LI B R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVER.SITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 V. \
 
 ..^ 
 
 -V
 
 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 9 
 
 A BEOKE]!( FAITH 
 
 BY 
 
 IZA DUFFUS HARDY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 '•'glencairn, "only a love story," 
 
 &c., &c. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1879. 
 
 AU rights reserved.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE. 
 
 BLENHEIM STREET, OXTORD STREET.
 
 8e3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTKR PAGE 
 
 I. The Wolf and the Lamb .... 1 
 
 II. In the Fold 37 
 
 III. A Red Rose 81 
 
 IV. "Do You Love Me?" .... 98 
 V. " The Dawn of the Day that Parts us!" 123 
 
 VI. A Pair of Friends 148 
 
 VII. A Waif and Stray 175 
 
 VIII. Her Story 197 
 
 IX. Two Daughters of Eve .... 231 
 
 X. Paul's Question 267 
 
 XI. Brought Together 287
 
 A BROKEN FAITE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 
 
 When the game began between them for a jest, 
 He played King and she played Queen to match the 
 best ! 
 
 Pleasure with dry lips, and Pain that walks by night, 
 
 All the sting and all the stain of long delight ; 
 
 These were things she knew not of, that knew not of 
 
 her, 
 When she played at half a love with half a lover. 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 rPiHEY looked at each other, face to face, 
 -*- strangers meeting for the first time, 
 He and She. In that hour a new volume in 
 
 VOL. I. 33
 
 2 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 each life was opened, though undreamt-of 
 then by either of the two ; in that hour the 
 seed was sown, though it was long before 
 they were to know what harvest they 
 should reap from it. 
 
 She was a child in all but years the day 
 she saw him first — a girl who lived under 
 the delusion that she was a woman of the 
 world, and would have opened her great 
 innocent eyes in astonishment and aggrieved 
 dignity if you had told her that she was 
 only an ignorant child still. An only 
 daughter, a petted darling, who never had 
 a crumple in her bed of rose-leaves, who 
 had never shed a tear save when some 
 April shower flecked with a passing cloud 
 her sunny sky, whom love had never touch- 
 ed, to whom sorrow was a mere name, and 
 pain a far-off possibility, her history a blank, 
 her heart a fair white page, ready for the 
 master-hand to write his name.
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 6 
 
 He was a man who had few bitter ene- 
 mies and many warm friends ; a man who 
 had done a little good in his life and a 
 great deal of evil, who bore in some circles 
 a character that could scarcely have been 
 painted blacker, and in others was tenderly 
 regarded as a maligned and misunderstood 
 individual ; a man whom those men who 
 knew him best deemed capricious and in- 
 consistent in good and ill, whom many wo- 
 men loved and a few hated — and had good 
 cause to hate, — an artist who was half a poet 
 at heart, and to whom his art was more 
 than love, who played at love and flung 
 love aside as an outworn plaything, and lived 
 his real life only for and in his art. 
 
 Fate threw these two together without a 
 warning, whispering no presentiment in 
 either ear. 
 
 It was at a little country railway-station, 
 scarcely more than a shed, that she came 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 into the train in which he was travelling 
 from London. She was rather late, and 
 sprang hastily into the carriage where he 
 was ensconced in a corner behind his news- 
 paper. They were not alone, however ; 
 two old ladies — sisters evidently, spinsters 
 presumably — were nodding behind their 
 veils in the further corners of the carriage, 
 which places they had chosen with the 
 complacent remark that they "had the 
 command of the window between them." 
 The mother who was seeing her daughter 
 off found time to cast a hasty and satisfied 
 glance at the highly respectable aspect of 
 these sister spinsters between her hurried 
 kisses and farewells. 
 
 Then the train moved off, and they two 
 were sitting face to face, wakeful, while the 
 old ladies relapsed into the dose from 
 which the entrance of the new-comer had 
 temporarily aroused them.
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 5 
 
 She looked at him presently, with the 
 slight and casual interest which a fellow- 
 traveller usually inspires, an interest which 
 deepened a little as she gradually became 
 ■conscious that he was devoting a great deal 
 more of his attention to her than to the 
 newspaper he still held in his hand, though 
 the study of police-courts and politics seem- 
 ed somehow to have palled upon him since 
 her appearance as his vis-a-vis. 
 
 He regarded her half critically, half admir- 
 ingly, as it was his habit to regard any and 
 every pretty woman. Once or twice, as she 
 looked up unexpectedly, their eyes met, but 
 his look, although the element of admiration 
 in it was evident, had not such intentness as 
 to annoy or embarrass her. He was one of 
 that class of men whose name is legion, 
 who would break some half of the Com- 
 mandments unscrupulously, but who would 
 not be guilty of the vulgarity of staring ; and
 
 b A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 she was not a girl on whom a man 
 could turn one glance of over-bold admir- 
 ation. 
 
 The artist's first thought just now in look- 
 ing at a pretty face was whether it would 
 be a suitable model for either of the female 
 figures in the picture which, at present, 
 stood half finished on his easel in his 
 London studio. After a careful inspection 
 of his vis-a-viSj he decided that she was 
 " pretty, very pretty, but she would not do." 
 For the face of the white-clad girl in the 
 foreground he wanted more fire and bloom 
 and brilliance ; for the sombre mourning 
 figure who stood as a shadow beside that 
 bright vision, he must have more expression 
 and passion. 
 
 This young, fresh face of his fellow- 
 passenger would not be available as a model 
 for either ; it was too calm and colourless 
 for the one, too bright and cloudless for the
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 7 
 
 Other. It was a pity, for certainly she was 
 a beautiful creature. He reflected, as he 
 looked at her, that hers was a face without 
 a history, yet a face full of possibilities, whose 
 passionless sweetness was so charged with 
 latent expression that it must surely have a 
 history some day. 
 
 There was a certain nobility of outline 
 in her features, small and delicate as they 
 were, that seemed to fit them well to 
 express deep feeling, though as yet there 
 had been no seal of sorrow set upon their 
 smooth, untroubled fairness. There was 
 strength, he decided, in the brow and chin, 
 yet something of weakness in the tender, 
 child-like lips. The most noticeable thing 
 about her expression was its utter purity 
 and innocence. He thought he had never 
 till now seen a face so perfectly his ideal of 
 that white Una before the power of whose 
 purity the lion crouched. It was Una in
 
 8 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 her hallowed maidenhood, chaste as cool 
 moonlight on the snowy slopes of the 
 Jungfrau, but Una before her Red Cross 
 knight was lured from her side, before she 
 woke to find herself deserted and alone. 
 
 This girl's hair was dark, and soft and 
 fine as silk, her skin fair as a snowdrop, 
 with the faintest dream of a rose-leaf flush 
 just warming her cheek ; her e3^es were of 
 that nameless changeful colour we call 
 *' grey " for want of a better term — those 
 eyes which, when you look close into them, 
 
 have yellow rays in the iris which give a 
 golden tinge to their shifting hues ; and he 
 noticed that they had those long black curled 
 lashes which he deemed among the most ex- 
 cellent things in women. 
 
 She was sufficiently aware of being re- 
 garded with admiration — was indeed suffici- 
 ently accustomed to that process, and had 
 the element of coquetry sufficiently devel-
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. )) 
 
 oped in her — to feign complete unconscious- 
 ness of his attention, and yet to requite it, 
 when his eyes were turned away, by girlish 
 glances of inspection, too guileless to be 
 shy, too indifferent to be furtive. 
 
 Her ideas of manly beauty comprised — 
 firstly, features of statuesque regularity ; and 
 next — naturally, as she was herself slight 
 and delicate-looking — a figure of the mas- 
 sive and muscular type. Her opposite 
 neighbour did not come up to either of 
 these demands, and she did not consider 
 him at all handsome. 
 
 She gathered at first a general impression 
 of dark Spanish-looking eyes, a colourless 
 olive complexion, and black hair growing 
 low on the forehead. She liked — or 
 thought she liked — the blond and blue- 
 eyed Saxon type of manhood. Still as she 
 came to closer observation of the face oppo- 
 site her, with the pale and somewhat hoi-
 
 10 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 lowed cheeks, the level black brows and 
 deep-set eyes, the expression half sad, half 
 stern about the mouth, whose almost femi- 
 nine sensitiveness the heavy moustache did 
 not hide, she decided that, if not handsome, 
 he was at least interesting. 
 
 The train went on, and the landscape 
 seemed to glide by them mile after mile — 
 did not fly past them, for the train had 
 dropped the distinction of being " express '^ 
 at the last great junction, and was taking 
 its time, puffing steadily and leisurely up 
 inclines, coiling cautiously around curves, 
 and stopping at every little wayside station 
 on the chance of picking up passengers 
 who were not forthcoming. It was a silent 
 journey on the whole, for the two old ladies 
 slept peacefully most of the way, and the 
 young lady did not appear talkatively in- 
 clined. Once her opposite neighbour offer- 
 ed her his Times, and it was accepted with
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 11 
 
 a pretty and gracious smile ; and once he 
 offered to shut the window with a similar 
 result. 
 
 Yet, although there was no conversation 
 between them, each could have repeated 
 the other's features by heart by the time 
 they arrived at their not very protracted 
 journey's end. 
 
 '' Charlton !" said the girl, half to herself, 
 looking out of the window as the train 
 drew up. 
 
 " Charlton !" echoed the artist. " Your 
 station ?" preparing to open the door for 
 her. 
 
 " Yes," she said, busying herself collect- 
 ing two bags, a parcel, and a railway novel. 
 
 *' Mine too," he observed, and swinging 
 himself on to the platform, offered his hand 
 to help her descend. . 
 
 As they glanced along the platform, they 
 were immediately besieged by all the staff
 
 12 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 of porters (numbering only two), officiously 
 inquiring, ''Any luggage?" while from the 
 background a stately footman appeared, and 
 advancing to the pair, touched his hat to 
 the young lady. 
 
 ''For Lakeside, madam? The carriage 
 is here. Her ladyship desired me to say 
 she was sorry she was prevented coming to 
 meet you." Then he turned to the gentle- 
 man, and repeated his formula, minus the 
 message, "For Lakeside, sir? The carriage 
 is here." 
 
 The assiduous porters hastened to relieve 
 the arrivals of their bags, while the footman 
 solemnly proceeded to fling open the door 
 of a handsome barouche which was waiting 
 outside the station, drawn by a pair of 
 beautiful bays with satin-shining coats and 
 silver-bright harness. 
 
 " So we are to be fellow-travellers still?" 
 observed the artist, smiling, and looking
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 13 
 
 into his companion's face more freely than 
 he had hitherto done. 
 
 " So it seems," she assented,- the colour 
 deepening in her cheek. 
 
 She was often impatient with herself for 
 the readiness with which her delicate and 
 transparent complexion flushed and paled. 
 She need not have minded, for if it were 
 sometimes embarrassing, it was always be- 
 coming. 
 
 " I don't know what is the orthodox way 
 of beginning acquaintance without any in- 
 troduction," he said, looking at her with an 
 amused and interested smile, as the foot- 
 man mounted the box, the coachman gently 
 flicked his whip, and the bays, who had 
 been pawing impatiently, tossed their heads 
 and set off at a brisk pace. " But as it's 
 evident we are both to be guests at Lake- 
 side, I think we might venture on consider- 
 ing ourselves privileged to speak ?"
 
 14 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 "Even before the magic formula of in- 
 troduction ?" she questioned, gaily. 
 
 " It is heterodox, I'm afraid. But Lady 
 Manville is responsible. Do you think it a 
 necessity that we should wait until that 
 cabalistic spell is spoken before we look 
 upon each other as fellow-creatures ?" 
 
 ^'Not at all. But if the ceremony of an 
 introduction be necessary, I don't see why 
 we should not perform it for ourselves !" she 
 added, laughingly, a little feminine curiosity 
 possibly moving her to this remark. 
 
 "Why not, indeed? Shall we begin, 
 like the two travellers in a romance, by 
 our names and histories?" 
 
 "My history would not take long to tell," 
 she replied, lightly, " not long enough to be 
 worth telling !" 
 
 "And mine too long!" he replied, 
 whether in joke or earnest she was not 
 quite sure.
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 15 
 
 He looked into her eyes and smiled ; he 
 was in no hurry to turn away his gaze, 
 as he noticed the flickering gold lights in 
 the large grey eyes, the stainless cream- 
 white of the complexion, in which the 
 stream of sunshine, pitiless to every tiniest 
 defect, could point out no flaw, and through 
 whose clearness a flush of rose mantled and 
 faded under his look. 
 
 "But names come before histories?" he' 
 observed, half interrogatively. 
 
 " Mine is rather an uncommon one, I 
 think," she responded. ''I mean my 
 Christian name. Here it is in correct or- 
 thography," she added, after just a moment's 
 hesitation. She took up the novel which 
 lay on her lap, and turned to the fly-leaf, 
 where he read, written in a fair, female hand, 
 Atlielyn Hastings, 
 
 " I don't think it is, properly speaking, a 
 Christian name at all," she added, explana-
 
 16 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 torily, " it was mamma's maiden name." 
 
 " It's uncommon — and pretty ! But," lie 
 added, " there is one item of information 
 wanting. Miss ? — or Mrs. Hastings ?" 
 
 *' Miss, of course," she replied, with a 
 glance of unaffected surprise. 
 
 ''So I imagined," he said, "though why 
 * of course' ? Am I a magician, to read 
 the history you would not tell ? And now 
 am I to return confidence?" 
 
 " It would be only fair, I. think." 
 
 He opened a pocket-book and pulled out 
 a card. 
 
 '' I think this is an original way of getting 
 through an introduction," she said, with an 
 amused smile dimpling about her soft, child- 
 like lips. 
 
 " / think it is decidedly a satisfactory 
 way," he observed, as she glanced down on 
 the card, and read, 
 
 Harold Parkhwst.
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 17 
 
 It was a name beginning to be known in 
 the world of art ; it was on the way to be- 
 coming a key to open the gates of almost 
 any artistic circle ; there were other circles 
 to which it would probably neither now 
 nor ever, and most certainly not now, prove 
 a satisfactory letter of credit. But to Miss 
 Hastings it was quite unknown. Either as 
 man or artist, black sheep or rising star, she 
 had never heard of him. Looking at her as 
 she read his name, he saw this, and saw it . 
 not without a faint twinge of ruffled vanity. 
 He would have liked this girl to have known 
 his pictures and recognised his name. 
 
 They had certainly needed no ceremony 
 of introduction, formal or informal, to set 
 them at ease with each other. They had 
 *'got on" together from the first words they 
 exchanged. Miss Hastings had none of the 
 shyness of a girl unaccustomed to society, 
 nor any of the reserve of self-consciousness 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 and caution. Her naivete was rather of 
 serene self-possession and gaiety than of 
 simplicity, and through her gaiety, which 
 was simply the effervescent light-hearted- 
 ness of perfect youth and health, there ran 
 a thread of girlish coquetry. She liked Mr. 
 Parkhurst at first speech, if not at first 
 sight, and was well aware of and well 
 pleased with his admiration; and he, on his 
 part, was charmed, as he Avas charmed on 
 an average once a fortnight during the 
 season. 
 
 By the time they arrived at Lakeside they 
 were as good friends as if their acquaintance 
 had been reckoned by weeks instead of 
 hours, and their hostess — who met them in 
 the inner hall with apologies for not meeting 
 them sooner, and marshalled them imme- 
 diately into the drawing-room to take a cup 
 of tea — might be pardoned for the forgetful-
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 19 
 
 ness that caused Mr. Parkhurst presently to 
 observe to her — 
 
 "By-the-by, Lady Manville, you have 
 omitted to present me to this young lady." 
 
 " Don't you know each other, then ? 
 Oh, I forgot ! Well, you seem to have 
 made acquaintance very satisfactorily without 
 any good offices of mine, so I shan't apolo- 
 gise. Athelyn, my dear, have you found 
 out how very agreeable Mr. Parkhurst can 
 make himself — when he likes?" 
 
 Lady Manville was a sparkling little 
 brunette of barely one-and-twenty years 
 old, whom Sir John had fallen in love with 
 before she left the schoolroom, and brought 
 home to Lakeside, dragged by enthusiastic 
 tenantry under triumphal arches, with an 
 illumination ^' Welcome the Bride !" when 
 she was eighteen. Sir John himself, who 
 succeeded to the baronetcy before he came 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 into tailcoats, was but a few years older 
 than his wife, and a happier young couple 
 were not to be pointed out in the county. 
 
 Lady Manville was " a little bit of a flirt," 
 some of her friends said. Enemies she had 
 none, else they doubtless would have said 
 the same; but if Sir John did not object to 
 his wife's manner to his friends, no one else 
 had any right to do so. He did not flirt at 
 all himself, because he did not care very 
 much for ladies' society, except his wife's ; 
 he liked the country better than London, 
 outdoor life better than indoor, the hunting- 
 field better than the drawing-room, and his 
 dogs and horses better than anything in the 
 ^orld — except his wife again, and their 
 baby son and heir. 
 
 Lakeside, with its gay young hostess, and 
 its host, to whom no epithet seemed so 
 applicable as "jolly," was the pleasantest 
 house possible to stay in. Everyone felt
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 21 
 
 at home there ; all did as they liked, and 
 enjoyed a serene consciousness that, in 
 pleasing themselves, they were pleasing 
 their host and hostess. The house was 
 always full of guests, and though " each went 
 his own way at his own pace," the ways 
 never clashed. Breakfast began when the 
 first person appeared in the breakfast-room, 
 and went on, while full and fasting members 
 of the party came and went, until the last 
 had made his meal. Luncheon was con- 
 ducted very much on the same principle, nor 
 was it even a crime to be late for dinner ; 
 often one or two places were vacant until the 
 soup and fish had gone round, and it was 
 not unknown for the host himself, if the 
 wary fox or tantalising partridge had in- 
 veigled him further than he intended, to be 
 conspicuous by his absence from that social 
 gathering. 
 
 The parties at Lakeside were generally
 
 22 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 an odd melee. Sir John and Lady Manville 
 observed not the slightest method or selec- 
 tion in their composition, but invited people 
 from all corners of the civilised world, and 
 jumbled them together pell-mell into one 
 party; and the mixture was frequently more 
 successful than if the meniL had been care- 
 fully concocted. 
 
 They had met Mr. Parkhurst the previous 
 season in London ; both husband and wife 
 were pleased with him, and totally ignored 
 — if indeed they had ever been made aware 
 of — the invisible and yet to some eyes most 
 legible label which Rumour had affixed to 
 him, 
 
 "Dangerous! Husbands and mothers, 
 beware !" 
 
 Athelyn Hastings had been a school- 
 fellow of Sophy Manville's, and though the 
 two young women were not inseparably in- 
 timate or confidential friends, they liked
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 23 
 
 each other well, and Athelyn generally 
 went once or twice a year to pay a brief 
 visit to Lakeside. Beside these two, there 
 were now under that roof a dashing young 
 cavalry officer — a charming young married 
 woman, stage-struck, and separated from a 
 husband who according to her account was 
 a very black sheep indeed — a six-foot high 
 curate who scandalised half his parishioners 
 by hunting and waltzing, his younger sister, 
 — and a handsome young Jewess, reported 
 to be a great heiress if she married to please 
 her father, a sallow picturesque widower 
 who completed the party. 
 
 It generally happened that people staying 
 at Lakeside fell into pairs immediately, and 
 adhered to the arrangement of the first day 
 or evening more or less faithfully according 
 to the degree of congeniality discovered. It 
 generally also happened that they paired off 
 in the very way which to the eye of the
 
 24 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 chaperon — or indeed from any worldly- 
 point of view — would have seemed most 
 undesirable. Thus in the present party, the 
 impecunious artist, Harold Parkhurst, about 
 whom no one knew much, and of whom the 
 little that was known shut him out from 
 many a well-guarded fold, was always at 
 the side of that 
 
 " Tocherless lass wi' a lang pedigree," 
 Athelyn Hastings ; the hunting curate fell 
 helplessly at the feet of the would-be 
 actress ; the officer, whose family wished 
 him to pay court to a certain high-born 
 cousin, hovered around the Jewish heiress ; 
 the coffee-coloured merchant v/ith the pierc- 
 ing Israelitish eyes appeared struck with the 
 curate's pretty Puritan-looking little sister. 
 
 There was not an unattractive woman 
 there ; indeed there was seldom a lady 
 visiting at Lakeside who was not either 
 pretty or fascinating, or clever or eccentric.
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 25 
 
 or a gentleman who was not either an 
 eligible parti or made up for his lack of 
 substantial recommendations by his attract- 
 ive qualities or his well-known name, nor 
 did it matter in what line his celebrit}^ had 
 been attained, whether he were musician, 
 artist, or author, whether he had discovered 
 a silver mine, resided with royalty, invented 
 a locomotive machine, or owned the most 
 famous horse of the day. 
 
 The host and hostess had good cause to 
 be satisfied with their collection of fair wo- 
 men ; and notwithstanding the superb black 
 eyes and Juno figure of Miss Montefiore, 
 and the bewitching dimples and Cupid's 
 bow mouth of Mrs. Sinclair, there was no 
 rival loveliness that eclipsed Athelyn Hast- 
 ings. Mr. Parkhurst decided this on the 
 first day that he was of the party ; and the 
 second day found him more faithfully rooted 
 in his opinion than the first.
 
 26 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Sometimes as he watched her among a 
 
 group on the kiwn, with a coquettish hat 
 
 shading her face, with flowers newly- plucked 
 
 in her idle white hands, her slim figure 
 
 lithe as a willow-wand, her light, dainty 
 
 step, her trimly shod feet that 
 
 " Like little mice peeped in and out 
 As if they feared the light !" 
 
 she seemed to him a fragile piece of pink 
 and white porcelain that one rough touch 
 w^ould break. Then again when she had 
 sunk curled up in careless grace in a low 
 easy-chair, and was looking up and laughing 
 her low sweet heart-whole laugh, he thought 
 she was like a soft, white kitten purring 
 and playing as it basked in the sunshine. 
 And again when she came softly out on the 
 verandah in the moonlight in a white dress, 
 and stood silent as a picture among the ivy- 
 clad pillars, she looked in his eyes like a 
 pale, pure snowdrop timidly and trustfully
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 27 
 
 lifting its " one sweet bell and green leaves 
 four " through the frost. Still, whatever 
 she reminded him of, it was alwa3^s some- 
 thing fair and frail and delicate, not made 
 to stand the rough winds of the world. It 
 was only the surface he knew of Athelyn 
 Hastings ; it was all that she knew of herself 
 as yet. 
 
 Hers was but a three days' visit ; it was 
 on a Saturday afternoon that she and Mr. 
 Parkhurst were fellow-travellers to Lakeside ; 
 and on Monday night he said to her, 
 
 " Are you really going to-morrow ?" 
 
 They had strolled out from the billiard- 
 room, where a lively and somewhat noisy 
 group were playing "pool," and were sitting 
 on one of the rustic benches in the verandah, 
 half in the shadows of the drooping trails 
 of ivy from the roof, half in a streak of 
 moonlight. 
 
 "To-morrow, ves."
 
 28 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " It's a short visit." He had a brusque, 
 half interrogative way of speaking some- 
 times, that either pleased or displeased 
 people from a very early stage of acquaint- 
 ance. It pleased Athelyn Hastings. 
 
 ''Three days," she answered. 
 
 ^' Is it only that? Seems longer some- 
 how," he said. 
 
 " Yes," she agreed, acknowledging the 
 truth unwittingly, as if she were only speak- 
 ing to herself '' But I thought you were 
 regretting its shortness just now ?" she add- 
 ed laughingly. 
 
 "So I was. Sounds paradoxical, doesn't 
 it ? There's a good deal of truth in para- 
 dox. Don't you think it's very possible for 
 three days, or one day, or one hour, to be 
 too little, and yet a good deal too much ?" 
 
 " If the day be good, can one have too 
 much of it ?" she answered, gaily, but 
 casting a half shy, half coquettish, question-
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 2^ 
 
 ing glance up from under her long lashes — 
 a glance that even in the dim cloudy moon- 
 light was not wholly lost. 
 
 *" Poisoned with sweet fruit, as he found too late !" 
 quoted Mr. Parkhurst. ^' Where's that 
 line from, Miss Hastings ?" he added, 
 with one of his brusque changes of tone. 
 One of the attractions he found in her was 
 that he had already discovered her to be as 
 well up in all his favourite poets as if she 
 had studied them expressly to fit herself for 
 his taste. 
 
 Athelyn named correctly " King Arthur's 
 Tomb ;" and then there was a pause. 
 
 " When shall I see you again ?" he said, 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Very possibly never, I should think." 
 
 '' Why not ?" 
 
 " I do not see any probability of our 
 meeting ; I don't visit here above once or 
 twice a year ; and London is such a great
 
 30 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 place — one's chances of meeting anyone 
 there are small." 
 
 " Yes, they're small," he agreed, ^'but we 
 shall meet, I think. Will you promise me 
 a welcome, if we do ?" 
 
 " Yes," she answered, softly, half hesitat- 
 ing, and a little coquettish ly withal, " I 
 think I may safely promise that, if we meet 
 within a reasonable time." 
 
 They are only flirting, or they think they 
 are only flirting. Athelyn, in her gentle 
 quiet way, is open to the accusation of 
 being "a little bit of a coquette." She has 
 often played at romance, just for half an 
 hour's amusement — played with it lightly, 
 almost carelessly, with perfect impunity. 
 It is nothing startlingly new to her that a 
 man should wish to meet her again. No 
 one has ever yet breathed words of real 
 love to her. Love is a thing with which she
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 31 
 
 has never been brought into absolute contact 
 
 at all, and of which, when she thinks, it is 
 
 generally to consider with Aurora Leigh 
 
 that — 
 
 " Love 
 Is something awful which one dares not touch 
 So early of mornings !" 
 
 But her life is bv no means barren of 
 that gentle element of drawing-room flirta- 
 tion which, in the mild form wherein she 
 practises it, does not soar beyond aspirations 
 for " another waltz," and *' yet another," and 
 at the last "just one turn more !" — rivalries 
 for the honour of handing an ice, — hinted 
 possibilities of meeting at the fete next 
 week, tacit tryst made and kept at next 
 Tuesday's soiree. She promises Harold 
 Parkhurst a welcome just as she has pro- 
 raised others in her day ; she thinks she is 
 flirting no more and no less than she has 
 done with this young officer or that hand-
 
 32 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 some barrister, only there is just a touch of 
 a new shyness about her now which she 
 does not herself understand. 
 
 '' Within a reasonable time/' he says, 
 repeating her last words. " How long a 
 strain can a woman's memory endure with- 
 out rebelling and crying out that it is 
 unreasonable ?" 
 
 " Do not ask me insoluble conundrums," 
 she replies, lightly, but with that undertone 
 of winning softness which comes naturally 
 to her voice. 
 
 The moon is looking in between the tree- 
 tops and under the hanging ivy full upon 
 these two. He turns and gazes at her, and 
 seems in no haste to take the thread of 
 conversation up again. 
 
 The cool chaste moonlight is shedding a 
 white glory on her half lifted face and on 
 her silvery pale dress and paler hands ; she 
 looks as spiritual and frail as a snow-maiden
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 33 
 
 that would melt and die under the sun's 
 first warm kiss. 
 
 " Do you know," he says, with something 
 of irrelevance, '' of what lines you remind 
 me, so that they seem to have been written 
 for you ?" 
 
 " I can't imagine. Nothing uncompli- 
 mentary, I hope ?" 
 
 *' I opened on them by chance in Tenny- 
 son to-day ; they seem to me so fitted for 
 you to-night. I don't know why." 
 
 "Well, what ar^ they?" 
 
 *'Ah, Maud, you milk-white fawn, you are all unmeet 
 
 for a wife, 
 You have but fed on the roses and lain in the lilies of 
 
 life !" 
 
 " I do not think they are compliment- 
 ary," she says, with a little playful pretence 
 of a pout. 
 
 " But you plead guilty to their being 
 appropriate ?" 
 
 Athelyn pleads neither guilty nor inno- 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 cent ; she is silent, wondering with a new- 
 born wonder — are they appropriate to her? 
 — is she, after all, but a useless pet fawn to 
 play and frolic and feed on roses ? 
 
 Harold Parkhurst's next question is a 
 somewhat startling one. 
 
 " Miss Hastings, are you engaged ?" 
 
 "Engaged? No!" looking up in some 
 surprise. 
 
 ''The field is free, then?" 
 
 But she cannot answer him. "No" 
 would be false ; and besides she could as 
 soon cut off one of her pretty little fingers 
 as say to him, " No ; the field is not free." 
 " Yes " trembles on her lips ; but she will 
 not and cannot utter it. That new shyness, 
 a strange sweet shyness that makes her a 
 puzzle to herself, holds her silent. 
 
 Parkhurst is not, however, a man to be 
 balked of an answer. 
 
 " Is the field free ?" he repeats, bending
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 35 
 
 closer, and looking straight in her face. 
 
 Then the "Yes" will be spoken, although 
 speech is not so easy a matter as usual, for 
 her heart is fluttering most unaccountably. 
 But " Yes " seems bold and bare standing 
 alone. She follows it up with a vague and 
 feeble " I suppose so," uttered with an 
 attempt at languid indifference. 
 
 He answers not a word, only in the 
 moonlight his dark eyes look piercingly 
 down into the depths of hers. She is silent 
 and still as a bird fixed under the snake's 
 glamouring gaze. They seem unequally 
 matched, these two, like the bird and snake 
 — like a child playing with its tin toy-sword 
 suddenly confronted by an armed man. 
 Yet the game is less unfair than on the sur- 
 face it seems. One shield Athelyn has, who 
 seems so defenceless — one weapon that alone 
 can combat all his armoury. With all her 
 simple little coquetries, she is innocent as a 
 
 I) 2
 
 36 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 child and pure as the virgin Saint Dorothea. 
 Her unsullied whiteness of soul is evident 
 in her every look, her every tone ; it shines 
 around her like a visible halo to Harold 
 Parkhurst's eyes. Her heart is like the 
 closed and folded bud of the lily. One 
 day of summer sunshine will open it ; but 
 this she does not know yet, nor he either. 
 
 Only he wonders, for what man shall this 
 white flower bloom ? And something that 
 is not all vanity stirs him with the old am- 
 bition, the old purpose that has stirred him 
 often before; and his wonder becomes a 
 resolve. 
 
 The next morning they part, and his last 
 words to her are, 
 
 " Good-bye — for a time. We shall meet 
 again !"
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 IN THE FOLD. 
 
 And fresh from the deeps of the summer the breeze 
 
 across them blew, 
 
 But nought of the earth's desire or the lapse of time 
 
 they knew. 
 
 Morris. 
 
 TjlERN COTTAGE, near the little village 
 -■- of Monksfield, is Athelyn Hastings's 
 home. It is one of those pretty English 
 country dwellings which combine a certain 
 old-fashioned picturesqueness outside with 
 all modern comforts in the interior. It is 
 not often indeed that the picturesque and 
 the comfortable are so harmoniously wedded. 
 The house is small certainly ; you could, by
 
 38 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 a very little compression and cutting down, 
 have packed the whole of it into the great 
 hall at Lakeside ; and its garden, orchard, 
 stable-yard, and all could be comfortably 
 put away in any one corner of the Lakeside 
 grounds. A modern auctioneer would 
 undoubtedly put it up as a "Bijou," and 
 however glowingly he might describe it, in 
 Athelyn's eyes he would not exaggerate its 
 charms. 
 
 She loves it as a girl of her nature al- 
 most invariably loves her home; but al- 
 though this is her home properly so-called, 
 she has another domicile almost equally 
 dear. Her grandfather's house in London 
 is really, as well as by title of courtesy and 
 affection, a home to her and her mother. 
 To old Mr. Hastings, alone in the world 
 now save for these two women, his daughter- 
 in-law is dear even as his own daughter 
 would have been. As far as one human
 
 IN THE FOLD. 39 
 
 being can fill another's place, she had filled 
 the place of that lost daughter whose friend 
 and early playmate she was. 
 
 As Alice Athelyn, his daughter's dearest 
 friend, then as Alice Hastings, his son's 
 idolised bride, she was a favourite of the 
 father's always; and when within a few 
 months he was bereft of both son and 
 daughter, the widowed bride, left desolate 
 like him, was the one link left to bind 
 him to life. He had still a duty remaining, 
 to support and strengthen the poor stricken 
 girl who clung to him in their mutual 
 sorrow ; and when her child was born he 
 found there was still some hope and com- 
 fort in the world for him and her. When 
 this the child of their lost Edgar looked up 
 at them with Edgar's eyes, it seemed he 
 was not utterly gone from them. 
 
 Edgar Hastings had bought Fern Cottage 
 and settled it on his young wife ; every path
 
 40 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 in the grounds had been laid out according 
 to his design, every room furnished and 
 decorated to suit his taste. It was there 
 that they had spent most of the few happy 
 months of their married Hfe ; it was small 
 wonder that Alice Hastings could not bear 
 to part with it and let it pass to strangers. 
 So she lives there with her daughter, but 
 has her home under her father-in-law's roof 
 whenever she chooses. 
 
 Between these two homes Athelyn has 
 grown up, the spoilt darling, the light and 
 life of both. It would be hard to say in 
 which household she is most beloved, most 
 petted when present, most missed when ab- 
 sent. Two lives are devoted to her; to 
 two human creatures she is their hope in 
 the future, their joy in the present, their 
 comfort in the past. They tend and guard 
 this flower as parents do, nursing it from 
 seed to shoot and watching it with anxious
 
 IN THE FOLD. 41 
 
 care from shoot to bud — all that it may 
 bloom in some other garden ; for they see, 
 now that she has grown to womanhood, 
 their flower is too fair to blossom long for 
 them alone. '* She is all that is left me of 
 my boy," her grandfather says, when he 
 bursts out into irrepressible confidences 
 about her. "She is my other self," Mrs. 
 Hastings says, fondly, when people remark 
 on the likeness between the mother and 
 daughter. 
 
 They are wonderfully alike, certainly — 
 the same soft and delicate, yet classic line 
 of feature ; the same innocent Cupid's bow 
 lips and cream-white complexion, only 
 there is more strength about Athelyn's chin, 
 more intellect about her brow. Mrs. Hast- 
 ings has fairer hair, and her almond-shaped 
 blue eyes have not the depth and light of 
 those grey eyes of her daughter's. 
 
 Athelyn is freely confidential with her
 
 42 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 mother, partly because of the loving and 
 perfect sympathy between them, partly 
 because she has never had anything to 
 conceal. All her harmless, careless play in 
 the drawing-room game of flirtation is 
 known to Mrs. Hastings, who watches it as 
 she would watch a pet kitten frisking with a 
 ball of Avool, knowing that it is merely like 
 the kitten's play with Athelyn — as yet ! but 
 still watching for the day when it shall be 
 more. She has never seen the flame of a 
 conscious blush burn on Athelyn's cheek, 
 nor the tremor of a secret trouble stir the 
 sweet, passionless face ; but she knows the 
 warmth and depth of the girl's aff"ectionate 
 heart well enough to be very sure the day 
 of conscious blushes and tremors is to 
 come. 
 
 When Athelyn returned from Lakeside, 
 she talked, of course, among other tilings, 
 about Harold Parkhurst, and her manner
 
 IN THE FOLD. 43' 
 
 of referring to him betrayed that he had 
 certainly been in her eyes the most interest- 
 ing person there ; but she had been lightly 
 interested for an evening or a day in other 
 people — in the man who, at a given party, 
 had waltzed the oftenest with her, or 
 induced her to linger the longest over a 
 strawberry ice in the conservatory, or 
 whispered in her ear the compliment that 
 came the nearest to originality of all the 
 vapid flattery that was lavished upon her. 
 Somehow she had not given Mrs. Hastings 
 the impression that this last acquaintance of 
 a day or two, although it had probably not 
 been destitute of the elements of coquetry 
 on the one side and of admiration on the 
 other, had been anything more than the 
 rest. 
 
 Athelyn practises no intentional reserve ; 
 it is an involuntary, and even unconscious 
 instinct that leads her to talk in the lightest,
 
 44 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 gayest tone of Harold Parkhurst. She is 
 not quite sure whether she likes him or not ; 
 he is something new to her, and she has not 
 quite made up her mind about him ; but of 
 one thing she is sure — though only in the 
 inmost recesses of her still unstirred, and 
 somewhat vain, little heart — and that is that 
 he admires her extremely. She would not 
 admit this to anyone — would not even word 
 it to herself, but the triumphant conscious- 
 ness is there. He haunts her thoughts a 
 good deal, but in those secret maiden 
 reveries he appears less as a possible con- 
 queror than as a possible conquest. 
 
 It never occurs to her that looks can lie or 
 words delude, or that the game which she 
 plays so innocently for sugar-plums is often- 
 times played out to a bitter end, and for a 
 stake heavier than life. She is by nature 
 unsuspicious even to obtuseness ; she has 
 mixed enough in society to fancy she knows
 
 IN THE FOLD. 45 
 
 the world, whereas, all the world she knows 
 is one great drawing-room, pervaded by a 
 white kid-gloved humanity with polished 
 platitudes on its lips. If the gauntest wolf 
 only flung a fleecy hide over his head, Athe- 
 lyn Hastings would open the door of the 
 fold to him and innocently welcome him in. 
 She knows herself as little as she knows the 
 great world through which she moves like 
 one carried in a soft, close-curtained litter, 
 fancying that the light filtered in through 
 those rose-colour blinds is day, and that 
 there is no darker shade than that of the 
 sweet-scented flowering branch which sways 
 across the window as she passes, and taps at 
 the glass as if with a message from the 
 outer world. 
 
 In her soft secret flutters of pleasure in 
 Mr. Parkhurst's admiration, her vague 
 wandering day-dreams of meeting him again 
 — beyond which meeting she does not look
 
 46 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 — she has no faintest glimmer or perception 
 of any possibilities of danger or suffering, to 
 herself or him. She smiles to herself with 
 a coy, half shy satisfaction as she recollects 
 that his last words to her were, " We shall 
 meet again !" When, two or three weeks 
 after her visit to Lakeside, a letter comes 
 from Lady Manville, bearing another invit- 
 ation to her, desiring her company at a ball 
 which is being somewhat hastily got up in 
 honour of her little ladyship's birthday, 
 Athelyn's pleasure in accepting it is height- 
 ened by the picture her imagination im- 
 mediately paints — of Mr. Parkhurst inscrib- 
 ing his name on her programme for many 
 waltzes ! and dashed by the reflection sober 
 reason hastens to suggest that, as he has 
 visited there so lately and is no very inti- 
 mate friend, it is not altogether probable 
 that he will be invited to repeat his visit — 
 unless they are short of gentlemen. This
 
 IN THE FOLD. 47 
 
 is a state of things Athelyn usually dislikes 
 as heartily as the rest of her sex and age ; 
 but under the present circumstances she 
 finds herself actually regarding it as a con- 
 summation devoutly to be wished. 
 
 She has not, however, to wait until her 
 arrival at Lakeside for the solution of the 
 interesting question — '^to meet, or not to 
 meet, again?" One morning she goes out, 
 according to her usual custom, into the yard 
 to distribute divers relics of the household 
 breakfast among the live stock. They all 
 know very well what her appearance 
 means ; the hens cluster cackling round 
 her ; the tawny collie-dog barks frantically 
 and dances wildly on his hind legs, pawing 
 the air and tugging at his chain. From be- 
 hind the closed stable-door come the 
 scratchings of eager paws and the impatient 
 yelps of the imprisoned terriers. The old 
 brown retriever, Kitty, who is of maturer
 
 48 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 years and more staid disposition, comes 
 leisurely out of lier kennel and sits down 
 patiently by Athelyn's side, thumping the 
 ground expectantly with her feathery tail, 
 while her young mistress scatters the first 
 shower of bread-crumbs to the fowls. 
 
 A speckled hen of pushing disposition 
 gets the lion's share, until Athelyn hits upon 
 the happy device of flinging a large 
 and tempting crust to a remote corner 
 of the yard, whither the greedy fowl im- 
 mediately rushes, neglecting the shower of 
 crumbs that are falling at her feet, and 
 affording an excellent moral — which no- 
 body heeds. 
 
 ''Now that's all ! not a crumb more for 
 you!" Athelyn observes to the fowls, the 
 bread being all crumbled and scattered. 
 " Bones would not be good for you — nor 
 bacon-rind. Dogs' turn now." 
 
 Collie, comprehending these words, utters
 
 IN THE FOLD. 49 
 
 an agonised bark and bounds more frantic- 
 ally than ever. Kitty, wagging her heavy 
 and majestic tail with somewhat more 
 vigour, and complacently ignoring Collie's 
 agitation, follows close at Athelyn's heels as 
 she steps to the stable and opens the door, 
 on which two white terriers burst out, 
 tumbling over and over each other in their 
 hurry, and yelping with joy, while the 
 pony's neigh joins the chorus, and out of 
 the way of the uncontrollable dogs the per- 
 turbed hens scatter far and wide, all except 
 the greedy speckled fowl, who is still 
 choking and cackling over a big crust ; but 
 she too takes flight and shelter behind a 
 coop when one of the terriers, rather in 
 playfulness than in hostility, makes a pounce 
 on her booty. 
 
 Athelyn has no hat on ; her hair hangs 
 untidily, if becomingly, down her back, tied 
 with a careless knot of pink ribbon ; she 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 has not a brooch or an ornament ; her dress 
 is a simple brown holland morning-robe of 
 plainest make. This, perhaps, is well, as 
 the dogs in their eager afFection, stimulated 
 by the plate she bears, are no respecters of 
 toilette. Tim, on his hind legs, is scratch- 
 ing her dress with impatient paws ; Jim has 
 jumped up and nearly knocked the plate 
 out of her hand in a vain attempt to lick 
 her face ; Collie, now unchained, is leaping 
 up to her other shoulder ; even Kitty, with 
 roused animation, stands before her bark- 
 ing loud demands at last. 
 
 " Down — all of you !" the girl says, laugh- 
 ing, holding the plate up above her head, 
 and with the other hand repelling their too 
 demonstrative attentions. 
 
 She is quite unconscious that any eyes 
 are on her, though the yard is to a cer- 
 tain extent open to public view ; its outer 
 wall is low, and its gate lower ; but
 
 IN THE FOLD. 51 
 
 passers-by are rare along the lane that 
 skh^ts their grounds ; and she has heard no 
 footsteps. Nevertheless somebody who, 
 she little thinks, is near has come along the 
 lane and paused, and is looking over the 
 gate. 
 
 Harold Parkhurst sees Athelyn in a new 
 light. She is not now the frail white hot- 
 house flower, the dainty Parian statuette. He 
 sees her with the sunshine of home around 
 her, living on " the level of everyday 's 
 most quiet need." She seems not the 
 Athelyn he had known — yet perhaps a 
 sweeter one than he had dreamed. 
 
 *' A creature not too bright and good 
 For human nature's daily food. 
 
 Suddenly conscious that there is a human 
 presence near, she turns and sees him, and 
 blushes her quick, bright, ever-ready blush 
 as she meets his gaze with lovely startled 
 eyes. 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 •iiiNnis LIBRARY
 
 52 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Woman-like, her first thougkt is of her 
 old holland morning-dress, her loose-hang- 
 ing, ruffled hair, the delf plate of bones in her 
 hand, the paw-marks of the demonstrative 
 dogs on her skirt. It is not like this that 
 she had wished him to see her again ! 
 
 " Miss Hastings, do I disturb the proceed- 
 ings ?" he inquires, smiling. Her answer 
 is lost in the vociferations of the three 
 younger dogs, who have rushed helter- 
 akelter towards the stranger, and with their 
 noses to the gate stand all in a row barking 
 in tones that vary between hostility and 
 questioning. By the time Athelyn has 
 quieted them, and shaken hands with Mr. 
 Parkhurst across the gate with her one free 
 hand, the startled blush has faded out of 
 her face, and she has subsided into her 
 usual sweet tranquillity again. 
 
 "How did you come here?" she asks, 
 naively, uttering the first question that rises 
 to her lips.
 
 IN THE FOLD. 53 
 
 ^^ By steam, by wheels, and on foot — if 
 you only mean ' how ?' " he answers. •' But 
 if you mean why did I come here — ?" 
 
 He pauses. 
 
 ^* Well," she says, gaily, " why then ?" 
 
 " In plain English, I came to see yoii^'' he 
 replies. *' Is the English too plain ?" 
 
 His dark Spanish eyes speak even more 
 boldly and plainly than his words. Their 
 open admiration vaguely troubles her ; she 
 does not dislike it ; but she averts her own 
 look from it, and her fitful colour comes 
 and goes. 
 
 ^' Whatever you came for, it is very in- 
 hospitable of me to keep this barrier between 
 us," she says, with just a shade of embar- 
 rassment marring the lightness of her tone. 
 " Will you walk round to the front door, or 
 if you do not mind the dogs, perhaps you 
 will come in this way ?" 
 
 "I like dogs,'' he says, "chickens too, and
 
 54 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ponies particularly," he adds, observing that 
 a sleek, fat black pony has come out of the 
 stable, and is pattering across the yard to 
 Athelyn's side. 
 
 So Mr. Parkhurst comes in and is intro- 
 duced to all the menagerie. Kitty, who is 
 busy with a bone and takes most things in 
 life easily now that her frisky youth is past, 
 bestows little notice on him ; Collie, anxious 
 to atone and apologise for his first suspicion, 
 fawns upon him as if he had been his long- 
 lost master; Tim and Jim, the white terriers 
 (one of whom is spotless, while the other has 
 a tawny splash over one eye, which gives a 
 rakish look to his otherwise meek and 
 honest countenance), consent to exhibit each 
 his one accomplishment, — he of the tawny 
 spot standing up on his hind legs, with the 
 last bone but one of the plateful on his 
 nose, tossing and catching it at word of 
 command, while his less talented but more
 
 IN THE FOLD. 55 
 
 thorough-bred half- brother can only shake 
 paws, giving one paw after another in a 
 great hurry, with one eye squinting up to 
 the last bone, which he knows from experi- 
 ence will be the reward of merit. 
 
 " Now Topsy must not be neglected," says 
 Athelyn, turning to the pony. " 1 have a 
 nice carrot for her. See, Mr. Parkhurst, I 
 will put it in my pocket, and you will see, 
 she's so clever, she will find it ; she will put 
 her nose in and eat it." 
 
 Topsy, having accomplished this feat, 
 assisted by the prominence with which three 
 quarters of the carrot were left projecting 
 from the pocket, ate two lumps of sugar 
 from Mr. Parkhurst's hand, in which opera- 
 tion Athelyn evidently regarded him as the 
 favoured party. Feeding Topsy was a privi- 
 lege, and it was considered a condescension 
 on Topsy's part to nibble a piece of sugar 
 from a strange palm.
 
 ,56 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst looked at the pair with a 
 smile, as the girl stood with her arm round 
 the pony's neck, patting its sleek, black 
 nose. Athelyn at home, among the house- 
 hold pets, Athelyn feeding them with 
 carrots and bones, her interest apparentl}^ 
 centred in the accomplishments of the vari- 
 ous quadrupeds, proudly showing them off, 
 and never doubting that he must be equally 
 interested with herself, was a pleasant sight. 
 Probably he would not have liked it so well, 
 if it had not been in utter contrast to the 
 ideal Athelyn he had had in his mind's eye 
 as he walked down the lane. 
 
 The tete-a-tete was speedily interrupted. 
 Cook looked out of the window, and 
 straightway reported to Mrs. Hastings that 
 " a gentleman was talking to Miss Athelyn 
 in the yard." Mrs. Hastings forthwith 
 appeared upon the scene; an informal intro- 
 duction and explanation followed, and Mr.
 
 IN THE FOLD. 57 
 
 Parkhurst was invited into the drawing- 
 room, whither, as Athelyn observed, apolo- 
 geticall}^, she should have ushered him 
 before, had it not been for her anxiety to 
 exhibit all Topsy's tricks. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst looked at Athelyn's mother, 
 and smiled admiringly. Her resemblance 
 to her daughter pleased him first. Besides, 
 she was a young-looking woman, as grace- 
 ful as she was handsome ; her Quaker-grey 
 dress suited her delicate face ; and the little 
 lace cap on her head was to the full as be- 
 coming and picturesque as it was matronly. 
 Mrs. Hastings in her turn looked at the 
 visitor, and was favourably impressed. Wo- 
 men generally liked Harold Parkhurst at 
 first sight ; handsome women read in his 
 look his admiration for them ; plain women 
 warmed gratefully to a certain empressement 
 in his manner, which sprang from a kindly 
 wish that no creature of the female sex
 
 58 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 should feel neglected while he was by. 
 He might forget to bow to the plain wo- 
 man next time he saw her ; but at the mo- 
 ment he was talking to her he would look 
 devoted. 
 
 Mrs. Hastings knew instinctively that he 
 thought her beautiful ; she saw too very 
 quickly that she owed to her likeness to 
 Athelyn half her beauty in his eyes. Her 
 personal and maternal vanity were alike 
 gratified; and the cautious courtesy and 
 glacial gentleness of her manner at first 
 reception of him rapidly thawed and 
 warmed. In ten minutes she liked hiai ; in 
 twenty she thought him charming.- 
 
 Harold Parkhurst had a curious mixture 
 of two manners, one was polished and in- 
 gratiating, courteous and fluent; the other 
 had a certain brusquerie that yet generally 
 proved rather attractive than repellent to
 
 IN THE FOLD. 59 
 
 women, and gave him a dangerous air of 
 sincerity. 
 
 ^' And are you visiting in this neighbour- 
 hood, Mr. Parkhurst?" inquired Mrs. Hast- 
 ings, with curiosity a little more veiled than 
 her daughter's had been. 
 
 '' I am on a little sketching tour," he an- 
 swered. "I have been making a study of 
 that ruined church at Oakley. Being so near 
 here, T thought I would venture on the 
 liberty of calling to inquire for Miss Hast- 
 ings. I was half afraid you would deem 
 it intrusive ?" 
 
 He paused for a re-assurance, and received 
 it, Mrs. Hastings's manner amply verifying 
 the kind courtesy of her words. 
 
 ''.Thanks !" he said, with the most win- 
 ning deference in his look, that made the 
 one syllable more eloquent than if he had 
 wasted a volume of words.
 
 60 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 "I am making my way towards Lake- 
 side," he continued, '' where Sir John has 
 been kind enough to invite me " 
 
 '' For Tuesday night ?" inquired Athelyn, 
 with interest. 
 
 " Yes. Shall I have the pleasure of see- 
 ing you there ? — and Mrs. Hastings ?" 
 
 " Athelyn is going. About myself I am 
 not sure," Mrs. Hastings said. She had 
 declined the invitation for herself; Athelyn 
 generally went to visit her old school-fellow 
 at Lakeside alone; and her mother knew 
 that on this occasion she was only invited as 
 a compliment, as Lakeside would be crowd- 
 ed from garret to ground-floor. But she 
 felt a sort of uncertainty as Mr. Parkhurst 
 put his question. Would it be well, she 
 wondered, if she were to be with Athelyn 
 there ? Certainly she had already declined 
 the invitation ; but — ought she to let Athelyn 
 go alone ?
 
 IN THE FOLD. 61 
 
 She watched her child's face and manner 
 attentively. She read, though no other 
 eye could have detected, the faint traces of 
 a consciousness that Mr. Parkhurst admired 
 her, of a pleasure in his admiration. She 
 read no more. No secret stir ruffled the 
 serenity of Athelyn's look ; no shadowy 
 consciousness clouded the frank gaze of her 
 eyes. She looked very happy, as tranquil 
 as light-hearted ; and her gay laugh rang 
 out oftener than ever in its soft mirth. 
 Athelyn possessed that rare and charming 
 gift — a really musical laugh, low and delicate- 
 toned, yet full of pure heart-whole merri- 
 ment. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Hastings's hospitable spirit 
 suggested to her forcibly that she ought to 
 ask Mr. Parkhurst to stay to luncheon. It 
 was true that he had been a stranger to her 
 till that hour, and that his presenting him« 
 self at her door was not in accordance with
 
 62 A PROKEN FAITH. 
 
 strict form and ceremony. Still he was a 
 friend of Sir John Manville's ; and he was 
 certainly charming, and evidently admired 
 Athelyn respectfully and sincerely. 
 
 So after a little silent argument between 
 caution and hospitality, wherein the latter 
 naturally and speedily got the better, the 
 invitation was cordially given — and unhesi- 
 tatingly accepted. Then, at a hint from 
 her mother, Athelyn disappeared, and took 
 the opportunity not only to convey a mes- 
 sage to the cook, but to effect various 
 changes in her toilette. She left the room 
 in her holland gown and loose-streaming 
 hair; she returned, not looking a bit 
 prettier, a lilac-and-white sylph, with rings 
 on her fingers and her hair twisted up in 
 sleek dark coils on the top of her head. 
 
 Luncheon, it appeared, would be a little 
 late; meanwhile would Mr. Parkhurst like 
 to walk round the garden ? Mr. Parkhurst
 
 IN THE FOLD. 63 
 
 would like nothing better. So while Mrs. 
 Hastings in her turn vanished, possibly on 
 household cares intent, Athelyn and the 
 guest went out in the garden. 
 
 ''I hope you did not breakfast very 
 early ?" Athelyn observed, laughingly. 
 
 ''Was I so ravenous at Lakeside? did I 
 leave such an impression on your mind that 
 you are afraid I've brought too wolfish an 
 appetite with me now ?" 
 
 *' Only for your own sake — for I think it 
 right to warn you that when our cook hints 
 that luncheon may be a little late it will 
 probably be more than an hour behind 
 time. The normal state of things is that it 
 is a little late. Cook is an excellent per- 
 son — with the one small drawback of un- 
 punctuality." 
 
 "The later she is to-day the better. The 
 later luncheon, the longer I am here. 
 Couldn't we manage some catastrophe in
 
 64 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the kitchen to put off the evil hour still 
 further ?" 
 
 '*You won't think the hour evil by the 
 time it comes, I warn you." 
 
 " Shall I not ? Between you and lun- 
 cheon, do you think ray choice will incline 
 to the latter ?" 
 
 '' You will be placed in no such painful 
 dilemma," she said, demurely. '' You will 
 have me and luncheon too. Did you sup- 
 pose I was not going to share the meal ?" 
 
 ^' 1 didn't suppose your ethereality went 
 that length, though you don't look very 
 much of the earth, earthy ! I'm aware that 
 I shall have you at the luncheon-table. But 
 — I'd rather have you here. This is being 
 with you ; that won't be !" 
 
 Such hours as these fly fast, yet, fleet as 
 they are, they leave deep footprints. 
 
 Harold Parkhurst and Athelyn pay no 
 heed to the time as they wander up and
 
 IN THE FOLD. 65 
 
 down the winding paths — across the lawn — 
 around the orchard. The grounds of Fern 
 Cottage not being extensive, they pass over 
 and over the same paths in a seemingly un- 
 ending round. If they were told it was 
 to be unending, probably in this first hour 
 they would not grumble much. 
 
 There is not a cloud in the perfect 
 sapphire vault above them ; the June sun 
 laves all the earth in a golden glory ; only 
 under the trees there are patches of cool 
 sweet shadow. Two great horse-chestnut- 
 trees that stand sentinel by the orchard-gate 
 are masses of snowy blossom still ; the white 
 petals shower down on the grassy carpet 
 beneath as a little warm breeze stirs softly 
 among the leaves. All the flowers are in 
 their fullest bloom ; above them all, the 
 royal June roses, queens of the garden, fill 
 the air with their fragrance, and droop their 
 heavy splendid heads with the weight of 
 
 YOL. I. F
 
 66 A BllOKEN FAITH. 
 
 their own beauty. A lark is singing high 
 up in the cloudless blue ; nearer at hand the 
 shrill thrush pipes and the linnet twitters 
 from the trees ; bright-winged insects whir- 
 buzzing by ; there is no silence in the 
 serene summer air ; it is a day of warm, live, 
 wide-awake beauty. 
 
 Athelyn's laughter is fresh and pure as 
 the bird's trill ; her face is radiant as the 
 sun-bathed rose, her life this day as cloud- 
 less as the sky. She does not know how 
 happy she is ; she is all unconscious of the 
 influence that is silently, subtly coiling 
 round her life, winding her in meshes that 
 may now be frail as tlie cobweb, but 
 which may, in the coming days, lash her life 
 fast to its as yet unknown destiny with 
 bonds no struggle of her own can break. 
 
 She does not know that never again shall 
 she look on tree and flower with the same 
 careless eyes — that hereafter every stick
 
 IN THE FOLD. 67 
 
 and stone of the old familiar garden shall 
 whisper a story to her. This mulberry- 
 tree, under which they sit in the shade while 
 he tells her about his next picture and shows 
 her his sketch-book — this Gloire de Dijon 
 rose-bush, from which he chooses the finest 
 rose and pins it in her hair — this strawberry 
 border, among whose dark, shady leaves 
 they hunt for the red-ripe early straw- 
 berries — this clematis-screened summer- 
 house, with its queer stained glass windows, 
 where Jim comes limping up to them with a 
 thorn in his paw, and Mr. Parkhurst takes 
 Jim up in his arms and extracts the thorn, 
 and Jim covers him with grateful demon- 
 strations — each and all of these shall speak 
 to her henceforward of him. 
 
 Never more shall they be as lifeless parts 
 of the landscape to her; Memory will sit 
 among the branches and whisper in the 
 
 wind henceforth. But this she does not 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 know; she only knows that she is happy 
 this bright morning, and she does not spoil 
 her happiness by counting its minutes as 
 they pass. 
 
 " So you are going to Lakeside for this 
 Tuesday's ball ?" he observes, presently. 
 
 '' Yes ; I am going on Monday." 
 
 '' On Monday !" he repeats, " I am invited 
 for Monday too. I was making my way 
 there leisurely, but if I were to hang about 
 here till then — there's an inn, I suppose ? 
 If I stayed about here, might I escort yon 
 on Monday ?" 
 
 " But I thought you were on a walking 
 tour — sketching, and taking a different place 
 every day?" she says, looking up, inquir- 
 ingly- 
 
 " So I am ; but if you say ' Stay here till 
 
 Monday,' I'll throw up my walking tour. 
 What do you say ?" 
 
 Athelyn is half frightened at the respon-
 
 IN THE FOLD. 69 
 
 sibility this question lays upon her. Beneath 
 her sweet society smile and demure draw- 
 ing-room coquetry, she is wild and shy as an 
 uncaught antelope. She does not under- 
 stand the new fluttering shyness that pos- 
 sesses her ; it is not unpleasant, there is 
 nothing of discomfort in it, it is only a new 
 sensation, and those bold, black eyes that 
 are so intently fixed upon her face half 
 fascinate and yet half scare her. 
 
 He reads in her look a shy, startled 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Well ? Issue your orders," he says. 
 
 She makes a struggle for her usual light- 
 ness of tone and attains it. 
 
 " I shall not be in any need of escort, 
 thank you ; it is nothing of a journe}^, and 
 the inn here is very poor. You had better 
 make your way there on your pedestrian 
 tour according to your original plan." 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst does not press the sugges-
 
 70 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 tion further. He iiiiglit have been annoy- 
 ed, his vanity might have sustained a rude 
 shock, had the girl been any other than 
 Athelyn, had the voice been less sweet in 
 its half embarrassed lightness, the eyes less 
 lovely in their timid gazelle-like appeal. As 
 it was, if his vanity suffered a slight twinge, 
 something in his aesthetic taste was gratified. 
 This startled, shrinking reserve was quite in 
 keeping with his ideal of Athelyn. There 
 was a purity as of flawless crystal about 
 her ; he could look through and through 
 the transparent soul ; and just a touch of 
 shy recoil, in this early stage, from his ad- 
 vances, was sufficiently pleasing to his fasti- 
 dious and practised taste, and harmonious 
 with his poetic ideal of her nature, to heal 
 the wound to his self-love. 
 
 " Well, no matter," he said, smiling, and 
 no man had a sweeter, more thoroughly 
 sympathetic smile than Harold Parkhurst.
 
 IN THE FOLD. 71 
 
 ** Monday is not far off. Fll see you then.'* 
 
 She smiled too, relieved that he showed 
 no sign of offence or hurt feeling; yet 
 possibly, down in the depths of her heart, 
 there was a little — ^just a shade — of some- 
 thing not unlike disappointment. 
 
 " I'm glad I have seen your home," he 
 said. " Now I can picture you here. 
 When 1 think of you, I shall see you in this 
 garden — with the dogs." 
 
 "In the yard with a plate of bones would 
 be a less romantic picture," she said, gaily. 
 
 " I don't know. I didn't think there was 
 much wanting in the picture when I looked 
 over the gate. It was you at home — and it 
 is you in your home that I shall remember. 
 It's a nice thing to have a home, I suppose," 
 he added, with the faintest tinge of bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 " Have you not got one ?" 
 
 ^' I ? Do I look as if I had a home ? A
 
 72 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 wandering Bohemian — a vagabond artist — 
 living from hand to mouth ! " 
 
 She did not utter her thought aloud — 
 which was that his general appearance did 
 not impress her as being at all in accord- 
 ance with his last phrase. There was a cer- 
 tain intentional and picturesque neglige 
 about his felt hat, his loose collar and care- 
 less tie ; Athelyn's acquaintance with " wan- 
 dering Bohemians" was small, and she 
 wondered, did ''vaefabonds livinsf from hand 
 to mouth " as a rule wear sapphire studs, 
 and the finest of linen, and most faultless of 
 coats and boots, to say nothing of a ring set 
 with one great brilliant ? 
 
 She learned afterwards to know that 
 there was in Harold Parkhurst a touch of 
 that pleasure in personal luxury and orna- 
 ment which survives from the barbarian 
 with his red glass beads. His was the 
 form of civilised Bohemianism that is pass-
 
 IN THE FOLD. 73 
 
 ably indifFerent to genuine comfort, but 
 must have an outward show of luxury. 
 
 " Once I had a home," he resumed. 
 *' A little cottage on the banks of the 
 Thames. But when my mother died, 1 
 had looked my last on such a thing as a 
 home." 
 
 " You have not any father ? or sisters 
 ^nd brothers, then ?" 
 
 ^' No such appendages. I'm free from all 
 domestic ties. Is it a good thing or a bad 
 thing, I wonder, to be so free ?" 
 
 '* How can it be a good thing to be free 
 from ties that mean — " she hesitated a mo- 
 ment, then added, frankly, '* that mean love 
 and home ?" 
 
 '' Some natures can't bear bonds. Even 
 the domestic chain may gall sometimes. At 
 least, so I should fancy. I don't know. I 
 never experienced what it was to be fet- 
 tered."
 
 74 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Athelyn looked startled, puzzled. These 
 
 sentiments were new to her. She did not 
 
 « 
 
 approve of them ; she felt they ought io hixve 
 repelled her ; yet somehow they did not. 
 
 "I've a snug studio in town just now," 
 he continued, reverting from the meta- 
 phorical to the actual. " That's my nearest 
 approach to a home. The same old rugs 
 and tapestries have been with me in Rome 
 — in Paris — in Stuttgart — London. I never 
 settle long in one place. Here to-day and 
 gone to-morrow. Next week I hand over 
 my quarters to another fellow and cut Eng- 
 land for a year. Here in your garden to- 
 day — on the sea on my way to India next 
 week." 
 
 *' India !" she echoed, looking up. ^' Are 
 you going to India ?" 
 
 He noticed a faint colour flush and fade 
 on her cheek, and triumphed. 
 
 *' Yes, I'm off directly I leave Lakeside.
 
 IN THE FOLD. 75" 
 
 111 fact, I should probably have gone this 
 week, but — I wanted to have another day 
 or two there, like the last. I'm going to 
 sketch Hindoo temples — ruins ; get a port- 
 folio full of scenes ; and then India is a 
 quarter of the globe I've not been in yet. 
 In a year I shall be back." 
 
 " Have you travelled much ?" she asked, 
 her tone unconsciously lightening as he 
 spoke of coming back. 
 
 '*Not half so much as I could wish. I 
 was born in Cuba ; I went back there a few 
 years ago for a trip — ran through the United 
 States and over to the South Sea Isles. 
 Sometimes I wish I'd stayed there ! One 
 learns there what colouring is. These skies 
 of ours are tame," glancing ungratefully up 
 at the blue June heavens. " Then I have 
 wintered in Egypt and Palestine — and I 
 have dipped down into Algiers. But some- 
 how London has always drawn me back.
 
 76 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 That giant among cities is a world in itself. 
 There you need not seek ; you stand on 
 the shore, and every wave of the world 
 comes to you ; every relic from the Anti- 
 podes is washed up at your feet in time." 
 
 " You love London ?" she said, with 
 brightening eyes. "So do I. It is my 
 other home, you know. We live there 
 with my grandfather a great part of the 
 year." 
 
 "You do? Then there, when I come 
 back, we shall meet. But it is not in Lon- 
 don that I shall think of you when I'm in 
 India. This is the frame in which I shall 
 set the picture !" 
 
 He glanced briefly round the blooming 
 garden, and looked long upon her face ; the 
 picture seemed to attract him more than the 
 frame. 
 
 ''A sweet, peaceful home," he said. 
 ^' And your mother — she is like you." His
 
 IN THE FOLD. 77 
 
 tone made the word a flattery. "She is as 
 beautiful as I could have imagined. I shall 
 often and often look back from India to 
 this day." 
 
 " I am glad," she said, softly. 
 
 '' And you — will you remember me for a 
 whole year?" 
 
 " I think I can — even for a whole lono^ 
 year." 
 
 She spoke lightly and smiling, with no 
 forced smile. The thought of his going 
 away did not touch her with any regret at 
 this time. Between that then and this now 
 stood the delightful prospect of Lakeside. 
 His absence lay on the other side of that, 
 and looked far away ; and the present hour 
 was sweet — although she did not realise 
 Iwio sweet. 
 
 They were a pleasant trio round the 
 luncheon-table. Mrs. Hastings was a 
 charminf^ hostess. She was more talkative
 
 78 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 than Athelyn, who on the whole was al- 
 ways rather silent than conversational, un- 
 less the subject under discussion interested 
 her especially. But her eyes were eloquent 
 and her silence sympatlietic enough for her 
 to well afford to be monosyllabic. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst talked about art, of which 
 the ladies knew enough to be good listeners, 
 if not to start original sentiments, and about 
 his travels, which they found, in their hearts, 
 a more interesting topic. He by no means 
 banished the auto-biographical from, his 
 conversation ; he had the appearance of 
 being rather communicative about himself 
 than the reverse, and yet, on looking back 
 when he had gone, they found they did not 
 know much about him. 
 
 After luncheon the three walked round 
 the gardens for another hour, and then Mr. 
 Parkhurst took his leave; he said (to the 
 mother, not to the daughter) that it was a
 
 IN THE FOLD. 79 
 
 day he should never forget, and it proved no 
 idle compliment. He never did forget that 
 June day. 
 
 '' How do you like him, mamma ?" asked 
 Athelyn, questioning her as well with her 
 candid eyes as with her words. 
 
 "Very much/' replied Mrs. Hastings, 
 promptly. " I was undecided for the first 
 five minutes ; 1 did not know whether I 
 liked either his face or his manner. But it 
 is a face that grows upon you. Is he an 
 intimate friend of Sir John's ?" 
 
 "They seemed on very friendly terms, 
 but I do not fancy they have known each 
 other long." 
 
 " He is going to India," Mrs. Hastings 
 said, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Yes," her daughter assented, cheerfully, 
 but she did not add, "He is coming back in 
 a year." And she did not tell her mother 
 a word of any part of their conversation.
 
 80 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Harold Parkhurst might well be satisfied ; 
 he was the first man in regard to whom 
 Athelyn Hastings had ever observed this 
 reserve — the first whose fiice had ever 
 looked into her dreams, or entered into the 
 airy castles of her reveries, as his did from 
 this day. 
 
 For his part, many a face as fair as hers 
 had filled the scope of his mental vision, 
 for a time, and then passed out of sight and 
 out of mind. But this girl not only pleased 
 his artist's eye, not only satisfied his some- 
 what fastidious taste, but somethimi in her 
 soul seemed to reach into his soul and touch 
 those finer chords that seldom a woman's 
 influence had stirred before. Subtly and 
 unconsciously she glided into his life that 
 day and took up her place — a place whence 
 no rival should oust her for evermore.
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTEH III. 
 
 A RED ROSE. 
 
 And all night long his face before her lived, 
 Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
 Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. 
 
 He had not dreamed she was so beautiful ; 
 
 Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, 
 
 For silent, though he greeted her, she stood 
 
 Rapt on his face. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 TT is the night before Lady Manville's 
 ■- birthday ball. Lakeside is full of 
 guests who have arrived that day. 
 
 High up in the heavens a midsummer 
 moon hangs like a sphere of glowing amber ; 
 round their queen a court of pale stars 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 crowd the sky with their fitful twinkling 
 lights. Not an enemy in the shape of a 
 cloud intrudes a shadow among them ; the 
 lady-moon and her handmaidens hold 
 supreme sway over all the sky. The mellow 
 golden rays pour down upon the ivy-clad 
 tower of the old wing of Lakeside, on the 
 bare white walls of the new wing, on the 
 light slopes of turf and the dark clumps of 
 plantation, on the sleeping pools that lie 
 still and shining as glass ; the boats asleep 
 on their waveless surface, the willow 
 scarcely stirring its dipping boughs. 
 
 Most of the Lakeside party are out in the 
 grounds, wandering about in pairs. The 
 drawing-room is deserted ; the piano, which 
 usually at that hour is eloquent, silent. In 
 the billiard-room Sir John Manville is 
 having a game of pool with a couple of 
 kindred souls ; the stronger sex are in great 
 force amongst the party this time, so that
 
 A BED ROSE. 83 
 
 there will be no danger of early wall-flowers 
 and partnerless damsels to-morrow. Be- 
 sides these three, there is not one of the 
 select circle left within the walls of Lake- 
 side ; all the rest have strayed out one after 
 ^ another into the bright June night ; one 
 pair promenading straight up and down the 
 avenue, one pair lost among the lights and 
 shadows of the shrubberies, others flitting 
 like black and white ghosts — always a black 
 ghost and a white ghost together — about 
 the paths that skirt the lawn. Amongst 
 these pairs are Mr. Parkhurst and Miss 
 Hastings. 
 
 They have been talking art — Mr. Park- 
 hurst is not above talking " shop " to a sym- 
 pathetic spirit, and Athelyn is quite well up 
 by this time in the intended treatment of 
 the picture to which a Hindoo temple is to 
 form the background; they have been quoting 
 poetry, and discussing their favourite poets, 
 
 g2
 
 84 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ancient and modern ; now they have fallen 
 into silence. Somehow, quietly and un- 
 demonstratively, he has taken her hand, 
 and she leaves it passively in his without a 
 word or a gesture of remonstrance. 
 
 She half wonders at herself for this ; it is 
 the first time she has yielded even a tacit 
 encouragement to any demonstration beyond 
 verbal flattery. Of that she is tolerably 
 well accustomed to stand strong doses. 
 But hitherto she has always held herself 
 aloof, with an innate reserve that is not in 
 the least degree either shy or haughty, 
 from any further advance. There is a 
 kind of gentle frost icing her round, which 
 now seems suddenly and strangely thawing. 
 She is conscious of this with a faint surprise ; 
 but she is so calmly happy walking there 
 with him in tlie fair June moonlight that 
 no wonder nor doubt nor thought of any 
 kind can touch her to trouble her.
 
 A RED ROSE. 85 
 
 ^' How still and peaceful and lovely it is 
 here," she says, looking up at the sky alight 
 with its myriad lamps. 
 
 ''Peaceful," he repeats. "And you are 
 as peaceful as the night, are you not?" 
 
 " Yes," she answers, simply. " I always 
 am in the moonlight. It sheds such a 
 beautiful hush and calm over everything." 
 
 "To-morrow night won't be like this. 
 It will be all stir and bustle, brass bands 
 and gas-light. You will like that too ?" 
 
 " Yes," she responds, animatedly. " I am 
 catholic in my tastes. I can appreciate 
 all forms of enjoyment. Will it not be 
 pretty in there " (nodding towards the con- 
 servatory, the open door of which they are 
 just passing) *'when all the Chinese lanterns 
 are hung up ? And there are to be globes 
 of all-coloured lights round the archway 
 too, you know, and lamps outlining this 
 path."
 
 86 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ^' I like it better to-night than I shall in 
 to-morrow's glare of red and green light,"" 
 he saj^s. 
 
 Athelyn pauses on the threshold of the 
 conservatory, which to-night is only lit by 
 two swinging lamps. They are standing in 
 a broad cross-stream of the mingled lights 
 of lamp and moon, and her hand which has 
 rested so still begins to twist itself uneasily 
 in his. He releases it directly. 
 
 " Are you cold ?" he asks, looking down 
 at her thin white dress, over which she has 
 neither shawl nor scarf 
 
 ''No— but— it is a little cool, isn't it?" 
 she replies, inconsistently. 
 
 ** Come in here, it's a pretty nook," he 
 suggests, and they go up the two broad 
 steps into the conservatory accordingly. 
 
 There is a great glass tank, cool and re- 
 freshing to look at, surrounded with rock- 
 work, wherein gold fish show their shining
 
 A RED ROSE. 87 
 
 sides as they glide and turn ; there are 
 flowers of every kind and clime, from the 
 temperate to the tropic zone ; there are rare 
 ferns growing as big as trees ; the air is 
 warm with colour and heavy with perfume. 
 In cosy corners in the shade of the flower- 
 ing shrubs there are low, lounging chairs, 
 in two of which Mr. Parkhurst and Athelyn 
 Hastings instal themselves. 
 
 He is silent, looking at her, and she finds 
 nothing more original to say than, 
 
 "Are not the flowers lovely ?" reaching 
 out her hand to bend a branch of azalea 
 towards her. 
 
 " Yes," he assents, indifl'erently, and adds 
 with abrupt earnestness, "But that's the 
 flower I want. Will you give me that 
 rose r 
 
 He indicates a deep red rose, which she 
 wears fastened on the lace fichu of her 
 dress by a gold arrow brooch.
 
 88 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ''To keep in your pocket between a 
 tobacco-poucli and a cigar-case ?" she asks. 
 
 '^ Perhaps," he answers, with a sort of 
 obstinacy in his tone. ''But will you give 
 it me?" 
 
 " It is off our favourite tree," she says, 
 answering neither yea nor nay to his 
 request; " mamma cut it this morning, and 
 I brought it here with damp moss round 
 the stalk to keep it fresh." 
 
 " And I am to have it now, am I not ?" 
 
 She looks up half hesitatingly. His pale 
 picturesque face, with the dark brows and 
 hollowed cheeks, although there is little 
 real beauty about its thin, clear-cut features, 
 has a strange fascination for her now ; and 
 under the demand of the deep-set piercing 
 eyes she cannot say him nay. She raises 
 her hand and slowly unclasps the golden 
 arrow that holds the rose in its place. 
 
 He takes the flower from her with his
 
 A RED ROSE. 89 
 
 left hand, and with the right clasps both of 
 hers together. Her hands are very slight and 
 delicate — useless-looking white rose-leaves 
 of hands, whose satin-softness no work has 
 ever marred. His are not large, but 
 bronzed and sinewy, and strong as fine 
 steel. He clasps those fragile fingers of hers 
 together with a sort of masterful energy. 
 
 '* I will keep this rose," he says, " till I 
 die, or till I forget you. I wonder which 
 will come first?" 
 
 '' The last I should certainly say," she 
 answers, lightly, but with a fluttering in her 
 breath that shakes her voice a little. 
 
 "Maybe," he agrees; ''but meanwhile I 
 have got the rose ! And " 
 
 He pauses and draws a little nearer to 
 her. Out-of-doors in the shadows and half 
 lights she had left her hand peacefully in 
 his. Here, with the lamp rays shining on her 
 face, she is not at peace ; her heart flutters.
 
 90 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 her hand trembles, and a deep blush slowly 
 suffuses her cheek ; she shrinks back just a 
 little, and tries to release her fingers from 
 his clasp. Still her e3^es do not droop or flee 
 from his gaze, but meet it with their lovely 
 shy, startled look that none but he has ever 
 seen in them. 
 
 He thinks as he looks into those eyes 
 that they have a stranger, rarer beauty than 
 any woman's eyes he ever met before. 
 They have the shining and the depth of 
 moonlit seas — all the tints of the summer 
 night seem to blend and melt in their 
 mysterious liquid lights. Her head is set 
 on the rounded white throat like that of a 
 Greek goddess; her face seems to hiui 
 pure and perfect as a pearl ; a subtle frag- 
 rance floats up to him from the great rich 
 coils of her midnidit hair. 
 
 They are alone in the deserted conserva- 
 tory, and this girl whose only half-reluctant
 
 A RED ROSE. 91 
 
 hand he holds is lovely as a dream. And 
 a kiss is but a trifle to him ; only a common 
 cheap wild-llower, to be idly plucked and^ 
 tossed away and forgotten, as so many such 
 blossoms have been by him, the motto of 
 whose light loves might be 
 
 " The best and the worst of this is 
 That neither is most to blame, 
 If you've forgotten my kisses 
 And I've forgotten your name !" 
 
 Yet for once Harold Parkhurst resists 
 temptation — because for once he is moved 
 by more than romance or passion, fancy or 
 flirtation ; he is really in love with Athelyn 
 Hastings. 
 
 He lets go of the shy tremulous little 
 hands; and a half smile stirs under the 
 heavy black moustache — an inscrutable 
 smile that is as sad as it is tender. 
 
 " You want a bit of bright colour there," 
 he says, suddenly dropping the lover and
 
 92 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 becoming the artist. " One of those red 
 camellias will do to replace the rose." 
 
 Then he goes off into abstract questions 
 of colour, and leaves sentiment alone for 
 the rest of the evening. 
 
 Flirtation is a common thing at Lakeside ; 
 it seems to be catching; it pervades the 
 atmosphere. Flirtations begun here have 
 ended in matches ere now ; happy pairs 
 have been brought together under that 
 hospitable roof where a hostess young and 
 gay and sympathetic presides, and in those 
 romantic grounds where the chaperon has 
 not been known to follow. There is some 
 harmless chaff, but no tea-table scandal, 
 there ; and any young couple w4io may be 
 either flirting or making love need not 
 feel themselves embarrassingly conspicuous. 
 Nevertheless Lady Manville's wandering 
 attention is attracted b}^ the mutual absorp- 
 tion of two of her guests.
 
 A RED ROSE. 93 
 
 Harold Parkhurst has come there leaving 
 his history behind him. No evil stories 
 have followed him to Lakeside; no one 
 there knows any bad or any good about 
 him. Still he is a man who somehow can 
 nowhere pass unnoticed. As he moves 
 amongst a crowd, there is always more than 
 one individual's fair share of observation 
 following his tall, spare, lissome figure, with 
 a certain indescribable unconventionalism 
 about its every movement, his dark Rem- 
 brandt-like head, with the vigorous hair 
 curling low on the level brows. 
 
 He has that fatal gift of fascination which 
 whether in man or woman oftener leads its 
 owner in the end to woe than weal, which 
 works the mischief that not seldom recoils 
 on the worker, yet which all who lack it 
 covet, and all who possess it wield as a 
 weapon it would be shame to sheathe. For 
 the gift means triumph of conquest and
 
 94 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 vain-glor}^ of power, although it rarely fails 
 sooner or later to draw down the thunders 
 on the head it crowns. 
 
 Lad}^ Manville ignores Captain Jarvis's 
 admiration of the meek-eyed Madonna-like 
 Dorcas Bartlett, and passes by unobserved 
 the flirtation between the Reverend Alfred 
 and the too-captivating Mrs. Sinclair ; but 
 she notices Mr. Parkhurst's attention to 
 Athelyn Hastings. 
 
 " I provided Mr. Parkhurst especially 
 for 3^ou, my dear," she says gaily to Athelyn, 
 iato whose room she has come fluttering^ in 
 her light butterfly way for a few minutes 
 good night chat. " And upon my word I 
 think it has been a most successful pro- 
 vision." 
 
 ''I am sure I am satisfied if you are," 
 laughs Athelyn. 
 
 *' It's a regular case," pursues Sophy 
 Manville, with a satisfied smile ; she likes
 
 A RED ROSE. 95 
 
 the shelter of her roof to be propitious to 
 the little god of Love who has done so well 
 for her. Has she not got the best husband, 
 and the loveliest baby, and the finest house 
 for miles around ? "I know the symptoms 
 of the fever well, and he's got it — rather a 
 bad case too, I think ; and upon my word," 
 she adds, scrutinising Athelyn's crimsoned 
 face, " I believe you have got a touch of 
 it!" 
 
 "Is it so easily taken?" the girl asks, 
 smiling, but secretly invoking malisons on 
 her own guiltily blushing cheeks. 
 
 " It's catching, my child — catching, but 
 you shouldn't catch it from — or for — a 
 ' detrimental,' if you can help it, and I'm 
 afraid Parkhurst is a most decided detri- 
 mental ; but then, you perverse girl ! I 
 never knew you flirt with an eligible man, 
 if there was a penniless student or a crack- 
 brained poet at hand! And, by-the-by,
 
 96 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Athelyn, what would Paul Severne say to 
 your latest, if he were here?" 
 
 *' What he generally says if I waltz three 
 times or sit out a dance with anyone, and 
 that is — nothing ! He only looks down on 
 me from an immeasureable height, as if I 
 were a child at play, and probably pulls a 
 pamphlet on the Progressive Development 
 of Humanity out of his pocket and recom- 
 mends it to me as a sobering study." 
 
 " I know you play at Platonics with him," 
 responds Lady Manville, '* but I never yet 
 knew platonic friendships last — as friend- 
 ships. Some day he'll fling himself at 
 your feet, and ask you to go shares in his 
 attic in London and all his flourishing 
 estates in the air." 
 
 " Sophy, what an absurd idea !" exclaims 
 Athelyn, with a genuine burst of merriment. 
 "Fancy dear old Paul at anybody's feet! 
 he is safely wedded to his theories and to 
 humanity in general."
 
 A RED ROSE. 97 
 
 ''There never was a man, my dear," 
 strikes in her friend, briskly — '' even a 
 philanthropist, who wouldn't divorce human- 
 ity in general when he fell in love with one 
 w^oman in particular !" 
 
 " Which Paul is not in the least likely to 
 do ; he is seeking his ideal woman, I fancy — 
 I wish him joy, if ever he finds her ; and 
 you may rest assured, Sophy, that our 
 friendship will last safely enough as friend- 
 ship, if never a friendship did before !" 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 
 
 CHAPTEH TV. 
 
 "do you love me?" 
 
 tree-girt ways 
 Wherein we wandered ? Oli, the happy place 
 Where first I burst on Love and Love on me ! 
 
 P. B. Marston. 
 
 II /TR. PARKHURST is one of those black 
 -^*-*- swans occasionally found among the 
 stronger sex, and once in a cycle it is to be 
 Tioped even among the daughters of Eve, in 
 whose nature the element of gossip has 
 neither part nor lot. It may be from want 
 ■of sympathy or from self-concentration that 
 he is so lacking in that important quality of 
 humanity ; but the fact remains, in his con-
 
 *' DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 99 
 
 versation as in his thoughts, the elf of gossip 
 in no guise ever shows its impish or angelic 
 face. He never talks about other people ; 
 but, by way of balance, other people talk a 
 great deal about him. In the evening Lady 
 Manville has honoured him by observing with 
 interest his attention to Athelyn Hastings. 
 The next morning after breakfast he comes 
 under discussion asain amono^st the ladies 
 of the party. 
 
 The men have one and all shunned the 
 precincts of the drawing-room and left it 
 sacred to their wives, sisters, and sweet- 
 hearts — daughters there do not happen to 
 be any at this time at Lakeside. A fragrance 
 dear to masculine noses creeping through 
 the keyhole of the smoking-room is the 
 only sign of manly presences in the house. 
 In their respected shrine, for whose sacred- 
 ness they are not so grateful as they might 
 have been, the maids and matrons are
 
 100 A BKOKEN FAITH. 
 
 whiling away the time in languid chit-chat 
 and fancy work. 
 
 Miss De Vere, whom female society avow- 
 edly ' ' bores !" is lounging on an ottoman near 
 the piano, stifling a yawn behind a piece of 
 music; Athelyn Hastings is picking out 
 a tune with one hand and carrying on a 
 feeble accompaniment of small talk with 
 Miss Bartlett, none of them seeming to 
 have energy to achieve a song or a fantasia 
 to so limited an audience. 
 
 The hostess and two or three other 
 ladies form another group, mostly occupied 
 with embroidery, and flitting lightly from 
 flower to flower in the sweet garden of 
 gossip. 
 
 '' By-the-by, dear Lady Manville, who is 
 this Mr. Parkhurst?" inquires pretty Mrs. 
 Sinclair, with mild interest — only mild, be* 
 cause hitherto the gentleman in question has 
 not paid her much attention.
 
 *' DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 101 
 
 " An artist," is the prompt if not very 
 comprehensive reply. 
 
 " A wolf, who goes about seeking whom 
 he may devour," briskly interposes Mrs. 
 Archer, a piquant widow who arrived the 
 day before, who knows everybody's bio- 
 graphy and never gives her authorities, but 
 whose statements are somehow always ac- 
 cepted as authentic. 
 
 Athelyn ceases running over the keys, 
 and edges nearer to the embroidering 
 group. 
 
 '' I always trust wolves who wear their 
 natural skin," observes Lady Manville, 
 *^ and Mr. Parkhurst makes no pretence to 
 a sheep's clothing, so I put my faith in him." 
 
 "A wolf and an artist ; not the first time 
 the terms have been coupled ! — but what 
 more ?" asks Mrs. Sinclair, gently persistent ; 
 she likes to know the "who and what" of 
 everyone.
 
 102 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " I did hear once that he was the son of 
 an old Jew who made money of some new 
 oil and changed his name from Isaacs to 
 Parkhurst, and married a Portuguese lady of 
 rank. But I don't believe a word of it," 
 says Lady Manville. 
 
 •' No, there's not a word of truth in it," 
 says Mrs. Archer, scornfully, with her air of 
 unquestionable authority. '' And his wolf- 
 like qualities I imagine to be hereditary — that 
 is, if he's the man I take him for. I recog- 
 nised the name at once." 
 
 "Well, who is he, then?" inquire the 
 others, eagerly, in a breath, his hostess add- 
 ing stoutly, '' A very nice fellow, whether 
 he's English, Portuguese, or Hebrew, wolf" 
 or sheep." Athelyn does not enter into the 
 conversation, but in a casual way occupies 
 herself looking over some books on a table 
 in the nearer neighbourhood of the matrons, 
 who are absorbed in their congenial topic.
 
 '' DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 10,^ 
 
 ^' Parkhurst, 3^ou know, is a name in the 
 Brantyre family, a grandmother's, great* 
 aunt's, or something's name," observes Mrs. 
 Archer, with a sort of mild importance. 
 
 ^' And is he connected with the Brantyre 
 family, then?" 
 
 " Not on the right hand," the authority re- 
 plies, significantly. ''I know the whole story." 
 She lowers her voice, and the others lay 
 down their embroidery. " Old Lord Brantyre 
 was rather wild in his youth, you know." 
 They had not known, but they look as if 
 the fact was matter of history. '• He went 
 out to Cuba and picked up some Spanish 
 girl, a girl of good family, I believe — a 
 planter's daughter. 
 
 '' There was a row out there, I heard, with 
 an indignant brother, but it was hushed up 
 somehow, and when he came back to England 
 he brought her with him. She used to be 
 Mrs. Parkhurst, and there was supposed to be
 
 104 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 an absent Parkburst, but he was never seen 
 nor heard of. There was a son — a little boy 
 with a taste for art — who used to draw with 
 a bit of charcoal on the walls and be shown 
 off to visitors, for she managed to get into a 
 certain circle. Well, after Lord Brantyre 
 came into the peerage and married Miss 
 Chetwynd ; there w^as never anything more 
 heard of the soi-dismit Mrs. Parkhurst and 
 her son. She died some years ago, I be- 
 lieve. You see, the links of the chain are 
 pretty clear." 
 
 Everyone as usual accepts Mrs. Archer's 
 facts and deductions. 
 
 '' How very interesting !" 
 
 " That accounts for his seeming to have 
 no family — not such a thing as a relation in 
 the world." 
 
 "The story is not very generally known," 
 Mrs. Archer says, with the modesty befitting 
 her superiority of information. " I daresay
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 105 
 
 Lord Brantyre would rather this young 
 fellow didn't make the name conspicuous, 
 but he is quite a genius, I hear, and will 
 make people talk one day." 
 
 They drift off from Harold Parkhurst in 
 particular to art and artists in general, and 
 Athelyn's interest in the discussion flags. 
 Still she lingers by and listens, wondering 
 if they will not speak of him again. By 
 the time that it becomes evident that they 
 have wandered far away from him, and for * 
 the hour forgotten him, she is weary of the 
 drawing-room gossip ; life indoors seems to 
 have lost its savour for her, and she strolls 
 out into the garden. 
 
 It is sunny and beautiful there, and she 
 saunters away along, thinking on the only 
 subject that this day interests her much. 
 Lady Manville's piece of hearsay gossip she 
 scouts and snubs as utterly as Mrs. Archer 
 had done. Son of a Jew named Isaacs, the
 
 106 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 inventor of an oil^ indeed ! Simply absurd ! 
 But son of a Spanish lady and an English 
 peer, alone in life and worse than orphaned, 
 that was probable enough. And had he 
 not spoken of Cuba as his birthplace? 
 
 What eyes he has ! — sad, strange, and 
 unfathomable ; not English eyes. She re- 
 collects that, in the first hour she saw him^ 
 her signalement of him began with '' Spanish 
 eyes." She is thinking far more of ivliat he 
 is than who he is. He is utterly unlike her 
 blond and athletic ideal with the Herculean 
 frame and the fair open Saxon face, and yet 
 she cannot help acknowledging to herself 
 that there is a curious charm about him. 
 He is not in the least like any other man 
 she has ever seen, she reflects, and in this 
 she hits the secret of his attraction. Pre- 
 sently she hears firm, leisurely footsteps 
 crunch the gravel, and looking up, as she 
 Dears a turning in the path, finds herself
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 107 
 
 confronted by the object of her thoughts. 
 He, too, is alone, and there is no room for 
 doubt as to the genuineness of the quick, 
 glad smile that lights up his face as they 
 meet. 
 
 Half an hour later the early noonday sun 
 is blazing down full upon the broad lazy 
 pools that gave Lakeside its name. A 
 former proprietor had called it " The 
 Ponds," bat as the estate grew and flour- 
 ished, and embraced field after field, and 
 spread from fence to fence, and on the 
 house added stories arose and fresh rooms 
 were thrown out, a more ambitious and 
 euphonious title was bestowed upon it. 
 
 If the two pools are not strictly speaking 
 large enough to be called lakes, they are 
 big enough to boast of a bridge, a boat, a> 
 punt, swans, water-lilies, weeping-willows,„ 
 and the larger one even of an island.
 
 108 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 The island is like the Prisoner of Chillon's 
 ^' small green isle," inasmuch as 
 
 " On it there are three tall trees. 
 And on it there are young flowers growing 
 Of gentle breath and hue !" 
 
 But it is larger than that Byronic spot which 
 the British tourist rows around, and fain 
 would land upon, did not the steep and 
 railed-in sides forbid (though the adven- 
 turous American has been known to scale 
 the barriers and whittle a souvenir from the 
 tallest of the tliree tall trees) . On the Lake- 
 side island there are three great elm-trees, 
 to say nothing of the modestly drooping 
 willow and straggling nut-bushes and slim 
 saplings that will shoot up to the height of 
 the tall trees in time. The banks are 
 •covered with wild-flowers; the pale blue 
 eye of the forget-me-not peeping shyly 
 among the brighter blossoms and deep green 
 glossy leaves of the periwinkle ; the fragile
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 10^ 
 
 convolvulus droops from the trunks of the 
 trees ; here and there the wild peppermint 
 perfumes the air with its keen spicy odour, 
 and the tall willow-herb bends its rosy 
 head. On the grassy slope that forms the 
 landing-place of the island, Mr. Parkhurst 
 and Miss Hastings — truants still from the 
 general body of the party — are standing, 
 with the boat from which they have just 
 landed at their feet, its oars lying idly in 
 the thwarts, as still as the leaves of the 
 weeping-willows that dip into the sleepy 
 shallow water in which there is scarcely a 
 ripple to blur the outline of each little 
 pebble shining beneath. 
 
 A swan comes sailing towards them, 
 curving its long white snake of a neck and 
 glancing at them with keen mild eyes. 
 
 " He thinks we have some bread. Why 
 did you not think of putting a biscuit in 
 your pocket ?" says Athelyn, reproachfully.
 
 110 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 "That's like a woman!" he replies. 
 ^^^ She never forgets! No, my friend !" ad- 
 
 . dressing the swan who is coasting along 
 with inquiring looks. " No biscuit here. 
 It was / who forgot it, of course. The 
 truth is, I was only thinking of myself — and 
 
 •of this young lady at my side." He looks 
 at Athelyn, half smilingl}^, half intently. 
 " An island isn't half a bad institution," he 
 adds. " We might be two Crusoes here, if 
 it were not for the boat that is to take us 
 back to the world. I feel a nfrud^e ao^ainst 
 
 o o o 
 
 that boat — it looks as if it was waiting for 
 us!" 
 
 He sets his foot on the boat and stoops 
 to pick up one of the oars, and so doing 
 glances up at her again. She is standing 
 half in the sunshine, half in the shade of 
 one of the tall trees, the wavering flecks of 
 light playing about her like showers of 
 bright petals shaken from some sun-gold
 
 '^ DO YOU LOVE ME ?" Ill 
 
 rose ; the warmth of summer is glowing on 
 her cheek; a dreamy smile just parts her 
 lips. She is as thoughtlessly happy as a 
 child — happier than if her penniless Bohem- 
 ian companion had been a millionaire with 
 broad acres and ancestral walls in his gift. 
 
 Half on an impulse and half by an acci- 
 dent — he could scarcely himself have told 
 you the next moment which it was — he 
 pushes the boat off the sloping shore, and it 
 drifts away among the water-lilies, scaring 
 back the swan. Then he turns to Athelyn 
 and laughs. He has for a man a singularly 
 soft and sweet-toned laugh, though a sus- 
 picious woman might have detected an 
 undertone in it which would possibl}'' have 
 displeased and would certainly have set her 
 on her guard. 
 
 Athelyn only utters a gentle exclamation 
 of half-amused dismay. 
 
 '* What are we to do now ?" she says,
 
 112 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 looking at him in a laughing, child-like 
 appeal. 
 
 "What, indeed? Here we are, and 
 there's the boat." 
 
 '^ We might be Robinson Crusoes in 
 earnest now — which of us should be Man 
 Friday? — and oh, what a pity we haven't 
 got a gipsy kettle and sticks ; we might pic- 
 nic out here ! But, seriously," she adds, after 
 a moment's pause, glancing from him to the 
 drifting boat, round which the swan is sus- 
 piciously sailing on a voyage of inspection, 
 ** how are we to get back?" 
 
 "Are you in such a hurry, Athelyn?" he 
 asks ; he has never called her by her name 
 before. 
 
 " Well, not in a great hurry, but I don't 
 see how we are to get that boat," with her 
 eyes fixed upon it. 
 
 " Forget the boat," he says, half impa- 
 tiently, half tenderly, taking her hand in his.
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 113 
 
 '^Look up at me. Why hurry? is it not 
 lovely here ?" 
 
 "Yes, it is lovely," she answers, looking 
 up at him obediently ; " but — I wish " 
 
 There is a sort of timid, trustful appeal 
 in her tone. 
 
 He looks down into the very depths of 
 the sea-grey eyes, and reads there not one 
 glimmer of doubt, or fear, or anger, or 
 reproach ; coquetry there is none, then nor 
 ever, in her gaze. Athelyn's eyes can never 
 coquette ; all such spells may play in her 
 voice, her smile ; but those eyes, ever pure 
 and clear as deep, still waters, know no 
 look save that of the truth and purity of 
 her stainless soul. 
 
 He meets her look steadily, intently for 
 a few moments, then he says very softly 
 and tenderly, yet with a touch of distance in 
 his voice, 
 
 " I am sorry I set it adrift ; it was 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 thoughtless of me. I will get it back. 
 Must I try for it immediately ? Mayn't we 
 stay a little ?" 
 
 " If you wish — a few minutes," she 
 answers, half hesitatingly. 
 
 ''Not one minute against your will," he 
 rejoins, promptly. '* There, go you and sit 
 down under that tree, and I'll get the boat 
 back in a trice." 
 
 Athelyn obeys, and Mr. Parkhurst, not 
 wishing for an unnecessary wetting, hunts 
 about in the grotto near the landing-place 
 for some assistance, and is lucky enough to 
 find a punting-pole and a coil of rope, by 
 the aid of which, after a good deal of exer- 
 tion, and at the cost of some havoc among 
 the water-lilies and panic among the swans, 
 he manages to recapture the fugitive boat. 
 
 Then he rejoins Athelyn, whom he finds 
 sitting placidly on the bank in the shadiest 
 nook between the elm-trees : she has taken
 
 '' DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 115 
 
 her hat off, and is amusing herself by twin- 
 ing round it a wreath of wild flowers, with 
 a bunch of which she has already adorned 
 her sash. 
 
 " Well, the boat's ready at the landing- 
 place," he says, taking up his place at her 
 side, ''so now, I suppose, we needn't hurry? 
 You look pretty comfortable here ; you've 
 been occupying your time, I see — better 
 trimming than a brass buckle and a mur- 
 dered bullfinch, isn't it?" he observes, 
 picking up the flower-wreathed straw hat. 
 
 He fancies — it is only fancy — that she 
 returns his smile a shade more pensively and 
 coldly than usual. 
 
 " You are not angry ?" he says, gently. 
 
 " I angry — no ! why should I be ?" she 
 answers, in soft surprise. 
 
 " Don't be angry with me on our last day 
 together," he continues, almost pleadingly; 
 " we have only got to-day ; to-morrow 
 
 i2
 
 116 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 morning early I am off to London, then to 
 India. I ought to sing ' Kathleen Mavour- 
 neen ' under your window, oughtn't I ?" he 
 adds, with one of his sudden changes of 
 tone. " ' It may be for years, and it may be 
 for ever !' " 
 
 " That line would be appropriate, any- 
 how," she answers. Her smile is not so 
 frankly gay as usual ; the lightness of her 
 tone is forced. Neither of these signs is 
 lost upon Harold Parkhurst. 
 
 " It might be for ever, certainly," he 
 agrees. " India's a long way off. I won- 
 der, if I never came back, would you be the 
 least bit sorry ?" He waits a moment or 
 two, then persists — 
 
 *' Why don't you answer? Your silence 
 is uncomplimentary ! Would you be 
 sorry r 
 
 He wonders whether she will tell the 
 truth, or take refuge in some falsehood or
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 117 
 
 frivolit}^ Yesterday she might have done 
 the latter ; but to-day she answers steadily 
 and gently, though a blush is deepening 
 slowly in her cheek, 
 
 "Yes — I should be sorry." 
 
 *' Never fear!" he says, recklessly, with a 
 smile audaciously defiant of the fates. " T 
 shall come back ! Did a bad shilling ever 
 fail to turn up again ?" 
 
 There is a silence ; his keen falcon eyes 
 pierce into hers, seem to search her very 
 heart. Before his gaze she quivers and 
 turns her head away. He still looks at 
 her in silence, bends forward to watch the 
 averted face, notes the changing colour fade 
 and leave it very pale, sees the sensitive, 
 child-like lips tremble ; and his own eyes 
 soften strangely ; no trace of the audacious 
 searching, the half-scoffing defiance they 
 sometimes express is left in their tender 
 and yet reverent gaze.
 
 118 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ^' Will you ever think of me when I am 
 far away ?" he asks. 
 
 '' Yes," she replies, faintly, her heart 
 fluttering like a w^ounded bird. He bends 
 his head nearer to her, and his arm steals 
 round her waist. 
 
 " Look up, Athelyn," he whispers, " don't 
 turn away ! To-day — our last day — you 
 will let me take the memory of one kiss 
 away with me ? — Athelyn — darling — ^just 
 one!" 
 
 She cannot speak ; but slowly she turns 
 her face to him, in obedience to a spell she 
 has neither power nor will to resist ; and 
 he takes from those beautiful lips the first 
 kiss they have ever yielded to mortal 
 man. 
 
 " When I come back," he says, '' a year 
 hence — perhaps more than a year — do you 
 think you will have forgotten me ?" 
 
 " I shall not forget you," she murmurs.
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 119 
 
 " I have wandered half over the world, 
 but I have seen no woman like you. You 
 have come into my life like an angel, bring- 
 ing a blessing, my white pure Athelyn ! 
 And you — you are not sorry to have met 
 me?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then some day," he goes on, clasping 
 her closer to his heart, " if I say to you, 
 Athelyn, my love, my only love ! I have 
 come back to my one good angel from the" 
 other side of the world, will you let the 
 wanderer stay and rest, and find a home at 
 last — a home and a haven here ?" 
 
 She is silent. A promise to her is sacred. 
 If she gives him this promise, she is pledged 
 for ever. It is so solemn a thing, she 
 pauses, with heaving breast and white 
 cheeks and startled eyes, and makes a faint 
 attempt to release herself from his arms. 
 
 *' Will you?" he urges. '^Or will you
 
 120 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 have forgotten me ? and shall I find vou 
 
 o 
 
 yoi 
 
 some other man's wife?'' 
 
 " I told you I should never forget you," 
 she answers, letting her hand droop back 
 into his softly as a falling blossom. ''And 
 I never shall ! And you will not find me 
 anyone else's wife. 1 — I have not thought 
 of marrying anyone at all." 
 
 " Then dont think of it !" he rejoins, 
 " not until I come back to you ! There 
 will be plenty of time then." 
 
 " Yes," she assents, with a faint smile 
 shyly playing about her lips, somewhat re- 
 lieved. 
 
 The first idea of an irrevocable bond, of 
 a plunge into the deep untried sea of mar- 
 riage, comes as a shock to a girl whose wild 
 shy heart has only freshly been tangled in 
 the spell of love, who does not comprehend 
 her captivity yet. 
 
 He is satisfied too ; let him only find her
 
 " DO YOU LOVE ME ?" 121 
 
 free on his return ; that is enough. He 
 lifts her fair face to his and kisses her again, 
 softly as if those lips of hers were rose- 
 leaves that he half feared to touch. Is it 
 hours or minutes that they linger there to- 
 gether, looking through the screen of droop- 
 ing boughs upon the sparkling water? 
 Neither of them could ever tell. 
 
 A rapt calm happiness is on Athelyn's 
 face, the wonder of a beautiful dream in her 
 eyes. The consideration whether this man 
 is in the regard of the world a good match 
 or a bad match never occurs to her ; she 
 does not even think " what manner of man 
 is this" in himself; nay, in this mirage-land 
 wherein she is wandering she has not even 
 put to herself the question which he pres- 
 ently puts to her, 
 
 " Do you love me, Athelyn?" 
 
 "Do I?" she murmured, dreamily. "Is 
 this Love ?"
 
 122 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 She did not know. She had thought 
 that Love was passion and pain. This was 
 joy and peace. All around was the warm 
 still smile of the fair mellow June day, and 
 her heart seemed as tranquil now as the 
 sunny water where the languid lilies slept. 
 She was rapt in a sort of blissful trance, as 
 if the world stood still, and all her future 
 and all her past were melted into this one 
 morning hour. 
 
 " Is this Love ?" she wondered, and her 
 e3^es appealed to his. 
 
 "If you do not love me, Athelyn," he 
 said, " you shall! For / love you r
 
 123 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "the dawn of the day that parts us." 
 
 Love is a day, Sweetheart, shining and bright, 
 It hath its rose-dawn ere the morning light — 
 Its glow and glory of the sudden sun — 
 Its noontide heat as the swift hours wear on — 
 Its fall of dew, and silver-lighted night — 
 Love is a day, Sweetheart, shining and bright! 
 Louise Chandler Moulton. 
 
 A LL the rest of that day passed like a 
 -^-^ dream to Athelyn. The happy 
 morning hours fled away ; the afternoon sun 
 flamed to its zenith and burned its bright 
 track slowly down the western skies. The 
 day ripened to the splendid dusk of a sum- 
 mer night ; and all earth seemed fair and
 
 124 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 peaceful as heaven, and Life a garden of 
 delight, in Athelyn's eyes. 
 
 Again and again she asked of her own 
 heart if this was Love, and wondered could 
 it be Love that shed this brightness over all 
 the world ? For if so, this maligned Love 
 was unjustly counted as a pitfall and a snare, 
 a passion and a pain ; it was a rose without 
 a thorn. Life had never seemed so peace- 
 ful, so beautiful to her as now. She walked 
 on the earth as one wandering in the fairest 
 ways of dreamland, and it seemed as air 
 beneath her feet. 
 
 Athelyn was ordinarily of an excitable 
 and nervous temperament ; but she felt now 
 neither excited nor agitated in the least de- 
 gree. The truth was that her nerves were 
 too highly strung for her to be conscious 
 that they were strained at all. The very 
 tensity of the strain prevented her from 
 feeling it. She was calm as one in a dream,
 
 " THE DAY THAT TARTS US !" 125 
 
 and had no idea that this was like the sultry 
 calm of air surcharged with the electricity 
 that must, some coming hour, burst into 
 storm. For she had been right in deeming 
 that all the elements of storm are com- 
 mingled in love ; only she did not dream of 
 the rain of tears bitter as barren seas and 
 the darkness as of great eclipse, folded in 
 the breast of the radiant cloud that floated 
 so peacefully across her sky and made all its 
 loveliness. 
 
 Lady Manville was too busy in superin- 
 tending the preparations for the night's 
 festivity, and the other guests too much 
 interested in their own proceedings, for 
 Mr. Parkhurst's and Miss Hastings's morning 
 wanderings to attract any attention ; and 
 Athelyn's sensitive varying colour was too 
 given to fitful flickerings and deepenings 
 for her vivid blush when Harold Parkhurst 
 bent to her ear to be anything noteworthy.
 
 126 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 It seemed odd to her to observe how utterly 
 unchanged all external things were, how like 
 herself she looked and spoke, how exactly 
 to-day was like to yesterday — while all her 
 world was transformed. 
 
 In the evening she dressed with a flutter- 
 ing pleasure, an anxious care she seldom 
 gave to her toilette. It seemed a new face 
 that looked back at her from the mirror, a 
 new light that shone in the deep sea-tinted 
 eyes. 
 
 She wore a dress of a rare and delicate 
 amber satin ; garlands of white lilies looped 
 around the skirt ; white lilies with gold 
 leaves in her dark hair ; no jewels save a 
 thick gold chain coiled round her neck and 
 broad gold bracelets on her slender pearl- 
 white arms. It was a costume that would 
 have killed a sallow and ruined a ruddy 
 complexion, but from which Athelyn's 
 lilies and roses — the purest of lilies and
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 127 
 
 the palest of roses — came out triumphantly. 
 The night was as much a dream to her as 
 the day. She knew she was looking her 
 best ; if her mirror had not told her so al- 
 ready, Harold Parkhurst's eyes would have 
 informed her of the fact the moment she 
 entered the room ; and although he made 
 no attempt to monopolise her — although, 
 with a magnanimity not generally expected 
 and only occasionally to be found in a lover, 
 he even said to her that "as he did not 
 waltz himself, he would introduce her to a 
 fellow who waltzed splendidly/' yet always, 
 wherever she went, she felt his eyes follow- 
 ing her. Through all that brilliant even- 
 ing, while the music clashed out its gayest, 
 gladdest strains, while the rooms were like 
 huge flower-beds touched by a magic wand 
 into life and every blossom whirling in a 
 mad Malstrom — light, colour, melody and 
 perfume all around — Athelyn abandoned
 
 128 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 herself to a keen enjoyment of the hour, 
 with a new sense thrilling under the surface 
 pleasure that made her feel as if she were 
 living two lives — one on earth and one a 
 dream, and both all joy. Hitherto she had 
 plunged into such pleasures as these and 
 enjoyed her small society-triumphs with the 
 simple zest of a child. Now, if one pair of 
 dark eyes had not followed her, the scent 
 would have gone out of the roses, the 
 colour out of the shifting scene, the melody 
 out of the music, for her. But she did not 
 know this yet ; the rose was without a thorn 
 so far. 
 
 Late in the night, when supper was over, 
 when the tired musicians, having availed 
 themselves of a pause to refresh exhausted 
 nature with champagne and chicken, had 
 returned to their labours — when the waltz 
 was whirling fast and furious, and a few 
 early dowagers had departed, and a few
 
 *' THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 129 
 
 energetic young people were asserting that 
 " now they were going to begin to enjoy 
 themselves," Mr. Parkhurst and Athelyn 
 wandered out into the garden The same 
 move had been made by others before 
 them. The night was still, and warm, and 
 fair, even at this coolest and darkest hour 
 that precedes the dawn ; the trees were 
 silent as sleep, a sprinkling of great bright 
 stars were shining still ; the lights from the 
 house streamed out of the open windows 
 and flickered on lawn and path, where 
 several couples were strolling about, or 
 resting from the dance in the cosy nooks in 
 which the grounds of Lakeside abounded, 
 on rustic benches under spreading trees, in 
 rose-wreathed arbours lurking round unex- 
 pected corners of the shrubbery. 
 
 On one of the garden-seats, under a great 
 chestnut-tree, Harold Parkhurst and Athe- 
 lyn sat down ; he had made her bring a scarf 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 with her, and insisted on wrapping it closely 
 round her with a sort of fond proprietor- 
 ship that thrilled her with a new sweet 
 sense of dependence. Athelyn was just the 
 type of woman who loves to be commanded 
 in trifles, and whom, from that quality, some 
 men misinterpret, and, taking that as the 
 key-note of the nature, think they have to 
 deal with a spirit they can model like wax 
 to their will. Sometimes they find out 
 their mistake too late; sometimes, if the 
 fair waxen saint remains on her pedestal, 
 they never find it out at all. 
 
 Although there was not a breath of wind, 
 the air at that hour is always fresh, and the 
 grass was cool with dew. 
 
 " You must not catch cold," Harold 
 Parkhurst said, drawing the shawl carefully 
 round her. *' I must leave you well to- 
 morrow, else I shall be anxious, leaving
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 131 
 
 you. You look so frail and ethereal, Athe- 
 lyn ; are you well and strong ?" 
 
 " Yes, strong enough. You must not 
 misjudge me by my looks ; I am one of 
 those people who are sent into the world 
 natural impostors ; we look much more 
 delicate than we are, and get a good deal 
 of sympathy we have no right to." 
 
 " You may be an impostor in that," re- 
 plied Harold ; " I hope you are, for you look 
 but a fragile little vessel to stand stormy 
 seas — almost too slight a skiff for a man to 
 • trust the cargo of all his hopes and his 
 future in. Be stronger than you look, if 
 you will — if you can ! It's the only thing 
 you will ever be an impostor in, I know. 
 From the moment I looked into your eyes, 
 I knew you were as true as you are 
 pure." 
 
 ^' I think I am true," she said, simply and 
 
 k2
 
 132 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 thoughtfully, ^' but — I have never been 
 tried." 
 
 "Yes, you are true," he said. "I 
 wonder, will you be true to me? — You 
 have not promised me, you remember. 
 You were too cautious to pledge yourself; 
 you have promised me nothing." 
 
 " Did I not ? If I did not, I— T," her 
 voice sank shyly — '' I will promise you 
 now " 
 
 "That you will marry me when I come 
 to claim you ?" 
 
 " That I will marry no one else." 
 
 "You promise that? Your word on 
 that !" he urged, almost vehemently, draw- 
 ing her close to his heart with a sort of 
 masterful tenderness, as if he claimed her 
 then and there as his right. 
 
 Athelyn was silent a moment ; then, 
 " I promise !" she said, with a fluttering of 
 the breath that was almost a sob — hesitat-
 
 '' THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 133 
 
 ing not from any regret or reluctance, but 
 because it seemed to her that she was cross- 
 ing a Rubicon then. 
 
 " That is selfish of me to ask," Harold 
 Parkhurst said, suddenly, after a pause. 
 ^'Selfish — unfair. I am going away to the 
 other side of the world. I ask you to 
 promise to keep true to me — when you do 
 not even know whether you love me or 
 not. And I ask you to say Nay to any 
 other man — who may be ten times more 
 worthy of you than I — for my vagabond 
 sake. No, it's not fair ! Look here, Athelyn, 
 take back your promise ! Just because you 
 are so true, and I believe you would hold 
 your word so sacred, I won t accept it from 
 you. Keep your life in your own hands. 
 Marry, if you will ! From the moment you 
 wish to be free, you are free for ever from 
 all claim from me !" 
 
 She made no answer in words, but with
 
 134 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 a gesture infinitely graceful in its shy half 
 shrinking tenderness she drew nearer to his 
 side and laid her hand in his. 
 
 He smoothed the silky coils of her dark 
 soft hair, and lifted her face gently to his, 
 and kissed her, as fondly as if in meeting, a& 
 tenderly as if it were a farewell. 
 
 "My darling!" he whispered, "if you 
 will learn to love me, my love shall make 
 you happy — shall shield you round and 
 keep trouble off you all your life ! No 
 man on earth could love you better than I 
 will do!" He paused. Perhaps his me- 
 mory brought back to him untimely echoes 
 of protestations whispered into other ears — 
 of kisses pressed upon other lips. Perhaps 
 a ghost rose up out of the past and looked 
 at him with reproachful eyes. Perhaps it 
 was in answer to some silent presence that 
 breathed in the chill of the morning, " Re- 
 member me !" that he spoke to Athelyn, as
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 135 
 
 if arguing against a doubt that she had 
 neither felt nor uttered. " I may have 
 fancied I loved before — but this is love at 
 last ! You are all that my ideal ever was. 
 Why should I wander from you when in 
 you I find all goodly things ?" 
 
 *' No, no," she murmured, protestingly ; 
 " they are not in me — they are in your 
 eyes that see me. I wonder, will you like 
 me when you know me better ?" 
 
 " I wonder !" he said, fondly, with a half 
 laugh, still caressing her hair. '' So you 
 have faults, Athelyn, have you ? Where 
 are they? How long must I know you 
 before I find them ?" 
 
 " Not long ; I wonder you have not found 
 some of them already, they are tolerably 
 near the surface." 
 
 *' I haven't seen them. I don't want to 
 see them. I want to take my ideal away 
 with me to India — to dream of my spotless
 
 136 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 white flower blooming here, without a 
 speck or flaw. But I don't want to be left 
 to have nothing but dreams. I want tangi- 
 ble and visible signs of you. I want letters. 
 I may write to you, may I not ? And you 
 will write to me ?" 
 
 *'Yes — sometimes." 
 
 ''Sometimes!" he echoed, half smiling, 
 half discontentedly. " No concession with- 
 out a condition — a limitation ! Are you 
 suspicious of me? do you mistrust me?" 
 
 " Suspicious ?" she said, lifting her head 
 in simple amazement. " Suspicious of you I 
 mistrust you /" 
 
 Her tone of puzzled astonishment was a 
 more eloquent refutation of the idea than 
 if she had protested ever so warmly. 
 
 " Ah, you do not ! That is well," he 
 said, softly, looking at her with something 
 yearningly tender and reverent in his 
 gaze.
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 137 
 
 Assuredly in avowing he loved her he had 
 taken no false vow. 
 
 The bench where they sat was facing the 
 east. Across the meadows a faint, faint 
 streak of opaline light was just perceptible 
 on the horizon ; the sky was beginning to 
 brighten ; the stars had paled. 
 
 " There is the dawn !" he said, '' the dawn 
 of the day that parts us two !" 
 
 " Have we been here so long ?" 
 
 '' Long ? Not ten minutes ! No need 
 for us to move yet. Hark to the Blue 
 Danube waltz ! they are spinning away in 
 there — will be spinning for the next hour 
 and more ! And look — do you see that 
 white dress behind those laurels ? There 
 are other people out besides ourselves. Stay 
 here awhile, Athelyn ; it will be many a 
 day before we two shall see daybreak to- 
 gether again." 
 
 She had no Avish to move. She was
 
 138 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 happy, and as yet she did not realise the 
 pain of parting, nor even the fact that this 
 was a parting hour. She only felt the hour 
 was sweet. 
 
 They sat and watched the ice-blue light 
 of dawn deepen — the feathery tree-tops 
 stand out in darker and sharper silhouettes 
 against the lightening sky. 
 
 " Do you know, Athelyn," he said, 
 abruptly breaking into a silence, ^' I am not 
 worthy of you — I have not led a good life." 
 
 '' Have you not ?" she replied, looking 
 at him with grave, tender, innocent eyes. 
 " I am sorry for that. But perhaps " 
 
 "Perhaps what?" He wondered what 
 conjecture about his past or future this child 
 could be going to utter. 
 
 " We are none of us," she said, hesitat- 
 ingly, " so good as we might be — as we 
 ought to be. And perhaps you — may over- 
 rate any faults of yours. We all have
 
 " TKE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 139 
 
 faults — so you are only like the rest. No- 
 body is perfect in the Avorld, they say — 
 though some people have seemed to me 
 good enough for Heaven. And — I think you 
 must be good." 
 
 She added these last words very softly;, 
 and her look said " I care for you — and 
 how could I care for you if you were not 
 good?'' 
 
 There was something in her look, in her 
 tone, in the utter trust and innocence of her 
 child-like words, that just touched a chord 
 in Harold Parkhurst's breast that was rarely, 
 if ever, stirred. A storm of sobs, a passion 
 of reproaches, the sigh of a last farewell, 
 would probably have moved him less than 
 this girl's quiet simple words. 
 
 He did not answer her ; he could not 
 trust his voice ; something had risen in his 
 throat that stopped his utterance, and as he 
 stared across the meadows, the horizon-line-
 
 140 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 — SO clear but now — seemed vague and 
 blurred. 
 
 Athelyn leant forward and looked up in 
 his face ; he turned his head away, but not 
 before she had seen that the dark, daring 
 eyes which had mastered and subjugated 
 her were strangely dim. A sort of electric 
 thrill ran through her ; she knew not 
 whether it was most of joy or pain. Only 
 her heart leapt, and stood still ; the blood 
 fled from her cheeks and lips and left her 
 white as marble, and if he had been striv- 
 ing to make her love him, in that moment 
 the battle was won ! the hour in which he 
 most utterly yielded he was conqueror. 
 
 On an impulse that swept away all 
 hesitant tremors of shyness, and thawed the 
 last thin ice that had shielded and saved her 
 heart from Love, she slid her gentle arms 
 round his neck and drew his head down on 
 her shoulder, and there was silence, broken
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 141 
 
 only by a few wild whispered words at last — 
 words spoken from soul to soul as only in a 
 few such supreme hours of life can man and 
 woman speak. 
 
 The veil of Night had melted all away 
 and left the sky one vault of purest sapphire. 
 A pale primrose ripple of light was surging 
 up in the East and breaking over the long 
 sweeping line of meadow land. 
 
 Side by side, and hand in hand, Harold 
 and Athelyn looked away to the shining' 
 horizon which, in that hour, was glorified to 
 them by— 
 
 " The light that never was on land or sea." 
 
 An hour afterwards the broad daylight 
 was streaming into the deserted ball-room, 
 whence — 
 
 " Half to the setting moon had gone, 
 And half to the rising day ; 
 Low on the sand and loud on the stone 
 The last wheel echoed away."
 
 142 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 The candles were burnt down in their 
 sockets, the flowers looked drooping; day 
 dispelled all the glamour of the night, and 
 threw a cold and disenchanting light over 
 the scene a little while ago so brilliant. 
 
 The Lakeside party, all other guests hav- 
 ing gone, stood together, looking a forlorn 
 group stranded in one corner of the great 
 ball-room. The girls, pale or flushed, tired 
 or untired, looked one and all somehow 
 faded and ''put out" in the pink light of 
 the sunrise that had set all the East ablaze. 
 
 "Is there anything in the world more 
 dreary than the ' last look round ' after a 
 ball ?" observed Mr. Parkhurst, who was 
 amongst the group by Athelyn's side. 
 " Well, the night is over now," he added, 
 more especially for her ear. ''Shall I see 
 you to-morrow ? — this morning, that is. 
 Captain Jarvis and I leave directly after 
 -early breakfast. Shall we see you then ?"
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 143 
 
 " Oh, I think so ; I suppose I shall get 
 up as usual." 
 
 "That's more than 1 shall!" struck in 
 little Lady Manville, vivaciously, who had 
 just nipped her twentieth yawn in the bud. 
 " If you are bent on leaving us at that un- 
 holy hour, you had better take a tender 
 farewell of me now ! Mortal eyes will not 
 see me till noon. If either of you girls," 
 addressing three or four young ladies im- 
 partially, ''are early birds, you are welcome* 
 to my share of the worm — and perhaps 
 you'll kindly undertake to pour out coffee 
 for these gentlemen ?" 
 
 '* Perhaps you will kindly specify which 
 or what is the worm, as it was left rather 
 vague !" 
 
 " Whichever or whatever it is, I promise 
 not to claim any share of it, unless I happen 
 to be an early bird !" observed Athelyn, 
 as if there was the smallest doubt of
 
 144 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 her early rising on that day of all days 1 
 If the long calm day and the long bright 
 night had been like a dream to her, the 
 first stir of the waking was beginning to 
 touch her now. All through the cool early 
 morning hours she lay sleepless, open-eyed, 
 swaying between pain and pleasure — the 
 joy of 3^esterday and the severance of to- 
 day. Yet over her young and ardent and 
 only newly roused nature, Joy, her patron 
 goddess hitherto, still held the stronger 
 power ; and Yesterday triumphed over To- 
 day. 
 
 She was to see him again ; they were to 
 meet and part ; and that coming morning 
 hour stood between her and all her future ; 
 she saw nothing beyond it. 
 
 That hour came ; but like most of such 
 eagerly anticipated hours it was unsatisfac- 
 tory. It fled too fast ; every minute of it 
 was gone before she could feel she grasped
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 145 
 
 it ; it was taken up with common-places, 
 and crowded with a press of those scraps of 
 business that always obstinately will intrude 
 themselves on the most romantic parting, — 
 being rather important details to the 
 traveller whose comfort they concern, but 
 harmonising ill with the sentiment of *' the 
 girl he leaves behind him," who, as a rule, 
 would like to have ample room to indulge 
 in the tender reminiscences and reassur- 
 ances which are so cruelly curtailed and 
 interrupted by such considerations as a de- 
 mand for a portmanteau-strap or a luggage- 
 label. 
 
 People must eat; orders must be given; 
 and in this case Captain Jarvis would look 
 at the clock and make cheerful allusions to 
 their chances of catching the train, ivould 
 hurry the servants, and discursively discuss 
 the P. and 0. route to India with Mr. 
 Parkhurst — making Athelyn feel as if the im- 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 pending parting was already an accomplish- 
 ed fact, and she was already shut apart 
 from him. Unfeeling people would laugh 
 and talk, and eat game-pie with a robust 
 appetite ; and she forced herself to laugh 
 and talk too, and saw the golden minutes 
 slip away, and had not half a dozen words 
 with Harold Parkhurst. Just at the last 
 he seized a moment to whisper a good- 
 bye to her, a promise to write, an entreaty 
 that she would answer his letters. Then 
 the dogcart rattled up to the door; there 
 was a bustling warning of '' No time to lose !" 
 and they clasped hands and parted. 
 
 The hour had passed, and Athelyn went 
 back to her room ; she felt cold, and sick at 
 heart, and looking accidentally in the glass 
 she was surprised at her own paleness, at 
 the fixed sadness of her own great mournful 
 eyes. Was it all since yesterday, she won- 
 dered? — only yesterday they had rowed
 
 " THE DAY THAT PARTS US !" 147 
 
 over to the island — less than twenty-four 
 hours ago ! There seemed a year between 
 that morning and this. Yesterday he was 
 with her — an hour ago he was with her, 
 and now — 
 
 " He is gone !" she said aloud, uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 And those words unsealed the fountain of 
 such tears as she had never shed till now — 
 tears of yearning for but one more word, 
 but one more look, in which she seemed to 
 weep her heart away. 
 
 l2
 
 148 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 
 
 I dwell amid the city ever. 
 
 The great humanity which beats 
 
 Its life along the stony streets, 
 
 Like a strong and unsunned river 
 
 In a self-made course ; 
 
 I sit and hearken while it rolls. 
 
 Very sad and very hoarse 
 
 Certes is the flow of souls, 
 
 Infinitest tendencies 
 
 By the finite prest and pent. 
 
 In the finite turbulent. 
 
 E. B. Browning. 
 
 TTTHY people fall in love is frequentl}^ 
 
 ' * a puzzle to their friends, but it is 
 
 often quite as great a wonder why they do 
 
 not. A woman's unaccountable infatuation
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 149 
 
 for one man with an ugly face and an 
 obliquity in his moral vision, is not a whit 
 more astonishing than her utter indifference 
 to another who can boast of all the cardinal 
 virtues and a Grecian profile. 
 
 Nor are men a degree more reasonable 
 than women in this the important decision 
 that casts the die for their future lives. It 
 is to the full as surprising to observe what 
 perfect beauty, innocence, virtue, and grace 
 a man will pass by indifferently in the 
 search for his ideal, as to take note of the 
 piece of clay out of which he often fashions 
 his idol at last. When our choice surprises 
 the world, we can often — nay, always, point 
 out one shining light among the shadows of 
 the nature we choose to idealise, exhibit 
 some one precious ingot found in the rocky 
 earth that seems to us rich ore, and attest 
 triumphantly that we can show good cause 
 for our love. But seldom or never can we
 
 150 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 account for our indifference, or satisfactorily 
 explain why we do not love what seems 
 most lovable. 
 
 Athelyn Hastings was charming as well 
 as beautiful, and the very incarnation of 
 girlish grace, and truth, and purity. Yet 
 Paul Severne, who had known her from 
 her childhood, never fell in love with her. 
 Paul Severne was tender and true of heart 
 and strong of brain, well worthy of any 
 woman's love or man's friendship, yet Athe- 
 lyn never cared for him otherwise than as a 
 friend and brother. 
 
 Her fond mother and grandfather had 
 once been haunted by a secret and mutual 
 fear lest their darling should become en- 
 tangled in any attachment to so ineligible a 
 parii as Paul Severne. They had, however, 
 not thrown any evident obstacles or built up 
 any perceptible barriers between the two 
 young people, which perhaps was fortunate
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 151 
 
 for their anxious though unspoken wishes, 
 as there are few things more likely to fer- 
 ment friendship into love than pointing out 
 to the pair of friends that such a transforma- 
 tion is possible and is forbidden ! Old Mr. 
 Hastings, like his daughter-in-law, was 
 tender-hearted, slightly inclined to romance 
 and superstition, and nervous of attempting 
 to cut a channel for Fate or check its 
 apparent course. He distrusted violent 
 measures, deeming that they were likely to 
 over-reach themselves. In this he was 
 perfectly right, for there is nothing easier 
 than to drive a woman's heart fluttering into 
 the very interest from which you are doing 
 all in your power to frighten it away. 
 
 Paul Severne was a great favourite of the 
 Hastings, who generally spoke of him as a 
 " dear good fellow," and about whose house 
 he had been running in and out on familiar 
 terms since he was a boy. He was one of
 
 152 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the Severnes of Severne Abbey ; that had 
 at first been in a measure a passport to their 
 favour, although it was probable that his 
 ancestors looking down upon him regarded 
 him as degenerate, and it was certain that 
 his surviving relatives — none of them how- 
 ever very close kin — took little or no notice 
 of this solitary, fatherless, motherless, brother- 
 less scion of the youngest branch. 
 
 His mother had been a tradesman's daugh- 
 ter, and the Severnes looked with horror 
 on the mesalliance contracted by one of their 
 house, especially as the bride had not the 
 redeeming quality of wealth ; she brought 
 no fortune but her beauty — and that un- 
 luckily her only child did not inherit. His 
 father, thoughtless and extravagant from 
 the day of his first school-debt to that of 
 his hasty love-match, and thenceforward 
 more reckless and inconsiderate still, had 
 run speedily through his small property,
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 153 
 
 mortgaged his expectations, and still count- 
 ed sanguinely upon the family influence and 
 interest for his son. However, although at 
 Mrs. Severne's death some formal signs of 
 sympathy and kinship were exchanged, and 
 some trifling notice taken of the boy Paul, 
 Paul's father was not long in exhausting the 
 limited patience of the family, and finally 
 died hopelessly involved in debt. 
 
 Paul might have received more assistanc(^ 
 from the House of Severne if he had been 
 an easier iwotege to assist, and could have 
 been more comfortably patronised. But 
 his education had been conducted in too de- 
 sultory a fashion to render it probable that 
 he should satisfactorily pass any examination 
 for an ofldcial appointment; then he had un- 
 luckily and rashly expressed in a great 
 kinsman's hearing a boyish aversion to 
 regular hours and routine ; and last, per- 
 haps not least, he started in life weighted
 
 154 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 with all the disapprobation attached to his 
 parents. So no obliging relative put him 
 to college or bought him a commission or 
 offered him a post. Paul fought his own 
 way, his pen being his chief weapon ; and 
 now as amanuensis, then as secretary, now 
 journalist, then agent for a firm that failed, 
 and now sub-editor of a paper that died 
 young, he managed to live a life that 
 appeared to afford him tolerable content- 
 ment. 
 
 Old Mr. Hastings liked him, and had 
 been a good friend to him in many ways ; 
 Athelyn's father had "tipped" him as a 
 schoolboy ; her mother was graciously kind 
 to him in a semi-maternal, semi-elder-sister- 
 ly sort of way. Young Severne was grate- 
 ful and affectionate, returned their liking 
 cordially, and rewarded it by not running 
 off with the heart of their Athelyn. It is 
 probable, however, that if the dreaded con-
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 155 
 
 tingency had really taken place, and Paul 
 and Athelyn fallen mutually in love, 
 Mrs. Hastings would have wept and have 
 given them her blessing, and even the 
 grandfather have reconciled himself to 
 the match with a speed only a trifle less 
 astonishing and satisfactory than that of the 
 stage-parent just ere the curtain falls. 
 As it was, however, and well or ill for 
 these two as the Fates should ordain, thej 
 were only friends, and Athelyn's heart was 
 free, when Harold Parkhurst saw her, for 
 him to woo and win. 
 
 It was a cold late autumn evening in 
 London. Mr. Severne and Athelyn were 
 enjoying a tete-a-tete in the front drawing- 
 room of Mr. Hastings's abode, her London 
 home. In the back drawing-room the old 
 gentleman was avowedly taking a siesta, 
 and in all probability Mrs. Hastings, who 
 professed to be reading a novel, was sinking
 
 156 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 into slumber in her arm-chair too. The 
 rooms were handsome and lofty ; it was 
 evident at one glance that not only had 
 money been lavishly laid out upon them, 
 but good taste had guided its outlay. More 
 than this, there were all the slight and 
 subtle finishing touches about the place 
 that indicate a woman's influence. You 
 could always tell by the aspect of the rooms 
 when Mrs. Hastings and Athelyn were in 
 town ; their presence seemed to carry with 
 it a certain charm ; something graceful and 
 refined always pervaded the atmosphere of 
 the home when they were there. 
 
 Athelyn sat leaning back in a low chair. 
 To some tastes she seemed even more 
 lovely now than in the happy days of the 
 past summer; her beauty had in some un- 
 definable way ripened and matured ; there 
 was at times a dreamier depth, and then a 
 more restless far-seeking gleam, in the eyes
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 157 
 
 of lucid grey. She was not only a picture, 
 but a picture exquisitely framed and mount- 
 ed ; there were all those subtle prettinesses 
 about her without which it was difficult to 
 imagine Athelyn Hastings ; every touch 
 about her toilette was perfect, from the gold 
 arrow in her hair, the lace ruffle round her 
 neck, down to the hem of her dress, under 
 which the shining buckle on a little silk- 
 shod foot peeped out. ^ 
 
 On the rug at her feet lay her two pets, 
 the pair of white terriers from Fern Cottage. 
 Tim was curled up like a large white 
 cushion, his tail wrapped round his sharp 
 foxy nose. Jim was blinking solemnly at 
 the fire with half-shut eyes and his paws 
 spread out to warm on the fender. 
 
 Paul Severne — who generally stood up 
 while talking, and seldom talked except 
 upon some theory relating to the life, social 
 and personal, of Man in his past, present,
 
 158 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 and future developments — was standing by 
 the mantelpiece, a tall, fair, well-looking 
 Englishman, wdio yet fell most decidedly 
 short of meriting the adjective '' handsome," 
 brown-haired, brown-bearded, entirely lack- 
 ing in any vividness of colouring or pictur- 
 esqueness of aspect, with quiet eyes that 
 seldom lightened, and a broad benevolent 
 brow that would have delighted the heart 
 of physiognomist and philanthropist. 
 
 His coat was somewhat the worse for 
 wear, and it is probable that even in its 
 palmiest days it would only have barely 
 passed muster in the west- end world. No 
 appreciative intimate friend would ever 
 have inquired "Who is your tailor?" the 
 remark would have savoured of satire; and, 
 good-natured as he was, people did not 
 venture on impertinences to Paul Severne. 
 He was unmistakeably a gentleman, and 
 yet with a curious air of unworldliness
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 159 
 
 about him, a man whom the friends who 
 knew him well, loved, and whom the rela- 
 tives who knew little of him ^' gave up " as 
 incorrigibly impracticable. 
 
 He had been for the last half hour 
 holding forth on a favourite topic, the 
 hideous mass of poverty and vice that reeks 
 unseen of half the world in the core of 
 London, the ulcer eating at the heart of the 
 giant city that is supreme in everything, vast 
 in its misery and crime as in its luxury and 
 art. 
 
 "Is this a true picture, Paul ?" Athelyn 
 asked at last, with troubled eyes. " Are 
 you not painting it too black?" 
 
 " Not one shade too deep," he answered. 
 " I wish you would come and see it and 
 judge for yourself, Athelyn. If you would 
 come with me one evening, I would take 
 you round a few of the bye-streets where 
 you would see, not the worst, but enough
 
 160 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 for you to realise the depths of misery and 
 degradation, sunk even below shame, in 
 which hundreds, nay, thousands, of your 
 fellow-creatures are living almost within a 
 stone's throw of you. Only come and see 
 for yourself, I would take good care of 
 you. You would be quite safe with me. 
 I suppose," he added, doubtfully, regard- 
 ing Athelyn's dress, which, simple as it 
 was, even his uncomprehending masculine 
 eyes recognised as being elegant and costly, 
 " you could get some old bonnet and shawl 
 — something not like what you usually wear 
 — and a veil ?'' 
 
 "The bonnet and veil difficulty iniglit be 
 got over," she rejoined. " But — I should 
 feel like Virgil being ferried across the 
 Styx!" 
 
 "Yes, I don't think the Styx could be 
 much blacker/' assented Paul, gravely. 
 " Well, would you like to come, Athelyn ?"
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 161 
 
 She paused a moment. The vision of 
 intoxicated men and unsexed women, un- 
 lovely sights and evil smells, which Paul's 
 description had brought before her. was 
 not attractive ; it did not even pique her 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Honestly," she said at last, ^' I don't 
 think I should." 
 
 He looked a little disappointed. 
 
 ''No?" he responded; "well, it's not 
 your line, to be sure. Quite out of your 
 w^ay; I might have remembered that. 
 Onl}^ — I should have liked you to see " 
 
 *'But, Paul, what good could I do by 
 seeing ?" she answered, earnestly, " except 
 convince myself of the truth of your word, 
 which I do not doubt." 
 
 "You don't doubt it; but you don't 
 realise it. You can't realise except by 
 sight." 
 
 "And if I did thoroughly realise it, I 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 A BHOKEN FAITH. 
 
 should be miserable ! How could one know 
 an hour's peace in one's comfortable home 
 if all these scenes of sin and suffering you 
 describe were realistically present to one 
 all the time ? It would be worse than the 
 skeleton at the feast, for the skeleton is the 
 emblem of only Death !" 
 
 "There, Athelyn, you have hit the blot 
 — the failing of this world of yours ! That 
 is the cry, ' How could we know Peace if 
 we saw ? Therefore let us shut our eyes 
 from seeing. Leave us our delicate sensi- 
 bilities unhurt. Hustle the skeleton any- 
 where, anywhere, out of sight of our table 
 of feasting !' And then again there is the 
 other cuckoo cry, ' What can I do ? I can 
 only light my rushlight.' Yes, but if every 
 little lamp was lit, we should soon have an 
 illumination that would frighten these foul 
 things from their lair." 
 
 " You make me feel guilty, Paul," she
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 163 
 
 said, looking up at him frankly, *' that I 
 have never lit my rushlight ! It would be 
 little, so little, I could do ; and that little 
 I admit I have never done ; the chance has 
 never come near me, and I have never 
 gone to seek it. I own I do like to see the 
 beautiful side of life. It's selfish, I sup- 
 pose, but I love to look on the white 
 shining side of the shield ; and if there's a 
 black and stained side that I am powerless 
 to whiten, I had rather it should be turned 
 away from me !" 
 
 " Natural enough," he answered, almost 
 tenderly, yet sadly too ; " it is the choice of 
 a fair and pure, soft and sensitive nature, and 
 it's no wonder, looking round the pretty, 
 peaceful home-scenes that always frame you, 
 Athelyn. We want the beautiful in life ; 
 and you, and such as you, and all your 
 surroundings, supply it." 
 
 "A compliment, Paul — well, it is time, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 for you have been very uncomplimentary 
 hitherto, and this is a very dubious compli- 
 ment, after all ! I know you like parcelling 
 people out in types and ticketing them as 
 specimens of this and that class. I suppose 
 you have got 7ne labelled as an excellent 
 specimen of the human butterfly?" 
 
 ^'Not quite that," he answered, smiling 
 kindl}^, and making no apology for his 
 previous unflattering generalities. Paul 
 and Athelyn habitually spoke freely and 
 plainly to each other, as only the best of 
 friends dare do. ^' Only, like most high- 
 ly-organised and delicately-strung natures, 
 your feeling of recoil from all things coarse 
 and ugly and debased is very strong — 
 stronger than your desire to amend them. 
 That is well for you in some ways ; it keeps 
 you safe and shielded. You will keep your 
 garments white ; you will not plunge your 
 hand into pitch "
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 165 
 
 '^As your ideal woman would?" inter- 
 posed Athelyn, as he paused. She and 
 Paul had always teased each other about 
 their mutual ideals ; of late she had dropped 
 all allusions to hers, but she still adhered to 
 regarding Paul as in search of his. 
 
 "Yes, as my ideal woman would — if I 
 found her ; but I shan't find her — no fear or 
 no hope of that ; she will remain ideal to 
 me." 
 
 *' Courage is the quality you worship ;* 
 she will be very brave, your ideal ?" 
 
 "Yes, as brave as pure, and tender too ! 
 There will be no depths of mortal misery 
 which she will shrink from contemplating — 
 no mortal hand which she will fear to 
 touch ; she will recoil from no criminal, 
 however lost, although she hates his crime ; 
 she will have a great love for all humanity — 
 a limitless pity for all its frailties ; she will not 
 walk above earth, but on the earth, through
 
 166 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 its muddiest, darkest ways, stainless and 
 fearless. While other women, as fair and 
 pure as she, cjather their skirts and walk on 
 the other side of the way, she will be kneel- 
 ing by tlie sinner's side. Yes, I have my 
 ideal, Athelyn, and that is she." 
 
 ^'And a nobler ideal man never had!'" 
 said Athelyn, with one of her rare flashes of 
 grave enthusiasm. "Paul, I think you will 
 find her ; you must ! You seem to see her 
 so clearly ; somewhere in the world she 
 must exist, waiting for you." 
 
 ''Fm afraid not. If I find her strength, 
 she will be lacking in the beauty and the 
 sweetness which make her the ideal of 
 womanliness. Without them she would be 
 only a man in petticoats ; there are plenty 
 of theia about now-a-days," said Paul, com- 
 ing down from the clouds. 
 
 *' If ever you find her," Athelyn rejoined, 
 refusing to allow her sanguine faith to be
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 167 
 
 dashed, '' you will take me to her, won't 
 you ? Promise to take me to her and ask 
 her to be my friend." 
 
 "I will," he answered, smiling, "in the 
 event of that great if! But will she not be 
 too strong a tonic for your nerves ?" 
 
 "You think I am a crystallised sugar 
 image that a ray of honest sunshine or a 
 drop of rain would melt !" she said, with a 
 little petulant moue. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Hastings trailed her silken • 
 waves of sea-blue drapery languidly into 
 the room, and her sweet sleepy eyes smiled 
 kindly on the pair. 
 
 " Well, young people, how have you 
 been amusing yourselves ?" 
 
 " We had rather a stormy discussion at 
 first; then we made peace over our mutual 
 admiration of Paul's ideal. Didn't you 
 hear us when w^e waxed enthusiastic ?" 
 
 " I heard a sort of buzzing," Mrs. Hast-
 
 168 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ings said, placidly, arranging herself in her 
 own especial easy-chair. "What windmills 
 have you been attacking lately, Don 
 Quixote ?" she added, with a smile. 
 
 The Hastings always chaffed and teased 
 Paul Severne in an affectionately familiar 
 way ; and he submitted to the chaffing as 
 amiably as a big good-natured dog submits 
 to the children's rough caresses. 
 
 " He has not been attacking windmills ; 
 he has been fighting ?7z^," laughed Athelyn. 
 
 " And no windmill ever veered round 
 more than you did," replied Paul, gaily. 
 
 *'Eh, my dears, what's the joke?" inquired 
 old Mr. Hastings, following in the track of 
 his daughter-in-law. 
 
 He was just the picture of an old patri- 
 arch ; many artists had asked him to 
 favour them with a sittinc^ since Time's 
 frosts had snowed his hair and beard. He 
 had one of those faces that look as if they
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 169 
 
 could never have been young, but were 
 born for beautiful old age ; his hair, silver- 
 white, was like a pale aureole round his 
 high bald forehead ; his eyes, from which 
 all the fire of youth was quenched, beam- 
 ed still with a light of steady goodness. 
 
 " They were likening me to Don Quixote," 
 said Paul, welcoming the old man with a 
 sort of affectionate respect. 
 
 " Well, well, you might be paid a worse 
 compliment ! A favourite book of mine, 
 an old favourite. When first I read it as 
 a boy I did not see the pathos of it, but 
 later I pleased myself with the fancy that 
 the poor chivalrous old knight found all 
 his illusions again in some other world, 
 and the real Dulcinea waiting to welcome 
 him." 
 
 Athelyn smiled approvingly up in her 
 grandfather's face and slipped her hand 
 into his.
 
 170 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " But I hope Paul will find his Dulcinea 
 on earth !" she said, with one of her sweet- 
 est glances at Paul. 
 
 Mrs. Hastings too smiled kindly ; she class- 
 ed most of Paul's theories and sentiments 
 briefly as ''crotchets;" but for him personally 
 she had a great affection, and in reality 
 respected him far more than she thought 
 she did ; and as she sat languidly furling 
 and unfurling her big black fan, she observ- 
 ed that " she wished him better luck than 
 Don Quixote." 
 
 Paul looked at the trio, and thought what 
 a picture of happy home-life the three 
 generations made ! The grandfather with 
 his good grey head, in the peaceful twilight 
 of his waning life — the beautiful mother in 
 the mellow afternoon of hers, with just the 
 pale shade of a past sorrow casting an add- 
 ed softness over her smile, a deeper 
 thoughtfulness on her brow — the daughter
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 171 
 
 in all the loveliness of her cloudless 
 morning. 
 
 So he left them — left Athelyn thinking 
 of him and pondering over all he had said. 
 His influence over her was greater than he 
 thought ; she sat abstractedly leaning her 
 head on her hand, and wondering, asking 
 herself — Could she ever grow like Paul's 
 ideal? Was such nobility, strength, and 
 beauty too high out of her reach for her 
 ever to attain to it? Was she indeed so. 
 weak and poor and selfish a creature as his 
 words had suggested to her ? 
 
 It was true, she had thought but little of 
 all the vice and misery that lie cankering 
 the heart of the great city that was to her 
 so bright a home. The witches' cauldron 
 might be seething at her feet ; but she had 
 walked looking up to the stars and listen- 
 ing to the nightingale. It was true that 
 she had always shrunk from contact with
 
 172 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 anything that was not graceful and refined ; 
 her aesthetic taste demanded purity and 
 harmony ; and she had been always rather 
 proud than ashamed of her delicacy and 
 daintiness of taste and breeding. 
 
 There was a good deal of both pride and 
 vanity about Athelyn, though the pride had 
 nothing of haughtiness or arrogance in it ; the 
 vanity was not superficial conceit. She was 
 proud of her gentle blood, proud of the long 
 line of generations sans peur et sans reprocJie 
 from which she drew her life — prouder far less 
 of her beauty of face and form than of the 
 white slim hands with their long fingers 
 '^ lessening in perfect cadence," and the 
 small shell-like ears that belonged to all the 
 family, and could be traced even in the old 
 family portraits. Pride of race was strong 
 in Athelyn ; she believed implicitly in the 
 supremacy of the thorough-bred ; and she 
 knew instinctivelv that that verv undefin-
 
 A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 173 
 
 able stamp of sang azur about her, her 
 patrician delicacy and cultivated daintiness, 
 were among the things for which Harold 
 Parkhurst had loved her. She suited his 
 assthetic taste ; he liked a lily under a glass 
 case. 
 
 Was it possible that, after all, Harold's 
 estimate of her was true enough, but not the 
 subtle compliment that she had deemed it ? 
 Could it be that the type lie had seemed to 
 love was but a poor and weak one ? And if 
 Paul were right, was she — soft, untried, 
 untempted, unchastened, and unproven crea- 
 ture that she was — was she strong enough 
 to be worthy of Harold Parkhurst's love P 
 
 For to that all her thoughts turned ; and 
 round that centre all her dreams, which 
 hitherto had wandered meteor-like through 
 space, fell now into their natural orbit and 
 revolved. It seemed that in finding her 
 heart she had found the purpose of life ;
 
 174 A BKOKEN FAITH. 
 
 and on all life she looked throuojli the lens 
 •of that one knowledge. No truer lines 
 were ever written than those that bid us 
 
 " Know what Love is — that it draws 
 Into itself each feeling, hope, and thought, 
 The heart of life, to which all currents flow 
 Through every vein of being."
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A WAIF AND STKAY. 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 Under the sun ! 
 
 "Where the lamps quiver 
 So far in the river, 
 
 With many a light 
 From window and casement 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood with amazement 
 
 Houseless by night ! 
 
 Hood. 
 
 TF Paul Severne played his part ia 
 ^ Athelyn's thoughts that night, he too 
 was thinking of her as he walked through 
 the gas-lit London streets— thinking of her
 
 176 A BRQKEN FAITH. 
 
 surrounded by her household gods, a pearl 
 of fair maidenhood set as such pearls should 
 be, in all the pure gold of home and love. 
 He was very fond of Athelyn, although to 
 him — a man accustomed to a rougher 
 world, a tougher fight than she could com- 
 prehend — she seemed a creature just a little 
 too fragile and flower-like for " human 
 nature's daily food." 
 
 Tangled in with thoughts of her were 
 floating fancies about that "not impossible 
 she," that lofty ideal of his, whom he won- 
 dered vaguely if he should ever find on 
 earth. 
 
 Once he had deemed he found her ; but 
 the illusion had been dispelled, less cruelly, 
 because more suddenly and completely, 
 than such illusions sometimes are. He had 
 seen what he had fancied a goddess shrink 
 into a weak woman, whom, had he ever 
 loved as a mere piece of fair womanhood
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 177 
 
 he might still have adored, but whose folly 
 and falsehood disenchanted him for ever 
 just because he had set her on so high a 
 pedestal. 
 
 But Paul Severne's was a nature not easy 
 to embitter or drive to desperation. He 
 was a dreamer — though he could do and 
 dare as well as dream ; but life had given 
 him always more chances of dreaming than 
 of doing. From disappointment — that fell 
 mercifully too early to be a crushing blow,- 
 though late enough to have poured the 
 poison of universal mistrust into a less 
 healthy nature — he had risen up with un- 
 broken spirit and unembittered heart, and 
 was seeking his ideal still. 
 
 He was, as he had always been, poor, 
 very poor in the world's goods, of course. 
 The coat he had on was the only one he 
 possessed, save one reserved for the rare 
 state occasions when full toilette was re- 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 quired. But as he observed philosophically, 
 "a fellow doesn't want to ^vear two coats at 
 once." And to his mind the aristocratic 
 cigar had no recommendation beyond its 
 expense to advance it before the plebeian 
 pipe which he favoured. Cabs were amongst 
 the luxuries in which he never indulged ; 
 the top of an omnibus he occasionally 
 patronised, rather to save time than fatigue, 
 for he was a capital pedestrian, and there 
 w^as scarcely a street in London he did not 
 know by heart. This night, when he, left 
 the Hastings's house, he did not go straight 
 home to his little room over a green- 
 grocer's shop in the heart of London. He 
 had an invalid friend to inquire for, a mes- 
 sage to leave, a telegram to send — which 
 telegram took the last shilling but one out 
 of his purse. 
 
 He liked a walk through London by 
 night ; it was a habit of his to pursue aimless
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 179 
 
 peregrinations at all hours of night or 
 day, and "see life" under all possible 
 aspects. On several occasions he had 
 aroused the suspicions of policemen ; once 
 an irate guardian of the peace had impera- 
 tively demanded his descent from one of 
 the lions in Trafalgar Square, on which he 
 was sitting composedly watching the pale 
 blue dawn break over the sky as the last 
 star faded. On this night he turned a little 
 out of his way to look at the old Abbey iri 
 the moonlight, and then sauntered on past 
 the Houses of Parliament. A little wav 
 down one of the streets turning thence, there 
 was a hot coiFee-stall. The odour of the 
 steaming beverage was appetising, and, as 
 Paul passed, it suggested to him the fact that 
 it was a long time since he had dined, also 
 that there was only bread and biscuit in his 
 cupboard at home, and that as it was late, 
 his landlady might very probably have 
 
 n2
 
 1 80 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 retired to rest before he returned. He 
 might as well have a cup of hot coffee, 
 so he stopped accordingly. 
 
 This was one of the bits of London life 
 which Paul Severne liked, and in which he 
 frequently took his part; the cry of "Taters 
 all 'ot !" and the red glowing brazier of 
 chestnuts had often arrested his steps on a 
 winter night. 
 
 The lamp flared and cast odd shadows on 
 the face of the stall-keeper ; he had a bald, 
 grizzled head, a rainbow-coloured bandana 
 wisped round his neck, all its colours 
 blurred together in the flickering light ; he 
 looked like a bit out of an old Dutch 
 picture. Behind the high houses the moon 
 was sailing up through a shadowy sky, 
 breaking out full-orbed from the dark 
 clouds with their shining edges of silver 
 that caught her light. 
 
 Paul stood sipping his coffee, exchanging
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 181 
 
 a word or two with the stall-keeper, half 
 absently ; he was thinking still of Athelyn, 
 smiling to himself as he imagined her with 
 him here, pictured her sharing this light and 
 frugal refreshment, gathering her dress 
 delicately round her, looking at the delf 
 cups and thick stumpy spoons, with a smile 
 half amused, a little dainty and wondering, 
 yet always sweet. 
 
 " She only knows coffee-stalls by driving 
 past them in a carriage, with flowers in hei* 
 hair and a gold embroidered opera-cloak," 
 he said to himself, remembering how, on 
 one occasion, he had seen Athelyn in that 
 toilette going home from the opera, looking 
 from the carriage-window on that outer 
 world of passers-by of which he was one ; 
 he recollected her just as she had looked 
 that night, set, as in a picture, by the 
 window-frame. 
 
 Her pure and delicate face was thus
 
 182 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 floating in his mind's eye when a real face, 
 coming before him, chased the vision away 
 and struck his attention, more by its contrast 
 with his thought at the moment than by 
 anything remarkable about itself It was the 
 face of a woman — nay, a girl, perhaps even 
 younger than Athelyn, who had paused in 
 passing the stall and turned her head to 
 look at it. 
 
 She was poorly dressed ; her fair hair was 
 pushed away untidily under a little piece of 
 faded finery that had once been a bonnet ; 
 it was not beauty that attracted his notice 
 to her, for at that first glance he would 
 have said she was not even pretty. It was 
 the troubled look of the pale, haggard 
 face, the half-abstracted stare of the restless, 
 light blue eyes that chanced to meet his 
 full — eyes so large and bright that no face 
 to which they belonged could ever be wholly
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 183 
 
 destitute of beauty. The night was chill)^, 
 but she had no wrap save a shabby scarf of 
 some gauzy summer stuff which she was 
 clasping tight across her chest with gloveless, 
 shivering hands. She had lingered by the 
 coffee-stall as if involuntarily, and as the 
 savoury steaming scent came to her she cast 
 a half reluctant look at the cup the old man 
 was filling. 
 
 " Nice hot coffee, my dear," he observed, 
 ready for a stroke of business. 
 
 She shook her head and hastily turned a 
 step away, but her eyes went back to the 
 coffee with a glance that made Paul Severne 
 put his cup down ; he felt as if another drop 
 would have choked him. 
 
 There was the craving of hunger in her 
 look, in her thin, pinched face, and beyond 
 that he had caught a despairing misery in 
 her eyes that was tragically incongruous 
 with her youth.
 
 184 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " Have a cup, ray girl ; I'll stand treat," 
 he said, kindly. 
 
 She shook her head again. 
 
 '* No," she said, and a moment after, 
 added, to her curt negative, ^' thank you, I 
 don't want nothing." 
 
 But her look belied her words, and Paul 
 detained her, holding the cup towards her, 
 and saying cheerily, 
 
 *' Come, try it, this cold night !" 
 
 She half drew back, and looked as if she 
 wished to refuse ; but Nature was too strong 
 for her. She took the cup — he noticed 
 how her hand shook as she held it — and 
 drank its contents with an eagerness she 
 could not wholly disguise. 
 
 "Ah!" she said, with a little sigh, rather 
 to herself than to them, "that warms one!" 
 
 " Best have a drop more, my dear, as the 
 gennelman's so kind as to stand treat." 
 
 " No more, thanks." She looked from
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 185 
 
 one to the other as she said this, but in a 
 vacant absent way as if her eyes conveyed 
 no image of their faces to her brain. The 
 old man did not notice her face ; but 
 Paul Severne, accustomed to studying 
 physiognomy, was interested and struck by 
 her expression. Her mind was far away 
 from them as she stood there beside them. 
 There was a moment's irresolution, a tremu- 
 lous relaxing of the fixed lines of her fea- 
 tures ; then the whole face changed and 
 hardened strangely, brows frowning and 
 lips set. 
 
 " Thanks — " she said again, but rather 
 shortly than gratefully, and turning abrupt- 
 ly from them, went hastily on her way. 
 
 " A short-spoken young woman, that ! 
 Wonder if she's up to any good," observed 
 the old coffee-man, as she disappeared. 
 
 The words suggested an idea to Paul 
 Severne. He remembered she had gone
 
 186 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Straight down the street towards the river. 
 An impulse, that five minutes before would 
 have seemed even to him too wild and ex- 
 travagant to be obeyed, possessed him ; and 
 hurrying through his brief settlement at the 
 cofFee-stall, he followed in her track. 
 
 He had lost sight of her at first, but soon 
 caught a glimpse of the slight shabbily clad 
 figure. The moon fell full on her face as 
 she looked round, and turned down the 
 steps by Westminster Bridge. He soon 
 came up to the spot, and he too descended 
 a step or two, and then paused, pulled back 
 by a sharp summons from Prudence, which 
 insisted on his at least pausing to debate 
 the question — To follow, or not to follow ? 
 
 The girl reached the bottom of the steps 
 and looked back. Whether she saw or 
 recognised him he could not tell — he 
 thought that, as he stood by the wall, it 
 was impossible ; but she shrank back into
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 187 
 
 the corner close to the parapet. He could 
 barely trace her figure in the shadow. 
 
 '* Come away !" urged Prudence, pluck- 
 ing him strongly by the sleeve, " what is 
 the girl cowering back in that shady corner 
 to you? is it your affair to conjecture for 
 what or for whom she is waiting ?" 
 
 Paul, however, regarded all humanity as 
 his affair ; to him the world's concern was 
 every individual man's, and every individual 
 man's affair concerned the world. He 
 shook off the detaining hand of Prudence, 
 drew a step nearer, still unseen, or at least un- 
 noticed, by her whom he could but dimly see, 
 and watched and waited. Yet he felt his po- 
 sition alike an undignified one, and one liable 
 to be misinterpreted ; and while he doubted 
 and debated, the object of his conjecture 
 moved out of the deepest shade with what 
 seemed to him a half hasty, half timid step, 
 and standing with a sort of uncertainty in
 
 188 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 her attitude, cast a glance around her. He 
 could not detect whether the glance was 
 suspicious or seeking ; nor whether she saw 
 or did not see him ; but with the same 
 nervous and hurried gait she crossed the 
 bottom of the steps and turned along the 
 embankment. 
 
 Reason and impulse fought one brief 
 battle over Paul Severne. Impulse won ; 
 and, keeping cautiously behind her out of her 
 sight, he followed a poor girl of whom he 
 knew most literally nothing along the river- 
 side. It was almost deserted at that hour ; 
 Paul smiled to himself as he regarded his 
 self-imposed mission of amateur detective 
 from the probable view of the legitimate 
 defender of the law whom he might en- 
 counter on his beat — but whom, as it hap- 
 pened, he was well-contented not to en- 
 counter. 
 
 Something in the manner of the girl
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 189 
 
 whom he kept in sight confirmed the sus- 
 picion that had first crossed his mind as he 
 saw her turn towards the river. She shrank 
 and started once or twice ; there was some- 
 thing alike furtive and nervous in her step 
 — or so it appeared to his vigilant eyes. 
 He had not far to follow her. At a spot 
 were the parapet ceased, and a kind of 
 landing-place with low railings reached out 
 into the river, she stopped ; for one moment 
 she threw another quick searching glance* 
 back, and around her ; then turned out 
 from the path on to the landing-steps with 
 a movement so stealthy and sudden that 
 she was out of his sight in a second. 
 
 He hastened his pace. If he had not 
 been suspicious of her intention before, he 
 would have suspected it now. The feline 
 furtiveness of her step and gesture as she 
 looked round at that moment decided him, 
 though he had scarcely caught a glimpse of
 
 ] 90 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 her face. It seemed to him long, though it 
 was only a minute or two, before he also 
 turned from the straight path on to the low 
 and slightly railed-in landing-steps. 
 
 For a second he did not see her. 
 Then as he looked round startled, thinking 
 " Could he be too late?" his eye fell on the 
 girlish figure crouched all in a heap in the 
 furthest corner close to the black water that 
 lapped the steps. 
 
 He took one stride forward, and laid his 
 hand on her shoulder — gently enough, but 
 she started so violently as to fling off his 
 hand. 
 
 " What are you doing here?" He asked 
 it kindly, but had to put his question twice 
 before he received any answer. 
 
 ''No harm," she said at last, sharply, with 
 a sort of gasp. 
 
 *' Not yet ; but are you sure you were 
 thinkiniij no liarm?"
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 191 
 
 " My thoughts are my business." She 
 was trembling still, but neither tearful nor 
 agitated, answering curtly and sullenly. 
 
 " If they are harmless thoughts — harmless 
 to yourself and others — that's true. But 
 I think you are not here on any business 
 harmless to yourself." 
 
 She did not attempt to deny the infer- 
 ence ; she had risen and stood leaning 
 against the railing looking at him. The 
 clouds were driving past the moon sc 
 that they could scarcely read each other's 
 faces. 
 
 " You're the gentleman who «fave me the 
 coffee," she said, after a minute's pause. 
 *' I thought at first you was a policeman. 
 What call have you to be following and 
 dodging me ?" 
 
 " What are you lurking down here in the 
 dark alone by the river for? Come away." 
 Half reluctantly, half obediently, she let
 
 192 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 him draw her a step or two further away 
 from the water. 
 
 ^' It's no business of yours ?" she mut- 
 tered. 
 
 ''Perhaps not — but I am glad I follow- 
 ed you." 
 
 ''Why?" 
 
 "Because I think there was some rash 
 thought in your mind, and if I had not 
 come up with you, you might have carried 
 out that thought into a rash act." 
 
 " And if I had ? — I didn't say I was go- 
 ing to, mind! — but if I had? There'd be 
 one less in the world, that's all." 
 
 Paul was getting on his own ground 
 now ; he had led her to speak her thought, 
 and had broken through the ice of her first 
 antagonism. 
 
 "There is room in the world for all of 
 us, and a place for each. There's a right 
 in the world for all of us. Come back to
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 193 
 
 your place and your right in life — don't try to 
 run away from your post even if it's a hard 
 one. We all have a place to hold " 
 
 *' A place !" she interrupted, bitterly, with 
 a harsh laugh. "Yes, I know there's a 
 place for me ! There's a place all ready for 
 a girl as has got no home, no friends, not a 
 penny of money, and not a soul to help her, 
 and stands alone in London streets. It's 
 away from that place I'm running," she 
 burst out passionately, and breaking down 
 at last into a sob, " and there's the river 
 near — and in five minutes more I'd have 
 been at peace, if you'd only let me alone." 
 
 Paul Severne listened with a terrible 
 sense of helplessness that held him silent. 
 There were hundreds like this girl — hun- 
 dreds whom Life pushed harshly to the 
 door, saying, "No place for you!" — hun- 
 dreds whom he was powerless to save. 
 
 '*And what good have you done?" she 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 went on, more collectedly, struggling with 
 her agitation. " It was the best I could do 
 for myself, and you stopped me. You had 
 no right to stop me ! you don't know what 
 life's been to me — how can you judge? I 
 wish you hadn't followed me; the impulse 
 is past, and the courage I'd got up is gone ; 
 I couldn't do it now. But you've done no 
 real good ; it'll come to this some other 
 night all the same." 
 
 *' It must not — it shall not ! — you are too 
 young to talk like this, too young to despair. 
 You have no parents, no friends, you say ?" 
 
 *' No ; mother died three years ago. 
 Some people have been kind to me, but 
 there's no one I can go to for help ; I'm all 
 alone." 
 
 ''Where do you live?" 
 
 " Nowhere ; I couldn't pay my rent. I 
 walked about all last night, and to-night I 
 said I'd end it."
 
 A WAIF AND STRAY. 195 
 
 Paul thought of the few pence in his 
 purse — only a few miserable coppers! — 
 what good could they do ? If ever in his 
 life he longed for money, he longed for it 
 now. What was he to do for this girl ? 
 He stood there in wretched perplexity, as if 
 he were searching for a loop-hole in a dead 
 wall. All blank — blank ! He could see 
 nothing to be done, yet something he must 
 find to help her. He dared not leave her, 
 alone as he found her, by the river — the 
 cold, black river that splashed against the 
 stones sullenly as if disappointed of its 
 prey. 
 
 While he stood cogitating, she spoke 
 again. 
 
 " Well," she said, '' that's about all, ain't 
 it ? Vm afraid I haven't seemed over 
 grateful to you. You meant it kind, I see, 
 but it was hard to be pulled back just then ; 
 still I thank you, because it was kindly 
 
 o2
 
 196 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 meant, and there hasn't been too much 
 kindness showed me latel}^ So now I'll 
 wish you good night, sir — and you, don't 
 trouble yourself no more about me ; I can 
 take care of myself." 
 
 " Care of yourself, child ! why, you are 
 but a child still ! — yes, I see the care you 
 can take. Where are you going ?" 
 
 ''Anywhere !" 
 
 Paul Severne made up his mind. 
 
 "That is nowhere," he said, "and ' no- 
 w^here ' won't board you and lodge you to- 
 night. Now you're not thankful to me just 
 now, I know — you cannot be, but you will 
 be one day ; meanwhile, I see only one 
 thing to be done. You are faint and tired, 
 I know ; do you think you can walk a mile 
 or so ^
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 Poor flower, left torn since yesterday, 
 Until to-morrow leave you bare ; 
 Poor handful of bright spring- water, 
 Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face ! 
 
 ROSSETTI. 
 
 " T AM glad you are still up, Mrs. Brown," 
 ■- said Paul Severne, with a mingling 
 of relief and anxiety as his landlady ap- 
 peared on the threshold, candlestick in 
 hand. 
 
 Mrs. Brown welcomed him, first with a 
 smile, for he was one of her favourites 
 among the lodgers, then — as the flickering
 
 198 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 light of the unsteady candle/ which was 
 wilting in its socket, fell on the half-shrink- 
 ing figure of the girl in the shadow at his 
 side — with suspicion. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Severne !" she said, in a tone 
 of severe virtue, '^and who may this young 
 woman be?" 
 
 ''She wants a lodging — for to-night, at 
 least; and, Mrs. Brown, I knew you were a 
 kind-hearted woman, and your niece Jessie 
 left you this morning " 
 
 Mr. Severne felt he was floundering, but 
 he struggled manfully on, endeavouring to 
 attain as frank and ingratiating a manner as 
 possible, while he would gladly have 
 changed places with a soldier charging in 
 the front rank of the battle. Shot and shell 
 appeared less alarming than Mrs. Brown's 
 glare of inquiry. 
 
 "So I thought, perhaps," he continued, 
 "that, as Jessie's room was empty, you
 
 HER STORY. 19 J) 
 
 might be kind enough to let her occupy it — • 
 just for to-night." 
 
 "Jess hadn't no room. Jess had a 
 shakedown in the back kitchen," answered 
 Mrs. Brown, with a steely glance that 
 scrutinised the stranger from top to toe. 
 The girl spoke for herself now. 
 
 " A shakedown'll do for me — anything'll 
 do, if you'll let me have it. I'd go on 
 further to look for a place if I could — but 
 I'm dead tired and done up." 
 
 She finished with a sort of tremble in her 
 voice, and involuntarily leant against the 
 wall for support; her tired hands hung 
 down heavily by her side ; her misty blue 
 eyes glanced from the woman to the man 
 beside her with something of the look of a 
 lost dog as he scans the faces of the people 
 hurrying to and fro past the spot where he 
 missed his master. All the angry and 
 sullen spirit which had animated her when
 
 200 A BROKEN F/vITH. 
 
 Mr. Severne arrested her intent by the 
 river-side had died out ; she looked a forlorn 
 and weary, frail and drooping creature, 
 with even a certain pathetic childishness 
 and simplicity of aspect ; and Mrs. Brown, 
 whose heart was soft if her tongae was 
 occasionally shrewish, relented from her 
 original attitude of suspicion. 
 
 Well, the 3'oung woman could have 
 Jessie's bed, she admitted. And supper? 
 well, she didn't know about supper — in an- 
 swer to Mr. Severne's suggestion. There 
 was a bone of cold beef, and if there was 
 fire enough to boil the kettle, she could 
 make a cup of tea. She supposed Mr. 
 Severne knew what he was about, for he 
 had always been quite the gentleman, but 
 she should like to know who and what the 
 young woman was? This in a stage aside. 
 
 Mr. Severne succeeded, with some diffi- 
 culty and diplomacy and avoidance of com-
 
 HER STORY. 201 
 
 mitting himself to any statements, in post- 
 poning all explanations till the morrow, 
 also in eliciting a kind of half and half and 
 conditional promise of friendly attention, and 
 due administration of such refreshments as 
 the house afforded, to his protegee. He 
 even went the length of descending to the 
 front kitchen — which also served as Mrs. 
 Brown's dining-room, where a large cat 
 slumbered before a dead or dying fire, and 
 unwashed plates and dishes ornamented the 
 table — to see that his instructions were at- 
 tended to. With an awkward sense of 
 intruding on Mrs. Brown's privacy, and 
 being possibly regarded as an interferer and 
 a busybody by the object of his solicitude, 
 he endeavoured in his clumsy masculine 
 way to commend the two to each other 
 and to cheer up the young girl, who seemed 
 now almost too exhausted to respond ; she 
 sank limply and listlessly into a chair and
 
 202 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 turned very white, while Mrs. Brown, 
 briskly bestirring herself, suggested, 
 
 *' Gome, don't go and faint now ; keep 
 up your sperrits ! I haven't got no salts, 
 but you take a sniff of this vinegar," vigor- 
 ously uncorking a big bottle she took from 
 oif a shelf and shoving it under the girl's 
 nose. ^' Mr. Severne, you'd best just go 
 and leave her to me." 
 
 Paul Severne thought so too, and retired, 
 leaving his charge to faint away in peace — 
 a proceeding which would have alarmed 
 his inexperienced heart — and to be shaken 
 and splashed v/ith vinegar and cold water 
 back to consciousness. 
 
 He climbed up four flights of stairs to his 
 bachelor quarters near the roof — an ele- 
 vated and airy situation with which he was 
 very well contented — to flavour with the 
 sweet consciousness of a deed well-done his 
 nocturnal pipe and brandy and water.
 
 HER STORY. 203 
 
 The morrow came; and he awoke to con- 
 sider with the sober views of daylight his 
 last night's adventure. First and foremost, 
 he was glad to think how Fate or Chance 
 had led him to tlie river-side in time to 
 prevent the old story of " One more unfor- 
 tunate" being enacted again to its dreary 
 end. That he, under Providence, had pre- 
 vented such a climax he had no doubt. 
 The girl's intent she had not even denied ; 
 and in the face of the recollection of tHe 
 despair of her look, the stealthy swiftness of 
 her movement, the passion in which she 
 had turned upon him at last, he could not 
 disbelieve that she would have carried out 
 her intention. He was very sorry for this 
 fragile creature, so young, so lonely — this 
 waif and stray that the great dark sea of Lon- 
 don had cast like a poor weed at his feet. 
 
 Still he could not shut his eyes to the fact 
 that he had taken upon himself a great
 
 204 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 responsibility ; and he could not see what 
 on earth to do with it. It was a 
 good deed ; he was not troubled by 
 any wavering in that conviction ; but this 
 good deed came home to him very much 
 in the manner of a white elephant ; he did 
 not know how to undertake it. He was 
 quite willing, more than willing, anxious to 
 pay the cost and carry on the work he 
 had begun ; only — how was he to do it ? 
 
 Two ideas only occurred to him — do- 
 mestic service and dressmaking. He won- 
 dered whether the Hastings' had a vacant 
 place in their establishment, whether he 
 could induce Athelyn to light her rushlight 
 to the extent of taking this girl into service ? 
 then an uneasy doubt occurred to him, 
 whether — supposing he were to persuade 
 Athelyn to take her on trial — the girl 
 would be eager to accept the chance ? He 
 had a vague idea that for getting any place
 
 HER STORY. ^U^ 
 
 a certificate of character was necessary ; he 
 supposed his new protegee could easily obtain 
 that. Yet if she could show a fair character 
 page, and was willing to w^ork, how did she 
 come to be alone by the river that bleak 
 November night, 
 
 *' Mad from Life's history, 
 Glad to Death's mystery, 
 Swift to be hurled 
 Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world !" 
 
 Then he reflected how little he could tell 
 of her, how little he knew. It was enough 
 to interest him strongly — far too little to re- 
 present to others. Actually he did not 
 even know her name ! 
 
 Mr. Severne's bell rang unusually early ; 
 and he, habitually the meekest and most 
 long-suffering of lodgers, waited with un- 
 usual impatience for his breakfast. He had 
 a half idea floating brokenly in his mind 
 that his last night's adventure might turn
 
 206 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 out to be but a dreairi — that the girl might 
 vanish, like an Arabian night's vision, away 
 into the darkness from which she had come 
 — that on inquiring for her he would find 
 that she had fled. 
 
 He hoped that Mrs. Brown herself would 
 bring him up his tray ; she did occasionally 
 honour him so far when her time could be 
 spared from the shop, more especially when 
 she had any grievance to unfold for his 
 sympathy. However, it was not Mrs. 
 Brown who entered ; it was the charwoman 
 who "helped " in the house-work, that is to 
 say, who did it all, and on whom the 
 lodgers depended for most of their com- 
 forts. Luxuries there were none in Mrs. 
 Brown's establishment ; it was a hive of 
 working-bees, a kind of Republic on a small 
 scale ; drones and aristocrats had no abiding- 
 place there. 
 
 If the omission of anything which Mrs.
 
 HER STORY. 207 
 
 Brown deemed a luxury was complained 
 of, she would suggest that the dissatisfied 
 party had better resort to " one of them big 
 hotels, and be Number 219." She always 
 appeared to regard this specification of 
 their possible number as a cutting retort ; 
 hotels in general were a pet aversion of 
 hers; and the custom of "numbering" was 
 to her as the red flag to a bull. Being 
 Number 219 seemed to over-balance in her 
 mind the advantages of electric bells, tables 
 cThote, billiard -rooms and lifts — some of 
 which occasionally one or other of her 
 lodgers would venture to suggest were 
 among the good things of life. Electric 
 bells would certainly have been an improve- 
 ment in the house where two or three of 
 the wires were broken, and the bell-ropes 
 had a pleasing habit of divorcing themselves 
 from the crank if anyone gave more than a 
 modest and insinuating pull, as if rather to
 
 208 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 suggest than to demand attention. A lift, 
 too, would have been an advantage to the 
 inhabitants of the third floor and attics. 
 
 The house on the whole was kept very 
 clean, but it would be difficult to say 
 whether the outside or the inside looked the 
 dingier. The appearance of the outside 
 was that of having for generations steadily 
 undergone the process of soaking in the 
 yellowest of London fog and blackening 
 with the thickest of London smoke. The 
 inside must have almost forgotten its first 
 acquaintance with paint and varnish, and 
 was relapsing fast into its primitive and 
 natural colouring. You might by a little 
 study guess at the pattern, and even lay a 
 rash wager on the original colouring of the 
 carpet that covered the drawing-room 
 stairs ; but from the oilcloth on the upper 
 flights every trace of its once bright geo- 
 metrical figures had been trodden out.
 
 HER STORY. 209 
 
 Still Mrs. Brown's establishment could boast 
 of certain solid comforts ; its furniture was 
 an odd melee of the ancient and the modern ; 
 heavy old wardrobes on whose shelves our 
 grandmothers had packed away their home- 
 spun linen in lavender, and the flimsiest of 
 cheap cane-chairs ; a solid mahogany four- 
 poster flanked by a gimcrack deal toilette- 
 table in muslin petticoats — at least, it wore 
 these light garments when times were good 
 with Mrs. Brown, and at other periods 
 stood bare and unadorned. 
 
 Mr. Severne had got a fair share of the 
 most substantially comfortable, if not the 
 most ornamental, furniture in his room ; by 
 especial favour he was accommodated with 
 an old-fashioned writing-table with drawers 
 and pigeon-holes, the latter containing al- 
 most equal proportions of MSS. and dust ; 
 and as his tastes were fortunately nearly as 
 modest as his means were limited, he made 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 himself very satisfactorily at home in his 
 present quarters, and had no mind to fly 
 from the small inconveniences that he knew, 
 and go wandering in search of others that 
 he knew not of. 
 
 He had only waited for his breakfast a 
 few minutes, which to his unusual impa- 
 tience seemed more, when Mrs. Mulveeny, 
 the " help '^ — a wild Irishwoman with fran- 
 tic hair that would have done credit to an 
 Indian squaw — plunged into the room with 
 a tray and dashed it upon the table with a 
 hearty good-will that nearly upset the ink- 
 stand. 
 
 *' Good mornin' to ye, sir," she said, in a 
 fine rich brogue and with never a full stop, 
 *' and sure it's early ye're about to-day, an 
 it's nothin' but eggs Mrs. Brown's got in the 
 house, an' fine new-laid ones, and will ye 
 have one boiled or poached?" 
 
 Mr. Severne had barely time to express
 
 HER STOKY. 211 
 
 his preference for the latter form when 
 Mrs. Mulveeny ran on, 
 
 *' An' I was to tell ye, sir, as the young 
 woman have had breakfast with Mrs. 
 Brown, and Mrs. Brown's now in the shop, 
 an' will ye have her sent up ?" 
 
 *' If it is convenient," replied Mr. Severne, 
 feeling rather uncertain as to who was al- 
 luded to, and deeming that brief answer 
 discreet. 
 
 Some minutes after Mrs. MulvQeny had 
 clattered downstairs, there was a tap at the 
 door — a softer tap than had ever heralded 
 the advent of Mrs. Mulveeny or Mrs. 
 Brown — and his " Come in " was answered 
 by the appearance of the object of his inter- 
 esting speculations and embarrassing respon- 
 sibiHty. She did not answer to the popular 
 idea of. a heroine of romance at all, as she 
 entered, with a quiet, shy, and yet formal air 
 of decorous attendance, bearing the plate of 
 
 p2
 
 212 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 eggs in her hand, the household cat, a 
 large sleek tabby Tom, following at her 
 heels. Still Mr. Severne's eyes took inter- 
 ested note of her. 
 
 Seen in the morning light, she looked a 
 different creature from the pale, disordered 
 girl whose troubled, set white face had 
 struck him first when the flickering rays of 
 the little lamp at the coffee-stall fell upon 
 it — who had wandered blindly to the river, 
 helpless, hopeless, alone, and turned upon 
 him like some hunted wild animal when he 
 laid his hand upon her arm. 
 
 Now her face was carefully composed, 
 and with a certain sweetness in its compos- 
 ure, and if in the unsure and retreating 
 glance of her eye there was still a touch of 
 shy, nervous appeal, there was nothing but 
 that flitting expression to mark that she felt 
 this meeting. Her fair hair was neatly put 
 up in sleek, thick coils ; her dress, shabby
 
 HER STORY. 213 
 
 and worn of coarse, was tidily arranged; 
 her whole aspect seemed somehow to have 
 freshened and brightened ; she looked very 
 young, and — he could not help seeing now 
 — very pretty. She was rather tall and 
 very slight in figure ; there was a sort of 
 untrained grace about her, and she moved 
 with a quick softness that was so far cat-like 
 that it had something of the beauty of a 
 cat's supple curves. 
 
 " Mrs. Brown asked me to bring this up^ 
 sir," she said, placing the dish on the table. 
 
 " Thank you. I hope you are better this 
 morning ?" 
 
 " Yes, thank you, sir." 
 
 *' And — Mrs. Brown gave you a good 
 breakfast, I hope ?" 
 
 '' Yes, thank you." 
 
 *' I am glad to see you looking so much 
 better," continued Mr. Severne, a Httle awk- 
 wardly, harping back to his first remark.
 
 214 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Then, as he fancied she seemed about to 
 retreat, as if her duty was done, he added, 
 " Won't you sit down ? — I should like to have 
 a little talk with you, if you don't mind." 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish, sir," but she 
 hesitated before she took the chair he 
 pointed out. 
 
 The cat leapt up on her lap and rubbed 
 its head against her ; evidently cat and girl 
 had made friends speedily. Tom was a 
 spoilt cat — the one pet of the house — and 
 his attentions to strangers were few and far 
 between. There w^ere times when Mr. 
 Severne had not deemed Tom's presence an 
 unmixed blessing, but this morning it was 
 undeniably a boon, as offering a safe and 
 easy means of gliding into conversation. 
 
 The topic of Tom's tabby charms, and the 
 charms of his species in general, however, 
 did not prove inexhaustible, especially as 
 the girl did not seem conversationally in-
 
 HER STORY. 215 
 
 clined. She sat quietly, smoothing the cat's 
 sleek fur as he arched his back complacently 
 under her hand, and Mr. Severne's observa- 
 tions received only demure monosyllabic 
 replies. Once, at something he said, she 
 smiled ; it was one of those sweet, subtle 
 smiles — half arch, half sad, that would have 
 lit up a plainer face into attractiveness and 
 made this girl positively lovely. 
 
 Still she was resolutely laconic, and made 
 no allusion to the previous night, so Mn 
 Severne determined — now that the ice was 
 a little broken — to take the initiative. 
 
 "Do you know," he said, kindly, ''that I 
 have not even heard your name yet ?" 
 
 She answered the implied question un- 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 " My name's Cressida Lane." 
 " Cressida ? An uncommon name." 
 "Yes. It's out of a play — Shakespeare, 
 1 think, isn't it ?" she added, doubtfully.
 
 216 A BROKEN FATTH. 
 
 " Yes, quite right." 
 
 " It was mother's name," the girl con- 
 tinued ; "it was the lady who stood god- 
 mother to her that chose it." 
 
 This afforded Mr. Severne exactly the 
 opportunity he wanted. 
 
 " I think you said you were an orphan ?" 
 he observed. 
 
 '^ Mother died three years ago." 
 
 " And you have no father ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 ''I don't know whether father's alive or 
 dead," she admitted, half reluctantly. 
 
 *' Now," said Mr. Severne, *' I want to 
 help you ! I am anxious to do all I can to 
 help you. But, as you see, I'm poor. I 
 have little money and little influence in the 
 world. Still what little influence I have I 
 want to use for you if you'll show me how 
 to use it. Will you tell me, have you any 
 plans for the future, in carrying out which
 
 HER STORY. 217 
 
 I could in any way be of use to you ? " 
 
 " You're very kind," she said, lifting a 
 pair of wistful grateful eyes. How changed 
 she was from the girl who had shot looks 
 of sullen defiance and sobbed out passion- 
 ate reproaches to hini for staying her rash 
 haste only last night ! " I didn't think as 
 there was anybody would ever be kind to me 
 again ! I haven't got any plans. I should 
 like to get work to do — but work's so hard 
 to get." ♦ 
 
 " What kind of work do you want ?" he 
 asked, practically. 
 
 " Well, I'm a good hand at my needle. 
 I was 'prenticed to a dressmaker." 
 
 "Couldn't you get that dressmaker to 
 take you into employment or recommend 
 you to some place ?" 
 
 "No," she said, reddening, and with just 
 a touch of the sullen pain he had seen be- 
 fore hardening the mobile corners of her
 
 218 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 mouth. " She wouldn't do anything for 
 me ; she turned me off without a character 
 — I wouldn't go near her again." 
 
 " Is there any other kind of work you 
 have been accustomed to ?" 
 
 " There's nothing else I've been used to 
 do ; but there's very few things I wouldn't be 
 willing to do." 
 
 *' I don't want to pry into your affairs or 
 press you with questions," he said, gently, 
 "but if you would tell me as much about 
 yourself as you choose — where you have 
 lived, how you were brought up, and so on 
 - — I might be better able to help you." 
 
 She looked at him uncertainly ; her 
 glance, if it had been a shade more search- 
 ing, would have been suspicious; she seemed 
 struggling between impulses of caution and 
 secretiveness, and responsiveness of grati- 
 tude. At last the latter feeling seemed to 
 sway the balance down.
 
 HER STORY. 219 
 
 " I'll tell you all — " she began, and then 
 paused, and started afresh. "I didn't think 
 when I was a child that I'd ever have come 
 to stand as I stood last night ! Nor I 
 oughtn't to, if things had gone well with 
 us. Father had as nice a little shop as 
 you could wish ; and mother when she 
 married — she married from service ; she'd 
 been with the lady eight years — she 
 had her savings in the bank ; she took it 
 near all out to help set up the shop. We 
 were very comfortable ; I and my little 
 sister and brother went to school ; and we 
 used to go and play with the children at 
 the place where mother had lived. Mrs. 
 Montrose used to give me Miss Louisa's 
 frocks when she grew out of them. Mother 
 used to think, I remember, that when Miss 
 Louisa grew up and got married I might be 
 her lady's-maid. Poor mother ! I used to 
 look higher. I didn't want to be anybody's
 
 220 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 maid. I always thought I would like to be 
 free." 
 
 She paused, and Mr. Severne was listen- 
 ing comprehendingly and somewhat sadly ; 
 he knew the old, old story. 
 
 " Well," continued Cressida, with a sigh, 
 *' things went pretty smoothly with us till 
 one winter troubles began. Father lost 
 both his horses with the cattle disease ; it 
 came all the harder because he had just 
 spent more than he could afford on a new 
 horse, and it didn't live a month. And 
 mother had an accident ; she fell downstairs 
 and hurt her back, and wasn't ever strong 
 again. And there were doctors' bills — and 
 the horses' death was a great loss — and we 
 began to get in debt. Then my little sister 
 and brother took the fever and died— I 
 nearly died too. I've wished I had some- 
 times. But the worst was when father took 
 to drinking. He was very fond of me, was
 
 HER STORY. 221 
 
 poor father — but when he'd had a drop too 
 much he'd strike even me." 
 
 She said this so simply and quietly that 
 Paul Severne, habitually the soul of mercy 
 to all sinners, found himself yielding to vin- 
 dictively merciless judgments on the "poor 
 father " alluded to. Cressida sighed, looked 
 down, and smoothed the cat on her lap, who 
 lay rolled up into a comfortable round 
 cushion, and purring like an organ. Its 
 luxurious contentment contrasted with the 
 patient repression of the girl's look, as she 
 recalled these painful memories, and sleeked 
 the animal's ears with almost unconscious 
 fingers. 
 
 ''Well?" 
 
 " And mother was ailing and fretful, and 
 luck turned against us all ways. Father 
 drank himself out of house and home ; all 
 the business — what was left of it — went to 
 ruin; he sold it and took a smaller shop^
 
 222 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 and that went to smash too ; and at last he 
 came down to a barrow — father, who used 
 to' hope to get on and retire with a fortune, 
 as others have done !" 
 
 "And failed and fell as others have 
 fallen," Mr. Severne rejoined, sympathetic- 
 .all3^ "A sad story — and there are a hun- 
 dred like it enacting round us every day. 
 Well, and you ? the only child left — you 
 were quite a child at this time ?" 
 
 "When father took to the barrow I was 
 twelve years old. I remember I cried all 
 night. I used to be ambitious and think 
 of the day when we should be rich — and 
 that's what came of it ! The drinking kept 
 father down ; he couldn't get on, and by- 
 and-by he fell into bad company. Mother 
 used to cry and talk to him ; but it was no 
 good ; at last he used only to swear at 
 her and go out and bang the door. But he 
 was never unkind to me — never except
 
 HER STORY. 223 
 
 when he wasn't himself. And one day, I 
 recollect so well — it was just before the 
 worst came upon us — he was going out, and 
 he came back to me and kissed me, and 
 said, * Never mind — perhaps the luck will 
 turn some day.' " 
 
 She stopped, her eyes full of tears, and 
 gulped down a great sob. 
 
 " Poor child ! poor child !" Paul Severne 
 said, gently. " If it pains you too much to 
 speak of it, don't go on." 
 
 The kind words were too much for her; 
 they seemed to set her checked sorrow 
 suddenly free; she broke down all at 
 once, and hid her face in her hands and 
 sobbed convulsively — rousing up the cat, 
 who lifted its head discontentedly, as if 
 resenting its sweet sleep broken, and then 
 got off her lap with an air of offended 
 dignity. 
 
 "And this is how it ended," she said,
 
 224 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 between her sobs. " I'll tell you the worst 
 — father was led away by the bad company 
 he'd taken to keep ; he got into trouble, 
 and one day the police came after him. 
 They took him away handcuffed, and he 
 was tried, and he got fourteen years. It 
 was — it was — the Weirdale bank robbery ; 
 but he used to be drinking with that set, 
 and so got led on, and it was they tempted 
 him, for he was the best educated and could 
 write well, and they thought that he'd be 
 useful to them, and he thought to make his 
 fortune. I went to bid him good-bye, and 
 that's the last I ever saw of him ; it's six 
 years ago, and I don't know whether he's 
 alive or dead." 
 
 " It was indeed a sad childhood for you, 
 and I fear you have had as sad a girlhood." 
 
 "I never was happy — only once!" she 
 said ; and as the word " once " left her lips 
 she flushed scarlet, and with a sudden
 
 HER STORY. 225 
 
 lapse back into the agitation she had con- 
 trolled, she burst into sobs more painful 
 and passionate than ever, but still in a 
 stifled repressed way that moved Paul 
 Severne infinitely more than if she had 
 shrieked and wailed aloud, after the natural 
 wont of humanity developed beyond the 
 stoicism of the savage, and not yet attained 
 to the reticence of culture. 
 
 That word "once," which seemed to slip 
 involuntarily from her lips, had told him a - 
 history in its one syllable, but he forbore to 
 ask *'When was that once?" 
 
 '' The lady you were telling me of at 
 first, whose children you used to play with," 
 he said, by-and-by, when she w^as calmer, 
 " did she do nothing for you ?" 
 
 " They all went out to India ; I don't 
 know what's become of them, nor they don't 
 know what's become of me. But before 
 she went, she got me 'prenticed to a dress- 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 maker, and I was quick at learning and 
 didn't dislike the work, only one of the 
 girls found out about father and was nasty 
 to me, and I wouldn't stand it ; Mrs. John- 
 son,, she took the other girl's part and said 
 I was quarrelsome, which I wasn't ! — I never 
 was counted bad-tempered, at home or 
 school. And then she said I was idle, so 
 she gave me warning, and I went back to 
 mother ; but when mother died, she sent me 
 some mourning clothes and recommended 
 me to a place at Mrs. Smithers, but every- 
 thing's been against me — everything, since 
 father got into trouble." 
 
 *' And was it then this last employer who 
 dismissed you without a character, as you 
 mentioned a little while ago ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She looked at him uneasily through her 
 half-dried tears, as if wondering whether he 
 was going to press her with questions on
 
 HER STORY. 227 
 
 that point. He was silent, and waited to 
 see if she would volunteer any explanation, 
 but her lips were locked ; he saw that if he 
 waited for ever she would offer no word of 
 further statement. 
 
 He looked at her with deep compassion ; 
 she was so young and slight and fair. In- 
 voluntarily he thought of Athelyn, and won- 
 dered, would her heart open in pity and sym- 
 pathy for this girl, or would she gather her 
 garments away from her? • 
 
 "So now," he said, after a pause, "you 
 have no relatives nor friends to help you — 
 no employer that you can go to for a 
 recommendation ?" 
 
 " No, none !" she answered, desolately. 
 
 " I see," he said, regarding her thought- 
 fully — his eyes fixed upon her rather be- 
 cause he was thinking and pondering about 
 her than in any attempt to scrutinize her 
 face; but as if she fancied his look was 
 
 q2
 
 228 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 penetrating her, she shrank and bent her 
 head and buried her tear-stained face in 
 her hands. 
 
 ^' Come ! Do not cry any more," he 
 said, kindly ; " we must see what can be 
 done for you." 
 
 *' I want to do my best," she replied, half 
 lifting her hidden face ; ''I do want to try 
 to get on — honestly," — the word came 
 with a sob — " I don't mind work — I don't 
 mind what I do. But I do want to find 
 some work to live by and do my best for." 
 
 She spoke with such simple earnestness ; 
 her face, although the curves that should 
 have been full and rounded were sunk and 
 hollowed, was so child-like in its soft out- 
 lines still — the expressions he had seen 
 upon it were so incongruous with its tender 
 youthfulness — that his heart went out to 
 her in an irresistible gush of honest sym- 
 pathy and tenderness. Not being demon-
 
 HER STORY. 229 
 
 strative or sentimental, however, he made 
 no manifestations, but let her dry her own 
 tears. 
 
 " And you shall find work !" he answered 
 her, with an earnestness that had in it just 
 the ring of cheery energy needed to rouse 
 up a drooping disheartened spirit. " Don't 
 fear and don't despond any more. There's 
 a place for you, and you shall find it ; there's 
 work somewhere waiting for you to do, and 
 you shall do it. You've had a rough strug- 
 gle with the world, I see, and perhaps 
 there may be more conflict still before 
 you ; but you will conquer and hold your 
 post yet, in time. I have a hard battle to 
 fight myself, and I've but weak weapons 
 against the world — but I shall be strong 
 enough to help you, never fear ! Some- 
 thing tells me that it was all for good that I 
 was moved to follow you last night. Your 
 past is past. Let it rest, whatever it may
 
 230 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 be. Look to your future ! That's full of 
 hope — full of possibilities. You are young 
 — there's nothing you can set before you 
 that you may not reach in time. I have 
 three watchwords for you — Wait; work; 
 and hope !" 
 
 '' Oh, I will ! I will !" she said. '' But I 
 didn't think last night that there was any- 
 one could make me hope again."
 
 231 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 
 
 One to the world's wine, honey, and corn, 
 Another, like Colchester native, born 
 
 To its vinegar only and pepper ! ^ 
 
 While Margaret, charmed by the Bulbul rare, 
 
 In a garden of Gul reposes, 
 Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street, 
 Till— think of that, who find life so sweet ! — 
 
 She hates the smell of roses ! 
 
 PAUL SEVERNE'S will to help Cressida 
 Lane was strong as man's good-will 
 could be. Dreamer though he was, he was 
 not a dreamer only ; he was bent on giving 
 her not only sympathy, but help. Still the 
 ways and means of helping her were hard
 
 232 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 to find. A sense of reserve and reluctance, 
 which he would have found it difficult to 
 explain, kept him at first from appealing 
 too strongly to the Hastings on her behalf. 
 He mentioned her and her needs to them, 
 touching but very slightly on the way in 
 which they had met and the state of des- 
 perate distress in which he had found her. 
 
 Athelyn listened with sympathy, but with 
 a certain measure of caution ; he had glided 
 too lightly over the tragic element in the 
 case to move her deeply or appeal to her 
 personal feelings ; she conceived from his 
 cool and careful account the vague idea 
 rather of a ^*case" such as she often saw 
 described than of a living breathing fellow- 
 woman ; she did not realise enough to feel 
 much ; and all that she could suggest as 
 likely to help Cressida seemed to be that 
 *• she believed Lady Manville had been in- 
 quiring for a still-room maid." Mrs. Hast-
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 233 
 
 ings, with fatal feminine pouncing on a weak 
 point, inquired why, if she had already 
 been employed in dressmaking, the young 
 woman did not get a character from her 
 former employers ? a question which Mr. 
 Severne, having no satisfactory answer to 
 give, hastened to avoid. 
 
 He could no doubt have exerted his 
 influence over Athelyn to a far greater 
 extent if he had put forth all his powers. 
 But he did not set himself resolutely to move 
 her. At first he only skimmed very cauti- 
 ously round the subject. Afterwards he 
 would no doubt have appealed to her sym- 
 pathies more strongly and successfully ; but 
 soon he began to think that there was no 
 real need to do so. 
 
 Mrs. Brown manifested a disposition to be 
 kind to Cressida. The girl made herself 
 useful and handy in many little ways about 
 the house and shop ; and the " shake down "
 
 234 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 in the back-kitchen, while still the form was 
 kept up of regarding it as a temporary 
 arrangement, gradually assumed the aspect 
 of a permanency. Then a friend of Mrs. 
 Brown's, who was in the millinery line, took 
 the girl on as an " extra hand " during a 
 press of business. On the whole, Avhile 
 things drifted along this way, Mr. Severne 
 saw no reason for resorting to endeavours 
 to arouse an active interest in Mrs. or Miss 
 Hastings. It was probable that, even given 
 their good-will, they could or would do 
 nothing more under the circumstances than 
 bestow a few kind words, a little practical 
 help, and an introduction to some branch of 
 domestic service. Somehow he could not 
 fancy Cressida in service. 
 
 She rallied with wonderful speed from 
 her despondency ; and as her natural spirits 
 revived, and by fits and starts she would be 
 merry, and seem forgetful of all her past,
 
 TWO DAUGHTEKS OF EVE. 235 
 
 and run about the house singing, she was a 
 pleasant presence to be about one. In her 
 gayer moods she was a kitten-like, playful 
 creature. A certain ntfulness about her 
 helped to interest, and a little to puzzle, 
 Mr. Severne. One hour she would be sing- 
 ing " The Rat-catcher's Daughter " at the 
 top of her clear voice with all the abandon 
 of a child ; perhaps the very next hour he 
 would find her sobbing, though on being 
 questioned she would shrink into herseif 
 and declare that nothing ailed her. Some- 
 times she struck him as being like a shy 
 free bird starting from net or cage ; some- 
 times she was all softness and submission ; 
 sometimes he detected with a sort of pain- 
 ed perplexity glimpses of a sullen defiant 
 spirit under her sweetness, undercurrents of 
 secretiveness and evasion beneath her occa- 
 sional frankness. 
 
 He did not see very much of her, since
 
 236 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 he was satisfied that she was set in a fair 
 way of living, at least for the season ; he was 
 very hard at work, but still there was never 
 a day passed without his having a few 
 words with Cressida. He liked to see the 
 sparkles of mirth dance in her great blue 
 eyes at even the mildest joke ; he liked still 
 better to meet their intent, interested look 
 following him when he talked to her in a 
 graver strain. 
 
 Paul Severne was one of the men who 
 do not talk on many subjects, and to whom 
 chit-chat is an art unknown, but who make 
 up for the few subjects they talk on by the 
 limitless kinds, classes, and types of people 
 they talk to. There was no creature Paul 
 would not talk to — the policeman on his 
 night-rounds, the coster monger with his 
 barrow, the Sister of Charity next him in 
 an omnibus, or the " proud young porter " 
 at the railway- station.
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 237 
 
 He was a favourite of Mrs. Brown's ; he 
 was not above coming down to the kitchen 
 *' to take a bit of lunch " when it suited Mrs. 
 Brown to turn his room upside-down and 
 leave him no place for the sole of his foot in 
 his legitimate quarters; nor was he above 
 fraternising with the cobbler who occupied 
 the attic. He had always a kind word for 
 old Mrs. Tenterden, who could seldom drag 
 her limbs across the threshold of her own 
 room, and often a story, or a toy, or a cake 
 for her little lame grandson, while he was 
 on terms of quite cordial friendship with the 
 night policeman who lived au second^ and 
 like an owl slept most of the day and sallied 
 forth on his ''beat" by night. 
 
 The clerk and his wife on the first floor 
 were the only people in the house who did 
 not like Mr. Severne ; they considered him 
 — perhaps very justly — a person of low 
 tastes. Neither did they like Cressida.
 
 238 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 *'The airs that wretched young woman gives 
 lierself are disgraceful !" Mrs. Helmore said, 
 indignantly, the truth being that the young 
 woman, when requested authoritatively to 
 bring up coals and make haste, had replied 
 tartly that she was not their servant, and 
 though she brought the coals, set them 
 down with the manner of a person conde- 
 scending for once to do you a favour that 
 you are not to expect to be repeated. Cres- 
 sida had a temper of her own, though she 
 was plastic as wax in the hands of those 
 who dealt gently with her. Occasionally she 
 jarred with Mrs. Brown, and declared she 
 would not stay, and Mrs. Brown would 
 retort that in that case the sooner she was 
 gone the better; but peace was generally 
 restored speedily, as in her heart Mrs. Brown 
 had a kindly feeling towards the girl whose 
 quick, clever fingers were so skilful in exe- 
 •cuting repairs of dilapidated linen, and whose
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 239 
 
 lively chatter, when she was merry, made 
 the lower regions bright ; and Cressida, 
 when her ruffled feathers had been a little 
 smoothed down, would submit to be called 
 a ''foolish girl who was always wanting to 
 quarrel with her bread and butter." 
 
 Of all the household, Cressida was most 
 frequently with the two most helpless and 
 useless creatures there — old Mrs. Tenterden 
 and her little lame grandchild Dick. Paul 
 Severne noticed this, and liked to see it; 
 He used to meet her leading the tiny, puny 
 lame boy by the hand — the thin, and, sooth 
 to say, not over-clean hand clinging confid- 
 ingly to hers; she would mend the child's 
 ragged jacket, tell him the old nursery tales 
 that always seemed new to him. As Paul 
 passed the door he would hear her voice, 
 catch a glimpse of her sitting singing with 
 Dick on her lap — singing a Christy Minstrel 
 ballad generally, or some popular music-hall
 
 240 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 gush of cheap sentiment to a catchy tune, 
 unless, indeed, it was a hymn at old Mrs. 
 Tenterden's request. 
 
 The old, half-invalided woman — the four 
 walls of "whose one shabby room comprised 
 her world — through age and sickness had 
 grown past all but two considerations, had 
 but two centres to all her thoughts — her 
 dinner and heaven. It was always a toss 
 up whether she was dreaming of white 
 robes and golden harps, or deciding on the 
 day's meal. There was little affinity between 
 her and Cressida, but they met in the 
 mutual interest of the girl's kindness to little 
 Dick, who was the one connecting link 
 between his grandmother and the life of 
 to-day. 
 
 In Paul Severne's dreams he walked on 
 the heights with his ideal ; but in daily 
 mortal life he took a warm interest in his 
 neighbours, and especially in the little stray
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 241 
 
 soul he had found adrift and helmless and 
 so near to dashing on the rocks. Perhaps 
 the happiest days in this winter to him were 
 those when he took Cressida and Dick to 
 the pit to see a pantomime and enjoyed 
 their delight, and was probably by his 
 benevolent smile mistaken for a father treat- 
 ing his two children (indeed it was a ques- 
 tion which of the party was most of a child 
 in simple and overflowing pleasure) ; and 
 another time when, well-satisfied by the 
 success of these former experiments, he treat- 
 ed the same two proteges to the Zoological 
 Gardens on a day when the weather was 
 bright. 
 
 Unluckily for his reputation amongst his 
 family connections, it happened that the 
 stately head of the family, a magnificent old 
 gentleman — with a troop of little silken-clad 
 ladies and velvet-coated little gentlemen, 
 with elaborately crimped and curled flossy 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 hair, frolicking round " Grandpapa" — passed 
 by the bear-pit at the very moment when 
 his erratic kinsman was admiring the antics 
 of the bears with his party. Paul was 
 holding Dick up in his arms to see the 
 brown bear climb the pole. Dick was clad 
 in his best, but his best was much patched 
 and darned and faded ; no one of his small 
 shabby garments was en suite with any other ; 
 there was a gaping gulf between him and 
 the pretty little knicker-bockered lad trot- 
 ting at " Grandpapa's " side. Cressida was 
 leaning over the railings uttering small 
 shrieks of delight, behaving scarcely less 
 like a child than Dick, and pulling Paul's 
 sleeve to attract his attention as she tossed 
 a bun to the bear. Paul thought her look- 
 ing very nice and neat that day ; she had 
 got a new hat for the occasion ; but the eye 
 of the head of the family fell on the whole 
 group with dismay; he passed on quickly,
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 243 
 
 gathering his flock around him, and rejoic- 
 ing that Paul had not caught sight of them, 
 while Paul in happy unconsciousness ap- 
 plauded the gymnastic bear, ignorant that 
 he was crossed out of "the family's" good 
 books that day. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the winter wore on, Athe- 
 lyn Hastings was living happily, hopefully ; 
 in some moods lapt in a perfect dreamy 
 peace, in others restless with feverish doubts 
 — never doubts of her lover, only nervous 
 anxiety as to the dangers of flood and field 
 that might yet stand between him and her, 
 and passionate longing for his return. She 
 was too devotedly fond of her mother, too 
 tenderly trustful in her, to have kept her 
 secret from her long. Before the happy 
 summer that had brought her such new joy 
 and new sweet sorrow had begun to wane, 
 Athelyn, kneeling at Mrs. Hastings's side, 
 with her flushed cheek hidden on her mo- 
 
 R 2
 
 244 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ther's breast, had told her all there was to 
 tell. That "all" was so little, and yet 
 meant so much ; the story was comprised in 
 the three brief words " he loved her !" And 
 Mrs. Hastings never asked, never needed to 
 ask, whether Athelyn loved him too. The 
 mother, romantic, impressionable, and un- 
 worldly, was easily led to look on the 
 matter with her daughter's eyes. She had 
 married Edgar Hastings for pure love's sake. 
 Love seemed to her the more priceless and 
 sacred because after a brief time of happiness 
 it had been snatched away from her. And 
 to her mind this fair Athelyn of hers was a 
 good and sufficient cause to turn any man's 
 head, and root in any man's heart such a 
 love as should be more precious to her in 
 her future than fine gold. 
 
 Athelyn, naturally and instinctively averse 
 to concealment — although a proud and 
 modest reserve made her sometimes appear
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 245 
 
 secretive — mentioned to Mr. Parkhurst in 
 her next letter (they kept up a steady 
 correspondence) that she had confided in 
 her mother. She was half afraid lest he 
 might be angry or annoyed at this con- 
 fidence, as he had never expressed any de- 
 sire for her to speak of their correspond- 
 ence to her family, and indeed had always 
 treated it with an air of secrecy. However 
 his sentiments, as expressed by return mail, 
 were to the effect that '' she had acted like 
 the innocent angel he always thought she 
 was. He loved her for her truth ; he loved 
 her for her candour ;" and so on, in the 
 lover's repetitions that to the beloved do not 
 savour in the least of tautology, until it 
 would have led an indifferent reader to ask 
 if there was any quality left that he did not 
 
 love her for ? 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 As the weeks drew out into months, and
 
 246 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the spring on swift and noiseless feet came 
 nearer and nearer, breathing blue into the 
 white winter sky, and touching with tips of 
 tender green the earliest budding trees, 
 Athelyn began to notice an undefinable and 
 gradual change in her friend and brother^ 
 Paul Severne ; and he on his part began 
 slowly to awaken to the fact that Athelyn 
 too was somewhat changed. 
 
 Neither could have explained what they 
 saw ; but each did see in the other a some- 
 thing that either was not there or that their 
 eyes had not recognised before. Paul per- 
 ceived a ripening and a development in 
 Athelyn ; a sense of purpose seemed to be 
 wakening in her ; she had always been 
 dreamy, imaginative, and poetic; now her 
 dreams and aspirations seemed to be falling 
 into order and harmony, and revolving round 
 a centre. 
 
 And it was a somewhat similar change to
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE, 247 
 
 that which Paul saw in Athelyn that Athe- 
 lyn saw in Paul. Crude angles in his 
 nature seemed to be softening down ; yet 
 his tendency to extremes, in sympathy with 
 the lowest, in aspiration towards the highest, 
 was more marked than ever. His ardent 
 human interest in all that was of the earth 
 earthy, the strong bond that tied him to 
 all humanity, seemed strengthening daily ; 
 yet, dreamer as he had ever been, he wan- 
 dered more wildly in the cloud-lands o£ 
 Utopia than ever. 
 
 Athelyn, woman-like,- not contented with 
 studying these signs, wasted a good deal of 
 time in conjecturing what could be the key 
 to them ; and sometimes she wondered, with 
 a sort of reluctant discernment, whether the 
 key could be — " Cressida." 
 
 He did not tell her much about Cressida ; 
 he had added little to the brief sketch he 
 had given her at first of the girl's posi-
 
 248 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 tiori and prospects — or rather want of 
 prospects ; yet somehow without will of 
 his own, Cressida's name would keep intro- 
 ducing itself into all his conversations with 
 Athelyn. He did not mean to talk of her ; 
 he had nothing particular to say about her ; 
 only he never managed to steer clear of 
 some casual mention of her name. 
 
 And Athelyn wondered — Could this girl 
 have attained to such an influence over 
 Paul as to effect in him this subtle change 
 that w^as visible to her sisterly eyes? It 
 seemed to her almost impossible. For al- 
 though she had known Paul many years she 
 did not quite know him yet. She could 
 follow him up to the heights of his highest 
 ideal ; but she did not follow him far down 
 into the depths of his intense humanity, his 
 deep-piercing sympathies, from which none 
 could fall so low as to be wholly out of 
 reach. She could comprehend his worship-
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 249 
 
 ping an ideal ; but she could not understand 
 his loving a frail mortal woman between 
 whom and himself there yawned what to 
 Athelyn seemed the bridgeless gulf of 
 €aste. 
 
 For the fact that Paul Severne was of a 
 good old family and drew his life from a line 
 of ancestors sans peur et sans rejprodie was 
 more prominently present to Athelyn than 
 to Paul himself. To the purity of the sang 
 azur that ran in his veins he was passably 
 indifferent ; he took more satisfaction in the 
 smallest of his own personal good deeds 
 than in the long muster-roll of his ancestors* 
 achievements. He had certainly a mild and 
 temperate pride in belonging by birth to the 
 upper ten, but of this pride he was not 
 proud ; he regarded it rather as a concession 
 to the weakness of humanity than as a source 
 of legitimate strength. 
 
 It was rather a sore point with him that
 
 250 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the reigning Severnes did not pay him the 
 compliment of the slightest notice, and pro- 
 bably regarded him as a degenerate and 
 unworthy offshoot of their noble line. But 
 he despised himself heartily for feeling this 
 as a sore point, and penniless wanderer and 
 worker for bread as he was, he would have 
 held his head as high among the Severnes 
 as if he had been the hope and pride of the 
 race, nor have yielded an inch of the way 
 he had chosen for himself in life, if there 
 had been a chance of the head of the family 
 taking a whim to appoint him his heir. The 
 more conscious he was of pride at heart in 
 the name of the family that in no way dis- 
 carded, but still quietly ignored him, the 
 more he professed to scorn that pride, and 
 walked through the world genuinely and 
 healthily prouder of being Man than Gentle- 
 man. 
 
 Thus while to Athelyn it seemed a marvel^
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 251 
 
 almost an impossiblity, that Paul Severne 
 could take any interest beyond pity and sym- 
 pathy in a girl of the people — who carried 
 about coal-scuttles in a common lodging- 
 house, and soiled her fingers with kitchen 
 toil when she was out of work, and 
 stitched at a milliners with a room full 
 of other girls of the people when she 
 was lucky enough to be in work — who 
 probably could not spell correctly and 
 very likely misplaced her h's, and whosd 
 past life was, to say the least of it, a good 
 deal veiled in mystery — it was to Paul 
 Severne no especial matter of wonder that 
 any man should love any woman. King 
 Cophetua appeared to him, perhaps, a trifle 
 rash on the score of the brevity of his woo- 
 ing, but not at all so in his choice. 
 
 Between Paul andAthelyn there was less 
 expansiveness of personal confidence than 
 might have been regarded as natural betweea
 
 252 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 two such frank and fraternally intimate 
 friends. On all topics of current discussion, 
 all theories and differences of opinion, 
 political, social and religious, they were 
 plain-spoken to the frankest degree ; but a 
 certain innate and mutual reserve had pre- 
 vented them from ever taking each other 
 into those depths of their own hearts where 
 Love sleeps, and stirs, and wakes. So 
 neither could know the source of the 
 faint and scarce perceptible stir and up- 
 heaval that each detected in the other's 
 nature, though Paul, manlike, was less curi- 
 ous about Athelyn than Athelyn was about 
 him. 
 
 If her curiosity was aroused by his con- 
 stant though casual allusions to Cressida, it 
 was still more excited and deepened when 
 a time came that he suddenly and utterly 
 dropped all such allusions, and even ap- 
 peared cautiously to avoid all mention of
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 253 
 
 her name on occasions when it might natur- 
 ally have been introduced. 
 
 One evening there was a little gathering 
 of friends at the Hastings' — the first of a 
 series of receptions which they intended 
 giving during the early season. Paul 
 Severne was there, in his rarely produced 
 swallow-tailed coat and gloves, which he 
 hated, but put them on, less as a concession 
 to society than to Mrs. Hastings, to please 
 whom he would have made a far greater 
 concession. He was as usual placid and 
 taciturn ; he looked perfectly gentlemanly, 
 and, as Athelyn reflected with friendly 
 satisfaction, *' almost good-looking." But 
 nearer to that adjective than " almost" Paul 
 Severne would never get. 
 
 Athelyn was charming in the role of 
 hostess, gracefull}'^ seconding her mother, 
 and skilfully bringing up the second detach- 
 ment while Mrs. Hastings marshalled the
 
 254 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 first into order. Old Mr. Hastings looked 
 like a picture by Raphael, smiled benevo- 
 lently, and moved slowly about the rooms, 
 dropping words of kindly courtesy into 
 everybody's ear, and somehow always find- 
 ing just the right thing to say in the right 
 place, and although he was short of memory 
 and a stranger to many of his daughter-in- 
 law's guests, never asking a widow after her 
 husband or a bachelor about the number of 
 his children. Lady Manville was there, 
 gorgeous in rose-colour satin and diamonds, 
 like a little humming-bird, flitting about 
 full of gaiety, darting across the room to 
 whisper to Athelyn, who had been taking 
 compassion on two shy gawky brothers who 
 were making their first appearance. 
 
 " Latest victims, eh ? two of them at once. 
 How many more ? Poor Mr. Parkhurst ! 
 by the time he comes back from India he'll 
 find himself quite at the bottom of your list."
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 255 
 
 The quick colour flamed on Athelyn's 
 cheek, though she hated herself for blushing. 
 
 " I like to make you blush !" exclaimed 
 Lady Manville. " It makes 370U look 
 awfully pretty! Do you know, Athelyn, 
 my dear, you're actually improving," she 
 added, frankly. ^' If you go on at this rate 
 you'll leave us all behind. There's your 
 philanthropical friend over there, Paul 
 Severne. Looks, as usual, as if he were 
 evolving theories for the benefit of the* 
 world. Pleasant theories too, I should 
 think, by his unusually smiling aspect. I 
 wonder if it's a plan for the importation of 
 the prettiest girls, or the deportation of all 
 rival litterateurs and philanthropists to the 
 Cannibal Islands ! Anyhow, he looks most 
 uncommonly amiable. He is actually 
 smiling to himself! I think even frivolous 
 1 might venture to speak to him in this 
 mood."
 
 256 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 This attracted Atlielyn's attention to 
 Paul. Lady Manville had not exaggerated 
 the fact. He certainly v)as smiling to him- 
 self. Athelyn watched him curiously. She 
 never remembered to have seen him look 
 as he was looking to-night. He seemed 
 strangely abstracted, silent, happy ; there 
 was a sort of radiance in his expression as 
 of a man who is brooding over some glad 
 discovery. What could it mean? She 
 sought her opportunity, and taking advan- 
 tage of a pause when everybody seemed 
 pleasantly occupied and in no need of her 
 attention, she glanced across the room at 
 him and silently summoned him to her side. 
 
 Paul came with prompt obedience, and 
 took the seat she had reserved for him. 
 They spoke a few common-places ; and then 
 there was a silence; then Athelyn looked 
 at him and said, 
 
 " Paul, what has come to you ?"
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE, 257 
 
 *' What do you mean ?" 
 
 *^ Only what I say. Something has come 
 to you, Paul — has been coming gradually ; 
 but to-night I see it plainer than ever. You 
 are radiant to-night, Paul ; what makes you 
 look as if you were lit up from some inner 
 light ? You move about as if you were 
 among us, but not of us. Your eyes are 
 seeing something none of us see — are they 
 not ?" 
 
 Paul looked in her face with a sort of 
 surprise, not denying any of these soft 
 impeachments, but as if her recognition of 
 them was unexpected. In answer to her 
 question he only smiled and said, 
 
 " Perhaps ! But, Athelyn, the very 
 change you say you see in me — something 
 of the same sort I have long fancied I saw 
 in you. A year ago your eyes did not look 
 so far away. Don't you see, we are both 
 changed ?" 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 It was odd that never in their frequent 
 tete-h'tetes had these two come so near to 
 confidence as they did thus suddenly and 
 impulsively in a room full of the buzz of 
 conversation and the stir of people moving 
 to and fro. There is no spot more safe for 
 confidences than the heart of a talkative 
 crowd ; and consistently enough there are 
 few places where a secret burns on the lips 
 more. If you can confide in a person at 
 any time, the hour of all others is when the 
 world is buzzing its common-places round 
 you, and for the moment you stand alone to- 
 gether in the crowd. 
 
 " Both changed ? " repeated Athelyn, 
 " yes ! But you — did not see it, Paul, 
 until — until " 
 
 " I think my eyes are keener now," he 
 said. *' Keener, and yet blinder in some 
 things. I see puzzles, mysteries, where I 
 never saw puzzles before. Life seems
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 259 
 
 clearing — and yet deepening in mystery. 
 There is a change taking place in me, I 
 know." 
 
 *' And to-night — to-night ?" she question- 
 ed softly, eagerly. " Have you found your 
 ideal, Paul ?" 
 
 *'No," he answered, "no ! I shall never 
 find her now. I think I shall never seek 
 her more !" 
 
 She cast a wondering, searching glance at 
 him. Was it in bitterness, she wondered, 
 that he spoke ? or could it be in triumph ? 
 Certainly there seemed a ring of joy in his 
 tone. She saw with concealed annoyance a 
 pair of guests steering towards them, evi- 
 dently with the intention of a parting chat. 
 She calculated she had just time to exchange 
 one more word with Paul, and she hit a nail 
 home direct. 
 
 "How is Cressida?" 
 
 " She's well," he said. Only "She's well," 
 
 s2
 
 260 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 briefly and quietly, but his tone told Athelyn 
 more than his words. No man ever spoke 
 of a woman to whom he was indifferent in 
 that accent. 
 
 " Paul ?" she whispered, questioningly, 
 anxiously. *' Oh, dear Paul, take care !'^ 
 feeling vaguely as if Fate must be digging 
 pitfalls somewhere for Paul's unwary 
 feet. 
 
 They had no time to say more ; the de- 
 parting guests were already upon them ; and 
 Mr. Severne subsided into his usual Spartan 
 brevity — which, although it may be the 
 " soul of wit " does not go very far alone ; 
 it was the only element of wit his conversa- 
 tion ever contained ; and a bodiless soul is 
 rather a helpless thing in this mortal world. 
 
 It appeared that not Athelyn's attention 
 alone had been drawn to Paul Severne's 
 new radiance of look and abstraction of 
 manner this evening. Mrs. Hastings com-
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 261 
 
 merited upon it to her daughter with some 
 interest. 
 
 " I wonder what it can be ?" she specu- 
 lated, vaguely. '^ Have 3^ou any idea, 
 Athelyn ?" 
 
 " I have a fancy, a groundless fancy." 
 
 *' So have I — but I don't know that it is 
 so groundless. Was he speaking to you of 
 that girl — Cressida ?" 
 
 " He only answered when I inquired if 
 she was well. But still my fancy, or in- 
 stinct, or whatever it is, points out — there 
 is the cause !" 
 
 " Yes," assented Mrs. Hastings, seriously. 
 *'Poor Paul! I am anxious about him, 
 Athelyn. This girl, a low-class girl, picked 
 up out of the gutter, is a dangerous interest 
 for him to get entangled in. Paul is a dear, 
 good fellow, and hitherto I have never felt 
 at all doubtful about him with all his eccen- 
 tricities. But I am anxious about the boy
 
 262 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 now. You don't understand, my dar- 
 ling " 
 
 " Yes, I do understand," protested Athe- 
 lyn, somewhat aggrieved at the implied 
 doubt of her worldly knowledge. " But, 
 mamma dear, Paul is so good, so honoura- 
 ble ! — you can't be afraid that he — that he 
 would " 
 
 *' I hope and trust, my darling, that he 
 will never be tempted into any folly of 
 which he need be ashamed, or we ashamed 
 for him," said Mrs. Hastings, cautiously. 
 
 " After all," mused Athelyn, with the air 
 of one judicially solving a problem, " if 
 Paul is fond of this girl, everything, for 
 good or evil, depends on whether she is 
 a bad girl or a good girl." 
 
 Athelyn saw no medium between the two 
 adjectives ; she had no idea of the multitude 
 of natures who, through life to death, are 
 always ferrying backwards and forwards
 
 TWO PAUGHHERS OF EVE. 263 
 
 between the two shores of good and evil, 
 and have in neither land their abiding-place. 
 She looked upon the world as divided into 
 those two kingdoms; and although theoretic- 
 ally she believed in the existence of that 
 kingdom of Evil which she did not know, 
 yet it never occurred to her that she or any 
 of those she knew and loved could be 
 brought into nearer contact with it than 
 surveying it through an opera-glass ; and in 
 her defective view of Life, the wide border- 
 land where so many of us live and die was 
 entirely overlooked. 
 
 It was not want of sympathy, but habit 
 and inexperience that narrowed her views ; 
 nor was it likely that she should instinctive- 
 ly enter into the feelings of the tempted and 
 the fallen — the weak souls who could not 
 conquer in the conflict with mortal frailty — 
 when she had been bred in the heart of 
 love and tender care, and in her own nature
 
 264 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 no flash of light had ever revealed to her 
 the potentiality of sin that lurks in each 
 human soul. She had never known what it 
 was to feel any but good impulses stir in 
 her heart. Beyond an April gust of child- 
 ish ruffled temper, all senses of anger and 
 unkindness were unknown to her. No 
 least word, thought, or act had ever yet 
 sullied the snow of the pure soul that was 
 as soft and humanly loving as it was stain- 
 less. How should she realise the force of 
 temptations and trials which were mere 
 words to her? 
 
 Meanwhile, if Atlielyn was curious about 
 Cressida, the curiosity was mutual. 
 
 " How was Miss Hastings looking last 
 night?" was one of the first things Cressida 
 inquired, when she saw Mr. Severne the 
 next morning, " And what did she wear?'' 
 
 " She wore," began Paul, slowly and 
 hesitatingly, racking his brains to recollect
 
 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 265 
 
 what colour Athelyn's white beauty had 
 been framed in, ^' a pale blue dress— or 
 pale green — one can't tell blues from greens 
 now-a-days, and I think — let me see — yes ! 
 she had white roses and pearls." 
 
 " Ah !" said Cressida, with a little discon- 
 tented sigh, glancing down at her own 
 sober-coloured linsey, with a big apron 
 pinned round the waist. '' And did she 
 look very pretty ?" 
 
 *' Well, yes ; Athelyn mostly does look* 
 pretty — like some other people I know," 
 pointing the compliment by a look of sincere 
 approbation. In his eyes Cressida looked 
 as charming as could be wished in that 
 dingy dust-coloured dress, with a bit of red 
 ribbon in her ruffled bronze-gold hair. 
 
 Cressida, however, was not at all of the 
 same opinion. 
 
 ''I was looking at that photograph of 
 hers yesterday. Does it flatter her ?" she
 
 266 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 asked, still harping on the subject of 
 Athelyn's appearance. 
 
 "No, I don't think it does at all." 
 
 " I'd half a mind to burn it, do you 
 know ?" the girl said, with a little smile and 
 a mischievous glitter in her blue eyes. 
 
 "Had you, child?" he answered, with a 
 light on his face, in no way vexed. "Ko 
 need — no need. I've told you so often 
 enough." 
 
 Thus while Athelyn wondered about 
 Cressida, Cressida thought of Athelyn ; and 
 in the interest of each in the other there 
 lurked a certain suspicion and a sense of 
 possible antagonism ; and all the while Fate 
 was gathering up and weaving in the threads 
 that should draw those two lives together.
 
 267 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Paul's question. 
 
 " Of all good things upon earth, I hold 
 That a faithful friend is best !" 
 
 FT was a glorious spring day. Winter 
 -■- had cast up his barriers in vain against 
 the soft encroaching tide that crept on over 
 his frost-white shores, stealing over banks 
 of snow-clouds and melting away the icy 
 mists, until at last a great sea of spring had 
 washed over all the land and flooded it in 
 beauty. 
 
 Even the London smoke, that stretches 
 its murky wings over city and suburb, and 
 broods so darkly down on both in the days
 
 268 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 of winter fog and frost, seemed to have fled 
 far away, like an ill-omened night-bird 
 scared back by the bright dawn. It must 
 have sought some other haunt, for now no 
 shadow of it blurred the blue light of the 
 sky. 
 
 Athelyn was sitting by the window, look- 
 ing out upon the strip of garden, the square 
 of turf and border of trees that kept a 
 breath of country freshness and fragrance 
 always round the London house. There 
 were spring-flowers opening their bright 
 eyes timidly all over the garden-beds ; 
 spring-flowers in fall bloom on the window- 
 sill; the room was sweet with the breath of 
 hyacinths ; delicate primulas unfolded their 
 shy blossoms, and golden cowslips showed 
 their rustic faces, beside the bold brilliant 
 fielf-asserting tulip that flaunts its perfect 
 beauty before the eye in a challenge of 
 audacious colouring.
 
 Paul's question. 26^ 
 
 And Athelyn, in face and form, in heart 
 and soul, was all in harmony with the 
 season ; there was not a note in her being 
 that was not attuned to spring. She looked 
 like a delicate spring-flower herself; her 
 heart was full of hope, her soul of dawning 
 dreams that were daily growing clearer. 
 
 She was alone, lost in reverie, floating 
 over sunny seas. She was back in the by- 
 gone summer, buried deep in that delicious 
 past, living it over again so vividly that it* 
 seemed indeed to be 
 
 " But a dream within a dream !" 
 For if those days had been real, even 
 equally real seemed these reflections of them 
 now. And if those days were dreams — 
 and they shone with all the ineffable moon- 
 light brightness of dream-land — then these 
 reveries were no more unreal than they. 
 Past and present, the ideal and the real, so 
 blended and melted together in her mind.
 
 '270 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 she lost sense of time and distance, and 
 drifted away from earth over smooth seas 
 that seemed to know no shore. 
 
 Her e3^es were looking beyond the tender 
 green of the budding trees — beyond the 
 blue unclouded sky, — looking back into the 
 gardens of Lakeside, seeing the dawn break 
 golden across the East again, as they two 
 had watched it together — seeing the lazy 
 lilies lie with sleepy petals outspread on the 
 sunny water, as they had seen them on 
 that day which was shrined in her memory 
 apart from all other days. His words 
 echoed in her ear again, stealing subtly 
 round her heart, and taking up possession 
 in her soul for ever, words not pleading, but 
 forceful, 
 
 "If^^ou do not love me, Athel3^n, you 
 shall ! For 1 love you /" 
 
 ^' I did not think I loved him then !" she 
 said to herself, simply. " When did I first
 
 Paul's question. 271 
 
 fully realise it, I wonder ? It crept on me 
 so insidiously — so unconsciously. And I 
 never told him ! Strange to think that I 
 never yet have said to him, in spoken or 
 v/ritten words, ' I love you !' I wonder — 
 does he know it now ?" 
 
 Then the passionate plaintive cry of that 
 song which tells the secret story of a thou- 
 sand women's hearts, came into her mind, 
 and she repeated to herself softly, 
 
 " ^ How could I tell I should love thee to-day 
 Whom that day I held not dear ? 
 How could I know I should love thee away 
 When I did not love thee near V 
 
 But that's an ill-omened song, " she in- 
 terrupted herself, shrinking a little. ^'He 
 never came back ^ from the ice-fields and 
 the snow !' " 
 
 Jim, the terrier, who lay curled up at 
 Athelyn's feet, making a cushion of the hem 
 of her dress, did not understand the custom
 
 272 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 of talking to one's self, even in poetry. He 
 woke up at Athelyn's quotation, and proba- 
 bly thinking that her intonation was mourn- 
 ful and that she needed comfort, he stood 
 up on his hind-legs, put both paws on her 
 knee, and began licking her hand. His 
 well-meant attention did not in the least 
 distract her from her thoughts ; it only 
 shunted her off on to another line of the 
 same sweet subject. 
 
 ^' Dear old Jim ! good Jim !" she said, 
 caressing his sleek white head — with the 
 crooked tan patch over one eye that spoiled 
 his beauty. " Do you remember, Jim, how 
 he took the thorn out of your foot? and 
 how you followed him all the morning 
 after? Do you remember how you went 
 limping after him down the orchard path ? 
 They say the instincts of dogs and children 
 are always true. And you liked him, you 
 * took to ' him, good Jim, did you not ?"
 
 PAUL'S QUESTION. 273 
 
 Jim wagged his tail in high satisfaction, 
 and tried to scramble up into Athelyn's lap. 
 He was a philosophical dog, and did not 
 trouble his brains as to ivhy his young mis- 
 tress patted his head and rubbed him under 
 his chin — a mark of affection which he 
 greatly appreciated — so long as she bestowed 
 these signs of favour upon him. When 
 Athelyn was in a sentimental mood, he 
 generally got a bigger bone and a fuller 
 basin of milk than Tim, to whom there had 
 not fallen the good fortune of having a 
 thorn extracted from his foot by the be- 
 loved one's hand. Jim took the goods the 
 gods provided him with, and was thankful. 
 
 Presently he pricked up his ears, and. 
 squinted with one intelligent brown eye 
 towards the door, and then scampered on 
 his hind legs with demonstrative fore paws, 
 that luckily were clean, to give welcome 
 to Paul Severne, whom all dogs and chil- 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 dren loved, though Athelyn, so prompt to 
 admire their instincts where her lover was 
 concerned, had probably never noticed their 
 voluntary attentions to her friend. 
 
 "Well, Athelyn," said Paul, as they 
 greeted each other in a placid friendly 
 way, "and what are you doing here all 
 alone ?" 
 
 "Day-dreaming!" she responded, truly 
 enough. 
 
 "You look as if you were. You are far 
 away, Athelyn, are you not — far away from 
 here?" 
 
 "Not so far but that I can come back to 
 earth," she replied, smiling. 
 
 " I think you are day-dreaming and far 
 away now, Paul," she observed, presently, 
 as he sat abstractedly pulling Jim's ear and 
 making monosyllabic absent answers. "You 
 are silent to-day?" with an interrogative 
 accent.
 
 PAUL'S QUESTION. 275 
 
 "Am I ? — I daresa}^ I am silent because 
 ' — I want to speak." 
 
 " If you have no better reason, I wouldn't 
 •continue silent, if I were you. Speak, Paul, 
 if you want to ; here is a first-class listener 
 at hand, so speak to me, I am waiting — 
 ready." 
 
 "It's nothing much, so don't prepare to 
 be interested. A year ago I would not have 
 asked you this question, Athelyn," he said, 
 somewhat disconnectedly and abruptly? 
 *'It's only just a question. It seems to me 
 that you are in some ways changed from the 
 girl you used to be — else I should not ask 
 you now. I want to put a case to you." 
 
 " Put it !" she said, promptly, as he 
 paused ; and leaning on the arm of her chair 
 she turned her fresh, bright face towards 
 him and waited, all wide-awake and sympa- 
 thetic attention, prepared, in spite of his 
 injunction, to be deeply interested. 
 
 t2
 
 27G A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 *' If," he began — '' if you saw a girl, poor 
 and of low position, or rather of no position 
 at all — a girl younger than you and beauti- 
 ful like you (only her beauty had been a 
 snare and an evil dower to her, while yours 
 is only a blessing !) — a girl who had been 
 flung alone and defenceless into a fight with 
 the world, the hardships of which you can't 
 
 conceive, and who " He paused, yet 
 
 not in hesitation, and then looked up and 
 spoke on boldly as he added, " I will tell 
 you all the truth, Athelyn — who had been 
 tempted, and too weak to resist temptation, 
 lured by false lights down the path that 
 slopes so fearfully downhill and ends in 
 depths you can't imagine — who, I say, had 
 erred, but yet had had the courage to climb 
 painfully and toilsomely up the steep way to 
 right again, whose struggle has been so hard 
 that the sternest fates might relent to her 
 now — would you, Athelyn, here is my
 
 Paul's question. 277 
 
 question — would you take her by the hand 
 and give her the help and sympathy that 
 only a woman can give a woman ?" 
 
 Athelyn was silent, startled, doubtful. 
 She felt breathless, as if she had been 
 plunged into cold water. Her pure and 
 delicate nature, fastidious and refined, 
 shrank away quickly as the shuddering 
 leaves of the Sensitive Plant from any 
 suggestion of contact with one whose past 
 had been such as Paul so plainly hinted. 
 All the strong instincts of caste, too, were 
 enlisted against Paul and his plea. But on 
 his side all the tenderer and more generous 
 impulses of her soft little heart were silently 
 and secretly undermining the opposition 
 forces. 
 
 " Well, Athelyn," added Paul, earnestly, 
 but not in the least degree reproachfully or 
 urgently. *' Would you do it? Could 
 you?"
 
 278 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " I do not know," she said, candidl^^y 
 looking fearlessly in his eyes. ''It is not a 
 matter of could. I could if I had the will. 
 I am not sure, Paul, that I should have the 
 will. There is the plain truth, unpalatable 
 as plain truth always is." 
 
 Paul was not surprised. He did not 
 know much of the world of women ; but 
 he knew just enough not to be astonished 
 that the tall pure white budding lily, that 
 had never known a spot on its chaste 
 marble petals, did not bend in yearning 
 love and pity over the broken rose that had 
 been torn from its height and trampled in 
 the mire. Still he had no idea of giving' 
 up the battle. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, " if 1 told you 
 something more, whether it would alter 
 your views ? I think, Athelyn, I think you 
 scarcely do yourself justice." 
 
 Athelyn passed entirely over the latter
 
 PAUI/S QUESTION. 279 
 
 half of the sentence in the eagerness with 
 which she fastened on its first part. 
 
 *' If von told me somethin^j more," she 
 repeated. "Paul, what more is there to 
 tell ?" She looked at him with quick 
 anxious eyes. 
 
 " Little enough in words ; yet it's a good 
 deal to me. You know — you guess, of 
 whom T have been speaking ?" 
 
 *' Yes. Of — Cressida," she hesitated on 
 the name. 
 
 ''Well, here is my confidence, Athelyn — 
 I love this girl with all my heart, and I 
 mean to marry her." 
 
 " Marry her !" exclaimed Athelyn, the 
 anxiety passing away, lost in a flush of 
 surprise and relief and even joy. " You 
 will marry her ? Oh, Paul ! dear friend — 
 my good true brother ! I am glad !" and 
 impulsively she caught both his hands in 
 her own honest sisterly clasp.
 
 280 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 ''Thanks, Athelyn !" he said, warmly. 
 "But — you seem surprised? Good Hea- 
 vens ! did you dream then, when I said I 
 loved her, that I should not marry her? 
 What is the gulf of caste to me — to me, a 
 penniless worker for my bread — that I 
 should not reach across it for the girl I 
 love ? Did you think that where I loved I 
 should not marry ?" 
 
 '' I don't know what I was thinking; you 
 took me by surprise," she said, quickly, 
 colouring. " You love her, Paul ; and you 
 are going to marry her? That is all I 
 have room to realise. It startles me a 
 little — I want time to take it in, to look at 
 it steadily. But I am glad, Paul ; and 
 honestly and with all my heart I wish you 
 happiness." 
 
 "And Cressida? You will wish her 
 happy too ?" 
 
 "She must be happy, Paul, now.
 
 PAUL S QUESTION. 281 
 
 She knows — that you will marry her ?" 
 
 " I couldn't have settled that without 
 asking her, could I ?" he responded, smiling. 
 " The days are gone by when you could 
 carry a woman off and marry her against 
 her will." 
 
 "Yes," she assented, vaguely, still ab- 
 sorbed in wondering and realising the fact 
 of Paul's intended match. 
 
 " Paul," she said, presently, " will you — 
 will you put your question again to m.e 
 now ? You have thrown a different light 
 on it since you put it to me first." 
 
 *' And yet," he said, "the only difference 
 is—that I have shown you she is not quite 
 friendless, not quite hopeless, not quite 
 alone 1" 
 
 " But in showing me that, you have 
 shown me more," she said. " I see she 
 cannot be unworthy of your love ; you 
 would not love her if she were." This was
 
 282 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the utterance rather of Athelyn's hope than 
 of her conviction, but with her the hope 
 was always father to the faith. *' So, Paul, 
 if you ask nie now " 
 
 '' I do," he said, eagerly ; " I know how 
 wide the gulf of caste is in your eyes — I 
 know the depth of the sea that rolls between 
 you two ! But I do ask you, Athelyn, if 
 you can and if you will reach your hand 
 across that gulf, and be kind to my little 
 girl?" 
 
 She looked at him earnestly with her 
 beautiful kind eyes, in no hesitation now. 
 
 " Yes ! Bring your Cressida to me, Paul," 
 she said, softly ; '^ I am anxious, very 
 anxious to see her." 
 
 So Paul went away happy, with his battle 
 won. He had enlisted Athelyn's sympathies 
 on his side ; he had got her promise that she 
 would talk to Mrs. Hastings and endeavour 
 to win her interest in Cressida too ; he had
 
 Paul's question. 283 
 
 a satisfying faith, not only in Athelyn's 
 influence with her mother, but in her loyal 
 observance of her promise to exercise it, 
 and in the sympathetic, if somewhat indo- 
 lent, gentleness of Mrs. Hastings's nature, 
 which would render the task of such influ- 
 ence an easy one. Having once gained 
 Athelyn's word, he trusted in her implicitly, 
 and did not trust in vain. 
 
 He had taken her into confidence about 
 his plans for the future, which, although, 
 necessarily somewhat vague in detail as yet, 
 were evidently of very definite form, the fruit 
 of reflection. He did not intend to remain 
 in London. Life was a tough battle to 
 fight there even now, and after his marriage 
 it would probably be harder. He had some 
 cousins in Australia, and was going to write 
 to them, informing them of his intention to 
 join them with his wife. There, in a new 
 world, among new friends, with all their
 
 284 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 past cut adrift, they would begin a new life, 
 not in idleness nor in luxury, but a health- 
 ful, hopeful life of work. 
 
 These were Paul Severne's plans, and 
 Athelyn listened to them sympathetically, 
 appreciatively, the parting with their friend 
 seeming too distant and undefined to regret, 
 and the wisdom of his decision in seeking 
 a new w^orld appearing unquestionable to 
 her. 
 
 She had promised kindness to Cressida, 
 and she meant loyally to keep her word. 
 But it was more for Paul's sake than for 
 Cressida's that she had promised ; it w^as of 
 him, not of her, that she thought, except 
 when the disturbing question occurred to 
 her. How should that "gulf of Caste," 
 which he had truly said she saw yawning so 
 wide, ever be successfully bridged over? 
 Could she and Cressida ever meet " soul to 
 soul as hand to hand " ?
 
 Paul's question. 285 
 
 In her mind's eye she pictured Paul's 
 bride-elect as a red-cheeked, red-handed, 
 coarse milkmaid beauty, who cried and 
 wailed aloud in her sorrows. He had said 
 she was fair and of a fresh complexion ; that 
 meant ruddy, of course ; and she had big 
 china-blue eyes no doubt. She was good- 
 natured and good-tempered probably ; and 
 those qualities and her unknown sorrows — 
 for Paul had ever been as tender to a wo- 
 man in distress as the stage sailor — had 
 captivated him. Then Athelyn wondered 
 again whether she dropped her lis^ and 
 decided hastily and eagerly — the wish still 
 father to the thought — that it was impossi- 
 ble Paul Severne could love and seek a wo- 
 man for his wife who neglected her aspirates, 
 or — worse still — who added them where 
 they should not be. 
 
 Thinking thus, she laughed to herself; 
 and then her face grew grave, and she
 
 286 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 leant her head on her hand and pondered. 
 *' I can't understand! Paul puzzles me. 
 "What did he mean? What does he thmk? 
 I cannot rest until I see — what manner of a 
 girl is this Cressida ?"
 
 287 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 
 
 For the rest, thou shalt not be lonely in thy welfare or 
 
 thy woe, 
 But hearts with thine heart shall be tangled ! 
 
 Morris. 
 
 '^r^ROSS old cat!" said Cressida, pout- 
 ^^ ing, and apostrophising the back of 
 Mrs. Brown, who was sweeping out of the 
 kitchen like a whirlwind. 
 
 Mrs. Brown had worked herself up into 
 what she deemed a state of most righteous 
 wrath. The '' drawing-room lady " had 
 been making herself disagreeable about the 
 display of goods in front of the shop.
 
 288 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 " Fruit, and cut flowers, and even greens of 
 all kinds, were very well, and so were 
 potatoes in their place ^ which was the win- 
 clow ; but when she took the rooms she 
 had bargained against baskets standing out 
 on the pavement; and potatoes in sacks 
 flaunting half across the street she could not 
 stand !" Mrs. Brown had retorted that if 
 her gentility couldn't abide the sight of 
 sacks of potatoes, she had better buy them 
 all in, for there they would stay until they 
 were sold ! Her warlike spirit aroused by this 
 passage of arms, Mrs. Brown had whetted 
 her weapons by a little skirmishing with 
 Cressida, had refused to let her put an iron 
 down to the fire to iron some collars and 
 cuffs, and sweeping the aforesaid limp 
 articles across the table with a contemptu- 
 ous hand, had observed that the kitchen 
 had to be scrubbed and couldn't be litter- 
 ed up with such frippery, and flounced
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 289 
 
 away, launching a Parthian shaft over her 
 shoulder in the shape of an illusion to " idle 
 useless chits as some people cockered up 
 and spoilt." 
 
 "Niver ye mind, me dear," said Mrs. 
 Mulveeny (whose rich brogue always seem- 
 ed full of the milk of human kindness), as 
 Mrs. Brown's indignant pattens clattered 
 down the passage ; " sure ye can do yere 
 bits iv things in the afternoon ?" 
 
 *' But I'm going out with Mr. Severne, 
 and it's a shame for her to go on so at me 
 to-day. And I wanted her to lend me her 
 brown paletot too — and in this tantrum she 
 won't lend me a ribbon !" 
 
 Mrs. Mulveeny, like many well-meaning 
 people, by way of comfort immediately 
 suggested a might-have-been. 
 
 ** Sure and there's my best plaid silk 
 skirt as ye'd have been w^elcome to, me 
 dear, if it wasn't in for twelve-and-sixpence, 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 and it's sorry I was to put it in, beiii' the 
 last thing my blessed Mulveen}^ ever 
 bought me ! An' there's Mrs. Helmore as 
 has a beautiful silk mantle she might lend 
 ye, if she wasn't that stand-offish and stingy, 
 she won't hardly say good mornin' to ye, 
 nor give the cat, poor baste, a drop o' milk 
 when she goes in at breakfast-time, which 
 Mr. Severne he always do." 
 
 Cressida turned a deaf ear to Mrs. Mul- 
 veeny's voluble discourse, as she sat down 
 disconsolately on the table, there being not 
 a chair that was not either broken or con- 
 verted temporarily into a dresser or a china- 
 shelf, and regarded her limp bits of muslin 
 ruefully, and contemplated in her mind's 
 eye two pictures— a bright one of herself in 
 Mrs. Brown's new paletot with gorgeous 
 beaded trimming, and a shadowy one of 
 herself facing Miss Hastings (to whom this
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 291 
 
 day she was to be introduced) in her only 
 available cape. 
 
 " What's up, Cressida ? you look quite 
 woe-begone !" said Paul Severne, swinging 
 cheerily into the kitchen, and regarding his 
 beloved seated Cinderella-like among tea- 
 trays and pastry-boards with as satisfied a 
 smile as if the picture had been framed in 
 a satin-curtained, velvet-carpeted drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Cressida expounded her grievances, Mrs* 
 Mulveeny (whose discretion would probably 
 not have umed her to the leno^th of lea vino; 
 the lovers tete-a-tete even liad she not been 
 fettered by the occupation of cleaning the 
 grate) assisting by a running chorus. Paul 
 smiled to himself. One thing about Paul 
 Severne, which proved aggravating to some 
 people, was that he so often passed over 
 the fact presented to him in the reflection 
 
 u2
 
 292 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 suggested by the fact, and very frequently 
 entirely forgot the incident in a train of 
 reflections arising out of the incident. 
 
 He was pleased at the simplicity which 
 looked upon the limp cuffs and the shabby 
 cape as obstacles ; it seemed to him as if the 
 naivete that halted at these slight barriers 
 must, in its charming unworldliness, ignore 
 the greater ones. Then the child-like 
 vanity rather gratified him than not. He 
 probably looked on Cressida altogether as a 
 more child- like and simple creature than 
 she really was, and idealised her simplicity 
 into innocence. He was pleased, too, w^ith 
 the surrounding circumstances that marked 
 the contrast between the two girls. There 
 was, to his contemplative mind, a gentle and 
 agreeable titillation about this difference. 
 He liked contrasts of life always ; they 
 gratified him as a harmony of colour grati- 
 fies an artist's eye. He amused himself by
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 293 
 
 changing in his fancy the external positions 
 of the two girls, imagining Athelyn in the 
 kitchen in a linsey gown among unwashed 
 dishes and troubled by difficulties of un- 
 ironed cuffs. 
 
 He dwelt amusedly on this picture, while 
 Mrs. Mulveeny mingled her sympathy with 
 Cressida on the deficiency of her wardrobe 
 for "sich an occasion," with reflections on 
 her own departed grandeur and the silk she 
 wore on her wedding-day, in a rapidl}^ 
 increasing crescendo, to drown the clattering 
 of the fire-irons as they rattled under her 
 busy hands. 
 
 "Never mind, Cressida," he said, break- 
 ing in upon a train of reminiscences of the 
 deceased Mulveeny, over which the widow 
 was seeming inclined to weep. " Come 
 along out ; put on your things and get ready 
 quickly ; we'll take an omnibus and go and 
 sit in the Park till it's time to go on to the
 
 294 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 Hastings'. ' And we'll get you some cuffs 
 and things on the way," he added. He felt 
 princely that morning ; he had got a cheque, 
 and had paid his rent and ordered himself 
 a new coat — not at all too soon. 
 
 ^' Some cuffs !" said Cressida, brightening. 
 " How many do you suppose I want? Am 
 I like the devil-fish, all arms ?" 
 
 Paul had been translating and reading to 
 her fragments of '' Les Travailleurs de la 
 Mer." Perhaps he had hoped that she 
 would have interpreted the octopus sym- 
 bolically, as the embodiment of evil lurk- 
 ing in the heart of the world, and stretch- 
 ing forth its myriad tentacles in search of 
 victims. It had apparently not impressed 
 her in any other light than that of a zoo- 
 logical curiosity. 
 
 However, nothing Cressida said was ever 
 disappointing to Paul. If he did not read 
 in it sweetness or brightness, or the first
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 295 
 
 struggling flights of a half-fledged imagina- 
 tion, he read in it the childlike naivete of a 
 half-developed soul. 
 
 He walked off with Cressida contentedly, 
 as happily and well-nigh as proudly as if 
 his bride-elect had been gathered from that 
 " garden of girls" from whicli the Severnes 
 had been wont to pick and choose their 
 mates. This was not so stransje, consider- 
 ing that Paul's father, like himself, had 
 loved and chosen a woman beneath him in 
 rank (only somewhat less rashly), that 
 Cressida grew prettier and prettier as she 
 grew happier, and, above all, that Paul was 
 as deeply in love with her as ever was a 
 man of idealising imagination and affection- 
 ate heart, in whom the feeling is the motive 
 power that guides the fancy's flight. 
 
 As it was too early for them to need to 
 go straight to the Hastings's, where they 
 were expected to luncheon, they went into
 
 296 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 the Park, and sat down on, a shady and 
 secluded bench. 
 
 Cressida looked round upon the fresh, 
 tender green of the trees, which as yet no 
 summer sun had scorched, and in whose 
 boughs the birds were twittering — up at the 
 blue sun-shot sky — down on the emerald 
 velvet of the turf. 
 
 " How lovely it is here !" she said, with 
 one of those deep sighs of pure enjoyment 
 that are so much happier than a smile. 
 *' How peaceful ! Back there in the city it 
 crushes me ! I feel as if the brick walls 
 Avere closing together on me. But here 
 one's breath comes freer." 
 
 " You will like open-air life, Cressida — 
 pure country life, such as you can't fancy 
 yet, such as we shall have in Australia, far, 
 far away from cities, perhaps not a village 
 in view, not a curl of smoke to be seen by 
 day or a lamp by night, only long, vast
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 297 
 
 stretches of hill and meadow — pure, unpol- 
 luted air, that it will be fresh life to breathe, 
 and such a sky as England never knows !" 
 
 *' Oh !" she sighed, with a radiant look 
 on her face, " it is like heaven to think of! 
 To see nothing but trees, and fields, and 
 sky, and know I've left the smoke of this 
 cruel city a world behind ! What is there 
 in the open air that's like magic? Doesn't 
 the breeze seem to blow everything like 
 trouble and thought away ?" 
 
 ^' It's blowing a little pretty colour into 
 your cheeks," said Paul, appreciatively. 
 *' You look so well, Cressida ! I am glad. 
 I want you to look your best to-day." 
 
 "To look my best for them — for Miss 
 Athelyn, that is ?" 
 
 " Yes, to be sure." 
 
 " Well, I feel my best," she rejoined, 
 thoughtfully. " To-day life seems to be 
 widening out before me somehow. I sup-
 
 298 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 pose it's because it is spring. And then I 
 want to see your friends. I feel like at the 
 gates of a new life. But Miss Athelyu 
 seems standing by the gates," she added, 
 half doubtfully, with a touch of sadness. 
 
 ''She could not shut tliem on you, 
 Cressida, not even if she would. And 
 when you know her you will be as sure as 
 I am that she would not if she could." 
 
 ''No?" she said, slowly, half doubtfully 
 still. " But — she might give me a pinch in 
 the hinges as I get by." 
 
 " I don't think Athelyn's the sort of girl 
 to give anybody a pinch ! you'll see, Cres- 
 sida. I hope you'll like her. She — she is 
 very anxious to see you." 
 
 Paul in his masculine truth and straight- 
 forwardness, unaccustomed to the exercise 
 of warily walking over delicate ground, had 
 quite involuntarily allowed Cressida to per- 
 ceive that Athelyn's reception of the first
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 299 
 
 expression of his wish for her to know 
 Cressida had not been one of unmixed 
 delight. He was however safe, strong, and 
 free now, in literally quoting Athelyn's 
 words, '^ She is very anxious to see you ! 
 I hope you will get on together ?" he added, 
 taking Cressida's hand fondly, re-assuringly, 
 even half entreatingly. Now that the hour 
 was so near he was beginning to realise the 
 importance of her producing a favourable 
 impression at first sight. 
 
 " I hope so. I luant to," she said, with 
 a little child-like sigh. She had probably 
 been thinking more about her introduction 
 to Miss Hastings than her words hitherto 
 had betrayed to him. 
 
 An hour afterwards Paul walked into the 
 big drawing-room where he had lounged 
 away so many of his hours with Athelyn, 
 and entered now with Cressida by his side. 
 He looked round. Mrs. Hastings was not
 
 300 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 there. This was rather a relief than a 
 disappointment to him ; and as Athel}^, 
 alone, came forward from the back-room 
 where she had been sitting, he, with an 
 almost bo3dsh impulse, took his betrothed 
 by the hand and led her forward. 
 
 " Here is Cressida, Athelyn," he said, 
 simply. 
 
 Cressida was half shy, half curious, and 
 her face flushed faintly. Her first impres- 
 sion as she looked up was of a graceful 
 vision in pink and grey — the softest of pinks 
 and the most dove-like of greys — which 
 might for correctness of prevalent style have 
 walked out of the last month's fashion-plate 
 (only no fashion-plate form was -ever so 
 lithely supple !), and might for aesthetic 
 harmony of form and colour have sat to a 
 painter. Then she was aware of a slim 
 white hand pressing hers — a pair of beauti- 
 ful kind eyes bent with an interest too
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 301 
 
 delicate for curiosity on her blushing face. 
 
 Athelyn looked on " this daughter of the 
 people " who was Paul Severne's choice 
 with veiled surprise and pleasure. Cressida 
 had on a brown holland dress ; it had been 
 washed a good many times, but was fresh 
 and clean, and looked fitter for the season 
 than her sombre linsey gown of every day. 
 She had on a queer old-fashioned little 
 black moire cape, which by the antiquity of 
 its cut might have belonged, and probably 
 had belonged, to her grandmother in early 
 youth. Her fair hair was simply combed 
 back and loosely coiled under a little 
 sailor-hat with a plain band of blue ribbon ; 
 she had a blue bow at her neck, and the 
 collar and cuff difficulty had been satisfac- 
 torily settled. 
 
 This quaint attire, an odd mixture of the 
 old world and the new, of the child and 
 the old woman, became her admirably.
 
 302 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 There was something very child-like about 
 Cressida's face ; the roundness of cheek and 
 freshness of tint had come back to it, and 
 from it all traces of the expressions that 
 Paul Severne had seen on it first had melted 
 utterly away. There was a sweetness about 
 the ripe rosy lips, a simplicity that looked 
 like perfect innocence in the large blue 
 eyes ; the fair guileless face kept its secrets 
 and told no tales. 
 
 The two girls looked at each other 
 earnestly, face to face, their spirits seeking 
 each to read the other in their meeting 
 eyes ; and from each spirit the shade of po- 
 tential suspicion and subtle half-antagonism 
 faded entirely away and died as the}^ ex- 
 changed their first greeting words. 
 
 The conversation which commenced their 
 acquaintance was, it must be admitted, not 
 very brisk. It found a difficulty in get- 
 ting away from common-places about the
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 803 
 
 weather. It flagged, went on in jerks, and 
 then flagged again until picked up by an 
 effort of Athelyn's. Paul took little or no 
 share in it; he sat gravely glancing from 
 one to the other of the girls, with his anxiety 
 that they should " take to " each other, his 
 satisfaction that this consummation he so 
 devoutly wished appeared more and more 
 probable written with sufHcient clearness in 
 his honest brown eyes. Cressida spoke 
 little. Just at first it occurred to Athelyu 
 that she was, like Miles Standish, "Embar- 
 rassed, and culling her phrases." But very 
 soon she became at ease ; and Athelyn 
 noted, with a relief and satisfaction equal to 
 Paul's, that her lis found their proper 
 homes — at least, if one did occasionally 
 stray away and get lost, he was an excep- 
 tion from his correcth^-behaved brethren. 
 
 On the whole, by the time Mrs. Hastings 
 joined them, a better satisfied and more
 
 304 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 thoroughly contented trio could scarcely 
 have been found in London, although so far 
 their conversation had not got much beyond 
 such remarks as these : 
 
 Athelyn, animatedly — ''The only weather 
 I can't bear is fog." 
 
 Cressida, mildly — '^ Fog is very disagree- 
 able." 
 
 Paul (who would find a good deal to say 
 in behalf of the Evil One)— "Yet there's 
 something interesting about a thorough- 
 going yellow fog in the city, when the link- 
 boys are out offering to help you across 
 the street for a penny ; it's about the only 
 thing that ever seems to clog the great 
 wheels of working London's machine." 
 
 Mrs. Hastings came in with her cat-like 
 soft step and indolent, kindly smile. She 
 behaved herself charmingly to Cressida, was 
 as amiable and hospitable as, being Alice 
 Hastings, she could not help being, and
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 305 
 
 treated Paul and his betrothed with a kind 
 of " Bless you, my children " air. 
 
 They sat down to luncheon, a quartette 
 of people on unusually good terms with 
 themselves, each other, and the world in 
 general. Only Cressida glanced with secret 
 doubt at the fish-knives, and Athelyn, with 
 concealed anxiety, followed her glance, and 
 then observed, with relief, that Cressida 
 had hit upon the correct manipulation and 
 raiso7i^d etre of these implements. » 
 
 Cressida was monosyllabic ; but Paul, 
 mounting on one of his favourite hobbies, 
 talked enough for the two. Under the 
 circumstances, he avoided attacking the 
 bigotry of society, the flaws in its codes, and 
 made no allusions to the gulf of caste ; but 
 as Mrs. Hastings truly observed, he was 
 never happy unless he was charging wind- 
 mills, so this day he ran a tilt at the law of 
 the land, and as he had certain unanswer- 
 
 VOL. I, X
 
 306 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 able if exceptionable cases of hardship to cite, 
 and set them forth fluently and forcibly, he 
 carried all his points triumphantly. 
 
 He might have had a more difficult vic- 
 tory certainly, as Mrs. Hastings seldom 
 argued ; Cressida was too cautious and shy 
 as yet to venture into the field of discus- 
 sion, even had she not agreed heart and 
 soul with Paul ; and Athelyn, who would 
 combat Paul by the hour, and even on some 
 occasions had beaten him with his own 
 weapons, had in this case neither power nor 
 will to oppose him. With all her con- 
 servative and aristocratic instincts leading 
 her to defend what is against what might be, 
 you had only to show her a just grievance 
 to enlist her under your banner. Paul 
 swayed her even more than he or she 
 realised. He pointed her attention to indi- 
 vidual cases of suffering and led her through
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 307 
 
 her S3^mpathies ; he hurled the gauntlet of 
 his opinion valiantly against the mighty force 
 of custom, and extorted her admiration; he 
 argued clearly and logically, as he could do, 
 with the keenness of a lawyer and the force 
 of an enthusiast, when he did not take wing 
 and fly too high up into cloudland. 
 
 He carried Athelyn and Cressida with 
 him ; yet even in the interest with which 
 they followed his demonstration, they neither 
 of them lost the interest in each other which 
 led their looks to meet so often. 
 
 It is seldom, probably, that impressions 
 so favourable have followed upon anticipa- 
 tions so anxiously doubtful. Personal ap- 
 pearance and the strangely magnetic power 
 of beautiful eyes had in all likelihood a 
 great deal to do with this effect. Utterly 
 different as the eyes of the two girls were, 
 as opposite, indeed, as their contrasted 
 
 x2
 
 308 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 styles of beauty, there was just this similarity 
 between them, that in each of these two fair 
 and contrasting faces, the eyes were the 
 most striking charm, and bore an influence 
 equally difficult to resist. Athelyn's large, 
 soft, dreamful eyes, with the rare golden 
 light in their opal-grey depths, were no 
 lovelier than those blue orbs of Cressida's, 
 of the palest, clearest sapphire, with a dark 
 rim round the iris that gave them by contrast 
 a singular vividness. As a rule, Cressida's 
 eyes were not remarkable for eloquence • 
 their beauty was more of form and colour- 
 ing ; but sometimes, when she was moved, 
 they became startlingly expressive, and could 
 flash and cloud and lighten on occasion 
 even more effectively than eyes of Spanish 
 darkness or Celtic grey. 
 
 In the afternoon, while Mrs. Hastings 
 had a little conversation with Paul, the twa 
 girls were left tete-a-tete.
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 309" 
 
 " Do you believe in first impressions, in 
 liking and disliking at first sight ?" asked 
 Athelyn. 
 
 " Yes ; it always seems to me as if I'd 
 known some people in some other world." 
 
 " That is one of Paul's pet theories, is it 
 not ?" 
 
 "Yes, it is. But I thought so before. 
 Do you know, Miss Athelyn, I often find it 
 comes round so. Often when I've been 
 thinking something, he — explains it like, 
 you know, and I find he thinks so too," 
 Cressida said, somewhat confusedly. ''What 
 I mean is," she added, looking up, " that he 
 seems to put into shape fancies I had that I 
 couldn't myself have put together in proper 
 words." 
 
 *'He translates those formless fancies into 
 expression — yes, I see," rejoined Athelyn, 
 looking at her thoughtfully, with a smile
 
 310 A BKOKEN FAITH. 
 
 that was almost tender, the idea strikincc 
 root ill her mind that, after all, Paul 
 Severne miii^ht have found his rightful mate. 
 Our external lives are no intrinsic part of 
 us; we can be torn from them, or they 
 drop off from us like the snake's outworn 
 ■skin ; and what, after all, could externals 
 matter if this girl's soul was made for him ? 
 
 " If we may believe in first impressions," 
 she said, " I think you and I will get on 
 together." 
 
 "I don't know who wouldn't get on with 
 you, Miss Athelyn," said Cressida, sincerely. 
 
 '' I am glad that we have met, you and 
 I," Athelyn continued, in her kind soft tone. 
 "Paul is one of my oldest friends, you 
 know ; indeed he has been almost like a 
 brother to me. And as you and he are to 
 be married, why, you and I ought to be 
 friends too, ouditn't we ?"
 
 BROUGHT TOGETHER. 311 
 
 Cressida looked in Athelyn's face, the 
 colour fitfully flushing and fading in her 
 own. Athelyn held out her hand. The 
 other took it, half timidly, half eagerly; 
 then meetino: the sweet candid gaze that 
 was bent on her she rose on impulse and 
 came and knelt by Athelyn's side. 
 
 Into her blue eyes there came a light 
 and warmth that seemed to change her 
 whole aspect and expression ; then they 
 dimmed suddenly ; her lip quivered, and 
 she bent her face on Athelyn's shoulder out 
 of sight. 
 
 Athelyn's soft heart melted in a great 
 rush of tenderness and sympathy; shfe put 
 her arm round her, and raised her head, 
 and kissed her with a pure frank sister's kiss. 
 
 So the compact of friendship was sealed ; 
 and so from opposite ends of the social 
 scale, from opposite sides of the gulf the-
 
 312 A BROKEN FAITH. 
 
 world had set, across a chasm even wider 
 than one of them then dreamed, these two 
 •eame together. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED JJY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEQI HOUSE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN0I8-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 046427388