 ' Perhaps she may settle herself advan- 
 tageously yet,' Mrs. Carteret — whose ideas 
 were eminently practical — said to herself; 
 and she even thought of consulting James 
 as to whether she had not better suo-orest 
 such a solution of the problem of the fu- 
 ture to Margaret. 
 
 Mr. Carteret's mind was at peace, be- 
 cause his mind had never been in any other 
 condition since Godfrey Hungerford's death 
 had restored it to ordinary equilibrium, 
 and because his collections were getting on 
 splendidly. 
 
 When Margaret Hungerford had been 
 five months at Chayleigh — when the time 
 was approaching which she had fixed upon 
 as the period at which she would commence 
 her career of labour and independence — 
 when eleven months had elapsed since God- 
 
248 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 frey Hungerford's death — when the snows 
 of February lay thick and white upon the 
 earth — an event occurred which disturbed 
 the calm of Chayleigh. 
 
 Mrs. Carteret distinguished herself in a 
 most unexpected manner. She caught cold 
 returning from one of the dull dinner-par- 
 ties which her soul loved, and which no 
 inclemency of weather, or domestic crisis 
 which could be ignored with any decency, 
 would have induced her to forego. A se- 
 cond dinner-party was to come off within 
 three days ; so Mrs. Carteret denied the 
 existence of the cold, and attended that 
 solemn festival. That day week she was 
 dead. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DAWNING. 
 
 ' You cannot conceive anything more per- 
 fect than the way Margaret is behaving,' 
 wrote Lady Davyntry to her brother, when 
 the first novelty and shock of Mrs. Car- 
 teret's death had somewhat subsided, 'in 
 this sad affair. Her conduct to her father 
 is most admirable. He, poor man, is in a 
 wretched state — more, perhaps, of bewil- 
 derment than grief, but altogether un- 
 hinged. 
 
 '"Master's put out terrible," was the 
 account I had from one of the Chayleigh 
 servants, and, odd and horrid as it sounds, 
 I really think that is the best description of 
 
250 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 poor Mr. Carteret's state of mind. Any- 
 thing he is not used to "puts him out," 
 and he is singularly little used to trouble 
 or emotion of any kind. 
 
 ' He wanders about in a way distressing 
 to behold, and cannot be induced to occupy 
 himself. "There ain't no keeping him in 
 the study," Foster said to me ; " and as 
 much as stick a pin in a butterfly, Mr. 
 James nor Miss Margaret can't indoose 
 him to do." 
 
 'He seems to have lost all his taste for 
 his specimens, but ]\Iargaret has hit upon 
 a great idea for his relief and amusement. 
 This is no other than to talk to her father 
 about the interest which the poor woman 
 who is gone took in his pursuits, and how 
 much she would have regretted his aban- 
 donment of them. 
 
 ' There is a touch of pious fraud in this, 
 for no one can possibly know better than 
 
DAWNIXG. 251 
 
 Margaret that Mrs. Carteret never took 
 any interest in anything but herself, and 
 was rather more indifferent to her hus- 
 band's pursuits than to any other matters ; 
 but the fraud is pious and successful. 
 
 ' I have just had a note from her 
 telling me he is more cheerful, and has 
 been watching her dusting specimens this 
 morning. She also says — but, on second 
 thoughts, I enclose the note. 
 
 'With all this, my darling Madge has 
 been very candid and sincere. She has 
 felt the awfulness and the import of the 
 event most deeply, but she has not pre- 
 tended to a personal sorrow which it is 
 impossible she should feel, and I honour 
 her for that — indeed, I honour her for 
 everything, and love her better every 
 day. 
 
 ' Mr. Dugdale has taken Mrs. Carteret's 
 death to heart terribly. She was sincerely 
 
252 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 attached to him, I beheve, and I fancy he. 
 was the only person in the world who 
 loved her, while he managed her perfectly, 
 and quite understood her queer disposition. 
 I have seen very little of him, but Mar- 
 garet has told me a good deal about him. 
 
 'If you remember, we used to think 
 that he and she did not get on well to- 
 gether — that she did not like him. With 
 all her reserve, Margaret is not difficult 
 to understand; she may keep facts to her- 
 self, but she does not disguise feelings, and 
 I am glad to thmk she and Mr. Dugdale 
 get on nicely now that they are in such 
 responsible charge at Chayleigh. 
 
 ' If my letter bores you, my dear Fitz, 
 I really cannot help it, for my head and 
 my heart are both full of Margaret. The 
 Martleys and Forbeses sent a strong con- 
 tingent down to the funeral, and two of 
 the Martleys stayed a week: very hand- 
 
DAWNING. 253 
 
 some young men, not in the least like their 
 sister, who was very much older. 
 
 ' I could not help thinking how vexed 
 the poor woman would have been if she 
 could have seen Henry Hartley so capti- 
 vated by her stepdaughter. He fell in 
 love with Margaret with quite old-fashioned 
 celerity, but she calmly ignored him and 
 his love. Mr. Dugdale saw it plainly, and 
 did not like it by any means. They have 
 all had enough of the Hartleys, I fancy. 
 
 ' The young men took their sister's 
 death very easily; the eldest was evidently 
 glad to get away; and I cannot be very 
 much surprised or very angry. This event 
 will make a great difference to Margaret. 
 I have always had a presentiment — I liave^ 
 how ever you may laugh — that she would 
 not have to leave Chayleigh. Of course, 
 she cannot think of doing so now; she 
 must remain with her father. 
 
254 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ' Captain Carteret is on his way home. 
 Mr. Dugdale came here yesterday with 
 Margaret for the first time. I believe 
 something was said about his leaving Chay- 
 leigh and going back to Oxford, but Mr. 
 Carteret would not hear of it ; he clings 
 to Mr. Dugdale more even than to Mar- 
 garet. So they will settle down together, 
 no doubt. It is a good thing Captain Car- 
 teret was not here sooner; the gloom will 
 have pretty well dispersed before he comes. 
 
 ' Your account of the Deane is delight- 
 ful. I think you are quite right not to 
 refurnish the drawing-rooms just yet. Per- 
 haps I might screw up my courage to going 
 there in summer, and then I could choose 
 colours, and so on, for you. You do not 
 really want drawing-rooms at present, and 
 I should not mind anything of the kind if 
 I were you. You may not remain at the 
 Deane long. Indeed, I ho2:>e you are 
 
DAWNING. 255 
 
 thinking of coming back to me ; I want to 
 consult you about such a lot of things ; 
 and I hate letter-writing, and explain my- 
 self so badly.' 
 
 For a lady who hated letter-writing, 
 Lady Davyntry indulged in it a good deal ; 
 and, with singular self-denial, devoted her- 
 self to keeping her brother thoroughly well 
 informed concerning affairs in the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 She would, priding herself on her 
 astuteness and believing herself inscrutably 
 clever in the performance, send him pages 
 of gossiping details about other people than 
 the dwellers at Chayleigh; she would tell 
 him about the Croftons, the Crokers, and 
 the Willises, about friends in town and 
 friends in foreign parts, whenever it ajo- 
 peared to her that her insistance upon 
 Chayleigh was becoming too marked. 
 
 By such artful dodges did she seek to 
 
256 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 divert Mr. Baldwin's suspicions that she 
 cherished the profound design of marrying 
 him to her friend. 
 
 Her brother, on his part, carefully for- 
 bore to point out the inconsistency between 
 her dislike of letter-writing and the fre- 
 quency of her correspondence. He under- 
 stood the o;uileless and amiable Eleanor 
 thoroughly, and smiled over her letters as 
 he thought how charmingly transparent the 
 artifice was, and how easily he could have 
 disposed of it all, had it not precisely co- 
 incided with his own wishes. 
 
 Time hung heavily on Mr. Baldwin's 
 hands in the midst of his great possessions, 
 and in the presence of his popularity with 
 an assiduous neighbourhood. He had set 
 his heart, he was ready to stake his whole 
 future, upon winning the wearied heart of 
 the pale-faced girl who had brought some- 
 thing into his life which had never been 
 
DAWNING. 257 
 
 there before, and the hours and days lin- 
 gered until the time should come which 
 he had set before himself as fitting for the 
 attempt. 
 
 Her first year of widowhood would 
 soon have elapsed, and then he might, 
 without offence, tell her that he loved her. 
 So he named that time, in his own mind, 
 for his return to Davyntry. 
 
 When Mrs. Carteret's death occurred, 
 Mr. Baldwin did not alter his plan. The 
 change in Margaret's prospects, the neces- 
 sity for her remaining with her father, the 
 fact that her sphere of duty was strictly de- 
 fined now, gave him no uneasiness. 
 
 He would never ask her to leave her 
 father. He knew Mr. Carteret well. It 
 did not take much time or pains to acquire 
 that knowledge, and he knew he had no 
 strong attachment to Chayleigh. If he 
 could but persuade Margaret to come and 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
258 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 reign at the Deane, he had no doubt her 
 father would readily go there too. 
 
 He had a conviction, which, after all, 
 was not presumptuous for a man of his 
 fortune and station to entertain, that in 
 Margaret's brother he should find a friend. 
 James Dugdale had told him a little of the 
 family history — had given him a vague 
 notion of the part Haldane had taken in 
 the circumstances which had led to Mar- 
 garet's disastrous marriage ; and he felt 
 that the young man would naturally rejoice 
 that such a total change should be wrought 
 in the life of his sister, who had paid so 
 dearly for her imprudence. 
 
 A man of peculiarly simple tastes and 
 habits, of unaffected ways of thinking about 
 himself and other people, it rarely oc- 
 curred to Fitzwilliam Baldwin to take his 
 wealth into account; but he did so now, 
 very reasonably. 'It would not weigh with 
 
DAWNING. 259 
 
 her for a minute,' he thought; 'but it will 
 with them, and it will be pleasant to have 
 them all for, and not against, me.' 
 
 Life at Chayleigh had settled down 
 again. The delusive appearance of im- 
 mutability which human affairs assume — 
 human affairs which are but a shifting 
 quicksand — had established itself. The 
 establishment, presided over by Margaret, 
 went on in the ordinary way, the servants 
 highly appreciating the change oi regime ; 
 and Mr. Carteret was beginning to dispose 
 of the days after his old fashion, when Mr. 
 Baldwin returned to Davy n try, and Hal- 
 dane Carteret arrived at Chayleigh. 
 
 The meeting between the brother and 
 sister was frankly affectionate ; the renewal 
 of their companionship was delightful ^to 
 both. Margaret thought her brother won- 
 derfully improved. He was a handsome, 
 manly, soldierly fellow, who had no trace 
 
260 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 of likeness to his gentle, studious, feeble 
 father, but ^Yhose face, despite its bronzed 
 skin and its thick dark moustache, awak- 
 ened strange memories in Mr. Carteret's 
 placid breast. 
 
 A curious mental phenomenon took 
 place in the experience of Haldane's father. 
 A httle while ago, and he was fretting for 
 Mrs. Carteret — if he had said he was 
 wretchedly uncomfortable it would have 
 been a more correct description of his state 
 of mind; but he chose to call himself, to 
 himself, profoundly miserable — and now, 
 since Haldane came home, he had almost 
 forgotten her. 
 
 True, he still sat mopingly in his chair, 
 and stared vacantly out of the window, 
 when they left him alone ; but the reverie 
 which filled those hours was no longer what 
 it had been. With his son in his bright 
 strong manhood, with his daughter in her 
 
DAWNING. 261 
 
 womanhood — early shadowed, indeed, but 
 beautiful — beside him, his heart turned to 
 the past, and a gentle figure, a fair delicate 
 face, long since turned to dust, kept him 
 ghostly company in his solitude. 
 
 Margaret was much surprised when, 
 shortly after Haldane's return, Mr. Carteret 
 began to talk to her one day about her 
 mother, and spoke of her with a cheerful 
 freshness of remembrance which she had 
 never supposed him to entertain. 
 
 'The colours she preferred, the books 
 she liked, the places they had visited to- 
 gether, certain fancies she had in her ill- 
 ness — the smallest things, I assure you — 
 is it not wonderful?' Margaret had asked 
 of Lady Davyntry, as she was telling her 
 this strange circumstance. 'I never was 
 more surprised, and, I need not say, de- 
 lighted; I don't think poor Mrs. Carteret's 
 fancies and sayings remain so fresh in his 
 
262 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 memory. After so many years, too ! The 
 fact is, I don't believe she ever really filled 
 my mother's place at all.' 
 
 Margaret was seated on a cushion in 
 the bay of a great window in the drawing- 
 room at Davyntry as she spoke thus. Her 
 heavy bonnet and veil were thrown on the 
 floor beside her, her pale, clear, speaking 
 face, the eyes bright and humid, the lips 
 parted eagerly, and the flickering light, 
 which emotion always diflused over her 
 face, playing on her features. Lady Da- 
 vyntry stood in the window, and looked 
 down upon her. 
 
 ' I am sure she never did,' said the im- 
 pulsive Eleanor; 'how could she? It is 
 all very well for a man to marry again, as 
 your father did, when he has little children, 
 and no one but servants to look after them ; 
 but, of course, a second marriage never 
 can be the same thing. All the romance 
 
DAWNING. 263 
 
 of life is over, you know, and one knows 
 how much fancy there is in everything ; 
 and, in fact, I can't understand it myself — 
 not for a woman, I mean, who has been 
 happy. A man is different.' 
 
 And then Lady Davyntry suddenly dis- 
 covered that, in proclaiming her general 
 opinion, she was saying exactly the opposite 
 to what she thought in the particular case 
 in which she was most deeply interested, 
 and stopped, very abruptly and awkwardly, 
 and blushing painfully. But Margaret did 
 not seem to perceive her embarrassment. 
 Her hands were pressed together; her eyes 
 looked out strangely, eagerly; her words 
 came as though she had no control of them. 
 
 ' And do you think an unhappy woman 
 — one who has found nothing in her mar- 
 riage but misery and degradation — one who 
 has nothing of the dreams and fancies of 
 her youth left for retrospection but sicken- 
 
264 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 ing deceit and a horrible cheating self- 
 delusion — one who has no good, or pure, 
 or gentle, or upright recollection to cherish 
 of a past which was all a lie, a base in- 
 famous lie — do you think a woman with a 
 story like that in her life ought to marry 
 again? Do you think — you, Eleanor, who 
 are truth and honour themselves, and who, 
 I suppose, in all your life never said, or 
 did, or saw, or heard anything for which 
 you have a right to blush or ought to wish 
 to forget — do you think that a woman with 
 a story like that in her life ought to marry? 
 Do you think she ought to link her life to 
 that of any man, however he might love 
 her and pity her, and be prepared to bear 
 with her, while she had to look back upon 
 such a past, however guiltless she might 
 be in it — do you think this, Eleanor? Tell 
 me plainly the truth.' 
 
 She put her hand up, and caught one 
 
DAWNING. 265 
 
 of her friend's hands in hers. Lady Da- 
 vyntry still stood and looked at her, and, 
 laying her disengaged hand on her shoul- 
 der, answered her passionate question. 
 
 'Do I? Indeed I do, Margaret. Tell 
 me, are you asking me this for yourself? 
 Are you asking me if I think, because you 
 have had the least-deserved misfortune to 
 have been the mfe of a bad man, and you 
 have been released from him, you are to 
 carry the chain in fancy which has been 
 taken off you in reality ? It's unlike you ; 
 it is morbid to ask, to think of such a 
 thing. What are you but a young girl 
 still? Are you to do penance all your life 
 for the sins of another ? No, no, Margaret ; 
 silent as you are about your past, you are 
 asking me this question in reference to 
 yourself. Is it not so? Do not place a 
 half-confidence in' me. Do not let a de- 
 lusion like this take possession of your 
 
266 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 mind, and blight your future as your past 
 has been blighted.' 
 
 ' There is nothing in my question,' said 
 Margaret, drawing her hand away from 
 Lady Davyntry, and rising ; ' nothing in the 
 sense you mean. My future seems plain 
 and clear enough now. My place in the 
 world is fixed, I fancy ; but sometimes, 
 Eleanor, sometimes the past, of Avhich I 
 have never spolien to ybti;:o£ which I can- 
 not speak, comes back to nie,^ not only in 
 its own dreadful shape, but with a dim 
 undefined threat in it, and makes me afi'aid. 
 You don't understand me; well for you 
 that you do not. I trust you never may.' 
 
 She picked up her bonnet and tied it 
 on, and was folding her shawl round her, 
 while Lady Davyntry stood by, longing to 
 speak out all that was in her mind, and 
 yet fearing to damage her own hopes by 
 doing so and learning the worst, when the 
 
DAWNING. 267 
 
 door opened, and Haldane Carteret and 
 Mr. Baldwin came into the room. 
 
 Margaret was standing with her back 
 towards the door, and facing a mirror, in 
 which Lady Davyntry saw her face re- 
 flected. It was startlingly pale, and there 
 was a wild look of pain in the eyes, quite 
 other than sadness — sometimes a little 
 stern — which was their usual expression. 
 
 Lady Davyntry could hardly reply to 
 the cheery greeting of Haldane, so much 
 was she struck by Margaret's change of 
 countenance. Margaret spoke hurriedly to 
 Mr. Baldwin. The only one of the four 
 who did not know that there was a con- 
 sciousness on the part of all the others that 
 something unusual had taken place was 
 Haldane. 
 
 ' I have come to fetch you home, Madge,' 
 he said, ' and then I'm going out for a ride 
 with Baldwin, and we dine with the Crof- 
 
268 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 tons, so you won't see much of me to-day. 
 Are you ready?' 
 
 'Quite ready,' said Margaret; and she 
 kissed Lady Davyntry, and took so hurried 
 a leave of her that her friend had not time 
 to ask her a question. She was about to 
 give Mr. Baldwin her hand, and bid him 
 good-bye too, but he said he was going 
 their way — his horses might be taken to 
 Chayleigh. 
 
 When she was left alone. Lady Da- 
 vyntry tried to disentangle her impressions 
 of what had occurred. At last she thought 
 she saw the meaning of it all. Margaret 
 had found out Mr. Baldwin's not-carefuUy- 
 preserved secret, even as she (Eleanor) had 
 found it out, and she loved him. Yes, his 
 sister was sure of it. She had all the 
 acuteness which keen feeling and true 
 sympathy give, and which is truer in emer- 
 gencies than that of mere intellectual cle- 
 
DAWNING. 269 
 
 verness, and she knew that a sharp and 
 severe struggle was raging in the young 
 widow's heart. 
 
 She understood it all now — she under- 
 stood that Margaret shrank from the avowal 
 to herself that she had learned to love and 
 trust again, that she had not been able to 
 carry out the expiatory process which she 
 had resolved — the process of lonelmess and 
 labour of self-repression, and the abnega- 
 tion of the true happiness to be had even 
 in this world, because she had been be- 
 guiled by the false. She understood that 
 Margaret, however beHeving and trusting 
 in Fitzwilliam Baldwin's love, would feel 
 that there was no equality between them, 
 and that the serene and beautiful fancies 
 of a happy girl Avere not for her, while all 
 the illusion and gladness of life's early days 
 still were his. Intuitively Lady Davyntry 
 understood it all; the face she had seen in 
 
270 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 the glass, when her brother's entrance had 
 surprised Margaret in one of her rare mo- 
 ments of emotion, had made it all plain to 
 her. 
 
 ' She will refuse him,' Eleanor thought; 
 ' she will refuse him. These two, the most 
 suited to one another, the best calculated 
 to be happy of any people I ever knew — 
 the very ideal of a well-matched pair — will 
 be kept apart by a chimera. So the evil 
 of that vile man's life lives after him, and 
 he has the power to make her and others 
 miserable, though he is in his grave. Shall 
 I speak openly to Fitzwilliam? I cannot 
 do harm now. No man could be more 
 bent upon anything than he is on marrying 
 Margaret. I may as well let him know — 
 if, indeed, he has not guessed it — how 
 much I wish it too.' 
 
 Lady Davyntry's nature, like her bro- 
 ther's, was essentially sunny and cheerful; 
 
DAWNING. 271 
 
 SO she soon roused herself from the de- 
 pression her discovery had caused her. 
 
 ' If she does refuse him,' thought Elea- 
 nor, after long cogitating with herself, ' she 
 cannot refuse to tell him why. She is too 
 sincere — she mil not deny that she loves 
 him, and then she will be persuaded out of 
 this morbid fancy by degrees. After all, 
 it will only be a case of waiting. I must 
 have patience, and Fitzwilliam must have 
 patience too. Margaret is worth waiting 
 for. I shall see her at the Deane yet.' 
 
 It was a source of great satisfaction to 
 Lady Davyntry to remember that Mar- 
 garet was settled at Chayleigh, that Mr. 
 Baldwin need not fear her removal — that, 
 in fact, he had every external advantage on 
 his side. 
 
 ' How strangely things happen !' she 
 thought. ' Really, it seems as if that poor 
 woman's death were quite providential. If 
 
272 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 she had lived, I don't see how Margaret 
 could have possibly stayed at Chayleigh; 
 and now she cannot get away. Even if 
 she had remained, she could not have been 
 in such a pleasant and independent posi- 
 tion.' 
 
 And then Lady Davyntry, who pos- 
 sessed in perfection the fine feminine faci- 
 lity for looking at every subject from 
 exclusively her own point of \dew, came 
 to the comfortable conclusion that poor 
 Mrs. Carteret's death was ' all for the 
 best.' 
 
 Haldane Carteret retained all his boy- 
 ish affection for James Dugdale. His old 
 tutor loved him, too, better than any one 
 in the Avorld save Margaret ; and the young 
 man's sojourn at home was a bright spot 
 in the life of the older man, whose life had 
 in it very little brightness. All that James 
 knew of Margaret's story he had told Hal- 
 
DAWNING. 273 
 
 dane by letter, and now the subject was 
 but rarely revived between them. 
 
 Haldane was not a very acute observer. 
 He rarely troubled himself with the re- 
 flective part of life; he had bright animal 
 spirits, good health, and was now of an 
 active temperament very different from the 
 j)romise of his boyhood. The experiment 
 of letting him follow his military inclina- 
 tions had turned out admirably. His father 
 was very fond of him, very proud of him, 
 and kept out of his way as much as pos- 
 sible. His presence had the best possible 
 effect on Margaret, who was beginning to 
 bloom again, not only with the roses, but 
 with the spirits of her girlish days. 
 
 Haldane was immensely delighted with 
 Mr. Baldwin. It was a new exjDerience to 
 him that a man of such large fortune, such 
 assured position, such high intellectual at- 
 tainments, still young and flattered by the 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 world, should be of so unworldly a spirit, 
 so pure of heart and life, and so entirely 
 unassuming. In modern parlance, Mr. 
 Baldwin was an undeniable ' swell,' but he 
 never seemed to remember the circum- 
 stance except when an act of generosity, 
 or the exercise of privilege in the cause of 
 good, was required. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what, Dugdale,' Haldane 
 Carteret said to his old friend as they 
 strolled together in the fields by the clump 
 of beeches which Margaret had said she 
 hated, 'there are not many such fellows 
 going as Baldwin!' 
 
 James Dugdale heartily concurred in 
 his companion's estimate of Baldwin. 
 
 'Knocking about the world teaches a 
 fellow to appreciate a man like that,' con- 
 tinued Haldane. ' It's very strange to re- 
 member how one has been taken in by 
 people. There was that ruffian Hunger- 
 
DAWNING. 275 
 
 ford, for instance. By the bye,'— and Hal- 
 dane stood still, and looked into James's 
 face to make his words more emphatic, — ' I 
 think BaldAvin is uncommonly attentive to 
 Madge, don't you?' 
 
 ' N-no,' said James hesitatingly ; ' I can't 
 say I noticed anything of the kind.' 
 
 ' Look out, then, and you will notice it. 
 You're not an observing person, you know 
 — not a lady's man exactly — neither am I ; 
 but I think I know the symptoms of that 
 sort of thing when I see them ; and I don't 
 think Baldwin is staying at Davyntry alto- 
 gether on account of his sister. I say, 
 James, what a grand thing it would be, 
 wouldn't it ? 
 
 ' What a grand thing what would be ?' 
 asked Dugdale in an impatient tone. 
 
 ' If Madge likes him, and he likes her, 
 and they make a match of it. It would be 
 a fine marriage for any girl, and it would 
 
276 A RIGHTED AVRONG. 
 
 be a great thing to have all the past put 
 out of her mind. Fate owes her a good 
 turn, poor girl !' 
 
 And James? Did not Fate owe him a 
 good turn? If so, he thought sadly, the 
 debt was not likely to be paid. The change 
 in Margaret's manner, the increased frank- 
 ness, the ready kindness she showed him 
 now, had ceased to bring him any happi- 
 ness. He did not deceive himself now as 
 to its source. 
 
 He was nothing more to her than he 
 had ever been ; but, instead of the old bit- 
 terness, a root of sweetness was springing 
 up in her heart, and its natural outcome 
 was the oblivion of her former feelings, the 
 remission of all past and gone offences from 
 those who would but be doubly indifferent 
 to her under the influence of this new 
 motive in her life. 
 
 For a time James Dugdale yielded to 
 
DAWNING. 277 
 
 the weakness which this new keen suffer- 
 ing produced. He felt that life had been 
 always bitter for him — there was no mercy, 
 no gentleness in it at all. 
 
 When he looked at Margaret and noted 
 the change in her face — saw how the light . 
 had come back into the eyes, the roundness 
 to the clear pale cheeks, the softness to the 
 square brow and the small 11^)8, and inter- 
 preted the change aright, notwithstanding 
 the fits of heavy sadness which still came 
 over her — he Avould feel very tired of life. 
 Impossible not to envy the lot which was 
 never to be his — the destiny of those who 
 are dowered mth love. 
 
 Never to be, never to have been, the 
 first object in life to any one is a melan- 
 choly fate, he would think — one for which 
 no general affection, or appreciation, not 
 even the most intoxicating gift of fame, 
 could ever compensate. 
 
278 A RIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 This was his lot, and he knew it, and 
 did not attempt to persuade himself that 
 it was not very hard and bitter to submit 
 to. After a time he should be able to look 
 at the matter from the unselfish point of 
 view of Margaret's ha2323iness ; but not yet. 
 He had never quite realised the nature and 
 extent of his own fears, until Haldane's 
 words had put the truth before him in the 
 airy and cheerful manner related. Of course 
 he was right ; of course it would be a 
 ' great match,' and a ' fine thing;' of course 
 it would be the most complete reparation 
 of all that Fate had wrought against Mar- 
 garet — the most total reverse of her life 
 which could be devised. 
 
 The love of such a man — as James, 
 rigidly just in all his pain, acknowledged 
 FitzwilHam Baldwin to be — had in itself 
 such elements of dignity and honour, such 
 power of rehabilitation for the wounded 
 
DAWNING. 279 
 
 spirit of the woman he loved, that it was 
 an act of utter oblivion. 
 
 From the unassailable height of her 
 position, as Mr. Baldwin's wife, Margaret 
 might look down upon the pigmy cares of 
 coarse remark and prying curiosity, as on 
 all the sordid and common anxieties of 
 material life from which she had once suf- 
 fered so keenly. 
 
 He knew all this — he who would, he 
 believed, have suffered anything in the 
 cause of her welfare. Yes, and so he 
 would, anything but just the thing he was 
 appointed to suffer ; and he could not bring 
 himself to bear it, not yet. He forgot how 
 he had acknowledged, when she returned 
 to Chayleigh, that she could not continue 
 to live there, that the dead level of life 
 there would be intolerable to her who had 
 breathed the atmosphere of storm and been 
 tossed on the waves of trouble. She was 
 
 O 
 
280 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 too young to find refuge in calm ; the 
 peace which is the paradise of age which 
 has suffered, is the prison of suffermg 
 youth. 
 
 He knew all this, and yet he murmured 
 against the destiny that was going to re- 
 lease her, without penalty or price — that 
 was going to crown her life with happiness. 
 He murmured, he revolted, he raged ; and 
 then he submitted, as we all must, to every- 
 thing. 
 
 From this state of feeling to an intense 
 longing to know the truth, to have it all 
 over and done with — to be quite certain 
 that Margaret had put the old life from 
 her, and with it all the ties which existed 
 between her and him ; that she was going 
 into a sphere in which he could have no 
 place — was a natural transition for James 
 Dugdale's feverish, sensitive temperament. 
 
 He watched Maro^aret and her friend; 
 
DAWNING. 281 
 
 he understood Lady Davyntry's feelings 
 perfectly, and owed her no grudge for 
 them ; he rather honoured her as more 
 large-minded and disinterested than most 
 women. Of course she coveted such a prize 
 as Margaret for her brother. To the rich, 
 treasures, was the judgment and the way 
 of the world. 
 
 He watched Margaret and her lover. 
 Yes, her lover — he forced himself to give 
 him that kingly title in his thoughts, and 
 he thought, he knew, he hoped it might 
 soon come — that suspense, at least, would 
 be over, and nothing would remain for him 
 but to accustom himself to the new order 
 of things. 
 
 Full of these thoughts, he sought Mar- 
 garet, one beautiful day in May, in the 
 pleasaunce. He had seen her walking on 
 the lawn. She had exchanged a few sen- 
 tences with him as she passed the "windows 
 
282 A KIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 of Mr. Carteret's study, where James was 
 sitting, and he had promised to join her 
 presently, when her father released him. 
 He was anxious to tell her that he had 
 heard again from Hayes Meredith. When 
 he joined her he held a letter in his hand. 
 
 'Papa has been bothering you about 
 those dreadful bats, hasn't he, James?' 
 asked Margaret with a smile ; ' I will take 
 my turn at them this afternoon.' 
 
 '0 no,' he said; 'but I wanted to see 
 you before you went out, because I have 
 a letter from Melbourne.' 
 
 She changed colour slightly, and glanced 
 nervously at the letter. 
 
 ' It is very short. Meredith merely says 
 he cannot come to England, or send his 
 son for some time — not for a year, indeed. 
 There is a money difficulty out there, and 
 Mrs. Meredith is in delicate health.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! I am sorry for that. So mas- 
 
DAWNING. 283 
 
 ter Robert must put up with colonial life 
 for a little longer.' 
 
 'Yes,' replied James; 'and I am not 
 sorry. The longer my responsibility as 
 regards that young gentleman is deferred 
 the better. Still, I should like to see Me- 
 redith. Shouldn't you, Margaret? 
 
 ' No,' she said quickly, and in a tone of 
 decision, 'I should not, James. Not be- 
 cause I am ungrateful — no, indeed — but 
 because anything, any one connected with 
 that dreadful time I would shun by any 
 lawful means. You don't know how J 
 dread any mention of it, how I shrink from 
 any thought of it. You don't — you can't 
 — it is like a curse from which I never can 
 escape. If — she continued vehemently — 
 ' if Hayes Meredith came into this house, 
 if any one from that place came, I should 
 feel it was an evil omen — I should be sure 
 it could only be to bring me misery. Very 
 
284 A EIGHTED WRONG. 
 
 superstitious, very wrong, very weak, — is it 
 not, James? — I know; but it is perfectly 
 true, and stronger than I — ' 
 
 She shuddered as she spoke, and was 
 quite pale now. 
 
 James looked at her in agitated sur- 
 prise, and put the letter, which she had 
 made no motion to take from him, into his 
 pocket. 
 
 At that moment the footman approached 
 them, coming from the house. 
 
 James glanced at Margaret's white face 
 and tearful eyes, and went forward to in- 
 tercept the servant before he should be 
 near enough to discover them also. 
 
 ' A letter from Davyntry, for Mrs. Hun- 
 gerford, sir,' said the man. 
 
 ' Is there any answer required?' 
 
 ' I don't know, sir.' 
 
 James brought the letter — a very thick 
 one — to Margaret. 
 
DAWNING. 285 
 
 'Just open this,' he said, 'and see if 
 there's an answer.' 
 
 She broke the seal of the envelope, 
 which was directed in Lady Davyntry's 
 hand, and drew out, not a letter from her 
 friend, but a second sealed envelope, with 
 her name upon it. The writing was well 
 known to her; it was Mr. Baldwin's. The 
 outer cover fell to the ground, as she stood 
 with the enclosure in her hand, James look- 
 ing at her and at it. 
 
 ' There's — there's no answer,' she said. 
 She had not made the slightest attempt to 
 open the missive. 
 
 James Dugdale delivered the message 
 to the servant, who went back to the house, 
 and then he turned away down another 
 path and struck into the fields. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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