, Z-— ■' :^^Wtl'* ./\: LI E> RARY OF THL U N IVERSITY or ILLINOIS 823 C892n v. I The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161— O-1096 A NARKOW ESCAPE Reprinted from ''All the Year Round." By ANNIE THOMAS, (Mrs. PENDER CUDLIP) AUTHOR OF "DENIS DONNE," "NO ALTEUNATIVB, ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 11»3, PICCADILLY. 1875. (All rights reserved.) 8" ^2 DEDICATED TO EDMUND YATES. My deak Edmund, Whatever of ephemeral popularity or odium I may gain by my eftbrts to make a place for myself in fiction is certainly due to the influence a lecture delivered by you had upon me many years ago. That lecture was entitled s " Good Authors at a Discount," and your treatment of thf \ \. subject implanted the idea in my mind, that there was 5 \,- something glorious even in a non-successful literary career. '' Experience has considerably modified that idea. Neverthe- "\ less, I still so infinitely prefer the incessant toil of a ^\j literary life to the monotony of idleness, that I feel [^ ~,^ impelled to make a public acknowledgment of the service 22 . »^ you most unintentionally rendered me long before I knew lO "^ you, and long before I had the courage or the opportunity '"' C ^'^ P*^* myself forward as a public nuisance. C£L ^ For this reason, and because of the friendship of many ^ork — to you. ^*<^ Believe me to be "" Yours always faithfully, t Anxie Cudlip. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PAGE PROLOGUE— " The Irrepressible" 1 CHAPTER I. The Serpent and the Dove ... 20 II. The "Dear Little Thing " at Home 37 III. Caution ... ... ... -54 IV. Very Trying ... ... ... 69 V. "They have killed Him" ... S7 VI. "I hate Bob.cherry " ... ... 101 VIL " May IS ONE OF Us " ... 118 VIII. "I think it indiscreet, Frank" .. 134 IX. Drifting ... ... ... 149 X. Convalescent ... ... ... 100 XL " Is it the last, Frank ? " ... 184 XII. Do AS you Like ... ... 202 XIII. "It's ALL uphill Work" ... 220 XIV. Gentle Words ... ... ... 237 XV. Complicated ... ... 254 XVI. "The Little Spec" ... ... 270 XVIL "Two Guineas a-yapvD !~Wa.sted ! " 286 A NARKOW ESCAPE. PROLOGUE. THE " IRREPRESSIBLE." There is a magnificent mingling of the elements in the scene. The wide stretch of well-wooded, hill-and-valley diversified country, which stretches away beyond the cricket ground, is as fair a portion of our Mother Earth as any that can be found in England. Plenty of air comes into the slu'ub-bedecked ball-room, through the rose and clematis-covered chinks in the rouoli woodwork of the walls. There is fire enough in the hearts of those gallant-looking naval men who have run up from Plymouth for the Torquay Cricket Dance, to ignite any VOL. I. I« A NABEOW ESCAPE. number of matches, and water is pouring down in a persistent flood from the skies that are wetter in Devonshire than in any other part of the country. Under the shade of the wide verandah many a fair young form leans against the ivy-wreathed pillars which support the rustic edifice, listening, in the lassitude which is the offspring of flattery and vanity, to the fluent talk of the versatile sailors. H.M.S. Irrepressible has only been in port in Plymouth for a week, and already her oflicers have distinguished themselves by their dauntless conduct m the ball-room and the otter-hunting field. Their prowess after Trelawney's hounds still remains to be tested. The Irrepressible has been on foreign sei-vice for three years, and these men have three years' bottled-up spirits to get rid of. " It's all very well for those fel- lows who have been doing the dolce far niente in the Mediterranean," they say, "but we have been cut off iiom eve? y thing THE ''IRREPRESSIBLE." lively excepting fever on the West Coast of Africa — we have a good deal of time to make up." To do them justice they redeem the time to the best of their several abilities, by shooting folly flying, and gathering their roses while they may ; pursuing the soft- eyed otter along the banks of the winding Erme and Yealm, and generally taking all that Plymouth and the country round about offers them in the way of instruction imd amusement. Naturally, they, being of the exhaustive order, come to the end of Plymouth and its neighbourhood very shortly, and cast out their lines towards the adjacent towns. So behold them now at Torquay, radiant in their uniforms, with the rich tan of service upon their faces, and the efier- vescent spirit of a regular break-loose from dull routine hovering over them. The marked man in the room this night is the Flag Captain of the Port Admiral's bhip. He has come up with the " Irrepres- A NARROW ESCAPE. sibles " partly out of his Irish good-nature, partly of curiosity to see what sort of aim the "Irrepressibles" will take, and what they will bring down — and partly for another reason. He is the marked man in the room this night, by right of several attributes which women (the arbiters) deem almost divine. He is as gallant, daring, skilful, and noted a rider in the field as has ever followed the famed South Devon hounds. He is as handsome as anything that is not the crea- tion of a Greek sculptor can be, and he has the winning tongue and grace, the mix- ture of efirontery and chivalry, which only belong to the sons of Erin. He is standing now, just outside the glare of the lamps which are trained about and softened with wreaths of ivy, talking to a girl who is even more in the shade than himself, for she has passed the barrier and stands out on the balcony. But though no fierce light beats upon her she is very clearly revealed to man}- people, for she is TEE " lEEEPBESSIBLE." no power but only a casual visitor in this place. The girl is a beauty, and she has no friends here ; she rides well and boldly, and her father is a reserved invalid who keeps people at bay. " You tell me how you spend your morn- ings," the man says. " You go down to the baths with your father and wait while he boils himself first and chills himself down to the proper degree afterwards ; but what do you do with your afternoons ? and, by Jove, they must be long here ! " "You unconscious lotus-eater," the girl laughs out ; " you've come into a land in which it seemeth always afternoon, and you're tripping over Tennyson without knowing it. Well, to answer your ques- tion, I ride after luncheon. I've a dear mare, and I ride — oh ! everywhere." " Do you ever ride to Newton Abbott V the man asks. " I should think so. Guinevere and I take Newton as our preliminary canter, and then we go on to Ashburton or on the A NARROW ESCAPE. moor, or anywhere ; I don't care much where it is, if the roads don't knock her legs to pieces." " What a jolly picture you must make on Guinevere," he says enthusiastically : and all his Irish love of fair women and fine horses wakes up. The idea of making a picture in con- junction with her pet horse has never presented itself to the girl before, but still she does not dislike it in the flash in which she sees it. When he ceases speaking she says— *' I wish you could see her. She looks like 'going' all over; she jumps like a cat, has the reputation of having kicked a town down after she was bought ofi' the race- course where they over-ran her, you know; and I am the only woman who has ever been on her back. I shouldn't like to see another there." He laughs lightly to himself as he looks down at the girl's bright, eager, uplifted face. THE "IRREPRESSIBLE:' " Jealous as fire about her mare," ho thinks, and "wonders how will the fellow manage her with whom she falls in love." The solution of this problem absorbs the naval Adonis for some time, and by the time he has arrived at a satisfactory con- clusion, he has looked at the girl so long and so lovingly that she feels justified to herself for the soft glances she cannot help giving him in return. For the two previous nights have been nights of alter- nate surrender and struggle on her part. This is the third ball into which Torquay has launched within this week, and she has been at the other two, and this man has been her partner far too often for her peace of mind. She has been compelled to listen to any number of suggestions from her father about the impropriety of her course, and she has been looked askance at on the strand by daylight, as a punishment for her triumphs in the ball-room at night. But to-night she feels justified in believing that she is not throwing her heart away A N A BROW ESCAPE . without sufficient cause. She does not know that in every port he touches, he presses other hands quite as tenderly as now he is pressing hers. She does not know that he has a volley of speeches ready to let off on every occasion, and that he does not specially care what the occasion be, nor who his listener may be, provided only that she be fair. He is here for the present, and it is his habit to make the best of the present, invariably. Dull care would beset him just now were it not for this girl, but she appears to be specially interposed in order to drive dull care away; for she has youth, beauty, talents, and that undefin- able something which is expressed in the slang phrase "good form," which if a woman lacks she had better never have been born, than appear in a ball-room wherein the two services are largely repre- sented. In a suj)erficial, careless kind of way he has been lamenting to her that the inter- course of the last few davs Avill be broken THE " IBBEPEESSIBLE." to-morrow, and now the girl's voice re- sponds in tones of unfeigned regret — " Why should it be ? You'll surely be coming up from Plymouth to tlie dramatic entertainment at the Bath Saloon, on Saturday. Plymouth is no distance, and if there's nothing better going on there, take the goods the gods give you up here." *' I do generally take the goods the gods give," he rejoins with a laugh. " I don't think you can accuse me of neglecting opportunity, but I go on leave to-morrow, and so I am afraid I shall not make Guine- vere's acquaintance." " Long leave ? " " Six weeks." The girl's heart drops suddenly. In a fortnight she and her father are to leave Torquay. "And the brightest part of my life will be left behind me," she thinks despondently. She leans her head back against the rustic pillar, looks up in his face, and says in utter sincerity — " I am sorry." 10 A NARROW E8GAFE. " So am I, but I must take leave when I can get it, you see ; yes, I go up to town to-morrow, and after staying there a week I shall run over to Paris to see some friends there." Slie hears his plan with a paling face and a fainting spirit. In her utter despondency she cannot rouse herself to say anything, so he goes on, with a queer little laugh — " I assure you I would rather stay in Torquay with you than be in Paris with the people Pm going to, though one is a very pretty woman too," he adds, looking straight into the girl's face. Then, as her eyes dilate with unmistakable jealousy, he adds, ** Or at least I thought so once, but she has no charm for me now." " This night is nearly over," she says, with a quick deep sigh. " Oh dear ! how short everything pleasant is." "Why shouldn't you ride over to New- ton and see the last of me ? " he asks, drawing her out on the balcony; "let me have at least one pleasant memory con- TEE "irrepressible:' 11 nected with that howling wilderness of a station, at which you have to wait forty minutes wherever you're going, and what- ever the hour of the day may be." " I could do that," she says slowly ; " then you would see Guinevere ; what is your train ? " " We reach Newton at four ; I shall expecf you ; don't let the morning's lassitude upset your good resolution ; now we will have another turn in the room, or the rumour will arise that we have eloped." She flushes scarlet at the idea, but she does not resent his utterance of it. On the contrary, she clings rather more closely than before to his arm as they go back into the room, and he swings her away to a swimming waltz tune. By the time the waltz is over, she has promised to ride in to Newton, and show him Guinevere, and see the last of him to-morrow ; and every other girl in the room, who has been vainly seeking to engage his attention 12 A NARROW ESCAPE. during these three bewildering days, is scandalized at tlie intimacy which is appa- rent between the two. At this stage of her career she is as nnsuspicions as a child, as fresh as a wild rose, as fearless as a lioness, and as free as the wind. She knows neither doubt nor distrust. She has never in all her life stooped to the smallest concealment. Her likes and dislikes, her pleasures and her pains are patent to all those about her. When she goes home this night, it is her natural and full intention to tell her father of the arrangement she has made for the disposition of to-morrow afternoon. But her father wants to go to bed immediately ; he is an invalid and may not be disturbed. When she wakes up late the following morning she finds a note from him telling her he has joined an excursion to Berry Head, and will not be back until the seven o'clock dinner. "All right, I shall be back before him in time to take off my habit and be comfortable," she thinks, and gives no TEE "IBBEPBESSIBLE:' 13 further thought to anything but the joyous fact that she will see this man once again, and that within a few hours. She will not look beyond this last interview, or, if she does, it is to hope that he will tell her that it shall not be the last. She passes the early part of the day in the way sojourners in the fair queen of the west do generally pass their time. She bathes, she shops in the Strand, she listens to the Italian band at twelve o'clock, and eats a great many tarts and cakes at Mrs. Rolf's, for, by reason of her father being away, the necessity for taking a proper luncheon at their lodgings is removed from her. At three Guinevere is brousrht to the door, and Guinevere's mistress is swung up to the saddle by a clever groom, and starts upon her enterprise without fear, and with- out the smallest particle of self-reproach. The gallant little chestnut bends to the light hand, and makes a sober, steady pro- gress along the Strand and Union Street ; but as she crosses the Upton- Hill Road, the 14 A NARROW ESCAPK rider's impatience enters into the spirit of the horse, and the pair that look like one, so perfectly are their movements in unison, go along at a stretching gallop that soon leaves Torquay behind them. Along, with the mare thoroughly in hand, though the jDace is faster than it ought to be on this road, until they reach Kingskerswell, and in passing under the ivy- grown arch, the reverberation of Guinevere's hoofs frighten her into a regular run-away gallop that carries her rider into Newton palpitating and breathless. " So hot, poor dear, I dare not leave you here," she says, addressing her mare, as iihe springs to the ground in the station yard, and she meditates for a minute as to how she can dispose of Guinevere while j=he goes on to the platform. Finally she resolves that "the mare must go down to the Globe," and " I'll come down after her in half-an-hour," she says to the hanger- about for incidental jobs who has taken chari'e of Guinevere. TSE "IBRUPBESSIBLE:' 15 She is nearly half an hour too early for her appointment, but she is too frank and fearless to feel that there is anything humih- ating in this evidence of her haste to meet him. If she had not been desirous of see- ing him, of hearing his voice once more, she would not have agreed to come. Havingr agreed to come, anything like reticence or reserve in the matter is over, as far as she is concerned. The train is tolerably punctual for a west-country train. As it groans and pants and stops, a first-class carriage door opens, and he jumps out. She goes forward to meet him, with unrestrained delight ex- pressed in every look, every movement. "A pity such a nature should be tamed by suffering," one of the passengers from Ply- mouth thinks, as he looks at the pair ; then his eyes rest on the girl's companion : " He's carrying on to the last and no mistake," this other passenger thinks. " I hoped he'd made an end of it last night, for the girl's sake." IG A NARROW ESCAPE. He leans far out of the window as he thinks this, but neither one of the pair sees him, for they are engaged in one of these earnest conversations which absorb the facul- ties of sight, and hearing, and observation, and concentrates these upon themselves. Presently the man in the carriage has to withdraw his head to make room for an incomer. When he puts it out again, the pair have vanished. " I thought he really meant Paris at last," the young man says to himself; "but I suppose he's off to Torquay with her instead ; some one really ought to give that girl the straight tip." Meanwhile this is how it has been farini:: with Guinevere's beautiful mistress. " Took her from Torquay to the station yard in thirty minutes, did you ! " her friend says to her reproachfully ; " there's not one woman in a thousand who deserves a good horse ; you always rattle them to pieces." " I'm the most careful rider in the world," THE ''IBBEPBESSIBLE:' 17 the girl lauglis ; " but to-day the little mare lost her head, and — I didn't feel inclined to find it for her. She's being well looked after. I shall ride home sedately enough in the cool of the evening." " If you're going to wait for the cool of the evening you may just as well come on to Dawlish with me," he says, " take the next train back, and do two good deeds with one stroke — lighten my journey and let your mare rest." She hesitates, and — is lost, of course. " I may as well do it," she says, questioningly, for she is hunsjerino; for a few more minutes with him. So when the train goes on, she 2:0 es on with it. By-and-by their whispered colloquy is in- terrupted by the swish of the waves at Dawlish. She begins to nerve herself for the parting, but — it is an express train, and Dawlish is behind them in a flash. Who but the woman to whom they are addressed can ever rightly word the argu- ments that a man uses when he persuades TOL. r. c 18 A NARROW ESCAPE. lier to be rash, and to risk a certain amount of censure from the world, for the uncertain gift of his love and constancy ? It is pos- sible enough to imagine them, but after all, it is just as well not to word the imagin- ings. It is sufficient for the purposes of my story to say that during the hours of her utterly unpremeditated flight, the girl is convinced by him that it will be for her own happiness, as well as for his, to go on with him to town — to be married to him the next day — and to return in a state of penitential bliss to Torquay, immediately afterwards, to crave her papa's forgiveness for causing him so much anxiety as he must needs endure during her absence. But the scheme breaks down at Pad- dington, when the fellow-passenger (an Irrepressible man) comes to them and says to the girl's lover — "You're on your way to Paris to your wife, are you not? Remember me kindly to her ; I am " His speech is interrupted by a subdued THE ''IBBEPBESSIBLE." V.) cry of such agony and rage as only an outraged, jealous woman can utter. But, kind-hearted fellow as he is, he is not sorry for his work on this occasion, for the gii-1 goes back to Torquay by the next train, saved. The man who was taking her away goes on his way — anything but rejoicing — after an assurance of fully repaying him at some future time, to the one who had interrupted the pretty pastime of the present. CHAPTER L THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. " Women — especially if they're love-sick to the idiotic degree that Miss Constable is, will forgive almost anything ; but you're trying her hard, Frank ; even I, prejudiced as I am in your favour, must admit that." The speaker is a good-looking giii of two or three and twenty, richly endowed by nature with the gift of seeming to be what- ever is most fascinating to the person whom it is her current deske to please. Richly endowed too by nature with a beautiful figure, and a face capable of ex- })ressing any emotion which she may be desirous of portraying : it expresses light, half-amused contempt now ; nothing more. ]>ut in reality she is keenly anxious as to THE SERPENT AND TEE DOVE. 21 what will be the eJQfect of her apparent burst of frankness on her cousin — the man by her side. "May is a clear little thing," he says, slowly, "but it does become a bore when a fellow has to go to the same house night after night, and hear the same things said, and " " See exactly the same expression on the face of your beloved," the girl interrupts quickly. " Yes, that will be trying enough to you, you fickle feUow, when you're mar- ried, and must endure it ; but then the mere fact of your being compelled to endure it will enable you to do it." " We won't begin to talk about my marriage yet," he answers, with a shght air of confusion ; and, as he speaks, he releases his cousin Kate's hand, which he has been holding during the brief colloquy. He feels that there is something like incon- gruity between this attitude towards Kate, and the mention of his marriage with another girl. 22 A NAEEO W ESCAPE. The young lady feels it too. For all the cousinship between them, for all her greed of admiration, for all her daring disregard of the absent May's claim upon Frank as a rule, Kate is ashamed of herself now. " I suppose I forgot that you're only my cousin, not my brother ; forgive me, Frank, for mentioning the matter in that way." In an instant she is sisterly in a sweet insincere way, that is a good bit of acting, and appeals powerfully to Frank Forest's love of anything dramatic. "You may mention any matter, in any way that seems good to you, Kate," he says, warmly, when his sisters come into the room ; and Kate saunters to meet them, with as unembarrassed an air as if she had been engrossed with the newspaper she holds in her hand, instead of with another woman's lover. " Mamma is not coming down to break- fa-st," one of the girls announces, and the other one asks — " What do they say of ' Duplicity,' Frank ? " THE SERPENT AND TEE DOVE. 23 " They say, at. least the Scourge says, that Frank is quite the coming dramatist," Kate replies for him ; " don't you both feel very proud of him ? I do." She does unmistakably, as she turns her lustrous grey hazel eyes full on his, and smiles the flashing happy smile that a girl can smile upon the man she loves, or upon the man she wishes to make believe she loves. " He's not at all bad, as brothers go," Gertrude, the elder sister says ; " but if the Scourge takes to over-rating him as much as you do, Kate, he will lose his head, and become a bore to his sisters, who can't be expected to pour out para- graphs of adulation, whenever his lines happen to be so well given that he is accredited with having written them well." " However, we will go again to-night, and mark May's ecstacies," Marian, the younger sister, adds patronizingly. "Poor ]\Iay ! if she is always going to be panic- stricken, whenever you bring out a play, 24 A NABEO W ESCAPE. Frank, what good will lier life be to her ? " The two Miss Forests are good-looking girls, but they pale before the brighter light of their far more attractive cousin, Kate Mervyn. Buckles fasten nothing on their shoulders, and weapons of war are thrust through their hair and their sashes in the most approved fashion. Chains of steel suspend all manner of useless articles from their respective waists. They are girt about with fero- ciously appointed belts of Eussian leather, and sounding brass. Wherever custom decrees that they may be puffed, they are puffed to the best of the ability of rich silks and buckram. They have about them the swing of a life of perpetual small excite- ments, and they tread the social wheel with the grace of those who feel they decorate their portion of it. Neverthe- less, with all these natural and acquii-ed attributes of theirs, Kate puts them out effectually. TEE SERPENT AND TEE DOVE. 25 Kate, who in her dress affects the match- less lines of the riding-habit, who banishes Lows that tie nothing, and buckles that buckle nothing, and straps that sustain nothing, from every portion of her toi- lette, leads the eye off her dashing cousins at once. Even they cannot help feeling a goodly portion of what they had come to believe to be necessary, superfluous, Avhen she, in that studied simplicity of hers, comes between them and throws out their grotesque outlines. They watch her now, as she walks about the room, the while she reads aloud selected pas- sages of praise of the comedy which was produced last night. When Miss Mervyn has exhausted the published panegyrics on the piece, she sits down to breakfast and utters a few original ones, until she is interrupted by Gertrude, who has heard quite enough to satisfy her sisterly heart of her brother's play. "Are you going to the Constables to luncheon with us, Frank ? " 26 A NABItOW ESCAPE. "I am going up to the theatre." " Oh dear ! then it will fall to our un- happy fate to have to tell May what she calls ' all about it ; ' Kate ! yours shall be the pleasing task of assuaging her maidenly fears as to her lover's success." "I wish you wouldn't talk such non- sense," Frank breaks in angrily; "you're only making Kate think May a greater fool than she thinks her already ; you have the knack, Gertrude, of making everybody absurd by the way you speak of them." " Don't be cross because I imply that May has more of the softness of the dove than the wisdom of the serpent," his sister laughs carelessly; and Kate, who is always on the watch to see the slightest change in the position of that weathercock, man's fancy, puts in — " Softness is far preferable to wisdom in a wife, I should imagine ; fancy breakfasting and dining and going through the daily round with a wise woman. I must go up to Aunt Marian now, and read these notices TRE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. 27 to her," she says, collecting the papers. Then, as she is about leaving the room, she turns and fires a parting shot : — "When I think of what Aunt Marian will feel, I can't help feeling that I wish I were your mother, Frank." She is five or six years younger than her cousin Frank, therefore the expression of the wish is not calculated to raise dis- tressing suspicions of her age in his mind. Man as he is, successful dramatist as he is, he is by no means unwilling to accept these private tributes of sugared laurel leaves from the hands of his cousin Kat«. Accordingly he is quick to resent the half- mocking tone and laugh with which his eldest sister says — "I should think Kate has had some practice in the art of praising men, shouldn't you, Marian 'i I wonder if she would play the part of consoler equally well if you had failed, Frank ! " " She would play it better than you would," he retorts quickly, " for she is 28 A NAEBOW ESCAPE. capable of appreciating what's good in itself, whether it fails or not. What makes you go to the Constables to-day ? " " Their fond desire to heap honours on the head of this fresh member of the family. Mrs. Constable and May are both ready to adore Kate, and you know when Mrs. Constable is ready to adore man, woman, or child, she always offers him, her, or it something to eat ; and May is always delighted to get a new legitimate listener to her praises of you.'' " Don't chaff any more about May," he says, rising up and walking to the window ; " and don't trot her out for Kate's amuse- ment," he adds abruptly, as his conscience pricks him at the thought of the desolation which will pervade May's spirit when she finds that he is not of the party. " Tell May how busy I am, haven't a moment to myself, and all that sort of thing, will you? '* Yes, of course I will ; and look here, Frank, I won't say a word about the neat THE SERPENT AND TEE DOVE. 29 and obliging way in which Kate has copied out those parts for you, and those delightful long strolls in Kensington Gardens in the afternoons. I'll be as discreet as — as Kate herself." *' Do you mean to go with the Con- stables to-night, Frank, or with us V the other sister asks; and he mutters some- thing about " hardly knowing, but thinking it better that the Constables should act in- dependently, as something unforeseen might of course arise to detain him." " Of course we can't all pack into one box ; there will be Kate and you and me in our box ; do let the Constables be some- where else, Frank." " Oh, Marian, Frank must be with May," Gertrude says. She is not going herself, and is indifferent to the prospect of other people being slightly crushed. With this the three separate — the girls to put on their habits for the morning ride ; the brother to go up to the theatre to do away with two or three little crumples in the new piece. 30 A KAUROW ESCAPE. His sisters start off presently, and still he loiters about in the library, whistling softly, and being restless and uncertain altogether. Before he can make up his mind to cpit the house Kate comes in with a look that is new to him on her expressive face. "Is there anything the matter? what is it ? " he asks, going to meet her with out- stretched hands, and she puts hers into his confidingly^ and answers — "Frank, Aunt Marian, out of_the dearest kindness to me, has made me so unhappy." " That's the form women's kindness very often takes, but my mother is different to most women ; what has vexed you, Kate ? " He lifts one hand up as he speaks and is going to kiss it, but Kate stops him. " No, don't do it ; it's just that that is the matter. I ought not to tell you, but I've no one else to turn to, and I must tell you. Frank, she has accused me of being forgetful of May, and May's claims upon you." " I wish my mother would let my affiirs THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. 31 alone," he says in a tone of vexation ; " forgetful of May I Why should you not be forgetful of May ? What claim has she upon your recollection ? If I forget her now " He pauses and his hearer's face falls, and she says gently — " If you forget her I You can't do it, Frank," "I should be a scoundrel if I did," he replies quickly ; " but what does my mother mean ? why has she been worrying you V " She means that I have shown too mucli interest in you, Frank," she says, with an effort that sends the blood from her heart to her brow; and her voice fails her, and she stands before him with bent head and trembling hands, for she is not acting now. The flattery is very potent, but he does struggle hard with inclination and tempta- tion. He recalls all May's innocent trust- fulness, he tries to think of her pure, deep love. But all the while he is longing to break through all bonds, and to draw this 32 A NARROW ESCAPE. girl to liim with kisses warmer than any he has ever given May Constable. " I wish she had not opened the ques- tion," he says angrily; "at any rate we will put it to rest ; it shall not disturb you if I can help it. If you are to be spoken about and misunderstood because of your kindness to me, why I should be a selfish fellow if I tried to get you 'to show it ; I will not be selfish in my pursuit of you, Kate ; forgive me for what is past, and accept my promise there shall be no more of it." She looks wp at him amazed, heartsore, and stricken. She had not anticipated that he would take her disclosure thus. Then he, overpowered by the look which is so full of the interest which she has been accused of feeling, and by way, also, of rewarding himself for the excellent resolu- tions he has just made, lowers his head at last, and lets his lips rest on her forehead. " We are cousins, you know," he mutters, excusingly ; and Kate answers — TRE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. 33 " Surely in that fact there is to be found sufficient reason why you shouldn't shun me for the future, Frank ? May has your confidence, your vows, your promise, and she will have your name ; let me have your friendship." She will not say, " May has your love ; " and he notices the omission, and is partly pleased and partly pained by it. He is, at the same time, glad and sorry that the flirtation of the last three weeks should have developed into a deeper feeling on her side ; and he is a little annoyed that the cool quality of his regard for May should be so transparent to his cousin. Still, he allows himself to be hurried on by his ardent nature to say, in response to her request — " You'll always have my warmest friend- ship, Kate, however little I may be able to show it ; and as for the rest — if I had only been free 1 " " If I had been a man, would I have let my fetters stand in my way ? " she thinks, VOL. I. D 34 A NABBOW ESCAPE. in contemptuous anger. Then the bitter sensation assails her that, after all, she may be in the position of the biter bit. In this case, though she began in sport, she has developed into earnestness ; and Frank can calmly speak about what he would have done, "if" he had been free! Worse than all, the conviction smites her that she has let him perceive that he has gained an easy victory over her, and that, therefore, she will be at the disadvantage which invariably attends the one who loves most. Happily for them both, these hu- miliating considerations conspire to make her release her hands from his, and move away from him. She is in the act of doing this, she is only just in safety, when a round-eyed, fair-haired, gentle-faced girl comes in with the air of one who is quite at home, and has a right of possession. " I have come to tell you that I won't have you waste any more time about those tiresome plays, Frank," May Constable be- gins, in her effusive, soft way. " I met THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. 35 the girls, and they told me you were going up to the theatre ; and, I believe, instead of that, you have been at home, writing. Now, hasn't he. Miss Mervyn ? and isn't it a shame that he should work so hard, and never give himself one pleasure ? " She is by his side as she speaks her loving platitudes, clinging to his arm, and conduct- ing herself as a girl may conduct herself who is openly and honestly engaged in the eyes of all the world. Frank is crimsoning with shame ; not at his half-falseness to May, but that Kate should be compelled to wit- ness what strikes him at this particular moment as May's foolish fondness. As for Kate, she is gnawed by the pangs of jealous wrath, and, novel as are the sensa- tions, and great as is the charm novelty has for erring humanity, she does not like them. " You are quite right," she says, in the clear, distinct tones, which oflfer such a marked contrast to May's lisping, slightly- affected pronunciation. " You are quite right, Miss Constable. Frank has been 36 A NABBOW ESCAPE. doing very hard and very unpleasant work this morning ; if I were in your place, I should see that he was more careful of himself in future." " Oh Frank ! " May ejaculates, her in- consequent mind in a state of chaos as Kate's words conjure up all sorts of possi- bilities and impossibilities ; " you hear your cousin calls it hard, unpleasant work ! Why will you go on ? 1 know so much writing is bad for the health ; I get a headache if I only write a letter. It's thinking so much, I suppose ; one has to think so much when one's writing a letter. I do wish you would be satisfied with your ofiice work : and you don't want the money." " You are ambitious for him, indeed," Kate says, with cool satire that glances off May's intelligence, as shot does off an iron-clad. Frank says, hurriedly, " Don't be foolish, May," and gets himself away at last, leaving the serpent and the dove alone together. CHAPTER IL THE "dear little THING " AT HOME. May Constable is a friendship-at-any-price girl. She has always a bosom friend on hand, about whom she entwines herself, and in whose ear she reposes perfectly innocent and uninterestino; confidences. Frank's sisters have not exactly repulsed, but they have certainly never invited these ebullitions of feeling, consequently May thinks them hard. Having imprudently dropped a well-beloved school-fellow who had been as the oak to the ivy to her, previous to her engagement to Frank Forest, she has been on the qui vive for the last few months to discover some trusty piece of lat- tice work about which she may twine her tendrils. It says much for her subtle and delicate insight into character and motives 38 A NABBOW ESCAPE. that she should have abeady mentally appointed Kate to the office of her feminine guide, philosopher, and friend. Aggrieved as Kate is, disappointed in her own strength, outraged by a full sense of her own weakness, humiliated by the knowledge of the truth that Frank has himself driven home to her, namely, that he has not lost his head entirely, though she has entirely lost her heart, she has still a remnant of honour left with regard to her relations with this girl to whom Frank Forest belongs. She shrinks from May's caresses. She gives a decided negative to May's proposition that they " shall go to- gether to her mother's house, and sit in her own dear little room, and have a nice comfortable talk " before the Misses Forest come home to join them. She portrays no manner of interest in May, in fact ; but the bride-elect displays no consciousness of being- chilled or hurt. There is a great display of affection be- tween Frank's mother and Frank's future THE ' ' DEAR LITTLE THING "AT HOME. 39 wife presently, when the former comes down in a graceful morning wrapper, a good deal of motherly pride and of auntly displeasure. Mrs. Forest loves her son as a clever reflec- tion of herself, and she likes safe girls with money. Now May is essentially a safe girl, and her money is an even better established fact than her discretion. She is a slight, tall, admirably arranged woman, this mother of the Forests. One of those women whom the combination of care- fully selected phraseology, elegant dresses, and goodly stature, unite in elevating into an atmosphere of something that almost approaches dignity. A woman who has known riches and honour in her day, and who has had her experience of the black side of life also, in the shape of poverty, the falling away of friends, and a general inability to keep the wolf from the door. It must be credited to her powers of man- agement under these latter circumstances, that she always secured to herself such an amount of personal comfort and freedom 40 ^ A NABBO W ESCAPE. from the lower forms of self-abnegation as tended materially to preserve the good effects of her originally graceful figure, and unruffled mien, manners, and face. What marvel that such a woman, she being not entirely selfish be it understood, should shrink, now that the sun is shining upon her again, from any alliance for her children that might cast them into the bleak shade of poverty ? Her own riches had all taken wing once upon a time, and her husband, a stock-broker, had toiled and wearied and dragged on a generally miserable existence after that episode, until he achieved a competence for her and her children. Having fulfilled his destiny by realizing this noble aim he died, or as she expresses it to this day — '"He was mercifully removed before he had the opportunity of risking all that stood between me and despair," As far as the disposition of the money is concerned, she is the sole arbiter of her children's fates and fortunes, for it is settled unreservedly upon her. But she has never THE ''DEAR LITTLE THING " AT HOME. 41 been an unwise woman in this matter. She has been liberal to her children. She has made her son feel that he is the master of the house in which they all dwell. In all that concerns himself alone she has made Frank feel that he is free as air. But when it came to the matter of his marriage some short time since, she told him that, " This was a matter that concerned his family, and that it behoved him to clearly ascertain what Miss Constable's prospects were before he committed himself to formally proposing to her." " Understand this, Frank," she had said ; " if you marry a girl with money, you will have your rightful share of the poor equi- valent your father made me for w^hat he lost for me ; but if you marry into poverty, it will very justly go to your sisters, for they will never be able to look for help from you." "And supposing they choose to marry poor men ? " he had suggested. " In that case they will be very uncom- 42 A NABBOW ESCAPE. fortable, for I should certainly never en- courage such folly by making them any allowance during my life." The result of this confidential converse with his mother was to hurry Frank on very perceptibly in his love-making to May Constable. The cold, frigid opposition to any other element than wealth in the affair stung all that was generous within him, and he had pledged himself and his honour pretty deeply to the girl, before he found out that she amply fulfilled the one condition his mother had named as the essential. This condition being fairly ascertained now, Mrs. Forest has little pity on and no patience with that undefinable some- thing which her quick eyes see is growing up between her beautiful niece and her handsome, clever son. " If my brother had only been honest enough to tell me what a witch his Kate is, I would never have been weak enough to put her in Frank's path. Having com- mitted that error, I can only repair it by THE ''DEAR LITTLE THING " AT HOME. 43 putting her out of his path as quickly as possible." This thought has been her constant com- panion, day and night, for the last week ; but she has been unable to break the chain of habitual intercourse which has easily and naturally formed itself between the young people. This morning, however, there has been something a little too tender and true in Kate's pride in her cousin's success. Therefore his mother has spoken — with what effect has been seen. There is a good deal of barely-suppressed scorn in Kate's face, as she looks on in silence while Frank's mother and Frank's bride-elect embrace and congratulate each other about " Duplicity." " You must go and be very proud of him to-night, May," Mrs. Forest says ; and May says she is not sure about going, if he will stay at home with her instead : — " He must have had enough of those horrid theatres, poor boy ; so I shall make him stay with me to-night," she says, 44 A NARROW ESCAPE. with an air of having authority over him, which goads Kate into saying — "Your suggestion will be most flattering to him — on the second night of his piece." *' Ah ! but I don't mean to flatter him too much," May says, with unfeigned ear- nestness ; for she is not exactly keen of comprehension, and she is extremely de- sirous that Kate should understand that, as an engaged young lady, she is in the positioQ of the flattered, not the flatterer. To say that Mrs. Forest feels indignant with her niece for being cleverer than May Constable would be unjust, perhaps. But, certain it is that she feels mortified and angry, and the anger vents itself on Kate. " There is something more flattering to a man, my dear, in the fact of the girl he loves desiring his society, than in her wish- ing to go and see his play even : the author is dearer to her than his work." " That's just what Miss Mervyn meant," self-satisfied May says — bringing all the power of her weakness to bear on the ex- THE ''BEAM LITTLE THING" AT HOME. 45 planation— " but Frank bears spoiling well ; we will spoil him all our lives, won't we, Mrs. Forest ? " "Frank is more likely to spoil you, darling," Mrs. Forest says. But there is no genuine ring about her tones ; and Kate has the comfort of feeling that, in order to keep things straight, the mother has to do a good deal of the love-making for the son. For some reason or other, Mrs, Forest takes an early opportunity of turning the conversation away from the dramatic in- terest of the present, and causing it to run in the domestic channel of the future. " I have been telling my niece, Kate," she says, " that, when she pays us the next visit, she will find it much pleasanter ; you will be able to chaperone her then." " You have never worded the affectionate forethought to me. Aunt Marian," Kate says, suavely ; and then she goes on to turn the tables on her perhaps unconscious tormentor, by speaking of the trial that is laid upon 46 A NABBOW ESCAPE. every -woman during the first year of her married life — the dread, namely, that she may bore her husband out of even the semblance of affection for her, " No woman with a properly regulated mind need have that dread," Mrs. Forest puts in, hurriedly. " This dear girl, for example, even now, though she can't give him the full sympathy which she will give w^hen she is his wife — it's beautiful to see how he turns to her from all the excitement and intoxication of worldly flattery and suc- cess. It's beautiful to me, very beautiful." "So it is to me, very beautiful," Kate says, quietly ; and May beamingly avows that she never felt afraid of boring any one in her life, and that Frank likes being quiet : he often does'nt speak a dozen words to her of an evening, " But he likes to hear mamma and me talk," she adds ; " and we chatter on about — oh, about anything, you know, just as if he w^asn't there," The two Miss Forests come in happily at THE " DEAB LITTLE THING "AT HOME. 47 this juncture ; happily for Mrs. Forest and Kate, that is, but with no special air of happiness about themselves, " There was no one out to-day, positively no one," Miss Forest says in answer to some inquiries as to whom she has seen ; and then she adds, as if he were altogether outside the pale of anybody's interest, " We had a bow from Mr, Graham, mamma, and when we came away Marian was weak enough to let him come up and tell her that he would call here to-morrow," "1 shall not be at home to him," Mrs, Forest says, decisively. Then she goes on to explain to the all-important May Con- stable, that she really cannot receive a man at her house who has " been dismissed the service." May says " of course not," with equal decision, although she has not the faintest notion as to the amount of itrno- miny that is the righteous due of such an offender, " Clement Graham has effrontery enough for anything," Gertrude Forest puts in com- 48 A NARROW ESCAPE. plainingly ; and she is rather surprised when her cousin Kate comes to her and says — ''I do admire your thoroughness in track- ing down misfortune, Gertrude ; what is his unpardonable sin ? " " He was such a nice young fellow," Marian says, in a superfluous way that is infinitely disagreeable to her mother and sister. " And lie used to be here with Frank a great deal — it was he introduced o Frank to you, May, you ought to stand by him — and he was getting on so well in the Navy, and he was turned out because he wouldn't tamely submit to being badgered by a superior officer ; that's the whole truth, mamma: I may not have put it prettily, but that is the truth." " I like the way you have put it," Kate says, coming forward, with a quiet de- termination to be heard that ensures her an audience ; " we are all so lenient to the wrongdoer who escapes unpunished, and so virtuously severe on the one who is found out ; Marian is in a minority, I know, but THE ''BEAR LITTLE THING ' ' AT HOME. 49 I'm with her entirely in such a matter as this." *' My dear Kate, I knew you had a good many girlish follies clinging about you still, though you have attained years of discre- tion ; but I thought you had passed out of the staofe of effusive enthusiasm about a cause of which you know nothing," Mrs. Forest says, and she pats May Constable's hand as she speaks, and looks for a smile of sympathy on that young lady's face ; of sympathy with the half-contemptuous tole- rance she is expressing for her niece. " I hope the folly of believing that the sin is not one bit the blacker because the sinner is found out, will cling to me to the last, Aunt Marian ; for to a certainty all my other follies will, and I shall need the leaven of a little charity to lighten them," Kate makes answer, with great apparent good humour ; but all the while her heart and her mind are in revolt, against the absolute necessity circumstances have forced upon her of concealing a natural hearty womanly VOL. I. B 50 A NABBOW ESCAPE. paroxysm of remorse, as she listens to the slighting mention which is being made of a man who had done her a certain good service in by-gone days. A service for which she might never thank him, which she might never acknowledge even, for fear of bringing confusion upon others — a service which he had rendered to her as a woman, and not as the beautiful, bewitching Kate Mervyn, whom most men delighted to serve. But, for all that, a service which had bound her in such grateful chains to him, that now as she hears unjust, slighting mention made of him, she would give anything to stand forth and proclaim the truth, and say why Graham fell — if she dared. But somehow or other the consciousness of her own cowardice stung her this day to a sharper degree than it had ever done be- fore. So " she is much gentler and quieter altogether," Mrs. Constable says to the Forests, when luncheon is over, "than she seems to be in society. May is quite taken with her, I assure you ; but then May can THE ''DEAR LITTLE THING" AT HOME. 51 afford to be generous to other pretty girls, you see." " Everybody is takec with Kate ; May isn't displaying any uncommon generosity," Marian says, uncompromisingly. " If there is a girl in the world of whom I could be jealous, it is Kate," Gertrude adds by way of making things pleasant. But Mrs. Constable is a tepid-natured woman, steeped in a vapour bath of satisfaction with things as they are. And so, in answer to these rather outspoken alarmists, she only says : — " Ah ! my dears ! you haven't either of you known what true love is yet. May and Frank have found it out before you, and I have no more fear of either of them chang- ing, than I have of their not being as happy as my husband and I were, when they are married." May's mother speaks with a tear or two in her eyes, and the Forest girls feel un- commonly sorry for themselves. "Private theatricals at three o'clock in the afternoon ! 52 A NABBOW ESCAPE. appalling ! " Gertrude thinks, while Marian, with practical kind-heartedness suggests — " Mrs. Constable, May can afford to be generous, and all that sort of thing, of course ; but do you quite think she can afford to be indifferent ? She thinks no more of what he has written for the stage than if he had merely written a motto for a bon-bon cracker ; do you think now that that can please him ? " Mrs. Constable does her best to tackle the question, which is asked in earnestness. She wrinkles up her brow, she purses up her mouth, she shakes her head, and she sighs : this last being an utterly mentally bewildered woman's last resource. Having done all these things, she says, at last, reflectively — " My dear Marian, I think those wives are wise who let all business cares drop off from their husbands, as soon as they come home. If May takes my advice (and I shall always be near, I hope, to advise and direct her), she will never refer to anything THE " BEAR LITTLE THING ''AT HOME. 53 connected with his work when her husband comes home for peace, Mr. Constable and I were the happiest couple in the world, but I never questioned about what might be going on in his business establishment ; he left all those interests behind him, when he left the city ; and all through the course of our married life, I never woke him once from his sleep in that arm-chair over there, to ask what he had bought or sold." " Frank's wares are rather different," Marian says, undauntedly, and Mrs. Con- stable shakes her head rather sadly, in reply to this, as she answers — " I know — I know, my dear. He's only a literary man ; but if he makes her happy, I will be contented." The afternoon is becoming very sleepy, conversation flags, and they one and all wish to get apart from one another. Kate finally breaks the chain that binds them, for she requires to rest, and think, rather severely, before she dare trust herself to meet the successful dramatist, her cousin, to-night. CHAPTER III. CAUTION. " I, TOO, would rather ' meet a bear robbed of her whelps,' than a fool in her folly," Kate MervjTQ says to herself ; and she shrugs her shoulders anything but resignedly when she finds herself in a box at the Parthenon this night, with Mrs. Constable and May for her sole companions. The Misses Forest have found occupation more congenial than " listening to Fame blowing her trumpet about Frank ; " there- fore, they have not come. Frank is feverish and excited about many things. He prefers the back of the stage to a seat between May Constable and his cousin Kate. Here, at least, he is spared a sight of the amiable face of his beloved, over which no shadow of feeling flits by any chance. He is also CAUTION. 55 spared hearing her criticisms on "Dupli- city," which are of an order to make strong- men weep. Kate's feelings are complex. On the whole, though she delights in Frank's mere presence, her delight is considerably chastened by the little airs of having the sole right to him, w^hich May is addicted to displaying. On the other hand, Kate would almost rather endure this pain, which is inflicted under her owti observa- tion, than suffer the pangs of uncertainty which torment her whenever he flees the box and goes " behind." For he has been heard to declare that the two actresses who play the principal parts in his drama are " two of the prettiest and most attractive women in London." The memory of this remark rankles in her breast, and corrodes her peace ot mind. She longs to ask him if he really thinks so, or if the opinion has proceeded from the fertile brain of his sister Gertrude, and simply been fathered upon him. If she 56 A NARROW ESCAPE. had the courage to ask him this, one cause of jealous pain would be removed instantly. For Frank is quite ready to avow now that this declaration was made "in his salad days, when he was green of judg- ment," namely, before his cousin Kate came to town, " This way madness lies," poor Kate thinks, when Mrs. Constable — upon whom the meaning of it all has only just dawned - — insists upon explaining the plot so far as it has proceeded. This lady likewise ani- madverts upon the conduct of the characters, or rather severely censures the actresses by name, for fulfilling their respective mis- sions, and speaking Frank Forest's lines with effect. " Well may it be called ' Duplicity,' " she says, shaking her head in virtuous indignation, " making love to other men, and deceiving their poor husbands, like the nasty brazen things they are. How Frank can talk about May knowing them by-and- by, I can't imagine." CAUTION. " But I suppose it's all in the piece," May cuts in ; and her partial apprehension is almost as intolerable a thing to Kate as the muddle of misapprehension in which the elder lady's mind is involved. " It doesn't make them a bit the better, if it is all in the piece," Mrs. Constable says, her head quivering with irate feeling. " How Frank can allow it, and encourage it, surpasses my understanding altogether. Poor fellow ! to be obliged to do such things for money ! " " In a little time he won't need to do it," May says, complacently. " What are they laughing at now ? I don't see the wit of their jokes ; do you ? " " Perhaps Frank will instruct you," Kate says, worn out of all patience. As she speaks, Frank, accompanied by another man, comes back into the box. "Let me introduce Captain Bellairs to you, Kate," he begins, forgetting, in his eagerness to make his beautiful cousin known to his most distinguished club 58 A NABBO W ESCAPE. acquaintance, that Mrs. Constable and May have the claim to the first attention. But he remarks it as Kate, with an expression in which rage and appeal are strangely min- gled, looks up at the stranger, after just bending her head. So the onus is removed from Miss Mervyn of having to throw her- self into a conversational brush with this stranger instantly. Mrs. Constable and May are quite equal to the occasion. Women with nothing par- ticular to say invariably say it with facility. Captain Bellairs, with Irish adaptability, is quite ready to discuss and denounce "Du- plicity" with them, notwithstanding the fact that it is a piece in which he greatly delights. Indeed he is quite ready to do anything that may distract attention from the girl on the opposite side of the box, until she has been given time to recover herself. For they have met before, this pair, and met in a way that makes Kate burn as she recalls the manner of it. Met in a way CAUTION. 59 and parted in a way that may affect her whole life — that damages her in meeting him again — that drives her nearly to des- peration, as she reflects that she dare do nothing active to prevent a recurrence of the meeting. If it should ever get known, that story of hers which, if known, would ruin her with that correct, calculating piece of iced virtue, her aunt, Mrs. Forest ! The girl battles down her naturally defiant spirit as this horrible contingency occurs to her, for the piece of iced virtue is Frank's mother ! Frank is growing dearer to her every hour in which she is thrown in his society. In- tellectually, sympathetically, socially, they have become as one, almost. It is only in heart that they seem to keep apart, and the seeming is growing a direful burden to Kate, as she learns more and more of the mate Frank has drifted into choosing for himself. She makes one little abortive attempt to get clear of the mesh, instead of involving 60 A NABBOW ESCAPE. herself in it further. "Frank," she whis- pers, " is this man a good friend for you, do you think ? an idle, expensive, rackety sailor ? What good can much of his society do a literary man who is not playing at his work ? " " Marry at was an expensive, rackety sailor, Kate," he laughs. "Was he a bad com- panion for literary men who were not play- ing at their work, do you think ? " " This man is a disgrace to the profession that Marryat's name ennobled," the girl answers, angrily ; " trust to my intuitions, Frank — I don't like him ; have done with him for my sake ; don't ask liim to your house." She puts all her power of pleasing into her entreaty. She puts her hand most per- suasively in his. She puts some of the feel- ing that fills her heart into the glance that steals from her eyes. But stiQ Frank resists her. " He's a great chum of mine, and both the girls adore him ; Gertrude seems quite CAUTION. 61 satisfied with her chance, so you had better fling your intuitions overboard, dear, for probably you'll have him for a cousin." " I have heard that he is married already," she says ; and a pang of humiliation nearly chokes her, as she recollects the way in which she had heard it. " Married ! " Frank laughs softly ; " rather a joke that. I've known Bellairs very well for three or four years ; he wouldn't have kept a wife dark all that time ; who told you?" She shakes her head, and turns it away from him, wishing bitterly that she had let matters take their course, rather than put herself in the position of being questioned on this point. For, as must have been already divined, Kate Mervyn is the girl who rode from Torquay into Newton Abbott on a summer day, "to see the last " of the man who had been pleasing her taste, and raising her hopes, and contemplating her downfall, during the dazzling days of the Torquay week. 62 A NABBOW ESCAPE. " The fact is, you've taken an impression- able woman's dislike to him," Frank says to his cousin, the following morning, when he has insisted on resuming the topic of Captain Bellairs. "Is it a case of being piqued, dear ? Poor little May doesn't often carry off the honours when you're present ; but she did last night as far as Bellairs was concerned." Frank laughs, even as he speaks, at the absurdity of May Constable carrying off the honours from Kate under any combination of circumstances; and Kate feels her cheeks burning, as she thinks of one or two glances that Captain Bellairs had flashed at her, unseen by either of the others, from his place by May Constable's side. She feels in the toils indeed. She can never appeal to the Forests for protection from the renewal of the insult ; for where would she be with Frank, if the story of her escapade were ever told to him ? What a cruel Nemesis that brief madness — that by- gone folly is becoming to her ! "It has CAUTION. 63 stained me for life," she thinks hopelessly, as she looks at Frank, M' ho is drifting deeper into love with her every moment, and who nourishes the belief that she has never given so much as a thought to any mar. before him. - His mother, by her injudicious interfer- ence the previous day, has hurried on the crisis which she is ready to move heaven and earth to avert. Above all things now, Frank feels that he " must get out of it with May," though how he is to do it is an unsolved problem yet. Kate is the one woman in the world for him, and the thought of being tied for life to May makes him desperate ; good taste, manly feeling, common humanity, all combine to prevent his declaring himself Kate's lover before all the world yet. But he feels that she must know it this day, for through want of knowledge on her part, he may lose her yet. He blesses his mother's habits of morning indolence, and his sisters' steady pursuit of 64 A NARROW ESCAPE. excitement in the Row — this morning, as he sits with Kate alone. The little morning room is full of soft warmth and floral fragrance. The light is sweetly subdued, so is Kate. The hour is his own, and he longs to assure himself that the woman is also. She is making no pretence of working or of doing anything, save existing for her own pleasure and his. She is seated on a corner of the sofa, and he is on a lower chair by her side, and his very attitude is expres- sive of the worship he feels for her, as he bends forward, in the earnestness with which he seeks to enchain her attention. Ah ! how willingly she cedes it to him, in spite of her knowledge of his being bound to another woman : in spite of the way in which memorv is stins^ino^ her about that first love of hers — Captain Bellairs : in spite of her firm conviction that they are both altogether wrong ! It is no use trying to avert her eyes, they will steal back, and meet his. It is no use moving her hand away from his clasp. CAUTION. 65 It is no use her whispering, " Frank, Frank, remember ! " She has shown her feelings for him too fully for him not to be ready to forget everything in the world but her- self, and so, without a word being uttered, they understand each other, and break down all barriers " at the touching of the lips." What is it that presently sends them apart, with a little shock that makes Kate shudder ? He unclasps his arms from the form he had been embracing only a moment before, and turns almost coldly away ; and Kate gets her first lesson in the stern school wherein it is taught that love is its own avenger — her first taste of the agony of being enslaved by a man who is perpetually making manifest the conflict that goes on in his mind between honour and inclination, love and duty. Kate's hand has accident- ally pressed the ring he wears in token of his troth to May, and the slight pressure has reminded him of his bondage, and of the difiiculties that will surely beset him, if he attempts to escape. He remembers all VOL. I. F 66 A NAEBOW ESCAPE. the curiosities of May's character in a moment. May is lymphatic, but May is a leech in her power of clinging to anything upon which she has set her heart ; and it does not flatter him now to recollect that she has set her heart very strongly upon marrying him. He feels as if he were bound hand and foot by a number of little galling chains, which will take an immense deal of time and trouble to break. It may be added that Frank does not like trouble, and shrinks from the prospect of it. His cousin sits still as he has left her, only she shades her eyes and bends her head down on the arm of the sofa. She will not speak, for how utterly idle any words that she can say will be — how entirely powerless to improve the position. But that Frank should stand away from her in constrained, pained silence is inexpress- ibly distressing to the girl who loves him, in spite of that comprehension which has iust been forced upon her of his vacillating nature. CAUTION. Meanwhile drear visions of outraged Con- stables, who "will bother him awfully," are passing before his eyes. May is not an only child, unfortunately. She has a mar- ried sister with very pronounced views as to the proper meed of respect to be observed towards ''the family;" and she has a brother, a clergyman, whose powers of try- ing to teach other people to do their duty, especially towards the Constables, are never- failing. The amount of worry it will cause every one, the horrible talk there will be, the nuisance of it altogether, stultifies Frank Forest, and renders him speechless for the space of a few minutes, which seem like long hours to poor Kate. At last he turns, goes up to her side, and bends over her. " Kate," he says, " do forgive me ; will you ? " " For what ? " she asks ; for she is really in doubt as to whether he is apologizing for his heat or his coldness. " For being — a little mad just now. I'll 68 A NARROW ESCAPE. be more cautious in future. I must be more cautious, for your sake." '' For my sake ? " she repeats, with some- thing of contempt expressed in her voice and in her lifted eyebrows. " Till when must you be cautious ? " " Till I see my way," he says, vaguely. She rises up impetuously, puts her hands on his shoulders, and forces his eyes to meet her own, in order that she may read the truth there. " I don't want to extenuate my own con- duct in getting to care for you," she says swiftly ; " but, Frank, can you have kissed me as you have done, and yet love me so little that you can rack my heart to pieces with caution ? One of us must suffer. Am I to be the victim ? " *' Captain Bellairs," the small page an- nounces in a large voice, which is, happily for Kate, sent into the room before the guest. CHAPTER IV. VERY TRYING. She is almost breathless from the expendi- ture of passionate force with which she has uttered her half-defiant, half-reproachful ap- peal. If she were longing to greet him with kindly words, she could not articulate them now to Captain Bellairs. The utmost she could do to a friend who had appeared on the scene so inopportunely would be to give her him hand while she recovered her breath. The utmost she does do to this man, whom she regards as her worst enemy, is to give him a stiff, repellant bow, and turn away as if he did not exist for her. It is humiliating, as far as Kate is con- cerned, to be compelled to confess that as soon as he has recovered from the brief 70 A NARROW ESCAPE. shock of the sudden announcement of his friend's name, Frank Forest feels infinitely relieved by the interruption. He has a dim, indistinctly outlined feeling that the time is not ripe for the overthrow of that alliance with May which has grown to be so dis- tasteful to him. At the same time, he is prepared to think Kate unconscionably un- reasonable, if she does not suffer things to "go on as they are between them." In fact, this first step in the wrong direction, which he has taken, is already bringing its own punishment upon him ! It has led him into an atmosphere which will rapidly develope all that is weakest and worst in his character, namely, his love of present ease, even at the cost of future ignominy. It is in accordance with a plan made on the previous night, by the two men, that Captain Bellairs is here this morning. The plan is that they shall drive out into the country beyond Richmond, to try a tandem which Captain Bellairs has just set up. The horses are fidgetting about outside the door, VERY TRYING. 71 under the care of a couple of grooms ; and Kate finds herself looking at them with in- terest, and longing to say something about them, even to their owner ; horses have such an attraction for her ! As Frank leaves the room to change his coat, and look for his gloves, Bellairs boldly breaks the barrier of inattention and silence which Kate has erected between them. He holds his hand out to her, he looks her straight in the face with a look that surely expresses genuine regret, and says — "Forgive me! I'm not such a bad fellow as you had reason to believe me." " And I am not the girl you befooled so cruelly at Torquay," she answers quickly ; "between then and now seven years of re- morse for a fault that was hardly mine — seven years of concealment of a shame that was forced upon me — seven years of out- raged feeling against the man who would have gathered and left me to wither as idly and carelessly as a weed — are lying." She stops, not because words even harder 72 A NARROW ESCAPE. aud more severe than those which she has already uttered are failing her, but because her throat is parched and stinging, and she is physically incapable of uttering those words. He takes advantage of the pause to say — he has the tact to say it in easy unemo- tional accents, in case those accents may fall upon other ears than Kate's — " For seven years you have been nourish- ing a bitter mistake ; give me an oppor- tunity of rectifying it — or rather show me the generosity you would extend to any other man, and believe me on my word of honour when I tell you, that I contemplated no wrong to you, that I would have done you no wrong, even if that Irrepressible hound had not interfered and made me seem a scoundrel." " I dare not tell you what I think of you," the girl says, quivering with passion at what she thinks his mean evasion of the charge she has so righteously brought against him ; "it seems to me your denial of the ffiult, and your shameful mention of Mr. VERY TRYING. 73 Graham, after your persecution of him, are worse crimes than the fault itself. Your word of honour ! Your honour had gone before you took that young girl, whom I am no longer, as a pastime, while you were on your way to your wife." " No woman has any claim on me ; be- lieve that, Kate," he says, eagerly. "Gra- ham spoke under the influence either of malice or a mistake. I believe it was the former. You, in turn, believe me, when I tell you that no woman in this world, ex- cepting yourself, has any claim on me." " Don't except me, let me pray you," she says, longing, in her impatience, to go and shake the truth out of this man, who goes on trying to -deceive her still (as she thinks) so calmly. " What have you done with your wife ? Has your conduct killed her ? Did she ever hear of the rascality that Clement Graham stopped just in time ? " ''The lady he spoke of has never beeo seen by me from that day to this. I tell you he made a mistake." 74 A NARROW ESCAPE. "Why did you not rectify it on the spot ? " she asks, in the exacting, doubting tone of a woman who can't be convinced. " You might have done it." " I could not do it before you." " He spoke openly enough before me ; but he had no need to draw on his powers of invention." " I could not give the explanation before you then," Captain Bellairs says. And his accents lose their calmness and become agitated. " But if you will trust me — if you will let the feelings you had for me then revive — if you will once more promise to be my wife, I will give it to you now." She longs to solve the mystery— she is burning with curiosity to hear his story, although she is determined not to believe it. Her glance falls under the boldest, truest gaze a man has ever bent upon her face. "Is she dead ? " she asks in a low tone. " I can't tell you. She has no claim on me, living or dead." VERY TRYING. 75 *' Is she divorced ? " " Why this persistence, Kate ? Do be- lieve me, and be satisfied when I tell you that, whether she be living or dead, she has no claim on me." " You deserted her — I am sure of that — as you would any other fool who trusted you." " I would never desert a woman under any circumstances ; and I would never sacri- fice one jot or tittle of her happiness to the prejudices of the world. Come, Kate, trust me now, and I'll tell you the whole story by-and-by." " Did you ever tell the whole story to Mr. Graham ? " she asks. *' No ! " he says, with sudden, savage sternness. " He had no right to seek to unravel it." "I have told my cousin Frank that you're a married man," she says, with provoking calmness, and looking at him with con- temptuous defiance. " I said out the truth in an injudicious rage, and put myself in the 76 A NARBOW ESCAPE. position of being questioned by him about — about what I wouldn't have him have the faintest glimmer of a suspicion of for the world," she winds up with, shudderingly. " Is interest in Forest the cause of your refusing to revive your interest in me ? " he asks, looking at her penetratingly. " For Heaven's sake remember he is not a free man ; check your interest in him, it will bring misery upon both of you. " "Were you free when you beguiled that girl from Torquay ? " she asks, tauntingly ; and he has only time to say solemnly, '' I was," before Frank comes back to them, full of the feeling that it would be very pleasant to him to have Kate's companionship during the tandem drive. During his brief absence he has reasoned himself round to the belief that it would be morally wrong of him to do any tiling definite in the way of checking the intercourse with Kate that has grown to be so desperately dear to him. A man is nowhere commanded to give up his cousins and cleave unto his VERY TRYING. 77 wife ; moreover, May is not his wife yet, and never will be his wife, if Kate will only be moderately temperate and patient. Frank feels now that really it all may go on very pleasantly and properly " until he can quite decide how it will be best for him to act," if only Kate will assure him that all her soul and strength are bowed down at his feet, and at the same time will retain a lively remembrance of the fact of ''May having a claim on him still." Just in the present he has that craving for Kate's companionship which few men hesitate to gratify when they can do it with impunity to themselves. Perhaps the reason that they indulge it so freely while it lasts, is the full knowledge they have that with them it will last such a very short time. "'Tis odour fled as soon as shed." Even " forbidden fruit " is sure to pall upon their palates long before the poor fruit (which wouldn't be " forbidden " if it could help it) learns what its true flavour is to its taster. Frank likes the prospect that is before him 78 A NABBOW ESCAPE. now of a rattling burst over a good road, behind a couple of fresh horses. For the perfecting of that enjoyment, in order to finish and polish it, he needs the soft ele- ment of sympathy, and Kate can give it to him, will give it to him, if she goes. There- fore, Kate must go. "Can't we do without your fellows, Bel- lairs ? " he asks ; " the girls are just home, and Gertrude wants to go with us ; you'd go, too, Kate, wouldn't you ? " he continues in the elaborately indifierent accents which never deceive the initiated. " With all my heart," Captain Bellairs says eagerly, but Kate shakes her head. With all her heart, too, would she go, for she loves Frank and horses, and to be with the two together, even in peril, would be very pleasant to her. But she is trying to vow, and to adhere to her vow — that never again, of her own free will, will she be in the society of the man who had tried to do her the bitterest wrong of all. Presently, with a swirl and rush that is VERY TRYING. 79 partly due to the richness of the silk com- posing the costume she has put on for the benefit of Captain Bellairs, and partly the result of her impatience to meet him, Ger- trude Forest comes into the room. Instantly there is sufficient babble raised for Frank to say to Kate, under cover of it — " Come with us, do ! do, Kate ! if you refuse me that, I shall think " " You have no right to think," the girl whispers in return, and she tries to make her tones hard and cold. But her eyes are not cold, neither is her heart. " It would be incautious," she goes on mockingly, "if I were to go out with you this morning, after " " But " he is beginning again, just as Gertrude swoops down upon them. "Kate, dear," she begins affectionately, "please come up with me, and exercise your fascuiations on mamma. Frank is so good-natured to us, that it seems barbarous to refuse any little request of his" (if this is really the case, the Misses Forest are 80 A NABBOW ESCAPE. barbarous to their only brother, on an average, a dozen times a day) ; " he has set his heart on my going out with them to- day ; now, if you won't go, I can't ! " This statement is made by Miss Forest as she conveys her cousin up to the chamber of the mistress of the house. Good-nature and inclination combine to make Kate lend a willing ear to it. " Take Marian," she suggests haltingly, and G-ertrude answers, — " Marian pretends to distrust his tandem- driving powers, because she knows she would find it dull to be perched up behind with Frank. Oh, Kate, do go, there's a darling ; do go if mamma says yes ! 1 would do it for you, if you had set your heart on going : I would, indeed, Kate ; and I have my reasons," she winds up in a whisper, as they pause at her mother's door. Kate wavers, doubts herself and every- body else, remembers Frank, forgets May, and promises that if Aunt Marian agrees to the plan, well then, so will she. VERY TRYING. 81 Gertrude puts her proposition before her mother very cleverly. According to her, Frank and Captain Bellairs are equally in- terested in the horses that are to be tried. " You know how careful Frank is, mamma," she says, " and I am a little flattered at his wanting to have my opinion about those horses." " If your brother wishes it so much, I don't see how I can refuse to let you go," Mrs. Forest says. With well-assumed care- lessness, she adds, " Is Captain Bellairs going, too ? " Her daughter understands thoroughly that, for conventionality's sake. Captain Bellairs is to be spoken of as quite an acci- dental circumstance in the tandem drive. *'Who is going with you, Marian or May ? " Mrs. Forest goes on. ''Marian won't go, and as for May! for goodness sake, don't make May a j)oint," Gertrude says, shrugging her shoulders ; ** Kate is going, very kindly." At this Mrs. Forest opens her eyes a little wider than before ; but she merely says, VOL. I. G 82 A NABBOW ESCAPE. " Oil, Kate ! well be careful, all of you." So it is decided that the quartette shall go out together. They are on the point of starting, after a spring from the leader that nearly carries him free of the whole concern, and a few jibs on the part of the wheeler, that bring the wheels of the dog-cart into violent colli- sion with the pavement. Gertrude has the seat of honour, in front, by the side of Cap- tain Bellairs, and vainly believes that he is rejoicing in the position as greatly as she is herself Kate and Frank, perched up behind, have the guilty, happy consciousness upon them of being able to say what they please to each other for the next few hours, without being overheard by the pair in front. There is about them all that spirit of exhilaration which is apt to possess people when they find themselves behind high mettled horses w^ho are linked together in the elastic bonds of a tandem. "Let go," Captain Bellairs cries, and the grooms spring aside from the horses' heads, and they rattle VERY TRYING. 83 off up tlie street, just as May Constable, driving a pretty little Victoria, comes up to the Forests' door. She sees that couple on the back-seat of the dog-cart very plainly indeed, and a sense of her rights being outraged possesses her on the instant. She makes one feeble little sign with her whip for Frank to come back to her, but the tandem spins out of sight even as she makes it, and Frank heaves a sigh of relief at the impossibility of her compelling him to go back to her ; and Kate shyly steals a glance at him, in order to see whether the gladness that fills her heart at this narrow escape is reflected in his face. "That was a close shave, wasn't it ? " he asks, answering her look readily enough ; " a minute before, and she might have delayed us." " Stopped your going, you mean," she says, correctingiy ; " and if you hadn't been let go, Gertrude and I would have lost our tandem drive ; blessings on the spring the 84 A NABBOW ESCAPE. leader gave that carried us clear of her and disappointment." "What are you people talking about?" Gertrude questions. To her annoyance Cap- tain Bellairs makes the attention he has to bestow on his horses the excuse for beins: taciturn, therefore Gertrude kindly resolves to make her brother and her cousin as un- comfortable as she can by interruj)ting their tSte-a-tete. This is malicious, of course : nevertheless it is Jiuman. " We are talking of a narrow escape," Kate answers. '* What ! from a tandem ? " Gertrude questions ; and Kate says, looking at Frank as she speaks — *' No, from a bore." "Kate," Frank whispers, bending his head down, "don't let the girls get hold of it that you're dead set against May; you'll only make it harder for yourself, and for me too, in the end." " We're altogether wrong, both of us, I know that better than you or any one else VERY TRYING. 85 can tell me," the girl says, sadly ; " but I won't palter with the truth, and I won't feign and fawn about May Constable, Frank ; it's horrible to me that she should stand in such a position with regard to you. " Her position is no better than your own," he interrupts eagerly ; " and it will all be right soon if you will only be patient ; don't give the alarm to them all until it is all right." She meets his eyes steadily, and his ex- pression is one of passionate, intense love for her ; but she is, for all that, conscious of a vague feeling of disappointment and un- satisfaction. As legibly as if it were a book she reads oflf instability and vacillation on Frank's face, and still she hugs her chains and tells herself that, even if she finds him guilty of worse faults than these, she must still go on loving him. The fact is, that before she detected these traits in him, which are not traits of strength, she had idealized him a good deal. That her passion is for 86 A NABBOW ESCAPE. her own ideal, is a fact. But for all that, she cannot withdraw her interest from the real man. The Frank he is,, and the Frank she has imagined into the first place in her heart, are inextricably mixed, and she cannot separate them. So it happens now, that though in answer to his request that she won't give the alarm "until it is all right," she says — " It never will be all right with us, Frank," she gives him her hand, and de- lights in the clasp he gives it. Meanwhile, as they spin rapidly along the main road to Chiswick, aggrieved May is making her wrongs and her rage known to the mother and sister of the man who has inflicted the one and caused the other upon her. Even turtle doves can peck, if they are "put out," and May, on this occasion, is very much "put out," indeed. Calm Mrs. Forest trembles for her son's future, when May, in tears, declares that she " must open her heart about Frank and his very trying conduct." CHAPTER V. "they have killed him." " I can't put up with it, and I won't," May says for the fiftieth time, when she has narrated the story of the sight that met her gaze as she drove up to the door ; and Mrs. Forest has vainly tried to pacify her (for the fiftieth time also) with the words — "Dearest child, you exaggerate trifles, you make mountains of molehills ; Frank is incapable of ofi"ering the smallest slight to the girl he has honoured above all the world by selecting her to be his wife. You must be mistaken ; if he had seen you he would have come back — that is, if he could have prevailed on Captain Bellairs to pull up." " I'm sure I'm not mistaken, and I'm not 88 A NARROW ESGAFE. at all sure about the ' honour ' he has done me. Other people besides Frank like me, 1 assure you, Mrs. Forest ; other people who wouldn't think more of their cousins than they do of me." " You don't, you can't wrong yourself by pretending to be jealous. of Kate, my niece?" Mrs. Forest questions, coaxingly ; and May bristles up afresh. " It's not fair to bring in the question of the relationship in that way ; my brother says so. He says she's not so close of kin but what Frank and she could marry if if they could, you know ; and so she's far enough off in kin for Frank to behave de- cently about her in regard to me." " But, my dear May," Mrs. Forest says, aghast, " I thought }ou liked her, I thought you had some faith in your future husband, and something, darling" (she strives to say this playfully), " like a proper appreciation of yourself" May bridles, struggles to think of a set of words that shall be at the same time ex- ''THEY HAVE KILLED HIM." 89 pressive of dignity and disgust for the neces- sity of displaying it, and fails. "Frank is very, very trying, Mrs. Forest," slie whimpers. "1 shouldn't care about his not being demonstrative to me, if he were not demonstrative to other people ; but, as it is, oh ! you must think that it's very trying. Everybody notices it, and what can I say ? " "Notices what, dear?" Mrs. Forest asks, soothingly. " Why, that he doesn't make me the first consideration," May says, wiping her eyes. "It's all very well for him, but it's horrid for me to see people looking as if they thouo;ht I cared more for him than he does for me, when I don't, you know, for Frank really is very fond of me. But it's this theatrical work that is ruining him, Mrs. Forest ; it's snaring him ; one never knows when he is acting and when he is not ; he shall give it up." May flutters all the feathers in her hat in her rage, and tries to give effect to her 90 A NARROW ESCAPE. words by stamping her foot feebly. Unfor- tunately for the dramatic success of tMs last effort, it is made with a vivid recollection of Mrs. Forest's horror of anything approach- ing to a scene which she does not create herself. Mrs. Forest half closes her eyes, and looks at her future daughter-in-law steadily. She means this marriage thoroughly. She also means to have her son's wife in subjec- tion to her. But she will not waive her own right of supremacy even in order to attain these two desirable ends. " I hope you will never let Frank know how foolish you have been to-day, my dear," she says in a superb manner; "he shall never hear of it from me, I promise you that." Mrs. Forest bends over May, in a sort of pityingly protecting way that adds to that young person's bewilderment considerably. She had come to condemn, and now she is being condemned. She makes one feeble flutter towards reasserting her position. ''TREY HAVE KILLED HIM." 91 " It's not too late yet," she says ; "I have that comfort, I am not married to him yet ; I can free myseK if I like." "Poor child ! you must be worried indeed to dream of doing yourself that injury," Mrs. Forest says, in a superior way, that has an immense effect on easily subdued May, " to think of breaking off your engagement with a man because he writes comedies, and goes out for a drive with his cousin ! Poor child ! " " He was looking at her as he never looks at me ; I could see that in a moment," May says, clinging tenaciously to the sore point ; " and she was looking back at him in a way I won't put up with. It's a shame when she knows he is engaged to me ; I wish she would go home." " I can hardly turn my brother's daughter out of my house : but I, too, wish she would go home," Mrs. Forest says, meditatively ; " not that I fear what you fear, my dear, but because I can't bear to see you disturbed by her presence." 92 A NABBOW ESCAPE. " If I didn't feel perfectly convinced that Frank's heart is mine, I wouldn't put up with it for another hour," May says, re- lapsing into tears. " I'm sure I never sus- pected anything until to-day; and I have been very kind and friendly to Miss Mervyn, the deceitful thing." " What is the matter ? " Marian asks, sauntering in at this juncture. " It's nothing. May is labouring under a false impression," Mrs. Forest tries to explain ; but May Constable likes to enlarge on her grievance, and her right of resenting the same. Therefore, she tells the tale of Frank's and Kate's delinquencies over again. "You can't be surprised at any man admiring Kate," Marian says, carelessly ; and the words are not reassuring to bitterly- jealous May. " She's exactly the type of girl about whom men make fools of themselves. I have seen for some days that Frank was losing his head." " Marian ! how can you speak so un- guardedly," Mrs. Forest says, reprovingly; " THEY HAVE KILLED HIM." 93 as May, crimson now with jealous wratli, pants forth a declaration to the effect that, if Frank chooses to make a fool of himself, he shall not make a fool of her ; and adds an altoo-ether irrelevant rider as to Marian's iniquity in having kept silence about Frank losing his head. " It wouldn't have been a very sisterly thing on my part to cause these vials of wrath to be emptied on his head, would it ? " Marian asks, with a laugh. Frank is not her lover, therefore it seems a very light matter to her that Frank should flirt with another than his betrothed. "Do be sen- sible, May," she goes on ; " men will not be tied to any woman's apron- string ; it's folly to expect it. Besides, what a bore a man would be who was perpetually running after you. When I'm engaged, I shall go my way, and let him go his." "I won't be slighted and made to look ridiculous by Frank or anyone else," May pouts. " I shall go home and tell mamma aU about it, and probably send a letter to 94 A NABBOW USCAPE. Frank before tlie day is over that will rather astonish him." " Well, my dear, do nothing rashly ; if you do, you will probably be repentant by to-morrow," Mrs. Forest says indifferently. Instinct tells her that May's vague threats mean very little ; therefore she feels none of the alarm that would be her portion if she believed that May seriously contemplated breaking off the match that will be the means of bringing so much money into the Forest family. " I shall oro home and tell mamma all about it," May repeats, doggedly. " If Frank thinks that he is going to have every- thing his own way, he is very much mis- taken. I wanted to see him this morning very much indeed. My brother Edgar is going to have a large party, and it will look so bad if Frank is not there. I know that Frank will say he's engaged, and slip out of it, unless I secure him and get him to fix his own evening." " I shouldn't make so much of him, if i " THEY HAVE KILLED HIM." 95 were you," Marian says. "What does it matter whether he's at your brother's party or not ? Your brother never enters into anything that interests Frank, and Frank would be bored, probably, by having to talk to some one who wouldn't understand him." " I shall be there," May says, loftily. " Oh ! my dear child, I didn't understand that you contemplated carrying Frank off to those regions of bliss, in order that he might spend the evening wdth you. Don't scowl at me,' mamma. I must say what I think about it. May will only make herself un- happy, if she tries to alter and trim Frank's nature to her own pattern." Then, with a sudden feeling of generosity towards the powerless nature before her, Marian goes up to May, and says — "May, I understand Frank better than the 'others do. Yes, mamma, better even than you do. We have the same natures, and I know that if we are let alone we have a sufficiently strong sense of right to behave properly ; but I know this, that if any one tried to put fetters on 96 A NABBOW JE SCAPE. my feet I would get free of tliem, and Frank is like me in this respect He will never wea*r the blue ribbon, May ; do take my advice, and don't try to put it on." Marian, out of pity for the weakness of May's hold on Frank's affections, speaks very earnestly, and very tenderly. It does not increase her sympathy for May when that young lady, in the impotence of her vain jealousy, says — " Thank you, Marian ; but I believe I know rather more of Frank than you do ; and I am sure he will think you very ill- natured when he hears how you have tried to put me down, and make me behave in a mean-spirited way, as if I were afraid of him, or afraid of losing him." " Why the fuss, if you are not afraid of losing him ? " Marian replies. " For my part, if I had doubts of a man, Fd solve them very soon ; but then I should not doubt idly." " 1 think the better plan will be for our dear May to come and stay with us for a k '' THEY HAVE KILLED HIMr 97 time," Mrs. Forest puts in, soothingly, at this juncture ; " she will then see for herself that her alarm is entirely groundless ; and I know that the arrangement will give Frank great pleasure." Marian makes a little wry face of dissent at this statement, but May evidently be- lieves it, for she melts under the influence of the proposition Mrs. Forest has made, and after a very brief and faint demur, accepts the invitation. " I shall treat Miss Mervyn just as usual, and not give her the satisfaction of seeing she has annoyed me," May says, balmily, when she is at last about to depart. " I am very quick at reading character, Mrs. Forest, and I can tell your niece is vain as a peacock and heartless as a stone." " She has had admiration enough lavished upon her to make any woman vain," Mrs. Forest says, quietly. It is no part of her plan of treatment of her future daughter-in- law, to allow that young person to under-rate any member of the Forest family. Then the VOL. I. ' H 98 A NARROW ESCAPE. women part with affectionate kisses, and a certain amount of justifiable distrust of one another in their hearts ; and May whirls off in her well appointed little Victoria, with a supreme air of wealth and self-satisfaction. The scratch pair, driven with commend- able skill and discretion, behave as if they had been together all their lives as they trot along the dusty Hammersmith-road. When they reach Barnes Common, the fresh breeze raises the leader's spirits a trifle, and he lays himself out to his work in a way that is not responded to by the wheeler. But Captain Bellairs is driving with a steady hand, and a cool collected brain (in spite of his being a little distraught in spiiit by the very low tone of the conversation that is being carried on by the pair on the back seat), and the horses are pulled together with perfect ease. The sunshine, the brightness of the atmo- sphere, the natural exhilarating effect of the pace, have all told on Kate Mervyn. As ''THEY HAVE KILLED EIM." 99 they near the end of the common, she for the first time addresses Captain Bellairs : — " I've never forgotten those glorious bays you used to drive up from Plymouth — — " " I have never forgotten the glorious days when I used to take them up and down be- tween Torquay and Paignton, on the chance of meeting you on Guinevere," he interrupts, turning his head round to look at her ; and in the moment that he does it, the horses lurch to the right, the wheel goes up the bank, for one moment of suspense the dog- cart hangs at a dangerous angle — the next the suspense is over, for the undisciplined pair spring wildly forward, and the dog- cart and its occupants are thrown in a confused heap on to the ground. Giddy and confused, but neither frightened nor hurt, Kate is the first to rise to her feet, and as she staggers back a step or two she takes in the fact that Frank and Gertrude are unhurt also. They gather themselves up out of danger and the dust, just as Kate, with a little cry, springs to the spot where 100 A NABBOW ESCAPE. their driver, with the reins clenched tightly in his hand, is lying very still. The panting frightened horses have left off plunging and kicking, but " They have killed him," the girl groans out, as she falls down on her knees by the side of the man she had so bitterly reviled this morning. CHAPTER VI. "l HATE BOB-CHERRY." They have not killed him, but one of them has given him a blow on the left side of his head, and his hair is clotted with blood, and his deep unconsciousness is unquestionably very death-like. It quite justifies Gertrude in the exhibition of fond frantic grief into which she falls helplessly, as Frank and Kate lift the sufierer from the ground, and move him to a softer place on the heath- bordered common. The sun is blazing out fiercely. The two girls' sun-shades have been hopelessly bat- tered in their fall. They strain their eyes in every direction, in search of a coming carriage or cab. Barnes Common happens to be desolate just at this hour, and im- 102 A NABBOW USCAFE. mediate aid is what they need. The horses, having done the mischief, are apparently quite easy in their minds. They stand about quietly feeding, making no attempt to get away, or to make any display of spirit whatever. Taken altogether, the group is a very picturesque one. The two girls hang over the injured man with an utter abandonment to the unre- strained display of human charity, and sym- pathy with suffering, that is very womanly. In this supreme hour of fear for him, and ignorance as to the extent of his injuries, there is not a single feeling for him, or thought about him, in the hearts and minds of either of them, that cannot well bear the light of day. They aid each other with all their will in trying to save him from the scorching rays. They like each other better as each strives to outvie the other in serving him. Frank admires these sisters of mercy unattached, very much, as they minister to the insensible man. But he is conscious of a twinge of jealous feeling as he recalls "7 HATE BOB-CEEBBY:' 103 Bellairs's last words, and sees Kate's small cool hand wiping away the grime and the blood from the handsome head. All this action is compressed into the period of a few minutes. At the expiration of them, Frank goes off to the Barnes station for help and a cab. '' Where shall we take him, when Frank comes back ? " Kate asks, abruptly ; and as she speaks, a recollection of the wife of whom she has heard crosses her mind ! Her secret grows more irksome every day of her life. " I should say to our house," Gertrude whispers, dubiously. "We don't know his friends — we can't leave him in this state at an hotel ; our house is the only place for him, isn't it, Kate ? " Before Kate can reply a brougham which has been rolling along unheard by them, pulls up abreast of them, and a pretty, worn, got-up face looks out at the window. The face is full of commiseration, and the plea she makes that she may be allowed 104 A NABBOW ESCAPE. to help them, is full of earnestness. The nature of the accident is explained to her in a minute by Kate, and the lady gets out of her brougham, and her footman gets off the box to help them, just as Frank comes back, forlornly, having failed in finding any kind of conveyance at the Barnes station. The lady becomes more urgent than ever in her offers of assistance. She gives them her card, "Mrs. Angerstein, Barnes Cottage." " Let him be taken to my house," she says, cordially, " I am so near. Oh ! do ; my husband is a surgeon." As she finishes speaking she catches sight of the face of Henry Bellairs, with the look upon it of the consciousness that is at length struggling back. It is all so abnormal, the whole of the day's proceedings have been so extraordi- narily out of course, that it hardly creates a feeling of surprise in the breast of any one of them when Mrs. Angerstein turns to them with the sickly pallor of intense agitation upon her cheeks and brow, and says — " I RATE BOB-CHEBEY." 105 "You had better take him to your own place, after all. I remember my house is full. Use my brougham ; good-bye." But before she can move away from the group round the prostrate man, he opens his eyes painfully, and says — " Is it you, Cissy, come back to see the last of me ? " The woman he addresses shivers in a way that convulses her whole frame, but she neither responds to his look nor to his words. She gets herself out of the circle that surrounds him, bids them adieu in pan- tomime, and goes walking back to Barnes, before they can recover their breath and power of speech. The two girls have taken in the scene, and their minds are full of all sorts of possi- bilities ; but it is not the time to word their vain imaginings now, nor do they allow the principal actor in that scene to perceive that they have any curiosity on the subject. Captain Bellairs can just stagger to the brougham, when he relapses into a half- 106 A NABBOW ESCAPE. fainting condition that demands their full attention. The side of his head is cruelly lacerated by the kick from the iron-shod hoof, and they see now, what they had failed to see while he was lying on the ground, namely, that his left hand hangs limply down, as if it were broken at the wrist. All the excitement is over, and the three who are in possession of their senses are much too dejected to think of any other course than the first one that suggests it- self to them— namely, that they shall take Captain Bellairs home with them. Oddly enough, Kate Mervyn feels no aversion to this plan. The man's danger, the agony he is evidently sufiering, above all his utter helplessness, have combined to soften Kate's heart towards him. Freely now would she forgive him if he could only ask her to do it. It seems quite in the order of things that his poor wounded helpless head should find a resting-place on her shoulder. When he opens his heavy eyes, and thanks her, her eyes look back into his with a glance of the '' I HATE BOB-GHEBBY." 107 frankest, friendliest, gentlest pity. Her soft small hand steadies his wounded one. She, in fact, is his chief "ministering angel," and Frank and Gertrude find Kate taking the lead of them in a manner they are powerless to combat, and of which they do not at all approve. The thought strikes both brother and sister forcibly, that the sooner Kate Mervyn goes home the better. Frank re- solves that he will need country air when- ever she does go home, and accompany her, and renew his acquaintance with his Uncle Mervyn ; and then from afar, from a position in which he cannot be personally assailed by pleading, break off with May Constable. Mrs. Forest would be " coy and hard to please" about receiving Captain Bellairs into her house, if he were a needy, friendless man. She would in this case have a vivid recollection of her daughters and her duty, would decline to take such a heavy responsi- bility upon herself, and earnestly recommend a family hotel or a hospital to his considera- tion. But Captain Bellairs holds a good 108 A NARROW ESGAFE. position and has four thousand a year ! She therefore avows at once that she is not the woman to shrink from any amount of trouble and responsibility concerning him. As for him, he feels that he needs the kindly, gentle presence of woman about him now. He is cut down in his strength, he is as helpless as a baby, and he shrinks from the thought of hired watchers by and waiters upon him. Therefore he falls into the ar- rangement which is proposed to him, that he shall stay here, with a delighted alacrity that makes Gertrude's heart beat with thank- fulness. The most daintily appointed chamber in the house is prepared for his reception, with promptitude and without fuss. Mrs. Forest understands thoroughly how abhorrent delay and feeble uncertainty in the giving of directions are to the heart of man, even when man is in his best mood. She takes care, therefore, that Captain Bellairs glides into his niche in her house without either hesitation or jerks. '' I HATE BOB-GHEBBY:' 109 "But it will alter our arrangement with dear May," she says in the midst of dinner that night ; and as she says it she looks round the family circle, with a look that seems to ask for their support and sympathy in this little domestic difficulty. Then, in firm reliance on the discretion of her son and daughter Gertrude, she adds — "May Constable was coming here to stay with us for a little time, as perhaps you have heard, Kate dear. What I'm to do about a room for her now I hardly know." The discretion of her children is proved a broken reed on which to rely, in a moment. Frank scowls, but prudently refrains from speech, and Gertrude says — " Oh ! mamma, why ask May to stay here, when she lives next door as it were ; we can't turn Captain Bellairs out for her now, that is certain. It would be worse than inhuman to do it. Frank, you will make May understand it all, won't you ? " 110 A NABBOW ESCAPE. Before Frank can answer, Kate puts in her word. " There will be my room for Miss Con- stable, Aunt Marian," she says, steadily; "it is quite time that I should go home; and now with a friend who will require such constant thoughtful care in the house, you can't care to be burdened with useless visitors. I shall send papa a telegram to- night, and go home to-morrow." Mrs. Forest cannot help looking admir- ingly at her high-spirited niece. In a measure the elder woman fathoms the feel- ings that actuate the younger one. The same blood runs in their veins, and they both love Frank. But though Mrs. Forest looks admiringly at her niece, she abstains from uttering a word that may cause the girl to alter her resolution. For the mother remembers May Constable's money, and Frank's need of it. " Of course the fewer there are in the house, just at present, the better, dear," she says, softly ; " much as we shall miss you, '' I HATE BOB-GHEBBY." Ill wa would all, I think, rather have you with us at a happier time." With a beautiful disregard of anything that does not immediately concern them- selves, the two Misses Forest go on their peaceful way, interchanging a few brief sen- tences between themselves, and leaving their mother and Kate unmolested by a word from them. Their indifference to every- thing outside their own interests and plea- sures is not a mere assumption. It is a genuine thing, consequently it is commend- al)le. If Kate's staying were to be the means of keeping May Constable out of the house, then they would smooth the way to Kate's remaining with soft words and subtle suggestions. But they know well that May is inevitable. Therefore Kate not being an instrument of good — for themselves — they are quite contented that she should depart, without any unnecessary ado being made about it. " I am sure you're right, mother," Frank puts in with an elaborate aii- of impromptu 112 . A NABBOW ESCAPE. that betrays liim to every one ; " the fewer there are in the house while poor Bellairs is in this state the better. I should feel myself to be awfully in the way, so I'll be Kate's escort home, if she will allow me, and renew the acquaintance that was dropped in my infancy with Uncle Frank, if he will put me up." This expression of his determination affects each of his hearers differently. He has chosen his time discreetly; the servant is in the room, and Mrs. Forest is not the woman to point out flaws in her family to her faithful retainers. But she is panic- stricken, and angrily vexed at the plan Frank proposes. At the best of times, and under the most favourable circumstances. May Constable has a habit of drawing heavily on her future mother-in-law's pa- tience. Mrs. Forest feels that an outraged May will be utterly unendurable to her ; and still the prize is too precious a one to be lightly lost by a poor man, and a poor man's mother. She remembers all these " I HATE BOB-GHEBBY." 113 things, manages to smile very suavely on her son, and to say — " These sudden resolutions of yours gene- rally end in nothing, Frank ; my dear Kate, you're allowing yourself to be quite upset by this accident to-day, you are looking quite feverish." Frank's two sisters are laughing, with undisguised amusement, at the discomfiture which is the portion of the other three. All May's movements are awkward in their un- prejudiced eyes, therefore so much of the light sympathy which they have to bestow on any one but themselves, they feel rather inclined to give to Kate. Unquestionably, if they are destined in the future to see much of their brother's wife, they would rather that wife should be Kate than May. Kate would never bore them ! As for Kate herself, what wonder that she looks, as her aunt says, "feverish." The excitement of hope, the fear that all this, on unstable Frank's part, may mean no- thing ; the thought of what her father Avill VOL. I. I 114 A NABBOW ESCAPE. say when he finds that she has taken away another girl's promised lover ; above all, the dread of never really gaining Frank^ — all these influences are upon her, causing her heart to beat quickly and the blood to course hotly through her veins. Some moments elapse before she can nerve herself to say— " Papa would always be glad to see any of his relations, of course ; but I think you will be needed here, Frank. Captain Bel- lairs is likely to be a heavy charge to you for some time, and I don't think that you ought to leave all the responsibility to your mother and sisters." It is an admirable sentiment, and it is delivered rather impressively. But Frank knows Kate pretty well by this time, and he understands quite well that her heart is not in her words. He delights in feeling that he has made that girl thrill with pleasure at the prospect of his going with her. She is the queen of his soul just at present, and he rejoices in the power he has '' I HATE BOB-GRERRY:' 115 of making her tremble witli suspense, and doubt, and anxiety about liim. But he takes his triumph very quietly, like a man. It is only women who, in the weak vain- gloriousness of their belief in their affection being reciprocated, vaunt their victories and turn them into defeats prematurely. There is a good deal of delicate nursing to be done this evening, in the way of pouring cooling lotions on the injured head and hand. To the credit of her charitableness, be it said, that Mrs. Forest does not shirk the task which has been put before her, nor does Gertrude shrink from th^ sometimes painful office of being her mother's assistant. Thus it happens that Frank and Kate are left very much alone, for Marian . prefers a book and an easy chair in her own room, to looking on at the advances and retreats Kate and Frank make towards and from each other. "Why did you throw cold water on my scheme of going home with you, and seeing Uncle Frank ? " he asks, bringing himself up 116 A NARROW ESCAPE. in front of her, after wandering about the room for a few minutes. "With Miss Constable coming here, situ- ated as you are with her, it is impossible that you can leave home, Frank " " You advanced a very different reason at dinner for my not going." " Naturally I did ; could I in common delicacy have pointed out to you before others the real duty which binds you here 1 " " Say you would like me to go with you, Kate." " Oh ! I hate the game of bob-cherry," she says petulantly ; and Frank feels judiciously that under " existing circumstances," he had better not push her any further to-night. Accordingly he falls back upon the untried but apparently safe ground of ]\Irs. Anger- stein. "Do you think Bellairs had ever seen that pretty woman who picked him up, before to-day ? He called her ' Cissy,' did you notice ? but she went off without responding to the recognition : perhaps she's the wife '' I HATE BOB-GHEEEYr 117 you invented, eh ! " and Frank laughs gaily at the absurdity of the idea. " Perhaps she is," Kate says, with scarlet cheeks, as she thinks, "Oh, my story! oh, my story ! it will all come out now. " CHAPTEE VII. "may is one of us." The open drawing-room window of Barnes Cottage shows as quietly pretty a domestic scene as tlie heart can desire or the eyes behold. A good-looking, grave, kindly- faced man is resting through the hot mid- day hours, and his three little children are playing with boxes of dominoes and letters at his feet. Little tables of fantastic shape, black legged and velvet covered, are dotted about, and these are covered with news- papers and magazines, with flowers and foliage and dainty bits of old china. The influence, the undefinable atmosphere of a re- fined and beauty-loving woman is over every- thing. All is grace, ease, cleanliness, and comfort in the apartment. The children's "MAY IS ONE OF US." 119 clothes, though they are of the plainest brown holland, absolutely untrimmed, testify to the good taste of the presiding feminine power in that house. It is the home and these are the husband and children of Mrs. Angerstein. Presently the shadow of a light figure crosses the window, and the next instant Mr. Angerstein has thrown his book aside, and is advancing to meet his wife, "What, Cissy! back already? anything amiss ? " She turns a tearful agitated face towards him, and puts a trembling hand upon his arm. " Let us send the children to nurse, Edward," she begins. Then, as the children cluster around her, after the sweet manner of their kind, demanding, " What's mamma got for me ? " " Why didn't mamma take me out in the carriage ? " she loses courage, self-possession, and patience, and repeats, impetuously — " Do send the children away, Edward, if you don't want to see me go mad. Any- 120 A NARROW ESCAPE. thing amiss ? Judge for yourself ! I found Harry lying lialf dead on the common, and he has gone home in my carriage, and has heard my name." " Poor darling ! " her husband says, sooth- ingly, as she sinks back in a chair, and covers her face with her hands. He says no more than this, but his tone is very comfort- ing, and so is the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. He is not silent because he has no reassuring words at command, but simply because a group of quick-eared, quick-minded children are bringing all their juvenile powers of comprehension to bear upon the matter. His desire to get them out of the room is to the full as great as their mother's. But the time is not ripe for them to go yet, according to the daily do- mestic arrangements at Barnes Cottage, and it must be a stern command indeed that would induce the young Angersteins to fore- go one of their established rights — -especially such a cherished one as this, of being " in mamma's pretty drawing-room." ''MAY IS ONE OF US." 121 However, all things come to an end — even the servants' period of dinner — and the husband and wife find themselves alone, before Time has been good enough to calm Mrs. Angerstein's perturbed pulse and flut- tering heart. She has fluent command of her voice though, and she tells him rapidly and readily where, and how, she has met Captain BeUairs. " It was like a voice from the dead, when Harry looked up at me with the old kind, generous look, and said, ' Cissy, you here ! Have you come to see the last of me i " Poor darling ! " her husband says once more ; " you should have had him brought here: those blows on the head ought to be looked to at once ; but it must have been trying to you to speak to him." " Trying to me to speak to him ! " she repeats, in accents of most profound amaze- ment. "What do you think Tm made of? Have you lived with me for seven years and found out so little about my nature 122 A NARROW ESCAPE. as that question implies ? I couldn't have spoken to him to save my life." She almost writhes away from her hus- band as she tells him this. She bends her head down lower and lower, apparently under the weight of some self-abasing memory. Her tears, he is glad to see, are checked. Tears always make her head ache and do no good ; therefore, as a medical man, he objects to them in the highest degree. Her silent passion of grief or re- morse, or whatever it may be, is not an actively exhausting condition ; therefore he stands by and regards it calmly, kindly, and tolerantly, for he knows he cannot check it. " I have let myself be too happy here, Edward," she says, after a time ; " you see here there has not been a single thing to remind me of a time I had rather forget, not a sincrle association connected with Harry Bellairs ; now I shall shrink from the sight of the brougham, and shiver every time I pass the common." "You're over sensitive, my dear," her ''MAY IS ONE OF US." 123 husband says, protectingly ; and Mrs. Anger- stein blesses him in her heart for being so pleasant and prosaic. " I should be very glad if you would let me see Captain Bel- lairs, and allow me to explain several things to him that would make him think very differently of you ; but as you won't allow me to do that, I should advise that you forget this episode as soon as possible. I shall give you tonics and a change of air. She is a woman who can marvellously soon throw off any mental agony, under the influence of petting and consideration. Her husband has been her husband for seven years now, but he has not ceased to treat her as a precious object. The habit of daily intercourse with her has not taught him to be rougher in his manner, and more irritably and irritatingly exacting in his demands on her courtesy and consideration, than he would dare to be to any other gentlewoman. Altogether Mr. Angerstein may be regarded as a very exceptional man. 124 A NARROW ESCAPE. " I shall like change of air ; and it will do the children so much good too, Edward," she says, eagerly ; " not a sea-side place, though, I always get so tired, and burnt, and blistered, and bored ; and I have had so much of sea-side places." " I'll give you six weeks anywhere you like, Cissy; choose your own place." " I want rest, quiet, fly-fishing, flowers, and very, very few of my fellow-creatures about me," she says, checking ofl" her re- quirements on the fingers of her left hand. " And I want all these in England. I hate abroad. Oh ! I've been so wretched abroad!" she says with a shudder. " Take your Murray and find your seques- tered spot, after dinner," he advises, " and come out now for a turn in the garden. I shall have to run over to Chiswick in half an hour ; while I'm away, if I were in your place I would lie down." " Supposing I hear that he's dead, or raving, while you're away ? " she asks, her eyes dilating with horror at the idea she has "MAY IS ONE OF US." 125 conjured up. " I shall dread hearing the sound of the wheels ; I know they will carry bad news." "Don't listen to it till I come home," he says, cheerily; "just give your mind to Murray. I don't care what place you settle on — north, south, east, or west — its all the same to me." Thus he turns her thoughts away from the subject of Harry Bellairs, and gives her present peace. She watches her husband drive off to Chis- wick by-and-by, with a lingering, long look of affection, that speaks well for her as a wife. "What a good fellow he is," she says, shaking her head to herself in corrobo- ration of her own statement ; " if he had anything captious or mean about him, I shouldn't feel myself to be half as bad as I am ; but, as it is " She checks herself, and wipes away a few tears that have dis- obediently rolled down her cheeks, and takes her way to the nursery with haste, in order that she may remove the impression of being a weary, nerveless mother — which impres- 126 A NABBOW U SCAPE. sion she must have given her quick-witted children on her return home just now. It is a pleasant, quiet, well-ordered house throughout, from the artistic drawing-room up to the airy nursery, and down to the admirably clean kitchen. All the arrange- ments go on well-oiled wheels ; yet there is no extravagance, no waste, no superfluity. Mrs. Angerstein's normal condition is one of proud love for her home ; but to-day she longs to get out of it, for she seems to her- self to be drawing her breath guardedly, and to be in this peaceful Paradise on sufferance. She promises her children the excitement of a change, in a manner that inflames their infant minds with a most ardent desire to "go at once ; " and then she goes to her room with a batch of guide-books, and selects her sequestered spot very speedily — Dunster, in Somersetshire. " You will find May the greatest possible comfort to you under these trying circum- stances. Such a thoughtful head on such ''MAY IS ONE OF USr 127 young shoulders, I am sure I never met with before," Mrs. Constable says, in her most motherly and confidential tone, on the occasion of her resigninoj her dauo:hter as a visitor to the Forest family. " May and I never misunderstand each other," ]\Irs. Forest says, with a little emphatic squeeze of May's hand ; " and, troubled as I am now — harassed with anxiety, and watching, and nursing — I am sure our May will be more tolerant to me than ever." Mrs. Forest has arranged her sentence carefully beforehand, and she says it glibly enough. But, somehow, it falls short of the mark ; it fails to impress the Constables with a belief in its being genuine. " There's something more to come," Mrs. Constable thinks, sagaciously, to herself ; " ]\Irs. Forest is not got up in plain black serge and a little close cap for nothing." As she thinks this, Mrs. Constable glances at the plump form of her May, which is arrayed for the occasion in a rather tight, bright mauve 128 A NABBOW ESCAPE. costume, and she half fears that she is about to cast her peari before swine. It is the day after the unlucky tandein- drive, and the case of Captain Bellairs is sufficiently bad to justify the signs of being ill at ease which are very visible in Mrs. Forest. " Such a responsibility, such a ter- rible burden of anxiety," she plaintively murmurs to Mrs. Constable, who replies — " Ah ! yes, to be sure ; but then, you see, you have your daughters and your son to help you through it ; and I'm sure May will do her part." Mrs. Forest bends her eyes down in the proudly humble way which may mean so much or so little. " My children are very good to me ; without them I could not combat this, anxious as I am to do all that Christian charity demands that I should do for Captain Bellairs." She pauses here, and sighs, and then says, in her sweetest manner — " I lose my niece to-day. Dear Kate ! All through last night she was the stay and "MAY IS ONE OF US." 129 prop of the house, tliinkiDg of everything, doing everything — saving me at every turn — and I lose her to-day. She goes home to-day." " Miss Mervyn has paid you rather a long visit," Mrs. Constable says, tartly. Mrs. Forest feels that she is about to be dragged into the thick of the fray. " Long ! " she says, lifting her brows in affectionate wonderment ; "I hope it has not seemed 'long' to her, for it has been a mere gleam of brightness, her presence among us. I wish so much that she could have stayed, she would have been such a charming companion for our May." "Our" May blushes, bridles, and brings her real sentiments to the fore. " I can do very well without Miss Mervyn dear Mrs. Forest ; I don't care for charming comjDanions. I shall have you, and the girls, and Frank " " Didn't you know that Frank would not be at home, dear child ? " Mrs. Forest in- terrupts, and she feels that now indeed she is in the heart of the battle. VOL. I. K 130 A NAEEOW ESCAPE. " Frank not at home ! " May says, in the tone of one who has bought and paid for Frank, and who will have him, bitter bad bargain as he may prove to be. " It may be business, my dear," Mrs. Con- stable says, with an overdone air of depreca- tion, *' I am sure that Frank would never neglect you for anything but urgent busi- ness," Mrs, Constable nods her head as she says this, and in other indescribable ways throws the glove down well in Mrs. Forest's sight. But Mrs, Forest refuses to see it, and deter- mines that nothing shall make her pick it up, "Poor boy, I didn't know that he had not had an opportunity of explaining the reason why he must leave home just now to our May," she says, quite freshly, for her maternal instinct tells her that her " boy " is within an ace of losing the Constable connection and money. " He has had opportunities enough," May says. ''MAY IS ONE OF Z7-S." 131 " At any rate lie might have made one," Mrs. Constable adds ; " when a man is en- gaged, he has no right to behave as if he were free as aii\" " Oh ! mamma, I am sm^e I don't want lo interfere with his freedom," INIay puts in sharply ; "he may go when he likes, and where he likes, and stay away as long as he likes, as far as I am concerned." There is unmistakable anger in the girl's accents, and j\L-s. Forest cannot help admit- ting to herself that May has justice on her side. At the same time, she determines to strike a blow for the interests of her son. "My dear child," she says, in her most grandly maternal manner, " I don't wonder at your feeling a little annoyed, as you know nothinof of the circumstances of the case : when you know them, you will be only sorry for us all — for poor Frank more than any one, for he is the sufferer ; he has to leave you." " I am not told what the cu'cumstances are : how am I to feel sympathy ? " May 132 A NAEROW ESCAPE. says : indignation, curiosity, and a certain yearning for Frank all struggling to obtain the mastery in her breast. " It was so sudden, you see," Mrs. Forest begins, in a low, slow voice. The " cir- cumstances" require a great deal of trim- ming before they can be made presentable for the Constable eyes. " What was sudden ? " " The knowledge that family business made it imperative on Frank to go and see his uncle at once came upon us suddenly. Ah ! my dear Mrs. Constable, your widowed bark sails in smooth waters — mine is on a very troubled sea ; I have only one brother, and he " Mrs. Forest pauses, for she has not quite made up her mind as to what she shall say about this useful relative of hers. Mrs. Constable is eager to hear what the extenuating circumstances are, but she is not at all in the mood to be biased by them in a weak, amiable, friendly way. Her maternal instincts are aroused. ''MAY IS ONE OF US." 133 " If May takes my advice," she says, "she will come home with me at once, and leave you all unfettered by any considera- tion for her until Frank can clearly explain to her the cause of his very extraordinary behaviour." "We can never 'be unfettered' by any consideration for May ; she is one of us," Mrs. Forest says, suavely. But the suavity fails to act as oil on the troubled waters, and when Mrs. Constable goes home, May goes with her, and there is discord in Mrs. Forest's breast between family interest and family feehng. She will not surrender May, and the prosperity which May represents, to spare Kate's feelings. But at the same time she wiU not surrender Frank's right to apparent freedom of action, for all May's wealth. CHAPTER VIII. '' I THINK IT INDISCREET, FEANK ! " '•' For all her external mildness, May has a nasty temper of her own, I'm sure of that," Gertrude says, as she lounges about Kate's room, watching the latter packing up the few remaining trifles which are still scattered about. Then Miss Forest goes on to tell her cousin of the resentful manner in which the Constables have received the tidings of Frank's intention of paying a visit to his uncle. " Trying to tie a man to her apron-string in that way is so foolish," she says in con- clusion, and she looks interrogatively at Kate as she says it. Kate makes no response. Apparently she is fully absorbed in counting over her small "I TRINK IT INDISGBEET, FRANK:' 135 stock of trinkets. But Gertrude is not to be easily turned out of the conversational groove in which she has placed herself. " 1 should go on a very different plan if I were engaged," Gertrude goes on ; "I should let the man feel himself to be as free as air ; wouldn't you ? " Thus directly addressed, Kate looks up at last and says — " I think that I should do everything that is directly opposed to what Miss Constable does ; still 1 don't wonder at her feeling annoyed with Frank about this sudden resolve to go away." " She is foolish to show it though, isn't she ? " Gertrude persists. " He's bound to her hard and fast ; her pettishness may make him tug at his chain, but, as mamma was saying just now, he can't break it." " A man ' can ' do whatever he pleases in that way, I should think," Kate says calmly, but her lips quiver. If Frank, " can't " break the chain which binds him to May Constable, then has he behaved very 136 A NARROW ESCAPE. weakly, perfidiously, and cruelly to Kate Mervyn. "Not with tlie Constable family on one side of him and mamma on the other," Gertrude laughs out ; " besides, I don't think that his aversion to the marriage is violent enough to urge him to take such a decided step as breaking his engagement would be. He's no reason to do it either, you know ; she's not a bit sillier or more tedious than she was in those days of rapture when he proposed to her." "Only he has had time to find her out," Kate says, carelessly, rising from her knees as she speaks. " I wish I hadn't agreed t