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 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY.
 
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 PRINCESS SUNSHINE. By Mrs. Riddell. 2 vols. 
 
 COMMON CLAY. By Mrs. Hekhert Martin. 3 vols. 
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. By Richard Dowling. 3 vols. 
 
 HEATHCOTE. By Ella MacMahox. 2 vols. 
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. By the Author of "Molly Bawn. 
 3 vols. 
 
 BIRCH DENE. By Willlam Westall. 3 vols. 
 
 WARD & DOWNEY, PUBLISHERS, LONDON.
 
 AT THE 
 MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 C. L. PIRKIS, 
 
 AUTHOE OF "a dateless BAEGAIIf, 'LiDT LOVEIACE, 
 " JUDITH WYNNE," ETC. 
 
 "Some there are wlio would make the stars spell out the decrees of 
 Fate. Let such an one set his mind to read the big word ' Eternity, 
 inscribed from end to end of the heavens as on a scroll, and he will find 
 the decrees of Fate written in characters too small for his eyesight." 
 
 Essa^j on " Star-gazing." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 YOL. I. 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN", W.C. 
 
 1889. 
 [_AU rights reserved.]
 
 CHAELES DICKEXS AND EVANS, 
 CKYSTAti PALACE PRESS.
 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 TO ONE, TO WHOM I PRAY THAT FORTUNE MAY EVER COME 
 WITH BOTH HANDS FULL, 
 
 ELLEN FIELDEN, 
 
 <if Xiitjield Priory, 
 
 E ^cliicittr this ^ook, 
 
 WITH SINCERE REGARD. 
 
 C. L. PIRKIS. 
 
 NUTFIELD, 1889.
 
 AT 
 
 THE MOME^^T OF YICTORY 
 
 ^ 
 
 /^ 
 
 PEOLOGUE. 
 
 The hiisli of twilight was falling upon 
 the rugged mountains and deep ravines 
 of Santa Maura, a lonely hamlet on the 
 Corsican coast ; bird-notes were dying under 
 it ; the whirr and stir of summer insect life 
 growing faint ; even the wash and swirl of 
 the Mediterranean sounded dreamy and far 
 away under the spell of the "silent-footed 
 Angel-herald of the night." He beckoned 
 to the great, gloomy forests of pine and 
 cork, and they sent forth their shadows in 
 troops and squadrons ; laid his soft, dull 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 hand on the heavy odours of magnolia and 
 myrtle, and they poised in mid-air, knowing 
 that heaven's gates were shut against them ; 
 he drew his veil of mist from east to west 
 across the stormily-purple sky, and the 
 smirch of tawny orange, which marked where 
 a great, golden sun had blazed itself out, 
 was seen no more ; touched with his finger 
 of mystery the figure of a woman descending 
 a mountain path straight into the heart of 
 a ravine, and lo ! she stood transfigured 
 into the likeness of a ghostly visitant from 
 the kingdom of Hades. 
 
 That woman mio'ht have been Astarte 
 
 o 
 
 herself for the silent grace of her move- 
 ments and the dead whiteness of her face, 
 which showed as if moon-washed from out 
 the surrouudino' dimness. 
 
 o 
 
 In the ravine into which she was de- 
 scending, Night was following hard and 
 fast on the *' angel-herald's " step to claim
 
 AT TEE 2I0MENT OF VICTORY. 3 
 
 his own. The mountains rose more gaunt, 
 more drear, more black with every down- 
 ward step the woman took, until, at length, 
 they seemed literally to pierce the vaporous 
 gray sky with their peaks and turrets. 
 
 High over one of the highest of these 
 peaks there shone out through the vapour 
 one" star of intense metallic brightness ; at 
 the immediate base of this rock, bowered 
 amid olives and vines, stood a small 
 country house, a stone-built chalet, sur- 
 rounded by a narrow strip of garden. 
 
 The woman was making her way straight 
 for this chalet. At its garden-gate she 
 paused for a moment, looking right and 
 left and in all directions, as if to make 
 sure that her movements were unseen. Un- 
 heard they must, have been ; not ghostly 
 fingers themselves could have unlatched 
 that gate more noiselessly, nor ghostly feet 
 have trodden with a lig-hter footfall that
 
 4 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 garden path, which, wiuding in and out 
 among arbutus-trees and myrtles, led to the 
 creeper-covered porch of the house. Under 
 this porch had been placed a small table 
 and a rustic reclining seat. On this seat 
 lay a man, locked in heavy slumber. 
 
 He was about thirty years of age, and of 
 remarkably handsome appearance, swarthy, 
 mustachioed, and with waves of black, 
 curly hair sweeping across his forehead. 
 His arm pillowed his head. On the ground 
 at his feet, as if carelessly tossed on one 
 side, lay a broad-brimmed hat. On the 
 small table beside him stood a glass about 
 three-parts filled with wine. 
 
 This way, that way, all ways the woman 
 looked hurriedly, furtively, with every step 
 she took. Not a sound broke the stillness ; 
 not a leaf rustled, nor belated insect flitted. 
 She stood within a hand's breadth of the 
 man now ; she held in her breath ; then,
 
 AT TEE M02IEXT OF VICTORY. 5 
 
 slowly, cautiously drawing from beneath 
 her cloak a small phial, she poured its 
 contents noiselessly into the glass of wine. 
 
 As she drained the last drop into the 
 glass, she chanced to lift her eyes to the 
 door of the house. It stood wide open, 
 disclosing a stove-place filled with flowering 
 plants, over which, against the wall, hung 
 a large, square mirror. 
 
 In that mirror, as the woman lifted her 
 eyes, she could see darkly reflected the 
 whole shadow}' garden-picture. She could 
 see, also, her own white face, and white 
 hand which held the small phial.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " When I marry again," said young Mrs. 
 Cohen, with cheeks something the colour 
 of field poppies, and eyes that flashed like 
 diamonds under lamplight, ''I shall marry 
 a boy — years younger than I ! " 
 
 *' Quite so," assented her companion, a 
 young man who leaned over the piano at 
 which she was seated; ''it is absurd for 
 women to marry men older than them- 
 selves ! " 
 
 " And it is very ridiculous of you," con 
 tinned the lady, " to imagine because I 
 like to— to " 
 
 " Squabble ? " suggested the gentleman. 
 
 ''Have a little fun with you now and
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 7 
 then, that, therefore, I am willing to marry 
 
 you." 
 
 ** My dear Madge, I never for a moment 
 imagined anything of the sort. I took 
 your last 'No' as final six months ago." 
 
 " Every one knows that you are years^ — 
 years — years too old for me." 
 
 ■"Oh yes, years, years, years too old. I 
 am the whole of three years and three- 
 quarters older than you are." 
 
 "Every one knows that we haven't the 
 faintest liking for each other." 
 
 " Exactly. Every one knows," mimicked 
 the young man, " that we can't be ten 
 minutes in the same room without quar- 
 relling." 
 
 " In fact," continued the lady with 
 heightening voice as well as colour, "we 
 are getting positively to detest each other." 
 
 " The wonder is that we are ever to be 
 found in each other's company."
 
 8 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 "I am positive," cried ]Mrs. Cohen, 
 jumpiDg up from her music-stool, ''that 
 it was you who said that ' the library was 
 getting confoundedly hot ; ' yes, those were 
 your very words, and you must ' get out of 
 it.' " 
 
 *' I am confident it was you who looked 
 over your shoulder — at me — and said, ' I 
 am going into the music-room to practise, 
 and '" 
 
 ''Yes," interrupted the lady, "that w^as 
 because I saw Sir Peter looking at me, and 
 I knew how delighted he would be if we 
 crept out of the room together for all the 
 world as if we " 
 
 " Were bent on spooning ? " 
 
 " And it's of no use vour standins: there 
 agreeing with me, as if I didn't know what 
 I was talking about, or didn't mean what 
 I said. I repeat, when I marry again, I 
 will marry a boy if I like."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 9 
 
 " Why not ? How would you like a 
 nice little middy, about fourteen ? " 
 
 "He shan't be a day over twenty at any 
 rate, and he shall be obedient and tractable, 
 and ril call him ' my child/ " 
 
 "Ah, he'll like that ! " 
 
 " And I'll tell him where to get his 
 clothes aud what cigars to buy ! " 
 
 " He'll be sure to buy them, won't he ? 
 Look here, Madge, let's give over squab- 
 bling, and strike a bargain. I'll engage to 
 look out for this amiable young gentleman, 
 who'll buy his clothes and cigars where his 
 wife tells him, if you'll undertake to marry 
 him as soon as he's found. I can't say 
 more, can I ? " 
 
 Madge made no reply. She seated 
 herself at the piano once more, struck a 
 chord, ran off a little prelude, and then 
 commenced singing her scales at a very 
 high pitch.
 
 10 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Her voice was a mezzo-soprano, and her 
 high A was a very high A indeed. 
 
 Here is the portrait of jMrs. Cohen as 
 she sits at her piano. 
 
 Age, twenty-four years. Figure, small 
 and slight. Eyes, hazel-green and deep- 
 seated. Eye-brows, dark and arched — the 
 best feature in her face. Nose, inclined 
 to the classic, but nothing remarkable. 
 Mouth, small and sensitive. Complexion, 
 decidedly sallow, but flushing readily under 
 excitement. Hair, dark brow^n, cut short, 
 thick and curly. 
 
 '* Youno^ Mrs. Cohen would be nothino^ 
 without her curls," once Madge had heard 
 a dowager say as she left a ball-room. Since 
 then she had diligently cultivated her curls 
 as her one strong weapon in her armoury of 
 charms — an armoury, by the way, of which 
 she had not a very exalted opinion. 
 
 " I think 3"ou are a remarkably plain
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 11 
 
 youDg woman. It is a positive trial to be 
 confronted with you so many times a day," 
 she was in the habit of saying when she 
 looked at herself in her mirror. 
 
 And here is the portrait of Lancelot 
 Clive, the young man who stood for a 
 moment listening to the scales and then 
 walked away saying to himself: ''Not 
 * soft, gentle, and low,' to-day, at any 
 rate ! " 
 
 Age, close upon eight-and-twenty. Good 
 height, well-developed chest. Eyes, bright 
 blue, sparkling and fun-loving. Hair, 
 golden brown, irrepressibly curly, no 
 matter how short it might be cropped, and 
 a complexion bronzed by constant out- 
 door exercise. 
 
 Madge half-turned her head as her com- 
 panion left the room ; but she in no wise 
 lowered the pitch of her A. Madge's vocal 
 scales were a wonderful outlet for her super-
 
 12 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 fluous energy. She had recommenced 
 takinnr sinsfino^ lessons within a week of her 
 marriage with old David Cohen, the retired 
 diamond merchant ; had dropped them 
 in the early days of her widowhood, 
 but had resumed them with surprising- 
 vigour during the present year, when she 
 had once more taken up her abode in the 
 home of her oirlhood. 
 
 " Selling herself for a diamond neck- 
 lace," had been Lance's summing up of the 
 marriage, to whicli he had received a hasty 
 summons, while pursuing his studies at 
 Oxford. A summons, by the way, to 
 which he did not see fit to respond. 
 
 "Doing what is expected of me as Sir 
 Peter's pro^t^(/6% — keeping Lance from 
 making himself ridiculous and blighting 
 his prospects in life," had been Madge's 
 version of the case to her own heart, as 
 she stood before the altar vowing to " love.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 13 
 
 honour, and obey " a man old enough to 
 be her grandfather, and whose highest 
 conception of happiness was an interval of 
 freedom from gout, which enabled him to 
 '' read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest " 
 the money article in the daily paper. 
 
 Madge was in the very middle of a 
 voluminous shake on her high A when 
 the door behind her opened, and admitted 
 a small, plump old gentleman, who looked 
 as if he were in a very great hurry indeed. 
 
 There was something in the mere turn 
 of the handle which made Madge say to 
 herself: "It's Sir Peter," and stop her 
 sino[ino^ at once. 
 
 " Madge," said the old - gentleman, 
 " where is Lady Judith ? " But he did 
 not wait for an answer. He had crossed 
 the room and had gone out by another 
 door before Madge could open her lips. 
 
 She did not, however, recommence her
 
 U] AT TUE MOMENT OF VIOTORT. 
 
 singing ; she knew by experience that he 
 would soon come back again with possibly 
 another question. 
 
 He did so come back ; this time entering 
 by one of the long French windows of the 
 room, and his question now was : 
 
 '* Where is Lance ? — can't find any- 
 body this morning, and I've so many 
 things to get through, I don't know 
 which way to turn ; " and then he disap- 
 peared again. 
 
 This small, plump old gentleman was 
 Sir Peter Critchett, sixth Baronet of that 
 name, of Upton Castle, in the County of 
 Cumberland. His plumpness was a re- 
 markable fact if the extraordinary activity 
 of his habits were taken into account. 
 Except at meal-times, he was never still. 
 
 *^ He's a fortune to me in boots," Sir 
 Peter's London bootmaker was wont to 
 affirm, as he packed up the hist of the
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIC TO BY. 15 
 
 twenty-five pairs he was in tlie habit of 
 sending yearly to Upton Castle. 
 
 And " He pays the salary of my Iiead 
 man in the carpets he wears out," said the 
 upholsterer, recollecting the number of 
 times that he had been called upon to 
 renew the library carpet in Sir Peter's town 
 and country houses. 
 
 Cruikshank would have delighted in 
 sketching Sir Peter's plump, placid face, 
 separated from his bald head by a ridge of 
 stiff, grayish hair, which radiated in hard 
 lines backward from his temples. 
 
 Lance had often tried to rival Cruikshank 
 on the backs of old envelopes and magazine 
 covers. Once, in the very middle of dressing 
 for dinner, he had snatched up his hair-brush, 
 and with pen and ink had sketched on its 
 ivory back two very round eyes over-arched 
 by two very astonished-looking eyebrows, a 
 short nose — a mark of exclamation expressed
 
 16 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 it exactly — an innocent-lookiDg little moutb, 
 and no chin to speak of. Then, holding 
 the brush side^Yays to his view, he had 
 discovered what had inspired the idea, 
 namely, the long, stiff hair-bristles which 
 framed the portrait precisely as the stiff, 
 radiating lines of grayish hair framed the 
 original. 
 
 By that perverse ruling of fate which so 
 frequently sends people on the scene at the 
 exact moment that their presence is least 
 welcome, Sir Peter had entered Lance's 
 dressing-room just as he had laid down his 
 hair-brush. 
 
 " What's this — a picture ? '' asked the 
 old gentleman, taking up the brush and 
 holding it this way, that way, all ways, so 
 as to get a good view of the sketch. 
 
 Lance's presence of mind did not desert 
 him. "It's a kindergarten brush," he 
 replied without moving a muscle. " It s
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 17 
 
 intended to make children — boys that is — 
 fond of brushing their hair. You can get 
 lots of them at the corner of Oxford 
 Street." 
 
 Not alone in face and feature was Sir 
 Peter remarkable. Fancy a child, with its 
 insatiable love of new toys, its perpetual 
 rebellion against " routine," its hatred of 
 instruction, and lack of experience, sud- 
 denly transferred from pinafore to coat- 
 tails, and transported from its nursery to 
 the society of grown-up men and women ! 
 Such an one might have figured as Sir 
 Peter's prototype in Nature's workshop. 
 
 '* He is the Prince of Pierrots,'' -some one 
 with an eye for character had once said of 
 him. " His loroteges and his schemes of 
 benevolence are marbles and peg-tops to 
 him." 
 
 Sir Peter rejoiced in an extensive and 
 well-earned reputation for philanthropy. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 AT THE M02IEXT OF VICTORY. 
 
 People were in the habit of coming from 
 all parts of the country to lay before him 
 their divers schemes of charity, and to 
 beseech his patronage for them. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that such 
 beneficent schemes as succeeded in winning 
 his fiivourable notice, occasionally went 
 into his hands very big and came out of 
 them very small. For instance, a gigantic 
 plan for rescuing from the gutter every 
 little street Arab in London would result 
 in the importation into the Castle gardens 
 or stables of some unkempt, untaught 
 little urchin, who, in the process of his 
 civilisation, w^ould drive head-gardener or 
 groom nearly frantic. And a big scheme 
 for educating the orphan daughters of 
 clergymen of the Established Church re- 
 solved itself, in the person of Madge Cohen 
 — then Madge Grant — into the transference 
 of one little forlorn maiden from a scene
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 19 
 
 of poverty into the luxurious liome-circle 
 of Upton Castle. 
 
 The forlorn little orphan was now a rich 
 woman, thanks to her marriage wdth old 
 David Cohen. She had her town house, 
 and her country house, her horses, and her 
 diamonds.- But for all that Sir Peter did 
 not feel inclined to wash his hands of her. 
 No ! Just as he had chosen her first husband 
 for her, so w^as he now desirous of choosino- 
 her second ; and it seemed to him, that a 
 better could not be found than Lancelot 
 Clive, the son of his old friend, Colonel 
 Clive, and his own adopted son and re- 
 puted heir. 
 
 Among his many schemes of benevolence, 
 this held the first place ; and from morning 
 till night his energies were concentrated 
 upon the endeavour to bring about a 
 marriage between these young people, an 
 event which there was every reason to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 believe would have come about in the 
 natural order of thino-.s, if he could but 
 have been content to let matters take their 
 course. 
 
 ''If he would but let us alone," Madge 
 sighed, as now for the third time Sir Peter 
 entered the room, and paraphrased his 
 former question somewhat as follows : 
 
 " What is Lance thinking of, eh, Madge, 
 to leave you to your own devices in this 
 fashion ? Has Lady Judith carried him 
 off to her farm to help her count her latest 
 brood of Brahmapootras — eh ? " 
 
 Madge, not having yet got her breath 
 back after her late passage-of-arms with 
 Lance, would have liked to answer : 
 
 " I haven't the remotest notion where 
 Lance is, and if he never comes near me 
 again to the end of time I shan't care two- 
 pence-halfpenny." 
 
 That she did not so answer was entirely
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 21 
 
 owing to the fact that whatever else she 
 might forget, one thing she always re- 
 membered, namely, that once she had been 
 Madge Grant, a poor little waif, and de- 
 pendent upon Sir Peter's bounty. 
 
 So she answered composedly, as if she 
 enjoyed being catechised in this personal 
 fashion : 
 
 "Lance is, I dare say, in the gun-room, 
 looking over his fowling-pieces, and Lady 
 Judith is not at her farm. I heard her 
 half an hour ago tell your new secretarv^ 
 that she wished to speak to him in the 
 morning-room." 
 
 And then she went back to her scales, 
 sighing once more : 
 
 '* If he would but believe that the world 
 could get on w^ithout him ! " 
 
 By a coincidence, the very same words 
 were at that moment on Lady Judith's 
 lips as she sat in her pretty morning-room.
 
 22 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 engaged in conversation with the gentleman 
 who had only the day before been installed 
 as private secretary to Sir Peter. 
 
 Yet, conversation is scarcely the proper 
 word to denote talk in w^hich, as the Irish- 
 man said, "the reciprocity was all on one 
 side." For Lady Judith was all but stone 
 deaf, and the private secretary, after one 
 or two vain eflforts at assent or demur, 
 had yielded to circumstances, and now 
 stood a patient listener to her energetic 
 harano-ue. 
 
 o 
 
 Lady Judith was a woman of between 
 fifty and sixty years of age, and her gait 
 and dress expressed every one of those 
 years in uncompromising severity. She 
 had a supreme contempt for those who 
 sought by the arts of the toilet or graces 
 of manner to negotiate a truce between 
 middle life and old age. Her one pleasure 
 in life was the manac^ement of her home
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 23 
 
 farm, her one duty — from her point of 
 view that is — to play the part of cog to 
 the household wheels which Sir Peter kept 
 in perpetual motion. In face, she was 
 florid and large-featured ; in figure, tall 
 and stout. 
 
 She towered a good three inches over 
 the person she was addressing — a small, 
 spare man of about fifty, gray-haired and 
 whiskerless, with expressionless features 
 and eyes that looked out of such narrow 
 slits that it was impossible to tell what 
 colour they were. 
 
 She had risen from her chair in the 
 course of her oration, and now, fan in 
 hand, stood rounding her periods with 
 sustained vigour. 
 
 Her fan was an absolute necessity to 
 her; once set upon *' conversation " she 
 never failed to talk herself hot and red in 
 the face. She wielded that fan in no
 
 24 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 dainty, coquettish fashion. In her hands 
 it suggested the whirring arms of a \vind- 
 mill on a breezy height. 
 
 " I suffer so from the heat," she paren- 
 thetically informed the private secretary, 
 announcing a fact that must have been 
 evident to the most careless observer. 
 
 Then she went back to the main subject 
 of her discourse. 
 
 "This talk between us is entirely con- 
 fidential, Mr. Stubbs," she said, speaking 
 in a high key as if she were addressing 
 some one on top of a churcli steeple. " Sir 
 Peter has the kindest heart in the world, 
 and a very wide reputation for benevolence. 
 Entre nous, I should not be at all sorry 
 if his reputation could be curtailed — this is 
 quite in confidence, you understand — and 
 it occurs to me that by the exercise of a 
 little judgment and discretion oh your 
 part — an occasional word put in now and
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 25 
 
 then, do you see — the iDultitudinous outlets 
 for his benevolence mioht be reduced in 
 number. Of course, you will have to use 
 great tact ; entre nous, Mr. Stubbs, Sir 
 Peter is a trifle obstinate when once he 
 takes a thing into his head. Your prede- 
 cessor was a man without tact, and a little 
 too fond of hearing himself talk ; and, of 
 course, quickly got his dismissaL AYell, 
 as I w^as saying, Mr. Stubbs — but this is 
 quite confidential — Sir Peter has the 
 kindest heart imaginable, but if he could 
 only be made to understand that * the 
 
 world could get on without him " she 
 
 broke off abruptly, asking the question : 
 
 "What is the matter — toothache?" as 
 an expression of agony passed over Mr. 
 Sfcubbs's face. 
 
 It was not to be wondered at that Mr. 
 Stubbs should have exhibited a change of 
 feature, for, all unknown to the lady, the
 
 26 AT TUE 2I0MEXT OF VICTORY, 
 
 door behind her had opened, and Sir Peter 
 himself had entered the room, and stood 
 listeningr to her discourse. 
 
 It was matter for congratulation that at 
 that moment a diversion was effected by- 
 Lance dashing into the room in hot haste, 
 and whispering something into Sir Peter's 
 ear with many a furtive look at Lady 
 Judith. 
 
 Mr. StuLbs, being blessed with quick 
 hearinof, caught the words : 
 
 "Accident on the rails below Lower 
 Upton ! Come along at once ! Pve had 
 the cart brouo;ht round. There'll be lots 
 for you to do."
 
 CB AFTER II. 
 
 Upton Castle stood Iiio-h amono- the 
 Cumberland hills, some nine hundred feet 
 above the sea level. Above its gray stone 
 walls the Cuddaw Fell rose in sharp 
 grandeur another nine hundred feet, be- 
 littling with its sweeping curves and 
 massive crao-s the strong-hold beneath, 
 which once had held its own with the 
 best of border fortresses, and which suc- 
 cessive masters with big purses and 
 luxurious tastes had adapted to the exi- 
 gencies of modern requirements. 
 
 "The mountain belongs to us,'' Lance 
 used occasionally to say, looking upward 
 with a measuring eye from the top of
 
 28 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Sir Peter's bald licad to the cloud-capped 
 Fell. " Or we belong to it," he would 
 add as an afterthought. 'Tm not quite 
 sure that isn't a better way of putting 
 
 it." 
 
 Had any one asked Lancelot Clive, at 
 this period of his career, to put his notions 
 concerning the whole duty of man into a 
 nutshell, he would have replied without a 
 moment's hesitation, " Get as much fun out 
 of everything as you possibly can." 
 
 He had a free and easy way of treating 
 the elderly Sir Peter, which at times 
 Madge wondered over, and at times she 
 envied. But then he was a i^rotcgc of a 
 different stamp to what she had been. 
 His mother, who had died at his birth, 
 had been a Critchett, and his father had 
 been Sic Peter's oldest friend. When 
 Colonel Clive had died suddenly of fever 
 in India, it seemed the most natural thing
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 29 
 
 in the world for Sir Peter to continue 
 the orphan lad's education, and, when 
 Eton and Oxford were said good-bye to, 
 to instal him at Upton as his adopted 
 son and heir. 
 
 ''The young fellow was born to good 
 luck," everybody said, although at the 
 same time they were willing enough to 
 admit that things must have been very 
 different with him had Gervase Critchett 
 lived, or had a son. 
 
 Gervase Critchett had been Sir Peter's 
 only brother, who, as a young man, had 
 been seized with a sudden desire for wild 
 life in the AYest. In pursuance of this 
 idea he had gone out to Mexico, had 
 bought a ranche there and had been 
 killed, there was every reason to believe, 
 in one of the numerous, unreasoning 
 insurrections which the history of that 
 country records.
 
 30 AT THIi] MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Lance was a thoroughly genial, good- 
 hearted youijg fellow. He had a lofty 
 way of patronising everybody and every- 
 thing that came in his way which might 
 have been irritatinsf or amusin^f, as the 
 case might be, if it had been less genially 
 or unconsciously extended. '' Uncle Punch 
 and Aunt Judy " had been his schoolboy 
 nicknames for Sir Peter and Lady Judith 
 — herself, by the way, an Earl's daughter. 
 It was a misfortune for Sir Peter that his 
 wife owned to the Christian name of Judith, 
 it so forcibly suggested the characteristic 
 sobriquet for her husband. 
 
 In the same lofty, patronising fashion. 
 Lance would speak of the old Castle as 
 "the dungeon," or "the jail," or more 
 frequently still as the " whited sepulchre," 
 " tolerable for three weeks at a time, in- 
 supportable for a fourth." 
 
 It was the gray of the mountain-side
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTOBY. 31 
 
 which suowstecl the last unfortunate simile. 
 Seen in the glint and glare of a noonday 
 sun on a summer's day, the old Castle stood 
 out in hard, staring whiteness against the 
 graduated gray of the rocks so tenderly 
 laid on by Nature's practised hand. 
 
 But when the summer's sun had sunk 
 behind the Cuddaws, and the red, sunset 
 flames had died out of its windows, the 
 old house seemed to shrink into the 
 mountain-side, and become part and parcel 
 of the shadowy crags. Purple then became 
 the keynote of colour of the W'hole land- 
 scape. 
 
 An artist sketching it might have done 
 without his reds and yellows, but his purple 
 he must have had, or his picture would 
 have lacked that subtle yet everywhere- 
 present charm of mystery, which only the 
 shadowy purple could impart. There it 
 w^as, deepening the gray of the mountain.
 
 32 AT THE MOMENT OF VIC TOBY. 
 
 the .silver of the overhanging mist, flashing 
 darkly out of the sheen of the distant lake, 
 clouding the blue of the thickset pine- 
 wood, and findino; its focus in the fores^round 
 of the picture in the luxurious heather 
 which spread itself in straggling patches 
 over hillside and valley. 
 
 That valley seemed to stretch away into 
 a limitless distance, until it kissed the 
 horizon. Lower Upton, Vvith its new 
 railway station and few scattered cottages, 
 lay hidden somewhere among its copses. 
 
 Lower Upton was about seven miles 
 distant from the Castle *' as the crow flies," 
 but a good nine miles if the windings of a 
 steep, rocky road be taken into account. 
 That was a nasty bit of road, especially at 
 midday' under a scorching sun, with Uncle 
 Peter "in good form," as Lance was apt to 
 phrase it, on the box seat. 
 
 " Uncle Peter " was in uncommonly
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 33 
 
 " good form " on the morning when he and 
 Lance set off together for the scene of the 
 railway disaster ; that is to say, he made 
 the nasty bit of road seem double its length 
 with an incessant flow of interruptions, or 
 rather what would have been such if Lance 
 had not been wary. 
 
 " Lance," said the old gentleman so soon 
 as they were outside the Castle gates, " it 
 has only just struck me that we might 
 have sent a man on to Carstairs to tell 
 the doctors there. Of course, old Brough- 
 ton will be on the spot, but he may want 
 additional help. We had better turn back 
 and leave a message." 
 
 '' All right ! " said Lance, touching up 
 his horses, not turning their heads, *' we'll 
 leave a message for Aunt Judy at the 
 keeper's cottage as we go along." 
 
 A message was left at the keeper's 
 cottage, and Lance rattled along over the 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 AT THE 2WMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 flinty road for another half-mile. Then a 
 second idea " struck " Sir Peter. 
 
 *' It has just occurred to me, Lance." he 
 said, with a sudden start that would have 
 shaken the nerves of a timorous "whip," 
 ** that it would have been as well to have 
 left word for the wagonette to be sent 
 down after us ; it might serve instead of an 
 ambulance. Just turn the horses' heads. It's 
 only a question of a quarter of an hour." 
 
 "Ah, that will do at the next cottage — 
 Turvey, the mole-catcher's. We'll send a 
 message back by one of his small boys," 
 answered Lance calmly as before, and again 
 whipping up his horses. 
 
 Then Sir Peter had cramp first in one 
 leg, then in the other, and insisted upon 
 getting down to *' walk it off." 
 
 Finally, within half a mile of Lower 
 Upton, his third and last "idea" struck him. 
 
 " I do think, Lance," he said, getting
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 35 
 
 more and more cheery as they neared the 
 scone where he supposed his energies 
 would be called into requisition, "it 
 would have been a good idea to have told 
 them to send down with the wagonette 
 something that could be converted into an 
 ambulance — wonder it didn't occur to you 
 when you left the message at Turvey's. 
 The suflferers may be too much injured to 
 stand the jolting of " 
 
 Here Lance pulled up sharply. " Ho, 
 there 1 " he shouted to a man who chanced 
 to be coming along with a cart of hay. 
 
 "Who-a, my lass," said the man to his 
 horse, and stood at attention. 
 
 **Youre going up the Cuddaw Road, I 
 suppose ? " queried Lance. '' Well, you'll 
 meet Sir Peter's wagonette coming down. 
 Tell the man to turn back, take the doors 
 off the stables, and bring them along with 
 him — they're wanted for ambulances." 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 '' No, no ! " shouted Sir Peter. " There 
 are plenty of hurdles down at the farm. 
 Are you out of your mind, Lance ! Do you 
 hear, my man, hurdles from the farm." 
 
 But it was exceedingly doubtful whether 
 the man heard him, for Lance had once 
 more touched up his horses, vowing that 
 unless they put speed on, they might as 
 well turn back at once. Then he drew a 
 fancy picture of the scene of disaster, 
 which, possibly, the railway station pre- 
 sented ; of wrecked carriages lying along 
 the line, sufiferers in various stages of 
 mutilation stretched on the platform 
 awaiting succour. 
 
 Sir Peter subsided into tranquillity, as 
 Lance knew he w^ould, before the prospect 
 of so vast a field for his ener2:ies. He 
 buttoned up his coat, so as to be tight and 
 trim, and ready for action. 
 
 " If I were you I would let your shirt-
 
 AT THE M02IENT OF VIGTOBT. 37 
 
 sleeves alone," said Lance, noticing a side 
 glance which the old gentleman gave to his 
 wristbands. 
 
 Sir Peter looked like a naughty child 
 forestalled in some mischievous idea. 
 
 " But we'll take our rugs with us, 
 Lance," he said, ''they'll be sure to come 
 in useful one way or another." 
 
 But alas for Sir Peter s forethought and 
 prognostication ! The little railway station 
 presented its usual picture of rustic quietude 
 as Lance drew rein at it. 
 
 The station - master came forward to 
 reply to Sir Peter s queries. The accident, 
 he explained, had occurred five miles down 
 the line. A number of coal trucks had 
 been overturned through the breaking of 
 some coupling irons, and, as the line could 
 not be cleared before night, all traffic 
 through Lower Upton was stopped for that 
 day.
 
 38 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 **The worst damage," he went on to 
 say, " was the inconvenience that pas- 
 sengers travelling North had been put to. 
 They had been compelled to alight at 
 Lower Upton, and had had the choice 
 offered them of remaining there for another 
 twenty-four hours, or, of travelling back 
 twenty-five miles of their road to Carstairs, 
 whence they could travel North by various 
 routes. Most of the passengers had adopted 
 the latter course — all in fact except one — 
 a young lady," here he glanced towards 
 the waiting-room of the station, " who 
 appeared to be greatly annoyed at the delay 
 to her journey, and who seemed unable to 
 make up her mind what to do. She spoke 
 with a foreign accent," the man farther 
 stated, " and he was not sure whether she 
 thoroughly understood his explanation of 
 how easily her journey might be continued 
 by travelling back twenty-five miles."
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 39 
 
 "Capital!" said Lance, "there's some- 
 tliiiig for you to do after all, Uncle Peter. 
 Of course we're bound to offer our services 
 to the young lady. We can drive her any- 
 where she would like within twenty miles, 
 or take her to the Castle for the nig^ht and 
 brino^ her back in the mornins: when the 
 line's clear. ' Greatly annoyed,' ' foreign 
 accent.' Why, I'm beginning to feel like 
 Don Quixote already. Come along." 
 
 They went into the waiting-room to see 
 a tall, slight young lady standing there 
 with a small portmanteau at her feet. She 
 wore a long gray travelling cloak which 
 reached to the hem of her dress, a gray 
 beaver hat, and gray gossamer veil which 
 entirely hid her features.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The hot afternoon began to wane. Lady 
 Judith and Madge drank their tea out of 
 doors under a spreading cedar, which made 
 a shady nook on the lawn. Madge brought 
 out a writing-folio with her, thinking it 
 possible that Lady Judith might fan her- 
 self to sleep, as she often did on a summer's 
 afternoon, and thus give her the oppor- 
 tunity of getting through a little of her 
 correspondence. 
 
 Lady Judith, however, was not disposed 
 for sleep-, but for ** conversation," in her 
 sense of the word, that is. The number 
 and variety of topics she touched upon 
 while she and Madge stirred their tea, sug-
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 41 
 
 gested a comprehensiveness of knowledge 
 that would have done credit to the com- 
 piler of "Enquire Within Upon Every- 
 thing." 
 
 Madge, a well-seasoned listener, leaned 
 back in her rocking-chair, indulging in her 
 own train of thought under cover of an 
 occasional sympathetic remark, which Lady 
 Judith as often as not did not hear. 
 
 Sir Peter and his fads, as might be 
 expected, received the lion's share of the 
 lady's criticism ; thus : 
 
 ** My dear, if it had not been for me 
 the Castle would long ago have been turned 
 into an orphanage or almshouse, or perhaps 
 into a lunatic asylum — though, for the 
 matter of that, it's half-way on the road to 
 one now at times, with the queer sorts of 
 people he brings into it." And so forth 
 for a good twenty minutes, wdth brief in- 
 terludes for fan or tea- cup.
 
 42 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTOUY. 
 
 Lance and his misdoings next received, 
 as it were, a passing glance. 
 
 ** Where is the use," she queried, 
 pathetically, *' of my saying to him as I do 
 every day of my life, ' Lance, do your best 
 to keep Sir Peter from making himself 
 ridiculous ' ? Or of his saying to me, as he 
 does every day of his life, ' Aunt Judith, I 
 c:o to bed at nig-hts with Uncle Peter on 
 my mind, I get up in the morning with 
 him on my mind, and he is on my mind 
 all day long ' ? when he never so much as 
 lifts a little finger to keep him out of mis- 
 chief. My dear, it's my belief that that 
 young man looks upon life as nothing more 
 than a big jest from year's end to year's 
 end. He'd sell his soul any day of the 
 week, and think himself well paid if only 
 he could get a laugh out of the bargain." 
 
 The mere mention of Sir Peter's name 
 had been guarantee to Madge of close upon
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 43 
 
 half an liour for uninterrupted indulgence 
 of thought. During the recapitulation of 
 his offences she had been mentally con- 
 cocting an answer to a letter received from 
 her lawyers that morning, asking for in- 
 structions on certain matters connected 
 with the Cohen property. 
 
 •''Dear sirs," she had been writing in 
 intent, " I wish the bonds and deeds you 
 speak of were at the bottom of the sea. 
 Do just whatever you like about them. 
 And as for the house at Kedesdale, it may 
 be unlet to the end of time for anything I 
 care " 
 
 She had got so far, when Lance's name 
 high over her head, in Lady Judith's 
 falsetto, brought her letter- writing to a 
 halt. For once in her life her ideas were 
 in unison with Lady Judith's. 
 
 " Sell his soul for a laugh — yes, that 
 was Lance to the backbone," she said to
 
 44 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 herself a little bitterly. " From morning 
 till night playing at life instead of living 
 it. Never in earnest — never even seeming 
 in earnest. If he had only seemed ever so 
 little in earnest six months back when he 
 had made her his oflfer of marriage, how 
 gladly she would have said * Yes 'to it, 
 instead of meeting it with the indignant 
 exclamation, ' Sir Peter told you to ask 
 me.'" Then she drifted into cloudland 
 again, picturing a series of pleasant possi- 
 bilities, if Lance, for once in his life in 
 downright solemn earnest, were to come 
 to her and say: ** Madge, I forgive you 
 for doing what you were bidden and marry- 
 ing money-bags. I loved you then, I love 
 you now, I'll love you always." Ah ! how 
 gladly would she pour out those money- 
 bags at his feet ! What a heart's delio^ht 
 the counting of her gold, the management 
 of the Cohen property, would be to her then.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 45 
 
 And as for lawyers' letters, they might 
 come every day of her life, and be welcome 
 as love-letters, if only she had the privilege 
 of tossing them over to Lance, and saying : 
 " You'll settle all that, won't you ? " 
 
 When her wing wearied and she came 
 down from cloudland, Lady Judith had 
 taken Mr. Stubbs, the new secretary, for 
 her text, and was descanting upon his quali- 
 fications, or otherwise, for his duties. 
 
 " It's my belief, my dear," she was saying 
 when Madge's sense of hearing came b/ick 
 to her, *Hhat Sir Peter only engaged him 
 because he heard from the people who 
 recommended him at Carstairs — I forget 
 their name — that he had been unfortunate 
 in business matters all his life through. 
 He has been twice through the Bankruptcy 
 Court ; at one time he was a stockbroker ; 
 then he turned lawyer's clerk ; then he 
 went into a newspaper office at Liverpool ;
 
 46 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTOUY, 
 
 after that into an auctioneer's office ; and 
 after that — after that," this repeated with 
 a contemptuous emphasis, '' he comes to 
 Upton Castle, and acts as private secre- 
 tary to Sir Peter ! " Here Lady Judith 
 paused to fan herself, and to get breath to 
 go on again. 
 
 ** He wouldn't be so bad-looking if only 
 he would open his eyes wider," said Madge, 
 feeling she was expected to say something. 
 "As it is, it makes me sleepy to look at 
 him." 
 
 Lady Judith only caught a part of her 
 sentence, and characteristically understood 
 it to refer to Sir Peter. 
 
 '* Open his eyes a little wider ! " she 
 exclaimed, shrilly. *' I wish to goodness 
 he would! He would see then how people 
 impose upon him, and lay traps for him to 
 walk into, and then make fan of him 
 behind his back. But there — one might
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICT OUT. 47 
 
 as well tell a blind man not to run 
 his head against a post as tell Sir Peter 
 to open his eyes and look an inch in front 
 of him." 
 
 They had now travelled in a circle back 
 to their starting point — Sir Peter, and his 
 delinquencies. Madge mechanically returned 
 to her unanswered lawyers' letter. " I don't 
 care two straws," her thoughts resumed, 
 '' whether the house at Eedesdale is let 
 or unlet, or whether the farmers are paying 
 
 half-rents or whole rents " Shehad-sfot 
 
 so far when the sound of wheels coming slowly 
 up the steep drive, which led through the 
 grounds to the Castle, made her look up, 
 to see Lance in the distance, wavinsf to her 
 from his hiojh doQ-^cart. 
 
 She looked and looked again. Was that 
 Sir Peter seated behind ? Where was the 
 groom, then, and who was that, all in gray, 
 seated beside Lance on the box-seat ? were
 
 48 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 the questions which rapidly presented them- 
 selves to her for an answer. 
 
 Evidently they suggested themselves to 
 Lady Judith also, for she broke off abruptly, 
 shaded her eyes with her hands, and iu- 
 quired: **Whom have they brought back 
 with them ? Can you see, my dear ? " 
 
 Madge shook her head. " Another 
 protegee, I dare say," she answered. But 
 the way in which she spoke the word 
 ^^ 'protegee'' was a protest against her use of 
 it. The emphasis she laid on "another" 
 seemed to say : " I least of any one in the 
 world ought to throw stones from out 
 my glass-house." 
 
 Sir Peter, in spite of his short legs, 
 was out of the cart before Lance. He 
 crossed the lawn towards the ladies in a 
 very great hurry, while Lance followed at 
 a more leisurely pace, accompanied by the 
 young lady in gray — Madge could see
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 49 
 
 that she was young, by the slimness of 
 her figure, and the grace of her walk. 
 
 He came up looking hot, and a little out 
 of breath. " My dear," he said, addressing 
 his wife, "you heard of the accident at 
 Lower Upton. The young lady we have 
 brought back with us had no chance of 
 continuing her journey to the North for 
 another twenty-four hours ; so I told her 
 you would be delighted to receive her 
 till " 
 
 Lady Judith arose from her seat erect 
 and stately. 
 
 "I want to know," she said in an 
 authoritative voice, " whether there are any 
 more coming. I heard that the wagonette 
 had been ordered to follow." 
 
 Evidently she had had visions of the 
 wagonette returning packed with lame, 
 maimed, halt, or otherwise injured indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 "No, no, no," and Sir Peter shook his 
 head vigorously to emphasize his noes ; 
 " only this young lady, I give you my 
 word. Let me introduce her to you." 
 
 A few steps behind him. Lance was pre- 
 senting the lady in gray to Madge. 
 
 Mado^e had left her rockin or- chair and the 
 shade of the spreading cedar, and stood in 
 the glare of the sunlight on the lawn. 
 Lance stood facing her, with the glint of 
 the sunshine on his curly hair, and its 
 gleam in his bright blue eye. Between 
 them stood the young lady, tall and 
 shadowy in her gray garments. 
 
 *' She came like a shadow between us ; I 
 felt my blood chilled," was the description 
 Madge gave of this meeting in after days. 
 
 At the moment, however, she merely 
 thought to herself: 
 
 "Why doesn't she lift her veil? Does 
 she intend suddenly to startle us with a
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 51 
 
 blaze of beauty ? or is it perhaps because, 
 like me, she isn't proud of her face, and 
 prefers keeping it hidden as much as 
 possible ? " 
 
 As if conscious of Madge's thought, the 
 young lady at that moment raised her veil, 
 and dared the unshadowed light of the 
 blazing summer sun. 
 
 Madge stood looking at her wonderingly. 
 
 The face that fronted her, albeit one 
 likely to attract an artist's pencil, was not 
 of a type easy to class. The features— so 
 far as nose, mouth, and chin went — though 
 fairly regular, were unpronounced ; the 
 complexion w^as of a dead, unvarying 
 white, which was doubly accentuated, first 
 by coral-red lips, next by black, straight 
 bars — not arches — of eyebrows, and a thick 
 band of black hair drawn straig;ht across 
 her forehead. The eyes Madge could not 
 see, for the young lady kept her full white 
 
 \;&t««"«"
 
 52 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 lids downcast. It was a face w^hicli might 
 attract, and a face which might repulse, 
 according to circumstances ; but whatever 
 it might be, it was not a face to be seen 
 one moment and forgotten the next. 
 
 " What a peculiar-looking young w^oman," 
 thought Lady Judith, putting up her 
 eye-glass and staring at her uncompro- 
 misingly. 
 
 ** Eh, I had no idea she was half so 
 handsome behind her veil," thought Sir 
 Peter, taking a steady survey. 
 
 " She would make a grand Cleopatra 
 if her eyes are as black as her brows," 
 thought Lance. 
 
 *'She might sit for the portrait of Jael, 
 who drove the tent-peg through tired 
 Sisera's forehead," said Madge to herself, 
 as far off as ever from answering her 
 own question as to the young lady's 
 beauty.
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 53 
 
 Evidently she did not mind being 
 looked at, for her face showed not the 
 faintest sign of embarrassment. 
 
 But, whether intentionally or otherwise, 
 she avenged herself for Lady Judith's eye- 
 glass. 
 
 ** Is that your housekeeper ? '* she asked, 
 turning to Madge, and speaking in a slow, 
 deep voice, with an unmistakably foreign 
 accent. 
 
 As she spoke she lifted her full white 
 lids, and Lance saw not the black eyes 
 her hair gave promise of, but large dark- 
 gray ones. 
 
 How Sir Peter, at that moment, thanked 
 Heaven for his wife's deafness ! 
 
 "That is Lady Judith Critchett," an- 
 swered Madge, stiffly. 
 
 " What does she say ? " asked Lady 
 Judith, conscious that she was an object 
 of attention to the young lady.
 
 54 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 " That she is delighted to make your 
 acquaiDtance," said Lance, right into Lady 
 Judith's ear. 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Sir Peter, drawing a 
 full breath of relief, "let me present you 
 to my wife. Miss — Miss Eosalie," he began, 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 '*Janc," corrected the young lady. 
 
 The incongruity of the name with the 
 face struck Madge. 
 
 " Ah, yes. Miss Jane — Jane ? " went 
 
 on Sir Peter, interrogatively. 
 
 ''Jane Shore," answered the young lady. 
 
 The incongruity of the name seemed 
 to vanish at once. 
 
 The dressino:-bell at that moment ranir 
 out its reminder. Madge thought it best 
 to end a>i ungracious situation graciously. 
 
 "If you will come with me," she said, 
 addressing Miss Shore, " I will show you 
 to your room, and send my maid to you."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 55 
 
 "Thank you," was the reply, in slow, 
 halting phrases, which seemed to imply 
 that the English tongue was scarcely 
 mastered. " I will not trouble you to 
 send a maid. I have been travelling for 
 two whole days. Will you give me a 
 bed ? It is that I want, not dinner. I 
 am tired — nearly to death." 
 
 And the three last words were spoken 
 in a tone that set Lance's brain wondering, 
 his heart pitying.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 " How can you let him make himself so 
 ridiculous ? " asked Madge of Lance, after 
 dinner that night, as together they stood at 
 one of the long drawing-room windows, 
 watching the crimson after-glow fade from 
 the cloud-mountains in the sky, and the 
 night-blue slowly spreading athwart the 
 valley. 
 
 "Him! Who, what?" asked Lance, 
 starting as if suddenly aroused from a 
 reverie. 
 
 "Why, Sir Peter, of course. Why did 
 you let him bring an utter stranger into 
 the house in this way ? A word from you 
 would often prevent these foolish things,
 
 AT THU MOMENT OF VICTORY. 57 
 
 yet you never speak that word," she said, 
 echoing Lady Judith's lament. 
 
 She spoke in low tones. That drawicg- 
 room owned to four windows and three 
 doors, and there was no knowinof but what 
 Sir Peter might enter by one of them at 
 any moment. 
 
 Lance shook himself free from his 
 thoughts. 
 
 *'Now I like that, Madge," he began, 
 laughingly. *' You know Uncle Peter as well 
 as I do — when once he has taken a notion 
 into his head, not the Lords, and the Com- 
 mons, and the whole bench of Bishops com- 
 bined, would prevent him carrying it out." 
 
 It seemed as if the mantle of Lady 
 Judith had temporarily fallen upon Madge's 
 shoulders — she was not to be mollified. 
 Lance's laugh, too, did not mend matters. 
 
 *' It would be bad enough," she went on, 
 "if you stood by and said nothing; but
 
 58 AT TUE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 when you absolutely carry him off to the 
 scene of a railway accident for the whole 
 and sole purpose of " 
 
 " Giving him something to do," finished 
 Lance. " My dear Madge, I wonder how 
 many times in your life you have said to 
 me, ' Give him something to do or he'll 
 drive us all mad/ " 
 
 " Yes, but not such a something as this. 
 If you must bring people into the house, 
 bring men whom you can entertain, not 
 women who will be left on our hands." 
 
 Lance eyed her curiously. Madge seemed 
 more disturbed than so trifling an incident 
 warranted. 
 
 Again he tried to laugh the matter off. 
 " You don't mean to say you're hard-hearted 
 enough to wish we had left this poor girl 
 to sleep at the railway station ? You know 
 there's not an inn even at Lower Upton 
 at which a lady could put up."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 59 
 
 " Why didn't she go on with the other 
 passengers to Carstairs ? There were more 
 people than she, I expect, who came down 
 by her train." 
 
 " She hadn't made up her mind what to 
 do when Uncle Peter and I drove up on 
 the look-out for " 
 
 *' Forlorn, beautiful young women," finished 
 Madge, sarcastically. 
 
 *'' Exactly. And finding what we went 
 out to seek, what could we do but " 
 
 " She is not beautiful," interrupted Madge, 
 vehemently. ''Her face has a history 
 written on it, and it is not a good one." 
 
 But even as she said the words the 
 thought in her heart was : " I would give 
 all the Cohen diamonds and every penny I 
 have in the world to have such a face." 
 
 Lance put on a serio-comic expression. 
 
 *' Ah ! every one knows, Madge, that 
 you never mean one-half you say," he said.
 
 60 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 as thoroughly bent on teasing as if he were 
 a schoolboy and Madge a screaming, refrac- 
 tory parrot. 
 
 " I mean every word I say ; and I repeat, 
 her face is an evil one and repulses me. 
 Somehow it makes me think of midnight 
 bridges and dark rivers, and " 
 
 But at this moment a door opened, and 
 Sir Peter entered. He stood for a moment 
 looking about him. 
 
 There was Lady Judith, asleep in a low 
 chair, her head thrown back, her big fan 
 drooping from her hand, her face crimson 
 as usual. Evidently she had fanned her- 
 self into the arms of Morpheus. There 
 were Madge and Lance whispering together 
 in the window recess, for all the world like 
 a pair of lovers. 
 
 " Delightful ! " thought the kind-hearted 
 old gentleman. " Just as it should be ! Capi- 
 tal match I Most suitable in every way ! "
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTOEY. 61 
 
 And as he could not bring himself to 
 interrupt the love-making of the young 
 people, he crossed the room on tip-toes, 
 and went out by the opposite door. 
 
 Madge seemed instinctively conscious of 
 Sir Peter's thoughts. 
 
 *' Why did he run away like that ? " she 
 queried, plucking nervously at the posy 
 of yellow roses which she wore in her 
 waistband. 
 
 *^ He'll be back again in another minute," 
 said Lance, composedly. 
 
 And sure enough back again he came. 
 
 This time through the window, the third 
 from the one at which Lance and Madge 
 were standing. 
 
 " Don't disturb yourselves," he said, 
 standing in front of the two and falling 
 into a backward and forward heel and 
 toe motion he frequently adopted, and 
 which suggested the idea that he had sud-
 
 62 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 denly been put upon rockers. " Don't 
 disturb yourselves. I only came in for 
 a moment to say that — that " 
 
 He paused abruptly. Honestly he had 
 nothing to say. If he had spoken out 
 his thoughts he would have said : " The 
 house is horribly still ; it is time I set 
 some one or somethinix stirrinor." 
 
 "That it was a fine even in gr" susforested 
 Lance. 
 
 "Ah, yes, a fine evening ! That was it. 
 And — and it was a disappointment our 
 o:uest couldn't sit down to dinner with us." 
 This was a sudden thought and he jumped 
 at it. 
 
 Madge here plucked so viciously at her 
 roses that two or three fell to the ground. 
 
 Lance picked them up and presented 
 them to her in the most lover-like attitude 
 he could command. 
 
 Sir Peter smiled benignly on him. *' Ah,
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 63 
 
 ' Gather your rosebuds while ye may.' 
 You know what the old soug says, eh ? " 
 Here he gave Lance a sly little dig in the 
 ribs, and forthwith vanished by another 
 window. 
 
 Madge turned sharply upon Lance. 
 '^ Why do you do it?" she queried, hotly. 
 ** Why do you make believe and make him 
 think that— that " 
 
 " That — that " mimicked Lance. 
 
 **My dear Madge, all niy telling in the 
 world wouldn't convince Uncle Peter that 
 we were not desperately in love with each 
 other. You try your hand at telling him 
 and see what will come of it." 
 
 " You tell him things as if you didn't 
 mean them — you ought to — to make him 
 
 understand that — that " Again she 
 
 broke off, and again Lance mimicked her. 
 
 " That — that you haven't the faintest 
 liking in the world for me, that, perhaps,
 
 C4 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 you may marry a chimney-sweep to-morrow ; 
 but Lance Olive — never. "Well, I'll do my 
 best to make him understand." 
 
 " I never said such a thing ; you've no 
 right to put words into my mouth," she 
 cried, vehemently; and then, as if fearful of 
 losing her self-control, she half-hid her face 
 in her yellow roses, and left the room. 
 
 *' If things could only have been different 
 five years ago ! " she said to herself as she 
 dosed the door behind her. ''If I had but 
 been free, as other girls, to choose or to 
 refuse ! "
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Lance remained standing at tlie open 
 window. A half-amused expression flitted 
 across his face. 
 
 " How ridiculous of Madge," he thought, 
 " to lose her temper over a girl she has only 
 seen once in her life, and whom most 
 probably after to-morrow she'll never see 
 again ! " 
 
 Presently the half-amused expression on 
 his face gave way to a more thoughtful 
 look. 
 
 " In spite of her ' No,' six months ago," 
 he thought, *' I believe she has a faint liking 
 for me. I wonder if I asked her a second 
 time what answer I should get ! " 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 The wonder was one to entertain, not to 
 dismiss as a passing thought. So, with a 
 glance at the still peacefully-sleeping Lady 
 Judith, Lance took his cigar-case out of 
 his pocket and strolled through the French 
 window on to the outside terrace. The 
 evening air was cool and balmy. The 
 garden showed weird and mysterious under 
 the long night-shadows which were be- 
 ginning to troop forth from beneath the 
 trees and Castle walls. 
 
 Lance went strolling in leisurely fashion 
 along the dim paths, his thoughts as serene 
 and limpid as the dark stretch of summer 
 sky overhead. It did not require the 
 miserable rushlight of a young man's 
 vanity, nor that stronger light which 
 experience of women's ways gives, to 
 read clearly Madge's apparently capricious 
 conduct, when once a steady attention was 
 accorded to it. She would be wooed for
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 67 
 
 herself, not for her wealth ; wooed, too, in 
 downright passionate earnest, not by a luke- 
 warm suitor edged on by a lively guardian. 
 This was what her alternate sweetness and 
 sourness, her petulance and playfulness 
 meant if they meant anything at all. 
 
 And after all, so Lance's thoughts 
 ambled, in leisurely time to his leisurely 
 steps, there was no reason why Madge 
 should not be thus wooed. Hers was a 
 sweet and attractive personality when once 
 one had learnt to pierce that outer armour 
 of caprice wherewith temperaments like hers, 
 rendered super-sensitive by circumstances, 
 frequently clothe themselves. 
 
 When Sir Peter had brought her, a shy 
 little maiden of twelve, to Upton Castle, 
 Lance had made a fine pet and plaything 
 of her. Later on, as she had developed into 
 the girl in her teens, he had been honestly 
 in love with her. Later on still, when 
 
 F 2
 
 68 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOllY. 
 
 Sir Peter had taken her future in hand 
 and considered he had done a thoroughly 
 good day's work in marrying her to old 
 David Cohen, Lance had seen fit to indulge 
 in the bitterness of a rejected suitor, and 
 to anathematise her for a heartless flirt, 
 although at the same time he had gone 
 out of his way to convince " Uncle 
 Punch and Aunt Judy," and all the world 
 beside, that he and Madge had never been 
 more than brother and sister to each other. 
 During Madge's short married life he had 
 seen next to nothing of her ; but when, 
 on the death of her husband, she shut up 
 her town house, let her country house, and 
 came back to the home of her girlhood, 
 he was willing enough to listen to Sir 
 Peter's suo^o-estion that " he and Mads^e 
 were made for each other," and to do his 
 best to obliterate from his recollection that 
 short period of her wedded life.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 69 
 Thinking over his oflfer of marriao-e now 
 
 o o 
 
 in this dreamy half-light, he said to himself 
 that he did not wonder at the impetuous 
 " No " it had received, considering what a 
 small amount of energy he had displayed 
 in the making of it. Doubtless it would 
 have met with a diflferent reception if Sir 
 Peter had left him alone to make it in his 
 own fashion, instead of jogging his elbow, 
 as it were, morning, noon, and night, to 
 do at a rush a thing which could have 
 been far better accomplished by successive 
 steps. 
 
 Lance finished his cigar, but still lingered 
 out there among the shadows and heavy 
 flower - scents, indulging now in this 
 pleasant thought, now in that. The Castle 
 grounds wound downwards with many a 
 steep pathway right into the valley, where, 
 among the stalwart pines and drooping 
 larches, stood the keeper s cottage and the
 
 70 AT TUE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 home farm. It occurred to him that there 
 was something he particularly wished to 
 say to the gamekeeper about a bit of land 
 that was to be enclosed for cover that year ; 
 so, in spite of the growing dark, he decided 
 to make his way down to the cottage at 
 once, lest to-morrow's occupations might 
 once more sweep the matter from his 
 mind. 
 
 The shadow^s closed around him as he 
 descended the incline. Behind him lights 
 were berinninoj to show in the Castle 
 frontage through its trellis-screen of syca- 
 more and cedar. Overhead the smirched 
 gray of twilight had given place to the 
 sapphire-blue of a night-sky pierced with 
 a hundred thousand " star windows to 
 let out heaven's li^fht." His downward 
 
 o 
 
 path showed gray in front of him, dimly 
 tesselated with the faint shadows of the 
 planes and wild plum-trees which grew
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 71 
 
 at intervals on either side. Then for a 
 brief distance the path wound upward 
 again, with a wood on one side, and a 
 high thorn hedge on the other. Beyond 
 this hedge a bare brown upland rose, 
 treeless and shadowless. 
 
 A gap in the hedge, where the last hunt 
 had ridden through, framed for Lance a 
 bird's-eye view of this sterile waste. It 
 showed him something else beside the dry 
 stunted turf and a few scurrying rabbits — 
 the figure of a woman sharply outlined 
 against the night-sky. She half-sat, half- 
 crouched, with arms encircling her knees. 
 She wore no hat, her hair was tightly 
 coiled about her head, her face was up- 
 turned to the heavens. 
 
 Lance was neither poet nor painter ; but 
 nevertheless the weirdness and mystic 
 beauty of the scene made itself felt. That 
 crouching sibyl-like attitude, the wildly
 
 72 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 
 
 desolate surroundings, seemed to transport 
 liim straight from the CumberLmd hillside 
 to classic ground, peopled with the queen- 
 prophetesses of ancient myth. If the 
 woman had suddenly tossed her arms on 
 high, and burst into some wild invocation, 
 it would have seemed all in keeping with 
 the ghostly scene. 
 
 But she did nothing of the sort. Instead, 
 as if conscious of his presence, she suddenly 
 turned her face towards him. Then Lance, 
 in utter amazement, recognised, by the 
 light of the stars, the pallid face and jet- 
 black hair of Miss Jane Shore. 
 
 He was throuo^h the hedsfe in a moment, 
 and in another was standing beside her . on 
 the shadowless waste. 
 
 "Miss Shore!" he exclaimed. ** What 
 are you — can you be doing out here at this 
 time of night ? " 
 
 The girl did not start nor move from
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 13 
 
 her crouching attitude. For one instant 
 her Lirge gray eyes were lifted to his face 
 with a hunted, forlorn look in them which 
 made his heart ache for her. 
 
 "Looking at the stars," she answered, 
 dreamily, absently. Then she let her gaze 
 sweep the sky once more. 
 
 There was no moon ; the bare upland on 
 which they stood showed, in the half light 
 made by the summer sky and myriad 
 stars, a ghostly patch from out the sur- 
 rounding gloom of dense hedges and 
 denser woods. The girl's upturned face 
 seemed more like some marble mask than 
 a thing which had life and could redden and 
 smile ; the black sweep of hair across her 
 forehead heightened its pallor into an 
 almost death -like whiteness, while the 
 gray garments which clung to her showed 
 like so much dim shroud-like vapour from 
 which she was iust cmeraino-.
 
 74 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 An artist seeking an impersonation of a 
 fallen star, looking upward to its lost place 
 in the heavens, might have found his ideal 
 realised here. 
 
 Lance, in his young, robust flesh and 
 blood, felt himself in some sort out of 
 keeping with his environment. 
 
 For a moment he felt tongue-tied ; then, 
 as if to break a spell, he made his voice 
 to be heard. 
 
 " If you are fond of star-gazing,'' he said, 
 ''you ought to go to St. Cuthbert's church- 
 yard — it stands on a promontory — you 
 can get a splendid view of the heavens 
 there, right away over the Irish Sea." 
 
 Treeless though this upland was, the 
 expanse of sky it commanded w^as com- 
 paratively circumscribed, on one side by 
 the thick wood which stood on yet higher 
 ground, on the other by the majestic crags 
 and headlands of the Cuddaws.
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 75 
 
 Only the first part of his sentence seemed 
 to catch her ear. 
 
 "Fond of star-gazing," she repeated, 
 slowly. " Is one fond of gazing on the 
 faces of one's enemies ? The stars are my 
 enemies. I hate — hate them." 
 
 The last words were said with a vehe- 
 mence that left no room for doubt as to 
 their sincerity. 
 
 Lance tried to be comfortable and com- 
 monplace. " Pardon me," he said, '' then 
 why do you come out here with nothing be- 
 tween you and the sky, when you could so 
 easily, by drawing your curtains, shut out 
 the faces of your enemies ? " 
 
 She answered his question circuitously. 
 " You ask your friend to tell you your 
 fortune ; he will say pleasant things to you — 
 he will lie to please you. You ask your 
 enemy; he will speak truth to you — the 
 stars cannot lie."
 
 76 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 The effort with which she spoke the 
 English tougue was marked in this 
 sentence. 
 
 " For all that, or rather in spite of all 
 that, I don't think I should feel disposed 
 to neglect the society of my friends for 
 that of my enemies," he answered, lightly, 
 but feeling all the time that his light words 
 were strangely out of place. 
 
 She turned her large luminous eyes full 
 on him. "What if you have no friends to 
 neglect ? " she asked, coldly, stonily, as one 
 might who had long been accustomed to 
 look the fact in the face. 
 
 If Lance had been in his usual frame 
 of mind, words would have come trippingly 
 to his tongue at heariug a handsome young 
 woman thus frankly proclaim her friend- 
 lessness. That he stood silently gazing 
 at her for a good minute and a half 
 showed that he was undergoing a new
 
 AT TUB MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 77 
 
 experience. Her head drooped, her hands 
 lay limply in her lap. Seated thus, she 
 gave him the impression of some one half- 
 stunned by some crushing blow, listless 
 and indiflferent whether a second would 
 follow. 
 
 '' I can hardly credit such a thing," he 
 began, hesitatingly. 
 
 She did not let him finish his sentence. 
 She rose slowly from her crouching posture. 
 In the dim light her tall figure seemed to 
 elongate itself beyond its real height. 
 
 " Look in mid-heaven ! " she said, in the 
 same hard, bitter voice as before. 
 
 Lance followed the sweep of her hand 
 to where, under the shadow of the Cuddaw 
 Fell, the old Castle dominated the landscape. 
 High in the heavens, directly over the top- 
 most peak of the Fell, a planet shone out 
 with brilliant, metallic lustre among a 
 thousand stars.
 
 78 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Lance, very hazy in astronomical know- 
 ledge, would have liked to ask a thousand 
 questions. What planet was it ? Had it 
 a bad character among the planets ? And 
 so forth. 
 
 But she would not allow one. She drew 
 the hood of her cloak over her head, and 
 so closely round her face that naught but 
 her glittering, forlorn eyes showed beneath 
 it. 
 
 " Come, let us go back to the house," 
 she said. " I have seen enough for one 
 nicrht."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Lance, thinking afterwards over his walk 
 back to the Castle in company with Miss 
 Shore, was driven to admit that never 
 before in his life had he spent so silent 
 a quarter of an hour, in solitary company 
 with a handsome young woman. 
 
 Lance had something of a reputation 
 for his conversational powers, but now they 
 appeared suddenly and unaccountably to 
 have failed him. Except in the briefest 
 thanks for assistance over stiles or rough 
 pathway, or monosyllabic acquiescence in 
 his remarks about the beauty of the night, 
 he did not hear Miss Shore's voice. 
 
 Once or twice, as they walked along the
 
 80 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 dim lanes, in and out among the tree- 
 shadows, he found himself looking at her 
 wonderingly, trying to define, not alone 
 her personality, but what special quality it 
 was in that personality which seemed to 
 attract and repulse him at one and the 
 same moment. 
 
 In that bewitching, bewildering half- 
 gloom of the summer's night, she looked, 
 in her long, clinging gray garments, scarcely 
 less shadowy than the shadows among 
 which they walked. In the smooth paths 
 of the Castle gardens her steps became 
 slow and gliding, and he fell a little behind 
 in his walk, asking himself if it were a real 
 living woman he was following, or merely a 
 bloodless shadow which would by-and-by 
 disappear into the mist and vapour out of 
 which it 'had emerged. 
 
 Inside the hall-door, they parted with a 
 brief ''Good-night."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 81 
 
 ** Who was she ? what was she ? whence 
 had she come ? whither was she going ? " 
 Lance wondered, gazing dreamily after the 
 tall, slight figure as it glided noiselessly 
 up the broad oak staircase. 
 
 Lady Judith's falsetto, in gradual ap- 
 proach from the farther end of the hall, 
 brought him back to commonplace earth 
 once more. 
 
 Lady Judith's voice sounded near and 
 nearer. This habit of speaking as she 
 came along was a peculiarity of hers. 
 She was invariably heard before she was 
 seen. 
 
 She had her night-lamp in her hand, 
 and, as usual, a fine flow of words on her 
 lips. Madge had gone to bed with a 
 bad headache, and she herself — well, had 
 been a little startled : as she was sitting 
 alone in the drawing-room something had 
 happened which had set her shivering. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Lance's face said, " Fancy ! Aunt Judy 
 shivering ! " 
 
 ''If it had happened to any one else," 
 the lady went on serenely, " I should have 
 said that it was a dream ; but you know, 
 Lance, I never by any chance indulge in 
 an after-dinner nap." 
 
 ** No one would ever dare accuse you of 
 such a thing," said Lance, with a double 
 meaning. 
 
 ** Quite so. I admit that sometimes — 
 sometimes, though rarely — I close my eyes 
 to rest my head ; for, what with my farm 
 and Sir Peter, and one thing and another, 
 my brains do get tired at times. Well, I 
 was sitting, as you left me, in the dark 
 corner of the drawing-room — with my eyes 
 shut, perhaps, I'm not sure — when I seemed 
 to hear 'a rustling at the further end of 
 the room, and, looking up, I saw a tall, gray 
 figure glide, yes — glide is the word — across
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY, 83 
 
 the room from the door to the open 
 window, where it seemed to disappear. 
 Now, wasn't it uncanny ? " 
 
 ** Tall and gray ? " said Lance. " Don't 
 you mean little and gray ? And didn't it 
 come back again so soon as it had gone 
 out, and then go out again by another 
 door ? " 
 
 As if to verify the impromptu sketch 
 which Lance had given of him, the study 
 door opened at this moment and Sir Peter 
 came forth. 
 
 "My legs ache with sitting still so 
 Ions:. I've been dictatino: letters ever since 
 dinner, and yet my table's covered ; and 
 Stubbs is still hard at work ! " he said, 
 plaintively, as he opened the door which 
 stood opposite the study door, in order that 
 he might have a free line of march. 
 
 A sudden thought struck Lance : 
 
 "Uncle Peter, can you give me three 
 
 G 2
 
 84 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 minutes ? " he asked, " I want to speak to 
 you." 
 
 Sir Peter was delighted. 
 
 " I know, I know," he said, rubbing his 
 hands gleefully and shutting the door 
 briskly on Lady Judith's portly figure 
 mounting the staircase. "My dear boy, 
 I know exactly what you're going to tell 
 me. It's about Madge. You've asked her 
 again, and she has said ' Yes,' and you want 
 to be married at once ! It would be a capital 
 idea to make one thing of my birthday 
 festivities and your wedding festivities 
 next month, eh ? My dear boy, I'm de- 
 lighted — delighted ! A quarter of an hour's 
 talk will settle " 
 
 " I wish to goodness you'd let me talk," 
 interrupted Lance, brusquely. '* I haven't 
 asked Madge, and I haven't the slightest 
 intention of doing so — that is, I mean," 
 he added, correcting himself, *' I know if I
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 85 
 
 were to ask her just now I should simply 
 get a * No ' for my pains. Now, will you 
 listen to what I have to say ? " 
 
 It was evident that he had quite for- 
 gotten his pleasant meditation over his 
 leisurely cigar in the earlier part of the 
 eveniDg. 
 
 Sir Peter looked towards the corner of 
 the room where Mr. Stubbs sat at a table 
 writing by lamplight, with his back to 
 them. " Is it anything private — strictly 
 private ? " 
 
 Lance had quite overlooked the secre- 
 tary. But then he was just the sort of 
 man to be overlooked — one of the kind 
 we may meet every day, and whom we 
 may see a dozen times over, and then come 
 away, and one of us will assert that he's 
 tall, and another that he's short ; a third 
 that he's fair, and a fourth that he's dark ; 
 while, as a matter of fact, he is most likely
 
 86 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 none of these things and could best be 
 described by a series of negations. 
 
 " No, not exactly private," answered 
 Lance, leadiog the way, however, to the 
 other end of the room, and speaking in 
 a low voice. " But I know you delight in 
 doing a kind action, and I was going to 
 make a suggestion to you." 
 
 Sir Peter was all eager attention at once. 
 
 ** I hope it covers a wide area," he said, 
 
 describing a semicircle in the air with his 
 
 arms. *' I dislike wasting time and strength 
 
 over microscopic schemes." 
 
 " I don't think my suggestion can be 
 dignified by the name of * scheme,' micro- 
 scopic or otherwise," said Lance. " It's 
 about Miss Shore." 
 Then he hesitated. 
 
 Sir Peter was most willing to help him 
 along. "Fine young woman — very," he 
 ejaculated. " Good figure, well ' dressed.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 87 
 
 Foreign mother, I suppose— must be. Shore 
 is a Sussex name, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I was thinking," Lance went on, '' that 
 it might be kind to ask her to prolong her 
 stay here for a day or two ; she seems very 
 desolate and friendless \" 
 
 " Eh ? what, desolate and friendless ? " 
 And Sir Peter s eye wandered to the writing- 
 table, where a locked drawer held his cheque- 
 book. '*Did she tell you so? I didn't 
 hear her say so aa we came along, and I 
 think I heard all your conversation." 
 
 Of necessity he must have (lone so, 
 seeing: . that durinor the drive home he 
 had leaned forward with folded arms on the 
 box-seat, which Lance and Miss Shore 
 occupied, for the express purpose of so 
 doing. 
 
 Lance felt discretion was needed. " I 
 can't say that she told me so, but I inferred 
 as much from — from the fact of her travel-
 
 88 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 ling alone, and from the very melancholy 
 look on her face. You may have noticed 
 it." 
 
 " Ah, yes, now you speak of it I did 
 notice that she had a peculiarly sad ex- 
 pression of countenance. I'm sure I shall 
 be delighted. Ask her to stay as long as 
 she feels inclined." 
 
 " The invitation would come better from 
 the ladies of the family," suggested Lance. 
 
 "Ah, yes, of course. Well, you ask 
 Lady Judith to invite her to stay on a bit." 
 
 " No ; you ask Lady Judith," said Lance. 
 " The suggestion would come better from 
 you. 
 
 Sir Peter rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 
 
 "Eh? No; I don't think it would. 
 Between you and me, Lance, Lady Judith 
 and I don't hit it off altogether as I could 
 wish sometimes. I don't like to say it, but 
 I don't think she would be at all likely to
 
 AT THU MOMENT OF VICTORY. 89 
 
 give Miss Shore a welcome, if she looked 
 upon her as a possible j^^otegee of mine." 
 
 Lance began a vigorous demur to this. 
 '' Now, Uncle Peter " 
 
 Uncle Peter gave a little jump. ''I've 
 got an idea — capital idea! You ask Madge to 
 invite Miss Shore to stay on a day or two, 
 and we'll tell Lady Judith when it's done." 
 
 ''Ah, capital!" echoed Lance. "You 
 ask Madge, and it's settled at once." 
 
 '*No, you ask Madge. The suggestion 
 will come better from you, my dear boy." 
 
 Lance's face changed. *' No, I don't 
 think it would. Between you and me. 
 Uncle Peter, Madge and I don't hit it off 
 altogether as I could wish sometimes. I 
 don't like to say it, but I don't think she 
 would be at all likely to give Miss Shore a 
 welcome if she looked upon her as a possible 
 protegee of mine." 
 
 *' Eh, wliat ! Don't hit it off, you two ? "
 
 90 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 cried Sir Peter. " Don't believe a word of 
 it. You squabble, do you say ? Nonsense ; 
 what you call squabbling is coquetry on her 
 part, nothing more. Don't get such an 
 idea as that into your head for a moment. 
 Women are born flirts — born coquettes. I 
 ought to know, I have had twenty-five 
 years' experience of married life." 
 
 How far his married life had helped him 
 in his experience of feminine coquetry it 
 would be impossible to say. One might 
 as well at any time have attempted a 
 flirtation with the Marble Arch in Hyde 
 Park, or the old Cuddaw Fell itself, as 
 with Lady Judith. 
 
 Lance backed out of the study before 
 this tirade. 
 
 He did not notice that Mr. Stubbs, half- 
 turning his head as he sat, watched him 
 out of the room with a curious look in his 
 narrow eyes.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Asa rule, the moral temperature of a 
 household can be more easily taken at the 
 morning than at the evening meal. At 
 the dinner -hour conventionalities are 
 treated with greater respect, and idiosyn- 
 crasy is swamped. 
 
 Breakfast at the Castle on the morning 
 after Miss Shore's arrival was a typical 
 meal. 
 
 Sir Peter ate it walking from room to 
 room. 
 
 Lady Judith ate it talking of her farm 
 and her dairy. 
 
 Madge ate it reading her letters. 
 
 Lance was accustomed to get through 
 breakfast at a fairly brisk pace and then be
 
 92 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 off to the stables or kennels. On this par- 
 ticular morning, however, he deviated from 
 his usual custom for he ate next to nothing, 
 and then sat still with his empty plate 
 before him watching the door. 
 
 It was an odd, jerky sort of breakfast. 
 Food seemed eaten, as it were, in paren- 
 theses. Exercise on Sir Peter's part, con- 
 versation on Ladv Judith's, letter-readinsr on 
 Madge's, and anything you please on Lance's 
 part, seemed to be the real object of their 
 assembling at nine o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Lady Judith was in high spirits over a 
 new patent incubator which she had just 
 introduced into use at her home farm. 
 She could talk of nothing else, and 
 imagined that every one at table was ad- 
 dressing inquiries to her respecting it — 
 which inquiries she answered appropriately 
 or otherwise, as the case might be. 
 
 For instance, when Mad ere asked how
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 93 
 
 a new maid, engaged a day or two previously, 
 was doing her work, she got for reply : 
 
 " Works magnificently — in an altogether 
 tsuperior fashion. I shall recommend the 
 thing all over the county." 
 
 And when Lance chanced to make a 
 remark upon the extraordinary heat of the 
 previous day, the lady broke in with : 
 
 " It hatched over ninety chickens yester- 
 day, and no less than one hundred and ten 
 the day before." 
 
 The door of the breakfast-room imme- 
 -diately faced the study on the other side of 
 the hall. Both these doors were set wide 
 •open ; and Sir Peter, oscillating like a 
 pendulum between the two rooms, would 
 be one moment eating a morsel of chicken 
 in the one, and the next dictating a line to 
 Mr. Stubbs, already seated in the study at 
 his writing-table. 
 
 *' I hardly know which way to turn, my
 
 94. AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 h^p^e are so full," he said to Madge, 
 literally in passing. 
 
 To have heard him speak one might 
 have thought at the very least that he was 
 a Cabinet Minister, with the responsibility 
 on his shoulders of keeping even the 
 balance of power in Europe. 
 
 Madge, looking furtively at Lance as she 
 got through her correspondence, seemed 
 to read, " Is she coming ? " written on his 
 face. " I sent my maid to call Miss Shore," 
 she said, coldly, answering, as she imagined, 
 his unspoken thoughts. '* But she tells me 
 she could get no answer to her knocking ; so 
 I suppose the young lady is tired with her 
 long journey." 
 
 If she had spoken out all her thoughts 
 she would have added : " Eeally, I have no 
 interest in .the matter beyond the wish 
 that the young lady should save the mid- 
 day train from Lower Upton."
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 95 
 
 Lance dawdled about the morning and 
 breakfast rooms for half an hour or so, and 
 then disappeared into the gun-room. Sir 
 Peter had eyes and ears only for his corre- 
 spondence. Lady Judith went trailing 
 through the cornfields, fan in one hand and 
 a big white umbrella in the other, down to 
 her farm. 
 
 .Madge, feeling that the responsibility of 
 Miss Shore's movements rested on her 
 shoulders, despatched her maid once more 
 with orders to rap louder than ever at the 
 lady's door, and not to come away till she 
 received an assurance that she was heard. 
 
 When, however, the maid came back 
 with the same report as before — that, in 
 spite of twenty minutes of rapping at 
 intervals, not a sound was to be heard, 
 Madge made her inhospitable wish give 
 way to a kindlier impulse. It might be as 
 well, she thought, if she herself went up
 
 96 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 to the young lady's room, in case illness or 
 some accident had befallen her. 
 
 So, accordingly, she made her way to the 
 upper quarters, and delivered a series of 
 raps on the closed door. 
 
 All the same, never a sound broke the 
 stillness within. 
 
 Then Madge thought it was high time 
 that she turned the handle and ascertained 
 for herself the condition of affairs on the 
 other side of the door. 
 
 She made as much noise as she could in 
 entering. There was Miss Shore lying on 
 her bed, dressed in her gray cloth travel- 
 ling-dress of overnight. Her hat was on 
 the floor beside the bed, as if it had been 
 suddenly tossed off ; her gray cloak was 
 flung, as if at random, over the face of the 
 toilette-glass. 
 
 But was it at random ? This was the 
 question Madge asked herself; for there
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 97 
 
 was also the cheval glass pushed into a 
 distant corner of the room, with its face 
 turned to the wall. 
 
 With an odd feeling of apprehension, 
 Madge approached the bed and looked 
 down into the sleeper's face. 
 
 Her head was thrown back on the pillow, 
 leaving the white, slender pillar of a throat 
 bare to view. Her face was dead white ; 
 the bandeau of black hair, which fitted the 
 head like a crown, had slanted forward, 
 overlapping the eyebrows ; her lips showed 
 scarcely so coral-red as they had in the sun- 
 light on the lawn ; her breathing was low 
 and regular, and there was nothing to give 
 Madge the impression that the sleep was 
 an unnatural one. 
 
 Nothing except a glass standing on a 
 little table beside the bed, which might 
 — so Madge conjectured — have been 
 hastily drained and set down before the 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 98 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 sleeper had thrown herself back on her 
 pillows. 
 
 Madge debated for a moment in her own 
 mind what she should do. Ought she to 
 endeavour to rouse the young lady ? Or was 
 she in a condition that required medical aid ? 
 
 She made the round of the room. She 
 drew up the blind, letting the morniug sun 
 fall full on the sleeper's face. It trans- 
 formed the dull black hair into the glossy 
 black of a raven's wing, marked out line 
 by line every blue vein in all its delicate 
 tracery on cheek and eyelid ; but never so 
 much as a fluttering breath showed that 
 the girl was conscious of any disturbing 
 influence. 
 
 Then Madge thought it would be as well 
 to take counsel on the matter; so to the 
 gun-room accordingly she went, taking it 
 for granted that she would find Lance there. 
 
 He was just coming out of the room as
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTOEY. 99 
 
 she reached it. They took a turn or two 
 in the outside gallery while she detailed to 
 him the state of affairs. 
 
 Lance looked disturbed and distressed, 
 she thought ; bufc, for all that he treated 
 the matter lightly. 
 
 " Depend upon it, she's worn out with 
 travelling. Didn't she say that she had 
 had two days of it ? " he said. '* Don t you 
 remember once how I slept right off for 
 sixteen hours after a heavy day's tramp ? 
 Leave her to have her sleep out ; she'll 
 wake right enough later on in the day." 
 
 *' What about the glass beside the bed ? '* 
 queried Madge, suspiciously. 
 
 ''Oh, I shouldn't think any more of that, 
 if I were you ; don't say a word about it 
 to Sir Peter, or he'll be sending off for a 
 dozen doctors, and as many nurses. Take 
 my word for it, there's nothing to fuss 
 over." 
 
 H 2
 
 100 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 They walked up and down the long 
 gallery for a minute or two in silence. 
 
 " What do you think about the looking- 
 glasses being hidden and turned to the 
 wall ? " presently Madge asked. 
 
 Lance laughed. 
 
 " Accident — pure accident. The thing 
 was in her way ; she pushed it in a corner ; 
 she wanted to get rid of her cloak, and by 
 chance threw it over the other. YouVe 
 made a mountain out of a mole-hill." 
 
 " Have I ? I'm not so sure of that," 
 answered Madge, slowly. "Being what 
 she is" — here she eyed Lance narrowly — 
 "it is difficult to understand her not 
 wishing to look at herself in the glass. 
 Now, if she were as ugly as I am, the 
 thing could easily enough be understood." 
 
 With the first part of her sentence, Lance 
 seemed to be entirely in accord ; the latter 
 part he ignored.
 
 / / 
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBT, 101 
 
 "Yes," he said, thoughtfully. "As you 
 say, being what she is, it is difficult to 
 understand that she could have the slightest 
 objection to be confronted with her own 
 face in a mirror." 
 
 Then, as if to end a discussion which 
 was distasteful to him, he made a slight 
 excuse, and went back to his guns once 
 naore. 
 
 Madge, suddenly recollecting that she 
 had on the previous day left her work- 
 basket in a little sitting-room off the 
 gallery, turned the handle of the door, 
 to discover, to her amazement, Mr. Stubbs, 
 just within the room, " not a yard from 
 the key-hole," as she said to herself in- 
 dignantly. He was in a standing posture, 
 as if he had retreated before the opening 
 door. 
 
 Madge's face showed her astonishment. 
 
 " I came here to find Lady Judith," he
 
 102 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 said, a little hurriedly. '' I suppose she is 
 down at the home farm ? " 
 
 Then, without waiting for a reply, he 
 slipped past her out of the room. 
 
 The impression left on Madge's mind 
 was that Mr. Stubbs had been an inten- 
 tional listener to her conversation with 
 Lance.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Lady Judith spent nearly the whole of 
 that day at her farm ; the first half in the 
 dairy, inspecting the working of a new 
 butter- making machine ; the second half 
 in the meadows under the trees, among 
 the shorthorns and "black Welsh." The 
 patient, dull-eyed beasts must have thought 
 her a sort of incarnated stormy south- 
 wind as she stood over them, with her big 
 fan, superintending the administration of 
 aconite in soda-water bottles, to those who 
 appeared to be suffering from incipient 
 pleuro-pneumonia. 
 
 Sir Peter grew tired of his letter-writing 
 as soon as the morning meal offered him
 
 104 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 no excuse for incessant perambulations ; so 
 he ceased dictating, got into the saddle and 
 rode over the hills to see how the new 
 wing of the parish schools, in which he 
 took a great interest, was progressing. 
 Half-way there he suddenly recollected the 
 existence of Miss Shore as a visitor in the 
 house, galloped back at a tremendous pace, 
 set all the bells ringing and every servant 
 he could seize upon running backwards and 
 forwards with inquiries as to where she 
 was, what she had been doing all the 
 morning, and whether she had got over 
 the fatigue of the previous day. 
 
 The replies of the servants were neces- 
 sarily unsatisfactory, and Sir Peter, catch- 
 ing a glimpse of a pink skirt among the 
 laurels in a shady nook, had Madge 
 suggested .to his mind as a more likely 
 source of information. 
 
 Madge was stitching in leisurely fashion
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY, 105 
 
 at a group of yellow marguerites on a 
 brown plush ground. Lance, in gray tweed 
 suit, was leaning over the back of her chair 
 with Roy, a great tawny mastiff, stretched 
 on the ground at his feet with his nose on 
 his master's boot. 
 
 Madge had been a little startled to hear 
 Lance's voice over her shoulder, suddenly 
 asking the somewhat eccentric question : 
 
 ** Madge, if you had had the choice 
 given you, what planet would you have 
 chosen to be born under ? " 
 
 " Planet— planet ! " echoed Madge. " Oh, 
 what planet is supposed to give women 
 beauty and powers of fascination ? It 
 must be Venus. Under Venus, of course." 
 
 *' Yes, it must be Venus," decided Lance. 
 " Well, what are the other planets supposed 
 to do or to give ? And what's the name 
 of the one that shows now every night 
 over the Cuddaw Fell ? "
 
 106 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 Madge laughed outright. *'Are you 
 going in for astrology or astronomy — 
 which ? Upon my word, I haven't the 
 remotest notion what planets are in the 
 ascendant — is that the phrase ? — at the 
 present moment." 
 
 ** Madge," said Sir Peter's voice just 
 then, a little jerkily from want of breath, 
 '* can you tell me where Miss Shore is, and 
 whether she is feeling rested, and if she 
 would like letters or telegrams sent away 
 to her friends up in the North or down in 
 the South, wherever they are ? " 
 
 *' She was sound asleep when I came out 
 of the house. I haven't the least idea 
 what her wishes or plans are," answered 
 Madge. 
 
 " Asleep ! asleep ! At this time of 
 day ? Impossible I My dear, she must be 
 ill. We'd better send some one to fetch 
 Brouofhton "
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 107 
 
 " Oh, let her alone, Uncle Peter," inter- 
 posed Lance. " The poor girl's evidently 
 tired out with a long journey. I dare say 
 she'll wake up right enough a little later 
 on, and tell us what she wants to do or 
 have done." 
 
 Lance's words were verified. 
 
 Madge's maid, sent up about tea-time, 
 came down saying that Miss Shore had 
 answered her rapping with the intimation 
 that she would come downstairs in the cool 
 of the evening, and the request that 
 yesterday's newspaper might be brought 
 to her. 
 
 *' Yesterday's newspaper ! " repeated 
 Madge. '* You had better go to Mr 
 Stubbs for that; he'll be more likely to 
 have taken possession of one than any one 
 else in the house." 
 
 Then, in her own mind, she indulged in 
 free comment on the extraordinary fashion
 
 108 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 in which this young lady — an utter stranger 
 to them all — had seen fit to conduct her- 
 self since she had come into the house* 
 No apology had she offered for her inatten- 
 tion to household hours ; no request had 
 she made for means to continue her 
 journey. 
 
 " Eeally," Madge decided, "her beauty 
 may be a matter of dispute ; but, as to 
 her breeding, there can be but one 
 opinion." 
 
 Madge was not disposed to modify her 
 opinion at any rate, when, later on in the 
 day, as she pinned a bouquet of crimson 
 roses in her dress preparatory to descending 
 to dinner, she caught a glimpse through 
 her muslin window-blind of a picture — a 
 garden idyll it might have been called — 
 which made her flush scarlet, though not 
 with pleasure. 
 
 Such a pretty picture, too ! A young
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 109 
 
 lady, in pale gray robes, leaning back in a 
 wicker garden-chair ; a young man, hat in 
 hand, in the act of presenting her with 
 some flowers. 
 
 Madge stood for three minutes watching 
 them. Evidently the lady declined the 
 flowers, for the young man tossed them on 
 one side with a disappointed air. 
 
 " Would she like any others ? " Madge 
 could fancy he asked, for the young lady 
 shook her head, with a slight movement of 
 her hand as if flowers were distasteful to 
 her. 
 
 Then the dinner-bell clanged, and the 
 two turned their faces towards the house. 
 
 In the summer it was the custom of Sir 
 Peter and his family to dine in the large 
 inner hall of the Castle, instead of in the 
 dining-room. This hall was palatial in its 
 dimensions, oak-panelled and oak-ceiled. 
 It was hung on one side with ancestral
 
 110 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 portraits ; on the other, Gothic windows 
 looked out into the garden. A wide 
 mantelpiece divided the ancestral por- 
 traits right and left. Over this mantel- 
 piece was a long, low mirror, which 
 reflected the pretty picture of waving 
 trees and summer sky that the Gothic 
 windows framed. 
 
 As Madge entered by one door, she 
 could hear the footsteps of Lance and Miss 
 Shore crossing the vestibule to enter by 
 another. Lance's voice, too, caught her 
 quick ear in a remark as to the gloomi- 
 ness of the house compared with the 
 outside summer brightness. She heard the 
 words : 
 
 *' Dismal old hall ! Talk about eighteen 
 centuries looking down upon you, it's 
 nothing to compare with eight-and-twenty 
 Critchetts looking down on you as you eat 
 your food."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. Ill 
 
 The last word brought him and his 
 companion into the room. 
 
 Lady Judith was on the point of taking 
 her seat at table. She was not in the best 
 of tempers. Sir Peter, overhearing Lance s 
 talk, chanced to remark that, " however 
 gloomy the hall might be, it was never- 
 theless a pleasant refuge from midday sun — 
 .the coolest room in the house, in fact." Lady 
 Judith catching the word " refuge," and 
 nothing more, not unnaturally concluded 
 that another scheme of charity was in pro- 
 gress of development, and immediately be- 
 came voluble and prophetic on the matter. 
 
 With a formal bow she waved Miss 
 Shore to her seat at table. " Kefuges, 
 indeed ! As if there w^ere not enough 
 and to spare throughout the kingdom ! " 
 she declaimed. " Two at Carstairs to my 
 certain knowledge, and a good workhouse 
 with accommodation for fifty men and as
 
 112 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 many women within three miles outside 
 the town." And again she waved Miss 
 Shore to her seat. 
 
 But Miss Shore did not take it. She 
 stood motionless, her head turned from 
 the table, her hand resting on the back of 
 her chair. Madge could see that this was 
 a necessity to her, for she trembled so 
 violently that she needed to support her- 
 self with extraneous aid. 
 
 " I cannot eat to-night," she said, turning 
 a white face towards Sir Peter. " I will 
 go up to my room." 
 
 Madge flashed a glance first to Lance, 
 then to the looking-glass opposite which 
 Miss Shore's chair had been placed. 
 
 " Can you eat seated on this side of the 
 table ? " she asked, rising and offering her 
 own place. 
 
 Miss Shore, with a brief word of thanks, 
 accepted Madge's chair.
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 113 
 
 " She is ashamed to look herself in the 
 face for some reason or other," was Madge's 
 uncharitable mental comment on the little 
 
 episode. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Natuke is a strict economist in her work, 
 she does not squander her resources. She 
 gives to the " viewless winds " and in- 
 visible thunders the blasts of trumpets and 
 crash of artillery ; but when she paints 
 the "awful rose of dawn," or the golden 
 glories of sunset, heaven's echoes are mute, 
 and without so much as a muffled whisper, 
 the great cloud pageant issues forth, troops 
 across the sky, and vanishes. 
 
 Madge never saw the sun sink behind 
 the Cuddaws, without some such thought 
 as this in her mind. 
 
 As she stood on the terrace that evening 
 after dinner, watching the stormily-splendid
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 115 
 
 clouds that, gathering low on the horizon, 
 were slowly quenching the limpid tints of 
 the after-glow, it seemed to her that those 
 sumptuous reds and purples should have 
 come with the crackle of field-pieces and 
 the roar of battle ; and that those tender, 
 translucent greens and yellows should have 
 died into the gray with the sounds of softly 
 retreating harps and viols. 
 
 Dinner had been a short meal that night, 
 and would have been shorter still could 
 the wishes of three, out of the five seated 
 at table, have been consulted. Miss Shore 
 ate next to nothing, spoke never a word 
 unless pointedly addressed, and then her 
 replies were all but monosyllabic. Lady 
 Judith eyed her keenly at intervals during 
 the long discourse for which the word 
 ''refuge" served as text. Sir Peter eyed 
 her benevolently, asked after her health, 
 didn't wait for an answer ; asked if she 
 
 I 2
 
 116 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 would like teler^ram or letter sent to her 
 friends anywhere to assure them of her 
 safety, didn't wait for an answer to that, 
 but hoped that she wouldn't feel herself 
 bound to continue her journey on the 
 following day unless she felt disposed so 
 to do. 
 
 To all this, Miss Shore replied with a 
 manifest effort : " Let me stay one day 
 more. I won't ask for another — one day 
 more, only that." 
 
 The request was put in eccentric fashion, 
 even conceding to the speaker a certain 
 indulgence for her unfamiliarity with the 
 English tongue. This was scarcely the 
 way in which an unexpected guest might 
 be supposed to crave permission to extend 
 a stay in a hospitable house. A criminal 
 at a bar of justice, pleading that his 
 sentence miofht be deferred for another 
 twenty-four hours, might have done so-
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 117 
 
 in much such a voice, with much such 
 a look on his face as Miss Shore had on 
 hers. 
 
 Even Sir Peter became dimly conscious 
 that his kindly commonplaces had some- 
 how touched a deep chord, for he stumbled 
 and stammered over his courteous consent 
 to her request. 
 
 As for Madge, looking up she caught 
 Lance's eye fixed on Miss Shore's white 
 face with so intensely interested a look 
 in it that the words of kindly courtesy 
 she was about to utter died unspoken on 
 her lips. 
 
 It was the recollection of that look 
 which sent her out by herself on to the 
 terrace, to watch the sunset glories instead 
 of the less fascinating spectacle of Lady 
 Judith fanning herself to sleep in her arm- 
 chair. 
 
 As for Miss Shore, no sooner had the
 
 118 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 meal come to an end than she went straight 
 up the stairs to her own room once more. 
 
 Presently Lance joined Madge on the 
 terrace. 
 
 *' There's a storm brewing overhead," he 
 said, by way of beginning conversation. 
 
 " Is there ? " answered Madge, by way 
 of ending it ; for the cloud of undefined 
 annoyance caused by Lance's irrational 
 sympathy for an utter stranger had scarcely 
 passed away. 
 
 But, nevertheless, they might soon have 
 drifted into cheerful talk if Sir Peter's 
 short, quick footsteps had not at that 
 moment been heard, followed at an interval 
 by his blithe, cricket-like voice. 
 
 " Don't let me disturb you, young- 
 people," he chirruped. " This is the time 
 for saying sweet things — blushes are not so 
 conspicuous, eh, Madge ? " 
 
 " So far," said Madge, sententiously,
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 119 
 
 "we've said nothing, beyond a remark as 
 to the possibility of a storm coming on." 
 
 '*Eh, nothing! Why, Lance, you sly 
 fellow, what has become of all those grand 
 speeches you were so busy concocting at 
 dinner-time, that you hadn't a word to say 
 to anybody ? " 
 
 "Madge knows all the sweet things I 
 think of her ; there is no need for me to 
 say them," answered Lance, in light, com- 
 plimentary fashion. 
 
 "Ah, yes — yes. Very neatly put, 'pon 
 my word. Now, Madge, you must say 
 something equally sweet by way of 
 acknowledgment." 
 
 "Lance knows exactly what I think of 
 the sweet things he thinks of me ; there is 
 no need for me to say it," answered 
 Madge, solemnly, and not in complimentary 
 fashion. 
 
 And her thought, as she said this, was :
 
 120 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 "If he would but let us alone! If an 
 attack of gout would but keep him 
 prisoner for a week, everything might come 
 right." 
 
 But Sir Peter's persistently optimistic 
 view of the " situation " shov/ed that gout 
 was yet a long way oflf. 
 
 " Ah ! that's right, that's right," he said, 
 more blithely than ever. " Where young 
 people so thoroughly understand each 
 other as Lance and you do, long-winded 
 speeches are unnecessary." 
 
 And he tripped away lightly once more, 
 no doubt with the sound of wedding-bells 
 in his ears. 
 
 " He'll come back again in another 
 minute," said Lance, looking over his 
 shoulder after Sir Peter's retreating figure. 
 " Come for a row, Madge ; there's some- 
 thing I particularly want to say to you 
 to-nigbt."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 121 
 
 But, though Madge acquiesced, and, 
 fetching a light shawl, was ready in a 
 moment. Lance evidently found his some- 
 thing hard to say, for they wound along 
 the garden paths in an almost unbroken 
 silence. 
 
 The heat seemed to increase upon them 
 as they descended the slope under the 
 overarching boughs. Flower-scents hung 
 heavily in the air. The whirring of gnats 
 and flies was almost intolerable. 
 
 Lance, with a visible effort, made a 
 remark which seemed to be suggested by 
 nothing and to lead nowhere. It was : 
 
 " Madge, do you know you've a fine 
 reputation for benevolence and Christian 
 charity ? I had no idea till the other day, 
 when I was dining at the Brabazons', 
 what a lot people think of you." 
 
 It scarcely seemed possible that Madge 
 could know by intuition whither Lance's
 
 122 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 remark was intended to lead, yet she 
 answered coldly : 
 
 '' Eeally, I don't car^e two straws what 
 people think of me. Please talk about 
 something interesting." She laid marked 
 emphasis on the word " people." " If he 
 has anything nice to say to me, he may as 
 well say it on his ow^n account," was her 
 supplementary thought. 
 
 Lance read that thought easily enough, 
 and the desire to tease her immediately 
 became irresistible. 
 
 '• Oh, of course not ; why should you 
 care even one straw ? * People ' say pleasant 
 things of you one minute, and disagreeable 
 things the next. That's the w^ay of the 
 world." 
 
 " They have no right to say disagreeable 
 things," she answered, sharply. ''Not that 
 it matters much — I never listen to gossip, 
 and don't wish to know what any one
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY, 123 
 
 says of me, whether agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 " Of course not. . Envy is at the root of 
 nine out of every ten of the spiteful things 
 women say of each other." 
 
 " Women ! What women have been 
 running me down ? " 
 
 '' Don't get excited, Madge. It's a tribute 
 to one's breeding to be disparaged by the 
 crowd." 
 
 '' Disparaged ! Who has been disparaging 
 me ? Lance, I insist on knowing what was 
 said of me at the Brabazons' the other 
 night ! " 
 
 Lance laughed outright. 
 
 *' Ah, now we've got back to the point 
 where we diverged. I was going to tell 
 you what was said of you at the Brabazons' 
 the other night, and you wouldn't listen — 
 here we are at the edge of the stream. 
 Well, Lottie Brabazon said that you were
 
 124 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 the Lady Bountiful of the county, and 
 put every one else to shame with your 
 generosity to the poor." 
 
 With his last word Lance stooped to 
 unmoor the boat. 
 
 Here the larches gave place to willows 
 and osiers, and the expanse of running 
 water somewhat cooled the hot air. The 
 clouds hung ominously low, however, with 
 more of black than purple in them now. 
 
 This miniature river was formed by the 
 conjunction of two little streams which 
 had been diverted from their course to 
 add to the beauty of the Castle pleasure- 
 grounds, by dividing the flower-garden 
 from the park. It made a pretty little 
 bit of landscape, with its fringe of bul- 
 rushes and water-flails on one side, and 
 plantation of .aspens and willows on the 
 other. 
 
 As Madge stepped into the "boat, a
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGT0E7. 125 
 
 sleepy swan sailed majestically from out 
 the shadowy reeds. It headed the boat for 
 a few minutes/showing snow-white against 
 the dark shadows thrown on the water by 
 the inky clouds overhead ; then it dis- 
 appeared into the dimness beyond. 
 
 Madge's good-humour came back to 
 her. 
 
 " This is heavenly ! " she said, taking off 
 her bracelet and paddling with her hand 
 in the cool stream. *' I dare say we shall 
 got a good fifteen minutes out here before 
 the storm breaks." 
 
 Lance shook his head. 
 
 ** Ten only," he said, reading the sky 
 with an eye practised in cloud and 
 mountain presages. " Madge, don't let's 
 squabble for five, at least, out of those ten 
 minutes ; there is something I particularly 
 wish to say to you." 
 
 He had grown suddenly serious.
 
 126 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Madge grew serious also. 
 
 " It's about Miss Shore ? " she said, 
 questioning and affirming in a breath. 
 
 '^ Yes ; about Miss Shore," he answered, 
 quietly. *' Madge, do you know she is 
 very friendless, very desolate, and, I should 
 imagine, only partially recovered from some 
 heavy sorrow." 
 
 " She has taken you into her con- 
 fidence ? " 
 
 *' To a very limited extent," laughed 
 Lance ; but his laugh was a little uneasy. 
 *' Just before dinner this evening I came 
 upon her in the garden. We talked — no, I 
 suppose I did the greater part of the talk- 
 ing — but, at any rate, somehow or other I 
 elicited the fact that she is homeless and 
 friendless, and it doesn't require a very 
 vio^orous stretch of imaoination to con- 
 elude from those facts that she is moneyless 
 also."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 127 
 
 Lance's, " Somehow or other I elicited 
 the fact," can scarcely be said to be a 
 true statement of what had taken place 
 between him and Miss Shore, in that brief 
 five minutes before dinner of which Madge's 
 prejudiced eyes had conveyed so distorted 
 an impression to her brain. 
 
 He had found the young lady in the 
 garden, leaniog back in her chair with 
 white, inanimate face, like that of one 
 newly recovered from a swoon. The 
 flowers he held in his hand to present to 
 her he had at once tossed on one side, as 
 incongruous with the look of suflering her 
 face wore. 
 
 "You are ill," he had said with real 
 concern. " Let me send word to your 
 friends." 
 
 " You must find them before you can 
 send to them," had been her brief reply. 
 
 Then she had waved him on one side
 
 128 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 with the impetuous request that he would 
 let her alone — not persecute her with 
 questions. 
 
 " I thought she was travellino^ to friends 
 up in the North when the train broke 
 down. You said so ; Sir Peter said so — 
 some one said so, at any rate," said Madge, 
 presently. 
 
 " Did some one ? I'm not sure. Well, 
 at any rate, from what I got out of her 
 this afternoon it seems as if she hadn't a 
 friend in the world, and, what is more, she 
 appears perfectly callous on the matter, as 
 if the fact were of no importance what- 
 ever. 
 
 "And you want me to take a vast 
 interest in a matter on which the person 
 most concerned is callous ! " exclaimed 
 Madge. 
 
 "Well, yes; why not? A man jumps 
 into the water and tries to drown himself,
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 129 
 
 and sometimes he is more than callous on 
 the matter — has, in fact, a very strong 
 objection to being pulled out again ; but, 
 for all that, we do our best to save him." 
 
 Madge made no reply. 
 
 She was a woman of strong prejudices, 
 and those she had conceived against Miss 
 Shore at first sight were stubborn ones ; 
 nevertheless, she had been so accustomed 
 all her life long to yield compliance to 
 Lance's wishes, that it was almost easier 
 for her to let go those prejudices than 
 to deny him now. 
 
 Lance's manner did not exhibit the 
 uneasiness he had expressed to Sir Peter 
 over-night, respecting Madge's possible 
 reception of a petition from him on Miss 
 Shore's behalf. 
 
 He went on composedly as if denial 
 were out of the question. 
 
 *' I've no doubt I went to work this 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 afternoon in a very bungling fashion — Fm 
 not a particularly good hand at getting 
 people's confidence when they've no mind 
 to give it, and she was very loth to speak 
 of herself — but I dare say, Madge, if you 
 were to interest yourself and have a talk 
 with her " 
 
 There came at this moment a flutter 
 and a rustling from among the reeds and 
 osiers at the water's edge. 
 
 " What's that ? " queried Madge, sharply, 
 turning her head towards the sound. 
 
 Lance's look followed hers. 
 
 *'An otter, I dare say," he answered, 
 quietly. But, nevertheless, he kept a 
 steady eye on the spot whence the sound 
 had come. 
 
 Madge dealt a sharp, though not a final, 
 blow to her prejudices. 
 
 '*Yes, I'll try and get a talk with her 
 to-morrow, ^and find out if we can help
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 131 
 
 her," she answered slowly. " It's rather 
 difficult to offer people money right out — 
 but perhaps she may be clever at singing, 
 or painting, and may be able to give me a 
 few lessons. At any rate, I'll promise to 
 do what I can." Then she changed the 
 subject abruptly, exclaiming : *' How dark 
 it's getting ! Hadn't we better think of 
 turning back ? " In good truth, she had 
 had enough of Miss Shore and her friend- 
 less condition. 
 
 Bird-notes had ceased now ; only a 
 distant sound of whirring insect life broke 
 the stillness. 
 
 Lance looked up at the sky. " We must 
 get back at once, or the storm will be on top 
 of us," he answered. As he finished speak- 
 ing, there came the low growl of advancing 
 thunder. 
 
 Lance plied a swift oar. As they shot 
 past the shadowy nook, whence the rust- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 AT TEE MOMENT OF YIGTOEY. 
 
 ling sound had come, he peered in curiously 
 among the reeds. The flags waved ; the 
 osiers bent and whispered ; but it was only 
 the wind rising now.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The storm was a dry one ; it broke in its 
 full fury almost immediately after Madge 
 and Lance got back to the house. They 
 had scampered up the steep garden paths 
 as if pursued by the storm-fiend himself, 
 and Madge had to stand a good three 
 minutes just within the hall-door to get 
 her breath back. 
 
 " Get away from the trees, Madge," he 
 had said, catching her arm and pulling her 
 along at a fine pace. 
 
 Well, she could easily understand his 
 anxiety to get her and himself under 
 shelter from the storm. What she could 
 not understand was his haste to rush out
 
 134 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 into it again. It is true he shouted to her 
 as he disappeared in the outside darkness : 
 " I've forgotten something, I shall be back 
 in a minute." But that something ought 
 to have been of first importance to neces- 
 sitate such a headlong rush into what 
 threatened to be one of the worst tempests 
 the country-side had known for years. 
 
 Lance's seemingly eccentric conduct, 
 however, admitted of an easy explanation. 
 AVhen he had peered among the reeds 
 and water-flags as his boat shot past, he 
 had thought he saw the flutter of a 
 gray skirt, whose wearer it was easy to 
 identify. 
 
 Madge had read easily enough the 
 forlornness which ]\Iiss Shore's white face 
 and stony manner expressed. Lance had 
 read the forlornness, and somethinof else 
 beside. A mood half-desperate, half- 
 defiant, which might possibly . find for
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 135 
 
 itself a desperate means of ending a 
 hopeless life. 
 
 It was this thought flashing into his 
 mind as he reached the hall-door, that 
 speeded his feet through the storm to the 
 water's edge once more. 
 
 But when he got down there among the 
 sedges and willows, not a soul was to be 
 seen. A startled bird flew from out a 
 marshy hollow with a sharp cry ; a solitary 
 frog croaked a dismal note of warning ; 
 an ominous breeze, rippling the dark 
 surface of the water, set the reeds bending 
 and whispering together. Other sound 
 there was none. 
 
 Something glittering at the bottom of 
 the little boat they had just quitted caught 
 his eye. Picking it up he saw that it was 
 the bracelet which Madge had unclasped as 
 she had paddled in the stream. 
 
 A brilliant flash of lightning cleft the
 
 136 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 inky clouds over his head, and for one 
 brief moment the whole night-hidden 
 landscape stood revealed. 
 
 Old Cuddaw crowned it, standing out 
 bold, bleak, and bare against the leaden 
 sky. Below, the Castle showed a gray 
 solid block of masonry with every turret 
 and gable sharply defined. Lower still 
 the valley lay, a dim expanse of waving, 
 shadowy trees, out of which crept a white, 
 stony path, leading with many a wind up 
 to the Fells. 
 
 It seemed less like one grand expanse of 
 scenery thus laid bare to view than a com- 
 bination of two landscapes, the one belonging 
 to the sky, the other to the earth beneath. 
 
 In that brief, vivid illumination, Lance 
 saw something else beside the sky picture 
 and the dim valley with its upward- 
 winding path — the figure of a woman 
 in long flowing cloak in that path.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 137 
 
 making her way rapidly towards the 
 mountains. 
 
 It did not need a second flash of light- 
 ning to tell him who that woman was. 
 But what her motive could be in thus 
 daring the storm on those mountain 
 heights was not so easy to discover. 
 
 He thought with dismay of the slippery 
 mountain paths, the shelving ledges, the 
 holes, and gaping precipices. He who 
 had known them from boyhood would 
 yet have hesitated to dare their dangers 
 on a moonless night. And there was 
 she — a woman, a stranger, without guide 
 or light — making for them with straight 
 and rapid steps, that implied purpose and 
 design. 
 
 His course was clear to him. A shorter 
 way led out of the valley than the one she 
 was following ; it intersected the former 
 path at the point where the mountain
 
 138 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 ascent began. By using his utmost de- 
 spatch he might intercept her at that point, 
 and succeed in inducing her to take shelter 
 in a sandy hollow beneath the over-arching 
 rocks, which, in his boyish days, had been 
 a favourite play - place for him — his 
 *' Crusoe's cave/' 
 
 It was not possible to make swift 
 headway through the woody moorland 
 which lay between him and this haven 
 of refuge. The darkness was increasing 
 with every step he took. Overhead the 
 thunder crashed with a bewildering 
 rapidity, every peal prolonged to twice its 
 length by the mountain echoes, till from 
 east to west, from west to east, the 
 heavens seemed one vast plain of rolling 
 artillery. 
 
 He hailed the bright, scintillating light- 
 nings as he would have hailed a friendly 
 lantern. They showed him the briar and
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 139 
 
 tangle in his path, the big stumbling-blocks 
 of boulders, the pitfalls of disused gravel- 
 pits. They showed him also, when at 
 length he reached the " Crusoe's cave," 
 Miss Shore's slender figure staDding about 
 thirty feet above his head on the over- 
 lapping ledge. 
 
 Whatever she was or was not, one thing 
 was certain : she must be a practised 
 mountaineer, or she could never have 
 reached even this moderate height in 
 safety. 
 
 *' How much hiorher is she goins^ ? " 
 thought Lance. Then, making one vigorous 
 effort in the pauses of the thunder, he 
 shouted to her at the top of his voice, 
 calling her by name, entreating her to wait 
 for him, so that he might take her to a 
 place of safety. 
 
 There came an awfal flash of lightning 
 at this moment, which seemed to spend its
 
 140 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 fiercest strength on the very ledge of rock 
 on which she stood. 
 
 Lance, half-blinded, looking upwards, 
 saw the girl standing motionless, while the 
 lightning seemed literally to smite the 
 ground at her very feet. Then came the 
 terrific, resonant thunder, then the inky, 
 bewildering darkness closed in upon the 
 mountain-side once more. 
 
 Half-stunned, as well as half-blinded, 
 Lance made his way up the stony 
 path which lay between him and Miss 
 Shore; his heart, stout as it w\as, quailing 
 at the thought of the sight that might 
 greet his eyes as the dire result of Nature's 
 cruelly-expended forces. 
 
 But no sight more dire than that of Miss 
 Shore leaning against the bulging side of 
 the rock met his view as he rounded the 
 path. She might have been carved out of 
 the rock itself for the motionlessness and
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. Ul 
 
 rigidity of lier outline. The hood of her 
 gray cloak had fallen from her head ; her 
 bandeau of black hair had uncoiled, and 
 hung in a long black line on one side of 
 her ashen-white face ; her eyes were round 
 and staring. 
 
 She did not turn her head at his approach, 
 merely pointed to the ground at her feet, 
 where the quick thunderbolt had literally 
 split the rock and ''kissed its burial." 
 
 " Did you see that ? " she asked, under 
 her breath, in an awe-stricken voice. 
 
 *' See it ! " cried Lance. " Who could 
 help seeing it ? Thank Heaven you are 
 safe — don't waste a moment, take my hand, 
 I'll get you down into a place of safety." 
 
 But the girl did not stir. " Would that 
 have killed any one else ? " she asked, in 
 the same slow, suppressed voice as before. 
 
 "Why, of course not, or else it must 
 have killed you," answered Lance, trying
 
 142 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 
 
 to laugh ofif what seemed to him a stupefy- 
 ing terror on her part. " You see I wasn't 
 far behind you, and I wasn't hurt. Come, 
 make haste into shelter ; we don't know 
 what the next flash may do." 
 
 His last words were lost in the crash of 
 another peal. 
 
 But it was farther ojQf now. The storm 
 had evidently spent the worst of its fury. 
 The dense sky parted ; light clouds went 
 travelling across it, carried by the upper 
 current. 
 
 Still the girl did not stir. 
 
 *^ By poison or fire or flood it must be — 
 there is no other way," she muttered under 
 her breath, with eyes not looking at Lance, 
 but beyond him. 
 
 '* Poison, fire, flood ! " All in a moment 
 there seemed to be revealed to Lance a 
 terrible reason for the emptied glass beside 
 the bed, for the crouching figure among
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 143 
 
 the water-reeds, for the bare-headed defiance 
 of the lightning on the mountain. 
 
 Debonair and light-hearted to the last 
 degree, it cost him an effort to shut his 
 eyes to the horror of the whole thing, and 
 to say in an easy, commonplace voice : 
 " Never mind about that ; the thing is 
 now to get into a place of safety. Come." 
 
 She looked at him steadily for a moment. 
 '^ Yes, I will come," she said, slowly. "Fate 
 is stronger than I." 
 
 She did not take his hand ; she walked 
 slowly beside him with head bent, and eyes 
 fixed on the ground. 
 
 There was no need to seek the refuge of 
 the " Crusoe's cave." Overhead, the light 
 clouds parting showed a faint rift of light 
 from a young moon ; far away in the 
 distance the thunder was dying hard in 
 a succession of low, sonorous growls. 
 
 But few words passed between them on
 
 144 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOEY. 
 
 their way back. Lance thanked Heaven 
 when they stood within the Castle grounds 
 once more. Miss Shore seemed tired, 
 dazed ; her voice was weak, her footsteps 
 dragged. 
 
 Lights were more conspicuous in the 
 upper than in the lower rooms as they 
 approached the house. One long French 
 window of the library, left unshuttered and 
 unbarred, gave them easy and unnoticed 
 entrance. 
 
 *' She ought to be locked in her room 
 at night," thought Lance, as he said his 
 good-night to his companion at the foot of 
 the stairs. 
 
 " Oh, Lance," said Madge, coming out of 
 the drawing-room a moment after, "where 
 have you been ? How white you look ! 
 AVe were just talking about sending out a 
 party of men with torches and umbrellas in 
 search of you."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIOTOBY. 145 
 
 Lance tossed her bracelet to her. ''A 
 golden reason for risking a wetting," he 
 said, laughingly, and then vanished forth- 
 with, before she had time to frame a second 
 question. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Madge, bent on keeping down the growth 
 of her prejudices, did not forget her promise 
 to Lance, and the morning after the storm 
 saw her seated in Miss Shore's room doing 
 her best to win that young lady's confi- 
 dence, with the benevolent hope of finding 
 a pretext for inducing her to prolong her 
 stay at the Castle. 
 
 It was up-hill work, however. Miss 
 Shore seemed bent on playing the part 
 of a fertilising shower to Madge's preju- 
 dices, for rebuff after rebufi" did she deal 
 to her kindly overtures. 
 
 Miss Shore had not made her appear- 
 ance at the breakfast-table on the morninor
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTOBY, 147 
 
 after the storm. Her breakfast had been 
 taken to her in her own room, together 
 with the morning's paper, for which she 
 had once more sent down a special request. 
 
 " You are interested in politics — in the 
 foreign news ? " asked Madge, by way of 
 making a beginning, and noting that Miss 
 Shore had folded the paper with the Con- 
 tinental news uppermost. 
 
 She started. 
 
 *' I care for foreign news ! Why should 
 I ? It is nothing to me," she answered, 
 almost fiercely. 
 
 Madge felt that she had somehow made a 
 wrong start. 
 
 ** One naturally likes to have news of 
 one's own country when away from it," 
 she said, apologetically. 
 
 ** Country!" cried Miss Shore, flushing 
 scarlet, " this is my country ; I have no 
 other."
 
 148 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Madge felt bewildered. 
 
 ''But — but," she stammered, "you are 
 not English, surely. Are you not Italian ? 
 You gave me the impression of being 
 Italian." 
 
 " I am not Italian ; I am English. My 
 father was English; L am English. Hear 
 how I speak ! " 
 
 Evidently she was ignorant how markedly 
 foreio^n her accent was. 
 
 '' I am sorry," said Madge, frankly. " I 
 was hoping that you might be Italian, 
 and that — that we might have studied 
 the lansuao'e togjether. I am so wishinsc 
 to be a fluent linguist." 
 
 She did not like to say : "I was hoping 
 that you would be able to give me some 
 lessons in Italian, for which I might have 
 paid you a guinea an liour," She could 
 only hope that her meaning would gradually 
 dawn on her lano;uid listener
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 149 
 
 The meaning, however, did not seem to 
 dawn, so Madge went on again : 
 
 *'I am wanting to improve myself in 
 all sorts of ways. I sometimes feel I am 
 very much behind other people in accom- 
 plishments. I want to get some good 
 teaching in singing — I am particularly fond 
 of singing. Do you sing ? " 
 
 *' I do not." 
 
 ''Dear me, this is unpromising," thought 
 Madge. " There's one thing she couldn't 
 give me lessons in — courtesy. What shall 
 I try next ? Ah ! — Perhaps you play on 
 the piano or on the violin ? " 
 
 " I do not know a note of music." 
 
 "Keally?" 
 
 There came a long pause. 
 
 Miss Shore folded her newspaper with 
 the advertisements outside, but still kept 
 it tightly in her hand. 
 
 Madge looked out of the window. The
 
 150 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 storm of overnight had disturbed the 
 weather ; the air was full of a vapoury 
 heaviness through which the mountains 
 showed black against a leaden sky. 
 
 Those mountains suggested an idea : 
 
 ** I do so wish I had devoted more time 
 to art before I married ! I would give 
 anything if I could paint those mountains 
 — that sky. Of course you can paint ? " 
 
 ''1 can." 
 
 Madge's spirits went up. 
 
 " How I envy you " she began, but 
 
 then stopped. 
 
 She did not care, with other interests 
 growing upon her, to volunteer for a long 
 course of painting lessons ; that would 
 mean at least three hours daily in Miss 
 Shore's company. As well reside in 
 " thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," as 
 that. 
 
 Another idea suggested itself.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 151 
 
 *' I don't mean flower-painting or por- 
 trait-painting ; I mean can you sketch 
 scenery — mountains, and lakes, and 
 valleys ? " 
 
 "I hate the mountains," said with slow, 
 suppressed bitterness. 
 
 ** Hate the mountains ! Well, even if 
 you hate them, it needn't prevent your 
 being able to paint them," said Madge, 
 beginning to lose patience a little. 
 
 " I can paint them. I have painted 
 mountains grander than these." She broke 
 ofi" a moment, then added, as if she were 
 compelling herself to a course that was 
 advisable rather than attractive: *'Do you 
 wish me to paint these mountains for 
 you ? " 
 
 ** That's it — the very thing," cried 
 Madge, drawing a long breath of relief. 
 " I have been wanting, for a long time, to 
 decorate a little room downstairs which I
 
 152 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 occupy sometimes with a set of water-colour 
 sketches." (This was a fib, but Madge 
 was at her wits' euds.) " It was my 
 boudoir before I married, and now Sir 
 Peter is good enough to have it refurnished 
 for me. If I could get six or eight pictures 
 of Cumberland scenery hung round it, I 
 should feel it decorated at once." 
 
 '' Six or eight ! There," thought Madge, 
 " she can take just as long as ever she likes 
 over them, and I'll pay her whatever she 
 asks me for them. And if Lance isn't 
 satisfied with my morning's work, I don't 
 know wdiat will please him." 
 
 "I will paint them if you wish it," said 
 Miss Shore, and then she looked at the 
 door as if she had endured Madge's com- 
 pany long enough. 
 
 Madge rose instantly. 
 
 " Is your room comfortable ? Have you 
 all you want here ? " she asked, looking
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 153 
 
 round as she so often did when welcoming 
 Lady Judith's guests to the Castle. 
 
 Both looking-glasses were pushed into a 
 corner now, both turned face to the wall. 
 
 Miss Shore followed Madge's gaze to- 
 wards that corner. 
 
 '' They were in my way. I pushed them 
 there," she said, coldly, in a tone that pre- 
 vented further questioning. 
 
 Madge felt that she had earned the 
 thanks which Lance accorded to her, when, 
 later on in the day, she contrived to inform 
 him of her plan to put a little money into 
 Miss Shore's purse. 
 
 " I must admit that she is not a taking 
 young woman," she said. " I never felt 
 myself so chilled and repressed in my life 
 before." 
 
 The seriousness Lance put into his 
 answer startled her. . 
 
 " Madge, I do believe," he said, ** that
 
 154 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 that poor girl has had some terrible expe- 
 rience. I never before in my life saw- 
 human eyes with such a hunted, desolate 
 look in them/' 
 
 " It's wonderful," said Sir Peter, coming 
 into the room at that moment, *' how much 
 one can get through between sunrise and 
 sundown, if one only sets to work with a 
 will ! " 
 
 ** Wonderful ! " echoed Lance, his serious- 
 ness gone in a moment, like a ghost at the 
 cock's crow, and getting up and opening a 
 door on the opposite side of the room, in 
 order that Sir Peter miojht have free esfress 
 whenever he felt so disposed. 
 
 Sir Peter had been in a particularly 
 lively frame of mind during the past few^ 
 days, and Mr. Stubbs had had rather a 
 busy time of it, owing to his patron's wish 
 to re-model every one of the charities on 
 whose committee-list his name figured.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 155 
 
 The letter-bag had gone out stuffed every 
 night, yet Sir Peter's brain appeared to 
 be brimming over with ideas. 
 
 " I have a splendid scheme on hand just 
 now," he said, thoroughly content now 
 that he had succeeded in breaking the 
 thread of Lance's and Madge's talk, and 
 had concentrated their attention entirely 
 on himself. " A splendid scheme ! A 
 little vast — a little vague at present, 
 perhaps." 
 
 " Ah," echoed Lance again ; " a little 
 vast, a little vague ! " 
 
 " But what of that ? In my schemes I 
 must be vast, or I am nothing. The fault 
 of one-half the schemes of charity sub- 
 mitted to me is that they are microscopic. 
 I say to Stubbs every morning of my 
 life, 'Double, treble, quadruple the pro- 
 portions of that project, then I will look 
 at it.' But I must have elbow-room —
 
 156 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 elbow-room in all I undertake." Here lie 
 lifted his elbows in the air with an upward, 
 wing-like motion. 
 
 "Ah, elbow-room, of course," said Lance, 
 also executinor the winor-like movement with 
 his elbows. 
 
 Sir Peter made one turn round the room, 
 and came back again. 
 
 "The truth of it is," he said, lowering 
 his voice, and looking over his shoulder, 
 "if it were not for Lady Judith I should 
 by this time have won for myself the 
 reputation of an universal " 
 
 " Provider ? " susTfirested Lance. 
 
 "Benefactor," finished the old gentle- 
 man, not understanding the allusion. 
 " But, as it is " — here a deep-drawn sigh — 
 " when I would soar on wings like a bird," 
 here he again executed the upward, wing- 
 like movement, " Lady Judith brings me 
 down to earth again, and I feel myself
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 157 
 
 nothinor more than a kite with a striner 
 attached to it." 
 
 Then he pulled out his watch. 
 
 *'What, half-past twelve is it? And I 
 have had no exercise to-day. Ah ! I must 
 be off for a little stretch in the Park." 
 
 "There is a case of foot-and-mouth 
 disease at Lower Upton/' said Lady Judith, 
 entering the room by the door by which 
 Sir Peter was about to quit it. 
 
 She was fanning herself vigorously. Sir 
 Peter backed into the room before her. 
 Her robust handlino^ of her fan mio^ht have 
 conveyed the impression that she had 
 fanned him back again over the threshold. 
 
 Now that the husband and wife were 
 together in the room, Madge thought it 
 would be a splendid opportunity to get 
 their combined sanction to the little plan 
 she had just been detailing to Lance 
 respecting Miss Shore.
 
 158 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 She accordingly, in a key sufficiently 
 high to reach Lady Judith's ear, asked Sir 
 Peter's consent to it. 
 
 Sir Peter's face grew rosy with pleasure. 
 
 " The very thing ! the very thing ! " he 
 cried, rubbing his hands gleefully. " I told 
 you, Lance, if Madge were only consulted 
 on the matter, she'd arrange it all easily 
 enough ! And you said " 
 
 " No, I didn't," said Lance, apprehensive 
 of what was coming, and not at all pleased 
 that Madge should know that he and Sir 
 Peter had beforehand taken counsel to- 
 gether on the matter. 
 
 " Well, I said I have a hundred plans 
 for " 
 
 " Ah ! I dare say you said that," in- 
 terrupted Lance, bent on preventing further 
 disclosures. 
 
 Lady Judith ' unintentionally became his 
 ally.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF fIGTOBY. 159 
 
 '* Is she to be a permanence in tlie 
 house ? That's what I want to know," she 
 asked in her highest key, her fan once 
 more with its backward motion stirring 
 the air as mucb for Sir Peter as for 
 herself. ''And am I expected to take ber 
 in band, and be a sort of Providence to 
 her?" 
 
 Sir Peter slipped behind ber, retreating 
 backwards towards the door. 
 
 " No, no, my dear, nothing of the sort ; 
 don't trouble yourself. Madge will take 
 all responsibility on her own shoulders, 
 I'm sure." 
 
 Lady Judith turned on him, executing 
 the double action with her fan once more. 
 
 She caugbt the word responsibility only. 
 
 " Yes, it is a responsibility ; and I admit 
 that, if I am to have responsibilities, I would 
 sooner they should be of my own choosing. 
 There was the last gardener's boy you sent
 
 160 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 home — wretched little being ! He had lost 
 a thumb, and was horribly bow-legged, and 
 I remember you said to me : * Nice little 
 fellow ! Can't you put him into page's 
 livery, and make something of him ? ' " 
 
 **My dear, I have no wish for you to 
 put Miss Shore into page's livery, I assure 
 you," said Sir Peter, makiug a feeble effort 
 to render the situation comic, but getting 
 at the same time a step or two nearer the 
 door. 
 
 Lady Judith fanned him on another step 
 or two. 
 
 " And the last stable-boy you brought 
 home from London had such a diabolical 
 squint, that he could only see the time by 
 turning his back on the clock and getting 
 a glimpse at it over the top of his ear. 
 Yet you said to me : ' First-rate lad that 1 
 find him something to do at the farm!'" 
 
 But she had fairly fanned Sir- Peter on
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTORY. 161 
 
 to the door-mat now, and had to appeal to 
 Lance and Madge as audience. 
 
 They, however, through long practice, 
 were able to continue undisturbed their 
 own subjects of conversation under the 
 immediate fire of her oratory. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Madge, in a moment of exasperation, 
 had wished that gout would seize Sir Peter 
 and hold him prisoner for a week, while she 
 and Lance arranged their afifairs to their 
 own liking. Gout, however, was far too 
 elderly and dignified a complaint to attack 
 one of his essentially juvenile temperament. 
 
 A single case of measles occurred to a 
 six-months' old baby in a hamlet about 
 fifteen miles distant. It seemed a perfectly 
 natural dispensation of Providence that 
 Sir Peter should be the second victim. 
 
 " Don't know what's the matter with 
 me, Lance," he said pitifully, ''Lfeel as if 
 my legs didn't belong to me."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 163 
 
 *' Perhaps you've tired them a bit," said 
 Lance, suggesting a far-away possibility. 
 
 " I would sooner have it myself twenty 
 times over," said the worthy medical prac- 
 titioner who was called in ; " how on earth 
 we're to keep him in one room without a 
 lock or key is more than I can think." 
 
 AVhen by dint of combined effort they 
 succeeded in getting Sir Peter to bed, they 
 could have fancied that his pillow was stuffed 
 with steel springs which sent his head up 
 with a jerk as soon as it was laid upon it, 
 so perpetually were his eyes and ears on 
 the alert for all that went on around him. 
 
 His correspondence was a great anxiety 
 to him. 
 
 " You'll see to my letters, Lance, won't 
 you?"' he begged, *' and " — this added in 
 a timorous whisper — '* you'll keep my 
 study-door locked and the key in your 
 pocket, won't you ? " 
 
 M 2
 
 164 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 '' Oh, you mean lock Stubbs in, and not 
 let bim out till the letters are all answered," 
 queried Lance. 
 
 "No, no, no." Here the whisper grew 
 more confidential still. " I mean keep 
 Lady Judith out, in case — in case she might 
 — you know — you know." 
 
 " Oh yes, I know," answered Lance, re- 
 assuringly. '^ I'll look after your letters, 
 never fear, Uncle Peter, and keep down 
 the correspondence right enough." 
 
 Lance's idea of " keeping down the 
 correspondence " was simple and eflfective. 
 He evaded Sir Peter's order to lock the 
 study-door by never going near it at all. 
 
 " Bring the letters and pen and ink into 
 the gun-room, Stubbs," he said; ''while 
 I overhaul my fishing-tackle, you can read 
 them out to , me, and I'll do a Sir Peter 
 and dictate replies." 
 
 To the gun-room the letters were
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 165 
 
 accordingly taken, and Lance, with a 
 cigarette between his teeth and his fishing 
 gear in his hand, quickly disposed of Sir 
 Peter's correspondence. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs read the first letter, and then 
 waited in silence for a reply to be forth- 
 coming. 
 
 *' Go on," said Lance. " We'll read them 
 off half-a-dozen at a time, and then I dare 
 say one answer will do for the lot." 
 
 The first half-dozen consisted mainly of 
 appeals for advice on matters concerning 
 the internal working of certain charities of 
 which Sir Peter was president. 
 
 " Toss all that lot into the waste-paper 
 basket," said Lance. " They'll answer 
 themselves if they're let alone. If they 
 don't get any advice from Sir Peter, 
 they'll conclude they'll have to do with- 
 out it. Now we'll go on to the next 
 half-dozen."
 
 166 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 They clianced to be appeals for help 
 from various benevolent institutions. 
 
 " Ten pounds to each all round for that 
 lot, Stubbs, and tell them not to bother 
 again," said the young man. ''And that'll 
 do for this morning — the rest will keep till 
 to-morrow ; I'm off to the stables now." 
 
 If he had known what letter lay unread 
 in the packet which Mr. Stubbs proceeded 
 to lock up in Sir Peter's secretaire, he 
 would scarcely have decreed in such light- 
 hearted fashion that *' the rest would keep " 
 till the morrow. 
 
 He detailed to Madge, later on in the 
 day, the easy, comfortable manner in which 
 he had got through his morning's work. 
 
 '' The truth of it is, Madge," he said, 
 '^ half the world fret themselves to fiddle- 
 strings over nothing at all ! Eest on your 
 oars and let the wind carry you along when- 
 ever you've a chance, that's what I say."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 167 
 
 Madge, drawing conclusions from a con- 
 trasting experience, was disposed to contest 
 the matter with him. " What if the wind 
 carries you the wrong way ? " she asked. 
 
 "Oh, then try your muscles and have 
 a tussle for it." said Lance, half-way up 
 the stairs to Sir Peter's room, in order to 
 explain to him his patent method of dis- 
 posing of troublesome correspondence. 
 ' '"'Don't, don't," cried Madge, guessing 
 his intention, and following him at express 
 speed. " It will send him into a fever and 
 o-Lve him a bad night." 
 
 " It'll make him sleep like a top," per- 
 sisted Lance, and forthwith, much to the 
 consternation of the nurse in attendance, 
 he proceeded to recount to the old gentle- 
 man his morninsr's work. 
 
 Sir Peter was wrapped up in flannels ; 
 his face was very red ; his eyes were 
 streaming. His face grew redder still, his
 
 168 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 eyes Btreamed worse than ever, as he 
 listened to Lance's description of " the 
 mass of work" he had got through in a 
 quarter of an hour. 
 
 *' It'll take weeks to undo the mischief 
 you've done," he moaned, and then his 
 cough stopped him. 
 
 Lance vanished discreetly before the 
 combined wrath of Madge and the nurse. 
 
 Madge volunteered her services in the 
 way of ojDoning and assorting letters. 
 
 " I can at least send temporary answers 
 and tell everybody to wait till you're well 
 again," she said, soothingly. 
 
 " The very thing, Madge; the very thing," 
 cried Sir Peter, all serenity once more. 
 *'You open my letters — no one else, re- 
 member — and tell every one they shall 
 have my entire — mind, my entire attention 
 so soon as I get about again. Any letters 
 of importance put carefully on one side
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 169 
 
 in the right-hand drawer of my secretaire — 
 lock it up and keep the key yourself." 
 
 And then he coughed incessantly again, 
 and had to eat black-currant lozenges for 
 the rest of the afternoon. 
 
 As Madge crossed the gallery leading 
 from Sir Peter's room, she paused at a big 
 flowering myrtle that nearly filled a 
 window-recess. Letting lier eyes wander 
 for one moment to the outside greenery 
 and flower-garden, she was conscious of a 
 sensation as physically painful as the scent 
 of the myrtle was physically pleasant. 
 
 Yet it w^as nothing very much out of the 
 common that met her view — merely Lance 
 arranging sketching stool and easel on the 
 green sward below the terrace, under the 
 shade of a big sycamore, whence a good 
 view could be had of the magnificent sweep 
 of mountain scenery without daring the 
 heat of an afternoon sun.
 
 170 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Now, purely as a matter of common- 
 sense, Madge ought to have been delighted 
 at Miss Shore's promptness in endeavouring 
 to carry out her wishes. And as for Lance, 
 well, she had seen him scores of times 
 performing the same office for the numerous 
 young ladies who had fallen in love with 
 the mountain scenery, and had forthwith 
 conceived the desire to caricature it in 
 wishy-washy colours on a square of paste- 
 board. 
 
 Yet, nevertheless, Madge, as she noted 
 the graceful, undukitiug outline of the 
 dull gray figure against the shining back- 
 ground of a laurel hedge, and the linger- 
 ing assiduity with which Lance adjusted 
 the easel, had to do battle all over again 
 with the unaccountable prejudices with 
 which the very first sight of a beautiful 
 face had inspired her.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Madge, true to her promise, seated herself 
 -after breakfast next morning at Sir Peter s 
 writing-table, informing Mr. Stubbs of her 
 intention of opening the invalid's letters 
 and dictating their replies. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs, all obsequious attention, 
 seated himself in his usual place at a 
 smaller table at her right hand. 
 
 Madge's prejudices had made themselves 
 hea-rd respecting Mr. Stubbs as well as 
 Miss Shore. She had conceived for Sir 
 Peter's private secretary an intense dislike, 
 the ground of which did not seem to be 
 covered entirely by the fact of her having
 
 172 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 discovered him in what appeared to be a 
 listening attitude. 
 
 She had tried to imbue Lance with her 
 notions, hoping that from his wider ex- 
 perience of men and their ways she might 
 get wherewithal to substantiate her shadowy 
 repugnance to the man. 
 
 " I am sure he is sly and underhand, "^ 
 she had said ; '' and he looks and look& 
 at me whenever he comes near me, as if 
 he were taking stock of everything I do or 
 say, or think, even." 
 
 Lance had characteristically laughed off 
 the idea. 
 
 " I never knew any one like you for 
 taking fancies into your head," he had 
 said. "Why, if I lived twenty years in 
 the house with the man, it w^ouldn't occur 
 to me to notice whether he turned his 
 eyes up or down, this way or that. He 
 writes a good hand, and he do.es w^hat
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 173 
 
 he's told to do, and what more in reason 
 •can be expected of him ? " 
 
 Madge was not a bad woman of business 
 when she gave her mind to it. She ran 
 over one-half of Sir Peter's correspondence 
 lightly enough, dictating brief and tempo- 
 rary replies ; Mr. Stubbs's pen failed to keep 
 pace with her fluent dictating, so, as he 
 wrote, she continued opening the remaining 
 letters, and mastering their contents. 
 
 One among those Lance had been too 
 lazy to give his attention to, had an 
 Australian post-mark. 
 
 *' Dear me ! Sir Peter's fame has reached 
 the antipodes," was her mental comment 
 as she broke the seal. 
 
 But when her eye had mastered the first 
 few sentences, mental comment she had 
 none to make, for the simple reason that 
 her brain was in a state of chaos. 
 
 It was a bulky letter, some two or three
 
 174 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 sheets in length, but was written in a 
 round, schoolboy's hand, which rendered it 
 easy reading. 
 
 It was dated from " Kutland Bay Settle- 
 ment, Western Australia," and ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 "I must beg your indulgence for 
 the liberty I am taking in thus addressing 
 you. The remarkable circumstances I have 
 to communicate must be my excuse. 
 
 *'Let me begin by stating that I am 
 a minister of the Wesleyan persuasion, and 
 sole spiritual adviser of the rough but 
 not unkindly miners who constitute the 
 scanty population of this place ; also that 
 my statements can be very easily sub- 
 stantiated by reference to some of the 
 leading members of the community, whose 
 names I subjoin.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 175 
 
 ** Now for my story. 
 
 " Sixteen years ago, when this settle 
 ment consisted in all of fifty souls, there 
 occurred during the equinoxes a terrible 
 wreck on this coast. A vessel went down 
 with all hands, in the night — at least, 
 so it was supposed from the spars and 
 wreckage washed on shore at daybreak. 
 Something else besides spars and wreckage 
 was washed up with the tide — a portion 
 of the mainmast, with a woman and an 
 infant lashed to it. The woman appeared, 
 from her dress, to be a nurse ; but she 
 had been so terribly injured during the 
 gale that she died as soon as she was 
 brought to shore. The child was a fine 
 little boy of about a year old, dressed as 
 a gentleman's child. His linen was marked 
 simply with the initials G. C. 
 
 " All, this, sir, occurred about ten years 
 before I came to the colony. When I, by
 
 170 AT TUE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 the direction of our CoDference, took upon 
 myself the office of shepherd to these stray- 
 sheep, this infant had grown into a hand- 
 some boy, and was of so strikingly-refined 
 an appearance, that so soon as I set eyes 
 on him assisting the miners in the lighter 
 portion of the work, I asked the ques- 
 tion : 
 
 " ' What gentleman's son is that ? ' 
 *'The miners \vho had sheltered and 
 brought him up were the roughest set of 
 men I had ever lived among ; but, for all 
 that, had treated the boy with the kindliest 
 consideration, had taught him to read and 
 •write, and had, on account of the extreme 
 fragility of his health, allowed him to lead 
 an almost idle life, evidently looking upon 
 him as one cast in a different mould to 
 themselves. 
 
 *' I took the boy in hand immediately 
 on my arrival in the settlement, supplied
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 17T 
 
 him with books, and carried his education 
 as forward as possible. 
 
 " So much for the boy. Now for the 
 sequel to my story. 
 
 "About six months ago a vessel put in 
 here, a Canadian trader, manned by a crew 
 of divers nationalities. One of the seamen,, 
 a Scotchman, by name John Eutherford,. 
 had a strange story to tell. He said that 
 sixteen years previously he was serving 
 on board a Mexican passenger-boat, which 
 had been wrecked off this coast. He, with 
 some others, had taken to the boats, and, 
 after many perils, had been picked up by a 
 Canadian schooner. Subsequently, he had 
 joined the Canadian merchant service. He 
 gave full particulars concerning the terrible 
 wreck of the Mexican boat, and the names 
 of the passengers, so far as he could 
 remember them. Among them, he said, 
 was an English gentleman, a Mr. Grervase 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Critchett, and his wife, a South American 
 lady, and infant boy, who had hurriedly 
 taken flight from La Guaya, North Mexico, 
 on account of an insurrection threatening 
 there. Eutherford spoke of the father's 
 despairing agony at his inability to save 
 his wife and child, of his lashing the nurse 
 and the boy w^itli his own hands to the 
 mast, and of his frantic endeavours to 
 make his wife leap into the boat as it 
 pushed away in the darkness. Eutherford 
 related also, that on the previous night, 
 when the gale had first burst on them, 
 Mr. Critchett had taken him on one side, 
 and, in view of possible danger to himself 
 and the chance of his child being saved, 
 had related various particulars concern- 
 ing himself — that he was brother to Sir 
 Peter Critchett, of Upton Castle ; that 
 his marriage "had been solemnised at the 
 British Consulate at La Guaya, and his
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 179 
 
 boy's birth had been duly registered 
 there " 
 
 ''Madge, Madge ! " — at this moment said 
 Lance's voice just outside the door — ''are 
 you going to shut yourself up with the 
 ink-bottle all the morning ? Can't you 
 come for half an hour's canter ? " 
 
 Mado^e started. Her thouHits were far 
 away from Upton, among the wild miners 
 of Australia, and yet, if the truth be told, 
 the under-current of those thoughts carried 
 but one name in their depths — Lance's, and 
 Lance's only. 
 
 Instinctively she jumped from her chair 
 xind met Lance at the door. It would 
 have been too dreadful, it seemed to her, 
 if, without a word of warning or kindly 
 preliminary hint, he had stood behind her 
 <and had read over her shoulder the story 
 which gave Sir Peter an heir to his name 
 and to his wealth. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 " I can't ride to-day," she said, steadying 
 her voice as well as she could. *' I mean 
 to work all the morning at Sir Peter's 
 letters, and then I have to drive with 
 Lady Judith to Lower Upton." 
 
 '* How white you look, have yoa a 
 headache?'' interrupted Lance. *'Look 
 here, Madge, I want to show you my last 
 new fowling-piece, it came down by the 
 first train this morning." And there and 
 then, outside in the hall, he exhibited his 
 latest acquisition in deadly weapons, un- 
 screwing and putting together again its 
 internal arrangements, descanting mean- 
 while in enthusiastic fashion on its vast 
 superiority over all others he had ever 
 been possessed of. 
 
 Madge's thoughts were in a whirl. It 
 was with difficulty that she managed to 
 keep up a fair show of interest in Lance's 
 talk. She trembled for the safety of the
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 181 
 
 letter, which, in her haste to intercept 
 Lance, she had thrown open on the writing- 
 table. 
 
 She went back in five minutes' time to 
 the study to find the letter folded neatly 
 in half with a paper-weight on top of it. 
 
 She flashed an inquiring glance at Mr. 
 Stubbs, who sat, pen in hand, waiting for 
 further instructions. 
 
 '* The wind fluttered it off" the table," he 
 said, quietly, by way of explanation. '' The 
 draught is very great when the study -door 
 is opened as well as the outside door." 
 
 Madge felt the impulse to ask the 
 question, " Did you take advantage of the 
 friendly draught and master the contents 
 of the letter ? " almost irresistible. Her 
 eyes and flushing cheeks asked it plainly 
 enough ; but Mr. Stubbs's pasty, expression- 
 less features made no sign, and his eyes 
 appeared fixed on nothing at all.
 
 182 AT THE MOMENT OF VIC TOBY. 
 
 She had no more ideas to bestow on Sir 
 Peter's correspondence. Everything in life 
 had shrunk into insignificance beside the 
 baleful tidings which those few sheets of 
 closely-written paper had brought.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 '* Lance is a beggar ! — a beggar ! " Madge 
 sat in her own room saying the ugly words 
 over and over again. In good truth, for the 
 moment she was incapable of any other 
 thought. The news might be glad tidings 
 enough to the childless Sir Peter, it might 
 thrill other hearts with all sorts of pleasant 
 possibilities. For her it had but one mean- 
 ing : the man for whose happiness she 
 would gladly, at any moment, lay down 
 her life, was no longer to be the favourite 
 of fortune which she had delighted to think 
 him. His sun had set. 
 
 Once more she took up the letter, 
 thinking that she would slowly and care-
 
 184 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 fully read it from beginning to end, and 
 see if she could find in it any excuse to 
 doubt the veracity of the writer. 
 
 But the task was beyond her. Her 
 hand shook so that she could scarcely hold 
 the thin, crackling paper, and her eyes in 
 sympathy with her hand got at the evil 
 sentences in snatches only. 
 
 She read a string of names, at the end 
 of the letter, of those persons who were 
 willing to vouch for the credibility of the 
 writer ; the address of John Eutherford, 
 the Scotch seaman ; then her eyes glanced 
 higher up the page to where the writer 
 made an earnest appeal for an immediate 
 reply. *' For," he said, '* the lad is strangely 
 disturbed at the thought of having kith 
 and kin of his own in the dear old mother- 
 country, and is in a state of nervous 
 tremor lest his father's people may not see 
 fit to stretch out the hand of welcome to
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 185 
 
 iiim;" Then away from this her eyes 
 darted to the signature at the foot of the 
 page, '' Joshua Parker," and then her hand 
 dropt to her side, and her eyes refused 
 to do farther work for the tears that 
 ■blinded them. 
 
 Outside her room in the corridor sounded 
 Lance's voice once more in its cheery and 
 somewhat domineering baritone. What 
 was he saying ? Something about " my 
 horses," '' my dogs " ? Evidently he was 
 giving to his servant a succession of orders 
 to be transmitted to the stable, for pre- 
 sently there came, in reply to some C[uestion 
 addressed to him by the man, a remark 
 •respecting last winter's sleighs. "They 
 were not worth putting in order. I intend 
 to have one — two, perhaps — made on quite 
 another model. The sleigh of the period 
 is far from being what it ought to be." 
 
 " A beggar ! a beggar ! " she repeated.
 
 186 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 bitterly. This man, born and bred in the 
 lap of luxury, was to be bidden to go forth 
 and make his way in the world, or else be 
 bidden to remain in his old home simply 
 to play the steward, or live as a dependent 
 on the bounty of others ! Ah ! would to 
 Heaven the blow had fallen on her, not on 
 him. She had been a born pauper ; had 
 known how to fill the role of protegee, at 
 least not discontentedly ! If all the Cohen 
 wealth had disappeared in the night like 
 so much fairy gold, she could have gone 
 back to her early life as one '' to the 
 manner born." 
 
 And here Madc^e's conscience orave her as 
 sharp a wound as any its barbed arrows 
 had ever dealt. " Oh, you with your fine 
 flourish of words," it seemed to say, '^you, 
 who would pray to fortune, ' give him my 
 lot and give me his,' why didn't you put 
 your pride and your vanity under a bushel
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 187 
 
 six months ago when he asked you to 
 marry him ? If you had seen fit to do this, 
 your wealth by now might have been his, 
 and this blow, though heavy, would not 
 have been a deadly one." 
 
 *^ If I could but have known ! if I could 
 but have known I " she moaned, beatinor her 
 hands together once more. 
 
 Through the gloom of this thought there 
 struggled a faint ray of hope. The "No" 
 she had then spoken was not meant to be 
 final, was not likely so to be unless some- 
 thing very unforeseen occurred between her 
 and Lance — here a passing, a very passing 
 thought was given to Mi^s Shore and her 
 easel. Very well, then, her retraction of 
 that *' No " might be hastened somewhat or 
 even might be volunteered — so in her im- 
 petuous longing to be of service to him it 
 seemed to her — without loss of dignity or 
 womanliness. >
 
 183 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 She and Lance were on the best and 
 easiest of terms ; it would be easy for her to 
 say : " Lance, my pride and sensitiveness are 
 Tidiculous, and always have been ridiculous. 
 I only wish I knew how to trample them 
 •under foot and be done with them for 
 ever." Lance, no doubt, would readily 
 enough see the drift of her confession, and 
 would speak over again the words that he 
 had found so easy to speak before. 
 
 Till this was done she resolved that she 
 would communicate to no one the contents 
 of the Australian letter, and she thanked 
 Heaven for the fortunate conjunction of 
 circumstances which had made its hateful 
 news known to her before any one else in 
 the bouse. 
 
 '*lf it were done when 'tis done, then 
 'twere well it were done quickly," was 
 Madge's brief summing up of her long hour 
 of painful thought as she nerved herself to
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 189^ 
 
 the doing of a deed that had more than a 
 spice of heroism in it. 
 
 She folded the letter, locked it up in her 
 desk, and then still farther to ensure its safe 
 keeping, slipped the key of the desk on to 
 her watch-chain. 
 
 She had to pass a looking-glass on her 
 way downstairs. She carefully turned her 
 head away from it. '' No,'' she thought,, 
 " if I look in there my courage will be 
 gone, and the words will never be said." 
 
 A self-congratulatory thought followed.. 
 It was : *^ I have always said I would give 
 all the Cohen wealth to be really beautiful. 
 Now I would not give up the Cohen wealth 
 for all the beauty under the sun." 
 
 And for one brief moment Madge felt 
 as if she had turned the tables on her 
 fortune. 
 
 She searched in vain for Lance in his 
 usual haunts ; library, study, smoking-room,.
 
 100 AT THE MOMF.:ST OF VICTOUY. 
 
 gun-room, all were deserted. Then she 
 went on to the billiard-room, hoping for 
 better luck there; it was vacant like the 
 other rooms, cool and pleasant, ruled with 
 bars of light which filtered in through the 
 half-turned Venetian shutters. Something 
 else besides those bars of light filtered in 
 through the shutters, the sound of voices 
 from the outside verandah. 
 
 Lance's voice first caught her ear : 
 " Fate — believe in fate ? Well, yes, in 
 one way I do. I believe it is possible for 
 a man once in his life to come upon his 
 fate in the shape of a beautiful woman." 
 
 A beautiful woman ! Madge had no doubt 
 to whom he was speaking. For one brief 
 moment she once more balanced the 
 Cohen wealth against personal beauty. 
 That woman outside there in the sunshine 
 assuredly was what nine men out of every 
 ten would call beautiful ; and she here in
 
 AT THE 2L02IENT OF VICTORY. 191 
 
 this darkened room had the town and the 
 country house, the diamonds, and the 
 horses. If Lance were to hold the scales, 
 which way would they incline ? A dark 
 cloud overshadowed her. She struggled 
 with her jealousy and her prejudices once 
 more. Of course, the words he had spoken 
 as mere words were worth nothing. If he 
 had said them to a man, or to a woman old 
 enough to be his mother, they might have 
 been taken as a simple statement of a 
 simple fact. But spoken to a woman 
 young enough to be his wife, and dowered 
 with good looks into the bargain, they would 
 — well, mean just whatever his eyes chose to 
 put into them ; and she knew well enough 
 how Lance's blue eyes could double the 
 meanings of his phrases at times. 
 
 Madge went back to her room with her 
 heroic deed undone.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Sm Peter had a relapse. He was sleeping 
 so peacefully one evening, tliat nurse and 
 doctor, growing confidential over their 
 patient's idiosyncrasies, fell to congratu- 
 lating themselves that the worst of the 
 illness was over. Sir Peter was always a 
 picture when he was asleep. 
 
 *' He looks that smiling and child-like," 
 said the nurse. 
 
 ** It's such a blessing to see him at rest," 
 sighed the doctor. 
 
 And lo ! that very minute his head was 
 ofi" his pillow, and he was out of bed before 
 any one could stop him, vowing that he 
 had the cramp in both legs, and must 
 " walk it ofi"."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 193 
 
 " He has driven in the rash," said the 
 doctor, trying to explain matters to Lady 
 Judith, " and may think himself lucky 
 if he gets about again in three weeks' 
 time." 
 
 Lady Judith heard about one quarter 
 of what the doctor had said. She only 
 gathered that Sir Peter, as usual, had been 
 lively and insubordinate, and wanted taking 
 in hand. 
 
 " I'll go up and talk to him," she said, 
 fanning herself and the doctor very hard. 
 *'No one knows how to manage him as 
 
 I do " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " shouted the doctor at 
 her. " He mustn't be worried ; it'll put 
 
 him into a fever 1 mean," he corrected 
 
 himself," "your fan would give him his 
 death of cold." 
 
 Lady Judith fanned harder than ever. 
 She only caught the word ''fever." 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 "Fever!" she repeated. ''You told 
 me distinctly it was measles he had. 
 You'll be telling me next it is small-pox, 
 or rheumatic gout, or something else 
 extraordinary." 
 
 The doctor tried in vain to explain. 
 Being a short man, he got upon tip-toe in 
 his eagerness to do so. 
 
 All in vain ! Lady Judith fanned him 
 out of the room, and through the hall, and 
 out at the front door, all the while ex- 
 pressing her surprise, her " unqualified 
 surprise, that he had not taken more 
 pains to diagnose the case before he had 
 pronounced so decided an opinion in the 
 first instance. But I don't believe it's 
 fever — no. If the whole faculty of medicine 
 were to swear it was fever I wouldn't 
 believe them. Do you think I don't know 
 measles when I see it ? There isn't a 
 disease you could name that I don't
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 195 
 
 know. So I beg, doctor, if you've any 
 respect for yourself or your profession, 
 that you won't come near me again with 
 the word 'fever' on your lips." 
 
 The doctor mentally registered a vow 
 that he would not. 
 
 Before he could get out of ear-shot, how- 
 ever, he heard Lady Judith announce 
 with great emphasis her intention of taking 
 the sick-room under her own immediate 
 supervision, and of kee2:)ing a steady eye 
 alike on patient, nurse, and doctor. 
 
 There followed a rather bad fortniofht 
 for all three. 
 
 That fortnight came as a reprieve to 
 Madge ; it gave her breathing time. It 
 was a weighty secret that she carried about 
 with her. For two whole days she had 
 felt herself almost crushed by it, and had 
 only by dint of vigorous effort preserved 
 an outward appearance of calm. Then she 
 
 2
 
 196 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 had awakened with a start, saying to her- 
 self that there was no time to be lost, and 
 thanking Heaven that she was bound in 
 honour not to communicate the evil news 
 to living soul until Sir Peter had been put 
 into possession of it and had resolved upon 
 his course of action. 
 
 Possibly, by dint of vigorous entreaty, 
 he might be induced to keep the secret 
 from Lance till a certain definite provision 
 had been made for him. This she knew, 
 though it had often been talked about, had 
 not as yet been done. Sir Peter always 
 saying that her marriage with Lance should 
 be the signal for setting the lawyers to 
 work upon a handsome settlement for him, 
 so that his income mio-ht be somethinsf on 
 a par with hers. Madge, no longer anxious 
 to repudiate Sir Peter's mediatorship, was 
 beginning to feel now that this marriage 
 and this settlement could, with a very
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 197 
 
 good grace, be arranged by him before the 
 contents of the Australian letter were 
 proclaimed abroad. Once, however, let 
 Lance know his changed position and 
 she felt sure that his pride would stand 
 in the way of both marriage and settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In the meantime, all she could hope to 
 do, while awaiting Sir Peter's recovery to 
 health, was to try and keep matters be- 
 tween her and Lance on that easy, pleasant 
 footing against which in her caprice she 
 had rebelled as savouring too much of the 
 familiar bond of a brother and sister. 
 
 A terror that can be proclaimed from 
 the house-top sits lightly enough. It is 
 the one that is locked up wordless within 
 the heart that feeds " on the pith of life.'* 
 Madge's secret told on her good looks. 
 Even Lance, thoug;h he had seemed of late 
 strangely self-absorbed, noticed it.
 
 198 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 *' What is it, Madge — headache ? " he 
 asked one morning over the breakfast- 
 table, while Lady Judith, high over their 
 heads, was delivering an oration on the 
 degeneracy of the dairy-maid of the 
 period. 
 
 Madge flushed scarlet. 
 
 ** That means I am looking particularly 
 ugly this morning," she thought, contrast- 
 ing in her ''mind's eye" her own sallow 
 complexion with the ideally beautiful 
 colouring of that *' girl in gray." 
 
 To divert his eyes, as well as his thoughts, 
 she made a sudden, abrupt announcement. 
 It was : 
 
 *' I think I shall open my house in 
 Belgrave Square this year for the half- 
 season." 
 
 Now, that '' house in Belgrave Square " 
 had been a fruitful cause of squabbling 
 between Lance and Madge.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 199 
 
 Whenever she had been particularly 
 bent on making herself disagreeable to 
 him, by way of revenge for an unusual 
 amount of teasing, she had been in the 
 habit of tightening her lips, and saying, *' I 
 shall open my house in town this year and 
 see a little society." 
 
 Whereupon Lance had never failed to 
 reply : " There'll be the mischief to pay 
 if you do, Madge, unless you set up a 
 duenna at the same time. You'll get a 
 mob of impecunious youug idiots dan- 
 gling after you, and I shall be called 
 upon to administer a caning every other 
 week." 
 
 To which Madge had never failed to 
 retort, that "She adored boys — impecunious 
 or otherwise — and that she had serious in- 
 tentions of weeding from her visiting-list 
 every family where the men were over two- 
 and-twenty."
 
 200 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 But there was to be no mimic skirmish 
 over the town house now. Lance had 
 drifted into dreamland, and seemed to get 
 his thouo^hts back from their travels with 
 difficulty. 
 
 " It does seem a pity," he said, a little 
 absently, " that that comfortable house 
 should be shut up, and you have to stay 
 at an hotel whenever you want to run up 
 to town." 
 
 ''They won't use their arms, my dear, 
 that's what it comes to ! And when the 
 butter isn't what it ought to be it's the 
 fault of the butter-worker, or the milk, or 
 the cow, or the clover, or goodness knows 
 what," flowed in the running stream of 
 Lady Judith's talk between the two. 
 
 Madge, keeping a steady eye on Lance, 
 saw that not she, nor her town-house, nor 
 yet Lady Judith's typical dairy-maid, had 
 a corner in his thoughts. His eyes were
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 201 
 
 fixed on the garden-picture which the 
 window facing him framed, with what 
 seemed to her an expectant look in them. 
 
 " Shall we ride this morning?" she asked, 
 suddenly — sharply ; determined to awaken 
 him to the fact of the existence of such a 
 person as Madge Cohen, and that she sat 
 at his elbow\ 
 
 Lance jumped up from the table. 
 
 " So sorry, Madge — I have to be down at 
 the kennels in half an hour — now Uncle 
 Peter is laid by, I'm bound to see to every- 
 thing ; and when I get back I'm afraid 
 you'll find it too hot for a canter." 
 
 But he did not get down to the kennels 
 in half an hour's time, for Madge, compelled 
 to a solitary ramble, and standing for a 
 moment at the front door to call her dogs 
 for company, heard his voice in conver- 
 sation with Miss Shore, who was seated 
 on the terrace at her easel.
 
 202 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Miss Shore's broken EDglish reached her 
 ear first : 
 
 " I can't do it," she was saying in a 
 troubled tone. " When I look at these 
 mountains, other mountains rise up before 
 me and shut out these. Grander, gloomier 
 mountains, with one bright evil star shining 
 out of the purple clouds. I could paint 
 those — not these." 
 
 " Well, then, why don't you paint 
 them?" said Lance's voice in reply. 
 ** They would be bound to be worth 
 looking at. Paint out what is in your 
 eyes, and then you'll be able to see what 
 is outside them." 
 
 Then he caught sight of Madge under 
 the stone porch, reiterated the necessity 
 that existed for his presence at the kennels 
 in half an hour's time, and departed in all 
 but breathless taste. 
 
 This little incident, with a divergence of
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIOTOBY. 203 
 
 detail, repeated itself again and again. To 
 her fancy he seemed to be perpetually 
 leaving rooms as she entered them, going 
 out of the house when she came in, and vice 
 versa. When she wanted to talk he 
 appeared to prefer silence, and when she 
 grew thoughtful and reserved he would 
 suddenly become loquacious and lively, 
 or, worse still, would stimulate Lady 
 Judith's powers of conversation to such an 
 extent, that the room would become in 
 tolerable to Madge with her distracting 
 burden of thought. 
 
 It was no wonder that Madge, with 
 wits sharpened by the necessity of the 
 case, and prejudices stimulated by her 
 jealousy, speedily fixed upon that " girl 
 in gray " as the likely cause of Lance's 
 eccentric conduct, and was ready to 
 anathematise herself for finding pretext 
 for prolonging the young woman's stay at
 
 204 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 the Castle, in weak compiiance with 
 Lance's wish. 
 
 It was no wonder, also, that with eyes 
 once turned in that direction, that " girl 
 in gray " grew to be an object of special 
 attention to Madge. vShe found herself 
 perpetually watching her, scrutinising her 
 every action, look, speech, with eager, 
 yet unsympathetic eyes. And the more 
 closely she w^atched her the more of an 
 enigma she grew to her. 
 
 Since the one memorable evening that 
 Miss Shore had exchanged places with 
 Madge at the dinner-table, she had not 
 once sat down wdth the family to any of 
 their meals. Her breakfast was taken to 
 her in her own room with the morning 
 paper as its invariable corollary. About 
 luncheon-time she would appear outside on 
 the terrace with her easel and painting 
 accessories, and there she would sit until
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 205 
 
 failing daylight put an end to her work, 
 when she would go back straight to her 
 room, where light supper of some sort 
 was by her orders taken to her. 
 
 Madge, looking over Miss Shore's shoulder 
 once, was surprised at the slow progress 
 which the mountain picture was making, 
 in spite of the evident ease and skill with 
 which the artist handled her brushes and 
 colours. Half her time she seemed to be 
 washing off her colours, not washing them 
 in. 
 
 That one occasion of looking over Miss 
 Shore's shoulder was made memorable to 
 Madge by the sudden start the girl gave, 
 and the frightened, yet withal angry look 
 which swept over her face. 
 
 **Why do you do it — you startle me? 
 Come in front if you wish to speak to 
 me ! " she cried, vehemently. And there 
 and then she removed her chair, placing it
 
 20G AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 with its back to the house, and leaving 
 no room for a passer-by. 
 
 Madfje related this circumstance to Lance, 
 watchinfi^ his face closelv for tell-tale change 
 of expression. 
 
 Lance seemed to feel her scrutiny, and 
 tell-tale expression there was none. 
 
 '* Much ado about nothing, as usual, 
 Madge," he said, lightly. ''Don't you 
 remember the terrified jumps you used to 
 give if ever I came behind you at your 
 singing and joined in a bar or two ? " 
 
 "Yes; but I never turned on you as 
 furiously as she turned on me, or sat with 
 my chair w^ith its back to the wall so that 
 no one should ever o-et behind it ao^ain ! '^ 
 
 " Miss Shore, I dare say, is of a very 
 nervous temperament, and has " 
 
 "A guilty conscience perhaps," inter- 
 rupted Madge. Then the minute the 
 words were out of her mouth sherefjretted
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 207 
 
 them. They would just put another stone 
 to the wall that seemed to be building 
 between Lance and herself, and possibly 
 make that " girl in gray " and her eccentric 
 doings a sealed subject between them. 
 
 "Had a great deal of trouble, I was. 
 going to say," said Lance, walking away at 
 his last word in order to prevent farther 
 parley on the matter. 
 
 " She came into the house like a shadow, 
 she falls between us like a shadow ! Would 
 to Heaven she would depart in the same 
 shadowy fashion," Madge thought bitterly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cohen, for 
 intruding," said Mr. Stubbs's voice at that 
 moment at her elbow, " but I believe one 
 of Sir Peter's letters, which I handed to 
 you the other day, had an Australian post- 
 mark on it." 
 
 "Yes, what of it?" asked Madge, 
 sharply, her looks at once betraying the
 
 *208 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 fact that this letter was of vivid interest 
 to her. 
 
 It was invariably difficult for this young 
 woman to speak lightly and think heavily. 
 To look tranquil when she felt like '* a 
 cauldron stirred by witches," w^as an im- 
 possibility to her. 
 
 '' I merely wished to say," Mr. Stubbs 
 went on respectfully, " that the Australian 
 mail goes out in three days, and if a pro- 
 visional answer is necessary " 
 
 '^ A provisional answer is not necessary," 
 said Madge without a moment's hesitation, 
 giving not so much as a thought to the 
 fracfile, sensitive lad at the other end of the 
 world, who was in " a state of tremor lest 
 his own kith and kin should not hold out 
 the hand of welcome to him."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 One way or another, affairs seemed very 
 much at sixes and sevens at the Castle just 
 then. 
 
 For one thing, Sir Peter^s illness upset 
 all their autumn plans — a trip to Biarritz 
 for Lady Judith and Madge, Lance's grouse 
 shooting on the Scotch moors prior to a 
 fortnight's fishing in Norway. For another^ 
 the spirit of Queen Mab herself seemed 
 abroad in the house, and every one appeared 
 to be doing just exactly the particular thing 
 that was to be least expected of them. 
 
 Madge, embroidery in hand, sat in her 
 rocking-chair under the " dark-green layers 
 of shade" of the old cedar on the lawn, 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 watching a whole pageant of fantastic 
 fleecy clouds sweeping across a deep-blue 
 sky before a strong current. 
 
 '* That's us to the life just now," she 
 said to herself emphatically, though un- 
 grammatically. "There's a mermaid — 
 look at her fish-tail ! — riding on a tiger ! 
 There's a big white cat with a Gains- 
 borough hat on his head. Here I come ! 
 There's a huge four-wheeled triumphal-car 
 with nothing but a stupid little swan to 
 draw it. No, that isn't me either. A 
 swan is a very beautiful creature ; also I'm 
 not trying to drag anything along at the 
 present moment ; no, I only wish I could 
 make one thing stand still — for ever. 
 Here's a great snow mountain just toppling 
 over, and there's a poor little bat stretching 
 out its wings to protect something. What 
 is it ? A teacup "^ a pigeon's egg on end ? 
 That's me to the life — the bat, that is ;
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 211 
 
 Ugly enough and trying to do impossibilities 
 with its stupid little wings ! " 
 
 Madge's train of thought had been set 
 going by two little incidents of that day's 
 occurrence, in which the chief actors had 
 conducted themselves as uncharacteristi- 
 cally as could well be imagined. 
 
 Incident number one had been a little 
 speech of Lance's, made a propos of nothing 
 at all, so far as she could see. 
 
 " Madge," he had said, with a sudden 
 energy which set her thoughts ranging 
 upon wild possibilities, " what an unlucky 
 beggar I am never to have had a profession 
 given to me ! Now, supposing I were 
 ever to offend Uncle Peter in any way, 
 and he were to cut me off with a shilling, 
 how on earth could I get my bread and 
 butter ? I should have to turn either 
 groom or gamekeeper ! 'Pon my life I 
 don't think I'm fit for anything else." 
 
 V 2
 
 212 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Incident number two had occurred 
 during the reading of Sir Peter's corre- 
 spondence, to which Madge devoted punc- 
 tiliously two hours every morning. It 
 cost her a huge effort to do this, and she 
 never broke a seal now, without a chill 
 quaking as to the new^s that seal might 
 secure. Mr. Stubbs, as a rule, sat a model 
 of respectful attention during the reading 
 of those letters. He never uttered a 
 syllable unless addressed, when his words 
 in reply would be discreet and few. On 
 this particular morning, however, Madge 
 had no sooner taken her place in Sir 
 Peter's chair than he began to talk, and 
 the subject of his talk was himself and his 
 family. 
 
 " I have had a letter this morning, Mrs. 
 Cohen," he began, " which has greatly 
 distressed me." 
 
 "Indeed!" ejaculated Madge, round-
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 213 
 
 eyed with a sudden terror lest the subject 
 of the Australian letter might be circulating 
 from other quarters. 
 
 " I don't think I ever mentioned the 
 fact to you that I have a son — Roger by 
 name." 
 
 Madge drew a long breath of relief ; her 
 slight bow, however, in acknowledgment of 
 the communication, expressed but the faintest 
 interest in the " son — Roger by name." 
 
 Mr. Stubbs, however, felt sufficiently 
 encouraged to proceed. 
 
 " This son, I grieve to say, has been one 
 continual source of anxiety to me. He 
 has had loss upon loss in his profession — 
 that of a ship and insurance broker — and 
 is now threatened with bankruptcy by his 
 creditors unless I can get together a certain 
 amount to meet his present difficulties." 
 
 Madge was not disposed to invite farther 
 confidences.
 
 214 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 " Will a cheque for twenty pounds be of 
 any use to you ? " she asked, by way of 
 cutting the matter short. 
 
 '* It would be of use, and I should be 
 grateful for it, Mrs. Cohen," he replied, 
 drooping his eyelids till the eyes beneath 
 showed not as orbs but as slits. " But I 
 hope you w^on't mind my saying that a 
 cheque for fifty pounds would be of much 
 greater use, as the sum we have to get 
 together is rather a large one." 
 
 If the armed warrior in bronze, w^ho sur- 
 mounted the clock on the mantelpiece, had 
 suddenly descended from his pedestal and 
 asked her to valse with him, Madge could 
 not have felt more surprise than she did at 
 this unexpected request. It w^as not made 
 in Mr. Stubbs's usually obsequious fashion, 
 but rather stated bluntly, as a matter of 
 fact that must be patent to all. 
 
 She was always inclined to be free-handed
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 215 
 
 with the Cohea gold, but she did not choose 
 to have it demanded of her. 
 
 " I will think over your request," she 
 said coldly, as she went back to her letter- 
 reading. 
 
 And she did think over his request, as 
 also over Lance's startling tirade on his 
 incapacity for earning his bread and 
 butter; but the only results to her think- 
 ing were the fantastic forms she evolved 
 from the clouds — a sort of picture-poem of 
 life at the Castle at the moment. 
 
 From where she sat beneath the cedar 
 she could catch a glimpse between the 
 shining laurel leaves of an opaque patch of 
 gray skirt, which at that distance repre- 
 sented Miss Shore at her easel. 
 
 That gray skirt was, as it were, a stum- 
 bling-block to the wheels of her thoughts 
 every time it caught her eye; just, too, 
 when she wanted those thoughts to be
 
 216 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 working at their hardest and smoothest. 
 So she turned her chair slantwise, shutting 
 it out from her view. 
 
 It was too hot to finger her embroidery ; 
 her silks, a tangle of soft colours, slipped to 
 her feet on the grass. A faint south wind 
 blowing over the orchard, brought with it 
 the scent of ripening fruits. Overhead, the 
 great, golden, brooding clouds hung low. 
 
 Madge, with half-shut eyes, rocked her- 
 self backwards and forwards ; now the 
 tangled colours of the silks caught her eye, 
 anon the golden, brooding clouds. Now 
 the coloured silks were up in the sky, a 
 many-tinted rainbow ; now the full-breasted 
 clouds were at her feet, blotting out the green 
 earth, and transforming the whole garden- 
 picture into a cloud-fresco in carnations and 
 azure that Muiillo might have painted as a 
 background to his ascending Virgin. 
 
 Those clouds and the rocking - chair
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 217 
 
 together sent her into dreamland. Her 
 i^yes, full of the sky, drooped. 
 
 She opened them, as she thought, in a 
 beautiful garden ; a garden scarcely to be 
 realised out of fairy -fable, for the light 
 poured down from the sky on it like some 
 great falling rainbow, transfiguring trees, 
 flowers, and green sward into all sorts of 
 marvellous hues. Lance stood beside her. 
 
 " Is this Eden ? " in her dream she 
 thouorht she said to him. But even as she 
 asked the question, a dense, gray cloud 
 settled down upon the fairy garden like 
 a great fog, and all the beautiful colours 
 died under it. It came a misty bulk 
 between her and Lance, and she saw him 
 no more. Only his voice, far away from 
 out the cloud, came, saying, "Madge, Madge, 
 help me ! " 
 
 Madge awoke with a great start. Yes, 
 there was a voice at her elbow, not Lance's,
 
 218 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 however, but Mr. Stubbs's ; and, instead of 
 begging for her help, he was as usual 
 making apologies for disturbing her. 
 
 "But old Donald, the grave-digger," he 
 went on to say, *' was here just now 
 gossiping with the gardeners, and he gave 
 me this, thinking it minrht belons: to some 
 one in the house, for there's no such out- 
 landish name as the one marked on it 
 known in the village.'' 
 
 As he finished speaking he held out to 
 her view a lady's pocket-handkerchief It 
 was trimmed with lace and had the name 
 " Etelka " embroidered in one corner. 
 
 Madge scrutinised the lace. It was un- 
 like anything she had ever seen before — 
 something of an old Greek pattern worked 
 in Mechlin thread. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs's face said, *' An I would I 
 could!" 
 
 His lips said :
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 219 
 
 ''I told Donald that to the best of my 
 knowledge no one at the Castle possessed 
 such a name.'* 
 
 "Where did Donald find it?" queried 
 Madge. 
 
 '* He said under the yews in the church- 
 yard." 
 
 " Leave it with me, I'll try to find its 
 owner," said Madge, always inclined to 
 abrido;e intercourse with Mr. Stubbs as 
 much as possible. 
 
 He bowed and withdrew. 
 
 Madge sat staring at the handkerchief 
 with the outlandish name in the corner. 
 
 '* There's only one person here likely to 
 own to that name," she thought. " And 
 it suits her infinitely better than the plain 
 English name she sees fit to mask under." 
 
 She looked towards the corner of the 
 garden where Miss Shore had been seated 
 at the easel. Now should she take the
 
 1?20 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 
 
 handkerchief to her at once, ask if it were 
 hers, and what could be the object of her 
 solitary rambles in the churchyard ? 
 
 Miss Shore, however, together with her 
 easel, had disappeared. Second thoughts 
 assured Madge of the uselessness of such a 
 course. A cold, expressionless " No/' with- 
 out change of feature, would, no doubt, be 
 the only result to the plainly-put question, 
 '* Is this yours ? " 
 
 Better keep it awhile ; find out a little 
 more about it ; ask Donald himself as to the 
 exact *' where " and *' when " he had found 
 it. She was not disposed to trust Mr. 
 Stubbs implicitly in either small or great 
 matters, and had no wish to show him 
 that the handkerchief had any special 
 interest for her. 
 
 '* I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cohen," said 
 Mr. Stubbs's voice, at this very moment, 
 "but may I ask if you have had time to 
 think over my request of this morning?"
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTOBY. 221 
 
 Madge's reply was a cold and repressive 
 **I have not." 
 
 Mr. Stubbs again bowed, and withdrew. 
 
 He made half-a-dozen steps down the 
 gravel path and came back again. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cohen," he 
 said, respectfully as before, " but perhaps 
 you have forgotten that the Australian 
 mail goes out to-morrow. If the letter 
 addressed to Sir Peter is of any importance, 
 it miorht be as well to acknowledo^e it." 
 
 Madge had it in her heart to ask a string 
 of questions, such as : " What is this letter 
 to you ? What do you know of its con- 
 tents ? How dare you keep thrusting 
 yourself and your affairs upon my notice." 
 
 She controlled herself with difficulty, 
 saying merely : 
 
 " The letter requires no acknowledg- 
 ment whatever."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Madge had a lonely dinner that night. 
 A message was brought to her that Lady 
 Judith had gone to bed with a bad head- 
 ache, and that Lance, who had gone out 
 driving in the afternoon, had sent back 
 his doer-cart with the intimation that he 
 should most likely dine with Lady Brabazon 
 — their nearest neighbour — and walk home 
 afterwards. 
 
 Madge as much as possible curtailed her 
 solitary meal. It was not a particularly 
 cheerful one, eaten in that big dining-hall, 
 with the " eight - and - twenty Critchetts 
 looking down " on her. 
 
 After dinner she wandered out to her
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 223 
 
 favourite twilight haunt — the terrace, with 
 its grand double landscape of sky and 
 mountain, valley and plain. 
 
 The after-glow lingered yet in sheen of 
 mother-o'-pearl athwart a limpid stretch 
 of tender green sky. A veil of night-blue 
 mist was slowly spreading itself over the 
 valley, adding a mystery and poetry to it 
 'which in gairish sunlight it never knew. 
 Madge, without much stretch of imagina- 
 tion, could have fancied it some land of 
 enchantment sinkiog slowly — slowly into 
 the earth whence it had been evoked by 
 magician's wand. 
 
 Her thoughts, however, in their restless 
 turmoil soon brought her from the poem 
 of shining sky and shadowy valley back to 
 commonplace, hard-featured prose. Lance 
 was the key-note, the beginning, end, and 
 middle of those tumultuous thoughts. 
 The echo of the cry, '' Madge, help me ! "
 
 224 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 which she had heard in her dream, seemed 
 to ring in her ears yet. Help him ! Why,, 
 her heart was all one prayer to be allowed 
 to do so. Years ago she had stood on one 
 side — had thrust herself out of his path, as 
 it were — by marrying David Cohen, in order 
 not to mar his future. Should she stand 
 tamely by now, and see him blight that 
 future with his own hands ? 
 
 Here it was that Mado^e no longer 
 beheld the fading glories of the after-glow, 
 nor the mysterious valley under its night- 
 blue veil seeming to sink slowly into the 
 heart of the earth again. Her eyes instead, 
 for their own torment, conjured up a picture- 
 gallery in which Lance's face and form in? 
 endless repetition did duty for a hundred. 
 Now he was standing gazing with surprised 
 admiration at a girl liftinor a o^rav o^ossamer 
 veil ; anon he w^as seated facing that girl 
 with an intense eager interest shining out
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 225 
 
 of his eyes. After these came all sorts of 
 scenes in which his face, together with its 
 admiration and interest, had a kindly 
 sympathy and pity written upon it. 
 
 At this point Madge's ears became filled 
 with other voices than those of the thrushes 
 among the sycamores, chanting their 
 hallelujahs to the dying day. Lance's 
 voice, in pitiful pleading for the forlorn 
 stranger, rang in them instead. 
 
 And coming always as a refrain to these 
 thoughts, persistent as the echo to the 
 hammer on the anvil, was the bitter self- 
 accusation that once, not so very long ago. 
 Lance's fate had been in her hands, and 
 she had had the privilege of making or 
 marring it with a sino^le word. 
 
 Here Madge's society became too much 
 for her. A short sharp walk she felt 
 before daylight closed in, would be the 
 quickest way of putting an end to that 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 22G AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 hateful iteration in her ears of '' Half your 
 own doing, Madge Cohen, half your own 
 doing." 
 
 The handkerchief with the foreign name 
 on it afforded her a pretext for a ramble. 
 Old Donald, the grave-digger, as a rule 
 spent his summer evenings in St. Cuthbert's 
 churchyard, trimming graves or sweeping 
 paths. She would like to put to him 
 direct a question or two as to the finding 
 of this handkerchief. Old Donald had 
 keen eyes and ears ; perhaps in addition 
 to answering her questions, he might be 
 able to give her some little information 
 as to when and for what purpose Miss 
 Shore haunted the old burying-place. 
 
 It was a walk of about half an hour that 
 Madge proposed to herself. She made 
 that half-hour twice its lenoth with the 
 fancies she crowded into it. Like the 
 old Indian, who painted a vivid picture
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 227 
 
 of the little man who stole his venison, 
 together with the bob-tail dog, merely 
 from seeing a foot-print in a dusty road, 
 Madge constructed a whole life history for 
 Miss Shore out of the name embroidered 
 on the pocket-handkerchief, which had not 
 yet been identified as hers. 
 
 St. Cuthbert's church was built on a 
 rocky headland about a mile and a half 
 distant from the Castle. It commanded on 
 its western side a magnificent view of the 
 rolling Irish Sea, whose rough breezes had 
 battered its gray walls for close upon two 
 hundred winters. On its eastern side it 
 was reached by a steep winding road 
 direct from the valley. The larches, which 
 drooped stately branches here and there over 
 the stony path, had gone to a dusky olive 
 tint as Madge wound her way upwards. 
 At the end of the road the low, gray 
 vStone wall of the church showed bleak 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 and bare from out the deeper gray of 
 shadowy waving grass ; above it, the 
 stone tower rose a dark square against 
 the yellow zone which belted the 
 horizon. 
 
 The place of tombs looked weird and 
 desolate as Madge entered it. The sea- 
 wind blew over it, ruffling the long grasses 
 on one or two forgotten graves, and setting 
 a group of aspens that over-shadowed the 
 lych-gate whispering and shivering. There 
 was not a sign of old Donald anywhere. 
 Madge wandered in vain down the by-w\alk 
 which skirted the low, gray wall. An owl 
 flew from out the tower with a harsh cry, 
 an old yew — black against a wliite tomb- 
 stone — creaked in the sea-breeze. Other 
 sound there w^as none. 
 
 Madge felt that she had had her walk for 
 nothing. Twilight was falling rapidly now ; 
 the gold had died out of the yellow zone
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 229 
 
 which belted the horizon ; a white ocean - 
 mist — itself a great silver sea — came surg- 
 ing up behind the church -tower. Overhead 
 here and there in the limpid gray of the 
 sky, a star, like a tiny diamond spark, 
 would catch the eye, twinkle — vanish — 
 shine out again. 
 
 Madge turned her face towards the lych- 
 gate, thinking the sooner she got back to 
 the house now the better. She had walked 
 a, little of the bitterness out of her thoughts, 
 but somehow — she could not say exactly 
 how — the sadness in them seemed to have 
 deepened. She felt tired — chilled by the 
 mist and the weird loneliness of the place. 
 
 "Good times, bad times, all times pass 
 over," she could fancy those voiceless dead 
 were preaching to her from under their 
 grassy mounds. 
 
 How still the graveyard seemed to have 
 grown ! She could hear the twilt twilt of
 
 230 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 the bats as they flitted in ghostly fashion 
 round the belfry window. Even the light 
 fall of her step on the gravel seemed to 
 waken echoes from the other end of the 
 long, dim walk. 
 
 But were those the echoes of her ow^n 
 tread ? Madge asked herself, pausing under 
 the shadow of a tall monument, white 
 against the gray of the sky. 
 
 The sound of voices, which came nearer 
 with the supposed echoes, answered her 
 question in the negative. 
 
 Madge, prompted by impulse, rather than 
 by any definite purpose, shrank behind 
 the tall, white stone as two long, dark 
 shadows, falling athwart her path, heralded 
 the approach of a man and woman. Their 
 voices came to her clear and distinct 
 through the , stillness of the evening air. 
 JMadge's ears needed not to be told who 
 were the ow^ners of those voices.
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 231 
 
 *' Lance and that girl in gray !" she said 
 to herself. And after that the dead might 
 have crawled from under their grassy 
 mounds, and in their grave garments have 
 preached their sermon to her ; but she would 
 not have heard one word of it. 
 
 Lance was evidently in as light-hearted 
 a mood as usual. " We're early," he was 
 saying as he came along. " ' There's hus- 
 bandry in heaven, their candles are ' — not 
 yet lighted. Last night we had better 
 luck." 
 
 " Last night, last night ! " repeated Madge, 
 a great wave of jealous anger sweeping 
 over her. ** That was why, then, he did not 
 come into the drawing-room last night I 
 why he gave short, absent answers to my 
 questions, and looked and walked like one 
 in a dream." 
 
 For a moment the dim churchyard and 
 ghostly white tombs grew misty to her.
 
 232 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 Her ears even refused to perform their 
 work, and Miss Shore's answer was a blank 
 to her. 
 
 Not so Lance's next sentence. His voice 
 in nearer approach rang like a clarion in 
 her ear. It was : 
 
 "I haven't forgotten a word of what 
 you taught me last night. I know which 
 are the benefic planets and which the 
 malefic ones, and I know that all the malefic 
 planets are setting and all the benefic 
 ones are rising. And that means that 
 those who have hitherto been unlucky 
 will forthwith begin to have a real good 
 time of it, and those who have been in luck 
 before will be luckier than ever." 
 
 Miss Shore's voice in reply, by contrast 
 with his light tones, sounded grave to 
 absolute solemnity. 
 
 " Why do you laugh in the face of fate 
 as you do ? Evil stars are rising, not
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 233 
 
 settiDg. You may be born to good luck — 
 I do not know — but others are born to ill- 
 luck — to be evil, to do evil. It is no 
 laughing matter. 
 
 There was one behind that tall tomb- 
 stone, at any rate, who found it no laugh- 
 ing matter. 
 
 Lance's tones suddenly changed to an 
 earnestness that sat strangely upon him. 
 
 ** You are right," he replied, " there is a 
 time to laugh, and a time to weep ; and 
 I'm confident if I knew one quarter of the 
 ill-luck youVe had to go through, I should 
 feel far more inclined to weep than to laugh 
 over it. But you won't give me the chance ! 
 You keep your lips sealed ; you reject help ; 
 reject sympathy even." 
 
 He was standing still in the middle of 
 the path now facing his companion. 
 Madge could have stretched out her hand 
 and touched him as he stood.
 
 234 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 The words themselves expressed naught 
 beyond the kindliest sympathy. Madge 
 herself — any Sister of Charity — might have 
 spoken them to any poor, forlorn outcast 
 who came in their way. But they would 
 not have sounded as they did on Lance's 
 lips. He put another soul into them with 
 his eager, heated, impassioned manner. 
 That, not Madge nor any woman living 
 could have so much as mimicked. 
 
 Miss Shore's pale face flushed into sudden 
 animation under it. Her words came 
 hurriedly, nervously, not with their usual 
 cold, slow emphasis. 
 
 " You do not understand," she answered. 
 " My ill-luck is not a thing past and done 
 with, I take it with me wherever I go ; it 
 is written here," here she touched the palm 
 of her hand. " An evil star is in the 
 ascendant now, in three weeks' time — three
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 235 
 
 weeks from to-niglit — it will be in opposi- 
 tion to my ruling planet." She broke 
 off for a moment, then added in solemn, 
 though still tremulous tones : " If that day 
 passes over my head in peace I will talk 
 no more of fate, no more of ill-luck. I will 
 look up at the stars and will laugh in their 
 faces."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " Lance, 111 undertake never to do it 
 again. No — not if I live to be a 
 hundred." 
 
 It was Sir Peter's first day downstairs. 
 He was getting a breath of fresh air and 
 *' a little exercise," by walking up and 
 down the big inner hall of the house, 
 every one of whose long Gothic windows 
 stood wide open. 
 
 Lance, on his way through the hall, 
 had stopped to congratulate the old gentle- 
 man on his release from the sick-room. 
 
 '* No, I dare say you won't do it again — 
 catch the measles I suppose you mean. It
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIOTOBY. 237 
 
 would be rather difficult to have them a 
 third time, wouldn't it ? " he said, in 
 response to Sir Peter's energetic assertion. 
 
 ** No, no, no ! That goes without say- 
 ing. I mean get out of bed again in the 
 middle of the night to walk off the cramp. 
 I say. Lance ? " this was added in a tone 
 that signalled an interesting communica- 
 tion at hand. 
 
 " Yes, what is it ? " answered Lance. 
 
 Sir Peter walked on tip-toes to the door, 
 looking right and left, came back again 
 and peered out of one of the windows. 
 
 "Down at the farm," said Lance, 
 answering the action as well as the look 
 on the old gentleman's face, which said 
 plainly as words could, "Where is she?" 
 
 Sir Peter drew a breath of relief. 
 
 " Broughton has ordered me away — to 
 ' complete the cure,' he says, and — and — 
 and Lady Judith insists on carrying me
 
 238 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 oflf into Devonshire on a visit to some of 
 her people ! " 
 
 ''Oh, well, if she insists, there's no more 
 to be said. Submit, and be carried off." 
 
 '' But — but I don't intend to be carried 
 off, and, what's more, I won't be carried 
 off. No, I won't — I won't," said Sir Peter, 
 irritably, working himself into what Lance 
 was generally pleased to call a ''pucker." 
 
 "Well, then, I should say you won't, 
 and stick to it if I were you." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course, exactly. That's 
 what I intend to do," said the old gentle- 
 man with dignity, as if it were his 
 invariable custom to treat Lady Judith's 
 behests with out-spoken resistance. " And 
 I was thinking, Lance, that a little trip to 
 town with you — say for a week, or ten 
 days — would be far more likely to do me 
 good than a dreary fortnight in the wilds 
 of Devon."
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY, 239 
 
 '' Town in August 1 Heugh ! " 
 
 Sir Peter read his own wishes into that 
 shudder. '' Well, of course it would be a 
 little hard on you to ask you to lose a 
 week, or ten days, of Madge's society," he 
 began slily. 
 
 But Lance interrupted him. '* Get that 
 notion out of your head at once and for 
 ever, Uncle Peter,'' he said, peremptorily. 
 *' Pve told you a dozen times over that 
 Madge hasn't the faintest liking for me, and 
 that I don't intend to worry her any more 
 on the matter." He broke off for a moment 
 to give time for the sly look to die on Sir 
 Peter's face. Not a bit of it, it remained 
 as steadily fixed on his happy, infantine 
 features as if it had been stereotyped there. 
 *^Talk away, my boy," it seemed to say. 
 '* But, for all that, I know what I know." 
 
 Lance grew more and more exasperated. 
 **Look here, Uncle Peter, listen to reason."
 
 240 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 he began. Then he checked himself. As 
 well talk logic to the eight-and-twenty 
 Critchetts who smiled down on them from 
 the walls as to Uncle Peter, with that wise 
 look peeping from under his eyelids, and 
 that sugary, benignant smile curving the 
 corners of his mouth. Besides, a sudden 
 idea had at that moment occurred to him. 
 A few days in town alone with Uncle Peter 
 would suit very well a plan that was 
 hatchino^ in his brain. 
 
 The notion that he was " an unlucky 
 beggar," because he had never had the 
 chance of a career in life ofifered him, had 
 not died so soon as he had given utterance 
 to it to Madge. On the contrary, it had 
 been slowly gathering strength. What he 
 had said to Madge he was in effect repeat- 
 ing to himself in one form or another all 
 day long: "Suppose I were to offend 
 Uncle Peter utterly, irretrievably, and he
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 241 
 
 were to cut me off with a shilling, how on 
 €arth should I get my bread and butter ? '"' 
 It would be a splendid idea to get Sir 
 Peter all to himself for a day or two, and 
 have a little serious talk with him on one 
 or two matters. 
 
 So he mastered his inclination to combat 
 
 Uncle Peter s wise look and sugary smile, 
 
 and instead said, a little condescendingly, 
 
 -perhaps, "Make it three days in town, and 
 
 possibly I may be able to manage it." 
 
 Sir Peter rubbed his hands gleefully. *' I 
 felt sure you would when you thought it 
 over ! You see at the longest we can't be 
 away very long. My birthday, as you 
 know, will be on the twenty-first. Well, I 
 must be home at least a week before that 
 to see that everything is going on all right 
 — people want so much looking after — do 
 you remember last year that tent suddenly 
 giving way at one corner — that was the 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 only one I hadn't given an eye to while 
 they were driving the pegs in. It's wonder- 
 ful to me, truly wonderful that " 
 
 " Let's get back to ways and means," 
 interrupted Lance, striding after Sir Peter,, 
 who was just completing his thirtieth 
 measurement of the long room, and now 
 stood in the door- way. " Look here,. 
 Uncle Peter, let's have a trot together, 
 and arrange our affairs while we take our 
 exercise. Now, then ! what if Aunt Judy 
 insists on accompanying us ? " 
 
 But the mere sus^orestion of such a 
 possibility brought Sir Peter to a stand- 
 still at once. 
 
 '*Not to be thought of for a moment," 
 he said with a fine air of decision. " She 
 would have to be reasoned with. You 
 might do it, Lance — you have great 
 influence, very great influence, I may say^ 
 with her. You might explain to her
 
 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 243 
 
 that — that she couldn't very well be away 
 from Upton just now with so much to 
 arrange for — for the ball on my birthday 
 — that Madge would be lost without her 
 — that her farm just at this time of year 
 requires " 
 
 "I have it ! " interrupted Lance. *' The 
 farm's the thing! you write to that man 
 in town who keeps her supplied with 
 farm implements, and tell him to send 
 down the latest sweet things in incubators 
 or butter- w^orkers. And then tell that 
 other man at Carstairs to send over a dozen 
 or two of Houdans and Creve-coeurs, and 
 what's that other leggy sort— Brahmas ? 
 That'll do it. The poultry will have to 
 be dieted, and the machines will have to 
 be tested. We're all right now, Uncle 
 Peter!" 
 
 Lance's suggestions, with modifications, 
 were adopted. Lady Judith's eyes were 
 
 R 2
 
 244 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 gladdened one morning by the arrival of 
 a small van-load of farming implements, 
 and before the glow of pleasure caused by 
 their unexpected appearance had time to 
 subside, Lance and Sir Peter had packed 
 their portmanteaus and departed. 
 
 " So thoughtful of Lance. Sir Peter tells 
 me it was entirely his idea," said Lady 
 Judith to Madge as she carried her off 
 to the farm to inspect the new purchases. 
 *'But there, he is a good fellow at heart — 
 IVe always said so — in spite of his heed- 
 lessness and want of respect for his 
 elders ! " 
 
 Madge was disposed to hail this trip 
 of Sir Peter's as arranged by a special 
 interposition of Providence. She had crept 
 out of her hiding-place in the churchyard, 
 and had made her way home through the 
 twilight shadows with but one thousfht in 
 her mind — that Miss Shore's visit at the
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 245 
 
 Castle must be brought to au end with as 
 little delay as possible. The absence from 
 home of Sir Peter and Lance seemed to 
 render this idea comparatively easy of 
 accomplishment. She would take matters 
 into her own bauds as soon as they were 
 gone, tell the young lady that she had 
 altered her mind as to the decoration of her 
 boudoir, pay her handsomely for what 
 pictures she had already done, and speed 
 her heartily on her journey to " the North," 
 whether it were to the region of the Arctic 
 Pole or merely to that of North Britain. 
 
 Lance would come home and find that 
 the mysterious guest had departed. " Out 
 of sight out of mind," Madge reasoned 
 hopefully with herself. No love-making 
 so far as she knew had passed between 
 the two, although a very fair prelude to 
 love-making appeared to have been sounded. 
 She stifled the angry jealousy that threatened
 
 246 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 to rise up in her heart with the thought 
 that the occasion was not worth it. Once 
 let this mysterious and attractive young 
 woman disappear from the scene, and 
 Lance would return to his former allegiance 
 to herself, and things no doubt, by the 
 help of Sir Peter, would be happily ar- 
 ranged between them. 
 
 She had come to the conclusion that, 
 until Sir Peter's return, she w^ould not 
 hand to him the Australian letter. Among 
 Sir Peter's numerous child-like propen- 
 sities was that of proclaiming aloud in the 
 market-place every secret whispered into 
 his ear. He might promise her a thou- 
 sand times over that Lance should know 
 nothing of this newly-found heir until 
 matters were satisfactorily arranged, and 
 the Cohen wealth as good as handed over 
 to his keeping ; but once give Sir Peter 
 up to Lance's sole influence, as would be
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 247 
 
 the case during a week's stay in town, and 
 his promises would be as tow, or as the 
 green withes wherewith Samson was bound. 
 After Lance's future had been definitely 
 arranged, she would, she said to herself, 
 do penance for her subterfuge by making 
 a full confession to Sir Peter, explaining 
 to him the motives of her action. 
 
 So Sir Peter came downstairs, fingered 
 his correspondence, sent the study carpet 
 a little farther on its road to ruin, made 
 the house lively with bell-ringing ; in fact, 
 efi'ected generally a transformation-scene 
 wherever he shed the light of his coun- 
 tenance, and finally departed in company 
 with Lance. And the little key which 
 represented a mighty secret hung still 
 on Madge's watch-chain, and the burden 
 of the untold tidings lay heavy on her 
 heart. 
 
 " I hope your sketches are getting on
 
 248 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 satisfactorily, my dear," said Sir Peter to 
 Madge, as be jumped into the dog-cart and 
 took his seat beside Lance. He glanced 
 in the direction in which Miss Shore and 
 her easel were generally established. " Nice 
 young woman that ! Nice to look at ; 
 nice to speak to ! Wish she'd be a little 
 more communicative though — did my 
 best yesterday to draw her out about 
 herself and her people — she must have 
 people of some sort you know — but 
 couldn't succeed " 
 
 " Chickabiddies all right, Aunt Judy ? " 
 interrupted Lance, catching sight of Lady 
 Judith's advancing figure. But his eyes, 
 to Madge's fancy, went wandering over 
 " Aunt Judy's " head in the same direction 
 as Sir Peter's. 
 
 Sir Peter had another " last word " to 
 say. It was : 
 
 *' You'll see to my correspondence while
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VIGTOBY. 249 
 
 I'm awaj, Madge, and it's bound to be all 
 right. You've a capital head for business, 
 though you won't acknowledge it." 
 
 The words stung Madge like so many 
 hornets. 
 
 " Why should I be made to do an un- 
 worthy thing ? " she had said to herself two 
 nights before in St. Cuthbert's church- 
 yard, as she resolutely trampled under foot 
 the burning desire to play the listener a 
 little longer. Yet, as the echo of Sir Peter's 
 words repeated itself in her ears, she felt 
 herself to be doing a very unworthy thing 
 in thus withholding his private correspond- 
 ence from him. 
 
 " For Lance, for Lance," she said to 
 herself, hiding her face in the thick fur of 
 old Roy's tawny coat. "We'd die for him 
 — you and I — wouldn't we, Eoy ? " 
 
 Eoy, understanding perfectly, licked 
 first her hand inside and out, then her
 
 250 AT TEE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 cheek and behind her ear by way of 
 response in the affirmative. 
 
 " And we hate her — both of us, doa't 
 we, Roy?" she went on. ''And we'll do 
 our best to get rid of her ! But, oh dear, 
 what if she won't go — cries and says she 
 has no friends, or hangs about the place till 
 Lance comes back, and then begins her 
 wiles once more ! " 
 
 Here Roy — like all well-bred dogs, a 
 master of the art of thought-reading — 
 once more expressed canine sympathy. 
 
 " Oh for a counsellor ! " she sighed. " If 
 I could but turn you into Balaam's ass and 
 get a word of advice out of you, you dear 
 old thing ! " 
 
 " Speak of an angel and you will hear 
 its wings," says the proverb. Madge's 
 sigh for a counsellor was answered so soon 
 as it was out of her mouth, though not by
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 251 
 
 the rustling of wings — by the slow, soft 
 footsteps of obsequious Mr. Stubbs. 
 
 " I am so sorry to disturb you, Mrs. 
 Cohen," he began, after carefully shut- 
 ting the door behind him. " I merely 
 wished to say that when I handed Sir 
 Peter his letters yesterday morning I did 
 not say a word about the important letter 
 you have to give to him." 
 
 An important letter ! How did this 
 man know it was important, and what did 
 he know of her motives in keeping it 
 back ? Madge wondered, staring at him 
 blankly. 
 
 " Yes, that was right," was all she dared 
 to say, however, hoping that he would 
 consider himself answered and depart. 
 ' Not so he. He stood in front of her, 
 surveying her calmly through his half- 
 closed eyes.
 
 252 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cohen," he 
 began, " but have you given a thought to 
 my little request of the other day, respect- 
 ing my poor boy and his embarrassments ? " 
 
 Madge was no match for this man, with 
 his effrontery and cunning. Partly from 
 the wish to get rid of him, partly from 
 fear lest he might betray her secret, she 
 rang the bell and desired her maid to 
 bring her cheque-book. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs was profuse in his thanks ; 
 they flowed in an unctuous stream, like 
 oil from a pierced olive. 
 
 " Does he think I am going to give him 
 a thousand pounds," thought Madge, con- 
 temptuously. Her pen paused at the 
 figures it was about to write. 
 
 "You said ?" she queried, looking up at 
 him . 
 
 '* I said fifty pounds," he replied with- 
 out a moment's hesitation ; " but- if you
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 253 
 
 would make it seventy, madam, I should 
 be infinitely obliged to you." 
 
 Madge's pen, after a moment's pause, 
 traced the words that transferred seventy 
 pounds from her banking account to Mr. 
 Stubbs's purse. 
 
 "There," she thought, ''I'm paying him 
 handsomely for keeping my secret for a 
 few days. But Til take good care that 
 Sir Peter gets rid of him so soon as things 
 are arranged a little." 
 
 Mr. Stubbs stood in front of her, cheque 
 in hand, executing a series of profound 
 bows. 
 
 '* You may count on my deepest grati- 
 tude — my life-long gratitude, madam," he 
 said aojain and asfain. 
 
 Madge's formal bow of acknowledgment 
 was intended as a signal of dismissal. He 
 did not so take it. From thanks he 
 passed on to proflfers of service.
 
 254 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 
 
 '*If I caa at any moment be of the 
 slightest service, you may rely on me, 
 madam." 
 
 And then he suddenly dropped both 
 thanks and proffers of service, came a step 
 nearer to Madge, gave one furtive glance 
 at the door, and said almost in a whisper : 
 
 " Does it not strike you as a very extra- 
 ordinary thing, madam, that Miss Shore 
 should be invariably so anxious to see the 
 morning papers ? " 
 
 Madge fixed contemptuous eyes on him. 
 It was easy to read his meaning. It was : 
 " I am willing enough to do any amount 
 of dirty work for you provided you keep 
 your cheque-book always handy." 
 
 " Why should I be made to do an un- 
 worthy thing ? " was the indignant cry 
 that once more rose up in her heart. Hard- 
 pressed as she might be for counsellors, it
 
 AT THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. 255 
 
 was not to such a creature as this that she 
 would apply for aid. 
 
 *' I have never given the matter a 
 thought," was her reply, in tones so frigid 
 that Mr. Stubbs could not but feel himself 
 dismissed, and withdrew accordingly. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND IVANS, CKTSTAL PALACE PKESS.