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 LIKE AND UNLIKE 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," 
 ''MOHAWKS" Etc. Etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 SPENCER BLACKETT 
 
 (Successor to 3). Sc m. J^axtocll) 
 
 MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE ST., LUDGATE CIRCUS 
 And SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C. 
 
 \An rt gilts reserved']
 
 V. / 
 
 CONTENTS TO VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 ir, 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 , IX. 
 
 \i X. 
 
 ;;;5 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Jen,. 
 
 ^.XIV. 
 
 CONTRASTS 
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL . 
 
 DANGER .... 
 
 ACROSS COUNTRY 
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER . 
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT. 
 
 "NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE 
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL . 
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 A DANGEROUS PILOT. 
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER . 
 
 MAKING THE TEST OF IT . 
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 
 
 ACTED 
 
 SO 
 
 4 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 . 39 
 . 69 
 . 103 
 . 112 
 . 135 
 . 166 
 . 181 
 . 196 
 . 225 
 . 241 
 . 258 
 . 291 
 . 302
 
 LIKE AND UNLIKE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONTRASTS 
 
 " Has Mr. Belfield come in yet? '^ 
 
 ''No, Sir Adrian/' 
 
 '' He rode the new horse, did he not ? '' 
 
 " Yes, Sir Adrian/' 
 
 Sir Adrian Belfield moved uneasily in his chair, 
 then walked to the fireplace, and stood there, look- 
 ing down at the smouldering logs upon the hearth, 
 with an anxious air. The footman waited to be 
 questioned further. 
 
 "What sort of character do they give the new 
 horse in the stables, Andrew ? '' asked Sir Adrian^ 
 presently. 
 
 Andrew hesitated before replying, and then 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 CONTRASTS 
 
 answered, with a somewhat exaggerated cheerfulness, 
 '^ Well, Sir Adrian, they say he's a good 'un, like 
 all the horses Mr. Belfield buys/' 
 
 " Yes, yes, he's a good judge of a horse — we 
 know that. But he would buy the maddest devil 
 that was ever foaled if he fancied the shape and 
 paces of the beast. I didn't like the look o£ that 
 new chestnut." 
 
 " You see. Sir Adrian, it's Mr. Belfield's colour. 
 You know, sir, as how he'll go any distance and 
 give any money for a handsome chestnut when he 
 won't look at another coloured 'oss." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that will do, Andrew. Is her lady- 
 ship in the drawing-room ? " 
 
 '^ Yes, Sir Adrian," said the footman, who was 
 middle-aged and waxing grey, and ought long ago 
 to have developed into a butler, only Belfield Abbey 
 was so good a place that few servants cared to leave 
 it in the hope of bettering themselves. The butler 
 at Belfield was sixty, the under-butler over fifty, 
 and the younger of the two footmen had seen the 
 sun go down upon his thirty-second birthday. That 
 good old grey stone mansion amidst the wooded
 
 COXTKASTS 3 
 
 bills of North Devon was a paradise for serving 
 men and women ; a paradise not altogether free 
 from the presence of Satan ; but the inhabitants 
 were able to bear with one Satanic element where 
 so much was celestiaL 
 
 Sir Adrian went to the window — a mullioned 
 window with richly painted glass in the upper 
 mullions, glass emblazoned with the armorial bear- 
 ings of the Belfields, and rich in the heraldic 
 history of aristocratic alliances. Like most Eliza- 
 bethan windows, there was but a small portion of 
 this one which opened. Adrian unfastened the 
 practicable lattice and put his head out to survey 
 the avenue along which his brother would ride 
 home. 
 
 There was no horseman visible in the long vista 
 — only the autumual colouring of elms and oaks 
 which alternated along the broad avenue with its 
 green ride at each side of the road, only the infinite 
 variety of fading foliage, and the glancing lights of 
 an October afternoon. How often had Adrian 
 watched his twirl brother schooling an unmanage- 
 able horse upon yonder turf, galloping like an 
 
 J} 2
 
 4 CONTEASTS 
 
 infuriated centaur, and seeming almost as much a 
 part of his horse as if he had been made after the 
 fashion of that fabulous monster. 
 
 ^^They must have had a good day/^ thought 
 Adrian. ^' He ought to have been home before 
 now, unless they killed further off than usual/^ 
 
 He looked round at the clock over the fireplace. 
 Half-past five ! Not so late after all. It was only 
 his knowledge that his brother was riding a hot- 
 tempered brute that worried him. 
 
 " What a morbid fool I am/^ he said to himself 
 impatiently. " What an idiot I must be to give 
 way to this feeling of anxiety and foreboding every 
 time he is out of my sight for a few hours. I 
 know he is one of the finest horsemen in Devon- 
 shire, but if he rides a restive horse I am miserable. 
 And yet I can sympathize with his delight in con- 
 quering an ill-tempered brute, in proving that the 
 nerve and muscle of the smaller animal, backed 
 with brains, can prevail over size and weight and 
 sheer brute power. I love to watch him break a 
 horse, and can feel almost as keen a delight as if I 
 myself were in the saddle, and my hands were doing.
 
 CONTRASTS O 
 
 the work. And then in another moment,, while I 
 am exulting in his victory, the womanish mood 
 comes over me, and I turn cold with fear. Fm 
 afraid my mother is right, and that nature intended 
 me for a woman/"* 
 
 He was pacing slowly up and down the room as 
 lie mused upon himself thus, and, coming face to 
 face with a Venetian glass which hung between 
 twp blocks of book-shelves at the end of the library, 
 he paused to contemplate his own image reflected 
 there. 
 
 The face he saw in the looking-glass was hand- 
 some enough to satisfy the most exacting self- 
 consciousness; but the classical regularity of the 
 features and the delicacy of the colouring were 
 allied with a refinement which verged upon 
 effeminacy, and suggested a feeble constitution 
 and a hypersensitive temperament. It was not 
 the face of one who could have battled against 
 adverse circumstances or cut his way upward 
 from the lowest rung of the ladder to the top. 
 But it was a very good face for Sir Adrian Belfield, 
 born in the purple, with fortune and distinction
 
 V 
 
 6 CONTEASTS 
 
 laid up for him by a long line of stalwart ancestors-. 
 Such a one could afford to be delicately fashioned 
 and slenderly built. In such a one that air of 
 fragility, tending even towards sickliness, was but 
 an added grace. ''So interesting/' said all the 
 young ladies in Sir Adrian's neighbourhood, when 
 they descanted on the young baronet's person- 
 ality. 
 
 For Belfield's own eye those delicately-chiseHed 
 features and that ivory pallor had no charm. He 
 compared the face in the glass with another face 
 which was like it and yet unlike — the face of his 
 twin brother, in which youth, health and physical 
 power were the leading characteristics. Sir Adrian 
 thought of that other face, and turned from his 
 own image with an impatient sigh. 
 
 " Of all the evils that can befall a man I think 
 a sickly youth must be the worst," he said to him- 
 self as he left the room and went across the hall ta 
 his mother's favourite sitting-room, the smallest in 
 a suite of three drawing-rooms opening out of each 
 other. 
 
 Lady Belfield was sitting in a low chair near
 
 COXTEASTS 7 
 
 the fire^ but she started up as her son opened the 
 door. 
 
 ^' Has he come home ? ^' she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Valentine ? No, mother/' answered Adrian 
 quietly. " Surely, you are not anxious about 
 him?" 
 
 " But I am anxious. How white and tired you 
 look ! I am always anxious when he rides a new 
 horse/'' Lady Belfield exclaimed, with an agitated 
 air. " It is so cruel of him to buy such wretched 
 creatures, as if it were on purpose to torture me. 
 And then he laughs, and makes light of my fears. 
 The stud-groom told me that this chestnut has an 
 abominable character. He has been the death of 
 one man already. No one but Valentine would 
 have bought him. Parker begged me to prevent 
 the purchase, if I could. He ought to have known 
 very well that 1 could not/' she added bitterly, 
 walking to and fro in the space before the bay 
 window. 
 
 " Dearest mother, it is foolish to worry yourself 
 like this every time Valentine rides an untried 
 horse. You know what a horseman he is.''
 
 \ 
 
 ^ CONTRASTS 
 
 '' I know that he is utterly reckless, that he 
 would throw away his life to gratify the whim of 
 the moment, that he has not the slightest con- 
 sideration for me.'^ 
 
 "Mother, you know he loves you better than 
 any one else in the world/^ 
 
 " Indeed I do not, Adrian. But if he does, his 
 highest degree of loving falls very far below my 
 idea of affection. Oh, why did he insist upon 
 buying that brute, in spite of every warning ? " 
 
 " My dear mother, while you are making your- 
 self a martyr, I daresay Valentine is walking that 
 obnoxious chestnut quietly home after a distant kill, 
 and he will be here presently in tremendous spirits 
 after a grand day's sport.^' 
 
 " Do you really think so ? Are you sure you 
 are not uneasy ? ■''' 
 
 " Do I look it ? '^ asked Adrian, smiling at her. 
 
 He had had to conceal his own feelings many a 
 Ttime in order to spare hers when some recklessness 
 of the dare-devil younger-born had tortured them 
 both with unspeakable apprehensions. Ever since 
 he had been old enough to be let out of leading-
 
 CONTEASTS V 
 
 •strings Valentine had been, perpetually endangering 
 his limbs and his life to the torment of other people. 
 His boats_, his horses^ his guns^ his dogs, had been 
 sources of inexhaustible anxiety to Lady Belfield 
 and her elder son. It suited his temperament to 
 be always in movement and strife of some kind ; 
 riding an unbroken horse, sailing his yacht in a 
 storm, making his companions and playthings of 
 ferocious dogs, climbing perilous mountain peaks ; 
 crossing the Channel or the Bay of Biscay, just 
 "when any reasonable being, master of his own time, 
 would have avoided the passage — doing everything 
 in a reckless, hot-headed way, which was agony to 
 his raother^s tender heart. 
 
 And yet, though both mother and brother 
 suffered infinitely from Valentine Belfield's folly, 
 they both went on loving him and forgiving him 
 with an affection that knew no diminution, and 
 which he accepted with a carelessness that was 
 akin to contempt. 
 
 '' You look pale, and fagged, and ill," said Lady 
 Belfield, scrutinizing her son with anxious eyes. 
 ^' I know you are just as frightened as I am,
 
 10 CONTEASTS 
 
 though you hide your uneasiness for my sake. 
 You are always so good to me, Adrian :" this with 
 a tone that seemed half apologetic^ as if she would 
 have said,, ^' I lavish the greater half of my affec- 
 tion on your brother, and yet you give me so 
 much/^ 
 
 " Dear mother, what should I be but good to 
 the best and kindest of parents ? '' 
 
 " Oh, but I am more indulgent to him than to 
 you. You have never tried me as he has done, 
 and yet ^^ 
 
 " And yet I love him better than I love you.'' 
 That was the unspoken ending of her speech. 
 
 She went to the window, brushing away her 
 tears — tears of remorseful feeling, tears of sorrow- 
 ing love, tears which she half knew were wasted 
 upon an unworthy object. 
 
 " Cheer up, mother,'' said Adrian lightly. " It 
 will never do for Valentine to surprise us in this 
 tragical mood. He will indulge his wit at our 
 expense all the evening. If you want him to get 
 rid of the chestnut say not one word about danger. 
 You might remark in a careless way that the
 
 CONTRASTS 1 1 
 
 animal has an ugly head, and does not look so 
 well bred as his usual stamp of horse — that is a 
 safe thing to say to any man — and if he tells us a 
 long story of a battle royal with the bea'=!t, be sure 
 you put on your most indifferent air^ i.s if the 
 thing were a matter of course, and nobody's busi- 
 ness but his own ; and before the week is out he 
 will have sold the horse or swopped him for 
 another, and_, as he could hardly find one with a 
 worse character,, your feelings will gain by the 
 change. He is a dear fellow, but there is a vein 
 of opposition in him/'' 
 
 " Yes, he loves to oppose me ; but after all he is 
 not a bad son, is he, Adrian ? " 
 
 " A bad son ! Of course not ; whoever said he 
 was ? '' 
 
 '^ No one : only I am afraid I spoke bitterly 
 about him just now. He is always keeping my 
 nerves on the rack by his recklessness in one way 
 or the other. He is so like his poor father — so 
 terribly like." 
 
 Her voice grew hushed and grave almost to 
 solemnity as she spoke of her dead husband. She
 
 12 COxXTRASTS 
 
 had been a widow for nearly twenty years, ever 
 siace her twin boys were four years old. It was 
 the long minority which had made Sir Adrian 
 Belfield a rich man. 
 
 '^And yet, mother, he must be more like you 
 than my father/"' said Adrian, " for he and I are 
 alike, and every one says that I am like yon."" 
 
 ^' In person, yes, he is more like me, I suppose,^' 
 she answered thoughtfnlly ; ^' but it is his charac- 
 ter which is so like his father's : the same daring 
 spirit — the same restless activity — the same strong 
 will. He reminds me of poor Montagu every day 
 ofhislife.'^ 
 
 Sir Montagu Belfield had met his fate suddenly 
 amidst the darkness of a snowstorm on the ice- 
 bound slopes of Monte Rosa, while his young wife 
 and two boys were waiting and watching for his 
 return in a villa on Lago Maggiore. The horror 
 of that sudden death, the awfulness of that parting, 
 had left a lasting shadow upon Constance Belfield's 
 existence, and had given a morbid tinge to a tem- 
 perament that had always been hypersensitive. 
 That first sudden sorrow had so impressed her
 
 CONTRASTS ] 3' 
 
 mind that there was an ever-present apprehension 
 of a second blow. She quailed before the iron 
 hand of inexorable destiny, which seemed always 
 raised to strike her. She had lived much alone, 
 devoting her time and thoughts to the rearing and 
 education of her sons ; and her mind had fed upon 
 itself in those long, quiet years, unbroken by stir- 
 ring events of auy kind. She had read and 
 thought much in those years ; she had culti- 
 vated her taste for music and art, and was now a 
 highly accomplished woman ; but her studies and 
 accomplishments had always occupied the second 
 place in her life and in her mind. Her sons were 
 paramount. When they were with her she 
 thought of nothing but them. It was only in 
 their absence that she consoled herself with the 
 books or the music that she loved so well. 
 
 Her elder son, Adrian, resembled her closely in 
 person and disposition. His tastes were her tastes, 
 and it was hardly possible for sympathy and com- 
 panionship between mother and son to be closer 
 than theirs had been. Yet, dearly as she loved 
 the son who had never in his life thwarted or
 
 14 CONTKASTS 
 
 offended her^ there lurked in the secret depths of 
 her heart a stronger and more intense affection for 
 that other son, whose wayward spirit had been 
 ever a source of trouble or terror. The perpetual 
 flutter of anxiety, the alternations of hope and 
 fear, joy and sorrow, in which his restless soul had 
 kept her, had made the rebel only so much the 
 dearer. She loved him better for every anxious 
 hour, for every moment of rapture in his escape 
 from some needless peril, some hazardous folly. 
 Valentine was the perpetually straying sheep, over 
 whose recovery there was endless rejoicing. It 
 was in vain that his mother told herself that she 
 had reason to be angry, and tried to harden her 
 heart against the sinner. He had but to hold out 
 his arms to her, laughing at her foolish love, and 
 she was ready to sob out her joy upon his breast. 
 
 She went back to her chair by the fire, and sat 
 there pale and still, picturing to herself all the 
 horrors that can be brought about by an un- 
 governable horse. Adrian took up a newspaper 
 and tried to read, listening all the time for the 
 sound of hoofs in the avenue.
 
 CONTRASTS 1 5 
 
 At last that sound was heard, faint in the 
 distance, the rhythmical sound of a trotting 
 horse. The mother started up and ran to the 
 ■window, while Adrian went out to the broad, 
 gravelled space in front of the porch to meet the 
 prodigal. 
 
 He came up to the house quietly enough, 
 dropped lightly from his horse, and greeted his 
 brother with that all- conquering smile which 
 made up for so many offences in the popular 
 mind. 
 
 " Look at that brute, Adrian/' he said, pointing 
 his hunting-crop at the horse, which stood meekly, 
 with head depressed and eye dull, reeking from 
 crest to flank, and with blood stains about his 
 mouth. " I don't think he'll give me quite so 
 much trouble another time, but I can assure you 
 he was a handful even for me. I never crossed 
 such an inveterate puller, or such a pig-headed 
 beast ; but I believe he and I understaud each 
 other pretty well now. Yah, you brute," with a 
 sharp tug at the bridle. 
 
 " You might let him off without any more
 
 16 CONTRASTS 
 
 punishment to-niglit, I think, Val/^ said Adrian 
 quietly ; ''he looks pretty well done/^ 
 
 " He is pretty well done ; I can assure you I 
 haven't spared him ! " 
 
 " And you've bitted him severely enough for the 
 most incorrigible Tartar.'-* 
 
 " A bit of my own invention, my dear boy ; a 
 high port and a gag. I don't think he has had 
 too easy a time of it/'' 
 
 " I cannot understand your pleasure in riding 
 an ill-conditioned brute in order to school him 
 into good manners by sheer cruelty/' said Adrian^ 
 with undisguised disapproval. " I like to be on 
 friendly terms with my horse/'' 
 
 ^^My dear Adrian, your doctors and nurses 
 have conspired to molly-coddle you/' answered 
 Valentine contemptuously. " They have made 
 you think like a girl, and they have made 
 you ride like a girl. My chief delight in a 
 horse is to get the better of the original sin 
 that's in him. You may give him a warm 
 drink, Stokes. He has earned it/' he added, 
 flinging the bridle to the groom, who had come
 
 GOXTKASTS 17 
 
 from the stables at the sound of Mr. Belfield's. 
 return. 
 
 '' Had you a good run ? '' asked Adrian,, as they 
 went into the house. 
 
 " Capital j and that beggar went in first-rate 
 style when once he and I got to understand each 
 other. We killed on Hagley Heath after a ripping, 
 half-hour over the grass.^^ 
 
 " Come and tell mother all about it^ Val.'''' 
 
 " Has she been worrying herself about the 
 chestnut ? She was almost in tears this morning 
 when she found I was going to ride him." 
 
 '' She was getting a little uneasy just before you 
 came home/^ answered Adrian lightly. 
 
 That scornful glance of his brother's eye 
 wounded him to the quick. It implied a con- 
 temptuous acceptance of a too loving solicitude. 
 It showed the temper of a spoiled child who takes 
 all a mother's care as a matter of course, and ha* 
 not one touch of gratitude or genuine responsive^^ 
 affection. 
 
 The two brothers went to the drawing-room 
 side by side. Like and unlike. Yes, that was 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 CONTRASTS 
 
 the description wliicli best indicated the close re- 
 semblance and the marked difference between 
 them. In the form of the head and face, in the 
 outline of the features,, they resembled each other 
 as closely as ever twin brothers have done since 
 Nature produced these human doublets ; but in 
 colouring and in expression the brothers were 
 curiously unlike. The elder one had the pallid 
 tints of ill-health, an almost waxen brow, hair of 
 a pale auburn, features refined to attenuation, eyes 
 of a dark violet, eyebrows delicately pencilled, 
 lashes long and drooping like those of a girl, lips 
 of faintest carmine. It was only his intellectual 
 power and innate manliness of feeling which re- 
 deemed Adrian's face from effeminacy; but mind 
 was stronger than matter, and here the brave, 
 calm spirit dominated the weakly frame. 
 
 Valentine was altogether differently constituted. 
 His head, though shaped like Adrian^s, was larger, 
 broader at the base, and lower at the temples — 
 a head in which animal propensities predomi- 
 nated. His complexion was of a dark olive, 
 browned by exposure to all kinds of weather;
 
 COXTEASTS 19 
 
 his eyes were of deepest brown — splendid eyes 
 considered from a purely physical standpoint, 
 large, and full, and brilliant, with a wondrous 
 capacity for expressing all the passions of which 
 self-willed manhood is capable. Nose, mouth, 
 and chin were formed in the same lines as in 
 that other face, but each feature was larger 
 and mere boldly cut. The dark hair was 
 thicker than Adrian's, coarser in texture. Her- 
 cules might Isave had just such a head of hair, 
 bristling in short crisp curves about the low fore- 
 head. That likeness and yet unlikeness between 
 the twins was a psychological wonder to contem- 
 plative observers and theorists of all kinds. 
 
 Lady Bel field came to meet her sons as they 
 entered the room. It was only by the most 
 strenuous effort at self-control that she suj)pressed 
 all signs of emotion and laid her hand calmly on 
 the sportsman's shoulder, looking at him with a 
 happy smile. 
 
 " "Well, Valentine, had you a good day on the 
 ,chestnut ? " she asked lightly. 
 
 " Splendid. That horse will make a first-rate 
 
 c2
 
 20 CONTRASTS 
 
 hunter, in spite of you and Parker. Did you see 
 him from the window as I brought him home ? '' 
 
 '^YeS; I was watching you. I don't think he 
 is quite up to your usual standard, Val. Hasn^t 
 he rather an ugly head ? '' 
 
 '' That's just like a woman/' exclaimed Valen- 
 tine, with a disgusted air. '^ Her eye is always 
 keen on prettiness, as if it were the Alpha and 
 Omega. He hasn't a racer's head, if that's what 
 you mean. He has a good serviceable head, that 
 will bear a good deal of pulling about — rather a 
 plain head, if you will have it. But a horse- 
 doesn't jump with his head, or gallop on his 
 head, does he ? " 
 
 ^' My dear Val, if you are satisfied with 
 him '' 
 
 " Satisfied," cried Valentine, looking as black 
 as thunder, " I tell you I am delighted with him. 
 He is out and away the best hunter in the stables 
 — beats that gingerbread piebald mare you gave 
 me on my last birthday hollow." 
 
 " And yet I have heard people say the pie- 
 bald is the prettiest horse in the county."
 
 CONTRASTS 21 
 
 " There you go again — prettiness, all prettiness. 
 The piebald was never well up to my weight — 
 oh, she carries me fairly enough, I know that — 
 but she's over-weighted. You should have given 
 her to Adrian " — with a sneer. 
 
 " Adrian can afford to buy his own horses/^ 
 answered the mother, with an affectionate look at 
 the elder born. " The only birthday gift he will 
 take from me is a bunch of early violets/' 
 
 ^' All your life is full of gifts to me, mother/^ 
 .said Adrian. '^Whenever you're tired of Cin- 
 derella I'll take her off your hands, Val/' 
 
 '' The deuce you will,'' cried Valentine. " You'll 
 find her a trifle too much for you. It's like the 
 .old saying about the goose, dear boy. She's too 
 much for you and not enough for me. She wants 
 work, Adrian, not gentle exercise. She was never 
 meant for a lady's palfrey." 
 
 Adrian sighed as he turned away from his 
 brother, and seated himself at lady Belfield's tea- 
 table, which had been furnished with due regard 
 to a hungry hunting man, too impatient to wait 
 for the eight o'clock dinner. That taunt of
 
 22 CONTRASTS 
 
 Valentine's stung him as such taunts — and they 
 were frequent — always did sting. He keenly felt 
 his shortcomings as a horseman and as an athlete. 
 In all those manly accomplishments in which his 
 brother excelled, fragile health had made Adrian a 
 failure. The doctors had warned him that to ride 
 hard would be to endanger his life. He might 
 amble along the country lanes, nay, even enjoy a 
 slow canter over down or common ; might see 
 a little hunting sometimes in an elderly gentle- 
 man's fashion, waiting about upon the crest of a 
 hill to watch the hounds working in the hollow 
 below, or jogging up and down beside the cover 
 while they were drawing ; but those dashing flights 
 across country which so intoxicate the souls of 
 men were not for him. 
 
 ^' You have a heart that will work for you very 
 fairly to a good old age, Sir Adrian, if you will 
 but use it kindly/'' said the physician, after careful 
 auscultation, "but you must take no liberties with 
 it. There are plenty of ways in which a man may 
 enjoy the country without tearing across it at a 
 mad gallop. There is fly-fishing, for instance. I
 
 CONTRASTS 23 
 
 am sure with that noble trout stream in your own 
 park you must be fond of fly-fishing/'' 
 
 '^ I cannot imagine anything tamer than fly- 
 fishing in one's own park/' replied Adrian, ' with a 
 touch of impatience. ^' Salmon-fishing in Scot- 
 land or in Norway " 
 
 ^' Too fatiguing — too strenuous a form of plea- 
 sure for a man of your delicate constitution. A 
 little trout-fishing in mild spring weather " 
 
 " Merci. I must live without sport, Dr. Jason. 
 After all^ I have my library, and I have the 
 good fortune to be fond of books, which my 
 brother detests. ^^ 
 
 " I should have guessed as much/^ said Jason 
 blandly ; " Mr. Belfield has not the outlook of a 
 reading man. lie has that hardy penetrating 
 gaze which denotes the sportsman — straight, keen, 
 business-like, rapid,, yet steady. What a wonder- 
 ful specimen of manhood. I think I never saw 
 a finer young man — and so like you^ Sir Adrian." 
 
 ^- Is it not something of a mockery to tell me 
 that after you have sounded this narrow chest of 
 mine ? "
 
 24 CONTRASTS 
 
 " Oh, there are constitutional divergencies. 
 Nature has been kinder to your brother in the 
 matter of thew and sinew; but the likeness be- 
 tween you is really remarkable, all the more re- 
 markable perhaps on account of that constitutional 
 difference. And I have no doubt there is a very 
 close aflPection between you — that sympathetic 
 bond which so often unites twin children .''' 
 
 " Yes, I am very fond of him/'' answered Adrian 
 dreamily. ^' Fond of him, do I say — it is more 
 than mere fondness. I am a part of himself, feel 
 with him in almost all things, am angry with 
 him, sorry with him, glad with him ; and yet 
 there is antagonism. There is the misery of it. 
 There are times when I could quarrel with him 
 more desperately than with any other man upon 
 earth ; and yet I declare to you, doctor, he is as 
 it were my second self.^^ 
 
 " I can readily believe it. Sir Adrian. Who is 
 there with whom we are so often inclined to 
 quarrel as with ourselves ? I know there is a 
 damned bad fellow in me whom I should often 
 like to kick.''
 
 COKTEASTS 25 
 
 Dr. Jason Tvound up -with a boisterous laugh^ 
 and felt that he had earned the twenty-pound 
 note which Sir Adrian slipped modestly into his 
 comfortable palm. Joviality was the fashionable 
 physician's particular line ; and a case must be 
 bad indeed in which he would not venture to be 
 jovial. Were there but three weeks of life in a 
 patient, Dr. Jason would take leave of him with 
 a jocosity which was cheering enough to help the 
 patient on a fourth week. And this case of Sir 
 Adrian's offered no reason for dolefuluess. A 
 fragile body and a sensitive temperament, a life 
 that might be prolonged to three score and ten, 
 or might expire in a moment, in the very morn- 
 ing of youth, like the flame of a candle. 
 
 '' Are you ever going to give me my tea, 
 mother ? " asked Valentine impatiently ; ^^ I am ab- 
 solutely famishing.^^ 
 
 " My dearest boy, everythiDg is ready for you.^' 
 
 Valentine surveyed the low tea-table with a 
 sweeping glance before he sat down, and then 
 strolled across to the bell and rang violently. 
 '^ Those stupid fellows always forget the coguac,"
 
 26 CONTKASTS 
 
 he said, as he dropped into a chair. " I dare say 
 if one of them came home after seven hours in 
 the saddle^ he^d want something stronger than tea/' 
 
 ^^ My dear Valentine, I am sure it is a very 
 bad habit to poison your tea with brandy,''^ said 
 Lady Belfield, with a distressed look. 
 
 ''' Spare me the customary sermon, mother. It 
 is a much worse habit to lecture me every time 
 I take a spoonful of brandy. It will end by my 
 going straight to my dressing-room after hunting;, 
 where I can enjoy a stiff glass of grog with my 
 feet on the hobs, and with nobody to preach tem- 
 perance." 
 
 " You know I love to have you here, Yal," said 
 the mother, laying her delicate hand upon her 
 son's roughened wrist^ and looking at him with 
 ineffable tenderness. 
 
 '' So be it, and in that case don't let's have 
 any teetotal sermons because of a homoeopathic 
 dose of cognac." 
 
 The footman brought a small decanter, and 
 Mr. Belfield half filled his cup with cognac 
 before his mother poured out the tea. The table
 
 COXTEASTS 27 
 
 was liberally furnished with varieties of cakes and 
 muffins, anchovy sandwiches, and dainty little 
 arrangements of foie gras in golden tinted rolls, 
 which Mr. Belfield snapped up as if he Lad been 
 a Newfoundland dog eating biscuits, ills mother 
 was delighted to see him in such good appetite, 
 and sipped her tea with the sere 11 est air, although 
 the smell of the brandy in Valentine^s reeking 
 cup almost sickened her. These tea-drinkings 
 after the hunt were her delight. To sit at her 
 low table, with a son on each side of her, to linger 
 long over the social meal, was the most delicious 
 relaxation of her days. She asked no higher 
 pleasure. Her evenings were often lonely, for 
 Valentine hated sedentary occupation and intellec- 
 tual dawdling of all kinds, and generally dragged 
 his brother off to the billiard-room directly after 
 dinner. If there were men visitors in the house 
 for Valentine to play with, Adrian would some- 
 times stay in the drawing-room with his mother; 
 but he was always at his brother's beck and call. 
 The influence of the younger over the elder was 
 supreme.
 
 •.'28 CONTPtASTS 
 
 " I tMok we are like Jacob and Esau, and that 
 my father must have willed upon his death-bed 
 that the elder should serve the younger/'"' said 
 Adrian. ^^ I can but fulfil my destiny/^ 
 
 The mother sighed and submitted, as she had 
 always submitted, to Fate in the person of her 
 sons. She had lived for them and in them so 
 long that she had almost ceased to have individual 
 desires or personal likings. Everything in house 
 and stables and gardens and park and home-farm 
 was regulated and governed by the inclinations of 
 the brothers, albeit Lady Belfield was tenant for 
 life in the mansion and its immediate surround- 
 ings. It happened somehow, almost imperceptibly, 
 that in all things whereof she was mistress the 
 inclinations of the younger son dominated those 
 of the elder. Adrian was at once too weak and 
 too proud to struggle against that overpowering 
 influence. 
 
 " My dear mother, the place is yours. It is 
 for you to decide," he would say, when Valentine 
 had hotly maintained his own opinion with scorn- 
 ful depreciation of everybody else's ideas, treating
 
 CONTEASTS 29' 
 
 architects, landscape-gardeners, and nurserymen 
 as if Nature had stamped them so obviously as 
 fools that it would be mere hypocrisy to treat 
 them with the respect due to reason and good 
 sense. " It is for you to decide, my dear mother/' 
 said Adrian, deserting in the heat of the battle ; 
 and the upshot was inevitable. Valentine had 
 everything his own way. 
 
 How could two gentle, yielding natures stand 
 firm against the force of an indomitable will and 
 a boundless self-esteem ? It was natural to Adrian 
 to doubt his own judgment, to depreciate his 
 own capacity; but Valentine had believed in. 
 himself from his cradle, had asserted himself to 
 his wet nurse, and had reigned supreme ever 
 since. 
 
 Happily for the household, from an aesthetic 
 point of view, Mr. Belfield's taste was better than 
 his temper; his judgment was sounder than his 
 morality. If he erred, it was on the side of 
 strength rather than weakness ; he inclined to the 
 brilliant and striking in all things, was in favour 
 of large effects, bold lines, vivid colouring. There
 
 so CONTKASTS 
 
 were those who shuddered at the first aspect of 
 Mr. Belfield's billiard-room, with its scarlet 
 draperies against black oak, its Japanese black 
 and gold, its Rouen pottery and Neapolitan 
 brass — there were those who declared that Mr. 
 Belfield was the worst-dressed young man in 
 London — but Ptoyal Academicians had admired 
 the arrangement of his den, and women liked his 
 style of dress because it was picturesque. 
 
 "A picturesque man must be a cad/^ said 
 Mr. Simper, who would have expired sooner than 
 wear a hat with a brim the infinitesimal part of 
 an inch wider or narrower than the Prince of 
 Wales's, or a check that had not the stamp of 
 equal authority. " A man who makes himself 
 different from other men is not a gentleman. No 
 gentleman ever courted observation.''^ 
 
 It may be that Valentine Belfield rather defied 
 than courted observation. He dressed to please 
 himself, wore his hair long or short as his fancy 
 prompted, would wear a low hat in Bond Street in 
 the height of the season, and scowl upon observers 
 with supreme contempt for their opinion. He
 
 CONTEASTS 31 
 
 had his clothes cut and fashioned as it pleased 
 him, and had never been known to accept an 
 opinion from his tailor — not even the West-end 
 tailor's final argument, " I wear this pattern my- 
 self, sir." 
 
 A man with a taste and a temper of his own 
 is generally admired and looked up to by other 
 men. Mr. Belfield had been the centre of an 
 aristocratic little circle at Trinity, his rooms the 
 favourite resort of some of the best-born and 
 wildest young men at the University. Needless 
 to say that he had not worked, that he had missed 
 chapel, and otherwise offended against the laws of 
 the college; that he had worn out the patience 
 of college tutors and college coaches ; and that, 
 with a reputation for first-rate talents, he had 
 contrived to place himself in the very lowest 
 rank of students. Uninfluenced by the shades of 
 the mighty dead — heedless of Bacon or Newton, 
 Byron or Macaulay, Whewell or Thackeray — he 
 had gone his idle way, drinking, rioting, gambling, 
 carousing at unholy hours, insulting the authori- 
 ties, flirting with barmaids, violating every rule
 
 32 CONTRASTS 
 
 and regulation of that venerable pile. He had 
 disappointed his mother's ambition, and drawn 
 heavily upon her purse. His return to Belfield 
 Abbey was a signal for the commencement of a 
 rain of Cambridge tradesmen's bills and lawyers' 
 letters^ which for the next twelve months steadily 
 descended upon the house. 
 
 There were expostulations and explanations, tears 
 from gentle Lady Belfield, sullen defiance from 
 Valentine^ generous interposition on the part of 
 Adrian, and finally the Cambridge traders, with but 
 a few egregious exceptions, were paid their demands 
 in full, which was more than any of them deserved. 
 Lady Belfield found half the money out of her 
 private fortune, and Adrian insisted upon providing 
 the other half. 
 
 His own career at Trinity had been curiously 
 different from that of his brother. His weaker 
 health had shut him out from all the pleasures of 
 athleticism. He had been known neither as a 
 hunting man nor a rowing man. He had never 
 been heard of at Newmarket. He had read 
 assiduously, and had taken honours. He had
 
 CONTRASTS 33 
 
 cultivated a few friends, but those were young men 
 of studious habits like his own. He had lived so 
 secluded a life that his presence in the college had 
 only been known to the men of his own quadrangle 
 and to the librarian^ who saw him sitting in his 
 own particular nook near Byron^s statue on many 
 a morning when other men were on the river or in 
 the hunting- field. 
 
 For Adrian, Trinity had meant seclusion and 
 earnest work ; for Valentine, college life had been 
 a long holiday, a riotous, reckless indulgence of 
 youthful pleasure and youthful passions, a bad 
 beginning for any life ; and yet he had contrived 
 amidst all his self-indulgence to leave Cambridge 
 with the reputation of having been one of the most 
 popular undergraduates in that great college of 
 Trinity. He had flung away his money with a 
 royal munificence, knowing that it was not his to 
 fling. He had been good-natured after his fashion ; 
 he talked well, had a handsome face and com- 
 manding appearance, kept his rooms open to all 
 the fast young men of his time, lent his horses 
 freely till they went lame, and had a box of irre- 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 ^4 CONTEASTS 
 
 proacliable cigars always open on his table. For 
 one man who knew and liked Adrian there were 
 twenty who affected to be warmly attached to 
 Valentine. What their friendship was worth, only 
 the after-time could show. At present he was 
 tolerably independent of all friendship outside 
 Belfield Abbey. 
 
 He was six- and- twenty, and had been in love, 
 or had fancied himself in love, twenty times. 
 Indeed he had professed to have outgrown the 
 capacity for loving. 
 
 '^ Women are so monotonous," he said in one of 
 those gushes of confidence with which he some- 
 times honoured his brother. He loved talking 
 about himself, and Adrian was his most sympathetic 
 listener. ^' Women are all alike. Upon my soul, 
 Adrian, if you knew how little difference there 
 is between the idiosyncracies of a peeress and a 
 barmaid, you would not wonder that a man who 
 has had a few adventures soon begins to feel that 
 love is played out." 
 
 '^ My dear Val, I donH think you know much 
 about peeresses, and I hope you know next
 
 CONTEASTS 35 
 
 to notMng about barmaids/^ replied Adrian 
 quietly. 
 
 It was on tbe evening after Valentine's first day 
 on the chestnut. The brothers had retired to the 
 billiard-room after dinner, and were sitting on each 
 side of the wide old fireplace, too lazy to play, and 
 luxuriating in the glow of the beech-logs and that 
 kind of careless, easy-going conversation which has 
 neither beginning, middle, nor end. 
 
 " My dear fellow, that shows how little you 
 know about the other half of yourself. I have not 
 reached my present age without an occasional 
 flirtation with a peeress, and I have been passion- 
 ately in love with a barmaid. The loveliest 
 woman I ever met was a girl at an inn near 
 Trumpington. What hogsheads of beer I have 
 consumed as a sacrifice to her charms. Once I 
 thought she loved me, and that I might have been 
 wild enough to marry her. And now I am told 
 she is singing patriotic songs, dressed as Britannia, 
 at an East-end music hall."' 
 
 "You know, Val, that a disreputable marriage 
 would break your mother's heart." 
 
 D 2
 
 36 CONTRASTS 
 
 *^ Don't I tell you the thing is off. I am not 
 going to break anybody's heart — for the sake of 
 that lovely deceiver on the Trumpington Eoad/' 
 
 "But you are so reckless, so heedless of con- 
 sequences." 
 
 "Because I live for myself, and for the 
 enjoyment of the present hour/' answered Valen- 
 tine, in his deep strong voice, lying back in his low 
 chair, and slowly puffing at a cigar. 
 
 How handsome he looked in that easy graceful 
 attitude, the very embodiment of unblemished 
 youth and physical power. It was but the highest 
 type of sensual beauty — soul and mind went for 
 but little in the well-cut face, the bold flashing 
 glance ; but yet there was some kind of charm that 
 was not wholly physical — some touch of brightness, 
 mirth, and courage which attracted the regard of 
 men, and won the love of women. The creature was 
 not wholly clay, albeit flesh predominated over spirit, 
 
 " For what else should a man live but the pre- 
 sent ? ^^ said Valentine, continuing the argument, 
 " Who can count upon the future — who cares for 
 the past ? ''
 
 CONTKASTS 37 
 
 " Conscience and memory both care for the 
 |)ast.-'"' 
 
 " Conscience is a bugbear which the parsons have 
 invented for us ; and memory is a morbid habit of 
 the mind which a healthy man should discourage. 
 I have no memory/' 
 
 " Oh, Valentine ! '' 
 
 " Well, I suppose if I were to sit down and try 
 back I could remember most things that have 
 happened to me since my cradle/' answered his 
 brother lightly ; " but I never cultivate my memory. 
 I make it a rule to ignore the past. Sally Withers, 
 ilie Trumpington barmaid, jilted me. I blot her 
 out of my existence. Lady Pimlico flirted with 
 me — courted me, made a fool of me — and then 
 deliberately dropped me. She is gone. Do you 
 suppose I sit and brood over the summer days we 
 spent together on his Lordship's house-boat at 
 Henley — when we sat in a corner under a Japanese 
 umbrella, hiding ourselves — as much as ostriches 
 are hidden — between two great Majolica tubs of 
 palms, and made ourselves conspicuously idiotic? 
 <0r that I ever dream of the nights at the opera,
 
 38 CONTRASTS 
 
 when we were alone together in her ladyship's box ? 
 No^ Adrian. I make it my business to forget all 
 such twaddle. Life is too short for memory of the 
 past or forecast of the future. Carpe diem, dear 
 boy. Gather your roses while you may. Be sure 
 I mean to gather mine." 
 
 " Valentine,, I verily believe you were created 
 without a conscience." 
 
 '^ I was. You have the conscience, I the capa- 
 city for enjoyment. We are but two sides of one 
 character."
 
 ( 39 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 A WEEK after that first day with the chestnut,, 
 Valentine Belfield had gone off to Paris at an 
 hour's warning to accompany a college friend who 
 was going on to winter at Monte Carlo^ with an 
 infallible system which he and a mathematical 
 friend had invented two or three years before in 
 their midnight reveries at Trinity. Valentine told 
 his mother nothing about the system or the in- 
 tended trip to Monte Carlo. He only told her that 
 he felt hipped and wanted a change^ and that as 
 Touchwood was going to Paris he had decided on 
 going with him and making a round of the 
 theatres. 
 
 " The drainage is so dreadful in Paris ; I am 
 always afraid of fever," said Lady Belfield, looking 
 intensely anxious. 
 
 " My dear mother, we shall go to the Bristol.'^
 
 40 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 '' And the hotels are so horribly high. They 
 will be putting you on a fourth storey perhaps, 
 and if there were a fire " 
 
 " There never has been a fire at a good Conti- 
 nental hotel within my recollection/' answered 
 Valentine lightly. " Can't you suggest any other 
 calamity, or any other peril — a cyclone, an earth- 
 quake, an insurrection, the fall of the Vendome 
 Column. I don't suppose they fastened it very 
 securely when they put it up after the Commune.^' 
 
 '' Dear Val, you always laugh at me.'' 
 
 *^ How can I help it, mother, when you give me 
 such opportunities ? There, kiss me, dearest, and 
 good-bye. Lucas will have packed my portmanteau 
 hj this time. There's the dog-cart. Je me sauve ! " 
 And, with a hurried embrace, he ran oflP to the hall, 
 his mother following to get the last look at him as 
 he sprang into the cart, took the reins from the 
 smart young groom, drove round the circular sweep, 
 and spun into the avenue at a pace that threatened 
 a catastrophe before he could reach the lodge. 
 
 He was gone, and Sir Adrian and his mother 
 settled down into that placid and studious existence
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 41 
 
 which suited them both so well. Lady Belfield 
 divided her time between the newest books and the 
 most classical music. She played Scarlatti and 
 Bach. She read Browning and Herbert Spencer. 
 She dawdled away an occasional hour in her flower 
 gardens^ which were lovely ; she went the round of 
 greenhouses and hothouses, and talked to her gar- 
 deners, who were numerous, and who all adored 
 her. She moved among them as a queen whose 
 approving smile is like a ray of winter sunshine. 
 She went every day to the stables and petted Valen- 
 tine's hunters, with whom she was on the most 
 familiar terms. Even the new chestnut, although 
 he set his ears back when she opened ihe door of 
 his box, suffered her to go in and pat him, and 
 accepted a lump of sugar from her palm, after sniff- 
 ing at it suspiciously for a minute or so. 
 
 Life was full of interest for her without going 
 beyond her own park gates ; and then there were 
 duty drives to be taken almost every day, and calls 
 to be returned. There was a regular exchange 
 and barter in the way of visiting to be maintained, 
 though Lady Belfield rarely accepted a dinner in-
 
 42 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 vitatioD, or adorned a ball by her graceful presence 
 and her fine family diamonds. She went to 
 friendly tea-drinkings and tennis parties^, and so 
 maintained local friendships. She liked a free- 
 and-easy visiting, which did not oblige her to take 
 ofi" her bonnet or put on her diamonds. Genoa, 
 velvets and Mechlin flounces hung idle ia her 
 wardrobe. She liked to dine alone with her boys, 
 in a tea-gown_, and to read or play in the peaceful 
 solitude of her drawing-room. Life taken at this 
 gentle pace seemed never too long or too mono-' 
 tonous. She sighed for no change in an existence 
 which realized all her wishes. 
 
 People wondered much that so pretty and 
 attractive a woman should have escaped a second 
 marriage. But to Lady Belfield a second marriage 
 would have seemed a crime. 
 
 '^ I loved my husband, and I adore my sons," 
 she said. " Yv^hat ^oom is there left for any other 
 affection ? '' 
 
 *' But you ought to marry, my dear," said her 
 friend, Mrs. Freeman tie, who was distinctly practical. 
 " A husband would be immensely useful to you
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 43- 
 
 and those boys. He would look after your timber 
 and your tenants, and would launcb your sons — 
 get them elected at the proper clubs, and all that 
 kind of thing. He would be a steward without a 
 salary.^^ 
 
 Constance Belfield did not contemplate the 
 matter from this common-sense point of view. 
 Second marriage in the mother of a family she 
 considered domestic treason. And when Valentine 
 was troublesome, when the outside world deemed 
 that a second husband, a man of strong will and 
 clear brain, would have been invaluable to the lad s 
 mother, Constance rejoiced that there was no one 
 but herself to whom the sinner need be account- 
 able, that she had the indisputable right of pardon- 
 ing all his follies and paying all his debts. 
 
 The intervention of a hard-headed man of busi- 
 ness at such times would have tortured her. 
 
 '* My poor foolish boy/' she said to herself, 
 weeping in secret over the young man's delinquen- 
 cies. " Thank God, there is no one to lecture 
 him, no one to complain of him, no one to make 
 him worse by hard measures.^''
 
 44 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 She was not altogether foolish, although she 
 erred on the side of soft-heartedness ; and she 
 knew that Valentine^s career had up to this poiot 
 been unsatisfactory^, but she went on hoping that 
 all would come right by-and-by ; that these evil 
 ways meant no more than the sowing of those wild 
 oats which she had been told most young men 
 were doomed to scatter before they sobered and 
 settled into propriety. 
 
 Adrian was exceptionally steady. For him there 
 were no wild oats to be sown. He had been his 
 mother's comfort and mainstay from his very child- 
 hood ; thoughtful, attentive, devoted, her com- 
 panion and counsellor when he was in Eton 
 jackets. His nature seemed almost passionless. 
 She never remembered to have seen him violently 
 angry. She had never suspected him of being in 
 love. He loved her, and he had an intense sym- 
 pathy with his brother; but she doubted if his 
 heart had ever gone forth beyond that narrow home 
 circle. His tastes and inclinations in all respects 
 resembled her own. He loved music, of which she 
 was passionately fond, and he was no mean per-
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL A-j 
 
 former upon the organ and piano. He had his 
 mother's subdued taste in colours, her scrupulous 
 refinement and orderly habits. 
 
 And now they two, mother and son, were alone 
 together by the hearth, in the long November even- 
 ings, while Valentine and his friend Touchwood 
 went the round of the theatres in Paris, and 
 danced at strange dancing places, and matured their 
 scheme for breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. 
 
 " Mother, did you know that Morcomb was let?" 
 asked Sir Adrian, as he scanned the county paper 
 at breakfast one morning, a few days after Valen- 
 tine's departure. 
 
 '' What, at last ? No, indeed, I have heard 
 nothing about it." 
 
 *^ Then you have not been with any of your 
 gossips for some time, I suppose. Here is the 
 paragraph. ' Morcomb, Lord Lupton's fine old 
 family mansion, has been recently let furnished to 
 Colonel Deverill, of The Rock, near Kilrush^ county 
 Clare. Colonel Deverill is a keen sportsman, has 
 been master of foxhounds in his own county, and 
 will doubtless prove an acquisition to the neigh-
 
 ,46 A WILD lEISH GIEL 
 
 bourhood/ Why, mother, how wonderstruck 
 you look. Do you know anything about this 
 Deverill?" 
 
 " A good deal, Adrian/^ 
 
 " Nothing unpleasant, I hope/^ 
 
 " No, dear ; but it was just a little startling to 
 Hear that he had settled so near us. His father 
 and mv father were bosom friends, and Gerald 
 Deverill and I used to see a good deal of each 
 other when he was a young man about town, in 
 one of the household regiments. I don^t mind 
 telling you that he wanted to marry me in those 
 days, and as he was a wild, self-willed young fellow, 
 he made himself extremely troublesome. I was 
 very young, you see, Adrian, and I was almost 
 afraid of him. And then your father came, and I 
 knew I was safe. I think it was that sweet feeling 
 of being protected by his love that first made me 
 fond of him — and then— and then — ah, Adrian, 
 how fond I was of him, and how good he was — 
 Qjily — only a little self-willed like your brother. 
 But he was always good to me/"* 
 
 The tears came into her eyes as she thought of
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 47 
 
 that brief wedded life, whicli had been all love, 
 though it had not been all sunshine. 
 
 '^ This Deverill must be a disagreeable fellow/ 
 said Adrian. '' I am sure I shall dislike him/'' 
 
 " Oh, no, you won't, Adrian. He is not a bad 
 man, by any means. He was very wild in those days, 
 drank a good deal, I'm afraid, and was altogether 
 in a bad way ; but he married a year or two after 
 my marriage and sobered down, I was told. He 
 has lived a good deal on the Continent of late years, 
 and he and I have never met since your father's 
 death.'' 
 
 " Whom did he marry ? '^ 
 
 ^^ Oh, a nobody, 1 believe — a girl with a little 
 money, which he spent in a year or two. Her 
 father was something in the City, a merchant or a 
 broker, I think they said ; and they lived in one of 
 the new districts on the far-away side of Kensington 
 Gardens. I have heard of them from time to 
 time ; but I have never seen him since his marriage, 
 and I never saw his wife." 
 
 '^ She was not in your set, then." 
 
 " My dear Adrian, her people were in trade,"
 
 48 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 answered Lady Belfield naively. '' I suppose you 
 ouglit to call on Colonel Deverill/^ 
 
 " I can hardly avoid it without being uncivil ; 
 but if you dislike the notion of seeing him here I 
 won't call. He will understand, no doubt, why I 
 don't." 
 
 " And he might think that I was afraid of meet- 
 ing him. I would not have him suppose that for 
 the world. No, Adrian, I should like you to call 
 on him, just in the ordinary way. You can refer 
 en passant to his early acquaintance with my 
 family, not affecting to know that he was ever any 
 more to me than a friend. And you will find out 
 about his surroundings. His wife died some years 
 ago; but I believe there are daughters. If they 
 seem nice girls I might call on them. If not -'' 
 
 '^ I may limit the matter to asking Colonel 
 Deverill to a bachelor dinner — eh, mother ? ^^ 
 
 " I shouldn't like to be obliged to take up girls 
 with Continental ideas and fast manners ; and I 
 fear these poor girls must have been sadly 
 neglected." 
 
 ^^I'm afraid I'm not much of a judge of the
 
 A WILD IRISH GIKL 4^ 
 
 species girl, but I'll give you as exact a report as I 
 can, mother/' answered Adrian gaily. 
 
 He was not in any hurry to set out upon his ad- 
 venture. He still retained a good deal of his boyish 
 shyness, and a visit to strangers was of all his 
 social obligations the most obnoxious ; so he let 
 some pleasant, studiously idle days slip by before 
 he found the weather good enough for a drive to 
 Morcomb, and then he girded up his loins, looked 
 out his least damaged hat from the array of well- 
 brushed felt and beaver in the hall, ordered his 
 phaeton, and turned his face resolutely towards 
 Lord Lupton's Park, which was a good five miles 
 from Belfield Abbey. 
 
 The stable clock chimed the half-hour after two 
 as he drove down the avenue. He would be at 
 Morcomb at about three, which was the prescribed 
 hour for ceremonial calls in that part of the world. 
 Intimates might drop in at five and join in a 
 friendly tea-drinking round a cosy little table ; 
 but for your visit of ceremony, patronage, or re- 
 spect, three o'clock was the hour. Unsustained by 
 luncheon, unrefreshed by tea, the visitor must face 
 
 VOL. L E
 
 50 A WILD IRISH GIEL 
 
 his host or hostess in the awfulness of an empty 
 drawing-room, prepared to converse vivaciously 
 about nothing particular for at least twenty 
 -minutes. 
 
 Morcomb Park was not particularly well kept, 
 Park and home farm had been let to the local 
 butcher for some years, and his cattle grazed within 
 twenty yards of the drawing-room windows. There 
 -was an old-fashioned garden on one side of the 
 house, and there was a spacious and lofty conserva- 
 tory, which in Lord Lupton's prosperous days had 
 ^een one of the glories of the neighbourhood ; 
 -and all the rest was pasture, upon which Mr. Pol- 
 lack^s oxen and sheep fed and fattened. Gardens 
 and conservatory had both been neglected since his 
 lordship's chronic asthma had obliged him to 
 winter at Nice, and the house had been either empty 
 or in the occupation of strangers. Those village 
 wiseacres who pretend to know a great deal more 
 than their neighbours, declared that chronic asthma 
 was only another name for impecuniosity, and that 
 Lord Lupton turned his back upon Morcomb because 
 he could not afford to live in his own country.
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 51 
 
 Every one knew that poor Lady Lupton adored 
 the place, and was never really happy anywhere else. 
 
 A succession of tenants had occupied Morcomb 
 within the last ten years, and had been looked 
 upon more or less coldly by the surrounding 
 families. There is always a shade of suspicion in 
 the rustic mind attaching to the people who 
 occupy furnished mansions ; an idea that if they 
 were all that they ought to be they would have 
 houses of their own. If they are rich the neigh- 
 bourhood wonders where their money comes from. 
 If they are foreigners the neighbourhood is sure 
 they are not all they ought to be. Madame is a 
 £i-devant opera-singer ; Monsieur has a talent for 
 card-sharping. If they are Americans, and scatter 
 their money in the lavish Transatlantic style, 
 ^opinion is against them from the outset. The only 
 people who are kindly looked upon in this con- 
 nection are those whose names and belongings are 
 plainly set forth in Debrett, and who have houses 
 of their own in other counties. To these are the 
 jarms of friendship opened. 
 
 Colonel Deverill was such a one. The Rock, 
 
 E 2
 
 52 A WILD IKISII GTllL 
 
 Kilrush, was his ostensible dwelling-place ; and,- 
 though his reputation was by no means untar- 
 nished, he was known to be a gentleman by birth, 
 and to have begun life in a crack regiment. The 
 two facts, that he was an Irishman and had lived 
 a good deal on the Continent, counted naturally in 
 his disfavour, and the county looked upon him 
 with a qualified approval. 
 
 The house was half a mile from the lodge, and a- 
 fairly kept drive wound along the base of a low 
 hill, athwart undulating pasture land, dotted here 
 and there with oaks and elms, and clusters of 
 ancient hawthorns, and offered Sir Adrian a view 
 of Mr Pollack's beeves cropping the scanty sward 
 of late autumn. On the crest of the hill stood the 
 mansion, a classic villa about a hundred years old, 
 much after the manner of the Club House at 
 Hurlingham, with portico and pediment of white 
 stone, and uniform rows of long French windows. 
 A large bay window, broken out forty years before 
 by an unsestlietic Lord Lupton, at the end of the 
 south wing, was the only relief to that faultless 
 uniformity.
 
 A WILD IRISH CURL 53 
 
 There were no servants about. Sir Adrian's 
 ;groom pulled a bell^ which rang with startling 
 loudness a long way ofif, pealing with a determined 
 -clamour as if it would never have done ringing. 
 Sir Adrian alighted^ ashamed of the noise he had 
 caused to be made^ flung the reins to his groom, 
 and went up the steps. The hall doors were open, 
 and a girFs voice cried, " Your shot, Leo,^^ as he 
 approached the threshold. 
 
 This was embarrassing, but the situation became 
 even more involved when another voice exclaimed, 
 " That bell means another county family come to 
 stare and catechize. Je m'esquive.^' 
 
 But before the speaker could escape, Adrian had 
 jcrossed the threshold, and was standing, hat in 
 hand, face to face with two young ladies, dressed 
 as he had never seen girls dressed before, and both 
 of them a great deal prettier than any girls his 
 memory suggested to him by way of comparison. 
 
 " Miss Deverill, I thiuk,^' he said to one of the 
 -damsels. " My name is Belfield, and I must apolo- 
 gize most humbly for bursting in upon you in this 
 manner.^'
 
 54 A ^Y1LD IRISH GIRL 
 
 '^ Oh^ but you could not possibly help it. If 
 architects will plan houses with billiard-rooms on 
 the doorsteps, the occupants must pay the penalty/" 
 answered the elder sister gaily. "We are very 
 glad to see you. Sir Adrian. This is my sister. 
 Miss Deverill, and I am Mrs. Baddeley. I am' 
 sorry my father is out this afternoon. He would 
 have been charmed to make your acquaintance. 
 He has talked tremendously about Lady Belfield, 
 whom he had the pleasure of knowing quite 
 intimately when they were both young. Will you 
 come to the drawing-room, or shall we sit and talk 
 here ? Helen and I make this our den for the 
 most part. You see we have no brothers to dispute 
 the ground with us.^^ 
 
 " I would much rather stay here,^^ said Adrian. 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley had flung aside her cue while she 
 was talking, and Miss Deverill, who had been 
 sitting on the table when he first beheld her, was- 
 now standing beside it, flicking the chalkmarks off 
 the cloth with her handkerchief. She was a tall 
 slim girl, in a sage-coloured velveteen gown, with a 
 short waist and a broad yellow sash, and with her
 
 A WILD IFJSn GIEL 0£> 
 
 reddish auburn hair, which was superb in hue and 
 texture and quantity, falling down her back in a 
 rippling mass of light and shadow. Her gown was 
 short enough to show a perfect instep and a 
 slender ankle, set off by Cromwell shoes and yellow 
 silk stockings. The married sister wore an olive 
 plush tea gown over an Indian red petticoat, red 
 shoes and stockings, and her hair, which was- 
 darker than Helen s, rolled up in a great untidy 
 mass, and fastened with a red ribbon. The style 
 and costume were altogether different from the 
 regulation afternoon attire in this part of the 
 world, which was generally severe — a tailor g-jwn 
 and a neat linen collar being the rule. 
 
 Had Sir Adrian seen this kind of picturesque 
 toilette in Bedford Park, on the person of a plain 
 girl, he would have regarded it with infinite disgust, 
 for he had all the masculine love of neatness and 
 subdued colouring : but both these women were so 
 pretty, both were so graceful, with the easy grace 
 of perfect self-assurance, that gracious air of 
 women who are accustomed to be admired, ap- 
 proved, and made much of on all occasions, that.
 
 56 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 had they been clad in such calicoes as Manchester 
 •manufactures to meet the crude desires of the un- 
 tutored African^ he must have not the less admired 
 them. 
 
 There was a large fire blazing in the "wide 
 grate, and there were three or four delightful arm- 
 chairs (of draped and cushioned bamboo) about the 
 hearth^ and a scarlet Japanese table^ suggestive of 
 afternoon tea. Those chairs, with their vivid reds 
 and yellows, and tassels and fringes, and Liberty 
 «ilk handkerchiefs tied about them, had never be- 
 longed to Lord Lupton, whose furniture had all 
 been bought in the reign of William the Fourth. 
 Chairs and table were an importation of the 
 Deverills, Adrian saw at a glance. 
 
 They all three sat down in front of the fire- 
 place, while the outer doors were shut by the 
 butler, who had come in a leisurely way to see if 
 that loud pealing of the hall bell were a matter 
 requiring his personal attention. He closed the 
 double doors, put a fresh log on the fire, and dis- 
 creetly retired. 
 
 " And now tell us all about Lady Belfield,'^ said
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 0/ 
 
 the married sister^ percliing her feet upon the old 
 brass fender, and affording Adrian a full view of 
 arched insteps and Louis heels. " Is she quite 
 well, and is she as lovely as she was when she was 
 young ?^' 
 
 " That might be saying too much — I mean about 
 the loveliness/^ answered Adrian, smiling ; " but 
 to my mind my mother is the prettiest woman of 
 her age that I have ever seen. Of course^ a son 
 is partial. As for health, well, yes, I think I may 
 say she is quite well. Would you like her to drive 
 over and see you ?" 
 
 " Of course we should. We are dying to see 
 her," said Helen, who was not at all shy. " If 
 English etiquette were not written in blood, like 
 the laws of Draco, we should have made father 
 take us to Lady Belfield the day after we arrived 
 here." 
 
 '' You don^t appreciate British conventionali- 
 ties?" 
 
 " I detest everything British, present company 
 of course excepted. We have always had such good 
 times in France and Italy; and as for Switzer-
 
 0» A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 land, I feel as if I had been born there. I am 
 longing to be at Vevey, or at one of those dear 
 little villages on Lake Lucerne, now, when your 
 horrid English winter is beginning. I can't think 
 why father persisted in bringing us here. It is- 
 almost as bad as The Eock.^'' 
 
 '^ You don't care for Ireland ?" 
 
 " Does any one, do you think ? If you knew 
 Kilrush, you wouldn't ask such a question ; but 
 you don't, of course." 
 
 " I have not that privilege." 
 
 " Well, perhaps it is a privilege to have lived in 
 the dullest, most out-of-the-way hole on the sur- 
 face of this earth," retorted Miss Deverill lightly, 
 flinging herself back in the Liberty chair, and 
 showing rather more ankle and instep than the 
 rival establishment on the other side of the hearth, 
 *' There is something exceptional in the fact, of 
 course. But why, being obliged to live at The 
 Rock occasionally for duty, my father should bring 
 us to a remote Devonshire village for pleasure, is- 
 more than this feeble intellect of mine can grasp." 
 
 " I don't think there's much mystery about it/''
 
 A WILD IKISH GIRL d\)' 
 
 said Mrs. Baddeley. '^ In the first place, father is 
 tired of wandering about the Continent ; and in 
 the second^ my husband will be home on leave in 
 December^ and I must be in England to receive 
 him. So my father very good-naturedly suggested 
 a country place where Frank could stay with us 
 and get a little huntin' and shootin'. If Frank 
 had been obliged to find his own quarters the 
 choice would have been between London lodgings 
 or staying with his own people, both equally 
 odious for me.'' 
 
 "Mr. Baddeley is in the army^ I conclude.'^ 
 
 " Yes, he is a Major in the 17th Lancers, and 
 has been in India for the last two years, and Fm 
 afraid may have to go ' back there again after a 
 winter in England."" 
 
 " You return with him ?'' 
 
 '' Unhappily, no/" sighed the lady, '' I cannot 
 stand the climate. I tried India for a year^ and it 
 was something too dreadful. I was reduced to a 
 shadow, and I looked forty. Now, Heleu, on your 
 lionour, didn^t I look forty when I landed from 
 Bombay ? "
 
 •60 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 " You certainly looked very bad, dear/^ said 
 Helen. " Do you think it would be too dreadful 
 to offer Sir Adrian tea at a quarter to four/'' with 
 a glance at a fine old eight-day clock. '' Do you 
 ever take tea_, Sir Adrian ? " 
 
 " A teapot is the favourite companion of my 
 studious hours/' answered Adrian. ^' May I ring 
 the bell for you ? '^ 
 
 " Yes, please, and you won't laugh at us and call 
 us washerwomen for wanting tea so early." 
 
 " I promise to do neither ; but were my brother 
 here I would not answer for him. He is very 
 severe on my womanish passion for the teapot.'' 
 
 " Is he very different from you ? " 
 
 " Altogether different." 
 
 "And yet you are twins. I thought twins were 
 always alike." 
 
 '^I believe we are alike in person, except that 
 Valentine is handsomer, stronger, and bigger than 
 T. But it is in tastes and character we are unlike. 
 Y^et perhaps, after all, it is mostly a question of 
 ,health and physical energy. His robust constitu- 
 tion has made him incline to all athletic exercises
 
 A WILD UaSH GIKL Gl 
 
 and manly sports, while my poor health has made 
 me rather womanish. I am obliged to obey the 
 doctors, were it only to satisfy my mother." 
 
 *^ If Mr. Belfield is as nice as you are, I am sure 
 we shall all like him,-"^ said ]\Irs. Baddeley frankly. 
 " I hear he is abroad just now." 
 
 " Yes, he is in Paris, en route for the South ; 
 but I don't think he will be long away. He is 
 very fond of hunting, and won't care to miss too 
 much of it." 
 
 The leisurely butler brought in the tea-tray, and 
 arranged it comfortably in front of Miss Deverill, 
 who was allowed to enjoy all those privileges which 
 involved the slightest exertion. Mrs. Baddeley was 
 the very genius of idleness, and never picked up a 
 pocket handkerchief, shut a door, or buttoned a 
 boot for herself. She required to be waited upon 
 and looked after like a baby. She attributed this 
 lymphatic condition entirely to the twelve months 
 she had spent in Bombay, which was supposed to 
 have shattered her nerves and undermined her con- 
 stitution. Helen, who had never been in India, 
 was expected to write her sister's letters, pick up her
 
 ^2 A WILD HUSH GIRL 
 
 handkerchief, and to find screens to protect her 
 complexion from the fire, by which she sat at all 
 times and seasons. Helenas maid was expected to 
 wait upon her from morning to night, to the neglect 
 of Helen's wardrobe. 
 
 So Helen poured out the tea, and they all nestled 
 cosily round the fire, with as intimate an air as if 
 they had been friends from childhood. The two 
 women chattered about their continental life, their 
 summers at Biarritz or Arcachon, their winters at 
 Nice or at Vevey, and of those dreadful penitential 
 periods of residence in Ireland. " Father is afraid 
 of our being boycotted if he once gets the reputa- 
 tion of being an absentee," explained Helen, " so we 
 make a point of spending three months of every 
 year at Kilrush, and we pretend to be very fond of 
 the peasantry on the estate. They really are nice, 
 warm-hearted creatures ; though I dare say they 
 would shoot us on the slightest provocation. And 
 father has a yacht on the Shannon, and altogether 
 it is not half a bad life." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, Helen," said her sister 
 peevishly ; ^' you can bear solitude. I can't. I
 
 A WILD irJSlI GlllL Oo 
 
 liope the people about here give decent parties/' she 
 added, turning to Adrian. 
 
 ^^They are not very energetic party-givers. A 
 couple of balls within a radius of t\Yenty miles and 
 half-a-dozen dinners constitute a rather gay season." 
 
 *' Good heavens, am I to exist all the winter upon 
 two balls ! " cried Mrs. Baddeley. '^ I shall forget 
 how to waltz. My diamonds will go off colour 
 from being shut up so long in their cases." 
 
 Sir Adrian wondered a little to hear an officer's 
 wife talk of diamonds as if she had been a duchess, 
 but he opined that Major Baddeley must be a man 
 of substance. Certainly Colonel Deverill's daughter 
 could hardly have been jewelled from the paternal 
 resources, which every one knew to be meagre. 
 
 What a lovely woman she was, lolling back in 
 her chair with the firelight shining on her hair and 
 eyes — large hazel eyes. Every feature was charm- 
 ing, if not altogether faultless : the nose small and 
 slightly retrousse, the mouth rather large, with full 
 carmine lips and a bewitching smile ; the chin 
 beautifully rounded, the complexion of creamy 
 whiteness. The younger sister was like her, only
 
 64 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 prettier, fresher, more girlish, eyes larger and more 
 brilliant, hair brighter and more luxurant, month 
 smaller and of a more exquisite mould, nose less 
 coquettish and more dignified, a face to dream about^ 
 a face to sing in Society verses, and glorify in 
 fashionable photographs. 
 
 The clock struck five and startled Sir Adrian 
 from his forgetfulness of all things but the two 
 faces and the two voices and the little glimpses of 
 two hitherto unknown lives, revealed to him by 
 that careless prattle. He rose at once. 
 
 ^' I must really apologize for the length of my 
 first visit,^^ he said. 
 
 " You wouldn't if you knew how dull we are^ 
 and how anxious we were to see you and Lady 
 Belfield. I hope she will come soon,'' said the 
 elder sister. 
 
 " She shall come to-morrow," answered Adrian. 
 
 '' Oh, that is too good of you. Please bring her 
 to lunch. My father will be charmed." 
 
 '' I'm afraid to engage her for lunch. I know 
 that in a general way she dislikes going out so 
 early. Afternoon tea is her passion."
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 65 
 
 " Then bring her to afternoon tea. She shall 
 not discover us in the hall as you did. She shall 
 find us in the drawing-room, behaving properly.^^ 
 
 Adrian was glad to hear this. He had an idea 
 that the vision of two girls playing billiards with 
 open doors, and that exclamation, " your shot/' 
 would have disparaged the young ladies in his 
 mother's estimation. He also hoped that Helen 
 would have her hair less carelessly displayed to- 
 morrow afternoon. 
 
 "She shall certainly come to-morrow, imless 
 there is something extraordinary to prevent her,^* 
 he said, ^' and in that case FU send you a note, 
 Mrs. Baddeley." 
 
 " You will not put us to the trouble of being 
 proper for nothing. That is very kind of you. 
 Good-bye.^^ >$ 
 
 She rang for Donovan, the butler, who appeared 
 five minutes afterwards, just as Sir Adrian was 
 disappearing. The sisters went with their visitor 
 to the door, whicb he opened for himself. They 
 went out into the windy afternoon with him, and 
 patted and admired his horses, which had waited 
 
 VOL. I. r
 
 ^6 A WILD IPJSH GIRL 
 
 in the cold mucli longer than they were accustomed 
 to wait. The two girls stood in the portico and 
 watched him drive away, and waved white hands to 
 him as to an old friend. 
 
 Scarcely had he driven out of sight of them when 
 Ms heart began to fail him as to that promise 
 which he had made about his mother. He had 
 heen eager to pledge her to friendship with these 
 strangers; and now he began to ask himself 
 whether these two young women, lovely as they 
 were, would not appear intolerable in her eyes. 
 His mother was the essence of refinement; and 
 these girls, though assuredly charming, were not 
 refined. They had a free and easy air which 
 would jar upon a woman whose secluded life had 
 kept her unacquainted with the newest develop- 
 ments in Society and manners. Young women who 
 wore their hair au naturel, and showed their ankles 
 freely, were an unknown race to Lady Belfield ; 
 nor was she familiar with the type of young woman 
 who is thoroughly at home with strangers of the 
 opposite sex the minute after introduction. Lady 
 Belfield^s manners had been formed in the quiet
 
 A WILD IRISH GIRL 67 
 
 and reserved school. She had never played 
 billiards^ or been interested in racing, or gambled 
 in a Kursaal, or enjoyed any one of those amuse- 
 ments which society smiles upon now-a-days. She 
 had been an only daughter and an heiress, brought 
 up very strictly, permitted few amusements, and 
 only a chosen circle of friends ; knowing not Hur- 
 lingham or Ascot, Goodwood or Baden ; oscillating 
 between a dull house in London and a duller house 
 in the country; working at her piano conscien- 
 tiously under a fashionable German master, culti- 
 -vating her mind by the perusal of all the best 
 books of the day, attending all the best operas and 
 concerts, dancing at half-a-score of aristocratic 
 balls in the season, and knowing as little of the 
 world as an intelligent child of ten. 
 
 " I'm afraid she^ll hardly like them as much as I 
 do,^' thought Adrian innocently. " They are s o 
 frank, so friendly, so full of life, and so different 
 from all the girls we have met round about here. 
 I wonder what the father is like ? ^^ 
 
 And then he recalled his feelings as he drove 
 •along this road two hours ago, and remembered 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A WILD IRISH GIRL 
 
 witli what a suspicious mind he had thought of 
 Colonel Deverill, inclined to suspect that gentleman 
 of the most Macchiavellian motives for planting 
 himself within easy reach of Belfield Abbey. Had 
 he not come to Morcomb with the secret intention. 
 of renewing his old suit to Lady Belfield^ of trying 
 to win her for his spoil now that she was a wealthy 
 widow, her own mistress, not too old to marry 
 again, free to marry whom she chose ? Yes, he had 
 been inclined to suspect the Colonel of hidden 
 views in this direction; and yet had he any such 
 scheme it was strange that he should not have set 
 about the business ten years ago, since he had 
 been quite eleven years a widower. That such 
 a scheme should be an after-thought would be 
 strange. 
 
 And now, in his homeward drive, Adrian was 
 assured that Colonel Deverill had come to the 
 neighbourhood in all innocence of mind, in his 
 happy-go-lucky Irish way, glad to get a cheap house 
 in a picturesque country.
 
 ( 69 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DANGER 
 
 Ijady Belfield consented to fulfil the engagement 
 which her son had made for her, but she owned 
 that her dear Adrian had been somewhat pre- 
 cipitate. 
 
 " To call two days running seems rather too 
 eager," she said, " and if we find by-and-by that 
 Colonel Deverill has degenerated, and that the girls 
 are not nice, it will be difficult to draw back. To 
 go to them twice in a week implies such an ardour 
 4)f friendship." 
 
 Adrian blushed. 
 
 " I think you will like them," he said, with a 
 troubled air. 
 
 '^ You have told me so little about them after 
 l)eing with them so long. What did they talk 
 jabout all the time ? " 
 
 " The places where they had lived, mostly. You
 
 70 DANGEK 
 
 see we had no common friends to pull to pieces^ 
 Mrs. Baddeley seemed horrified when I told her 
 what a limited amount of gaiety she is likely ta 
 get in this part of the country." 
 
 " Then she is evidently fond of pleasure/' 
 " Fm afraid she is. However, her husband i» 
 expected home next month, and no doubt he will 
 keep her in the right path.'' 
 
 '^ And the unmarried sister ; what is she 
 like?" 
 
 '^ Very like Mrs. Baddeley^ only prettier." 
 "^ My dear Adrian,, you talk of nothing but their 
 beauty. Tm afraid they must be empty-headed 
 gids." 
 
 ^* They are not blue-stockings. They did not 
 quote Huxley or Sir John Lubbock, did not make a 
 single inquiry about the geology of the neighbour- 
 hood or our antiquarian remains. I believe they 
 are the kind of women who think that ruined 
 abbeys were invented for pic-nics^ and who only 
 consider a geological stratum in its adaptability 
 to the growth of roses or strawberries. They are 
 very handsome, and I think they are very nice.
 
 DANGER 71 
 
 But you will be able to judge for yourself in ten 
 minutes/'' 
 
 This dialogue took place in Lady Belfield's 
 barouche^ on the way to Morcomb. 
 
 They were approaching Mr. Pollack^s demesne^ 
 and a little flock of Mr. Pollack's sheep had just 
 passed them in a cloud of dust on their way to 
 the slaughter-house, a sight that always afflicted 
 Lady Belfield, so tender was her love of all four- 
 footed beasts, from the petted fox-terrier in her 
 drawing-room to the half-starved horse on the 
 common. 
 
 The carriage drove up to the Corinthian portico, 
 and before the horses stopped Colonel Deverill was 
 out upon the steps to welcome his old love. He 
 handed her out of her carriage, and escorted her 
 into the house. He was a handsome-looking man, 
 with grey hair and black moustache and eyebrows, 
 a man whom strangers generally spoke of a& 
 " striking.^'' 
 
 " I cannot tell you how grateful I am for this 
 early visit, Lady Belfield/' he said. '^ I was so 
 anxious for my girls to know you. They have had
 
 72 DANGER 
 
 such a wandering life, poor children. I have so 
 few friends, except in that miserable country of 
 mine, where, of course, everybody knows them. 
 And this is your son ? " shaking hands with him as 
 he spoke; "my girls told me how well they got 
 on with you yesterday, Sir Adrian. Brazen-faced 
 hussies, Fm afraid you found them.^' 
 
 Again Adrian blushed, so strangely did the 
 paternal phrase jar upon his ear. 
 
 "They are not at all like the ordinary run of 
 young ladies,^' said Deverill. " I have brought 
 them up in the true spirit of camaraderie^ and I 
 always think of them as jolly good fellows." 
 
 Lady Belfield looked horrified. She accompanied 
 her host through an ante-room to the long drawing- 
 room, speechless with wonder that any father should 
 so speak of his daughters. 
 
 Two fair and graceful forms rose from before 
 the hearth, and Adrian breathed more freely. No 
 flowing tresses to-day, and a far less liberal display 
 of ankles. Mrs. Baddeley wore a fashionable tailor 
 gown and a high collar, and her hair was dressed 
 to perfection.
 
 DANGER 76 
 
 Helen was in soft, grey cashmere, with a falling 
 collar of old lace, and long tight sleeves, which set 
 off the beautiful arms and slender white hands. 
 She was still sesthetic, but she was tidy, and her 
 little bronze slippers only played at bo-peep under 
 the long limp skirt, as she came forward to welcome 
 Lady Belfield. 
 
 Her beauty was indisputable; her smile would 
 have fascinated an anchorite. She received Lady 
 Belfield with caressing sweetness, almost ignoring 
 Adrian, to whom she only gave the tips of her 
 taper fingers. She seated herself on a low sofa 
 by her guest, and asked leave to loosen her 
 mantle. 
 
 '^ You will take it off, won''t you ? You are not 
 going to pay us a flying visit. Father, take Lady 
 Belfield's mantle directly, or she will be suffocated 
 in this warm room.^' 
 
 Between them they removed her ladyship's 
 cloak, and made her comfortable upon the sofa, 
 with a hassock for her feet, and a little table for 
 her teacup. 
 
 " Now, you look homelike and friendly," said
 
 74 DANGER 
 
 Helen^ seating herself on a low ottoman, so as ta 
 be in a manner at the visitor's feet. 
 
 Colonel Deverill looked on with a pleased air. 
 
 '^ I hope you won't object to our being very 
 fond of you/' pleaded Helen. ^' You are not the 
 least like a stranger to us. Lady Belfield. Father 
 has talked so much of your girlish days and his- 
 young mannish days, when all the world was so 
 much better than it is now, and when even an 
 Irish estate was worth something. How hard it is 
 for us young people to be born into such a bad 
 used-up world, isn't it ? To be created at the fag- 
 end of everything ! " 
 
 The girl almost took Constance Belfield's breath 
 away. She was so easy, so spontaneous, and her 
 caressing manner had such an air of reality, 
 Adrian's mother had come in fear and doubt, 
 rather inclined to dislike Colonel Deverill's daugh- 
 ters, who were only beautiful ; and this one was 
 wheedling herself into the warm motherly heart 
 already. 
 
 " And so you have not forgotten the old days in 
 Eaton Square, when your father and my father were
 
 DANGER 75- 
 
 such friendsj" she said to the Colonel at last, feel- 
 ing that she must say something. " It is very- 
 pleasant to find you have made your daughter like 
 me in advance/^ 
 
 *^ I have not forgotten a single detail of that 
 time/' replied Deverill. " It was just the one 
 golden period of my life, before I had found out 
 what care means. So long as I was a pensioner 
 on my father everything went well with me ; if I 
 got into difiSculties the dear old boy always got me 
 out of them. There was a grow], perhaps, and 
 then I was forgiven. But when he died, and I 
 was my own master, with a rich wife, too, as 
 people told me, the floodgates of extravagance were 
 opened, and the stream was too strong for me. I 
 thought there must be a lot of spending in our two 
 fortunes, and I took things easily. When I pulled 
 up at last, there was deuced little left, only just 
 enough for us to get along with in a very humble 
 way. We have had to cut and contrive, I can tell 
 you, Lady Belfield. This girl of mine doesn't know 
 what it is to have a gown from a fashionable 
 milliner ; and I have left off" cigars for the last six
 
 76 DANGER 
 
 years. I only keep a box or two on tlie premises 
 for my friends." 
 
 ^' A case of real distress/^ sighed Mrs. Baddeley, 
 with a tragi-comical air ; " we contrive to be very 
 happy in spite of the wolf at the door, don't we 
 father ? It is an Irish gentleman's normal state to 
 be ruined. Now, Helen, go and pour out the tea, 
 and let me sit by Lady Belfield.''^ 
 
 Helen went to the table, which Donovan had 
 just set out. There was no other servant in atten- 
 dance. This slow and faithful Hibernian seemed 
 to comprise the indoor staff. 
 
 " And are these all your family ? '^ asked Con- 
 stance, looking at the sisters. 
 
 " These are all I have in the world, and one of 
 these will be deserting me, I suppose, if her hus- 
 band can contrive to stay in England,''^ answered 
 •Colonel Deverill. 
 
 " Which I hope he may be able to do, poor 
 fellow," said Mrs. Baddeley, with a more careless 
 air than Lady Belfield quite approved in a wife's 
 mention of an absent husband. 
 
 Adrian handed the tea-cups and muffins, and
 
 DANGER 77 
 
 when those duties were performed slipped into a 
 seat beside Helen, and they two talked confiden- 
 tially^ while Mrs. Baddeley and her father and 
 Lady Belfield carried on an animated conversa- 
 tion, chiefly about the neighbourhood and its little 
 ways. 
 
 Sir Adrian was questioning the young lady for 
 the most part^ trying to find out what manner of 
 girl she was, so that he might be the better able 
 to meet a second attack from his mother. 
 
 Did she hunt ? Yes, and she adored hunting ; 
 it was just the one thing in life worth living: 
 for. 
 
 " But I think you are fond of yachting, too," 
 suggested Adrian. " You talked of yachting yes- 
 terday.^^ 
 
 " I revel in a yacht. Yes, when there's na 
 hunting, yachting is just the one thing I live for. 
 When father had a two-hundred-ton yacht cruising 
 about the Mediterranean my life was ecstasy .^-' 
 
 " Then you are a good sailor ? " 
 
 "If that means never being ill I am a very 
 good sailor. But I go a little further than that^
 
 '78 DANGER 
 
 for I know something about navigating a yacht. 
 I should not be in the least afraid o£ finding my- 
 self at sea without a skipper." 
 
 '^ These are out-of-door accomplishments/^ said 
 Adrian ; " no doubt you have equal gifts for winter 
 and wet weather. You are musical, of course." 
 
 " Comme ci comme ga. I can play a valse or 
 accompany a song." 
 
 '^ Your own songs,, for instance.^' 
 
 " My own, or yours^ if you sing." 
 
 " Alas, no ; I am not vocal^ though I do a little 
 in the way of instrumental music. But you — I 
 like to know all your talents. You paint, perhaps 
 — flowers." 
 
 *' Heaven forbid ! Do I look the kind of girl to 
 devote a week to the study of a carnation in a glass 
 of water, not a bit like when it's done ? or to a 
 hedge-sparrow's nest and a bunch of primroses ? 
 No, I never have used a brush ; but I sometimes 
 indulge in a little caricaturing with a quill pen and 
 an inkpot. But how very egotistically I am pros- 
 ing. Tell me about yourself, please. Sir Adrian, 
 since we are to be friends as well as neighbours.
 
 DANGER 79 
 
 What are your particular vanities — tennis, shooting, 
 fishing? I hear you don't hunt/' 
 
 '' No, I don't hunt ; I do a little fly-fishing in 
 the season, and I shoot a few pheasants every 
 October, just to keep pace with the neighbour- 
 hood. I am not a sportsman. Miss Deverill. 
 Books and music are my only vanities." 
 
 '^ I adore books/' said Helen, smiling at him 
 ^' they furnish a room so sweetly. If I were rich 
 enough I would have mine all in vellum, with dif- 
 ferent coloured labels." 
 
 '' You are a connoisseur of bindings, I see." 
 
 " Oh, I like everything to look pretty. It is the 
 torment of my life that I am not surrounded with 
 beautiful things. In our nomadic existence it is 
 impossible to have one's own atmosphere. Two or 
 three Liberty chairs and a little Venetian glass 
 won't make home in a wilderness. I hope some 
 day I shall have a perfect house of my own and 
 heaps of money." 
 
 Lady Belfield rose. The visit had lasted nearly 
 three-quarters of an hour, not so long as Adrian's 
 yesterday .
 
 80 DANGER 
 
 "You will come and see me soon, I hope/^ slie 
 said to Mrs. Baddeley. 
 
 " I am dying to see the Abbey. I am told it is 
 too lovely/^ 
 
 ^^ It is a dear_, good old place, and we are all 
 fond of it. I heard you talking of books. Miss- 
 Deverill. I know Adrian will be pleased to show 
 you his library.^' 
 
 '' I shall be delighted to see it — and the stables/ '^ 
 answered Helen. '^ I have heard so much of the 
 stables. And I want to see Mr. Belfield's hunters.'^ 
 
 •^ I am sorry he is not at home to show them to 
 you. He is very proud of them.^' 
 
 " Oh, but it will be fun to get acquainted with 
 them in his absence ; and when he comes back it 
 will seem as if I had gone half-way towards know- 
 ing him,'^ said Helen laughingly. 
 
 She and her sister went with Lady Belfield to 
 the portico, and hung about her as she got into 
 her carriage. These caressing Irish ways were new 
 to Constance Belfield, but she yielded to the fasci- 
 nation of two fair faces and two fresh young voices, 
 full of music.
 
 DANGER 81 
 
 ^^I don^t know that they are altogether good 
 style^ Adrian/^ she said, as they drove home, '' but 
 they are very sweet/^ 
 
 Adrian agreed as to their sweetness, but not as 
 to their deficiency in style. 
 
 ^^I don^t believe in any hard and fast rules for 
 a woman's manners,^^ he said, rather irritably. " I 
 don^t recognize that conventional standard by which 
 every woman must speak and look and move in 
 exactly the same fashion. I think Mrs. Baddeley 
 and her sister are simply charming in their un- 
 studied frankness and warm-hearted enthusiasm. 
 How really pleased they were to see you.^^ 
 
 ^^ They seemed very cordial ; yet, as I was quite 
 a stranger to them '' 
 
 " Oh, but you were not a stranger. They had 
 talked of you and thought of you, and elevated you 
 into a kind of ideal friend. Their hearts went out 
 to you at once." 
 
 ^' They are very charming, but when I meet with 
 girls of that kind I am always reminded of Tot, the 
 fox-terrier." 
 
 " As how, mother ? " 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 DANGER 
 
 " She is such a darling thing, and if she sees me 
 in the garden or the stableyard, she rushes to me 
 and leaps up at me in an ecstasy of affection ; but 
 I have seen her behave just the same five minutes 
 afterwards to the butcher. It seems an exuberance 
 of love that runs over anyhow." 
 
 " Rather hard upon Helen Deverill to compare 
 her with a fox terrier ! " said Adrian. 
 
 Helen Deverill ! How familiar seemed the 
 sound of her name to him already. Helen 
 Deverill ! and he had known her only four-and- 
 twenty hours. 
 
 '^ You'll ask them over soon, I suppose, mother ? " 
 
 '' If you like, dear.'' 
 
 "To dinner?'' 
 
 " That means a party." 
 
 " Oh, no, pray don't have a party. The Vicar, 
 perhaps, and the Freemantles — just three or four 
 friendly people. One sees so little of one's friends 
 at a set dinner. They would like to meet Free- 
 mantle and his wife, I dare say." 
 
 " And we could ask Jack Freemantle, as there 
 are girls."
 
 DAXGER 83 
 
 '^ Yes, I suppose we must ask Jack. He is an 
 oaf, but tlie kind of oaf who always gets on with 
 girls/^ 
 
 " He sings, Adrian/^ 
 
 " Did I not say that he was an oaf, mother. In 
 my estimation, a man who sings ranks almost as 
 low as a man who plays the flute.''' 
 
 ""And yet I thought you were fond of music." 
 
 ^' Music, yes ; but not amateur singing and 
 playing. It is because I love music that I hate 
 the young man who carries a roll of songs when 
 he goes out to dinner, and the young woman who 
 <?an sit down in cold blood to murder Beethoven." 
 
 The mother smiled and then sighed. Her son 
 was all that was dear to her, but she had the feel- 
 ing that a good many mothers and fathers must 
 needs experience now-a-days, that the young men 
 and women of this present generation are trained 
 ?too fine. 
 
 The invitation to a friendly dinner, at three 
 days' notice, was sent next morning. Adrian re- 
 minded his mother of the letter at least three
 
 S4 DANGER 
 
 times before it was written, and despatched by a 
 mounted messenger. Posts in the country are so 
 slovr^ and there was always a hunter to be 
 exercised. 
 
 Sir Adrian walked across the fields to Chirwell 
 Grange^ and invited Mr. and Mrs. Freemantle, 
 whose house was just three-quarters of a mile from 
 the Abbey, as the crow flies. Mrs. Freemantle 
 was his mother's most intimate friend in the 
 parish, a sturdy, practical woman, who affected 
 nothing better than common sense, but excelled 
 in the exercise of that admirable quality. Her 
 well-to-do neighbours, for the most part, disliked 
 her. She was too keen and outspoken for them ; 
 but the poor and the sick adored her. She had 
 known the brothers from their cradles, and treated 
 them as cavalierly as she treated her own Jack, 
 future Squire of Chirwell, or her daughter Lucy, a 
 tall slip of a girl who scarcely seemed to have a 
 mind of her own, so overshadowed was she by her 
 strong-minded mother. 
 
 *' You must all come,^^ said Adrian to this 
 kindly matron, who stood bareheaded in the cold.
 
 DANGER CO 
 
 clipping the dead leaves off a favourite shrub in a 
 thicket that bounded her lawn. " I am sure you 
 will like them." 
 
 '^ Them/' echoed Mrs. Freemantle. '^ Then there 
 are more than Colonel Deverill ? You only spoke 
 of him just now/' 
 
 *^ There are his daughters — two daughters." 
 
 " Oh, there are daughters,, are there ? Is that 
 the reason you are so eager to launch this new 
 man ? I thought you generally held yourself aloof 
 from girls, Adrian. I know you have been very 
 tiresome whenever I have wanted you here to play 
 tennis.'' 
 
 " I am not particularly inclined to girlish society 
 in a general way, perhaps. But these ladies are — 
 well, a little out of the common." 
 
 Mrs. Freemantle gave a sotto voce whistle. 
 
 " I see/' she said, " They are the new style of 
 girls, fast and furious; just the kind of girls I 
 should not like my Lucy to know. They would 
 corrupt her in a week. She would begin to think 
 of nothing but her frocks, and consider herself a 
 martyr because she lives in the country eleven
 
 SQ DANGER 
 
 months in every twelve. God forbid that she 
 should ever get intimate with such girls. Irisb 
 too ! I believe that after five-and-twenty they 
 generally drink.^' 
 
 " Don't you think it would be as well to see 
 them before you condemn them ? '' said Adrian, 
 who was used to Mrs. Freemantle's little ways^ and 
 not prone to take offence at her speech. 
 
 '' I am not condemning them. I am only pre- 
 paring myself for the worse. Yes^ of course we 
 will dine with you, if Lady Belfield wants us. We 
 are free for Saturday, I know." 
 
 '' You'll all come." 
 
 Mrs. Freemantle pursed up her lips in another 
 suppressed whistle. 
 
 '' Four would be too many. Jack and the father 
 and I will come. That will be more than enough 
 of us.^^ 
 
 " You are afraid to trust Lucy among my 
 Hibernians. I don^t think the ladies have taken 
 to whisky yet. One of them is married, by-the- 
 by, her husband expected home from Bombay 
 shortly.''
 
 DANGER 87" 
 
 " A grass widow/' exclaimed Mrs. Freemantle ; 
 " worse and worse. I feel sure they are a dis- 
 reputable setj and your eagerness to insinuate them 
 into society is a mistaken benevolence. And you 
 would make me your catspaw, I am to be the 
 thin end of the wedge.'' 
 
 " I don't believe Colonel Deverili or his daughters 
 care a straw about your stuck-up rural society; 
 only they are bright, clever people, and I want to 
 see something of them myself." 
 
 '^ Take care, Adrian. What if this Irish Colonel 
 wants to be your step-father ? " 
 
 '^ He will never realize his wish. I can trust my 
 mother's discretion, and her love for her sons." 
 
 " My dear Adrian, nine people out of ten would 
 say your mother acted wisely in marrying again, if 
 she were to make a suitable match. Your brother 
 Valentine is not the easiest young man to manage 
 
 " Do you think a step-father would make him 
 more manageable, Mrs. Freemantle? I wonder you 
 can talk such nonsense," exclaimed Adrian, getting 
 angry.
 
 88 DANGER 
 
 '^My dear boy, I don^t know what to think 
 about step-fathers and second marriages; but I 
 think your mother has a troublesome handful with 
 her younger son/^ 
 
 " He is a very good fellow, and he is very fond 
 of his mother/^ 
 
 " Fond of her, after his own fashion, yes — a 
 dutiful son, no. Well, Adrian, every back has to 
 carry its burden ; may your mother's rest lightly. 
 You are the person who can best lighten it for her. 
 She has at least one devoted son. There, there, 
 you look angry and you look distressed. My 
 foolish tongue has been running on too fast. I 
 promise to be in my most agreeable mode on 
 Saturday evening, and Til try to admire Colonel 
 Deverill's daughters. What is the married lady^s 
 name ? " 
 
 '' Baddeley.^' 
 
 '^ What ? We have some Baddeleys among our 
 family connections. I dare say we shall find out 
 that Mrs. Baddeley^s husband is a kind of cousin. 
 The world is so absurdly small. ^^ 
 
 From Chirwell Adrian walked to the Vicarage,
 
 DANGER S9 
 
 and in the dusty old library, wliere the worthy 
 Vicar had taught him his rudiments twelve years 
 ago, discovered that luminary nodding over his 
 Jeremy Taylor, exactly in the same attitude and, 
 as it seemed to his old pupil, in the same suit of 
 clothes which had marked him in those earlier 
 years. It was a tradition in Chadford that the 
 Vicar never read any other book than those 
 mottled-calf-bound volumes of the great divine, 
 and that he had never been known in his sermons 
 to quote any other authority, yet produced his 
 name ever with an air of novelty, as one who intro- 
 duced a new light to his congregation. 
 
 He looked up smilingly as Adrian entered unan- 
 nounced, having been always free to go in as one 
 of the family since his days of pupilage. 
 
 " My dear boy, I haven't seen you for an age/' 
 said the Vicar, holding out his thin right hand, 
 while his left still clasped his book. ^^ What have 
 you been doing with yourself? '' 
 
 " Making some new acquaintances, Vicar ; and I 
 want you to come and meet them next Saturday
 
 90 DANGER 
 
 And then Adrian entered once again upon a 
 graphic description of Colonel Deverill and his 
 daughters, finding a more sympathetic listener in 
 the Vicar than he had found in Mrs. Freemantle. 
 
 Reginald Rockstone was a man of peculiar 
 delicacy of feeling,, not deeply learned but ex- 
 quisitely critical, knowing a few authors well, 
 worshipping a few poets with all his mind and all 
 his heart, and seeing all thiags from their most 
 spiritual standpoint. 
 
 " It must be sad for these young women to be 
 motherless, and with a wild Irish father/' he said 
 gently ; " and the married girl — she is little more 
 than a girl, I take it — sad for her to be separated 
 from her husband." 
 
 " She is just now expecting him home/' said 
 Adrian, " and she seems in excellent spirits.'' 
 
 The Vicar was a bachelor, and his own master in 
 all things. The living was not one of the plums of 
 the Church, but the income was ample for a man 
 Avhose tastes were of the simplest and who had 
 some means of his own. He was a man of excel- 
 lent family, a gentleman to the core of his heart.
 
 DANGER 
 
 91 
 
 His poor parishioners adored him ; his friends 
 among the country people tolerated him as a 
 harmless eccentric. The small professional people, 
 village doctor^ market-town solicitors, considered 
 him reserved and supercilious. He refused all 
 invitations to dinner from this class, though he 
 would take a cup of afternoon tea with their wives 
 now and then, to show them he bore no malice. 
 
 "Why should I dine out unless it be to dine 
 more pleasantly than I can at home?" he argued, 
 when he talked over his parish and his idiosyn- 
 cracies with his intimate friend Lady Belfield. 
 ^' My evening by the fireside or in my garden is 
 always precious to me. I have the books I love 
 for my companions, and their company never palls. 
 At my age a man's leisure evenings are numbered. 
 He cannot garner them too carefully. Why 
 should I go out to sit an hour and a half at a 
 gaudily arranged dinner table, surrounded by petty 
 formalities, in an atmosphere of roast mutton, and 
 among people who look as if their evening dress 
 was a kind of armour, to hear the smallest of small 
 talk, to struggle with irrepressible yawns, to endure
 
 ^2 DANGER 
 
 all the agonies of casual attendance from a sliam 
 butler. When I come here — or to houses like this 
 — my body basks in a luxury that I am sybarite 
 enough to appreciate ; while my mind expands and 
 soars in unison with minds that think only noble 
 thoughts. Here we talk of books and of spiritual 
 things ; in the village or the town the talk is of 
 politics or persons — hovers between Gladstone's 
 last speech and the latest scandal about the Board 
 of Guardians." 
 
 To Belfield. Abbey, therefore, the Vicar went 
 whenever he was bidden. Lady Belfield^s low voice 
 and sympathetic manner had a peculiar charm for 
 him. So far as that great tender heart of his had 
 ever gone out to a woman, it had gone out to her 
 years ago, in the early days of her widowhood, 
 when she came home to the Abbey with her two 
 hojs — a stricken mourner, deeming her sorrow 
 above all sorrows. He — a grave man of seven and 
 thirty, old for his years — had comforted and advised 
 her, had helped her in the bringing up of her sons, 
 and had prepared them for Eton and coached them 
 for Oxford. He, who had never on any other
 
 DANGER 93 
 
 occasion sacrificed that golden leisure whicli lie 
 prized so highly — the leisure to read old books and 
 muse and dream over them — had for Lady Belfield's 
 sake toiled at the very elements of classical educa- 
 tioDj at declensions and conjugations,, at Cornelius 
 Nepos and Livy. In Adrian he had found a pupil 
 after his own heart, and at five-and-twenty Adrian 
 was still his pupil^ still delighting to read a Greek 
 play with him^ proud to discuss a tough passage in 
 Plato or Aristotle ; or to talk about Horace and his 
 little ways, as if they both had known him inti- 
 mately. 
 
 With Valentine education had been a tougher 
 job. Clever, idle, arrogant, self-opinionated ; from 
 a very early stage always convinced that he knew 
 more, or understood better, than his master : to 
 teach him had been like hewing shapely stones out 
 of the hardest rock. The material was there, could 
 one but quarry it ; but the labour was ungrateful, 
 and often seemed hopeless. The pupil never wanted 
 to learn what the master wished to teach him. 
 When the good Vicar opened the iEneid, the boy 
 cried, " A fig for classics,^^ and was hot upon read-
 
 •94 DANGER 
 
 ing " Don Quixote ^' in the original, angry with his 
 master because he would not turn from the beaten 
 path of duty to teach him Spanish. 
 
 " You are a good Spanish scholar ; my mother 
 told me so when she was sounding your praises/^ 
 said Valentine ; ^* why won't you teach me 
 Spanish ? " 
 
 " Because you are very backward with your 
 Latin. Stick to that, Val, and it will help you 
 Avith Spanish by-and-by." 
 
 " I sha'n't care about Spanish by-and-by. I want 
 to learn it now.'' 
 
 This was a sample of many such arguments. 
 The lad was obstinate and wrong-headed, but the 
 Vicar never gave way to his whims ; and this may 
 have been the reason that Valentine liked Mr. 
 Kockstone better than any one else at Chadford. 
 
 But with advancing manhood Valentine exhibited 
 characteristics which filled his mother's loyal friend 
 with apprehension. He was uneasy when the young 
 man was at the Abbey. He was more uneasy when 
 he was away ; dreading lest every day should bring 
 some evil tidings to the mother. He, who had studied
 
 DANGER 95 
 
 Lady Belfield's thoughts and inclinations as closely 
 as only one who fondly loves can study a character, 
 knew that to the mother's heart the wayward son 
 was the more precious. 
 
 '' She loves them both/' he told himself; '^ she 
 loves Adrian exactly as a good mother should love 
 a good son ; but she loves the other one foolishly^ 
 blindly^ sinfully — if, indeed_, it be a sin to make an 
 idol of poor humanity .'' 
 
 Ten minutes to eight on Saturday evening, and 
 the Vicar was luxuriating in the glow of a splendid 
 fire, in a drawing-room full of light and colour, the 
 perfume of hothouse flowers, and the litter of new 
 books and periodicals. Lady Belfield sat in her 
 favourite chair by the hearth, with her eye on the 
 door. A kind of instinct told her that the Mor- 
 -comb party would be late. Adrian hovered about 
 near the door, with a slightly nervous air. 
 
 ''That dear young man looks as if he expected 
 to be arrested,''' said Mr. Rockstone ; and then 
 went on questioning Lady Belfield about the last 
 book she had been reading. He used to say that
 
 9G DANGER 
 
 he had no occasion to read new books on his own 
 account : Lady Belfield always kept him au 
 courant. 
 
 "An intelligent woman's synopsis of a shallow 
 book is always better than the book itself," said 
 the Vicar. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Freemantle and their son Jack 
 were announced as the clock struck eight. With 
 the Freemantle family there was always a military 
 exactitude. They were all well drilled. Even 
 Lucy had never been late for a lesson or a church 
 service in her life. 
 
 Mrs. Freemantle shook hands with Lady Belfield 
 and looked round for the strangers. Mr. Free- 
 mantle was an excellent man, with plenty of com- 
 mon sense but no cultivation, and very little 
 memory. He never opened a book^ and he rarely 
 listened to conversation, unless it had some direct 
 bearing upon field sports, politics, in which he 
 was faintly interested/ or his own affairs. He 
 had utterly forgotten that he had been asked to 
 meet anybody in particular, and when it came to 
 a quarter-past eight and there was no announce-
 
 DANGER 97 
 
 ment of dinner, he began to wonder whether Lady 
 Belfield had changed her cook. 
 
 Lady Belfield and her friend talked of the 
 parish^ the sick and poor, whom they saw 
 almost daily, the Vicar joining in now and 
 then. Adrian still lingered near the door, and 
 made believe to be entertained by Jack Free- 
 mantle's account of a football match which had 
 come oflp with eclat to Jack's side that after- 
 noon. 
 
 (( w^e gave those fellows a tremendous licking ; 
 I had only just time to get home and dress/' said 
 Jack, who had the newly-washed look of a man 
 who had dressed in a desperate hurry. 
 
 " Your friends are very late, Adrian," said his 
 mother presently. " Do you think we ought to 
 wait any longer ? " 
 
 " My dear mother, their first visit ! Of course 
 we must wait. I know you'll forgive us, Mrs. Free- 
 mantle." 
 
 " I forgive you with all my heart, Adrian ; but 
 the Vicar and my husband have both been looking 
 at the clock every five minutes, and I am afraid 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 DANGER 
 
 they are beginning to feel rather vindictive towards 
 these friends of yours." 
 
 " Are you really expecting any one ? " asked 
 Freemantle innocently. "I thought it was your 
 cook that was behind time." 
 
 ^^ Lady Belfield's servants are never unpunctual, 
 John. DidnH I tell you we were to meet Colonel 
 Deverill ? " 
 
 " Deverill ! Ah, to be sure, the man who has 
 taken Morcomb. I used to see him in London 
 five-and-twenty years ago. He was in the Guards 
 — a South of Ireland man." 
 
 The timepiece chimed the half-hour, and the 
 door was flung open. 
 
 " Colonel Deverill and Miss Deverill, Mrs. Bad- 
 deley." 
 
 The matron led the way, lovely, smiling, deli- 
 ciously unconscious of blame, svelte, graceful, in a 
 tight-fitting ruby velvet gown, and with only one 
 ornament — a large diamond pendant, which a 
 duchess might not have disdained to wear. Helen 
 followed, clad in some limp, creamy fabric, with 
 neither jewels nor gold, only a cluster of white
 
 DANGER 99 
 
 lilies on her shoulder. If this was an aesthetic 
 toilet, sestheticism was very becoming to Miss 
 Deverill. 
 
 No one apologized for being late. The Mor- 
 comb party slipped into their places in the easiest 
 manner. Mr. Freemantle was told off to the 
 younger sister^ the Vicar was assigned to Mrs. 
 Freemantle, and Sir Adrian took Mrs. Baddeley. 
 His mother had told him that it must be so ; and 
 Jack followed his hostess and the Colonel as if he 
 had been an aide-de-camp. 
 
 The dinner was much livelier than rural dinners 
 are wont to be. Helen sat between the Vicar and 
 Mr. Freemantle, and prattled delightfully to both. 
 The sisters were full of talk and laughter, gayer and 
 more spontaneous than any girls Adrian had ever 
 met. They played into each other's hands, held 
 each other up to ridicule, bandied jokes with the 
 airiest touch — flew from subject to subject with 
 inexhaustible vivacity ; and yet their voices never 
 grew loud or harsh, their conversation never 
 degenerated into noise and clatter. To Adrian 
 the evening passed as if by enchantment. It was 
 
 H 2
 
 100 DANGER 
 
 nearly mid night when the Deverill carnage drove 
 away. He and the sisters had pledged themselves 
 to all manner of engagements. He was to go 
 over to tea next day, and to inspect their stud. 
 He, who never hunted, was to be at the meet on 
 Monday, and was to potter about a little, and show 
 them the country. 
 
 '^ Adrian," remonstrated his mother, whose quick 
 ear caught that mention of hunticg, *' you know 
 Dr. Jason said you must not hunt." 
 
 '^ He said I mustn^t ride across country, mother. 
 He never forbade my jogging about the lanes on a 
 steady cob.^^ 
 
 "He has had delicate health from his child- 
 hood," said Lady Belfield to Mrs. Baddeley, with 
 an apologetic air. " I may be forgiven if I am 
 over- careful of him." 
 
 Adrian escorted the ladies to their carriage. 
 
 " What do you think of them, Sophy ? " asked 
 Constance Belfield of her friend, while her son was 
 out of the room. Mr. Freemantle and the Vicar 
 were talking politics, Jack was yawning in a corner, 
 exhausted after having shouted all his best songs —
 
 DANGER 101 
 
 ** If doughty deeds my lady please/^ and '^ The 
 Stirrup Cup/' and ^^ Old London Bridge." 
 
 '' What I think of them may be summed up in 
 one word — Dangerous/' 
 
 " Oh, Sophy ! " 
 
 *' For Adrian most decidedly dangerous. Indeed 
 I believe the mischief is as good as done already. 
 But perhaps you would not object to his marrying 
 Miss Deverill." 
 
 " My dear Sophy, she is a perfect stranger to 
 me. How could I approve ? " 
 
 '^ Well, you will have to approve — or to dis- 
 approve very strongly." 
 
 " I can see that Adrian admires Miss Deverill ; 
 but there is no reason to conclude he must needs 
 be in love with her." 
 
 " Reason ! Fiddlesticks ! I tell you he is in 
 love with her. When did reason and love ever go 
 together ! When a young man has been bottled 
 up for the best part of his life in a village, his 
 heart is as inflammable as a haystack after a dry 
 summer." 
 
 And with this unpoetical comparison, Mrs. Free-
 
 102 ^ DANGER 
 
 mantle drew her Canton crape shawl round her 
 shoulders, ordered her husband and son off with a 
 nod, bade her friend " Good-night/' and sailed out 
 of the room.
 
 ( 103 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ACROSS COUNTRY 
 
 Mrs. Freemantle was right in her diagnosis. 
 
 Adrian was in love. He was not altogether 
 unconscious of his own condition ; but like most 
 intellectual young men he fancied himself much 
 wiser than he really was. He thought that he 
 only admired Helen Deverill; and he told himself 
 that he would go no further than admiration until 
 he knew a great deal more of the lady. He was 
 his own master, free to marry whomsoever he chose. 
 A penniless girl of good family seemed to him the 
 most proper person for him to marry : but he told 
 himself that he must have the highest qualities m 
 a wife. She must not be beautiful alone ; mentally 
 and morally she must be perfect. He was not to 
 be scared by a little unconventionality ; he admired 
 a girl who dared to think and act for herself, and 
 whose manners were not modelled upon the
 
 104 ACROSS COUNTRY 
 
 manners of all other girls ; but he meant to study 
 the lady's character before he suffered his heart to 
 go out to her — never suspecting, poor fool, that his 
 heart was already hers, and that he who aspired to 
 be her judge was in reality her slave. 
 
 He had never ridden to hounds since he was a 
 boy; for from the hour he found hard riding was 
 perilous,, or even impossible for him, he had turned 
 his back upon the sport, and had tried to persuade 
 himself that he did not care for it. Yet now he 
 was out every hunting day, dawdling at the meet^ 
 jogging up and down the lanes, watching and 
 waiting about, as much in the day's sport as it was 
 possible for him to be without going fast over 
 pasture or common and taking his fences with the 
 rest of the field. Whenever there was a bit of 
 slow-going he was at Helen's side. When the 
 hounds were in full cry she was off after them, 
 while he waited patiently in a sheltered corner, 
 hoping fate and the fox might bring her back 
 that way. 
 
 She seemed to like his society, but she was full 
 of caprices and uncertainties, wayward, wilful, a
 
 ACROSS COUNTRY 105 
 
 coquette to the marrow of her bones, only Adrian 
 did not so judge her. He thought her a versatile 
 creature, a being of whim and fancy, disinterested, 
 uncalculating, innocent as a wood or water nymph, 
 but full of tricks and changes like the nymphs. 
 That she was a clever, keen-witted young woman, 
 who meant to make a good match, knew the value 
 of her own beauty to an iota, and intended to 
 enjoy all that is best and pleasantest in this brief, 
 swift race across the earth's surface, which we call 
 ^j life — this he suapected not. He saw only graces 
 and charms and frank unconscious loveliness of 
 person and of mind in every look and word and 
 action. To him she appeared faultless; and yet 
 he thought that he was over-critical, thot he erred V 
 on the side of deliberation and severe juddment. ^/ 
 
 Some days, when the fox was what Helen called 
 '' a ringing brute," and the run scarce worth 
 serious consideration, she would spend the whole 
 day in Sir Adrian's company, utterly indifferent 
 to the scandal such companionship might occasion. 
 She had been accustomed to be talked about ever 
 since she was fifteen, and would have fancied her
 
 106 ACKOSS COUNTEY 
 
 attractiveness on tlie wane if people — womenkind 
 especially — had ceased to say hard things of her. 
 She had her sister for chaperon, but then Mrs. 
 Baddeley always had her own affairs to look after. 
 She was a splendid horsewoman, and rode in a 
 business-like way which admitted of no favour to 
 that little court of admirers which she always had 
 in her wake. Her admirers must be in the first 
 flight if they wanted to see anything of her. For 
 those who rode as boldly and as fast as she did, she 
 had ever the sweetest smiles and the kindest words ; 
 and the long ride home with two or three of these, 
 after the kill, was like a procession of lovers. 
 
 " Launcelot and Guinevere !^^ exclaimed Miss 
 Toifstaflf, one of the county Dianas ; '' the way 
 those two young women go on is too astounding. 
 I never saw anything worse in the Eow : and that" 
 added Miss ToflPstafF significantly, '^ is saying a 
 great deal/^ 
 
 There were three Miss Tofi'staff's, who rode to 
 hounds, and who rode well, and were always well 
 mounted. They prided themselves in turning out 
 in perfect style, and had their habits, hats, and
 
 ACEOSS COUNTRY 107 
 
 boots from the best maker, be be who he might. 
 Fashion is very capricious in its treatment of habit- 
 makers. There is always a new man coming to the 
 front, with advanced theories upon the cutting of 
 the knee ; so the Miss Toffstaffs changed their habit- 
 maker about once a year. 
 
 Mr. Toffstaff was a new man in that part of 
 Devonshire, who had lately acquired the estate of a 
 deceased native. Needless to say that he was more 
 " county ''■' than the county people whose ancestors 
 had been owners of the soil ever since the Hept- 
 archy, subscribed much more liberally to the hunt, 
 and gave himself more airs than the men of the 
 vielle roche. 
 
 In opposition to, and yet in friendly relations 
 with, the three Miss Toffstaffs, were the two Miss 
 Treduceys, whose father, Sir Nathaniel Treducey, of 
 The Moat, was of an older family, and owned more 
 aristocratic connections than any other man in 
 the neighbourhood. His mother came of a ducal 
 race in Scotland, and his wife was the daughter 
 of a French marquis, who had fallen in love with 
 the handsome young diplomatist at one of the
 
 108 ACROSS COUNTRY 
 
 Empress's balls in the golden days of the Second 
 Empire, 
 
 The Miss Treduceys had been, as it were, born 
 on horseback, and looked down from a prodigious 
 altitude upon the Miss Toffstaffs, whom they 
 suspected of having been taught by a riding-master. 
 They were fair, rather pretty girls, with large 
 liquid blue eyes, and they were as thin as their 
 mother was fat. Their aquiline noses and slender 
 figures were an inheritance from Sir Nathaniel, who 
 belonged to an eagle-nosed race, and had the air of 
 a gentlemanlike bird of prey. 
 
 The Miss Toffstaffs and the Miss Treduceys 
 rarely agreed about any one subject, albeit they 
 were such very good friends ; but they were unani- 
 mous in their condemnation of Colonel DeverilFs 
 daughters. 
 
 ''It makes one feel ashamed of being a girl, 
 don't it ? " asked Matilda Treducey of Marjorie 
 Toffstaff. 
 
 The Miss Treduceys had been christened Matilda 
 and Isabel, in honour of their Norman descent; 
 the Miss Tofistaffs were Dorothy, Marjorie, and
 
 ACROSS COUNTRY 109 
 
 Jessie^ having been christened at a period when 
 quaint rustic names were in fashion. Mrs. Toff- 
 stafF was a woman who followed fashion assiduously, 
 and as she never thought of anything else, some- 
 times overtook it. Everything at Wilmington — the 
 dinner-table, the drawing-room, the stables, and 
 the gardens — was in the newest style. A fashion 
 could hardly be heard of in Devonshire before it 
 was to be seen at Wilmington. At The Moat, 
 on the contrary, everything was of the old school, 
 a curious and rather pleasant mingling of old 
 French and old English fashions. Lady Treducey 
 protested her abhorrence of all innovations, and 
 boasted of her husband's poverty as if it were a 
 distinction in an age when parvenus are egregiously 
 rich. 
 
 " Since France has been a Republic everything 
 new has been detestable,'''' she said, " and England 
 is very little better than a Republic. All our 
 fashions have an American taint. I look forward 
 with horror to a day when London and Paris will 
 be only suburbs of New York.^^ 
 
 The five young ladies were all agreed as to one
 
 110 ACROSS COUXTRY 
 
 fact — that Colonel Deverill's daughters were a dis- 
 grace to the neighbourhood ; but as Lady Belfield 
 knew them, and in a manner vouched for • their 
 abstract respectability, every one called at Mor- 
 <;omb, and the objectionable ladies had been bidden 
 to luncheons and afternoon teas. 
 
 Matrons and maids owned that the new-comers 
 were pretty, but were unanimous in denouncing 
 them as bad style. The word had been passed 
 round, as it were. They were to be called upon 
 and tolerated; but they were not to be admitted 
 to the inner sanctuary of friendship. 
 
 They were received, however, that was the main 
 point. Sir Adrian met them everywhere. His 
 life was a new life, full of new interests. He 
 wrote long letters to his brother, filled with de- 
 scriptions of Helen, her looks, her sweet little 
 ways, her sparkling conversation, which lost a 
 good deal of its sparkle when reduced to pen 
 and ink. 
 
 " I did not think it was in you to be such a 
 fool/' wrote Valentine, with brotherly candour ; 
 " the girl is evidently setting her cap at you. She
 
 ACEOSS COUNTEY 111 
 
 has not a sixpencCj and you are one of the best 
 matches in Devonshire. However^ of course you 
 will please yourself. There is no reason why you 
 should try to please anybody else. I, who have 
 only my mother's fortune to depend upon, must 
 marry money, if I ever marry at all. To my own 
 mind at present my state is the more gracious as 
 a bachelor.'^
 
 ( 112 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 Though lie was mucli of a student and more of a 
 dreamer, Mr. Eockstone was a true friend, helper, 
 and counsellor to the poor of his parish. It was a 
 sadly ignorant parish, such as one might expect to 
 light upon could some magician's wand reverse the 
 glass of time and take us back a century to the days 
 of Farmer George and Snuffy Charlotte. Reading 
 and writing were rarest accomplishments among 
 those of mature years, and, in spite of schools and 
 schoolmasters, the youthful mind was in a state of 
 darkness which made a simple game of dominoes 
 in the Vicar's reading-room seem as mysterious and 
 perplexing as an inscription on a Babylonian brick. 
 Often in the long winter evenings would Mr. 
 Kockstone tear himself away from his own com- 
 fortable fireside to go down to the little reading- 
 room, where he would labour with sublime patience
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 113 
 
 at the mystery of dominoes, or the perplexity of 
 *' Muggins '' or " Slap Jack," two games at cards, 
 by which he tried to enliven the dulness of a 
 purely literary evening. Here, too, he would read 
 aloud, and enlighten the rustic mind by a leader in 
 the Standard or the Post, and would listen good- 
 naturedly to the rustic ideas as to the last political 
 crisis. Nor did the Vicar confine his ministrations 
 to the vicinity of vicarage, church, and schools. 
 His sympathies extended to the furthest limits of 
 an extensive parish. 
 
 The Deverills had been settled at Morcomb for 
 nearly a month, and it was the first week in 
 December when Mr. Eockstone set out one mild, 
 sunny morning for a leisurely ride to Wymperley 
 Marsh, which was at the extreme edge of Chad- 
 ford parish. The soft west wind and blue sky 
 suggested April rather than mid-winter, and the 
 Vicar felt it a privilege to exist as he trotted along 
 a Devonshire lane on his steady-going old horse, 
 Don — so called because he was as stupid and as 
 lazy as some of the college dons Mr. Rockstone 
 had known in his youth. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 114 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWAKD 
 
 The Vicar loved Don, and Don loved the Vicar, 
 would recognize his master's voice afar off in the 
 garden, and appeal to him from his stable with 
 loud neighings. Don had carried the Vicar over 
 every acre of his capacious parish, and knew every 
 cottage at which he was accustomed to stop and 
 every turn in the lanes which led to his own 
 stable. Horse and rider had a gentle tussle now 
 and then when Don wanted to go home — which 
 was the normal condition of his mind — and when 
 the Vicar wanted to go further afield. But this 
 morning Don was as fresh and as ready for his 
 work as it was in his nature to be at any time, 
 and he got over the ground rather quicker than 
 usual. 
 
 The River Chad is one of the most picturesque 
 streams in England, but even the Chad has its bits 
 of commonplace; and it is never less romantic 
 than in that broad reach which is bounded on one 
 side by Wymperley Marsh, and on the other by low 
 level meadows, where the cattle wade breast deep 
 in the rank sedgy grass. 
 
 The marsh sustains nothing but wild-fow], and
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 115 
 
 can only be crossed at one point by horse or foot 
 passenger_, who has to pick his way along a rough 
 stone causeway, which was constructed in the dim 
 remoteness of an unrecorded past, and which it is 
 nobody's business to improve or repair in the 
 present. 
 
 Few but sportsmen intent on water-fowl would 
 have tempted the dangers of this dilapidated 
 causeway ; but Mr. Eockstone knew every stone 
 of it. A solitary hut^ which stood close to the 
 river, with water on one side and marsh on the 
 other, was the ultima thide of his parish; and 
 here he came about a dozen times in the year to 
 see two of his parishioners, who had awakened in 
 him a keener interest than their merits might be 
 said to deserve. 
 
 Yonder hovel, with low cob walls and a gable 
 roof of blackened reeds, had been tenanted for the 
 last forty years by a basket-maker, whose gipsy 
 wife had died soon after his establishment in that 
 solitary abode, and had left him with a daughter 
 of three years old. The child had grown up with 
 him somehow^ as the birds grow in their nests, in 
 
 I 2
 
 116 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWAKD 
 
 that lonely place, without womanly, help of any 
 kindj and she had grown into a creature of a 
 strange wild beauty, in which her gipsy blood was 
 manifest. She had grown almost to womanhood 
 when Mr. Rockstone came to the parish, and he 
 had been interested in her as a curious growth of 
 savage ignorance in the very midst of civilization. 
 She had grown up knowing hardly anything which 
 civilized young women know; but she had on the 
 other hand the innocence of ignorance, had no 
 more knowledge of the outer world, its pleasures, 
 temptations, and sins than she had of the great 
 shining worlds in that unfathomable uuiverse 
 above her head. She could neither read nor 
 write ; she could not count her own ten fingers 
 without breaking down two or three times in the 
 attempt ; and she had never been inside a 
 church since she was christened. Her father's 
 excuse when charged with his sins of omission 
 was, that he was a very poor man, and that 
 he lived four miles and a half away from every- 
 thing. 
 
 '^ How could I send her to school ? " he asked.
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 117 
 
 " You miglit have moved to a more civilized 
 home/^ said the Yicar. 
 
 '* Moved ! Why, this cottage is my own free- 
 hold, Parson. I'd as soon part with my right arm 
 as sell the house that shelters me. I should never 
 get another if once I sold this. The money would 
 all go in drink. ^^ 
 
 " You might at least go to church once a week/'' 
 pursued the Vicar. " Y^ou wander many a mile in 
 the week to sell your baskets. Could you not 
 walk a few miles on a Sunday to save your 
 soul ? " 
 
 John Dawley shook his head. 
 
 " When a man has been on the tramp all the 
 week he wants his rest on Sunday/' he said. 
 
 The Vicar talked to Madge Dawley — tried to 
 teach her the elements of Christianity; but the 
 task was difficult. lie could not ask her to walk 
 nine miles a day in quest of enlightenment. He 
 rode over to the cottage by the marsh as often as 
 he could, and he took more pains with this beauti- 
 ful young ignoramus than with anybody in his 
 parish. After he had been engaged thus for about
 
 118 AS THE SPAEKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 a year, he began to think he had shed some rays 
 of light upon the dimness of the girl's mind. 
 Intelligence seemed to he awakening. Madge was 
 less childish in her remarks upon the Gospel, and 
 more inquisitive about the world in which she 
 lived. Mr. Rockstone was full of hope about her, 
 when she disappeared suddenly from the cottage, 
 the marsh, and parish of Chadford, without leaving 
 the slightest clue to the mode and motive of her 
 departure. All that her father could tell the 
 parson was that he had left the hovel at daybreak 
 to carry his baskets to a remote market town, 
 where there was a fair ; and on coming back at 
 midnight he had found the house empty. 
 
 Had he ever seen a strange man lurking about 
 the cottage ? Did he suspect his daughter of any 
 acquaintance with a person who might lure her 
 away ? 
 
 No, to both questions. 
 
 Mr. Rockstone took infinite pains to trace the 
 fugitive, but in vain ; she had not been seen in the 
 village, nor at the nearest railway station. The 
 local police could do nothing, the metropolitan
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 119 
 
 police were equally at fault. John Dawley's 
 daughter was but another vanished drop in the 
 great ocean of humanity. 
 
 Five years afterwards, the basket-maker, re- 
 turning towards midnight from the same market 
 town and the same annual fair, upon the anniver- 
 sary of his daughter's flight, found a child, 
 apparently between two and three years old, sitting 
 on his hearth staring at the fire, which had been 
 lighted not long before by unknown hands. 
 
 He had no occasion to puzzle his brains about 
 the child's identity, for she was the exact reproduc- 
 tion of his daughter's infancy, and she wore round 
 her neck the yellow glass necklace which Madge 
 had worn from infancy to womanhood, her 
 mother's favourite ornament,, without which she 
 had never considered herself dressed for the day. 
 
 He searched the hovel, thinking to find his 
 daughter in hiding somewhere, but the place was 
 empty save for that young thing squatting before 
 the fire. He questioned the child, but she was 
 backward in her speech, and could only express 
 her own wants in a very infantine fashion :
 
 120 AS THE SPAEKS FLY UPWAKD 
 
 Maggie tired^ Maggie hungry, Maggie want milk. 
 She did not cry for her mother, or make any ob- 
 jection to her changed surroundings. She ate her 
 supper of dry bread contentedly ; but she refused 
 to sit upon the basket-maker^s knee. S?ie curled 
 herself up like a kitten upon the bed "where 
 he put her, and slept as peacefully as a kitten 
 sleeps. 
 
 The basket-maker took to his new burden with 
 a stolidity which might be either resignation or 
 indifference. He would have brought up the 
 granddaughter exactly as he had brought up the 
 daughter ; but here the Vicar interfered. He ar- 
 rarged that the child should be boarded for two 
 weeks out of every four in the house of a respect- 
 able cottager at Chadford. During that fortnight 
 the girl was to attend the school, and be taught 
 and cared for as a Christian child in a Christian 
 countiy. The second fortnight in each month she 
 lived with her grai^father ; and as soon as her 
 baby fingers were capable of work she began to 
 help him in his basket-making. Her friend the 
 cottager taught her domestic work of all kinds,
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 121 
 
 and trained her to usefulness in the earliest age. 
 She was able to keep the hovel in order from the 
 time she was eight years old. Her board was paid 
 for by the Vicar, who asked no oner's help in this 
 good work. When she was eleven years old the 
 cottager^s wife died, and Madge, who was able to 
 read and write and cipher, now took up her abode 
 permanently in the cottage on the marsh, and was 
 only expected to appear at Sunday-school and 
 church on fine Sundays. 
 
 Sometimes she tramped about the countryside 
 with her grandfather, selling baskets. At other 
 times she spent her solitary days in the cottage, 
 or in the little cottage garden, a quarter of an 
 acre redeemed laboriously from the marsh, a para- 
 dise of flaunting wallflowers, stocks, and nastur- 
 tiums, hollyhocks and sunflowers, with patches of 
 potatoes and cabbage, and a tall ^reen of scarlet- 
 runners, bright against blue river and blue sky 
 in the hot summer afternoons, when Madge sat on 
 a little mound at the edge of the stream, basket- 
 weaving, and watching the lazy tide flow by, her 
 fingers moving with a monotonous regular motion
 
 122 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 as if she had been weaving a net to catch the souls 
 of men. 
 
 She was beautiful enough for an enchantress, 
 with those great dark eyes and raven hair^ a skin 
 like old ivory, and features of Roman mould. 
 The Vicar was mortal, and he could not help 
 feeling a deeper interest in the soul that dwelt 
 within this splendid form than in his snub-nosed, 
 apple-cheeked villagers. And then the girl was 
 shy, or proud, and held herself aloof from all sym- 
 pathy, which made the Vicar only the more 
 sympathetic. 
 
 Mr. Rockstone had deferred his visit to old 
 Dawley^s cottage longer than usual, and he ap- 
 proached the marsh to-day with a certain anxiety 
 of mind, inasmuch as Madge had not appeared in 
 her usual place in the gallery of his church for 
 more than a month. The weather had been either 
 bad or doubtful on all those Sundays, and he had 
 taken that to be the cause of her absence ; yet 
 when a fifth Sunday came and she was still 
 absent, the Vicar began to think there must be 
 some more serious reason than rain or wind.
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 123 
 
 The smoke rose in a thin, white column from 
 the low chimney of the hut_, and a gleam of fire- 
 light showed in the window that looked across the 
 marsh. There was some life in the hovel at any 
 rate. 
 
 Old Dawley was sitting by the hearth, which 
 occupied one side of the low, dark living-room, 
 making a basket ; his granddaughter knelt by the 
 window with her arms folded upon the sill, look- 
 ing out across the broad, level marsh to the road 
 on the edge of the low hill which shut out all the 
 world beyond. The marsh was about a quarter of 
 a mile in width, broken up here and there into 
 pools, where the wild fowl congregated ; a long- 
 stretch of waste land and dark water very dear to 
 the sportsman. 
 
 The girl turned her head with a listless air as 
 the Vicar entered ; but she did not rise from her 
 knees or offer him any greeting. 
 
 " How d''ye do, Dawley ? how's the rheumatism ? 
 No better, eh/'' as the old basket-maker shook 
 his head. " That's bad. The weather has been 
 against us old fellows for the last three months.
 
 124 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 But I didn't think the Treather was bad enough 
 to keep a healthy young woman like you from 
 churchy Madge/^ added the Vicar, with good- 
 humoured remonstrance, smiling at the girl, 
 ■whose great dark eyes were looking at him 
 dreamily, as if she were but half-conscious of 
 external things, in the absorption of her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 " She ain^t over-healthy now," said her grand- 
 father discontentedly. ^^ I don't know what be 
 come over her. She's just as if she was half- asleep 
 all day, yet she's awake almost all night, for I hear 
 her toss about t'other side the lath and plaster, and 
 sigh as if she'd a mort o' trouble, half the night 
 through. She spiles my rest, she do, as well as 
 her own. She's the most discontentedest young 
 female as ever I met with." 
 
 " Come, come, friend, you musn't be hard upon 
 her. It may be that the life is too lonely for her, 
 and that she's not well. Young women most of 
 them seem subject to neuralgia now-a-days. They 
 all seem to want tonics, quinine and iron, sea air, 
 and change of scene. What's the matter, Madge ?'^
 
 AS THE SPAIIKS FLY UrWAED 125 
 
 asked the Vicar gently, laying his broad fatherly 
 hand upon the raven hair. 
 
 "Nothing's the matter/' the girl answered, 
 with a sullen air ; " 1 am sick of my life, that's 
 all." 
 
 " You are tired of this lonely place. You want 
 to leave your poor old grandfather ?" 
 
 " No, I should be no better anywhere else. It 
 isn't the place I'm tired of, it's my life." 
 
 "This is a case for quinine; I'll send you a box 
 of pills," said the Yicar cheerily. 
 
 Madge turned her back upon him and looked 
 out at the marsh, just as she had been looking 
 when her patron entered. The old man got up 
 from his three-legged stool, and jerked his head 
 significantly towards the door. 
 
 " Come out and have a talk, Dawley," said the 
 Vicar ; " your cottage is too warm for me, and I've 
 got Don outside to look after." 
 
 Don was browsing contentedly upon some rank 
 grass on the edge of the causeway, and had no 
 more intention of going away than if he had been 
 the original antediluvian horse in a museum.
 
 126 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWAED 
 
 The two men went out together, and strolled 
 along the causeway side by side. 
 
 " Of course you can see what it is, can^t you. 
 Parson?'^ began Dawley abruptly. ^'No mistaking 
 the signs in a gal/^ 
 
 " You think she's in love/'' hazarded the Vicar. 
 
 " O' course she is, Parson. That's the way it 
 alius begins — sighin' and sulkin-*, and sleepless 
 nights a- thinking of him. Curse him, whoever he 
 is! He'll lure this one away like the other one 
 was lured away, of a sudden, without a word of 
 warning to the poor old father. I dursen't leave 
 the cottage, lest I should find it empty when I 
 comes back. I hain't sold a basket for a fortnight. 
 Fm here to guard her from the sarpent.^^ 
 
 "Who can it be?" asked the Vicar, with a puzzled 
 air. " Is there any one in the village that she cares 
 for?'' 
 
 "Lord! no. Parson. It ain't no one in the 
 village — it ain't a working man, or a gentleman's 
 servant, or any one of her own station — else it 
 would be all fair and above-board, and she wouldn^'t 
 be afraid to tell her old grandfather. It's some-
 
 AS THE SPAEKS FLY UPWAllD 127 
 
 body whose love means ruin. Some lying, fine 
 gentleman, who'll speak her fair, and tempt her to 
 go away with him, and leave her to rot when his 
 fancy's over. I knows the breed/' 
 
 " Have you any reason to suspect mischief?" 
 " Too many reasons ; but I'll tell you one or 
 two, and you can judge. It's just about six weeks 
 ago that I noticed when I came home late at night 
 that there was a smell of 'baccy in the room 
 yonder. Well, I'm a smoker myself, but this 
 wasn't my ■'baccy that I smelt, and it wasn't twelve 
 hours old, neither. It was a gentleman's 'baccy ; 
 as different from what I smoke as the champagne 
 you gentry drink is from the cider they sell up 
 street. I know'd there'd been a stranger here 
 when I smelt that 'baccy. I asked my gal if 
 there'd been any one come to the cottage all day. 
 She said '^No,'' but I could see she was lying. I 
 noticed the same smell three nights running ; and 
 on the morning after the third night I found 
 another sign o' mischief. There'd been rain the 
 day before, but the wind shifted towards evening, 
 and there was a sharp frost in the night; and
 
 128 AS THE SPAEKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 when I went out into the causeway there was my 
 gentleman's footprints^ as if they'd been cut in a 
 rock — the prints of a gentleman's strong-soled 
 shooting boots. There's no mistakin' the cut of a 
 fine gentleman's boot : it's as different from a poor 
 man's clodhopper as a gentleman's 'baccy is from 
 mine. Somebody had been hanging about the 
 cottage and making up to my gal." 
 
 '' Was that all ? Did you never see the man 
 himself?" 
 
 " Never. He was too artful. I've scarcely been 
 three days away from home since I saw the foot- 
 prints in the causeway ; but my gentleman has 
 never shown up hereabouts, and my gal has moped 
 all the time." 
 
 ^' Have you never questioned her since then?" 
 " Now and again, careless like. Had there been 
 any one shooting the wild fowl, anybody going past 
 in a boat ? and such like. But I might as well 
 expect to get answers out of a stone. Not a word 
 would she say to me, except she didn't know, she 
 hadn't noticed — what reason was there for her to 
 watch for people in boats ? "
 
 AS THE SrARKS FLY UPWARD 129 
 
 "Well, Dawley, we must be on our guard for 
 her, poor child. She is too handsome to be exempt 
 from dangers and temptations. I don^t think she 
 ought to be left to live this solitary life any longer. 
 Solitude encourages brooding. She wants change 
 and occupation — the sight of strange faces." 
 
 " How is she to get them ? " asked Dawley 
 despondingly. 
 
 " She might go into service.'^ 
 
 " And be ruined and broken-hearted before she 
 had left me six months. I know what servant gals 
 are, and how little care there is taken of ^em. 
 She's not old enough or wise enough to be left to 
 take care of herself. Send her out to service any- 
 where hereabouts, and the fine gentleman who left 
 his footmarks on this causeway would soon find out 
 where she was, and be after her. She'd have her 
 evenings out, belike ; and he'd be waiting for her 
 somewheres in the dusk. I knows the world. 
 Parson. She don't, poor child ; and knowledge of 
 the world ain't to be learnt second-hand. I might 
 preach her sermons as long as my arm, but she'd 
 never be warned by them." 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWAKD 
 
 '' There is service and service^ Dawley. I know 
 of houses in wliich the maids are as well looked 
 after as nuns in a convent. FIl talk to a lady I 
 know about your granddaughter, and if I can 
 interest her " 
 
 ^' It will be hard to part with her/' said the old 
 man, " but I can't keep watch over her always and 
 sell my baskets ; and if I don't sell 'em we must 
 starve. And she's gettin' to hate me for being so 
 watchful of her, I can see that. It's a wicked 
 world, Parson." 
 
 " It's a troublesome world, my friend, and we 
 must make the best of it for ourselves and each 
 other. Man was born to trouble as the sparks fly 
 upward. Have you heard anything of Madge's 
 mother lately ? " 
 
 *^ Not a word, Parson. Ah, she was a bad lot, 
 an out-and-out bad lot, with a heart as hard as the 
 nethermost millstone." 
 
 ^' You must not judge her, Dawley. She was 
 brought up in darkness and ignorance. No one 
 ever taught her her duty." 
 
 " There's duties that don't need to be taught —
 
 AS THE SPAEKS FLY UPWARD 1-31 
 
 tlie duty of loving your father and mother. That 
 ought to come natural even to a savage/^ 
 
 " Your daughter may have died years ago/^ 
 
 " I don't think so, Parson. I heard of her six 
 or seven years ago — not a word from her_, mark 
 you — but I heard from a man who had seen her in 
 London^ riding in her carriage, or in somebody^s 
 carriage, as bold as brass — as fine a lady as any in 
 London, Joe Tronnion said. He^s a gipsy hawker, 
 sells brooms and baskets and such like, and travels 
 all over the country. He saw my gal, he did, not 
 seven year agone, all among the gentle folks on 
 Hepsom Downs, dressed in silk and satin, as bra- 
 zen as you like, she that never came to look after 
 her child since the little one was three year old."*^ 
 
 " Well, we had best forget all about her, Dawley, 
 till God puts better thoughts into her mind and 
 brings her back to us. Til see what can be done 
 about Madge. She wouldn^t suit everybody, never 
 having been in service — but I think I know a lady 
 who will help me.^^ 
 
 " In this or in any other emergency,'^ he said to 
 himself, by way of postscript. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 
 
 He mounted Don, and rode slowly homeward 
 across tlie open waste to the lane with its tall 
 tangled hedges, bare now for the most part, save 
 where the foliage lingered on the pollard oaks, and 
 the beechwood showed copper-coloured leaves that 
 were to last till late into the coming year, when 
 the young growth came to drive them away. Very 
 slow was that homeward ride, for Don had ex- 
 hausted all his freshness in the outward journey, 
 and only quickened his pace when he saw the old 
 church tower and smelt the clover in the Vicarage 
 stable. But to his astonishment the Vicar took 
 him past that familiar gate, and trotted him, snorts 
 ing with indignant protest, to the gates of Belfield 
 Park and along the avenue to the Abbey, where 
 there was some consolation, as a groom came out 
 at the sound of hoofs, and conducted the clerical 
 steed to a loose box, while his master went into the 
 house to see Lady Belfield. 
 
 She was in her usual place in the innermost 
 drawing-room, a woman always ready to see her 
 friends, and give them cordial welcome ; not one of 
 those women who have to be hunted for on the
 
 AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 133 
 
 arrival of a visitor, and who are never fit to be 
 seen except when they are e7i gr ancle tenue. 
 
 She gave her hand to the Vicar with a smile, 
 and he sat down in the luxurious chair at her side, 
 and felt that life was worth living for. 
 
 He told her the state of things at old Dawley^s 
 cottage : the young life wasting, the young, undis- 
 ciplined heart pining, for want of womanly care 
 and sympathy, and he had enlisted her feelings 
 before his story was half finished. 
 
 " You want change of scene for her, a brighter, 
 busier life, a home where she will be taught and 
 cared for,^^ she said, when she had heard all. 
 " Let her come here by all means. My house- 
 keeper is an excellent creature — but you know my 
 good Mrs. Marrable as well as I do.^^ 
 
 " I have reason to know her. Yes, she has a 
 heart of gold.^"* 
 
 " Well, I will place this protegee of yours under 
 Mrs. Marrable's especial care, and I will do all I 
 can for her myself." 
 
 "You are always good. Lady Bclficld, You 
 have taught me to rely upon your goodness. But
 
 131 AS THE SPAEKS FLY TPWAED 
 
 I must warn you that this girl may he of very 
 little use in your establishment. She is untaught 
 and inexperienced/^ 
 
 ''■ I don^t expect her to be of use to me ; I want 
 to be of use to her. Bring her to me as soon as 
 you like, Vicar." 
 
 " God bless you. I will bring her to you to- 
 morrowj if I can.'"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EASY TO LOVE II E R 
 
 The Vicar rode Don across the marsli early 
 next morning, a liberty which that sage animal 
 felt inclined to resent, so rarely was he taken 
 far afield two days running. But the Vicar was 
 too iutent upon humanity just now to spare horse- 
 flesh. 
 
 Old Dawley had gone to the market-town with 
 a load of baskets, his exchequer having sunk to 
 the lowest point, dire necessity forcing him to 
 abandon his post as guardian of a girFs heart and 
 honour. 
 
 Madge was alone, in the same moody attitude, 
 with the same moody countenance which the 
 Vicar had observed yesterday. She took but the 
 slightest notice of his entrance — scarcely stirred 
 from her place by the window, scarcely ceased 
 from her contemplation of the marsh, only looked
 
 136 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 at him ^ith a bored expression and rr, uttered a 
 sullen good morning. 
 
 '^ Madge, I have got you a place/^ he said, 
 without circumlocution. 
 
 '^ What place ?^' 
 
 " A place in a lady's house, where you will be 
 kindly treated and taught to be useful. I am 
 going to take you to a new and cheerful life, to 
 a good home, clean rooms, wholesome food, and 
 companions of your own age." 
 
 '^ You mean that I'm to go into service,^^ she 
 said, with the same sullen air. 
 
 " Yes, my dear girl ; the life you are leading 
 here is altogether an unnatural life. It is high 
 time you went out to service, and learnt to get 
 your own living." 
 
 The girl was silent for some moments, looking 
 across the marsh with that dreamy air of hers; 
 then she turned slowly and looked at the A'icar, 
 half in wonder, half in scorn, with large dark eves 
 that were capable of looking unfathomable things. 
 
 " Did my grandfather put that in your head!" 
 she asked.
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 137 
 
 " No. Your grandfather told me only that you 
 were unhappy. It was I thought of the cure/^ 
 
 " A pretty cure ! " she cried^ contemptuously. 
 *' You think it will make me happy to scrub floors 
 and pots and pans, or perhaps you would send me 
 out as a nursemaid to mind squalling babies. I 
 would rather starve and have my freedom than be 
 a well-fed slave. "^ 
 
 *^ There is no such thing as slavery in the house 
 where I am going to take you. Lady Belfield is 
 one of the kindest women I know. She will take 
 you into her service as a favour to me^ and she will 
 have you treated kindly and taught to be useful." 
 
 " Lady Belfield ! " cried Madge^ jumping up and 
 flushing to the roots of her hair ; " Lady Belfield 
 will take me into her service ! '^ 
 
 "■ Yes, Madge, and will interest herself in your 
 welfare. She has heard of your dismal life here, 
 and has promised to do all in her power to make 
 you happy. You won't refuse such a service as 
 that, will you ? " 
 
 " No," answered the girl, after a long pause. 
 " I won't refuse. I ought to be very grateful, I
 
 138 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 suppose. It's a fine thing for dirt like me to be 
 let into snch a house as that/"* 
 
 "It will be the making of you, Madge/' an- 
 swered the Vicar gravely, ^^ and I hope you accept 
 the situation in a right spirit, and "will try to do 
 your duty to that excellent lady." 
 
 The girl vouchsafed him no assurance as to her 
 intention upon this point. 
 
 '^ When am I to go ? " she asked. 
 
 '^At once — to-day.-" 
 
 " I have hardly any clothes but those on my 
 back." 
 
 " My housekeeper shall get you some more 
 clothes. You can come to the Vicarage as fast as 
 you can, and Deborah shall buy you what you 
 want in the village." 
 
 The girl took up his hand and kissed it in a 
 burst of gratitude. 
 
 ^' You are a good man," she said ; " yes, I'll 
 come. Poor old grandfather ! He'll miss me of an 
 evening, when he comes home ; but anything will 
 be better than it has been lately. "We've both 
 been miserable — and perhaps some day "
 
 EASY TO LOVE IIER 139 
 
 She smiled, her face flushed again as it had 
 flushed at the first mention of Lady Belfield^s 
 name. 
 
 " Will they let me come and see my grandfather 
 sometimes?" she asked. 
 
 " Of course ; and if you learn to be a valuable 
 servant, by-and-by you will get good wages, and 
 then you can be a help to him in his old age.^^ 
 
 Madge appeared at the Vicarage before three 
 oY'lock, with all her worldly goods tied up in a 
 cotton handkerchief. She was not overcome by 
 the grandeur of the Vicarage, for that grave old 
 house, with its sombre rooms, cool in summer and 
 warm in winter, had been familiar to her in her 
 childhood, when the Vicar catechised her on Sun- 
 day evenings in his library Avith a class of Sunday- 
 school children. She remembered the look of the 
 panelled hall and the old Oriental jars, the Vicar's 
 fishing tackle and the perfume of rose leaves and 
 lavender. Deborah, the housekeeper, who was a 
 very homely personage as compared with Mrs. 
 Marrable at the Abbey, received her instructions
 
 140 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 from the Vicar and sallied out with Madge to the 
 village shop where all the indispensables of this 
 life were kept in stocky and here the two women 
 sat for nearly an hour^ choosing and buying : 
 Deborah keenly interested, Madge indifferent, 
 looking with incurious scorn upon the snowy 
 calico and the neat pink and white prints which 
 were being bought for her. 
 
 " I suppose you can make your own gowns," 
 said Deborah, rather snappishly, provoked at an 
 indifference which implied ingratitude to the good 
 Vicar. 
 
 " I have never had anybody else to make them 
 for me," answered Madge. 
 
 " That one you have got on fits pretty fair, 
 though I don't like the style of it," said Deborah, 
 eyeing the supple form from top to toe. '^I wouldn't 
 let one of our maids wear such a gown as that, 
 and you'll have to dress different at the Abbey. 
 And you won't be allowed to wear them beads 
 round your neck." 
 
 " And yet they say service isn't slavery," re- 
 torted Madge, with a scornful laugh.
 
 EA.SY TO LOVE HER 141 
 
 Deborali spent a couple of sovereigns grudgingly, 
 knowing how many claims her master had upon his 
 benevolence, and having very little sympathy with 
 this ungracious young woman. 
 
 " You're to come back to the Vicarage and have 
 tea with us/^ she said curtly, " and then John is to 
 walk to the Abbey with you/"* 
 
 John was the Vicar's valet, butler, confidant, and 
 factotum. He was known only as John, and seemed 
 to have no occasion for any surname. The Vicar's 
 John was known and respected all over the parish. 
 He was a tall, lean, sharp-nosed man, very chary of 
 speech, and never talking except to the purpose. 
 He was a great reader of newspapers, and a pro- 
 found politician. Of books he knew none but the 
 Bible, and that he knew better than five curates 
 out of six. He had a way of talking about the 
 patriarchs and the kings and heroes of Israel as if 
 they had been Peel and Brougham, or Bright and 
 Gladstone, which was curious, and quite uncon- 
 sciously irreverent. 
 
 " I don't want any tea," Madge answered, un- 
 graciously.
 
 142 EASY TO LOVE IIER 
 
 '^ Oh, but you must want your tea; you must 
 be almost sinking. What a queer girl you are ! 
 Come along now ; let^s get home as fast as we 
 can. Martha will have got the kettle boiling, 
 and John will be wanting his tea/'' 
 
 John was a person whose wants must always 
 be studied. He waited upon the Vicar with exem- 
 plary devotion, but he expected that the women 
 folk should wait upon him. In the kitchen and 
 servants* premises he was first in importance, and 
 all gave way before him. 
 
 The Vicarage kitchen looked very cheery in the 
 winter afternoon, with a bright red fire burning in 
 an old-fashioned open grate, and the hearth spot- 
 less, and the fender shining like silver. The Vicar 
 dined at eight, so this afternoon hour was a period 
 of leisure and repose. The large oak table at 
 which Deborah did her cooking was pushed on one 
 side, and a snug round table covered with a snow- 
 white cloth stood in front of the fire-place. Martha, 
 the housemaid, a rosy-cheeked buxom lass, had pre- 
 pared everything except the actual making of the 
 tea, a sacred office reserved for Deborah. The tea-
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 143 
 
 tray was spread,, and there was a dish of hot but- 
 tered cakes frizzling on the hearth^ by which sat 
 the Vicar^s John in a dignified attitude, reading 
 the Standard. 
 
 Mr. Rockstone's indoor establishment consisted 
 of these three, and they formed as happy and 
 united a household as could be found in all the 
 county. That catholic spirit of benevolence and 
 peace which breathed in the Vicar^s theology per- 
 vaded all the acts and thoughts of daily life at the 
 Vicarage. 
 
 Madge sat amongst them as an alien. She took 
 her cup of tea in silence, ate very little, had no 
 idea of " making a good tea," as Deborah urged 
 her. It might be that she was fretting at leaving 
 her old grandfather. This supposition softened 
 Deborah's heart a little. 
 
 " Now then, miss/'' said John, rising suddenly, 
 with a military squareness of action, after a 
 tremendous meal, " if you are ready, I am. It 
 will be dark before we get to the Abbey." 
 
 It was nearly dark when they passed in front of 
 the porch on their way to the servants' quarters.
 
 144 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 There were a couple of grooms and three horses 
 waiting before the porch, two with side saddles. 
 Lights were shining in the windows of the lower 
 rooms, but the hall was lighted only by the fire-glow. 
 It looked a picture of luxury and bright colour as 
 Madge saw it through the open door : armour 
 flashing in the firelight — old tapestry — vivid 
 colouring of Oriental curtains draping chimney- 
 piece and doorways ; such an interior as Madge's 
 eyes had never looked upon before. 
 
 She caught but a glimpse of that strange 
 splendour, and then John hurried her on by a 
 shrubbery path which skirted one side of the 
 house, to a low door which opened into a stone 
 lobby and thence to the servants' hall. Beyond 
 the servants' hall there was another door, and at 
 this John tapped respectfully. 
 
 It was the door of Mrs. Marrable's private sit- 
 ting-room, only one degree less sacred than Lady 
 Belfield's own apartments. Indeed, the Abbey 
 servants were more afraid of iNIrs. Marrable than 
 of Lady Belfield. 
 
 The room looked delightfully cosy in the light
 
 EASY TO LOV^E HER 145 
 
 of a bright wood fire. It was covered from floor 
 to ceiling with a heterogeneous collection of pic- 
 tures^ prints, oil paintings, and water-colours. All 
 the pictures rejected from the state apartments by 
 three generations of Belfields had been banished to 
 this limbo. There were doubtless some very vile 
 specimens among this collection, but the general 
 effect, seen in a half-light, was excellent. There 
 was a goodly array of old china also on shelves and 
 in cabinets, for here was brought all the damaged 
 porcelain. 
 
 Mrs. Marrable had been enjoying a nap by the 
 fire, preliminary to candles and tea, but she was 
 wide awake in an instant. 
 
 "How do you do, John ? Very glad to see you. 
 So this is the young person recommended by the 
 Vicar,^"* she said. " Her ladyship told me all 
 about you, my dear, and she wished to see you 
 directly you arrived. I^m to take you to the 
 drawing-room myself as you're a stranger. You 
 may just lay aside your hat and shawl — you'll 
 have to wear a bonnet in future — and come 
 with me. Perhaps }Ou'd like to i>top into the 
 
 VOL I. L
 
 146 EASY TO LOVE IIER 
 
 servants' hall, John, and join them at their 
 tea/' 
 
 '^ Thank you kindly, ma'am, I tea'd before I 
 came/^ John answered gravely. " I must be 
 getting back to see after the Vicar's dinner. 
 Good-night, mum ; good-night, miss ; "" and John 
 marched off by the way he had come, while 
 Madge, trembling slightly, in spite of her 
 native audacity, followed Mrs. Marrable to that 
 enchanted chamber with the curtains of wrought 
 gold and vivid colour, the flashing arms and 
 great stags' heads, which she had seen from out- 
 side. 
 
 They crossed the firelit hall, and Mrs. Marrable 
 opened the drawing-room door and entered with 
 Madge at her heels, expecting to find this room 
 empty and Lady Belfield alone in her usual place 
 in the inner drawing-room. She was drawing 
 back at the sight of a group round a low tea-table 
 near the fire, two ladies in riding habits, and Sir 
 Adrian in his hunting clothes, lolling luxuriously 
 in their low easy chairs. 
 
 " Don't go away, Mrs. Marrable/' said Ladv
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 117 
 
 Belfield. " You have brought me the young per- 
 son, I see." 
 
 She rose and left the tea-table and came over to 
 the other end of the spacious room, where Mrs. 
 Marrable stood with Madge beside her, doubtful 
 whether to withdraw or to remain, while the girFs 
 dark eyes gazed across empty space to the bright 
 glow of lamp and firelight in which those three 
 figures were seated. 
 
 She gazed at Sir Adrian with a look half of sur- 
 prise, half of admiration. She had caught chance 
 glimpses of those pale, refined features, across 
 the width of the parish church as Sir Adrian 
 stood in the old-fashioned curtained pew in the 
 chancel. But those glimpses had not familiarized 
 her with his face. It was new to her to-night iu 
 the glow of lamp and fire, radiant with happiness, 
 as he talked to Helen Devcrill, who sat nursing 
 her hat upon her knees, and smiling up at him, 
 with a charming unconsciousness of her ver^^ liberal 
 display of patent-leather Wellingtons. 
 
 The girl hardly saw Lady Bclfield's calm, kind 
 face, so absorbed was all her power of vision by 
 
 L 2
 
 148 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 that face in the firelight ; but she courtesied when 
 her new mistress spoke to her, as she had been 
 taught to courtesy to her betters in the Sunday- 
 school. 
 
 '' I am glad you have come so soon/'' said Con- 
 stance ; " I hope you will be happy with your 
 fellow-servantsj and that you will try to please 
 Mrs. Marrable, who will be very kind to you^ I 
 know." 
 
 There was no patronizing admonition, no word 
 about duty or desert^ only a kind and friendly wel- 
 come for the stranger. 
 
 " I should like to have had a little talk with 
 you/' added Lady Belfield, ''but I am engaged just 
 now. Mr. Rockstone has told me how much he is 
 interested in you.^' 
 
 " He has been the only friend I ever had except 
 grandfather,'^ answered Madge. 
 
 " Say, my lady," whispered the housekeeper. 
 
 *^ Then I hope you will try to be happy here, if 
 it is only to please that kind friend," said Lady 
 Belfield. 
 
 *' Yes, my lady, T will try.''
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 149 
 
 She courtesied again^ and followed the house- 
 keeper out of the room, and went back to the ser- 
 vants' offices to begin her new life. Helen and her 
 sister began to criticize her directly she was out of 
 the room. 
 
 " What a handsome girl ! '^ exclaimed Mrs. Bad- 
 deley : '' worlds too pretty for a servant. How 
 inconvenient when girls in that station of life are 
 born with such good looks. What made you 
 engage her, Lady Belfield ? For my part I detest 
 pretty servants. They always set all the indoor 
 men by the ears, and make the other maids ill- 
 tempered. There ought to be a dead level of com- 
 monplace features and muddy complexions among 
 young women of that class.^' 
 
 '^ Surely you would not like to be waited upon by 
 gorgons,^^ remonstrated Adrian, laughing. 
 
 " I did not say anything about gorgons. There 
 is a middle distance between beauty and ugliness. 
 I like my servants to occupy that neutral ground o£ 
 inoffensive mediocrity. You haven't told me why 
 you engaged this girl, dear Lady Belfield. ^^ 
 
 " You haven^t given me time/' said Constance
 
 150 EASY TO LOVE IIEK 
 
 smiling at the animated face, and then she told 
 just enough of the girFs story to awaken interest 
 in sympathetic minds, and both sisters appeared 
 full of kindly feeling, frivolous as Lady Belfield was 
 sometimes disposed to consider them. 
 
 Adrian was in high spirits this afternoon as he 
 sat by Helen''s side, feeding her with sweet things 
 as if she had been a bird, thinking her absolutely 
 bewitching as she nibbled pound-cake, and acknow- 
 ledged to a passionate love for buns. These two 
 had been pottering about with the hounds side by 
 side all day — a wretched day for sport, but a very 
 good day for Adrian, who could only enjoy his 
 divinity's society fully when there was a bad scent 
 and a great deal of waiting about outside the 
 coverts. The Miss Toffstaffs had been eloquent 
 in their animadversions upon Miss Deverill. They 
 even wondered that Sir Adrian^s better judgment 
 did not prevent such immorality. 
 
 '* I call it disgraceful conduct even in him," said 
 Dorothy. 
 
 *' And what can one call it in her ? " responded 
 Isabel Treducey.
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 151 
 
 There were a knot of Dianas clustered on the 
 opposite side of the road, keenly observant of 
 Helen and Adrian, in the midst of their own light 
 prattle. 
 
 '^ I believe she has hooked him/^ said Matilda 
 Treducey, who was horsy and outspoken. 
 
 " What, you can't imagine he'll marry such a 
 brazen-faced flirt/^ exclaimed Dorothy. 
 
 ^•' My dear, I can imagine anything. Men are 
 such fools.'"' 
 
 But if it were folly, it was a pleasant folly while 
 it lasted. Never had Adrian been so happy as in 
 this dreary December — never before had there been 
 for him this glory and brightness over earrh and 
 sky, this glamour of passionate love which filled the 
 world with light and life and gladness and ever- 
 hurrying emotion. He felt like a man borne down 
 the tide of a rushing river, or carried by a swift 
 horse, with the freshness of the air in his nostrils, 
 the sunlight shining upon him. He had a delicious 
 sense of being hurried onward without knowing or 
 caring whither. The journey was in itself so rap- 
 turous, he scarce asked himself where was the goal.
 
 152 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 Ilis mother startled him one morning soon 
 after Madge's advent at the Abbey, by asking him 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Adrian, are you going to marry Helen 
 Deverill ? " 
 
 He flushed crimson at the suddenness of the 
 attack. They were alone together before break- 
 fast, standing in the window of the breakfast- 
 room, and had both been silent and thoughtful 
 until that moment, watching the falling snow. 
 
 " To marry/' he faltered ; ^^ what a startling 
 attack, mother ! " 
 
 " My dear boy, you must know your own mind 
 by this time. Everybody tells me you are in love 
 with Miss Deverill; and if you don't mean to 
 marry her, and if you are not compromised by 
 any declaration, you had better go away and let 
 people see that they are wrong. I am tired of 
 being questioned and congratulated about a^ poten- 
 tial daughter-in-law." 
 
 "Mother, how strangely you say that! You 
 like her, don't you ? " 
 
 " I hardly know my own mind about her.
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 153 
 
 Adrian. There are times when she bewitches me, 
 almost as she has bewitched you ; and then I am 
 afraid of her, Adrian ; I am full of fear for your 
 happiness/' 
 
 " It is too late to talk about fear, mother. I 
 gave her my heart long ago. I think it must 
 have been the first time I saw her. But indeed 
 you have no cause for fear. She is the most inno- 
 cent, childlike creature the sun ever shone upon. 
 She is as open as a summer sky. Yes, I have 
 studied her character, and I am not afraid to trust 
 my life into her keeping. You are right, mother : 
 it is time I should declare myself. I have been 
 living in a fooFs paradise — too happy to take 
 thought of the morrow."*' 
 
 " Then you mean to marry her ? " 
 
 " Mean ! How can I be sure that she will have 
 me f 
 
 " There is no fear of a refusal.'' 
 
 " Then you think she loves me ? " he asked 
 eagerly, his face brightening as he spoke. 
 
 *^I think you are Sir Adrian Belficld, and the 
 best match in the county."
 
 154 EASY TO LOVE HEP. 
 
 " Mother, that is a detestable speech,, and not a 
 bit like you/^ 
 
 " My dearest, to my mind you are the most 
 loveable young man in England. But I am afraid 
 of Colonel Deverill's daughter. She has been 
 brought up in a bad school. She has graduated 
 at fashionable "watering-places and in gambling 
 saloons. I would ever so much rather you had 
 fallen in love with Lucy Freemantle.^' 
 
 " I should be as likely to fall in love with that 
 yew obelisk yonder," said Adrian impatiently. 
 " But don't let us argue the point, mother. If I 
 can but be so fortunate as to win her, I know she 
 will make you love her. She will creep into your 
 heart, and be to you as a daughter before you 
 have quite decided whether you can trust lier.^' 
 
 '^ And that is the worst of it, Adrian. I may 
 learn to love her without being able to trust her." 
 Mother and son breakfasted together, for the 
 most part in silence. Both were preoccupied. 
 Lady Belfield felt that she had precipitated the 
 inevitable by her questions ; and yet when evil is 
 inevitable it may as well be faced. She thought
 
 EASY TO LOYE HER 155 
 
 of those other girls whom she would have pre- 
 ferred for her son^s choice. Of the Treduceys, 
 who were only just tolerable as individuals, but 
 who were excellent in the way of race and ante- 
 cedents ; of Lucy Freemantle, who was a really 
 estimable girl, a pretty-looking, fresh-complexioned;, 
 uninteresting young Englishwoman, much too shy 
 to make the most of her advantages. Could she 
 wonder that her son preferred this outspoken, 
 fascinating girl, with her light-hearted gaiety, her 
 child-like delight in life, her tender, caressing ways, 
 and low musical voice ? 
 
 *^ No hunting," said Adrian, after breakfast^ 
 going off to the stables. 
 
 He ordered a pair of horses to be roughed, and 
 an hour afterwards he was driving his four-wheel 
 dogcart along the road that led to Morcomb. 
 
 Helen was alone in the billiard-room, practising 
 the spot stroke, in a neat little blue frock, with a 
 scarlet waistcoat. " The Guards' colours,^'' she told 
 Adrian, when he admired it. 
 
 " Leo was orderincr one from her tailor, so she
 
 156 EASY TO LOVE IIEK 
 
 ordered one for me at the same time/^ said HeleD. 
 '^ Kind, wasn't it ? '' 
 
 " Very kind."' 
 
 Adrian wondered a little at Mrs. Baddeley's 
 somewhat lavish expenditure, since he had been 
 told that her husband had very small means — a 
 mere pittance beyond his pay. 
 
 " I am quite alone," said Helen, when they had 
 seated themselves on each side of the hearth. 
 *' There was a telegram from Brindisi this morning, 
 and father and Leonora rushed off by the express 
 on their way to Paris. They are not to stop tra- 
 velling till they get to Paris, and they may be just 
 in time to meet Major Baddeley, who will travel as 
 fast as ever he can from Brindisi ; and then they 
 will stop in Paris two or three days to see the 
 sights, and then they will come back to poor . dis- 
 consolate me.^' 
 
 " You do not look very disconsolate," said 
 Adrian, contemplating her admiringly, as she sat 
 in a lazy attitude, with her hands clasped above 
 her head, with its loose mass of dark auburn 
 hair.
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 157 
 
 "To tell you the truth, I don^t at all mind 
 being alone for a change. If it were hunting 
 weather I should rather rejoice in their absence, 
 for I could have a second horse — Leo's.. Of course 
 she told me not to ride him; but of course I 
 shouldn^t mind that, if this beastly snow would 
 only give way. But what can one do in such 
 weather as this ? " 
 
 " Well, there are resources — one^s books and 
 one's piano.'' 
 
 " Oh, I have too much quicksilver in my veins 
 for that kind of life. I want movement, air, 
 variety — people to talk to me." 
 
 " People to admire and adore you, you mean," 
 said Adrian. 
 
 " Yes, it is nice to be adored. One gets spoiled 
 at a place like Monte Carlo, where there are so 
 many idle young men, who can't afford to be 
 always shooting pigeons or playing trente-et- 
 quarante, and who are obliged to fall in love with 
 somebody, j90wr passer le temps. But don't let us 
 talk nonsense. I am growing a very serious 
 personage in this rural atmosphere, I can assure
 
 158 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 you. If I were to stay here another winter I 
 should ask the Vicar to give me a district, and go 
 about among the cottagers. I find I am very 
 much looked down upon by other young ladies 
 because I don^t do that/'' 
 
 "Pray, don't; it is not in your line. There are 
 bees and butterflies. You belong to the butter- 
 flies — beautiful insects, but useless except for the 
 delight their grace and beauty give to man. "We 
 might exist without bees, but life would be unen- 
 durable without butterflies.^' 
 
 " How sweet of you to say that," exclaimed 
 Helen. ^' Then I will not be false to my voca- 
 tion. I shall try to fulfil my mission as a but- 
 terfly." 
 
 And then, after a pause, she said carelessly : 
 
 " Isn't it funny that you and I should be 
 sitting on each side of the fire, like Darby and 
 Joan ? " 
 
 '^Funnj^, Helen? No, it is intensely serious. 
 It is the finger of Fate that has motioned us to 
 these two chairs." Then, suddenly crossing the 
 hearth and seating himself close beside her: ^' Shall
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 159 
 
 we not be Darby and Joan for life, Helen — always, 
 always together^ with the right to sit by our own 
 fireside ? Say yes, my darling ; say yes. You 
 know how dearly I love you. There need be no 
 passionate speeches, no romantic wooing. I have 
 loved you from the hour we first sat beside this 
 hearth. Tell me on this spot, dear love, where 
 first we met, that you give me love for love, that 
 you will be my wife.^' 
 
 He drew her to his breast, and she let her head 
 sink upon his shoulder. She was his own now; 
 that lovely hair, with its delicate perfume, was his 
 to caress ; and the lovely lips did not refuse them- 
 selves to the kiss of betrothal. 
 
 " I don't know if I ought to pledge myself like 
 this in my father's absence," she said, withdrawing 
 herself suddenly from her lovers arm, with a touch 
 of prudishness. " He ought to be consulted, ought 
 he not — Adrian ? " 
 
 How deliciously she murmured his name for the 
 first time. 
 
 " He shall be consulted," said Adrian. " But I 
 have no fear of his withholding his consent.''
 
 160 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 '' Oh, you know you are a good match/' cried 
 Helen, tossing up her head. " You are King 
 Cophetua and I am the beggar maid; and what 
 can the beggar maid's father say to the King, 
 except to thank him for his condescension ? " 
 
 ^' My darling, you know that you are the queen 
 and I am the beggar; a suppliant for the infinite 
 boon of your love." 
 
 ** Pray, does Lady Belfield know that you mean 
 to give her me for a daughter-in-law ? " asked 
 Helen abruptly. 
 
 ^' She does know that it is the desire of my 
 heart to do so." 
 
 '• Poor dear Lady Belfield, I am sure she would 
 rather have had anybody else. That strictly pro- 
 per and rather pretty Miss Freemantle, for instance. 
 Will you swear that you were never in love with 
 Miss Freemantle ? " 
 
 " I won't, because you know as well as possible 
 that I never knew what love meant till I loved 
 you." 
 
 " Ah, that is a kind of sophistical asseveration 
 that all lovers make. ' Were you never in love
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 161 
 
 before ? ' says the lady. We are such jealous 
 creatures — ^jealous of the past, the present, and 
 the future, but most of all of the past. ' I never 
 knew true love till I saw you/ replies the gentle- 
 man. But that commits him to nothing. He 
 may have been in love a hundred times before. 
 And you are five-and- twenty, Adrian. You must 
 have been in love." 
 
 ''I may have had a spasm or two of calf-love. 
 I once rather admired Matilda Treducey.^^ 
 
 " No, don't tell me that — anything but that. I 
 should like to think you had good taste even before 
 you knew me. And now, will you come for a 
 walk ? I want to see the horses and dogs. Don^t 
 be frightened. I am not going to present you to 
 the stablemen as my future husband.''' 
 
 '^ I wish you would. It would be a kind of 
 security that you will marry me. Put on your 
 warmest wraps, love. It is very cold out of 
 doors." 
 
 " I am not going to be called ^ love/ or ^ darling,' 
 or any of those sickly sweet appellations. You arc 
 to call me Helen^ and I shall call you Adrian. There 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 is a world more meaning in our own two names, 
 which belong to us individually, than in any barley- 
 sugar epithets that all the world uses/'' 
 
 '^ Then you shall be Helen, my Helen, I ask for 
 no sweeter name. Helen, the destroyer of ships 
 and of men : 
 
 ' Is this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium ? ' " 
 
 " Is that some of Tennyson^s nonsense ? " 
 
 " No, it is Marlowe^s nonsense/'' 
 
 " Marlowe ? A new poet, I suppose. Please 
 ring that bell for me, Adrian. I want a handful 
 of sugar for the horses." 
 
 ^' Happy horses to be fed with sweets from such 
 sweet hands." 
 
 " Now, have we not agreed that you arc to in- 
 dulge in none of that nonsense ? I will have no 
 sentimentality. You must treat me as your 
 comrade and friend, or I will have nothing to 
 say to you." 
 
 Her prettily authoritative air took the sting out 
 of her speech. He submitted, and accompanied
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 163 
 
 her meekly on her round to the stables^ which was 
 a long business. It was not that there were many- 
 horses, but each was a personal acquaintance and 
 had the strongest claims upon Helenas attention ; 
 and there was a good deal of time lost in running 
 in and out of boxes in the endeavour to re-adjust 
 the balance of favour, when one had had more 
 than his due share of sugar, and another snorted 
 indignant demands across the top of a door. And 
 then there were the fox-terriers that lived in the 
 stables, and the yard dogs outside, all equally 
 exacting. 
 
 ^^ I hope they will be able to live without you 
 for a week or two/" said Adrian. 
 
 '' They cannot live without me. Where I go 
 they must go."'^ 
 
 " What, on your father^s yacht, for instance ? " 
 
 ''No, I have only a beggarly allowance of one 
 small dog on the yacht.^'' 
 
 " And when you pay visits ? " 
 
 '^ I never do pay visits. Don^t you know that 
 we are nomads — almost friendless nomads. Leo 
 has friends — her husband's brother officers and
 
 164 EASY TO LOVE HER 
 
 their people. It is a crack regiment, you know, 
 and Frank is quite the smallest person in it. 
 Leo goes into society. Leo visits at country 
 houses. I don't. I am a Bohemian, a savage, a 
 wild girl of the woods. You will change your mind 
 perhaps when you come to consider the kind of 
 person you have chosen. '^ 
 
 " I have chosen her ; to me she is perfect. My 
 dearest, I love you ever so much better for not 
 being a woman of the world. But I am not going 
 to let you mope alone here while your people are 
 away. You must come to the Abbey. My mother 
 shall fetch you this afternoon. '' 
 
 '^ It would be very nice ; but do you think Lady 
 Belfield would like it?" 
 
 " I am sure she would. Y'ou cannot grow too 
 near and dear to her. I want you to be to her as 
 a daughter, in advance of the tie that is to make 
 you one." 
 
 ^' She is very sweet," said Helen gravely. '' It 
 is easy for me to love her ; but I'm afraid it may 
 be difficult for her to love me." 
 
 " Indeed it will not. Come, and try your power.
 
 EASY TO LOVE HER 165 
 
 I believe she loves you already. And now I will 
 leave you to make your preparations for coming to 
 the Abbey/' 
 
 " But shall I not look rather foolish if I pack my 
 trunks upon your invitation, and if Lady Belfield 
 should not care about having me ? " 
 
 ^^ She will care. She shall be here at four 
 o'clock to fetch you. Show her how punctual and 
 business-like you can be. You can send your 
 heavy luggage in the stable cart — or shall I send 
 for it?" 
 
 ** Oh no, our own men can take my luggage. If 
 you insist upon it, I will get ready^ even at the risk 
 of looking foolish.^'
 
 ( 16G ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 Helen Deverill had been staying at the Abbey 
 for nearly three weeks ; she had become domesti- 
 cated there, and seemed a part of the family life. 
 Lady Belfield found herself wondering how she had 
 ever managed her existence without the girlish 
 figure always at her side, prompt and swift to 
 anticipate her wants and wishes, to cut the leaves 
 of her books, and to arrange her crewels, to listen 
 with an enraptured air to her music. She was 
 more than reconciled to the idea that this girl 
 was to be her daughter in the future. Slie was 
 grateful to Providence for having given her such 
 a daughter. 
 
 " If she is only as devoted to Adrian as she 
 seems to be ! " thought the mother. '^ If she is 
 only true ! '' 
 
 There is always that doubt, until love and
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 167 
 
 lovers have been tried in the furnace of hard 
 experiences. 
 
 Colonel Deverill and his elder daughter were 
 still in Paris. That lively city was at its best just 
 after the turn of the year. Major Baddeley and 
 his wife had numerous friends there, French and 
 English. They were staying at the Grand Hotel, 
 and they were seeing everything. The Colonel 
 had been less eager to go back to Devonshire, 
 seeing that Helen was so happily placed with her 
 future mother-in-law. He had replied to Adrian's 
 letter, asking his consent to the engagement, with 
 characteristic candour. 
 
 " I confess that I saw which way you and Helen 
 were drifting, and that I was heartily glad," he 
 wrote. " She is a sweet girl, and will make you 
 a sweet wife. Of course you know that, from a 
 worldly point of view, you could hardly do worse. 
 I have not a shilling to give my daughters. They 
 will have my estate between them when 1 am dead 
 and gone, and, if there should be a radical change 
 in the condition of Ireland, the property may be 
 worth something. At present it is worth little
 
 168 NOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 more than nothing. My best tenant is two years 
 and a half in arrear with his rent ; my worst has 
 threatened to shoot me for taking out his doors 
 and windows in a futile attempt to eject him. But 
 I won't plague you with these dismal details. 
 Happily, you are rich and generous, and you can 
 afford to marry a girl whose beauty and innocence 
 are her only dower.'''' 
 
 Thus assured of the ColoneVs approval^ and see- 
 ing his mother growing daily better pleased with 
 his choice; Adrian Belfield was completely happy. 
 The die being cast, his friends and neighbours 
 accepted the inevitable, and congratulated him with 
 seeming heartiness on his engagement. Even the 
 Miss Treduceys and the Miss Toffstaffs were 
 gracious, taking an early occasion to call upon 
 Lady Belfield and to ask if this startling news was 
 really, really true. 
 
 '^ It is quite true, and I have my future daughter- 
 in-law staying with me," answered Constance. 
 " She and Adrian are out riding ; but they will be 
 home to tea, if you can stay and see them/' 
 
 " We shall be charmed/' said Dorothy ToffstaflP
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 169 
 
 who had driven her smart little cart over from the 
 heights above Chadford, and had picked up Matilda 
 Treducey on her way. It was a long drive from 
 Chadford to Wilmington^ but the TofFstaffs, with 
 their inexhaustible stud, made light of distances. 
 They liked to be everywhere^ and were to be met 
 with at all possible points within twenty miles of 
 their house. 
 
 The Treducey stables were altogether on a 
 different footing, and there were daily quarrels 
 and heart-burnings as to who should have cattle 
 to ride or drive. Thus it had happened of late 
 that the Treduceys were always being driven in 
 Toffstaff carriages and riding TofFstaff horses. 
 They broke in difficult animals for the Miss Toff- 
 staffs, who, notwithstanding this fact, could never 
 be induced to own the Treducey superiority in 
 riding. 
 
 '^ They have very good hands/^ said Dorothy, 
 speaking of her dearest friends, *^ but they have no 
 style. They would be dreadful in the Row." 
 
 Style, as imparted by a fashionable riding- 
 master, at a guinea a lesson, was Dorothy's strong
 
 170 NOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 point. She balanced herself airily upon her saddle, 
 stuck out her elbows^ tossed up her head, or 
 straightened her spine in the last approved manner, 
 and she was an admirable horsewoman as long 
 as her horse behaved himself ; but it was the 
 Treduceys' strong point to master vice and in- 
 experience in their horses, and to make all the 
 hunters they ever rode. 
 
 And now Dorothy Toffstaff and Matilda Treducey 
 sat on each side of the hearth and complimented 
 Lady Belfield on her son^s choice. 
 
 " She is so pretty/' said Dorothy, " one can 
 hardly wonder that he fell in love with her. But 
 I hope you like her, dear Lady Belfield ? '' 
 
 Dorothy was prepared to receive a reluctant 
 negative. 
 
 " Yes, I like her very much ; but liking is a 
 cold word. I love her ? '^ Lady Belfield answered 
 frankly. 
 
 " Lucky girl, to have such a charming mother- 
 in-law,^' said Miss Treducey, looking round the 
 noble old drawing-room, which had been a drawing- 
 room in Queen Elizabeths time, and had echoed
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 171 
 
 the silvery tones of that great sovereign's speech,, 
 and the graver accents of Burleigh. The Abbey 
 was rich in traditions about dead and gone 
 monarchs and senators. More than one sovereign 
 had rested there on a royal progress through the 
 West Countree. 
 
 Matilda Treducey had always admired the Abbey. 
 If there was one house in which she would rather 
 have ruled than in another^ it was this Elizabethan 
 mansion ; and to know that it was to be the home 
 of an Irish scapegrace's unsophisticated daughter, a 
 girl who had been brought up anyhow — this was 
 exceeding bitter. Miss TofFstaff also felt that she 
 had been cheated. Sir Adrian was the only good 
 match in that part of the country — and with his 
 family and position and her wealth, they might 
 have done anything. And he was throwing him- 
 self away upon a pauper. 
 
 Helen came in with her lover while the gentle 
 Dorothy thus mused. She was flushed with her 
 ride in the cold clear air, and looked lovely in her 
 neat little felt hat and girlish habit, a little blue 
 cloth habit made by an Irish tailor. Mrs. Baddeley
 
 172 NOT QUITE CONTEXT 
 
 had her hunting gear from the noost fashionable 
 habit-maker in London ; but then Mrs. Baddeley 
 had her own bills and her own resources, great or 
 small. 
 
 Adrian and his fiancee were perfectly frank and 
 gracious in their talk with the two young ladies ; 
 had no idea of any leaven of malice lurking under 
 the outward semblance of goodwill ; accepted con- 
 gratulations and good wishes as a matter of course. 
 
 ^' Yes, we are both very happy," said Adrian, 
 smiling at his betrothed; '^ I did not think it was 
 the common lot of man to know such bliss." 
 
 " You don^t hunt now, do you ? " asked Miss 
 ToffstafF of Helen. " I haven't seen you out for 
 ever so long." 
 
 " No, I have not been out. Adrian is advised 
 not to hunt, and I don^t care about it without him." 
 
 " That must be a dreadful deprivation though, to 
 anybody who is fond of sport." 
 
 The two girls were talking together on one side 
 of the room, while Adrian was engaged with his 
 mother and Miss Treducey on the other side, out of 
 hearing.
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 173 
 
 " I am very fond of sport/^ Helen confessed, with 
 a sigh. ^' I can't help being sorry that Adrian can 
 never be a hunting man. I should so like him to 
 have had the hounds. They say there will be some 
 difficulty about a master when Sir George Rollestone 
 gives them up, as he means to do; and Adrian 
 would be the most natural person to take them. 
 But as he is not allowed to hunt it would be a 
 mockery for him to have anything to do with 
 them." 
 
 " What a pity he is not his brother." 
 
 ^'Ah, Mr. Belfield is a capital sportsman, I 
 believe/ said Helen, with a slightly regretful air. 
 
 "Mr. Belfield is everything that Sir Adrian is 
 not/' said Miss TofiPstaff sententiously. 
 
 ''Nature has been kinder to him. Poor 
 Adrian ?'' 
 
 '' But then, Sir Adrian is so clever. Mr. Rock- 
 stone told me that he has read more than most 
 men of fifty.'' 
 
 " Yes, he has surfeited himself with books. He 
 is very clever." 
 
 This was spoken with a sigh. Helen was apt to
 
 174 KOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 be oppressed by her lover's intellectual superiority. 
 It was a kind of barrier that kept them apart. He 
 knew so much of books and the men who had 
 written them, and she so little. She was ashamed 
 of her ignorance, and thus dared not talk freely 
 with him upon any intellectual subject, lest he 
 should discover her deficiencies. 
 
 '^Dorothy Toffstaff was talking about your 
 brother/^ she said to Adrian later, as they sat over 
 the drawing-room fire in the dusk before going off 
 to dress for dinner. 
 
 Helen had kept on her habit. She had a way 
 of sitting about for an hour or two just as she came 
 off her horse, with rumpled hair and bespattered 
 skirts. She was sitting on the hearthrug almost at 
 her lover's feet, staring at the fire in an idle reverie. 
 Lady Belfield had left them half-an-hour ago seated 
 just in the same attitudes. It was not that they 
 had very much to talk about. It was happiness to 
 Adrian even to be in the presence of the woman he 
 loved, to have her near him, a beautiful enchanting 
 creature, whose every tone was music, whose every 
 movement was grace.
 
 NOT QUITE CONTEXT 175 
 
 ^' She said that you and Valentine are utterly 
 unlike/' pursued Helen^ '^ and yet I have heard 
 your mother say that you are the image of each 
 other." 
 
 '^ I believe we are alike in face and figure — alike 
 with a difference/' answered Adrian dreamily. 
 '^ Our features were cast from the same sketchy but 
 not in the same mould. You will see him very 
 soon, I hope, and judge for yourself. He and I 
 have never lived so long apart,, and if I had not 
 had you to give a new colour to my life, I should 
 have felt miserable without him. Even with your 
 sweet companionship I begin to weary for his 
 return." 
 
 '^ Take care ! I shall be jealous of any one who 
 steals your thoughts from me — even of a brother. 
 You must be very fond of each other ? " 
 
 " Fondness can hardly express our feeling. 
 It is something more than affection. It is a sym- 
 pathy so close that his vexations and his pleasures 
 move me almost as strongly as my own. I have 
 never seen him out of temper without being 
 agitated myself ; and in all his great triumphs — on
 
 176 NOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 the river, in the cricket field, at a steeplechase — I 
 have been as elated as if I myself were the victor 
 Yes, I have felt a thrill of pride and delight far 
 keener than common sympathy." 
 
 " I don't think sympathy is by auy means 
 common/' said Helen lightly. '' I believe that the 
 great majority of people are supremely indifferent 
 to the joys and sorrows of others. The world 
 could hardly go on if it were otherwise. AVe have 
 such a little time to live that we must live fast if 
 we want to get anything out of life." 
 
 " Is not that rather a selfish theory ? '^ 
 
 " I suppose it is ; but I frankly own to being 
 selfish. Selfishness is one of my numerous fail- 
 ings.'' 
 
 '^ I will not hear you say so. I know you better 
 than you know yourself/' he said tenderly, lean- 
 ing down till his lips touched the golden-brown 
 hair. 
 
 " That is a delusion on your part. You only 
 know an ideal Helen, a Helen of your own inven- 
 tion, faultless, a bundle of virtues, a concatenation 
 of noble qualities and lofty feelings. I am not
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 177 
 
 even a blood relation of your Helen. I am full 
 of faults/' 
 
 " Then I will love you with all your faults. I 
 have plenty of my own to balance them/' 
 
 '' No. You have only three — three great faults." 
 
 '^Name them. Let me know the worst." 
 
 '^ First, you are too good for me. Secondly, you 
 are far too clever for me. Thirdly, you are not a 
 sportsman.'' 
 
 " The goodness and the cleverness might be 
 easily got over, since they belong rather to your 
 ideal Adrian than to the actual man. But I fear 
 I can never be a sportsman." 
 
 '^ I should have liked my husband to keep a 
 pack of hounds, and to hunt four times u week," 
 sighed Helen, with the air of a child that has been 
 baulked in some eager fancy. 
 
 " My dearest, I can never be the typical Euglish 
 squire ; nor can I allow the wife I love to spend 
 half her days and nearly all her thoughts in the 
 hunting-field. I want to share your life, Helen ; I 
 want your company all day long — your mind, your 
 heart, and all your thoughts and fancies. I would 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 NOT QUITE CONTENT 
 
 not have one of your thoughts wasted upon horses 
 and hounds/^ 
 
 " I have been brought up to care more for four- 
 footed friends than any others/^ 
 
 " Perhaps you never had a friend who loved you 
 as I do. Such friendship is exacting, Helen. 
 There must be sacrifices." 
 
 '^ Must there ? Well, it is not a very great 
 sacrifice for a penniless Irish girl to be your wife, 
 and to live in this lovely old house. It will not be 
 my house, though ! I shall only be a secondary 
 person. Your mother must always be the first." 
 
 " You do not mind that ? ''■' asked Adrian. 
 
 ^^ Mind ? No, I adore her. She is as much 
 above me as if she were an angelic being. But I 
 shall be Lady Belfield too. AYill not that seem 
 strange ? Two Lady Belfields in one house. We 
 must live half the year in London and Paris, 
 Adrian. We must not rust away our lives here." 
 
 '^ Do you call this rusting ? " he asked tenderly. 
 
 Her head rested against his knee, her eyes were 
 looking up at him, starlike in the dim light of the 
 low wood fire.
 
 NOT QUITE CONTENT 179 
 
 •'' No, this is fairyland, dreamland, what you 
 will. But it cannot last much longer — not a 
 moment longer''' — as the timepiece chimed the 
 half-hour. '' There is half-past seven, and I shall 
 be late for dinner again." 
 
 '' Don't if you can help it, darling. It is one of 
 the few things that vexes my mother." 
 
 Helen made u moue as she ran out of the room. 
 It seemed to her that there were a good many 
 things which vexed Lady Belfield. Disorder of all 
 kinds set that gentle lady's teeth on edge, and 
 Helen was the very spirit of disorder. 
 
 Half-way to her room she met one of the house- 
 maids in a corridor. 
 
 ^^ Is that you, Margaret?" she cried. "Come 
 and help me to dress. " I'm awfully late again." 
 
 Margaret, alias Madge, was Lady Belfield's last 
 protegee, the new girl who had been taken into the 
 household out of charity. Mrs. Marrable had 
 pronounced her very amenable, and had taken 
 pains to instruct her in certain domestic duties. 
 Her province was on the upper floor. Helen, who 
 had brought no maid to the Abbey, was struck 
 
 N 1
 
 180 NOT QUITE CONTEXT 
 
 by the girl's good looks^ and had in a manner 
 appropriated her services. She was much quicker 
 of intellect and handier altogether than the average 
 housemaid. 
 
 With Margaret's help, Helen contrived to appear 
 in the drawing-room just two minutes before the 
 butler announced dinner.
 
 ( 181 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 '' NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO " 
 
 There had been but the briefest letters from 
 Valentine either to Lady Belfield or to Adrian. 
 He was at Monte Carlo, shooting pigeons, riding 
 other peoples^ horses in steeplechases, drinking the 
 cup of pleasure to the dregs, and he intended to 
 return to the Abbey in time for the last of the 
 hunting. This was all that was known about him, 
 and now the season was nearly over, and he might 
 be expected at any time. His rooms were ready, 
 his horses fit, his own particular groom was on the 
 look-out for his return. 
 
 It was a dull afternoon in February, and Helen 
 was alone in the library, her lover's favourite room, 
 the very sanctuary of his life, as it were — the place 
 where he read, and thought, and played, and lived 
 his own sacred inner life, with which the rest of 
 the household had little in common.
 
 182 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 It was not a conventional library — not a place of 
 massive bookcases and regulation sets of books. It 
 was half a music-room, with an organ at one end, 
 and a grand piano in the angle near the old- 
 fashioned fireplace. Adrian had inherited his 
 mother's love of music, and played both organ and 
 piano. The books were chiefly of his own collect- 
 ing, a library of modern belles lettres, in several 
 languages. 
 
 ^' You are so awfully learned/^ exclaimed Helen, 
 after glancing at a shelf of German metaphysics. 
 ^^ Do you really, really read those dreadful books ? '* 
 
 ^' I have spent some thoughtful hours that way, 
 love. I won^t go so far as to say that I understand 
 them.'' 
 
 '' Does anybody ? " 
 
 And then she would take out a volume of Keats 
 or Wordsworth, and twirl its pages for a little while, 
 and declare that the poetry was quite too lovely. 
 
 "Which do you like best, Keats or Words- 
 worth ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't quite know," looking up at him with 
 interrogative eyes, to sec which of the two she
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 183 
 
 ought to prefer. " They are both so sweet. Keats 
 is delicious — but Wordsworth is — Wordsworth. 
 No, I cannot find the right words to express my 
 appreciation ; but I can feel his poetry.^' 
 
 And Adrian was content to accept this kind of 
 thing as the expression of a spiritual essence that 
 had not been concentrated into speech. 
 
 This afternoon Helen had the library all to 
 herself. Adrian had gone a long journey to Exeter, 
 to look at a pair of horses which he had been 
 advised to buy for his mother's barouche. The 
 horses she was using were beginning to show signs 
 of wear. He was not expected back till dinner- 
 time. Lady Belfield had complained of a headache 
 after lunch, and had gone to her room to lie down. 
 She had been having bad nights of late, and sorely 
 wanted sleep. The cause of these wakeful nights 
 was as far off as Monte Carlo. The mother had 
 been full of anxiety about that wayward younger 
 son, whose prolonged absence might mean mischief 
 of some kind. 
 
 This afternoon was dull and cold, with occa- 
 sional showers. Helen made up her mind to spend
 
 184 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 it indoors. She would amuse herself in that dear 
 old room, free to peer and pry about like an in- 
 quisitive child. 
 
 The delight of looking at things all by herself — 
 opening private drawers — turning over books and 
 papers — lasted about half-an-hour. Then she 
 played the piano a little, trying first one piece and 
 then another, never getting beyond a page of any 
 composition before she was tripped up by a diffi- 
 culty, and turned the leaf in disgust. Wearying 
 of this, she went to the organ, and pulled out the 
 stops and touched the dumb, senseless keys ; and 
 then, in a fit of temper, she flew to the bell and 
 rang it sharply. 
 
 " It is miserably dull indoors," she said to her- 
 self ; '' I must get a good gallop." 
 
 The footman appeared in the usual leisurely 
 manner of a servant who reproves any ill-bred im- 
 petuosity in the ringing of a bell by being a little 
 slower than usual in answering it. 
 
 " Will you ask Dodman to saddle a horse for 
 me," she said ; *^ I should like Mr. Belfield's last 
 new chestnut."
 
 XO GEXTLEMAX WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 185 
 
 *^YeS; ma'am. Will you require Dodman?" 
 
 ^^ I sha'n't require him, but I suppose I sliall be 
 obliged to have him," said Helen. 
 
 It was one of her grievances that Adrian would 
 not allow her to ride without her groom. She 
 liked the sense of freedom, being accountable to no 
 one for where she rode or what she did with her 
 horse. 
 
 She had heard a good deal about the chestnut 
 hunter^s evil propensities, and it was naturally on 
 that account she wanted to ride him. 
 
 But Dodman was not the kind of man to be 
 caught napping ; and he knew that Sir Adrian 
 would not put his future wife on an ill-disposed 
 brute like the chestnut. So when Helen ran down 
 to the hall in her habit and hat, eager for the fray, 
 she found the pretty skewbald Cinderella standing 
 in front of the porch. 
 
 " Am I to ride that brute ? " she asked. 
 
 It was the brute she generally rode with Adrian. 
 
 '' You don^t find no fault with her, do you, 
 ma'am ? '' asked Dodman, immovable as a rock. 
 
 " No, except that she is a sheep. I sent you a
 
 186 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 message by Bellows. I wanted to ride the chest- 
 nut/' 
 
 ^' You couldn't manage that 'oss, ma'am. He's 
 too much for any lady." 
 
 '^ He wouldn't be too much for me." 
 
 " I should be very sorry to see you on him, 
 ma'am." 
 
 " Oh, you are much too careful. You have 
 spoiled Sir Adrian's riding, and now I suppose you 
 want to spoil mine." 
 
 Dodman was too superior a person to notice this 
 unworthy petulance. He flung the young lady 
 into her saddle, and gave her the bridle without a 
 word, and then he mounted behind her and 
 followed her along the avenue. 
 
 She punished him for her disappointment by 
 taking the skewbald over some of the worst ground 
 in the neighbourhood, and at a breakneck pace. 
 She did everything that she ©ught not to have 
 done in the course of an hour and a half of hard 
 riding. It was six o'clock when she went back to 
 the Abbey. 
 
 There was a good fire in the library. She saw
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 187 
 
 the red light shining through the lattices and the 
 emhlazoned glass of the upper muUions. She was 
 cold after her ride in the wind and rain, and she 
 went to the library with the idea of enjoying her- 
 self for half-an-hour in front of the burning logs. 
 
 She did not expect to see Adrian till dinner- 
 time, but to her surprise there he was, sitting in a 
 low armchair by the hearth, figure and face both 
 in shadow, as she approached him. 
 
 She stole towards him on tiptoe, bent over the 
 back of his chair and kissed him. 
 
 The kiss was returned with interest. Two 
 strong arms were thrown back to clasp and 
 encircle her. She was caught and pinioned as 
 she bent over the chair. 
 
 But in the next instance she snatched herself 
 from those encircling arms, and drew back with an 
 indignant exclamation, crimson with rage. 
 
 ^' It is not Adrian,"*' she said. ^' How dare you ? 
 How dare you ? '' 
 
 A tall figure rose from the chair with a careless, 
 easy movement, and stood before her, erect. 
 Taller and broader than Adrian's figure, stronger
 
 188 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 - — dififerent somehow, and yet so like, so like — that 
 it was difficult to believe that this man was not 
 Adrian himself. 
 
 " How dare you ? " she muttered again, almost 
 beside herself with anger; all her Irish blood 
 boiling in her veins. 
 
 ** My dear young lady, you must allow me to ob- 
 serve that it was you who began the assault/^ said 
 the stranger, with provoking placidity. '^ That con- 
 sideration ought at least to mitigate your wrath." 
 
 " To— to kiss me like that ! '' 
 
 He laughed at her rage, as if she had been an 
 angry child. 
 
 " Would you have a man's lips meet the lips of 
 beauty as if he were kissing his laundress ? " he 
 asked lightly. " Besides, I had a right to kiss you 
 — as your future brother/' 
 
 '^ No gentleman would have acted so/' she said, 
 still fuming, her riding whip vibrating in her 
 clenched hand. 
 
 What w^ould she have given to have horse- 
 whipped him ! There were women in the world 
 who had done such things.
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 189 
 
 "No gentleman ! Perhaps not/' said Valentine. 
 " I have never prided myself upon that conven- 
 tional distinction, to which every grocer's son 
 aspires from his cradle. I would rather be a 
 blackguard; and a man. I am a being of nerves 
 and muscles, passions and impulses. Whether 
 that kind of thing can be gentlemanlike, I don't 
 know aud don't care. Come, Helen, don't be 
 angry. 'Twas no stranger who returned your kiss 
 just now, but your lover's twin brother, who 
 claims the right to love you. You cannot be 
 greatly loved by him without being a little loved 
 by me. We are two halves of one whole, and I 
 am the stronger half. You cannot be wax to him 
 and marble to me ; melt at his touch, and freeze at 
 mine. Our natures are too closely interwoven. 
 To love one of us is to love the other. Come, 
 Helen, forgive and be friends." 
 
 He held out his hand, and she could not refuse 
 to give him her own. But the little gloved hand 
 lay supine in his strong clasp, and tliere was no 
 such thing as pardon in her heart. 
 
 ^' I have always heard that you arc a very
 
 190 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 strange person," she said, " but as you are Adrian's 
 brother, I suppose we must be friends." 
 
 And with this not over-civil speech she left him 
 to his reflections. 
 
 He threw himself into the chair by the fire, 
 stirred up the logs, and took out his cigar-case for 
 a comfortable smoke before he went to his dressing- 
 room. When the door was shut upon Helen — he 
 had not troubled himself to open it for her — he 
 laughed softly to himself. 
 
 " As lovely as her namesake and as spirited as 
 Kate the curst,-" he muttered. "I like her ever so 
 much better for that flash of temper. Upon my 
 soul, Adrian has not made half a bad choice. I 
 hardly gave him credit for such good taste. But 
 then the girl was flung into his lap, as it were. 
 No doubt Deverill came here of malice afore- 
 thought, to plant his daughter upon my mother's 
 son. Hark, there's the cart, and Adrian." 
 
 He went out to the porch to receive his brother, 
 who was almost overcome with delight at seeing 
 him. 
 
 ^^ My dear fellowj what ages you have been
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 191 
 
 away. How glad my mother must be ! You have 
 seen her, of course/'' 
 
 '' Not yet. I have only been here an hour ; 
 came by the slow afternoon train from Exeter. 
 They told me my mother was lying down, not over- 
 well, so I wouldn't have her disturbed. Fve been 
 sitting over the fire in the library, half asleep. 
 I came by the Rapide from Marseilles, straight 
 ahead, crossed the Channel last night, and have 
 been travelling ever since.''' 
 
 " And you have not seen Helen ? '' 
 
 '' Oh, yes, I have. Helen and I have made 
 friends already." 
 
 He laughed a little as he spoke of her, and the 
 light danced merrily in his eyes. He wondered 
 whether she would give her betrothed a detailed 
 account of their skirmish. The odds were against 
 it, he thought. Women are curiously shy about 
 trifles. She would lock the story up in her own 
 heart, and always bear malice against him on 
 account of it. 
 
 " And you like her ? " asked Adrian eagerly. 
 
 " There has been no time for liking, but I ad-
 
 192 NO GENTLEMAX WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 mire her immensely, and I congratulate you on 
 your good luck." 
 
 " Yes, she is lovely, is she not ? And as dear as 
 she is lovely/^ 
 
 " Clever and accomplished into the bargain, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 ^' 1 doubt if you would call her either; yet she 
 is the most fascinating girl I ever met.'' 
 
 " I'm glad she's not learned, or a paragon in 
 the way of accomplishments. Every step that a 
 woman travels in the road to mental perfection is 
 a step that leads away from feminine loveliness. 
 A beautiful woman should be only beautiful. All 
 the rest is outside her sphere. Imagine a lovely 
 forehead that has grown wrinkled over Darwin." 
 
 He rattled on lightly, with his arm through 
 Adrian's, as they went into the house and uj^stairs 
 together. 
 
 " Not a word to my mother/' said Valentine, as 
 they parted ; '' I want to surprise her when I go 
 down to dinner." 
 
 "I shan't see her till then. I've only just time 
 to dress."
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 193 
 
 Half-an-hour later and Lady Belfield was sitting 
 in her accustomed chair at a respectful distance 
 from the drawing-room lire, with her book-table on 
 one side and her work-basket on the other, when 
 her two sons came in together, more like than 
 usual in their evening dress, which hardly varied in 
 the smallest detail. 
 
 The mother rose in a tumult of delight to 
 receive the wanderer. 
 
 " My dearest, how could you stay away so 
 long ? " she asked, almost piteously. 
 
 " A truant disposition, and the perversity of my 
 favourite colour. Never mind, mother. Here I 
 am, and here I mean to stay till after Adrian's 
 wedding. ^^ 
 
 " I am so glad. I am so happy. Jlow well 
 you are looking. You must have enjoyed yourself 
 very much to stop away so loug."*' 
 
 " Oh, I was with very good fellows, and the sky 
 was blue and the wines were good, and we had a 
 yacht, and knocked about a good deal in some 
 deuced rough weather. The Mediterranean isn^t 
 all jam. But altogether the life suited me. There 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 XO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 
 
 were plenty of pretty women, but not one so pretty 
 as my future sister-in-law." he added in an under- 
 tone as Helen entered, in her esthetic frock of 
 pale blue cashmere, with short sleeves and a short 
 waist, and a babyish bodice which set off her 
 perfect shoulders and swan-like throat. 
 
 She came into the room more slowly than her 
 wont, and a sudden rosy flush swept over her face 
 and neck as she drew near the spot where the two 
 brothers were standing. 
 
 " Helen, let me introduce my other son/-* began 
 Lady Belfield. 
 
 '^ We are friends already," answered Valentine. 
 " Are we not, Helen ? " 
 
 He called her by her Christian name in the 
 easiest way, as a right. 
 
 " And will be more than friends — brother and 
 sister, in the future, I hope," said his mother. 
 
 "Amen to that sweet prayer," answered Valen- 
 tine. " Come, mother, it is my privilege to take 
 you in to dinner to-night," as the butler made his 
 announcement, *' and I shall astonish you by the 
 justice which a man who has been fed on kickshaws
 
 NO GENTLEMAN WOULD HAVE ACTED SO 195 
 
 at a Monte Carlo hotel can do to your old-fashioned 
 English fare — your inevitable saddle of mutton and 
 your elderly pheasants/^ 
 
 They went in to dinner, a snug little party of 
 four. The room looked all the brighter for that 
 fourth presence. Their triangular dinners had been 
 marked of late by a gentle dulness. 
 
 Lady Belfield was in high spirits, enraptured at 
 the return of her younger born, and Valentine was 
 full of talk about himself and his adventures, 
 good luck and bad luck, the people he had met, 
 and the women with whom he had flirted. 
 
 Helen was unusually silent, as if somewhat 
 oppressed by that exuberant gaiety. 
 
 Valentine was right in his surmise. Not one 
 word did she say to her betrothed, on that 
 night or afterwards, about her skirmish with 
 Valentine in the library.
 
 ( lOG ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 
 
 " Adrian/^ said Helen, in the breakfast-room next 
 morning, '' I want to go home/^ 
 
 It was half-past nine o'clock. Breakfast was 
 over, and Lady Belfield had gone off to her hot- 
 houses and morning interview with the head 
 gardener. It was a hunting day, and Valentine 
 was lolling in an easy chair by the fireplace, wait- 
 ing for his horse to be brought to the door. 
 
 Helen and Adrian were standing in front of the 
 window watching the drizzling rain. It was a 
 Devonshire morning, wet and warm, with a low 
 grey sky, and a mist from the distant sea. 
 
 " Go home, dearest — but why ? " 
 
 " First, I have been here mucli too long already. 
 I have no doubt the Treduceys and Toffstaffs are 
 talking about my living here, and expatiating upon 
 my pauperism. ^ Hardly bread to eat at home, poor
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 197 
 
 creature ! ' and so on. But tliat is a detail. My 
 secondly is more important. Leo and the governor 
 went to Paris ostensibly for a few days, and have 
 stayed three weeks.^"* 
 
 " Darling, if you knew how it sets my teeth on 
 edge to hear you say ' the governor.'' " 
 
 '^ Then in future it shall be ' my Father/ " with 
 a solemn air. " But if I really were your darling, 
 nothing I could say would ever set your teeth on 
 edge. However, as I was saying, those people 
 have stayed too long in Paris. They must be 
 spending a great deal of money. Somebody told 
 me the Grand is an expensive hotel.^^ 
 
 '' It is not cheap." 
 
 '^I shall order them home immediately, and the 
 only way to make them obey is to go home myself. 
 As long as the gov — my father knows I am provided 
 for here, he will pursue his reckless career abroad.^^ 
 
 " We can't spare you yet awhile, Helea," said 
 Adrian tenderly. '^ You have become the daugh- 
 ter of the house. My mother couldn't do without 
 you. AVe shall only let you go home in time to 
 get your frocks ready for your metamorphosis. I
 
 198 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 
 
 believe the law which insists upon new frocks as a 
 preliminary of marriage is like the laws of the 
 Medes and Persians^ and altereth not with the 
 march of enlightenment.^^ 
 
 " Perhaps when a man marries a girl out of the 
 gutter he does it to escape being pestered about 
 her trousseau/' said Valentine ; " and that when 
 a fellow runs away with another man's wife^ it is 
 for the sake of skipping the horrors of the marriage 
 ceremony and the ordeal by wedding presents/' 
 
 '^ No, Helen, we can't spare you yet/' pursued 
 Adrian, ignoring this ribald commentary. 
 
 " No, Helen, we can't spare you yet/' echoed 
 Valentine, from his easy chair. " There's my 
 horse. I'd better be off pretty sharp. It's a long 
 way to Tadpole Pond." 
 
 He jumped up, took his hat and whip, and 
 hurried out. Adrian and Helen watched him 
 mount and ride away, tall and straight, wearing 
 his weather-stained scarlet coat with an easy grace, 
 as much at home on the impatient hunter as he 
 had been in his easy chair. 
 
 The horse reared straight on end, while Helen
 
 NOT THE AYEKAGE GIRL 199 
 
 and Adrian were watching, and liis progress for 
 the first few hundred yards seemed to be more 
 upon two legs than on four. 
 
 " Oh, how I envy him ! how I should like to be 
 going with him ! ^^ cried Helen spontaneously, 
 forgetting that only a few minutes before she had 
 been trying to get herself out of that house, 
 deeming that she could not exist beneath the same 
 roof with Valentine Belfield. " Would he take 
 me next Frida^^ do you think ? Would you 
 mind ? " 
 
 " Would I mind ? Well, no, not if you really 
 care for hunting so very much/^ 
 
 " Care for it ? I adore it. Why, you know it 
 is my passion. I wish with all my heart it were 
 not. Just for once in a way, that I may see a 
 little more of your picturesque country,^^ she 
 pleaded. 
 
 '^ I could drive you all over Devonshire, Helen.'' 
 
 " Oh, but there is no fun in driving ; and there 
 are lots of places where you could not drive — 
 break-neck hills, boggy bits of moorland, woods 
 and winding streams. The only proper way to see
 
 200 NOT THE AVERAGK CUiL 
 
 a country is after the hounds, when one's blood 
 is up, and one's horse is on fire with eagerness. 
 You'll let me hunt a little more before the season 
 is over — just once or twice or so — won't you, 
 Adrian ? Think how very good I have been for 
 the last three weeks/' 
 
 This was said with the air of a martyr. 
 
 " My poor, self-sacrificing Helen/' said her lover, 
 half sad and half ironical. ^^ Yes, you must hunt, 
 I suppose. You must go and hazard that life on 
 which hangs my own in the most break-neck 
 country in England. I wall go out with you and 
 potter about while you follow Valentine, who 
 always takes the most hazardous line, and will 
 lead you over some of the worst ground in Devon- 
 shire/' 
 
 " Then may I send for my little Irish mare 
 to-morrow ? Your horses have charming manners, 
 but they are not quick enough for hounds. Norah 
 Creina is nothing much to look at, but she's a 
 splendid goer." 
 
 Naturally, Helen had her way. The Irish mare 
 was sent for that afternoon, and the young lady
 
 NOT THE AVEKAGE GIRL 201 
 
 said no more about her desire to go back to 
 Morcomb. 
 
 She tried to forget Valentine's offence and her 
 own indignation. " After all^ he is to be my 
 brother/^ she told herself. 
 
 His presence in the house was a disturbing 
 influence ; even the expectation of his return 
 fluttered her spirits a little as she sat at work 
 with Lady Belfield that afternoon, while the rain 
 pattered against the windows. She was not very 
 fond of needlework, but she had felt constrained 
 to put on an air of occupation in the long wet 
 afternoons, lest her future mother-in-law should 
 take off'ence at her idleness. 
 
 This afternoon her thoughts were in the steep 
 break-neck lanes or on the brown barren moorland, 
 rather than with her basket of many- coloured silks, 
 or the bunch of poppies which she was stitching 
 at mechanically, caring very little whether the 
 shading came out well or ill, stopping every now 
 and then to stifle a yawn. 
 
 Adrian was in the library writing letters, and 
 the two women were alone together.
 
 202 NOT THE AVERAGE GIKL 
 
 " What dreadful weather for the hunting," said 
 Lady Belfield, looking up at the window for the 
 twentieth time in half-an-hour. 
 
 " They won't mind it/' exclaimed Helen, with a 
 regretful air. " What does rain matter if they 
 have a run ? There is nothing more enjoyable than 
 dashing through wind and bad weather after a 
 good fox. It is only when one is standing about 
 in a hopeless condition that one minds the rain. 
 I only wish I were with them under that down- 
 pour.'' 
 
 '^ My dear Helen, I hope you will never forget 
 that Adrian has been strongly warned against 
 hunting." 
 
 " I am not likely to forget it/' answered Helen, 
 with a touch of pettishness. 
 
 " And you won't tempt him to disobey his 
 doctor, will you, dear ? " 
 
 '^ Of course not. But I suppose there will be 
 no harm in my going out with Mr. Belfield next 
 Friday. I should not give him any trouble. I 
 can always take care of myself." 
 
 " Any harm — no I suppose not," replied Lady
 
 NOT THE AVEEAGE GIRL 203 
 
 Belfield, with an air which implied that she 
 thought the proposition somewhat incorrect. 
 
 Valentine came home earlier than usual. The 
 day had been unsatisfactory. He had had two of 
 his best horses out, and there had not been work 
 enough for one. He went off to change his clothes 
 in no very agreeable humour. It was dusk when 
 he left his dressing-room, but the lamp was lighted 
 in the corridor, and there was light enough for him 
 to see the face of a girl whom he met half way 
 between his room and the open gallery above the hall. 
 
 She was dressed in the Abbey livery of dark red 
 merino and long white apron. She wore the 
 muslin mob cap of the Abbey housemaids ; but she 
 looked no more like them than if she had been a 
 duchess who had just put on that costume in a 
 frolic, a duchess whom Gainsborough might paint 
 and cognoscenti adore. 
 
 Her dark eyes flashed upon Valentine Belfield 
 like a danger signal. He pulled up suddenly, and 
 stood face to face with her. 
 
 " What in the deviPs name brings you here ?^' 
 he exclaimed.
 
 204 >'0T THE AVERAGE GIRL 
 
 " I hope you arc not sorry to sec me, Mr. Bel- 
 field ?" 
 
 " Never mind what I am. Tell me what devilry 
 has brought you here, in that get up. You are not 
 a servant here, I hope ? '^ 
 
 " But I am. I have been living here more than 
 a month. There was no devilry in it, I assure you. 
 It was my first and only friend, the Vicar, who got 
 me the place — and it was Lady Belficld's kindness 
 which made room for me. I have been trying to 
 improve myself,''^ she added, looking up at him 
 shyly. '^ I get a glimpse of your mother and of 
 other ladies now and then, and I am trying to find 
 out what ladies are like and how they behave, that 
 I may learn to be a lady.^' 
 
 " You are a fool," muttered Valentine scorn- 
 fully. '^ Your wildness was your charm. What 
 have you to do with women of my mother's status ? 
 You were a beautiful, ignorant creature, knowing 
 nothing of the world and its deadly-lively ways. 
 You were a woman for a man to love — a splendid, 
 untamed, perhaps untameablc, being, for whom a 
 man might go to the devil. Do you suppose that
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 205 
 
 electro-plated gentility Tvill improve you ? Do you 
 think your gipsy blood will show to advantage in a 
 Paris bonnet and gown ? '' 
 
 " I think that if I am ever to be a gentleman's 
 wife I must first learn to be a lady/' she answered 
 gravely. 
 
 " Come, Madge, don't be a fool/' said 
 Valentine, with a touch of tenderness, putting 
 his arm round her, and trying to draw her towards 
 him. 
 
 She drew herself away from him, pushing him 
 from her with an arm which was a good deal 
 stronger than the average young lady's arm. 
 
 He laughed at her vehemence. 
 
 '^ By Jove/' he cried, " was that a specimen of 
 your new manners ? Is that Herculean style your 
 notion of gentility ? Why, my girl, ladies are like 
 lilies : they snap at a gust of wind. Listen here, 
 Madge, there's no use in our talking nonsense. 
 You know 1 am ridiculously fond of you, and that 
 I would do anything in reason to make you happy; 
 but there is no use in our talking about marriage. 
 You must have seen a little more of what life is
 
 20G NOT THE AVERAGE GIKL 
 
 like since you have been under this roof, and you 
 must begin to understand that '' 
 
 He hesitated, looking down at his embroidered 
 slippers — the mother^ s gift — at a loss how to frame 
 a sentence that would not end in a brutal admis- 
 sion. 
 
 " I must understand that gentlemen don^t marry 
 girls of my class/"* said Madge, finishing his sen- 
 tence for him, with those brilliant eyes of hers 
 fixed with steady gaze upon his downcast counte- 
 nance. He could feel their light, was conscious of 
 that earnest scrutiny, though his eyelids were 
 lowered. "Was that what you were going to 
 say?'^ 
 
 *' Something like that." 
 
 " Well, that^s what I don^t understand. What 
 I do understand is that if a man loves a girl well 
 enough he will have her for his wife, however low 
 she may be. If he really and truly loves her, he 
 doesn^t want to bring shame upon her. It is only 
 half-hearted love that would do that. If a man 
 loves in earnest, and with his whole heart, he will 
 marry the girl he loves. Yes, if he were a duke,
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 207 
 
 and she a girl of blemished character. There is 
 nothing against my character,, Mr. Belfield, and 
 you know it. So you had best understand at 
 once that I shall never be anything more to you 
 than your mother^s servant — unless I am your 
 wife." 
 
 "That'^s hard upon me^ seeing that I am a 
 younger son and not a free agent. Dukes can do 
 as they like, but I can^t. You know I am 
 passionately fond of you, Madge. Come, child, 
 don^t be unreasonable.^' 
 
 Again he tried to draw her nearer to him, to 
 bring those lips closer to his own, and entangle 
 those flashing glances of hers in the light of his 
 own dark eyes, which were hardly less brilliant. 
 
 *' My dearest girl/' he pleaded, ^' you know I 
 adore you. What more can you want to know ? 
 You ought never to have put yourself into this 
 false position. A servant, you ! The queen of 
 beauty handling a broom ! You should have 
 listened to me, Madge. I know of the sweetest 
 little cottage, in a garden on the bank of the 
 Chad, far away from your vile swamp. A gentle-
 
 208 NOT THE AVEKAGE GIKL 
 
 man's cottage, half hidden under flowering creepers, 
 with a verandah where a fellow could smoke his 
 cigarette after dinner in the summer evenings, and 
 a boathouse where a fellow could keep his boat. 
 You would be in your place, Madge, in that cottage, 
 with a couple of servants to wait upon you. 'V^'hy 
 should we not be happy, sweet ? This world was 
 made for love and lovers/' 
 
 " This world was made for honest men and 
 women. You are a scoundrel. Yes, you are right, 
 I was a fool to come to this house. But the 
 temptation was too great — to see you — to be near 
 
 you." 
 
 " You might be more than that, my dearest. 
 You might be with me always, if you would. AVill 
 you go with me to-morrow to see that cottage, 
 Madge ? You could slip out at the back of the 
 liouse quietly, and I could pick you up near the 
 stables, and drive you there in an hour. The place 
 would not look so pretty as in summer, but it is 
 always picturesque, and — Madge," pleadingly, " we 
 might be so happy there.'' 
 
 " No," she answered resolutely, not with the air
 
 IsOT THE AVERAGE GIEL 209 
 
 of a woman who means yes ; " I could never be 
 happy that way." 
 
 " Your mother was of another way of thinking,, 
 Madge." 
 
 " How dare you throw my mother^s shame in my 
 face. What do you know of my mother ? " 
 
 " I have had the honour of meeting her in 
 London society/^ he answered^ with a malicious 
 sparkle in his eyes. 
 
 " And I do not even know if she is alive." 
 
 " Oh, she is a lady who has made herself a re- 
 putation in London, I assure you. When was it i 
 met her ? About five years ago, I think, my second 
 year at Cambridge. I was up in town on the quiet, 
 went to a theatre, and supper-party afterwards — a 
 sporting nobleman's party. Your mother was there. 
 Mature, gone to seed a little, perhaps, but re- 
 markably handsome still, and dressed as only 2/ 
 woman of genius knows how to dress at forty — 
 dressed to make forty more attractive than twenty. 
 Your mother would never wear a housemaid^s cap, 
 or trundle a mop, I can assure you. She knows 
 her own value too well. She has better scnse.'^ 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 KOT THE AVEPwVGE GIRL 
 
 '^ What is her name in London ? I have never 
 heard of her by any name but my own, Madge." 
 
 " Oh, she has a name of greater dignity than 
 that. I was introduced to her as Mrs. Mandeville. 
 There was a Major Mandeville, about whom people 
 told some curious stories^ but I did not see much 
 of him." 
 
 " Do you know where my mother is living now ?" 
 
 " No, child. But I dare say I could find out. 
 Do you want to know ? '' 
 
 " Yes_, I want to know all I can about my 
 mother. Even if she is a wicked woman, leading 
 a bad life, she is more to me than any other woman 
 on this earth. The day may come when she will 
 want my help.^^ 
 
 " I fancy she is too clever for that, Madge ; but 
 I have no doubt she would be glad to see you, if it 
 were only to be reminded how handsome she was 
 twenty years ago." 
 
 A bell rang in a lobby below, the servants' tea- 
 bell. 
 
 "I must go,'' said Madge hurriedly, and so they 
 parted, Madge to the back stairs and the servants'
 
 NOT THE A.VEEAGE GIRL 211 
 
 hall, Valentine to his mother's drawing-room, where 
 tea had been waiting for him for a quarter of an 
 hour, Lady Belfield excusing the delay to Helen 
 and Adrian, on the ground that afternoon tea was 
 more to the returning sportsman than to any one 
 else. ^' And it is so much nicer for us all to have 
 our tea together,'^ she said. 
 
 " Don't apologize, mother,'' said Adrian, smiling 
 at her, ^^ as if we didn't know that your tea would 
 be worse than tasteless if you began without 
 Valentine." 
 
 " You have not been so expeditious as usual, 
 Val," said the mother, as her younger son saun- 
 tered into the room in velvet jacket and slippers, 
 and with a Byronic throat. 
 
 '' I was wetter than usual, mother, and taking 
 off my boots was like drawing double teeth," he 
 answered, as he seated himself at Lad}'- Belli eld's 
 side and attacked a pile of toast. 
 
 He looked across at Helen, who was sitting on 
 the other side of the fireplace with her workbasket 
 in her lap, the image of propriety. He looked at 
 her critically, as he sipped his tea and munched 
 
 P 2
 
 212 NOT THE AYERAr;K GIRL 
 
 his toast^ comparing lier delicate beauty with that 
 darkly brilliant face he had just now been gazing 
 upon. No two faces could have been more distinct 
 in their beauty^ more widely diverse in their 
 characteristics. In Helen's countenance the light- 
 ness of a frivolous and shallow nature was as 
 obvious as her beauty ; in that other face there 
 were suggestions of the sublime in passion or in 
 thought. It was the face of a vroman strong for 
 good or for evil. 
 
 There was a relief in watching the play of 
 Helenas countenance after the passionate earnest- 
 ness and fixed purpose of that other face, so fall of 
 evil augury to him, the would-be seducer. Here 
 he could gaze unappalled. 
 
 " How pretty she is, just as butterflies and 
 flowers that last a day are pretty/' he said to him- 
 self, *' and how soon a sensible man would get tired 
 of her. Perhaps she may do for my brother all the 
 same/' he went on, musing lazily as he ate and 
 drank, " he is a dihttante : loves prettiness in 
 everything, from architecture to bookbinding. Yes, 
 she may succeed in making him happy, shallow as
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 213 
 
 she is. He will j)lay the organ to her^ expatiate 
 upon Bach and Beethoven, read Shelley and Keats 
 to her, and she will pretend to be interested ; and 
 they will get on pretty well together in their 
 namby-pamby way/^ 
 
 He could read Helenas thoughts easily enough as 
 he watched her face in the lamplight. Her eyes 
 were cast down for the most part on her teacup or 
 her work-basket, but now and then she glanced 
 shyly_, inquisitively^ in his direction. 
 
 " She feels embarrassed still on account of yes- 
 terday's escapade/' he said to himself, ^' yet she is 
 monstrous curious about me, would like to know 
 what manner of man I am ; would like to be 
 friends.'^ 
 
 He condescended to describe his day presently, 
 when he had taken the edge off his appetite, and 
 then asked Helen why she was not out. 
 
 " The Toffstaffs and the Treduceys were full of 
 inquiries about you, thinking it such a pity you 
 don't hunt now. You seemed to enjoy it so much 
 they said." 
 
 " They were not over civil to me when I was
 
 214 NOT THE AVERAGE GIKL 
 
 out/^ said Helen ; " I shouldn't ride to hounds for 
 the pleasure of their society — but_, l)ut/' faltering a 
 little, and with a deprecating glance at Adrian, 
 " I should very much like to get one or two more 
 days before the end of the season/' 
 
 " One or two more days," cried Valentine. 
 " What bosh ! You must go every day — get every 
 chance you can. There are horses enough to give 
 you two a day if you like. I hope Adrian is not 
 so selfish as to want to keep you at home." 
 
 " Does it rank as selfishness, Val, for a man to 
 want his wife's society ? If Helen were to hunt 
 three days a week after we are married, it would 
 be a kind of semi-divorce, for which I am not 
 prepared/' 
 
 ^' All the more reason that she should make the 
 most of her time while she is single," retorted 
 Valentine. " If I were you, Helen, I would not be 
 denied a single day. I would make the most of 
 my freedom in anticipation of a life of captivity/' 
 
 '^ I shall not think it captivity," murmured 
 Helen, with her sweetest smile ; and Adrian was 
 content.
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE CilRL 215 
 
 There was a telegram from Colonel Deverill 
 next morning to announce liis arrival in London. 
 He would be at Morcomb next day with Major 
 and Mrs. Baddeley, and hoped to find Helen at 
 home. 
 
 " Then I shall not have to trouble you, Mr. 
 Belfield," said Helen. "Frank is devoted to 
 huntings and he will take care of Leo and me — 
 if, if you don't mind my having one or two more 
 days, Adrian." 
 
 '^ You will be out of my jurisdiction, Helen — if 
 you really must go home." 
 
 " Oh, indeed I must. Father is very peremp- 
 tory. I ought to go, dear Lady Belfield, though 
 I am heart-broken at ending this happy visit." 
 
 " It will not be long, dear, before this house will 
 be your home," answered Lady Belfield gently, 
 
 " Do you know that this is a very uncivil way 
 of throwing me over, Helen," said Valentine 
 laughingly. " You engage a man to show you 
 the country — a man who knows every inch of the 
 ground ; and then you inform him that a certain 
 Major Baddeley, who perhaps never put his nose
 
 21C NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 
 
 in North Devon before, will be ever so much 
 better a guide." 
 
 '' Only because he is an old friend, almost a 
 relation." 
 
 " And am I an enemy ; and am I not to be 
 almost a relation ? " 
 
 '' T think you know what I mean, Mr. Belfield.'" 
 
 She was going to answer her telegram. Quicker 
 'in his movements always than his brother, Valen- 
 tine sprang to the door. 
 
 '^Why am I Mr. Belfield?" he asked in a 
 lowered voice, as he opened it for her, " why not 
 Valentine as well as Frank ? " 
 
 "Oh, I could not — not yet," she said. 
 
 " Strangers yet ? Strangers, after the day 
 before yesterday ? " in still lower tones, detaining 
 her on the threshold. 
 
 She flushed crimson, looked at hitn angrily, and 
 passed him as if he were dirt. 
 
 " The butterfly can hold her own," he thought, 
 as he went back to the table to finish his breakfast. 
 
 He did not see Helen again till they met at the 
 covert side, where he was presented by her to ^Irs.
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 217 
 
 Baddeley, who was in high glee at returning to 
 country life after her Parisian dissipations. 
 
 '^ What did we see ? Everything ! " she an- 
 swered, when Valentine questioned her about '^ Le 
 petit Muffle," the last burlesque opera which was 
 convulsing the boulevards and commanding forty 
 francs for a stall. " We sent for an agent on the 
 morning after our arrival^ gave him a list of the 
 pieces we wanted to see, and gave him carte 
 blanche as to the price of seats. The tickets were 
 dear, but we saw all the pieces which native 
 Parisians had been waiting for months to see. It 
 is the only way." 
 
 " Yes, it is the only way," said Major Baddeley, 
 a fat fair man, who looked too heavy for his horse, 
 and whose province in life was to coincide with his 
 wife. 
 
 Valentine contrived to show his future sister-in- 
 law the way, in spite of Major Baddeley 's prior 
 claim as a brother-in-law in esse. He led her up 
 and down break-neck hills, and forded the stream 
 in all manner of risky places. Those two never 
 lost sight of the hounds, nor of each other, and
 
 218 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 
 
 were the first in at the death after the hunt ser- 
 vants. When the Baddeleys came up, Helen and 
 Valentine had dismounted, and were standing side 
 by side, while the hounds were fighting over the 
 mutilated remains of poor pug. 
 
 It was their first day together, but not their 
 last. Mrs. Baddeley was devoted to fox-hunting, 
 and her devotion was an excuse for Helen. 
 
 '' It is my last season," she told Adrian. " I 
 shall give up all masculine sports when I am 
 married." 
 
 " Will you, dearest ? Then your self-sacrifice 
 shall not be unrewarded, for I will get you the 
 prettiest yacht that can be built at Devonport. 
 Shall it be steam or sailing, eh, Helen ? "' 
 
 " AVill you really ? Oh, you darling. Yachting 
 is my ruling passion. Yes, you may think I am 
 mad about hunting, but ray real lunacy is the sea. 
 Give me a yacht — a schooner, sailing of course, I 
 hate steam — and I shall adore you." 
 
 " Helen ! " reproachfully. 
 
 " More than I do now, if that be possible." 
 
 " I will write to the builders this evening, and
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIEL 219 
 
 ask them to send me drawings and estimates for 
 the handsomest two-hundred ton schooner they 
 can build." 
 
 " Two-hundred ton ! Oh Adrian, you are only too 
 adorable/^ 
 
 He smiled at her eagerness, her childish delight 
 in the pleasures she loved. She had taken his 
 gifts of jewellery almost with indifference, pleased 
 with the glitter and dazzle at the first opening of 
 the cases, but seeming to care very little to orna- 
 ment herself with her spoil. 
 
 " They never look so lovely as in their velvet 
 beds/^ she said. 
 
 Perhaps she knew that a limp white gown and a 
 cluster of Dijon roses were enough for her fresh 
 young loveliness, that neither gems nor gold could 
 add to her beauty. 
 
 And so things went on to the end of the hunting 
 season. Adrian spent a great deal of his time at 
 Morcomb, and the sisters came very often to lunch 
 or afternoon tea at the Abbey. There were dinner 
 parties also at both houses. 
 
 Morcomb was much gayer than it had been be-
 
 220 NOT THE AVEI{Af;E GIRL 
 
 fore the advent of Major Baddeley. If not brilliant 
 himself — and it appeared to Sir Adrian that he 
 was a good-natured dullard — Frank Baddeley was 
 the cause of brilliancy in others. The house 
 brightened at his coming. He seemed to be popu- 
 lar with his friends, for two of them came all the 
 way from London, with a string of horses, and put 
 up at the old-fashioned family inn by Chadford- 
 Bridge, in order to be near him. 
 
 These two gentlemen were Lord St. Austell and 
 Mr. Beeching, and their appearance in the hunt- 
 ing field was not without interest to the native 
 mind. 
 
 The Miss Treduceys had met St. Austell '' in 
 society," and knew all about him. Sir Nathaniel 
 had been at Eton and Christ Church with his lord- 
 ship's father. It was almost a kind of cousinship. 
 Matilda affected to know the gentleman's history 
 from his cradle. 
 
 " The St. Austells have gone to Oxford for cen- 
 turies, but this one is a Cambridge man. He was 
 at Trinity, and went out a low wrangler ; " she 
 said. " He went into Parliament directlv he left
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 221 
 
 college. People thought he was going to dis- 
 tinguish himself, but when his father died he went 
 wron gsomehow — racing, I suppose — and he quar- 
 relled with his wife. I believe it was she who rau 
 away from hhrij but I've heard my father say he 
 drove her to it, so one couldn^t help feeling sorry 
 for her, especially as she was Lord Helvellyn's 
 daughter — and we knew her people. They were 
 not divorced — and she went to live abroad with an 
 old aunt.'^ 
 
 This to Dorothy Toffstaff, who listened inwardly 
 writhing. It was hard to be so instructed^ when 
 as a young lady aspiring to be in society she 
 ought to have known all about Lord and Lady 
 St. Austell. 
 
 " I believe my father knows him/^ she said care- 
 lessly. '^ I fancy I have heard these old stories.''^ 
 
 But it was made clear presently that Mr. Toff- 
 staff, who was sitting on the roadside in his mail 
 phaeton, pretending to criticize the appearance of 
 the hounds, did not know Lord St, Austell, for 
 there was Mr. Bceching introducing Toffstaff to 
 that nobleman.
 
 222 JsOT THE AVEKAGE GIRL 
 
 TofFstaff and Beechiug were old friends. Toff- 
 staiF had made his money out of colonial produce 
 in the days when fortunes were to be made in 
 Mincing Lane. The Beeching family had grown 
 rich on the Stock Exchange. Mr. Beeching knew 
 all about the money market, but he had never 
 soiled his fingers with scrip. The Beeching for- 
 tune had been growing and quadrupling itself for 
 three generations,, since Beeching, grandfather, had 
 made his great coup in the railway mania year. 
 Joseph Beeching was an only son, and was reputed 
 to be fabulously rich. His wealth was a standing 
 joke among his particular friends. He did not 
 mind being chaffed about his millions. He took 
 the thing quite calmly. 
 
 " Hang it all, you know, a fellow canH help it if 
 he comes of a money-making ancestry. I know its 
 deuced vulgar to have plenty of cash nowadays. 
 One ought to be ruined. Every gentleman is hard 
 up. To own oneself rich is to confess oneself a 
 cad ; only Td rather be a rich cad than a poor cad, 
 if it^s all the same to you.^' 
 
 Lord St. Austell and Mr. Beeching were received
 
 NOT THE AVERAGE GIRL 223 
 
 at Morcomb with the open hand of friendship. 
 Colonel Deverill had an Irishman's ideas of hospi- 
 tality, and considered it his duty to receive all 
 comers, in and out of season. The entertainment 
 might be of a somewhat scrambling and slovenly 
 order, the dinner might be very good or very bad — 
 a feast or a famine, as the Colonel said ; the wine 
 might be abundant or the last bottle out of the 
 cellar. The Colonel was equally at ease among his 
 guests^, and equally delighted to have them round 
 him. What he wanted most, perhaps, was an 
 excuse for enjoying himself and forgetting black 
 care. 
 
 No house could be well conducted where the 
 going and coming was always an uncertainty, and 
 the number of guests at dinner a riddle that was 
 only solved when they sat down. Neither Leo nor 
 Helen pretended to any talent for housekeeping; 
 they left everything to Donovan, the butler, and to 
 an old Irish cook and housekeeper who had been 
 in the Colonel's service ever since his marriage, and 
 from whom he had no secrets. 
 
 Lord St. Austell rode by Mrs. Baddcley's side
 
 22'i NOT Tin-: avekace girl 
 
 when the hounds moved off, while Major Baddeley 
 followed, in conversation with Dorothy Toffstaff, who 
 was social and loquacious. Mr. Beechiug rode 
 alone, and talked to nobody. lie was not a parti- 
 cularly agreeable looking young man. He had a 
 low forehead, a pug nose, a large jaw, and alto- 
 gether too much of the bulldog type for beauty ; 
 and his dark sallow countenance and sullen ex- 
 pression contrasted curiously with St. AustelFs 
 delicately fair skin, blue eyes, and pale auburn 
 moustache. St. Austell had the air of having just 
 stepped out of a picture by Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 Miss Toffstaff was extremely gracious to ^lajor 
 Baddeley, but she was debating in her own mind 
 all the time how she could easiest get at St. Aus- 
 tell, who must be captured at once for display at 
 Wilmington. It was not to be endured that there 
 should be a noblemaii in the neighbourhood who 
 was not an intimate of the Toffstaff^\ 
 
 " Father must ask him to dinner immediately," 
 she thought, *' even if wc arj obliged to ask the 
 Morcomb people too."
 
 ( 225 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 The Lamb at Chadford was a spacious old- 
 fashioned family inn and posting-house^ with long 
 passages, low-pitched rooms, a garden, and a pretty 
 view from almost every window. The garden was 
 on the banks of the Chad, and the house stood 
 close to the bridgp, and commanded a winding 
 reach of the river, the hilly high street, and the 
 old Norman church whose chimes marked the 
 progress of the hours for those who lay at the 
 Lamb. 
 
 Lord St. Austell and Mr. Beeching shared the 
 prettiest sitting-room of the inn, a room with a 
 bow window facing the bridge and the town, and 
 with two other windows opening on to a balcony 
 above the garden and the river. They sat in this 
 balcony after breakfast, smoking their cigars and 
 hearing the dip of the oars as a boat went slowly 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 22G CIIAXGEFLL AS THE WIND 
 
 by in the morning sunsliine. But neither St. 
 Austell nor his friend spent much of their time 
 at the Lamb. Colonel Deverill was too hospitable 
 to leave his son-in-law's friends to mope at an inn. 
 They were welcome at Morcomb at all hours, and 
 were to be found there at all hours. 'With 
 Beeching's five horses, and St. Austell's three, 
 there was always an animal of some kind to carry 
 the two young men to Morcomb, or they would 
 ride home with Mrs. Baddeley after the kill, and 
 have their dress clothes brought over to them by 
 a valet. 
 
 "We might almost as well be living here 
 altogether,^' said St. Austell. '' I think we 
 must be more trouble than if we were in the 
 house.'' 
 
 Mr. Beeching said nothing. lie accepted 
 everything tacitly, almost as if it were his due. 
 He was the most unemotional young man Colonel 
 Deverill had ever encountered. lie was polite and 
 accommodating enough in social intercourse, but 
 he was — or seemed to be — as cold as a stone. 
 
 " I can't think what you can see in him to
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 227 
 
 like," the Colonel said to St. Austell one niglit_, 
 in the confidence of the smoking-room. 
 
 ^' I don't see anything in him, and I don't like 
 him particularly." 
 
 '^ Well, then, put it in another way. I can't 
 think how you can get on with him so well." 
 
 " Oh, I can get on with anybody, from Satan 
 downwards. That's my temperament. Beeching 
 is a useful person to know. He has a capital 
 stud, which his friends use pretty freely. His 
 drag and his yacht are good and serviceable ; and 
 he has a kind of table d'hote at his chambers 
 which we all use. In fact, he does whatever we 
 want, and makes no fuss about it." 
 
 '^ I shouldn't think he would make a fuss about 
 anything — not if you cut his head off. I never 
 saw such an unimpressionable young man ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know about that. Still waters 
 run deep, you know. I have an idea there arc 
 depths under that dulncss of Beeching's. Ho 
 is not a fool, and I believe he could be a black- 
 guard." 
 
 So much for Joseph Beeching from his dearest 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 CHAXGEFUL AS TITE WTXD 
 
 friend's standpoint. There was a link between 
 the two which St. Austell had not taken the 
 trouble to explain. They were partners in a 
 raeing stable. Beeching found the money, St. 
 Austell the intellect and social status. St. Austell 
 had got the commoner into the Jockey Clul), and 
 into a certain fast and furious set in London, 
 which esteemed itself the very cream of Society — 
 a set on which royalty had been known to smile, 
 and every member of which was on the high road 
 to moral or financial ruin. 
 
 Sir Adrian Belfield saw a great deal of the two 
 men. He liked St. Austell, who was eminently 
 likeable, and never showed the cloven foot except 
 to his intimates ; but he did not like Mr. 
 Beeching, still less did he like his future sister- 
 in-law's manner with that young gentleman. 
 
 It was not that Mrs. Baddeley openly flirted 
 with liim, or encouraged his attentions. She only 
 allowed herself to be worshipped by him : let him 
 follow her about like her dog, and screw him- 
 self insiduously into the chair nearest hers on all 
 occasions. She hud a charmiug air of being
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIXD 229 
 
 totally unconscious of his admiration^ and almost 
 ignored his presence; and yet Adrian felt in- 
 stinctively that she knew all about him and his 
 feelings for her, and that she tacitly permitted his 
 adoration. 
 
 ^^ I wonder Baddeley doesn't see what is going 
 on and give his wife a hint/'' thought Adrian, 
 
 But Frank Baddeley was one of those easy 
 tempered mediocrities who never do see what they 
 ought to see; men who, so long as they have good 
 dinners and good horses to ride, and pretty wives 
 to smile upon them, think that life is as it should 
 be. It never occurred to Frank that a wife who 
 was so invariably complacent could hardly be 
 seriously attached to him. He never asked him- 
 self whether love would not have been more exact- 
 ing and more fitful in its manifestations — 
 whether that monotony of sweetness might not 
 mean indifference. He was a sleepy kind of man, 
 fond of commonplace pleasures, and not on the 
 alert to find a thorn among his roses. 
 
 He had been a little perplexed by his wife's dis- 
 play of jewellery one evening, and had questioned
 
 230 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 her about it as they drove tete-a-tete in a fly to a 
 dinner at the Abbey. 
 
 " Where did you get those diamonds, Leo ? 
 You hadn't them in India. You had to borrow 
 some jewellery for the ball at Government 
 Ilouse/^ 
 
 *^ No, I left them with father. They are my 
 grandmother's diamonds — old Lady Ledbury's, don't 
 you know."" 
 
 ^' Oh, she left you her jewels, did she ? '' 
 
 '^ Some of them. I was her god-daughter." 
 
 " Ah, to be sure. But you've had them re-set, 
 I suppose. They don't look a bit old-fashioned." 
 
 " No ; they are just as they came to me. Dia- 
 monds are never old-fashioned.'' 
 
 He asked no more questions, perfectly satisfied 
 with the explanation; but that night, when the 
 sisters went home after the dinner party, Leo 
 followed Helen to her room. 
 
 " Helen, I want you to do me a favour." 
 
 *^ What is it, dear?" 
 
 " You know the old garnet necklace Lady Led- 
 bury left me ? "
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 2C1 
 
 " Of course I do ; but you never wear it/' 
 
 " I told Frank she left me diamonds. Don't let 
 the cat out of the bag, that's a darling. I didn't 
 want him to know that I had bought them out of 
 the money I won backing horses last spring. He 
 mightn't like me to bet.'''' 
 
 " Of course he wouldn't like it. No^ I won't 
 betray you. But if I were you, Leo, 1 wouldn't 
 tell my husband lies. It can't answer long.'' 
 
 " Wait till you have a husband of your own 
 before you sermonize. AnythiDg for a quiet life, 
 Helen. That is my motto.'' 
 
 Adrian and Helen were to be married in June — 
 the first of June. The date had been fixed, the 
 trousseau had been put in hand under Mrs. 
 Baddeley's instructions. A forewoman from one 
 of the most modish houses in London came 
 down to Morcomb to measure Miss Deverill for 
 her gowns. 
 
 " I am afraid my things will cost a lot of money, 
 Leo," Helen said doubtfully, when this Parisian 
 personage was gone with her pattern boxes.
 
 232 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIXD 
 
 " They will cost a goodish bit, but tvc are not 
 ordering many gowns, you see. Those we have 
 chosen will be lovely ; but there will be none to 
 hang idle in your wardrobes, getting dusty and 
 old-fashioned, as some bride^^ gowns do/' 
 
 " But the prices seem enormous. Will father 
 be able to pay for them ? " 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley made a wry face, which expressed 
 doubtfulness on this point. 
 
 ^^ Some one will have to pay/' she said. 
 
 " Not Adrian. You will not let him ever see 
 those bills.'' 
 
 "Adrian's wife, perhaps. Mrs. Ponsonby will 
 not press for her money, knowing what a good 
 match you are making." 
 
 " But to let Adrian pay for my wedding clothes, 
 directly or indirectly, would be so degrading, so 
 humiliating ! " 
 
 " My dear child, you cant be married without 
 clothes, and it's my opinion your father has not a 
 stiver." 
 
 " I wish I could win money on the turf, Leo, 
 like you."
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND Zoo 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley reddened at the allusion. 
 
 " Oh, that is all very well once in a way ; a mere 
 fluke. It is not to be thought of.''^ 
 
 " But you always seem to have money for every- 
 thing. If Frank were a rich man you could not 
 dress more extravagantly." 
 
 *' My dear child, I am awfully in debt. I dare 
 not think about my affairs. They are horribly 
 entangled. But you are such a lucky creature. 
 What can it matter who pays for your trousseau, 
 or when it is paid for ? Adrian has offered the 
 most liberal settlement. You will have six hundred 
 a year to do what you like with.^^ 
 
 " Six hundred ! It seems a great deal. I shall 
 be able to help you, Leo."*' 
 
 " You are very good, darling ; but I hope I 
 shall never be obliged to sponge upon you. 
 Women were not made to prey upon each other. 
 Man is our natural quarry." 
 
 As the days went by and the hunting season 
 drew to its close, it seemed to that acute observer, 
 Lord St. Austell, to whom the study of a pretty
 
 234 CIIAXGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 woman's sentiments was more interesting than any 
 other problem, that Helen Deverill had not quite 
 so happy an air as she ought to have had, con- 
 sidering that she was soon to he married to the 
 man of her choice, and the very best match in the 
 neighbourhood. It interested that student of cha- 
 i^acter to perceive that the young lady had often a 
 preoccupied manner, even in her lovers society, as 
 they sat side by side in a corner of the drawing- 
 room after dinner, or loitered in the billiard-room 
 at dusk. 
 
 " She never seems preoccupied when the brother 
 is showing her the way across the moors/' said 
 Lord St. Austell. 
 
 He had watched those two riding together 
 across the rough broken ground on the moor, 
 over hillock and hollow, their horses neck and 
 neck, the riders full of talk and happy laughter, 
 enjoying sky, landscape, rapid movement, every- 
 thing, as it seemed to St. Austell, as he passed 
 close beside them, or followed in their track. 
 Little gusts of laughter were blown towards him 
 on the keen, moorland air.
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 235 
 
 " How well you and your future brotlier-in-law 
 suit each other/' he said to Helen one day, when 
 they were out with the hounds. 
 
 She crimsoned; and was suddenly speechless. 
 
 " He really is a fine fellow, and I don't wonder 
 you like him : but a very rough diamond as com- 
 pared with his brother, I should say." 
 
 ^' Yes/' she faltered, " Adrian is ever so much 
 more accomplished." 
 
 " Musical, artistic, highly cultured, a young man 
 in a thousand," pursued St. Austell, cruelly per- 
 sistent. ^' I believe you are quite the luckiest 
 young lady of my acquaintance. Miss Deverill." 
 
 She was silent ; all the happy light had gone 
 out of her face. Lips and eyes were grave and 
 mute. St. Austell watched the downcast face 
 with a deepening interest. He thought he had 
 never seen a lovelier countenance, and he was a 
 man who worshipped beauty. 
 
 " I used to think her sister the most beautiful 
 woman I ever met," he said to himself, " but this 
 one is lovelier. There is more of the wild rose — 
 the pure and delicate perfection which blooms and
 
 23G CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 dies in a day. To be true to her type this girl 
 ought not to live to be thirty. And she does not 
 care a rap for Sir Adrian Belfield, and she is over 
 head and ears in love Avith his brother. A 
 troublesome complication in the present stage of 
 affairs. She should have waited till she Tvas 
 married." 
 
 Adrian was not jealous either of Lord St. 
 Austellj whom he admired, or of Mr. Beeching, 
 whom he disliked ; but the atmosphere of Mor- 
 comb was not agreeable to him after Major Bad- 
 deley^s arrival. The house had too much the tone 
 of bachelor shooting quarters. Every room was 
 steeped in tobacco; for although men were sup- 
 posed not to smoke in the drawing-room or 
 morning-room, there were so many exceptions to 
 that rule, and Mrs. Baddeley and her sister were 
 so ready to rescind it upon all occasions, that, 
 practically, there was smoking everywhere. Ciga- 
 rettes and whiskey and water were the pervading 
 atmosphere. ^Vhatcvcr the hour or the occasion 
 there was generally a little table lurking in a
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 237 
 
 corner with a brace of spirit decanters and a 
 syphon. The talk, too, had the same masculine 
 flavour, and ranged from the stable to the ken- 
 nels, from billiards to baccarat. Reminiscences 
 of high play in London clubs or foreign 
 casinos were a favourite topic ; and the sharp 
 things that had been done on the turf by men 
 of high standing afforded a perennial source of 
 interest. 
 
 The sisters seemed in no wise out of their 
 element in this barrack-room society. They spent 
 their days in idleness, sat about among the men, 
 first in one room and then in another : played 
 billiards, pool, or pyramids with skill and success, 
 asked no points from any one, and pocketed a pool 
 with the easiest air in the world. 
 
 To Adrian the whole thing was hateful. He 
 could not tell Helen that her father's house and 
 manner of living were detestable, nor could he ask 
 her to live a life apart under her father's roof, or 
 to put on an air of exclusiveness which would pro- 
 voke ridicule. All he could do was to try and get 
 her away from that obnoxious abode.
 
 238 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 He came one morning charged with a letter from 
 his mother. 
 
 " Dear Helen, 
 
 '*■ Adrian wants you here again, and I want 
 you almost as badly. I lost my new daughter just 
 as I had learned to feel that she was a part of my 
 existence. Come back^ dear. You have had quite 
 enough hunting and excitement of all kinds since 
 you left us. Come back and learn to reconcile 
 yourself to the quiet life and the grave old house 
 that must be yours in the future. However happy 
 you may be in the old home with your father, dear, 
 I think it must be better for you to be in your new 
 home with your mother. 
 
 '^'Ever your affectionate, 
 
 '^ You made her write this, Adrian."' 
 " Made her ! My mother is not a woman to be 
 made to write what she does not feel, Helen. You 
 should know her well enough by this time to know 
 that."
 
 CHANGEFUL AS THE WIND 239 
 
 " Oh, but I believe she would make any sacrifice 
 for her son." 
 
 ^' There is no sacrifice. She really wants 
 
 you." 
 
 " She is too good, too sweet to me. How shall 
 I ever repay her ?" 
 
 ^' You will comcj won't you ? '' 
 
 " Of course I will come. This letter is a com- 
 mand. Yes, I shall like to come/' she added 
 eagerly. '' I have had more than enough 
 hunting, and this house is hateful since Frank's 
 return." 
 
 " I am so glad. I feared you liked the life." 
 
 " No, I am used to it, and the days go by some- 
 how. I shall be very pleased to get away from 
 home." 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley was not so pleased at losing her 
 sister. 
 
 '•' You put me in a false position," she said. 
 " It wont be very nice for me to be the only 
 woman among all these men." 
 
 " I thought you only cared for men's society. I 
 have never known you to cultivate women."
 
 240 CHANCEFUL AS THE WIND 
 
 " That was because I had you. Sisters can go 
 anywhere and do anything. But now I suppose I 
 shall have to take up with an outsider. Perhaps 
 one of those Treducey girls would answer. They 
 seem to like flirting with St. Austell, though hes a 
 detrimental."
 
 ( 241 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 Lady Belfield came next morniDg to fetch her 
 future daughter-in-law, and Colonel Deverill was 
 not displeased to see his younger daughter carried 
 off to a haven of safety. He had a vague idea 
 that the billiard-room at Morcomb was hardly the 
 best place for an engaged girl, and that a kind of 
 society which was all very well for Helen Deverill 
 was not good enough for the future Lady Belfield. 
 
 " It is a capital match, and it would be a deuced 
 pity to burke it," thought the Colonel. 
 
 So Helen drove away in the roomy barouche, 
 sitting by Lady Belfield's side, with Adrian seated 
 opposite. She seemed pleased to go with them, 
 and she had a quieter and more thoughtful air, 
 which charmed her lover. That chastened and 
 softened manner seemed only natural to a girl on 
 the eve of a new life : a girl for whom the 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 A DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 responsibilities of womanhood were so soon to 
 begin. 
 
 It was early in April, the hedgerows were bud- 
 ding in the soft Devonian air, and there were 
 violets nestling here and there along the grassy- 
 banks. The final meet of the foxhounds had been 
 advertised, and people were beginning to put up 
 tennis nets on asphalte courts, and to talk of the 
 otter hounds that were to be out in June. 
 
 Lady Belfield was delighted with Helen's more 
 thoughtful mood. It seemed to bring them nearer 
 together. They sat together^ and worked and 
 talked in the quiet morning hours ; and in the 
 evening, when Valentine had carried his brother off 
 to the billiard-room, Constance Belfield would sit 
 down to her beloved piano and play ; while her 
 young companion sat on a low chair close by, 
 listening, thinking, or dreaming, with her work- 
 basket standing by untouched, or her book o'pen 
 in her lap. 
 
 That dreaming mood was a new phase in Helens 
 character. On her former visit she had been all 
 gaiety and lightness, full of movement and fitfuluess.
 
 A DANGEEOUS PILOT 243 
 
 The mother loved to talk of her sons, and slie 
 found a sympathetic listener in Helen. She talked 
 of both, but she talked most of Valentine ; of his 
 errors and failings, his wildness, recklessness, follies 
 of all kinds ; but soDaehow or other the result of 
 all the mother's talk was to prove that wayward 
 son the most brilliant and loveable of young men. 
 Unconsciously, that favouring love pleaded for him, 
 and spread a gloss over all the dark spots in his 
 character. 
 
 " I am sorry you and he are not better friends," 
 said Lady Belfield, after one of these conversa- 
 tions, 
 
 ^' Oh, but we are excellent friends. Mr. Belfield 
 was very kind to me out hunting. He was my 
 pilot through some of our best runs." 
 
 " A dangerous pilot, I fear, child. But you are 
 so very distant to each other." 
 
 " Are we ? " faltered Helen. " Perhaps we have 
 very little in common except our love of fox- 
 hunting. ]\Ir. Belfield cannot care to talk to au 
 inexperienced girl." 
 
 '- Ob, but I think it is you who keep him at a 
 
 R 2
 
 211< A dan(;erous pilot 
 
 distance. You might be a little more sisterly in 
 your manner." 
 
 *' I'll try," said Helen, ^' but as I never had a 
 brother, I hardly know how brothers are to be 
 treated."' 
 
 '^ If you liked him there would be no difhculty,' 
 answered Lady Belfield, reproaehfuUy. 
 
 Helen hung her head and said never a word. 
 
 Constance Belfield had been struck by something 
 strange in her son's manner to his brothers 
 betrothed, and in her manner to him. There was 
 not that frank, easy friendliDcss which the mother 
 would have liked to see ; and, knowing Valentine's 
 difficult temper, she foresaw trouble in the 
 future. 
 
 The Abbey belonged to Lady Belfield for her 
 lifetime, but it had been agreed between Adrian 
 and his mother that he and his wife were to live 
 there, and to be master and mistress in all things. 
 Constance Belfield would slip into the second place. 
 She could lead her quiet intellectual life just as 
 happily as queen dowager as she had done when 
 she was queen regnant. She would have her own
 
 A DANGEEOUS PILOT 245 
 
 rooms, and lier own occupations, her own old 
 friends. 
 
 '^ Everybody will naturally look to your wife as 
 the principal personage in this house/' said Lady 
 Belfield. " It would never do for her to be 
 secondary in anything. She had better begin as 
 sole mistress. She will fall into her place more 
 naturally, and fill it better in the days to come. 
 With such a housekeeper as Mrs. Marrable, she can 
 have no difficulties. As for myself, I shall be quite 
 happy when I am no longer sovereign. And I 
 shall not be too continually with you. I am con- 
 templating a cottage by the sea, somewhere on the 
 north coast of Cornwall — a wild, lonely spot — 
 where I can take an occasional rest from all 
 society." 
 
 " Dear mother, do you suppose I could ever 
 have too much of you, or Helen either. She will 
 look to you for help and counsel in all things. 
 And when you start your Cornish cottage, it must 
 be big enough for all three of us." 
 
 " I have only one difficulty about the future, 
 Adrian."
 
 24G A DAXGEKOUS TILOT 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 '^ Your brother Valentine has been used to think 
 of this house as his home." 
 
 "And it "will be his home still, after I am 
 married. There will not be the slightest lessening 
 of his freedom. You know what he and I have 
 been to each other, and that I could hardly live 
 without him.'' 
 
 This was satisfactory, but Lady Belficld had a 
 lurking dread of evil. She could not help think- 
 ing that there was a silent antagonism between 
 Valentine and Helen. There was such a chilling 
 reserve in their manner towards each other ; they 
 seemed so scrupulously to avoid all occasions of 
 friendly companionship. Valentine seemed to take 
 a diabolical delight in withdrawing Adrian from 
 the society of his betrothed. There was always an 
 excuse for carrying him off somewhere in the 
 morning; and in the evening there was the billiard- 
 room, which at the Abbey was an exclusively 
 masculine apartment. Valentine smoked there, 
 and smoked furiously. He kept his guns and 
 single-sticks there, his foils and fencing apparatus.
 
 A DANGEROUS PILOT 217 
 
 and had contrived to stamp the room with his own 
 individuality. The billiard-room was as much his 
 peculiar den as the library was Adrian's. 
 
 Madge had been more than three months at the 
 Abbey, and she had given no reason for fault-find- 
 ing in either Mrs. Marrable or the upper house- 
 maid. She had worked well, and had shown 
 herself quick and clever in learning the duties of 
 domestic service. She was very quiet in her 
 demeanour, kept herself to herself, as the other 
 servants said, and was not good company. She 
 had a little room of her own in the great gabled 
 roof, a room with a dormer window that overlooked 
 the wooded valley and that broad deep stream which 
 was the chief glory of Belfield Park. She would 
 stand for an hour looking out of this window, far 
 away over the valley to the distant moorland, 
 thinking or dreaming, just as Helen sat thinking or 
 dreaming in the drawing-room below stairs, lulled 
 by the pathetic melodies of Beethoven or Mozart, 
 or by soft, sad, wordless songs by Schumann or 
 Schubert.
 
 218 A DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 In the heart of each girl there dwelt a profouud 
 sadness, a yearniog for escape from the actual into 
 the unreal. 
 
 Madge had seen Valentine but few times since 
 their conversation in the corridor, and their meet- 
 ings on those occasions had been accidental and 
 brief. The girl would have passed him without a 
 word, without a look even ; but on their latest 
 meeting Valentine was in a conversational humour, 
 and he stopped her with a strong liand upon her 
 arm. 
 
 "Well, Madge, how are you getting on?" 
 
 " Very well, thank you, sir.^' 
 
 "Sir. That's rather formal, ain't it?^^ 
 
 " No, sir. You are a gentleman, and a 
 stranger." 
 
 " A stranger. Come, Madge " 
 
 " I told you I could be nothing to you if I 
 wasn't to be your wife. I could never be that, you 
 said — so there it ended. Can't you understand 
 that?" 
 
 She spoke as deliberately as a man of business 
 who wants to be decisive and definite about a
 
 A DANGEROUS PILOT 249 
 
 business matter : she looked liim in the face as 
 resolutely as a man looks at a man. 
 
 " No, I can't," he answered doggedly. " What 
 devilish hard wood you are made of, Madge. I 
 never met a woman like you." 
 
 ^^ I know my own mind. Some women don't 
 know even as much as that. There's one in this 
 house that doesn't, anyhow." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he asked, angrily. 
 
 " No need to say. You know well enough. 
 Good afternoon, sir. I'm too busy to stop here 
 talking." 
 
 She made him a courtesy, and left him, left him 
 brooding, with his head down and his hands in the 
 pockets of his shooting jacket. 
 
 The corridors at Belfield Abbey were places to 
 live in : low and wide, with Tudor windows deeply 
 recessed, and provided with cushioned seats, on 
 which a man might loll at full length. There were 
 old pictures, old china jars, old cabinets to break 
 the monotony of the long straight passages ; there 
 were thick damask curtains to keep out tlie cold. 
 
 '^ Trust a jealous woman for scenting a rival,"
 
 250 A DAXGEKOUS PILOT 
 
 muttered Valentine, flinging himself upon one of 
 those comfortable window seats^ and taking out 
 his cigar case. " Yet I thought I had kept things 
 very dark, and that no one but my angel herself 
 knew the state of the case. She knows. She 
 knows, I'll swear. I've seen it in her face when 
 we rode over the break-neck ground together. 
 Once when I was leading her across a stone wall 
 that might mean broken bones, I looked back as 
 my horse rose for the leap, and saw her eyes. 
 They said as plain as words can speak, ' I don't 
 care if I follow you to your death.' Yes, I saw 
 the love-light in those eyes, and I knew she was 
 mine. Poor Adrian. He's so absurdly fond of her 
 that it seems a pity to come between them ; and 
 she hasn't a stiver, and it will be altogether a 
 wretched match for me. I certainly ought to fight 
 it out, and give her up." 
 
 The third week in April began with south-west 
 winds and sunny skies. The old oaks and beeches 
 in Belfield Park seemed to smile in the sunshine, 
 though not a leaf showed upon their rugged
 
 A DAXGEHOUS PILOT 251 
 
 branches. But there was the purple of ripening 
 leaf-budsj there was the warmth of reviving nature, 
 even in things that seemed dead. 
 
 It was glorious weather for tennis^ and everybody 
 at Chadford and in the neighbourhood seemed to 
 be seized with a tennis mania. All the young men 
 and women put on flannel garments, and met at 
 each other's houses^ and played with all their might 
 and main. 
 
 There was no tennis club at Chadford. There 
 had been talk of such an institution, but no one 
 liad been enterprising enough to set the thing 
 going ; so play on private lawns, and tea drinkings 
 after the play, were eminently popular. Valentine 
 excelled at tennis, as at all athletic games; so 
 directly the hunting was over, he had the ground 
 marked and the nets out, and, invited Helen to 
 play with him. They played all the morning, and 
 a messenger was sent to Morcomb to invite ]Mrs. 
 Baddeley and Mr. Beeching over for the afternoon. 
 
 " Do you know, that surly fellow, Beeching, is a 
 crack player ? '' said Valentine, at lunch. 
 
 " I'm rather sorry you've asked him over, how-
 
 252 A DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 ever good he may bc/^ answered Adrian. '^ I 
 dislike him intensely, and so I think does Helen." 
 
 " He certainly is no favourite of mine," agreed 
 Helen, " but Frank seems deeply attached to him. 
 Frank has always some friend of that kind, without 
 whom he seems hardly able to exist." 
 
 " Oh, but one doesn't asik for a certificate of 
 character from a man who is wanted to play 
 tennis," said Valentine contemptuously. " All I 
 ever inquire is. Can the fellow play, and will he help 
 me to keep up my form ? There's no use in 
 playing against one's inferiors." 
 
 Helen and Valentine went off to the lawn again 
 directly after lunch. It was hardly weather for 
 sitting in the garden yet, or Adrian would have 
 sat by and watched the play. As it was, he 
 strolled up and down an adjacent path with his 
 mother, stopping now and then to look at the 
 players. 
 
 ^' How well she plays, and how graceful she is,'' 
 said Lady Belfield, watching the slim, girlish figure 
 in a simple cream white gown. 
 
 "Yes; she is like Valentine. She excels in all
 
 A DAXGEKOUS PILOT 253 
 
 outdoor sports, in all games of skill. She plays 
 billiards better than many youcg men, and she 
 rides better than any woman I know. She is just 
 the wife for a country squire. I only wish I were 
 better fitted for making her happy.''-' 
 
 '^My dearest Adrian, how can she fail to be 
 happy with you^ who are so kind and good to 
 her ? " 
 
 " Ah, but goodness doesn't count for very 
 much in this life. People would rather have 
 congenial tastes. It is a constant trouble to me 
 that I cannot share the pleasures Helen loves — 
 that if we are to be much together by-and-by, 
 as man and wife, she may feel like a snared bird 
 in a cage.'^ 
 
 '' She will never feel that if she loves you.''-' 
 
 " Oh, I know that she loves me. I have been 
 sure of that from the first ; but I don't know if I 
 am right in accepting the sacrifice she will have 
 to make in marrying a man who may be always 
 something of an invalid — forbidden to do tliis 
 and that — a dull companion for a high-spirited 
 girl."
 
 251' A. DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 '' But as a wife her whole nature will undergo 
 a change. You will not have a high-spirited girl 
 to deal with, but a woman, full of loving care and 
 womanly thoughts." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " he asked, wonderingly. 
 '^ Will not that be asking too much of her — that 
 she should pass all at once from girlhood to 
 womanhood, from the holiday of life to the 
 bearing of burdens. She is so bright a creature ; 
 she does not seem made for thoughtfulness or 
 care.-"* 
 
 " Oh, but she has been much more serious of 
 late. I have seen a marked change in her.'' 
 
 *' Yes, she is certainly more serious.'' 
 
 A ripple of girlish laughter came like a mock- 
 ing commentary upon his words. Helen and 
 Valentine were finishing a single sett, in wild 
 spirits. 
 
 " You play as if you were bewitched," said 
 Valentine, when they had finished. " I never 
 saw such strokes from a bit of a jiirl like 
 
 o 
 
 you." 
 
 Mrs. Baddelcy and ^Ir. Beeching appeared upon
 
 A DAXGEROUS PILOT 255 
 
 the lawn at this moment — the lady in a terra-cotta 
 tailor gown, which would do for tennis or any- 
 thing; the gentleman in flannels. They would 
 only stop to shake hands and say a few words 
 to Lady Belfield, and then began a double sett, 
 ■with Valentine and Helen on the same side. 
 
 Mr, BeechiEg distinguished himself at tennis, 
 and behaved rather nicely at tea. He unbent 
 considerably, and showed a somewhat boyish 
 simplicity which p)leased Lady Belfield. Mrs. 
 Baddeley was superbly patronizing to the three 
 young men, allowing them to wait upon her and 
 administer to her appetite for pound-cake and 
 chocolate biscuits. It was arranged that they 
 were to play tennis on the Abbey lawn every 
 afternoon until Lady Belfield gave them notice to 
 quit. 
 
 ''^ I am not likely to do that," said that lady; 
 " I am very glad for Helen to be amused. Her 
 life here has been somewhat dull hitherto.^' 
 
 The tennis afternoons were highly appreciated. 
 Jack Freemantle and his sister Lucy were invited, 
 aud came frequently. The Miss TofTstafTs and the
 
 256 A DANGEROUS PILOT 
 
 Miss Treduceys ])ut in an appearance, and !Major 
 Baddeley sometimes drove over to the Abbey, not 
 to play — he was too lazy for that — but to fetch 
 his -wife. 
 
 *' I am bound to show my allegiance occa- 
 sionally," he said ; and people agreed that the 
 Major's devotion was altogether occasional. 
 
 He was a large, placid man, with a broad, good- 
 tempered face — a man who liked to take every- 
 thing easily, and to whom dinner was the leading 
 event of every day. He admired his wife as 
 much as it was in his power to admire anybody, 
 but he had never knovvn what it was to feel a 
 pang of jealousy. He had far too high an esti- 
 mate of his own merits, and had never met witli 
 a better fellow than himself. He was very parti- 
 cular as to what kind of champagne he bought or 
 drank, but he was not over choice in the selection 
 of his friends. So long as thoy amused and 
 served him he never stopped to consider whether 
 they might or might not be worthy associates for 
 his wife. Tn a word, he was frankly and uncou- 
 consciously selfish.
 
 A DANGEROUS TILOT 257 
 
 Lord St. Austell had vanished from Chadford 
 with his hunters at the end of the season, but 
 Mr. Beeching and his string of horses still re- 
 mained at the Lamb, and there was no talk of his 
 departure. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 ( 258 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 All Helen's seriousness seemed to have taken 
 flight, as i£ blown away by the balmy west wind. 
 Once more she was gay and volatile, for ever on 
 the wing, with a ceaseless vivacity. The change 
 puzzled Lady Belfield, who liked her daughter 
 better in her serious mood. 
 
 " My dear child, you seem as if you were be- 
 witched,'* she said. 
 
 Helen blushed and was silent for a few moments, 
 then replied, with a laugh : 
 
 ^' I am so glad summer is coming, so glad to be 
 out of doors again. You must not forget that I 
 am a wild Irish girl, and love my liberty .'' 
 
 " I am pleased to see you happy, Helen," 
 answered the mother kindly, and then Helen went 
 back to the tennis court, and the balls were flying 
 across the net again, and the girl's graceful form
 
 TOTxVL SUEREXDER 259 
 
 was sklmmmg over the grass, swift as the flight of 
 a bird. 
 
 She came back to the drawing-room flushed and 
 excited at tea time, and then Adrian had her all 
 to himself for an hour or so^ while she lolled in a 
 low easy chair, resting from the fatigues of the 
 afternoon, and allowing her lover to wait upon her. 
 She had a prettily deprecating air, as if apologizing 
 for taking pleasure in a sport which had no interest 
 for him. 
 
 " It is a foolish, childish game, I dare say,"*^ she 
 said ; '' but it is something to live for/' 
 
 She did not know how such a speech as that 
 wounded Adrian ; or how much it revealed to 
 him. 
 
 He went up to his room to dress for dinner one 
 evening, after having lingered longer than usual in 
 the drawing-room with Helen. She had been out 
 of spirits, fretful, like a child overtired with play, 
 and he had been soothing her as tenderly as a 
 mother might soothe a wilful child. 
 
 He was so deeply in love that all her failings, 
 her childishness, her triviality, endeared her to him 
 
 s 2
 
 zb'O TOTAL SUKREXDEU 
 
 only tlie more. There was a fascination in lier 
 very faults which seemed to be inseparable from 
 her beauty. 
 
 Fastened to the pincushion upon his dressing 
 table he saw a slip of papsr, with four words written 
 upon it in a firm round hand, " Somebody is false. 
 Watch." 
 
 He felt as a man feels who finds a cobra on his 
 pillow. Who could have dared to put that diabo- 
 lical scrawl there ? Some one in his mother's 
 household — some servant eating his mother's bread, 
 had been black-hearted enough to stab an inno- 
 cent girl's reputation. 
 
 His first impulse was to tear the paper to atoms ; 
 his next was to put it in his letter cas^, with a view 
 to identifying the writer. 
 
 " I will have every one of the servants in the 
 library to-morrow morning,'^ he thought, " and each 
 shall write those four words before my eyes, until I 
 discover the wretch who penned that lie." 
 
 Yet to do this wonld create a scandal. Better 
 that than to exist under the same roof with the 
 venomous traitor who wrote that insult to truth and
 
 TOTAL SUEEEXDER 2C1 
 
 purity. False ? With whom should she be false ? 
 What tempter had ever tried to seduce her from the 
 straight line of faith and honour since she had been 
 his plighted wife ? Spurn that paper as he might 
 the suspicion it suggested forced itself upon his 
 mind ; haunted him and goaded him almost to 
 madness as he hurriedly dressed, anxious to be early 
 in the drawing-room^ to see Helen again before 
 dinner, to be reassured by her presence, by the 
 steady light of truth in those lovely eyes. 
 
 Not a word would he say to her of that foul 
 slander, that stab in the dark ; not for worlds would 
 he have her know of that base attempt to blemish 
 her name. But he wanted to be with her again. 
 Never since the first hour of their betrothal had he 
 been so eager to see her. 
 
 It was a little more than half-past seven when he 
 went downstairs, his heart beating impatiently for 
 the sound of the only voice that could give him 
 comfort. There was the sound of the piano in the 
 drawing-room, but not his mother's touch. A 
 modern waltz lightly played ; fitfully, as if the 
 player were preoccupied.
 
 2G2 TOTAL SUKKENDER 
 
 He noticed tins detail us lie opened the door and 
 went in. Helen was seated at the piano at the 
 further end of the room, her head bent over the 
 keys, in an attitude of self-abasement ; Valentine 
 was leaning upon the piano, talking to her, his head 
 close to hers, his lips almost touching her hair. 
 
 The girl started guiltily at the opening of the 
 door; the man went on talking. 
 
 " Say yes/-' he urged ; " say yes.-" 
 
 " Well, yes, if you like," she answered carelessly, 
 and resumed the waltz, which she had stopped for a 
 moment. 
 
 She played more brilliantly than usual, it 
 seemed to Adrian, with the spasmodic brilliancy of 
 an indifferent, unscientific player, who has spurts 
 of execution and dash now and then, occasional 
 moments in which the fingers have an unaccustomed 
 precision and power. She played for the next ten 
 minutes — a waltz, a mazurka, a nocturne of Chopin's; 
 all with the same air of being engrossed by the 
 nnusic. 
 
 Then she rose from the piano suddenly, and 
 went across the room to Adrian.
 
 TOTAL SUEREXDEK 263 
 
 " IIow early you are down ! '■* she said. 
 
 ''There is nothing strange in that/^ he answered 
 coldly, '' but you are not generally so early. What 
 compact were you making with Valentine just 
 now ? " 
 
 His brother was sitting at a book-table near the 
 piano, reading a newspaper, and apparently un- 
 conscious of anything going on in the room. 
 
 *' It was about our tennis tournament. We are 
 thinking of a tournament, you know.'^ 
 
 " Indeed I know nothing about it. The tourna- 
 ment will be something to live for, I suppose.^' 
 
 *' Oh, Adrian, you never spoke to me before 
 with a sneer.^' 
 
 " Did I not ? There must be a beginning for 
 all things.'' 
 
 She stood looking at him, stricken, guilty. 
 That light nature might be false, but was not yet 
 skilled in hypocrisy. His mother entered the 
 room at this moment, and he went over to her, 
 taking no further notice of Helen. 
 
 His heart was as heavy as lead. Good heavens ! 
 AVhat an idiot he had been to need this rough
 
 2G1 TOTAL SUfJKKNDEH 
 
 awakening to au obvious bitter fact ; what a blind 
 besotted idiot he must have been not to see that 
 which was visible to every servant in his mother's 
 house. 
 
 '^ I trusted her so completely/' he said to him- 
 self; "I thought her so pure and true." 
 
 Pure ! True ! He could never think her either 
 of these again, after that little scene by the piauo. 
 It was so little, yet it had told him so much. The 
 drooping head and arms, the half-despairing lan- 
 guor, as of one who submits to superior will ; and 
 Valentine's attitude, his lips so close to her hair 
 and brow, his easy air of mastery. 
 
 Not for a moment after that revelation could 
 Adrian doubt that his brother had stolen the heart 
 of his betrothed. 
 
 '' Nature made him to rule and me to serve,'' he 
 told himself. '' How could I ever hope to be vie- 
 torious where he could be a competitor. He has 
 beaten me in all things in which men care to 
 conquer. He has left mc my books, and my 
 music : a woman's occupation, not a man's. He 
 might have left mc my bride. There are women
 
 TOTAL SUREEXDER 2G5 
 
 enough in the world for him to subjugate. He 
 might have left her free.'' 
 
 " Watch, '^ wrote the anonymous denouncer. 
 He had not watched ; but the discovery had been 
 made ; the humiliating truth had been forced upon 
 him ; accident had given him the key to that 
 secret accusation. 
 
 He had considerable power of self-control^ and 
 exercised it this evening. He talked easily and 
 even gaily all through dinner, but the conversation 
 was a trio. Valentine talked much and seemed in 
 excellent spirits, Helen sat silent, and Adrian did 
 not attempt to draw her into the conversation. 
 
 '' How tired you look, Helen," said Lady Eel- 
 field, after an animated discussion upon the news 
 in the papers of the day. 
 
 Adrian and his mother were strong Conserva- 
 tives, but Valentine had taken upon himself the 
 opinions and the arrogance of an advanced lladical. 
 Hence politics always offered a theme for lively 
 discussion and a little temper. Nothing so dull as 
 a one-opinioned family ! 
 
 " Yes, I am rather tired/' answered Helen,
 
 2GG TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 listlessly. " The day has been so dreadfully 
 "warm/^ 
 
 Adrian went back to the drawing-room with the 
 two ladies. Valentine stopped behind, ostensibly 
 for his after-dinner smoke. 
 
 The old mullioned windows were closed and 
 curtained; but a large bay window, which had been 
 added to the drawing-room twenty years ago, both 
 to give more light and as an outlet to the garden, 
 stood wide open to the moonlight and the soft 
 evening air. This modern window was an eyesore 
 to architects and all persons of artistic tempera- 
 ment ; but it was very convenient to the dwellers 
 in the room, and it brought Lady Belfield's 
 drawing-room and Lady Belfield's garden into one 
 perfect whole. In summer, people sat indifferently 
 in room and garden, and teacups circulated freely 
 between the Persian carpet within and the velvet 
 lawn without. 
 
 The day had been one of those precocious 
 summer days that perk themselves up in the midst 
 of the spring, and Helen's complaint of its sultri- 
 ness was not unfounded. There were two or three
 
 TOTAL SUllEEXDER 2G7 
 
 small logs burning on the open hearth, for show 
 and not for heat, and Lady Belfield took her accus- 
 tomed chair, not remote from the hearth ; but 
 Helen went at once to the open wiudow, and seated 
 herself on a low ottoman close to the threshold. 
 
 The moon was near the full, and all the garden 
 was steeped in light. The girl sat idle, watching 
 the night sk}', above the tall cypresses and 
 deodaras that bounded the shrubbery. 
 
 Adrian seated himself at his mother's book- 
 table, and took up a volume of biography which 
 had arrived that afternoon. Helen stole a look at 
 him presently, and saw him engrossed in his book. 
 She was not surprised that he should be so, as it 
 was a book he had been particularly impatient to 
 see, and the librarian had been slow in sending it. 
 Lady Belfield, finding the other two silent, had 
 resumed a new German novel which she had been 
 reading in the afternoon. They had been all three 
 seated thus for about a quarter of an hour, when 
 Helen rose quietly and went out into the garden. 
 
 Softly as she moved, Adrian heard the flutter of 
 her muslin gown as she passed out. He lifted his
 
 2(38 TOTAL SUKKEXDKK 
 
 €yes from tlic page uliicli he had hccQ staring at 
 fixedly, without the faiutcst knowledge of its 
 contents. 
 
 " \Yatch.'^ 
 
 He put down his book softly, and went across 
 to the window. 
 
 Helen was slowly walking along a path that 
 skirted the lawn. His eyes followed the white- 
 robed figure till it disappeared at a turn of the 
 path which led into the heart of the shrubbery, 
 where a narrow walk wound in and out among 
 thickets of coniferse laurels and arbutus. 
 
 Those shrubberies had been laid out and planted 
 a century before, and had been improved and 
 added to by every new owner of Belfield Abbey. 
 
 The ground fell away steeply on the other side 
 of the shrubberies^ and there \\ere grassy banks 
 sloping down to a long Italian terrace beside the 
 river. 
 
 This terrace had always been a favourite pro- 
 menade with the ladies of the Belfield family. 
 
 Scarcely had the white gown vanished into 
 darkness, when a man's figure skirted the lawn
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 269 
 
 upon the opposite side, and then disappeared, in 
 the shrubbery. There was just light enough for 
 Adrian to identify that hurryiog figure as his 
 brother Valentine. 
 
 He went out, bareheaded, and crossed the lawn 
 to the shrubbery. His quick ear caught the sound 
 of a man's footsteps on the winding path, and with 
 that sound for his guide it was easy for him to fol- 
 low in the right direction, though there was no one 
 visible in the leafy labyrinth. 
 
 Presently, that quick firm step stopped, and theu , 
 after a pause, went on with slackened pace. He 
 could guess that those two were now together, 
 walking slowly side by side, the girVs light footfall 
 inaudible amidst the sound of the man's firmer 
 tread. 
 
 He knew he was gaining upon them presently, 
 for he could hear their voices at intervals^ faiut 
 gusts of sound blown towards him on the evening 
 air. He followed to a narrow walk, parallel with 
 the river-terrace, and standing there in the shadow 
 of a cypress saw them on the moonlit walk below 
 him. He was near enough to hoar every word,
 
 270 TOTAL SUKRENDEll 
 
 every breath, and lie had to control his own hurried 
 breathing lest they should hear him. They were 
 standing by the waterside, she clasped in Valen- 
 tine's arms, with her head upon his breast, and 
 Adrian could hear her sobs in the stillness, the 
 passionate sobs of a despairing love. Never had 
 his arms so held her, never had her passionate 
 tears been shed for him. They had been like 
 children playing at love. Here w^as love's stern 
 reality — tears and despair. A'alentine's head was 
 bent over the half-hidden face. He was trying to 
 kiss those sobs into silence. And then came the 
 sound of his voice, deep and resolute. 
 
 "Break with him. dearest? — yes, of course you 
 must break with him. You were meant to be 
 mine, not his. He has most of the good things in 
 this life. He is the elder born, the honoured and 
 wealthy. Vmt I have you, and I mean to keep 
 you, and hold you against all the world.'' 
 
 " Lady Belfield has been so good to me," 
 faltered the girl's tearful voice. ^' She has been so 
 loving — and for me to disappoint her " 
 
 " Who knows that you will disappoint her ? She
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 271 
 
 shall love you still, my sweetest — love you all the 
 better perhaps for that which you call treason. 
 Don't you know the secret of my mother^s heart, 
 Helen? She does her duty to Adrian, but she 
 gives the liou^s share of love to me. She will love 
 any wife who loves me.^^ 
 
 " You are cruel to say so/^ cried Helen, escaping 
 from his arms. " What, are you to have every- 
 thing and he nothing, he who is so good ? " 
 
 " He has the estate, and he is Sir Adrian. Do 
 you call that nothing ? ^' 
 
 " Yes, nothing, nothing, nothing, if he is not 
 happy. No, I won^t betray him, I won^t be called 
 a jilt and a hypocrite. I loved him before I knew 
 you. I will try to forget you, and to be true to 
 him/^ 
 
 " Helen, don't be a fool.'' 
 
 He drew her to his breast again, snared her as 
 easily with an unmannerly speech as with the 
 honeyed phrases of a modern Romeo. His influ- 
 ence over her was a thing apart from words. It 
 was the despotic power of a strong man's will, 
 which to a weak woman represents destiny.
 
 272 TOTAL SL'KKEXDEIl 
 
 Adrian stepped lightly down the sloping bank, and 
 stood suddenly beside them. Tlie girl started away 
 from her lover, horrified at being seen by a game- 
 keeper or some such insignificant person ; but at 
 sight of Adrian she clasped her hands before her 
 face and stood motionless, as if she had been 
 turned to stone. 
 
 " I did not think myself passing rich, Valentine," 
 he said quietly, as his brother faced him boldly 
 and resolutely, with the defiant look with which 
 he had faced angry college dons and aggrieved 
 authorities of all kinds. " I was like the poor 
 shepherd with his one ewe lamb,*^ laying his hand 
 lightly upon Helen's shoulder, " and you have 
 robbed me of my one inestimable possession." 
 
 " Don't talk about robbery," said Valentine, 
 " that's arrant nonsense. Men are the slaves of 
 circumstances in such matters. You bring a lovely 
 fascinating girl into the house where I live, and 
 say, * She is mine, she is taboo, you are not to fall 
 in love with her.' But I am mortal. I am of a 
 clay that is quicker to take fire than most other 
 clay. I have not been under the same roof for
 
 TOTAL SURREXDER 273 
 
 four-and-twenty hoars with your privileged young 
 lady^ before I am over head and ears in love with 
 her. I don't give myself up without a struggle. 
 I say^ No surrender, and try to be as uncivil as I 
 possibly can to the young lady. Helen will bear 
 me out that I was a thorough savage during the 
 earlier part of our acquaintance. And then we 
 hunted together^ and I got fonder and fonder of 
 her, and she — yes, I know she began to get rather 
 fond of me. But she too cried No surrender, and 
 then she took to being uncivil ; and then I knew 
 it was all over with us both. Tennis finished us ; 
 and you will please to remember, Adrian, that 
 tennis was my mother's proposition, not mine. 
 Poor simple soul, she wanted to see Helen and me 
 more like brother and sister, and she thought 
 tennis might help to bring us together." 
 
 " You are laudably candid now," said Adrian. 
 " Would it not have been better to be candid 
 before resorting to a secret meeting like this, and 
 degrading your future wife by a clandestine court- 
 ship while she was betrothed to your brother ? 
 Would it not at least have been wise to spare her 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 271 TOTAL SURKEXDER 
 
 the liumiliation of bciug spied upon by ser- 
 vants?" 
 
 '' What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Only that it was some servant or hanger-on iu 
 the Abbey who gave me the hint that brought me 
 here to-night." 
 
 '^^ One of the servants spoke to you about me, 
 about Helen ?" 
 
 " No one spoke to me. I found a paper in my 
 room^ with a suggestion that there was falsehood, 
 and that I should watch." 
 
 '' The she-deviij" muttered Valentine, between 
 his set teeth. 
 
 " What ! you know who wrote it? " asked Adrian. 
 
 " No. but I can guess ; some old busybody. The 
 housekeeper perhaps." 
 
 " What ! Mrs. Marrable ? That good old soul 
 never did anything underhand in her life. But 
 whoever my informant was I am grateful to the 
 hand that lifted the veil. You and Miss Deverill 
 might have left me in my fool's paradise ever so 
 much longer." 
 
 " There you wrong us both. Things had come
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 275 
 
 to a crisis to-niglit_, and it would have been our 
 duty to confess the truth to you to-morrow. Ml 
 I wanted to be sure of was that Helen would give 
 up an ample fortune and the privilege of being 
 Lady Belfield, in order to share the obscurity of 
 a younger brother's position." 
 
 '• And Miss Deverill has made her choice? " 
 '' Well, I believe she was on the point of making 
 it definitely when you interrupted us.'' 
 
 " I can at least simplify the question/'' said 
 Adrian, "by assuring Miss Deverill that after what 
 has happened to-night I withdraw all claim upon 
 her fidelity or her consideration. She may hold 
 herself as free as the wind that is moving yonder 
 leaves.'^ 
 
 Helen's hands had fallen from before her face, 
 which showed death-like in the moonlight. She 
 tried to take Adrian's hand, but he recoiled from 
 her touch. 
 
 " Forgive me 1 " she cried, with passionate en- 
 treaty ; " oh, forgive me, Adrian. I hate myself 
 for my inconstancy, my weakness, my folly. Be more 
 merciful to me than I am to myself. Forgive me ! '' 
 
 T 2
 
 276 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 "When I can/^ he answered, and left them with- 
 out another word. 
 
 He had left the Abbey before Helen came down 
 to breakfast next morning, and he left the following 
 letter for his brother : — 
 
 " You have shown yourself my superior as a 
 lover, as you have in all other accomplishments in 
 which men wish to excel. I submit to fate, which 
 gave me failure and disappointment as a part of 
 my birthright. I think you have used me ill, and 
 that Helen has used me worse; but it is a quality 
 of my nature to love you, and, even while smarting 
 under the sense of a deep wrong, you are still to 
 me something more than a brother. You are a 
 part of myself. Be as happy as you can, and I 
 will take comfort in my desolation from the 
 thought of your happiness. But above all things 
 make her happy. She is all that is lovely and 
 sweet in womanhood, but she lacks strength of 
 character and stability of purpose, as you have 
 already proved. Bear with her, and be patient 
 with her, as I would have been. Her nature will
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 277 
 
 expand like a flower in the warmth of your love, 
 but it will be warped and withered by unkindness 
 or neglect. I resign her to you as a sacred trust. 
 Let me never have to call you to account for her 
 peace of mind. When once my mind and heart 
 are reconciled to my loss^ I shall accept my position 
 as your wife's broth er^ and shall assume all a 
 brother's responsibilities. Tell Helen I am leaving 
 England in the hope that absence may teach me the 
 lesson of forgiveness. Good-bye."" 
 
 This was all : but in a letter to Lady Belfield 
 Adrian explained that he was going to London, 
 whence he would start for Norway, after a day or 
 two spent in preparation for his journey. He 
 meant to spend the summer and early autumn in 
 Norway and Sweden, and thence to go to Vienna, 
 and to follow the Danube southward, and winter in 
 Greece. 
 
 '' If you should feel tempted to join me during 
 any part of my travels, I would go to Frankfort to 
 meet you, and would adapt my wanderings to your 
 comfort and pleasure. My engagement is broken 
 — suddenly, like a dream from which one awak-
 
 278 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 cneth. All the good fairies were at my brother's 
 christening feast, and one of them gave him power 
 over the heart of woman. He has stolen Helen's 
 love — almost involuntarily, I believe, so you must 
 not upbraid him with treachery. Make the best of 
 the position, dear mother. Do all you can for your 
 younger son and his betrothed, and be assured of 
 my co-operation in all you do." 
 
 The letter was a shock to Lady Belfield. Her 
 loyal nature revolted against Helen's treachery. 
 She, who was truth itself, could not understand 
 how any other woman could be false. However 
 her heart might secretly incline to the wayward 
 self-indulgent younger son, her sense of honour 
 and justice were outraged by his triumph. 
 
 Helen came into the breakfast-room while Lady 
 Belfield sat with Adrian's letter in her hand. The 
 girl's white face and hollow eyes, Mith traces of 
 prolonged wTcpiug, made a silent appeal to the 
 mother's pity, but even that remorseful countenance 
 could not lessen Constance Belfield's contempt for 
 the offender. 
 
 " I find, Helen,'' she began coldly, '' that I have
 
 TOTAL SUIlKEXDEIi 279 
 
 been looking on at a comedy, and tliat you Lad 
 your secrets, while I thought that you were to me 
 as a daughter, and that I knew your heart as a 
 mother knows the heart of her child." 
 
 " Do mothers always know ? " faltered Helen. 
 " There are things in life that no one can reckon 
 against. Oh, Lady Belfield, forgive me if you can. 
 I can't help your despising me ; I don't wonder at 
 it. He has told you how base I have been," with 
 a glance at the open letter, " but indeed if you 
 only knew, if I could ever make you understand 
 how I struggled, how I tried to be good and true, 
 and how my heart went to Valentine in spite of 
 myself. Indeed I tried not to love him — tried to 
 hate him, to avoid him, to shrink from all contact 
 with him, but it was all in vain. From the hour 
 we first met — a fatal, foolish, mistaken meeting on 
 my part, a cruel sport on his — from that hour I 
 was lost, my fidelity to Adrian was shaken, and I 
 began to ask myself if I had ever really loved 
 him.^' 
 
 She flung herself on her knees before Lady 
 Belfield and buried her tearful face in the mother's
 
 280 TOTAL SUKRENDER 
 
 lap, sobbing heart-brokenly. It was hardly pos- 
 sible to be angry with a creature so bowed down by 
 remorse and the consciousness of her own sin. 
 
 "My child, it is the most miserable turn that fate 
 could have taken/^ said Constance Belfield gravely. 
 " You were all the world to Adrian, and the loss 
 of your love may darken all the best years of his 
 life. He is not the kind of man to recover quickly 
 or easily from such a blow. You will never be all 
 the world to my other son. I have studied them 
 both from their cradles, and know what stuff each 
 is made of. Fondly as I love Valentine, I am not 
 blind to his faults. He has a passionate self-willed 
 nature, and to be loved by him will not be all 
 sunshine. This young head will not escape the 
 storms of life, Helen, if you are mated with my son 
 Valentine. It is your heart that will have to bear 
 the heavier burdens in a our life journey, it is you 
 who will have to suffer and submit. Adrian would 
 have subjugated his own inclinations to make you 
 happy. Valentine will expect you to yield to him 
 in all things." 
 
 " I know that he is my mastcr,^^ ans^^crcd
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 281 
 
 Helen, in a low voice. '' If his will were not 
 stronger than mine I should have been true to 
 Adrian. I know that in our life to come I shall 
 be his slave — his^ fond adoring slave. But I shall 
 be utterly happy if he always loves me as he loves 
 me now/^ 
 
 ^' It would be hard if that should ever waver, 
 when you have sacrificed so much for his sake. 
 You know that jour position as Valentine's wife 
 will be very different from what it would have been 
 as Lady Belfield/' 
 
 '' 1 have never thought of position — not even 
 when I accepted Adrian. I thought it would be 
 nice to have a home of my own, and to hear no 
 more of debts and difficulties and unpaid rents. 
 That is all I ever thought of from a mercenary 
 point of view." 
 
 '^ Well, Helen, the die is cast, and we must 
 make the best of fate/^ said Constance Belfield 
 gently. " Adrian is gone, and if we were to ask 
 him to come back he would not come." 
 
 " He has gone ? So soon," cxclaimeil Helen. 
 
 " Yes 5 he knew, no doubt, that his presence here y
 
 9«-7 
 
 TOTAL SUl;l:EXD£Jt 
 
 would have been an embarrassment to you and 
 A'aleatine. He leaves you mistress of your own 
 life. And' now I think, to lessen seandal, the 
 sooner you and Valentine are married the better. 
 J3ut the lirst thing is to obtain your father's con- 
 sent/' 
 
 ^' He will be dreadfully angry/' said Heleu^ with 
 a shiver of apprehension. 
 
 She was still crouching at Lady Belfield's feet. 
 Her sobs had ceased, but her whole attitude 
 betokened the depth of self-abasement. 
 
 *' He is a man of the world, and we can scarcely 
 expect him to be pleased." 
 
 "I dare not see him/' said Helen. "Oh. Lady 
 Belfield, you are so good to me, even in my dis- 
 grace. ^Vill you break the news to my father? 
 You have only seen the sunny side of his character. 
 He is dreadful when he is angry." 
 
 " I will do all I can, Helen. I will send for him 
 tbis morning." 
 
 "No, no; not so scon. Kot to-day. There is 
 no hurry." 
 
 " I will not delay an hour, Helen."
 
 TOTAL SUHEENDER 283 
 
 Valentine came into the room, carrying liimself 
 as easily as if his conscience were without stain- 
 He had received his brother's valedictory letter, 
 and had digested its contents at his leisure. He 
 thought that everything was settling itself in a very 
 comfortable manner, and that there need be no 
 more fuss. 
 
 He went over to his mother and kissed her. 
 
 " I see you know all about it," he said ; ^' that 
 foolish child has been crying and confessing, and 
 breaking her poor little heart about that which 
 neither she nor I could help/^ 
 
 He took the tone of a master at once, spoke of 
 his newly-betrothed with the free and easy air of 
 a husband of five years' standing. There was none 
 of the reverential tone with which a lover usually 
 speaks of his mistress, none of the respect which 
 the worshipper gives his divinity in the early days 
 of betrothal. 
 
 ** It is all very sad, Valentine/^ said Lady Bel- 
 field, while Helen rose slowly, and went to her 
 place at the breakfast table, downcast, pale, and 
 unhappy-looking.
 
 Zm TOTAL SUKKENDEU 
 
 " Bosh, my dear mother. There need be no 
 sadness about it/*'' answered her son, seating him- 
 self before a savoury dish, and helping himself 
 Tvitli the air of being in excellent appetite. " I 
 wish you'd pour out my coffee, Helen^ instead of 
 sitting there like a statue, l^ray, mother^ let us 
 have no funereal faces. Adrian is disappointed, I 
 admit, and has the right to feel angry, with us or 
 with his destiny. But he has acted like a sensible 
 fellow, and he is going the right way to get the 
 better of his disappointment. Six months hence I 
 dare say he will be engaged to somebody else ; and 
 then you will feel what a simpleton you have been 
 to make a tragedy out of such a very simple 
 matter." 
 
 Constance Belfield said no more. She knew her 
 son's temper too well to argue with him. To her 
 mind the whole business was fraught with wrougr 
 and folly ; but if Valentine's happiness were at 
 stake — if he could be happy this way, and in no 
 other, her love for him forbade her opposition. It 
 might be that in this strong and passionate na^pre 
 there might be a greater capacity for love than in
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 285 
 
 Adrian^s calmer temperament; that Adrian could 
 better bear the loss of his promised wife than 
 Valentine could have borne disappointment in his 
 unreasonable love. 
 
 A mounted messenger was depatched to Mor- 
 comb directly after breakfast^ and Colonel Deverill 
 was with Lady Belfield before luncheon. 
 
 The interview was long, and in some parts 
 stormy. Colonel Deverill was deeply indignant. 
 He would have sent for Helen and wreaked his 
 wrath upon her, but Lady Belfield interfered. 
 
 ^* You shall not see her till you are calmer, till 
 you have taught yourself to think more indulgently 
 of her error/' she said. " She is in my charge, 
 poor motherless girl, and I am beholden to act to 
 her as a mother.^^ 
 
 " She was engaged — engaged herself of her own 
 free will, mark you — to a gentleman of high posi- 
 tion, a man of wealth and substance : and without 
 the faintest justification she jilts that estimable 
 highly accomplished young man to take up with 
 his brother. She is so false and fickle that she 
 cannot keep steadfast for half a year to the man
 
 286 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 who has honoured her by his choice. She is a 
 shameless " 
 
 " She is your daughter and my future daughter- 
 in-law, Colonel Deverill/' 
 
 '^ Pardon me, Lady Belfield, she was to have been 
 your daughter-in-law, and that connection would 
 have been at once an honour and a source of 
 supreme happiness to me; but I have not consented 
 to her marriage with your younger son. Forgive 
 me if I say that with my daughter's exceptional 
 attractions she ought to make a good match. 
 Beauty rules high in Society just now ; a really 
 beautiful girl has the ball at her feet. Now, Mr. 
 Belfield is a very fine fellow, but he is not a good 
 match." 
 
 *^Your daughter loves him. Colonel Deverill, and 
 she will never be happy with any one else." 
 
 " My dear Lady Belfield, you know that is a 
 facon de parler. Every girl says as much when she 
 fancies herself in love. I have known a girl say as 
 much six times about six different men. My 
 daughter Helen will have to subjugate her inclina- 
 tions. She has forfeited a splendid position and
 
 TOTAL SUEREXDER 287 
 
 stamped herself as a jilt. She has shown herself 
 incapable of managing her own life. It will be 
 my business to look after her in future/'' 
 
 Lady Belfield was silent for some moments. 
 She knew her son^s determined character, and she 
 told herself that^ once having won Helen^s heart, he 
 would find a way of marrying her with or without 
 the father's consent. He was not the kind of young 
 man to submit his inclinations to Colonel Deverill's 
 authority. Opposition would only lead to a clan- 
 destine marriage. 
 
 " My younger son may not be a good match/'' 
 she said quietly, after that interval of thought, 
 ''but he will not be penniless. He will inherit my 
 for tune.'' 
 
 '^ May it be long before his day of inheritance, 
 dear Lady Belfield. But in the meantime, if he 
 marries he will have to maintain his wife. Pardon 
 me if I remind you that he can't do that — upon 
 expectations.^^ 
 
 " I would make a settlement. I could spare five 
 or six hundred a year.'' 
 
 " You would settle that upon my daughter. A
 
 288 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 very liberal settlement on your part, and more than 
 a penniless girl like Helen Las the right to expect ; 
 but if the young people had to live upon it — 
 starvation, or at least genteel penury. I should be 
 sorry to see my pretty daughter fading in a third- 
 rate West End lodging, afraid to accept invitations 
 on account of the expense of cabs, or dying of 
 dulness in a small country town/^ 
 
 " If my son marries, he must turn bread-winner, 
 take up a profession." 
 
 *' Very good in intention, dear Lady Belfield, but 
 there are so few professions that will take up a 
 young man who has not been bred to work from his 
 fifteenth year. Your son Valentine has a splendid 
 intellect, but I doubt if he will ever earn 
 sixpence.'' 
 
 ** Then I must do more for him. Trust me with 
 your daughter's future, Colonel Dcverill, and she 
 shall be to me as my own child." 
 
 " She is a fool, and I have no patience with her/' 
 said the Colonel, pacing the room. '^ She had as 
 fine a chance as a girl need have, and she flung it 
 away. And now you ask me to reconcile myself to
 
 TOTAL SURRENDER 289 
 
 genteel poverty for a girl who might have set the 
 town in a blaze. But you are all goodness, Lady 
 Belfield. You would melt a stone — and I am not 
 a stone, as you might have known nearly thirty 
 years ago. It seems natural that my daughter 
 should marry your son. Such a marriage links 
 past and present curiously together. Please send 
 for Helen.^' 
 
 " You will not be unkind to her — you wiJl 
 not scold/^ pleaded Constance, as she rang the 
 bell. 
 
 " There is no good in scolding. The girl is a 
 fool, and there is no more to be said about her.^' 
 
 Helen came, pale and trembling. 
 
 *'Y^ou have trifled with a good man's affection, 
 and with a splendid position, girl,^^ said her father 
 sternly. " You ought to be desperately in love with 
 Mr. Belfield." 
 
 " I love him with all the strength of my heart. ^^ 
 
 '^ And were I to forl)id you to marry him ? AVhat 
 would happen then, do you think ?" 
 
 '^ I believe I should die.'^ 
 
 " Well, you need not die. You can take your 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 TOTAL SURRENDER 
 
 own way. Lady Belfield; I leave everything to 
 you — settlement, everything. I submit myself to 
 you in all things ; and as for this young lady, I 
 wash my hands of her and her fate.
 
 ( 291 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 
 
 While Lady Belfield pleaded lier son^s cause with 
 Colonel Deverill, Valentine himself was engaged in 
 a business which had very little to do with Helen's 
 future happiness. 
 
 He was trying to find out the writer of the 
 anonymous warning which opened his brother's 
 eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Marrable had been his mother's house- 
 keeper for nearly twenty years, and Valentine had 
 been her favourite as a boy. She had indulged all 
 his juvenile whims, and had kept him liberally 
 supplied with preserves and pickles, pound-cakes 
 and Devonshire cream, when he was at the Univer- 
 sity. Marrable's jams had been a famous institu- 
 tion among the undergraduates who breakfasted 
 with him. 
 
 He went to Mrs. Marrable's room this morning 
 
 u 2
 
 292 .MAKING THE BEST OF IT 
 
 under pretence of inquiring about a groom who 
 had been on the sick list ; and then, after allowing 
 the housekeeper to enlarge upon the efficacy of her 
 beef-tea and the infallibility of her mutton broth, 
 he asked casually : 
 
 " How about that half-gipsy girl my mother 
 took in ? Does she get on pretty well ? " 
 
 ^^ It's a very curious thing, sir, that you should 
 ask that question to-day above all other days/' 
 she said. " The young woman worked with a 
 good heart,, and did her very best to give satis- 
 faction, up to yesterday. She was a very reserved 
 young woman, and did not seem to be altogether 
 happy in her mind. She was always on the watch 
 and on the listen for what was going on in the 
 drawing-room and library, and such like; seemed 
 to take more interest in the family's doings than 
 it was her place to take ; but beyoi:d that I had 
 no fault to find with her. But this morning she 
 did not appear at the servants' breakfast ; and 
 when one of the maids went up to her room to see 
 if there was anything amiss with her, she found a 
 letter pinned on her pincushion, and the bird was
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 293 
 
 flown. She had taken some of her clothes in a 
 bundle, I suppose, and had left the rest in her 
 drawers. There's the letter, Mr. Belfield. I took 
 it to the morning-room an hour ago, meaning to 
 show it to ray lady ; but I thought she looked 
 worried and upset at Sir Adrian^s having left home 
 so suddenly ; and I made up my mind to say 
 nothing about Margaret for a day or two. Why 
 should I trouble my lady about such an insig- 
 nificant matter ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ? I hope she hasn't eloped with 
 my brother. ^^ 
 
 " Fie, for shame, sir ! It's just like your mis- 
 chievous ways to say such a thing." 
 
 " Let me look at her letter." 
 
 The letter was fairly written, in a bold hand, 
 more masculine than feminine in character, and 
 there were no errors in spelling : 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Marrable, 
 
 '' You have been very kiud to me, 
 and I can assure you I am grateful to you and 
 to all at the Abbey who have been good to a
 
 294 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 
 
 waif and stray like me. I am going to London to 
 seek my fortune in service or in some other 
 employment. You need not be afraid that I am 
 going wrong. I am not that kind of girl. I 
 believe I am made of very hard stuff, and that I 
 can stand the wear and tear of ]ife. I thank Lady 
 Belfield, if she will allow me to do so, for her 
 goodness to a nameless girl. I shall always re- 
 member her with loving gratitude. 
 
 ^'^ Yours truly, 
 
 '' Madge." 
 
 '^ She must be a determined hussy,"' said Valen- 
 tine. 
 
 '^ She^s a curious kind of girl, but I believe 
 what she says of herself in her letter,^^ answered 
 the housekeeper. '^ She is not the kind of girl to 
 go wrong." 
 
 '' Bosh ! " cried Valentine, contemptuously. 
 " She goes to London, and she goes to perdi- 
 tion as surely as a raindrop is lost when it falls 
 into the sea. She has gone to look for her mother, 
 I dare say. Her mother went to the bad before
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 295 
 
 this girl was born ; and this girl is tired of rusticity 
 and servitude, and has gone after her mother. I 
 wonder you can be humbugged so easily, Mrs. 
 Marrable/' 
 
 "I know more of girls and their dispositions 
 than you do, Mr. Belfield, and I believe this one 
 is no common girl/' 
 
 " She may be an uncommon girl, but it will all 
 come to the same in the end," answered Valentine, 
 as he went out of the room. 
 
 Lady Belfield had her own way. Valentine was 
 impetuously eager to seal his fate, would not have 
 heard of a long engagement, had the impediments 
 to speedy marriage been ever so numerous. Hap- 
 pily there were no impediments. Lady Belfield's pri- 
 vate income, inherited from her father, and settled 
 upon her at her marriage with full disposing power, 
 amounted to nearly three thousand a year. She 
 settled six Imndred a year upon Helen, with re- 
 mainder to her children, or to Valentine in the 
 event of his wife dying childness ; and she gave her 
 son an allowance of four hundred a year. They
 
 296 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 
 
 would thus have a thousand a year to live upon. 
 Lady Belfield's position as tenant for life of the 
 Abbey and home farm obliged her to maintain a 
 certain state, and her income would henceforward 
 be barely adequate to her expenses ; but she knew 
 Adrian's generous temper, and that she would be 
 assisted by him to any extent she might require. 
 They had divided some of the expenses between 
 them hitherto, his purse maintaining the stables 
 and paying his mother's coachbuilder. She had 
 saved some thousands since her husband's death, 
 and had added two or three hundred a year to her 
 income by the judicious investment of her accumula- 
 tions : all this without detriment to her charities, 
 which were large. 
 
 Valentine accepted her sacrifice of income lightly 
 enough, dismissing the subject with brief and 
 careless thanks. He was living in a lover's para- 
 dise, spending all his days with Helen, in the 
 gardens, on the river, on horseback in the early 
 mornings before the sun was too hot for riding ; 
 thinking only of her, living only for her, as it 
 seemed.
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 297 
 
 They were to be married on the tenth of June, 
 just ten days later than Adrian^s appointed 
 wedding day. 
 
 In a week after Sir Adrian's departure^ every- 
 body in the neighbourhood knew what had hap- 
 pened, and pretended to know every minutest 
 detail. There were at least six different versions 
 of the breach between Adrian and his betrothed, 
 and not one of them was in the least like the 
 truth. But every account was dramatic, and had 
 a life-like air, and made excellent sport for 
 afternoon tea parties. 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley had not been reticent. She had 
 gone about everywhere lamenting her sister's 
 fatuity. ^' Such a nice marriage, and we were all 
 so fond of Sir Adrian, and to take up with the 
 younger brother. I feel vexed with myself for 
 having ordered such a lovely trousseau. It is far 
 too good/' 
 
 Happily very few wedding presents had arrived 
 before the change of plan. Those premature gifts 
 were sent back to the donors, with an explanation, 
 and duly came back again to Helen. It was for
 
 298 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 
 
 her pleasure and not for her bridegroom they were 
 given, wrote the givers reassuringly. 
 
 Except for those early morning rides, or for 
 boating on the river, Helen hardly left the 
 grounds of Belfield Abbey till she went back to 
 Morcomb at the end of May. She was never in 
 the drawing-room when callers came to the Abbey. 
 She ran away at the sound of the bell, and hid 
 herself somewhere — afraid to face people, who had 
 doubtless condemned her as a jilt and a hypocrite. 
 
 " You should brazen it out/^ said Valentine, 
 laughing at her. 
 
 " So I will, when I am your wife. But now it 
 tortures me to think of the way people talk about 
 me.^^ 
 
 '' I never cared a straw for the opinion of my 
 dearest friend, much less for that of a set of busy- 
 bodies," said Valentine contemptuously. 
 
 It was all over, and Helen was Valentine 
 Belfield's wife. The wcddiug had been the 
 simplest of ceremonials : no guests had been 
 bidden, and relatives only were present. There
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 299 
 
 were no bridesmaids, and there was no best man. 
 Colonel Deverill, his elder daughter and her 
 husbandj and Lady Belfield were the only witnesses 
 of the marriage, save the clerk and pew-opener. 
 The bride was married in her travelling dress, and 
 bride and bridegroom drove straight from the 
 church to the station, on the first stage of their 
 journey to Switzerland, where they were to spend 
 a long honeymoon, moving about by easy stages as 
 fancy led them, and not returning to England 
 until September. 
 
 ^' Foolish people ! " exclaimed Mrs. Baddeley. 
 '^ They will have more than time enough to get 
 tired of each other." 
 
 While they were honeymooning, Lady Belfield 
 was to find a small house at the West End, just 
 fitted to their requirements and their income; such 
 a house as exists only in the mind of the seeker. 
 She was to spend a month in London, in order to 
 accomplish this task, and when the house was 
 found she was to furnish it after her own taste, 
 and at her own expense. 
 
 " No wonder they were married in that
 
 oOO MAKING THE 13EST OK IT 
 
 sneakiug fashion/' said Miss Toffstaff. when she 
 heard that !Miss Devcrill's wedding was over. '• It 
 shows how thoroughly ashamed of themselves they 
 all are." 
 
 *^ Come, now, Dolly, after all, it must be owned 
 that the girl was not mercenary," remonstrated 
 her sister. " It ainH often a girl throws over a 
 rich man to marry a poor one." 
 
 '^ How do you know it was the girl who broke 
 off the engagement ? She flirted audaciously with 
 Mr. Belfield, and Sir Adrian threw her over. 
 That's the truth of the story." 
 
 The Miss Treduceys shrugged their shoulders, 
 and declared they had never expected any good to 
 come of Sir Adrian's foolish entanglement. They 
 talked of it now as an "' entanglement," and 
 congratulated dearest Lady Belfield upon her elder 
 son's having got himself disentangled. 
 
 " You must be so glad," said Matilda. 
 
 " But I am not at all glad. I am very fond of 
 Helen, and I am pleased to have her for my 
 daughter upon any terms ; but I had much rather 
 she had proved true to her first love."
 
 MAKING THE BEST OF IT 301 
 
 '' She is very sweet," murmured Matilda, per- 
 ceiviug that it would not do to depreciate Lady 
 Belfield^s daughter-in-law, "' but I cannot think, 
 from what I have seen of her, that she has much 
 strength of character/^ 
 
 " She has no strength of character," replied 
 Lady Belfield, " but she has a warm affectionate 
 nature, and she will make an admirable wife for 
 Valentine. He has too strong a character himself 
 to get on with a strong-minded wife." 
 
 " Yes, I understand. He will have his own way 
 in all things, and she will be like an Oriental wife, 
 Nourmahal, the Light of the Harem, and that kind 
 of thing." 
 
 " I believe she will make him happy," said Lady 
 Belfield decisively; whereupon the Miss Treduceys 
 told all their acquaintance that Lady Belfield was 
 very soft about her daughter-in-law, and inclined 
 to be huffy at any word of disparagement.
 
 ( 302 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 
 
 The thing -which decided Madge upon leaving the 
 comfort and protection of Belfield Abbey for the 
 uncertainties of a great city, with its imminent 
 dangers and possibility of starvation, was a passage 
 in the police reports of that London paper vrhich 
 was most affected in the servants' hall. 
 
 " Mrs. Mandeville, of No. 14a, Little Leopold 
 Street^ Mayfair, was brought before the magistrates 
 at the Westminster Police Court for attempting 
 to commit suicide by taking oxalic acid. The 
 evidence showed that the lady had been dining 
 with a gentleman who passed in the house as 
 Major Mandeville, but who is supposed to have 
 lived there under an assumed name, and that after 
 dinner a scene of some violence occurred between 
 Mrs. Mandeville and the gentleman in question, in 
 the course of which Mrs. Mandeville rushed from
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 303 
 
 the room, and ran to a cupboard upon an upper 
 floor, where a solution of oxalic acid was kept by 
 the housemaid for the purpose of cleaning lamp- 
 glasses. She drauk a large quantity of this 
 solution, and was immediately seized with all the 
 symptoms of virulent poison, and was for some 
 hours in danger of her life. The person passing 
 as Major Mandeville left the house while she was 
 lying in agony. The screams of one of the 
 servants had attracted a police-constable, who 
 entered the house, and took the prisoner in charge 
 as soon as she was so far recovered as to be 
 brought to the station. It was not the first time 
 she had attempted suicide. 
 
 '^ His Worship : And I suppose you had no more 
 intention of dying on this occasion than you had 
 upon your previous attempt. You only wanted to 
 give Major Mandeville a lesson? 
 
 ^' The Prisoner : I wanted to make an end of my- 
 self on both occasions. I have been very cruelly 
 treated, and I have nothing in the world to live for. 
 
 " His Worship : That is a bad hearing from a 
 person of your attractive appearance.
 
 304 NOT A COMMON CAV.L 
 
 " The Prisoner : I might have been better off if 
 I had been as ugly as sin. 
 
 " His Worship : Is Mandeville your real name ? 
 
 " The Prisoner : It is the name I have borne for 
 nearly twenty years. 
 
 " His Worship : And you think you have a pretty 
 good right to it — a squatter^s right. But it is not 
 your real name ? 
 
 " The Prisoner : I have no real name — not in the 
 Red Book — if that's what you mean. My father 
 is a basket-maker in the country. He was always 
 called John Dawley in my hearing. I never heard 
 that he had any other name." 
 
 Hereupon followed a brief lecture from the 
 magistrate, and the prisonej', having promised to 
 refrain from any future attempt upon her life, was 
 finally dismissed in a spirit of half-contemptuous 
 pity upon the part of his worship. 
 
 The paper gave the little scene and dialogue in 
 extenso. The offender was a handsome woman, 
 living in Mayfair, and the case was therefore 
 deemed of sufficient interest to be reported fully, 
 with a sensational side-heading, "Mayfair Morals.^'
 
 NOT A COMMOX GIRL 305 
 
 The perusal of this report turned the scale of 
 Madge's mind, which had been wavering for some 
 time. She would go to London and seek out her 
 mother, rescue that brand from the burning, if it 
 were in the power of her intelligence and her 
 affection to do as much. It would be something 
 for her to do, some fixed purpose and useful end 
 in life at the least. Here she had neither end nor 
 aim. She despised herself as an impostor and a 
 spy. To watch Valentine from a distance, to see 
 him falling deeper and deeper in love with Helen 
 Deverill, to hear an occasional snatch of talk 
 between those two ; words and tones which said so 
 much to that eager ear — to know that whatever 
 fancy he had once had for her was dead and for- 
 gotten : all this had been acutest agony : and yet 
 she had stayed on at the Abbey to endure that 
 jealous pain, that bitter humiliation. 
 
 The report in the newspapers decided her. She 
 would go to her mother at once, in the hour of her 
 despair. That was surely the time in which a 
 daughter's love might avail most, might mean 
 redemption. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 NOT A COMMON GIIJL 
 
 She would go; but before leaving she would 
 launch a thunderbolt. Those two — traitor and 
 traitress — should stand revealed to the man who so 
 blindly trusted them. She wrote her few words of 
 warning, and put the slip of paper in Sir Adrian's 
 room in the twilight, after his valet had laid out 
 his master's dress clothes and made all ready for 
 the evening toilet. 
 
 Within an hour of daybreak next morning she 
 had left the Abbey, and was trudging along the 
 road to the station. She had a little money, just 
 enough to pay for a third-class ticket for Waterloo, 
 and to leave her a few shillings in hand. Mrs. 
 Marrable had given her three sovereigns on account 
 of wages to be fixed in the future, when it was 
 decided how much her services were worth in the 
 household. 
 
 She had been on trial hitherto, as it were, an 
 apprentice to domestic service. She had taken one 
 of her sovereigns to Mr. Rockstone, and had insisted 
 upon his receiving it as part payment for the money 
 he had advanced for her clothes. She had given 
 ten shillings to her grandfather on her last Sunday 
 visit to the hovel by the river. She had thus thirty
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 307 
 
 shillings with which to begin the world. What 
 was she to do when those few shillings were ex- 
 hausted, when she found herself penniless in the 
 great desert of London ? 
 
 Did she mean to live upon her mother, Mrs. 
 Mandeville, whose West End house might be an 
 abode of wealth and luxury ? 
 
 No, she had no intention of accepting either food 
 or shelter in that house, which seemed to her as 
 Tophet in little. Mrs. Marrable had said of her 
 that she was not a common girl, and her intentions as 
 to her future life were not those of a common girl. 
 She was exceptionally strong, and she meant to 
 work for a living, to labour with those strong 
 hands and robust arms of hers, to accept the 
 roughest toil, were it necessary, to earn her bread 
 in the sweat of her brow, and if possible to earn 
 her mother''s bread also. 
 
 " I will rescue her out of that hell upon earth, if 
 I can,^' she said to herself. '^ People can live upon 
 so little if they have only a mind to do il. Bread 
 is cheap, and I have lived upon dry bread before 
 now." 
 
 In the basket-maker's household life had been 
 
 X 2
 
 308 NOT A COMMOX GIRL 
 
 sustained upon the hardest fare. Madge had never 
 seen smoking joints or good cheer of any kind till 
 she went to the Abbey. Her soul had almost 
 revolted against that plethora of food in the 
 servants^ hall. She thought of the multitudes who 
 were starving, those seething masses of London 
 poor about whom the Vicar had told her, and she 
 sickened in that atmosphere of plenty. Not by 
 any means a common girl. She thought she had 
 a mission, something to do in this life ; and that 
 her first duty was to care for the mother who had 
 never cared for her. 
 
 She had been carefully taught in her place in 
 the village school, taught earnestly and conscien- 
 tiously by Mr. Rockstone, and she had a stronger 
 idea of duty than many a girl who has been expen- 
 sively trained by French and German governesses, 
 with occasional supervision from the parental eye. 
 She had taken the Vicar^s teaching in her onyu 
 way ; worked it out in her own way ; and she 
 was assuredly not a common girl. 
 
 She kncAV that she was handsomer than one 
 woman in fifty. She had looked at herself in the
 
 XOT A COMMON GIRL 309 
 
 shabby little glass which her mother had bought 
 of a travelling hawker five-and-twenty years before 
 — the blurred and clouded glass which hung against 
 the whitewashed wall in the old basket-maker's 
 cabin — and the reflection had told her that she was 
 beautiful. Those flashing eyes with their long 
 black lashes and arched brows^ that rich olive com- 
 plexion with its warmth and colour, the perfect 
 mouth and teeth, and beautifully moulded chin, 
 set on to a throat that might have given immor- 
 tality to marble — these were elements of beauty 
 not to be mistaken, or underrated by the ignorance 
 of an inexperienced girl. 
 
 She knew that she was beautiful, and in her 
 scanty converse with the world she had learnt just 
 enough to understand that beauty is a rare and 
 wonderful gift, and that her whole future life 
 might depend upon the use she made of it. 
 
 Beauty has its price all the world over. What 
 was to be the price of hers ? Not shame and 
 infamy, she told herself. Not such a name as her 
 mother had left behind her amongst the villagers, 
 who still remembered and talked of her.
 
 310 NOT A COMMON GIRL 
 
 Thus it was that when Valentine Belfield came 
 to the basket-maker's hovel, prepared for easy 
 conquest, he found a woman of a different stamp 
 from other women whom he had admired and 
 pursued in the past. Not so easily did the bird 
 fall into the net of the fowler. 
 
 He came upon her unawares one day as she 
 stood at the cabin door, watching his boat drift 
 slowly by with the tide, while he sat lazily reload- 
 ing his gun. He looked up and saw her at her 
 cottage door, a dazzling apparition. 
 
 He put down his gun and took up a boat-hook 
 and pushed in towards the bank, tied his boat to 
 the trunk of a pollard willow, and landed. 
 
 He went straight up to the threshold where the 
 girl was standing, and accosted her easily and 
 frankly, asking some commonplace questions about 
 the ground and the shooting. She answered him 
 as freely, looking him full in the face, in no wise 
 abashed by his striking presence or superior rank. 
 She told him all that could be told about the sport on 
 that dreary bit of marsh. And then he went on to talk 
 of other things, and asked her for a light for his cigar, 
 and seated himself on a bench by the door to smoke.
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 311 
 
 She had seen him in church occasionally with 
 his mother^ and had recognized him at the first 
 glance. She was in no wise abashed by his 
 presence. She looked at him fearlessly with those 
 deep inscrutable eyes of hers^ which seemed fraught 
 with the mysterious influences of an ancient race. 
 It was he who felt abashed in her presence^ as she 
 stood in a careless attitude,, leaning against the 
 door post^ lookiug gravely down at him. 
 
 He lingered for an hour ; went again the next 
 day; and the next^ and the next^ and so on daily, 
 remaining longer and longer each day, until he 
 reached the limit of safety, and only left just 
 early enough to escape a meeting with the basket- 
 maker. He went as one drawn by a spell. He 
 carried his gun and game-bag with him every 
 morning, but the birds had an easy time. The 
 only bird he wanted to snare wore a different 
 plumage. 
 
 He had practised all the tempter's arts, and yet 
 he seemed no nearer success than he had been 
 when he first stopped his boat, surprised by that 
 sudden vision of low-born beauty. His proff'ered 
 gifts had been refused with a quiet scorn which was
 
 312 NOT A COMMON GIRL 
 
 a new thing in his experience. His subtlest flat- 
 teries had been resisted with a steadfastness which 
 might be pride or calculation. And yet he thought 
 she loved him ; that beneath this strength of 
 character there burned hidden fires. Yes, he had 
 seen her face light up at his coming, and had noted 
 the cloud of sadness when he bade her good-night. 
 Yet to his reiterated prayer that there should be 
 no such parting, that their lives should flow on 
 together in some luxurious retreat, some dainty 
 villa beside yonder river where its banks were 
 loveliest, some hidden haven where they might 
 make their mutual paradise apart from the outer 
 world, she had been as adamant. 
 
 She provoked him at last into quarrelling with 
 her. That stubborn persistance roused his worst 
 passions, his pride, his cruelty, his anger against any 
 creature who opposed his will. He upbraided her 
 with her coldness, her selfish, calculating temper, 
 
 "You are playing me as an angler plays a 
 fish,^' he said. " You think that by keeping me 
 at bay, driving me to madness with your cold- 
 hearted obstinacy, you will make a better
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 313 
 
 bargain. It is a matter of exchange and barter 
 with you. If you loved me you would not treat 
 me so."^ 
 
 '' Perhaps I don't love you." 
 
 " You are a strange girl, with a heart as hard as 
 the nethermost millstone," he answered, and left 
 her in a fit of temper. 
 
 Never before had he been so thwarted, never 
 had he been so resolved on conquest. He hardly 
 knew whether he loved or hated her most, that 
 winter evening, as he tramped along the causeway, 
 leaving tell-tale footprints in the clay which were 
 to be frozen hard before to-morrow morning. 
 
 He would leave her to her pride and her folly ; 
 he would leave her to find out what life was worth 
 without him, once having known the sweetness oi 
 his flatteries, the delight of his company. He had 
 a letter from an old college friend in his pocket, a 
 letter proposing a month at Monte Carlo. Yes, he 
 would go ; he would forget this gipsy girl, and let 
 her forget him if she could. 
 
 He returned from his holiday half cured of his 
 passion for that strange girl, and it was a shock to
 
 314 NOT A COMMON GIEL 
 
 him, and far from a pleasant one, to find her in his 
 mother's house. 
 
 He accepted her presence there as a sign of her 
 complete subjugation. She had risked everything 
 to be near him. He felt certain of ultimate 
 conquest. She might carry herself ever so proudly, 
 but at heart she was his slave. 
 
 Then came an unexpected distraction in the 
 presence of another woman. He began to make 
 love to his brother's betrothed in sport. It pleased 
 him to discover his influence over that weak and 
 giddy nature, like the power of a snake over a bird. 
 Poor little bird, how it fluttered and drooped under 
 the spell, and waited helplessly to be caught. His 
 earlier feelings were those of amusement, flattered 
 vanity only. He did not mean to be disloyal to 
 Adrian. And then arose within him the old 
 thirst for conquest, the hunter's passion for the 
 chase and the kill. It was not enough to have 
 fluttered that foolish heart. He must be sure of 
 victory. His own fancy had been kindled in the 
 pursuit, and he told himself, as he had often done 
 before, that this was the most serious passion of his
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 315 
 
 life. "What was fidelity to a brother that it should 
 hinder a man's life-long happiness ? 
 
 It was seven o'clock in the evening when Madge 
 found herself at Waterloo Station. In her ignorance 
 of railways and time-tables, she had contrived to 
 spend a long day upon a journey that might have 
 been easily accomplished in five or six hours. She 
 had wasted hours at various junctions, and it 
 seemed to her that she had been travelling for a 
 week when she alighted amidst the crowd and 
 bustle at Waterloo. She had eaten only a penny 
 roll upon her journey, and she longed for the 
 refreshment of a cup of tea after the dust and heat 
 of the way; but she had to husband her few 
 shillings, and so tramped off, faint and thirsty, in 
 the direction which a policeman had indicated to 
 her as the nearest way to Mayfair. 
 
 The nearest way seemed a very long way to that 
 solitary explorer before she had reached her 
 destination, and York Road, Lambeth, gave her a 
 sorry idea of the great city. But when she came 
 to Westminster Bridge the grandeur of colossal 
 London burst upon her all in a moment. She was
 
 31 G NOT A COMMON GIKL 
 
 awed by that spectacle of Senate Houses and 
 Abbey, the broad river veiled in the mists of even- 
 ing, the long lines of golden lamps. It was all 
 grand and wonderful ; but the heavy smoke-laden 
 atmosphere oppressed her. She seemed to lose all 
 the elasticity of her nature, the light free step of 
 the rustic. 
 
 It was a weary walk from the bridge to Little 
 Leopold Street^ for at almost every turn she had 
 to inquire her way_, and the roar of the traffic 
 bewildered her, while every omnibus looked like a 
 Juggernaut car bearing down upon her with 
 murderous intent. 
 
 Little Leopold Street seemed a haven of rest 
 after the noise and bustle of the great thorough- 
 fares. It was a quiet little street, lying perdu 
 among streets of greater altitude and social im- 
 portance. It was an exclusive little street, or 
 gave itself airs of aristocracy, and there were 
 flowers in all the windows. Number 14a was 
 brightened by red silk blinds, behind which lights 
 were shining in drawing-room and dining-room, 
 shining dimly in the dusk. Madge's heart almost
 
 NOT A COMxMON GIRL 317 
 
 failed her as slie rang the bell. The house had 
 such an aspect of elegance and luxury, as she 
 waited there, with the perfume of the flowers in 
 her nostrils. Every window was full of flowers. 
 And it was from such a nest as this she was to ask 
 her mother to go out with her into the stony 
 wilderness of London, to toil for daily dread. 
 
 She had to remember the dialogue in the police 
 court in order to give herself courage. 
 
 A smartly dressed young woman opened the 
 door. 
 
 " I want to see Mrs. Mandeville, if you please/^ 
 said Madge. 
 
 " I ain't at all sure as she can see you. What's 
 your business?" 
 
 "• You can tell her that I am a relation of hers, 
 and that I have come a long way on purpose to 
 see her.^^ 
 
 '^ You can step inside while I go and ask ; but 
 Fm pretty sure Mrs Mandeville won^t be able to 
 see you to-night. She's expecting company." 
 
 " Please ask her to let me speak to her, if it's 
 only for five minutes.'^
 
 318 NOT A COMMON GIRL 
 
 " Well, I'll see. You can take a seat while I 
 go upstairs." 
 
 Madge entered the hall. It was small, but made 
 important by the artistic trickery of the fashionable 
 upholsterer: white panelling, Japanese curtains, 
 Japanese lanterns, Japanese jars. Madge sat on a 
 bamboo bench, and waited. The door of the dining- 
 room stood open, and she saw a table luxuriously 
 arranged for four people. While she was looking 
 at this bright interior, the table, sideboard, and 
 mantelpiece lighted with wax-candles, and glowing 
 with flowers, the door of a back room was stealthily 
 opened, and a shabby-looking old man with a grimy 
 countenance peered curiously at her, and then with- 
 drew. She had but just time to see a small room, 
 with two candles and a jug and glass upon a table. 
 
 Who could that horrid looking old man be, and 
 what had he to do amidst all this smartness and 
 glitter ? 
 
 The maid reappeared upon the narrow staircase. 
 
 " You can step this way,"*^ she said, beckoning, 
 and Madge went up to the second floor, wondering 
 as she went at the hothouse flowers on the stair- 
 case, the velvet-covered hand-rail, the amber
 
 NOT A COMMON GIRL 319 
 
 brocade curtains whicli veiled the large window 
 on the landing. 
 
 The servant flung open the door with an angry air. 
 
 ''' She ain't in a sta-te to see any one/^ she said 
 as she retired, and left Madge standing just within 
 the threshold. 
 
 She had never been in such a room before, so 
 gaudily decorated and richly furnished, and so 
 wanton in its disorder. The low French bed was 
 draped with velvet and lace, and the silken coverlet 
 was heaped with things that had been flung there 
 haphazard one upon another. A silk gown, a 
 riding habit, hat, whip, and gloves, a pearl and 
 feather fan, a pair of satin slippers, a newspaper or 
 two, and a volume of a novel. All the chairs were 
 encumbered. There was a Persian cat asleep upon 
 one, a heap of books and newspapers on another, 
 a tea-tray on a third. Mantelpiece and fireplace 
 were draped with point lace, over turquoise velvet. 
 There was a fire burning in the low hearth, and 
 the atmosphere was oppressively hot. 
 
 A woman was lying on a sofa in front of the 
 fireplace, her long black hair hanging loose over 
 her white muslin dressing gown. A woman who
 
 320 NOT A COMMON C.lllL 
 
 had once been strikingly handsome, and who was 
 handsome still, even in decay. Her cheeks were 
 hollow^ and there were lines upon the low broad 
 forehead, but the large dark eyes had lost little of 
 their splendour, and the finely cut features were 
 unimpaired by time. 
 
 The woman who called herself ^Irs Mandeville 
 turned those darkly brilliant eyes upon the intruder 
 with a look of keenest scrutiny. Then slowly, 
 without a word, she rose with languid movements 
 from her sofa, walked across to ]\Iaclge, and laid 
 her hands upon the girPs shoulder. 
 
 She scanned her face, silently and deliberately, as 
 they stood thus, confronting each other. Madge's 
 eyes seemed transfixed by those other eyes, so like 
 her own. 
 
 " To my knowledge I have but two relations in 
 the world,^^ said Mrs Mandeville slowly, " my father 
 and my daughter. Are you my daughter ?^' 
 
 '^ Yes, mother,^' answered !Madge, with her arms 
 round her mother's neck. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 t\J