rtfiO LJ L I B R.AFLY OF THE UN IVLR.SITY Of ILLINOIS A* which it was withrfr^ the ,lbrar >' fr om latest D«e 1 st:i d bX n ° rbef0reth ' Theft _...:i_~. L161— O-1096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/judithwynnenovel01pirk JUDITH WYNNE, % VLobzl. C. L. PIEKIS, AUTHOR OF 'DI K.WVCETT,' "A VERY OPAL.' &C, &C. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : F. V. WHITE & CO., 31, SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRANJj. W.C. 1884. PRINTED BY KELLY & CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S IHM FIELDS, W.C. AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. v.l J TO NORAH MARGUERITE CHANDOS CECIL T- THIS HOOK 2o Qebicateb. NUTF1ELD, 1884. Select Novels by Popular Authors. Crown 8 to, cloth, 35. 6cl. each. By Florence Marryat. MY SISTER THE ACTRESS. A BROKEN BLOSSOM. PHYLLIDA. the root of all eyil. facing- the footlights. By Annie Thomas. ALLERTON TOWERS. FRIENDS AND LOYERS. EYRE OF BLENDON. By Mrs. Eiloart. THE DEAN'S WIFE. SOME OF OUR GIRLS. By Lady Constance Howard, sweetheart and wife. MOLLIE DARLING. By the Author of "Recommended to Mercy." BARBARA'S WARNING. By Mrs. Alexander Fraser. A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY. By Harriett Jay. TWO MEN AND A MAID. JUDITH WYNNE, VOLUME I • CHAPTEE I. MRT lay in a deep, shadowy hollow, a Wfj® forlorn, God-forgotten house to look at. Like the Grange of poetic legend, it was surrounded by a moat, but it could not be said of it, as of the ill-fated Mar- iana's abode, that around " for leagues no tree did mark the waste," for it was backed by a dark, thick wood of most ancient growth. Plas-y-coed the old house was called by the people in the district ; The Grange was the name by which it was as a rule distinguished by the Eeeces, in whose family, with its acres of park and arable land, it had been for genera- VOL. i. 1 2 JUDITH WYNNE. tions, passing in steady, unbroken line from heirs male to heirs male. Beyond the background of dark wood rose the blue mountains of Llanniswth, peak over peak in all their sharp, lonely grandeur. Down their rough, cleft sides rushed ceaselessly the cataracts, which fertilised the deep-growing trees of the ancient wood. The air was always humid, a gre}^ mist seemed ever hanging about. The lichen on the old walls, the marish mosses which fringed the paths, had reached an almost tropical luxuriance ; the stone-paved terrace was absolutely slippery with the minute vegetation which grew in every crevice between the flags. " I say, old fellow," cried Oscar Eeece, coming down the five steps which led from the house with a spring and a bound, " you should turn in an army of gardeners here ; our lives are not safe, a coroner's in- quest will be the end of it — that's a fact." Worfcin^ Eeece, standing on the ter- race with a sealed letter in his hand, paid JUDITH WYNNE. 3 no heed to the speaker. He was elder brother by about a dozen years to Oscar, and is the present master of The Grange. " Where is my mother ? " he asked, and getting Oscar's reply, "In the breakfast - room," he opened a little door leading off the terrace and went into the house. Within, the house was as desolate as it was without. It abounded in lonsr, winding passages, and small, low-ceiled rooms. The breakfast - room, with the morning sun upon it, was possibly the cheeriest and best lighted of these. When Wolfgang turned the handle and went in, it seemed full of the chequered sunlight which fell through the beech-trees ^rowimr close — too close for health one would think — to the casemented window. An elderly lady was seated in a huge arm- chair with knitting-needles in her hand ; a big, brown mastiff lay at her feet, and formed her footstool. Her head was large and well-set, her features good, but too massive to suit conventional ideas of female 1—2 4 JUDITH WYNNE. beauty. Her hair was white as snow, her complexion clear and pale. The least exact of observers might have identified these two as mother and son. Wolfgang had the same large, well-set head, and regular, massive features. Her hair must have been fair as his in her early youth, her eyes possibly as deep a grey, and as clear and bright as his, though now, alas ! dim and glazed with premature disease which was slowly but surely ending in total blindness. When they spoke their voices had the same clear, strong vibration. " Hereis a letter, mother," he said, " with an Indian stamp on it. Shall I read it to you?" "An Indian stamp ! " she repeated. " I only know of one person in India likely to write to me — Colonel Wynne, my mother's third cousin. But it's seven or eight years at least since we last corresponded. Yes, read it, Wolf." It was from Colonel Wynne. The first JUDITH WYNNE. 5 page of the letter was given up to con- gratulations. 4; I heard quite by chance," he wrote, " of Wolf coining into the Welsh property. From the bottom of my heart I congratu- late you all. It was an odd thing poor Bernard Eeece dying so suddenly. Only twenty-seven, wasn't he? That trip to Ber- muda was a wild thing for a man to under- take without any rhyme or reason. How- ever, it has brought good fortune to yon and yours, so we won't moan over it. Xow I am writing to ask a special favour of you, Elizabeth. Will you take my little girl, Judith, under your wing, for the next two years ? As you know, she has been brought up in France with her mother's people. When my Melanie died, Judith went to live with her aunt and uncle at St. Andre. That was ten years ago, and I have not seen her since. Well, the aunt was a strict Presbyterian, the uncle a Catholic priest, an odd commingling of influence to place a child under, was it not ? All I 6 JUDITH WYNNE. begged of them was not to interfere with her religious opinions. I don't think they have, for' she writes to me that she has never failed in her attendance at a Protestant place of worship. The aunt has just died, and as I do not like the idea of her staying on with the priest, I shall be very grateful to you if you will take her into your home, give her an insight, as it were, into an Eng- lish household, till I can return to England and make one for her. In two years' time T hope to be able to do this, but not before. I know of no one in England but yourself of whom I could ask this favour." Oscar had come into the room during the reading of this letter. He now burst forth exuberantly : " A girl coming to stay with us ? How awfully jolly ! Mother, of course you'll say yes. It would be downright cruel to refuse to take her in. I hope she'll be a good specimen. Of course, Wolf, you'll have the old place made habitable now ? " Mrs. Eeece laid down her knitting. JUDITH WYNNE. 44 Let me see, Oscar," she said medita- tively : "Judith Wynne is just nineteen, you are just twenty. Ah, you will be safe enough. Nothing under five-and- twenty would suit you at the present moment. Wolf is in the greater danger, he is turned thirty-one, but still thirty- one is an age at which a man ought to be able to take care of himself." 44 Yes, if he is ever going to," said Wolf, laying down the letter and walk- ing towards the door. 44 1 say," shouted Oscar after him, • : you'll see about the repairs at once, won't you ? " But to this Wolf made no reply. i^-WY^ CHAPTEE II. ;Y*yjR01[ whatever cause it might arise, yj^j I the fact remained that no sound of workman's hammer nor gardener's hoe broke the silence which, like the mountain mist, seemed perpetually to over- hang the old Grange. Judith Wynne, as she drove up the weedy road leading to the old house, thought in all her life she had never set eves upon a more hopelessly desolate and forlorn-looking habitation. The neat, pretty French home she had just quitted was still photographed vividly on her brain. She shut her eyes, and once more it rose up before her as on the morning when she had looked her last JUDITH WYNKE. 9 good-bye to it — a square, white-fronted villa, in the streaming June sunlight, long-windowed, with pretty green veranda which ran the length of its frontage, and was broken here and there by the big orange-trees in tubs, and pink-flowered oleanders. A house, in fact, giving every outward sign of neat housewifery and careful keeping. She opened her eyes, and, lo ! there stood before her a long, low, damp-looking building, grey with the lichen that hung about its eaves, green in patches with the smaller-growing mosses, its wood-work bronzed and blis- tered, its windows uncurtained, its frontage unswept. The contrast between the two homes — the one which her memory held and the one which faced her — was keen. It set her shuddering, and it set her thinking. Wolf and Oscar had met her at Pen- Cwellyn, the little station seven miles from The Grange, and had driven her home. io JUDITH WYNNE. It was a long drive. The June sun was at its highest, and Wolf had apologised for the open carriage he had brought for her. " We have no other," he had said simply. Oscar's fair, boyish face had flushed crimson as he spoke. Judith, looking from one to the other, thought she had never seen two brothers more unlike in form and feature. " He will be handsome in ten years' time," she had said to herself, taking stock of Oscar's bronzed hair, blue eyes, and fine, though slight figure. "And he will be an old man in ten years' time," she had thought as her eye rested on Wolf's stoop- ing shoulders, the grey that showed here and there on his brown hair and beard, the deep, knotted frown which drew his brows together and made his dark eyes seem sunken and dim. Oscar kept cheerful talk going as they drove along the flinty road. It neces- sarily had to be talk on general topics, for they were strangers, one to the other, juditii wryxK in all but name. Judith knew but little of these distant cousins of hers. She had heard some seven or eight years pre- viously of the death of their father, a hard-working East of London clergyman, who had taken typhus-fever from one of his poor parishioners, and had died at his post. She had heard that his mantle had fallen on his son Wolfgang, and that he had worked as hard as a curate as his father had as a rector. Whispers had also reached her, though she scarcely knew how true they were, of hardship and poverty which the widow had been called upon to endure ; of the death by fever of all her children, save the eldest and youngest ; of the gradual, though certain loss of her own eyesight. All this Judith had heard in a far-off roundabout sort of way from time to time, and she had listened to it much as she would have listened to anyone telling her of changes in the government of Australia c CD or Japan, a sort of something altogether 12 JUDITH WYNNE. outside her little circle of living interests. Then, quite unexpectedly, there had come to her news in a more direct fashion from her father, telling her of the change in the fortunes of these people, of their sudden accession to comparative wealth and importance through the death of Bernard Eeece. With this news Colonel Wynne had coupled the wish that, for a time at any rate, Judith should make her home with these distant relatives. It seemed odd to the girl to have her life thus suddenly linked to the family life of these strangers. She could scarcely realise the fact, even as she drove along the lonely Welsh road with the two brothers. It seemed to her almost incredible that her bright, beautiful, tranquil French life was altogether a thing of the past, that for the next two years at any rate her days were to be passed among people of whom she knew little more than the names. JUDITH WYNNE. 13 Mrs. Reece gave the young girl a kindly greeting. " I wish I could see your face, my dear," she said, " that I might see whether there is anything of your father in you." She had not learnt that quick, light touch which comes naturally to the born-blind, and which conveys to them likeness of feature as well as knowledge of colour. Poor soul ! her blindness had struck her too late in life for that. She was obliged to trust to one or other of her sons for her impressions of the outer world. Later on in the day, when Judith had gone to her room to rest, tired out with her long journey, Mrs. Reece, hearing Oscar over his fishing-tackle, asked him to come and tell her what the new comer was like, and what he thought of her. Oscar gave a low whistle. " Oh, well, she's — she's just so — nothing more. That's what I think of her." "Unintelligible, as usual, Oscar," said 14 JUDITH WYSXE. his mother ; " try to put your meaning into plain English, for my special benefit." " Ton my life I can't, mother. She's just so — nothing more. I can't say she is what she isn't." kt But you can tell me whether she is tall or short, ugly or pretty, fair or dark, I suppose." " No ; I don't think she's anything of all that; she's what I said, 'just so,' and nothing will make anything else of her." " So ! " — Mrs. Eeece had passed her early days in Germany, and had brought back with her a fondness for this mono- syllable together with a love for knitting- pins. " Is Wolf there ? Ask him to come to me." And Wolf coming had the questions repeated to him. What was Judith like, and what did he think of her ? He answered slowly and thoughtfully : " She is small, and slight, with dark hair, pale face, and very dark eyes. She JUDITH WYNNE. 15 speaks little, but I should imagine thinks a great deal. I should say she was fond of poetry and that sort of thing, not of the realities of life." "Stop— stop, Wolf; that will do. I didn't ask for a rhapsody. Ah, I can see which of you two boys will want keeping out of harm's way.'' If she could have seen the sudden dark cloud that swept over Wolfs face, she would not have hazarded her light words. Oscar saw it and sought to effect a diversion. " Why, mother ! " he cried, " after seven years of a curate's life, with all the women in the parish shooting at him, do you think Wolf will fall a victim to the first little dark girl who comes into the house ? " The old lady shook her head wisely. 64 Ah," she answered, " Cupid takes some with darts, and some with traps. Look to vourself, Wolf, that's all." CHAPTER III. jEXT to the keen eye which pierces g straight to the heart of things, the clear eye for an outline is perhaps one of the most blessed gifts a man or woman can be dowered with. It keeps the senses unmystified by the small, pressing, multitudinous details of everyday life, the brain free to take in ct the situation " whatever it may be, the hand ready and strong for action. Judith had possessed this clear, true eye for an outline in a remarkable degree from childhood upwards. Wolf, describ- ing her to his mother, had credited her with a poetic temperament ; never their—, others spring her from their point of view, JUDITH WYNNE. 17 had been wont to speak of her as a remarkably practical, matter-of-fact person. Both descriptions were true ; the two temperaments are not irreconcilable, what- ever some superficial thinkers may say. Be this as it may, Judith had not been a week in the old Grange before she said to herself as she noted Wolfs gloomy, abstracted ways, the manifest yet unsuccessful efforts he made to be one with the rest of the household : " That man has suffered." Before the end of a second week she had appended a rider to her verdict, which ran thus : " He is suffering now." At the close of three weeks another rider was added to this effect : " And he has a secret locked up in his heart." With Oscar she speedily became on very good terms. They called each other by their Christian names before the first fortnight was over their heads. Their dispositions, though diverse, harmonised admirably. Oscar was a good talker, vol. 1. 2 iS JUDITH WYNNE. Juditli a first-rate listener. Oscar loved a free, outdoor life for the sake of sport and plentiful bodily exercise, and Judith loved the fields, the mountains, the woods, because she had an eye for a landscape, and a heart that beat in sympathetic response to every glad sound of bird, beast, or insect. Thus it came about that most of the bright June mornings were passed in each other's society ; and when, June ended, Oscar announced the fact that he was going up to London to stay in the house of a clergyman, who was to coach him for matriculation at Oxford, Judith felt that all the sunshine was leaving Plas-y-Coed, and wondered what other companion would be given her for her morning walks and mountain scrambles. There was no talk, however, of other companionship. "Judith will be dull, I fear," said Wolf to his mother, a day or two after Oscar had none. JUDITH WYNNE. 19 He called her Judith behind her back ; Miss Wynne always when addressing her. He had watched the young girl go slowly along the weedy gravel path, and lean over the mossy gate as though she were looking longingly across the green iields to the dark hills beyond. Mrs. Eeece was pursuing her own train of thought. " No one but a man or an idiot would have sent a girl of that age into a house with two grown-up sons, unless he wanted her to marry one of them," she said slowly. Wolf started as if struck by some sudden idea. "Judith will be very rich some day. She is an heiress, is she not ? " he asked abruptly. The mother nodded. "Her father has coined money, I hear, since he retired from the service. Of course, as she is an only child, it must all go to her. Then, too, her mother's 2—2 20 JUDITH WYNNE. money is settled on her. She was Melanie Maclvor Dutertre, half Scotch, half French. She and her sister — Judith's aunt, lately dead — were both strict Presbyterians. The brother followed his father's faith, and became a priest. Of course his money will go to the Church, but the aunt's money has been carefully tied up for Judith when she comes of age." "It's a thousand pities Oscar isn't ten years older," said Wolf dreamily. The mother laughed outright. " What, are you turning matchmaker, Wolf? You are coming out in a new character with a vengeance. She would suit you ever so much better than Oscar." Wolf did not hear her ; he had taken his hat and followed Judith down the garden-path. She was leaning over the gate, half- thinking, half-dreaming, in that disjointed, hazy sort of way girls of nineteen are given to. Her heart at first had been full of sweet, sad memories of the dear dead aunt JUDITH WYNNE. 21 as she had leaned over the gate, but one by one they had been chased away by the glad, bright realities about her — the flooding sunshine, the gloriously blue sky, the fresh greenness of field and woodland, the summer-scented breeze and soft air. A shadow fell across her as she stood. She started, and turned to see Wolf at her elbow. She had not heard his footfall on the path. Somehow the mere approach of this grave, stern man always seemed to send a chill through her. She could never think of him as parish priest, pastor and shepherd of his flock ; she could picture him rather as one of the soldier-priests of old time, leading on his host, crozier in one hand, falchion in the other, and crying aloud in his deep, strong voice : " Strike, and smite, and let not one of them escape ! " " Let us go for a walk," he said, open- ing the gate as he spoke ; "it's too hot for climbing, but the woods will be pleasant." Judith would rather he had said : " Will vou like to o' to my other request. Such a small one, too — a thing most girls would jump at doing for a fellow, and say : ' Oscar dear, give me something else to do for you ; that's not worth calling a favour ! ' : " Tell me what it is, and see whether I can 'jump at' doing it for you." " Well, it's just this, Judith," and here Oscar broke off a big, fan-like bough of laurestinus which overshadowed the path, and handed it to Judith for an impromptu sun-umbrella : " I don't want you to give yourself a mountain of trouble in the matter, but I shall be very glad if you yourself will see that the rooms are clean and fit for young ladies to sleep in, sup- posing I can get the two ZNIiss Martins JUDITH WYNNE. 131 down here on a week's visit. My mother will just give old Bryce an order or two, which she will carry out or not as she thinks fit ; and of course, as my mother has not her sight, she is obliged to trust entirely to the old cat. So I ask you, will you be so condescending as to take a survey of the rooms yourself, and see that everything is 'just so?'" " Yes, I think I will condescend so far. But, mind, I shall expect a great deal of gratitude, and you mustn't trouble me often with such tremendous requests." 4; And will you please bear in mind, when you make your survey, that in Eichmond we live in a land of paper dados and beaten brasses, of sage-green plush and terra-cotta mantelpieces ? " " Ah no ; I shall try to forget all about that. The thought of so much grandeur would paralyse my simple efforts at cleanliness and brightness. Fancy, paper dados and sage-green plush at Plas-y-Coed ! " 9—2 132 JUDITH WYNNE. Judith, as she spoke, looked up at the grim, lichen-shaded old structure, and made one step as though she were going into the house. Oscar put himself in front of her. " Don't go in yet, Judith ; there's some- thing else I want you to do for me. Not now, but by-and-by, when I give you a nudge. I have been speaking to my mother already on the matter, and later on, when I speak to Wolf, I shall get you to back me up in what I want. The idea has come into my head lately that my going in for Oxford is great nonsense after all. Don't start in that absurd manner as though something had stung you. Supposing hy great good- fortune I should manage to creep into college say in a year and a half s time. I suppose I must stay there at least three years if I want to cut any sort of a figure. Well, there's a good four and a half years gone smash, and all for nothing at all. I shall be twenty-four and JUDITH WYNX& 133 a half years old, and not have earned one penny for myself. Think of that ! " Judith tried to keep down her astonish- ment. " There are many men," she said, " who have never all their lives long earned one penny for themselves." " Ah, but then they step into fortunes ready made for them, lucky dogs ! But just think, Judith, how late in life it would be to begin earning one's bread at four-and-twenty. It would take at least ten years to make any sort of income, ikj matter what I took up with. Why, I should be quite an old man before I should be able to settle down and marry ! " " Settle down and marry ! " echoed Judith, in her surprise standing still in the middle of the path, surveying Oscar from head to foot. Oscar's fair face flushed a deep red. i; Well, I suppose there's nothing very unreasonable in a man wanting to settle 134 JUDITH WYNNE. down and marry some time or other ? " he asked irritably. " Some time or other, yes," said Judith, beginning to recover herself ; " but your ' some time or other ' ought to be such a long way ahead that it wouldn't be worth while thinking of it for — oh, let us say fifteen or twenty years to come ! She broke off for a moment, then a sudden merry light shone in her eyes. " It's Theo ! " she cried ; " I'm positive it's Theo ! Xow don't get so red, Oscar, and you needn't cut down all those carna- tions so spitefully with that stick. I don't ask you to say whether I'm right or wrong, but I'm convinced it's Theo." Oscar's face took a yet deeper shade. ''- You're wrong, as usual, Miss Judith AViseacre ! " he cried. " Theo is a dear good child, as I've always said, but Theo is a regular tomboy, and it is not Theo ! " " Then it's Miss Leila," said Judith with great decision ; " I'm positive I'm right JUDITH WYNNE 135 this time, and if you deny it ever so much I sha'n't believe you. Only tell me what she is like — do, there's a good fellow. Is she little, and brown, and sallow, like me ? " "She is not little, and brown, and sallow/' " Well, then, is she tall, and large, and fair, like Martha, who brings the milk every morning ? " " She is not in the least like Martha, the milkmaid." i; Then who and what is she like ? Oh, dear, dear Oscar ! " and here Judith laid her hand pleadingly on the young man's arm, 4; do — do describe her to me — or try, at any rate." ' ; Judith, God, in all His making, never made anything more beautiful than Leila Martin," answered Oscar gravely, almost solemnly. Then he shook himself free from Judith's hand and went straight into the house. CHAPTEE XII. ^VSCAE'S trepidation lest the Misses V^#; Martin should not be properly- housed during their short visit, could scarcely be a matter for surprise to anyone acquainted with the normal con- dition of the unused sleeping apartments at the old Grange. A more desolate, forlorn, and shabby succession of rooms could scarcely be imagined. So at least thought Judith as — having first obtained Mrs. Eeece's permission — she made the round of them with Bryce at her heels. The keys creaked in the rusty locks one after the other ; Bryce threw back each door with an air half-defiant, JUDITH WYXXE. 137 half-contemptuous, as of one who would say : " Xo doubt you, with your modern fastidious ways, would decline to sleep in them, and yet better people than you have lain in those beds." She looked up iu Judith's face as she surveyed the faded chintzes, the carpets absolutely tattered iu parts, the dirt-begrimed walls and ceilings, ready to take up arms in defence of each piece of forlorn shabbiness. But Judith made no remark whatsoever ; she looked in silence at some ten or twelve bedrooms, going down odd-looking* winding passages to get to them, and as- cending odd-looking winding stairs. So Bryce essayed a remark which was in- tended to show she was read}* for any attack upon her late master's domestic arrangements. "Tli' old squire," she said with a little grin on her old face, " was not fond of visitors after Madam Eeece died." " Xo," acquiesced Judith negatively. t; And Master Bernard was always away 13 s JUDITH WYHnSK in foreign parts, both before and after his father's death." " Yes," acquiesced Judith affirmatively. Bryce shrugged her shoulders, with her hand on the last lock. " It's to be hoped the young ladies who are coming are not fond of smart rooms with muslin and ribbons decked about, and easy-chairs, and sofas, and foot-stools, and such like, for they won't get them here," she grumbled. " Evidently," was Judith's brief reply. Then, seeing that Bryce had not yet un- locked this, the last uninspected room, she asked : " Is this a bedroom, Bryce — can I go in here ? " "It's the tapestry-room," answered Bryce, letting her voice fall a little. "You may go in if you like, Miss Judith ; I would rather stay outside." Judith went in. This was a larger room than any she had yet seen, though, like the others, its ceiling was low. Its four square walls were hung with tapestry, JUDITH WYNNE. 139 whose subject and colour time, with damp, ruthless hand, had almost obliterated. Here and there from out a grey-brown background of cross-stitch loomed' a russet-coloured Titanic face with that sardonic smile on its lips which only cross-stitch knows how to impart. Judith, by straining her eyes and imagination alike, could fancy she could trace the outline of gigantic tree-boughs and enor- mous chariot-wheels, and now and again a small, childish, cherub head. She longed to have the history of it all. " Why don't you come in and tell me all about this room, Bryce ? " she called to the old woman, who remained obstin- ately on the other side of the threshold. Bryce shook her head. " You'd best come out, Miss Judith ; it's the room where the old squire died, and " — this added in a low, reverential whisper — " as he lay dying he said to me, ' Bryce,' he said, ' if ever anything troubles me after I'm gone, and I can 140 JUDITH WYNNE, come back, this is where you may look to see me.' They were almost the last words he said, Miss Judith, as he lay dying on that bed." Judith's eyes naturally turned towards the bed which stood at the far end, and in the darkest corner of the room. It was a massive piece of furniture, square, with four enormous pillars and heavy cornice of carved oak. It was hung with full, wide curtains of tapestry, which matched in greyness and grimness the other hangings of the room. They were closely drawn together, so that not a vestige of bed-covering or pillow was to be seen. Judith had never before set eyes on a bedstead which presented so close a resemblance to a sarcophagus. " Which way does this room look ? ; ' she asked, o-oin^ towards the window, anxious for an excuse to throw back the half-closed shutters, so as to ^S^g 10—2 CHAPTER XIII. ^^T was pleasant to think that the walls J^ of the old Grange were so soon to throw back the echo of young, merry voices, the tread and spring of young, merry footsteps. Judith felt her heart go np at a bound at the thought of possible long walks in the early morning up the rough, misty, mountain-sides, of lazy, twilight talks in the dim, cooing wood with two girls of her own age, and — she hoped — possessing her own capacity for long country walks morning, noon, or night. To say truth the silence and dreariness of the old Grange was beginning just now to make themselves felt to her. If JUDITH WYNNE, 149 only dear Uncle Pierre, soft- voiced, always striving to give pleasure, always successful in his endeavour, could but have crossed the threshold, bringing with him the atmosphere of Villa Eosa, the atmosphere which, dear Aunt Maggie had compounded of blithe order and decorous abandon for her own and everybody else's delectation, what a magical change would have been wrought at Plas-v-Coed ! Judith's heart in those days was always going back aching and quaking to the happy old time at Villa Eosa. None who knew this girl slightly as did these new friends at Plas-y-Coed, and noted her quiet, even walk through the monotony of life there, her intense delight in simple country pleasures, her unfeigned interest in the most commonplace affairs of a most com- monplace world, could have guessed of what strong, deep passions she was capable. "Wolf, on the day of her arrival, had de- scribed her to his mother as looking pale and wan. "Possibly," he had suggested, 150 JUDITH WYNNE. "from her long, tiring journey." He did not know — how could he ? — that the pale- ness and wanness were the result of that desperate rebellion, that most futile of all battles into which the youngest and least skilled in warfare are most prone to plunge — a battle against the laws of God which wrench from our clinging grasp our nearest and dearest before we have learnt to walk without them. Judith had inherited, with other English traits, that thoroimii-p-oin^ English habit of shutting the door upon everything in the shape of strong, deep feeling. Her pas- sionate, loving heart she could not get rid of — there it was, and there it must be; but no one, however prying, should know it was there. Her long years of Erench training had not sufficed to root out this English instinct of hers. Many good things, no doubt, she had brought away with her from France, but not one good thing, essentially English, had she left behind. JUDITH WYNNE. 151 M Why, you told me she was half a French girl," exclaimed Theo Martin bluntly to Oscar, as she took a steady survey of Judith from head to foot ; " but if it were not for her finikin boots, her big collars, and mounted-up hair, she would be as English as I am." It was said under Judith's very eyelids. Oscar grew crimson and uncomfortable. " Hush-sh ! We are not at The Retreat now, remember," he said, in a tone of remonstrance. Judith laughed. " And I am as English as you," she aid. " At Villa Eosa we spoke and read quite as much English as we do here at the Grange. We spoke French, just as they do Welsh here, only to the servants.' Theo gave her opinion of everybody and everything about her with the same delightful frankness. She was a large, fair, bouncing girl of sixteen, with very short petticoats and very thick ankles. Her features were good, with the exception 152 JUDITH WTNNK of her mouth, which was wide and large, without being full-lipped. Her eyes — the bast part of her face — were of a dark blue-grey, and were fringed with long- black lashes. Her glad, hearty ways won Judith's heart at once. Somehow she seemed the counterpart of Oscar in her blitheness, her boyishness, and thorough determina- tion to take life pleasantly. To the elder sister Judith did not feel so drawn, in spite of her rare beauty and grace of manner. Leila's was simply a perfect face, the complexion of a pure pallor, tinged with colour as delicate as the lining of a cameo-shell ; the nose straight, with finely-cut nostrils ; the mouth full, with coral-red lips. Her eyes were " deeply, darkly, gloriously blue,'' fringed, like Theo's, with long black lashes ; her forehead low and wide ; her eyebrows delicately pencilled ; her hair, a dark chestnut-brown, fell in one long plait below her waist ; her figure was tall JUDITH WYSXE. 153 and stately, a little inclined to plumpness, perhaps, and her hands and feet were, perhaps, a little larger than she herself would have chosen ; but, on the whole, a more glorious creature to look at never walked the earth. Judith could have sat gazing at her hour after hour, as she would have gazed at a beautiful statue or picture, could the laws of courtesy have permitted it. By Leila's side she felt herself grow small, sallow, and insignificant. With the impress of this grand woman upon her eyes she went up to her own room, and surveyed herself from head to foot in the modern cheval-glass which had been placed there for her. She saw reflected in it a small, slight girl, with tiny hands and feet, a colourless complexion, small indeterminate features, dark hazel eyes — unripe hazel, be it noted — and brown hair, untinged with the faintest suspicion of gold. A lady's face it was, a pure, true, gentle face too, which knew well how to express 154 JUDITH WYNNE. every shade of tender feeling, and which might, under strong pressure, express passion, poetry, tragedy all in one, but for all that not a beautiful face, not one that would have arrested a second glance from a passer-by — nor even a first had Leila Martin's shone beside it. Judith almost laughed aloud, as she thought of the contrast. No wonder that poor Oscar, at his susceptible age, had fallen victim to such rich and rare attractions. Then there stole another thought into her heart, a thought that seemed to bring with it a twinge of some © © sort, slight as a needle-prick, yet as dis- tinct. What would Wolf think of this dainty young beauty? Would his eyes be as veiled to her loveliness as they seemed to be to everything under heaven, lovely or unlovely alike ; or would he succumb to her many charms as thoroughly and rapidly as Oscar had done ? Theo made very merry over Oscar's devotion to the fair Leila. JUDITH WYENK 155 " He thinks he's in love with her," she said, throwing her nine-stone weight on Judith's knees, and putting a heavy fat arm round her slender throat; "but, bless 3 ou, he isn't. He'll get out of it in a fortnight's time, when another new pupil comes, and he sees Leila making eyes at him — so," here Theo manoeuvred with her own dark lashes, and gave a Leila-like glance from beneath them. "It's the greatest fun in the world to see them " — i.e. the pupils — " all knocked over, one after the other, like nine-pins, and then have to pick themselves up again. Sometimes, however, it gets a little too strong to be funny, at least pa thinks so, and then he packs Leila off to Germany for a month or so, to a school where there are no masters. She's always being sent off in that way. Came back only three weeks ago, and knocked Oscar over like winking. She asked him to cut the ' Cornhill ' for her, and he did it on his knees by her side. I knew 156 JUDITH WYXXE. it was all up with him then, and it was. Heavy, do you say ? You feel crushed ! Why, what a poor little sparrow you must be, not to be able to stand my light weight ! " Judith could only hope and trust that Oscar would fjet over his love-sickness as easily as Theo prognosticated. She feared greatly, however, that the malady had taken too strong a hold him to be lightly shaken off. At first it seemed to her laughable to see Oscar so deeply steeped in this midsummer madness, but later on, as the depth and intensity of his passion became manifest to her, it seemed to her far from laughable, only pathetic and terrible. She longed to warn him as an elder sister might, to ^o to him and say, " Look at this lovely woman as long as you will, gaze at her as you would at the glittering stars of heaven, or some glorious purple sunset, but for all that, never dream of winning her. The stars of heaven, or the sun- JUDITH WYNNE. 157 set sky itself, may be yours before she will." But Judith's attention was before long to be drawn from Oscar and his head- long, eager adoration to another quarter. At the third meal at which they had all assembled after the arrival of these young ladies, it was forced upon her notice that Wolf was awakening to the fact that an extremely beautiful young woman was seated at table with him. It was luncheon, which, with Theo and Oscar seated side by side, threatened to be a distinctly lively, not to say up- roarious meal. Theo had begun well by collecting every spoon within reach — salt, table, dessert spoons, and making a packet of them, had presented them to Oscar. fci I know it's sending coals to Xewcastle, but no doubt you'll have continued use for them," she had said saucily. "That's one to you, Miss Theo," Oscar had answered, adjusting a tablespoon in 15S JUDITH WYXSE. his buttonhole ; " but I'm mucli obliged to you all the same, and I'll pay you back with compound interest at the earliest opportunity/' -What is it — what is it?" asked Mrs. Eeece, hearing the clatter of the silver, and wondering what it meant. "We are savins; sweets to the sweet, and spoons to the spoony," began the irrepressible Theo. "Thistles to the foolish, a long rope to those who want to hang themselves," continued Oscar. Judith looking up from her plate of salad at this moment, to see what effect this How of young folly had upon Wolf, was surprised to find his eyes fixed not upon these noisy ones, but on the calmly sedate Leila, who was seated sideways to him and half-way down the table. It was a gaze half of wonder, half of admira- tion, such as she had never seen on his face before, and which seemed to her fancy to say : " Why did no one tell me JUDITH WYNNE. 159 what a beautiful creature you are? Why have I been left to find it out for myself? " Psychologists, in these days, tell us many things formerly supposed to be beyond their ken, but they have never yet been able to explain the magnetic power of a beautiful face. Men and women will disagree in their ideals of beauty — will deny its existence where it really is, and put forth claims for it where it is not ; but let a beautiful man or woman enter the room, and ever}' eye, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, will pay the homage due to the face so fair to look upon. Wolfs eyes had seemed to Judith hitherto veiled to anything and every- thing that went on around him, a beauti- ful woman comes and sits down at table with him, and lo ! he gazes and gazes as though he had never seen a woman's face before. Leila bore his steadfast look tranquilly enough, keeping her full white lids down- 160 JUDITH WYXN& cast to the damask tablecloth. For one thing, she was accustomed to have men's eyes fixed on her ; for another thing, she rather liked it than otherwise. She made a rule never to interrupt a gaze of that sort ; she liked men, as it were, to look their utmost, and to take a full catalogue of her many perfections. It made them more conscious of her power, and better able to appreciate her smiles aud favours when she chose to distribute them. So Wolf looked and looked at her from one side, and Oscar looked and looked at her from the other, and this young woman, fully conscious that two pairs of eyes were fixed upon her, bore the four-fold gaze with the serenity of a queen of beauty gathering in her tribute- money from her subjects and captives. At last, when she considered that Wolf's eyes had almost drunk their fill — she did not wish them to be surfeited, be it noted — she lifted her eyelids, and said in that slow, low tone she generally affected : JUDITH WYSNR 161 " I am charmed with your home, Mr. Eeece. The country is beyond anything lovely. I should so like one afternoon to make that little excursion to Llanrhaiadr Oscar was speaking about." w You shall make it this afternoon if you like," answered Wolf, rising promptly from his chair to give the order that the old greys should at once be made ready for action. Needle-prick number two in Judith's heart. Whence it came or wherefore she would have found it difficult to explain, but there it was unmistakably. Sharp, sudden, in and out, bringing no blood this time, just the merest beginning of a scratch, but, nevertheless, a suggestion of a possible wound in the days to come, deeper, wider, more difficult to heal. VOL. I. 11 CHAPTEE XIV, I^VM!C-»< ^H^OW you mean to entertain these young ladies for ten days at a stretch," grumbled Mrs. Eeece, "is more than I can imagine. After you have shown them the church, the mountains (from the bottom), the woods, the waterfall, you'll simply be at your wits' ends how to get through the days. My dears, I think it would have been far wiser for you all to have gone in a body and stayed at their home, and done the London sights at the same time, than have had them down here where there lis nothing to see and no one to speak to." " Oh, Wolf has taken the matter into his own hands," Oscar grumbled back in JUDITH WYNNE. 163 return, " and, so far as I can see, is pro- viding ample amusement for them — for one of them, at any rate." " What do you mean ? " asked Mrs. Eeece briskly. " Are you going to tell me that Wolf has fallen in love with one of these young ladies at first sight ? " " Can't say, I'm sure. I only know that he is making himself deucedly agree- able to them, and instead of shutting himself up in the library writing sermons all day long, he is either walking with them about the woods or taking them long, dusty drives to some outlandish place or other." "Where is Judith? Judith, are you in the room?" called the old lady. " Come, you always speak the truth ; you can't help it. Tell me, do you think Wolf has fallen in love at last? With the soft-voiced young lady of course it must be, for the little hoyden has not yet learnt how to attract men, whatever she may do for the women." 11—2 1 64 JUDITH WYNNE. Judith looked up a little nervously from her book. "I cannot tell — I do not know," she answered hesitatingly. " You see, I know so little about falling in love, it has never happened to come in my way." " Anyone could see that," said Oscar, speaking as he so often did the first thing that came uppermost, words that he would be safe to unsay in ten minutes' time. " I am sure you are born to be an old maid. Not one of those nasty, sour old cats who do everything in their power to make people miserable, but one of those sweet, darling little creatures who never have any love-affairs of their own, and throw themselves heart and soul into the love-making of other people." Judith, with eyes bent once more on her book, saw the lines describe all sorts of curious curves and zig-zags. ■ Never to have any love-affairs of her own! It was a hard sentence to pass on a girl not yet twenty. JUDITH WYNNE. 165 "My dear," said Mrs. Eeece in a dry, quiet tone, " a young lady of Judith's attractions, and with her large fortune, is not likely to lack lovers." " Oh, I forgot all about her large for- tune," said Oscar, paying unintentionally a compliment that would have done credit to a Chesterfield. "You see she makes us forget it. She never gives herself any airs over it. Ah, there they go again ! Off for another walk, I sup- pose ; " this, as the shadows of Leila and Wolf fell athwart the windows, and then followed their owners adown the weedy drive towards the gate. Later on, when Mrs. Eeece had left the room, Oscar grumbled out his sorrows to Judith in a yet stronger strain. " It's a confounded shame, Judith — that's what it is," he said, going to the window and resting his elbows on the sill. " Why can't he leave her alone ? Why does he want her all to himself, morning, noon, and night? What busi- 1 66 JUDITH WYNNE. ness has he to steal her from me, I should like to know?" "Steal her from you! Oh, Oscar!" protested Judith, trying to convince her- self as much as the boy-lover that Wolf's attentions to Leila involved no covert idea of robbery. " Why, they are only taking a stroll together. I don't suppose they are more than half-a-dozen yards from the garden-gate." "And what does he want to stroll with her for if he isn't in love with her ? And why does he sit and stare at her in the way he does if he doesn't mean any- thing?" Judith remained silent. Oscar went on: "And what did he mean by taking her off to Llanrhaiadr the other day all by themselves ? " " All by themselves ! Why, Oscar, you went also ! " " Yes, but I had to stay with the horses while he went into the church to show JUDITH WYSZE. 167 her the brasses and monuments. Why couldn't he have let me have done it?" "But, Oscar, you most likely couldn't have acted cicerone as Wolf did. It strikes me if you had taken her into the church you would simply have done as you did when you took me — nodded pleasantly to the monuments, and said : ' Xow there they all are, choose for yourself which you like best.' " " And what if I had ! " said Oscar almost fiercely. " Does she care two straws for monuments or brasses, or anything of that sort? I tell you she cares no more for them than — than she does for me, and she couldn't well care less for anything under the sun ! " His fierceness was rapidly blazing itself out. There was an undernote of pain now in his tone which cut Judith to the heart. She longed to lift up a warning voice. " ]\Iy poor Oscar," she said, going over to his side and laying her hand upon 1 68 JUDITH WYNXE. his arm, "if you are so positive she does not care for you, why don't you try to get the thought of her out of your heart? Why go on loving her in the way you do when you know you haven't the least chance in the world of winning her?" "Why — why!" reiterated Oscar, turn- ing round and facing Judith with re- newed fierceness ; " why do you love the stars, the sun, the flowers — every- thing that is bright and beautiful in the world? They don't care a brass farthing for you, do they?" " Possibly not, Oscar ; at any rate, they do me no harm. But if the sun suddenly took it into his head to smite me with brain-fever, or the flowers ex- haled poison instead of fragrance — well, I should, to say the least, keep out of their way." " Would you ? " doubted Oscar, giving her one long, searching look, which brought to and then banished from her JUDITH WYNNE. 169 face the quick red blood. " I very much doubt if you'd do anything of the kind. It strikes me, Judith, when once you fall in love, it will be something more than ankle-deep. Headforemost, neck- or-nothing, you'll go, and no matter what sort the fellow may turn out, you'll stick to him like grim death itself. Wait till your own time comes, Judith." Judith's hand fell to her side. She made one irresolute step as though to leave the room, came back again, seemed to be gathering her courage together, and a little falteringly touched him lightly on the shoulder. " Oscar," she said in the lowest of low tones, " if it be really as you think — I mean, supposing Wolf truly loves this girl as you imagine — you will not begrudge him his happiness, will you ? " It was said hesitatingly, lovingly, plead- ingly. Oscar's face grew very white. It was at least a minute before he answered, and then his words came thick and slow. 170 JUDITH WYNNE. "No, Judith, I won't begrudge him. his happiness. I'll stand out of his way'; I promise you that. Wolf deserves to be happy — Heaven knows, he has done more than ever I have towards earning -happi- ness." There was a long pause. It was a scorchingly hot August morning ; from out- side there came the faint scent of honey- suckle and jasmine, and the deep, droning sound of a big humming-bee. " Thank you, Oscar," said Judith softly, speaking as though he had granted her a personal favour. " Yes," Oscar went on, as though he had not heard her ; " Wolf has had misery and discomfort enough in his time. Compared with his, my life has been all sunshine. He bore the brunt of all our poverty and troubles in London, working like a galley- slave for the poor people all the time. Judith, did I ever tell you what he did in the fever that raged five years ago, when my father died, when the sick nurses even JUDITH WYNNE. 171 refused to come and nurse the people, and the undertakers had to be paid double to bury them ? Why, he sold every mortal thing he could call his own — his books, his watch, some jewellery that had ibeen left him in a will ; sent away my mother and me into the country, and literally lived with the poor people himself. Aye ; ate, drank, slept with them ; prayed with them ; nursed them night and day ; was one of them till the fever came to an end, and they got their courage back." Oscar said all this slowly, dwelling on his words as though by thus recounting one by one his brother's good deeds, he were deal- ing so many successive blows to his own jealous passion. Judith listened, holding in her breath as one does in the presence of some grand and beautiful thing. This was the man whom she had believed to be laden with a guilty secret ! Oscar went on, half to himself, half to Judith : 172 JUDITH WYNNE. " No, I'm not ungrateful. I don't forget how he starved and stinted himself to give me proper clothes and schooling. Begrudge him his happiness ! No. I would double it if I could ; but, great Heavens, at what a cost ! " And here the poor lad bowed his head on the window-ledge and burst into tears. Judith put her small arm round his broad shoulders, and did her best to comfort him. " I know what a fool I am ; let me alone in my folly, Judith," he said savagely. " But sometimes I feel as though our coming here to The Grange had brought a curse upon us. Oh, we were all much happier in our poverty in London." " The happy times will come back, Oscar ; I feel sure they will come back ! " " Will they ? I don't feel so sure. Oh, what fools we all were to rejoice as we did when the news of our good fortune came ! How bright and happy Wolf seemed ! Why, he really laughed in those days. Then, when we got here, everything seemed to change JUDITH WYNNE. 173 all of a sudden, like a sun going down in mid-day. He dismissed all the work-people he had engaged, reduced the servants by one half, and settled down into the gloomy, miserable man he is now. It seemed as though a curse fell upon him as he crossed the threshold of the house. At the very gates he met a child singing, he bade ' God bless her,' gave her the last shilling he had in his pocket, and told her to go and make some one happy with it, entered this house, went up into his room, read his letters, and came downstairs a changed being. Judith, it's my belief there's something wrong about this place — something evil has been done here, and we, who know nothing about it, are paying the penalty for it." There came a nutter and scramble along the gravel-path at this moment, and Theo, with one of Oscar's wideawakes on her head, made her appearance outside. Her dress was dusty and disarranged, here and there a bramble clung to it. Judith envied Oscar the facility with 174 JUDITH WYNNE. which he smoothed out the muscles of his face, and effaced all signs of deep feeling. " Well," said Theo, standing in the midst of a flower-bed, and leaning in at the window so that her nose almost touched Oscar's, "you are a pair of duffers and no mistake, not to be out of doors this glorious morning. I've been bird-nesting up among the yews ; have I brought back a church- yardy smell with me ? " "Bird-nesting in August! I like that?" said Oscar contemptuously. "And I like it, too!" retorted Theo. "Don't you see, Mr. Wiseacre, one must have an object in life before one can put forth one's best energies. I must have an object before I can make up my mind to climb a tree even. I say to myself, ' I'll get as high as that nest, and put a stone in it,' and I do — that's all. Good gracious, Judith, how dismal you look! Have you been crying ? What's the matter ? " " Judith has been reading the lives o JUDITH WYNNE. 175 of the saints, about St. Francis or one of the mfrizzling, and it has distressed her," answered Oscar readily. "Well, why shouldn't saints frizzle if they like it? I'm sure I feel more than half-grilled at the present moment with this scorching sun pouring down. I say, Oscar, can't you open your window a little higher? I'm sure I could scramble in if you'll stand back." And while Theo made her entry through the window, Judith made her exit through the door, and escaped to her own room for a little quiet. Her head was hot and aching. She threw open wide her window. "Fresh air brings fresh thought," Aunt Maggie had been wont to say, and Judith had caught from her the love of open windows, and long breezy walks. She leaned out, look- ing mountain-wards, and wondering over many things, losing herself in the past history and present love-stories of Oscar and Wolf, when suddenly there came a 176 JUDITH WYNNE. gentle tapping at her door, and in response to her " Come in," much to her surprise Leila entered the room. She had still her hat on, as though she had just come in from her walk. " May I come in ? " she asked, standing well in the middle of the room. " I know you have a cheval-glass here ; there isn't one in my room, and I haven't looked at myself properly since I left home. I'm not sure about the way this dust-cloak hangs at the back." As she spoke she advanced towards the glass, stood for one moment looking at her full face, then, half-twisting her neck, tried to get a survey of the back plaits of her robe and loner-flowing cloak. " Certainly," was Judith's brief reply ; then accusing herself of lack of courtesy, she added, "Can I help you at all?" and endeavoured to adjust the side-screws of the glass, so as to give Leila a better view of herself. A lovely picture that looking-glass JUDITH WYNNE. 177 framed, full of lights and shadows, sharp contrasts and sweet harmonies. A young woman, gloriously, sensuously beautiful ; a goddess in her face, and an empress in her gait ; a pale dark face, a little in the shadows behind, whose only loveliness lay in fulness of expression and subtle sugges- tions of spirituality. Judith felt the contrast between herself and this young beauty in all its keenness, yet she looked and looked into the mirror as though the sight were a pleasant one to her. " No wonder," she thought, " that men should go mad over her," and yet somehow she- had fancied this man was not one to be dazzled with a woman's face. Leila also seemed to take a pleasure in surveying this lifelike picture. "I wish," she said after a long, steady look, "I had a sister like you, just your age and size, and everything ; it would be so nice going out together." " Ah, nice for the one who got the benefit of the contrast, not for the other," vol. 1. 12 178 JUDITH WYNNE. said Judith bluntly, yet without the faintest stirring of that envy in her heart which only narrow intellects can harbour. " You see," Leila went on, " Theo is not the most companionable person in the world to begin with, and her appearance, though not so bad, if she would study it and bring out its best points, is not one to set mine off to advantage, don't you know." The frank selfishness of this young woman, could it have been collected and parcelled out, would have sufficed to arm and protect a whole battalion of beauties in their first season. " Theo is a very kind, good-natured girl, and will possibly win love where others only win admiration," was Judith's signifi- cant reply. " I hope she will, I am sure, for her own sake, since she has no chance of getting anything else," said Leila calmly : " but I hope it won't be love and penury. I always have an idea, somehow, that Theo JUDITH WYNNE. 179 will be a little reckless in her love-affairs. However, it will be no business of mine." "No business of hers," thought Judith. "Only two sisters, and the love-making of one to be of no concern to the other!" However, she did not speak her thoughts. As well, she instinctively felt, might she argue with a soulless marble statue, as with this exquisitely wrought piece of humanity, on whose exterior nature had been so lavish of her pains that she had left herself no time to bestow the crowning gift of a tender human heart. Leila finished her survey, walking a little backward from the glass to get a farewell look. " I wouldn't have put this thing on, only I thought Mr. Eeece was going to drive me this morning. In the oddest manner possible, at the last moment, he altered his mind and proposed a walk. Do you think he's mad, or going mad ? " It was all said in the most even, unemo- tional of voices, just as if she were saying : 12—2 180 JUDITH WYNXR " Do you tliink he lias a long nose, or is going to grow a moustache ? " Judith shivered. This "was putting into plain words a dread which had more than once made itself felt in her heart. Again and again had she wrestled with the terri- ble suspicion. She did not mean to suc- cumb to it now on the mere suggestion of this unsympathetic young person. "No, I do not think so — I will not think so. What can make you have such a terrible idea in your mind ? You ought to think twice before you sa} r such dread- ful things," she answered with a vehemence that made Leila lift her white lids a good quarter-inch higher than they generally went, and her pencilled eyebrows corre- spondingly. " I was not aware you took such a strong interest in the matter. I'm sure I beg your pardon," she said, with a little, meaning smile that was excessively dis- agreeable, and tended to ruffle Judith still more. JUDITH WYNNE. 1S1 " How would it be possible not to take an interest in such a matter ? " she asked vehemently. "Think, if it were true, what it would be to his mother and to his brother. Why, all the happiness would be gone out of their lives for ever.'" " I suppose they would feel it ; it would make them talked about a good deal. But why does he act so strangely — sit and stare at one? Now, I am accustomed to be stared at," she added naively enough, " but not like that, it doesn't altogether seem admiration." " Would it be possible to look at you without admiration?" asked Judith frankly, anxious to lead the talk away from a sub- ject that chilled and frightened her. "I suppose it would not," said Leila, taking the compliment as a matter of course, and giving one more look at the graceful reflection which still confronted her. " But one thing I must say. If Mr. Reece is not mad, he is the oddest speci- men of sanity I ever saw. Why, he actu- 1 82 JUDITH WYNNE. ally told me, not half an hour ago, that his first and only thought in life was his mother and brother. Now, for a man at his age to make such a statement is — well, to say the least, highly eccentric. Hark! there is the luncheon -bell. Thank you for letting me come in. I must go now." Judith, left alone, came to the unavoid- able conclusion that, whatever might be the infatuation of Wolf or Oscar for the beautiful Leila, not the faintest breath of passion stirred her heart for either the one or the other. CHAPTEE XV. [ERTATNLY, judged by the rules which ordinarily govern men's actions, Wolfs conduct at this time seemed strangely erratic and incomprehensible, destitute of motive, and following no pre- cedent. His kith and kin had grown accus- tomed to the transformation of the earnest, hard-working clergyman into the taciturn, indifferent, unoccupied dreamer, had ac- cepted the change, and almost ceased to wonder at it ; then lo ! suddenly another change had set in, gloom and taciturnity were once more laid on one side, something of cheerfulness (a wry, wintry sort of thing) took possession of him. Meals, that had been of late eaten in all but silence, were 184 JUDITH wyyxE. enlivened by an interchange of words, if not of ideas. The library, which had been his immediate refuge after every gloomy break- fast or dinner, saw nothing of him ; it was, in fact, thrown open to the use of the household generally, and a housemaid had been allowed to enter and remove some of the overlaying dust. Judith, who remembered the stern, hard look of the man, and the way in which he had handed her out of this sanctum sancto- rum on the one occasion on which she had dared to penetrate its mysteries, could only hold in her breath and wonder as she saw broom and brush doing their much-needed work. Mrs. Eeece seemed to feel that changes were rife in the air, though she could scarcely realise their nature and extent. "It seems to me, my dear,'" she said to Judith one day as the young girl came into the morning-room to read to her as usual after breakfast, " that Oscar talks less than he ever did in his life, and Wolf more — JUDITH WYNNE. 185 more, at any rate, than he has for the past three or four months. And it also strikes me that he is showing this Miss Leila Martin a great deal of attention ; they leave the room together, and I hear them constantly talking in the garden together. Xow, my dear, isn't it so ? " Judith, driven into a corner, was forced to admit that Wolf was showing Miss Martin a great deal of attention. " Well, my dear," the old lady went on, " she's not exactly the one I should have chosen for Wolf had I been consulted on the matter, and I must say I am a little surprised at his choice. Of course, I'm bound to take what you all say for granted, that she is a very beautiful girl, but I did not imagine that Wolf was one to be fascinated by mere beauty. Xow tell me honestly, did you, my dear ? " Judith, driven into another corner, was forced to admit that she had not thought Wolf was one to be fascinated by mere beautv. 1S6 judith wnsam 4; Poor boy ! " the garrulous old lady went on. "I suppose it's just this : he has been thrown so little into the society of young ladies, that he falls a victim to the first one who makes a dead set at him. Of course she did make a dead set at him ? " this interrogatively. Judith, however, had no mind to be driven into a third corner. She took up her book hastily. " I have brought down a poem to read to-day,"' she said. ct I hope you will like it. I picked it up in London at the railway- station while I was waiting for my train." "My dear,'' answered Mrs. Eeece, "I fear I have lost my taste for poetry, just us I have for tarts and jellies, which young people can eat and enjoy, and never get enough of. But never mind, you may read it to me. If it doesn't interest me it won t disturb my thoughts, and, in any case. I like to hear your soft, clear voice. It sounds so fresh and young, it brings back young thoughts to me. Bead on." JUDITH WYNNE. 1S7 Judith read ou. The poem was a simple one, told by one who had done no great thing in poetic art, save this ; and this, though simple, was a great poem. A poem that might have enabled the author to ride straight to fame and fortune had it chanced to tickle the " one long ear " of that "famous beast," the British reading public. However, it had not succeeded in performing this notable office, so it remained the first and last poem the writer ever achieved, or at any rate ever published. It told in language, destitute alike of veneer or any poetic artifice, " the story of a broken life." The form of the poem was biographic, and commenced at the period when the man, whose history was recorded, and who had led a dissipated, evil life in foreign lands, was seized with a sudden penitence, and resolved to retrace his whole life, step by step, repairing the evil he had wrought, 1 88 JUDITH WYSXE. and making amends to every soul lie had injured. " A building that had been overthrown," he argued with himself, " could be rebuilt exactly in its original form if people gave but the patience, the time, the thought to the work." Well, with infinite patience, and time, and thought, he would rebuild his ruined life, doing, one by one, exactly those things which he ought to have done but had neglected, and undoing every wrong he had ever done to his fellow-men. In pursuance of this idea, he collected together all the money he had at command, and travelled back to his native village over the exact track he had followed on quitting it. His first attempt at reparation was to try and bring two lovers together whom he had separated. He found, however, that the man had turned soldier, and had fallen in battle ; the girl had married a man for whom she had no love, and who treated her harshly and cruelly. JUDITH JVYXXE. 189 His second attempt at reparation was to seek out a young brother whom he had thrown upon the world, because his de- pendence was a trouble and an impediment to him. The young brother, in penury and desperation, had joined the Paris Com- munists, and had been last seen throwing petroleum on the walls of the Tuileries. With a sinking heart the man resolved he wou'.d stop no more on his road, but get back to his native village as quickly as possible, lest even there Fate might have forestalled him. He will, he thinks, shower his gold on his aged father and mother, marry the girl who loved him, and who nearly broke her heart when he left her to roam the world over. He arrives at his village late in the summer twilight. Meeting an old villager in the streets, he asks him of his father, mother, and former sweetheart. For all answer, the old villager leads him to the churchyard, and shows him three graves 190 JUDITH WYNNE. side by side. The man stands horror- stricken looking down on them. Then he bursts into one passionate appeal to Heaven. Why were things thus ordained? Why was not the remaking of a life as easy as its unmaking ? Why could one pull to pieces, yet never be able to put together again? Why could one without an effort, with a wave of the hand, or the breath of a moment, undo a whole structure of good, and yet with hard toil and infinite endeavour never be able to build it up again? — Why? Why? And the old man standing by his side with bowed head and folded hands, echoed the question — Why ? Why ? There the poem ended. Judith's voice trembled a httle as she said the concluding " Why ? " She had read the poem at the London railway- station while she waited for her train ; then it had seemed to her a simple, touching story, nothing more. JUDITH WYNNE. "191 Somehow, read now, in the gloom and seclusion of the Grange, it seemed to sound an undernote of pain and pathos so deep as to be almost prophetic. " Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Eeece briskly, sounding her own cheery note above every other. " It's a pretty story. I lost part of it here and there, through counting my stitches ; but I don't suppose it mattered much ; in poetry, you know, there is always a great deal one might leave out and never miss. As I was saying, it's a pretty story, but it seems to me it was a great pity the young man didn't think of going back to his friends a year or two sooner, then he wouldn't have had to stand at their graves, and ask so many Whys." " The man was a selfish hound," said another voice — a masculine one ; and Judith, looking up, saw Wolf and Leila Martin standing at the opened window. " We have been listening here for the last five minutes," he explained. " I 192 JUDITH WYNNE. repeat, the man was a selfish hound, and his ' Why ? why ? ' nothing more than the whine of a whipped cur. He sinned for himself (not for others), and he gets the punishment in himself, in his own soul. Depend upon it, his people were much better off without him." " No, no, no, my dear," interrupted Mrs. Eeece, buckling to for an argument ; " that's too hard a thing to say Xo parents can be better off without their children, no matter what those children may be, or may do. Depend upon it, this poor father and mother broke their hearts fretting for his return." " Better break their own hearts than have them broken for them," said Wolf with a laugh that was not pleasant to hear. " They would have had an equiv- alent for their breaking hearts, depend upon it, if he had stayed in his home and brought shame and dishonour within their doors. Xo, I repeat," and here his voice grew loud and defiant, " if a man JUDITH WYNNE. 193 brings disgrace upon his kith and kin, the kindest thing he can do is to take himself and his disgrace as far away from the old roof-tree as possible." Judith could keep silence no longer. " I should call that the most cowardly not the kindest thing he could do," she said, speaking up bravely. " Surely it would be far nobler to stand in one's own place, face the evil one has done, and endeavour to repair it, than to run away and hide oneself for safety round a corner." " Two questions, Miss Wynne," said Wolf, turning his deep-set eyes on her. " Might not the running away under cer- tain conditions, require more courage than the standing in one's own place ? And, must the running away of necessity be dictated by selfish motives ? Might it not be done from suggestions of Christian charity and regard for the welfare of others ? " He 1 threw a depth of meaning into his question which startled her. vol. 1. 13 194 JUDITH WYNNK It was positively a relief to hear Leila Martin's voice chime in at this moment with the calmly matter-of-fact question : " But why read such melancholy stories at all? There are so many pretty, light poems now to be had. I'm sure every month in the magazines one sees such interesting verses — nice things that would set delightfully to music." " Exactly," said Wolf with the slightest touch of sarcasm in his tone ; " why should we listen to anything horrible and distressing, when life is so evidently in- tended to be easy, and pleasant, and enjoyable ? " "That's just what I meant," agreed Leila, whose ear was not quick to detect subtle shades of voice or speech. "Life. of course, was given us to enjoy ; why should we make ourselves miserable with reading about other people's troubles that we have no power to prevent ? It's always marvellous to me how people can take up a newspaper, and deliberately JUDITH WYNNE. 195 set themselves to read all the horrible things that go on in the world." "Ah," interrupted Mrs. Eeece. "We used to hear enough of horrors in the old days, didn't we, Wolf? At one time I remember an epidemic of horrors seemed to set in, one thing followed the other so rapidly. Well, we were used to it then, I suppose, and we did our best under it, but I must say I shouldn't like to have to go through it all again. Poor people are very worrying ; they like to tell their horrible stories over and over again, for the pleasure of seeing your flesh creep, I suppose. No, I shouldn't like those old days to come back again." "Wouldn't you, mother?" asked Wolf in an earnest, startled tone, as though some sudden idea had occurred to him. "Would you not for any consideration go through all those old days of poverty and hardship, with the perpetual sense of squalor and misery about one, and the per- petual necessity for hopeless, hard work ? " 13—2 196 JUDITH WYNNE. Oscar, coming into the room at this moment, heard the question. " Well, my dear," answered Mrs. Eeece, "that is rather a difficult question to answer. I won't say I wouldn't for any consideration go back to the old days, but I am really and truly thankful no such necessity exists. I verily believe six weeks of the East of London would send me to my grave after this peaceful, happy life and pure country air. And of the two, I honestly think the grave would be the better place for an old body like me." A change swept over Wolfs face ; the eager earnestness died out of it. He turned to Oscar. " What do you say ? " he asked ; "do you think the grave would be a better place than the East End of London in the height or depth of its wretchedness ? " Oscar hesitated a moment. He looked at Judith, remembering his words of the previous day in praise of their old life. JUDITH WYNNE. 197 He had meant them as he said them. Seen from a distance, those old days might " loom into the perfect star," but let them come but by half an inch nearer, and they would show as the miserable prison-house they in reality were. " I don't know about the grave," he answered slowly, " one doesn't care about ending life before it is well begun, but I know this — that sooner than go back to the old, hard-working, poverty-stricken life, I would go and break stones in the quarry on the other side of those mountains." Wolf turned away from the window without another word. Leila looked at Judith and gave a little shrug of her shoulders, which was intended to say : " Did I not tell you he was on the verge of madness ? Would anyone in possession of all his faculties walk away in that abrupt fashion when he might have had the benefit of my society for another half-hour before lun- cheon ?" CHAPTEE XVI. P||SpOLF still retained possession of Judith's bloodstone, and wore it on the little finger of his left hand. Judith would have liked to ask for its return, but somehow could never find the opportunity. There had seemed to grow up between them of late a something of chilliness and reserve which she did not care to attempt to bridge over. Once or twice, it is true, she had caught his eyes fixed upon her with the same earnest, appealing look she had surprised in them in the first days of their acquaintance, but they as often as not wandered from her face to Leila's, and there they would rest, evi- JUDITH WYNNE. 199 dently without the smallest compunction, for five or ten minutes at a time. " He is putting us side by side, and measuring the distance between us," thought Judith a little bitterly. This was exactly what he was doing, although not precisely in the manner nor with the result she imagined. Wolfs diamond-ring she had been com- pelled to put on one side ; it was too large for any one of her fingers, and she was afraid of losing it. She let it lie in her drawer till she should have the opportunity of returning it, and asking for her own. Wolf did not seem to notice its absence from her finger, or at any rate made no remark upon the matter. Bryce did, however, with a scowl and a frown — those keen old eyes of hers saw a great deal more than people thought. " Have you lost it — the master's ring, I mean ? " she asked on the first morning that Judith made her appearance without it. 200 JUDITH WYNNE. " No," answered Judith ; " it was too large, that was all, and would keep slipping off my finger." Bryce shook her head, and went away grumbling, the only words which reached Judith's ear, as her footsteps died away in the distance, being, " It's ill giving a slipping ring," or something of the sort. Poor old Bryce seemed always frowning and scowling in those days ; she went about the house with a perpetual sense of the approach of some direful calamity weighing her down. The episode of the bloodstone-ring had been bad enough, but the unlocking and occupying of the tapestry-room was as much beyond that as the blue mountains 'that looked down on them were beyond the dark wood. To her fancy this room was as sacred as the consecrated church in the vale of Llanrhaiadr, or the vault in its churchyard, where lay some generations of the Eeece family. None but Master Bernard, or Master JUDITH WYNNE. 201 Bernard's son, should have dared to give the order for the unlocking and occupying of this room ; failing these, it should have been kept sacred to the memory of the old squire, who, with dim, fixing eyes, had said to her : " Bryce, if ever anything troubles me, and I can come back to you, look for me here." Did " the master " — in this way she invariably spoke and thought of Wolf — " really wish to bring the old squire's ghost from the grave that he dared the traditions of the house in this way ? Well, those who lived the longest would see the most, but it was ill to put the axe to the root of one's own tree," and so forth — and so forth. Wolfs defiance of the family traditions set her mind ruminating on other possi- bilities. Now that all known precedent was being so ruthlessly set on one side, what might not be her own fate in the years to come? 202 JUDITH WYNNE. She confronted Wolf one day in one of the narrow corridors, barring his progress with a peremptory question. " I'm wanting to know," she said in her old, creaking voice, " where you mean to bury me ? Now all the Bryces have for generations been laid just behind the Eeece vault in graves six feet deep do you see ? and there's room left for one more — is that where you mean me to lie ? " Wolf stared at her vacantly. It was full a minute and a half before her meaning dawned upon him. " My good soul," he said at length, " arrange for your own burying where, when, and how you please. Put it all down in your will, and then no one will make any mistake on the matter, or arrange it all with the rector of Llaarhaiadr, if that will suit you better." The old body's question brought back to his memory sundry similar matters he had arranged for the poor people during his East London ministrations. JUDITH WYNNE. 203 By a coincidence the rector of Llanr- haiadr came over that afternoon to the Grange to ask Wolf to perform the ser- vice for him on the following Sunday. It was not often that he paid a visit to Mrs. Eeece or her son. The reason was not difficult to find. He was old and stout, and his cob was old and stout ; they each preferred a quiet half-hour's jog-trot along the shady lanes which begirt the Yale of Llanrhaiadr, to the seven miles steep road with which a ride to the Grange made them acquainted. The rector came upon Judith first in the garden. He was white-haired and venerable in appearance, his manners were kindly, his questions irrepressible, his exclamations excessive. " Dear me, dear me ! " he exclaimed as he shook hands with her. "What a wilderness of a place this has run into ! Are they going away ? Don't they care for the Grange ? I know the old squire didn't keep it up as it ought to have 2o 4 JUDITH WYNNE. been kept up. Great pity! Pretty place! Might be made very comfortable. I know, too, the old man left all the money he could away from the family, but still he couldn't leave it all to the infirmary. A very good income goes with the estate. It's a great pity to let a place go to rack and ruin in this way." To Judith's immense relief Wolf appeared upon the scene at this moment, and she was able to make her escape from further questioning. " Who says I let the place go to rack and -ruin ? " he asked in an angry tone as he shook hands with the rector; "I beg you to observe there is neither rack nor ruin anywhere. I do not keep a gardener — that is all. But one gardener would be of no possible use, it would require five at least to keep these grounds even neat, and, as I do not choose to go to that expense, I let the garden alone. It is the same in the house ; it would require some extra ten servants to make the house JUDITH WYNNE. 205 look smart and trim. I do not choose to go to that expense, so I let the house alone. I beg you to observe that all you are pleased to call rack and ruin is a lack of purely superficial renovation — purely superficial, I repeat. The dilapi- dation is entirely on the surface." The rector looked and felt " sat upon." The long-windedness of the explanation amazed him. He hastened to agree with Wolf that the repairs needed were ''purely superficial " ones, and then he dashed into his request, " Would Mr. Eeece undertake the service for him next Sunday ? An old friend in a distant part of the country had sent him an invitation he much wished to accept." Wolf frowned, and shook his head. " My Welsh would not be up to the mark," he said. " It's the English Sunday," answered the rector, " and even if it were not, you might make it so for once. I assure you all the people about Llanrhaiadr under- 2 o6 JUDITH WYNNE. stand English perfectly, even if they cannot speak it." Again Wolf shook his head. " I could not possibly undertake it," he said curtly. " It would be a real kindness," pleaded the rector ; " and," he added kindly, " you would in this way introduce yourself to your neighbours on the other side of Llanrhaiadr. I assure you they have been talking a good deal about you. You know there are the Howells and the Madoxes, Lord and Lady Euthlyn, and some half-dozen others." " I have not the shgfhtest wish to make the acquaintance of the Howells or the Madoxes, or Lord and Lady Euthlyn, or some half-dozen others." The rector stared at him blankly for a moment ; then he recovered his powers of speech. " As a purely personal favour I ask it, my young friend," he said gently. " I regret I must refuse it," answered JUDITH WYNNE. 207 Wolf coldly ; and to this resolution he adhered, and the good rector went away convinced in his own mind that the new master of Plas-y-Coed was not only one of the worst-mannered men he had ever met, but a most eccentric individual into the bargain. Ate CHAPTEE XVII. rasjMrua ( 5 tennis-ground ; a piano so liope- £5 lessly out of tune that no one with an ear for music would essay a chord on it ; no saddle-horses, no river, and, direst calamity of all, neither visiting nor visitable neighbours, and the difficulty of entertaining two somewhat buoyant young ladies in a lonely country-house in the blithest time of year may be imagined. Each day's programme was of necessity as unalterable as the course of the sun itself. There was the inevitable early breakfast, and the inevitable morning walk afterwards ; the one o'clock luncheon, the three o'clock drive, the six o'clock JUDITH WYNNE. 209 dinner, coffee in some arbour or bowery corner of the garden, prayers at nine o'clock, and all in bed by ten. And on this meagre diet two young ladies accustomed to the movement and excitement of a lively suburban coterie — the outside ring of the London vortex, as it were — were expected to thrive and be content. Leila's yawns at night-time were so frequent and prolonged as to threaten dislocation of the jaw. " It's all very well for you, Theo," she grumbled, " who like to tear about the country, climbing five-barred gates, and doing all sorts of wonderful things — showing your ankles, which, by the way, might be made to look a little more respectable — such boots the other day ! But for me Oh !— ah-h-h ! " And here the muscles of her pretty mouth relaxed into a genuine, unaffected yawn of which few would have supposed Leila, the refined, the poetic, capable. vol. 1. 14 210 JUDITH WYNNE. " It's better than Sophonisba ! " said Theo with a grin. Now, Sophonisba was Dr. Martin's elderly spinster sister, so-called by the schoolboy wits of The Ee treat from the fact of her avowed admiration for the genius of the poet Thomson. It may be remarked in passing that the said admiration was duly exhibited by her selecting on every Sunday afternoon " The Seasons " to fall asleep over on the drawing-room couch. " Yes, it's better than Sophonisba," acquiesced Leila, " or else we shouldn't be here ; but a great deal worse than a great many other things we might have done. Think how delightful a fortnight at Scar- borough would have been just now ! " Theo gave a long whistle. "And who would pay the piper, I should like to know ? " she asked. " You see, pa only said ' Yes ' to our coming here because there was nothing but our railway-fares to come out of his pocket." JUDITH WYNNE. 211 " Theo, you get more and more vulgar every day you live," interrupted Leila sharply. "What you'll be in another year I don't know ! " " Ah, nobody knows what they'll be in another year. Dust and ashes, it might be," answered Theo, thinking only of emphasis, and regardless of grammar. "But I know what I'd like to be" — this with a malicious upward look into Leila's face — " and that's as near like Judith Wynne as possible. She's about the only girl in my life I've never wanted to have a shindy with. One might be in the same house with her from year's end to year's end, and never have a squabble." " I don't admire your taste, and I think it's a question whether Judith Wynne would take your admiration for a com- pliment," said Leila, a decided sneer disfiguring her chiselled mouth. " But I do think that, without following your model too slavishly, you would certainly 14—2 212 JUDITH WTBOfR improve your own style if you would copy a little of her silence and reserve of manner. Not that I believe in it altogether. Your quiet, reserved girls are generally the sly, clever manceuvrers. I've no doubt in my own mind that Mdlle. Parolles has a lover of her own, left behind in France — see what huge packets of letters she gets — and that's why sh so contented in this humdrum old house." Now the nickname "Mdlle. Parolles," be it noted, was not an original concep- tion of Miss Leila's, but was imitated from one she had heard applied to a silent fellow-student by the schoolboy scamps at The Retreat. Leila did not understand the Shaks- perian allusion — shoemakers' wives and daughters are proverbially the worst shod. Of English literature she and Theo knew next to nothing, their in- tellects having been nourished upon modern novels of various shades of weakness and frivolity. JUDITH WYNNE. 213 Thco flashed into indignation at the charges brought against Judith. " She sly! Why, she's as oj 9 the day itself. The foreign letters all come from her old uncle in Franc She told me so, and if she doesn't speak the truth — well, I never met anybody who did, that's all." •• I )ii ! — ah-h ! " yawned Leila again. " I no necessity for prolonging the discussion. Good night." And at this very moment Judith, in own room at the other side of the hous . ted at her open window, with a packet of the aforesaid foreign letters on her knee. They were not all from Uncle Pierre I time. One was from Manon, the hoi servant at Villa Rosa, thanking mademoiselle for the little parcel of English stuffs and ribbons she had duly Another was from the old gardener, sending his teful thanks for mademoiselle's kind i" English Btockings. A third was from a little village girl whom 214 JUDITH WYNNE. Judith had taught to read and write, telling " Mademoiselle Judeethe " that she could never forget her goodness, and that night and day she besought " Le boil Dieu cle ltd accorder sa douce bene- diction." The fourth was from Uncle Pierre. This Judith kept till the last to read. It was brief, and almost apostolic in its fervour. The English in parts was quaint and individual. " I to you send, dear child," he wrote, " the first flowers that have flourished on Aunt Maggie's grave — mignonette and DO o c amaranth. Let them take to you from me, from her, a message of sweetness and peace. Never forget how we prayed for you that God Himself would keep you when you lay down and slept, when you rose up and went your way. Dear child, always remem- ber, in darkness and light, in sorrow and in joy, good angels are about your path, to keep your feet from slipping, to guard JUDITH WYNNE. 215 your head with their outstretched wings. — Adieu, cherie. " Your father in heart, " Old Uncle Pierre." Judith with her tears watered the half- faded flowers. Her letter lay upon her knee : she clasped her hands across her eyes, and leaning back in her chair, wan- dered in spirit to Villa Rosa once more. Phantom after phantom, with solemn, silent feet, trooped past, came back again, and vanished once more. The servants of the neat, trim household, the quaint, old- world villagers, a weird army headed al- ways by dear Aunt Maggie, tall, stately, in her dark satins and lace, and dear Uncle Pierre in his priest's dress, white-haired, with stooping shoulders, and eyes as blue as the forget-me-nots which grew among the rushes on the river's bank. Ah me ! what sweet, blessed days those were ! Rich in love, full of peace and every simple pleasure ! Why did they 216 JUDITH WYNNE. ever come to an end ? Why had they not been allowed to £0 on till duty had ended them, and she had been called by her father to fill another niche in life ? Why had she not been allowed to stay and comfort dear Uncle Pierre in his loneli- ness and sorrow? That would have been a work worth doing. Why had she been thrust here anions strangers with whom she could have no common bond, where no useful, no definite work of any sort or kind could be given her save that of patient endurance of the dreary months and weeks as they crept by? Surely, if her father could personally have taken a bird's-eye view of these two households which in turn were her home, he could not by any possibility have wished her to exchange one for the other. There, all had been peacefulness, love, and calm enjoyment ; here everything seemed disjointed, troubled and misruled. The very air seemed full of mystery ; distrust and suspicion seemed on every side. Do JUDITH WYXXE. 217 what she would, she could not divest her- self of a sense of coming evil — of some hidden terror hanging over the heads of the household. She would not let herself dwell on a certain dull pain in the depths of her heart which of late had made itself felt, but, all the same, she knew it was there, and it doubtless added its quota to her sense of loneliness and desolation. While she had been sitting thus reading her letters and dreaming over her past and present, time had slipped on ; the moon had sunk behind the mountains ; the mid- night sky showed black, starless, forlorn. A chill breeze swept into the room ; the old yews beneath her window tossed their ancient, creaking arms ; a mghtbird new past with a plaintive cry. It was all very desolate and forlorn. The old Grange was dreary enough in full noonday sunlight, but here, with this mid- night blackness falling over it like a pall, it seemed gruesome and eerie to the last 2i8 JUDITH WYNNE. degree. Her very room seemed full of ghost-like shadows ; her one candle only sufficed to throw a feeble ring of light around the small table on which it stood, and as she looked hither and thither up and down the big and scantily-furnished room, from every corner she could conjure grim phantoms of goblin shapes. " Dear child, always remember, in dark- ness and in light, good angels are about your path to guard your head with their outstretched wings ! " The words seemed spoken right into Judith's ear, as with distinct human utterance. It was as though some strong, authori- tative voice had said, " Down ! ? ' to the evil fancies and phantoms, as one would speak to a turbulent, troublesome dog. Eeriness, gruesomeness, and dark corners all vanished together, and in their stead came a sense of peace, of safety, of quiet confidence. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her JUDITH WYXXE. 219 chair in the darkness. Even the chill night breeze, which swept in at the opened win- dow across her face, seemed to her like the cold wings of the blessed angels themselves fanning her to sleep. CHAPTEE XYIIL np^ID she really fall asleep, and if so, eJ|IJF' how many minutes had she sat there unconscious, before there seemed to sound a voice in her ear saying piteously, passionately : " Help me — help me!" Judith passed her hand over her fore- head. Whence did the voice come? What did it mean? Her room was in total darkness now, for the candle had burned itself out, and not the faintest grey of dawn had as yet lightened the ink-black of the night sky. A soft, cold wind still came in at the open window, a shadowy bat flitted past. Judith leaned out, peering down into JUDITH WYNNE. 221 the damp, vault-like darkness of the garden below. Had the voice come from there ? Was there some living, suffering soul down there sending up a petition for help ? She held her breath and listened. There came up to her the creaking of the old yew-boughs, the slow, low rush of the breeze, the faraway sound of falling water in the woods. Nothing more. She closed her window. Could it have been her fancy after all : or had the voice called from within the house? She looked all round her. The bi^ ancient furniture of her room loomed gaunt and drear out of the darkness. The corners filled, emptied themselves of, and re-filled with shadows. " Help me, help me ! " sounded the voice, piteously and imploringly as before. It was as the voice of some troubled dreamer, who thinks he is shouting with his utmost strength, but whose cry is in reality little above that of a wailing child ; and it was the voice of Wolf Eeece. 222 JUDITH WYNNE. Judith felt her blood grow chill, and her limbs tremble beneath her. But she would not wait for another appeal. Along the darkness, groping her way, she went, dreading she knew not what. Her room was at the end of a long narrow corridor, which, interrupted and crossed by small passages, ran round the house, and into which all the bedrooms on that floor opened. Mrs. Eeece's room and that of the Martin girls were at the other end of this corridor, Oscar's on the floor above. Eight and left of her were two unoccupied rooms ; immediately fsicmg her door was a narrow passage which led to the ser- vants' quarters, and a little to the right of this was a short flight of five stairs which led up to the tapestry room, now occupied by Wolf. Along this corridor, as Judith opened her door, the darkness seemed to lie in thick folds, which a feeble stream of light straggling down the small JUDITH WYNNE. 223 flight of five stairs tried in vain to pierce. Judith, straining her eyes, could barely trace the outline of a man's figure on the topmost stair. She could just see that he leaned against the wall with his head on his arm face downwards ; but she knew in a moment that those broad shoulders, that bowed head, were Wolf Eeece's. None other. " Help me ! " he moaned again piteousry, prayerfully. " God send help to me of some sort ! " And Judith crossed the corridor, came and stood by his side, and touched his arm. He raised his head slowly, and looked at her for a moment, without the slightest gleam of recognition. His face was white and haggard, his forehead was knotted into a heavy frown, one large vein protruding like a massive cord. " I have come to help you if I can," said Judith softly, wondering whether her voice would recall his scattered senses. 224 JUDITH WYNNE. He clutched at her arm. " You — you ! " he cried, surveying her with lack-lustre eyes. Then, right and left, up and down, and around, his gaze wandered, as though seeking in the darkness for something he knew was there, yet could not see. Judith followed his gaze. " What is it ? " she asked, determined, if possible, to search out this matter to the depths. His hand, still on her arm, grew tremulous. "Do you see anyone — anything?" he asked in a hoarse scared whisper. Judith shook her head. " One cannot see even the darkness," she answered, trying purposely to assume a careless matter-of-fact tone ; " but if you will lend me your candle I will go along the corridor and see if anyone is there." He scarcely seemed to hear her. " It went that way — that way," he muttered. JUDITH WYNXK 225 Then he passed his hand across his eyes as though to shut out some dread sight, and Judith could see that he trembled from head to foot as one might who had suddenly been confronted with an embodiment of the terrors of the grave stripped of its conventionalities and comelinesses. It was terrible to Judith to see this strong man so palsied and shaken. "What is it?" she asked; "tell me. I may be able to see what you have seen if you will describe it to me." " I pray God no ! " the words seemed to come from the very bottom of his heart, strong and clear. Then he went on passionately : " Child, child, why do you trouble about me? Why do you not leave me to my fate ? Why do you torture yourself with the sight of a misery you cannot help? Let me alone, and forget what you have seen to-night." "I cannot do that. I would rather stay here and help you if possible." vol. 1. 15 226 JUDITH WYNNE. Wolf looked at her with a sad, puzzled expression. " Why should you wish to help me — why — why ? " he asked. "Because I see you are ill and suffer- ing, and my heart aches for you." It was said in low quiet tones, but their depth of meaning, was unmistakable " Child, child, have you no fear, no terror ? What if it were given to you to see the thing that I saw a moment ago ? Could you look upon it and live ? " he asked. " I have no fear, no terror, of the sort you mean ; and if you tell me what you have seen, I would tell you whether I could bear the sight of it," answered Judith, strong in her recovered faith in her angel guardians. Wolf looked at her fixedly for a moment or two. "I know I may trust you," he said in low tones, as though he were communing with his own thoughts. " This is the JUDITH WYNNE. 227 second time you have stood by me in a moment of torture." He broke off, and then resumed in a more ordinary voice : " Tell me, Judith. Your conscience is pure, and young, and clear ; but supposing it grew suddenly clouded : supposing in one miserable, fatal moment, you did a deed impossible to undo — mind, I say impossible to undo — a thing which, if told, would bring ignominy, disgrace, and absolute beggary on you and yours. What would you do ? — what would be your re fuge ? Suicide or prayer?" The last three words were spoken in a tone more than half cynical, altogether despairing. " Prayer," answered Judith promptly. " I should tell it to God before I told it to living soul. But," she added suddenly, looking up in his face with those calm, ruth-speaking eyes of hers, " I should make very sure that it could not by any possibility be undone. I would die in my efforts to make amends for my sin." 15—2 228 JUDITH WYNNE. Wolf stamped his foot passionately. "Child, I said could not be undone Do you not understand ? " he cried vehemently. "There are things in life that cannot be undone — are there not ? " " Yes, many. In that case I would pray that I might be shown how I could atone for my sin, though it might cost me my life." " And supposing your atonement would bring pain, and infamy, and beggary on those you loved best — what then ? " asked Wolf in a voice that seemed to jangle and vibrate with the restraint he put on it. Judith's eyes drooped. For a moment she made no reply. Wolf went on : " You loved your Aunt Maggie, your Uncle Pierre, deeply, truly — was it not so ? Very well, then. Supposing you knew jour atonement would bring down chas- tisement on their heads, and send them broken-hearted to their graves — what then?" Judith's eyes filled with passionate tears. JUDITH WYNNE. 229 " Oh, why are things so ? " she cried vehemently. "Why cannot we each one suffer alone for the deeds that we do? Oh, I would pray night and day that I might be shown a way of repentance, a way by which I alone might suffer for the deed I had done, and they might go free ! " Out of Wolf's face faded the shadow of a gleam of hope which a moment ago had shone there. He grew white, haggard, stern. " And supposing you did this ? " he asked. " Supposing you knelt and prayed night and day, night and day ; supposing you grew strong and bold in your prayers and craved a sign, a message, and there came " Here he broke off abruptly, laid his hand upon her wrist. " Come here," he said, and led her up the small flight of stairs to the door of his room. Evil and weird enough it looked in the light of the one candle that burned upon the toilet-table. The tapestry hung 2 3 o JUDITH WYNim grim and grey upon the walls, seraph's heads and giant's hands alike oblitera- ted in the heavy shadows cast by the massive, ancient furniture. Out of their midst, gaunt and drear, loomed the sarcophagus-like bed on which the old squire had died. Wolf stood beside her at the door, pointing to it. " Supposing," he went on, " you knelt there praying instead of sleeping, not one night but night after night — pray- ing for a message, a sign, and for all answer there came to you " — here his voice sank to a hoarse whisper — " an awful shape, near, nearer, till you felt its coldness touching your cheek, your hand ; supposing when it stood close to you — close, mind, I say — you saw that its hands were red with blood : suppos- ing when you looked up into" its face you saw that it was your own ! Ah, God ! " he broke off with a groan, " it is there again. Help me ! help me ! " he cried in the JUDITH WYNNE. 231 same piteous, passionate tones Judith had heard before. " Oh, it comes nearer ! Now it stands before the light, and shuts it out ! Ah, Heaven have mercy ! " His face grew livid with terror, his eyes were wild and fixed, his strong frame quivered. Judith, straining her eyes into the shadows of the room, could see nothing. She took his hand gently : " Come away from this room," she said. " It is full of dreary shadows. Come out into the fresh air. See, day is beginning to break ; " and she pointed to the grey shreds of light beginning to creep through the farthest window. "You will lose your senses if you stay here." He let her lead him like a little child down the stairs and along the corridor, walking dumbly, unresistingly, as one might under the influence of some heavy drug. Something dark just within the narrow passage leading off the corridor to the 232 JUDITH WYNNE. servants' quarters caught Judith's eye as she passed along. It was only a pair of strong, large country shoes — nothing more. Down the large staircase she led him, thence across the first and second halls out on to the stretch of lawn that fronted the house. The air blew fresh and chill. Here and there the night sky was rent asunder, and the grey of dawn as from a prison-house was finding its way in threads and narrow streaks. The mountains were beginning to show their giant forms and fantastic crags from out the mists, the wood to loom forth in its dun greenness. Judith felt as one might feel, escaped from a cavernous vault or dismal dungeon. Out here she could breathe and think once more. Wolf drew a long breath, and passed his hand over his ashen face. " Thank you," was all he said — all in- deed he seemed capable of saying. Even out there in the fresh air he staggered, JUDITH WYNNE. 233 and would have fallen had it not been for the trunk of a tree at hand. Judith brought him one of the garden- chairs. He sank into it without a word. "Shall I fetch you water or wine?" she asked. " No, thank you ; leave me now. I shall soon be all right again. By break- fast-time I shall be quite myself," he answered with a feeble attempt at a smile. Judith went back to the house, and straight up to her own room, disturbed and tremulous. As she passed the narrow passage lead- ing off the corridor she looked in vain for the pair of large country shoes. They had disappeared. H^ CHAPTEE XIX. ^IpUDITH felt how white and haggard jLJ^? she must have looked that morn- ing at breakfast, when she saw Leila's dark, brilliant eyes fixed upon her. Theo openly expressed her opinion of her personal appearance. " Why, you look as if you had been seeing ghosts all night, Judith," she ex- claimed, making a random shot that went very near to hitting the mark. " Ah, tell us what it was like," cried Oscar, looking up from his plate ; " we only want a ghost to make our house the most respectably dismal one in all Wales." Wolf did not make his appearance at JUDITH WYNNE 235 breakfast. Judith was late in coming down that morning, and the information came to her through Mrs. Eeece that Wolf had been down, read prayers as usual, and had had coffee taken to him in his study, as he had many letters to read and to write. Leila was a little silent and absent, her head was turned often towards the door, with a half-puzzled, half-expectant look in her eyes. It was the last morn- ing the sisters were to spend at the Grange. To her it seemed a monstrous and incomprehensible thing that an avowed and devoted admirer should not make the most of, get all the honey he could out of, the last few golden half-hours she had to bestow on him. Oscar was to escort the young ladies to London, where they were to spend a night or two with some near relatives. He, poor lad, had not been included in this invitation, and was making wry faces at the thought of the three or four meals 236 JUDITH WYNNE. he would have to eat alone with the de- lectable maiden-aunt, before Dr. Martin's return would enable the whole party to start on their Swiss tour. " I'm sure she'll kiss you," said Theo consolingly. " Aunt Sophonisba always gets sugary over young men when there is only one left behind. She hates them in the lump — she adores them in morsels." " Aunt Sophonisba ! What an unusual name," murmured Mrs. Eeece. " Why are you not more exact in the terms you use, Theo? You should say she hates them in the abstract, and adores them in the concrete," said Oscar cor- rectingly. " Bother abstract and concrete ! " replied Theo. "Pass my cup for some more coffee ; " and so on and so on, until the meal, which seemed to Judith the longest she had ever sat through, came to an end. As they rose from the table, Oscar pulled at her sleeve, and got her into a corner. JUDITH WYNNE. 237 "Is Wolf going to drive us to the station, do you know ? " lie asked, with something like a gleam of hope in his face. Judith shook her head. " How can I know ? Why don't you send up and ask ? " she answered point-blank. " Oh, it was only this — I thought if by any chance Wolf did not mean to drive us, you might come, don't you see, and — and take Theo off my hands." " Ah, Oscar," cried Judith with a sudden impulse, " why haven't you set your mind on Theo instead of on that other? She has three times more heart." "Hush-sh! that's sacrilege," said Oscar gravely. Then he sent up a message to Wolf, was he going to drive them to the station that morning or not ? The answer came back brief enough, and barely polite. He had so much to get through ; Oscar must drive himself and the ladies, and send back the horses by Davies. 238 JUDITH WYNNE. "Now, you'll come, Judith, won't you?" cried Oscar. " Farmer Jones will take down the luggage for us in his cart, and Davies can go with him. It will do those fat greys a world of good to have an extra hundred pounds to carry. Come along, get ready." And Judith was weak enough to con- sent thus to facilitate a farewell tete-a-tete between Oscar and the lady of his heart, all the time with the feeling strong in her own that it would have been far wiser and kinder, had it been possible, to have built up barriers and mountains between these two, than have thus lessened by so much as half an inch their distance one from the other. " You will have so many tete-a-tetes on your Swiss tour," she grumbled, making one final feeble objection. " You forget Sophonisba is going," re- plied Oscar with a look that spoke volumes. " Come along, there's a good girl." JUDITH WYNKE. 239 After all, the brisk drive along the country lanes did Judith good, and sent her back stronger in heart to face the mysteries of Plas-y-Coed. Theo was full of joyous fun, and accomplished with ease seven miles of incessant chatter. Oscar, seated beside Leila on the box, looked radiant as old Sol himself at thus having secured an hour of his goddess's undivided attention ; the said goddess, so it seemed to Judith, taking ample revenge for Wolfs cold hand- shaking and curt farewell, by showering extra smiles and sweetness on the poor befooled boy. Her words were very "soft, gentle, and low," none heard them but he, and her eyes spoke sideways to him under her long lashes. Possibly Theo noticed the alternate looks of indignation and pain that went sweeping over Judith's face, for she gave her a violent nudge with her elbow and said in a loud whisper : "Now, don't put yourself out about it, 240 JUDITH WYNNE. it's her way with them all. Bless you, he'll be sure to find her out sooner or later, and have a row with her, and tell her to go and make eyes at someone else. They all do, one after the other, sure as possible ! " It was poor comfort, but there was none other to be had. Judith could only hope the "finding out" would be "sooner," not later, and that Oscar would take his discovery as calmly as the other young men of Dr. Martin's establishment had taken theirs, if Theo's statements were to be credited. Yet she could have cried over him as he waved a bright good-bye to her from the window of the train. His heart was made of too good and true stuff, so it seemed to her, to be played tennis with, let the hand that held the racket be never so fair and shapely. " I shall write to you every other day," screamed Theo, as the train moved off, " and you'll come and stay with us, JUDITH WFKNE. 241 won't you, and show me how to scratch up my hair at the back and pile it up on top of my head in the way you do ? " "You little stupid," said Leila to her, sotto voce, as she honoured Judith with a formal bow of farewell. " Why, of course she mounts her hair up that fashion to get five or six inches more height ! you are gawky enough already, Heaven knows ! " Judith had a long letter from her father to read on her way back. The Indian mail had come in that morning, and she had slipped her letter into her pocket till she could secure a quiet five minutes in which to read it. It was full of kindly solicitude for her comfort, not untinged with a certain amount of anxiety lest by any chance he had made a mistake in his selection of her home. Someone had been throwing out hints to him that it was whispered that the establishment at Plas-y-Coed was conducted on rigidly economic principles ; that, in fact, it was vol. 1. 16 242 JUDITH WYNNE scarcely the kind of home in which a young lady could expect to have her whims and wishes gratified. "Now, my dear," wrote the father, "I ask you to deal candidly with me, and if things are with you other than you have a right to expect, tell me, and I will make different arrangements for you. Of course you know it is my wish to have myself the pleasure of introducing you to society, so I will ask you not to ground any objections you may have to your present home on its solitariness or quietude. At the same time understand that I wish you to have every luxury and comfort that money can command. A horse, if the Eeeces can't give you a mount, a piano, if theirs does not suit you, and whatever else you may require in the way of maids, or jewellery, or dresses. I have placed another thousand pounds to your account at my banker's, and as you want money, all you will have to do will be to apply, as before, JUDITH WYmfc 243 to my London agent and lawyer ; but understand, once for all, that I wish you to want for nothing. In about a year and a half s time from now I shall hope to have sufficiently arranged matters to be on my way home to England, and shall look forward to the happiest of old ages in surrounding my darling child with the comforts and pleasures she has a right to demand at my hands." It was a tender loving letter enough. Judith read it through, with a thrill of gratitude, yet with something of a sigh for the distance, the want of sympathy, the strangeness, so to speak, which she felt existed between her father and her- self. For a hundred times a day that her thoughts flew to Uncle Pierre, they flew but once to him. As she read the loving words there was no tremulous longing for the touch of the loving hand that had penned them, no terrible, half- silenced dread lest death or disaster might step in between them, and the year and 16—2 244 JUDITH WYXyR a half fail of its promise. All this, no doubt, was but the natural, inevitable result of their long years of separation, but it was none the less grievous to her, and at that particular moment seemed specially to accentuate the sense of lone- liness and heart-emptiness of which she was conscious. " If he really wished me to be happy, why did he not let me stay with dear Uncle Pierre ? " she thought, as she folded and put her letter in her pocket. Then, somehow, she began instinctively to read between its lines, and made the discovery that it was rather in his own way than in hers that he would have her to be happy. This, possibly, in the years to come, she would have to find out. It was not a pleasant notion to get into her head. The drive was a long one, but she had food for thought down every shady lane, along every rocky road- way. JUDITH WYKKE. 245 She did not get back to the Grange till nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Eeece was feeling the heat, and had gone to lie down in her own room — so Bryce informed her — but luncheon had been laid for her in the dining-room, if she would please to walk in. Now, luncheon alone in that big, dark room had not a very tempting sound to Judith's ear. " No, thank you," she said ; " I would rather have some tea in my own room, if you'll send it up." Bryce began to grumble. "In my young days," she muttered, " gentlefolks weren't half so fond of tea as they are now. They didn't say ' no ' to good food when it was set before them. But things have changed since then." Judith turned upon her brightly enough. " Why, of course they have changed ! Everything is different even since I was 246 JUDITH WYNNE. a girl, so how you can expect forty or fifty years to make no difference I can't imagine. Now, please don't talk Welsh at me, but get me my tea as quickly as you can." As Bryce went away to order the tea, Judith could not help giving a glance at the old body's shoes. They were large country ones, it is true, but there was nothing in them to specially identify them with the pair she had seen in the narrow passage over-night. As she went along the hall, Wolf came out of his study to meet her. " I have been listening for you," he said, coming forward and taking her hand. " Are you very tired ? Come into the dining-room and have something to eat." It was a more genial greeting than he had ever before accorded her. Also there was a look in his eyes as he took her hand which, although she might have found difficult to translate into words, set her thrilling and flushing. JUDITH WYNNE. 247 Yet she answered formally enough : " No, thank you ; I am tired, and am going to my own room." He did not move on one side to let her pass. " When you have rested, will you come downstairs — into the garden perhaps ? I am wishing so much to have a little talk with you." It was said diffidently — shyly almost ; certainly not in the imperious fashion in which he usually commanded a favour. But Judith grew colder and colder in manner. '' It must not be to-day," she said with decision. " I have letters to write to save the mail." c; Is the mail in ? " he asked eagerly. " Did you get your Indian letters to-day ? " Judith, a little surprised, answered in the affirmative. He drew what seemed to her a long breath of relief. Then he reiterated his petition for a few minutes' talk with her. 248 JUDITH JVYXSE. " You are even too tired to come out for five minutes into the garden now ? " he asked. " I am," was her reply, so unmistakably formal and decisive that Wolf, with a puzzled, pained look on his face, drew back at once, and allowed her in silence to pass up the stairs. Judith said to herself, over and over again, as she pulled off her dusty cloak and hat, and let down her long hair for a brush, that she was sure she had done right in thus refusing Wolf's request. There was an uncomfortable feeling rank- ling in her heart, the sense of having twice in the dead of night surprised this man's secrets, taking to a certain extent his confidences by storm, and proffered to him the most unconventional sympathy and assistance. Was he building upon this the notion that he was bound still further to accord his confidences? The idea was intolerable. He might think her cold and stony-hearted if he pleased, JUDITH WYNNE. 249 but she would take care he should get that notion out of his head. As well as another, even more intoler- able than that ! One which made her flush crimson to the very roots of her hair, and stamp her foot at herself for so much as casting a side-glance at it, the i idea that possibly her willing offers of help and sympathy had been attributed to deeper feelings than those of mere kindly charity. No, she wouldn't let that thought creep into her brain. It was in- tolerable — not to be thought of! She wouldn't, she wouldn't — he shouldn't — he shouldn't Well, he should see that she, at any rate, was not such an one as Leila Martin, to be taken up and laid on one side just as the fancy seized him. Bryce, coming with her tea-pot at that moment, interrupted the current of her thoughts. "There's one comfort," said the old body, putting down the cup and saucer with a clatter : " the tapestry-room is 250 JUDITH WYKXV. to be locked up again, and the master goes back to his own room to-night. It's ill to trouble the dead in their graves, no good comes of it." Judith was in no mood for Bryce's gossip just then. She knew a ready method of silencing her. "Ne me parley plus de cette chambre lugubre," she cried. " Vous m'ennuyez avec votre, ' pas de bon ! pas de bon ! ' Alley, babiller avec les pies, et leur demander quand reviendront les grolles," Bryce flung one sharp, furious look at the young girl, put her fingers in her ears, and backed out of the room, firing a volley of Welsh as she went. All down the staircase and along the pas- sages echoed consonants and gutturals, ending finally with the emphatic bang of the door of her sanctum sanctorum below. ••-£=j-sec=^' CHAPTEE XX. $£lt5|rT first it had seemed strange to *^£ol^a have the walls of the old Grange echoing to the sound of young voices, now it seemed equally strange to have the young voices banished. Every- body missed Theo's hearty laughter and practical joking, and although Oscar had been, for him, unusually subdued and silent, yet so long as he was in the house Judith never lacked a companion. True, the absence of Leila's big, cold eves and unblushing flirtations was a thine* to rejoice and be glad over, but on the whole the breakfast-room had a dreary, forlorn look after the three young people had departed, and Judith found her 252 JUDITH WYNNE. thoughts more than once wandering back, as of old, to the bright, cheerful morning- room at Villa Eosa, and the pleasant talk that used to " go " so well with the coffee and hot rolls. Mrs. Eeece, with the weight of some four extra decades of years to stoop her shoulders and lower her vision, naturally saw things from another point of view. She had no special need of young people's society, nor special liking for their voices. To say truth, even Oscar, "the child of her old age," as she was occasionally pleased to call him, was a little too much for her at times. " We're a small party to-day," she said cheerfully, as she took her place at table and adjusted her glasses as though they were of real use to her. " I suppose it's the creeping on of old age makes me think so, but really I am beginning to feel that small parties suit me best. Now these young ladies, no doubt, were everything that young ladies ought to be, but really JUDITH WYNNE. 253 it seemed to me that the voice of the younger of the two was uncommonly loud. Now, Judith, }^ou know more of young ladies than I do, don't you think it was uncommonly loud ? " And Judith, the truth-telling, thus ap- pealed to, was compelled to admit that Theo's voice was uncommonly loud. " Exactly," Mrs. Eeece went on with a little air of triumph, as of one who had compelled an unwilling admission ; " her voice was loud in speaking, and, worse still, was loud in laughing. Now, to my way of thinking, a loud laugh in a woman is about the worst thing she can be guilty of — in manners, I mean. She may use her voice in talking, she must use it in coughing, but for laughing she needs only to employ two organs — her eyes and her mouth ; her voice should be silent. Of course you'll tell me I'm prim and old- fashioned in my notions, I'm prepared for that " "Falstaff had a battle this moraine; 254 JUDITH WYNNE* with a shepherd's dog," interrupted Judith, intent on effecting a diversion from Theo and her idiosyncrasies. " But," the old lady went on, not so much as hearing the interruption, " for all that, I liked her better than her sister. In spite of her noisy boisterous manner, I preferred her to Miss Leila, who — begging your pardon, Wolf — struck me as being a little sly and underhand." ("There," thought the old lady, "I've said it now ! He may take it any way he pleases, but it may help to open his eyes.") " Mo f her," exclaimed Wolf earnestly, bending across the table towards her, " why should you beg my pardon ? How can your criticism of Miss Martin in any way affect me ? " " How — how ? " repeated Mrs. Eeece not a little astonished. " Why, my dear, you seemed to be taking a very great interest in the young lady, and I did not think it would come to an end the very minute she was out of the house." JUDITH WYNNE. 255 " It has come to an end, then, let me assure you, and is never likely to be renewed," said Wolf coldly ; and as he spoke, he rose from the table and left the room. " Well," exclaimed Mrs. Eeece, rightly concluding that Judith remained in her place, " I am to live to see strange things, it seems ; but if anyone had told me that Wolf would turn out a flirt, I should have said he was just as likely to turn out a monkey. Xow, Judith, be honest — do you see anything of the flirt in my eldest son ? Anything of the fool, I might say, for the two things nearly always go together?" Judith, writhing under this cross-examin- ation, was forced to admit that she could see " nothing of the flirt " in Mrs. "Reece's eldest son. " Well, then," insisted the old lady, put- ting into words the very question that was uppermost in Judith's thoughts at the moment, " how do you account for his 256 JUDITH WYNNE. conduct with Leila Martin ? Why was he always running after her, walking with her, driving her here, there, everywhere ? " Judith confessed it was out of her power to account for these things. " Exactly," said Mrs. Eeece with the same triumphant air as before ; " out of your power and out of mine to account for this and a great many other things that are going on at the present moment. It seems to me, my dear, as though both my sons just now were acting in a most un- accountable manner. There was Oscar as heavv as lead all the time those two oirls were in the house Now we are prepared for a little gloominess in Wolf; it's his way, and he has had a lot to go through, which somehow seems to weigh him down still, though I cannot imagine why he could not do duty at Llanrhaiadr the other day, and let the rector have a holiday ; but as I was saying — ah, what was I saying ? " Here she paused, trying to get back the thread of her talk, which JUDITH WYNNE. 257 had somehow slipped through her fingers. " Oh, I was saying, so many unaccountable things are happening just now. Only think, last night after you had gone up- stairs, Wolf suddenly asked me if I didn't think Oscar had better give up the idea of matriculating next year, and make a start in life at once. And this, after all the trouble he has taken in choosing his college, and getting someone to coach him. It's really incomprehensible ! " " Do you think Oscar has spoken to him on the matter ? " asked Judith, recollecting Oscar's appeal to her. " I am certain he has not. Wolf was so relieved when I told him that Oscar wished the same thing, and said at once he would see about getting him a nomina- tion or something or other for some Government billet. It's all very well talking, but it seems to me that neither of my sons just now quite knows what he is doing. Their conduct, to say the least, is remarkable." vol. 1. 17 258 JUDITH WYNNE. Judith hailed with delight the entrance of Bryce at this moment to receive her housekeeping orders for the day, and made her escape from the room. Outside the door Wolf met her, and laid his hand upon her arm : " Come out on the terrace for five minutes," he said ; " I have a question to ask you." There was no getting out of it this time, his hand was firm as his voice ; go she must. The question brought the colour to her cheeks. "Did you think," he asked when they were well out on the weedy path with no listeners save the whispering laurels and yews, "that I took a special interest in Leila Martin? — tell me." Now if Judith Wynne had been like most other young ladies, she would have tossed her head, and said with a little frown : " I have never thought at all upon the matter, it was no concern of mine." But not being at all like other JUDITH WYNNE. 259 young ladies, and being utterly unskilled in the art of prevarication, she answered simply enough : "Yes: who could help thinking so?" Wolf made a sharp movement of annoyance. " How can I explain ? How is it pos- sible for me to make you understand that I was but making an experiment ? " he cried. " An experiment ! " repeated Judith, looking at him gravely. " Aye, an experiment. You are shocked, your eyes tell me that you do not think experiments on girls' hearts are lawful and right. But what if this girl had no heart, and the experiment was made on mine, not hers ? " He paused, waiting for a reply. Getting none, he went on: " Will you then think so hardly of me? Will you utterly condemn a poor wretch who, suffering tortures, stretches out his hand to take anything and everything 260 JUDITH WYNNE. in the shape of a drug that is offered to him! Nay, more, who goes out of his way, as it were, to test whether this or that thing will act as an opiate and lull his pain ? Do you understand — do I make my meaning plain ? " " Yes, I understand perfectly. But why say these things to me ? — why attempt any painful explanations ? " she asked gently, anxious to make him understand that though she would gladly and heartily help him at any moment in the extremity of his misery, yet in cold blood she could not and would not thrust herself into his confidence. " Why, why ! " he repeated vehemently, and for the moment he lost control over himself; "because I value your opinion more than that of any other living soul ; because, from the very first day you set foot in this house, I read your truth and goodness in your face, and knew I could trust you as I could none other ; because/' and here his voice sank to a low passion- JUDITH WYNNE. 261 ate whisper, " vile as I am, and vile as you must think me, I would not have you lay to my charge sins which I have not committed, though they be such trivial ones as coxcombry and flirtation." Judith was strangely moved. For the moment she had no words at command. Wolf went on. " Heaven knows," he said bitterly, " I have no wish to make myself out a saint. That would be a useless task enough after what you have seen with your own eyes." Judith could have no doubt as to what he alluded. " All that is to me as if it had not been," she said, quietly. " As if it had not been ! " he echoed slowly ; " can that be possible ? Will you tell me you have driven out of your mind the words I used in the horror that fell on me ? Great Heavens ! Nothing — no power in this world, nor any other, will ever sear from my brain the awfulness of those nights." His eyes fixed themselves on distant vol. 1. 17 — 2 262 JUDITH W1NNE. space for a moment, then turned right and left of him with a hurried, scared look. Judith feared lest his fancy might once more conjure up the evil thing that pur- sued him. She laid her hand gently on his arm. "You do not quite understand me," she said : "I meant to say what I saw and heard I should consider sacred, and would not allow myself even in thought to dwell upon. Unless, indeed," she added a little wistfully, " by so doing I could in any way be of service to you." He turned round upon her, his face alight with gratitude. 4 * You — you say this ? " he exclaimed. " Yes ; why not ? " she said, gathering courage now from her own boldness. " I told you the other night how gladly I would help you if I could." "Child, what you told me the other night I did not hear ; my brain was dazed and simply incapable of thought. But I hear you now ! Do you mean you would ■JUDITH WYNNE. 263 go out of your way — really out of your way — to help me ? " "Out of my way, of course, gladly. Who would not ? " Wolf shook his head sadly enough. " Many would not. How could it be expected of them? What have I done for my fellow-men, that any should step out of his way to give me a helping hand ? " " What have you done ? " exclaimed Judith ; " oh, ever so many things for other people, when you were working in London. Oscar has told me, your mother has told me over and over again, all you used to do for the poor people." His face brightened. It was pleasant to him to think that this girl with the clear, shining eyes should have before her fancy a better likeness of him than the one he now presented to her view. " Yes," he said, rejoicing inwardly over the Wolf of the past, just as middle-aged people like sometimes to look at their 264 JUDITH WYNNE. young photographs, and think " this once was I." " Yes, I did work in those days. It was a hard life, but it was a blessed one " He broke off abruptly ; a mist seemed rising before his eyes ; he laid his hand tremulously on the young girl's arm. " Judith," he said, sadly, humbly, " God only knows, but it seems to me if you had been by my side then, I should not have brought down this heavy judgment upon my own head." Even as he finished speaking he sud- denly turned round and left her. Judith stood still, looking after him, blankly, wonderingly. For a moment creation seemed to stand still and hold in its breath, the birds' singing ceased, only the roar and tumble of the cataract in the woods come suddenly close under the garden wall seemed to sound in her ears. For but one brief moment — no more ; the next she had bowed her head and gone swiftly into the house. JUDITH WYNNE. 265 All in a flash the knowledge had come to her that pity for this man had deepened into a tenderer, stronger feeling, and that henceforth to the end of her life, come storm, come sunshine, come fair weather, or foul, creation held but one man for her, and that man was Wolf Eeece. END of vol. 1.